“Mistress Molly?” he asked. He loosened his purse strings and plunged his hand inside. Before he could withdraw it Jack was looming over his right shoulder. The man-at-arms had his usual pleasant stolid expression, but he stood very close, and the youth turned a startled face to him, then swung back to Molly. He rummaged in his pouch; finally he found what he searched for. He held it out on his palm: a ring, with the crossed keys of the papal seal, silver and gold, on the face.
“Ah’m to tell Mistress that the time is a sennight hence, and that she knows the place, and ask if there’s owt she wishes to answer.”
“Just say that it’s there we’ll be at the appointed time, without fail. And . . . stay a moment, lad—here.” Molly pressed a small wedge-shaped chip of silver into his hand: one piece from a penny that had been cut into quarters.
Into the pouch went the farthing; the lad touched his forehead and bowed clumsily, and was gone.
Molly looked after him. “He’ll be bringing that ring back where he got it. If he’s not having the sense to be afraid enough of da Panzano, perhaps he’ll keep silence from gratitude.”
She looked round at the other three. “To the wagons, and make ready: we’re gone from York on the morrow!”
• • •
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING they left York by the Micklegate Bar and headed south. Two and a half days’ traveling brought them to the west-trending road da Panzano had indicated, and Hob persuaded Milo to turn through a wide semicircle to the right, and they set off west across England.
A day later they were still trundling westward, somewhere in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The way was level and well maintained—hard-packed earth, but narrow—and when Hob heard the sound of men singing behind them, he stepped to the side and looked back along the line of wagons, to see a troop of men-at-arms striding along in a loose double file, coming at a fast walk.
“Mistress,” he began, but Molly was already turning in her seat.
“Pull off the way,” she said. “There’s no gain in disputing the road with suchlike folk.”
Hob led Milo onto a clear place by the side of the road, knee-deep in lush grasses. The ox immediately lowered his head and began to crop the grass, now and then emitting muted groans of pleasure. Nemain and Jack pulled in behind Molly’s large wagon and set their brakes. Nemain climbed down from her wagon seat, stretched, ambled up toward where Hob stood by the ox. He put his arm around her, and they leaned against each other, watching as the double column of foot soldiers—mercenaries, by the look of them; perhaps some of King John’s Poitevins—came up to them.
They were on their way past, but some of them were looking at the wagons, and some at Nemain, and the reputation of these routes, these bands of for-hire soldiers from Poitou, was not good. In any rural setting, a free company such as this—thirty or forty routiers—would represent the greatest concentration of force for a few miles around, and was not above some thieving, or worse. Still, the leaders were marching past Molly’s troupe and continuing on.
Sweetlove, though, did not have a high opinion of them: she stood up with her back legs on the wagon seat and her front legs on Jack’s thigh and burst into a tirade of barking. Jack scooped her up in one hand and swung down from the wagon. He went toward the back; a moment later he reappeared with his crow-beak war hammer and joined Hob and Nemain up by Molly’s wagon. He swung the little dog up beside Molly and pointed his finger at her, then, with a sharp downward motion, at the wagon seat: Stay! He never spoke to her, speech being as painful for him as it was, but they had evolved a language of sign and gesture. Now Sweetlove sat down primly, but could not resist a mumbled near-bark. Jack looked at her and she quieted.
Now he propped the hammer against Molly’s front wagon wheel, so that it was partially hidden behind him, and stood to watch the passing band.
Suddenly the foremost man spun on his heel and strode back toward them. He was a man of perhaps forty winters, strong of body and scarred of face, his scalp showing through thinning hair. He wore a quilted gambeson and frayed wool leggings; a heavy dagger hung at his side; some fashion of club was slung by a strap to his back. Hob straightened and let his hand drop to his own dagger. Jack felt behind him, picked up the hammer, and then to Hob’s surprise let it drop. The mercenary, opening his arms wide, walked up to Jack and wrapped him in a gleeful hug.
“Jacques, Jacques!” he bellowed. “Jacques le forte, Jacques le brun!” The two men were thumping each other on the back, but Jack was silent, and he pointed to his throat, and shook his head.
The Poitevin peered closely at the oval scar that the Beast had made, and clucked. Jack swept his arm to take in Molly, Nemain, and Hob, and the mercenary bowed, not ungracefully, and shook Hob’s hand and kissed Nemain’s and touched his forehead to Molly, still up on the wagon seat. He was grinning hugely. “Monsieur Jacques and I, we are comrades, long ago—we are young then, so young! I t’ought he was mort, dead. I am Jourdain; you are ’is famille, yes?” Hob could just follow the thick Poitevin accent, so different from the Anglo-Norman high speech that was still such close kin to French.
“Yes: Jack is my man,” said Molly, from her perch. “And this is my granddaughter, and Hob; we are musicians. Hob is her husband.” She emphasized this last, for although the rest of the mercenary band had taken the opportunity to sit and rest while their leader was occupied, two or three had come near, and one was openly leering at Nemain. Jourdain, following Molly’s gaze, turned and noticed his comrade’s interest.
“Waleran, mon frère, we are many and they are few, but this is that Jacques I ’ave told you about, when we are sitting around so many campfires, and if you are t’ink to be foolish, he will make you ver’ dead before we can stop him.” Waleran looked from Jourdain to Jack, gave a shrug, turned, and walked back, with ostentatious slowness, to where his comrades sat by the side of the road, pausing once to spit into the grass, to show that he was not really afraid. After a moment the other two turned and trailed after him.
Now Jourdain noticed the war hammer, propped against the wagon wheel, and once again there were exclamations of delight, and how he remembered when Jack traded with another mercenary for it, and how dextère he became with it, and so forth, Jack beaming at him but unable to do more than gargle a word or two. Jourdain unslung from his back the plançon a picot, the weapon that he and his men carried, and showed it to them: a long club with a spike protruding from the top, the spike to pierce, the club to beat. “Not so good as Jacques’s bec de corbin there, but we are experience’ with it.”
Molly had Hob fetch some uisce beatha, and Jourdain and Jack drank a cup together, Jourdain standing with his back to the road, for there was not enough for the whole band, and he did not want to be seen not to share, a sin, if a small one, against the routiers’ code. Jack, with sign language and with help from Nemain, managed to convey a much shortened version of the adventure in the Holy Land that had resulted in his terrible injuries. Jourdain shook his head and clucked again, and told them of Jack’s très deep and indeed beautiful singing voice, such a shame and a loss—this was a great surprise to the others, who had not known Jack before he went on crusade—Jack grinning broadly the while, and nodding, and generally enjoying himself.
Now Hob noticed that, among the mercenaries, some of whom, in the manner of experienced soldiers, had stretched out in the grass and were seizing the opportunity to sleep—was a group sitting by themselves: ten or eleven men with swarthy complexions, as though they had labored all summer in the sun, with strong noses and glittering dark eyes. Most wore workmen’s coarse tunics and hose; some who seemed to be leaders were swathed in voluminous white or purple cloaks. Almost all had headgear of cloth wound around their heads, the ends tucked cleverly into the folds. They were clustered around three handcarts, each with an anvil, mallets, tongs, and other tools of the blacksmith’s trade.
“And who might those men be, Master Jourdain?” he asked.
“They are blacksmiths, them; come spec
ial from across the water, from Marroch; Marroch is the land across from Spain,” said the mercenary.
Hob managed to conceal his shock: these were the devil-men that da Panzano had warned against! He carefully avoided looking at the others, and Jourdain did not seem to have noticed anything amiss. “The king, he is tell us, meet them in London, bring them to me at Chester Castle, I ’ave need of many swords, an’ these are the finest swordsmiths that live today. We are escort them; they don’ speak good English, we are to keep them safe. . . .” He turned to Jack. “You know escort duty, is so tedious, no loot. . . .”
“Are they followers of Mahomet, then, and daring to come into England?” asked Molly; she told Hob and Nemain afterward that she asked in order to make sure that these were the men—not Mahometans, but followers of an older religion—of whom da Panzano had spoken.
Jourdain looked around, moved a pace closer, dropped his voice. “These are not. I t’ink most of them, yes, they are the Mussulmans, there in Marroch, but not these: they are not good Christian men, neither, they. Somet’ing else. The king he don’t mind, so Jourdain he don’t mind, but they are ver’ strange. They say they are all one famille, one family, an’ they do look this way.” He looked around again. “They call themselves ‘the Cousins.’ This, it is the second group that my routiers are the escort for, an’ when we camp, I say to mes camarades, ‘Keep watch: some to look outward, for enemies; some to look inward, on the smiths.’ For they are strange.”
He cast an eye up at the sun, which was just past its zenith. “We ’ave to be on our way; the king, ’e will say, ‘Jourdain, you are picking flowers while I am wait for my smiths?’ an’ I don’ ’ave an answer.” He turned and whistled sharply. The mercenaries came to their feet, and seeing them do so, the strangers stood, grasped the handles of their handcarts.
Jourdain and Jack embraced; the mercenary stood back and bowed to Molly. “Come to Chester Castle,” he said. He grinned hugely. “King Jean, he is enchant’ with the music, and later Jack and I will sit far into the night and tell you, gracious lady, lies about our campaigns.” He looked at Hob. “Maybe your fine young man here would like to join my route, my free company, and make his fortune, eh?” When Hob just smiled and shook his head, the routier shrugged. He bowed again, already backing away, to Molly, and cried: “Jacques, adieu!”
And with a wave of his hand Jourdain trotted back to the head of the company. He circled his upraised arm in the air, a signal, and with that the men resumed their march. From somewhere in their midst a hand drum began to sound a rhythm, and gradually the men-at-arms fell into step.
The men of Marroch thrust against their draw handles, and the handcarts began to roll, creaking and squealing. They walked along, clustered together toward the rear of the mercenaries, but one broke ranks and walked toward Molly’s wagons.
He came right up to them, a broad-shouldered, long-armed man—his arms seemed almost too long for the rest of him—with an oddly stooped walk. It was not that he was bent over, but that he inclined forward more than seemed comfortable, and—perhaps because of what da Panzano had told them—this stoop, with the man’s long arms and his prominent nose and receding chin, struck Hob as eerie, even sinister, although there was no characteristic that could be singled out as threatening.
As he approached, Sweetlove rose, but only into a crouch. Her ears went back, close to her head; her lips drew apart, revealing a thicket of surprisingly menacing teeth, very white, very sharp; from her narrow chest came a murderous growl. Molly put her hand under the dog’s belly and pulled Sweetlove against her thigh. The terrier turned and gave her a look of outrage: Why do you hinder me? But Molly held her with one hand and stroked her with the other, and after a moment the tension ran out of her and she slumped against Molly, mumbling protests.
The Cousin went to Jack and stood very close, peering into Jack’s face. Jack, being Jack, just looked back at the outlander; the big man still had a faint smile on his face from the pleasure of seeing his old comrade, and in any event was not easily put out of countenance. The man came even closer. Hob put a hand to his dagger-hilt, and took a step forward, watching the stranger narrowly. The man’s headgear had slipped a bit, revealing dark hair pulled straight back, receding from his forehead in tight waves. He lifted his chin—almost he seemed to be smelling Jack, although there was nothing so obvious as sniffing, just a way of steady breathing.
“Gema!” he said.
Jack looked at him blankly; smiled politely; shrugged.
After a moment, the man turned away, and began walking after his departing companions. He turned and looked back at Jack, just once; he did not look back again, and in a short while the route and their charges were all out of sight.
Molly sat back with a sigh and handed Sweetlove down to Jack, who put the terrier on the ground. She immediately began to run in circles, nose to the ground, picking up what must be Jourdain’s scent, and that of the Cousin.
“Let us bide awhile here, and let them draw away. Those strangers Jourdain is protecting, sure they’re the very men we’re to spy upon. It’s an ill-looking bunch they are, these Cousins, with the scent of sorcery upon them,” said Molly. Hob looked puzzled, and she said to him, “ ’Tis like a thin smoke haze, or very like; Nemain and I can sense it, if you men cannot.”
After a while Sweetlove decided that she had learned all there was to learn; she squatted to make water, and then trotted over to Jack and stood on her hind legs, her forepaws against his knee, begging to be picked up.
“Sweetlove has spoken,” said Molly. “Away on!”
CHAPTER 9
WHERE A ROAD RUNNING north and south through a village in Derbyshire intersected a road running east and west, a freeman named Averill had established an inn by the simple expedient of acquiring three houses: one on the northeast corner, the one to the east of the corner house, and the one to the north; and then connecting them with passages. Finally he built a stout high fence to enclose a yard behind the three houses; there he placed stables and other outbuildings, backed up against the fence. This was the origin of the Crossed Roads Inn, some three score years before Molly’s troupe arrived there, bringing the wagons into the yard and stabling the three draft animals.
Molly set up a variation on her usual arrangement: meals at the inn, the troupe to sleep in the wagons, but instead of offering to perform she paid silver from the pouch that Sinibaldo had brought them. If they were to meet with the papal agent and his two associates, it might be better if their telltale identity as musicians were not remarked.
They settled in to wait for Monsignor da Panzano. The appointed day came and went, and then another. Nemain, ever volatile, began to fret, and thought that perhaps they should travel a little distance away, and camp in some quiet vale, and come each day to see if the papal legate had arrived, for if he had been taken and had betrayed them, the king’s men could swoop down upon them at any moment.
Molly agreed, but counseled that they wait one more day. That very evening, the common room mostly empty, the four sitting at a table with beer and bread, the late spring sunlight beginning to fail outside and the innkeeper’s son going around and lighting a candle here and a candle there, the door creaked open. In came a traveler, his face concealed by the hood of a cloak, with a walking staff in his left hand. He stepped to the side of the door, perhaps scanning the common room to see who waited there. His right hand, large and muscular, hovered near the opening of his cloak.
“Sinibaldo,” said Hob in a low voice.
“Aye,” said Molly and Nemain, almost in unison.
Sinibaldo held his staff where it could be seen by those outside and made a small gesture; at once two other cloaked and hooded travelers entered, also carrying staves. Sinibaldo pointed to where Molly sat against the wall.
The three approached Molly’s table. “Madam,” said Monsignor da Panzano, bowing courteously and propping his staff against the wall, “allow me to present Father Ugwistan, my colleague and a great help
to me in this matter.” Father Ugwistan gave a graceful half-bow, handed his staff to Sinibaldo, and threw back his hood.
Molly gestured to the benches on the other side of the table. Da Panzano and the new priest seated themselves. Sinibaldo, having taken the newcomer’s staff and placed it with his own and da Panzano’s, came to Molly’s side and seated himself with his back against the wall, and, as always, took no part in the conversation, but watched the room behind his master’s back, tensing whenever anyone came too near.
Beneath their traveling cloaks the men wore the plain robes, the leather scrips, and the knotted rope belts of pilgrims. Sinibaldo kept his cloak on; presumably he had the same belt of darts, the same copper-hilt Italian dagger, that Hob had seen when first they met.
“I have wanted you to meet Father Ugwistan,” said da Panzano, “because he is Moorish, or as some say Berber, as are these Cousins, and he can tell you what they say. You will both be at Chester Castle, and he is hearing their so-difficult language, and you are watching their so-strange behavior, and learning their secrets, and how to destroy them.”
At this point Sweetlove, who was curled asleep against Jack Brown’s thigh and so hidden below the line of the tabletop, decided to sit up and investigate the new voices. Sinibaldo glanced over and then resumed his watch on the common room, but both men across the table started at her sudden appearance. Da Panzano scowled, impatient at any distraction, but Father Ugwistan laughed a little. He put a long arm across the table, intending to pet her, but Sweetlove would barely tolerate the three other members of Jack’s family, and certainly would have no truck with strangers. She drew back and gave the faintest of growls, and the priest withdrew his hand, a rueful half-smile on his face. Hob began to think him a good-natured man, in contrast to the suave but rather sinister papal agent.
Throne of Darkness: A Novel Page 5
