By Sylvian Hamilton (17 page)

'My
turn to ask questions,' said Miles. 'What's your business with Sir
Richard Straccan?'

'Let
me up, oh, God, let me up! Christ...' Miles shifted his grip and
leaned comfortably against the wall. 'Let me up!'

'When
you've sung,' said Miles. 'Meanwhile, let's hope no one else comes
out here, because he'll just have to piss all over you. Or whatever
else he needs to do.'

Sir
Miles kept a firm grip on the mountebank's arm when they re-entered
the hall, steering him to the corner where he'd prepared his pallet,
and hooking his feet from under him when they got to it so that he
fell on to the bed. Miles sat beside him.

'It's
an odd story,' he said. ‘I’m not saying I believe it, but
it could be true, I suppose. It doesn't seem the sort of tale a chap
would invent, even if tales and suchlike were his business. How do
you report back?'

'What?'

'You're
paid to follow and spy. So who do you tell and how, if you don't know
who's paying you?'

'Someone
turns up,' said the merry man sullenly. 'It's never the same person.
There's a password. When someone comes up to me and says the
password, I go where I'm told and tell all I know to whoever's
waiting for me.'

'Clever,'
said Miles. It was dark in the hall now, and the light from the fire
had died down. All around them straw mattresses rustled as folk
shifted and settled to sleep. There was some murmuring and a stifled
giggle or two, and a volley of coughing. Miles rolled his captive
over and used the man's belt to tie his hands behind him. 'You're not
the bedmate I'd choose,' he said, 'but we'll share this place
tonight. I'll decide about you in the morning. Don't think of
scuttling off. I'm a light sleeper.' He was, too, for the mountebank
had two goes at taking his leave and each time was jerked back
painfully, the second time nearly dislocating his shoulder. After
that he lay quiet, fuming, until morning.

'There
seem to me three ways to handle this,' said Miles, after their
dole-breakfast of porridge, bread and ale. 'But before we go into
that, you can help me get my beasts ready. Get my saddle and gear.'
He noticed with approval that the man was quick and neat in his
movements and handled the animals with confidence. The mule eyed him
balefully and he scowled back at it.

'You
got a right one here,' he said.

'Get
it loaded,' said Miles, and watched as his prisoner cinched the
brute's bellyband, waiting a moment before punching it hard in the
gut and cinching it tighter while the mule was gasping. When it
nuzzled his shoulder and bared its great yellow teeth he jabbed two
fingers up its nostrils, and when it lashed out with the left hind
foot he chopped it so hard on the nose with the edge of his hand that
its eyes watered. Miles grinned.

'The
first way,' Miles said, 'is I can kill you. I don't really know what
to make of you, and that way I'd be rid of the nuisance. But you've
done me no harm apart from annoying me in the privy. I doubt you are
in a state of grace, and I am unwilling to send a man's soul to hell
for no great matter.'

'The
second?' asked the man hopefully.

'The
second is, I can let you go, you can take to your heels and I'll go
my way. But this doesn't do anyone any good, as you will still have
your job to do, as I have mine. We must both find Straccan. So the
third way may be more profitable for us both.'

'Go
on.'

'You
come with me. I need a man; mine was injured and left behind, and you
can be useful. I will even pay a wage, which is not to be sneezed at.
If you cheat me or try to hinder me in any way, I can always kill you
after all. What do you say?'

The
merry man looked along the road, and back at the horse and mule tied
to the rail by the hall door. The brute showed the whites of its eyes
in a promising manner. 'All right,' he said.

'Good,'
said Miles. 'What's your name?'

'Larktwist.
Starling Larktwist.'

Miles
grinned. 'We all have some cross to bear,' he said.

Miles
privately thanked his favourite saint –without reproaching him
over the loss of his purse –for the turn of fortune which had
brought him Starling Larktwist. And Larktwist, having twice in one
week been compelled to tell his story in circumstances he preferred
to forget, thanked his talisman (a grubby cloth bag round his neck,
containing, so the witch who'd sold it to him said, a charm to
ensure that come what may he would come up smelling of roses) for
the lucky chance that had brought him Sir Miles, a young man not
only in need of a manservant but heading in absolutely the right
direction.

Heavensent,
thought Larktwist, as they made their way to Alnwick, where Miles
obtained more funds and a cheap but sturdy border nag for his new
companion.

Heavensent,
thought Sir Miles, as the unusually docile brute trotted quietly
behind them. 'You've got its measure," he said encouragingly.

'Up
to a point. But it's watching for any chance to get back at me. It'll
learn though ... Whoa!' The brute surged suddenly forward and tried
to scrape its packs against Miles's knee. Larktwist took off his
muffler and bound it over the animal's eyes. It reared and squealed,
but presently trotted along in a docile fashion. 'It'll learn,' said
Larktwist.

Chapter
22

Julitta
placed a shallow black pottery dish, glossy with glaze, on the table.
For a moment she contemplated her own fair face in the mirror-like
water, then dropped a few fresh rose petals on to the surface and
stirred the liquid with her finger, setting them circling. 'Look,
sweeting,' she said huskily. 'Look at the water. Watch the petals go
round.'

'No.'
Gilla tipped her head back as far as she could, staring at the
ceiling, the beams and the crumbling painted plaster.

'Look,
honey,' said the soft persuasive voice. 'Look!'

Gilla's
head rolled on the slender neck. She stared at the window, the walls,
the hangings, anywhere but at the woman or the water which dragged at
her will.

'Look
at the water, Gilla.'

The
child resisted. And resisted. Until eventually her dulled gaze slid
past Julitta and settled on the black bowl. The petals circled
slowly, and then were still.

"What
do you see?'

'Nothing.'

'Look
again. See my brother. Where is he?'

The
child's lips moved stiffly. 'Sleeping. Above us. The candles are
nearly burned away.'

'Good,
that's very good, sweetheart. Look again. See our master. Where is
he?'

'I
see nothing. Only--'

'Say!'

'Sky,
clouds, the tops of trees. Hills.'

'Look
again. See him!'

Gilla's
face convulsed and tears ran from her eyes. 'I don't want to!'

'Look!'

'Please
...' But the woman's will was too strong and soon the child leaned
over the bowl, staring.

'He
is coming,' she whispered. 'He is on the road.'

'When
will he be here?'

The
child sobbed. 'Soon.'

'Who
rides with him?'

The
child bit her lower lip so sharply that blood came. 'Two men. They
are wearing white veils,' she whispered. 'Archers. I see their bows.'

'There,'
said Julitta. 'That is well done, little one. It will be easier in
time; you'll get used to it. What else do you see?'

Gilla
bent over the dish, her breath ruffling the surface. Tears fell into
the water. The picture she saw, the unnaturally bright small moving
picture, faded, and another took its place: a cream-coloured kitten,
sitting on a stool delicately washing itself. At Gilla's sudden smile
Julitta frowned. In the water a woman's hands picked the kitten up,
lifting it high until her face came into view. Oval, smooth, tanned,
full-lipped, with hair in two plaits twined with green wool; reddish
hair gilded by sunlight at her back. Brown eyes looked straight into
hers.

'Gilla?
Gilla!' The words were in her head; all she could see now were the
woman's eyes. 'Gilla, don't do this! Oh Lord, protect her! Sign the
cross, Gilla! Move your hand, I'll help you.' As if someone else had
taken hold of it, Gilla's hand jerked from her lap and moved up,
down, left, right, over the water.

And
now there was just a black dish with dull scummy-looking water and
floating dead brown petals.

'What
did you see?' Julitta, furious, grabbed the small offending hand,
twisting it cruelly. 'Why did you do that?'

'She
told me to, the lady told me to,' said Gilla, in a clear angry voice.
'You're hurting me! Let go! I hate you!'

Julitta
sat back and stared at her. 'Who did you see? Who told you to do
that?'

'I
don't know! I don't\ Leave me alone! I want my father!'

'Oh,
him,' said Julitta with a thin smile. 'He is most likely dead by
now.'

When
the quietly weeping child had been taken back to her small bare
chamber and bolted in, Julitta stood by the window biting her lip.
She could not understand what had happened. The child had been
docile, that was to be expected with drugs in her food and drink, and
the results were most promising.

When
that foul creature Pluvis and his startlingly beautiful but equally
unpleasant companion Hugh de Brasy had turned up at Arlen Castle with
the little girl, Julitta thought her just another serf brat, of no
importance except to keep Pluvis quiet. He had a taste for small
children. Best not to dwell on what he did with them in his hot
little turret-top room. Once, passing the door, she heard a child
singing, before its voice broke into tears and pleading, shouted down
by his laughter. The servants were told to stay away from the tower.
Pluvis's own man carried food and emptied slops, kept the fire going
and took away the ashes. Carried up the tower stair wrapped in a
cloak, the child had seemed asleep, as they usually were, but
suddenly a fold of the cloak fell away and the bright soft hair fell
loosely over Pluvis's arm. Julitta saw before he could cover it
again. Clean hair.

'What
have you got there?' she demanded.

He
stared at her, an insulting mind-your-own-business stare that
infuriated her. He was always an insolent creature, and his loathing
of women showed in the contemptuous way he looked at them. She knew
what he was, but he was the master's creature and she had never
interfered. He did as he pleased, and they were only beggar brats.

Not
this one. This one was clean.

He
was furious when she made him give the girl up. But there she stood,
Lady of Arlen, in her own castle with her men-at-arms within call. He
dared not defy her.

'Not
this one,' she told him. 'Find another if you must, but remember the
master's waiting for that relic.'

Robbed
of his toy, sulking, Pluvis rode away from Arlen, heading north, with
the finger of Saint Thomas.

She
put the child, deeply drugged, in her own bed. The drug made its
victims docile even after they woke--dreamy-eyed, slow of movement,
above all obedient. If not renewed, the effects wore off in a few
days. She questioned the girl and learned who she was: of all people,
Straccan's daughter! That stupid relic-peddling fellow who had
brought the icon and who'd sat staring at her like a landed fish,
goggling with idiot admiration. It had amused her to bespell him;
she'd disliked him on sight, and anyway, it was as well to be rid of
anyone who knew about her brother and the icon. The spell was slow
but sure. It would destroy him in time. She had a feeling about this
child. The power in Julitta sensed it in others. She gave Gilla a
quartz crystal, smoky yellow at one end but otherwise clear. 'Look,
sweetheart,' she said. 'Look in the stone.'

'What
for?'

'It's
a game. Some people see pictures in there. Can you?'

Gilla
could.

Julitta
sent de Brasy to Scotland, to tell the Master of her prize. At the
gate of the monastery at Shipwood, Straccan asked for the travellers'
dole for himself and Bane. At each town and will, abbey, priory,
hospice and inn, he asked the same question.

'Have
you seen a man, fair-haired and very fair of face, who rides a fine
black horse? Has such a one stopped here? Stayed here? He might have
had a small girl with him.'