Master Richard rose and embraced me. ‘Be free of my house,’ he said graciously. ‘Not that my wife and daughter haven’t made you so already, I have no doubt.’
I asked what I’d waited all that time to ask. ‘How. . is my uncle?’
Master Richard made a face like a man whose drunk bad milk. ‘He still has his mark, and he does some business,’ Master Richard said. ‘Your aunt died.’
Nan’s mother spat. ‘He killed her.’
Nan looked away.
Master Richard spread his hands. ‘You don’t know that,’ he said softly.
I heard other news — how Tom Courtney was a full member of the guild, one of the youngest ever; how my sister and two other sisters had come during an outbreak of the Plague and were held to have worked miracles, and how Nan’s husband, a mercer, had fought at Winchelsea when the French came, and now was an enthusiastic member of the London bands — the militia.
‘He’ll be home in a day,’ Nan said. ‘I pray you like him.’
I smiled at all of them. ‘I’m sure that I will,’ I said.
They invited me to sup and I bowed. ‘I have a friend,’ I said. ‘My fellow donat, a Spanish gentleman. I would esteem it a favour if I might bring him.
That was easily done. There’s no merchant in London who doesn’t like having a Spanish aristocrat at his table.
Before returning to the priory, I walked up the hill to the abbey. There was Brother Bartholomew, who gave me a great embrace, and, to my shock, there was ‘monk’ John, last seen on a battlefield. He, too, gave me an embrace.
We looked at each other warily.
He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t the life for me,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I’m meant for God, neither, but the food’s good.’ His eyes were far away. ‘I’m not. . it wasn’t. .’ he met my gaze and his was troubled. ‘You know what a life it was.’
I laughed — not a laugh of fun, but a laugh that understood. ‘John, I’m a lay brother of the Order of Saint John.’
His own roar of laughter probably said more about us and our lives than any speech, but he hugged me more warmly than before.
They took me to the old Abbott, who was no longer serving, but mostly sat in the cloister and read.
For a long moment, I feared he wouldn’t know me.
‘I’m Will Gold, Father,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said. His hands, old as bones, came up and clasped mine. ‘God love us, child, you came back.’
Dinner with Nan was a delight. We shared a cup of wine while Juan entertained her parents with stories of Spain.
We met by chance in the passage by the stairs — me going to the jakes and she returning from the pantry. She leaned over and kissed me very hard, then shifted herself down the passage, as light on her feet as ever.
Later, at the door, her mother bussed me on each cheek and said, ‘Now you come back when you are in London, but not so often that you make Nan see stars. You hear me, Will Gold? Your manners are pretty and your friend’s a gentleman born; see you act one, too. Do I have to speak more clearly, young man?’
Nan sputtered. ‘Mother!’
‘Mother nothing, girl. I’m flesh and blood like you. I have eyes.’ She glared at us and then smiled. ‘Be off with you. I’ll go inside — for as long as it takes me to say a paternoster for you.’
I kissed Nan — the sort of kiss that lingers between what might be considered friendship and what might be considered lechery. She smiled at the ground, twined her fingers with me briefly and went back inside.
I decided I didn’t really want to meet her husband.
Juan and I walked through the darkening streets to the priory. He looked at me in the light of some cressets and said, ‘They are good, worthy people.’
I nodded, suddenly devastated to realize what I might have had.
The way I tell this, it may seem to you that I was almost hanged for my misdeeds, and then I was rescued, and like the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus, my life of sin was over. But I tell you, gentles, my heart varied between black and white, hope and despair. If you have comitted sins — bad sins, not the venal ones the priests rant about — and you spend time with good people, whether people like Fra Peter or people like Nan’s mother, you have to look at yourself. These good people are mirrors, and unless you are a liar and a caitiff, you see. Every day I saw. Some days — many days, if I wasn’t given exercise and hard work, like a troublesome colt — I considered slinking away.
Every day.
Bah! Never mind. But I tell this like it was ordained, and the truth is that I was still unsure. Still ready to bolt.
The next day I went to the Bardi factor in London and drew a little money. I bought the Abbott a pair of reading glasses — the Venetians made them. I’d seen them in France, and in Avignon everyone had them.
I bought Nan a brooch of pearls. I walked to the gate at sunset and pinned it to a ribbon, which I hung on the latch. Then I knocked and walked away.
Our last day in England, Juan and I rode the horses out to Southwark and prepared them for the ship, then I rented a hack and rode to the nunnery to visit my sister.
As a donat, I was allowed to meet her in the parlour, and she was so happy to see me, so happy that, in her eyes, I’d turned to God, that mostly all she did was cry. And yet, to my delight, when her eyes were dry, I saw that she had become one of those tough-minded nuns who gets things done. We fell into each other’s arms. I have seldom sobbed tears while grinning like a loon, but there I was.
She told me a few of her adventures — this brought on by my remembering Nan and her mother to her — and she grinned like a man.
‘Aye, the Plague, brother,’ she said. ‘My foe and Satan’s tool.’ She tossed her shoulders back. ‘I don’t understand the ways of men, and war, and yet, when I understand that there is Plague among the whores in Southwark, and my sisters and I pack to go to their aid, I feel something, and I wonder if it is the same thing you feel when you hear the trumpets.’
Courage comes in a number of forms. Going to a place with Plague — of your own free will?
But to gain a little benison in her eyes, I told her of the days when Sam and all my men had Plague, and Richard, too.
‘And you tended them?’ she asked.
‘What else could I do?’ I answered.
She kissed me. ‘God loves you, William Gold.’ She grinned, and for a moment she had a little imp in the corner of her mouth, as she sometimes did when we were children. ‘And so do I. Listen, brother, you paid my bride price, and I can never repay you, but I pray for you each day. And I fear you need it. You live with war. It is all around you, and a man who stands on a dunghill gets shit on his feet.’
She put a hand on my arm — I’d started to hear her swear.
‘I live more in the world than most married women,’ she said. ‘I try to heal the sick, with God’s help, and I see the shit every day.’ She paused. ‘Need you go back to war, brother?’
I had thought all these things, so I looked at the polished floor and said, ‘I’m a soldier, sister. I hope to be a knight.’
She hugged me tight. ‘Go with God, then. Write to me sometimes, when you aren’t too busy.’
I was the one who wept, then. To see her. . solid. Not just solid in her faith, but with humour, toughness and understanding. And love. She was better than me.
But it had all been for something. After I saw her, I think I saw myself differently. Again, it was no road to Damascus, but I think it was a road, and I could follow it to knighthood.
England had two more surprises in store for me.
Fra Peter was called to the tower to speak to the Chancellor of England — probably about the crusade — and Juan and I were left cooling our heels in Southwark for two additional days. Where ships called and where whores leaned out from inn balconies and called suggestions after you.
‘Hello, Red! You could be riding me in comfort on a feather bed before the bell rings?’ I remember that, because the lass was big enough to ride.