By Possession (18 page)

“Let me pass, please.”

“Now, we can't do that. It's our job to patrol this ward and be sure the likes of you stay where the city has put you. When you came through the gates you knew the risk if you were found,” the first one said.

“I just returned from Southwark. I live inside the gates.”

“Do you now? The wardens will want to hear about that. Whores aren't allowed nowhere in the city but Cock Lane.” He took her arm in a firm hold.

They thought that she was a … it was too ridiculous! She had seen enough whores this day to know she didn't
even remotely resemble one. “My good men, you are quite mistaken. I am simply trying to get to back to my inn.”

“Ooo! She's one of them fancy-talking ones who goes to the job instead of him going to her.”

“Don't be absurd. Do I look like … like a …”

“In the dark all women look the same. You should know that.”

This was taking a preposterous turn. “See here—” she began in annoyance.

“Nay, you see here,” he said. “You are walking the streets alone after curfew against city law and in my experience there's only one reason a woman does that. It's Tun prison for you.”

Prison! “This is outrageous.”

The man who gripped her arm eyed her more closely. He hesitated, then shrugged. “Aye, well, you explain your story to the magistrate tomorrow. My job is to collect the nightwalkers and whores off the street and you be both as I see it. So, let's go. It's a bit of a ways to the Tun.”

“You cannot be serious,” she cried as he began dragging her away.

“Don't give me trouble now.”

“Unhand me,” she said lowly. “I will walk with you. Do not dare to touch me again.”

The man looked back at his companions and laughed. “She's good. She's very good. Has that snooty tone down pat. I'll wager that this one's expensive.”

Moira peered at the eyes glowing in the torchlight. They belonged to the head guard of Tun prison, the round fortress where London incarcerated those arrested for night crimes. The guard had taken one look at her and ordered
her brought to this windowless chamber instead of a prison cell.

Grateful for his consideration, she accepted the ale he offered her and then poured out her explanation of why she had been walking the streets after the city curfew. “I told the night constable about Elsbeth and asked him to send for her,” she concluded. “She knows that I am new to the city and its ways.”

“He will tell her if he can find her. Doesn't mean she will come, does it? You have kin or such here? Anyone else who can pledge for you, or bring the coin so you can stand surety?”

She would rot in this place before she asked anyone to look for Addis. Besides, he might not even have been allowed through the gate.

The guard leaned against the wall behind his bench and patted his thick girth thoughtfully. “The thing is, and it is amazing I tell you, but none of the women brought here are really whores. Night after night the city makes the same mistake and rounds up some females and all of them, every one, have stories much like yours. It grieves me to see what is done to them on the morrow, the ones who can't get out during the night.”

“What happens to them?”

“Well, if the magistrate doesn't believe them, and he almost never does for some reason, the woman is put in a cart and dragged through the streets for public mockery. All the way to Newgate, which is on the other side of town. The crowd can get a little rough, I tell you. Then she's left on Cock Lane outside the gate with the other bawds.”

That didn't sound
too
bad. Not like a public flogging or being locked up in this damp, stinking place for months.

“ 'Tis worse than one would think, being humiliated
like that. Branded a whore forever, she is. The whole city has seen her face. And there's records kept too. The city likes to keep records on everything. 'Tis a long way to Newgate, and the men sometimes get lewd on the way, especially the young ones, though the women ain't much better to my eye. And she can't return to the city. If a woman is found more than once plying the profession here, the next time her head is shaved before she is carted.” His bright eyes appraised her. “We guards here hate to see it. We do what we can for the poor things.”

Moira recognized the opening ploy for a bribe when she heard it. “You said that some women get out during the night. How is that permitted?”

He flickered an appreciative glance. “Sometimes someone comes and makes a pledge and offers to pay a fine. The way we see it, it saves the city a lot of expense and trouble that way.”

“What is the fine?” She had all of three pence.

“For you, I'd say it would be about two shillings.”

Two shillings!

“You look to be an expensive sort. You tell me your man's name, and I'll send word to him. He'll pay it. 'Tis his job to do so. No point in sharing with a man if he doesn't come up with the coin when this happens.”

He hadn't believed a word she had told him. The door to the chamber was closed but the acrid smells of the prison managed to permeate the walls. Nausea churned her stomach and helplessness overwhelmed her. “I have no man. I am not a whore,” she said, burying her face in her hands.

She waited with resignation for him to call the other guards and have her taken away. Somehow she would get through this night and tomorrow.

“Well, now,” the guard said in a smooth tone that caressed the silence. “If you've no coin and won't send for
your man, there's another way. You've a lady's way about you, and a body most men only touch in their dreams. Might be worth two shillings at that.”

Her empty stomach heaved with disgust. She forced down the bile before she raised her head. “Nay.”

Two sparks of lust flickered in the torchlight. If this man decided to force her she would have no escape. Collecting herself, she faced him down with one of Claire's noble gazes. Absorbing that manner had served her well over the years with men of every degree, but she worried that if this one dreamt of bedding a lady it might only prove provocative.

Anger and insult flared but soon subsided. He stood and took her arm and dragged her to the door. “Have it your way, woman. We'll see how proud you still are when you get to Cock Lane.”

CHAPTER 9

E
LSBETH CAME THE NEXT
morning but with one glance Moira worried it had been a mistake to ask for her. The tanner's wife bore a hard expression that spoke her embarrassment at being summoned to a whore's trial.

No hallmote would judge her and the others waiting for swift justice. Only two bored magistrates who looked as if they had heard every story before waited to decide her fate.

They barely glanced at her and considering her condition she was just as glad. A night in Tun prison had reduced her to a snarl-haired, half-broken, stinking image of the basest type of person. The prison held one large cavern for all the women, with no benches or stools to sit on, just foul straw on a filthy floor. During the night, one by one, the real whores had disappeared when their men paid their bribes. By morning only she and one other woman remained.

They let her plead her case but no one asked any questions. She finished her tale and it even sounded thin to
her. She hopefully identified Elsbeth as someone who could pledge that she spoke the truth. The magistrates called the goodwife forward.

“It is as she told me,” Elsbeth conceded.

“Do you have any independent knowledge that it is true?”

“Sounded true enough at the time. An odd manner, I thought. Too refined for her degree. Alone, that was sure. Asked me how to get to Southwark. Said she knew a woman who had gone there a few years ago.”

One magistrate pursed his lips and glanced knowingly at the other.

“Asked about buying a house in the city,” Elsbeth continued helpfully. “One with chambers enough to serve like an inn.”

“Indeed,” the magistrate mused sourly.

Moira groaned at the conclusions these men were drawing. Better if the goodwife had stayed at home.

Elsbeth recognized the interest her revelations engendered. She warmed to the attention. “Said she wasn't looking for no husband.
Very
sure about that.”

Moira got the impression that that fact, more than any other, sealed her fate. She listened to the punishment meted out, so tired that she almost didn't care.

They brought her to a chamber until the rest of the cases were heard. At midday a guard took her and the real whore out into the yard where two carts waited. A group of men carrying timbres and pennants and drums collected near the wall.

The gate stood open and people drifted in to watch the preparations. While a crowd gathered someone draped a smelly yellow-and-white-striped robe over her shoulders and placed an unlit candle in her hand before pushing her up into the cart.

A sea of attentive faces assaulted her. Unfriendly
expressions of scorn and mocking interest examined her. Hooded eyes glowed with self-righteousness and lascivious speculation.

An unfamiliar horror woke her numb spirit. This was going to be much worse than she had imagined. They were all strangers, but by the time it ended, the humiliation might prove devastating. A public flogging might be preferred.

She tried to steel herself but the sleepless night had left her with little strength. The pointing fingers and knowing nods of the crowd seemed closer. The cart had not moved but already she felt something inside her crumbling.

“You should have told me it only took some coin to assure your compliance, Moira. I could have been using you for weeks now and I did not even realize it.”

Addis. She swung around and her heart jumped with relief and then thudded with fear when she saw his expression. Her throat tightened in response to the fury leashed beside her.

She suspected that his mood had little to do with finding her like this and everything to do with her running away in the first place. Her depleted spirit could not bear this now.

“Will you enjoy watching the woman who refused to be your whore displayed as one to the world? I have had all night to contemplate the jest and it ceased to amuse me many hours ago.”

“Your memory fails you. I never offered you a whore's price. And you refused me nothing.”

“Go away, Addis.”

He grasped her chin. “Right now it is unwise to speak with disrespect to your lord, woman.”

She needed no reminders of the trouble she faced with him. It leaked out of his body and shot from his eyes. She turned to see the whore ready in the cart behind her. A
guard sidled up and gathered the reins of her donkey, preparing to lead the little pageant of shame. The mummers with their timbres and pennants took up positions.

Addis strode forward and his hand landed on the guard's shoulder. The man cringed when the strong fingers crushed his flesh. “Go and get the magistrate,” Addis ordered.

The guard hustled off. Addis returned to her. “Did you really think to hide from me in this town?”

“It is a very big town.”

“Not big enough. Nor will it be the next time if you think to try again.” The crowd had begun making protests about the delay. “Perhaps I should give you to them, Moira. I tire of your rebellion. Perhaps this day I should let you taste the freedom you insist is your due. It will be easier than convincing the magistrate that an error was made.”

“Could you do that?”

“Give you to them?”

“Convince the magistrate.”

“Noble blood counts for something even in this city.” He tilted her chin up with one finger so she looked at him. “You will have to behave like the bondwoman I tell him you are though. And you must swear that you will not run away again.”

The mummers swung pennants and tapped timbres to appease the crowd. Through the gates Moira saw bodies lining the street, leaving only a narrow path for the carts. Some guards parted the mob to permit the passage of one very annoyed magistrate.

“Swear it,” Addis ordered.

“I will not run away again. I swear it,” she whispered.

The magistrate huffed up alongside the cart. “What is this? I am told a knight demanded I come. What is your interest in the whore?”

“I am Addis de Valence, Lord of Barrowburgh and kinsman of the late Earl of Pembroke. This woman belongs to me. She is serf born, and bonded to my land at Darwendon.”

“Then you can have her after the city is done with her.”

“Does the city punish innocent women just to entertain its people? She arrived here yesterday in my company and became separated when we were delayed at the gate. She is no whore, but only a country woman ignorant of city ways.”

The magistrate sneered. “Separated, eh? Run off, more likely, and looking to find a bed the easiest way women know how.” He turned to her. “What say you, woman? You did not speak of this before, even to be spared punishment. This cart may not look so bad if you ran away and he takes you now.”

The people nearby had quieted while they strained to hear the conversation at the cart. If she were not so dirty and tired and numb she might have refused this public declaration, but in her current condition the protection Addis offered carried a wretched appeal. “He is my lord,” she whispered, her throat burning with suppressed tears.