Read Online Bone of Contention by Roberta Gellis - Free Book Online

Court, all of them had been driven out to make room for better paying lodgers.
    The seat behind the table was empty, but the whoremistress could not be far because the bullyboy had not risen or called out. Before she stepped up to the table, Magdalene looked down the corridor. Her eyes felt dry and hot and she had a bitter taste in the back of her mouth. The torches had been allowed to gutter out because the open door provided enough light, but the corridor was never really dark.
    Fairs of torches were provided so that anyone traversing the narrow corridor would be forced nearly to touch the curtain-hung doorways that lined it. In those doorways a woman could stand, barely clothed and within easy arm’s length, to smile, move suggestively, even touch in order to entice a man into her room rather than another.
    As she thought it, two women came to lift a curtain. Seeing Bell, they posed and smiled. Magdalene swallowed more bile. She herself had stood in one of those doorways when she served in the Soft Nest. Any man had been free to push her in or walk past her into the small, windowless chamber behind the curtain. When it fell, she had been on her own. If a client thought she asked too much, she would be beaten, and the whoremistress would not interfere. The condition of the tiny chamber and how she protected herself and collected and kept her payment had been up to her. For that privilege, she had paid a penny a night in rent.
    From behind the two closed curtains nearest them came characteristic sounds of sexual engagement—mostly grunts and groans, but Magdalene did hear one masculine laugh and a feminine giggle. At least those were sounds that told of a well-regulated place. There were no thin shrieks of abused children, no screams of agony, no snarls of sadistic rage.
    Magdalene swallowed once more, and walked up to the table. “Is Mistress Florete here?” she asked, speaking English rather than French.
    The man, who had been looking at Bell, expecting him to ask for a chamber or some other accommodation, turned his head to Magdalene. “Out back. She—oh, here she is now.”
    A medium-sized, sturdily built woman was coming down the corridor. Magdalene saw with relief that her shift, which was tied a decent inch above her cleavage and well above the edge of her low-cut gown, was clean and white. The gown itself, a pleasant shade of light green, was also unstained and clean, its folds those of the chest rather than of the bed. Her hair was clean, too, a glossy brown, worn in two thick plaits, one falling over each shoulder.
    As she approached, Magdalene was sorry to see that Florete’s brown eyes had lost their sparkle and were without expression and that her lips had become thin and tightly drawn to give nothing away. But in the next moment, her whole face changed. The eyes brightened and opened wide, the lips softened and tilted upward.
    “Magdalene!” she cried, running forward. “Magdalene! What in the good earth are you doing here?”
    “Not setting up a rival establishment,” Magdalene said, laughing.
    “Nor looking for work,” Florete said, examining Magdalene’s riding dress, which was a soft gray-blue, simple until one noticed the quality of the cloth and took in the elaborate embroidery around neck, sleeves, and hem.
    “No.” Before Magdalene could control it, a shudder passed over her. She suppressed another and smiled. “I have a long tale to tell and a huge favor to ask, but I don’t want to keep Sir Bellamy from his duty any longer than I must. I just wanted to make him known to you so that, if I cannot stay here, I could leave a message for him so he would know where to find me.”
    Florete blinked, looked from one to the other, then smiled at Bell. “I am not likely to forget him.”
    Bell smiled back. “My name is Bellamy of Itchen, and I serve the bishop of Winchester. If any message besides those from Magdalene should be left for me, you will be well rewarded if they come into my hand