by June Francis
Harry frowned. ‘I can’t change your mind about taking the mam’selle?’
‘No.’ John’s look was one of cynicism, ‘Why suddenly all this concern for me? Five years it’s been, Harry, and I’ve managed to stay out of trouble on my own. Most likely I shall experience no difficulties in finding the girl.’
‘Hmmph! I wish I were going with you. Anyway, be on your guard. Most likely Dykemore will be at Oxford, having left his steward in charge of Cobtree, but you never know.’
‘I have thought of that,’ said John patiently. ‘Now let’s have an end to debate and be on our way. We can travel together as far as Canterbury.’
‘And then it’s Thomas and I? And you and the mam’selle alone again,’ murmured Harry. ‘Do you really think that’s wise?’
‘Dammit, Harry,’ said John, his temper rising, ‘you’d think I was the one always getting myself up to my neck in hot water. She’s not going to stick a knife in my back!’
‘I wasn’t thinking of that.’ Harry’s gaze shifted from his brother to Louise’s slender face, flushed with the wind. Some wisps of copper-coloured hair had escaped the cap’s confinements and curled on her forehead and cheeks. ‘She makes a lovely lad.’ He smiled and she responded with a look of enquiry. Walking between them, she had tried to understand some of what they were saying by watching their facial expressions and picking up some words here and there. ‘When you put her on the ship back to France, try to persuade her and her sister to live with Clotilde,’ murmured Harry. ‘It would be such a waste her going back to the forest.’ John’s mouth tightened and his eyes glinted. ‘I’ll do no such thing. Isn’t it time you settled down, brother?’
‘Let Father find me a nice little wife, as he did you?’ murmured Harry.
‘I was unlucky,’ said John in a clipped voice. ‘You’re old enough to choose your own wife. Our kinswoman Blanche has been widowed and has been left a tidy fortune and a business.’
Harry looked thoughtful. ‘I haven’t seen her for years. But from what I remember, Jack, she was always dogging your heels.’
John shook his head. ‘She couldn’t tell the difference between us. She’d have you if you offered for her.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said with a rueful grimace, and quickened his pace so that he drew ahead of the other two.
Louise contained her impatience no longer. Now she turned to John, noticing how the grazes were healing on his face and that the swelling had gone down. There was still a hint of purple on his eyelids and a line of yellow beneath one eye. She realised how difficult it would be telling the brothers apart once all physical sign of injury had disappeared. ‘How far to the place where Marguerite has been taken?’ she asked, stumbling over the English words.
‘We shall be there today,’ said John. ‘And hopefully Wat Fuller will have your sister under his roof.’
‘Good.’
He stared at her and his eyes twinkled slightly. ‘Are you so impatient to make the sea voyage to Caen again?’
She shuddered expressively and closed her eyes briefly. ‘I have to suffer it if I am to return home.’
‘You could wait till the spring,’ he said quietly.
She glanced at him and away again quickly.
‘Spring, Master Milburn?’ she questioned forcefully. ‘And what would my sister and I do with ourselves till then? Where would we stay?’ Suddenly there was a sparkle in her hazel eyes. ‘I cannot see your wife enjoying our company,’ She tossed the words at him with an air of disdain, in a mixture of English and French.
His forehead knitted. ‘I thought of taking you both north so that you could spend a couple of months in my mother’s house,’ he said impatiently. ‘She would have much sympathy with your situation. She has suffered through the violence of men herself, having lost her father when the peasants rose on his manor when she was your age. They murdered him and she buried him with her own hands!’
She was lost for something to say because his suggestion had astonished her, as did the information concerning his mother.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘I cannot see why you should want to do such a thing,’ she said in a bewildered voice.
‘Don’t you?’ His expression softened. ‘Is it that you don’t consider living in the forest in winter pure misery?’
Her throat moved and she moistened lips chapped by the wind. ‘I don’t want your pity.’
His face darkened. ‘I’m not offering you pity. My mother would enjoy your company. She never had a daughter, and my stepsister lives in Ireland and we seldom see her. Accept my offer, Louise,’ he urged. ‘I’m sure it will be beneficial to you both.’
She was silent a moment, before saying, ‘But what would you tell her about us? It is not right that you take me to your mother after what we have done. What will she think of me?’
A sharp laugh escaped him. ‘How is she to know?’
Her cheeks pinked. ‘I feel it is written in my face,’ she said unsteadily. ‘It is a grave sin and I cannot get it out of my mind.’
‘Can’t you, Louise?’ He stopped and took her chin between his fingers before she could draw back. His blue eyes scrutinised her countenance. ‘I can’t forget it either. But you look no different from when I met you.’ A smile of singular charm eased his face. ‘Except that you are not so thin, dirty or ragged.’
‘You do pity me,’ she muttered, considering it unfair that his smile and touch should have such an effect on her senses. ‘I cannot do it. Besides, whatever you say, she is going to question your motives in taking two French females to her.’
‘She would never suspect what is between us, having the highest opinion of my moral standing in the world. Fortunately mothers aren’t always the best judges of character when it comes to their children.’ He grimaced and dropped his hand. ‘Shall we catch up with my brother?’ He lengthened his stride so that she had to run to keep up with him and she knew that her refusal had upset him, but could see no way of accepting his offer.
They came to the agent’s house, and there they were offered refreshment while their horses were made ready.
Within the hour they were on their way, travelling at a canter along the old Roman road used by pilgrims visiting the tomb of Thomas a Becket. The conversation was desultory and concerned mainly with the landscape, sheep and fruit trees, as well as cloth-making on Cobtree Manor for Louise’s information. They also talked about Canterbury, which they came to after some two hours’ journeying.
They entered by the Riding Gate, finding their way through the back streets to the high street, and Harry dismounted outside the Chequers Inn. He looked up at John, who was still on horseback. ‘You are not stopping? I thought that Thomas and I could break our journey for dinner here and rest the horses.’
‘We will not delay,’ said John. ‘Tonight we will probably have to return here with Marguerite.’
Harry, a slight smile playing round his mouth, looked up at Louise, who was sitting astride a grey palfrey. ‘I pray you find your sister. But I won’t say au revoir, mam’selle. It’s possible that we will meet again in France, if you are the woman of sense I take you to be.’
‘And what is that supposed to mean, m’sieur?’
‘The offer I made you still stands,’ he said softly.
Impatiently she gazed down at him. ‘You, m’sieur, do not know how to take no for an answer.’
He shrugged. ‘I share that trait with my brother, so be on your guard.’ He lifted the hand resting on the pommel and kissed it.
Louise snatched it back, aware of John watching them. ‘People will consider your kissing a youth’s hand very odd, m’sieur.’
Harry laughed and John scowled. ‘We must be on our way,’ he said bitingly. ‘God grant you a safe journey, brother, and tell Mother and Father that I will be with them as soon as I can.’ He set his horse in motion towards the Westgate.
Louise followed him and now she was looking forward to the moment when she would see Marguerite again. Soon t
hey would be together and she would concentrate on that thought, not on the parting to come with John, knowing that it had to come some time and it was better sooner than later.
They travelled along the road for a short distance before turning off. He set his horse to a gallop across a field and she imitated him, aware of a growing excitement as the ground flashed beneath the beast’s thundering hoofs. After a while he slowed his pace and she managed to draw alongside him.
‘You will be relieved to know that it’s not far now.’ His gaze met hers. ‘And I’d best warn you now that if when we reach Cobtree you see a man in red robes — short, fat, with a face like a cherub, and silver hair beneath his hat — avoid him. Hide if you must. He is dangerous and not a man easily fooled.’
She shivered slightly. ‘Who is he?’
‘He is the lord of the manor. Named Dykemore, he is a cleric who hates all Lollards, but particularly ones named Milburn, and especially me. I married his niece, you see, and a tidy fortune slipped through his fingers because my wife’s mother did not wish him to see a groat of it. She was his sister and had suffered from his cruelty as a girl. A timid widow woman, who knew my father through the wool trade, she found the courage to thwart her brother’s plans by allying our families. And Dykemore never forgave us or her. She is dead now and he would like nothing better than to see us in the same state.’
‘So Dykemore is the danger your brother spoke about?’ said Louise slowly. Her expression was pensive. ‘I thought Harry only said it to frighten me. Why did you not tell me?’
‘Because most times Dykemore is not here but in Oxford. He is a fellow of the university, where he teaches theology; that is when he is not pursuing heretics throughout the south of England.’
‘But why is it that your brother sent my sister to this Cobtree?’
‘Because it once belonged to us.’ The muscles in John’s face tightened. ‘My father had to sell it to pay for a pardon from the King for Harry and I. We had no idea that it was Dykemore who bought it. He used an agent, knowing that we would never have sold it to him.’
‘How long had it been in your family’s possession?’
‘It belonged to my mother’s father, and his father before him. But it is smaller than it was in those days. A parcel of it was given to my uncle Hugo and aunt Rose. They died a short while ago, but one of my cousins, Adam, is steward there for his brother Hugh, who lives in Yorkshire.’
‘It sounds complicated.’
He smiled. ‘There is a story behind it — too long to tell now. Let’s ride. The days are short and we will most likely have to return to Canterbury this night.’
They rode swiftly until John slowed the pace and Louise looked with increased interest about her.
Orchards, their trees stark, gnarled and black against the grey sky, appeared more often and sheep grazed on tired-looking turf beneath their branches. A little further on there was a bridge, and beyond that a village. A dog barked as they crossed the stone bridge. There were few people about. A woman toiled at freeing a cabbage from the frozen earth. She looked up, smiled and called a greeting. John returned it but did not go to speak to her.
As they travelled past the houses Louise became aware of the sound of metal on metal. They came to a stone building and John called a halt and dismounted. Louise followed suit and entered after him what she guessed was the smithy. The man inside was tall with broad shoulders and strong arms, and he was in the process of shoeing a horse. A girl was using the blowers to kindle the flames in a brazier.
‘Well met, Matthew,’ said John, smiling warmly.
The smith looked up and his pleasure was obvious to Louise, who had moved over to the other side of the brazier and was holding her hands out towards its heat. ‘Why if it isn’t Master … ’ He paused and screwed up his eyes.
‘It’s John. And it’s been a long time,’ he said quietly.
‘Ay! Master John.’ He grinned. ‘It’s been too long, sir.’
‘Much too long.’ There was a silence and John cleared his throat. ‘Is all well with you?’
‘Well enough.’ Matthew pulled a face. ‘The new steward’s all right in his way. It’s his lordship the villagers have mixed feelings about. Sweet as honey one visit, going to be like a father to us all. The next time he’s rooting around as if he’s got a swarm of bees on his tail and then it’s everybody look out,’ he said grimly. ‘Only last week he was here with that friar. They took away Wat Fuller.’
Louise looked up at the name. She met John’s eyes and moved closer to him as he swore softly, and asked, ‘For what reason?’
‘The only reason that his lordship ever yanks people away from their homes for. Heresy!’ Matthew’s lips tightened. ‘I’m not one of you, Master John. But I say, why can’t people be left to believe what they like if they ain’t doing anybody no harm, but are behaving like Christians? Likely it was because he was preaching a sermon outside here the other Wednesday. As good as any you’d hear in church.’
‘Do you think the steward reported him?’
‘Might have mentioned it without thinking. He’s not a damn witch-hunter. He likes his ale and the wenches too much.’
John was silent. Louise tugged at his sleeve. ‘Master Milburn, what of Marguerite?’
He covered her hand with his, and nodded. ‘Matt! Did any man bring a French maid to the village — looking for Wat?’
The smith’s brow furrowed. ‘Not that I know of. But if they’d come on the day Wat was taken off they could have been missed. I do know that there’s no French maid here now or I’d have heard about it. You’re best having word with Wat’s missus.’
‘She’s still here?’
‘Not in the village. Gone to your cousin’s manor, and is staying with her sister there, as far as I know.’
Louise tugged on John’s sleeve again. ‘What is he saying?’
He gazed down at her. ‘Marguerite is not here in the village. But it’s possible that she’s with Wat’s wife across the river on my cousin’s land.’
Her spirits sank. ‘But why should she be there? What has happened?’
‘I’ll explain on the way. Go outside and mount. I’ll be a few moments.’
Louise did as she was told. When John reappeared she waited only until he had mounted before demanding information from him. He told her all that Matthew had said, adding, ‘Don’t start worrying until we speak with Maud.’
They crossed the river and rode beside it for a short while. On the other side Louise could see some wooden tubs which she guessed were used for fulling cloth. They came to a group of thatched cottages, built mostly of clay daub. A few hens pecked in the straggling grass in front of them. John dismounted and knocked on the door of a cottage. It was opened by a woman with a distaff tucked into her belt and a baby under her arm. With her free hand she plied her spindle.
John smiled. ‘Is your sister here, mistress?’
‘Ay, sir.’ Shyly she returned his smile.
‘Could you get her for me?’
‘If you’ll wait, sir. Crying all week she’s been, and perhaps you can find words to comfort her.’
John’s smile faded and the lines in his face deepened. Louise, who could only make a guess at what was being said from what he had told her earlier, sensed his concern. Impulsively she slipped her hand into his and squeezed it. He looked down at her and his eyes warmed, and his fingers returned the pressure on hers before releasing her hand.
The next moment a woman, perhaps some ten years older than Louise, appeared in the doorway. She was dark-haired and her face was drawn and pale. Her eyes lacked lustre. ‘It is you, sir. For a moment I didn’t believe our Meg,’ she said dully. ‘You’ve heard what he’s done to my Wat?’ Her voice broke suddenly. ‘He didn’t deserve that, sir,’ she wailed, throwing her apron over her head and sobbing into it.
Louise moved and put her arm round her, feeling it was the least she could do to comfort her. John pulled her away. ‘You are forgetting your situation,’
he said in an undertone. ‘Wat must be dead.’
Maud suddenly ceased her crying and lifted her head. She scrubbed at her eyes. ‘Dead he is, sir. Had him hung he did on the Lollers gallows and lit a fire under him.’ She paused and swallowed. ‘He consigned him to hell’s fire, but I don’t believe he’s there, sir. He’s sleeping now and he’ll be raised at the Last Day with the Saviour. That I do believe!’ Her voice had strengthened. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, sir?’
‘Ay, mistress.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘And that same Saviour will give you strength to go on. But you and your sons must not return to Cobtree. It won’t be safe for you. Stay here with your sister for now, and I will have a word with my cousin about building a cottage for you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ She scrubbed at her eyes again.
He waited a moment to allow her to compose herself before saying, ‘Good mistress, I must ask you if a stranger called at your home last week. This young master is looking for his sister. A French maid of the name Marguerite — about twelve years old. My brother was sending her to you and Wat to help you out.’
Maud’s eyes swivelled from John to Louise and there was a silence, then, ‘There was a strange maid with a lad,’ she said slowly, ‘standing on the edge of the crowd, but I had no mind to heed them properly that day. But I know I never saw them again afterwards.’
Louise tugged on John’s arm. ‘What is she saying?’
‘That there was a maid but she hasn’t seen her since.’ He frowned.
‘Ask her was she flaxen-haired and whether she wore a russet gown.’
John did so.
‘Ay, she could have been fair. I think she was. As for the colour of her gown, now that I don’t remember,’ said Maud, her eyes going from one to the other.
‘My thanks to you anyway.’ John dug in his pocket and pulled out some coins. He pressed them into her palm. ‘I will not forget to speak to my cousin.’
A watery smile brightened her face and she lifted his hand and pressed it against her cheek. ‘God bless you, sir,’ she muttered huskily.