The Song of the Nightingale (24 page)

Meggie had hoped that, at some moment during all that time, he might have found the opportunity to explain the comment he had made just before the attack came, or, indeed, to tell her why the men were so intent on harming him. She had hoped in vain; all she managed to extract from him was a solemn promise to reveal all she wanted to know once they were safely out of England.

She found she believed that, too.

Around dawn of the morning of the second day after their flight from the band of men, Jehan was at last prepared to continue on their way. The hiding place had been comfortable enough, but, all the same, it was a huge relief to leave it.

Meggie was still not quite sure how they had managed to escape. Auban's surprising turn of speed had been crucial, for he had succeeded in outdistancing their pursuers sufficiently to get out of sight of the four men. Then Jehan had taken what Meggie thought was a big risk: slowing the horse to a casual lope, he had ridden right into the heart of a small town that crouched in a narrow valley among the downs. The place was busy, with a row of stalls selling the tired-looking remnants of winter-stored vegetables. ‘We'll be seen, and someone will tell the four men which way we've gone!' she cried.

‘No they won't,' he had replied, as calmly as if they were out for a springtime stroll. Then, with a swift movement that almost unseated her, he turned Auban's head into a narrow alley between two buildings, following it to the far end, where there was a dilapidated barn. Quite sure that they must have been followed, that, any minute, a loud, challenging voice would demand to know what they thought they were doing, she turned to look back up the alley.

Nobody was following. People were milling about in the road beyond the end of the alley, all of them apparently too intent on the day's business to bother about much else. Jehan slipped off Auban's back and, shouldering aside the barn door, led the horse inside. There was a narrow stall, concealed behind a partition, and Jehan put Auban into it, tending the horse carefully and whispering words in a language Meggie didn't understand. At one point he turned to her, nodded to a bucket lying in a corner and asked if she would go and find water. She took it, went back up the alley again and, in a courtyard opening off the far end, found a well.

Once Auban was settled, Jehan set about preparing their own quarters, up in the hay loft above the stall. And there, safe, warm, adequately fed from Jehan's supplies – reasonably comfortable, in fact, other than the constant pique of her burning curiosity – Meggie had spent the next day and a half.

Now, it was so good to be moving again that she was prepared to be reasonable and wait a little longer for explanations. In any case, there was enough to think about without giving her attention to whatever story Jehan was going to tell her; for they still had to get out of the little town and down to the coast, where there might or might not be a boat that would take them across the water.

The town appeared to be still asleep, and they did not encounter a soul until, passing an outlying farm, they met a young woman leading a small herd of cows in for the early milking. Other than an uninterested nod in their direction, the milkmaid ignored them.

There was a stretch of woodland to the south of the little town, and they used its cover for many miles. When they emerged, halfway down a long, gentle shoulder of land, the sea lay sparkling below them. Narrowing her eyes against the bright sunlight, Meggie could make out a tiny harbour, surrounded by a few simple dwellings. Several small but sturdy fishing boats were tied up along a wooden jetty, as well as a couple of craft being loaded with cargo. Jehan smiled in satisfaction. ‘That,' he said, ‘is just the sort of place I was hoping to discover. Come; we will find out if one of those mariners will carry us over the sea.'

Still cautious, he made Meggie wait with Auban, hidden in a stand of pine trees, while he went on alone. He was not gone long, and when he returned he looked pleased. ‘The boat at the far end of the quay can carry us and our horse,' he said. ‘We sail with the tide.'

Not entirely sure what that meant, she nodded. He looked at her enquiringly. ‘Come on, then!'

‘We're going now?'

‘
Oui.
On the tide, as I just said.'

Another lesson learned, she thought, studying the heaving sea that filled the little harbour and slapped up against the foot of the low cliffs.

The boat was sturdy but basic, with a space let into the deck for the storage of cargo – and, on this trip, a horse. It was fortunate, Meggie reflected, that it was a fine day, for there was not even a rudimentary cabin and no shelter up on deck. She and Jehan sat down aft, opposite the helmsman, and wrapped themselves in their cloaks and one of Jehan's blankets. They ate a little of their remaining food, and one of the sailors offered them a sip of some fiery spirit from his flask. It brought tears to the eyes, but, as Meggie discovered, it set a heat in the blood as if you were beside your own hearth.

In silence, Meggie and Jehan watched England receding behind them. No quartet of horsemen stood on the shore yelling and waving weapons at them. There was no place for any pursuer to hide on the small boat, and the sailors busy going about their duties were plainly exactly what they appeared to be. For the time being, Meggie and Jehan were safe.

‘Now,' Meggie said, leaning closer to Jehan so that he would hear her quiet voice, ‘I believe you owe me an explanation.'

He turned to smile down at her. ‘
Oui
,' he agreed. ‘You have been very patient, Meggie, and you shall indeed have your reward.' He paused, eyes still on the shore – rapidly disappearing now as the wind picked up and the boat put on sail – and then he began to speak.

‘I told you, I believe, that I am a Breton,' he began.

She nodded.

‘I do not know if you in England know the story, but, seven years ago, our beloved Prince Arthur of Brittany disappeared. He was captured by his sworn enemy: his uncle John, king of England.'

Meggie, still recovering from the surprising starting point of Jehan's tale, thought she had heard something to that effect. ‘King John believed Arthur would be the Lionheart's heir, didn't he?' she asked.

‘So did everyone, including King John and Prince Arthur. Arthur would continue to be a threat to his uncle, even once the crown was on John's head, and so he killed him.'

Meggie stifled a gasp. Was it safe, to say such things out loud? Not that there was anyone to hear . . . ‘The king himself killed his nephew?' she whispered.

‘
Oui
. With his own bare hands. Then he had the corpse weighted with a heavy stone and thrown into the Seine, so that we who loved him could not even have a body to bury, or a grave to visit where we could pray for him and remember all that he had meant to us.'

She was surprised at the emotion that shook his voice. The Bretons must have really loved this prince of theirs, she reflected. She was not sure she understood – she could think of no one who displayed a similar devotion to King John, or had done so for his late brother – but then, perhaps Prince Arthur had been a particularly good leader of men. ‘I am sorry that you lost him,' she murmured.

He bowed his head. ‘Thank you.' Then, as if eager to change the subject, he went on: ‘I began with this matter because I wish you to understand the hatred that exists in the heart of the Bretons for King John, for he is a man who committed a terrible crime and yet was not called to account for it. He will answer one day before the power that judges us all, but for many of us that is not soon enough, especially as we see King John continuing to flourish. We have – spies, I think is the right word, in Britain; men, and women, who watch, who wait, and who, when opportunity presents itself, come back over the water to inform us. These spies, these brave people, they know where to find groups such as mine, who, while keeping up the illusion that we are nothing but hard-working men who travel to wherever there are tasks suited to our skills, yet constantly wait for the word that we hope and pray will one day come. Back in the late autumn, one such spy came to us in Chartres and reported that the king was planning a spring advance into Wales.'

Meggie remembered Josse having referred to the same thing. Not that she had taken a lot of notice; the doings of the king were very far removed from the daily, small details of their own lives. Save, of course, that campaigns cost money, and each new one meant more tax demands. ‘I heard tell of it,' she said.

‘You did?' He sounded amazed. ‘From whom?'

‘My father.' Josse's beloved face swam before her eyes, and her heart gave a painful lurch. ‘He keeps himself informed about such things.'

Jehan nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. So, to return to my tale, we now had information that the king would move against the Welsh prince Llewelyn, pulling together many of Llewelyn's enemies and making them his allies. For we who would see revenge taken against King John for the murder of Arthur, it was too good a chance to pass up. Accordingly, word was sent in secret to many clandestine organizations for men of like mind, and a company set sail for England's southern coast. From there, the plan was to separate into small groups and make our way to Wales, where we would offer our swords to Llewelyn, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as he prepared to take on the king.'

A plan which, Meggie reflected, must have somehow gone wrong. ‘What happened to this company?'

He sighed. ‘The majority of its members will, I hope and pray, even now be in Wales, preparing to defend that land against the king's advance.'

‘Yet you are here, with me, sailing back to where you came from,' she pointed out.

He sighed again, then gave a soft, ironic laugh. ‘I will tell you what happened to me,' he said. ‘I sailed with one of the last groups to embark. We were few in number – no more than ten – but our hearts were high and we looked forward eagerly to catching up with our compatriots and setting off on the long march into Wales. But a storm sprang up, and a strong south-westerly wind blew us far off course. Our companions had sailed due north from Brittany, aiming to make landfall at Plymouth, and, since they would have reached England before the storm, I trust they arrived without mishap. We, conversely, were almost shipwrecked, and when finally we made port it was to find ourselves far to the east, on the further side of the great inlet behind the island that guards it.'

She was not sure what place he meant, but she caught the general drift of his tale. ‘Go on,' she prompted.

‘King John, it would appear,' he said, ‘keeps a watch on the ports along his southern coast. Those who guarded, moreover, were on high alert; perhaps because reports had reached the king concerning the arrival of many groups of Breton fighting men making their way to Wales. Whatever the details – and I can only guess – there were men waiting for us when we arrived. Our group was attacked, and we broke up and fled for our lives.' He hesitated, his face grave. ‘Two of my companions were killed. As for the others—' he shrugged – ‘I do not know. I tried to find them, but without success.'

She tried to imagine what it had felt like, alone in a strange land with men out to kill him. ‘Could you not have made your way to Wales and found the rest of your company?' she asked.

‘I could,' he acknowledged, ‘and, indeed, that is what I planned to do, once I had recovered.'

‘Recovered?'

‘I was injured during the storm. A piece of broken mast fell on my head, and I was—' He searched for the word. ‘As if asleep? Unaware?'

‘Unconscious,' she supplied.

‘Unconscious,
oui
, thank you. I was unconscious for two days.'

He'd had concussion for two days, she thought. No wonder he'd needed to recover. And, in that state, newly back on his feet after such an injury, he had landed in England and instantly had to fight for his life. She leaned closer to him, feeling the strong thud of his steady heartbeat.

‘I found a place to rest,' he was saying, ‘in a miserable, dirty lodging house that stood close to a junction of two major routes, one traversing the land from west to east, one running north up from the coast. It was, in truth, the first place I found that offered accommodation, such as it was. There I paid a small fortune for a bed in a dirty room, where I took off my boots, wrapped my sword in my cloak and hid it under the thin mattress on my narrow bed, and slept for a day and a night.'

As he spoke, she noticed, his hand had gone down to the sword at his side, absently stroking it. The professional healer in her was thinking that, to sleep for so long, he must surely still have been suffering the after-effects of the concussion. That or he had simply been exhausted . . .

‘When finally I woke,' he went on, ‘it was dark, and by the silence I guessed it was the middle of the night. I lay trying to remember where I was and what I was doing there, and then, as memory came back, I realized something: my sword had gone. I leapt up, making myself so dizzy that I began to retch and would have vomited had there been anything in my belly. I went over every inch of that filthy, squalid room, and, although I found my cloak, flung in a corner, my sword had indeed disappeared.

‘When I could stand without falling over, I left the room and searched the rest of the house. It was run by an old woman and her daughter, and, as I ran through the other rooms and the silence continued, I began to be very afraid for them. With good reason: the house had been wrecked, the few objects of the least value stolen and the remainder smashed to pieces. The old woman lay on the floor of her kitchen, and somebody had beaten her very severely. Her daughter crouched in a corner, mute with shock, for she had been raped.'

‘What did you do?' Meggie whispered.

He raised his head and looked up into the blue sky, as if praying. Then he said, ‘I tended them as much as they would allow, fetching blankets to cover them and setting a fire in the hearth, to warm them – for they were shivering with cold and shock – and also to heat water, for both had wounds that needed treating. However, in the state they were in they did not welcome the ministrations of a stranger, and a man at that, and so I did as the daughter asked and fetched a neighbour, who shoved me out of the way and told me she would take over.' He smiled faintly. ‘As for me, I set off after the bastard who had stolen my sword.'