The Wicked and the Just by J. Anderson Coats Page A

and sown with splinters. They hang limp at his sides like some lord’s kill.
    He should be wearing rings. Sitting at the dais of Pencoed and riding the land his by right. He is not, though, and he’ll not be. Not now. Not ever.

    Â 
    Â 

    N ICHOLAS IS LEAVING for Wallingford. I drag my feet while walking him to the door. “You’ll come back soon, will you not?”
    â€œIf I can, lass, but my lord has little business here.”
    I study my felt shoes and swallow hard. The house is so much fuller with him in it, belches, bootsteps, and all.
    Nicholas smiles suddenly, lighting up like a Candlemas altar. “I nearly forgot to tell you the joyous news, Cesspool. Alice de Baswell is wedding Adam Baker at Lammas.
Your
Alice! The mousy little thing got herself a husband, can you believe?”
    She’ll have flowers in her hair and her mother will make her the loveliest gown and away she’ll go with her comely new husband and I’ll miss the whole thing. The ceremony at the church door and the bride ale and the bedding revels. Alice, who sings like an angel and taught me to cheat at tables.
    And here’s me, adrift in the wilderness without half a yardland in dowry and waiting for the Crusader sun to finish off my uncle so I can go home.
    Nicholas is still grinning like a halfwit, as if he’s paid me some sort of favor, so I make myself smile. “Godspeed.” I squeeze his forearm. “Ride safe.”
    He yanks my plait with one hand and unties my apron with the other. Then he winks and he’s out the door, down Shire Hall Street. Ere long he’s just one of the crowd, and I lean against the doorframe watching all the strangers go by.
    Â 
    An affeerer for borough court comes to the house to remind my father that I’m due in Court Baron for my offense against the levelooker Pluver.
    My father stabs me with a quick glare and tells the affeerer that we’ll be there.
    It’s cruel for my father to throw that incident back at me. It’s dustier than Adam.
    When the affeerer is gone, I slam down my spindle and huff. My father pulls out a whetstone and his meat-knife, so I huff again, louder.
    Finally he gets the hint. My father is truly not the brightest-eyed dog in the pack. He sighs and asks, “What is it, sweeting?”
    â€œIf I’m to be dragged into court and humiliated, I’d have some justice for my own loss.”
    â€œAnd what would that be?” He shings the blade down the stone and doesn’t even look at me.
    â€œThe merchant kept the altar cloth I gave him for surety,” I reply indignantly. “That’s thievery.”
    My father snorts. “Sweeting, I’m more worried about our future right now than about a strip of linen you embroidered. We’ll discuss it after Court Baron. I want no trouble with the law here. Especially not ere I’ve taken the oath.”
    â€œBut Papa, they’ll—”
    â€œLook at it this way, sweeting,” my father cuts in. “A burgess of Caernarvon has a better chance than a foreigner of getting your whatsit back. Does he not?”
    It’s very annoying when he has a point. I’ve no liking for his thinking he might be right too often. But I say naught, kiss his prickly cheek, and pick up my spindle, because I want my altar cloth back more than I want to be right.
    Â 
    Court Baron is held in the churchyard. My father holds my elbow firmly as if I’ll flee. He’s in a foul humor. It’s as if
he’s
the one who was provoked into slandering a borough official, who was roughly treated and spoken to unkindly by small-minded brutes.
    There’s a big crowd around the portal of Saint Mary’s down at the end of Church Street. At the top of the steps is a trestle, and sitting at it are two men. One I recognize as the bailiff from Justice Court. The other is as sun-browned as the guide who brought us here, and looks like a mouthful of vinegar.
    I