The Wicked and the Just Read Free

toward a river mouth where boats bob against a series of docks, then we curve around the docks to the south. Little wonder. I can see no gate, only towers that bristle from the wall like cloves in an apple.
    As we pass the docks, one of the brawny lads unloading a barge looks at me. Right in the eye, without dropping his gaze or ducking his chin. As if he’s my brother. Or my sweetheart.
    Tenants at Edgeley would never dare such a look. They all know better.
    But I am a long way from Edgeley and there is naught to do for any of it.
    We arrive before a massive gate, and the men guarding it approach my father to parley. My father hands over some silver and they nod us through. Above us, the city walls are as wide as several men lying head to toe. The walls are dark and damp and cold, but thick.
    It would take a lot to get through walls this thick.
    What opens up within the walls does not look like Coventry. There are no townhouses overhanging the roads, blocking out the sun. There are no muddy gutters and middens.
    There are open spaces greening with furze and narrow plots with new-turned furrows waiting for May planting. Unfinished townhouses rise golden like solid honey, and older houses, gleaming white with limewash, sweep up from green plots.
    I can have a garden here. Just like at Edgeley.
    My father looks smug. “More to your liking, sweeting?”
    â€œIt’s not Edgeley. But I suppose it will do. For now.”
    The street we follow veers slightly to the left and ends abruptly with the city wall. We pass one cross-street, then another, ere the guide calls gee and directs us down the endmost street.
    The castle is massive now. I can just see a curve of tower and a tangle of scaffolding when we lurch to a stop.
    â€œWhat do you think, sweeting?” My father gestures to a house that rises tall and graceful out of a tidy yard. The bottom part is stone, the top timbered with bright limewashed panels.
    â€œIs that our house?” Not a mud-and-thatch midden-hole, and certes a hand up from my uncle William’s crowded lodgings in Coventry.
    But by no means is this Edgeley Hall.
    My father smiles. “Welcome home.”
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    A thickset woman of middle years answers my father’s knock. She is Mistress Tipley. She and the servant have been caring for the place through the winter, and she thanks the saints that we’ve come through safely.
    Mistress Tipley looks suspiciously like a chatelaine, when I’m to be the lady of this house.
    At least she is speaking English.
    â€œSweeting, I must go see the constable,” my father says. “Let him know we’ve arrived and find out what he requires of me. Mistress Tipley will show you the house.”
    My father swings back astride his horse with a faint groan, then bids the guide bring the cart into the rearyard and unload. I’m left in the foyer with Mistress Tipley regarding me as though I’m a child threatening the wall hangings with my damp little hands.
    Being the lady of this house was promised me. I put my chin in the air and tell her, “I can show myself the house. You may go.”
    Her face reddens, but she bobs her head and disappears.
    Abovestairs is a chamber halved by heavy curtains. I claim the half at the rear of the house as my own; my father can have the other. There’s a pallet on the floor, but I sincerely hope my father doesn’t think I’m sleeping on the floor now that we’re here. We can stay at an inn with real beds until the pack train arrives.
    I throw open my window shutters and gasp. The view is stunning. The sun is all but down and the land across the shimmering water is a rich, glowing purple. Boats bob and creak below, tethered to docks that run along the city walls. In our rearyard is a scattering of outbuildings and animal pens and a kitchen garden greening like a meadow.
    If I’m not murdered, this might not turn out so badly after all.
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    I trudge belowstairs in search