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Startled, she started to stand, then, just in time, crouched lower. Her tunic would cover her, but damp as it was, it would mould to her body, making it obvious she was missing what would make her a man.
‘Come no closer,’ she said, waving him away. ‘I’ve finished your wash.’
‘I see that. That was not my question. I asked why you’re sitting in the laundry tub.’
‘Well, you’re the educated one.’ Her heart skipped faster. From fear? Or something else?
Without the beard, she could see his mouth clearly, the top lip sculpted, the lower lip unexpectedly full. She wondered how they would feel against hers.
A dangerous idea when she was sitting half-naked in a tub of cooling water. ‘Can ya not see I’m taking a bath?’ She mocked the lilt of his accent.
‘Do you truly think me such a miscreant that I’d have you bathe in the laundry tub?’
He was in one of his testy moods. Bathing in leftover laundry water was eminently sensible and many house-holds did it. ‘I don’t see how my bath says anything about you at all.’
He blinked, then gave her a sideways smile. ‘You may succeed in logic after all, Little John.’ He started across the grass. ‘The University’s Proctor frowns on the bathhouse, but since you’ve been sleeping with the horses, he might make an exception. Come with me. We’ll share a tub. Wash off the journey’s dust.’
The thought of sitting knee to knee, naked, with Duncan in a bathhouse tub stole her breath. ‘No, you go without me.’ She waved him away, praying he would come no closer. ‘I’m done. I don’t need another bath.’
‘Ah, don’t be daft, John.’ He took another step. ‘You smell like the King’s Ditch in August.’
‘No!’ She cursed the shrill panic in her voice. ‘No closer!’
He paused, praise Mary. ‘Why not?’
Why not? ‘I’ve an injury.’
Her words released him. ‘I’m studying medicine. Let me look—’
‘No!’ She shouted this time. ‘It’s an old one. I don’t want…I mean it’s not…’
He held up his hands and took a step back. An embarrassed red tinged his cheeks and clashed with the teasing lift of his brows. ‘War injury?’
Her cheeks, and something lower, heated. ‘Accident.’ Sometimes, men’s few words were a blessing.
Something in his face shifted and the smile disappeared. ‘Take your time, then.’ He turned and went inside.
She slumped lower in the tepid water, glad she had enjoyed her bath. There would not soon be another.
And next time Duncan looked her way, she would have something stuffed in the front of her breeches that looked as if it belonged to a man.
Little John was a strange one, Duncan thought, uneasy, as he took inventory of the precious bound volumes in the hostel’s library. He’d had an unusual sensation, seeing the boy in that tub. Almost as if—
He slammed the door on the thought.
An injury, the boy said. Duncan had seen no limp, no deformity in the lad, but it must be something severe to make him so sensitive.
He nearly dropped Cato’s Distichs.
Something that would make the boy less than a man.
He shuddered, glad he had not forced the lad to confess his shame. Such an injury would be rare, but if that’s what troubled the lad, it would explain the pitch of his voice.
At the thought, his own manhood inconveniently stirred to life. The war, the journey, his meeting with the King, had all conspired to make him neglect his own needs these past weeks. But to live without them, if the boy truly had lost his manhood—the thought swept over him with a kind of agony.
He enjoyed the life of the mind: new ideas, arguments with colleagues. But he also loved the life of the body: to walk the hills, to swing a spade and, he was not ashamed of it, to join with a woman.
What defined a man, after all? Strong arms, sharp mind, strong drives. Deprived of any one of those, why would a man want to live?
All the better, he told himself, when guilt threatened, that his brother had died, rather than live as a cripple.
And if something had happened to John, he would need the protection of a University life.
No matter what the boy’s wound, he’d discover it in time. The lad would lose his womanish modesty soon enough. There were few secrets when thirty men lived side by side.
Young men arrived with the morning bells and kept coming all day.
Jane stood back, watching everything they did. Loud, boisterous, they slapped each other’s backs, punched each other and hugged, performing a sort of greeting ritual.
They filled every corner of the hostel, but they occupied more than physical space. Their vigour reached beyond their bodies, penetrating every nook of the house until she felt even her thoughts could not remain untouched.
She kept Duncan in sight so when he needed someone, she was close at hand, ready to bustle purpose-fully to fetch clean linen or inform a scholar that he would be sharing a room of three this year instead of two.
‘I’m here for the principal,’ she would announce, to anyone who would listen. It sounded as important as for the King.
And she tried hard not to look down at the rolled-up linen she had stuffed in the front of her breeches. Just in case anyone glanced below her waist.
Late in the day, she was wishing she could scratch the place between her legs where the linen roll had shifted when two scholars appeared at the door.
When he saw them, Duncan dropped his principal’s demeanour. He embraced the taller man, slapping his back, then broke and put up his fists to engage the shorter, stockier man in a mock battle.
Here again, at last, was the exuberant man she had met on the road. She blinked at the transformation. These men must be special to him. She eyed them carefully, trying not to call her interest jealousy.
‘Oust fettal?’
‘Ahreet, marra. Owz it gan?’
‘Bay gud!’
Her ear had learned to follow Duncan’s tongue, but she could not understand this babble. They spoke the tongue of the north, though she thought she caught a Latin word or two.
‘Come,’ Duncan said, finally, ‘the house is settled for the day. Let’s celebrate before the term starts and the beadles start patrolling the alehouses.’
‘Get your gittern,’ the shorter one said.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, without waiting for permission, and ran up to Duncan’s room.
As she came down the stairs, cradling the precious instrument, the shorter man, with reddish hair, turned. ‘And who’s this?’
Duncan glanced over his shoulder. ‘That’s Little John,’
She stuck out her chin and her hand.
He took it, seeing her as Duncan did, blind to the girl beneath the tunic. ‘Henry. Of Warcop.’
The taller one had stooped shoulders, thinning hair and a narrow face. ‘Geoffrey of Carlisle.’ He turned back to Duncan. ‘Opening a grammar school, eh?’
Duncan sighed. ‘It’s a story to share over a tankard.’ She handed him the gittern, careful not to brush his fingers. He barely glanced at her. ‘Come. I want the news from home.’
She cleared her throat, then coughed.
‘Well, come along then, whelp,’ Duncan said over his shoulder as they walked out of the door.
She scampered after them and kept her mouth shut as they settled around a corner table and sipped their ale.
She studied them as if they were a Latin lesson, these friends of Duncan’s, sprawled around the table. Each staked a space with his elbows. She glanced below. While her knees were neatly matched, their legs were spread wide.
Opposite her, Duncan’s legs were as wide as if he had mounted a horse. She let her knees fall apart a hand’s breadth. The linen roll slipped lower and wedged between her legs. She snapped her knees together and glanced up, quickly, but no one was watching.
She put her elbow on the table and leaned on her forearm, carving herself a few more inches of the tabletop. It brought her within touching distance of Duncan. She tightened her fingers, but didn’t pull back. She would not shrink in the corner like a girl.
Below, out of sight, she crossed her legs.
‘This dry-bellied goat’s betrothed,’ Henry began, nodding at Geoffrey, then swatting the serving woman.
The woman assessed him with a look he didn’t see, but her eyes met Jane’s as she set the other tankards on the table.
Jane looked down, as if fascinated by the oat flake floating in the golden brew.
‘I can scarce believe it,’ Duncan said. ‘I thought you’d stay here long enough to become chancellor.’
‘What could a woman like Mary see in you?’ Henry said.
Jane blinked, wondering where she could duck when the first blow was thrown.
Instead, Geoffrey laughed. ‘You’re just jealous no woman will look at you unless you pay her.’
Shocked, Jane watched Henry grin. It was a foreign tongue, this language men spoke among themselves, harder to decipher than the dialect. An insult might be cause for a fight or a smile, depending on whose lips spoke it. And how.
‘You’re giving the lad the wrong impression of me,’ Geoffrey said.
‘Because you’ve foolishly fallen into a woman’s clutches?’ Henry said.
Next to her, Duncan shook his head. ‘You’re the lucky one, Geoffrey. Betrothed to a woman from a good family who thinks you’re the earth’s master.’ He lifted his mug in a toast.
He had never spoken of marriage before. Was there a note of longing in his voice? No, she thought not. He had taken an oath to teach here, in this world without women.
‘And she’ll wait for you?’ Henry asked.
Geoffrey sighed. ‘Until next spring. When the year’s over, I’ll have earned a master’s. Then I can make my way clerking in Carlisle, eh?’
‘If Carlisle is still there.’ Duncan’s voice was grim.
Geoffrey and Henry exchanged glances. ‘Sorry,’ Geoffrey said.
‘About your fadder,’ Henry added.
His father? He had said nothing of his father. ‘What about him?’
All three looked at her and she wished she had not asked.
‘Scots took him,’ Duncan answered, finally. ‘And they want a fine ransom before they’ll send him back.’ Then he shook his head, which seemed to mean don’t talk about it.
He turned back to Geoffrey and Henry. ‘And yours?’ he asked.
‘The city’s walls are strong,’ Geoffrey answered.
‘Spared,’ Henry said. ‘They turned back just north of us.’
‘Pickering thinks I can persuade Parliament to supply the troops and taxes we need.’ Duncan swallowed a sigh along with his ale. ‘And the ransom money as well.’
Her eyes widened in awe. So the fate of his father and his homeland now rested on his shoulders. No wonder he furrowed his brow. She wished she could bring back his laugh.
‘You can do it,’ Geoffrey said. ‘You’ve a nightingale’s tongue, eh?’
‘It shouldn’t take a clever tongue,’ he answered. ‘The truth should be enough.’
No one answered him. Even Jane knew that truth was seldom enough.
Geoffrey turned to her. ‘You’re not from the north, are you, Little John?’
She shook her head. ‘Bedford.’ The answer came easier now.
‘Second son?’ Henry again.
Duncan answered for her. ‘Little John’s an orphan.’
‘I’ve only a sister.’ There were no first-born sons at Cambridge. The oldest brother would get the land. For the rest, the choice was war, university or the church. She must invent another tale to explain why she would not have the family land. ‘The lord took back the castle.’
Duncan looked at her sharply. She had not mentioned a castle or a sister before. ‘Until you’re of age?’ Did Duncan’s question sound suspicious?
‘No. It’s, uh, my injury.’
She waited for questions, but no one asked. Duncan was studying her, assessing. She dropped her eyes to her lap, uncrossed her legs and stretched them out beneath the table, knees still tight together.
Perhaps she needed to tell a longer story to be convincing.
‘You see,’ she began, ‘a horse kicked me, when I was six—’
‘No, John. You don’t have to—’ Duncan’s voice had an urgency to it. His palm covered her arm. Her blood ran faster.
She held her ground. She must explain, create an excuse, some reason that she was not like them. ‘Right here, in the ribs.’ She pulled her arm away to show them. ‘And they never healed properly, so I cannot wield a sword…’
Her words trailed off. Geoffrey and Henry stared at their ale, but Duncan had burst into an inexplicable grin. ‘Just your ribs, you say?’
‘And around there. I’ve got to keep them wrapped and sometimes, when it’s damp, they ache—’
Suddenly, Duncan yelled, ‘Gurn!’
Jane jumped. Was it a warning? Danger? Should they run?
But instead, the three men started making faces. Distorted, silly, grotesque faces.
She sipped her ale, wide-eyed. Finally, all three ugly faces froze. Then, Duncan and Geoffrey pointed at Henry and they all laughed and Henry raised his hand for the alewife.
Jane felt as if she were five again, watching the fearsome beasts prowl their cages in the Tower menagerie, unable to decipher their wild behaviour. ‘What was that?’
They answered in chorus, ‘Gurning.’
‘What’s that?’
Now, they stared as if she were the odd one.
‘Making faces.’
‘The worse, the better.’
‘Worst one buys the next round.’
‘Ah.’ She nodded as if what they said made sense. She had expected men to be serious, not silly.
‘Although,’ Geoffrey said, ‘now that Duncan is principal, he’s too dignified to win.’
‘Or he just doesn’t want to pay up,’ Henry added, as he gave the returning alewife a coin.
Duncan’s smile was indulgent. ‘Don’t they do this where you come from?’
She shook her head. In the world of women, no one made ugly faces for fun.
A girl must be pretty and nice and smile, no matter what her feelings. Feelings might be shared with other women, but in front of a man a woman was always pleasant.
Men, it seemed, had different rules.
She suspected Duncan had called the challenge to stop her from saying any more about her injury. In a man’s world, it seemed, wearing ugly faces was acceptable, but sharing something painful and personal was not.
She threw down the gauntlet. ‘Gurn.’
Jane sucked in her cheeks, crossed her eyes, lifted her elbows like a scarecrow, then looked to see what the others had done.
Henry and Geoffrey were pointing at her and she couldn’t help but grin.
Duncan, however, was not. ‘Cheat!’ he said. ‘He used his arms. It’s face only.’
She stuck her tongue out at him, suddenly hoping she hadn’t won. She had few farthings to spend on ale.
‘Challenger pays!’ Geoffrey called out, waving for another round.
Duncan shrugged and nodded.
She smiled. A game, she reminded herself. It was only a game. But she had played it like a man.
They did not leave until several rounds later, after a number of choruses of a drinking song Duncan seemed to know well. Jane hummed along to the refrain, a series of nonsense syllables, suitable to be sung late at night when the singers could no longer remember the words.
They stumbled back to the hostel on dark streets. Jane thought she might fly. She had been accepted in the company of men. In front of her, Henry sang loudly enough to wake the dead.
Beside her, Duncan tried to sound stern. ‘Shut yer maup. You’ll bring the beadles down on us with your bellowing.’
Geoffrey was trying to shush him, too, but he could no longer pronounce ‘shush’.
Then, ahead of them, she saw a woman, no older, surely, than Jane herself. A girl, then.
‘Here, wench,’ Henry yelled. ‘Do you like my song?’
She waved, but didn’t stop. ‘Not tonight.’
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘I asked you a question.’
She kept walking.
‘I’d ignore you if I were her,’ Duncan said, reaching out to pull him back. ‘You sound like a croaking toad.’
But Henry was not to be dissuaded. ‘Answer me!’ he called.
He wrenched his arm from Duncan, then ran ahead and grabbed the girl, pushing her against a wall. The others moved in, Jane with them, close enough to recognise the serving woman from the alehouse.
No decent woman would be out alone.
Jane saw both fright and anger in her stance.
The anger won. ‘You all sound like toads to me.’
‘Hey!’ Geoffrey said, stumbling towards her. ‘Don’t insult my friends.’
‘Kiss her, Geoffrey!’ Henry said, pushing him at the girl. ‘Your betrothed won’t know.’
‘That’s enough.’ Duncan said. ‘If we rouse the Proctor, I’ll have to explain this all to the Chancellor.’
But Henry was beyond persuasion. ‘Don’t worry. She’s got enough kisses for all of us.’
Gittern in one hand, Duncan reached for Henry, but Geoffrey lurched towards the girl, stumbling into her, holding her against the wall.
Jane’s throat ached to scream no. What had turned her happy comrades into monsters who thought a woman would welcome their drunken kisses? ‘Don’t! Stop!’
‘Don’t worry, Little John.’ Henry tumbled to his knees, still laughing, nearly bringing Duncan down. The gittern strings jangled. ‘You’ll get your turn.’
The thought churned her belly. All the ale that had lain peacefully a few moments before rose up in protest. She doubled over and spewed the contents of her stomach on to the dusty street.
A hand, Duncan’s, rubbed her back, the motion steadying.
Still sitting in the dirt, Henry laughed. ‘That’s a good time for the lad.’
She squeezed her eyes, but that made her dizzy. Barely able to stand, she swayed closer to Duncan, but she wanted to flail them all. How could these men, scholars, treat a woman so? Even Geoffrey, near married and the gentlest of them, had joined in. Only Duncan had made a protest. Was that for fear of the watch or for care of the girl?
‘Come on, you oafs.’ Duncan’s voice rumbled in her ear. ‘I’ve trouble enough keeping us in the Chancellor’s good graces without an affray in the street. Leave her.’
When she opened her eyes, the girl was gone. Henry, barely noticing he’d been deprived of his kiss, staggered to his feet, and resumed his song. She took one shaky step and Geoffrey came to her other side.
Duncan held him back. ‘I’ve got him. He’s too kalied to walk.’
And she felt herself lifted into his arms.
Cradled against him, she cherished the rise and fall of his chest against her cheek and caught the scent of his skin, a warm, steadying whiff of juniper.
Geoffrey’s voice came from close beside her. ‘I’ll take him for a while if you like.’
‘He weighs no more than a grown ewe,’ Duncan answered, in his northern lilt. ‘I’d toss him over me shoulder, but he’s likely to bowk down me back.’
She stiffened, unable to relax in his arms. What if she had been discovered on the street when she’d been searching for a bed?
What if she were discovered now?
The thought made her stomach rebel again, but she pursed her lips to quell the rumble.
Henry had quieted by the time they returned to the hall. He and Geoffrey helped each other up the stairs.
She wiggled against Duncan. ‘Put me down.’
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded and he swung her on to the first step. She lifted her foot and tripped.
He sighed. ‘Come on, then. I’ll put you to bed.’
He reached to scoop her up again and she put up her hands. ‘I can do it myself.’ Even to her ears, she sounded like a petulant child.
‘I’m sure you can,’ he answered, his voice patient and soft, ‘but it will be easier if I help.’
She slapped his hand away, stumbling backwards to land hard on the step. ‘No!’ Would he ignore her protest, as they had ignored that girl’s?
He leaned against the wall, weary. ‘I’m too tired for your foolishness. Now let me put you to bed, Little John, and we can all get some sleep. I’ve got to open St Michael’s door for prime mass tomorrow and I’ve no patience for this.’
He reached for her, but she kicked and slapped, not knowing where her blows landed. Fear blurred her vision. What would he do if he uncovered the woman under Little John’s clothes? Would he hold her against a wall and demand a kiss?
Or something worse?
Her heel connected with his ribs and her elbow with his ear. ‘No!’ she shrieked. Loud enough to wake the house.
‘Enough!’ He held up his hands. ‘Take yourself to bed then. And don’t whine to me tomorrow about how you bowked your guts out all night.’
She clambered to her feet, then abruptly sat again as her stomach started spinning. ‘Don’t need your help.’ A man could do things by himself. ‘I’ll be better by the morning.’
He shook his head as she walked herself up the stairs on her bottom. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I expect you’ll be worse.’
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