The Stone Rose (13 page)

‘My thanks.’ Solemnly the two mercenaries shook hands.

‘I trust we’ll never find ourselves fighting on opposite sides in anyone’s war, le Bret.’

‘Amen to that, Malait. I’d have to kill you.’

‘Not a hope this side of the Underworld.’ Otto’s mouth split in a gaping grin. ‘You’d be mincemeat before you knew what hit you.
Au revoir
, le Bret.’

Meanwhile the concubine’s daughter was persisting with her quest. ‘I...I’d like to see Irene.’ Her eyes darted nervously to the Viking as he shouldered past her and left the inn.

‘Irene’s not here,’ Tristan said.

The concubine’s daughter placed herself in the potboy’s path, and when he went to move to the next trestle, she was there, waiting for him. Her fingers were crumpling the edges of her veil. There was something different about her, and it puzzled Alan. Yesterday, when he had seen her for the first time, her face had been full of confusion and not a little fear, but he had sensed hidden reserves in her. She had at first refused to accept what was happening to her – she’d not begun to flee until his missile had actually struck her. Alan had put that down to natural arrogance. But watching her now, he realised his assessment had been inaccurate.

Today, though the girl was insistent that Tristan take notice of her, her confidence had gone, and with it that touch of pride. She had lost that blind faith in human nature that only the truly innocent possess. Well, that would do her no harm, the sooner she learned the harsh realities of life, the better. However, it was surprising to discover that a concubine’s daughter could have been so innocent. Alan rubbed his chin. She must have been fenced off from hurt, and blind prejudice, and hate – until yesterday, when all those things had come hurtling towards her in the shape of the good citizens of Vannes.

The girl must be wondering whether she was safe in Mikael Brasher’s tavern. She was wondering whether the people sitting at the tables were the same people who had chased her yesterday. Her eyes travelled inevitably to their table, and hastily Alan ducked his head.

‘Not gone yet?’ Tristan asked, with lazy insolence.

‘As you see.’ The girl’s cheeks were white as snow. She gave the lad a shaky smile. ‘Would you give Irene a message for me?’ Fine-boned hands were clasped in front of her small breasts. ‘Please?’

‘Very well.’ Grudgingly, the potboy put his hands on his hips. ‘What’s your message?’

‘I...I want you to say
au revoir
to Irene for me.’

‘
Au revoir
? You’re coming back?’

‘N...no. No. I...I mean
adieu
.’ Her pale cheeks coloured, and pitilessly Alan suppressed a pang of fellow-feeling. The boy drummed his fingers on the trestle. ‘Say farewell, and please give Irene this.’ She held out a narrow strip of parchment.

Tristan looked at it with the wary eyes of a man to whom reading was a deep mystery. ‘What is it?’ he demanded, suspiciously.

‘It’s only my direction. If Irene needs a friend, tell her she can find Gwenn there.’

Gwenn, thought Alan. Her name was Gwenn. And she could read and write. He shook his head in amazement. Her mother must be quite mad. What use was that to a girl?

Tristan stared at the creamy ribbon of vellum. ‘Irene can’t read,’ he said.

The girl looked nonplussed. ‘No. How stupid of me. I suppose not. Of course she can’t.’

Tristan appeared to relent. ‘She could ask Father Mark to make it out.’

The girl’s face cleared and she thrust the scrap of parchment at Tristan who, with uncommon fastidiousness, wiped thumb and forefinger on his breeches before touching it. ‘Many thanks. Farewell.’ She scuttled into the street, and the potboy tucked the parchment into his sleeve.

At the trestle in the corner, Alan, Ned, and Conan the pedlar all breathed again. Ned Fletcher spoke for all of them. ‘I thought she’d be bound to see us.’

‘Gwenn,’ Alan muttered. ‘It’s very apt.’

‘What was that?’

Alan’s eyes focused on his young kinsman’s. ‘The girl’s name is Gwenn.’

‘So I heard. But I don’t–’

‘You ought to polish up your Breton, cousin, but I’ll translate for you. Gwenn means white. It’s the Breton equivalent of Blanche.’

‘White?’ Ned echoed. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘Think about it. White. It also means fair.’

‘She
is
pretty,’ his cousin said, gazing through the door.

‘Is she?’ Alan picked up his tankard and swirled the dregs of his ale round the bottom. ‘White, symbol of purity and innocence. But the mud’s beginning to cling, wouldn’t you say?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t worry about it, Ned.’ Alan tossed back the last of his ale and met his cousin’s cornflower gaze straight on. ‘Permit me to give you one last piece of advice.’

‘Aye?’

‘If you intend to stay in this business, it’s advisable not to get to know your enemies too well before you start a campaign. You can end up feeling sorry for them, and that only leads to disaster.’ Alan pushed back his stool.

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Ned said agreeably. ‘Are you leaving at once?’

‘When I’ve collected what’s owed me.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘That, Ned, my lad, is no one’s business but my own.’

Ned hauled in a breath. ‘I know. But as you pointed out, I was only committed to serving Count de Roncier to this quarter day too, and I hate the man. I want to leave his service. I’d like to go with you.’ He flushed self-consciously.

‘You’re no longer a beardless boy that you need a mentor.’

‘But I’d like to go with you.’ One of Ned’s square hands ran through his flaxen hair. ‘Damn it, Alan. I
like
your company. Does our friendship mean nothing to you?’

Deliberately Alan turned his eyes from his cousin’s eloquent blue gaze. ‘I travel alone this time, Ned. Nothing personal, but I need to travel alone.’ He extended a hand, which his cousin blinked at. ‘Fare you well.’

Ned’s stool scraped back and the young trooper got stiffly to his feet. ‘I understand.’ He gave Alan a last, searching look. ‘I’ll accompany you upstairs. I still intend to quit, but I’ll make my own way after.’

‘Captain,’ the pedlar snatched at Alan’s leather gambeson, ‘
I’ve
not been paid.’

Peeling the grasping, wiry fingers from the hem of his jerkin, Alan groped in his pouch for a silver penny and dropped it on the pedlar’s palm. ‘Thanks for the information, Conan.’

‘You’ll commend me to Count de Roncier?’

‘I will.’ Mentally, Alan added the pedlar’s coin to his tally of what de Roncier owed him. He headed for the stairs, Ned hard on his heels.

Conan noticed the stray dog lying by his feet as faithfully as if he were his master. He threw it the heel of the loaf, which vanished in one hungry bite. Rising slowly, Conan the pedlar picked up his tray of goods and prepared to leave. He kicked the dog in passing.

S
tanding with the well between her and the entrance to La Rue de la Monnaie, Gwenn tried to calm herself. The two routiers who had been outside the cathedral yesterday were slumped over a trestle in Duke’s Tavern; and the Viking who had pushed past her with a torch had been sitting with them. They had to be de Roncier men. Gwenn was almost certain she had concealed her dismay from them, and that they had no inkling that she had recognised them; but her mind was a bubbling brew-tub of questions.

Why were they in the tavern? Were they planning more trouble? And what did that giant of a Norseman want with a torch in clear day? If only she could believe their presence that morning was an unlucky coincidence, and that they were merely quenching their thirst.

Conscious that her hands were trembling, Gwenn curled her fingers into her palms. She had believed her mother and grandmother had been exaggerating when they attributed the trouble to the French noble. All this talk of ancient grudges stemming from those long-distant days before her mother had even been born had seemed most unlikely, but now...

She tried to still the ferment inside her. She told herself that mercenaries were men of violence. What had been a stomach-churning nightmare to her, to them was more than likely only a mildly exciting romp through the streets. And de Roncier’s men had not trailed her home, the townsfolk had done that. And now, in the square, in broad daylight, with the citizens going placidly about their daily business, it was hard to believe that they meant her any lasting hurt. The mercenaries were only drinking in the tavern, as they did every morning, no doubt. It meant nothing. The cathedral was behind her. The sun was shining down La Rue de la Monnaie as it often did.

A brisk wind raised goosebumps on her arms, its gusts buffeting the martins, screeching and scissoring after insects in the sky above. A dark canopy of clouds hung over the thatched roofs in the western quarter. Gwenn drew her veil over her head. The martins would have to hurry, or the coming rainstorm would put paid to their meal. She hoped the rain would pass quickly, for her grandmother could not have ridden in a decade and it would make a penance of the journey to Kermaria.

Casting her glance past the well to her house at the far end of La Rue de la Monnaie, Gwenn pulled up sharply. A restless crowd had gathered outside. Her blood ran cold. St Gildas save us, she prayed. Don’t let this happen again. Yesterday had been a bad dream, but Jean St Clair had been there and his men had fended off the crowd. Today he had gone to Kermaria with her mother, and the promised escort had not yet arrived.

More citizens were joining the crowd milling about at the other end of the street. They were like ants when their nest is disturbed, running back and forth with distracted, disorderly movements. There were shouts of confusion. People started run, they were charging towards
her
. Gwenn’s heart shifted in her breast.

‘Sweet Jesus, no!’ She stumbled back a pace. ‘Not again. Sweet Jesus...’

Several townsfolk roared up to the well, blocking her way to the house. Poised for flight, Gwenn edged backwards. ‘Mother of God, help me.’

Outside her house, the crowd was growing. More desperate questions bubbled up. Was Raymond back or were Izabel and Katarin alone in there? Would the mob break in? What would they do to them? Her limbs locked and, like yesterday, she couldn’t run. Grandmama! Katarin! And then she realised that it did not matter that she could not move, for she could no more abandon her family than fly up with the martins. ‘No,’ she said, firmly, to brace herself.

One of the men at the well looked across at her. He was, to her astonishment, hauling on the well rope. It was Pierre, the herbalist. She waited for the onslaught that was sure to follow his sight of her.

‘Gwenn! It’s Gwenn!’ Pierre screeched, and irrationally he grinned at her. ‘She’s not in the house!’

Why was Pierre pulling up the well bucket? A new terror broke on the roiling surface of her mind. Surely they were not intending throwing her down the well? Of all the crimes that could be committed in a town, polluting the water supply was one of the most heinous. The laws protecting wells were upheld by people in every walk of life. Everyone from rich merchant to poor beggar, from Breton to Frenchman, from nun to cutpurse, all sang out with one voice against anyone low enough to contaminate a well. Gwenn conquered a violent compulsion to scream.

Pierre was shouting at her. ‘Gwenn! Gwenn! Is anyone in there?’

‘What?’ Fear hampered her thoughts, and understanding was slow. ‘What?’

‘Your house!’ Pierre shrieked, pouring water from one bucket to another. Handing the overflowing vessel to another man, he cast the well bucket down the shaft again and hauled on the handle without pause. ‘Is anyone in there?’

Peculiarly divorced from the scene unfolding before her, Gwenn watched the bucket Pierre had filled being passed hand over hand down a long line of townsfolk which stretched to the bottom end of La Rue de la Monnaie. That torch? The Viking had taken a
torch
with him...

The light dawned. Gwenn lurched to the well-head, white fingers clinging to the cold, mortared rim. ‘Why are you doing that, Pierre? Which house is burning?’

Pierre’s honest face was creased with concern, and he was sweating profusely. How could she have thought him malevolent, even for a moment? She should have known better, Pierre was a healer, and anyone could see that he was frantic with fear.

‘Is anyone in your house?’ The herbalist secured the well-handle and shook her by the arm. ‘Think, Gwenn!’

‘Grandmama and Katarin.’

Pierre went the colour of goat’s cheese. A woman down the line drew a hasty sign of the cross on her breast, caught Gwenn’s disbelieving eyes on her and flinched. ‘Sorry, love.’ The woman shook her head with brief sympathy before turning back to the herbalist. ‘Hurry, Pierre, other houses are smoking like the devil’s pit.’

‘For God’s sake, move!’ A neighbour, a tanner by trade, nudged Pierre, his work-stained hand outstretched for the pail. Too practical a man to waste time on Gwenn, he did not even look at her. ‘The whole street’s about to go!’

Gwenn choked down a sob.

‘Steady, girl,’ Pierre said, and compassion filled his eyes.

Gwenn bolted. She ran so fast that she reached her house before the first bucket of water. The woman had exaggerated. There wasn’t that much smoke, and what there was seeped through the closed shutters to float in the street as innocently as a sea-fret on an April morning. Perhaps Izabel had spilled fat on their cooking fire in the tiny yard at the back of the house. It couldn’t be anything sinister. But Izabel was not cooking today... That torch, what had that giant done with that torch?

She aimed for the door. Hands tugged at her skirts. Voices tried to capture her attention.

‘No, Gwenn, don’t!’

‘You can’t go in there!’

‘Come back, girl!’

She shut her ears to the voices, fought through the hands, saw an opening and dived through it. All light and sound faded. A solid pall of smoke hung in the downstairs chamber. Peering through it, Gwenn saw the torch. It lay against the back wall of the house. Both torch and wall were smouldering. Along the planked floor, the flames had caught hold in places, someone had flung a wet blanket on them in attempt to douse them, and the blanket was the source of the smoke. The fire had been set, deliberately, and she knew by whom.