Belle's Song

by K. M. Grant

  “Yes.” Now that I’d started talking, it seemed easier to keep going than to stop. “The summoner was very impressed with all the things you did over the cloud and the gold and he told the Master you’d be more useful to the Church in England than to a monastery in France, so he’d decided to force you to go with him and become a priest.”

  “Force me? He has nothing to force me with.”

  “Yes, yes, he does.” How my legs prickled under the silk bandages. “Blackmail,” I said. “Something to do with the Master, not you, and the Master didn’t tell you because he didn’t want you to be worried. That’s why he sent you off so quickly. Once you’re on board a ship, you’ll be safe.” A little truth always makes a stronger lie.

  “What? How do you know all this?”

  “I guessed from something the summoner said. You know how he was with me. He tried to draw me in but I refused.”

  Luke was frowning. He had myriad more questions, but we’d reached the gate. This was it. This was where we would have to say good-bye. My breath stuck in my throat at the sight of the road down which Luke would ride away. How would I actually be able to watch? And I still hadn’t checked Dobs for the ring. We were through the gate, and, as the road cleared, Granada lengthened his stride. Now I had to run. Dobs, ears back, resented the pace and I was thrown about and bruised. Luke, grim faced, slowed Granada and took Dobs’s reins from me. “You can’t run all the way to the coast,” he said, and those gray eyes were very dark.

  “You must hurry,” I said, panting. “You mustn’t let the summoner’s men catch you.” But I clung on.

  “They mustn’t,” Luke said, but didn’t speed up.

  “Give me your knife,” I said.

  Luke’s eyes flew wide. “For God’s sake, Belle—”

  “No, no! I’m not going to harm myself,” I babbled. “I just thought—I just thought—I just thought that the Master’s been so fond of Dobs, he should have a hank of hair as a remembrance.”

  “Of course.” Luke fumbled to pull out his knife. “Trust you to think of something like that.”

  I reached up and took the knife from him. Trust? What did that mean anymore? “I’ll cut it from underneath,” I said, “so as not to spoil Dobs’s natural beauty.” I don’t know how I actually made a joke. I delved deep into the thicket of mane. The ring was still exactly where the Master had fastened it. It was hard to get the hank away. I had to saw, and all the while Granada was trying to speed up and Dobs to slow down. It seemed ages before I had the hank in my hand. I let go of Dobs and knotted it with the ring safely in the middle. “There,” I said. “Dobs won’t miss this and the Master will like to have it.” Only now did I come to a halt. “You must go as fast as you can.” I tried to be matter-of-fact, but it was too hard. Above me, his face tilted and the sun casting a halo around his hair, Luke was the Helmetless Knight again. I held on to his knee. “Luke …”

  “Belle …”

  There was shouting. We both glanced behind. The summoner’s men were through the gate. “Don’t let them catch you.”

  He hesitated only a moment longer, leaned down, tried to say something, breathed against my cheek, then dug his heels into Granada’s sides. The horse leaped forward. Dobs got spooked and leaped too. “Watch out, you clumsy oaf!” shouted a muleteer swerving to avoid them.

  That’s how Luke and I parted. Without any grand gesture, without any tears, without even a sigh and a final embrace, he disappeared into a river of traffic, and I was left with a knife, a hank of hair, and the king’s ring and no idea what would happen next.

  13

  For he had subtly formed a gang of spies

  Who taught him where his profit might arise,

  And he would spare one lecher from his store

  To teach the way to four-and-twenty more.

  What did happen next happened very quickly. Indeed, by the time I got back to the inn, some of it had already happened. With Luke gone and the pilgrimage over, the summoner had had the Master marched back to the hostel, and there, directly and openly, with the horses milling about and the baggage carts being filled, accused him of sending messages to the French king on behalf of King Richard and of using King Richard’s ring as his authority. The last proof needed, so the summoner declared, was that Luke had been sent off at suspicious speed. Not that this mattered, since he would be arrested any moment now and brought back to face the commission to answer charges of his own. And of course, as if this wasn’t enough, the summoner knew just how to twist the knife. The Master had been clever, he said. He might survive because of his fame and his name, but Luke wouldn’t. Luke would be arraigned for treason and receive the traitor’s reward. This, so the summoner heavily implied, had all been part of the Master’s calculation.

  During the stunned silence that greeted this extraordinary news I stumbled back into the yard, retaining enough presence of mind to stuff the hank of hair down the front of my dress. This was a mistake, since it gave me a lumpy look in the summoner’s favorite place on a woman. I crossed my arms, then uncrossed them and wished I’d stuffed the hank somewhere else.

  “Luke knows nothing and carries nothing. He’s just anxious to start God’s work,” the Master began to protest, though he was unconvincing. The other pilgrims were either blankly incredulous or wouldn’t look at Master Chaucer at all. Walter was standing by Arondel’s head, biting his lip and with no sparkle in his eyes. When he saw me, his face expressed, by turns, relief, sympathy, and alarm. He’d no idea whether or not I had the ring. The summoner saw me too and squinted to see if Luke was being brought in behind me. When he saw he was not, he glared and made his noose gesture. “The boy’ll be found before the tide turns,” he said.

  This made Master Chaucer bluster. “The abbot at St. Denys will take a very poor view of your malicious arrest of one of his young novices.” Under his hat, his face was red and sweat beaded his forehead.

  “He’s not a novice yet,” the summoner said. At a gesture, his men closed in around the Master.

  Master Chaucer took a step forward. “Are you arresting me?” he asked.

  The summoner hesitated and his men, seeing this, hesitated too.

  “If you’ve anything more than the cock-and-bull story you’ve dreamed up, you’d better produce it now,” Master Chaucer said, wiping his forehead. There was a pause. “Well, Master Summoner? Isn’t it the truth that you can’t arrest me because there’s nothing to arrest me for?” The Master’s confidence began to return.

  The summoner’s face set in fleshy ridges, his boils round red stones. “We’ll see just how clever you are, Master Chaucer, when we have the boy.” But he was forced to draw his men back. I could still feel Luke’s breath on my cheek but I could also feel the king’s ring burning against my chest and see my belongings stowed as usual in the blue armor wagon, Poppet sticking haphazardly out of the top. Dulcie and Arondel, saddled and ready, stood together. Picardy stood separately, restless and neighing for Dobs.

  The other pilgrims, very uncomfortable, began to mount their horses. The very mention of treason silenced them. Despite their liking for the Master and their dislike of the summoner, this was dangerous territory. Not even Dame Alison made any remark. Walter moved forward a little. I knew he wanted to signal that he didn’t have the ring, but any movement might alert Master Summoner. I struggled to think. One thing was obvious: the summoner must abandon his pursuit of Luke. More than that, he must forget about Luke. It must be made abundantly obvious that Luke was of no interest to him.

  The mind really is a curious thing. It sometimes makes decisions that take you quite unaware. I, for example, was quite unaware that my hand was shooting down my front, my fingers scrabbling. When I had hold of Dobs’s hair, I ran to Walter and made my three-skip mounting bounce. He was alert and ready and without hesitation pitched me onto Dulcie and catapulted himself onto Arondel. Then I held up the ring. I was quite aware now. “Let all of you see this!” I shouted. “I’ve got the ring that Master Summoner�
�s so anxious about. I repeat: it’s me who has the king’s ring. Me, do you hear? I’ve got it. Master Summoner, if you want it, come and get it.”

  The summoner gave a roar. “Master Chaucer gave it to you!”

  “He didn’t!” I yelled back. “Look at his face!”

  The Master’s face was, indeed, a picture. Nobody could have faked such amazement—well, horror really—but it seemed like amazement to those who didn’t know his guilty secret.

  “Now,” I cried, “forget Master Chaucer and forget Luke. You’ve no proof against them. None whatever.”

  The summoner recovered himself and laughed. “You think you can just say that and be believed?” He began to move toward me at the same moment as I moved toward him. I don’t think he knew what was coming until the second before it actually happened. Only when I was right on him, Luke’s knife and surprise on my side, did his hands fly to his waist. By then it was too late. I’d already slit his leather belt, seized the pouch, and, for good measure, slit his tunic so that the audience could appreciate the full hairy sag of his stomach. The red of his spots purpled and his eyes bulged. One hand shot up, the other he slapped over his stomach. “Give that pouch back. Give it back at once or I’ll have you for a common thief.”

  I dangled the pouch above his head. “A common thief? That cap fits you better.” I tossed the pouch to Walter. He opened it, exclaimed loudly, and threw each item back to its rightful owner: the rattle, the crucifix, Sir Knight’s book, Dame Alison’s wedding rings—it was quite a hoard. Finally, Walter drew out his own jeweled dagger and Master Host’s horn spoon. It was the last that caused the greatest gasp. “How—how—how ridiculous!” Dame Alison said, outraged.

  The summoner was beyond caring about Dame Alison’s outrage. He lunged at me and Walter just as I dug my heels into Dulcie, and Walter, stuffing his dagger and the horn spoon back into the pouch, dug his spurs into Arondel. Scattering our fellow pilgrims, we galloped out of the yard, and as we passed the blue armor wagon, in a lovely gesture, Walter leaned down and scooped up Poppet. We could hear the summoner yelling for his horse and then spewing out a stream of invective when he found it to be as yet unsaddled. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Master Chaucer’s face as I sped away. Relief? Bemusement? Anger that I’d upset his plans? I’d no idea. I also heard Sir Knight roaring for his son to return to him at once. It was odd, hearing him raise his voice. Walter blinked, but though I believe it was the first time he’d ever disobeyed his father, he didn’t hesitate, and in moments we were in the street, barging past new arrivals at the inn. “Don’t go in there!” some devilment made me yell. “There’s flies in the soup and piss in the porridge!” Their faces! I laughed, though it wasn’t a nice sound.

  The traffic slowed our mad dash. Dodging knots of flagellants and squeezing past wagonloads of the infirm, Walter and I almost lost sight of each other. At the city’s west gate, the throng trying to enter was so dense that we were brought to a complete halt. Several times, Dulcie and Arondel were almost bodily lifted and forced back the way we had just come. We did get through in the end, though, and at once pushed the horses into a brisk canter. By this time, the adrenaline had stopped pumping and I was already whithering inside. Had I made Luke any safer, or Master Chaucer? Certainly, my father would suffer. But there was no going back. “Which direction?” I was not even tempted to smile at Walter.

  “The king’s in the north,” Walter said, not even tempted to smile back.

  “How do you know?”

  “Squires’ gossip at the tournament. We’ll have to hurry, though. You made the summoner a laughing stock. He’ll never forgive that.”

  “Oh God! What have I done?” I kicked Dulcie hard and her stride lengthened. “Never mind the king, I’ve got to get to Southwark.” I turned south.

  Walter caught up with me. “Listen to me, Belle. You can’t protect your father after what you’ve just done. Only the king can do that, and only if his writ still runs. For your father’s sake, and Master Chaucer’s, we must get to the king before the commission removes yet more of his powers. Don’t you see?”

  “I see only that I’m a disaster. I’ve ruined my father’s legs, I didn’t pray properly for him, and now I’m going to see him executed!” I couldn’t stop myself. The hanging boy was on my back in all his creaking horror. I made Dulcie gallop faster.

  Arondel matched Dulcie, stride for stride. “Listen to me, Belle,” Walter urged, edging Arondel slightly in front. “The summoner can arrest your father but he can’t arrange a hanging without a trial, and for a trial he’ll have to concoct a better charge than gossip. That will take a little time. If we can find the king, and, as I say, if he still has authority in London, your father will be safe.”

  “If—if!” I cried wildly. “Too many ifs!”

  “Your father’s a good man. You’ve been on pilgrimage. St. Thomas will help him.”

  “Oh, Walter! Do you really believe that?”

  Walter swallowed very hard. “Luke would.”

  I bent my head. He was right. It was the only thing to cling to. I shivered closer into my saddle. “Northward, then,” I said, “and let’s hope the squires were right.”

  We traveled very fast, the horses glad to do so. Ten miles on, Walter insisted on buying pies and loaves from a roadside vendor. He bought three of each, which made me want to hug him, and shoved them into the summoner’s pouch. “Supper,” he said. We stuck to the main roads because they were the quickest and it was on these that we’d be most likely to hear news of the king. We had to hope that we could simply outrun the summoner if he gave chase, though a more subtle pursuit was more his style. However, even we couldn’t gallop in the dark, so when night fell we tethered the horses at the back of an abandoned shelter and went inside. The floor was filthy and Walter laid out his cloak for me to sit on. I unpacked the food. Walter took out the spoon and the dagger. The latter he wiped carefully before sticking it back in his belt. The former, he contemplated. “What a strange man the summoner is,” he said. “I can understand stealing my dagger or Dame Alison’s rings. Those things are worth something. But this spoon? Or the child’s rattle? Or the wooden dog?”

  “I pumice my legs and count to three,” I said. “There’s no accounting for peculiarities.”

  “You used to pumice your legs, Belle.”

  I gave him a long look. We chewed in silence, both avoiding the subject of Luke. It was too painful. When I couldn’t swallow any more, I turned my attention back to the pouch. “There’s something else in here,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  I pulled out a little soft-backed book.

  “Ah,” Walter said, also giving up trying to eat. “Our summoner’s poetry book, perhaps? Or a book of songs? Remember him singing on the very first day of our journey? Not the songliest of songs, but a song nonetheless.”

  I did give a half smile now, though it would have looked more like a grimace to an onlooker. The book, barely the size of my palm, was horribly sticky. I made a face. “It smells,” I said. I opened it. “It’s too dark. I can’t see what’s in it.”

  “We’ll have to wait until morning.” Walter took the book and put it on a jutting stone shelf. “Lie down now, Belle, and get some sleep.” He found some leaves to shove under the cloak for a mattress, salved my legs, wrapped me up with Poppet, and then settled himself on the other side of the shelter. “Walter,” I said, after a while.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s cold. We can share the cloak.”

  “I don’t think that would be very seemly.”

  “There’s nobody here, and, well, anyway …” I couldn’t go on because I didn’t know what words to use.

  “There’s no danger to your virtue?” His voice was low in the dark.

  “Anyway, you’re the squireliest of squires,” I said. There was silence. “Please. I can’t sleep knowing you’re so uncomfortable. Sharing the cloak would be the chivalrous thing to do.”

  I heard him move, and then he was ne
xt to me, knowing just how to pillow my head on his arm, just how to nestle Poppet between us and just how to position himself so that I got the best of the cloak. It was the first time I’d ever slept so close to a man, and with Walter it was so easy, so comforting, and so beautifully pure that despite everything, I lay happy for a moment in the joy of it.

  When I woke, light was creeping in and I was alone. I could see the horses already saddled. Walter was sitting bolt upright by the far wall, the summoner’s book open between his hands.

  I began to pull leaves from my hair and shake out the cloak. “So, what is it? Songs or poems?”

  He looked up. “Neither.”

  “Oh?” I took the cloak to him.

  He snapped the book shut and threw it down. “You mustn’t read it.”

  I was taken aback. “Why not?”

  “It’s a tally book,” he said, his face full of disgust, anger, and all manner of inexpressible feelings.

  “He’s a summoner,” I countered, “so he would have a tally book to note down the people he’s summoning to the bishop and make a list of their sins.” I bent down.

  “Don’t! There are things in there nobody should see.” He was very distressed.

  “I’m not a child, Walter. If Archdeacon Dunmow can read it and survive, I expect I can manage.”

  “I don’t think the archdeacon’s going to read it.”

  “Why ever not?”

  Walter’s hands shook. “He’s in it.”

  “He’s in the summoner’s tally book? I don’t understand.”

  “He and almost every other powerful churchman, in London and beyond. And their sins!” He stood. “It’s a list of perversions I’d never dreamed of.” I stared at the book. Walter stood above me. “There’s sins,” he said, “and next to them there’s figures. Money. The bigger the sin, the larger the amount.”

  Silence followed. I broke it. “Little jars of poison,” I said slowly.

  “What?”