The Stone Rose (2 page)

‘I hate to see you shamed. I want you to be able to walk about with your head held high. And now you’re thinking of telling Gwenn that you’re a...a...’

‘A concubine,
Maman
? A kept woman, her union unblessed by Holy Church?’

Izabel flinched. ‘You can’t Yolande. You mustn’t.’

‘Gwenn has to face it sometime,
Maman
,’ Yolande said, quietly ruthless. ‘Time is running out.’

‘No! And what of the babe? Have you thought of that? If you tell Gwenn–’

‘
Maman
,’ Yolande sighed, ‘Katarin has almost reached her third birthday. She’s a child, no babe, but still too young for it to make any difference to her. And as far as Gwenn is concerned, why, it’s my belief she knows already. My girl’s no fool. She knows what the townsfolk call her moth–’

‘Ah! Here it is!’ Izabel drew out the length of coarse bleached fabric that served as her wimple, and set about covering her head. Dragging on her veil, she meticulously tucked the grey strands out of sight.

‘
Maman
, you can’t hide everything behind a veil.’

‘What do you mean?’

Yolande ran a hand over her smooth, high brow. She had no proof, but instinct warned her that Father Jerome, the so-called ‘Black Monk’ and a consecrated priest, was connected with Count François de Roncier. ‘Mother, do think. You went to Mass this morning. You must have heard the people chattering about the monk.’

‘Monk?’

‘The Black Monk.’ Yolande set her teeth. ‘The new preacher who is urging everyone to repent.’ Izabel was pretending to adjust her headgear, but Yolande knew she was listening. ‘De Roncier is spinning a web to trap us in. Our past is catching up with us.’

‘
Our
past? Don’t you mean
your
past?’

‘No,
ma mère
, I mean
our
past.’

Izabel’s cheeks reddened. ‘I wish you hadn’t chosen that road.’

‘What other road was there?’ Yolande snapped. ‘You were glad enough to take the coin I brought you! If it wasn’t for me you’d have rotted in a gutter long since!’ No sooner had she spoken than Yolande regretted her momentary loss of control. Had guilt had made her mother flush? She doubted it. Guilt was not an affliction Izabel was ever stricken with. Her mother clung to her self-righteousness as though it were a shield; and if self-righteousness was her mother’s protection in this corrupt world, who was Yolande to snatch it from her? Izabel had known little enough joy in the span of years allotted her.

Izabel was gazing past her
prie-dieu
, at that wretched pink statue of Our Lady, her lips moving in prayer. Yolande repressed a sigh. Once her mother started on her intercessions, there was no stopping her.

Yolande looked at the statue standing primly in its niche. No one would ever guess it contained a secret...

The statue was not much bigger than Yolande’s hand. Crudely carved from a chunk of rose granite, it was mounted on a cedar wood plinth. Izabel had placed it in the larger of the alcoves set in the wattle wall of the bedchamber. She had turned the alcove into a shrine; and unfailingly referred to her icon as the Mystic Rose. Father Mark, she said, called Our Lady by that name. Yolande thought Izabel’s Virgin had an expressionless face. It did not speak to her at all, and blasphemy though it was, there were times when she wanted to smash it. It seemed to wield an unhealthy influence over her mother. It seemed...evil, but that must be nonsense, for how could a statue of Our Saviour’s Mother possibly be evil?

The dead, granite features looked blank and empty, hideously vacant, not secretive as they should. The Virgin’s sculptor could not have been representing a real woman, for the figurine did not bear the expression of a woman who had lived; instead it had the countenance of a woman who had wandered through life and escaped being touched by it. Her mother’s Virgin was pure, but it was a cold purity that had no place on God’s living earth. Izabel’s Lady had never loved, she had never hated, or laughed, or cried. For the Blessed Virgin to have any value, Yolande thought scornfully, she had to have lived. She had to have
suffered
– as Our Lord’s real mother had suffered.

Like Izabel, the statue kept the world at a distance. Yolande’s lip curled. ‘Mystic Rose’ indeed. She’d always thought that ‘Stone Rose’ was more apt, particularly in view of the figurine’s hidden purpose. The secret was one which Yolande shared only with her mother. For years she had kept her lover from ferreting it out. It was ironic really, how Jean never failed to mock at her mother’s piety. If only he knew what Izabel’s piety hid from him, and right under his nose.

It was not that Izabel was irreligious. Her mother’s piety was genuine, but piety was not the only reason she guarded the Stone Rose so jealously. Within the statue’s granite heart was lodged a valuable, clear gemstone. It was not large, but its worth was such that it would see Yolande and her children to a safe harbour if needs be. Yolande did not want to sell the gem, for once it had gone she had nothing else to fall back on. Prudence had warned her to keep knowledge of it from her lover. It was not that she mistrusted Jean, but the fewer the people who knew about such a thing, the better. It was a secret for the women of the family, so they could protect themselves and their own. Didn’t the men always see to themselves? Women had a right to look to their safety too.

A draught from the window sent a superstitious shiver racing down Yolande’s neck. Instinctively, she made the sign of the cross.

In the next chamber, Katarin, her youngest, began to cry. Yolande’s face softened. Katarin must come first. She’d deal with her mother later. She moved towards the door.

‘If only I’d known,’ Izabel whispered. ‘If only I could have foreseen...’

Yolande froze mid-stride. ‘I’m surprised you stayed with me,
Maman
, if it stuck in your gullet so. I always wondered why you never went back to the convent. You would have liked it there. No one forced you to stay with me.’

The veiled head jerked. Izabel’s faded eyes flashed with hurt and indignation. ‘You’re my daughter!’

Yolande smiled her sweetest smile. ‘And Gwenn is mine, or had you forgotten?’

‘She’s
my
granddaughter. She’ll think badly of you, and of me. I pray you, don’t tell her.’

‘Whining doesn’t suit you,
Maman
. And I flatter myself that Gwenn would try to understand.’

Katarin had stopped wailing. The chamber door rattled, and the child began a new chant. ‘Mama. Mama. Mama.’

Yolande reached for the latch.

‘Please, Yolande. Promise me.’

Izabel’s fingers clutched at the silk of Yolande’s elongated sleeve. Yolande had spent years protecting her mother from hardship and hurt and the habit was hard to break. She compromised. ‘I’ll do my best to avoid telling her.’

‘Swear it.’

Katarin’s litany increased in volume. ‘
Mama. Mama. Mama.
’

‘I’ll try.
Ma mère
, allow me to see to Katarin.’ Suffocated, Yolande prised Izabel’s fingers from the material of her gown, and stalked to the door. She seemed to have spent a lifetime failing to satisfy her mother. She was glad that her children’s wants were more easily met.

***

In the dusty street, Gwenn noticed that the pedlar who had recently taken up a position outside her house was staring at her. She had no money, but nonetheless she glanced briefly at his merchandise. It was tawdry stuff, cheap ribbons and stale-looking honey cakes, and of no interest to her.

A half-starved mongrel cur, whose wiry white fur was worn away with the mange so you could see his ribs, sidled towards the pedlar, and sat down in the earth. His eyes were riveted on the pedlar’s tray. The dog’s black nose twitched and his stumpy tail wagged hopefully. The animal could smell the huckster’s sweetmeats.

‘Piss off!’ the pedlar hissed, aiming a worn boot at the dog, but whether by accident or design the animal sat just outside his reach.

Gwenn grinned. Having satisfied herself that her unauthorised departure had not been noticed, she remembered that her grandmother had drummed into her that a lady should never, never walk abroad unveiled. She twitched the blue silk veil from her belt and fastened it on. She’d be in hot water if they discovered she’d gone out alone, there was no point making matters worse.

The street was busy. A peel of bells rang out the hour and a fluster of pigeons hurtled skywards. Gwenn did not want to be late. She threaded her way through the growing crowd of people in the direction of St Peter’s. The pigeons fluttered down again.

Someone grasped her arm. The pedlar. He waved a fistful of garish ribbon under her nose. ‘You buy, pretty lady?’ he whined, in the local Breton dialect. His fingernails were filthy, and even over the stink of fish and rotting debris which carpeted the cramped thoroughfare, Gwenn could smell him, a sour, unwashed smell.

‘I’ve no money,’ she answered, peeping through her veil as her grandmother had taught her. She read disbelief in the pedlar’s eyes and knew her clothes proclaimed her a liar. The silk her gown was fashioned from had come from Constantinople. She had a real gold ring on her finger. Only last week her mother’s friend, Jean St Clair, had given it to her. Gwenn liked Sir Jean, and wondered if he was her father. But any questions she had posed on that score were invariably parried. Eventually Gwenn had learned not to ask. And because she suspected Sir Jean was her father, she had worn the ring ever since. But it was true that she had no money. Up till now she’d only managed to escape once or twice on her own. Her grandmother who usually accompanied her carried the money. The pedlar’s eyes were cold, they made Gwenn shiver. His clothes were threadbare and shiny with grease, and his hose had need of a darning needle. The sour stench of him was overpowering. Cursing the vanity and thoughtlessness that had made her pick out this particularly opulent dress, Gwenn shook free of the roughened hands and scurried on.

Conan stared after the concubine’s daughter, guilt gnawing at his innards. Why did the wench have to be so young? She could not possibly have hurt anyone. The mongrel was back, its optimistic whine a triumph of hope over experience. ‘Damn you, le Bret,’ Conan muttered. ‘And damn your paymaster.’ The freshness of the girl seemed to cling to Conan’s fingers, but he was too old to start nurturing a tender conscience. His face contorted. Wiping his fingers on breeches that had not seen water since the previous spring, Conan lashed out at the mongrel. This time his boot connected with the dog’s rump, and with a whimper it hopped out of range. Conan spat into the dirt, counted to ten, and then, keeping the girl’s back in sight, he followed at a discreet distance.

Walking quickly, and happily oblivious of her shadow, Gwenn noticed the house martins were back. Last years’ nests had waited out the winter, strung out under the eaves along the whole length of her route, like clumsy grey beads on a string. The birds even nested on St Peter’s Cathedral – known as St Per’s to the local Bretons. The nests faced west, so that the martins’ young, when they hatched, could bask in the glow of the evening sun. The birds’ high-pitched twitterings overrode the hum of human voices below them in the street, a sure sign that more clement weather was on the way.

Ahead of her, St Peter’s bell tower loomed over the untidy rows of houses. The martins were there too, high in the sky, tiny black and white arrows diving and darting over Vannes. They would be able to see the whole of the port from up there.

Once, before the stiffness had crept into her bones, Izabel had taken Gwenn to the top of the wooden bell tower. The view it gave out over the town was extraordinary, and Gwenn would never forget it. To the south, the shadow of the tower pointed towards the port. She had seen the harbour, a long, dark finger of water which shone in the sunlight and teemed with boats reduced by the distance to a child’s toy flotilla. And beyond the harbour was the more distant glimmer of the Small Sea. Nearer to hand – to north, and west, and east – Gwenn had looked down on line after wiggly line of ramshackle wooden houses hugging the Cathedral Close. Vannes was a beehive of a town. From the vantage point of the tower, it looked as though a giant hand had reached down from heaven and squashed everything together, but the hand had done its work badly, for there was not a straight line or angle in the whole town. Many dwellings were little more than decaying hovels. Many needed rethatching. Doors swung at improbable angles, and the sea breeze rattled shutters dangling precariously on rust-eaten hinges. All the buildings, shabby and otherwise, buzzed with activity. Most of the streets were narrow, cramped and crooked, an unplanned cluster of alleys reeking with the stench of fish, but a few were marginally broader and grander; and these radiated out from the cathedral. La Rue de la Monnaie, on which Gwenn lived, was one of these more prosperous streets. She did not have far to go to reach St Peter’s, there to await the preaching of Father Jerome, the Black Monk.

D
uke’s Tavern sat across the square from St Peter’s Cathedral. Trade was so brisk that the innkeeper, Mikael Brasher, was beginning to worry. His inn was bursting at the seams with unruly strangers, wine was being quaffed as though it were water and violence of some sort seemed inevitable.

Uneasy, he scratched the back of his neck and blinked through the smoke haze which spiralled out from the cooking fire. Over the years, Mikael had developed an instinct for trouble, and he recognised that itch as a warning signal. A bench crashed to the ground. It was not the first that morning. Someone let out a bellow worthy of a prize bull.

‘More wine!’ Mikael cried, grabbing a flagon and donning his most genial smile. In spite of his broad girth, the innkeeper could be nimble as a dancer when he chose. Double chins wobbling, he slid swiftly between the rough-hewn tables to the source of the noise and signalled to the potboy, Tristan, to set the bench to rights. If anyone in Vannes could stop a riot it was Mikael Brasher. The trick was to sniff out the troublemakers before they had time to brew up a riot. Sniff them out and disarm them.