“It makes no matter how far you have traveled,” replied the friar carelessly, “he is not here and that is that. Now, if there is nothing else, I have duties elsewhere—” He made to leave, but Rognvald reached out a hand and took hold of his brown robe, bunching it in his fist and holding the monk firmly in his place.
“Perhaps,” the knight suggested, “your duties are not so pressing that you could reconsider the lady’s question with the courtesy it deserves.”
The friar spluttered indignantly; he gaped at the knight, saw that he was in earnest, and blurted, “Oh, very well. He is at Palencia if you must know.”
“This Palencia,” said Rognvald, releasing the priest, “is it far?”
The friar smoothed his robes and glared at his assailant. “It is neither near nor far.”
“Neither near nor far,” repeated Cait, her brow lowering. “Is that what passes for an answer in this festering stinkpot of a town? Or are you more of an idiot than you appear?”
“It is a middle distance, I would say,” sniffed the friar. “Satisfied?” Rognvald raised his hand, and the friar quickly added, “I have never been there. Ask in the town—one of the merchants will tell you.”
“One would think information more valuable than gold the way you hoard it,” Cait replied, her anger beginning to simmer. “Tell me, miserly friar, when was the last time you gave a generous answer to a friendly question?” As the friar huffed and puffed, she added, “It is as I thought—you cannot even remember!”
Cait turned abruptly and started away. Rognvald fell into step beside her. They had walked but four paces when the priest called after them, “You are not thinking of going to Palencia.”
“We are,” Cait replied. She halted and turned around, regarding the cleric suspiciously. “Why?”
“It is not allowed,” the friar informed them, allowing himself a grimace of satisfaction. “The king has forbidden anyone to travel there.”
“And why, I pray you, is that?” demanded Cait, moving closer. Before the friar could reply, she held up her hand. “No! Do not tell me, for I am keen to guess. Let me see…I know: the road has been scrubbed and put away for safekeeping.” She took another step closer. “No? Then how about this: the king is annoyed with Palencia and wishes to punish it by denying it any visitors.” She took another step closer. “No? What then? Is the sky the wrong color? Or perhaps the moon makes all the citizens mad?” She was now face to face with the priest once more. “Well, which is it?”
Realizing he was once more on precarious ground, the friar quickly explained that, alas, King Alfonso VII had died last year, and his son, Alfonso VIII, was king now. “Until the king can re-establish order,” the monk told them, “all roads to the south and east remain under control of the Muhammedans and bandits who prey on pilgrims and merchants.”
“I travel with my own army,” Cait replied, a fearsome frown bending the corners of her mouth. “The bandits will not trouble us.”
“Then I wish you Godspeed,” the monk replied blandly, some of his former insolence returning. “Only, you must first obtain a writ of passage from the king.”
“I cannot tell if you are more fool than knave,” replied Cait darkly, “or whether it is the other way around. But if you value your ears, explain.”
“The writ can be had for the payment of a small tax—that is all I know.”
“Very well,” said Rognvald, “we will go and see the king, and obtain this writ.”
“I do not think it will do any good,” the friar offered. “The king sees no one but his mother and her attendants.”
“Why?” Cait asked, her frown deepening dangerously. “Is he ill?”
“Ill? By no means, my lady.” The priest shrank from her threatening glare. “God keep him, he is in the best of health. But he is only three years old.”
“Agh!” shrieked Cait. “This is absurd! We are going to Palencia—with or without your mewling infant monarch’s blessing.” She turned on her heel and stormed away. “Stupid man.”
Rognvald caught up with her a few paces down the street. “I will go and speak to the magistrate and see what he advises,” he offered. “If you like, you could wait with the others in the square.”
“Go then,” Cait agreed, and Rognvald hurried off in the direction of the town’s civic hall—a blocky fortress surrounded by a high wall of red stone, and a shallow dry moat. Cait walked slowly back to the square, which was now all but deserted; most of the townspeople had gone to their homes to escape the heat of the day, leaving only a few stragglers and gossips behind. The latter were standing in the center of the square, holding forth with several idle tradesmen.
She found the rest of her party readily enough. A tall market cross stood in the center of the square above the great round stone basin of a fountain. The knights, Abu, and Alethea were sitting around the base of the cross beside the fountain watching the hostler water his horses and pack mules in the basin. Cait joined them and sat down in the shade at the base of the cross to wait. It was passing midday; most of the market stalls had closed already, and in the rest, the merchants were dozing on their stools. An air of drowsy contentment hung like a gauzy curtain over the square; Cait leaned back against the cool stone, and took a deep, calming breath. She closed her eyes and listened to the droning of the knights’ voices as they talked.
“You are sadly wrong, Svein,” Yngvar was saying. “The Romans were never in this place. It was the Goths.”
“Victoriacum,” replied Svein knowingly. “Does that sound like a Goth name to you?”
“Maybe the Goths spoke Latin,” countered Yngvar. “Did you ever think of that?”
“Maybe you are not as clever as you think,” replied Svein. “Did you ever think of that? Here now, Dag, what say you? Is it Roman, this place, or Goth?”
“Who cares?” answered Dag. “They are not here now—I am.”
“Oh, yes,” said Yngvar, “that is something. One day people will find this place and say, ‘Dag the Conqueror was here.’ I tell you it was Goths.”
Eyes closed in the cooling shade, Cait felt her steaming frustration slowly give way to the soothing air of the place. The ransomed knights were, she reflected, much stronger now, and becoming more themselves with every passing day. If nothing else, the long sea journey had been restorative, allowing them to recover their strength as the good food and air and water healed their hurting spirits. Whatever awaited them on the road ahead, they would, she felt, be ready to meet it.
Abu, however, was rapidly becoming an unwanted problem. Since the confrontation in Iria, he had grown increasingly truculent. Allowing him to join them had been a mistake; there was no denying it. With every mile further from the Holy Land, his usefulness dwindled that much more; and unless she could think of something for him to do, he would soon be far more trouble than he was worth. She was just thinking it might be best to send him back to Bilbao with the hostler, when she heard Rognvald hail them from across the square.
Cait opened her eyes and saw the tall knight striding toward them. He paused to lave water over his head and face before turning to her. “I have no good news, my lady,” he said, his face and hair dripping. “I was able to speak to the magistrate, who confirmed that a writ must be obtained. However, he refused to help us. He said that he could not allow us to travel until the bandits had been eradicated and the roads secured once more.
“It seems the Archbishop of Castile has requested the formation of a holy order of knights to guard the roads—the Knights of Calatrava, he called them. They have sent an embassy to Rome to secure the church’s authorization—”
“But that could take months,” Yngvar pointed out.
“If not years,” said Svein.
“Too true,” agreed Rognvald. “But until the new order receives the blessing of the pope, the magistrate insists no one is to be allowed to use the roads.”
“If we cannot secure the king’s permission, we will simply go without it.”
“Even that may not be
so easy,” Rognvald went on to explain, “for, without the writ, none of the tradesmen in this place will sell to us. They risk confiscation of their goods and, perhaps, imprisonment into the bargain.”
Cait, unable to fathom the idiocy of the Spanish authorities, was not of a mood to comply. “Good!” She stood, making up her mind at once. “I want nothing more to do with this flyblown dirt clod of a town anyway.” The others sat looking on. “To your horses,” she told them, “we go on to Palencia.”
EIGHTEEN
DESPITE THE EXTRAVAGANT protestations of the hostler, who received the rumor of bandits with, Cait thought, exaggerated emotion, he nevertheless seemed happy enough to permit the company to purchase his animals. “Seven horses and five pack mules,” he said, tapping the side of his nose thoughtfully. “I could let you have them for…” His eyes narrowed as he calculated the figure. “Five gold marks each for the horses, and one for each mule—forty gold marks in all!” he proclaimed triumphantly.
“A moment,” said Cait, and summoned Abu, who seemed to know the trade value of everything. “He says forty gold marks—what do you think?”
“Not a bad price,” granted Abu, “but not a good one.”
“The horses are in good condition,” Rognvald said, stepping near, “but one is blind in one eye, and two of them will need shoeing soon. I cannot say about the mules.”
“They are fair,” said Abu, “for mules. Offer him thirty.”
“Do you have that much left?” asked Rognvald.
She nodded and turned back to the hostler. “Master Miguel,” said Cait reasonably, “you have us at your mercy. We need the animals in order to continue, and there is no one else who can sell to us.” She removed the coin bag from beneath her girdle and untied it. “Therefore, I will give you thirty gold coins.”
“My lady,” replied Miguel with his toothless grin and shaking his head, “if it was my decision alone, I would do it. But I have a wife and children to feed, and without my animals I cannot earn my crust. Forty gold marks, please.”
“Since you put it that way, I will give you what you ask,” she said, but before he could reply, she raised an admonitory finger. “But I make one condition.”
“Yes?” The eagerness faded from the hostler’s face.
“As you know, we will be returning to Bilbao where the ship is waiting. Therefore, once our business is completed and we have no further use for the horses, we will sell them back to you for, say…” she glanced at Abu who showed three fingers, “thirty gold marks. Agreed?”
“Twenty-five gold marks,” countered Miguel.
“Done.” Cait counted the gold coins into the hostler’s hands, and bade him farewell. By way of thanks, Master Miguel accompanied them a fair distance from the town to see them well on their way to Palencia before turning back to make his way home.
The ride through the long, lush Nervión valley proved peaceful and wholly agreeable. Never did they see any sign of the fearful bandits; the countryside appeared quiet and serene as the last of the fierce summer’s heat dissipated, leaving behind a beautiful, mellow autumn which settled over the countryside like a warm, comfortable cloak. Apart from a few sudden showers which sent the party galloping for the shelter of overhanging chestnut boughs, the days remained bright and clear. Occasionally, they awoke to a crisp nip to the morning air which Cait found both refreshing and exhilarating, but for the most part the days remained warm from early morning to well after dark.
Every now and then, Cait would look up from her solitary meditations to discover a silent partner beside her: sometimes Abu, or one of the knights, but more often Lord Rognvald. He seemed content merely to ride with her, never speaking until she invited his conversation, which she usually did, and in this way Cait began to discover the depths of the man she had redeemed from a slow death in a Muhammedan prison.
“What is it like where you were born?” she asked him one day. The morning air was cool, and the sun warm on her face; the leaves on the birch and ash trees were just beginning to turn and she felt like talking.
Rognvald cocked his head to one side and looked at her with a quizzical expression. “My home?” he said after a moment. “Or the place where I was born?”
“Most people are born at home,” she said. “Were you not?”
“My home is in Haukeland, near Bjørgvin in the south, but I was born at Kaupangr, where Olav the Holy is buried. It is a most sacred place and a great many people make pilgrimages there. My mother was a very devout lady.”
“Your mother was on pilgrimage at the time of your birth,” Cait assumed, curiously delighted by the notion.
“In truth…” replied Rognvald, shaking his head, “no.” He smiled, and Cait caught the cheerful gleam of his eyes, blue as the cloud-scoured Spanish skies above, as he said, “You see, the king also had hunting lodges there, and he would invite noblemen to come hunting with him. It came about that my father was summoned to attend one of the king’s great winter hunts.
“Well, one of the old vassals—a wise woman with uncanny powers—had foretold bad luck for a winter birth, and that doubled for a child without a father. My mother took this to heart, so naturally my father was loath to leave her alone.”
“Naturally,” echoed Cait, staunch in her conviction that childbirth ought to take precedence over trivialities like hunting.
“Yet even so, the hunt was to take place during the Yuletide celebrations, and fortunate indeed were those allowed to observe the Christ Mass with the king—a rare and singular honor, and one not to be spurned, for otherwise it would certainly never come again. So, my father did what anyone in his position would do.”
“Heaven forbid it!” said Cait.
“He took their bed from the house and lashed it to the deck of his ship and covered it with a tent. Then he wrapped my mother warm in his huge bearskin cloak, tucked her safely in bed, and sailed off to Kaupangr to visit the king.”
Cait laughed out loud, her voice falling rich and warm on the leaf-covered trail. Rognvald thrilled to hear it, and several of the others riding along behind raised their heads and smiled. “So, you were born at the king’s hunting lodge,” she guessed.
Again, the knight shook his head. “My mother would not endure the noise—all the shouting and singing, you know. When men hunt they get thirsty, and King Magnus was never one to stint on anything. His öl was sweet and dark and good, and served in foaming vats that never were allowed to run dry. The noblemen and warriors feasted and reveled every night with the same zeal as they pursued the harts and hinds by day. This made the lodge a very clamorous place.”
“King Magnus, you say.”
“King Magnus was a cousin of my father,” he said. “In the same way, King Eystein is now my cousin.”
“Is now?” wondered Cait. “Was he not always your cousin?”
“No,” explained Rognvald, “he was not always the king.”
Cait laughed again, and they rode on, happy in one another’s company. The knight related how his mother, having refused the king’s boisterous hospitality, was lodged instead at the nearby convent. “And that was where I was born,” he told her, “two days after the Christ Mass. I am told the queen herself attended my birth and presented me to my mother. So, perhaps my birth was not so unlucky after all.”
“Indeed, not,” murmured Cait. She grew silent, thinking about the strangeness of life and its many unexpected turns.
After a time, Rognvald turned in the saddle and asked, “Something I have said has made you thoughtful, I see.”
“I was just thinking that if not for King Magnus, you and I would not be riding together at this very moment.”
“Then he is a far greater king than I imagined. I must remember to lay a gift at his shrine and thank him for his fortuitous assistance.” He looked sideways at her and asked, “But how do you reckon we owe our meeting to Magnus?”
“It was Magnus who befriended my grandfather,” she told him, and went on to recount how it was that Murdo
had come to follow his father and brothers on the Great Pilgrimage, traveling on a ship in the hire of the king. “We lost our lands in Orkney,” she told him, “but the king was just. He gave us Caithness instead.”
“That was very good of him,” replied Rognvald approvingly. “He must have liked your grandfather very much.”
“Well,” Cait allowed, “it was mostly the king’s fault we lost the land in the first place. It was the least he could do.”
“No,” laughed Rognvald suddenly, “it was never that. You must not know many kings.” He regarded her, trim and comely in the saddle; her cloak falling low on her shoulders—for all it was a warm day—and her dark hair neat beneath her silver combs. “Do you like Caithness? Or would you rather have Orkney?”
“My grandfather might feel differently, I cannot say. But Caithness is home to me; I have never known any other.”
“My family owns an estate on one of the Orkneyjar islands,” the knight confided. “They tell me I visited there once with my family, but I cannot even remember which island it was.”
They talked amiably, passing the time as they rode along, each enjoying the easy companionship of the other—until Alethea grew bored riding by herself and decided to join them, whereupon the pleasant mutual feeling gradually shriveled under Alethea’s irritating whining about the heat, the dullness of the countryside, the sun in her eyes, how thirsty she was, how rough the saddle, and how disagreeable her mount.
“I cannot see why we have to ride anyway,” she complained. “You should have bought a carriage instead, and then we could travel like queens.”
“If only everything was that easy.”
Three days after entering the Valle de Mena, they came to the walled trading town of Burgos, paused briefly to replenish their provisions, and then set off again before anyone made bold to stop them. Four days after that, they arrived at Palencia.
The town had faded somewhat from its glory under the Roman legion of Lucus Augusti. The crumbling garrison still stood; having served several generations of Muhammedan rulers as a stable and armory, it was now a monastery in sore need of a new roof. The old Roman walls remained in good repair, however, and protected the town and its inhabitants from the Moorish raiders infesting the hills, preying on the foolish and unwary.
The Mystic Rose Page 18
