“What mean you?”
“I mean that the king’s across the Channel where he’s been since November last. Know ye not that the Angevins think more of their European possessions than they do of England? Though this Henry is better than most.”
“Please, Sire, ’tis of utmost importance. Where is this Channel? Can it be forded?”
“What an ignorant boy you are! Where have you lived that you don’t know about the English Channel, such a treacherous sea-path that even strong sailors dread for its sudden squalls? On the far side lies a series of domains, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Brittany, Poitou, Aquitaine, all ruled by our king but with homage to the King of France. You heard the courtiers just now. My guess is that King Henry is in Le Mans fighting King Philip of France and his own devil-son, Richard.”
He rose abruptly and walked away without another word, leaving me exposed to the room just as Magnus and Roncechaux who had not gained entry to the inner chamber were turning around. At that moment the contentious wight called Walter Map approached, deep in argument with another courtier, and I joined them as they strode, almost creeping between Walter Map’s legs in my fear.
“Good Lord, who’s there?” he cried. “Do you want to trip me up?”
I shifted my position, so that I was hidden by the courtier’s cape. However, ’twas necessary to constantly adjust as they turned at corners or stopped to make a point.
Then, to my horror, I suddenly missed a turn and was left stranded in the center of the room. Instinctively I looked at my enemies and, as if fated, Magnus Barefoot looked at the same time.
“Alix!” I heard as his finger pointed.
I rushed out the door like one possessed. Coming up the stairs was a bearded personage whom I recognized as the Bishop of London. He went through the door and blocked the way of my pursuers for a critical moment as I flew through one chamber after another, knocking people this way and that, ducking under legs and robes.
Outside, I dashed into the wooded park, for the cover was better there than in the open courts. I could see the Thames glinting faintly through the trees but when I reached bottom I was confronted with a high wall again. I ran along it seeking a gate, found one that was closed, continued running as my lungs burst. Finally I saw the outline of an ancient Saxon abbey and ran through a low doorway into a dark hole. I groped my way through a passage and found myself inside a hall where Mass was being conducted. I edged my way to a far door on the other side where I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Roland de Roncechaux topple two kneeling priests in his haste to get to me. A high arched way offered an exit from the room and when I reached the other side, I was on a London street again and the fog was gone.
Before me stretched the Thames and a busy loading dock. Sailors sang chanties in a strange tongue while wharfmen pulled on ropes and pushed heavy carts loaded with fish. The waterside was too open; I turned the other direction into the city. Breathing hard, I ran up a sharp incline onto higher ground where commerce of all kinds crowded the way. I dared not look behind me for I knew that Roncechaux must be close and I couldn’t spare an instant from my pell-mell thrust forward. In and out I went, into a smithy’s shop with bellows heaving and out the other side, into a copper-pot shop with hammers ringing and through it, into an inn and out behind its stables. People started and tried to grab me, but on I went.
I sobbed with the pain in my ribs and still ran on. My mouth was dry as parchment and I passed wells without stopping. I knew not where I went nor cared, so long as I got away from the sure death behind me. Once I made the mistake of entering the open court of a palace and was almost caught, for Roncechaux saw me and shouted, whereupon he was joined by Magnus, and they tried to stay my exit by going to different gates. I fooled them by entering the palace—flying by the astonished guards—running to the roof, out to a balustrade and over the wall, dropping ten feet or more onto soft grass. And on I ran.
Then the fog returned. Slowly at first, then closing in rapidly In one sense I’d lost them, but in another I’d lost myself even more, for at any moment I might run directly into their arms. Surrounded once again by ogre shapes and echoing voices, I groped my way along wet store fronts, touching stone, plants, horses’ muzzles and people alike. My breathing and heart subsided in speed, but I was frightened more than ever and would have preferred to see where I was though the knowledge be useless. The one thing I was sure of was that I heard footsteps close behind me. Incorporeal in an invisible world, I was suddenly again on the mist-swathed fields of Wanthwaite, watching a timeless sun hang over the horror of the blood-drenched soil. I seemed to run without moving, cry out without sound, reach without touching. With my parents, I moved through perpetual limbo.
I walked for hours, I trowe. Curfew had rung, then Compline, and ’twas pitch black and silent in the streets. I reached out my hand and crab-walked along a wall until I came to a door. I pushed and entered a small room with the embers of a fire burnt low in the chimney. Silhouetted against the fire was the large figure of a man.
“Sae ye decided to come back after all,” said Enoch’s voice.
“No!” I cried and turned to run out.
His hand held me in a steel grip. “Not sae fast, laddie, for we’ve many things to talk about. Now sit ye doon on the settle.”
He pushed me roughly to the seat and stared down, his evil eyes burning red.
“You hurt me!” I said vehemently. “I’d rather die than spend another instant with you! How dare you strike me?”
“How—dare—I—strike—thee? Indeed! Strikin’s too good fer a twa-faced castratin’ scoundrel like ye. I’d give ye yer wish and make ye dead if ye didn’t hold title to my land.”
“Your land!” I imitated his lady-love. “Caaaa! Caaaa! Caaaa! Did you really think I’d let a slimy snake like you take Wanthwaite? And a Scot at that!”
He sat beside me and squeezed my sore shoulder till I cried out in pain. “Listen to me, little high-and-mighty Baron,” he said in his hoarse voice, “for as a baron ye’re a beggar as long as yer land be held by an appointed noble of the king’s court. Ye can neither give it or keep it, fer it’s not yours to dispose of until ye’ve got it back. Do ye understand what I’m saying?”
“Of course. Do you understand that I will get it back? And that when I do you’ll get nothing? I’ll not ask that it be granted to me and a demon-Scot!”
“And exactly whom air ye gang to ask, Master Alex?”
“I know who.”
“Aye, sae do I. King Henry what’s in France somewhere. See, I know more than ye think. Ye always pay too little fer services rendered. Peterfee couldn’t wait to collect from me as well. When do ye take the boat to France?”
I said nothing till he shook me hard by my sore shoulder, then I started to blubber.
“How do you expect me to go to France? Roncechaux’s in London. And Magnus Barefoot too. They’ve been chasing me all day and …”
And I couldn’t talk for weeping. Enoch offered no comfort, but waited for me to get a grip on myself.
“Where did ye see them?”
I told him what had transpired.
He let go of me and when I looked up again he was studying his dagger held in his palm.
“I’ve told ye twice now and I’ll say it once again: I need land for I’m a younger brother. And I’ll have land, no matter who pays. I prefer good Scottish soil such as Wanthwaite be—nay, let me finish—for all of Northumberland be rightfully Scotland. And ye be Scottish too since ye were born there. Now ye air the means of my getting what’s mine by rights, and ye have proved yerself to be a skittery wretch what cannot be trusted because ye were brought up in the English manner. Before I can help ye or trust ye, we mun have a new footing. Give me yer arm.”
“What for?”
He grabbed my hand and jerked my arm out straight, then quickly sliced my skin with his dagger and before I could feel the pain, bent and drank my blood. Helplessly I squirmed to get away.
Just as quickly, he cut his own forear
m and thrust the bleeding hairy shank under my neck.
“Drink or ye’re a dead bairn.”
When put so immediately, I found I didn’t want to die after all and sucked.
“Ugh! Let me up. I’m going to be sick.”
“No, ye’re not. Repeat after me: From this day forward, Enoch Angus Boggs and me be blud brothers. And I recognize that brotherhood and loyalty to the clan be the most sacred tie in the whole wide world. By bogle and houlets sent by Nick, by gannets from witches in the west, by the soul in my body, by the ghosts of my parents, by the Holy God and His Son, I swear that Enoch be my brother and I’ll ne’er deceive him by word or by deed on pain of death. Amen.”
Still choking, I gasped out the words.
“Wait, there’s more. We shall e’er be together unto death and—list to this well—we shall ne’er hinder each other in love. But we will help each other advance, and in our case that means land. Sae let’s hear namore of yer land or my land: it’s our land. And let’s hear namore of the demon Scots since one drop of Scottish blood makes ye as Scottish as me. We be brothers in all things. Now let me tell ye exactly quhat my plan be, fer I’ve had the long day to work out details.”
He then proposed a most astonishing course. He would keep to his original plan of going to Paris to study law, only now I, too, would go to study with him, leaving my wolf with Jasper Peterfee. Together we would explore every legal means of recovering “our land” at the same time that we learned King Henry’s whereabouts and made arrangements to meet with him. Once the land was ours, by whichever means came first, we would hurry back to claim it, share and share alike. The one wrinkle he hadn’t anticipated was that Roncechaux would have seen me.
“’Twill take some schemin’, sure enow, fer we canno’ use the Thames to git to Dover. If ’tis foggy tomorrow, I’ll venture out to find some other way.”
By this time my eyes were gritty with sleep, but I couldn’t let Enoch off yet. “Where is Dame Gladys?”
“Alive,” he said tersely. “And satisfied as well, I believe, in spite of yer efforts. What dames have ye seen killt so?”
“A friend—” For the first time I uttered the awful truth. “My mother. ’Twas Sir Roland.”
The Scot sighed deeply. “Aye, I thocht as much. My heart belches for thee, bairn. What he did was rape and it looks the same only it isn’t. What I did with Gladys be, well, more like breeding.”
My mind returned from that awful scene and I grew doubtful again. “You’re lying. I know all about breeding of animals. The male mounts on the back when the female lets him.”
“’Tis the same, only men mount on the front. Look ye, ’tis a deep topic and best needs plumbing when we’re both more awake. Come, brother, for I have a token for ye.”
Together we climbed up to his room where he lighted a candle and rummaged in his bag. He pulled out a piece of plaid wool.
“’Tis the breacan feile of our clan and here’s a brooch to pin it to yer shoulder.”
Shivering with disgust, I had to let him hang the gaudy chape over me and dub me a Boggs of the MacPherson clan.
“Remember, break oath and ye fall doon dead,” were his parting words.
Snuggled in my breacan wool as the fog again turned to a driving rain, I thought of the terrible events of the day. The very worst was drinking Scottish blood, for while I knew the vow of brotherhood didn’t hold since I wasn’t a boy and could be no one’s brother, I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t a Scot. A fate worse than death.
DURING A HEAVY RAIN ON THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF June 1189, Enoch and I reached the outskirts of Paris, having escaped London disguised as cowled monks. Heads now covered by leather skins to hold off the downpour, we guided Twixt in the line of voyagers slopping along the unpaved road of Causée de Saint-Lazare. ’Twas impossible to see if dwellings lined the road as they had coming into London, but every inch of land was cultivated with fruit orchards.
Our trip had gone well insofar as we’d slipped out of Roncechaux’s noose, but I was sore bothered by a lack of news about King Henry. Everywhere along the road I asked Englishmen and Frenchmen alike where I could find him, only to be answered by evasive eyes and fumbling rumors. Soothly no one seemed to know.
Moving like slugs, we didn’t reach the Chastelet Tower which marked the entrance over the Seine River till ’twas almost dark. There we had to dismount and exchange English silver for parisis, a process which held us long after our fellow travelers had departed in order for Enoch to find the best possible bargain among the many changers whose booths lined the stone bridge. Satisfied at last, he beckoned me from under the tile roof where I waited and said we’d go now to seek lodging.
“You’re much too late,” said the exchanger with malice. “All doors on the Île de la Cité close promptly at sundown from fear of brigands and roving students.”
Enoch looked down from Twixt contemptuously. “Ye dinna need instruct us aboot inns.”
“Nevertheless, if you should have trouble you might want to remember the name Madame Annette, a hostess on the left bank beyond the Petit Pont where many students live. Continue on the main road off the Pont counting streets on your left up to five, turn left and count to the sixth dwelling on the left. Knock on the door three times long, three times short, and say Jean-David sent you. We’re cousins.” He banged down his shutter.
“Aye, and partners in business as well, or I be a Roosian,” muttered Enoch.
Soon we were circling on narrow murky streets under the sinister lean of houses which met five stories over our heads.
“Keep yer eyes open for a sign or shaft of light, laddie.”
I kept my eyes open, though closed would have served as well. Rain torrented off gutters and Twixt’s hooves sank ever deeper in sucking mud.
“Gar l’eau!”
The screech overhead was accompanied by a potful of liquid flung directly on our heads.
With dazed disbelief, we both wiped off the more solid parts of the offensive drench. Then Enoch let flee a howl of rage sure to freeze any heart within earshot.
“Let me in!” he cried, pounding on the door of the guilty house. “Let me in noo or ye’re dead. In, I say!”
The French were deaf to Scottish wrath and finally Enoch admitted defeat, turned back to Twixt and led the mule along the curves till he found an open square. There we sat in puddles and let the rain wash us clean. There, too, Enoch saw a light bobbing in the distance and ran for it. When he returned, he knew how to find the way to the quarters of Madame Annette.
Yet it felt like the middle of the night before we finally knocked out the code to our hostess. Enoch then called “Madame Annette!” and was answered only by the roar of the rain. Again he shouted.
“For God’s sake, madame, let us in, for yer own cousin Jean-David said as how ye’d not allow strangers to chill to death in yer fair country.”
This time after we’d waited hopelessly, I suddenly yelled the same message in French.
A black hole in the door instantly snapped open. “Six parisis for six months, payable in advance.”
“We need a room for one night only for two people,” Enoch said in rough French.
“For two, twelve parisis for six months, take it or begone,” and the peephole snapped shut.
In vain did Enoch pound, plead, persuade, threaten, cajole, appeal to all the saints in Heaven; and in the end he gave in. Money for naught, for I’d be back in England within a month if I had to swim. We stabled our beasts in the back and waded to a narrow crack of light.
Inside a pitch vestibule, a white claw reached in feeble tallow-light for our money, then put the coin to a gaping black hole to bite. We glimpsed a round white skull striped with a few black strands of hair, bulging eyes looking in opposite directions like a spiders. Without a word, Madame Annette hoisted her skirts above her pipe legs and led us up a narrow twist of stairs to a small chamber where a young man huddled close to a parchment page laid on a table.
“This is your comm
on room for repast and study,” the dame chirped in a high nasal tone, “and your bedroom is through this door. You’ll find bedsteads, a chamberpot and a pole for clothing behind the drape. The pot’s emptied only once a week so you’d be well advised to use the garde-pit in the closet, two parisis extra. Food provided on the premises or wrapped for carrying if you have classes, wine extra.” And she left.
“That was the Queen of France,” said our new companion, sniggering. “And my name is Dagobert du Près, student of the physic from fair Poitiers.”
He rose to extend his hand, but when we reached to take it, he jerked it back, then thrust it out again; again we reached, and again he withdrew. He might have been japing except that his whole body twisted and jerked in a most alarming way, and his face had a peculiar set smile. He was a queer fellow withal for his hair stood in spikes like tree branches, he seemed to have no eyebrows at all above deep currant eyes and his lips were thick and purple.
Enoch spoke in careful French. “A student of the medical arts, are you? We’re going to study the law ourselves. With Magister Malcolm dou Petit Pont, mayhap ye’ve heard his name.”
Dagobert whinnied and twirled, then choked till we had to pound his back. “Magister Malcolm is the most sought-after master since Abélard. But he takes only the finest—not Russian wolfhounds.”
Enoch drew himself up icily. “Exactly so, that’s my understanding as well. This be Alex Wanthwaite, by the by, my wee brother what’s studying to be steward to my estate, and I be Lord Enoch Angus, Baron of Wanthwaite.”
I was stunned as a bird that’s flown into a wall, then recovered and bellowed forth with all my strength, “That’s a lie! You’re naught but a thieving knot-headed Scot, a rascal, a …”
And I was hurled into the dark bedchamber where I fell to the floor. By the time the Scot followed, I was to my feet again and pummeling him with my fists. “I’ll kill you, you snake! Baron of Wanthwaite, are you! I’ll …”
He clapped a hand over my mouth. “Hush, dinna make such a blather. Where hae ye been that ye don’t know that the first-born takes all? ’Twould make no sense at all for ye to be baron and me to be landless older brother but I’ll share and share alike, which be more than generous. Meantime ye can be my ‘prentice and serve me.”
Alix of Wanthwaite 01 - Shield of Three Lions Page 11
