As she dashed his hand away he jumped down from the wagon. There was the same smile on his face she had seen before. She shivered. The wagon carried on. Soon his ragged shape mingled with those of the other foot-travellers and even when she craned her neck he was nowhere to be seen.
She scrubbed at her cheek with her sleeve. He had been outlawed for murder and must have fled to the low countries as many did. Surely it was chance that he had caught sight of her leaving Bruges. She shivered again at the thought that he might have followed her, remembering the hooded figure on the quay at Ravenser, waiting for the third ship to leave. The idea was too fanciful to entertain for more than a moment.
Oblivious to what had happened, Sir Talbot and Pierrekyn rode on ahead.
Eventually they reached their first night’s halt, a sprawling inn, purpose built for the trade to and from the south. They were offered a straw pallet each and as much pottage as they could eat, rough fare but welcome. The main highway from Flanders and Paris converged on the town and many merchants joined the convoy while others saw their merchandise sent onwards along the Seine before returning home. In all the traffic along the route there was no sign of Escrick Fitzjohn.
Hildegard didn’t mention her encounter to Sir Talbot. It would involve telling the knight what had happened last autumn between Lord Roger, his ambitious sister-in-law Sibilla and her husband, Roger’s brother Sir Ralph. Their plotting to dupe Roger’s eldest son of his inheritance by passing off a servant’s child as their own had been revealed and the couple had retired to their stronghold near Scarborough Castle and were lying low to give Roger time to forgive and forget.
Now, it seemed, their outlawed house-servant, Escrick Fitzjohn, was on the loose. He had murdered one of Roger’s maids and one of the brothers at Meaux, in addition to many other heinous acts for which he deserved to be punished, but instead of showing remorse and asking for his sins to be forgiven, it seemed all he wanted was revenge on the person he held responsible for revealing his crimes: Hildegard herself.
It was like a bad dream to discover him travelling the same road. The fact that he had vanished only added to her sense of danger.
She slept badly throughout that first week. Sharing a dormitory with other religious travellers, one of whom snored lustily every night, left her yawning and exhausted. Even so she made sure she kept up with Sir Talbot and Pierrekyn on the road and that her hounds were always to heel. Unaware of her fear but with the code of chivalry never far from his mind, Sir Talbot insisted she ride the hireling as often as she wished but she often chose to walk instead, feeling less conspicuous with her feet on the ground than sitting high up above the heads of the other travellers.
And so the days unfolded. Bruges, Troyes, Dijon. There was a rhythm to the journey that soon took over and seemed to obliterate any other thought beyond the next destination. If the limbs of the travellers ached during the first few days, as the weeks unfolded they became hardened to the continual exercise.
Sir Talbot in particular relished the opportunity to stride out on foot at the head of the cavalcade, or meander off into the trees on the pretext of scouting for robbers. He was astounding in his physical fitness. His unbounded energy was the envy of many.
So far there had been only rumours about the bands of thieves known to prey on the baggage trains carrying merchandise back and forth to the fairs in Champagne and beyond – their prevalence putting up the cost of insurance – but for safety three mercenaries had been engaged at the last halt to escort them through the notorious tracts of forest separating Champagne from the duchy of Burgundy.
Big, rough, well-armed fellows who clearly despised the merchants and their companions, they rode mettlesome horses fore and aft of the convoy while maintaining a professional distance from everyone.
Pierrekyn trudged along with his lute across his back, saying very little, or sat on the tailgate of one of the wagons and let his fingers pluck a tune from the strings, sometimes singing to himself.
A different person emerged then, one who was vulnerable and full of fun. He was painstaking in learning new tunes, practising the same phrase over and over again when he thought he was out of earshot. Most evenings he would flex his fingers at the fire then entertain the travellers after their repast. The merchants were particularly generous to him and soon he acquired a pouch filled with many different currencies.
One evening he spread them out on the table in front of Hildegard. ‘Teach me their value,’ he asked. ‘I know you talked to Ser Ludovico about such matters. They look like nothing but buttons to me.’
She explained the difference as well as she could between soldi, denarii, fiorentini and gulden. ‘The comparative values are difficult to work out as they change almost every day. Each town sets its own values on its coins. This grosso for instance,’ she poked one of the coins with a finger, ‘had to be launched in Venice recently as a multiple of several smaller silver pieces because they’d become almost worthless. But you can get a cup of burgundy for one of these.’ She pushed another coin towards him. ‘And this silver farthing will buy you a pie.’
‘I’ll put you to the test.’ He swept up the coins and went to the back of the house where the innkeeper kept his barrels. When he returned he held a flagon of burgundy crooked under one arm, two clay beakers and a couple of steaming rabbit pies. He set them down on the table between them.
‘You were right, Sister,’ he said with a rare smile. ‘And here’s your earthly reward. Now tell me, having got me safely out of Flanders for reasons best known to yourself, what are you going to do with me? Am I to come all the way to Florence with you?’
‘I insist on it.’ By the time they arrived Ulf would surely have sent word that Reynard’s murderer had been found and the boy would go free.
‘Just so I know you’re not going to discard me in some godforsaken mountain hamlet without a farthing to my name.’ He poured a generous cup of wine for each of them. ‘I almost believe I can survive this hellish journey,’ he said after a long drink. ‘Here’s to you and nuns in general!’
She raised her cup. ‘And to you and the brotherhood of minstrels.’
Sir Talbot joined them. ‘Aren’t you going to give us a song this evening, Master Pierrekyn? Or do I have to order you to pick up your lute?’ Full of good nature, he thumped the boy heartily on the back to encourage him.
In response Pierrekyn produced one of his dazzling smiles. ‘My pleasure is yours, sir knight.’
Talbot watched him set up with his instrument on a stool by the hearth. ‘He’s a fresh, perverted sort of lad,’ he observed. ‘But I suspect there’s good in him, somewhere. I’ve half a mind to take him back to Paris with me. He’d do well there. They don’t begrudge paying for their music. I’m just wary about the looks I’d get. My lady might have something to say to me!”
‘I wonder about his future,’ Hildegard confided. ‘He needs a master if he’s to join the guild and make his living from his playing.’
There had been no sign that Pierrekyn would harm a man, let alone plunge a dagger into his chest, but who would take him on with a suspicion of murder hanging over him?
A small boy of no more than ten had joined the convoy at the last town and now, clearly a fan of Pierrekyn, was standing close by, watching the minstrel’s fingers carefully as if memorising their movements. When Pierrekyn noticed him he gestured for him to come closer.
‘Are you going to sing for us then, young princeling?’ she heard him ask. The boy nodded as if that was his precise motive for pushing himself to the front. She watched the two heads bend close as they discussed their repertoire. Then they began.
The child had a pure unbroken treble and Pierrekyn let him trill alone to his heart’s content for quite a while with only the soft continuo of the lute as support, until he began to add his own husky tenor to the tune, weaving intricate melodies round the piping voice, echoing it in a lower register and reversing the phrases until the audience were spellbound with the magic of two
such contrasting voices weaving in harmony.
When they brought the song to an end there was a burst of applause and a few folk banged their mazers on the wooden tables for an encore. Gold and silver coins cascaded at the singers’ feet.
‘Quite a partnership,’ observed Talbot. ‘I never could get my head round a song.’ He stretched his long legs and flexed his muscles, ready to listen to more.
Pierrekyn glanced across at his two companions. He gave a secret smile and paused with his fingers poised over the strings until there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Then he began to play.
It was a plaintive melody, a lament for the death of a knight, which began: ‘There were three ravens on a tree …’ It went on to tell the story of a knight killed by a gang of robbers, and how his faithful hawk and his hounds protected his body until the appearance of a magical fallow doe, which carried his body to a lake and buried him, then died there beside him. It told of love and death. And there was scarcely a dry eye when he finished.
Despite the plaudits that followed and the cries for another song, Pierrekyn was suddenly unsmiling. He rose abruptly to his feet as if to break the spell he had created and, thrusting his lute into its bag, grasped the boy by one arm and pulled him towards the taproom where the dice-players gathered.
The three mercenaries, unlikely as it seemed, had been drawn to stand in the doorway to listen to the performance and now they called out to Pierrekyn as he pushed his way past. The smallest of the trio said something to his comrades and peeled off to follow him.
‘I hope Pierrekyn isn’t going to give that little lad strong ale,’ remarked Talbot.
Hildegard fixed her eyes on the door, waiting for them to reappear, but there was just the usual milling of folk in and out, and loud guffaws from within over some game or other. Talbot noticed her expression.
‘I’ll go and see what he’s up to. We don’t want him drawing unwelcome attention, do we?’
He was back in a moment. ‘He’s intent on losing all his earnings in a game of dice. He sent the child back to his guardians with a handful of florins.’
Believing this was a good opportunity to explain a little more, Hildegard bent her head towards the knight and, speaking in a rapid undertone, she told him about the corpse in the wool-shed.
‘It was the body of a clerk from England who brought Pierrekyn out of Kent while on business there on behalf of Lord Roger,’ she explained. ‘The boy’s music charmed everyone and Roger decided to let him wear his livery.’ She faltered. Until now she hadn’t thought to question Roger’s decision to send Pierrekyn away. Continuing, she said, ‘When Reynard’s body was found it was assumed that the boy must know something—because of their intimacy.’
‘Do you mean he’s seriously suspected of murder?’
‘We have no reason to think he’s guilty but the mob obviously decided otherwise when they heard the bare outline of the facts. That’s why we had to get him quickly out of the duchy of Male and into another jurisdiction.’
‘Meanwhile, the question remains: guilty—or innocent?’
She nodded. ‘He cannot fail to be under suspicion until the real murderer is identified. If no one else is accused the only way that Pierrekyn will return to England will be in chains.’
‘But if he is guilty he could well abscond, leaving Lord Roger’s steward with his neck at risk?’
She nodded again.
‘Trust me,’ said Sir Talbot. ‘I won’t let him out of my sight.’
So saying, he got up and strolled through into the taproom where the game of dice was causing some excitement.
Chapter Nine
PIERREKYN’S FACE WAS flushed and angry. His lower lip jutted. He was making a token attempt to struggle out of Sir Talbot’s grasp but the knight gripped him by the scruff of his neck in one capable hand.
Avoiding Pierrekyn’s kicking feet he was laughing genially. ‘Obey me, you little wildcat, or you’ll rue it. You were losing every penny you earned to those fellows. They dice and fight and dice again. They do nothing else. You’ll never beat them. And if you do they’ll relieve you of your winnings in a most unpleasant manner.’
He forced Pierrekyn down onto the bench next to Hildegard.
‘You talk to him, Sister. He’s behaving like a numbskull.’
‘Numbskull? Me? That’s rich coming from somebody who risks having his brains knocked out of his head whenever he goes to work!’ Pierrekyn retorted.
Sir Talbot laughed. ‘It’s me who does the knocking, I can tell you. The other fellows will bear me out if they can still spin two words together through their broken teeth.’
The three mercenaries came up. The more forthright one clapped Sir Talbot on the shoulder. ‘You rescued him just in time, sir knight. We were about to step in ourselves. Can’t have these Flemings running rings round one of our own.’
They were English, or, at least, two of them were. The third was a Scot, a big, brawny fellow with a wild red beard and an expression that, like those of his companions, showed he would take no truculence from anybody.
‘Join us,’ invited Sir Talbot. ‘I notice the other travellers are somewhat wary of you.’
Indeed, nobody trusted mercenaries. One of the pilgrims had even been heard to whisper when they were first hired, ‘Today – paid to keep us from harm. Tomorrow – paid to slit our throats. It’s all the same to them.’
‘They’re devils from hell,’ agreed a friar, as everybody nodded their heads. ‘Best to keep away!’
The men, however, seemed affable enough in their rough way and were deferential to Hildegard if not to the other religious Orders. They made frequent sport of a couple of crutched friars in their conspicuous cloaks with the large red crosses sewn to the backs, some obscene joke passing back and forth between them. But they had made no jokes at Hildegard’s expense.
‘So you’re another mercenary just like us?’ observed the leader in a provocative tone to Talbot as they took their places at the trestle.
‘Just got up more fancy,’ added the shorter of the three in a thin voice. His hair was thin too and lay in lank strands across the top of his balding head.
Sir Talbot sprawled at his ease, quite unruffled by the men’s tone. ‘Certainly I am,’ he agreed. ‘I bear arms for fame, fortune and my lady’s love. What better purpose does life offer?’
They seemed to accept this and lost no time in explaining that they were going down to join Sir John Hawkwood’s White Company in Tuscany.
‘We’ve heard it’s getting lively,’ their leader announced with relish. On the way they had decided that they might as well have the journey paid for by the cowardice of the merchants and the pilgrims as they were all travelling the same road.
‘I’m Jack Black,’ he told them, ‘and these two devils are Harry and Donal.’ He glanced at Hildegard as if expecting criticism but she held her tongue. ‘Aye,’ he said, piercing her with his hard, black gaze as if reading her thoughts, ‘but somebody has to do it.’
She grimaced. ‘My heart goes out to the peasants who scratch a bare living from the soil then have their crops stolen by Hawkwood’s army. I’ve heard his men are like vultures.’
‘The peasants don’t suffer. They all run for shelter to the towns. They’re safe as houses. And if they don’t run it’s their own lookout,’ grunted Harry, his gaunt face full of bitterness. ‘We’ve got to eat and, if their rulers want us to do their work for them, where’s the harm? We deserve the spoils of war since we’re the ones who run the risks.’
It wasn’t just the theft of crops, it was also rape and the wanton destruction of entire communities that made the mercenaries so hated, as the man well knew. Hildegard saw no point in getting into an argument with him.
The trio worked as a team, specialists in siege warfare. It was their job to dig tunnels under a town’s fortifications and set explosives so that the rest of the army could get in through the breach. From the look of their personal equipment they were well paid for such work.
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br /> ‘So you’re the fellows who decide where the siege tunnels should lie?’ asked Talbot with interest.
‘Harry here’s the one to decide. Like a rat, he is, underground,’ agreed Jack Black.
‘It must be a glorious thing to wage single combat under such conditions,’ mused Talbot. ‘No wonder the combatants in such encounters are honoured by becoming brothers-in-arms.’
‘We keep our distance from all that. We’re not knights nor never likely to be.’
‘We’re useful crossbow men if it comes to it,’ pointed out Harry. ‘And Donal here’s a devil with an axe or mace.’
‘So where are you fellows from?’
‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies,’ Jack Black replied firmly for all three. ‘What about you, sir?’ he countered.
‘I’m a Sussex man myself.’
‘And your squire?’ Harry put in.
As one they turned to stare at Pierrekyn and a silence fell. The moment was over in a flash. Pierrekyn merely displayed his tunic with Roger de Hutton’s emblem on it, then spent the rest of the evening digging thoughtfully at the table with the tip of a small knife.
The quayside at St Jean-de-Losne was a busy transit point where some of the merchandise was to be transferred from wagons onto river boats.
As they approached, the weather darkened. For days the countryside had been black with rain. They seemed to move in a perpetual night. Daylight lasted for only a few hours, a grey presence filtered through a mass of cloud.
There were vast numbers of barges being loaded for transportation down the Saône. Some of the merchants decided to travel on with their merchandise by boat, rather than attempt the quicker route through the Jura and the Jougne pass and on through the Alps. Others were undecided. The dangers that lay ahead were a constant topic. Some wanted to go on by river rather than hazard the mountains, while others were keen to get to their destination as soon as possible.
The Red Velvet Turnshoe Page 8