The Love Knot (62 page)

Catrin held her breath. Oliver withdrew and rolled on to his back. Rosamund's breathing resumed its regular pattern.

To make amends, Catrin snuggled up to Oliver and laid her arm over him.

He reached down for her hand and tucked it against his breast with a drowsy murmur of contentment.

Catrin was tired too, but she lay awake for a while longer savouring the peace, the sweet scent of herbs and new hay, the sense of security and well-being. She wanted to hold the moment, to fix it in her memory, to bind it in a charm.

As she fell asleep, her other hand clutched Ethel's woven knot on its leather cord around her neck.

Louis sat in a corner of The Mermaid nursing his wine and watching the clientele. For the most part they were sailors, or men with the scarred, weather-beaten countenances of soldiers. Men like himself, except for the fickle roll of fortune's dice.

Louis was still handsome. The Holy Land had whittled the boyishness from his smile and salted his hair with grey, but it had enhanced rather than diminished his looks. Playful had become dangerous and, as always, he attracted women like a magnetic stone attracted iron.

He looked down at his hands, at the clipped nails and tanned brown fingers. These days he examined them often to reassure himself that there was nothing to see, that no one but himself knew of the legacy he had brought home from the Holy Land, although he had come to the conclusion that there was nothing in the least holy about it. To the contrary, it was the domain of the Devil.

His descent into hell had been the bequeathing of the woman he had met by the pool of Siloam. He had taken her body, her silk robe clinging, diaphanous with the sweat of lust. He had dwelt in her house, luxuriated in every pleasure and vice imaginable; gorged himself upon the wealth she earned from other men. She was a courtesan, the midnight consort of the wealthy officials and prelates who served the King of Jerusalem. She had almond-shaped dark eyes outlined in kohl, honey-golden skin and a lithe, sinuous body that could wrap and tighten around a man like a snake. Now she was nothing but dust and bones. Her name was

Jasmine. She had given him everything - including his own slow death.

He clenched his hands into fists, but that made his knuckle bones gleam beneath the skin, reminding him all too potently of his fate. He snatched his cup and gulped down the wine. As a matter of habit he had ordered the best that The Mermaid had to offer, but he would not have noticed had it been vinegar.

The door swung open and Ewan thrust into the crowded alehouse, ushering before him a nondescript man of middle years with sandy hair and a sparse yellow beard.

'About time,' Louis hissed beneath his breath, and signalled one of the serving maids to bring another jug of wine.

Ewan brought the man to Louis's trestle and was dismissed by a flick of the lean brown fingers. 'You are Adam the apothecary?'

The maid set a fresh jug on the trestle and a second drinking cup. Louis paid her with a glance and a smile from habit.

'Aye,' the man nodded cautiously. 'What's your business with me?'

'A remedy.' Louis poured the rich red wine and pushed the new cup across to his guest. 'I have heard that you are skilled in making medicines.'

'That I am.' Adam took a drink from his cup and pinched his upper lip to remove drops from his moustache. His light blue eyes were wary. 'A remedy for what?'

'I need to have your oath of secrecy first.'

Adam blinked several times rapidly. 'That will add to the cost of my services.'

'I can pay.' Louis fished in his pouch. Whereas before he had brought out a common silver halfpenny for the girl now, under cover of his cupped palm so that only the apothecary should see, he displayed a bezant of solid gold.

The lids fluttered like a butterfly beating at a window.

'One of these now, one when you've made the potion.'

Adam reached out. Louis snatched his hand away and closed his fist over the gold. 'But only if you swear to hold your tongue.'

'I would be mad not to swear,' Adam said with a breathless laugh.

'Aye, you would, because the alternative to you holding your tongue is me cutting it out on the edge of my sword.' Louis tapped his hilt for emphasis.

The apothecary paled and swallowed, but greed overcame caution. 'I swear,' he said, and held out his hand.

Louis palmed him the coin, a fierce look in his dark eyes. 'Then you are committed,' he said, and took another long drink of his wine as if it was red lifeblood. Then he banged the cup down on the trestle. 'It's not for me, you understand, I'm acting on behalf of a friend.'

'Of course.' Adam inclined his head and stroked his pouch where the gold now rested.

Still reluctant at giving his fate into another's hand, Louis produced a scrap of vellum from his pouch. 'These are the ingredients,' he said with a frown. He had no idea what they were for he could neither read nor write. He had purchased the remedy from a fellow traveller on the ship home, who had assured him that the mixture worked on a whole range of diseases.

'As a remedy for what?'

'Scrofula.' Louis forced himself not to rub his wrist where there was a patch of lichen-like white skin, frilled with red at its edges. Scrofula was acceptable. Leprosy was not. Leprosy would make him an outcast, dependent on charity for his existence. It would eat away his good looks and there would be no one but other lepers to see. When they rolled him unceremoniously in his grave, perhaps many suffering years from now, it would not be as Louis le Loup, leader of men, or Louis le Colps, lover of women. It would not be as Louis de Grosmont, confidant of kings, or even Lewis of Chepstow, grandson of a groom. It would be as Louis the Leper, despised outcast.

'Ah, scrofula,' the apothecary repeated, with an exaggerated nod to show that he was playing along but not in the least fooled. He scanned the list of ingredients, murmuring to himself and nodding. 'Pennywort, sorrel, St John's wort, grey lichen . . . yes, I have all those.' His voice fell to a mumble as he took in the other ingredients, nodding at each one. But then suddenly he stopped and a look of utter revulsion crossed his face.

'This I do not have and I cannot obtain it for you,' he said.

'Why not, what is it?' Louis leaned forward, panic tightening in his chest.

'The fat from a stillborn infant, rendered down and used to carry the rest of the ingredients.'

Louis felt a brief queasiness in his gut, but a gulp of wine and his desperate need quelled his own sensibilities. 'And if I obtain it for you?'

The apothecary swallowed and shook his head. 'It is against all Christian law. If either of us was discovered, we would be hanged from the nearest gibbet.'

'We won't be discovered. You need have no fear. I will get the ingredient - all you will have to do is mix it with the others. The risk will be all mine, and you will be handsomely paid.'

'I ... I do not know.'

'Then give me back the gold and I will find someone else who is willing.'

Adam touched his pouch and frowned and twitched. But he could not bring his hand to reach inside and throw the money back. 'It is wrong,' he said.

'Why?' Louis shrugged. 'The infant doesn't need its fat if it is dead.'

'Where are you going to find a midwife willing to risk herself too?'

'God in heaven, man, have you seen it out there?' Louis threw his arm wide. 'Prince Henry's army, Gloucester's army, all their allies. Where there are fighting men there are whores, and where there are whores there are midwives. I'll find one.' He held out his hand. 'Now, my gold returned, or your final agreement.'

The apothecary gnawed his lower lip and finally clasped Louis's hand for the briefest of moments. 'Agreed,' he said stiffly. 'Bring me the ingredient when you have it.' Looking sick, he rose to his feet, surreptitiously wiping his palm on his thigh.

When he had gone, Ewan came and sat at the trestle to finish the jug of wine with his master. Louis had told him nothing about his ailment and Ewan had never sought to probe, on the principle that thinking beyond orders caused nothing but worry and moral dilemmas.

'Where do we go after this?' he asked. 'Are you still planning to hire out with Prince Henry?'

Louis raised the cup to his lips, drank and swallowed. 'Tomorrow,' he said. 'I'll not get further than a hurling in the dust if I go to recruit smelling of wine. The first impression is the one that lingers. Go, do what you want with the rest of the day.'

Ewan grinned wolfishly. 'If it's all the same, I'll stay here.'

'As you please.' Louis tossed a silver penny on the table and, leaving The Mermaid, went out to wander Bristol's bustling heart, a place in which he had not set foot since he was a young garrison soldier of one-and-twenty, bringing his bride to buy fripperies and small items for their home.

Jesu, it was so long ago. A lifetime. A lifetime of wandering and squandering. What would it have been like if he could only have set his will to the grindstone at Wickham? Would it have rewarded him with satisfaction and even greater honours, or would he have grown to hate it? The latter, he thought. Wealth and status he enjoyed, but not the responsibilities which came with them. He had spent most of his life cultivating the former and shedding the latter.

He made his way to the wharves to watch the vessels loading and unloading their cargoes - wines from Gascony and Burgundy, bundles of Irish flax and five Irish mares -and trading barges from upriver with cargoes of iron from the forges in the forest. He inhaled the sharp, salt air and savoured the textures of life, an overwhelming anger growing within him.

He was a part of the great flow and he had no intention of being stranded above the tideline and left to rot by the disease consuming him.

'Do you think ill of me?' Geoffrey FitzMar looked sidelong at Catrin.

'Why should I?' They were sitting on a bench facing the herb garden that lay at the side of the dwelling. Philip of Gloucester had given Geoffrey the house to live in and an income of rents from three others in recognition of his services.

It was pleasant and sunny, sheltered from the wind. Eight children ranging in age from twelve to three years old, her own among them, romped in the orchard at the foot of the garth. With them was a young woman, neatly dressed, plain of feature, but with a lovely smile brightening her face as she threw a ball for one of the girls to catch. Her laugh rang out, clear and happy.

'It is not so long since Edon died. Perhaps you think that I do not respect her memory by marrying again so soon.'

Catrin watched her small sons twinkle in and out of the trees. 'It is three years,' she murmured. 'What you do is your own business. And no, I think that you honour her memory by doing as you have.'

'Truly?' He looked at her anxiously.

'Truly.' She gave his hand a squeeze and smiled. Most men would not care what others thought. Most men had hides so tough that it took a spear to pierce them, but not Geoffrey. It was probably the reason why he and Oliver were friends. There were times when each irritated the other beyond bearing, but there were bonds of similarity too. 'Look at all the years that Oliver wasted in recrimination and mourning. Better to grieve and then to move on.'

He nodded. 'I try, but I still do grieve for Edon, you know, even though I have Miriel - and it hurts.'

'I miss her too,' Catrin murmured. 'She was always part of my return to Bristol, and now she's not here.'