Harlequin. Part 11

The two men stopped by the hedge, and Skeat cupped his hands and shouted towards the woods, 'Come on out, you daft b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' Thomas emerged very sheepishly, to be greeted with an ironic cheer from the archers. Skeat regarded him sourly. 'G.o.d's bones, Tom,' he said, 'but the devil did a bad thing when he humped your mother.'

Father Hobbe tutted at Will's blasphemy, then raised a hand in blessing. 'You missed a fine sight, Tom,' he said cheerfully: 'Sir Simon coming home to La Roche, half naked and bleeding like a stuck pig. I'll hear your confession before we go.'

'Don't grin, you stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' Skeat snapped. 'Sweet Christ, Tom, but if you do a job, do it proper. Do it proper! Why did you leave the b.a.s.t.a.r.d alive?'

'I missed.'

'Then you go and kill some poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d squire instead. Sweet Christ, but you're a G.o.dd.a.m.n b.l.o.o.d.y fool.'

'I suppose they want to hang me?' Thomas asked.

'Oh no,' Skeat said in feigned surprise, 'of course not! They want to feast you, hang garlands round your neck and give you a dozen virgins to warm your bed. What the h.e.l.l do you think they want to do with you? Of course they want you dead and I swore on my mother's life I'd bring you back if I found you alive. Does he look alive to you, father?'

Father Hobbe examined Thomas. 'He looks very dead to me, Master Skeat.'

'He b.l.o.o.d.y deserves to be dead, the daft b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

'Did the Countess get safe home?' Thomas asked.

'She got home, if that's what you mean,' Skeat said, 'but what do you think Sir Simon wanted the moment he'd covered up his shrivelled p.r.i.c.k? To have her house searched, Tom, for some armour and a sword that were legitimately his. He's not such a daft fool; he knows you and she were together.' Thomas cursed and Skeat repeated the blasphemy. 'So they pressed her two servants and they admitted the Countess planned everything.'

'They did what?' Thomas asked.

'They pressed them,' Skeat repeated, which meant that the old couple had been put flat on the ground and had stones piled on their chests. 'The old girl squealed everything at the first stone, so they were hardly hurt,' Skeat went on, 'and now Sir Simon wants to charge her ladyship with murder. And naturally he had her house searched for the sword and armour, but they found nowt because I had them and her hidden well away, but she's still as deep in the s.h.i.t as you are. You can't just go about sticking crossbow bolts into knights and slaughtering squires, Tom! It upsets the order of things!'

'I'm sorry, Will,' Thomas said.

'So the long and the brief of it,' Skeat said, 'is that the Countess is seeking the protection of her husband's uncle.' He jerked a thumb at the cart. 'She's in that, together with her bairn, two bruised servants, a suit of armour and a sword.'

'Sweet Jesus,' Thomas said, staring at the cart.

'You put her there,' Skeat growled, 'not Him. And I had the devil's own business keeping her hid from Sir Simon. d.i.c.k Totesham suspects I'm up to no good and he don't approve, though he took my word in the end, but I still had to promise to drag you back by the scruff of your miserable neck. But I haven't seen you, Tom.'

'I'm sorry, Will,' Thomas said again.

'You b.l.o.o.d.y well should be sorry,' Skeat said, though he was exuding a quiet satisfaction that he had managed to clean up Thomas's mess so efficiently. Jake and Sam had not been seen by Sir Simon or his surviving man-at-arms, so they were safe, Thomas was a fugitive and Jeanette had been safely smuggled out of La Roche-Derrien before Sir Simon could make her life into utter misery. 'She's travelling to Guingamp,' Skeat went on, 'and I'm sending a dozen men to escort her and G.o.d only knows if the enemy will respect their flag of truce. If I had a lick of b.l.o.o.d.y sense I'd skin you alive and make a bow-cover out of your hide.'

'Yes, Will,' Thomas said meekly.

'Don't b.l.o.o.d.y "yes, Will" me,' Skeat said. 'What are you going to do with the few days you've got left to live?'

'I don't know.'

Skeat sniffed. 'You could grow up, for a start, though there's probably scant chance of that happening. Right, lad.' He braced himself, taking charge. 'I took your money from the chest, so here it is.' He handed Thomas a leather pouch. 'And I've put three sheaves of arrows in the lady's cart and that'll keep you for a few days. If you've got any sense, which you ain't, then you'd go south or north. You could go to Gascony, but it's a h.e.l.l of a long walk. Flanders is closer and has plenty of English troops who'll probably take you in if they're desperate. That's my advice, lad. Go north and hope Sir Simon never goes to Flanders.'

'Thank you,' Thomas said.

'But how do you get to Flanders?' Skeat asked.

'Walk?' Thomas suggested.

'G.o.d's bones,' Will said, 'but you're a useless worm-eaten piece of lousy meat. Walk dressed like that and carrying a bow, and you might just as well just cut your own throat. It'll be quicker than letting the French do it.'

'You might find this useful,' Father Hobbe intervened, and offered Thomas a black cloth bundle which, on unrolling, proved to be the robe of a Dominican friar. 'You speak Latin, Tom,' the priest said, 'so you could pa.s.s for a wandering preacher. If anyone challenges you, say you're travelling from Avignon to Aachen.'

Thomas thanked him. 'Do many Dominicans travel with a bow?' he asked.

'Lad,' Father Hobbe said sadly, 'I can unb.u.t.ton your breeches and I can point you down wind, but even with the Good Lord's help I can't p.i.s.s for you.'

'In other words,' Skeat said, 'work it out for yourself. You got yourself in this b.l.o.o.d.y mess, Tom, so you get yourself out. I enjoyed your company, lad. Thought you'd be useless when I first saw you and you weren't, but you are now. But be lucky, boy.' He held out his hand and Thomas shook it. 'You might as well go to Guingamp with the Countess,' Skeat finished, 'and then find your own way, but Father Hobbe wants to save your soul first. G.o.d knows why.'

Father Hobbe dismounted and led Thomas into the roofless church where gra.s.s and weeds now grew between the flagstones. He insisted on hearing a confession and Thomas was feeling abject enough to sound contrite.

Father Hobbe sighed when it was done. 'You killed a man, Tom,' he said heavily, 'and it is a great sin.'

'Father-' Thomas began.

'No, no, Tom, no excuses. The Church says that to kill in battle is a duty a man owes to his lord, but you killed outside the law. That poor squire, what offence did he give you? And he had a mother, Tom; think of her. No, you've sinned grievously and I must give you a grievous penance.'

Thomas, on his knees, looked up to see a buzzard sliding between the thinning clouds above the church's scorched walls. Then Father Hobbe stepped closer, looming above him. 'I'll not have you muttering paternosters, Tom,' the priest said, 'but something hard. Something very hard.' He put his hand on Thomas's hair. 'Your penance is to keep the promise you made to your father.' He paused to hear Thomas's response, but the young man was silent. 'You hear me?' Father Hobbe demanded fiercely.

'Yes, father.'

'You will find the lance of St George, Thomas, and return it to England. That is your penance. And now,' he changed into execrable Latin, 'in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I absolve you.' He made the sign of the cross. 'Don't waste your life, Tom.'

'I think I already have, father.'

'You're just young. It seems like that when you're young. Life's nothing but joy or misery when you're young.' He helped Thomas up from his knees. 'You're not hanging from a gibbet, are you? You're alive, Tom, and there's a deal of life in you yet.' He smiled. 'I have a feeling we shall meet again.'

Thomas made his farewells, then watched as Will Skeat collected Sir Simon Jekyll's horse and led the h.e.l.lequin eastwards, leaving the wagon and its small escort in the ruined village.

The leader of the escort was called Hugh Boltby, one of Skeat's better men-at-arms, and he reckoned they would likely meet the enemy the next day somewhere close to Guingamp. He would hand the Countess over, then ride back to join Skeat. 'And you'd best not be dressed as an archer, Tom,' he added.

Thomas walked beside the wagon that was driven by Pierre, the old man who had been pressed by Sir Simon. Jeanette did not invite Thomas inside, indeed she pretended he did not exist* though next morning, after they had camped in an abandoned farm, she laughed at the sight of him dressed in the friar's robe.

'I'm sorry about what happened,' Thomas said to her.

Jeanette shrugged. 'It may be for the best. I probably should have gone to Duke Charles last winter.'

'Why didn't you, my lady?'

'He hasn't always been kind to me,' she said wistfully, 'but I think that might have changed by now.' She had persuaded herself that the Duke's att.i.tude might have altered because of the letters she had sent to him, letters that would help him when he led his troops against the garrison at La Roche-Derrien. She also needed to believe the Duke would welcome her, for she desperately needed a safe home for her son, Charles, who was enjoying the adventure of riding in a swaying, creaking wagon. Together they would both start a new life in Guingamp and Jeanette had woken with optimism about that new life. She had been forced to leave La Roche-Derrien in a frantic hurry, putting into the cart just the retrieved armour, the sword and some clothes, though she had some money that Thomas suspected Will had given to her, but her real hopes were pinned on Duke Charles who, she told Thomas, would surely find her a house and lend her money in advance of the missing rents from Plabennec. 'He is sure to like Charles, don't you think?' she asked Thomas.

'I'm sure,' Thomas said, glancing at Jeanette's son, who was shaking the wagon's reins and clicking his tongue in a vain effort to make the horse go quicker.

'But what will you do?' Jeanette asked.

'I'll survive,' Thomas said, unwilling to admit that he did not know what he would do. Go to Flanders, probably, if he could ever reach there. Join another troop of archers and pray nightly that Sir Simon Jekyll never came his way again. As for his penance, the lance, he had no idea how he was to find it or, having found it, retrieve it.

Jeanette, on that second day of the journey, decided Thomas was a friend after all.

'When we get to Guingamp,' she told him, 'you find somewhere to stay and I shall persuade the Duke to give you a pa.s.s. Even a wandering friar will be helped by a pa.s.s from the Duke of Brittany.'

But no friar ever carried a bow, let alone a long English war bow, and Thomas did not know what to do with the weapon. He was loath to abandon it, but the sight of some charred timbers in the abandoned farmhouse gave him an idea. He broke off a short length of blackened timber and lashed it crosswise to the unstrung bowstave so that it resembled a pilgrim's cross-staff. He remembered a Dominican visiting Hookton with just such a staff. The friar, his hair cropped so short he looked bald, had preached a fiery sermon outside the church until Thomas's father became tired of his ranting and sent him on his way, and Thomas now reckoned he would have to pose as just such a man. Jeanette suggested he tied flowers to the staff to disguise it further, and so he wrapped it with clovers that grew tall and ragged in the abandoned fields.

The wagon, hauled by a bony horse that had been plundered from Lannion, lurched and lumbered southwards. The men-at-arms became ever more -cautious as they neared Guingamp, fearing an ambush of crossbow bolts from the woods that pressed close to the deserted road. One of the men had a hunting horn that he sounded constantly to warn the enemy of their approach and to signal that they came in peace, while Boltby had a strip of white cloth hanging from the tip of his lance. There was no ambush, but a few miles short of Guingamp they came in sight of a ford where a band of enemy soldiers waited. Two men-at-arms and a dozen crossbowmen ran forward, their weapons c.o.c.ked, and Boltby summoned Thomas from the wagon. 'Talk to them,' he ordered.

Thomas was nervous. 'What do I say?'

'Give them a b.l.o.o.d.y blessing, for Christ's sake,' Boltby said, disgusted, 'and tell them we're here in peace.'

So, with a beating heart and a dry mouth, Thomas walked down the road. The black gown flapped awkwardly about his ankles as he waved his hands at the crossbowmen. 'Lower your weapons,' he called in French, 'lower your weapons. The Englishmen come in peace.'

One of the hors.e.m.e.n spurred forward. His shield bore the same white ermine badge that Duke John's men carried, though these supporters of Duke Charles had surrounded the ermine with a blue wreath on which fleurs-de-lis had been painted.

'Who are you, father?' the horseman demanded.

Thomas opened his mouth to answer, but no words came. He gaped up at the horseman, who had a reddish moustache and oddly yellow eyes. A hard-looking b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Thomas thought, and he raised a hand to touch St Guinefort's paw. Perhaps the saint inspired him, for he was suddenly possessed of devilment and began to enjoy playing a priest's role. 'I am merely one of G.o.d's humbler children, my son,' he answered unctuously.

'Are you English?' the man-at-arms demanded suspiciously. Thomas's French was near perfect, but it was the French spoken by England's rulers rather than the language of France itself.

Thomas again felt panic fluttering in his breast, but he bought time by making the sign of the cross, and as his hand moved so inspiration came to him. 'I am a Scotsman, my son,' he said, and that allayed the yellow-eyed man's suspicions; the Scots had ever been France's ally. Thomas knew nothing of Scotland, but doubted many Frenchmen or Bretons did either, for it was far away and, by all accounts, a most uninviting place. Skeat always said it was a country of bog, rock and heathen b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who were twice as difficult to kill as any Frenchman. 'I am a Scotsman,' Thomas repeated, 'who brings a kinswoman of the Duke out of the hands of the English.'

The man-at-arms glanced at the wagon. 'A kinswoman of Duke Charles?'

'Is there another duke?' Thomas asked innocently. 'She is the Countess of Armorica,' he went on, 'and her son, who is with her, is the Duke's grandnephew and a count in his own right. The English have held them prisoner these six months, but by G.o.d's good grace they have relented and set her free. The Duke, I know, will want to welcome her.'

Thomas laid on Jeanette's rank and relationship to the Duke as thick as newly skimmed cream and the enemy swallowed it whole. They allowed the wagon to continue, and Thomas watched as Hugh Boltby led his men away at a swift trot, eager to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the crossbowmen. The leader of the enemy's men-at-arms talked with Jeanette and seemed impressed by her hauteur. He would, he said, be honoured to escort the Countess to Guingamp, though he warned her that the Duke was not there, but was still returning from Paris. He was said to be at Rennes now, a city that lay a good day's journey to the east.

'You will take me as far as Rennes?' Jeanette asked Thomas.

'You want me to, my lady?'

'A young man is useful,' she said. 'Pierre is old,' she gestured at the servant, 'and has lost his strength. Besides, if you're going to Flanders then you will need to cross the river at Rennes.'

So Thomas kept her company for the three days that it took the painfully slow wagon to make the journey. They needed no escort beyond Guingamp for there was small danger of any English raiders this far east in Brittany and the road was well patrolled by the Duke's forces. The countryside looked strange to Thomas, for he had become accustomed to rank fields, untended orchards and deserted villages, but here the farms were busy and prosperous. The churches were bigger and had stained gla.s.s, and fewer and fewer folk spoke Breton. This was still Brittany, but the language was French.

They stayed in country taverns that had fleas in the straw. Jeanette and her son were given what pa.s.sed for the best room while Thomas shared the stables with the two servants. They met two priests on the road, but neither suspected that Thomas was an imposter. He greeted them in Latin, which he spoke better than they did, and both men wished him a good day and a fervent G.o.dspeed. Thomas could almost feel their relief when he did not engage them in further conversation. The Dominicans were not popular with parish priests. The friars were priests themselves, but were charged with the suppression of heresy so a visitation by the Dominicans suggested that a parish priest has not been doing his duty and even a rough, wild and young friar like Thomas was unwelcome.

They reached Rennes in the afternoon. There were dark clouds in the east against which the city loomed larger than any place Thomas had ever seen. The walls were twice as high as those at Lannion or La Roche-Derrien, and had towers with pointed roofs every few yards to serve as b.u.t.tresses from which crossbowmen could pour bolts on any attacking force. Above the walls, higher even than the turrets, the church towers or the cathedral, was the citadel, a stronghold of pale stone hung with banners. The smell of the city wafted westwards on a chill wind, a stink of sewage, tanneries and smoke.

The guards at the western gate became excited when they discovered the arrows in the wagon, but Jeanette persuaded them that they were trophies she was taking to the Duke. Then they wanted to levy a custom's duty on the fine armour and Jeanette harangued them again, using her t.i.tle and the Duke's name liberally. The soldiers eventually gave in and allowed the wagon into the narrow streets where shopwares protruded onto the roadway. Beggars ran beside the wagon and soldiers jostled Thomas, who was leading the horse. The city was crammed with soldiers. Most of the men-at-arms were wearing the wreathed white ermine badge, but many had the green grail of Genoa on their tunics, and the presence of so many troops confirmed that the Duke was indeed in the city and readying himself for the campaign that would eject the English from Brittany.

They found a tavern beneath the cathedral's looming twin towers. Jeanette wanted to ready herself for her audience with the Duke and demanded a private room, though all she got for her cash was a spider-haunted s.p.a.ce beneath the tavern's eaves. The innkeeper, a sallow fellow with a twitch, suggested Thomas would be happier in the Dominican friary that lay by the church of St Germain, north of the cathedral, but Thomas declared his mission was to be among sinners, not saints, and so the innkeeper grudgingly said he could sleep in Jeanette's wagon that was parked in the inn yard.

'But no preaching, father,' the man added, 'no preaching. There's enough of that in the city without spoiling the Three Keys.'

Jeanette's maid brushed her mistress's hair, then coiled and pinned the black tresses into ram's horns that covered her ears. Jeanette put on a red velvet dress that had escaped the sack of her house and which had a skirt that fell from just beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to the floor, while the bodice, intricately embroidered with cornflowers and daisies, hooked tight up to her neck. Its sleeves were full, trimmed with fox fur, and dropped to her red shoes, which had horn buckles. Her hat matched the dress and was trimmed with the same fur and a blue-black veil of lace. She spat on her son's face and rubbed off the dirt, then led him down to the tavern yard.

'Do you think the veil is right?' she asked Thomas anxiously.

Thomas shrugged. 'It looks right to me.'

'No, the colour! Is it right with the red?'

He nodded, hiding his astonishment. He had never seen her dressed so fashionably. She looked like a countess now, while her son was in a clean smock and had his hair wetted and smoothed.

'You're to meet your great-uncle!' Jeanette told Charles, licking a finger and rubbing at some more dirt on his cheek. 'And he's nephew to the King of France. Which means you're related to the King! Yes, you are! Aren't you a lucky boy?'

Charles recoiled from his mother's fussing, but she did not notice for she was busy instructing Pierre, her manservant, to stow the armour and sword in a great sack. She wanted the duke to see the armour. 'I want him to know,' she told Thomas, 'that when my son comes of age he will fight for him.'

Pierre, who claimed to be seventy years old, lifted the sack and almost fell over with the weight. Thomas offered to carry it to the citadel instead, but Jeanette would not hear of it.

'You might pa.s.s for a Scotsman among the common folk, but the Duke's entourage will have men who may have visited the place.' She smoothed wrinkles from the red velvet skirt. 'You wait here,' she told Thomas, 'and I'll send Pierre back with a message, maybe even some money. I'm sure the Duke is going to be generous. I shall demand a pa.s.s for you. What name shall I use? A Scot's name? Just Thomas the friar? As soon as he sees you,' she was now talking to her son, 'he'll open his purse, won't he? Of course he will.'

Pierre managed to hoist the armour onto his shoulder without falling over and Jeanette took her son's hand. 'I shall send you a message,' she promised Thomas.

'G.o.d's blessing, my child,' Thomas said, 'and may the blessed St Guinefort watch over you.'

Jeanette wrinkled her nose at that mention of St Guinefort, who, she had learned from Thomas, was really a dog. 'I shall put my trust in St Renan,' she said reprovingly, and with those words she left. Pierre and his wife followed her, and Thomas waited in the yard, offering blessings to ostlers, stray cats and tapmen. Be mad enough, his father had once said, and they will either lock you away or make you a saint.

The night fell, damp and cold, with a gusting wind sighing in the cathedral's towers and rustling the tavern's thatch. Thomas thought of the penance that Father Hobbe had demanded.

Was the lance real? Had it truly smashed through a dragon's scales, pierced the ribs and riven a heart in which cold blood flowed? He thought it was real. His father had believed and his father, though he might have been mad, had been no fool. And the lance had looked old, so very old. Thomas had used to pray to St George, but he no longer did and that made him feel guilty so that he dropped to his knees beside the wagon and asked the saint to forgive him his sins, to forgive him for the squire's murder and for impersonating a friar. I do not mean to be a bad person, he told the dragon killer, but it is so easy to forget heaven and the saints. And if you wish, he prayed, I will find the lance, but you must tell me what to do with it. Should he restore it to Hookton that, so far as Thomas knew, no longer existed? Or should he return it to whoever had owned it before his grandfather stole it? And who was his grandfather? And why had his father hidden from his family? And why had the family sought him out to take the lance back? Thomas did not know and, for the past three years, he had not cared, but suddenly, in the tavern yard, he found himself consumed by curiosity. He did have a family somewhere. His grandfather had been a soldier and a thief, but who was he? He added a prayer to St George to allow him to discover them.

'Praying for rain, father?' one of the ostlers suggested. 'I reckon we're going to get it. We need it.'

Thomas could have eaten in the tavern, but he was suddenly nervous of the crowded room where the Duke's soldiers and their women sang, boasted and brawled. Nor could he face the landlord's sly suspicions. The man was curious why Thomas did not go to the friary, and even more curious why a friar should travel with a beautiful woman. 'She is my cousin,' Thomas had told the man, who had pretended to believe the lie, but Thomas had no desire to face more questions and so he stayed in the yard and made a poor meal from the dry bread, sour onions and hard cheese that was the only food left in the wagon.

It began to rain and he retreated into the wagon and listened to the drops patter on the canvas cover. He thought of Jeanette and her little son being fed sugared delicacies on silver plates before sleeping between clean linen sheets in some tapestry-hung bedchamber, and then began to feel sorry for himself. He was a fugitive, Jeanette was his only ally and she was too high and mighty for him.

Bells announced the shutting of the city's gates. Watchmen walked the streets, looking for fires that could destroy a city in a few hours. Sentries shivered on the walls and Duke Charles's banners flew from the citadel's summit. Thomas was among his enemies, protected by nothing more than wit and a Dominican's robe. And he was alone.

Jeanette became increasingly nervous as she approached the citadel, but she had persuaded herself that Charles of Blois would accept her as a dependant once he met her son who was named for him, and Jeanette's husband had always said that the Duke would like Jeanette if only he could get to know her better. It was true that the Duke had been cold in the past, but her letters must have convinced him of her allegiance and, at the very least, she was certain he would possess the chivalry to look after a woman in distress.

To her surprise it was easier to enter the citadel than it had been to negotiate the city gate. The sentries waved her across the drawbridge, beneath the arch and so into a great courtyard ringed with stables, mews and storehouses. A. score of men-at-arms were practising with their swords which, in the gloom of the late afternoon, generated bright sparks. More sparks flowed from a smithy where a horse was being shoed, and Jeanette caught the whiff of burning hoof mingling with the stink of a dungheap and the reek of a decomposing corpse, which hung in chains high on the courtyard wall. A laconic and misspelled placard p.r.o.nounced the man to have been a thief.

A steward guided her through a second arch and so into a great cold chamber where a score of pet.i.tioners waited to see the Duke. A clerk took her name, raising an eyebrow in silent surprise when she announced herself. 'His grace will be told of your presence,' the man said in a bored voice, then dismissed Jeanette to a stone bench that ran along one of the hall's high walls.

Pierre lowered the armour to the floor and squatted beside it while Jeanette sat. Some of the pet.i.tioners paced up and down, clutching scrolls and silently mouthing the words they would use when they saw the Duke, while others complained to the clerks that they had already been waiting three, four or even five days. How much longer? A dog lifted its leg against a pillar, then two small boys, six or seven years old, ran into the hall with mock wooden swords. They gazed at the pet.i.tioners for a second, then ran up some stairs that were guarded by men-at-arms. Were they the Duke's sons, Jeanette wondered, and she imagined Charles making friends with the boys.

'You're going to be happy here,' she told him.

'I'm hungry, Mama.'

'We shall eat soon.'