第16章 THE WIFE OF FLANDERS(2)

She watched with sharp eyes the setting of the table.It was a Friday's meal and the guest was a monk, so it followed a fashion, but in that house of wealth, which had links with the ends of the earth, the monotony was cunningly varied.There were oysters from the Boulogne coast, and lampreys from the Loire, and pickled salmon from England.There was a dish of liver dressed with rice and herbs in the manner of the Turk, for liver, though contained in flesh, was not reckoned as flesh by liberal churchmen.There was a roast goose from the shore marshes, that barnacle bird which pious epicures classed as shell-fish and thought fit for fast days.A silver basket held a store of thin toasted rye-cakes, and by the monk's hand stood a flagon of that drink most dear to holy palates, the rich syrupy hippocras.

The woman looked on the table with approval, for her house had always prided itself upon its good fare.The Cluniac's urbane composure was stirred to enthusiasm.He said a Confiteor tibi Domine, rolling the words on his tongue as if in anticipation of the solider mouthfuls awaiting him.

The keen weather had whetted his appetite and he thanked God that his northern peregrinations had brought him to a house where the Church was thus honoured.He had liked the cavalier treatment of the lean parish priest, a sour dog who brought his calling into disfavour with the rich and godly.He tucked back his sleeves, adjusted the linen napkin comfortably about his neck, and fell to with a will.He raised his first glass of hippocras and gave thanks to his hostess.A true mother in Israel!

She was looking at him with favour.He was the breed of monk that she liked, suave, well-mannered, observant of men and cities.Already he had told her entertaining matter about the French King's court, and the new Burgrave of Ghent, and the escapades of Count Baldwin.He had lived much among gentlefolk and kept his ears open....She felt stronger and cheerfuller than she had been for days.That rat-hunt had warmed her blood.

She was a long way from death in spite of the cackle of idiot chirurgeons, and there was much savour still in the world.There was her son, too, the young Philip....Her eye saw clearer, and she noted the sombre magnificence of the great room, the glory of the brocade, the gleam of silver.Was she not the richest woman in all Bruges, aye, and in all Hainault and Guelderland? And the credit was her own.After the fashion of age in such moods her mind flew backward, and she saw very plain a narrow street in a wind-swept town looking out on a bleak sea.She had been cold, then, and hungry, and deathly poor.Well, she had travelled some way from that hovel.

She watched the thick carved stems of the candlesticks and felt a spacious ease and power.

The Cluniac was speaking.He had supped so well that he was in love with the world.

"Your house and board, my lady, are queen-like.I have seen worse in palaces."Her laugh was only half pleased."Too fine, you would add, for a burgher wife.Maybe, but rank is but as man makes it.The Kings of England are sprung of a tanner.Hark you, father! I made a vow to God when I was a maid, and I have fulfilled my side of the bargain.I am come of a nobler race than any Markgrave, aye, than the Emperor himself, and I swore to set the seed of my body, which the Lord might grant me, again among the great ones.Have I not done it? Is not Philip, my son, affianced to that pale girl of Avesnes, and with more acres of pleasant land to his name than any knightlet in Artois?"The Cluniac bowed a courtly head."It is a great alliance--but not above the dignity of your house.""House you call it, and I have had the making of it.What was Willebald but a plain merchant-man, one of many scores at the Friday Market? Willebald was clay that I moulded and gilded till God put him to bed under a noble lid in the New Kirk.A worthy man, but loutish and slow like one of his own hookers.Yet when I saw him on the plainstones by the English harbour Iknew that he was a weapon made for my hand."Her voice had become even and gentle as of one who remembers far-away things.The Cluniac, having dipped his hands in a silver basin, was drying them in the brazier's heat.Presently he set to picking his teeth daintily with a quill, and fell into the listener's pose.From long experience he knew the atmosphere which heralds confidences, and was willing to humour the provider of such royal fare.

"You have never journeyed to King's Lynn?" said the voice from the bed.

"There is little to see there but mudbars and fens and a noisy sea.There Idwelt when I was fifteen years of age, a maid hungry in soul and body.Iknew I was of the seed of Forester John and through him the child of a motley of ancient kings, but war and famine had stripped our house to the bone.And now I, the last of the stock, dwelt with a miserly mother's uncle who did shipwright's work for the foreign captains.The mirror told me that I was fair to look on, though ill-nourished, and my soul assured me that Ihad no fear.Therefore I had hope, but I ate my heart out waiting on fortune."She was looking at the monk with unseeing eyes, her head half turned towards him.

"Then came Willebald one March morning.I saw him walk up the jetty in a new red cloak, a personable man with a broad beard and a jolly laugh.Iknew him by repute as the luckiest of the Flemish venturers.In him I saw my fortune.That night he supped at my uncle's house and a week later he sought me in marriage.My uncle would have bargained, but I had become a grown woman and silenced him.With Willebald I did not chaffer, for I read his heart and knew that in a little he would be wax to me.So we were wed, and I took to him no dowry but a ring which came to me from my forebears, and a brain that gold does not buy."The monkey by her side broke into a chattering.