Читать книгу Three Great English Victories: A 3-book Collection of Harlequin, 1356 and Azincourt - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 18

Quatre Vents had been a small village, scarce larger than Hookton, with a gaunt barn-like church, a cluster of cottages where cows and people had shared the same thatched roofs, a water mill, and some outlying farms crouched in sheltered valleys. Only the stone walls of the church and mill were left now, the rest was just ashes, dust and weeds. The blossom was blowing from the untended orchards when Thomas arrived on a horse sweated white by its long journey. He released the stallion to graze in a well-hedged and overgrown pasture, then took himself into the woods above the church. He was shaken, nervous and frightened, for what had seemed like a game had twisted his life into darkness. Not a few hours before he had been an archer in England’s army and, though his future might not have appealed to the young men with whom he had rioted in Oxford, Thomas had been certain he would at least rise as high as Will Skeat. He had imagined himself leading a band of soldiers, becoming wealthy, following his black bow to fortune and even rank, but now he was a hunted man. He was in such panic that he began to doubt Will Skeat’s reaction, fearing that Skeat would be so disgusted at the failure of the ambush that he would arrest Thomas and lead him back to a rope-dancing end in La Roche-Derrien’s marketplace. He worried that Jeanette would have been caught going back to the town. Would they charge her with murder too? He shivered as night fell. He was twenty-two years old, he had failed utterly, he was alone and he was lost.

He woke in a cold, drizzling dawn. Hares raced across the pasture where Sir Simon Jekyll’s destrier cropped the grass. Thomas opened the purse he kept under his mail coat and counted his coins. There was the gold from Sir Simon’s saddle pouch and his own few coins, so he was not poor, but like most of the hellequin he left the bulk of his money in Will Skeat’s keeping; even when they were out raiding, there were always some men left in La Roche-Derrien to keep an eye on the hoard. What would he do? He had a bow and some arrows, and perhaps he could walk to Gascony, though he had no idea how far that was, but at least he knew there were English garrisons there who would surely welcome another trained archer. Or perhaps he could find a way to cross the Channel? Go home, find another name, start again – except he had no home. What he must never do was find himself within a hanging rope’s distance of Sir Simon Jekyll.

The hellequin arrived shortly after midday. The archers rode into the village first, followed by the men-at-arms, who were escorting a one-horse wagon that had wooden hoops supporting a flapping cover of brown cloth. Father Hobbe and Will Skeat rode beside the wagon, which puzzled Thomas, for he had never known the hellequin use such a vehicle before. But then Skeat and the priest broke away from the men-at-arms and spurred their horses towards the field where the stallion grazed.

The two men stopped by the hedge, and Skeat cupped his hands and shouted towards the woods, ‘Come on out, you daft bastard!’ Thomas emerged very sheepishly, to be greeted with an ironic cheer from the archers. Skeat regarded him sourly. ‘God’s bones, Tom,’ he said, ‘but the devil did a bad thing when he humped your mother.’

Father Hobbe tutted at Will’s blasphemy, then raised a hand in blessing. ‘You missed a fine sight, Tom,’ he said cheerfully: ‘Sir Simon coming home to La Roche, half naked and bleeding like a stuck pig. I’ll hear your confession before we go.’

‘Don’t grin, you stupid bastard,’ Skeat snapped. ‘Sweet Christ, Tom, but if you do a job, do it proper. Do it proper! Why did you leave the bastard alive?’

‘I missed.’

‘Then you go and kill some poor bastard squire instead. Sweet Christ, but you’re a goddamn bloody fool.’

‘I suppose they want to hang me?’ Thomas asked.

‘Oh no,’ Skeat said in feigned surprise, ‘of course not! They want to feast you, hang garlands round your neck and give you a dozen virgins to warm your bed. What the hell do you think they want to do with you? Of course they want you dead and I swore on my mother’s life I’d bring you back if I found you alive. Does he look alive to you, father?’

Father Hobbe examined Thomas. ‘He looks very dead to me, Master Skeat.’

‘He bloody deserves to be dead, the daft bastard.’

‘Did the Countess get safe home?’ Thomas asked.

‘She got home, if that’s what you mean,’ Skeat said, ‘but what do you think Sir Simon wanted the moment he’d covered up his shrivelled prick? To have her house searched, Tom, for some armour and a sword that were legitimately his. He’s not such a daft fool; he knows you and she were together.’ Thomas cursed and Skeat repeated the blasphemy. ‘So they pressed her two servants and they admitted the Countess planned everything.’

‘They did what?’ Thomas asked.

‘They pressed them,’ Skeat repeated, which meant that the old couple had been put flat on the ground and had stones piled on their chests. ‘The old girl squealed everything at the first stone, so they were hardly hurt,’ Skeat went on, ‘and now Sir Simon wants to charge her ladyship with murder. And naturally he had her house searched for the sword and armour, but they found nowt because I had them and her hidden well away, but she’s still as deep in the shit as you are. You can’t just go about sticking crossbow bolts into knights and slaughtering squires, Tom! It upsets the order of things!’

‘I’m sorry, Will,’ Thomas said.

‘So the long and the brief of it,’ Skeat said, ‘is that the Countess is seeking the protection of her husband’s uncle.’ He jerked a thumb at the cart. ‘She’s in that, together with her bairn, two bruised servants, a suit of armour and a sword.’

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Thomas said, staring at the cart.

‘You put her there,’ Skeat growled, ‘not Him. And I had the devil’s own business keeping her hid from Sir Simon. Dick Totesham suspects I’m up to no good and he don’t approve, though he took my word in the end, but I still had to promise to drag you back by the scruff of your miserable neck. But I haven’t seen you, Tom.’

‘I’m sorry, Will,’ Thomas said again.

‘You bloody well should be sorry,’ Skeat said, though he was exuding a quiet satisfaction that he had managed to clean up Thomas’s mess so efficiently. Jake and Sam had not been seen by Sir Simon or his surviving man-at-arms, so they were safe, Thomas was a fugitive and Jeanette had been safely smuggled out of La Roche-Derrien before Sir Simon could make her life into utter misery. ‘She’s travelling to Guingamp,’ Skeat went on, ‘and I’m sending a dozen men to escort her and God only knows if the enemy will respect their flag of truce. If I had a lick of bloody sense I’d skin you alive and make a bow-cover out of your hide.’

‘Yes, Will,’ Thomas said meekly.

‘Don’t bloody ‘‘yes, Will’’ me,’ Skeat said. ‘What are you going to do with the few days you’ve got left to live?’

‘I don’t know.’

Skeat sniffed. ‘You could grow up, for a start, though there’s probably scant chance of that happening. Right, lad.’ He braced himself, taking charge. ‘I took your money from the chest, so here it is.’ He handed Thomas a leather pouch. ‘And I’ve put three sheaves of arrows in the lady’s cart and that’ll keep you for a few days. If you’ve got any sense, which you ain’t, then you’d go south or north. You could go to Gascony, but it’s a hell of a long walk. Flanders is closer and has plenty of English troops who’ll probably take you in if they’re desperate. That’s my advice, lad. Go north and hope Sir Simon never goes to Flanders.’

‘Thank you,’ Thomas said.

‘But how do you get to Flanders?’ Skeat asked.

‘Walk?’ Thomas suggested.

‘God’s bones,’ Will said, ‘but you’re a useless worm-eaten piece of lousy meat. Walk dressed like that and carrying a bow, and you might just as well just cut your own throat. It’ll be quicker than letting the French do it.’

‘You might find this useful,’ Father Hobbe intervened, and offered Thomas a black cloth bundle which, on unrolling, proved to be the robe of a Dominican friar. ‘You speak Latin, Tom,’ the priest said, ‘so you could pass for a wandering preacher. If anyone challenges you, say you’re travelling from Avignon to Aachen.’

Thomas thanked him. ‘Do many Dominicans travel with a bow?’ he asked.

‘Lad,’ Father Hobbe said sadly, ‘I can unbutton your breeches and I can point you down wind, but even with the Good Lord’s help I can’t piss for you.’

‘In other words,’ Skeat said, ‘work it out for yourself. You got yourself in this bloody mess, Tom, so you get yourself out. I enjoyed your company, lad. Thought you’d be useless when I first saw you and you weren’t, but you are now. But be lucky, boy.’ He held out his hand and Thomas shook it. ‘You might as well go to Guingamp with the Countess,’ Skeat finished, ‘and then find your own way, but Father Hobbe wants to save your soul first. God knows why.’

Father Hobbe dismounted and led Thomas into the roofless church where grass and weeds now grew between the flagstones. He insisted on hearing a confession and Thomas was feeling abject enough to sound contrite.

Father Hobbe sighed when it was done. ‘You killed a man, Tom,’ he said heavily, ‘and it is a great sin.’

‘Father –’ Thomas began.

‘No, no, Tom, no excuses. The Church says that to kill in battle is a duty a man owes to his lord, but you killed outside the law. That poor squire, what offence did he give you? And he had a mother, Tom; think of her. No, you’ve sinned grievously and I must give you a grievous penance.’

Thomas, on his knees, looked up to see a buzzard sliding between the thinning clouds above the church’s scorched walls. Then Father Hobbe stepped closer, looming above him. ‘I’ll not have you muttering paternosters, Tom,’ the priest said, ‘but something hard. Something very hard.’ He put his hand on Thomas’s hair. ‘Your penance is to keep the promise you made to your father.’ He paused to hear Thomas’s response, but the young man was silent. ‘You hear me?’ Father Hobbe demanded fiercely.

‘Yes, father.’

‘You will find the lance of St George, Thomas, and return it to England. That is your penance. And now,’ he changed into execrable Latin, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I absolve you.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Don’t waste your life, Tom.’

‘I think I already have, father.’

‘You’re just young. It seems like that when you’re young. Life’s nothing but joy or misery when you’re young.’ He helped Thomas up from his knees. ‘You’re not hanging from a gibbet, are you? You’re alive, Tom, and there’s a deal of life in you yet.’ He smiled. ‘I have a feeling we shall meet again.’

Thomas made his farewells, then watched as Will Skeat collected Sir Simon Jekyll’s horse and led the hellequin eastwards, leaving the wagon and its small escort in the ruined village.

The leader of the escort was called Hugh Boltby, one of Skeat’s better men-at-arms, and he reckoned they would likely meet the enemy the next day somewhere close to Guingamp. He would hand the Countess over, then ride back to join Skeat. ‘And you’d best not be dressed as an archer, Tom,’ he added.

Thomas walked beside the wagon that was driven by Pierre, the old man who had been pressed by Sir Simon. Jeanette did not invite Thomas inside, indeed she pretended he did not exist, though next morning, after they had camped in an abandoned farm, she laughed at the sight of him dressed in the friar’s robe.

‘I’m sorry about what happened,’ Thomas said to her.

Jeanette shrugged. ‘It may be for the best. I probably should have gone to Duke Charles last winter.’

‘Why didn’t you, my lady?’

‘He hasn’t always been kind to me,’ she said wistfully, ‘but I think that might have changed by now.’ She had persuaded herself that the Duke’s attitude might have altered because of the letters she had sent to him, letters that would help him when he led his troops against the garrison at La Roche-Derrien. She also needed to believe the Duke would welcome her, for she desperately needed a safe home for her son, Charles, who was enjoying the adventure of riding in a swaying, creaking wagon. Together they would both start a new life in Guingamp and Jeanette had woken with optimism about that new life. She had been forced to leave La Roche-Derrien in a frantic hurry, putting into the cart just the retrieved armour, the sword and some clothes, though she had some money that Thomas suspected Will had given to her, but her real hopes were pinned on Duke Charles who, she told Thomas, would surely find her a house and lend her money in advance of the missing rents from Plabennec. ‘He is sure to like Charles, don’t you think?’ she asked Thomas.

‘I’m sure,’ Thomas said, glancing at Jeanette’s son, who was shaking the wagon’s reins and clicking his tongue in a vain effort to make the horse go quicker.

‘But what will you do?’ Jeanette asked.

‘I’ll survive,’ Thomas said, unwilling to admit that he did not know what he would do. Go to Flanders, probably, if he could ever reach there. Join another troop of archers and pray nightly that Sir Simon Jekyll never came his way again. As for his penance, the lance, he had no idea how he was to find it or, having found it, retrieve it.

Jeanette, on that second day of the journey, decided Thomas was a friend after all.

‘When we get to Guingamp,’ she told him, ‘you find somewhere to stay and I shall persuade the Duke to give you a pass. Even a wandering friar will be helped by a pass from the Duke of Brittany.’

But no friar ever carried a bow, let alone a long English war bow, and Thomas did not know what to do with the weapon. He was loath to abandon it, but the sight of some charred timbers in the abandoned farmhouse gave him an idea. He broke off a short length of blackened timber and lashed it crosswise to the unstrung bowstave so that it resembled a pilgrim’s cross-staff. He remembered a Dominican visiting Hookton with just such a staff. The friar, his hair cropped so short he looked bald, had preached a fiery sermon outside the church until Thomas’s father became tired of his ranting and sent him on his way, and Thomas now reckoned he would have to pose as just such a man. Jeanette suggested he tied flowers to the staff to disguise it further, and so he wrapped it with clovers that grew tall and ragged in the abandoned fields.

The wagon, hauled by a bony horse that had been plundered from Lannion, lurched and lumbered southwards. The men-at-arms became ever more cautious as they neared Guingamp, fearing an ambush of crossbow bolts from the woods that pressed close to the deserted road. One of the men had a hunting horn that he sounded constantly to warn the enemy of their approach and to signal that they came in peace, while Boltby had a strip of white cloth hanging from the tip of his lance. There was no ambush, but a few miles short of Guingamp they came in sight of a ford where a band of enemy soldiers waited. Two men-at-arms and a dozen crossbowmen ran forward, their weapons cocked, and Boltby summoned Thomas from the wagon. ‘Talk to them,’ he ordered.

Thomas was nervous. ‘What do I say?’

‘Give them a bloody blessing, for Christ’s sake,’ Boltby said, disgusted, ‘and tell them we’re here in peace.’

So, with a beating heart and a dry mouth, Thomas walked down the road. The black gown flapped awkwardly about his ankles as he waved his hands at the crossbowmen. ‘Lower your weapons,’ he called in French, ‘lower your weapons. The Englishmen come in peace.’

One of the horsemen spurred forward. His shield bore the same white ermine badge that Duke John’s men carried, though these supporters of Duke Charles had surrounded the ermine with a blue wreath on which fleur-de-lis had been painted.

‘Who are you, father?’ the horseman demanded.

Thomas opened his mouth to answer, but no words came. He gaped up at the horseman, who had a reddish moustache and oddly yellow eyes. A hard-looking bastard, Thomas thought, and he raised a hand to touch St Guinefort’s paw. Perhaps the saint inspired him, for he was suddenly possessed of devilment and began to enjoy playing a priest’s role. ‘I am merely one of God’s humbler children, my son,’ he answered unctuously.

‘Are you English?’ the man-at-arms demanded suspiciously. Thomas’s French was near perfect, but it was the French spoken by England’s rulers rather than the language of France itself.

Thomas again felt panic fluttering in his breast, but he bought time by making the sign of the cross, and as his hand moved so inspiration came to him. ‘I am a Scotsman, my son,’ he said, and that allayed the yellow-eyed man’s suspicions; the Scots had ever been France’s ally. Thomas knew nothing of Scotland, but doubted many Frenchmen or Bretons did either, for it was far away and, by all accounts, a most uninviting place. Skeat always said it was a country of bog, rock and heathen bastards who were twice as difficult to kill as any Frenchman. ‘I am a Scotsman,’ Thomas repeated, ‘who brings a kinswoman of the Duke out of the hands of the English.’

The man-at-arms glanced at the wagon. ‘A kinswoman of Duke Charles?’

‘Is there another duke?’ Thomas asked innocently. ‘She is the Countess of Armorica,’ he went on, ‘and her son, who is with her, is the Duke’s grandnephew and a count in his own right. The English have held them prisoner these six months, but by God’s good grace they have relented and set her free. The Duke, I know, will want to welcome her.’

Thomas laid on Jeanette’s rank and relationship to the Duke as thick as newly skimmed cream and the enemy swallowed it whole. They allowed the wagon to continue, and Thomas watched as Hugh Boltby led his men away at a swift trot, eager to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the crossbowmen. The leader of the enemy’s men-at-arms talked with Jeanette and seemed impressed by her hauteur. He would, he said, be honoured to escort the Countess to Guingamp, though he warned her that the Duke was not there, but was still returning from Paris. He was said to be at Rennes now, a city that lay a good day’s journey to the east.

‘You will take me as far as Rennes?’ Jeanette asked Thomas.

‘You want me to, my lady?’

‘A young man is useful,’ she said. ‘Pierre is old,’ she gestured at the servant, ‘and has lost his strength. Besides, if you’re going to Flanders then you will need to cross the river at Rennes.’

So Thomas kept her company for the three days that it took the painfully slow wagon to make the journey. They needed no escort beyond Guingamp for there was small danger of any English raiders this far east in Brittany and the road was well patrolled by the Duke’s forces. The countryside looked strange to Thomas, for he had become accustomed to rank fields, untended orchards and deserted villages, but here the farms were busy and prosperous. The churches were bigger and had stained glass, and fewer and fewer folk spoke Breton. This was still Brittany, but the language was French.

They stayed in country taverns that had fleas in the straw. Jeanette and her son were given what passed for the best room while Thomas shared the stables with the two servants. They met two priests on the road, but neither suspected that Thomas was an imposter. He greeted them in Latin, which he spoke better than they did, and both men wished him a good day and a fervent Godspeed. Thomas could almost feel their relief when he did not engage them in further conversation. The Dominicans were not popular with parish priests. The friars were priests themselves, but were charged with the suppression of heresy so a visitation by the Dominicans suggested that a parish priest has not been doing his duty and even a rough, wild and young friar like Thomas was unwelcome.

They reached Rennes in the afternoon. There were dark clouds in the east against which the city loomed larger than any place Thomas had ever seen. The walls were twice as high as those at Lannion or La Roche-Derrien, and had towers with pointed roofs every few yards to serve as buttresses from which crossbowmen could pour bolts on any attacking force. Above the walls, higher even than the turrets, the church towers or the cathedral, was the citadel, a stronghold of pale stone hung with banners. The smell of the city wafted westwards on a chill wind, a stink of sewage, tanneries and smoke.

The guards at the western gate became excited when they discovered the arrows in the wagon, but Jeanette persuaded them that they were trophies she was taking to the Duke. Then they wanted to levy a custom’s duty on the fine armour and Jeanette harangued them again, using her title and the Duke’s name liberally. The soldiers eventually gave in and allowed the wagon into the narrow streets where shopwares protruded onto the roadway. Beggars ran beside the wagon and soldiers jostled Thomas, who was leading the horse. The city was crammed with soldiers. Most of the men-at-arms were wearing the wreathed white ermine badge, but many had the green grail of Genoa on their tunics, and the presence of so many troops confirmed that the Duke was indeed in the city and readying himself for the campaign that would eject the English from Brittany.

They found a tavern beneath the cathedral’s looming twin towers. Jeanette wanted to ready herself for her audience with the Duke and demanded a private room, though all she got for her cash was a spider-haunted space beneath the tavern’s eaves. The innkeeper, a sallow fellow with a twitch, suggested Thomas would be happier in the Dominican friary that lay by the church of St Germain, north of the cathedral, but Thomas declared his mission was to be among sinners, not saints, and so the innkeeper grudgingly said he could sleep in Jeanette’s wagon that was parked in the inn yard.

‘But no preaching, father,’ the man added, ‘no preaching. There’s enough of that in the city without spoiling the Three Keys.’

Jeanette’s maid brushed her mistress’s hair, then coiled and pinned the black tresses into ram’s horns that covered her ears. Jeanette put on a red velvet dress that had escaped the sack of her house and which had a skirt that fell from just beneath her breasts to the floor, while the bodice, intricately embroidered with cornflowers and daisies, hooked tight up to her neck. Its sleeves were full, trimmed with fox fur, and dropped to her red shoes, which had horn buckles. Her hat matched the dress and was trimmed with the same fur and a blue-black veil of lace. She spat on her son’s face and rubbed off the dirt, then led him down to the tavern yard.

‘Do you think the veil is right?’ she asked Thomas anxiously.

Thomas shrugged. ‘It looks right to me.’

‘No, the colour! Is it right with the red?’

He nodded, hiding his astonishment. He had never seen her dressed so fashionably. She looked like a countess now, while her son was in a clean smock and had his hair wetted and smoothed.

‘You’re to meet your great-uncle!’ Jeanette told Charles, licking a finger and rubbing at some more dirt on his cheek. ‘And he’s nephew to the King of France. Which means you’re related to the King! Yes, you are! Aren’t you a lucky boy?’

Charles recoiled from his mother’s fussing, but she did not notice for she was busy instructing Pierre, her manservant, to stow the armour and sword in a great sack. She wanted the duke to see the armour. ‘I want him to know,’ she told Thomas, ‘that when my son comes of age he will fight for him.’

Pierre, who claimed to be seventy years old, lifted the sack and almost fell over with the weight. Thomas offered to carry it to the citadel instead, but Jeanette would not hear of it.

‘You might pass for a Scotsman among the common folk, but the Duke’s entourage will have men who may have visited the place.’ She smoothed wrinkles from the red velvet skirt. ‘You wait here,’ she told Thomas, ‘and I’ll send Pierre back with a message, maybe even some money. I’m sure the Duke is going to be generous. I shall demand a pass for you. What name shall I use? A Scot’s name? Just Thomas the friar? As soon as he sees you,’ she was now talking to her son, ‘he’ll open his purse, won’t he? Of course he will.’

Pierre managed to hoist the armour onto his shoulder without falling over and Jeanette took her son’s hand. ‘I shall send you a message,’ she promised Thomas.

‘God’s blessing, my child,’ Thomas said, ‘and may the blessed St Guinefort watch over you.’

Jeanette wrinkled her nose at that mention of St Guinefort, who, she had learned from Thomas, was really a dog. ‘I shall put my trust in St Renan,’ she said reprovingly, and with those words she left. Pierre and his wife followed her, and Thomas waited in the yard, offering blessings to ostlers, stray cats and tapmen. Be mad enough, his father had once said, and they will either lock you away or make you a saint.

The night fell, damp and cold, with a gusting wind sighing in the cathedral’s towers and rustling the tavern’s thatch. Thomas thought of the penance that Father Hobbe had demanded.

Was the lance real? Had it truly smashed through a dragon’s scales, pierced the ribs and riven a heart in which cold blood flowed? He thought it was real. His father had believed and his father, though he might have been mad, had been no fool. And the lance had looked old, so very old. Thomas had used to pray to St George, but he no longer did and that made him feel guilty so that he dropped to his knees beside the wagon and asked the saint to forgive him his sins, to forgive him for the squire’s murder and for impersonating a friar. I do not mean to be a bad person, he told the dragon killer, but it is so easy to forget heaven and the saints. And if you wish, he prayed, I will find the lance, but you must tell me what to do with it. Should he restore it to Hookton that, so far as Thomas knew, no longer existed? Or should he return it to whoever had owned it before his grandfather stole it? And who was his grandfather? And why had his father hidden from his family? And why had the family sought him out to take the lance back? Thomas did not know and, for the past three years, he had not cared, but suddenly, in the tavern yard, he found himself consumed by curiosity. He did have a family somewhere. His grandfather had been a soldier and a thief, but who was he? He added a prayer to St George to allow him to discover them.

‘Praying for rain, father?’ one of the ostlers suggested. ‘I reckon we’re going to get it. We need it.’

Thomas could have eaten in the tavern, but he was suddenly nervous of the crowded room where the Duke’s soldiers and their women sang, boasted and brawled. Nor could he face the landlord’s sly suspicions. The man was curious why Thomas did not go to the friary, and even more curious why a friar should travel with a beautiful woman. ‘She is my cousin,’ Thomas had told the man, who had pretended to believe the lie, but Thomas had no desire to face more questions and so he stayed in the yard and made a poor meal from the dry bread, sour onions and hard cheese that was the only food left in the wagon.

It began to rain and he retreated into the wagon and listened to the drops patter on the canvas cover. He thought of Jeanette and her little son being fed sugared delicacies on silver plates before sleeping between clean linen sheets in some tapestry-hung bedchamber, and then began to feel sorry for himself. He was a fugitive, Jeanette was his only ally and she was too high and mighty for him.

Bells announced the shutting of the city’s gates. Watchmen walked the streets, looking for fires that could destroy a city in a few hours. Sentries shivered on the walls and Duke Charles’s banners flew from the citadel’s summit. Thomas was among his enemies, protected by nothing more than wit and a Dominican’s robe. And he was alone.

Jeanette became increasingly nervous as she approached the citadel, but she had persuaded herself that Charles of Blois would accept her as a dependant once he met her son who was named for him, and Jeanette’s husband had always said that the Duke would like Jeanette if only he could get to know her better. It was true that the Duke had been cold in the past, but her letters must have convinced him of her allegiance and, at the very least, she was certain he would possess the chivalry to look after a woman in distress.

To her surprise it was easier to enter the citadel than it had been to negotiate the city gate. The sentries waved her across the drawbridge, beneath the arch and so into a great courtyard ringed with stables, mews and storehouses. A score of men-at-arms were practising with their swords which, in the gloom of the late afternoon, generated bright sparks. More sparks flowed from a smithy where a horse was being shoed, and Jeanette caught the whiff of burning hoof mingling with the stink of a dungheap and the reek of a decomposing corpse, which hung in chains high on the courtyard wall. A laconic and misspelled placard pronounced the man to have been a thief.

A steward guided her through a second arch and so into a great cold chamber where a score of petitioners waited to see the Duke. A clerk took her name, raising an eyebrow in silent surprise when she announced herself. ‘His grace will be told of your presence,’ the man said in a bored voice, then dismissed Jeanette to a stone bench that ran along one of the hall’s high walls.

Pierre lowered the armour to the floor and squatted beside it while Jeanette sat. Some of the petitioners paced up and down, clutching scrolls and silently mouthing the words they would use when they saw the Duke, while others complained to the clerks that they had already been waiting three, four or even five days. How much longer? A dog lifted its leg against a pillar, then two small boys, six or seven years old, ran into the hall with mock wooden swords. They gazed at the petitioners for a second, then ran up some stairs that were guarded by men-at-arms. Were they the Duke’s sons, Jeanette wondered, and she imagined Charles making friends with the boys.

‘You’re going to be happy here,’ she told him.

‘I’m hungry, Mama.’

‘We shall eat soon.’

She waited. Two women strolled along the gallery at the head of the stairs wearing pale dresses made of expensive linen that seemed to float as they walked and Jeanette suddenly felt shabby in her wrinkled red velvet. ‘You must be polite to the Duke,’ she told Charles, who was getting fretful from hunger. ‘You kneel to him, can you do that? Show me how you kneel.’

‘I want to go home,’ Charles said.

‘Just for Mama, show me how you kneel. That’s good!’

Jeanette ruffled her son’s hair in praise, then immediately tried to stroke it back into place. From upstairs came the sound of a sweet harp and a breathy flute, and Jeanette thought longingly of the life she wanted. A life fit for a countess, edged with music and handsome men, elegance and power. She would rebuild Plabennec, though with what she did not know, but she would make the tower larger and have a staircase like the one in this hall. An hour passed, then another. It was dark now and the hall was dimly lit by two burning torches that sent smoke into the fan tracery of the high roof. Charles became ever more petulant so Jeanette took him in her arms and tried to rock him to sleep. Two priests, arm in arm, came slowly down the stairs, laughing, and then a servant in the Duke’s livery ran down and all the petitioners straightened and looked at the man expectantly. He crossed to the clerk’s table, spoke there for a moment, then turned and bowed to Jeanette.

She stood. ‘You will wait here,’ she told her two servants.

The other petitioners stared at her resentfully. She had been the last to enter the hall, yet she was the first to be summoned. Charles dragged his feet and Jeanette struck him lightly on the head to remind him of his manners. The servant walked silently beside her. ‘His grace is in good health?’ Jeanette asked nervously.

The servant did not reply, but just led her up the stairs, then turned right down the gallery where rain spat through open windows. They went under an arch and up a further flight of steps at the top of which the servant threw open a high door. ‘The Count of Armorica,’ he announced, ‘and his mother.’

The room was evidently in one of the citadel’s turrets for it was circular. A great fireplace was built into one side, while cruciform arrow slits opened onto the grey wet darkness beyond the walls. The circular chamber itself was brilliantly lit by forty or fifty candles that cast their light over hanging tapestries, a great polished table, a chair, a prie-dieu carved with scenes from Christ’s passion, and a fur-covered couch. The floor was soft with deerskins. Two clerks worked at a smaller table, while the Duke, gorgeous in a deep blue robe edged with ermine and with a cap to match, sat at the great table. A middle-aged priest, gaunt, white-haired and narrow-faced, stood beside the prie-dieu and watched Jeanette with an expression of distaste.

Jeanette curtsied to the Duke and nudged Charles. ‘Kneel,’ she whispered.

Charles began crying and hid his face in his mother’s skirts.

The Duke flinched at the child’s noise, but said nothing. He was still young, though closer to thirty than to twenty, and had a pale, watchful face. He was thin, had a fair beard and moustache, and long, bony white hands that were clasped in front of his down-turned mouth. His reputation was that of a learned and pious man, but there was a petulance in his expression that made Jeanette wary. She wished he would speak, but all four men in the room just watched her in silence.

‘I have the honour of presenting your grace’s grandnephew,’ Jeanette said, pushing her crying son forward, ‘the Count of Armorica.’

The Duke looked at the boy. His face betrayed nothing.

‘He is named Charles,’ Jeanette said, but she might as well have stayed silent for the Duke still said nothing. The silence was broken only by the child’s whimpering and the crackle of flames in the great hearth. ‘I trust your grace received my letters,’ Jeanette said nervously.

The priest suddenly spoke, making Jeanette jump with surprise. ‘You came here,’ he said in a high voice, ‘with a servant carrying a burden. What is in it?’

Jeanette realized they must have thought she had brought the Duke a gift and she blushed for she had not thought to bring one. Even a small token would have been a tactful gesture, but she had simply not remembered that courtesy. ‘It contains my dead husband’s armour and sword,’ she said, ‘which I rescued from the English who have otherwise left me with nothing. Nothing. I am keeping the armour and sword for my son, so that one day he can use them to fight for his liege lord.’ She bowed her head to the Duke.

The Duke steepled his fingers. To Jeanette it seemed he never blinked and that was as unsettling as his silence.

‘His grace would like to see the armour,’ the priest announced, though the Duke had shown no sign of wishing anything at all. The priest snapped his fingers and one of the clerks left the room. The second clerk, armed with a small pair of scissors, went round the big chamber trimming the wicks of the many candles in their tall iron holders. The Duke and the priest ignored him.

‘You say,’ the priest spoke again, ‘that you wrote letters to his grace. Concerning what?’

‘I wrote about the new defences at La Roche-Derrien, father, and I warned his grace of the English attack on Lannion.’

‘So you say,’ the priest said, ‘so you say.’ Charles was still crying and Jeanette jerked his hand hard in the hope of stilling him, but he just whined more. The clerk, head averted from the Duke, went from candle to candle. The scissors snipped, a puff of smoke would writhe for a heartbeat, then the flame would brighten and settle. Charles began crying louder.

‘His grace,’ the priest said, ‘does not like snivelling infants.’

‘He is hungry, father,’ Jeanette explained nervously.

‘You came with two servants?’

‘Yes, father,’ Jeanette said.

‘They can eat with the boy in the kitchens,’ the priest said, and snapped his fingers towards the candle-trimming clerk, who, abandoning his scissors on a rug, took the frightened Charles by the hand. The boy did not want to leave his mother, but he was dragged away and Jeanette flinched as the sound of his crying receded down the stairs.

The Duke, other than steepling his fingers, had not moved. He just watched Jeanette with an unreadable expression.

‘You say,’ the priest took up the questioning again, ‘that the English left you with nothing?’

‘They stole all I had!’

The priest flinched at the passion in her voice. ‘If they left you destitute, madame, then why did you not come for our help earlier?’

‘I did not wish to be a burden, father.’

‘But now you do wish to become a burden?’

Jeanette frowned. ‘I have brought his grace’s nephew, the Lord of Plabennec. Or would you rather that he grew up among the English?’

‘Do not be impertinent, child,’ the priest said placidly. The first clerk re-entered the room carrying the sack, which he emptied on the deerskins in front of the Duke’s table. The Duke gazed at the armour for a few seconds, then settled back in his high carved chair.

‘It is very fine,’ the priest declared.

‘It is most precious,’ Jeanette agreed.

The Duke peered again at the armour. Not a muscle of his face moved.

‘His grace approves,’ the priest said, then gestured with a long white hand and the clerk, who seemed to understand what was wanted without words, gathered up the sword and armour and carried them from the room.

‘I am glad your grace approves,’ Jeanette said, and dropped another curtsy. She had a confused idea that the Duke, despite her earlier words, had assumed the armour and sword were a gift, but she did not want to enquire. It could all be cleared up later. A gust of cold wind came through the arrow slits to bring spots of rain and to flicker the candles in wild shudders.

‘So what,’ the priest asked, ‘do you require of us?’

‘My son needs shelter, father,’ Jeanette said nervously. ‘He needs a house, a place to grow and learn to be a warrior.’

‘His grace is pleased to grant that request,’ the priest said.

Jeanette felt a great wash of relief. The atmosphere in the room was so unfriendly that she had feared she would be thrown out as destitute as she had arrived, but the priest’s words, though coldly stated, told her that she need not have worried. The Duke was taking his responsibility and she curtsied for a third time. ‘I am grateful, your grace.’

The priest was about to respond, but, to Jeanette’s surprise, the Duke held up one long white hand and the priest bowed. ‘It is our pleasure,’ the Duke said in an oddly high-pitched voice, ‘for your son is dear to us and it is our desire that he grows to become a warrior like his father.’ He turned to the priest and inclined his head, and the priest gave another stately bow then left the room.

The Duke stood and walked to the fire where he held his hands to the small flames. ‘It has come to our notice,’ he said distantly, ‘that the rents of Plabennec have not been paid these twelve quarters.’

‘The English are in possession of the domain, your grace.’

‘And you are in debt to me,’ the Duke said, frowning at the flames.

‘If you protect my son, your grace, then I shall be for ever in your debt,’ Jeanette said humbly.

The Duke took off his cap and ran a hand through his fair hair. Jeanette thought he looked younger and kinder without the hat, but his next words chilled her. ‘I did not want Henri to marry you.’ He stopped abruptly.

For a heartbeat Jeanette was struck dumb by his frankness. ‘My husband regretted your grace’s disapproval,’ she finally said in a small voice.

The Duke ignored Jeanette’s words. ‘He should have married Lisette of Picard. She had money, lands, tenants. She would have brought our family great wealth. In times of trouble wealth is a …’ he paused, trying to find the right word, ‘it is a cushion. You, madame, have no cushion.’

‘Only your grace’s kindness,’ Jeanette said.

‘Your son is my charge,’ the Duke said. ‘He will be raised in my household and trained in the arts of war and civilization as befits his rank.’

‘I am grateful.’ Jeanette was tired of grovelling. She wanted some sign of affection from the Duke, but ever since he had walked to the hearth he would not meet her eyes.

Now, suddenly, he turned on her. ‘There is a lawyer called Belas in La Roche-Derrien?’

‘Indeed, your grace.’

‘He tells me your mother was a Jewess.’ He spat the last word.

Jeanette gaped at him. For a few heartbeats she was unable to speak. Her mind was reeling with disbelief that Belas would say such a thing, but at last she managed to shake her head. ‘She was not!’ she protested.

‘He tells us, too,’ the Duke went on, ‘that you petitioned Edward of England for the rents of Plabennec?’

‘What choice did I have?’

‘And that your son was made a ward of Edward’s?’ the Duke asked pointedly.

Jeanette opened and closed her mouth. The accusations were coming so thick and fast she did not know how to defend herself. It was true that her son had been named a ward of King Edward’s, but it had not been Jeanette’s doing; indeed, she had not even been present when the Earl of Northampton made that decision, but before she could protest or explain the Duke spoke again.

‘Belas tells us,’ he said, ‘that many in the town of La Roche-Derrien have expressed satisfaction with the English occupiers?’

‘Some have,’ Jeanette admitted.

‘And that you, madame, have English soldiers in your own house, guarding you.’

‘They forced themselves on my house!’ she said indignantly. ‘Your grace must believe me! I did not want them there!’

The Duke shook his head. ‘It seems to us, madame, that you have given a welcome to our enemies. Your father was a vintner, was he not?’

Jeanette was too astonished to say anything. It was slowly dawning on her that Belas had betrayed her utterly, yet she still clung to the hope that the Duke would be convinced of her innocence. ‘I offered them no welcome,’ she insisted. ‘I fought against them!’

‘Merchants,’ the Duke said, ‘have no loyalties other than to money. They have no honour. Honour is not learned, madame. It is bred. Just as you breed a horse for bravery and speed, or a hound for agility and ferocity, so you breed a nobleman for honour. You cannot turn a plough-horse into a destrier, nor a merchant into a gentleman. It is against nature and the laws of God.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘Your son is Count of Armorica, and we shall raise him in honour, but you, madame, are the daughter of a merchant and a Jewess.’

‘It is not true!’ Jeanette protested.

‘Do not shout at me, madame,’ the Duke said icily. ‘You are a burden on me. You dare to come here, tricked out in fox fur, expecting me to give you shelter? What else? Money? I will give your son a home, but you, madame, I shall give you a husband.’ He walked towards her, his feet silent on the deerskin rugs. ‘You are not fit to be the Count of Armorica’s mother. You have offered comfort to the enemy, you have no honour.’

‘I –’ Jeanette began to protest again, but the Duke slapped her hard across the cheek.

‘You will be silent, madame,’ he commanded, ‘silent.’ He pulled at the laces of her bodice and, when she dared to resist, he slapped her again. ‘You are a whore, madame,’ the Duke said, then lost patience with the intricate cross-laces, retrieved the discarded scissors from the rug and used them to cut through the laces to expose Jeanette’s breasts. She was so astonished, stunned and horrified that she made no attempt to protect herself. This was not Sir Simon Jekyll, but her liege lord, the King’s nephew and her husband’s uncle. ‘You are a pretty whore, madame,’ the Duke said with a sneer. ‘How did you enchant Henri? Was it Jewish witchcraft?’

‘No,’ Jeanette whimpered, ‘please, no!’

The Duke unhooked his gown and Jeanette saw he was naked beneath.

‘No,’ she said again, ‘please, no.’

The Duke pushed her hard so that she fell on the bed. His face still showed no emotion – not lust, not pleasure, not anger. He hauled her skirts up, then knelt on the bed and raped her with no sign of enjoyment. He seemed, if anything, angry, and when he was done he collapsed on her, then shuddered. Jeanette was weeping. He wiped himself on her velvet skirt. ‘I shall take that experience,’ he said, ‘as payment of the missing rents from Plabennec.’ He crawled off her, stood and hooked the ermine edges of his gown. ‘You will be placed in a chamber here, madame, and tomorrow I shall give you in marriage to one of my men-at-arms. Your son will stay here, but you will go wherever your new husband is posted.’

Jeanette was whimpering on the bed. The Duke grimaced with distaste, then crossed the room and kneeled on the prie-dieu. ‘Arrange your gown, madame,’ he said coldly, ‘and compose yourself.’

Jeanette rescued enough of the cut laces to tie her bodice into place, then looked at the Duke through the candle flames. ‘You have no honour,’ she hissed, ‘you have no honour.’

The Duke ignored her. He rang a small handbell, then clasped his hands and closed his eyes in prayer. He was still praying when the priest and a servant came and, without a word, took Jeanette by her arms and walked her to a small room on the floor beneath the Duke’s chamber. They thrust her inside, shut the door and she heard a bolt slide into place on the far side. There was a straw-filled mattress and a stack of brooms in the makeshift cell, but no other furnishing.

She lay on the mattress and sobbed till her broken heart was raw.

The wind howled at the window and rain beat on its shutters, and Jeanette wished she was dead.