The Passionate Pilgrim

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!”

Chapter Four

The lessons of life had shouldered their way into Merielle’s twenty-one years with more urgency than was usual in one so young, but she had had to learn them fast. One of them was that, although it was acceptable to show anger, being a useful manly emotion, tears, tiredness and temperament were womanly and weak and not for the manager of a business. The rules were hard to stick to for one whose emotions lay naturally so close to the surface, and twenty yards was barely enough distance for her to squeeze back the threatening tears of anger that welled up behind her eyes.

As if he understood, Sir Rhyan proceeded slowly along the verge and then, hidden by a rider who crossed their path, handed back her reins. “Ready?” he said.

She took a deep breath, straightened and nodded, refusing to look at him. The extent of Sir Rhyan’s party was far greater than she had imagined from his casual reference to men-at-arms and guests, making anything more than cursory introductions out of the question in that quickly fading light. For which Merielle was much relieved; anything more demanding would have exposed her as inarticulate as well as stunningly beautiful, not a mixture to do her justice. She caught the names of Wykeham and Yeaveley and nodded briefly to each man without the customary smile, and if it seemed strange to them that Mistress St Martin and Sir Rhyan had only just thought to acknowledge each other after a whole day in the same party, they showed no surprise, nor did they comment.

Two miles farther on, he had said, though no more than that, and Merielle would have entered the gates of Hades rather than ask him where they were bound. She would have whispered to Allene—who was looking particularly smug—but for the fact that her own leather purse-strap was now threaded through the cob’s bridle, its ends in Sir Rhyan’s great fist. Another humiliation. No chance to lag behind.

The dwindling light and her self-absorption joined forces in concealing from her any indication of where she was going or how she reached her destination that evening. Slipping through her bleary senses were acres of wood and parkland, a rising moon, a certain peace after the clamour of the Canterbury crowd, the satin stillness of a lake, drawbridges, greetings and lanterns, welcoming hands and yapping hounds, the smell of roasting meat. Before she could throw off the light rug that covered her legs or protest that she could manage, she was lifted down as orders were given to her grooms.

“They’ll be well tended, mistress. Good stables. Warm lodgings and food. We’ll have your panniers sent in as soon as they’re off. This is Sir Walter Nessey, the castellan. He and his lady will attend to your needs; you have only to ask.”

The castellan bowed, his elegant figure etched sharply in the light of torches that billowed smoke into the blackening sky. “You are most welcome, lady. Your rooms are prepared.” His manner was efficient.

Through arches and over drawbridges they had clattered, across a large compound within walls with water beyond them, another cluster of buildings ahead. Rooms prepared? To have asked where they were at this point would have sounded ludicrous.

The great stone porch led them into a hall of massive dimensions where trestles had been arranged for supper, those on the dais at the far end covered with blazing white cloths on which silver salt cellars and glass goblets twinkled in the light from wall sconces and from the raftered ceiling. Around the dais, fabric lined the walls with muted colours which Merielle knew would come to life in the daylight. Clearly this was no ordinary guesthouse. A castellan? It was a castle, then?

She came to a halt so suddenly that Allene nearly knocked her over. “Sir Rhyan! I need to speak to you,” she hissed as he whirled around to face her. “Now, if you please. Over here.”

He followed her to one side of the mystified group, excusing himself to Sir Walter. “Look,” he said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

She flared, instantly set alight by his placating manner. “You do not know what I’m thinking, Sir Rhyan, nor will you ever know. This place is a castle, is it not? The king’s. How dare you bring me here? Are you entirely devoid of diplomacy, for pity’s sake?”

He shook his head, lifting darkly angled brows. “The king’s not here, mistress. I would not have brought you here if he was. You think he would see some form of reconciliation in our being here together, I know, but this is purely a gathering of his craftsmen to see what can be done to renovate the place, that’s all. If Sir Adam had been here in my stead, he would have called here, too, on the way to Winchester.”

“Where are we?”

“Leeds,” he said. “Leeds Castle. We’re still in Kent.”

“Queen Isabella’s place?”

“It was. She died last August, remember. It’s now the king’s. He’s sent his men to meet here, and I brought two of them from Canterbury.”

“Those two?”

“Yes. William Wykeham and Henry Yeaveley, John Kenton, too. I’m not involved, mistress, I assure you. I escort them to Sir Adam, that’s all, once they’re finished here. You’ll not be disturbed in any way.”

“You’re sure about the king?”

“I swear it. He’s at Windsor, I believe. Trust me.”

The sincerity of his plea found no foothold. “I do, sir. I trust you to find a way of humiliating me at every opportunity.” It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that she might be accommodated in the queen’s own room to complete the affront, but that would have gone over his head, so she held it back.

As it transpired, her cynicism was prophetic, for the room to which the castellan led her beyond a narrow, hollow-sounding passageway had been used by the late Queen Isabella until last year. He apologised for its old-fashioned shabbiness, believing her words to Sir Rhyan in the great hall to have been a complaint, if her demeanour was anything to go by. It was, he told her, awaiting renovation like the rest of the gloriette.