The bishop was pointing to the north side of the square, where the ground dropped suddenly. There was a low stone balustrade with a clear view of the lake and the lower town. A single figure was standing there – a woman in a pale gown.
‘Her turn came to speak with me three days ago. She has walked in the square each morning since, waiting for some way of returning to her home near Watermane. Since you say you must be on the road tomorrow—’
‘You wish me to carry her north with me?’
She must have let her temper show in her voice, for the bishop frowned at her again.
‘I had thought it was the custom for the great of strength to let others travel with them for safety on the road,’ he said heavily. ‘Indeed I remember that your father – and his daughter, for he had a daughter then – did join my company on the road from Tuscolo not two years ago. Do not mistrust me. I am not going to give you a leper or a brothel-keeper, although I have plenty whom it would do you good to meet. This is a knight's lady, but her party is too small to risk travelling by land on its own.’
Phaedra was about to ask why, in that case, the woman had not joined any of the caravans and bands of travellers that must leave Jent's gates every day. But he raised his finger to forestall her.
‘Be kind to my penitents, child. You may be one yourself, yet.’
Penitence, marriage – there was nothing to be gained by repeating that part of their argument. She bowed her head slightly.
‘Since you ask it, Your Grace. And I shall wait your answer to my request. I pray that it may be swift.’
The bishop grunted, and jerked his head. A side door to the room had opened. The bishop's secretary stood there. She was grateful that the bishop did not even give her his ringed finger to kiss as they parted.
‘Follow me, my lady’ the secretary said, as the door to the bishop's room shut fast behind her.
They were in a dark, empty corridor that must serve as a back way into the chambers for the bishop's servants. The retinue with which she had arrived at the palace – Squire Vermian, Orani, the men-at-arms – was still camped somewhere among the crowd of pilgrims on the grand stairs on the far side of the bishop's chambers.
‘His Grace wishes me to offer company to a knight's lady when I travel tomorrow.’
‘Indeed, my lady. She is the Lady Evalia diManey of Chatterfall. We must be swift, because she may not linger …’
She hurried after him, along the passage and down a set of back stairs.
He had been listening! The bishop must have posted him behind the door, so that he could hear every word of the interview. Suddenly she felt humiliated. She could feel her cheeks were flushing, and was thankful that it could not be seen in the dim passages. She followed the stalking secretary as quickly as she could without running, and with her head high. The man did not turn until they came by another side door to the main porch, crowded with pilgrims, where he stopped in the doorway. He was looking out across the square, trying to locate the woman whom the bishop had pointed to from the window.
‘One thing,’ she said to him, and raised a finger as if to prod him in the chest. ‘I sent a message to warn that I would be coming. I asked for speech with the bishop this morning and then to meet with candidates after that. I know my message reached the palace the day before yesterday. Yet I think His Grace has not received it. He seemed surprised that I had come. And no preparations had been made for me.’
The secretary looked down at her. He was a young priest, with thinning sandy hair around his tonsure and the most prominent Adam's apple she had ever seen. He wore the Knotted Rope at his waist. She could see him thinking that she deserved no more and no less than the bishop had given her, for putting herself ahead of all the faithful folk.
‘My lady, any message of import that reaches us is passed to His Grace. What he thought of your coming, other than what he has told you, I cannot discuss.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I find it hard to believe that His Grace was well forewarned today. And I wish that you would not trouble yourself to accompany me now. You must be very busy. I do not think it would serve His Grace well if you lost any more messages while running after me. Would it?’
Then she stepped without cloak or escort out into the thick north wind.
It was a cheap victory, over a man who could not answer back. But she felt that somebody in the bishop's palace should know what she thought of the reception they had given her.
Phaedra crossed the cobbles, and she was alone. She was pushing like someone's messenger through a jabbering, droning, ill-smelling throng of pilgrims and townspeople in the great square between the palace and the shrines. No one seemed to know who she was. She had not seen her maid or men-at-arms since leaving them in the bishop's antechamber. There was no one to call for room, to shoulder the crowds aside, to help her past the puddles and potholes. She could feel the big windows of the palace staring at her back. Was His Grace still watching from behind his hangings, to see she approached this woman? Did he even care? She shied from the thought that this mission of charity might only have been a device to end the interview. He had been so angry! Why? Because of his old hatred of Tarceny? Because he had been forced by the incompetence of his secretaries to interrupt his hearing of the penitents? Or was it truly because of her marriage: because he feared that he would be caught up in the storm that followed it, and because at heart he sided with Father, not her?
She did not turn her head. If he was watching, she thought it better not to let him know that she was aware of it. If he was not, she did not want to know. She had travelled for a week to be here, and argued with priests for what seemed like hours. Her audience could not be over so soon, and with so little for it!
Phaedra skirted a group of singing pilgrims, and found the balustrade at the end of the square was empty.
Was all Jent conspiring against her today? The woman she had seen a moment ago from the bishop's window had vanished like a will-o'-the-wisp. Phaedra had turned off the bishop's man, and was separated from her retinue. There was no one to help her. And still she felt the palace windows at her back, watching what she did.
She stood, frustrated, looking north across the lower city
The wind flew down the Derewater towards her, locking the boats in harbour, and washing over the white walls and red tiles, the tumble of roofs and the masts rocking at their moorings. The surface of the lake wrinkled darkly under the palm of the air. It was colder than at any time since the new year.
A little to her right was the head of a flight of steps, which must drop down into some street further down the slope. She crossed to them, and looked over. The flight zigzagged down the steep face of the hill. There was a woman in a pale gown, unattended, picking her way down the steps below her. Was this the one?
‘Lady diManey?’
The woman walked on, but stopped when Phaedra called the second time.
‘Yes – yes, that is my name.’ She seemed to have been deep in thought.
‘His Grace tells me that you are looking for a chance to travel north,’ called Phaedra. ‘I plan to take the road tomorrow, with a company. Will you come with me? It will be on your route.’
The woman stared at the air in front of her. She did not seem surprised to be accosted; but she shook her head without so much as raising her eyes. ‘You are good, my lady’ she said. ‘And His Grace is good if he sent you. But His Grace has forgotten that I am banned the King's roads, and must journey by water or not at all.’
Banned? Angels above, who was this?
And at the same time Phaedra saw why the bishop had asked her of all people to provide this woman with an escort. One reason why.
‘Forgive me, my lady, for I have not made myself plain. I am the March-countess of Tarceny I will be travelling to the west of the lake, through the March. The March has law of its own. And the roads there are not the King's, but my husband's.’
Now the woman looked up. Phaedra saw a pale, triangular face, with large
eyes and a pronounced nose. There was something familiar about it, as though she had seen it from almost exactly this angle and distance before. A memory stirred in the darkness at the back of her mind.
Someone had been afraid.
‘I had heard that he had married,’ the woman said. ‘So it was you.’
He and you. Who was this woman?
Lady diManey had put her head on one side and was looking up at Phaedra as if she too were trying to remember.
‘And has His Grace told you why I am banned, my lady?’
‘No.’
No. But now he did not need to.
‘I – I saw your trial, at Tuscolo, two years ago. I was in the gallery, with some friends …’
Angels! The bishop had given her a witch!
‘Is that where I saw you? Your face looking down – for some reason I remember it so clearly …’
Now she was climbing back up the steps towards Phaedra, watching her as she spoke. There was a wary look in her eyes, as if there might be reason to doubt Phaedra's good faith. Suddenly, wildly, Phaedra hoped that she would reject her offer, although it would be extraordinary if she did. A poor knight's woman looking to travel could be expected to snatch any chance to attach herself to the company of a great lady.
The woman reached the top of the steps and approached. She was tall, with big eyes and a softness to her skin. Phaedra, who a few minutes before had stood her ground in front of one of the most powerful men in the Kingdom, found herself almost trembling as this creature came on.
What did the bishop mean by doing this to her?
‘My party is only three, including myself,’ said Lady diManey ‘But we came by boat and have no mounts or harness—’
‘I – I can provide that …’
The expense would not be nothing. But the time – there was so little time!
And the woman was a witch!
Lady diManey seemed to come to a decision. ‘Then – I shall be deeply in your debt, my lady – if indeed you truly wish me to be of your company’
She seemed to know that Phaedra was already regretting her offer. Phaedra hated that most of all.
‘Of my company to Tarceny my lady’ There was strength in the word ‘Tarceny’, and she clung to it. ‘And thence an escort to bring you home. I promise it.’
In the smoke-filled, low-ceilinged rooms they had taken at the inn, Phaedra slumped into an ill-cut wooden chair by the fire.
‘Vermian, attend me, please.’
Squire Vermian was one of the seasoned young fighters that Ulfin kept at Tarceny, waiting their chance to earn their knighthood from him, and a manor to support themselves and a family. He had a bluff, pleasing look with his hair cut close around his square head and his thin eyebrows almost invisible on his brown skin. Ulfin must have thought well of him, to have picked him to lead Phaedra's escort when none of the more experienced knights could be spared. But the city was not his element. He frowned helplessly.
‘Mounts, my lady?’
‘And harness, and a litter for my lady diManey Four horses and a litter, by tonight.’
‘Where—?’
‘How am I to know? Ask the innkeeper.’
‘I will ask, my lady, of course. But half the city is trying to travel. Mounts will be scarce.’
Of course they would. He was not just being stupid. But she was tired, shocked and disappointed. And he had no right to hand back problems she had given him to solve.
‘Vermian, we will find it easier to bear each other if you—’ Oh, for Umbriel's sake!
‘Two, then, for her followers,’ she growled. ‘Four if you can, but two at a minimum, by tonight, at whatever price. The woman can have my own litter, if it comes to that. I will – I will ride Thunder,’ she added, thinking of the big black gelding that Ulfin had given to her, who had spent most of the journey to Jent trailing riderless behind her litter.
‘Yes, my lady’
A great lady, ride her horse all the way for a week? He did not like it. But he knew better than to argue. He bowed and left, jingling in his harness of war.
Old Orani did not know better. She stood by the door, bird-faced and round-shouldered, gawping at her mistress.
‘You going to ride all the way, lady?’
‘We must leave tomorrow,’ said Phaedra flatly ‘And we must take this woman with us.’
‘Why's she coming with us, lady?’
Why? Great Umbriel!
‘Because I have said she will. Now please help me. I want to get out of these filthy silks. I want something to eat. And then I want ink, and paper.’
‘Yes, lady. Undress you, and then you eat.’
This, Phaedra was learning, was typical of the old woman. If she did not know how to fulfil an instruction, she pretended not to hear it.
‘And ink, and paper, Orani. I wish to write to my lord.’
She had planned to spend the afternoon seeing candidates for the post she offered. That would not happen now. And after this morning she did not want to wander among the tremendous buildings of the bishop's city, as she might have done at another time. All the power of Tarceny seemed to be a stranger here. She would remain at the inn and compose her letter. One of her riders would have to be sent off with it before sundown. Ulfin would want to know how coolly Jent had received a request from his house. And writing to him would be a comfort, when no other comfort existed.
Still Orani looked at her, blank-faced.
‘You ask the innkeeper, Orani.’
Heavens, why should she have to solve every problem there was?
Alone, waiting for her meal to arrive, she paced the room restlessly.
What did the bishop know of this woman? Did he even know she was a witch? Surely, yes. And he would know that courtesy demanded that Phaedra let the woman travel at her side, that she should talk with her, and look into her eyes the day long. What would the woman do? What could she not do? It was as if – yes, exactly as if – he had asked her to take into her party someone with a secret plague that the eye could not see.
Phaedra remembered the just-by-chance way that the bishop had looked out of the window. Nothing that happened in Jent around the Lady of Tarceny would be by chance at this time. Oh, he knew what the diManey was. He had known she would be out there. He might even have instructed that she should be. Throwing the two of them together was his purpose.
Why? To delay her? The bishop knew that war was coming. Was he giving her this woman in an attempt to keep the Lady of Tarceny in Jent for another day so that he could more easily arrange her capture? But that was not going to work. One way or another she would leave tomorrow, with every one of her party well mounted, so that she could be beyond reach of pursuit when the fighting started. And there would have been other, better ways to hold her up – promising her a rich field of priests to choose from in a week's time, for one.
Was it to defame her, then – to show the world that Tarceny gave help to witches? But he had himself received this woman. He could not defame Tarceny without damaging himself. No, these were wild thoughts.
What was it she was really afraid of? Witchcraft? Her party would number twenty to Lady diManey's three. Even if diManey were a witch, she would depend too much upon Tarceny, for all things, to think of doing harm on their journey through the March. And the woman might well be innocent – altogether innocent. They had only said that she was a witch in order to kill her and take her lands. Phaedra had been sorry for her once. Why was she so afraid now? Fear was becoming a habit, in this new world she had entered.
The thought she clung to was that the bishop was testing her. He had wanted her to show a sign of humility If she gave comfort to a friendless pilgrim he might after all give her what she had come for. That was why she was going to help the woman. That was why she did not recall Vermian, or send a brisk message around to Lady diManey's quarters, telling her to make other arrangements. There was still a chance of bringing home a priest, and so of making her marriage sure.
The bishop wanted Tarceny to have a priest. He had said so. He had said …
For a moment she stared unseeing at the warped timbers of the room around her.
If the eyes of the Angels were opened in Tarceny again.
Could the woman be a spy?
VIII
A Face on the Road
ow Michael guard us, my lady,’ said the witch in the dawn.
The gate of Jent rang loudly with the hoofs of thirty horses, sidling and ordering in the narrow passage. The light was dim under the arch tunnel. The same battering wind that had blown for days shook the wooden doors on their hinges and flustered the black-and-white drapes of the litter of Tarceny from which Lady diManey's face peered out at the throng around her.
‘And Raphael guide our way’ Phaedra replied shortly. She did not complete the prayer. Nor did she acknowledge the diManey's look, or allow the conversation to continue. With a great groaning sound, light cracked from the top of the gates to the bottom ahead of her. Thunder, the big gelding Phaedra was riding, shouldered forward as the doors of the city opened to show him the road home.
Thunder was an idiot: Phaedra neither liked nor trusted him, for all that he was one of the first gifts that Ulfin had given her. The thought of a week on his back was bad for her temper. On the few long journeys she had made before, she had always been accompanied by a litter, slung between two horses with a canopy under which she could rest when she tired of riding or the sun. Now she had had to solve the shortage of time and horses by sending her litter round to Lady diManey's lodgings. But at least she could still choose where in the cavalcade she should ride, and when or indeed whether she had to speak with her fellow traveller.
The night had been sleepless, with war and witchcraft and anger all circling in her head. No word had come from the bishop. No priest had presented himself suddenly, with a letter from His Grace in his hand. It was hardly likely now that some galloping chaplain would overtake them (and even if one did, she would have lost her chance of choosing the man). For the first time in her life she had failed absolutely to get what she wanted. She could not have believed that such a disaster could happen to one of her new rank: the wife of Jent's most powerful neighbour, and the child of an old friend, who had come so certain that His Grace would receive her well.
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