Silken Threads (29 page)

Adam looked at him as if he were daft.

“I wonder...” Graeham began. “Do you think
you could...follow someone?”

“Follow?”

“Trail behind them without being seen. Take
note of where they go and what they do and report back to me.”

“Sure, I suppose.” Shrewdly Adam added,
“‘Twould cost you, though.”

Smiling, Graeham reached for his crutch and
rose from the cot, a maneuver that had become much easier since his
splint was shortened last week. He dug four pennies out of his
purse, hanging on a peg, and handed them to Adam. “Will that
do?”

“I should say so!” the boy exclaimed, gaping
at the coins. “Who is it you want me to follow then?”

With a quick glance toward the
shopfront
—
Joanna was still dealing with that
customer
—
Graeham said, “Mistress Joanna.”

The boy cocked his head as if he hadn’t
heard right.

“I want you to do it tomorrow morning.”
Graeham sat on the edge of the cot. “She leaves here by the back
door very early and walks up to Milk Street. She comes back around
terce. I want you to stay behind her, keeping in the shadows so she
doesn’t see you, and find out where she goes. Don’t lose sight of
her. Then come back and tell me where she’s been. Think you can do
that?”

“Nothin’ to it.” Adam slipped the coins into
a little pouch tied around his waist.

“Whatever you do, don’t let her see you.”
God forbid she caught him spying on her
—
but the more he
thought about it, the more he had to find out what those mysterious
morning trips of hers were about.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep myself well hidden.”
Nodding toward the stack of books on the chest
—
the result
of Hugh’s latest trip to the used-book store
—
Adam said,
“So, where’d you learn how to read?”

“Holy Trinity.”

The boy brightened. “That priory against the
wall near Aldersgate?”

“That’s right.”

“I sleep there sometimes, in the
stables.”

Carefully Graeham said, “When I first met
you, you said your parents were butchers and you lived in the
Shambles. And then, last week, you said something about needing to
get to Fleet Street before the gates closed, and when I questioned
you, you said you lived there.”

“We moved.”

“Why would you sleep in Holy Trinity’s
stables if you had a home to go to, Adam?”

The boy backed away from the window.

“No, Adam, don’t go.” Graeham grabbed his
crutch and bolted to his feet. The abrupt movement woke Manfrid,
who’d been stretched out luxuriously across the foot of the bed.
Startled, the cat jumped up and darted away.

Adam tensed as if he were about to do the
same.

“Do you like sweetmeats?” Graeham asked.
“I’ve got a piece of pine nut candy from the bakeshop that I’ve
been saving. ‘Twas meant to be dessert after dinner today, but I
was too full for it.” He lifted the treat from the chest and limped
to the window, with Adam regarding him warily. “You may have it if
you’d like.”

Adam eyed the honeyed confection with
longing. “Me mum said I was never to take sweets from men.”

“I’m not one of those men, remember?”

Adam hadn’t taken his eyes off the candy.
Graeham moved closer, holding it between the bars. Quick as a
squirrel, the boy reached out and snatched it from his hand.

“Your mother sounds like a wise woman,”
Graeham said, leaning on his crutch.

“She was.” Adam sniffed at the candy, then
took a bite from the corner.

Was.
“Your father...is he dead, too?”
Graeham asked.

Adam looked at him at he chewed. He nodded
slowly.

Graeham sat down on the edge of the cot with
his crutch across his lap. “Why didn’t you want me to know?”

“No one knows,” Adam said around a mouthful
of the sticky delicacy. “‘Tisn’t safe.”

Graeham nodded as if this made sense to him,
but in truth he was stumped. “Why don’t you start at the beginning,
Adam? Where did your parents live when they were alive? What part
of London did you grow up in?”

Adam stared at him as he ate, his eyes
filled with suspicion.

“You have to be able to trust someone,
Adam,” Graeham said soothingly. “I only want to help you.”

Adam swallowed and licked crumbs off his
lips. “I didn’t grow up in London. Me pa, he was a free bondman in
Laystoke Manor, just north of here.”

“A farmer, then?”

“Aye, with his own furlong in the village
field,” Adam said. “He grew oats and peas and beans, mostly, but I
had my own little patch at the end where I got to plant whatever I
wanted. I grew lettuce, leeks, onions and cabbages. And I kept
watch over me little brothers and sisters.”

“It sounds as if you liked it there.”

“A far sight better than I like it here, I
can tell you. On the farm, you could breathe. In London...” Adam
shuddered. “There’s a new bad smell everywhere you turn, and some
of them, you don’t even know what they are. Others, you wish you
didn’t know. On the farm, if you smelled somethin’, you knew what
it was, and most likely you could just wipe it off your foot and be
done with it.”

“What brought you here?” Graeham asked.

Adam took another bite. “There were too many
of us, me brothers and sisters and grandparents. One furlong, it
wasn’t enough to feed all of us and still make our rent at
harvesttime. I was the oldest child, so I was picked to come to
London and appren¬tice to Mistress Hertha, the weaver.”

“You were apprenticed to a weaver?” Graeham
asked. Weaving was women’s work.

“I liked the weaving,” Adam said. “And
Mistress Hertha, she was all right. Only I didn’t much like that
husband of hers.”

“Did he beat you?”

“Nay, he...looked at me.”

“
Looked
at you.”

“‘Twas the way he looked at me. And once, he
walked in on me when I was takin’ me bath. Tried to help me wash
up
—
that’s what he called it. I splashed soapy water in his
eyes, but that only made him mad. So I told him me pa was a bear of
a man and would come to London and wring his neck if he didn’t
leave me be. So he left me be. For a time.”

Graeham steeled himself; he’d come this far.
“What happened?”

Adam ate the last of the pine nut candy with
a melancholy expression. “The yellow plague came to Laystoke.
Killed me whole family.”

Graeham groped for words. “All of them?
Everyone?”

“Me mum, me pa, me six brothers and sisters
and most of me kin. ‘Cept for me uncle Oswin, ‘cause he’s too mean
to die.”

Graeham closed his eyes briefly. “I’m
sorry.”

“They’re in heaven now. They’re at
peace.”

“Yes, of course. Still, I’m sorry. What
became of you?”

“Mistress Hertha’s husband, well, he figured
he could have his way with me now that me pa wasn’t around to stop
him.”

Graeham’s fist clenched.

“But I wasn’t about to wait around and let
it happen.”

“So you ran away.”

“Aye.”

“And now you’re living on the streets.”

Adam shrugged.

“And sleeping...where? Stables, alleys,
doorways?”

“‘Tisn’t too bad now that it’s getting
warm
—
and I’m small, so folks don’t notice me.”

“Why don’t you throw yourself on the mercy
of one of the almshouses?” Graeham asked.

“Bad people go to the almshouses. I don’t
like to be where they are.”

There’s lots of bad men in London,
Adam had said once.
You’ve got to keep your wits about
you.

“‘Twas clever of you to dress like a boy,”
Graeham said.

Adam
—
or whatever her name really
was
—
stilled in the act of licking honey off her delicate
but grimy fingers.

“As you say, most of the bad men are after
the girls.”

The child wiped her hands on her braies.
“How’d you know?”

“‘Twasn’t any one thing. You really make a
very convincing boy.”

“Thank you.”

“What’s your name?” Graeham asked. “Your
real name.”

“Alice.”

“What a lovely name.”

Alice smiled prettily
—
too prettily,
for she suddenly looked every bit the little girl she was, despite
her woolen cap and the film of dirt on her face. Sooner or later,
some “bad man” would notice that pretty smile and figure it out.
Graeham didn’t like to think what would happen then.

“You ought not to be living on the streets
the way you do,” Graeham said. “Especially being a girl and
all.”

A movement from the salle caught his eye.
Joanna was bringing the stein of ale he always liked around this
time of day. He wondered how she would feel about taking in yet
another stray. Alice could sleep on a pallet in the salle, or
possibly even in the solar, if Joanna didn’t mind.

“I mustn’t let her see me,” Alice said. “She
might recog¬nize me tomorrow morning if she happens to notice me
while I’m following her.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Graeham said, much
less concerned now with keeping tabs on Joanna than with making
sure little Alice didn’t spend another night on the streets.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he
told Joanna as she entered the storeroom.

“Who?” She looked around, mystified.

Graeham turned toward the alley window.
Alice was gone.

* * *

Squatting on a limb of the big tree
overhanging Joanna Chapman’s kitchen hut and shielded from view
behind a screen of newly sprouted leaves, Alice of Laystoke watched
the back door open. Mistress Chapman emerged wearing a shapeless
brown kirtle, her hair veiled, a marketing basket over her arm.

Finally!
Alice had been waiting in
this tree since dawn, eager to earn those four pennies Graeham Fox
had paid her yesterday, one of which she’d spent last night on a
ham pasty and a sweet wafer, her best meal since leaving Mistress
Hertha’s. Shortly after she’d climbed up here, the serjant had
limped out on his crutch wearing naught but a pair of baggy linen
underdrawers, which he’d started untying even before the privy door
swung closed behind him. Mistress Joanna had come out in her
wrapper for the same purpose a while later, fetching a bucket of
well water on her way back inside.

After that, all had been quiet for some
time. Alice had watched the rising sun illuminate the thatched
roofs of West Cheap and majestic St. Paul’s cathedral on Ludgate
Hill...and waited. Now her waiting was over. Mistress Joanna was
walking away from the house and down the alley toward Milk Street,
her stride swift and purposeful.

Alice waited until her quarry was almost out
of sight, then swung off the branch and dropped to the ground.
Hearing her name hissed, she turned. At first she didn’t see
anyone, but then she noticed movement in the small, deep rear
window of the house. It was Graeham Fox, gesturing her to come to
him.

“I can’t,” she whispered back, pointing
toward Mistress Joanna, walking rapidly down the alley. “I’ll lose
her.”

Alice darted into the alley just in time to
see the shop lady turn left onto Milk Street at the end. She
glanced in Alice’s direction just as she disappeared from view;
Alice hoped she hadn’t noticed her, but even if she had, she
wouldn’t take much note of one scruffy little
girl
—
boy
. She must remember that she was a boy now,
and act the part. No more being careless. Not all men were good,
like Serjant Fox.

At the end of the alley, Alice peeked around
a tall stone wall that separated the alley from a fancy blue and
red house. Mistress Joanna opened the front gate and walked through
it. A moment later, Alice heard a knocking, followed by muffled
voices and a door opening and closing.

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene stood
directly across from the blue and red house. Alice ran across the
street and into the deep, arched doorway of the small stone church.
Crouching in the concealing shadows, she trained her gaze on the
fancy house, unnerved by the carvings that surrounded her in the
entryway
—
a saintly figure being accosted by beasts with
snarling, wolflike heads. She stuck her tongue out at them, then
concentrated on ignoring them.

The waiting was the worst part of it, she
decided, growing fidgety as time crawled by. Following someone
wasn’t that hard; sitting and doing nothing was excruciating.

She bolted to her feet when the front door
opened and Mistress Joanna appeared, glancing around as she passed
through the gate; Alice pressed herself further into the shadows.
The shop lady retraced her steps, turning right onto Milk Street
and then again around the high stone wall, disappearing into the
alley.

When she was out of sight, Alice dashed
across the street and into the alley
—
only to come
face-to-face with Mistress Joanna glaring down at her, hands on
hips, her basket looped over her arm. “Why are you following
me?”

Alice squealed and spun around. Her legs
pumped wildly, but she didn’t go anywhere; the shop lady had her by
the back of her shirt.

“Not so fast, young man. I want to know why
you’ve been following me.”

“Let me go! I didn’t do nothin’.”

“Ah, but you did. And I want to know
why.”

Whatever you do, don’t let her see
you.
Alice hadn’t been careful enough; she’d been caught. The
serjant would be disappointed in her. He might even want his
fourpence back.

“Let me go!” Alice swatted at the shop
lady’s hand, but she held tight on to the shirt. The child kicked,
as hard as she could.

That did it. Mistress Joanna cried out as
Alice’s foot connected with her leg. Her grip loosened on the
shirt.

Alice turned to run.

Hands grabbed at her. Her cap was yanked
off; she felt her braids spring out.