Читать книгу The Passionate Pilgrim - Juliet Landon - Страница 8

The resumption of her role as mistress of her own destiny was taken up once more in the early morning light that filtered lopsidedly on to the throng in the courtyard, rippling over mountainous panniers and the shoulders of intent grooms who tightened girths with upward-heaving grunts. Merielle sat in silence on her sturdy cob, a chestnut gelding of Suffolk parentage, whose back was broad enough to feast on. Her inner excitement was well contained. Beneath her figure-hugging brown woollen gown she wore soft leather breeches to prevent her legs from chafing on the saddle over the next four or five days, but this was her only concession to practicality. She had no intention of being mistaken for a party of rustics: that was not the best way to secure the best beds at inns and guesthouses or the best hospitality at an abbey.

With this firmly in mind, she wore her hair in an intricate and beguiling coronet of thick plaits coiled around her face and crown, each plait braided and interwoven with golden cords. From the lower edges of this, a pure white linen veil covered her throat and shoulders and this, with her remarkable peach-velvet skin, made a harmony of tones enough to make even the rough stable-lads gasp and nudge each other.

Nor was her retinue likely to be ignored. Two sumpter-mules were loaded with her personal possessions and those of Allene and Bess, and two pack-horses carried provisions and food for the journey in wickerwork panniers, their matching harness of green-dyed leather and merrily tinkling bells on their bridles showing them to belong to a person of some standing. The same green and gold livery was worn by the two young grooms, Daniel and Pedro, local lads who would have done anything their mistress asked without blinking an eye.

For Allene, not even the too-few hours of sleep of last night could diminish the heady prospect of herding five adults and nine horses all the way to Winchester and back. She called Bess away from the corner where a young house-servant held her captive. “Come on, my lass!” Every female was a lass to Allene. “If your lad wants a job, get him to lift you up into the saddle. It’s time we were off.”

“We’ll set off without them if they’re not here soon,” Merielle called to her. “You’d better mount as well. Pedro, give Mistress Allene a hand.”

Master Bonard laid a hand on the chestnut’s mane, pushing a wiry blond lock over the crest and flicking the green ribbons that cluttered each side of the brow-band. Bells tinkled along the rein-guards. “Give them a moment more,” he said. “You requested their company. You can hardly set off before they—” A shout echoed through the archway that led from the courtyard into the street.

“That’ll be the market traders coming in,” Merielle said to him.

Bonard stepped forward to peer through. “It’s them,” he said, leading Merielle on and passing Allene who hit the saddle with an audible squeak, despite Pedro’s assistance. Her Irish grey rolled its eyes in alarm.

On the Palace Street side of the archway, a party of almost forty riders had come to an untidy halt, filling every available space until one of Merielle’s neighbours opened his door to find a horse in the act of depositing steaming manure on his doorstep. From behind the towering rump, he yelled, “Get over to one side, will you? Clear the way for Canterbury citizens, dammit!”

Realising that she was the cause of the obstruction, Merielle clasped Bonard’s hand in a hurried farewell, took up her reins and moved out into the street, approaching two expressionless nuns, one on either side of a young woman, guarding her closely. Before she could reach them, she was intercepted by a young rider dressed in sober charcoal grey whose pleasant smile and shining tonsure held more of a welcome.

He beamed even more broadly. “Mistress St Martin? Forgive our delay, if you please. Our prayers took longer than we thought.”

A voice joined in with a lilting Scandinavian accent. “Longer because you chimed in, lad. Should’ve left it to the abbot.”

His smile bunched his apple cheeks. “And who’ll be the first person you turn to when there’s a problem, eh?” he countered, winking at Merielle.

“The smith, that’s who,” another voice called to a chorus of laughter. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Is the lady ready? How many are ye, mistress? Just you and the two gentlewomen, is it? Good God!”

Another roar of laughter went up as the three women were joined by Daniel and Pedro leading two horses each and pouring out through the archway like water from a burst pipe. Shouts of raillery rose above the din. “Thought you’d got her to yourself did you, chaplain? Out of your depth already, lad.”

Still smiling, the chaplain hauled upon his reins, confusing his mount and backing it rapidly into the others until, by a deluge of slaps on its haunches, it headed in the right direction accompanied by the wail of bagpipes, drums, and the barely heard sound of the St Martin bells.

All along the Saturday streets of early-morning Canterbury, the jests continued, threading their way through the din that cleared a path past heavily laden traders coming into town. It was market day. The Westgate had just opened to the predictable bottleneck of travellers coming in both directions, testing everyone’s patience in the jostling to present passes, tokens and excuses.

Merielle’s company of nine horses came in for some serious teasing from the men who vied with each other to make the most ridiculous suggestions about what she could possibly be carrying. Running off to meet a lover, was she? No, the lovers would be in the panniers. Merielle smiled and said nothing, not even to Allene’s tolerant grumbles, but their wait at the Westgate gave her a chance to study the nearest fellow-travellers and to realise that the two elderly nuns and the young lady did not join in the laughter nor did they communicate with anyone, not even with each other.

The Scandinavian accents belonged to a bluff Icelandic merchant and his brawny son, both of them smothered in boisterous haloes of pale blonde hair through which they kept up an irreverent comradeship with the young chaplain. Their pack-ponies were laden, they said, with furs and amber, but a third pony carried a stack of wicker baskets with square openings through which appeared beaks and furious eyes, striped backs and mottled breasts. Falcons, ready to be tamed; rare and already priceless.

Except for her own party and the silent trio, the rest of the travellers appeared to be men, for the most part respectably dressed, and mounted on strong beasts for which five days travel was nothing remarkable. And though she knew that the one for whom her eyes searched would not be present, the urge to comb the crowd for a certain breadth of shoulder, a certain height and arrogant stare could not be restrained. The most strident of her inner voices protested relief that he was not to be seen, joy at her artifice, pride at her cunning, but a quietly nagging voice sang to a different tune in a minor key.

“A good crowd,” she said to her nurse. “We made the right choice.”

She recognised the goldsmith and his assistant in the company of two young scholars who would be returning to Winchester after the feast days. Oblivious to the rest of the crowd, their conversation was conducted in a mixture of English and French, and Merielle felt herself fortunate to receive a quick smile and no more. There was a courier, eager to pass with his large leather saddle-bags and air of urgency; he would not be with them for long. There was an unmistakable scattering of palmers, professional pilgrims swathed in coarse wool and lidded with wide-brimmed hats, the front brims of which were turned up to display their collection of pilgrims’ badges like a jigsaw of armour-plating. Around and across their bodies was a medley of clanking tools, pouches, flasks and plates, ropes, sticks and spare shoes, ready for the moment their emaciated mounts dropped dead beneath them. Their talk, tooth-gapped and incessant, admitted only those who could boast of their hardships, adventures and achievements.

They were not the only pilgrims; three noisy young Italians moved closer to Merielle’s party before she could see them coming, foisting upon her their own brand of English which completely disregarded the usual sentence structure. Finding their questions too fractured to understand and suspecting that they were too personal to be answered anyway, she looked behind to see whether a slight tactical manoeuvre was possible. But a party of part-armoured soldiers had moved in close behind them and, beyond the sumpter-horses led by Daniel, their laughing faces implied that the Italians’ antics were not new to them.

The way south-west from Canterbury followed the gentle meander of the Great Stour, though soon the leaders of the cavalcade led them on to the higher ground to the north from where they could appreciate the wetlands and the distant herons reflected in the quiet sunlit waters. Despite all her expectations, the track appeared to be every bit as busy on this day as on any other, and the thought crossed her mind more than once over the next few miles that, if she had waited for Sir Rhyan’s escort, she would not now be wondering if she would get a bed to herself for the next two nights. Switching her mind to contemplate the scenery should have helped to postpone the problem, but the panorama filled as they merged first with the tail-end of one group and then another who had set out from the suburbs earlier than they. The groups were engulfed, sometimes overtaken completely like the entire household of one man’s family, chickens, pigs and all, but Merielle’s party swelled with each mile. With her nine horses, it was impossible for her to race ahead, and by the time they reached the gateway to the Norman castle at Chilham, the village square was teeming with people, many already breaking their fast, and Merielle’s hopes of being able to find, or even to reach, the privy at the back of the inn were dashed. The next best thing was a hedge with the outspread skirts of Allene and Bess to screen her.

About the same business was an exceedingly pretty woman whose blonde tresses were bundled untidily at the back of her neck into a black net, with wisps pouring out on all sides like silk in a high wind. She stood and adjusted her travel-stained gown of worn velvet, pulled her mantle across the front of an extremely revealing bodice, smiled and walked away.

Keeping the young chaplain and the two Icelanders in her sights and rescuing Bess from the unwanted attentions of the three Italians, Merielle took her brief meal standing, ready to mount when the leaders did. She found that the blonde young woman had moved nearer, and smiled encouragingly; there were few enough women of her own age with whom she might keep company.

The woman nodded in the direction of two others. Her brother and sister, she told Merielle. “We started off yesterday,” she said, “but both our mounts cast shoes and the smith here at Chilham was at his mother’s funeral and we couldn’t hire a horse for love nor money. Never seen the way so crowded in all my life. My sister’s blind, you see, but even so we had to sleep in a room full of men. Nowhere else.” She hunched her shoulders. “We’d lost so much time having to walk it.”

Merielle liked the sound of her and the look of the other two. Introduced as Emma, her brother as Adrian and the gentle blind sister as Agnes, the three appeared to offer the kind of company Merielle had been hoping for at the outset, good-natured, well-spoken and mannerly. The young man’s presence would no doubt deter the Italian infliction, too.

“Pestered you, did they?” Agnes said. “I heard their shouting.”

Merielle heaved a sigh, but forced a grin to back it up. “It’s young Bess I’m more concerned for. They’ve practically seduced her already.”

Her new friends snuffled in amusement. “Well, then, why don’t you allow her to ride behind me?” Adrian suggested. “I’ll keep ’em at bay, I promise you. Agnes usually rides pillion with me, but she can go behind you, perhaps? Your chestnut looks as though he could carry a family.”

“Oh, easily,” Merielle said. “That would solve the problem, thank you. And perhaps if we can move up to the front, we may do better for beds tonight. Shall we try?”

“Where are your party heading for?”

“Probably Wye next. Sometimes they give it a miss, I don’t know. Then to Charing, I suppose, and perhaps Harrietsham by suppertime. Look, the chaplain’s mounting. Shall we try and keep up with him?”

The sightless Agnes was lifted up on to a pad behind Merielle’s saddle, the two arms passing around her waist imparting a comfort uncommonly sweet after the last few troublesome miles. Adrian, the eldest of the trio, took Bess up behind him and the journey from Chilham was lightened accordingly as Merielle described to Agnes everything they encountered along the river valley, through the great King’s Wood and along the side of the hill with the river flowing away from them like a ribbon of silver.

They did not, after all, aim for Wye but skirted the hillside to Charing where Merielle would happily have called it a day, but dared not suggest it. Dinner was brief and taken standing by the track, looking, roaming and laughing at Adrian’s witty observations of their fellow-travellers whose trail stretched almost out of sight. His sisters obviously adored him and even Allene, usually the last person to be won over, agreed with Merielle that they had been fortunate to find such pleasant companions. Inevitably, Merielle was compelled to fend off gently probing questions about the reason for her journey, resorting to more general conversation at the first opportunity.

But even while she avoided mentioning the escorts she might have had, her mind returned to the implications of her sudden decision, not only the journey itself but the certain explanations she would have to concoct at Winchester. And no sooner had she convinced herself that four days on the road should be enough time to make up a story suitable to smooth Sir Adam’s feathers, if not his nephew’s, than her more immediate plans for a comfortable night’s rest suffered a set-back, for the approach to Harrietsham was obstructed by the slow progress of a nobleman’s household. Three four-wheeled leather-covered waggons pulled by six oxen apiece, dozens of sumpter-horses, mules, men-at-arms, retainers and domestic officers, servants and pages, squires and grooms. The small village was jammed solid, all hopes of accommodation dwindling with the light. There was nothing for it but to wait or go on to the next place, wherever that might be.

Merielle turned to consult Agnes but encountered the top of her head as she slipped nimbly to the ground. “Where are you off to?” she called to her departing friend.

Agnes made no reply, but crossed with surprising confidence to her brother’s horse where, astonishingly, she yanked the unsuspecting Bess to the ground by one arm, caught her brother’s outstretched hand and vaulted on to the pad behind him, her foot on his. Emma, still mounted, moved quickly after them.

“Hey!” Merielle called after them. “What’s to do?”

Emma called to her, still smiling, “We’ll find rooms and come back for you. Wait there.” Both horses broke ranks, swerved, and leapt away.

Immediately, there was a similar flurry of activity as liveried men sped past, hooves thundering on the grassy verge, and Merielle realised that the rush to get to the guesthouse and the inns, roomy cottage or stable, was now a matter of who could move fastest, and even that held no guarantee of success.

Allene brushed down the bewildered maid. “What are we going to do?” she said. “Nay, you’re not hurt, lass. Stop yer snivelling and find yer hoss. Should’ve stayed there in the first place.” She gave Bess a gentle shove and then, with little sympathy, answered her own question. “Wait a while, that’s what. Something’ll turn up. Always does.”

That was not the music to her mistress’s ears it was intended to be. Merielle was furious and in no mind to wait either for the return of the mysterious family or for Allene’s predicted miracle. “You wait, Allene,” she snapped, pulling her mount away. “If they think I’ve come all this way to sit and watch it get dark, they can think again. I’m going to see what’s going on down there.” She kicked at the cob’s flanks, but her way was blocked by the group of soldiers who had ridden behind them all afternoon and whose offers of assistance were now of an unmistakably personal nature. It was impossible for her to proceed.

Desperately, she turned again to seek a way through to the other side, berating herself and the circumstances which had brought them to this. Perhaps she should have allowed Bonard to accompany them, after all. Wheeling round, she searched the faces in the crowd, aware of the soldiers’ appraisal, their knowing grins, their intentions, sizing up the two lads and the women. Then, as if a command had been given, they scattered and opened up a way for her, dissolving into the crowd completely.

The silhouette of a rider appeared, almost black against the western sky and massively tall on a stallion that made her cob look like a pony by comparison, and it was instantly clear to Merielle that it was his presence that had dispersed the former menace. The breadth of shoulder, the height, the arrogant stare were all in place, but relief at his unexpected presence was quickly swamped by another surge of anger at being seen to be helpless, which she was not, and by being anticipated, which was humiliating.

With as much dignity as she could summon, she kept to her former plan to investigate the sudden departure of her companions, kicking the cob forward again and passing Sir Rhyan without a glance.

Casually, he leaned from his saddle and caught the cob’s bridle, pulling it round away from the crowd and so far on to the verge that they had to duck to avoid the low branches of a showy sweet-chestnut tree. “No, you don’t,” he said, “unless you want our conversation to be heard by half the crowd.” He kept hold, coming round to face her, knee to knee.

“Let go of my horse, sir. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Then that will make life easier for us both.” Facing the last rays of the setting sun, Merielle could see that he was wearing a sleeveless leather gupon over a tunic of dark green with tiny gold buttons from wrist to elbow. His green cloak thrown over one shoulder showed a lining of green plaid mixed with red and black, and his white chainse was open at the neck. There was no trace of tiredness about him; he sat his horse like one who had only just started out, radiating fitness and strength.

With little success, Merielle tried to pull away. “On the contrary, it will make nothing easier. You were not supposed to be travelling today and I have every intention of avoiding your company, as I set out to do.”

“Which I knew you would do. Why do you think I told you Monday? You were glad of my intervention just now, though. Or did you want to take on six soldiers and three Italians? Eh?”

“I have managed perfectly so far, Sir Rhyan, I thank you. Let me go. I must find my friends. They’ve gone—”

“Oh, yes, they’ve gone all right. The whore, her pimp and the cut-purse. What with those three and a crowd of eager bedfellows I’d say you’ve managed particularly well. A good day’s work.”

“Whore? Cut-purse? What on earth are you talking about?” Merielle’s senses, already alert, lurched sickeningly. She knew what he was talking about.

His words emerged low-pitched but harsh. “The blonde woman who calls herself Emma, that’s who. She’s one of the Winchester geese, woman. And the lad who reckons to be her brother is the other lass’s husband.”

“The blind girl? Agnes?” Suddenly her voice was breathless.

“Blind my foot!” he said, sarcastically. “She’s no more blind than I am, but it helps her to say so, as a thief.”

“You’re wrong. They’re perfectly respectable people.” Her defence of them lacked conviction, nor did it help her own credulity.

He leaned towards her. “The whore was at the inn where your Master Gervase spent an hour before he came to see you yesterday. I know because my men saw them there together. Affectionately. They’re from Southwark, the district owned by the Bishop of Winchester. Hence the name.”

“I know that!” She looked away. Everyone knew that.

“Then you will also know, mistress, that your purse is missing.”

“What?”

Again, he leaned and took hold of the leather strap that hung loosely from her shoulder, half-concealed beneath her cloak, pulling it until the complete length emerged, its ends neatly cut. It dangled from his hand like an eel.

“My purse! She’s taken my purse! A thief! I had her up behind me all that way. They shared our food.”

“So now you know what that motley crowd had in mind, seeing you in their company.” His eyes referred to the men he had sent packing. “But your purse I have here.” He delved a hand inside his leather jerkin and brought it out, its gold clasp still intact, its contents still safe. To her astonished silence, he explained, “I waited for them to take their leave and then sent my men after them. It was they who retrieved it.”

“Your men. Thank you. You are not alone?” She took the purse, half-dazed by events and fighting to hold back the wave of exhaustion that threatened to engulf her.

“No, I have my men with me, and some others who travel with me to Winchester. It was Sir Adam’s wish that you should accept our escort and allow me to find your accommodation. You and the rest of your party.”

She shook her head, her dislike of him surfacing even through her shattering tiredness. “I thank you, sir, but that’s quite out of the question. If you are to be of the same party I cannot stop you, but I cannot travel with you. My mind is made up. You are with friends…”

“They are Sir Adam’s friends and colleagues. I told you, I was about his business in Canterbury as well as my own. And I was not asking you, mistress, I was telling you. You will come with me and stay in comfort until Monday morning. Two more miles, that’s all we have to travel, then food, a warm clean bed and a long sleep. You’ll not get that here.”

Unable to continue her argument with the fierceness it deserved, Merielle turned to look for Allene, Bess and the boys, deliberating as much for their sakes as for her own. Bess’s safety over the next two nights would be a nightmare. They were not where she had left them but farther down the track, waiting within a large group of liveried men and others. Sir Rhyan’s men. Once more, he had taken charge as if her permission was irrelevant.

“This is intolerable!” She whirled round, reaching out for his wrist to wrench it away from her bridle. “I will not…”

But her arm was caught and held away in the same iron grip that had left its imprint on her wrist last evening. “You have a responsibility to your servants, do you not?” he said, showing his anger at last.

“Let me go, damn you!”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Then how can you not allow them safety when it’s offered? Are you so choked with resentment that you cannot accept anything from anybody?”

Her fury boiled over, incensed by every word of his well-aimed barb, his presence here, his restraining hand on her arm. He would never know in the slightest degree the cause of her animosity. “The only thing you ever offered me, Sir Rhyan, did me more harm than you could ever imagine. You must forgive me if I am less than enthusiastic about accepting anything else until that wound has healed.” She made one last effort to rid herself of his hand, expecting hers to be the last words. But now heads had turned to watch the undignified tussle.

“Then choose, mistress,” he snarled, releasing her arm but hauling the cob’s head closer. “Either you accompany me in a seemly manner or I leave you here alone with this crowd.” He indicated with his head the sea of faces. “I have your party, you see. They’ll come with me, willing or not.”

Allene and Bess, Daniel and Pedro were now out of sight, enclosed by his men, quite unaware of their impending separation. She could not afford to lose them and all her baggage any more than she could risk being left to the predictable attentions of so many strangers.

“Damn you!” she whispered. “You would not do so.”

“Try me.”

“Then I have little choice, have I? Damn you to hell!”