"Tell me I didn't sing," Rob groaned in embarrassment.
"Aye, that you did and the monk along with you," Hamalin replied with a sad shake of his head. "I've heard better cats."
"Where is everyone?" Rob asked in an effort to rid himself of his agent's teasing. He kept his voice to a murmur in deference to his delicate condition.
"They have retreated to the stables, wanting nothing to do with a madman. I tell you, between that dash into yesterday's riot and the amount of wine you consumed last even, I'm astonished you live at all, much less retain the powers of speech." Here, Hamalin paused, amusement ebbing from his pale eyes as his brows rose slowly in invitation. "I can listen if you care to spill the tale." In his calm gaze lay the promise of both a ready ear and a still tongue, should Rob wish to confide what it was that had turned a cautious and sober man into an intemperate fool.
Rob sighed. All Hamalin knew of this trip to Stanrudde was that his master's grain had been stolen and Rob steadfastly refused to involve the sheriff as any sane merchant would have done. Pride, yet aching from the wounds Johanna had laid on it, reared its head. How hard he had labored to protect a woman who but threw his efforts back into his face. It was against the chance of being judged a fool that Rob held tight to his tale, not willing to spill it even to one as closemouthed as Hamalin. If fortune smiled on him, he'd be returning to Lynn this day, leaving Stanrudde and Johanna's rejection forever behind him.
"Perhaps another time," he murmured.
"As you will," his agent replied, his tone suggesting that he was more confused than hurt by Rob's refusal. "If we're to be on the road before nightfall and you are to keep your appointment with the abbot, it is time you rose."
Rob loosed another quiet groan and buried his face into the bedclothes. He'd completely forgotten the abbot's invitation to dine this midday. The very thought of eating set his stomach to turning in protest. This only fed his head's pounding. "Tell Abbot Eustace I have died, then leave me to suffer in peace. We can depart on the morrow."
"I think that would not be wise," Hamalin replied without a trace of humor.
This brought Rob to instant alertness, and he dropped the blanket to eye his agent. "Tell me why."
"Yesterday afternoon's disturbance was but a precursor to greater civil unrest. Last even, whilst you sang, a crowd swept through town, forcing our fellow grossiers, the bakers, and food shop owners to open and distribute what they had in store. When all was said and done, their bellies were still not full. This brought them and those whose property they'd destroyed to the abbey's gate where they cursed you. Only when the abbot threatened to call his knights did they depart." Hamalin came to his feet.
"Cursed me?" Rob looked up at him, stunned. "Who knows me here well enough to curse me?" he asked, more to himself than with any expectation of an answer.
Hamalin shrugged. “Who knows, who cares, except to say I think it past time we returned home."
By strength of will alone did Rob begin to subdue the outcome of his indulgence. Pushing back his bedclothes, he eased his legs over to the side of the bed. Hamalin rose and stepped nearer, offering his hand as an aid in rising. When Rob took it, his agent pulled him into a sitting position.
Steadying himself on the bed's edge, Rob groaned and put his hands at either side of his head to hold it together. "Jesu, Jesu," he cursed again, "and me in no shape to travel." Inwardly, he damned himself for indulging his anger and hurt. In doing so, he'd placed himself and his whole household in danger.
Hamalin laughed, but his amusement was friendly and mild. "You will be soon enough. I know you."
From a small basin resting on the coals in the brazier, Rob's man pulled a dripping linen cloth. Steam rose from it. As he squeezed the excess water from it into the brass pan, the coals sputtered, sending a cloud into the chill air. He offered Rob the cloth.
"Here, wrap this round your head. Mayhap, it will begin to draw some of the poison from your brain. Meanwhile, I'll go fetch Adelbert to tend to the washing and dressing of our grand and glorious master."
"A moment," Rob said, his words holding Hamalin in the room as he gratefully pressed his face into steaming linen. As the warmth seeped into his head the pounding began to ease. With a bit of comfort, his thoughts started to organize themselves.
"I'd leave what koren we brought with us as a donation to the abbey." Rob spoke without removing his face from the depths of the cloth. As he'd not known what to expect in Stanrudde and had not wished to eat at the expense of the poor, they'd brought enough unmilled seed to feed themselves for three weeks.
"So I have already done," Hamalin replied, proving once again how well he knew his master. "I also had your gown repaired so that your prominence might again shine forth to all who behold you. There was nothing to be done with your shoes. Your traveling boots will have to take their place."
Surprised, Rob lifted his head from the cloth's comfort to look toward the clothes pole on the wall. His gilded gown was folded over it, looking barely worse for wear. His mantle was beside it, freshened and free of stains. The corner of Rob's mouth lifted in wry acknowledgment of how much more he must add to the cost of indulging his heart's fantasy over Johanna. The abbey's laundresses must be blessing him this morn as they cooed over such swiftly earned riches.
The smile he sent Hamalin was more grimace than grin. "You are worth every pence I pay you."
"Best you remember that, for my contract renews next month," his man taunted gently, both of them knowing he'd go to no other house despite his employer's strange behavior of late. "If you've nothing else for me I'll fetch Adelbert, not to see you again until after you've filled your belly and spun your yarns at the abbot's fine table."
Rob made a quiet, rude sound at this. "After your tale of last night's violence I expect to get naught from the abbot but an interrogation as to whether I commit illegal acts whilst staying in his house."
"I doubt that," his agent retorted. "He was your defender last even. Had he believed the crowd, he'd have given you to them."
That the abbot, a Norman, believed Rob trustworthy enough to defend him did much to ease the hurt Johanna had done his pride. "I suppose in gratitude I must let him put his fingers into my purse." There was no rancor in Rob's voice despite the thought of yet more coins leaving him.
A new disappointment woke beneath the throbbing in his head. To meet a man as well-lettered as Abbot Eustace in his present muzzy-brained condition did no honor to the monks whose learning had once filled him with great joy. Eons ago, or so it seemed, he'd been the abbey school's star pupil.
Hamalin laughed at that. "A small price to pay to avoid dining in the hospitium's frater with us lowly folk. While you sup on delicate dishes, we'll be choking down salt fish and bread made from bean flour, our cups empty and us unable to raise our voices to ask that they be refilled. While you exchange pleasantries, we’ll be listening to some monk droning out a sermon in Latin, which we cannot understand. All in all, it will be a long, dry meal." Touching two fingers to his brow in mocking salute, Hamalin left the room.
It was but an hour before Rob's personal servant had completed his careful ministrations. Rob held up the piece of polished metal to review the finished effect. His gown, collar again intact, gleamed back at him nigh as brightly as his clean skin. Once more his beard had been tamed back to a narrow line of hair clinging to his strong jaw.
He frowned at the purpled bruise that marked his forehead then brushed down his hair a bit to cover it. There was nothing that could be done with the scratches that scored his face from cheekbone to beard, or with the dark marks that clung beneath his gray eyes, a testimony to his excess. At least, the aftereffects of too much drink had receded into the range of bearable. That it had done so in so short a time gave rise to the hope that he'd do better than simply endure the jogging of a horse later this afternoon.
It was with a touch of hunger coming to life in his belly that he set aside his mirror and left the hospitium for the abbot's
lodging. That two-story house, with plastered wooden walls rising from a tall stone cellar, stood in front of what had once been the corner where the chapter house and the frater met. Rob looked around him, holding in his heart the disappointment of one who had hoped to find a favorite place unchanged.
Like many of the buildings that now filled this compound, the abbot's house was new. At every turn, familiar wooden buildings were being replaced by cold stone. Even the abbey's narrow church was being widened. A tiny smile twisted Rob's lips. Such expansion and in so expensive a material as stone was possible only because the times favored trade. Therein lay an interesting conundrum.
Everywhere, churchmen thundered in their pulpits against tradesmen who dared turn a lively profit and live well, saying such an activity went against God's plan. In turn, tradesmen, fearing themselves damned for pursuing wealth rather than contemplating God's holiness, gave freely and richly to those who cursed them. That the gold had its roots in base trade did not stop these same churchmen from using it to build finer and finer edifices to the greater glory of God. It was the way of life; one could not exist without the other.
Rob knocked quietly at the arched lower-level door in the abbot's lodging. There was no response. Frowning, he knocked again. Yet another long moment passed before a servant finally opened the door. Dressed in the sober colors of the abbot's household, the youth who greeted him took a stance upon the threshold that suggested he did not intend for Rob to enter.
The new bruises on Rob's pride flinched in pain. Mayhap the abbot had thought the better of his previous night's defense. He waited for some word of either invitation or refusal from the youth, but the servant said nothing, only stood on the threshold and blocked the way. The moment dragged.
"Did I mistake that the abbot invites me to share his table this day?" he asked at last, the cool comment being more statement than question.
The servant's shoulders sagged in what almost seemed disappointment. "Nay, Master Robert, you did not," he sighed. "Please, enter."
Stepping back from the doorway, the young man allowed the abbot's visitor to step inside, then pointed toward the stairs leading to the second-story hall. "The abbot and the others await you."
Others? Rob's confusion grew as he started up the stairs. What others? This was to have been a private meal. When he stepped out into the hall, he stopped in astonishment. This small chamber was not just full, it was jammed with folk, every one of them watching him.
On the raised dais at room's end, Abbot Eustace sat in his massive chair, gilded crook in hand. The black cowl he and all his monks wore was thrown back so his miter might be perched atop his head. That peaked cap was alive with light as metallic threads sparked around the cooler glow of the fine gems that trimmed it. There was naught of the ascetic saint to this churchman's form; instead, the narrow-faced Norman showed his roots lay in the knighthood of his fathers. His rich black cassock, trimmed in ermine, draped massive shoulders and bound around a great barrel chest while concealing an avid horseman's lean hips.
Clinging to their father abbot's chair like children to their mother's skirts were a number of the abbot's obedientaries, all wearing the black habit of their order. Among them, Rob recognized the sub-abbot, cellarer, sacrist, and the chamberlain. Standing before the abbot was a single soldier. Helmed, he wore a metal-sewn leather hauberk under his cloak. His scabbard was empty, as church law demanded.
Rob raised a brow, his stomach tightening in concern as he again wondered if the abbot had thought the better of last night's defense. Dealing with Norman nobles, whether Church or lay, thus subjecting himself to their sometimes changeable whims, always brought with it its own risk. Experience taught that to grovel or meet strength with strength could lead to catastrophic results. It was the appearance of calm and control that ever carried the day.
Drawing a cloak of composure around him as his shield, Rob shed his native English for the French Master Walter had insisted he learn. "Is something amiss, my lord abbot?"
It wasn't the churchman who answered him, but the soldier. "Master Robert, I am Otto, son of Otfried, captain of the town's guard. I have come to take you into my custody," he said in English.
No one saw the start of shock that went through Rob. The abbot was having him arrested?! Why? Simply because the crowd had cursed him? His pride writhed as new injury lay upon the old.
"I beg pardon, my lord abbot," Rob said to the churchman, forcing his neck to bend until his head achieved the posture appropriate to such a plea. "Have I done something to disparage you or this house that would cause you to relieve yourself of me in this manner?"
"Master Robert, you have no need to beg my pardon as you've done no wrong," Abbot Eustace said, rising slowly from the chair that symbolized his authority over this holy house. The churchman took a step forward, his dark gaze alight with unholy fire as he held his crook before him like a sword. "Rather, I think that we shall both soon be demanding apologies from the town council. Not only does the council seek to force from me one who is under my protection, they do so without showing their faces!" His voice rose to a thundering roar so none might mistake the depths of the wound done to him.
Otto, son of Otfried, dropped to his knees, his empty scabbard clattering against the wooden floor. He bowed his head. "My lord abbot, the council does, indeed, most humbly beg your pardon. They feared to come here, thinking that by doing so, they might bring the wrath of the populace down upon your holy house. Know you that the guild hall was burnt to the ground last even. It is to protect the abbey they hold dear that they stay away."
The abbot struggled with this, trying to maintain outrage against the sop being offered to him. A sharp, upward jerk of his crook commanded the solider to rise. Otto returned to his feet with the squeak of leather and scrape of metal. With a glance toward Rob, the soldier finished his explanation.
"My lord abbot, further civil unrest must be avoided. Although the council has sent to the sheriff, we cannot know when he might arrive to enforce martial law. It is in the hopes of preventing further damage to either property or trade that the council begs you release Master Robert to them."
"What reason has the council to think that arresting me will prevent further violence?" Rob snapped, yet clinging to his French.
"Master," the captain said, "you mistake me. I have not come to arrest you. The council prays only that you will stand before them to answer their questions."
The muscles in Rob's neck relaxed a mite at the news that this was no arrest, but confusion lingered. "Questions? What sort of questions?"
"The council wishes to determine if it was your grain that was released onto the marketplace evening last, against both custom and law."
The blunt words stripped away all of Rob's control. "The council does not dare accuse me of grain mongering!" he roared in English. It took every ounce of his will to keep from attacking the one who spewed such a foul accusation before these witnesses.
Otto blinked at this unexpectedly violent reaction and took a step back in caution. On his face appeared the blank look of one who but did his duty and took responsibility for no more. "Master, that is an issue best addressed to the council."
Sucking cool air into his steaming lungs, Rob won back his calm. "My lord abbot," he said, slipping back into French as he again faced the churchman, "this charge is as ludicrous as it is foul. You know I have no wheat to release. All my party brought is in your abbey's cellars."
The cellarer stepped forward, his bony hands concealed in his habit's wide sleeves, his long nose nigh on quivering in outrage. "Aye, and so I have said to this man, Master Robert, telling him I can account for every koren. However, he pays me no heed, continuing to stubbornly insist upon your release into his custody."
Because his thoughts were yet slow from last night's overindulgence, it was only now that Rob dissected exactly what the soldier had said. As he understood, he drew another swift breath. Last night, the name of Robert the Grossier had been on the rioters'
lips. So too, according to the soldier, had grain been made available in the marketplace.
With that, all the pieces of Katel's puzzle fell into place and Rob damned himself for not seeing the trap laid for him. It was not the seed in the cellarer's storerooms that had prompted the council's interest in him; it was the stolen grain that had been released, and it had been done in Rob's name. Katel had not taken the grain to enrich himself at Rob's expense, but with every intention of using it to destroy the man he yet hated. Aye, and he'd very nearly succeeded. If the abbot had not been his defender last even, the crowd might well have strung him up.
Cold fury filled Rob. Katel was a conniving coward. Worse, he was an unethical tradesman. Did such a little man think he could threaten Robert, Grossier of Lynn?
In that moment he thanked Johanna for her rejection. In refusing his aid, she freed him from worrying over how a charge of theft against her husband would hurt her. Now, when he stood before the council, he'd do better than prove his innocence, he'd expose Katel's guilt.
Rob turned on the soldier. Once again, Otto, son of Otfried, stepped back, this time reaching for the sword he did not wear. Without moving his eyes from the town guardsman, Rob said, "My lord abbot, with your permission I will forgo our meal and submit myself to the council's questions."
Stanrudde
Two hours past Terce
Saint Agnes's Day, 1197
Leaving Hamalin and Rob's household guard complaining and shouting in the abbey courtyard, the captain of the guard alone escorted Rob out onto the market field. Once they were in that unguarded space, Otto looked at him in warning. "Master Robert, draw your mantle tight shut over that gown. If they cannot see who it is that comes, they will not attack us. Although I expect no trouble, should you be identified, retreat directly to the abbey. There are more than a few folk who'd like to see your body dangling in the town's square this day. These sorts have no care as to guilt or innocence; they only wish to repay the hurt done them in your name."
A Love For All Seasons Page 15
