A Mortal Bane(104)

A bolt of linen so soft and fine one could see through it on the next counter held her attention. She fingered the cloth, held it up to the light, pressed a fold of it against the inside of her wrist. A lovely, soft green that would have flattered her skin and hair, but when the journeyman murmured a price, and not unreasonable, she still sighed and turned away. She had no occasion for any garment made of such revealing cloth and never would have. The last thing in the world she wanted was to tempt a man.

That thought woke a small echo of her hurt over Bell’s neglect, but she told herself she should be grateful for it. The light prick would save her deeper pain later—and one could not be sad in the midst of so much color and noise. In fact, before Magdalene was a third of the way across the bridge, she had forgotten her hurt and pique and was studying a pair of brass torchette holders that she thought would look very well at either side of the door of the Old Guesthouse. That time she stopped and bargained and came away with what she felt was a prize.

Fish Street distracted her in another way. Here, too, were stalls, but these were less attractive, with heaps of herring and mackerel, great mounds of cod, baskets of eels, piles of flounder. Magdalene’s nose, inured to the smell of hard-worked, hard-riding, unwashed men, wrinkled against the overwhelming odor of fish. Far worse than the stalls was the gutter down the center of the street, where pigs and feral cats and dogs snatched at and fought over wares too ripe for even the poorest to buy, leftovers cast away amidst the dung and urine of horse and man.

Magdalene clutched her torchette holders under her arm and tucked her veil firmly into her collar to free her hands so she could lift her skirt well off the ground. It took careful attention and quick footwork to get around the people haggling at the stalls, avoid stepping into the muck in the gutter, dodge the animals, and escape being splashed when others were not as adroit and landed in the sluggish puddles cursing and shouting. Next time, she promised herself, she would walk the extra street west to Gracechurch, where the shops were mostly those of pepperers and mercers.

She was cheered, however, by escaping with no more than a few small spots on her garments, and her interview with the mercer who sold her embroidery was also soothing. From her speech and manner, he had deduced that she was a lady of good birth who had fallen on hard times, or had a niggardly male guardian and was forced to sell her handiwork. That did not make him any more generous in payment for it, but he treated her with great courtesy, and it was a pleasure not to need to study a man to say just the right thing. He also had several more orders for her, one for an altar cloth.

To that offer, many months’ worth of work, Magdalene shook her head. “I cannot do it for that price,” she said.

“But the buyer will provide the cloth itself and all the embroidery thread, even the needles, if you desire.”

Magdalene laughed. “Come now. Master Mercer, you know that half the beauty of my pieces is in the quality of the cloth, the thinness and rich dyes of the thread. I cannot trust another to purchase those for me. If the buyer wants the quality I produce, he or she must pay at least forty shillings. For that, I will provide cloth and thread and the very finest work, and either do the buyer’s design or present a design of my own.”

“That is too much,” he said, looking disappointed.

[page]“For my own work, I cannot take less, but I have a compromise to offer.” From her purse, Magdalene withdrew samplers of Letice’s and Ella’s work. “These are the work of two of my women. It is not so fine as mine, but it is good. For the price you offered—the buyer to provide cloth and thread, too—your purchaser may have the work done by those women. If you like, I will leave the samplers with you to show. The other two pieces, the headband and collar band, I will do. Would you desire a matching design, or are these for different customers?”