by Hana Cole
Gui glowered out the window, fury at his impotence bottle-necked within. In the courtyard below a few chickens scratched the earth and the innkeeper’s guard dog panted in the shade of the wall. A kitchen boy came out and threw some slops into the compost pile. Agnes breezed in under the gateway, nose in a bouquet of herbs, a brooch of cowslip pinned to her dress. Wiping fresh beads of sweat from his brow, Gui felt his irritation rise at the little yellow flowers, heads raised gaily to the sun.
Agnes flung the door open, still sniffing at the posy. ‘I had forgotten how differently people treat you when they think you have coin to spare.’
‘Which we don’t.’
Open-mouthed at his outburst, Agnes tugged at her new dress. ‘You think I am pleased to participate in this…masquerade? It hasn’t rained since we arrived. It’s starting to stink. That’s all.’ She tossed the sprigs of rosemary and lilac onto the bed. ‘I suppose you would prefer I follow your example and do nothing.’
Gui stood, charcoal eyes betraying nothing of the heat rising behind them. ‘We have dragged Philippe into this peril. The least we can do is lend him our trust,’ he said.
‘You mean I have dragged him in,’ Agnes said.
‘I did not say that.’
‘You didn’t have to.’
‘You think I blame you?
Agnes turned away, her hurt as evident to Gui as the red scars that still braceleted her wrist. He shut his eyes to the stab of regret.
‘Agnes. I’m sorry. Please look at me.’
But the nape of her neck stretched downwards.
‘You think I blame you? For de Nogent? For Etienne?’
The voice that replied was brittle, resigned. ‘Perhaps if we had told him the truth. As you wanted.’
‘You cannot know that. Etienne is nearly twelve years old. He is not the first to fall for enticing rhetoric about the holy land.’
‘The rhetoric of your church.’
‘My church!’ Gui stalked the confines of the room. ‘And you think I am not ashamed?’
‘Of me? Of us?’ Her voice rose.
Gui stopped in his tracks.
‘Of myself.’
Agnes collapsed onto the bed, body folded over as though she were nursing a blow. ‘I just want him back.’ Her shoulders began to shake. ‘Oh please God don’t let anything have happened to him.’
Gui knelt down beside her and folded her hands into his. ‘Nothing has happened to him. I am sure of it.’
‘You really think Philippe can find him?’
‘I know it.’ Gui said. ‘But, you’re right. We should have heard from him by now. I want to take a trip into the country, back towards Vendôme. See what I can find out.’
Agnes scratched at her arm. ‘On your own?’
‘You’ll be safe here. I’ll only be gone for half a day.’
‘It’s not that.’ She shook her head, defeated. ‘I just feel so…’
‘Helpless. I know. So do I. But one of us has to stay here in case Philippe’s message arrives. It’s safer for me to go.’ Gui leaned forward and kissed her.
Long, slender fingers crowned his head, her touch cascaded down over his shoulders, his arms. Coming to rest at his hands, Agnes fingered the brocaded sleeves. Gui looked down at his shoes, their unfamiliar taper that pinched his foot.
‘I think you look very handsome,’ she said.
‘I prefer black.’
‘Of course you do.’
He took his rosary from his tunic and poured it into Agnes’s palm.
Containing his smile, he fixed her with grave eyes and said, ‘Whenever you feel the urge to tour the markets, please count them.’
Agnes laughed. ‘And you, what will you count?’
‘The knots in my gut.’
*
Agnes watched the party arrive; a drab troupe of pilgrims and a merchant’s caravan, all wilting in the heat. The innkeeper’s wife fussed around them, hastening a pack of urchins to help with the baggage. The merchant’s clerk, shoulders bunched in a shrug of perpetual disappointment, surveyed the courtyard from beneath the peak of his hand. Dabbing his brow with a large square of linen, the man flitted an eye to his master’s wagons as they disappeared into the stalls, then back to the lady of the house. Agnes smirked as the woman folded her arms in defiance of his judgement. She was sure her father wouldn’t have coached here with a full train, either.
She wondered at the contents of the crates. Not salt, that was for sure. Tours was not on the network of inland roads and canals used to traffic that white gold. Fabrics, wine? A shipment of soft Aleppo bars perhaps, with creamy foam that formed as you turned it in your hands. A proper bath. At once she was back in her childhood house in Chartres, immersed in a copper tub, her nurse pouring a jug of heated water over her. She can’t have been more than six or seven - still a child. Before.
The next memory came as jagged and inevitable as her breath. The last time she had laid hands on a bar of that soap. Frantically she had scrubbed her skin until it was raw, trying to get clean, as if it would somehow remove the stain. She was barely dressed when they came for her, hammering at the door.
Agnes recoiled from the window, stung by the assault of memories. How easily they had risen from their tomb. Was it those same demons, who, creeping unnoticed like assassins in the shadows of her life, had been somehow responsible for Etienne’s flight? If only she hadn’t panicked so at his disappearance. If only she had just waited for Gui to return from Chartres. She agitated at the ring on her finger. The worst of her past Gui didn’t even know about.
Dread cramped her belly. A fear she could barely acknowledge; that ancient hands would drag her from this world and seal her in their graveyard, a ghost in her own life, forever beyond the reach of her family. If she could not rid herself of them, she would have to tell Gui. Taint him with her shame. A confession, she knew, would transform her in his eyes, make her his congregation and not his love.
At once she saw him, the dusty grime of the road in his hair, heat on his back, searching for their son. Her baby boy. She smeared her palms across her face, trying to wipe away her worst imaginings. Body rigid, she bunched her fists, pushing her nails into her palms. Stigmata. I won’t just sit here, she thought. Sit here and let them win. She looked out at the caravan stabled below. The travellers’ banter drifted up – men glad of a warm meal and respite from the long trade routes of France. Trade routes that might be carrying news of a band of child pilgrims.
Bullying her hair underneath a hairnet, Agnes secured her veil with a headband. Her role as Gui’s housekeeper required only a simple cotton kerchief in public, and she muttered curses at the accessories of spousal modesty tugging at her scalp. She peered at her reflection in the hand mirror on the dresser, how small the fabric made her face seem, how timid. It also obscured her peripheral vision – she had to turn her head to see out of the corner of her eye. Heaven forbid you see them coming.
The smell of roasting meats was curling its way upstairs as she stepped into the corridor. She stalled at a bray of drunken laughter; ladies did not venture into taverns unaccompanied. The voice of the innkeeper’s wife lifted above the babel, sharp then obsequious, taking orders, carping at the staff. Briefly she felt the tug of her room. The safety of an evening alone, the voice in her head mocking her with what ifs. What if, indeed. Straightening her back against the leer of men in their cups, Agnes went downstairs.
Rain has broken the oppressive air, and the hauliers were bunched, steaming, on a bench, forks stabbing at a plate of meats. Hands folded in a lady-of-the-house pose, Agnes asked, ‘Pardon me. May I ask if you have come from the Fairs?’
The men looked up from their feast, exchanged a conspiracy of glances. From the table behind them, the clerk spoke. ‘Indeed, Madame. We have come from Lendit.’
‘I am sojourning here with my husband and seek news of our son. He took the cross with a group of shepherd boys. It is rumoured they were headed to the Fairs.’
The clerk patt
ed at the forlorn lock of hair clinging to his pate and gave a dispirited, ‘Hmm.’
One of his men wiped the dripping from his chin. ‘We was there not a week past. I heard talk of this shepherd boy who carries letter from the Virgin for the king hisself.’ The man gave a wink and opened his palm.
Heart pattering, Agnes rummaged for a coin.‘What of the others with him?’
‘We never saw ‘em ourselves.’ He eyes his colleagues. ‘We heard talk though.’
Nods and leers.
‘Talk?’
‘From people they’d done jobs for and such,’ added one.
‘We heard they petitioned the king to crusade. A right old spectacle it was, weren’t it, Eric?’
‘That shepherd went off to Alsace seeking the emperor I heard. A king weren’t good enough for ‘im!’ A piece of gristle flew from Eric’s mouth as he cackled at his own joke. ‘Most of ‘em were headed south though. Headed for the ports. Reckon they’re going overseas on their own account.’
A chorus of laughter from the others. Agnes snatched her hand to her chest as though someone were trying to rob the air from her lungs.
‘Overseas,’ she whispered.
‘We got more to tell,’ said one of the men, eyes resting on her chest. ‘If you got payment.’
‘We certainly do. An’ with your husband not about an’ all we’d be willing to negotiate if you can’t spare the coin.’ The man winked, rubbing the silver disk against his crotch.
Agnes drew back, her body heating with panic. The others began to call out their bids. Suddenly, the world was a wash of garbled shouts and the thrum of the rain on the windows. A hand thrust forward, grabbing her arm. She tried to thrash it free but the grip tightened.
Behind her the tavern door banged open. Shaded by the dull light, Gui stood in the doorway, water sheeting over the lip of his hood.
‘Let her go.’ He flicked his cloak aside, revealing a knife. A squabble of heckling voices rose. Gui unsheathed the blade, eyes riveted onto the man who had Agnes by the arm - I can’t take you all but I will take you.’
‘Gentlemen!’ The innkeeper bellowed. With the thump of a mace, he banged for order.
‘The night watch will not take kindly to being called tonight.’
The pressure on Agnes’s arm released.
The gates to Philippe’s courtyard were locked. No lamps were lit within.
‘Perhaps he is just delayed on business.’ Gui said to Agnes.
‘Then why are his servants gone? The boys were sighted at Lendit over a week ago. Gui, we have to leave.’
‘I know.’
Gui pulled his hood up against the rain, casting around for reassurance from the mundane - a man trudging home with a bundle of kindling, drunken labourers arguing about a debt, the grating smell as the rain swept the shit down the street. Still, he couldn’t shake the ill ease that cloaked him. His cassock had offered greater protection, he considered. One glance of recognition and it rendered its wearer invisible. Oh, just a priest, you saw the thought pass across their eyes, and then you were gone. Priests had no place in the world of things.
Everywhere he looked Gui thought he recognised someone. A man he had passed earlier in the street, someone he had seen by a tavern outside the town. Pretending to inspect a shuttered shop front he stared at his reflection in the beaten brass plates, asking the distorted image if he was losing control of his fears.
The answer to his question was the sound of urgent hooves beating above the traffic. Turning their backs on the approaching mounts, he bundled Agnes around the corner, and hidden by the angle of the bend, watched as four men stormed by. Their shouts told him they were from the Chartraine - feudal retainers.
‘Wait here for a moment.’
‘What are you doing?’ Agnes pulled him back by his cloak.
‘Our belongings, our money, they are back in our room. I need to try and get them back.’
The innkeeper was outside, protesting as the retainers piled in. From across the way Gui met his eyes - the eyes of someone who understood a man in need. The soldiers’ horses were tied together in the street, and with an eye to the window above, Gui rifled through one of the saddlebags - no parchment, no seal or heralded flask.
‘Quick!’ The keeper mouthed.
Gui’s hand caught the saddle as he snapped the bag shut. The inside flap was embossed with a coat of arms. It was vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place it. It would come to him once he had Agnes far enough away for his mind to unwind. The innkeeper wrung his hand in silent exhortation. Gui fled back across the road.
Once the echo of hooves on the cobbles had died, he stole back to the inn.
‘Did they take anything?’
The keeper shook his head. ‘I said you had left. Showed them an empty room.’
Gui took the stairs two at a time. Their bag was as it had been, untouched under the bed. Thumbing the sign of the cross, he swung it over his shoulder.
‘Here.’
Gui turned to find the keeper at his shoulder.
‘Someone left this for you.’
“Dear friend. Please forgive my silence. I am bound for Marseille and have news of your merchandise there. I will await you at the Fountain, where the road from Aix runs into town. Godspeed. P.”
‘Who?’
‘I didn’t see.’
Gui glanced round the room, checking the anonymous faces and the places where the shadows fell. Marseille was a over a week away, even if they made some of the way by canal. Legs suddenly heavy, as though he were wading through a dream, he walked out into the darkening evening, a smear of crimson just visible over the rooftops.
A wet night’s travel in the woods brought a cough to Agnes’s chest. They offered a prayer at a roadside shrine to St Martin, but by the time they arrived in the next town three days later her face and chest burned. The evening air was full of smoke and the lingering aroma of spits that had been turning all day in village squares. It was Assumption; candles were lit and crowds of locals mingled with travellers from the main road. Easy enough for a scribe and his wife to pass unnoticed amid the throng. Gui found them a room for the night in a saddler’s house.
Once the man’s wife put Agnes to bed with a feverfew tisane and a dose of silver, he slumped in the chair, letting the darkness come on before he took a taper. There was a peace in the transition between day and night that he could find at no other time. As a child, his nurse had told him it was the time when spirits walked. Not the restless evil that walked only by night in their bid to escape the Devil, but the contented spirits who had stayed on in their homes. They walked at dusk, and if you would only sit and listen you would hear them, hundreds of years, hundreds of lives, carrying about their business just as they had done before death. Although his Church would not permit such a possibility, Gui had never found a better explanation of that peculiar calm - the certainty that things did indeed go on, incorporeal.
The contented souls of the dusk evaporated as evening passed to night. Footsteps shuffled along the corridor, bawdy songs and beer-fuelled banter rang out from the street, punctuated by the occasional shriek of a fox. Gui sipped at a cup of wine, companion to his vigil, and the constriction in his heart began to loosen. Spinning the beads of his rosary he watched his love sleep, fitfully to begin with, but then a deep-enough slumber to stop her coughing fits. Once dawn was on its way, and Gui felt certain that his church was not coming for them, he tucked his rosary back into his shirt, laid down beside Agnes and, her breath soft in his ear, closed his eyes for an hour or two.
By the time he woke, the fever had lost its grip on Agnes. Bleary eyed he raised his head to find her sitting up in bed, sipping a fresh tisane. ‘Forgive me,’ she said. ‘It is my fault we have found such trouble…’
Gui ran his thumb across her brow. ‘Don’t say that. This evil lies at the door of zealots like Bernard de Nogent and those who command him.’
She pressed his hand to her lips.
‘
The boys are heading south,’ Gui said. ‘I know we are on the right path.’
‘Show me the note again.’ Agnes studied the sloping cursive for a moment. ‘It is Philippe’s hand, you’re sure?’
‘I am certain. There is a reason why he didn’t contact us in person.’
‘On account of those men back at Tours?’
‘I’m almost certain,’ said Gui. ‘There was a herald stamped inside one of the soldier’s saddle bag. It was faint. An indented partition on the shield, the diamond pattern on one half.’
‘Doesn’t the Church use the Seneschal of Champagne’s men to arrest blood crimes?’
‘Usually. But no, I know the seneschal’s herald and this was not it. I don’t know who those men were.’ Gui shook his head. ‘It makes no sense.’
Agnes placed her palms together, fingertips at her chin.
‘If you recognise it, it must be someone from your home.’
Suddenly Gui clapped his hands. ‘Yes! The arms of Philippe’s father.’
‘Philippe’s father? Agnes bit the quick of her nail. ‘Then something has happened you don’t know about.’
Gui was staring out the window, to the hubbub on the street. ‘Or it is a trap.’
‘We must go to Marseille if there is news of Etienne there,’ Agnes urged. ‘My aunt still lives near there, a small place near the marshes called Marignane.’
‘We’ll leave tomorrow. You have to rest properly now.’ Gui tucked scrap of parchment back into his cloak. ‘And I’ll go to the meeting place alone.’
Agnes opened her mouth to protest, but Gui placed his finger to it. Then bunching her hair into a tail he said, ‘I think a disguise might be the best way to help us move unnoticed until we find Etienne.’
Agnes took her hair from him. ‘You mean they are not looking for two men.’
‘A lawyer and his assistant perhaps?’
‘Hand me your knife,’ she said.
‘In a moment,’ he replied, and buried his head into the soft mass of gold.