Briar frowned and fingered a basket of very ripe wild plums, lifted a skeptical brow when the vendor named his price. “They are rotten,” she said flatly.
Five minutes later, she had haggled the price down considerably, and the two girls moved off with their bounty. Briar bit into one of the plums, and the juice spurted out and ran down her chin. With a giggle, Mary did the same.
“You drove a hard bargain with that man,” she ventured, but her dark eyes were sparkling.
“He was a badling. I gave him a fair price.”
Mary finished the plum and fastidiously licked her sticky fingers, drying them off on her worn kirtle. “You call every male a badling these days, Briar. There are some good men among the bad.”
“Pooh! They are all badlings and fleshmongers. Name one who is not, sister.”
Mary wrinkled her brow. “Odo. He is…was a good man.”
Briar laughed. “That was because Jocelyn would not allow him to be otherwise. Name me another.”
“What of the man who came to see you at Lord Shelborne’s? The man you sang to, Briar. Was he a badling and a fleshmonger?”
Briar blinked, wondering for a surprised moment whether her sister’s expression was really as innocent as it appeared. The doubt shocked her. What was she thinking? Mary was a child.
“He is the worst badling and fleshmonger I have ever met,” she said uncomfortably.
But Mary did not hear her; her fickle attention had been captured by something far more interesting. “Look, sister!”
Briar looked, while the dark, sweet syrup from the plum trickled down her pointed chin and stained the front of her coarse brown gown. With her chestnut hair loose about her shoulders, and her feet bare, Briar felt like a young girl. Gone was the world-weary woman who often dwelt in her heart. A sense of optimism filled her, and she smiled when she saw the direction of Mary’s interest.
Her younger sister was gazing in rapture at a clothseller’s stall. The man was clearly no York native, but one of the foreign merchants who had taken the journey to England in the hope of making a fortune. Bolts of beautiful materials spilled over the wooden board, some so exquisite they were surely only fit for the highest in the land—or the highest in York, anyway. The rolls of cloth were complemented by trays of ribbons, beads, and other trimmings. York’s matrons were already gathering, like crows at a feast, eagerly discussing styles and colors, shouldering out the dreamers.
Briar followed after her sister. In her opinion, ’twas not always good sense to wish for luxuries it was no longer in their power to obtain, but Mary was so entranced. And besides, Briar reminded herself, he was alive and she was happy. Why not pretend, just this once?
And then a length of green wool caught her eye, and it was no longer pretense.
The cloth was very dark. The deep, deep green of a pond, when you look into its secret depths. And it was so soft and so fine—her fingers itched to stroke. If she had a gown made of such stuff, Briar told herself, she could do anything. Radulf would beg her pardon, the king would return Castle Kenton, Filby would grovel at her feet. Indeed, the whole of York would be at her feet, bare or otherwise!
Ivo among them. Aye, especially Ivo!
Unthinking, Briar stretched out her hand to touch…and caught the baleful eye of the clothseller. He scowled at her. Clearly he thought she had the plague, at the very least! Aye, and so she did, to him. She was poor; what would such a poor creature as she want with fine wool, if it was not to spoil it for others, or steal it to sell? Briar knew that he would not hesitate to shout for help, and she would be fined.
Her spirits, which had been on the rise, plummeted.
“Come, sister, we are not wanted here,” she said, more sharply than she meant.
Mary sighed. “Do you think, one day, Briar, we might wear fine clothes again? I know it is wrong of me to long for such petty nonsense, when our other needs are so great, but sometimes I just cannot help it. If we had not once lived very differently from this, then I would not feel the lack, I am sure. But we did, and I do.”
There were tears in the younger girl’s eyes and, forgetting her stern demeanor, Briar gave her a quick, fierce hug. “’Tis not wrong, and one day we will dress better than queens, you will see. That clothmonger will be begging us to touch his wares then.”
Mary smiled, as Briar had meant her to.
Hand in hand, they continued on through the crowded market, until Mary’s excited cry stopped them once more. “Oh, Briar, look!” A pair of acrobats were performing, twisting and turning their slim bodies into bizarre shapes. “As if they have no bones!” Mary gasped, clapping her hands. They stood and watched, and again Briar put aside their many troubles and lost herself in her sister’s simple joy.
We are still alive, she told herself, that is the miracle. Despite all Radulf and Filby and the king have done to destroy us, the daughters of Richard Kenton remain.
And as long as she, Briar, was alive, those great men best beware!
One of the acrobats bent over backward and peeped at them through his legs. The crowd clapped and laughed. The other acrobat put his feet behind his head, as if they were tied in a knot.
Laughing, engrossed, Briar was completely unprepared when that quiet, deep voice spoke just behind her.
“Demoiselle.”