Innocence Unveiled. Blythe Gifford

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      He scrutinised her wordlessly, as if gauging what kind of a life it was. She forced herself to remain still, hoping he saw a trustworthy guild wife. He must not suspect who she really was.

      The midday bell tolled, breaking the stillness.

      ‘I must go.’ Her uncle would be home soon for the main meal. If he had spoken to the Count about her wool, she might be able to send this smuggler on his way. ‘I’ll be back before the mid-afternoon bell. Be here when I return.’

      He raised his eyebrows and laughed. ‘Do you order your weavers about so, mistress?’

      ‘When they need it.’ She gave him a final assessing glance as she opened the door, reluctant to leave him there alone. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

      One corner of his mouth curved into a parody of a smile. ‘You don’t.’

      Saint Catherine, save me from my foolishness. I know nothing about him, yet he called me by name when he entered the shop.

      ‘At least tell me what you are called.’

      ‘Renard.’

      ‘Like the fox?’ Everyone knew the tales of the irreverent trickster Renard the Fox. Their recitation was an evening’s entertainment.

      This time, he definitely winked. ‘Exactly.’

      As she closed the door, the words of the familiar tale echoed in her head. ‘Renard knows many tricks and ruses. He cheats at any time he chooses.’

      High Gate Street was quieter than usual as families gathered behind closed doors for the midday meal. Many avoided the streets these days. Without wool, there was no work. Journeymen, even proud master weavers, lurked on corners, begging, or threatening, for bread or coin.

      She lifted the cloth swaddling her hair to let a breeze tickle the top of her head. Then, hair-hidden again, eyes down, she walked with controlled, deferential steps towards home.

       You bargain like a man.

      Even a stranger could see her failings.

      She did not act as a woman should. Now that her father was gone, her uncle told her that often enough. Woman was born weak and sinful. Only by obedience and submission could she attain perfection—leaving home only to go to church, keeping her distance from all men except her kin—

      Katrine sighed, suddenly aware that her steps had lengthened to a stride and she had looked the silversmith directly in the eye and said good day.

      Starting again with a measured tread, she looked at the ground to avoid meeting any other man’s eye.

      It was the world outside her shop that confined her. Within the walls of the weaving room, she was free. But now, a man had invaded her sanctuary and created doubt in the only place she had ever felt certain.

      Yet she prayed he would still be there when she returned.

      Twenty gold livres, Renard thought, as he watched Katrine walk towards Fish Market Square. He should have forced her to thirty.

      Her first steps were small and mincing, but before he lost sight of her, she was striding down the street so confidently that he wondered whether she really did have another source for the wool.

      He kneaded the tight muscles between his neck and shoulders and shrugged off his chagrin at the bargain he had struck. What did he care about the price of wool he would never deliver? He could have bested her, had he chosen.

      He was the expert negotiator. Always in control, he could hear the nearly indiscernible hesitation in his opponent’s voice that meant he had pushed his rival to the edge, found his weakness, identified what he—or she—most feared to lose. With the power of that knowledge, Renard could complete any bargain on his own terms.

      It was a talent the King had used freely over the years.

      And she was no challenge at all. A wisp of a thing, breasts and hips, if any, disguised by a shapeless shroud of wool. Not the kind of woman to tempt a man.

      If he were a man to be tempted.

      Startled to find himself gazing down a street now empty of her, Renard turned from the window to climb the stairs, noting the creak in the third step so he could avoid it later. The house was as quiet as he had anticipated after watching it for three days. In fact, it seemed as if no one lived here at all.

      He peered into a sleeping room at the top of the first flight, dusty with disuse, wondering idly where she slept. He would not be here long enough for that to matter.

      On the third floor, he ducked as his shoulders threatened to brush the steeply sloping ceiling and dropped his small sack under the eaves. It held little. A fresh tunic. A cloak. A scrap of red silk and a well-worn piece of wool safely hidden at the bottom.

      Cistercian wool. What the devil was the difference?

      Taking care not be seen, he peered out of the small window overlooking the back garden and gauged the distance to the cherry tree. It was a slender escape route, but it was hidden from public view. He picked up his sack, grabbed a branch of the tree, and eased himself to the ground.

      Be here, she had ordered, as if he would wait on a weaving woman’s convenience.

      She cared too much, almost burned with it. Soft brown eyes glowing with need, body rigid with fear he would refuse, she acted as if a few sacks of wool were the difference between life and death.

      Such feelings led to dangerous mistakes. He should have had the advantage. He should have been able to get fifty livres.

      Instead, he had let her win with a fabrication about another source. Well, he got what he wanted. Let her think she would be seeing wool at twenty livres a sack.

      By the time she returned, he would be gone, leaving one little Flemish draper waiting a very long time for her wool.

      The smell of fish stew greeted Katrine as she opened the door to the snug town house. Until her uncle had usurped her father’s house and the income that paid for it, Katrine had loved its whitewashed walls and tiled fireplaces. Now, since the Baron preferred it to the dank stone corridors of his own castle, the house no longer felt like her home.

      The servant girl, Merkin, looked up from laying the plates out on the high table and wiggled her fingers in greeting. ‘Did you hear, milady? An English bishop is coming to make peace with the Count.’

      Peace. The very word made her breathless with hope.

      The English King and the French King were snarling over the throne of France like dogs over a bone. Each had spent months trying to force Flanders to his side. First, the English King stopped wool shipments. The Flemish Count had retaliated by jailing the English in Flanders. Then King Edward imprisoned all Flemings unfortunate enough to be in London.

      Including her father.

      Now, Count and commoners were at an impasse. The Count remained loyal to French Philip. The people, dependent on English wool, preferred English Edward.

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