The Bloodstained Throne (19 page)

‘Brother Lucian! You are still alive! What a lovely surprise! It is me, Philippa.’

All Geoffrey wanted to do was deliver his news to Galfridus and lie down. He did not want to make polite conversation with Philippa and Edith, both of whom were sweeping through the hall, clearly intent on enjoying a warm welcome. He felt what little energy he had left drain away at the prospect of their silly, prattling company.

‘Lady Philippa!’ cried Ulfrith in delight. ‘How do you come to be here?’

‘More bloody Normans,’ muttered Magnus. ‘And women, no less, so they can breed others, until they swarm over the Earth like ravenous locals . . . locusts. I am going to sit down. I have no inclination for the empty-headed clatter of benches.’

‘The clatter of benches?’ asked Juhel, bemused.

‘Wenches,’ snapped Magnus. ‘I said the
chatter of wenches
.’

Philippa ignored the churlish Saxon and fixed her happy grin on the others. Edith was dressed in a splendid cloak made from thick, red wool and adorned with elegant embroidery. By contrast, Philippa wore a simple black gown that looked as if it had been borrowed from a nun. Absently, Geoffrey wondered at the disparity in the standard of clothes they had been lent.

‘I came ashore a long way from anyone else,’ Lucian was explaining. ‘And was obliged to flee inland when the storm struck. I was lucky I chanced to meet these others, or I might still be wandering. It is a very dangerous part of the world, with violent weather, marauding pirates and unfriendly inhabitants. I lost
all
my gold.’

‘Did you?’ asked Edith sympathetically. ‘Even your cross?’

‘Everything,’ said Lucian, looking away, as though the loss was too much to bear. ‘I may be able to beg funds from La Batailge, but I doubt they will be enough to keep me in the style to which I am accustomed.’

Immediately, Edith removed a ring from her finger and pressed it into his hand. ‘Then you must take this. You can repay me when you are safely home.’

Lucian accepted it, and there were tears in his eyes when he spoke. ‘You are a dear, kind lady. I shall certainly repay you – and I shall say masses for your soul every Sunday for a month.’

‘I doubt that,’ murmured Roger to Geoffrey. ‘He would not know the words.’

‘You were very wrong to leave us with Richer de Laigle,’ said Philippa scoldingly, pouting at Geoffrey. ‘Our virtue was in grave peril, and we were in constant fear of seduction.’

‘It must have been dreadful,’ murmured Juhel. Geoffrey glanced at him and saw humour gleam in his dark eyes for the first time since Werlinges.

Edith regarded him coolly. ‘I hope you are not being satiric with us, Master Juhel. That would be shabby after all we have been through to defend our honour.’

Lucian pressed her hand to his lips. ‘God bless you, dear lady. Juhel meant no offence and, like all of us, has been out of sorts since we happened across that poor village. I was obliged to pray for them, and now there is a splinter in my knee.’

‘You are a monk,’ said Roger, fixing him with an unfriendly eye. ‘You should be used to kneeling and praying. What sort of abbey is Bath that you are not?’

‘A very fine one,’ said Lucian coolly. He turned his back on the knight. ‘But, sweet lady, how do
you
come to be here, when Sir Geoffrey says he left you at Pevenesel?’

‘De Laigle is a knave, and his wife is almost as bad,’ replied Edith. ‘Still, we managed to learn from a guard that Galfridus de St Carileff is in charge here. He is my cousin, so it was only right that I should appeal to
him
for sanctuary. He was delighted to receive me.’

‘He was,’ agreed Philippa. She turned to Geoffrey with a smile that made Ulfrith bristle. ‘I told you I would prefer a nobleman’s court to a convent, but I was wrong. De Laigle’s household was populated by idle lechers, all far too drunk to know what they were doing. If I am to be ravished, I would at least like my seducer to remember me in the morning.’

‘Philippa!’ exclaimed Edith. ‘You should not say such things! They may believe you.’

Philippa’s puzzled expression made it abundantly clear that she had been speaking in earnest.

‘I reburied Vitalis in a lovely deep grave,’ blurted Ulfrith, eager to join the discussion and be noticed. ‘I did it for you, although it was a terrible task.’

‘I was going to ask Galfridus to do that, since de Laigle was never sober enough,’ said Edith. ‘Now you have saved me – and him – the trouble. It was very kind of you, Ulfrith.’

Philippa’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Poor Vitalis. I miss him so very much.’

‘Yes,’ said Edith, holding her hand with affectionate sympathy. ‘I know you do.’

Her response suggested
she
did not, although Geoffrey could not begin to fathom why he felt the remark was important. The blackness was beginning to seep into his vision again, and he desperately wanted to rest. While Ulfrith beamed his delight at their gratitude, Geoffrey took the squire’s flask, hoping water might render him more alert, given that the abbey’s ale was a powerful brew. The contents were warm and brackish, but he felt better once he had swallowed it all.

‘We both loved him,’ said Edith, apparently realizing that she might have said something inappropriate. ‘We both made our vows to him in the sight of God, and we kept them well.’

‘You both married him at the same time?’ asked Juhel, smothering a startled grin.

‘I was a year later,’ said Philippa, sniffing. ‘But in the same church.’

‘This is distressing her,’ said Edith, watching her friend in concern. ‘We must not talk about it any longer. You are as bad as that spy Paisnel with your questions about our home life.’

‘Paisnel was not a spy,’ said Juhel. The amusement was gone. ‘He was a clerk for the Bishop of Ribe.’

‘Actually, I am not so sure about that,’ said Lucian. ‘I have spent a lot of time in that Bishop’s court and I never met
or
heard of Paisnel there. If he was a clerk, he was a very junior one.’

‘I
knew
he was exaggerating his importance!’ exclaimed Philippa. ‘Senior clerks’ names appear all over the place in legal writs, but Paisnel’s never did. And we know that because Vitalis’s personal clerk told us so, although the poor man was drowned when
Patrick
went down . . .’

‘Paisnel was very familiar with Normandy, though,’ said Magnus, rubbing his head. ‘So I expect he was a spy for the Duke. He will have heard about
me
and will be eager to capitalize on my imminent victory over his brother the Usurper. But he can hope, because I am not rewarding any Normans – not
ever
.’

‘Except me,’ said Roger. ‘Bishop of Salisbury, remember?’

‘Only if you lend us some money,’ said Harold pleasantly. ‘But you may be right about Paisnel, Magnus. I heard there might be a spy on the ship you were going to take.’

Geoffrey did not know what to think about Paisnel.
Had
he been murdered because he was the Duke’s spy? And if Juhel had dispatched him, was it because of Paisnel’s dubious occupation or simply an argument between friends? But it was all too complex for him to untangle, and he was grateful it was none of his affair. His attention returned to the discussion.

‘But how do you come to be here
before
us, Lady Philippa?’ Ulfrith was asking.

Philippa gave a tight smile, evidently wishing someone more important than a squire would show concern for her welfare. ‘We left to take refuge with Galfridus the very day you abandoned us with de Laigle. We were surprised when we did not meet you on the highway; our guards said you must have taken the slower and more dangerous route across the marshes.’

Roger shot Magnus a withering look, but the latter merely shrugged. ‘We were obliged to go that way to collect the horses. Besides, the pirates might have been watching the other route.’

‘Captain Fingar and his crew?’ asked Edith. ‘We did not see them. But we were escorted by several of de Laigle’s knights, all on horseback, and probably represented too formidable a target.’

‘Were you much battered by the storm?’ asked Ulfrith solicitously. He tried to take Philippa’s hand but was immediately pushed away.

‘Terribly,’ she replied, addressing her comments to Geoffrey. This did not escape Ulfrith’s notice, and some of the joy faded from his face. ‘But we arrived before it became too violent, and we have been here since Wednesday.’

‘Is he?’ Geoffrey asked. He sensed that everyone was regarding him oddly, and he struggled to put his question in a form Philippa might understand, wishing his mind was sharper. ‘Is Galfridus Edith’s cousin?’

‘Yes, of course,’ replied Edith indignantly. ‘And learning of his new post was a great excuse to be away from de Laigle. So now here we all are.’

‘But what have
you
been doing?’ asked Philippa, reaching out to touch Geoffrey’s scratched face. He was aware of Ulfrith’s dismay at the gesture, but she had removed her hand before he thought to push it away. ‘Did
you
meet Fingar and his men?’

‘Yes,’ said Lucian. ‘They came at us with whirling swords and cudgels. I am no fighting man, so I dropped to my knees and prayed for deliverance. But even so, we were almost killed.’

Philippa released an appalled shriek, a sound that drew admonishing glares from several elderly monks.

Edith wrinkled her nose at them and turned back to Lucian. ‘We were very worried about
you
.’

Lucian gave a courtly bow. ‘Would you like to hear about my adventures? Then we shall sit over there, where we will not be the object of disapproval by my prudish brethren.’

‘How fickle she is,’ muttered Roger, as Lucian escorted Edith away. ‘She was grabbing at me like a tavern wench not three days ago and now she shifts her amorous attentions to him.’

‘You were the one doing the groping, not her,’ retorted Geoffrey. ‘Will you save me from Philippa, before Ulfrith attacks me again? I do not feel well, and if he tries it, I might not be able to resist the impulse to skewer him.’

Roger tapped the side of his nose. ‘Leave it to me, lad. I will put her off you once and for all.’

‘Be discreet,’ warned Geoffrey. He was seized with the notion that he should not have asked.

‘Here,’ said Roger loudly, ‘did you know that Geoffrey carries a pox caught from whores? His wife says he should abstain from other women until he is cured.’

For a moment, Geoffrey was not sure he had heard correctly, but then he started to laugh. ‘You are discretion personified,’ he said, though Roger clearly did not see the joke.

‘Well,’ drawled Juhel, wide-eyed, ‘I feel better for knowing that! But Galfridus does not need us all to tell him about Werlinges, so if you will excuse me, I shall go to the guesthouse.’

He bowed and sauntered away.

Philippa’s eyes narrowed as she watched Juhel leave the hall. ‘He is sly and wicked, and do not forget what I told you, Sir Geoffrey – he is a killer. Moreover, Edith asked him to write her father a letter on the ship, but when she asked one of La Batailge’s monks to read it back to her, it was nothing but meaningless symbols. Juhel had deceived her – charged her a penny for a document that was nothing but gibberish.’

‘Why did she hire Juhel to write it?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘Why not Lucian? Or me?’

‘Lucian had no pen and parchment to hand and told Juhel to oblige instead – well, he
is
a man who makes his living from the stuff, after all.’

‘Do you still have it?’ asked Geoffrey, thinking about Paisnel’s documents. Did this mean he could
not
read them and had no idea what they contained? Or that he knew they were important, but was unable to decipher them?

‘Edith threw it away, but I retrieved it,’ said Philippa. ‘I am going to show it to her father when he arrives, so he can get the penny back.’

She pulled something from the front of her gown, leaning forward provocatively. By the time his bemused wits had registered that he should look away before Ulfrith noticed, it was too late.

‘I was looking at the letter,’ he said, before reminding himself that he did not need to justify his actions to a servant. He took another deep breath and wondered why his mind and body were so out of step with each other. Was his injury more serious than he thought? He clumsily took the document Philippa proffered, then turned it this way and that as he attempted to stop it swimming before his eyes.

‘Christ’s blood!’ he muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes hard.

‘It looks like a neat hand to me,’ said Roger, who would not know a good one from a bad.

‘It
is
neat,’ agreed Geoffrey. ‘But these are random symbols, not letters.’ He tried to pass it back, but Philippa moved forward at the same time, and his hand brushed the bare skin of her bosom.

‘Stop!’ cried Ulfrith, shocked and angry. ‘She is a lady, and this is a monastery! Besides, you have a pox. You should not touch her.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Geoffrey, quite sincere. He realized he was addressing Ulfrith, when he had meant to speak to Philippa. He rubbed his face again. ‘Lord! What is wrong with me?’

‘Well, the pox, presumably,’ said Harold helpfully. ‘It is said to make men rave.’

‘Keep the letter,’ said Philippa, pressing it into Geoffrey’s hand. ‘Perhaps
you
can demand an explanation and get our penny back.’

‘Is it true?’ asked Magnus. ‘Is there pox among English whores? I shall put an end to
that
when I am king.’

‘How?’ asked Roger keenly. ‘By monitoring brothels? I know a lot about such places and will act as official advisor, if you like.’

‘Lord, I am thirsty – it must be all that seawater I swallowed,’ said Magnus, drinking more ale. ‘But I
shall
appoint you Whoremaster, Sir Roger. It will suit you better than Bishop of Salisbury.’

‘No,’ said Geoffrey, not wanting Roger to accept posts from an enemy of the King when there were witnesses. ‘He will not take it.’