Queen's Ransom (6 page)

“We could hear everything those two did,” Walter said. “Everything! As if they hadn’t got enough children already.”

We all gazed at him with interest. He had the fair skin that goes with sandy hair, and this now turned pink. “It was embarrassing,” he said defensively.

“The poor don’t have many pleasures,” Ryder said dryly. “The seigneurs and the Church tax these French peasants until the pips fly out of them. Don’t grudge them their amusements.”

Sweetapple had slept on straw, in the half-loft of another uncomfortable and dirty house, and been given an unsatisfying breakfast of pease pottage and rye bread, a major sin as far as he was concerned.

“I was born on a farm and we treated our pigs better,” he said roundly.

“Now that,” said Ryder, “is an exaggeration for sure.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Sweetapple crossly.

Blanchard said he still felt unwell, but could ride and wished to do so. For my part, I was relieved to set off again. The sun shone warmly, and we saw fields and meadows, green with lush grass and young corn. One could sense that this was a much bigger country than England. I looked at the dense trees in a belt of forest, and knew that no English woodland would be so deep, and that this French one might even harbor wolves.

It was the time of year when stags shed their antlers and Brockley, catching sight of an antler by the roadside, dismounted to pick it up. It had eight points, which meant that the stag that had dropped it would have carried sixteen points altogether. “I worked for a gentleman once who was knowledgeable about deer,” Brockley said to me. “You hardly ever get a sixteen-pointer in England, but here it’s quite common. Plenty of big, fat deer in these woods, it seems.”

“And the seigneurs eat all the venison,” said Walter Dodd. “The peasants get pease pottage, evidently.” He grinned at Mark Sweetapple.

“Plain folk don’t eat venison in England, either. When did you last taste deer steak?” inquired Ryder.

“We don’t need it,” said Sweetapple. “My parents have chickens and geese and they kill a pig every year. There’s always ham and bacon in the house, and we can take rabbits on our own farm. These folk hardly seem to have meat at all.”

He was right. With every mile we traveled, I grew more and more conscious of the poverty in the villages and on the small farmsteads. The people who came to their cottage doors or straightened up from their tasks in field or garden to watch us pass were thin for the most part, and poorly clad as well, many of them barefoot.

By contrast, we were all well fleshed and well dressed. Even Dale, who always looked eccentric on horseback because she felt safer astride, and wore breeches, still had good-quality clothes and polished boots. My dignified sidesaddle and my russet riding dress with the dark green felt hat and matching cloak; Master Blanchard’s severe but costly black velvet, with gold embroidery and a collar of cream voile; the stout buff jackets and gleaming helmets of the men, including Brockley, made us look like aristocrats compared to the people of the villages. Some of them stared, and not in a friendly way, and some of the women hurried their children indoors when they saw us coming.

We saw more signs of violence as we rode on, as well. I commented on them to Luke Blanchard. I couldn’t like him, for I couldn’t forget his unkindness to me in the past. But I had agreed, for my own reasons, to come on this journey with him and the least I could do was be polite. That meant making conversation from time to time.

“The people look as if they envy us and our clothes and horses,” I said, “but they’re very frightened, too. Did you see how those women ran indoors at the sight of us? And though we’ve seen corn growing, I doubt if these people eat much of the bread. I fancy the seigneurs are selling the grain away to buy arms and pay soldiers.”

Blanchard, who being a tall man had hired a tall horse, looked down at me from his saddle.

“You are a surprise to me, Ursula,” he said unexpectedly. “One would not expect a young woman to be so sharp. You are right, of course. I wish this journey were safely over.” He pulled a pained face and put his hand to his stomach. “But my belly still hurts me. We’d better find another inn soon and put up until tomorrow. It will waste time but I don’t think I can ride on much farther just now.”

We found an inn, in a prosperous small town, named St. Marc after the massive Norman church on one side of its market square. The roofs of an abbey were visible behind the church, as well.

There was a sense of tension in St. Marc, as there was everywhere. We saw groups of people gathered here and there and talking with much sad shaking of heads and some excited nodding. But on the whole business here seemed to be going on much as usual. Smoke trickled from the chimneys of the red-tiled houses and cottages, and from the nosebag spillings and broken bits of this and that in the square in front of the church, a market had recently been held there.

The inn, on the opposite side of the square, was red-tiled like the other buildings and quite big, with trestle tables and benches on a forecourt, an arched courtyard entrance and a sprightly inn sign, on which a prancing horse was painted in yellow. It was still only afternoon, well before the time when wayfarers begin to arrive at inns in search of shelter. Le Cheval d’Or, we thought, could surely take us in.

But to my irritation, Blanchard once more adopted his policy of announcing us as loudly as though we were the most important people who had ever entered its portals, and once more, the innkeeper bristled. Harvey joined in, hectoring in very bad French, which did nothing to help. Jean Charpentier, proprietor of Le Cheval d’Or, didn’t match his sprightly signboard. He was no cheerful, rubicund host, but a lean and disillusioned individual with a grimy shirt under his sleeveless jerkin, and a sour face. He looked as though he enjoyed refusing people, particularly loudmouthed Anglaises.

Ryder tried to propitiate him, but as Ryder’s French was even worse than Harvey’s, this merely added confusion to irritation. The only other person in the party who could speak the tongue was myself. I had learned French with my cousins and improved it when I was married to Gerald, who had excellent French, as all the Blanchards did, and had encouraged me to study it. I cleared my throat and intervened, with an attempt at coaxing.

This finally had results. Charpentier eventually agreed that although he was very full, he could just squeeze us in, but some of the men would have to bed down in his barn. “It’s dry and there’s plenty of straw, so there’ll be nothing off the bill, I’m warning you,” he added.

The Dodds and Sweetapple said it would probably be better than their billets last night. “Could hardly be worse,” said Mark with feeling.

The innkeeper’s insistence that he was full seemed odd, however. The hostelry was very quiet and Brockley, bringing hampers in from the stableyard, reported that the stable was half empty. Blanchard, unwell or not, was irritated enough by our discouraging reception to raise the matter with Charpentier when at last we had dismounted and were indoors. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “It’s early in the day and the inn is large. You’ve got attic rooms and two floors besides, and wings stretching back. How can you be full? It isn’t market day.”

“No, seigneur.” Charpentier did not sound amiable. “Market day was yesterday. You are Anglaises,” he observed, “which no doubt means heretic. Well, I will tell you for nothing that I am a good son of Holy Church, and heresy is a grief to me, and this whole district is infested with Huguenots. I’d cut all their throats if I had my way. But it means that men and arms are on the move and it brings in business. By tonight, I will have a young seigneur here, bound for Paris with a dozen retainers, and a prelate of some standing with ten more, also making for Paris. They are taking their men to swell the government’s forces. Both sent word ahead and their rooms are bespoken. I also have a Netherlander merchant staying, with two companions, while he does some business in the district. Some men will do business even when the clouds are raining blood.” Charpentier shrugged. “He, too, is a Protestant, but his money is good as yours is, I trust. By nightfall, my hostelry will be full enough. Are you answered?”

Any normality in St. Marc was clearly fragile. The religious divisions of France were seething under the surface, ready to burst out at any moment. Charpentier quite evidently bracketed all Protestants with cockroaches.

Beside me, despite my warnings before we left Greenwich, Dale muttered something indignant about Papists. Charpentier heard and apparently understood. He shot her an unfriendly glance. Blanchard eyed her repressively before saying: “Well, it is an answer, though in England, innkeepers address their clients more respectfully. As it happens, I am on my way to visit Catholic relatives at Douceaix, near Le Mans. There is no need to regard me as an enemy. Now, kindly show me to my chamber, and if I could have some warm water or milk, I would be pleased. I have an upset stomach.”

The innkeeper’s expression suggested that this was just one more transgression, almost as bad as heresy. But he led us upstairs and showed us a couple of rooms, not large, but clean. Harvey hurried his master into his chamber, wondering aloud if the village had an apothecary. Dale and I took the second room, which was just across a square lobby. “A couple of your men can sleep in the lobby but only two,” said Charpentier. “It’s the barn for the rest.”

Brockley fetched my hampers up, arriving in time to hear me taking Dale to task for her remarks about Papists.

“The mistress is right, Fran. While we’re in France, we’d better keep our opinions to ourselves. But the sooner we go home and get out of this country, the better. Which means getting on with our journey, if we can. Madam, have you any idea what’s wrong with Master Blanchard? He should be over the seasickness by now. The rest of us are. I hope he’s not sick in some other way.”

“So do I,” I said earnestly. “Master Blanchard falling ill in a French inn with a hostile innkeeper in the middle of an insurrection—what more do we need?”

We had dined along the way in a fashion, on bread and meat brought from the first inn. But fresh air and riding make one hungry, and Dale began to grumble that it was a long time until supper. “And if there’s one thing I can’t abide, ma’am, it’s a grumbling stomach.”

“I’m getting tired of other people’s stomachs,” I said. “My own was trouble enough on the boat. Now it’s yours and Master Blanchard’s. Well, you can go down and see if the kitchen can provide anything to eat. No doubt we could all do with it, the men included. Anything will do except cheese. I don’t think I ever want to eat cheese again.”

“But, ma’am, I can’t talk French.”

I was tired. I was no longer ill, but the voyage had drained strength out of me and the queen’s letters in my hidden pocket felt like an almost physical weight. In addition, the atmosphere of France oppressed me. Now, it seemed, I must take on the task of looking after my servants, instead of being looked after by them.

But perhaps, Dale being Dale, it might be better if she didn’t talk to the local population too much.

“Oh, very well,” I said. “I’ll go.”

The Hooded Man

Dale sighed with relief at not having to ask for food in sign language. Brockley offered to come with me, but I saw no need for an escort inside the inn. “I’m only going to the kitchen, Brockley.”

I left them unpacking the hampers, and hurried downstairs. I followed the smell of cooking along a stone passage to the kitchen where I found the landlord giving orders to a greasy youth in a leather apron, and a hefty woman with thick black hair in a knot on the back of her head and arms as massive as though she had spent her life shoeing horses. “Master Charpentier?” I said mildly from the doorway.

He turned to me, frowning. “I’ve sent Master Blanchard’s hot milk up to him. There’s soup and bread if the rest of you are hungry, and the wine of St. Marc is good.”

“Thank you. That’s what I came to ask about. Most of us do want something to eat and drink. Where . . . ?”

“Weather’s warm. I’ll have it put on the tables out in front.”

“Would you? It will be most welcome, believe me.” I was trying to placate this difficult man, but I wasn’t having much success. Which was a pity, because there was something else I wanted to ask him.

Huguenot influence might be strong in this part of France but St. Marc did not feel Huguenot, and Jean Charpentier certainly was not. Also, we had not yet traveled so very far from the Loire. Both of these things had been simmering together in my mind since we reached the inn. I had no idea how well known my husband Matthew was in his own country, but the owner of a château was usually known over a sizable area, and in the present troubles, he and Charpentier were on the same side. It was worth trying.

“In England,” I said, standing my ground, “I was for a while acquainted with a visitor from this part of the world. He’s back in France now. I wonder if you’ve heard of him? His name is Matthew de la Roche.”

I had no shadow of right to ask after Matthew, but I couldn’t help myself. It was unbearable to be so near, and not even inquire. The result, however, was shattering. The greasy youth and the black-haired woman froze, mouths open, and Charpentier first stared into my face with furious brown eyes, and then grabbed my arm and shoved me up against the wall. Close by was a table with cabbages and carrots on it, and also a sharp little knife. To my utter disbelief, he snatched it up and held it to my throat.

“Who are you?”

“What are you doing? Master Charpentier, please! I’m Mistress Blanchard, from England!”

“What are you doing in France?”

“I’m traveling with my . . . my father-in-law.” I was stuttering with fright. “He has a ward in France, a young girl. He wants to take her to England, away from the war. She’s been orphaned. He wanted her to have a woman to travel with. We’re on our way to fetch her from the relatives she’s with now, at Douceaix, near Le Mans. That’s all. Please, Master Charpentier!”

His left hand was crushing the muscles of my upper arm painfully, but the vegetable knife was more terrifying. Peering down my nose at it, I could see that it was very sharp indeed. I was carrying my dagger but I knew that I had no chance of reaching it and getting it out of its sheath quickly enough to help me. I wished I had let Brockley come with me. In future (assuming I had a future), I wouldn’t stir a step without him.