The Baron's Quest
Authors: Elizabeth Rose
The Baron’s Quest
Book 1
Barons of the Cinque Ports Series
By
Elizabeth Rose
Copyright © 2015 by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual organizations or persons living or deceased is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without the author’s written permission.
Cover created by Elizabeth Rose Krejcik
Books by Elizabeth Rose:
♔
(Legacy of the Blade Series)
♛
(Daughters of the Dagger Series)
♛
Ruby
♖
(Madman MacKeefe Series)
♖
Onyx
♖
Ian
♗
(Barons of the Cinque Ports)
♗
The Baron’s Bounty
(New!)
♗
The Baron’s Destiny (Coming this winter)
☀
(Elemental Series)
☀
The Dragon and the Dreamwalker
✛
(Tarnished Saints Series)
✛
Tarnished Saints’ Christmas (Prequel)
✛
Loving John (Coming soon)
✭
(Greek Myth Fantasy Series)
♡
(Short stories)
♘
(Cowboys of the Old West)
☂
(Single Title)
☂
The Caretaker of Showman’s Hill
(Gnarled Nursery Rhymes)
☠
Muffet (coming soon)
❒
(Boxed Sets)
And More!
Table of Contents
Spring, England, 1285
“Out of my way, wench!”
“Sir, please wait. This is the finest spun wool you’ll ever see in all of England.” Muriel Draper ran behind the tradesman as he made his way across the wharf and down a long pier leading to ships that were moored in the New Romney harbor. “Don’t you want to look at my wares?”
The burly foreign trader stopped and turned around slowly. His eyes fastened to her, scoping down her body from head to toes, sending a chill up her spine. Muriel realized she should have chosen her words more carefully, because what he wanted wasn’t what she had to offer.
“Aye, I’ll look at yer wares, wench.” He reached out and snatched the spindle of spun wool from her hand and smiled. His teeth were brown and rotten, and the smell of whiskey wafted from his breath in the salty sea air. She was sure he was only here to swindle poor hard-working people out of a living, not caring about quality at all. His ship was probably filled with thirty tuns of barrel-washings instead of fine wine, that he would take back across the channel and sell for twice its worth. “Why don’t ya just climb up onto my big ship and give me a sample of some o’ your sweet wares?”
She pulled her mantle closer to hide her body, knowing she never should have come here alone, nor should she be following a tradesman onto the docks in the first place. It was dangerous, and no woman other than a whore would be seen here by herself, especially since it was almost nightfall.
“I think you’re misunderstanding my intention, sir. I’m not a whore,” she spat. “I’m a respectable merchant . . . same as you.” She added the latter part wondering if building the man up would do anything to soften his demeanor.
Muriel would do almost anything to make a sale. She had no other choice. Since her father had died a sennight ago, the Clothmaker’s Guild had excommunicated her from the guild since she was a woman, even though she now ran the family business. It made her angry and she’d fought them on their decision, since widows often took over their husbands’ businesses, and the guilds never turned a one of them away. All the guilds looked after their members and their families. It was a rule.
For example, Joan, the butcher’s widow, took her husband’s place just a month ago. The Butcher’s Guild never batted an eyelid for the fact she was now a merchant, and they’d even taken care of her husband’s funeral expenses as well. However, they still found it in their interest to fine Joan almost every other day for leaving entrails and animal scraps in the streets. Muriel shook her head, knowing they had never fined Joan’s husband once for doing exactly the same thing. Nay, women were not treated as well as men at all.
Muriel was left with a small shop that she was already behind on paying the rent. She also had thirty acres of marshland that her father had been renting from the Baron of New Romney. The local shepherds paid money to her in exchange for letting their sheep graze on her land. If they couldn’t pay, they gave her fleece instead.
But the shepherds were already paid up for the month, and the sheep had just been sheared. The money she’d collected had already been spent. If she didn’t make a sale soon, she’d lose the shop as well as the marshlands and be left with nothing.
The merchant standing before her snorted and turned away, sticking her spindle of wool into the travel bag slung over his shoulder as he continued toward his ship. Gulls squawked overhead as he pulled out what looked like a smoked herring from his bag, accidentally dropping one to the ground as he popped another into his mouth. The gulls swooped down and about attacked him as he bent over and tried to scoop it up. One gull was too fast and got to the herring first, and the tradesman pulled his dagger from his waistbelt, whirling the blade through the air. It just missed, and the birds flew off as the dagger embedded itself into the musty wood near Muriel’s feet.
She jumped backwards, startled. The man cursed and quickly reached down and pulled his dagger from the wood, leaving splinters from the pier in its place. He turned and walked away and Muriel daringly followed.
She knew that without the guild behind her, there was a slim chance anyone would buy her wares. Even if she did spin wool faster than any woman on the coast, and her younger brother, Isaac, had learned to weave the best cloth in all the Cinque Ports, it meant nothing if she couldn’t pay her rent. Lord Romney would be patient no longer, and she was sure he’d be reclaiming his land soon. The next time he sent his bailiff to her door to collect, would be the last unless she made this sale and could pay her debt.
“God’s teeth, stop following me,” grumbled the man, turning and heading up the boarding plank to what she guessed was his ship. She should have just turned and made her way back down the docks to the shore, but he still had her spindle of wool in his bag. She wasn’t going to just walk away without it. She scurried up the boarding plank and snuck around him, stopping directly in front of him this time.
Quickly reaching into her travel bag, she pulled out a bolt of cloth next, that was wrapped around a wooden rod. She ran her hand over the fine, smooth silk, not wanting to have to barter this, but she had no choice. Her eyes darted back down the docks as she wondered what was taking Isaac so long. He should be here with the cart and horse and the rest of their goods by now. If he didn’t hurry, they were going to lose the sale.
“What’s that?” asked the tradesman, reaching out a grubby hand that was still smelly from herring. He was sure to soil the fine cloth if he touched it now. She pulled it back, pretending to hold it up for him to see it better.
“It’s fine spun silk from the far east, dyed a brilliant blue,” she said. “My father traded for this not long ago. It will fetch a grand price for you back in . . . ,” she eyed him, not really sure where he was from. He wore clothes that looked Spanish, but yet had the accent of a man from Flanders. Still, his build was big and bulky like the traders from the far north. And he smelled like whiskey – a common trait of the merchants from Scotland.
She didn’t usually do the trading – that had been her father’s job. Muriel and her brother just spun wool and wove cloth, making the goods for her father to sell. Now she wished she would have paid more attention and went along with her father once or twice, even if he never wanted her to accompany him.
She looked up to the man’s ship, but the sails were yet unfurled, and there was no identifying flag present that she could see. “Well, wherever you’re from, your nobles will want this. Now are you interested in buying this as well as a dozen barrels of tightly spun high-quality wool from the Romney marsh, already cleaned and carded? Plus I have fine woven cloth in several different varieties, some already dyed in colors of watchet and murrey.” She thought of the light blue and purplish black cloth that would impress any vendor.
“How much for the silk?” he growled, talking with his hands, hitting the spindle of wool with his elbow, making it wobble in his bag and almost sending it into the sea.
“Only . . . twelve shillings.”
“What? That’s too much! And I don’t see no cart with more goods like ya said.” He eyed her suspiciously, and she realized now that the man didn’t believe her. The merchant trade ships from the lands across the channel, as well as from up and down the English coast, were all docked in the harbor of New Romney, loaded and ready to sail back out to sea. New Romney was a lead port, and known as a busy center of trade.
Muriel knew she had to work fast, before she lost the man’s interest.
The tide was high and the winds were picking up, and she’d already heard the Land Waiter calling out instructions to the ships’ captains on the wharf. They were getting ready to cast off. But then again, the day had been sunny, and now the sky looked threatening on the horizon and she heard thunder rumbling in the distance. It was a harbinger of a possible storm at sea.
She knew the tradesmen needed to take advantage of the weather to make a safe, fast journey across the channel and back to their ports. But with any luck, they would wait to sail until morning, giving her the time she needed.
“The rest of the goods will be here soon.” She looked over her shoulder and smiled when she finally saw Isaac approaching the wharf. “There’s my brother now.”
“No deal.” The tradesman almost dropped the spool this time, and she reached out to grab it from his bag, hoping to secure her hard work from ending up as fish bait. But before she could, he moved away. She didn’t fancy losing a finger by grabbing for it again, as the vision of his dagger being thrown at the gull was still embedded in her brain.
“Then how about . . . eleven shillings for the silk?” she asked.
“Nay! Now leave me alone.”
She looked back to see two dockmen heading toward Isaac. Her brother stopped the cart at the wave of their hands. Isaac was only thirteen years of age, and she knew he would be intimidated by the dockmen. She also knew they were going to give him trouble. She needed to get over to him quickly and handle the situation. She was eighteen, and more experienced with these situations.
“All right,” she said desperately, knowing that if she could make the sale quickly, she and Isaac wouldn’t be sent away with all their wares in tact and no coins in their pouch. Instead, the dockmen would have to give the wares to the merchant to take back over the channel. She could grab his money and be long gone before they could tax her on the sale or tell her to return it.
She wasn’t supposed to be on the docks selling her wares in the first place, and she knew it. It was already sunset, not to mention Sunday. No one was allowed to trade at times like this, and she might even be fined now that the baron’s men were about to discover her here.
“I’ll sell you this silk and everything on that cart for a very good price.” She nodded with her head toward her wares back on shore.
“Really.” The man crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “How much?”
Muriel added up her debts in her head, knowing if she could at least get enough out of the man to pay her rent on the shop and land, she could find a way to make more later. “Two shillings a yard for the high-quality wool products, and . . . five pence a yard for the rest.” Just the thought of giving it away for so cheap was a stab to her heart. As a guild member she’d had to agree not to sell it for less than five shillings and eight pence, but she wasn’t a guild member anymore so it didn’t matter.
“Now that’s a little more like it,” said the man with a smile. “But I thought the guilds had to stick together in price. So how is it you can sell it to me for so much less than I’ve already been offered by the guild merchants?”
“I’m not in the guild,” she said. “Not anymore. So I can set my own price.”
“I don’t know.” He squinted his eyes and looked back to the wharf to where the dockmen were now shouting and waving their hands at Isaac, telling him to leave. “It doesn’t seem like you’re wanted here. And I know as well as anyone that there is no trading on Sunday afternoons, or after sunset. If I start trading with non-guild members who break the rules, word will get out and I might not be able to sell or trade my wares next time I come to port. If no one wants to trade with me –”, he shrugged his shoulders, “I’ll be broke same as you. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll take the silk only – but for two shillings for the whole bolt, and not a farthing more.”
“Nay!” she shouted, holding onto the silk protectively. She could get more than what he was offering if she walked all the way to Canterbury and sold it on the road to other pedlars along the way. “I won’t do it.”
“Then we have no deal,” he growled. He turned and headed up the boarding plank and she might have considered following him and making one last attempt if she hadn’t heard Isaac calling to her from the shore.
“Muriel, come quickly! They’re going to confiscate our wares.”
“God’s eyes, no!” She shoved the silk back into her travel bag, and looked back to the man who still had her spindle of wool. She needed to get it back. It was her favorite spindle her father had made for her. She’d been using it for demonstration purposes only - to show him the spun wool. She’d never intended on selling it. Besides, he wasn’t buying – he was stealing it from her.
Her brother shouted for her again, and she knew she had to go to him right away. With her mother long gone, and now her father deceased as well, she was his protector. Isaac was her only family and she would never let anything happen to him. She picked up her skirts and ran down the pier to try to help him as well as save what little she had left in life right now.
Nicholas Vaughn, Lord of New Romney and Baron of the Cinque Ports, looked up from his conversation with the other barons as he caught sight of a woman on the docks. He knew she wasn’t a whore by the way she was dressed. She was much too covered up, having a mantle wrapped tightly around her, made of brown wool instead of the crimson color worn by whores. Her hair was pulled up and tucked under a linen coif that she had tied behind her head, and she had a travel bag slung over her shoulder with a bolt of cloth sticking out the top. This could only mean one thing. Trouble. Aye, trouble was brewing like a storm over the sea and he had to keep his eye on this one.
“Romney, what distracts you?” asked Baron John Montague from the Hastings Port, using Nicholas’s port as his name as was proper. John was the eldest of the three friends, and also had the biggest castle. He thought highly of himself, and while he was quick to strike with a sword, he was as slow as a turtle when the subject of remarrying came up since the death of his wife.