Crusade

by Elizabeth Laird

  ‘Mirre and Ostine,’ said Tappe unwillingly, pointing to the greyhounds. ‘My lord’s best hunting levriers. One scratch on their hides and you’re for it, boy. Don’t forget.’

  A moment later they were in the centre of a whirlpool of dogs.

  ‘Who’s this, Master Tappe?’ the young man said, staring at Adam.

  ‘Says his name’s Adam. New dog boy,’ Master Tappe said with a sniff.

  By the end of the next hour, Adam had learned only half the names of the dozens of dogs that lived in the kennels. Spaniels, foxhounds, boarhounds, lymers and brachets each had their separate pens, with their own water and feeding bowls. Adam had opened his eyes wide when he’d first gone inside the kennel. It was larger and more luxurious by far than the hut where he’d grown up. There was an upper and lower floor of pens, and all was made of smooth oak. It smelled cleaner and fresher than any cottage he’d ever entered.

  Tappe and the other man went silently about their work, filling water bowls and mixing the dogs’ food in a huge iron kettle. Adam watched closely, moving in to help when he could. He got a kick from Master Tappe for getting in the way, but the younger man, whose name seemed to be Snig, showed him how to check the spaniels’ coats for burrs, and even smiled at him once or twice, through a mouthful of broken teeth.

  ‘New dog boy, he’ll be sleeping in here then, will he, Master Tappe?’ he called out to the kennel master.

  Tappe grunted assent.

  ‘That’s me out of here then,’ Snig said delightedly. ‘I’ll be bedding down in the great hall with everyone else like a Christian.’

  Adam looked round, wondering where he was supposed to sleep.

  ‘Over there’s best,’ Snig said, pointing with his chin. ‘That’s my pile of straw. You can have it if you can stand the fleas. ’Taint bad there. No draughts.’

  ‘What do I have to do in the night?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Nothing much. Stop ’em fighting. Come over and fetch Master Tappe if one of ’em goes sick. Check on the fire in the winter, in case it sets the straw alight. It’s all right in here. Warm and all.’

  A bell jangled out across the bailey from beside the massive studded main door of the keep.

  ‘Supper,’ Snig said with satisfaction. ‘I’m starved. We’ve run these hounds more ’n twenty mile today.’

  Adam suddenly realized that he was famished too. He’d eaten nothing all day, except for a handful of newly unbudded beech leaves.

  Master Tappe, Snig and the other man were already leaving the kennels. Adam began to follow.

  ‘Not you,’ growled the kennel master. ‘Dogs ain’t settled yet. And Braceleur’s paw looks sore. Needs inspectin’. Thorn in it, probably.’

  He took a few paces then said over his shoulder, ‘Not a scratch on their hides, mind, or I’ll have you whipped.’

  Adam leaned against the doorpost of the kennel’s entrance. He felt weak with hunger and slid down to sit on the ground. The castle bailey, which had been so noisy and crowded a few minutes earlier, was suddenly empty and quiet. Everyone had gone in to supper, except for a pair of sentries, still playing dice by the gate.

  Adam felt a sob build up in his chest. He swallowed it down, but couldn’t stop the next one from rising, and then he gave in and allowed himself to cry in earnest, sitting with his arms round his knees and his forehead resting on them.

  I’ll have to stick it out here, he told himself, trying to cheer up. That Snig, he might be all right. And there’s Jennet.

  He felt a sudden movement beside him and started as something cold and wet butted against his wrist. Powerful had padded silently across to him and was standing at his shoulder. The dog was so huge that his face was on a level with Adam’s. Adam put out a tentative hand and touched the mastiff’s neck. Powerful gave a yelp that turned into a low growl, but it was a sound of pain rather than anger.

  Adam moved up to a crouching position and held out his hand.

  ‘Here, boy. Here, Powerful.’

  The dog edged up to him and again dropped his head, wriggling his neck uncomfortably.

  ‘There’s something there. Under the collar, is it?’

  Gently, Adam felt for the buckle on the heavy studded collar and undid it. He could see the problem now. A splinter of wood had somehow been caught under the collar and was entangled in a mass of hair. Crooning softly to calm the dog, Adam eased the splinter out and smoothed the hair down, then buckled the collar back on again.

  He sat back in his old position by the doorpost. Powerful lifted his head, shook it, gave a mighty snuffling sigh and lay down beside Adam, who placed a hand on his head and began idly to massage his ears.

  He was almost asleep, worn out by hunger and exhaustion, when he heard voices. He opened his eyes. The castle door was open, and the bailey was filling up with people again. Master Tappe and Snig and were already only a few yards away.

  Adam scrambled to his feet, afraid he’d done something wrong. Master Tappe was looking at him curiously.

  ‘Mighty friendly with Powerful all of a sudden, ain’t you? That dog don’t take easy to strangers.’

  ‘He – he had a splinter under his collar. I took it out for him,’ stammered Adam.

  Snig was staring at him uneasily.

  ‘No one gets near that dog. I been working in this kennel for years. He never lets me touch him. Here, you ain’t done a spell, have you? You ain’t got magic or nothing like that?’

  ‘Pah!’ Master Tappe spat on the ground. ‘Magic! Boy’s got a way with dogs, that’s all, which is more than can be said for you, Snig, kennel lad though you be all your life.’ He shot out a sudden hand and landed a stinging slap on Adam’s cheek. ‘That’s for getting above yourself. You’ll know your place or I’ll make sure you’re sent back to the hovel you came from. Now get along to the kitchen for some supper and tell them I sent you.’

  Half an hour later, the world seemed a better place to Adam. Squatting in a corner of Fortis’s cavernous kitchen, out of the way of the cooks and scullions, he had been given a bowl and spoon. Into the bowl had been flung a thick wedge of bread and a dollop of rich and satisfying pea soup, with a layer of minced meat slathered on top. Adam had eaten meat no more than once or twice a year throughout his life and the lavishness of the meal astonished him. To cap it all, when he had looked up at last from his empty bowl, a girl had laughed and tossed him a venison bone. A little meat and gristle was still clinging to the knuckle, and Adam had gnawed at it until the bone was white and shiny. He had never eaten venison before. He thought it was delicious.

  It was only when he’d finished with the bone that he realized someone else had been watching him. Jacques the pedlar was sitting on a stool, leaning his back against the wall, his long legs stuck out in front of him. He looked as relaxed and at home as if he was Lord Guy himself.

  Adam frowned. Slowly, Jacques raised his left hand and pointed the index and little finger at Adam. It wasn’t a sign that Adam recognized, but the menace in it was unmistakable.

  I can make a man blind. I can turn a man mad, Jacques had said.

  In spite of himself, Adam shivered. Jacques lowered his hand, grinned and gave Adam a broad wink. Adam stood up and hurried out of the kitchen.

  That night, in spite of the strangeness of the place, Adam slept more deeply than he had for months. Shut in their pens all round him, the dogs restless, sometimes whining as they dreamed, or growling at a marauding rat, but their snufflings were almost comforting to Adam, who had been used for a long time to listen to Strangia’s rasping breathing and choking coughs, fearing, whenever she fell silent, that she had slipped away.

  The only dog unpenned was Powerful. Attached by a long chain to the kennel doorpost, he lay at first outside the door, across the threshhold, but some time in the night he nosed the latch up and pushed the door open, and when Adam woke at first light he found the huge dog curled up beside him.

  Powerful’s instant devotion to him had gained Adam Master Tappe’s guarded approval.
It was clear too that the other dogs took their cue from Powerful, who was obviously the king of this canine world. Snig struggled to keep the boisterous, quarrelsome brachet hounds in order, and was even nipped painfully by Fillette, Lady Ysabel’s tiny lapdog, who was brought by a maid every morning to the kennels for a pampered grooming.

  There was a routine to the morning work, but Adam found it confusing and hard to understand. Master Tappe, short on words, pointed to what had to be done, but offered few explanations, and Snig, jealous of Adam’s success with Powerful, had plunged into a sulk.

  The sun was nearing its height when from a distance, some way outside the castle walls, came the sound of a horn. An eerie quiet fell inside the bailey. For a moment, no one moved, then everything came to life. The blacksmith emerged from his forge, his hammer still in his hand. At high windows in the keep women’s faces appeared. Kitchen maids ran out to the entrance of their yard, wiping their hands on their aprons. Men-at-arms poured out of the keep, clapping on their helmets and hoisting quivers of arrows on to their shoulders, running across the open spaces and pounding up the stairs to the ramparts. Lord Guy appeared at the doorway to the keep, with a black-robed priest at his side.

  The commotion had set the dogs barking and for a few moments there was chaos in the kennels. Then shouts from the ramparts seemed to calm things down.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Adam dared ask Snig.

  ‘Don’t know much, do you?’ Snig said, his sulk over now that he knew something Adam didn’t. ‘Could have been an attack, couldn’t it? Can’t you hear them shouts? King’s messenger, that’s who it is. He comes from time to time. There’ll be a feast tonight. Music. Plenty of meat. You’ll see.’

  Grooms had sprung to action in the nearby stable and were now leading out a pair of elegant palfreys, flinging brightly patterned caparisons over their backs and buckling on saddles. Lord Guy had taken from a servant’s hand a magnificent furtrimmed cloak. He was fastening it with a gold pin. Lord Robert, his fifteen-year-old son, was at his heels, his face flushed with excitement. A moment later, they had both mounted their horses and were trotting out through the gate-house, followed by half a dozen knights.

  Adam was standing to watch, a broom in his hand, when a smack on the head nearly knocked him flying.

  ‘Get back to work, you,’ grunted Master Tappe. ‘King’s messenger, he ain’t nothin’ to the likes of you.’

  By chance, out of nearly everyone in the castle, Adam was one of the first to see the arrival of the king’s messenger. Master Tappe had sent him to fetch a bale of straw from the heap beyond the gatehouse, and he was returning with it in his arms when the procession swept in through the gate.

  He had to stand back to avoid being trampled by the dozen or so horses and the troop of armed men running behind them. Sunlight sparked off the horses’ polished tack and the soldiers’ helmets, and glowed on the scarlet and blue of their surcoats.

  From all round the bailey, the castle’s inhabitants were running forward to watch the King’s men come in. Women from the kitchens, laundry and still rooms, men from the smithy, stables and guard room pressed up to the gate, threatening to block the way.

  Lord Guy’s cheek and neck flared angrily.

  ‘Get back!’ he roared. ‘Get to your work!’

  Reluctantly, he was obeyed.

  The horses cantered on up to the door of the keep, the royal men-at-arms walking more leisurely after them.

  In the scrum, the straw bale Adam had been holding had been accidentally knocked out of his arms. He bent down to pick it up and felt a claw-like hand close about his arm.

  ‘Blind,’ Jacques was whispering with malevolent force. ‘Stone blind. Both eyes. You’ll know.’

  Adam stood up, his blood chilling, and tried to shake Jacques off.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he said gruffly. ‘What have I ever done to you?’

  But Jacques was no longer interested in Adam. He had let him go and was staring at someone behind him. Adam swung round and saw that Lord Robert, a tall, pale boy with a long pinched face and close-set blue eyes, had dismounted from his horse and was hurrying towards them on foot.

  Jacques glided forwards, every bone in his body melting in an oily rapture of fawning.

  ‘The noble young lord!’ he crooned. ‘Lord Robert himself! Ah, sir, I received your message. Yes indeed! Your servant was discreet. Oh, definitely! But I know what your heart longs for, and I have it! By a lucky chance, here, on my person, is the precious dust which every man – emperor, rogue or simple pedlar – most desires.’

  Adam had stepped quietly behind a pile of casks, not wishing to draw attention to himself by moving off too quickly. Now half hidden, he bent over his bale and pretended to retie the straw twist that bound it together. Peering round the highest cask, he saw Jacques draw one of his leather pouches out from inside his jerkin.

  Lord Robert held out an eager hand, opened the pouch and took out a little glass bottle.

  ‘Is that it? It’s nothing by dust! You’re a cheat. I’ll have you whipped.’

  Jacques writhed like a supplicating cat.

  ‘Dust it looks like, master, and dust it is. But where from? That is the question. And I will answer it. From the birthplace of Venus, the goddess of love! And how do I know? Because this precious – this priceless – stock was sold to me, not one week since, for my whole life’s savings, by a merchant from Athens, who had it off a maiden reared in the goddess’s grotto, what they call the navel of Venus. Strike me dead if I lie. It’s God’s own truth.’

  Lord Robert was staring at him in disgust.

  ‘What do you take me for? A complete fool?’ He turned, as if he was about to call the guards.

  Jacques started back. He looked shocked.

  ‘You, sir? A fool? The only son of Lord Guy? The finest young nobleman in the country? That time you rode in the tournament, over Chester way, when you unhorsed Sir Giles de Chastel. They’re talking of it still. Your looks, your courage—’

  ‘That’s enough, you clown,’ Lord Robert interrupted, but Adam could tell he was pleased.

  Jacques held out his hand for the pouch.

  ‘You must forgive a poor pedlar, sir. How could I have thought that a young man like yourself would need the assistance even of the goddess of love? Let me sell it to some lesser mortal, less god-like than yourself!’

  Lord Robert held the pouch away from him.

  ‘Wait.’ He was looking inside it again. ‘What’s this stuff supposed to do for a man, anyway?’

  Jacques leaned towards him and whispered in his ear.

  Adam, daring to look up, saw an eager, greedy look come into Lord Robert’s eyes.

  ‘I’ll give you sixpence for it,’ he said, trying to sound careless.

  ‘Sixpence!’ Jacques squealed. ‘But master! My life’s savings! A gold piece, at least!’

  Lord Robert had already pocketed the pouch of dust, taken a coin from his pocket and spun it in the air. It landed wide and rolled to rest at Adam’s feet. Lord Robert was about to stride off, but as he turned he caught sight of Adam, who had dropped his eyes a second too late.

  ‘You dare to look at me?’ he shouted, his fair face flushing. ‘Come here!’

  Reluctantly, Adam went forward. The next thing he knew, a fist had crashed into his chin and he was sprawling on the ground.

  ‘Insolence!’ Lord Robert hissed. ‘God’s breath, but you stink!’

  He kicked savagely at Adam’s ribs, then hurried off towards the keep.

  Jacques, scrabbling in the dust, found his coin and held it up mockingly in front of Adam’s face.

  ‘Know your betters, my dear young friend. Study them. Find out their weaknesses. Take my advice. It’s worth more than a gold piece. You’ll see.’

  By the end of the next day, it seemed to Adam as if he’d been condemned to live in Fortis Castle forever, and the years unrolled ahead like a life sentence of trouble. Still smarting from his bruises, he felt as if he’d made enemi
es of everyone. Master Tappe, far from being pleased at his success with the dogs, seemed to resent it. He gave Adam the hardest tasks, kicking him awake before dawn to take the spaniels out with the bird catchers in pursuit of ducks in the marsh by the river, so that he returned chilled, soaked to the skin and too late for the morning meal. Then he was set to work at once on preparing the dogs’ hot mash. Snig had taken his cue from Master Tappe and was not inclined to be friendly.

  A couple of times Adam had seen Jennet’s russet skirt in the distance and had heard her laughing with one of the grooms.

  I thought I’d be able to count on her, he thought bitterly. Stupid, that’s me.

  At least Jacques seemed to have gone. Having won too many pennies off the men-at-arms, he’d been accused of loading the dice, and had taken himself and his pack off at a dancing run, pursued by a hail of stones.

  What he said, about making me go blind if I told anyone, that was all lies, like the rest of him, Adam told himself, but he couldn’t forget the menace in Jacques’s voice and eyes.

  The castle itself was in a ferment of preparation for the feast in honour of the King’s messenger, who had been closeted in the keep all day with Lord Guy. Hunters had gone out early and returned with a couple of deer carcasses loaded on a cart, their tongues lolling out of their dead mouths. The warren had been plundered for rabbits, the coops for chickens and eggs, and the vegetable gardens ransacked. Even as far away as the kennels irritable shouts could be heard from the kitchens, where the overwrought cooks were racing against time.

  Adam’s thoughts strayed again and again to his mother, to that long tress of dark hair escaping from the shroud and blowing in the wind, like a soul trying to free itself from the grip of death. He was tortured by the thought that she might be burning in hell, in everlasting torment, because he’d been unable to persuade the drunken priest to come to her deathbed and grant her absolution.