Текст книги "The Merchant’s Partner"

Автор книги: Michael Jecks

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Chapter Three

“For the love of God, will you get down, you brute! Lionors! No! No! I said… Lionors, NO!”

The bellow of despairing rage carried clearly from the house and far down into the valley as the servant handed the reins to the grinning hostler, and he could hear the sound of scrabbling paws slipping on the floor and pots smashing. He sighed and shook his head in vexation. Since Sir Baldwin had returned, he had been determined to maintain the great hunting pack that his father had owned, and kept a separate kennel for the hounds. But there was one bitch who refused to leave him: Lionors.

Walking inside, he sighed again when he saw the hall. One great iron candle-holder was on its side, a bench was upset, and plates and mugs lay on the floor. In the middle of the floor stood the knight, hands on hips, red-faced and glaring, while in front of him was the dog, lying on her back, belly and legs waving submissively while her massive black jowls dangled ludicrously to display her teeth. A fearful brown eye rolled as Edgar entered.

“After food again, was she?”

“No, damn it!” Baldwin kicked the submissive dog, but not hard, and strode to a chair. Flopping down, he eyed his dog sourly. “She was happy to see me.”

It was always the same, the knight knew. Whenever he went out and left her behind, whether it was for an hour or a day, the result was the same: on his return she would try to bring something for him. In the beginning, when he had first come home to Furnshill, he had found it an endearing trait, a sign of the mastiffs devotion. That was almost a year ago now, though. Two pairs of boots, one rug and an expensive cloak ago. “She was trying to bring me a present.”

Edgar nodded, then bent to pick up shards of broken pottery. “What was it this time?” Shaking his head, the knight motioned to the floor beside the table. When he glanced down, Edgar saw the short hunting spear, heavily chewed at the middle, which lay beside the table. “She was carrying that?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

It was only a few moments later that they heard the sound of an approaching rider. Lionors heard it first, her head snapping round as she stared at the door. Wiping his hands on his shirt, Edgar went out. After a few minutes he was back, and to Baldwin’s surprise, he wore a broad smile.

“Sir Baldwin, a visitor! John, Bourc de Beaumont, son of the Captal de Beaumont.”

“Of course, I knew your father well. We first met in Acre. That would be some six and twenty years ago now, of course.”

Baldwin had been surprised at the demeanour of his guest. He remembered the Captal as being a cheerful, enthusiastic man, and yet the son was withdrawn, almost depressed.

The Bourc had passed on messages from his father and some small gifts, and they were sitting before the fire, which had been stoked and now roared vigorously, lighting the room with a flickering orange glow.

“He rarely talks about those times, sir.”

“I’m not surprised. It was miserable. The end of Outremer. The end of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The finish of many brave and gallant men. Not, luckily, your father, though.”

“He told me a little about it, but never what really happened. Could you?”

Baldwin sipped at his wine as he stared into the flames, his eyes glinting. Then they narrowed – the memory was hard. “I met your father there in the early summer, before I met Edgar. Our enemy had managed to lay siege from the land – though we still got supplies in from the sea – and were bombarding the place with catapults. I met your father early on in the siege. There were so few of us there – especially in the service of the English king – that we all knew each other. Even then he was a powerful man, or so I remember him. I was young at the time, of course. We fought together several times, and I was with him when the towers in the city wall were mined and began to crumble. We fell back together through the city as the enemy rushed in, trying to escape. It was awful.”

“He told me it was vicious work in the narrow streets.”

“Yes, because they were all connected, and there were so many men against us that even if we held them back for a minute, others could get round behind us. They kept leapfrogging us all the way back, all the way to the harbour. It was mayhem, hand-to-hand all the way. The harbour was to the south and we headed straight for it when we saw that the battle was lost. On the way we found Edgar here. He was wounded, and we helped him along with us. But when we got close enough to see the sea, we found our route was blocked. The enemy was before us, cutting us off. We had no choice: north, south and east were forbidden to us. We went west, to the Temple.”

“You were both there during the siege of the Knights of the Temple?”

“Oh, yes!” Baldwin gave a short laugh. “Not that we were much help to them. Edgar was too ill. I myself fell on rubble on the second day and broke my ankle. Your father saved me then.” He looked over at the young knight beside him. “We were at the main gate of the Temple when we were suddenly attacked by a strong force. They had a ram, and the bar that held the door gave way, snapping in the middle. Half of it landed near me, and that’s what made me fall. A stone turned under my foot and broke the joint. Your father stood by me, holding off the enemy until I was dragged away and the gates fastened again. He managed to keep the men rallied.

“In the end, your father was hit by an arrow, and the wound soon festered in the heat. We were lucky. The Templars allowed all three of us to leave on one of the Templar ships. They took us away to Cyprus, where they tended our wounds and nursed us back to health.” Back to Cyprus, he mused. The words hardly covered the panicked rush to the ships and the feelings of relief and elation at being removed from the immediate dangers of the ruined city.

“I have been in similar positions,” said the Bourc meditatively. Drawing his dagger, he thrust it deep into the fire. When he had poured himself a fresh mug of wine, he warmed it by stirring it with the knife. “It’s hard when you’re surrounded and know you cannot escape.”

“Aye. It’s worse when your enemy has sworn to destroy you utterly and leave no survivors,” said Baldwin shortly. Then he glanced up and smiled. “Anyway, that’s the truth of it, for what it’s worth.” He threw a shrewd glance at his guest. “So did you come all the way here to hear that? The message and gifts hardly merit a knight as a messenger!”

“No,” said the Bourc shortly. “No, I did not come just for that. I wanted a bed for the night as well. I will be gone early tomorrow, I came for other business, a debt which I owe from that same siege.”

“How so? You can only have been a child back then.”

“I was, yes. I was less than a year old. My mother, Anne of Tyre, had me by my father, but she could not escape from the city when it was taken. She gave me to my nurse, and this woman took me away.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, she took me from Acre and brought me home. You see this ring?” When he lifted his left hand, Baldwin saw a gold ring which held a large red stone. The Bourc stared at it for a moment, then let his arm fall and stared into the flames. “This was given to my mother by my father. She gave it to my nurse, who gave it to my people as a token that I was my father’s son. She saved my life and made sure I was safe. Now she lives near here. That’s why I’ve come. To see her and thank her. For my life. I saw her briefly today on my way here, and will return to her tomorrow, then go home.”

“Who was she? Maybe I know her.”

“A lowly nurse? Maybe. She was named Agatha Kyteler.”

Baldwin shook his head. “No. I don’t know her. The name is unfamiliar.”

***

It was late in the afternoon of the next day, Tuesday, when Simon Puttock and his wife arrived. By then Baldwin was sitting in his hall. John, Bourc de Beaumont had left at noon, and the knight was beginning to wonder if the bailiff and his wife had been forced to change their plans. Looking up at the sound of horses, he walked to the door and, seeing his friends, bellowed for servants.

Though it was getting dark, the day’s weak sun had not managed to clear the white spatterings of frost from the dirt and grass, and Baldwin could see that behind his guests a thin grey mist was already lying in the valley. On a clear day he could see for miles from here in front of his house, and today he could make out the moors lying under their blanket of pure white snow in the far distance, looking somehow less threatening than in the summer when they loomed dark and menacing.

Baldwin’s manor house was not a modern castellated property. Built in easier times, it was thatched like a farmhouse, the only concessions to safety being in the tiny windows and its position. Standing high on the side of the hill facing south, it lay in a clearing, surrounded at a safe distance by the old woods. In front there was a shallow gully in which the rainwater drained away, and it was here that the track lay, rising gradually to the flat area before his door.

The knight watched as the small party approached. In the lead was the tall, slim figure of his friend Simon Puttock, a ruddy-faced, brown-haired man in his thirtieth year. Just behind him was his wife, Margaret, slim and elegant in her fur-lined grey cloak, hood down to show pale features glowing with the cold and exercise under thick tresses of blond hair trapped by her net. Bringing up the rear was their servant, Hugh, his dark face, Baldwin saw with a widening grin, pulled into his customary morose glower.

Spreading his arms wide, Baldwin walked forward to meet them. “Simon, Margaret, welcome!” he shouted as they came close, his face breaking into a broad smile.

After the ride from Exeter, Margaret was frozen, her fingers feeling like icicles under her gloves, but she felt a smile tugging at her mouth on seeing his pleasure. Before her husband could drop to the ground and help her down, Baldwin was beside her, bowing low, then offering her his hand with a smile, his teeth almost startling in contrast with his black moustache. Giving him a quick nod of gratitude, she accepted his hand and dropped to the ground, then stood looking at the view while she waited for the others.

She had always loved this area, with its trees and tiny villages. The soft hills rolled gently up and down over a landscape scored with red stripes where the rich earth showed through the green carpet, smoke rising where the villeins held their smallholdings. It was so unlike the bleak, grey Devil’s heathland Simon had to look after now at Lydford. Here there were happy communities still, not like on the moors.

On the moors the weather was so cold and inclement that nothing could survive but the heather and ferns. Even the trees she had seen, types she knew well from around Crediton, grew stunted and shrivelled.

Not like this lush view. Here, she felt, the land must be much as God had intended. This was how Eden must have looked: even now in the middle of winter it was green and healthy. It seemed impossible that the moors were a scant half-day’s journey away.

“Come inside, both of you, out of the cold. I have food prepared. This is quite a week for entertaining!”

Baldwin led the way, chatting about his visit from Peter Clifford on the previous Friday night and the Bourc’s arrival the night before, though most of what he said passed over their heads – at present they were interested only in his fire, and they hurried to the hearth.

The room was just as Margaret recalled, long and broad, with a fireplace and chimney in the north wall, and benches set around the tables. Bread and cold meats lay on platters on the table, and a pot hung from its chain over the flames, giving off a strong gamey smell. When she walked over, tugging off her gloves, and held her hands towards the flames, she saw that a thick soup was bubbling inside, and her mouth watered at the scent that slowly rose to fill the room.

As her hands gradually began to warm and struggle back to painful life, she turned to heat her back. Casting an eye over the hall, she let Simon and Baldwin’s conversation float over her unheeded. They were talking about the knight’s friend, the Bourc de Beaumont, and his journey to find his old nurse. She had no interest in tales of old battles, and stories of the kingdom of Jerusalem saddened her – it was depressing to think of the holy places being violated by heretics. Unfastening her cloak, she swept it off.

Baldwin stood by the table and surveyed the food, arrayed on its platters as if for inspection. Glancing down and seeing his dog, he took his knife and cut a slab of ham, tossing it to her, before turning and smiling at his guests.

To Margaret, he appeared to have changed a great deal in some ways; not at all in others. The lines on his face, the scars and weals of suffering, had almost all gone, to be replaced by a calm acceptance of life. It was as if a sheet of linen which had been wrinkled and creased had been ironed smooth again. Where the pain had sat, now there was only calm acceptance. But still he had the quick, assured manner that she recalled from last year when she had first met him.

Simon too had noticed the signs of comfort and peace, and he was pleased, knowing that it was due to his own intervention that the knight was still free. Baldwin had admitted to having been a member of the Knights Templar when they had met the year before, and Simon was sure that his decision to keep the man’s secret was the right one.

It had not been easy, especially after the murder of the Abbot of Buckland. It had been a dreadful year. There had been a band of marauding outlaws, murdering and burning from Oakhampton to Crediton, and then the abbot was taken and killed as well. For a newly appointed bailiff, the series of deaths was a problem of vast proportions, but he had managed to solve them. After hearing the knight’s tale, he had been forced to search his own soul, but in the end there had been little point in arresting him, and Simon had kept his secret hidden. Now he was pleased at how the knight had justified his decision.

“Do you realise, Baldwin, how well you are considered in Exeter?” he asked as they sat.

The knight raised an eyebrow and gave him a quizzical glance, as if expecting a trap of some sort. “Oh yes?” he said suspiciously.

“Yes, even Walter Stapledon has heard good reports of you.”

“Then I hope the good bishop keeps his reports to himself, my friend! I have no desire to be called away to clerk for the king or my lord de Courtenay. Edgar!” This last in a bellow. “Where’s the wine?”

His servant soon arrived, bringing a pot and mugs for the sweet, heated drink, serving them all and setting the pot by the fire to keep warm as he sat with them, flashing a brief smile at Margaret and Hugh, Simon noticed, but not to him. Ah well, he thought resignedly. It was only last year I had him trussed like a chicken and called him a liar.

“So how is Lydford, Simon?”

“Lydford is cold, Baldwin.”

“Cold?”

Margaret broke in. “It’s freezing! It’s at one side of the gorge, and the wind howls up the valley like the Devil’s hounds on the scent of a lost soul.”

“It sounds lovely the way you describe it,” said Baldwin gravely. “I look forward to visiting you both there.”

“You’ll be very welcome, whenever you want to come, but the cold’s not all,” said Simon, grinning in apparent despair. “Since I arrived I’ve had visits from everyone. The landholders complaining about the tinners; the tinners complaining about the landholders. God! The king allows the tinners to take any land they want – well, it’s worth a fortune in taxes to the king’s wardrobe – and everyone is up in arms about them, and expect me to do something about it! What can I do? All I’ve been able to do so far is try to keep them all apart, but now they’re starting to come to blows.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to sort matters out. After all, things are never easy – you had your own troubles here last year, didn’t you? Margaret, try some squirrel – or rabbit, it’s fresh and young.”

“Er, no, thanks,” she said, wincing and taking a chicken leg. The knight glanced at her in surprise, while Simon continued:

“The trail bastons, you mean? Hah! Give me a group of outlaws any day; they’re easier to deal with than free men and landowners, all you need do is catch them and see them hang. I can’t even do that with the mob at Lydford.”

“Anyway,” said Margaret, holding up her chicken thigh and studying it as she searched for the most succulent meat. “This must all be very tedious for you, Baldwin. What’s been happening here? Anything exciting?”

Laughing, the knight shrugged shamefacedly and pulled a grimace of near embarrassment. Head on one side, he said, “Not a great deal, really. Tanner hasn’t cleared some of the tracks hereabouts, and my warhorse went lame some weeks ago. Apart from that…”

“I could learn to dislike you, you know,” said Simon with mock disgust.

Baldwin laughed, but then his eyes narrowed a little. “What else is there, anyway, Simon? You must have heard more news from Exeter.”

Belching softly, Simon upended his mug before rising and refilling it. When he spoke, the humour had passed, to be replaced by a sober reflection. “There’s lots of news, Baldwin, but none of it’s good. This must go no further, of course, but even Walter has lost all patience. He says although King Edward was irresponsible before, now his favourite, Piers Gaveston, has been killed, he’s worse!”

“In what way?” asked Baldwin frowning.

“He’s playing one lord off against another, ignoring the Ordinances, allowing insults to go unpunished… It seems that he just wants to be left alone to play about in his boats and other frivolities. He spends his time in sailing – and playing with his common friends! There are even rumours that he was not his father’s son,” said Simon quietly.

Nodding slowly, Baldwin reflected on the tales he had heard: that this second Edward was a supposititious child, a replacement inserted into the household like a cuckoo chick in a nest. Wherever there were troubles, Baldwin thought, there are people prepared to imagine the worst. “I cannot believe that,” he said shortly. “But it’s true that the state is becoming unsettled. I have heard that tenants have revolted against their lords, even that some knights have resorted to brigandage once more. And there are more outlaws – more free companies and trail bastons – coming down from the north, displaced people who have lost their homes and villages to the Scots, who are trying to find new homes.”

“That’s what Walter said. He’s very worried. He feels that there has to be a compromise between the king and his barons, otherwise there must be a war, and God himself can hardly know what the outcome of that would be!”

“No, and God would not want that in a Christian country.”

“Of course not! That is why Walter has allied himself with Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke, to try to enlist support for the Ordinances.”

“Ah!” Baldwin thought for a moment. “Yes, that would make sense. The earl could count on support from many of the barons for that. What were the Ordinances but controls to ensure good government?”

“Exactly. Walter thinks that if the king can be persuaded to agree, the troubles may be prevented from getting worse – maybe the risk of war can be averted.”

“What do you think?”

Simon glanced up and into the intense dark eyes of his friend, who sat frowning in his concentration. “I think we’ll be lucky to avoid war in some places,” he said simply. “The Earl of Pembroke is on one side, the Earl of Lancaster on the other. Both are rich and powerful. If they fight – and they will – many men will die.”

“Yes, and many women too. In any war it’s always the villeins and ordinary folk who die first and last.”

Shrugging, Simon nodded. “It’s the way of war.”

“But what of the king? You mention Pembroke and Lancaster, what about the king?”

“Does anyone worry about him? He will be with one or the other – he hasn’t got enough support to make his own force without them. And would his support make any difference? After his defeat against the Scots at Bannockburn, who can trust his generalship?”

Baldwin nodded again, as if he was confirming his own thoughts and not listening to the bailiffs words. Then, as if he suddenly noticed her, he turned to Margaret. “Sorry, this must be very boring for you.”

She stared back, her face suddenly drawn and tight. “Boring? How can it be when you’re talking about the future of the land? Our future?” His eyes held hers for a moment, then dropped to her belly, and she could not prevent the smile when his gaze rose to meet hers once more with a question in their black depths.

“My apologies, Margaret. I did not mean to insult you,” he said quietly, “I tend to think that matters of chivalry and warfare are only interesting to men. I forget that they affect women too.“ He sat still for a moment, his eyes seeming to gaze into the distance, Lionors beside him. The huge dog peered into his face, then rested her head on his lap, making him start, suddenly brought back to the world with a shock. ”Blasted hound!“ he muttered, but affectionately, and, taking a few slabs of meat, tossed them away from the table. As the dog softly padded to her food, he rose. ”Come, let’s sit by the fire.“

While the knight sat in his chair, the two servants brought the benches, and soon all were sitting and gazing into the flames, the mastiff asleep, stretched long and lean before the hearth. Edgar walked out to fetch more wine while the friends chatted desultorily, Hugh sitting and nodding under the influence of the fire and alcohol.

“What else is new, Simon?” asked the knight again, and when the bailiff shrugged, turned to Margaret with a raised eyebrow.

She laughed, shaking her head. It sometimes seemed impossible to keep anything from the knight, he had a knack of noticing even the smallest signs, although how he had spotted this she could not guess: she had only begun to realise herself over the last week. Now she was sure even if Simon was not – she was too late this month. “Yes, I think I am pregnant again, but how did you…?”

“It’s easy, Margaret. You look too well, and you seem to dislike food that you used to love – I had the rabbits brought especially for you.”

“Well, we can hope,” Simon said. Then he leaned forward and gazed fixedly at the knight. “But what about you? You were looking for a wife, but I can’t see any sign of a woman’s hand in this house. How is your search progressing?”

To the bailiffs delight, Baldwin gave a petulant shrug, like a child feigning disinterest. “Well, I… I… The thing is… Oh damn it!”