Luca turned to Brother Peter.
‘But why did you fasten up the handcuffs after you had released them?’ Brother Peter asked.
Freize paused. ‘For confusion,’ he said gravely. ‘To cause more confusion.’
Isolde, despite her anxiety, choked back a laugh. ‘You have certainly done that,’ she said. A small smile exchanged between them made Luca suddenly frown.
‘And do you swear you did this?’ he asked tightly. ‘However ridiculous you are?’
‘I do,’ Freize said solemnly. ‘However ridiculous I am.’
Luca turned to Brother Peter. ‘This vindicates them from the charge of witchcraft.’
‘The report has gone,’ Brother Peter ruled thoughtfully. ‘We said that the captives were missing, accused of witchcraft, but that their accusers were definitely guilty. The matter is closed unless you want to reopen it. We don’t have to report that we met them again. It is not our job to arrest them if we have no evidence of witchcraft. We’re not holding an inquiry now. Our inquiry is closed.’
‘Sleeping dogs,’ Freize volunteered.
Luca rounded on him. ‘What in hell do you mean now?’
‘Better let them lie. That’s what people say. Let sleeping dogs lie. Your inquiry is completed, everyone is happy. We’re off on some other damn fool mission. And the two women who were wrongly accused are free as little birds of the air. Why make trouble?’
Luca was about to argue, but then he paused. He turned towards Isolde. After one powerful blue gaze that she had shot at Freize when he had confessed to releasing them, she had returned to studying her hands held in her lap.
‘Is it true that Freize released you? He let you go? As he says?’
She nodded.
‘Why did you not say so at once?’
‘I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’
Luca sighed. It was unlikely, but if Freize was holding to his confession and Isolde would offer no other explanation, then he could not see what more he should do. ‘Who is going to believe this?’
‘Better this, than you trying to tell everyone that we melted through leg-cuffs and handcuffs,’ she pointed out. ‘Who would believe that?’
Luca glanced at Brother Peter. ‘Will you write that we are satisfied that our servant released them, exceeding his duties but believing that he was doing the right thing? And that now we are clear that there was no witchcraft? And they are free to go?’
Brother Peter was wearing his most dour look. ‘If you instruct me so to do,’ he said pedantically. ‘I think there is more to it than your servant stepping out of his place. But since he always steps out of his place and since you always allow it, and since you seem determined that these women shall go free, I can write this.’
‘You will clear my name?’ Isolde pressed.
‘I will not accuse you of escaping by witchcraft,’ Brother Peter specified. ‘That’s all I am prepared to do. I don’t know that you are innocent of everything; but as no woman is innocent since the sin of Eve, I am prepared to agree that there is no evidence and no charge to set against you for now.’
‘It’s good enough,’ Luca ruled.
‘So she’s innocent,’ Freize confirmed.
Luca nodded. ‘Certainly there are no charges that we would bring against her.’
‘Then I have something for you,’ Freize told her with a bow. ‘In the confusion of leaving, I thought I should take it.’
Brother Peter looked at Luca. ‘Has he stolen something?’ he asked. ‘From the Abbey? Do you allow him to steal now?’
Luca spread his hands to show his complete ignorance of what Freize had done, or might do, as Freize went to his room and returned, carrying something long and thin wrapped in a saddle-cloth.
‘It’s your own goods,’ he said cheerfully to Isolde. ‘So not stealing. Your brother brought it for you, and then left it behind in his hurry. I took it that he didn’t want it any more, and I thought that you might like it. If we had not met up with you I would have kept it for the little lord, as a young man who should have a great sword.’
As they watched him, he unwrapped the crusader broadsword and laid it gently on the table. They could see the engraved scabbard and the sparkle of embedded jewels. They could see the beautiful metalwork of the cross-guard where a bolt had been made to forge the sword into the scabbard. The sword could not be drawn unless someone struck off the metal guard.
‘It is my father’s crusader sword,’ Isolde said quietly. She put her hand on the hilt, and she looked at Freize. ‘You have given me a great gift, the greatest thing anyone has given me,’ she said. ‘My father’s friend’s sword.’
‘It’s not your father’s sword?’ Luca asked.
She shook her head. ‘When he came back from the crusade with his dearest friend, my godfather, they both had their swords engraved with a great secret. Each of them had a secret to put on their sword. They sheathed their swords and hid their secrets and had their swords bolted into their scabbards. They gave their swords to each other, and they said that if ever they were in need, or if they needed the secret to be told, they would meet again and draw their swords.’
‘What’s the secret?’ Freize asked,
She smiled. ‘Of course, I don’t know. No-one knows. And anyway, this sword does not hold my father’s secret, it’s the secret my godfather gave him to keep. This is my godfather’s sword. But my father kept it with him, took it with him everywhere. It was a reminder of their friendship, and a reminder of when he fought for God. He promised to give it to me, so that I could be a lord and a crusader like him. But then he changed his mind and left everything to my brother.’
She fell silent.
‘Perhaps he did not,’ Luca suggested. ‘We have seen that your brother would not hesitate to cheat you. I think he was planning to murder you. Perhaps he changed your father’s will to force you into the abbey so that he could discredit you and all the nuns.’
Her hand closed on the handle of the sword. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think he did. I think he was planning to destroy me, and then kill me. But I have this now, and I will turn on him. I will meet him and I will know what was my father’s will. I will know the truth of this, and I will not rest until I do.’
Brother Peter looked gravely at her. ‘But committing no crime,’ he recalled her to the present.
She smiled at him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I might declare war on him, but I won’t trick him or cheat him as he cheated me.’
‘And remembering womanly virtues of modesty, obedience and peace-making,’ Brother Peter urged on her.
A little giggle escaped her. ‘I don’t think I can promise that,’ she said.
‘Where will you go?’ Luca asked.
‘I have been puzzled as to what I should do. But this gift, this very great gift shows me the way. I will go to the son of my father’s friend, my godfather’s son. I can trust him and he has a reputation for being a tenacious fighter. I will ask him to clear my name, and to ride with me against my brother. It seems my brother did all of this to steal my inheritance from me, to kill me. So I will take his inheritance from him. I shall take back what is mine.’
‘There is more than you know,’ Luca told her. ‘It is worse than you know. He had commanded the Lady Almoner to set the nuns to pan for gold in the stream in your woods.’
She looked puzzled. ‘Gold?’
‘It’s probably why your brother was determined to drive you out of the abbey. There may be a fortune in gold in the hills, draining out into the stream in dust.’
‘They were panning for gold?’
He nodded. ‘He was using the Lady Almoner to steal gold from your abbey lands. Now she is dead and you have run away, the abbey and the lands and the gold are all his.’
He saw her jaw harden. ‘He has won my home, my inheritance, and a fortune as well?’
Luca nodded. ‘He left the Lady Almoner to her death and rode away.’
She turned on Brother Peter. ‘But you didn’t
charge him! You didn’t pursue him for all the sins since Adam! Though I am responsible for everything done by Eve?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘He committed no crime that we saw at the time. Now he pans for his own gold on his own land.’
‘It is not his own land. It is mine. I will hold him to account. I will return and take back my lands. I am no longer bound by obedience to my father’s will when my brother is such a bad guardian of our family honour. I will drive him out as he drove me away. I will go to my godfather’s son and get help.’
‘Was your godfather a man of substance? Your brother has his own castle and a small army to command.’
‘He was Count Wladislaw of Wallachia,’ she said proudly. ‘His son is the new count. I will go to him.’
Brother Peter’s head jerked up. ‘You are the god-daughter of Count Wladislaw?’ he asked curiously.
‘Yes, my father always said to go to him in time of trouble.’
Brother Peter lowered his eyes and shook his head in wonderment. ‘She has a powerful friend in him,’ he said quietly to Luca. ‘He could crush her brother in a moment.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘It’s a long journey,’ she admitted. ‘To the east. He is in exile at the court of Hungary.’
‘That would be beyond Bosnia?’ Freize asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Further east than that?’
She nodded.
‘How are two pretty girls like you and the slave going to make that journey without someone stealing from you . . . or worse?’ Freize asked bluntly. ‘They will skin you alive.’
She looked at Freize and smiled at him. ‘Do you not think that God will protect us?’
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘My experience is that He rarely attends to the obvious.’
‘Then we will travel with companions, with their guards, wherever we can. And take our chances when we cannot. Because I have to go. I have no-one else to turn to. And I will have my revenge on my brother, I will regain my inheritance.’
Freize nodded cheerfully at Luca. ‘Might as well have burned them when you got the chance,’ he observed. ‘For you are sending them out to die anyway.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Luca said impatiently. ‘We will protect them.’
‘We have our mission!’ Brother Peter objected.
Luca turned to Isolde. ‘You may travel with us under our protection until our ways diverge. We are on a mission of inquiry, appointed by the Holy Father himself. We don’t yet know our route but you may travel with us until our ways part.’
‘Very important,’ Freize supplemented, with a nod to the young woman. ‘We are very important.’
‘You can accompany us and when you find safe and reputable travellers on the road you can transfer to them, and travel with them.’
She bowed her head. ‘I thank you. I thank you for myself and for Ishraq. And we will not delay nor distract you.’
‘It is absolutely certain that they will do both,’ Brother Peter remarked sourly.
‘We can help them on their way at least,’ Luca ruled.
‘I should give you my name,’ the young woman said. ‘I am Lady Abbess no longer.’
‘Of course,’ Luca said.
‘I am Lady Isolde of Lucretili.’
Luca bowed his head to her, but Freize stepped forwards, bowed low, his head almost to his knees, straightened up and thumped his clenched fist against his heart. ‘Lady Isolde, you may command me,’ he said grandly.
She was surprised, and giggled for a moment. Freize looked at her reproachfully. ‘I would have thought you would have been brought up to understand a knight’s service when it is offered?’
‘He is a knight now?’ Brother Peter asked Luca.
‘Seems so,’ came the amused response.
‘Say a squire then,’ Freize amended. ‘I will be your squire.’
Lady Isolde rose to her feet and extended her hand to Freize. ‘You do right to remind me to respond graciously to an honourable offer of service. I accept your service and I am glad of it, Freize. Thank you.’
With a triumphant glance at Luca, Freize bowed and touched her fingers with his lips. ‘I am yours to command,’ he said.
‘I take it you will house and clothe and feed him?’ Luca demanded. ‘He eats like ten horses.’
‘My service, as the lady well understood, is that of the heart,’ Freize said with dignity. ‘I am hers to command if there is a knightly quest or a bold venture. The rest of the time I carry on as your manservant, of course.’
‘I am very grateful,’ Isolde murmured. ‘And as soon as I have a bold venture or knightly quest I will let you know.’
When Isolde entered the bedroom, Ishraq was sleeping, but as soon as she heard the soft footsteps, she opened her eyes and said, ‘How was dinner? Are we arrested?’
‘We’re free,’ Isolde said. ‘Freize suddenly told his master that it was he who released us from the cellar under the gatehouse.’
Ishraq raised herself up onto one elbow. ‘Did he say that? Why? And did they believe him?’
‘He was convincing. He insisted. I don’t think they wholly believed him but at any rate, they accepted it.’
‘Did he say why he confessed to such a thing?’
‘No. I think it was to be of service to us. And better than that, they have said that we can travel with them while our roads lie together.’
‘Where are they going?’
‘They follow orders. They go where they are told. But there is only one way out of the village so we will all go east for the time being. We can travel with them and we will be safer on the road than with strangers or alone.’
‘I don’t like Brother Peter much.’
‘He’s all right. Freize swore to be my knight errant. He gave me the crusader broadsword.’
‘He stole it?’
‘For me. He has a good heart. You might be glad of him one day. He certainly served us tonight.’
Isolde stripped off the blue gown, and came in her chemise to the side of the bed. ‘Is there anything you want? A small ale? Shall I sponge your bruises?’
‘No, I am ready to sleep again.’
The bed creaked gently as Isolde got in beside her. ‘Goodnight, my sister,’ she said, as she had said almost every night of her life.
‘Goodnight, dearest.’
VITTORITO, ITALY, OCTOBER 1453
The little party lingered for two more days in the village while Ishraq’s bruises faded and she grew strong again. Isolde and Ishraq bought light rust-coloured gowns for travelling, and thick woollen capes for the cold nights, and on the third day they were ready to set out at sunrise.
Freize had pillion saddles on two of the horses. ‘I thought you would ride behind the lord,’ he said to Isolde. ‘And the servant would come up behind me.’
‘No,’ Ishraq said flatly. ‘We ride our own horses.’
‘It’s tiring,’ Freize warned her, ‘and the roads are rough. Most ladies like to ride behind a man. You can sit sideways, on the pillion saddle you don’t have to go astride. You’ll be more comfortable.’
‘We ride alone,’ Isolde confirmed. ‘On our own horses.’
Freize made a face and winked at Ishraq. ‘Another time, then.’
‘I don’t think there will be any time when I will want to ride behind you,’ she said coolly.
He unfastened the girth on the pillion saddle and swept it from the horse’s back. ‘Ah, you say that now,’ he said confidently, ‘but that’s because you hardly know me. Many a lass has been indifferent at first meeting but after a while . . .’ He snapped his fingers.
‘After a while what?’ Isolde asked him, smiling.
‘They can’t help themselves,’ Freize said confidentially. ‘Don’t ask me why. It’s a gift I have. Women and horses, they both love me. Women and horses – most animals really – just like to be close to me. They just like me.’
Luca came out to the stable yard, carrying his saddl
e pack. ‘Are you not tacked up yet?’
‘Just changing the saddles. The ladies want to ride on their own, though I have been to the trouble of buying two pillion saddles for them. They are ungrateful.’
‘Well, of course they would ride alone!’ Luca said impatiently. He nodded a bow to the young women, and when Freize led the first horse to the mounting block he went to Isolde and took her hand to help her up as she stepped to the top of the mounting block, put her foot in the broad stirrup and swung herself into the saddle.
Soon, the five of them were mounted and, with the other four horses and the donkey in a string behind them, they rode out onto the little track that they would follow through the forest.
Luca went first, with Isolde and Ishraq side by side just behind him. Behind them came Brother Peter and then Freize, a stout cudgel in a loop at the side of his saddle and the spare horses beside him.
It was a pleasant ride through the beech woods. The trees were still holding their copper-brown leaves and sheltered the travellers from the bright autumn sun. As the path climbed higher they came out of the woods and took the stony track through the upper pastures. It was very quiet; sometimes they heard the tinkle of a few bells from a distant herd of goats, but mostly there was nothing but the whisper of the wind.
Luca reined back to ride with the two girls and asked Ishraq about her time in Spain.
‘The Lord Lucretili must have been a most unusual man, to allow a young woman in his household to study with Moorish physicians,’ he observed.
‘He was,’ Ishraq said. ‘He had a great respect for the learning of my people, he wanted me to study. If he had lived I think he would have sent me back to Spanish universities, where the scholars of my people study everything from the stars in the sky to the movement of the waters of the sea. Some people say that they are all governed by the same laws. We have to discover what those laws might be.’
‘Were you the only woman there?’
She shook her head. ‘No, in my country women learn and teach too.’
‘And did you learn the numbers?’ Luca asked her curiously. ‘And the meaning of zero?’
She nodded. ‘I did not study; but of course I know the numbers,’ she said.
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