Finding Kate Read online

  The first man fell silent, resentment pouring off him even through the thick foliage. “There must be some way to get to her,” he said at last, urgency in his every word. “We can go to her father, sell him something, meet her that way.”

  “Your father has all the wares and all the authority,” the other man replied. “You have nothing to sell.”

  There was a thud and a yelp as a blow was thrown and landed. “You needn’t remind me,” said the first fellow. “If you’re so smart, you think of something. What does a rich man need?”

  I could tell him what my father needed. He needed to unload his unwanted older daughter. I opened my eyes and for a wild moment I contemplated pushing my way through the holly and taking out all my frustrations on these unfeeling young men.

  “Kathryn!”

  The voice of Ellen Brewer cut through my nascent thoughts of violence and pulled me away from the holly thicket. Reluctantly, I dragged my feet the short distance to where Ellen stood by the ancient rowan tree in front of her parents’ inn. The stout, solid place had been maintained with pride by her family since brave King Henry, fifth of that name, took his armies blazing through France and brought home a queen some seventy years ago. It had bedchambers for six guests but was mostly frequented by visitors to the common room below where her father served two kinds of ale and his famous hard cider. The inn—my steps grew decidedly less reluctant as I remembered the giant war horse and its handsome owner. Perhaps Ellen knew something of him if he was a guest.

  “Good morrow, Ellen,” I said, trying to make my voice as friendly as possible and shake off the lingering bitterness from overhearing the two men.

  Ellen quirked a half smile that showed more of relief than real pleasure. “I thought surely you’d be caught spying on those two men,” she said. “What were you thinking?”

  I drew breath to snap back at Ellen in my own defense, then thought the better of it. In this town of some one hundred souls, Ellen was the only one whom I could count as a friend.

  “I was strolling by myself. I can’t help it if they choose to have a conversation out in the open where anyone can hear,” I replied.

  She swallowed a sound and I knew she wanted to scold me. But meek, timorous Ellen also had few friends in town and so we were always careful of what we said to each other. Any moment, the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued matrons would spy us together and launch their word-arrows at our backs.

  And they called me “shrew.”

  “What news, Ellen?” I asked, trying to deflect the stream of my thoughts.

  “Have you heard about the visitors at our inn?”

  “Visitors? More than one?”

  Ellen gave a sly smile. “Indeed. Two wealthy gentlemen arrived last night and paid for a week’s stay.”

  “Wealthy gentlemen?” If she was implying something about their eligibility, that was the kind of gossip that delighted Blanche, not me. Still, the man with the massive red horse…. “Merchants come through our town all the time on their way to bigger and better places. Why do these men matter more than any of them?”

  “The gentlemen are unmarried.”

  Ah. Unmarried, and staying for a week in our town. Suddenly the conspiracy behind the holly bushes began to make sense. One of these wealthy fellows wanted to court Blanche without his father’s interference and didn’t want to heed his friend’s sensible advice.

  I gave a little toss of my head. “Let everyone get in a dither about it, but the news can make no matter to me.”

  “I would not be so sure,” she said, her tone dark.

  “What can you mean?” I demanded.

  She opened her mouth to speak but snapped it shut and shook her head. Instead, she grabbed hold of my arm and pushed me forward. “Kathryn!” she hissed urgently in my ear. I turned toward her, my eyes demanding an explanation. “Your father,” she whispered.

  From across the green, my father’s gaze upon me rang like a blacksmith’s hammer, sharp and fierce. He made a small movement with one hand, summoning me to his side. I stamped my foot in frustration. I had not had a chance yet to ask Ellen about the man with the red horse. “Later, Ellen, we must continue this conversation.”

  She nodded but was already slipping away. No one wanted to be between me and my father’s anger.

  I hurried to Father’s side and dipped him a curtsy.

  “Kathryn,” he said, his teeth tight. “Please, join us.”

  The men exchanged a glance as dismal as their garb. Master Hover, a white-haired wisp, picked up the dropped thread of their conversation. “As I was saying, I thought the quality of strawberries Old Ballard brought to market last week was not up to his usual standard.”

  The others nodded gravely.

  “There is talk,” another man put in, “that a certain merchant on Church Street is putting his finger on the balances.” He raised his eyebrows significantly, and they all harrumphed. For this, Father had summoned me from my friend?

  The men and their strawberries. The women and their sleeves. Babies and balances.

  Oh, it was exhausting, and there was no respite in sight. But rather than let loose the howl of frustration that welled inside of me, I chose the only outlet I ever had in this company: words.

  “Taedēre,” I said brightly. Latin. Taedēre: Infinitive. To be weary.

  Of course none of them understood me. “Taedeō, taedui.” I am weary, I was weary. I smiled around the circle of befuddled men, having a little more fun with the Latin conjugation. This bores me: “Taedet mē.”

  Father turned his face toward me, his eyes flashing with anger. He took a firm hold of my elbow, squeezing so hard my fingers tingled. “What did you say?”

  “I was just thinking, Father,” I lied, “of a book I have been reading at home. Would you be terribly unhappy if I went home to fetch it? It is one of Madame Christine de Pisan’s books, very edifying for a young woman to read….”

  Before he could answer, portly Master Horton, a merchant whose balding pate made him look older than his nine-and-twenty years, waddled over to join our group. I shifted as far as my father’s restraining hand would allow, to avoid the odor of unwashed skin that preceded him.

  “Good morrow, Master Mulleyn,” Master Horton said, bowing low before my father. Father nodded to him, a king acknowledging a subject. Thankfully, his grip eased with the movement. “I come to offer you news of some import, which I hope and trust will please you.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “What is it, Master Horton?”

  Before he could speak, another wealthy merchant shouldered his way into the group. Tall and slender as a birch tree and with wits just as hard, Master Greenwood was a wool merchant whose graying temples showed that his age was closer to my father’s than to mine. He had been sniffing at Blanche’s skirts since she came of age, but Father did not shoo him away because of his great wealth.

  “Master Mulleyn, good morrow,” he said in his slow, sonorous way.

  “Excuse me, Master Greenwood,” Master Horton said, his mouth pursed like he was eating lemons. “I was speaking with Master Mulleyn.”

  The other aldermen murmured to each other and bowed themselves away.

  Father preened and waved a hand at them. “I pray you, do speak, Master Horton. Share your news. I am sure it will be of interest to Master Greenwood as well.”

  Master Greenwood raised his thick, silvery eyebrows, like caterpillars crawling up into his hair. “News? Perhaps it is the same news I wish to impart.”

  “I was here first, Master Greenwood, so you will do me the courtesy—”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, just speak!”

  Three pairs of eyes turned upon me. Master Horton gaped like a fish, opening his mouth once, twice. Father renewed his grip on my elbow but said nothing. I shook my head and looked down at the ground.

  Master Horton spoke at last. “News. Yes, the news is that there are two gentlemen lodging at the inn since last night.”

  There was silence, a
nd I looked up.

  Father was glaring down at Master Horton. “While this is, of course, interesting, why would you think this would be of particular interest to me, Master Horton?”

  Master Greenwood smirked, well satisfied that he had not, after all, been the one to deliver the news.

  “B-B-Because they are young gentlemen, Master Mulleyn, and unmarried.” He looked significantly at me.

  “What are you suggesting, sir?” I leaned forward, heedless of my father’s fingers digging into me, skin and bone.

  “Why, nothing out of turn, I assure you,” he said, giving a nervous smile and half bow to my father. As if he did not owe the courtesy, and the apology, to me.

  “What Master Horton may have intended to convey,” Master Greenwood said, dragging his words out by the scruffs of their necks, “is that these fine, upstanding gentlemen, newly arrived, do not know what prizes Whitelock, and Master Mulleyn’s home in particular, have to offer to a man who is seeking a wife. Thus may your family expect to receive happy offers in the near future. This, at least, was the message I was bringing to you, Master Mulleyn.”

  Father frowned slightly, trying to parse his meaning. “You gentlemen both understand that I will entertain no offers of marriage for Blanche until Kathryn is married. I will not do her that dishonor.”

  My cheeks blazed. I was standing beside him, and he would speak of me this way!

  “Of course, of course.” Master Horton was quick to agree, then glanced across the green at the inn. “But they do not.”

  A slow, vulpine smile spread on my father’s face, chilling my blood. Oh, what was he thinking? “Indeed, indeed, Master Horton. And are you not looking for a bride?”

  His eyes darted from my father’s face to mine. He licked his lips. “Oh, aye, but one of a mild and gentle temper. Not….” He scanned me up and down, just as the matrons had earlier, from the modest lace veil over my hair to the wooden pattens covering my silk slippers. “Not one such as this.”

  Chilled I may have been a moment before, but Horton roused me to instant fury. I wrenched my arm from my father’s grasp. “A man like you will be lucky to get any woman, much less a woman such as me, but any woman so cursed as to have you for a husband would be wise to treat you like the fool you are and dress you in motley and make you dance for her!”

  Horton gasped and staggered backward as though I had struck him in the face, which, nails digging into palms, I sorely wished to do. “Harpy!” he sputtered. “She-devil!”

  Father took hold of my arm and jerked me away from the men. Master Greenwood once again looked pleased with the turn events had taken.

  “Kathryn,” Father said, “perhaps you had best go home.”

  I was panting, drawing in quick, sharp breaths that felt like sobs. There was no escape, no matter how I longed for it. Like God’s own kingdom, this was how it always had been, always was, and ever would be, world without end, amen.

  Nay, it would not be forever.

  Father would lose patience, Blanche would marry, and I would be humiliated.

  I would live and die an old maid.

  I would always be alone.

  On my way home from church, I strode with arms swinging, blazing with fury at Master Horton. Of all the unfeeling, ill-mannered, rude, insufferable…. And I was the one they called a shrew! I was the one they looked down upon for speaking out of turn? For speaking the truth, more like! I nearly walked out of my pattens, so quickly was I flying down the street.

  A rowdy group of scrawny boys dashed past me through potholes and cart tracks in pursuit of an equally scrawny dog, their feet throwing up mud and manure onto my skirt. “Oh fie,” I cried. “Watch where you go!” They laughed and jeered, and one lad, saucier than the rest, called over his shoulder, “She-devil!” which set them off into renewed jollity at my expense. I muttered a few choice words at their retreating backs and knelt to consider the damage to my dress.

  “Excuse me,” said a voice as I tried in vain to rub out the wettest of the muck.

  “What?” I snapped, in no mood to treat with anyone.

  “You are in the street.”

  I paused in my rubbing, surprised by the audacity. I looked up, but the sun was behind him like a halo. All I could tell was that he was tall, for I was looking up a long way, and fair, for the sun painted his hair gold like a field of barley. It stuck up in front like barley straw too.

  I flung my arm out to the side. “This is a broad thoroughfare, sir. There is plenty of room for you to pass me by.”

  And I bent back to scrubbing at my skirt.

  The well-made but well-worn boots I could see just at the edge of my vision did not move. “My lady,” he said, “forgive me, but you appear to be in some distress.”

  “Now why would you say that?”

  “My lady.” Hands on mine, stilling them. I jumped, almost jerking back; it was so strange, so unaccustomed. I raised my eyes, my insides all a-jumble. He had knelt before me and was peering at my face. Like a blow to the gut, his face, this close, knocked the breath out of me. He was handsome, the finest man I’d ever seen. My heart began to pound and I couldn’t stop my smile. He returned it.

  With gentle pressure on my hands, he lifted me from my crouch and helped me to rearrange my skirts. My fingers, released from his, felt empty. Flustered, I tried to stop him, our hands bumping together until at last we faced each other—me red-faced and staring, him grinning—in the street.

  I fought for something to say, but all words seemed to have fled from my tongue.

  He bowed low, one leg extended and arms wide, as if I were a fine lady at the royal court and not a merchant’s daughter in a bedraggled dress.

  I returned my best curtsy: back straight, head bowed, and knees bent deep.

  In the midst of the rutted, filthy street, with mud puddles and piles of horse manure all around.

  Chapter 2

  At home, I headed upstairs toward my bedchamber. On the second landing, I paused outside the big bedroom, listening with one ear to the door and trying to decide whether the heavy breathing meant that Blanche’s enormous mother was still asleep or merely lying abed. Our ladies’ maid Margaret came down the stairs, humming under her breath. When she started to greet me, I held a finger to my lips to silence her. I didn’t want her to rouse the Mountain—for so I called Blanche’s mother, in my mind if not out loud—if indeed she still slept. Margaret nodded and pointed to the mess on my skirt. I rolled my eyes and gestured her to precede me back up the stairs to change.

  Margaret took her time lacing up the new kirtle, pretending she could not find the matching pale blue sleeves, letting me fume all the while about the filth on the gray one I had worn to church that morning, refusing to respond to my complaints that Mistress Blanche had a dozen fine kirtles or more to choose from, sweeping the veil from my hair and replacing it with a small cap more suitable for at home…. Thanks to Margaret, I had calmed down considerably by the time Father and Blanche returned home, looking satisfied as well-fed hogs.

  Father’s manservant Andrew closed the thick double doors behind them, shutting out the midsummer heat. Blanche sighed as the cooler air struck her skin, sliding into the nearest chair. Despite having been outside in wilting heat, she looked as fresh as a flower at dawn. How did she manage it?

  “Andrew, small beer,” she said, waving a hand at him.

  “At once, mistress,” he said, disappearing through the archway at the back of what Father pompously liked to call the “great hall,” the large central room of our main level. Immense tapestries lined the walls, woven with scenes of beautifully dressed folk engaged in noble pursuits like hunting and dancing. Furniture filled every empty space, tables and sideboards and cabinets carved from rich, dark wood, and every flat surface was adorned with ornaments and serving pieces of silver, pewter, and glass. At the far end of the hall was a fireplace of imported marble. Nothing was too expensive—or ostentatious—for my father. He was the wealthiest man in town and wanted to
be sure everyone knew it.

  My sister, in her kirtle of crimson brocade trimmed in golden silk ribbons and frothy lace, was his most precious ornament.

  Leaving my book on a chair, I attempted to creep back up the front stairs without being seen.

  “Ah, Kathryn, I’m glad you are here. I must speak with you.”

  Too late.

  “Yes, Father?” I went and stood before him, the dutiful daughter with hands clasped in front of me, eyes downcast. The rich nap of his velvet doublet gleamed in the sun slanting down through high windows.

  “All your life,” he said, “you have run wild, giving voice to your thoughts without restraint.”

  “I speak my mind, Father. There is no wrong in that.”

  “There is, when the world calls you a shrew and a she-devil.”

  I could no longer keep my head down. “The world is full of fools like Master Horton. I cannot control what they call me.”

  “Kathryn!”

  Blanche could scarcely contain her snort of amusement. In her seat behind his left elbow, she smiled at me, shaking her head in mock pity.

  I dragged my eyes from her and returned my stare to the tips of Father’s soft, pointed-toe shoes. He drew a deep breath, pulling his thoughts back to what he had prepared to say.

  “Until now,” he said at last, “your reputation has harmed no one but yourself, for you have shown no interest in marriage and Blanche has been too young for me to consider it.”

  I gaped at him. I showed no interest…? “Of course I want to get married! I won’t marry a fool and I won’t marry because I must, but, Father, I am not unnatural. I want—” My cheeks heated and I covered them with my hands. I was not going to stand in front of them and reveal my deepest desires, what I longed for in the dark of night, what I feared I would never find among the boors and buffoons that paraded through our town.

  He simply spoke over me. “Everything has changed; surely you must realize that everything has changed, now that Blanche is of an age to be married. You heard what Master Horton said: there are gentlemen newly come to town, which means an opportunity for Blanche to marry soon and to marry well, and she cannot do so if you persist in your unseemly behavior.”