[Sir Richard Straccan 02] - Pendragon Banner

by Sylvian Hamilton

  He said, ‘It was my brother found them.’

  Chapter Thirty

  They had set out on the river as usual, he and Peter, for the hermitage; a weekly duty, to take the saint his provisions, ask his prayers for anyone who needed them, and on that particular morning to make sure he was all right after last night’s storm.

  Four miles downriver they found the wreck.

  Only the stern showed above water, surrounded by a floating tangle of broken mast and yard, shredded sail and snapped sweeps. The next tide would take it for sure.

  The saint would have to wait a bit; he wouldn’t mind. Hoping to salvage something, anything they could use or sell, the brothers scrambled onto the wreck, and just as Stigan happened upon a small locked chest that looked promising, so his brother Peter, peering into the shattered cabin, cried, ‘Praise God! Brother, here is a woman alive!’

  Alive!

  What Peter never knew, what no one ever knew save Stigan and his confessor and what he remembered for ever after with bitter shame, was that in that moment the woman’s life tilted in the balance. That his first thought on hearing his brother’s glad cry had been, Shit! Just my luck!

  Alive! Now they’d have to take her to safety and bang went all hope of keeping the chest! It was heavy. Perhaps there was money in it. It could be the chance of a lifetime . . .

  For a perilous soul-lurching instant Stigan considered murder. Slip the bloody woman into the water, let the tide take her. The weight of the chest tugged at his muscles, dragged at his hopes. He’d never get another chance like this. But the weight of mortal sin was heavier and with a hot surge of shame he set the chest down, crossed himself and splashed to where Peter, on his knees, was trying to unbuckle the belt bound round the bodies of two young women.

  Breast to breast they lay clasped together, their hair, dark and fair, floating like feathery seaweed in the water pooled around them.

  ‘One’s dead,’ said Peter, turning tear-bright eyes on his brother. Soft-hearted Peter, always in tears over things hurt or dead.

  Stigan looked down at the two still bodies. ‘Just maids,’ he said in pity and wonder. ‘You sure one’s alive?’ But he could see for himself the rise and fall of the dark one’s breath. Drawing his knife he leaned over and slit the tough leather. ‘Take her,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring the dead un.’

  They put them in the boat and Stigan splashed back for the chest. Beneath his feet the shattered deckboards gave way and he dropped into the sucking well beneath, saved only by his outflung arms.

  God was merciful, rebuking him for his wicked intention but allowing him to save himself that he might repent of it. There was no need to tell these nosey sods about that, however.

  ‘We took em to the nuns,’ he finished. We thought one was dead, at first, but she come round.’

  What condition were they in?’

  Stigan blinked. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Could they walk?’ Straccan asked patiently.

  ‘No. A couple of lay sisters come to the gate and carried them in on shutters.’

  What else was salvaged?’

  What?’

  ‘Did you fetch anything else off the ship?’

  ‘Oh, the chest.’ He had never forgotten the chest, nor the penance it had cost him. ‘Lord Maurice had that.’

  Was there anything else? A satchel, perhaps, or a bag?’

  Stigan shook his head.

  ‘Nothing?’

  'The fair one had rings. Nothing else that I saw. And if you think me or my brother took anything from them,’ he said truculently, 'you’re barking up the wrong tree!’

  ‘No, I don’t think that.’ And he didn’t. The maidens had lived. If anything had been stolen from them, especially the relic, they’d have complained of it as soon as they realised.

  He was beginning to believe he’d been right from the first. The Pendragon Banner was nothing more than a fantasy born of delirium.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The river warden returned to Trevel that night, tired, hungry and smarting at his failure to catch the raiders, but with eight nuns by way of a consolation prize.

  ‘Bastards took em a few miles, then left em,’ he said, pulling off his helmet and lobbing it at his squire, who fielded it neatly and perched it atop the armour pole. The eye-slits left two stripes of dirt across Maurice de Lacy’s sweaty scarlet face, and his small, angry red-rimmed eyes peered out like those of a boar at bay. He unbuckled his sword belt, tossed it after the helm and stretched, yawning hugely, while his squire unlaced his mail and draped it on the pole, leaving Lord Maurice in damp, rust-stained gambeson and braes. The liberated smell of several days’ concentrated sweat could have felled a horse.

  The warden scratched himself ferociously. ‘God’s nails, that’s good! Been dyin to do that for hours.’

  ‘Are the sisters… um… you know, all right? Wace asked delicately.

  ‘The Blessed Virgin protected em, they say. The wife’s organism em now; baths, clothes, beds, all that sort of thing. Someone get me a drink!’ He flung himself into his chair and thrust out a hand for a cup of ale, downed it in three swallows and held it out for a refill. The warden was turning a normal colour again under the dust. He scowled at Wace. ‘Who the devil are you?’

  ‘He’s with me,’ Straccan said, stepping forward before Wace could reply.

  Surprise wiped away Lord Maurice’s scowl and replaced it with a grin.

  ‘Straccan? God’s blood, what are you doin here? Found any good bones lately? God’s eyeballs, I’ve not seen you since the tourney at ... Where was it?’

  ‘Rouen,’ said Straccan.

  ‘That’s right!’ Lord Maurice chuckled. ‘You lost.’

  ‘I won. You still owe me a horse and mail.’

  ‘God’s lights, is that what you’ve come for?’

  ‘If I thought there was a beast worth having in your stables, yes, but a sorrier bunch of old screws I’ve seldom seen. Mine’s the only decent animal in there. Was there no sign of Breos and his cut-throats?’

  The warden snorted. ‘Fat chance! Long gone by the time we got there. Clean away, vanished into thin air! Found the nuns at the forest edge, marchin along like troopers, singin psalms, would you believe? Brave ladies! Only they were goin the wrong way.’

  ‘That will gladden Sister Eglantine.’

  ‘Ah, was it you brought her here? Bad business, bad business! God’s cods, I never did like that whoreson Breos! Burnin nunneries, killin nuns—’

  ‘He didn’t kill the prioress,’ Straccan said. ‘A falling beam smashed her skull. But he was responsible for her death all the same.’

  ‘I’ve sent word to their mother house at Bristol,’ de Lacy said. He paused, sniffed the air for a moment, shrugged and continued. ‘Meanwhile I’m lumbered with a parcel of nuns! Still, company for the wife, I spose. She don’t get many females to gossip with. Nuns are females of a sort, ain’t they?’ He sniffed again, suspiciously. ‘What’s that blasted stink? Ain’t me, is it?’ He raised an arm and sniffed. ‘No, that ain’t it.’ His accusing gaze traversed Straccan and bore down on Wace. ‘It’s you!’ And to Straccan, ‘God’s eyeballs! What the devil is it?’

  ‘Violets, I think,’ said Straccan.

  ‘Violets? God’s teeth! I thought he’d trodden in something.’

  ‘His grace the king gave me this perfume,’ Wace said indignantly.

  ‘Oh?’ De Lacy arched his eyebrows. ‘He likes his joke, does John.’ He turned to Straccan. ‘Well, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Wondering if you’ll ever offer me supper.’

  The warden burst out laughing. ‘God’s whiskers! Sit down! You and that smelly fellow with you. You, sir! What’s your name?’

  ‘I am Robert Wace,’ said the affronted official, drawing himself up to his full five feet two inches. ‘Confidential clerk to his grace King John.’

  Lord Maurice snorted. ‘Just sit at the otherend of the board, will you? There’s a good chap.’ He raised his voice
to a bellow that rang back off the stone walls. ‘How about some food here? God’s belly, I’m starved!’ Then, settling back in his chair, he said cheerfully, ‘When you’ve stuffed yourself, Straccan, you can tell me what you’ve really come for. Last I heard, you were muckin about in Scotland. Is it true the king gave you a horse?’

  De Lacy was cagey at first (‘Chest? What chest? Oh, that chest!’) but eventually in a cautiously roundabout fashion he admitted that well, yes, he had happened to look inside the chest ‘just to make sure I wasn’t sendin the king a box of old boots, you know’ and there had been coin-silver to the value of two hundred marks. At the mention of this sum Wace’s head swung up like a questing bloodhound’s but the warden didn’t notice. ‘There was nothing else. Just all those dear little bags of coin.’

  ‘D’you think de Lacy took it?’ Wace asked, when he and Straccan had retired to the room and bed they must perforce share.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ said Straccan, ‘yet…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When the ship foundered, Ragnhild hung the relic round her neck, didn’t she?’ Wace nodded. ‘She tied herself and her servant together and trusted to it to save them both. So she had it, she must have had it, when Stigan and his brother found them, but she hadn't got it by the time they reached the priory.’

  ‘The brothers took it.’

  ‘Ragnhild would’ve spoken up if they’d robbed her. No, if there’s any truth in the tale at all, she hid it somewhere. Where? What happened in between?’

  ‘Between what?’

  ‘Between the wreck and the convent. There’s something missing. We’ll have to talk to Stigan again in the morning. I’m going up to the battlements. I think better in the fresh air.’

  An hour or two later Wace was shaken awake none too gently to find Straccan leaning over him, candle in hand. ‘Here,’ said the clerk, annoyed. ‘It’s still dark! What’s the time?’

  ‘Time for you to talk, Master Wace.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You know more than you’ve told me. I’ve got questions and I want answers. I asked the king how he found out about the Banner. Remember? He wouldn’t say. He started speculating about my Breton forbears instead. I didn’t like that. And then you turned up, threatening my daughter.’ He ignored Wace’s splutter of protest. ‘The king commanded me to find this Banner, if it exists. If it doesn’t. I’m wasting my time and I have better things to do. So unless you tell me the rest of it, every last detail. I’m going home, Master Wace, to take care of my daughter, and you can put that in your report and stick your report up your arse for all I care.’

  ‘Sir Richard, there’s no need—’

  ‘How did the king find out about the Banner?’

  ‘Really, I don’t…’

  Straccan rested his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

  Wace’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He shivered and pulled the blanket up round his meagre chest. ‘It was a letter,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘A letter from the Hidden Valley, from Sulien.’

  ‘Sulien wrote to the king?’

  ‘Um, not exactly…’

  ‘What, exactly?’

  ‘Sir Richard, I am the king’s confidential clerk, you know; I must keep his secrets.’

  ‘Not this one,’ said Straccan, toying negligently with the hilt of his weapon.

  Wace took a deep breath. ‘Sulien wrote to a man called Michael Scot. The letter, um… happened to come into the king’s hands.’

  ‘I see. Go on.’

  ‘Lady Ragnhild — Hallgerd I mean — told Sulien about the Banner before she died. In fact, she gave it to him; or rather she would have, if she’d had it.’

  ‘You’re not making sense.’

  ‘She didn’t know where the real Ragnhild had put it, but she wanted Sulien to find it so that he could keep his hospital.’

  Straccan drew his dagger, ignoring Wace’s start and squeak of dismay, and began cleaning his nails with its fine point. ‘Keep his hospital?’

  ‘The Hidden Valley belonged to William de Breos,’ Wace said hastily. ‘He gave it to Sulien seven years ago, to found the hospital. He also provided stone and timber, masons, carpenters, and every year after the hospital was built Lord William sent money, and gifts of food, wine, cloth… He was a good lord to them, but—’

  ‘Of course, there would be a “but”.’

  ‘He never got round to putting anything in writing; there was no deed of gift. And now that all the Breos lands have been seized back and given to others, I’m afraid the new lord of Cwm Cuddfan wants his valley back, or its price.’

  ‘And the Banner would buy the valley.’

  ‘The valley? The true Pendragon Banner would buy half a kingdom! Michael Scot serves King Frederick of Sicily, and King Frederick would pay more than you can imagine for it.’

  ‘So King John wants his cut.’

  Yes, but there’s more. Somehow — I don’t know how but the king isn’t the only one with spies — the Bretons got to hear of this. It would never do for them to get their hands on the banner. They hate the king. They believe he murdered their duke, Prince Arthur, and they think Arthur was the rightful king of England. With England under Interdict and the king likely to be excommunicated —’ He stopped, aghast at his slip. ‘You must forget I said that. Sir Richard! But don’t you see, it’s what the king’s enemies have been praying for! If John is excommunicated, his barons are absolved from their oaths of fealty; they will turn on him. He’ll have France and Brittany and his own lords at his throat!’

  ‘Why does Brittany want the Banner?’

  ‘Well, there are two factions. One says the Princess Eleanor, Duke Arthur’s sister, should be queen of England and duchess of Brittany. John keeps her under guard; she’s been his, um, guest for seven years. The other faction’s loyal to Duchess Alix. Both sides want the Banner. Whoever has that has God on their side. Who would dare to take up arms against the blood of Christ?’

  ‘So it’s true about Breton plots.’

  ‘Of course! And there are French plots, and Scottish and Irish and Welsh plots, not to mention those of the English barons. But Brittany’s behind Breos’s search for the relic. They’ve promised to restore his estates, of course, and that witch, what’s her name…’

  ‘Julitta de Beauris.’

  ‘Yes. Lady Julitta. Brittany’s a dangerous place, riddled with spellcraft and enchantments; Duchess Alix even has her own sorcerer! Of course they don’t call him that, he’s officially the court astrologer, but it’s all one. Julitta made quite an impression at the Breton court. They think highly of her, um, abilities and she’s very beautiful, I’m told. Anyway, they sent her to make sure of the Banner.’

  ‘And the king wouldn’t tell me about this because my forbears came from Brittany, and he thinks my sympathies might lie with Eleanor or Alix.’

  Wace shrugged. ‘It is hard to be sure where any man’s loyalties lie.’

  ‘I’ll tell you where mine lie, master confidential clerk: with my daughter. I’ll storm Hell itself if she’s in danger, and believe me,’ he slipped his dagger back into its sheath with a sharp snick that made Wace jump, ‘believe me, I’ll kill anyone, anyone who threatens her. What else was in Sulien’s letter?’

  ‘Nothing important. He wrote of the lady’s death and what she’d said about the Banner. Michael Scot is a famous scholar; Sulein asked what he knew about the relic.’

  ‘I presume the king also “happened” to see Scot’s reply?’

  ‘Um, yes, but it didn’t help. Master Scot sent copies of everything in King Frederick’s library to do with the Banner — Gildas, Nennius, Beda — but I had already studied their writings. There was one detail, though…’

  ‘What?’

  A letter written by Saint Kentigern. He said Queen Guinevere herself embroidered the pennant, and that for gold thread she used her own golden hair. The true Banner would be known by that, and of cours
e by the precious relic, the bloodstained cloth, which is stitched between the two pieces of silk.’

  Was it the king’s own idea to send for me?’

  ‘Oh yes. But first he sent me to see what else Sulien knew.’

  ‘You’ve talked to Sulien?’

  ‘Well, I, um, told him of the king’s interest. He was anxious to help.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘But he knew nothing about the Banner. The lady was already crazed with fever when she was brought to the hospital. Her mind was wandering. Sometimes she thought she was on the wrecked ship and sometimes with her dying companion, lost in the snow with wolves howling all around. Her mind cleared briefly when she told him of the relic. She begged him to search for it, and if he found it, sell it to buy the valley and save the hospital. Then there was just nonsense: she raved about King Arthur and Guinevere. At the end, Sulien told me, she kept saying, “Tell him, you must tell him, Guinevere.” Over and over. And he asked her, “Tell who? Tell him what?” But she did not speak again.’

  Pale and remote, the almost-full moon gazed at the world incuriously as it turned beneath her single opalescent eye. Along the road to Talgarth her light was bright enough to cast shadows of the two lepers who chose to travel by night, when neither dogs nor good Christians were likely to take exception to their passing.

  At Shawl she looked down on the sleeping village but could not see Janiva, for the door of the undercroft where she was imprisoned was locked and there was no window. Awake, alone, afraid, Janiva lay staring into darkness. She did not know how many days had passed, for in the undercroft day and night were the same. She did not know that Benet Finacre had ordered her cottage burned to the ground, but the moon lingered, briefly, to touch the deep ash with silver.

  At Ludlow her pale beam caressed the face of Alis, asleep and dreaming on her pallet among Lady Marjory’s women.

  Moonlight threw a pale path across the flagged floor at Holystone for Gilla to tread, barefoot and silent, to the Blessed Virgin’s shrine. There she knelt — as she did every night when the other girls slept — to pray for her father’s safe return from wherever he might be. The votive lamp burned with a steady flame and, if she stared into its golden heart and willed to see him, the flame would open like a door, letting her look through to where her father was. It opened now. She saw him clearly but without colour, in shades of grey. He knelt before a crucifix, praying.