Canterbury Papers (5 page)

I watched the profile of my young friend in the rising and falling light of the fire. His full lips were pressed, his throat working.

“Is your mother still living?” I asked in the silence that followed.

“No, she passed over. It has been two years now.” His voice altered with the memory. “I never saw her after my last visit, when she told me the story of young Count Arthur.”

“Now, let's see: Arthur would be eighteen summers if he were still alive. What year were you born, Roland?”

My question caught him by surprise. “I? I have twenty winters this year.”

I noticed a movement by Tom of Caedwyd, shifting as if to rise.

“Your Grace, it grows late. I do not think further talk tonight will add to our strength tomorrow. And we have a ride after Dover still ahead of us.”

“Why, Tom,” I said, “does it make you uncomfortable that I reflect on the birth year of our young knight?” I forced a smile.

“No, Your Grace. Not exactly uncomfortable. But I've learned in life that certain things in the past are best left dead and buried there.”

“An unfortunate choice of words,” I said, sharp and quick. Tom pulled back as if stung. Roland shot out of his own private reverie. “What are you talking about?”

“Tom is concerned that I'm going to remember a young lad I knew who was born in the same year as you and who died soon after. And he is sore afraid that, in remembering this young lad, I will become womanish, which is to say maudlin and weepy. Is that not so, Tom?” I baited him without mercy, my breath short, a stone in my chest.

“Your Grace, you know I…” Tom, flustered, broke off.

“You what?” I was relentless.

“I know your feelings. I would do anything if all that was done could be undone. But it cannot. The
baban
is gone.” His words at the end were so quiet they were almost imperceptible. As if a soft rain of words could wash away the memory of a child.

“What is he talking about?” Roland repeated. Completely absorbed in our exchange, he had forgotten his poor, dead mother and the mysterious death of his young Count Arthur.

“He's becoming sentimental, remembering a time when we were both younger and were brought together around … an unfortunate experience. There was a child at court, at King Henry's court,” I amended watching Tom wince, “who was quite loved.”

“And?” Roland spread his hands upward, tilting his head.

“And the child died and was taken away.” I tried to say it without any feeling at all, just to show Tom, but found my voice dropping into a whisper, as if it obeyed something stronger than my own will.

“But who was the child, and why did it matter?” A flash of anger showed. “Many children die and are taken away, or disappear altogether in war, and even their mothers don't know what's become of them. It's devilish hard for anyone to grow up at all in these times.” He sounded so personally offended that it almost drew a smile from me.

But the nut of what he said startled both Tom and me, and our eyes locked. His flat statement had pulled me out of the vortex of feeling that threatened to overwhelm me and put me quickly back in the present.

I rose from the cushions in front of the fire, aided by the hand Tom reached out to me. “You are absolutely right, Sir Roland. With all of the war that has gone on in France and England these eighty years, it's a wonder any of us are left at all to tell of it. And that's the thought I will carry with me to my chamber. It grows late. Tom has the right of it. We must to bed if we leave at dawn.”

I picked up the candle on the table, touching Tom's hand for the barest moment. In turning, my eye caught a commotion at the far end of the public room, near the door, which had suddenly been thrown open. The gale, gathering outside for hours, was now in full force. It washed into the room with the ferocity of a mad lion.

But it was not the storm that widened my eyes. A group of men, heavily cloaked against the rain and withal soaked by it, flooded into the room. They were obviously noble, for even in their dire, wet straits, they were accompanied by a page who carried the coat of arms of the group's leader. The entire band of a dozen men passed quickly through the commons area and disappeared into a room off to the side. The double oak doors, which had swung wide for them, closed almost as soon as they had opened. But just before the page holding the soaked banner disappeared from sight, I caught a good look at the insignia.

“Good Christ's bones,” I murmured, rather to myself.

“What ken ye?” Tom was at my elbow, alert and present, the emotional exchange of the past minutes now forgotten.

“That's the coat of arms of my uncle Robert's house,” I said, still blinking.

“The Duke of Orléans?” Tom breathed inward sharply. “What's he doing in this place? And on such a night as this?”

“He'll probably ask me the same,” I said, gazing at the closed doors. “I'd best have a good story ready.” I leaned toward Tom. “My father's brother is no man's fool.”

Y
ou'll not be talking to him?” Tom's bushy eyebrows flew up.

“Mais certes.”
I turned to him.

“What, as you put it so concisely, is he doing in this place? And on such a night, indeed! I think we should know, don't you? It may even have some bearing on our journey for Queen Eleanor. Either these knights have just come from Dover or they plan to travel there. Why make such a perilous journey in this storm? They must have urgent business. And what was the Duke of Orléans doing in England at all?”

“I'll go with you, then,” Tom said with resolution. But his reservations were etched on his face in an accumulation of new worry lines. He was not looking forward to explaining to the Duke of Orléans why his royal niece was sitting in the public rooms of an inn in a rough sea town with only himself and three other knights for protection and two of those worthy men not even present, distracted at the moment by the gaming circle at the far end of the room.

“Tom.” I pressed back a smile as I laid my hand on his arm. “Trust me. It is better that I meet my good uncle alone. I think I can carry it off.” His crestfallen look overlaid his worry lines, giving his dear face an almost comical look. I added, “Never fear. I will tell him that you are here and I am under your protection while I travel. But until I know what he does here with these men, I do not want to put you in an awkward place.”

Roland, who was standing a bit apart, still thinking, no doubt on our conversation about survival, had missed Tom's and my exchange. He moved toward me with alacrity when I beckoned, a frown and pursed lips signaling his return to the present.

“I bid you good night, Sir Roland. We leave early in the morning, if there is a clear sky. I hope to be at Canterbury by sundown two days hence.”

And without further word, leaving Tom to explain, I walked away from both of them toward the oak doors. I do not know what I would have done if the doors had been barred. It would have been a magnificent embarrassment for me to have to seek help in gaining entrance to the room that had absorbed my uncle and his party. Fortunately for my fine sense of drama, they opened easily, and I passed through them as if I were an archangel.

Inside the room the innkeeper had already made the ducal group comfortable. A generous fire blazed in the hearth, and the men clustered around it noisily, warming their hands as menservants passed among them with goblets of mulled burgundy. I could smell the spice in the air, along with the wet wool of discarded cloaks.

Duke Robert stood to the side of the group. I took in his position before I moved forward. He was in front of a table with papers spread out and conferring with two men, whose heads were bent to listen. He stood out in the group not only by the colors he wore but by the straight Capet back that caused him to rise above other men in his height.

I had entered with some flair, flinging wide the doors. Otherwise what was the point? If I had crept in like a mouse, it would have taken some time to be noticed. This way, when the doors banged the walls behind me, I had the attention of the entire group.

“Who comes thus?” My uncle Robert's head lifted at the noise. He was ever a dramatic man himself. “We sent for no women servants.”

I walked directly toward him, stopping on the far side of the table. In my travel clothes, and without the customary veil of the court, I suppose I looked every inch the servant. I leaned across the table, propping myself on my hands and thrusting my face forward. I thought he could not fail to recognize me when he saw my face.

Unfortunately, he did not. “What do you want, woman, to enter our private quarters in this manner?”

“Uncle, do you not know me?” I stood back, shaking my head with impatience. He strained to see. I had forgotten his growing nearsightedness.

“Princesse
Alaïs?”

“Yes. You surprise me, Uncle. I am your only surviving niece. I would have thought you would recognize me.”

“Alaïs!” He came around the table now, his momentary irritation vanishing, as I knew it would. He had ever been fond of me, since I was a child.

He embraced me before speaking again, and I must say I felt for a moment the safety of the power of my house, which in my present guise was denied me, at least in public.

“What are you doing in this godforsaken place?” He held me at arm's length to look at me. “Why are you in these common clothes? Whom are you traveling with? How did you find me?” So like my peripatetic uncle Robert.

“Softly, Uncle! I cannot answer all at once.”

He led me to a chair by the fire, a much more comfortable abode than I had left in the public room. But then, the innkeeper did not know me as a
princesse
of France.

“And I will ask you the same,” I continued. “What do you here in this obscure inn with so few men and on such a dark night?”

“We have just come from England.” My eyebrows raised before I could think, and he noticed. He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the Channel. “I had ordinary business there. And this inn is not obscure if one is traveling the Channel. Indeed, it is all that is open in this village on this stormy night.”

“But why cross the Channel on such a night? Surely no business is worth that risk?” I appeared to jest. In truth, I did wonder what business of my father's brother was so compelling.

“I have come from Canterbury,” he said, as if more information was called for. “I had to confer there and now must make haste back to Blois. There is another important meeting tomorrow, and I—” He broke off, seemingly aware that he was saying more than needed.

“But what of you?” As if he suddenly bethought himself of my situation. “Where is your entourage? Where are your servants?”

“Oh, Uncle.” I invoked the smile that always pleased him, since I was a small child. “I fancy a swifter and more private way of moving. An entourage may get one private rooms,”—I gestured about us—“but for a woman it entails too much bowing and scraping, and too little freedom.”

“You always did have a reckless streak in you,” my uncle commented, not without a note of grudging admiration. “But what is your purpose in all this freedom?”

“Oddly enough, Uncle, I go to Canterbury, whence you have just come.” I left a space for elaboration from my uncle, but he did not take the opportunity.

“Canterbury? How odd. What is your business in that grim place?”

I assumed the proper air of piety. “I make a pilgrimage to the martyr's tomb.”

At this my uncle threw his head back and laughed heartily.

“Uncle!” I said, alarmed. If this was the response from my uncle, how would my pilgrimage story be received at Canterbury?

“You hated Becket. You are notorious for saying in public you never thought he was a saint at all. Everyone knows that.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, light from the crackling fire playing across his face. It caught a heavy black onyx jewel embedded in a ring on the hand that he raised to his face, to prop his chin. “What is the true reason for your journey?”

I considered my options. They were not many. I decided quickly to tell the truth … well, a version of the truth.

“I have agreed to undertake an errand for old Queen Eleanor,” I said.

“At Canterbury?” Duke Robert's hooded eyes opened a little wider. “Whatever for?”

How had I fallen into this trap? I was either faint with fatigue or not half as clever as I thought myself.

“She has need of some letters that are stored there,” I mumbled, casting about in my own mind as I spoke for some safer topic. “Were you meeting with the abbot?” I asked this last partly in desperation to turn the conversation but also thinking to pick up some clues that would allow me to make my arrival at Canterbury more plausible.

“No, I had other business,” he said tersely. “And Hugh Walter is not there at the present time.” A frown creased his wide forehead and narrowed his almond-shaped Capet eyes. The mention of his own business had distracted him from mine, at least for the moment.

“Is he not?” My voice registered my true surprise. I had expected that Abbot Hugh Walter, a diplomat of the first order, would welcome me. He had many ties to the royal houses of both England and France.

“He is in Rome, pleading the abbeys' case against King John.”

“Ah, yes. I have heard John is creating trouble by pressing the abbeys. But what can you expect from a man who murdered his own nephew?”

“Alaïs, have a care!” My uncle's tone was sharp. “You may say that here in the privacy of our room, but do not think for a moment you can say such things with impunity on the other side of the water.”

I tried to look properly contrite, but he shook his head. “Heed me, niece. A sharp wit may amuse, but if it is recklessly used, it can snap back on the user, like a whip.”