The Devil's Cup

by Alys Clare

  He rested his elbows on the table, then dropped his face into his hands. After some time, he said, his voice muffled, ‘Oh, what’s the point?’

  Nobody else in the vast hall seemed to know what had happened. Some were still happily celebrating – although precisely what, Josse couldn’t work out – and some sat bewildered, pale, as if wondering what the surrender of Dover Castle – fortress, rallying cry, symbol of holding out, holding on – might mean.

  Then John raised his wrecked face, turned to the nearest hovering attendant and barked, ‘Fetch a scribe.’

  The scribe must surely have been lurking nearby, for almost instantly he was at the King’s side. And Josse, standing just behind him, heard John’s instructions: in a weary voice and a tone of deepest reluctance, he dictated the message informing Hubert de Burgh that his King agreed to the surrender.

  Josse’s passionate, furious distress had gone. Now, his eyes on the King as John stared after the scribe, who had already raced over to where the messenger was hastily stuffing down bread and cheese and gulping a mug of ale, he was filled with pity. It had always been the same, through all the long years since Josse had known John. He’d been an undisciplined, wilful, resentful child, intelligent enough to know that neither of his parents liked him much, and sensitive enough that it caused pain. He would have worked out for himself that, as eighth and youngest child and third surviving legitimate son, he didn’t matter very much to anyone. Perhaps it was that which had forged his fierce, combative, self-interested, self-absorbed character. Most people probably would have said they loathed him.

  But Josse had never been of their number. He had often asked himself why, although he’d never come up with much of an answer.

  Now, prompted by memory, prompted by an affection that began too many years ago to count, he stepped closer to the King, bent down and said very softly, ‘I am sorry, my lord King.’

  John turned to look at him. ‘For what, Josse? For this devastating news from Dover, or for bawling at me as if I were a child again?’

  Josse was just trying to scrape together some sort of an answer when the King spoke again, and now his voice was gentler. ‘The one is hardly your fault, although I thank you for your commiserations. The second …’ To Josse’s surprise and relief, a brief grin creased the haggard face. ‘Ah, Josse, you were right, and it was brave of you to bring me to my senses.’

  ‘My lord, I would not presume to—’

  ‘Oh, Josse, shut up,’ said the King without rancour.

  Josse waited to see if he would say more, but John appeared to be deep in thought. Surreptitiously, Josse drew up another chair and sat down, careful to position himself a little way away but close enough to answer if questioned.

  After a moment, the King said, ‘We leave tomorrow.’ He waved an arm over the assembled crowd, most of them, the drama over, busy tucking into the food while they had the chance. Seasoned soldiers for the most part, Josse reflected, they knew better than to pass up the opportunity to eat, drink and rest.

  ‘Aye, my lord,’ Josse ventured, when the King didn’t continue. ‘Er … do you wish me to spread the word?’

  John was gazing round the hall, studying the faces. ‘I am fortunate, am I not,’ he said softly, ‘to have old friends? To have so many good knights who, receiving my summons, hastened to come to me.’

  ‘A man acquires the friends he deserves,’ Josse said.

  The King smiled. ‘Yes, Josse, that’s why I’m mildly surprised at how many turned up.’

  There wasn’t a diplomatic answer to that, so Josse didn’t try to find one.

  Then John said, ‘I expect you’d like to know where we’re going.’

  ‘Well, yes, my lord King.’

  Suddenly John squared his shoulders and sat up straight. His colour, Josse observed, was a little improved, and the bright blue eyes looked more alert. ‘We’ll ride north, heading first for Lincoln, and we’ll travel there round the Wash via Wisbech and stop at Spalding,’ he said decisively. ‘We shall spend a night with the monks at Swineshead Abbey, where I’m told they keep a decent board, although I admit I doubt it. The supplies I’m dispatching to the northern defences are now well on their way, and I shall follow.’ Eager now – his moods, Josse thought, had always been mercurial – the King went on, ‘The south must look to itself. Dover may have to yield, but it is not the only stronghold. My presence is required on the northern borders, for that—’ he pounded the table for emphasis – ‘that is where the next attack will come. Mark my words, Josse, Alexander of Scotland and those bastard northern rebels believe they have a strong alliance, and that will make them over-confident.’ He nodded as if to emphasize his words. ‘They will not, however, find it as simple a matter as they believe it to be, for I shall be there waiting.’

  Almost in the same breath, the King bellowed for his body servant and, as the young man hurried up, Josse sensed himself dismissed. He stepped down from the dais and went to join Yves and Geoffroi. He wolfed down the food they had saved for him and, as soon as he had finished, said, ‘We’re leaving in the morning. Lincoln, then on towards the north.’

  ‘Hasn’t he just come from Lincoln?’ Geoffroi asked.

  ‘Aye, son, he has.’ Josse took a draught of ale. But when would that ever have stopped him? he thought. John had always been such a restless man, and it seemed to Josse that the desire to be ever on the move, hurrying on to the next place, the next task, as if staying in one place was somehow indicative of a king – a man – who was a failure, had increased recently. It was said that for virtually the whole of the past month, John had been travelling up to thirty miles a day. It was a hard, relentless routine for a man who was nearly fifty years old. No wonder he looked ill.

  Josse realized that Geoffroi and Yves were waiting for him to elaborate on the brief answer. ‘He intends to travel north to support his loyal barons against Alexander,’ he said.

  Geoffroi nodded. He asked one or two questions, mainly concerned with practicalities, and Josse answered. His attention, however, was on Yves, for his brother was looking worried.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Josse asked him, when Geoffroi went off to check on the horses.

  Yves didn’t answer immediately. But then, taking his eyes off whatever he’d been staring at, he said, ‘It’s probably nothing.’

  Josse grinned. ‘Why not share it with me anyway?’

  ‘There’s a young man I’ve noticed. Well, not much more than a lad, really. He was sitting there, not far from the high table.’ He pointed. ‘Oh, he’s gone now,’ he added quickly as Josse looked around. ‘He’s not one of the companions summoned by the King, and, as far as I can tell, not one of their attendants.’

  ‘Is that why you were watching him?’ Josse queried. ‘Because you think he’s an outsider?’

  Slowly Yves shook his head. ‘No, not exactly. That’s part of it, I suppose, although there are others here who have only newly joined us and none of them concern me.’

  Josse waited. His brother would speak in his own time, and there was no point in hurrying him.

  ‘I know what it was,’ Yves said presently. ‘It was the way he was watching the King. Not so much when he was shouting with rage about de Burgh and Dover, but later, when he leaned across and spoke to you.’

  When he told me where we’ll be going tomorrow, Josse thought. ‘And then he got up and left?’

  ‘Yes. Almost instantly, as if, having heard what he needed to hear, he didn’t have to stay.’

  ‘Why would that information be important?’ Josse said. ‘No doubt we’ll all be told, sooner or later.’

  ‘Perhaps sooner is relevant?’ Yves suggested. ‘Perhaps somebody wants advanced warning of the King’s movements?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Josse said. ‘But he couldn’t have heard!’ he protested. ‘The King spoke quietly and, even sitting immediately beneath the high table, surely your young man wouldn’t have made out the words?’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t think so, woul
d you?’ Yves agreed. ‘Yet I would almost swear that he followed what the King was saying.’ Leaning closer, dropping his voice, he said, ‘Josse, we had a deaf man at Acquin. Stone deaf from late childhood, couldn’t hear a sound. He had some sickness, some infant malady, and that was the result.’

  ‘I don’t recall—’

  ‘No, it was after your time. But, Josse, he could understand what you said to him if he could see your face; your lips, I suppose. He wasn’t always very accurate, but it was enough to get by.’

  ‘And you think that’s what your young man was doing?’

  Yves nodded. ‘I do. He was watching the King so closely, you see. His attitude as he strained to see put me in mind of Deaf Paul, straight away.’

  Josse’s thoughts raced. Was it likely? Was it possible? Had someone quietly slipped into the throng around the King a man who could interpret whispered confidences, even when far too far distant to hear them?

  It was both possible and, given the vast numbers of the King’s enemies, quite likely. With a sigh – for had they not enough to worry about without this? – he turned his full attention to Yves and said, ‘You’d better describe him to me.’

  Even as he listened – fifteen, sixteen or thereabouts; mid-brown hair worn to the shoulders; keen, light-coloured eyes in a narrow face; slim build, not very tall, dark tunic and hose under a hooded grey cloak, bare-headed – he was already wondering whose ears were the best to receive the information that they probably had at least one spy in the company.

  Jehan was increasingly disillusioned. Having finally admitted to himself that it had been a mistake to join Yann Duguesclin’s private army, he didn’t know what to do. He had to accept, though, that they were unlikely to let him go home.

  He was riding with the three assassins now, tending their horses, fetching and carrying for them when they were in camp. Already he was wary of them and, if he was honest, he had to admit that wary really ought to be terrified. It wasn’t that they treated him badly or cruelly; for the most part they ignored him and they barely spoke. It was just that they seem to exude an almost visible air of menace.

  ‘Home.’ He repeated the word softly, under his breath. Perhaps it was the distance that enhanced the pleasure – the joy – of that simple life of hard work, the primitive but well-constructed and sparklingly clean little dwelling in the forest glade, the ever-present company of a loved and loving woman. You weren’t so keen on it when you were there, he reminded himself. And don’t fool yourself into believing Meggie was always there with you, because you know it’s not true.

  Meggie. He thought about her so much. When he felt the need to keep his spirits up, he wove a pleasant picture of how it would be when he returned to the charcoal burner’s camp; how she’d be there, welcoming him with love; how both of them, after that joyful reunion, would say how much they regretted having allowed distance to grow between them and resolve to do better. Perhaps he’d ask her to be his wife and, her eyes bright with tears, she would accept …

  The last, he had to admit, was probably unlikely.

  He knew it was by no means certain that he would return. His initial apprehension was steadily growing into certainty, and he guessed, from what the whispered rumours said Yann Duguesclin planned to do, there was a fair chance that quite a lot of the band would be injured, even killed.

  He tried not to think about what lay ahead, but it was more difficult each day. On the morning that the young deaf mute came racing back to camp, his strange voice – like some bird’s cry – echoing with excited anxiety as he sought out Duguesclin, Jehan was hit with the sudden certainty that something terrible was going to happen.

  He withdrew into himself, and in his mind set his steps into the tranquil glade where he worked the forge. Where he and Meggie had built their home. The images brought comfort. He sent up a brief, heartfelt prayer, asking God for the grace of just a little more time with Meggie. If I am injured, Lord, if in the end I have to die, he pleaded, please grant me leave to tell her that I felt her presence as I tried to gather my fortitude and my courage for what I know is ahead. Give me, I pray, just a moment, to tell her that she was here with me, and that she was, as ever, a solace.

  He finished his prayer. Then, calm now, he went to join the group waiting outside Yann Duguesclin’s rough and basic tent to hear what they were going to be ordered to do.

  They could all hear the weird sounds that were the deaf boy’s only means of speech. ‘How in the good Lord’s name does he understand?’ one of the older men muttered.

  ‘They’ve been together a long time,’ another replied. ‘The deaf lad makes signs, see, with his hands. Makes pictures, and somehow Yann picks up his meaning.’

  His hands. Jehan pictured the deaf boy’s hands. Long-fingered, graceful; eloquent, if hands could be said to be eloquent. The deaf lad’s could. It was strange, he mused, how they all called him the deaf lad, or the deaf mute. Didn’t the boy have a name? Presumably Yann Duguesclin knew it, but if so, he didn’t share it with his loyal followers. That was typical, Jehan thought in a moment of sudden, deep revulsion. Yann appeared to prize secrecy above almost everything else, and his insistence on not explaining, on not telling them what they were to do until the last moment, on not revealing any man’s identity other than by what his job was, so that they were Cook, Horse-master, Forager, and, in his own case, simply Blacksmith or, more usually, Smith. Would it hurt to allow the small intimacy of knowing a man’s name?

  A wave of profound disgust rose in him, primarily against his enigmatic leader but also – for he was ever more determined to be honest with himself – against his own stupidity in being so eager for adventure and for something different, out of the daily routine, that he had hurried to join the Bretons without really stopping to think.

  There was a sound of movement. Voices were raised in brief acclaim, as if something had just been decided to general satisfaction. Then Yann Duguesclin threw back the tattered flap of his tent and emerged, his senior officers behind him and the deaf lad following. He waited until every pair of eyes was on him, then he told them what they were going to do.

  And Jehan, recognizing at last and far too late the trap he had set for himself, and how unlikely it was that he would emerge from it alive, felt a moment’s profound sorrow.

  Then, resigned, he raised his head and joined in the cheers.

  TEN

  At the Sanctuary on the edge of the Great Wealden Forest, Helewise stood in the open doorway staring out into the darkness of the surrounding trees. It was late; after midnight, she was sure, and there was barely a sound on the cold air. Tiphaine was out there somewhere. She had been in the Sanctuary constantly, tending the sick woman, taking turns with Helewise to sit by Hadil’s bedside to hold her down when the violent fits took hold of her and trying to soothe her. Apart from the extreme distress the poor woman was enduring, as were the two women who were caring for her, thrashing about like a trapped animal threatened to do further harm to the broken arm.

  Tiphaine had finally come up with a concoction that seemed to work – either that or the patient had finally exhausted herself – and Hadil had been sleeping since dusk. Helewise, aware of Tiphaine’s growing restlessness, had suggested gently that she take herself off into the forest for a while. Tiphaine, of course, had refused: ‘I cannot leave you here alone with her, my lady. What if she should wake and throw another of those screaming fits?’

  ‘If she does, I shall administer more of whatever remedy you gave her earlier,’ Helewise said calmly.

  ‘But she’s strong, despite that arm. It’s been taking the two of us to control her.’

  ‘I believe that, with her fever slowly subsiding, there is little likelihood of further fits.’

  ‘But …’

  With a smile, Helewise watched Tiphaine’s stern face contort as she tried to come up with further objections. She reached out and put a soothing hand on Tiphaine’s arm. ‘Go,’ she said firmly. ‘I shall be perfectly all right. You need
…’ She had been about to say, You need to get out into the open air for a while, since too long cooped up within the four walls of a small room makes you as jumpy as a fox in a box.

  It had always been so, in all the long years of the women’s acquaintance. In the Hawkenlye Abbey days, Helewise had known perfectly well when, and for how long, her herbalist slipped away into the Great Forest. The convenient excuse had been that she needed to gather leaves, flowers, roots and fungi for her herbal preparations, but Helewise had always been aware that was only a part of the reason for Tiphaine’s absences. Dutiful and as obedient as her nature allowed, Tiphaine had never returned empty-handed, but she had needed to restore herself with the quiet energy of the vast, living forest in the same way that others needed air and water.

  Helewise had watched with private amusement as Tiphaine struggled with herself. Then, abruptly yielding to the greater force, she strode out through the door with a muttered, ‘Back soon’, and was gone.

  That had been hours ago. Not that Helewise was worried. Tiphaine was at home in the forest as others were in a familiar, beloved and long-occupied cottage.

  With reluctance, she turned her back on the night and went back inside the little room, drawing the door closed. There was a single lamp burning, and by its soft light she went over to look at her patient. Hadil was deeply asleep, making a soft sound on each out-breath. Putting a gentle hand on her forehead, Helewise judged that the fever had reduced still further. With a nod of satisfaction, she went over to her own bed, lay down and was soon asleep.

  She can see figures in the mist … It’s a thick mist and there is the smell of water. Sea water, for there is saltiness in it. But there is also the rank, throat-catching stink of rotting vegetation, of the fringe waters of some wild marshland. At first all is quiet, as if the mist has muffled every sound. But then there is the jingle of harness, the puffing breath of hard-working horses, a shout of frustration.