In The Master's Bed. Blythe Gifford

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      The midwife threw back the covers. The bed was soaked with more water than the cup could hold.

      And it was red.

      ‘Mother!’ She could barely get the word out. ‘Look!’ It was less a word than a shriek.

      ‘Look!’ Gower squawked from the corner. ‘Look!’ He flapped his wings, reaching the limit of the leg chain as he tried to fly.

      ‘I can see, Jane.’ Her eyes held a warning.

      Solay’s eyes widened. ‘Mother? What’s happening?’

      ‘Shh. All is well.’ Her mother patted Solay and kissed her forehead.

      Jane backed away from the bed, helpless. How did her mother stay calm and comforting? How did she know what to do?

      Any minute her sister might die while Jane, useless, could do nothing.

      I can’t. The shriek in her head was all she could hear. I can’t.

      And when her sister screamed, Jane started to run.

      She ran, but the screams chased her.

      They followed as she fled the room and ran to her own, where she wrapped her breasts, shed her dress and pulled on chausses, tunic and cloak.

      The screams did not cease.

      They trailed her as she ran out of the castle gate and out on to the road, cascading, one after the other, as if the baby were clawing its way out of her sister’s belly.

      She didn’t stop running until she realised the screams still sounded only in her head.

      No one had seen her leave and it wasn’t until she was clear of the house, breasts bound, men’s clothing in place, that she realised she had been planning to escape for a long time.

      Everything had been at hand. The tunic and leg hose, the food, the walking stick, the small stash of coins were all there, but when the moment had come, she had no plan but to run.

      Scooping fresh air into her lungs, she battled her guilty thoughts. Solay would not miss her. The others were there, women who knew how to do those things—her mother, her sister-in-law, the midwife—any one of them would be more help than Jane.

      She didn’t belong in that world of women, full of responsibilities she didn’t want and expectations she could never meet. She wanted what a man had—to go where she wanted, to do what she wanted, without a woman’s limits.

      She squeezed her eyes against the sadness of losing her family, squared her shoulders and faced the future.

      She could never pass as a fighting man, but she knew something of clerking from listening to her sister’s husband. As a learned man, surely she could live among men undetected.

      And as a clerk, she might find a place in the king’s court. Not the place she should have had, but still one in which she could represent the king in important affairs of state in Paris or Rome.

      She hoisted her sack.

      Free as a man. Dependent on no one but herself.

      If she had calculated correctly, Cambridge would take her three days.

      Two days later, Jane woke, broke her fast on berries and headed again for the sunrise, squinting towards the horizon for a glimpse of Cambridge.

      On the road heading east, the birds chirped and a placid, dappled cow turned to look, chewing her cud.

      You ran away from your sister when she needed you, the cow seemed to say.

      She turned her back on the accusing eyes. There was nothing she could have done that one of the others couldn’t have done better.

      Her stomach moaned. She should have stuffed more bread and cheese in the sack, but she was not accustomed to making plans for her own food.

      Two days on the road already felt like ten.

      After two nights of sleeping by the side of the road, she looked and smelled nothing like a lady. She had lost the walking stick in a tumble into a stream on the first day, walked in damp clothes for two, and then been stung by a wasp.

      She itched her swollen hand, wondering how far it was to Cambridge.

      Behind her, she heard a horse at a trot and turned, too tired to run. If it was a thief, he’d get little enough.

      Unless he realised she was a woman. Then the threat would be much greater than losing her meagre purse.

      She put on her most manly stance as the black horse and rider came closer. Good shoulders on them, both the steed and the man.

      The man looked as rough as an outlaw. Perhaps in his mid-twenties, his face was all angles, the nose broken and mended, black hair and beard shaggy. The stringed gittern slung over his back was small comfort. Travelling entertainers were the personification of all vices.

      He pulled up the horse and looked down at her. ‘Where’s t’ gaan?’

      She eyed him warily, puzzling over the words, run together in an unfamiliar accent. Yet his eyes, grey like clouds bearing rain, were not unkind. ‘What do you say?’

      He sighed and spoke more slowly as if in a foreign tongue. ‘Where are you going?’

      She cleared her throat. ‘Cambridge.’ She hoped she had pitched her voice low enough.

      He smiled. ‘And I. You’re a student, then?’

      She nodded, afraid to risk her voice again.

      He studied her, running his eyes from crown to toes. She shifted, feeling something like lightning in his glance.

      ‘Students dinna travel alone,’ he said, finally.

      ‘Neither do jongleurs.’

      He laughed, a musical sound. ‘I play for meself alone.’

      She felt a moment’s envy of his stringed instrument. To live as a man, she would have to abandon song, the only womanly thing about her.

      ‘What’s your name, boy?’

      Boy. She bit back a grin. ‘Ja—’ She coughed. ‘John. What are you called?’

      ‘Duncan.’ He held out a hand. ‘Where’s t’ frae?’

      Frae? He must mean from. She swallowed, trying to think. She had planned to say Essex, where she’d lived until spring, but she was on the wrong side of Cambridge to tell that tale. ‘What does it matter?’

      Looking down at her from his horse, he didn’t bother to answer. It always mattered where a man was from. ‘You’re not Welsh, are you? The Welsh are no friends of mine.’

      She shook her head.

      ‘Nor СКАЧАТЬ