The Stone Rose (57 page)

‘Aye?’ The smile Alis bent on Gwenn bore no trace of ill will. Not only was her aunt blessed with a loving heart, she had a generous nature too. Truly they had come to the right place.

‘You will make arrangements for Ned and me to be housed together?’

‘Everything shall be as you wish it, my dear. Your Ned can shift his belongings to the family apartments.’

‘Up to the solar?’ Gwenn had not expected so complete a victory and knew how much it had must cost Alis to suggest it. ‘There’s no need to go to such lengths. We shall be perfectly happy lodged in the hall with the other families.’

‘But the children,’ the older woman objected immediately. ‘I do so love having them at hand.’

‘The children may stay in the solar. Katarin has slept like a log every night since we arrived, and as long as she knows where I am, she will not fret. She likes you Aunt Alis.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’

‘Indeed.’ Gwenn heard a horse pounding along the shrub-lined path which wound from the manor to the tip of the peninsular. Glancing up the beach, she saw Ned charge out of the bushes, mounted on one of Sir Gregor’s mares. His flaxen hair was wind-swept, he had Dancer on a leading rein, and he had apparently been searching for her, for when he saw her, he was out of the saddle, slinging both horses’ reins over a branch. Gwenn’s heart twisted. Purposefully, Ned stalked towards them. ‘It’s N...my husband,’ Gwenn said, unnecessarily, for she could see that her aunt had seen him. Alis was watching Ned warily, as though he were a poisonous snake that might strike at any moment. If only she knew, Gwenn thought, he is softer than she is herself. Ned wouldn’t hurt a soul.

‘Good morning, Lady Wymark,’ Ned said briskly, holding one of his solid, dependable hands out to Gwenn. Gwenn took an astonished look at the savage determination on his face and rose without a word. She placed her fingers in his. Ned did not look soft this morning. He looked as though he had come to the end of his tether; and his crushing grip told her that she had resolved the matter of her marriage not a moment too soon.

‘I wonder if you could spare Gwenn for a couple of hours, Lady Wymark,’ Ned went on, courteous but firm. ‘Her mare needs exercising, and it’s best if Gwenn rides her. She’s a fine beast, and I’d not want her to lose her stamina.’

‘N...no, I d...don’t mind. The mare must be exercised,’ Alis answered, obviously alarmed by Ned’s bearing. Gwenn couldn’t bring herself to meet her eyes. Ned was unwittingly confirming her prejudices. Absurdly, a giggle rose in Gwenn’s throat. Perhaps it would do no harm to let her aunt go on thinking that Ned was fierce – for a little while at least.

Concealing her amusement she asked, ‘Are you content to stay with the children, Aunt?’

‘What? Oh, yes, I’d be delighted to look after them.’

‘Shall I send for one of the women?’

‘N...no. No.’ Her aunt was rallying. ‘I can manage. Run along, my dear. I’ll bring them back to the solar when they’ve had their fill of the beach.’

‘Thank you, Aunt.’ Gwenn snatched up her veil, tucked it into her girdle, and let Ned lead her to Dancer. ‘I’m glad you found me, Ned,’ she opened, ‘for I’ve been talking to my aunt...’

***

Conan was caught just when he was beginning to think that there might be a God in Heaven. He should have known better, he thought resentfully, when the pain had eased enough for him to think once more. He should have known that life was not meant to be easy. If only he had not kept the merchant’s wallet. But it had been too good to discard, and he had been fascinated by the outlandish design stamped on the leather. Fool. He was a fool. And to think that he had got so near...

He had marched up to the guard at Sir Gregor’s gate, ready to offer himself up for work. He had demanded entry and was in the process of sweetening the man with one of his stolen coins when he heard a cavalcade of horses approaching the gate.

‘Stand aside, man,’ the guard admonished him. ‘It’s the merchant with my lady’s cloth, and wine from the south.’

Meekly Conan stood aside, and as he lifted his eyes to the man at the head of the little procession, his skin chilled and he knew his luck had run out. For Lady Wymark’s cloth merchant was the very man from whom he had lifted the scrip back in Lannion.

‘Jesus God,’ Conan said, whisking the incriminating object behind his back, for the merchant’s eyes had been drawn to his lost scrip like a bee to the flowers on which it feeds.

Conan had taken to his heels, of course, but it had been all over for him the moment the merchant had set eyes on his wallet. The merchant’s shriek was as piercing as a hawk’s, and no sooner had he pointed his fat finger than half a dozen of Sir Gregor’s burliest men went hurtling after Conan and pinned him to the ground.

Then came the accusations.

He denied it, naturally.

He said he’d found the purse lying in the road and could not find its owner. Naturally, no one believed him. Sir Gregor was the law in these parts, and they had hauled him up before him. He was tried; found guilty.

Then came the reckoning. Conan had always considered the loss of a hand was too great a penalty to pay for stealing. He had always vowed that he would never be caught. And if it had not been for the ill luck of having the same merchant come to visit Lady Wymark, he would have got away with it. It was too bad. The sentence was carried out at once. No one wanted the trouble and expense of keeping him locked up till the next quarter sessions. The merchant looked on, gloating and rubbing his hands together. His
two
hands.

Conan felt such agony that he did not even notice the added torture of the hot pitch being applied to his poor, bleeding stump. There was blood all over his new linen tunic. Kicked through the manor gate, he staggered back to the fisherman’s cottage where he had taken up residence since coming to Ploumanach. The fisherman’s wife was kind, in her way. She had bandaged his limb, and given him an evil-tasting draught which dulled the pain. If only, Conan thought, while he nursed his throbbing wrist, he had got rid of that blasted purse. If only he had not chosen that particular day to go the manor. They’d never take him on now, and he’d never get his hands – hand – on the wench’s jewel. He’d lost that forever. Branded as a thief in the eyes of the neighbourhood, Ploumanach had nothing to offer him. How would he live? What could he do with only his left hand? There was one avenue open. Beggary.

***

In August, two months after Conan’s sentence had been carried out, his arm was healing though it continued to ache. It was a dull, steady, throbbing ache, which plagued him day and night and was persistent enough to rob him of the will to look to his future. Begging, Conan discovered, was not as lucrative as peddling or spying. Soon, when he felt better, he would trudge back to Vannes, and see if he could strike up again with Count François de Roncier. In the meantime his energy had drained away, and it was all he could do to sit and hold out the hand he had left, and beg for alms.

When he had first taken up begging, Conan had stationed himself by the inn, grey mongrel at his side; but as the days passed, he decided the village well would be a more fruitful location. It was hot, and sooner or later everyone must come to the well, whereas not everyone patronised the inn.

There was little shade by the well, and as the flies buzzed round him, Conan hoped that it would not be an August like last year. Even here by the coast, the wind had dropped. Today, the sea shone smooth as polished metal. The fishermen grumbled and left their sails unhoisted. They took up oars instead. But it was almost too hot to row, and the fish seemed to sense this and swam provokingly near the surface, taunting the fishermen by dancing past their boats in their shoals – a million silvery darts which were always there when the nets lay heavy in the boats, and never there when they were lowered into the shining swell. Conan gleaned all of this and more, from listening to his patrons as they drew fresh water. The habit of hoarding away all that he heard had not deserted him.

Conan knew he was right to consider returning south where he could renew his association with Otto Malait and his lord. The beggar’s life was not for him. It sapped a man’s resources to have to rely on the charity of others.

Hearing hoof beats on the road from Wymark manor, Conan sighed and eased himself into the best position, with his stump held out so the passers-by would be treated to a full view of his loss. He bent his chin to his chest as though he were full of shame and had repented of his crime.

‘Spare me a coin.’ He had perfected the beggar’s whine, pitching his voice high, so it carried far. Two riders were approaching. They had a mule on a leading rein, packed for a long journey. ‘Give a wretched man alms, I implore you. Give alms to the needy.’

‘Ned, dig out some money,’ a soft voice said, and recognising it, Conan tensed. It was the concubine’s daughter. Conan did not look at her, but instead lifted his eyes to her companion’s face. The horseman was the Saxon mercenary, Ned Fletcher – apparently she’d married him. Conan noted Ned Fletcher’s bulging saddle bags and the purse which dangled from his narrow, belted waist.

The Saxon delved in his scrip. ‘Will this do?’

Conan caught the gleam of metal and sighed. His dog whimpered.

‘Give the poor man more,’ the soft voice pleaded. ‘Look, he’s lost a hand.’

‘The man’s no doubt a thief and deserved his punishment,’ came the unsympathetic response. Conan held his breath to see if the Saxon would bend to his wife’s will. Few men did.

‘Nevertheless, I feel sorry for him. I want to give more.’

A brace of English pennies sparkled silver in the summer sun. ‘Will this do?’ The man’s tone was tolerant, amused, the tone of a man head over heels in love.

‘Aye.’

The coins twirled to the ground at Conan’s feet, and the cur’s tail thumped the dust. Gripped by fear that he might be recognised, Conan ducked his head and kept his gaze nailed to the ground by the horses’ hoofs. ‘May Christ Jesu bless you for your munificence, my lady,’ he mumbled, left-handedly clawing in the grit for his coin.

‘Poor man,’ the concubine’s daughter said. And then, in a lighter vein, ‘Which way do we ride?’

‘South. We ride south for half a day, and then we turn east.’

‘I wonder whether we’ll ever return?’ she asked, wistfully.

Conan listened hard. Ever return? Were they going for good?

‘Why shouldn’t we return?’ her husband answered. ‘You’ll need to see your family.’

‘Yes. But if you go into service, we may not have any say in the matter.’

The Saxon reached out and squeezed his wife’s arm. ‘I’ll not chain you, Gwenn. You’re free to go where you will.’

‘Oh, Ned.’ The concubine’s daughter drew in a breath and her voice became livelier. ‘I’ve not been to the Île de France before.’

‘Neither have I.’ The Saxon clapped his heels to his gelding’s mahogany flanks. ‘Come on, my love.’

‘You’re not afraid my uncle will change his mind about lending you that horse, are you?’ she asked him, teasingly.

Ears straining, Conan digested what he had heard. Would the girl leave without her statue? Would she leave her treasure behind her? Conan thought not. The blood began to rush along his veins, reinvigorating him. As the riders’ voices faded, he raised his head and pushed himself to his feet. He was intent on branding the picture of them onto his brain. He’d not forget the girl’s mare – it was an uncommonly pretty creature with three white stockings. Unfortunately, the Englishman’s mount was unremarkable, a large-boned dark brown gelding whose prints were twice the size of the dainty mare’s. Eager to find some distinguishing trait about the routier’s horse, something that would enable him to pick it out in a crowd, Conan squinted at the dusty tracks. They’d been scuffled by the mule, but he could still see that Ned Fletcher’s unremarkable gelding came down more heavily on his nearside.

A painful thudding filled Conan’s head.

They must have the statue with them. He hadn’t been able to get his hands on it before, what with it being in Sir Gregor’s manor. But the Saxon was looking for a master. They were going without escort to the Île de France. And if they had the statue...

Conan’s narrow lips spread into a broad grin. It had been a long time since he had smiled, and the muscles on the side of his face were tight with disuse. Workman-like, he flexed his legs. He may have a stump where his right hand should be, but thank Christ his legs were sound. He could walk. He’d always been able to walk.

With a bloodless smile splitting his pain-creased face, Conan the beggar shook himself like his dog. There’d be no more beggary for him. He’d use one of the silver pennies to buy a loaf from the charitable fisherman’s wife who continued to lend him her roof at nights. He’d buy meat and a skinful of ale, and then he’d be off. He’d trail the handsome young couple who were heading for the Île de France. And seeing as the little madam was riding a mare that a princess would covet, they’d be easy to track, not that Conan was unduly concerned about losing them when he knew their destination.

Excitement and anticipation lent wings to his feet. There was only one reason why Ned Fletcher and his wife should head for the Île de France in August, and that was King Philip’s famous tournament. Perhaps the English Captain hoped to find his new master there. At his well-side vigil, Conan had heard the gossips say that Lady Wymark had taken against her niece’s husband because of his profession. That must be what had prompted them to leave.

Conan would follow the Fletchers to France.

Faithless as a whore, the fickle wind had changed and, belatedly, his ship was coming in.

‘H
ow will we find him?’ Gwenn asked, staring wide-eyed past the empty lists into a boiling crowd. ‘There must be nigh on a thousand soldiers here.’

Close by, the heralds were overseeing repairs to a fence which marked the limit of the jousting field. To one side of the lists stood a canopied platform, a ladder was propped precariously against it. At the top of the ladder a carpenter was nailing swathes of rich blue silk to the canopy. His apprentice – who was meant to be steadying the ladder – was winking at a girl with breasts as round and cheeks as rosy as the apples she was offering for sale. The ladder shifted, only an inch, but the carpenter yelped and clutched at a crossbeam. The roll of cloth fell, and a waterfall of blue silk poured over the dry earth. ‘Jesu, Pierre!’ The carpenter’s shriek cut across the hubbub. ‘Try to lift your mind above your belt! Hold the bloody ladder steady!’