by Alys Clare
But Yves had had enough. ‘If you want to gallop on ahead, Josse, do so,’ he said with an air of finality. ‘Geoffroi and I—’ the ones with a bit of sense hung unsaid in the air – ‘will proceed at our own pace and meet you there.’
‘I don’t …’ Josse began furiously.
Yves gave him the look he’d given him when they were lads; the one that said, You’re being stupid and quite unreasonable and I’m not talking to you any more.
Josse gave an angry, disgruntled hrrumph and the three of them proceeded to Lynn together.
They found a reasonably decent inn that offered good stabling. Geoffroi, having already dismissed two similar establishments, went inside to check and returned to say this one was passable. Josse and Yves waited in the narrow, cobbled street outside, standing right at the edge to avoid the channel of filth running down the gentle slope, and Josse still jittery with impatience.
Finally, the horses having settled to Geoffroi’s satisfaction, at last they set out to find the King.
It was a mindlessly simple task, for they simply followed the crowd. A big, expensively dressed and loud-mouthed man striding beside Josse told him – with the pride of a man whose beloved King was honouring his own home town with a visit – that King John was being entertained by one of Lynn’s most prominent citizens, a recently ennobled ex-sea captain who now owned a fleet of sleek, well-built ships and who, it was rumoured, had brought in the majority of the supplies that had just arrived with which the King intended to resupply his northern castles.
Surreptitiously trying to brush off the mud of travel from his cloak hem as they strode along, Josse – taller than almost every other man there, with the exception of his brother and his son – peered over heads and tried to spy out their destination. Soon it became obvious: they were approaching a wide-fronted house set apart from the main thoroughfares, its stout timbers well maintained and its daub freshly lime-washed, perhaps in expectation of the King’s visit. Solid oak gates leading on to a large courtyard stood partly open, guarded by several well-armed men. The door to the house was firmly shut.
Edging his way through the crowd, reaching inside his tunic for his letter, Josse went up to one of the guards. ‘I have a summons,’ he yelled, his mouth close to the man’s ear to make himself heard.
The guard, perhaps accustomed to seeing such documents, had a quick look and nodded. He turned to one of his companions and gestured towards the gates into the yard, which the man hastened to open a little wider. ‘I have two more with me,’ Josse shouted, pointing at Yves and Geoffroi, right behind him. The guard nodded again, and swiftly the three of them were bundled through the gates, which were banged closed behind them. The crowd, apparently angry at the ease with which these strangers had been admitted, were pushing forward, demanding similar favourable treatment, but the guards were having none of it. As a man in the King’s livery hurried forward to usher Josse and his party inside the house, Josse heard a loud crash. Spinning round, he saw that soldiers inside the yard had dropped a huge iron bar into its supports on the gates and on the stout stone walls either side; nobody else was coming into the courtyard unless the guards said so.
Josse had imagined that his letter – with its personal addition in the King’s own hand – would smooth his path straight into John’s presence. He was wrong. He, Yves and Geoffroi stood for what seemed like hours in a long queue, shuffling forward by almost imperceptible steps, taunted and tantalized by the sounds and smells of what was obviously a splendidly sumptuous feast going on in the wide hall they appeared to be aiming for. The cooks had clearly begun to roast the meat some time ago, and rich, mouthwatering aromas floated out to them on the hot, over-breathed air. Josse heard Geoffroi’s stomach give a loud rumble.
They edged inside the great hall. There were long tables lining it from end to end, most of them already occupied with men and women dressed in their best. The bright colours of their fine wools and silks, and of their splendid array of jewellery, danced and shimmered in the light of hundreds of candles. Serving men and women paced up and down between the rows, platters and baskets in their strong arms, and the pot boys, heavy jugs in each hand, were so much in demand that some of them were actually running.
On a raised cloth-covered dais at the far end sat five men, a pair on each side of the central figure, whose throne-like chair was elevated slightly. Josse had barely a glance to spare for the four wealthy merchants or barons of Lynn, one of whom must surely be the host of this huge and unimaginably costly feast. His eyes were drawn – as, he reflected, men and women’s eyes always were – to King John.
He was bare-headed, the thick reddish hair – streaked with silver now – brushed back from the broad forehead and shining in the light of lamp and candle flame. His face was flushed, grease and gravy on his chin. He was clearly enjoying himself – as Josse watched, the man to his right, pointing with his mug to one of the comeliest of the serving girls, leant over to whisper something in his ear, and John burst out laughing, wiping a hand across his mouth as a bit of roast meat fell out.
The King wore red: scarlet red, costly red, a shimmering silk surcoat over padded tunic and clean white chemise. He liked clean clothes next to his skin, and bathed whenever he got the chance. His broad, thick-palmed, short-fingered hands were decorated with several rings: a ruby and an emerald, a couple of diamonds, a pearl surrounded with what looked like garnets. As Josse took the last few steps that would take him before his King, he watched John pick up his goblet – a beautiful gold cup, glistening with precious stones of deep blue and brilliant green – and drain it, putting it down with a thump and burping loudly. Josse thought disloyally: He is dressed in garments and jewels whose cost would feed a family for a year or more, yet he has the manners of a half-witted stable boy.
But then King John’s eyes turned to him – those incredible blue eyes – and, seeing who it was, his large, sweat-shiny, grease-splattered face broke into a genuine smile of delight.
‘Josse d’Acquin!’ yelled the King. ‘I was beginning to think you’d never get here.’ Then, unseating the man on his left by the simple means of tipping up his chair (the King, Josse observed, had lost none of his strength, for the man was fat-bellied and broad and the chair solid and heavy), he beckoned to Josse to come up and take the man’s place.
Josse looked at Yves, right behind him. ‘There’s only one seat,’ he muttered.
Yves grinned. ‘It’s for you, my brother. Don’t worry,’ he added, ‘Geoffroi and I will find somewhere.’ Then, the grin widening, he said, ‘Enjoy yourself!’
Josse, all too aware of his well-worn tunic and his dirty boots, discomfited by the furious scowl of the fat man whose place he was about to take, wasn’t at all sure that enjoy was the right word.
As food and drink were brought and placed before him, Josse paid close attention to the King, trying to detect his mood. On the face of it, John was optimistic, ebullient even, slapping Josse on the back and repeatedly crowing that rebels were deserting their cause all the time, flocking to him and clamouring to be readmitted to his favour. All the same, Josse sensed that he was uneasy about something. I cannot ask, Josse thought worriedly, for he has just told me how well matters progress and I dare not say anything to suggest I doubt him.
And then, his florid face serious suddenly, the King leaned closer to Josse and said quietly, ‘Of course, I should have arrived here in Lynn earlier, but we had a bad time coming round the Wash.’ He frowned, a look almost of puzzlement creasing his brows. Then, the expression turning to one of irritation swiftly mounting to anger, he went on, ‘You hire an expert who’s meant to know all about the tides and the currents, and yet when he’s put to the test the fucking idiot knows barely more than the lad who empties my piss-pot. D’you know, Josse, I had to tell him, my so-called local man who knew everything, that we shouldn’t take a long procession of mounted men, men on foot, and ox- and horse-drawn wagons across an inlet when the tide was coming in?’ John shook his head.
‘I don’t know; there’s something about those waters … There’s so much mist, and you can’t see what’s around you, and then when it clears you find you’ve set off in one direction and you ought to have gone in another. It’s as if … as if there are spirits out there in the fog and they don’t like you. They mean you harm. I’m not sure I trust the Wash. I’m not sure I don’t hate it.’
At a total loss as to how best to reply, Josse heard himself mumble, ‘The region can be tricky for those not used to it, my lord, and how prudent, if I may say so, to have engaged a local man.’
John stared at him, eyes narrowed, a calculating expression on his face. For a frightening moment, Josse thought he was in for the explosive and vitriolic response that his inane remark deserved. But then John smiled, reached for his golden cup and, clashing it against Josse’s, said cheerfully, ‘Drink that down, Josse. You were late on parade and have a deal of catching up to do.’
But it was worrying, Josse thought later, as John’s attention turned elsewhere, to hear the King speak like this. Sitting beside him, able for a few moments to study him without his noticing, Josse could see the exhaustion behind the extravagant bonhomie. The King is now forty-nine, Josse thought, and I don’t suppose he has stopped charging round the country for months. He may be jubilantly optimistic now, but how quickly that could change. And, besides, there is the strange shadow that I perceive over him …
But then the King turned back to face him and said loudly, ‘What d’you think of Dover, then, eh, Josse? Still my troops hold out against that rat Louis, and all of them, from lords to scullery lads, set the courageous and indomitable example that all the rest of my army are following! We will drink to their bravery and resolve!’ Again he clashed his cup against Josse’s, then drank deeply until he had drained it.
‘My wife’s grandson is there,’ Josse said.
John slapped him on the back, so hard that Josse winced. ‘Good man!’ he yelled. He raised a hand, and the ever-attentive pot boy hurried up and refilled his beautiful cup. He leaned across to Josse as the lad poured and, enveloping Josse in alcohol fumes, said, ‘I love this cup, y’know. It’s solid gold and those are sapp—’ he hiccupped – ‘sapphires and em-emeralds. Present from my dear mother, God rest her brave, stalwart, warrior’s soul, and I told myself it was a sign that she loved me.’ The lad had filled the gorgeous cup to the brim and now stood hesitant. John nodded at Josse’s mug – a lesser item of pewter, well shaped but undecorated except for an engraved border of vine leaves – and the lad slopped in wine till it overflowed on to the white cloth. Not that it mattered, Josse thought muzzily, since the pristine linen was already stained with drops and blotches of pretty much everything the King had consumed.
John stood up and roared for silence. After only a short while, even those far gone in drunkenness realized they should stop their chatter and laughter, usually because a marginally more sober neighbour had dug an elbow in their ribs. When everyone was quiet and the eyes of all in the vast hall were turned his way, John raised his goblet.
‘We must all drink a toast,’ he yelled with a lopsided smile. ‘To my loyal men who hold my castle at Dover – long may they triumph, forever may they throw the copses … cop-corpses of the invader into the sea! Dover!’
There was a huge noise of wooden benches being pushed across stone flags as, with varying amounts of difficulty, the congregation rose to its feet, hands clutched on cups, mugs and goblets and raising them to slack, wine-stained lips, and then came the deafening chorus: ‘DOVER!’
The King sank down abruptly on his cushioned throne, and, awkward now at being still on their feet, slowly everyone else resumed their seats. For some time there was virtual silence in the hall. Nobody seemed to know if it was all right to talk again. Then, slowly and steadily, the mutter of voices started up, and soon the volume was as loud as it had been before.
And the eating, the chatter, the laughter, the ribald jokes, the grasping hands that sought the round breasts of the serving girls and the firm buttocks of the pot boys, the fumblings in corners and, above all, the drinking, went on for much of the remainder of the night.
Meggie couldn’t recall a time in her entire life when she had felt so tired. She and Faruq had been riding as hard as they could for what felt like forever, although it was in fact only four days; five, if you counted what had remained of the first day after they’d left Corfe Castle, when they had ridden for hours long into the night. As she tried to make herself comfortable on the pine-needle bed of the forest in which they had stopped to sleep and eat, yet again she went through what she suspected, what she had managed to find out, what she guessed. It still didn’t add up to much.
As together they had sped away from Corfe Castle, her mind had been so full of fear and anxiety that it had hurt. She was desperate to ask Faruq questions – so many questions – but, to begin with, all she could concentrate on was covering the ground as fast as they could.
When they were about five miles from the castle, riding at a swift canter, he called out to her. ‘We must ride north-east,’ he panted. ‘Do you know how to do that?’
‘Yes.’ Of course she did. She would have smiled but it wasn’t a smiling moment. They were approaching a place where the road divided. One branch went straight on – eastwards; it was the road by which they had arrived – and the other veered off half-left. She raised her arm and indicated. With a curt nod, Faruq increased the pace.
Meggie was close behind. She tried to distract her mind from her fear by thinking about how she could be so sure she was sending them the right way.
She was Joanna’s child; a descendant, through her mother’s blood, of the Forest People. They never asked for directions. They had no use for diagrams scratched in the dust with bits of twig. They were like animals; they navigated by methods that Meggie suspected were available to all men and women, although most of them – the vast majority – had forgotten.
When Faruq had said north-east, she’d known without even thinking about it which way that was. How did I do it? she wondered. By the sun’s position? By the lie of the land? By the unconscious realization that if we came from the east, and it was that way – she thought back to the junction of the two roads – then north-east must be this way?
She didn’t know.
They rode on. Her anxiety didn’t let her mind rest. Other than her occasional instructions when they came to intersections, they didn’t speak. She guessed that, like her, Faruq had nothing to say and no breath with which to say it. While there was still enough light, sometimes she risked short cuts over open ground; once, along the edge of a ploughed field; once through a copse of birch trees, their horses’ hooves scuffing and rustling the fallen leaves. When possible, she took them along the little roads and the quiet tracks. She knew without either of them saying so that this was a journey to be made in secret. It was better not to be seen. Especially at a time like this, when a foreign prince had landed in England and half the King’s barons had rushed to support him.
They covered a lot of ground that first night. At first, it had been Auban – steady, comfortable, easy-paced Auban – who had held them back, for he hadn’t the speed of Faruq’s beautiful, fine-boned, fast and light-footed black gelding. Meggie had sensed Faruq’s impatience and once or twice been tempted to snap, Go on alone if you think I’m keeping you back. See how far you get! Aware of Faruq’s increasing distress, she didn’t. But, as the night went on, it was the black gelding that tired. The fine head on the graceful neck began to droop, the small feet began to drag; taking pity on the proud young man who rode the exhausted animal, Meggie broke a long silence and said, ‘Enough, Faruq. We’ll stop now, tend to our horses and we’ll sleep awhile.’
‘But …’ He was frowning, furious with her.
‘Enough,’ she said again, already slipping off Auban’s back. Swiftly she untacked him, throwing the saddle and her pack down on the soft ground – she had halted them on the mossy bank of a fast-flowing stream under the
shelter of a stand of alders – and then led the ginger-coloured horse to the water, where he bent his head and drank deeply. She hobbled him – there was probably no need, as he, like the black gelding, was worn out and wouldn’t wander far – then made herself comfortable, her back against an alder trunk. Swiftly she extracted bread and cheese from her pack and, barely pausing to wipe her hands, tore into it.
After a short while, Faruq sat down beside her.
And, finally, it was time to talk.
‘Faruq, I know why we’re going,’ she said quietly.
He shot her an alarmed glance, bread and cheese arrested halfway to his mouth. ‘But that’s not possible! You can’t have heard what Peter de Mauley told me, for you were too far away. You—’
‘I do know,’ she interrupted firmly. ‘Look, Faruq, it’s no good sitting there glaring at me. Listen to what I’m trying to tell you, will you?’
After a moment, he gave a curt nod.
‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering if he’d pick up the ironic tone. ‘I showed you the way to Corfe Castle because you told me that you and your mother believed there was some threat to Queen Isabella.’
‘Not believed, knew,’ he corrected her sharply.
‘Very well.’ She held back the obvious comment. ‘However, when we met the Queen – looking very bored but perfectly fit and well – and we saw with our own eyes how securely she was guarded, we were forced to accept how unthinkable it was that anyone wishing her harm could get anywhere near her.’
‘But the danger wasn’t—’
Again she interrupted. ‘We actually managed to inspect the kitchens, and even you must have been reassured that neither morsel of food nor sip of wine or water entered the Queen’s mouth unless it had been tested on someone else. We had to accept the only conclusion: Queen Isabella is perfectly safe; as safe as – no, much, much safer than – anyone else in the land.’
