There was nothing for him to trouble himself about, though. No. He rolled over on the bed, and was soon asleep.
They had let Jack go. There was little point in trying to maintain the charade that he was in danger, not when he lay on his belly and smiled at them, as though knowing that they would like to harm him but in truth did not dare. Disgruntled, Ricard had jerked his head, and all had released him.
Philip was the last to speak. He held his fist under Jack’s nose. ‘See this? See this, little mystery man? When I have the chance, one day I’ll use this on you, and you’ll not know what day of the week it is, I swear!’
‘Fearful,’ Jack said, eyeing the clenched fist closely. ‘Wash it first, would you?’
‘You …’ Philip swung twice, hard, the fist striking on the cheek, the nose. Jack was just able to roll his head enough to absorb the blows, but the blood began to trickle from his nostrils.
Ricard grabbed the fist before it could swing again. ‘Philip, get out of here.’
‘Just leave me with him for a little. I’ll find out what he’s about.’
‘Leave him! You want the Queen to hear you’ve been brawling? She’ll abandon you here without a penny. You want that?’
‘He’s a spy. He killed Peter, and now he’s here to spy on us all.’
‘Who’d want to spy on us?’ Janin asked reasonably.
‘I’ll bet he killed the Frenchie too,’ Philip spat, pointing at Jack. ‘And because he says he’ll see us dead, you let him get away with it all!’
Jack watched him throw his hands in the air, then stride angrily from the room. The others were eyeing him cautiously, as though he might at any moment turn and kill them all.
‘Is there any truth in what he says?’
‘What, that I may have killed this man Peter? I never even met the man. And as for the Frenchman – why would I do that? No, I’m innocent, just an ordinary drummer. That’s me.’
Alicia was content enough with the large room she shared with the Queen and the other ladies.
It was hard to find a moment to speak to the Queen without being overheard, but as she washed the dust from her mistress and brushed it from her hair, she could whisper a little.
‘Have you seen him again?’ Isabella asked. Her lips scarcely moved.
‘Yes. There was a shadow down in the doorway when I fetched the water, and Lady Joan was there.’
‘Joan of Bar. My husband’s niece. He does me the honour of a noble spy, at least.’
Alicia smiled at that. Of all the ladies-in-waiting, she was the least by birth, and if it were not for the fact that the Queen had insisted on her presence, she would never have been brought along. The Queen already had Lady Joan of Bar and Alice de Toeni, the Dowager Countess of Warwick. King Edward had pointedly asked why she should need any more people, and Alicia had smiled to herself at the Queen’s indignant response.
‘Why, would you have the King’s ambassador arrive at my brother’s door like a beggar? If you seek a peace with my brother and would have me treat with him as an equal, you will need to allow me to appear as though I have some status in your eyes, my lord. You would grudge me my own maid?’
It was a telling comment. The Archbishop Reynolds supported her, as did Henry Eastry, prior of Christ Church. There were enough men who would be unwilling to see her humiliated before her own brother for the King to acquiesce, finally, albeit with a bad grace.
But there were spies about her at all times.
‘Is she back yet?’
‘No, my lady.’
There was another pause while the Queen considered. ‘She is the King’s lady. She could be sending information to him, but if so, she is also telling Despenser. We must remain careful.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see him?’
‘Thickset, broad-shouldered, with a slow sort of mien. I would not think him a nobleman. He didn’t have that kind of breeding.’
‘His face.’
‘Didn’t see it. He was in shadows. Lady Joan was between him and the torches.’
Queen Isabella nodded faintly. ‘Watch her, then, and let me know if you see him again.’
‘I will, my—’
‘You are taking your time, child. Is our queen’s toilet complete?’
‘Lady Alice, I think I can decide for myself when my toilet is complete. Where is Lady Joan?’
‘I do not know. She went out a little while ago.’
‘Perhaps you should send someone to ensure that she is quite safe? And while you are out there, you could send for my musicians. I think I need a little music to lighten my mood. I find myself a little distraite.’
‘Very well. Alicia, you go and—’
‘Countess Alice, I think I asked you to go,’ the Queen said. In her voice was a hint of steel. Although she did not turn her head to look at the Dowager Countess directly, there was enough menace in her tone to make Alice de Toeni colour.
‘I should insist, my lady. I am of noble blood, and it would be better if I did not leave you alone. We are in a foreign country, and—’
‘Lady Alice, this is the land of my birth. You suggest that my own countrymen would harm me? For sooth! Now, begone. If there is any trouble, you may point out that it was the absence of Lady Joan that forced you to leave me alone. Now, go!’
As soon as the door had slammed, she gave herself over to giggling. ‘Did you see her face? She was like a stuffed frog!’
Alicia was more concerned. ‘But what if she causes you trouble? She could tell the King that you sent her away like a serf.’
‘She will. With fortune, it will be too late,’ Queen Isabella said with a cold certainty, and Alicia wondered at that. It was not the first time she had heard that hard, ruthless edge to her mistress’s voice, but it was the first time that she had seen the glitter of certainty in her eyes.
While the Queen waited for her musicians, Alicia noticed that she appeared unsettled. Usually Alicia would leave to go about other duties while the musicians played, but tonight she was unusually tired. The effect of the journey and the feeling that she must spend her time in cautious observation of all those about her, she supposed.
The men trooped in, a very motley band. Still, as the first struck a tune on his gittern, and another started to saw on his rebec, she warmed to them. They might be the tattiest churls ever to have been scraped from the kennel, but they could certainly play their instruments. Even when they had been in a fight. The man with the bodhran was looking quite battered, although he stood there with his head turned away from the drum, his ear near the skin as he beat out the rhythms, like a man with nothing on his mind whatever, other than the urgent need for the music he had to play. Then the rebec player glanced over at the others in turn, each nodding to him, and he ducked his upper body and sawed faster on his fiddle, and as though by magic all the others joined in at the same time, this time playing a furious, quick dance tune. Alicia’s foot could not keep still – it began to tap in time.
But all the while her mind was not on the music. It was on the Queen, sitting here so close to her, her head moving, smiling all the while.
There was a fresh change of tempo, and now it was the gittern player who initiated it. He looked at the rebecman, then to the drummer and the recorder. All nodded.
And then she saw something else. It was so swift, so fleeting, that at first she thought she had been wrong. The bodhran man looked up quickly. Just for a moment, but Alicia saw it, and she also saw his slight nod. It was a momentary thing, but enough, she thought, to be over-familiar. Except Isabella did not seem to mind. Instead, she too nodded. A spasm of the neck that made her head move a fraction, only for an instant.
Alicia felt the breath in her lungs turn to ice. Isabella had a plan to which even Alicia was not privy. It was the first time Alicia had realised that there could be secrets which the Queen would keep even from her.
In the street outside the Queen’s apartments, Adam and the other musicians stood and cou
nted their coins again. Ricard knew he ought to go back to their room and make sure that little Charlie was safe, but somehow it seemed hard to move his legs just now.
‘My God,’ Adam breathed. He stared at the coins glittering and shining in Ricard’s hands.
‘I know,’ Janin said. He could not believe what he held. He stared at the coins with a kind of longing. They were so beautiful, he hardly dared to put his rosin-stained hands near them. Large, solid coins. Fifty of them.
For his part, Ricard was all but speechless. It was only after he had stood there with the pile of coins in his hands for a while that he shook his head and muttered, ‘Keep this up, we’ll be able to retire in comfort.’
‘She must have been in a good mood tonight,’ Jack said.
‘She’s a queen. What’s there for her to be anxious about?’ Adam said, his eyes still fixed upon the mound in Ricard’s hand. ‘Can I feel one, Ric?’
‘She usually gives us a few coins, doesn’t she? One or two shillings for an evening’s banging and scraping. And tonight she gives us ten apiece, and you’re not interested in why?’
‘Just leave her alone, is what I say. She’s a lady, and she doesn’t deserve some arse like you sniffing around her,’ Philip said.
‘Me? Ho hum. So you still think I’m a spy now, do you?’
‘I don’t know what you are, but I know damn sure I don’t trust you,’ Philip snarled.
‘Ah, now, there’s a pity. When I could be such charming company, too,’ Jack said lightly.
‘Just leave the woman alone. She has enough to cope with.’
Adam gave a small sniff of contempt. ‘Like what? She’s a queen, Philip. She’s never been left out in the open with her instruments getting warped in the rain, has she? Never had to worry about where her next meal’s coming from, neither. Don’t see what you reckon—’
‘Have you wool in your head? You heard what Peter used to say. She’s been suffering a lot recently, what with her children taken away and her friends all gone. Despenser hates her, that’s what they say. So yes, she has plenty to worry about, I’d reckon.’
‘Let her worry. What do we care, as long as she keeps paying us?’ Jack said.
‘You shouldn’t keep talking about her as if she was just some slattern from the stews!’
‘Was I disrespectful, old man? Ah, now there. I hadn’t realised that talking amongst friends could be so dangerous. If I’ve upset you, that’s a shame.’
All was delivered in a calm, disinterested tone, as though Jack was absolutely unconcerned what Philip might think, and it was enough to make Philip forget where they were. Here, in the street, in the dark, it was hazardous to brawl where the Watch could catch a man, but he was past caring.
He growled low in his throat, and launched himself forward, his hands reaching out like a campball player’s14 to grab Jack. But as he sprang at him, Jack slipped aside and punched once, sharply. His fist connected with a solid-sounding thud just under Philip’s ear, and he fell to the ground like a pole-axed ox.
‘I think you’d best take care of him now, fellows. Don’t think he’d like me to be around when he wakens, eh?’
The last they saw of Jack that night, he was strolling away as though he had not a care in the world. It was only Adam who saw the figure slip from the shadow of a doorway further up the street and join Jack, walking in step with him as far as a bend in the road. They both stopped there and turned back to look at the musicians before walking on.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Ricard had been carefully replacing the coins one by one in the neat purse, and looked up now as Janin tried to lift Philip to a sitting position.
‘Up there. I could have sworn it was William de Bouden, but … they’ve gone now.’
‘What of it?’ Janin demanded, puffing a little as he rolled Philip on to his back. ‘Give me a hand, Ricard.’
‘De Bouden was watching us, as if he knew Jack was going to be here,’ Adam said. ‘When he wandered up, Bouden stepped out, all friendly, and joined him. Why?’
‘Because the bastard’s in league with Despenser, that’s why!’ Ricard snapped. ‘So what’s new? He’s probably spilling all he’s seen in the Queen’s chamber tonight. Then Bouden can relay it all back to London.’
‘You really think that he’s dishonourable enough to do that?’
Ricard stopped, turned, and stared at him.
Adam coloured. He felt foolish enough. But if he’d seen round the bend in the street, to where de Bouden and Jack had halted as they met the third man, he would have felt still more confused.
As would Ricard.
Chapter Eighteen
Wednesday after the Feast of St Edward the Martyr15
Jean had tried to find a small room, but the sudden influx of people in the town had soon put paid to that. All the sleeping chambers were taken, and even the haylofts and stables were occupied by grooms and servants, because every knight travelling with the Queen – those in her entourage and those French men who had met her on her way to celebrate her journey – had a squire, two horses for riding, and a sumpter horse or two; and then there were the assorted hangers-on: musicians, cooks, procurers, carters. There was not a foot of floor available anywhere, he was told at one point.
In the end, he had been forced to accept an offer of some boards up in the eaves of a peasant’s hovel. The peasant was content to sleep on the ground on his palliasse, and Jean was forced to make the best of it on the man’s bed without a mattress. It was only a little harder than the ground outside, and reeked of the man and his wife, smoke, and urine from some creature which lived in the thatching, but at least it was consistently warm – until the middle of the night, long before dawn, when a combination of the cold, the man’s wife’s snoring, and a wooden dowel sticking in his kidneys, all conspired to wake him.
He glanced about him quickly, alert as always to the risk of a sudden attack from a stranger, but when he looked down, the peasant and his wife were both still asleep. Others he had known had been stabbed at night and robbed by poor folk such as these, but he felt safe enough. He did not look to them like someone worth robbing; he had little enough to steal. Rolling over, he slept until dawn.
The Queen’s company might have made his search for a bed problematic, but at least he had the pleasure of witnessing the cavalcade depart the following morning. He was sitting outside the peasant’s hovel on a rock when the men began to gather, and he left it to trail after them and watch what was happening. It was many years since he had seen a grand party like this lot.
That was down in Pamiers. When the bishop arrived. He had not realised then how the man would destroy his life. How could he? It was difficult to conceive of a single person’s bringing so much ruin on so small a community of believers.
He couldn’t think of that again. There was too much sadness in the memory. He was a man who had been trained in fighting, who had witnessed the deaths of all his family in the wars, and yet he was still persecuted by that vicious, cruel, and above all honourable and pious damned bishop! All he had ever done was try to live a decent life, and the bishop had destroyed it for him.
Ach! No. There was no point raking over those coals again.
When he reached the town’s marketplace, he had recovered his equanimity. There was a shop with some pastries for sale, and he could see that it had been all but cleaned out already. The patissier was running about seeking fresh supplies to bake more for his regular customers, and Jean thought he might wait awhile to buy something himself. Leaning against the doorway, he watched the people gathering.
The richness of the clothing and uniforms was quite shocking here in this little town. There were some merchants who might own some moderate garments, he thought, but nothing in comparison to all this magnificence. Velvets, scarlets, silks, fine woollens, the softest pigskin gloves – these people had everything a man could hope to acquire. And they wore it with such élan, too. As the men sprang on to their great ho
rses, they looked as elegant as kings in their own right. And then he saw the Queen.
Such beauty was blinding, he thought. A woman of some thirty years, with fine, fair hair gleaming under her headdress, seated on a horse rather than in a wagon, wearing a long cloak trimmed with ermine, she looked almost heavenly. Jean had to pull his eyes away with an effort. She was so magnificent, it almost seemed a crime to watch her, him clad in filthy leather and linen, as though he could pollute her with his glance.
‘Christ’s pains!’
He carefully sidled back into the shop’s doorway, wary and anxious at the sight of the two men standing at the opposite side of the square: le Vieux and Arnaud! They must have followed him somehow, and now they were here with this party. He must escape them again!
Thursday before the Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lady16
Pontoise
To Simon’s eye, the buildings were growing wealthier and more splendid with every day. The last night they had spent in a little town called Beauvais, and he had been struck by the richness of all the people living there. Admittedly, everyone would have been made aware that the English queen was on her way by the arrival of the heralds sent ahead to book rooms and food, and they would have decked themselves out in their best clothing in honour of the sister of their king, but even so, looking about him now in this little town, he was almost shocked by the displays of wealth on every side. It was so blatant and unashamed. Much, he had to remind himself, like London. Except cleaner.
This place was only a few miles from Paris, he had learned. Baldwin had described the journey which they were to take before they left England, but he had hardly listened to much of it. At the time he had been concentrating on the appalling thought of climbing on to a ship again. He had seen enough of ships for his life, so far as he was concerned.
The town was pretty, though, built on the banks of the River Oise, with the steeple of the cathedral towering high overhead. There were plenty of trees and orchards, he saw, as they approached the great bridge over the river.
The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover: (Knights Templar 24) Page 18