Bone of Contention by Roberta Gellis

for some other cause, who would manage the country? Who beside Salisbury and his son and nephews understood the exchequer? The sheriffs were all Salisbury’s appointees. Who else would they obey?
    Finally Diccon had no more to tell and Magdalene let him go. She repeated the significant pieces of information to herself to commit them to memory so she could tell William, although she doubted anything would be new to him except that the Soft Nest was being used as a place of meeting. And then she wondered if he knew even that, and had summoned her for that reason.
    Even as she arranged what she must say in her mind, she felt uneasy and restless, as if she should be doing something more than sitting in a chair. She looked at her hands, resting idly on the table, conscious that something was missing—and then she burst out laughing and let out an exasperated sigh. In the chaos of getting ready to leave, and with Bell in her bed and taking up all her attention her last night in Southwark, she had forgotten to pack her embroidery.
    The windows showed it was still light, and Magdalene was about to go out and buy herself the wherewithal to work when Florete came to the door. Business would be slow for a little while, she told Magdalene, if she were allowed to leave the door open so she could watch the men come and go in the corridor, she would like to stay and talk over old times. Magdalene was only too happy to accommodate her, and the two women exchanged gossip and renewed a friendship dimmed by time and distance.
    Moreover, Florete confirmed everything that Diccon had told Magdalene. “What will happen?” she asked anxiously. “I have good arrangements with the sheriff’s men in Oxford and with the bishop’s people too. Is everything going to be changed? Will I have to pay double bribes?”
    “I don’t know,” Magdalene confessed. “I only know that William is worried, which is why he sent for me. My bishop is safe—he is the king’s brother and the papal legate, too.” She sighed. “All I can say is that if too much trouble overtakes you, come to me in Southwark. There is room for a house like this one—not so pricey as mine, but decent and well managed.”
    “Thank you, love,” Florete said, getting up. “I hope it never comes to that, but I will remember.”
    * * * *
    The afternoon shadows were long now and clients who wanted to be finished before Vespers were coming in. After dusk there would be another busy time, as those men who planned to stay the night arrived. Florete returned to her post at the entrance, and Magdalene went about placing torchettes in the holders on the wall. She took one of the night candles from the stick near the bed on the right-hand wall and set it on the table, reminding herself to ask Florete for a branch of candle holders when there were fewer men around. She would need the light if she bought embroidery materials the next morning. For now she sighed with boredom and wished that William had gotten her message and would be able to come.
    That wish was granted. The bells of St. Friedesweide were just ringing for Vespers when William of Ypres came striding into the Soft Nest, never stopping at Florete’s table, and bellowing, “Heyla Chickie, where are you?”
    Florete signaled urgently to her men to sit still as six men in helmets and boiled leather armor followed their master through the door, but she sighed with relief when Magdalene flung open the door to the back room and ran forward into William’s bearlike embrace.
    “Perfect!” he exclaimed, peering cautiously into her chamber, then pushing her back into the room and slamming the door behind him with his heel.
    “I’m so glad you approve,” she replied, voice laced with irony, “since I haven’t the faintest idea where else to go.”
    He gave her a rib-bending, affectionate hug that squeezed the breath out of her, then put her away from him to smile down at her. “I was worried about where you would find a