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  Praise for Karen Brooks

  ‘Gleefully bawdy, delightfully irreverent, this vibrant novel not only invokes empathy for the struggles of women in Chaucer’s times, it resonates with women’s experiences today.’

  —Darry Fraser, bestselling Australian author, on The Good Wife of Bath

  ‘Historian and novelist Brooks shows her research and imaginative chops in a luscious and astonishingly affecting chronicle of family scandal, political unrest, and redemptive hope in 1660s London.’

  —Publishers Weekly on The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

  ‘Brooks masterfully deploys surprising plot twists, deftly pacing the opening of closets to reveal hidden diaries and family skeletons … A charming and smart historical novel from a master storyteller.’

  —Kirkus Reviews on The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

  ‘The Darkest Shore is meticulously researched, taking a real historical event, and [Karen Brooks’] academic experience and merging it with exceptional storytelling. The characters are complex and compelling … a powerful novel, at times brutal, but always enthralling, The Darkest Shore is a major achievement for Karen Brooks.’

  —Better Reading

  ‘Karen Brooks has handled such a dark history with care and empathy … I can’t recommend this one highly enough, it’s a brilliant read.’

  —Theresa Smith Writes on The Darkest Shore

  ‘A compelling, fascinating, and disturbing historical fiction novel … Beautifully written, with authentic characterisation and vivid description … a captivating, even if sometimes confronting, read.’

  —Book’d Out on The Darkest Shore

  ‘… a completely absorbing historical novel.’

  —Other Dreams Other Lives on The Darkest Shore

  ‘Moving, tragic, frustrating and inspiring. The Darkest Shore is yet another triumph from historical specialist Karen Brooks.’

  —Mrs B’s Book Reviews

  ‘Sensual, seductive, bold … A rich indulgence.’

  —Booklist on The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

  ‘The latest from Australian author Brooks is an excellent option for reading groups that enjoy multigenerational tales and historical fiction … Your late middle English vocabulary will be sumptuously rewarded.’

  —Library Journal on The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

  ‘Meticulously researched and historically compelling … this fast-paced novel is a dramatic spy thriller that shines a spotlight on the inner workings of Elizabethan England.’

  —Books + Publishing on The Locksmith’s Daughter

  KAREN BROOKS is the author of fourteen books, an academic of more than twenty years’ experience, a newspaper columnist and social commentator, and has appeared regularly on national TV and radio. Before turning to academia, she was an army officer for five years, and prior to that dabbled in acting.

  She lives in Hobart, Tasmania, in a beautiful stone house with its own marvellous history. When she’s not writing, she’s helping her husband Stephen in his brewstillery, Captain Bligh’s, or cooking for family and friends, travelling, cuddling and walking her dogs, stroking her cats, or curled up with a great book and dreaming of more stories.

  Also by Karen Brooks

  Fiction

  The Brewer’s Tale

  The Locksmith’s Daughter

  The Chocolate Maker’s Wife

  The Darkest Shore

  The Curse of the Bond Riders trilogy

  Tallow

  Votive

  Illumination

  Young Adult Fantasy

  It’s Time, Cassandra Klein

  The Gaze of the Gorgon

  The Book of Night

  The Kurs of Atlantis

  Rifts Through Quentaris

  Non-fiction

  Consuming Innocence

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  This book is for my beloved friend, Kerry Doyle – the best of them.

  She’s a ‘good’ woman as well as ‘wife’ in all the wonderful, multiple, contradictory and complex meanings of that word.

  It’s also a salute to all the wives and women throughout time who’ve been forced, for whatever reason, to endure; who’ve been abused and neglected and punished for their strengths and their weaknesses.

  May your voices be heard as well.

  By God, if women had but written stories

  Like those the clergy kept in oratories,

  More had been written of men’s wickedness

  Than all the sons of Adam could redress.

  —The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Neville Coghill

  The wisest man in the world is one who doesn’t care who’s in charge.

  —Attributed to Ptolemy

  CONTENTS

  Praise

  Also by Karen Brooks

  Prologue: Who Painted the Lion?

  Part One: The Marriage Debt, 1364 to 1386

  The Tale of Husband the First, Fulk Bigod, 1364 to 1369

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Pilgrimage to Canterbury

  The Tale of Husband the Second, Turbet Gerrish, 1370 to 1377

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Pilgrimage to Rome

  The Tale of Husband the Third, Mervyn Slynge, 1378 to 1380

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Pilgrimage to Cologne

  The Tale of Husband the Fourth, Simon de la Pole, 1380 to 1384

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

  The Tale of Husband the Fifth, Jankin Binder, 1385 to 1386

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Pilgrimage to Canterbury

  Part Two: Feme sole, 1387 to 1401

  Weaving A New Life, 1387 to 1391

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Pilgrimage to St Martin’s Le Grand

  Spinning the Bawd’s Tale, 1390 to 1401

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Glossary

  List of Real People in the Novel

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE

  WHO PAINTED THE LION?

  The Swanne, Southwark

  The Year of Our Lord 1406

  In the seventh year of the reign of Henry IV

  My father would oft remark that the day I was born, the heavens erupted in protest. Great clods of ice rained upon poor unsuspecting folk, and the winds were so bitter and cold, those who could remained indoors. Any sod who couldn’t, risked death in the fields along with the shivering, miserable beasts. He didn’t tell me to arouse my guilt, but to remind me to hold up my head and stand proud. I may have been born the daughter of a peasant, but it wasn’t every day a lass could say she made her mark upon the world.

  I came into being on the 21st of April 1352, a day
henceforth known as ‘Black Saturday’ and not because the woman who’d carried me the last nine months died moments before I arrived, casting a ghastly pall over what should have been a celebration.

  The story I grew up with was that my mother’s fate was very nearly my own as, even in death, her womb refused to expel me. It wasn’t until the midwife, seeing the rippling of her stomach as if some devil-sent spawn was writhing within, understood the Grim Reaper had not yet departed the room. He was awaiting another soul to carry forth. Wishing him gone, she snatched his sacred scythe from his gnarly hand and ripped open my mother’s body and, amidst blood and swollen entrails, pulled me forth like a sacrificial offering of old.

  My father, hearing the screams of dismay and fear, forwent the sacred rules of the birthing chamber and burst through the door. Determining that the shade of blue colouring my flesh, whilst it looked fine upon a noblewoman’s mantle, was no colour for a babe to be wearing, hoisted me off the bloodied rushes where the midwife had dropped me and, ordering her to cut the umbilicus, swung me by my ankles, slapping my flesh until it turned a much happier puce.

  Only then did I bawl – loud, long and lusty.

  The midwife promptly fainted; my father gathered me to his chest, laughing and crying while I hollered noisily, competing with the raging storms outside.

  It was decided then and there (or maybe this is something I invented later) that though I was born under the sign of Taurus, I was a child of Mars – a fighter who stared death in the face and scared him witless. Papa declared, and the midwife – who came to at my screams – concurred: the moment I burst into life, the Reaper picked up his robes and fled the room. He even forgot his scythe.

  But Mars was not alone when he blessed me with the blood and spirit of a warrior. Oh no. For while Papa, unaware Mama had died as he tried to soften my cries and sought for something in which to swaddle me, Venus, Mars’s wanton bride, peered over his shoulder. Because she liked what she saw, she leaned forward and placed the sweetest of kisses upon my puckered brow. Not finished, she turned me over and pressed one each upon my peach-like buttocks as well. In doing this, the goddess of love and ruler over all Taureans thrice blessed me with her own deep desires. Desires that lay dormant for many years until they gushed forth, destroying all in their path.

  God was preoccupied tending to my mother’s swiftly departed soul and Papa’s grief. His distraction allowed the pagan gods to claim me – Mars and Venus, Ares and Aphrodite – Roman or Greek, I’m partial to both.

  Christened Eleanor, it was the name I wore for many years before fate forced me to change it. But I’m getting ahead of myself, something I’m inclined to do and pray you’ll forgive me.

  The years went by and the wheel of fortune turned until it forced God – who I swear until then barely acknowledged my presence, for He never heard my prayers – to notice me.

  Before my monthly courses began to flow, my father passed from this earthly realm leaving me in the care of the woman who had elevated him beyond his wildest dreams. The Lady Clarice, a formerly wealthy landowner whose entire family and many servants died during the Botch, hired my father, by then an itinerant brogger who brokered wool for a living, as steward of her neglected sheep and fallow lands. Papa proved worthy of my lady’s faith, increasing her holdings and the quality of her flock. Eternally grateful, or so she said, she made my father promises that, upon his death, she failed to keep. Foremost was that she would care for me if he died – unless you count being taken into service at the manor as caring. I was ten years of age.

  Before handing me over to the housekeeper, Mistress Bertha, my lady imparted some words of wisdom. She told me I’d but one gift, the most valuable thing a woman could own. Misunderstanding her meaning, I waited eagerly for what she was about to bestow. Turns out, I was already in possession of it. My lady was referring to my queynte – my cunt. But, she made sure to emphasise, it was only of worth if it was untouched, pure and virginal. Then, it was an opportunity – something to be used to one day better my situation by marrying well. I was ordered to protect my maidenhead as the Crusaders did the walls of Jerusalem (though, one presumes, with more success).

  From here on, said Lady Clarice, my body would be under siege – from the attentions of men and, much worse, the naturally lascivious thoughts a woman possessed and which I admit were already beginning to take up a great deal of space in my head. According to Father Roman, the village priest, women were the gateway of the devil, insatiable beasts who devoured hapless men with their longings. I recall looking at May, my rather plain and plump friend and fellow-maid, thinking the only kind of man she’d devour would be the cooked kind. Regardless, we women were all cast in the same lustful role, high born, low born and anywhere in the middle. Even me, only recently thrust from childhood.

  Rather than God, it was the man I thought of as The Poet who saved me from falling victim to my naturally lewd nature. At least, that’s how others tell it – especially The Poet. In fact, he’s always taken credit for my story.

  I call him The Poet because that was how he was first introduced to me. Later, I came to know him as someone possessed of many guises: a wondrous spinner of tales, a wine-merchant’s son, a Londoner, John of Gaunt’s lackey, a diplomat, a watcher, a cuckold, even an accused rapist. Eventually, I would come to know him in a very different way.

  Regardless, he was the man who took my tale from me and became its custodian. I want to believe he meant well in committing me to verse, that he sought to rewrite my history in a way that gave me mastery over it. Mayhap, he did that. He also protected me from my sins – not the lustful kind. Despite what you may think, bodily desire doesn’t make the angels cower. Rather, in writing my tale, The Poet sought to shield me from the consequences of my darker deeds by distracting those who would call me to account. For, while folk are titillated and shocked by his portrait, they don’t see me. In retrospect, it was a clever manoeuvre. I never thanked him properly. Perhaps this is what this is – a delayed thank-you as well as a setting to rights of sorts. I confess, there are some versions of me he crafted I quite like and may yet keep. We’ll see.

  Alas, he’s gone, and I’ll never really know exactly why he portrayed me the way he did, with boundless avarice, unchecked lust, vulgarity, overweening pride and more besides.

  The Poet equipped me with every sin.

  Betraying my trust in him, using my secret fears and desires, he exposed my weaknesses – my strengths, too – and turned them into something for others’ amusement. Oh, amused they were – and still are, for I hear them discussing the wanton Alyson, the Wife of Bath and her many flaws. Mind you, they’re a little afeared as well, and I don’t mind that so much. Either way, he’s dead (may God assoil him), and it’s time for me to wrest my tale back and tell it in my own way. As it really happened. And, when my story is complete, you can judge for yourself whose version you prefer: the loud, much-married, lusty woman dressed in scarlet who travelled the world in order to pray at all the important shrines yet learned nothing of humility, questioned divinity, boasted of her conquests and deceits, and demanded mastery over men. Or the imperfect child who grew into an imperfect woman – experienced, foolish and clever too – oft at the same time. Thrice broken, twice betrayed, once murdered and once a murderer, who mended herself time after time and rose to live again in stories and in truth – mostly.

  All this despite five bloody husbands.

  All this, despite the damn Poet.

  PART ONE

  The Marriage Debt

  1364 to 1386

  No sooner than one husband’s dead and gone

  Some other Christian man shall take me on.

  —The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Neville Coghill

  The man is not under the lordship of the woman, but

  the woman is under the lordship of the man.

  [Another writer has added in the margins: ‘Not always’.]

  —From th
e thirteenth-century regulations of the poulterers of Paris, edited by GB Depping, Réglemens sur les arts et métiers de Paris rédigés au 13e siécle et connus sous le nom du Livre des métiers d’Étienne Boileau, 1837

  The Tale of Husband the First, Fulk Bigod

  1364 to 1369

  Wedding’s no sin, so far as I can learn

  Better it is to marry than to burn.

  —The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, translated by Neville Coghill

  ONE

  Noke Manor, Bath-atte-Mere

  The Year of Our Lord 1364

  In the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Edward III

  I stared in dismay at the old man standing in the middle of the room who, as the steward announced me in the coldest of tones, looked as out of place as a whore in a priory. On second thoughts, knowing some of the local sisters, mayhap not. What on God’s good earth was that pariah, Master Fulk Bigod, doing here at Noke Manor, let alone in her ladyship’s solar? His reputation as a peculiar loner who grunted rather than spoke followed him like the stench of his person. A farmer and wool grower, he lived on the outskirts of the village. With four wives already in the grave, it was said he bullied folk until they sold him their daughters or their sheep. Papa never had time for him – not that he was alone in that respect. The man was despised and mostly avoided. By everyone. By me.

  Until now.

  Dear Lord, was this to be my punishment? Was this how I was to pay for my sin? I was going to be sent away and made to work for this man. It was said no servant he hired remained long. They fled the coop once they saw what roosted there. God help me. Though what was I doing requesting aid from the Almighty? It was a priest who got me into this mess in the first place. A mess that saw me locked away in my bedroom and now, days later, dragged before my betters.