By Arrangement (25 page)

Workers were laying tiles on the hall floor when they entered, and David went over to speak with them. She explored the other chambers. Very little furniture had been left, and the building echoed with their footsteps. David explained that he would leave furnishing the house to her.

“We need to ride out onto the property,” he said as they reclaimed their horses. “There are some men awaiting me.”

The men worked half a mile away on an open field. Three of them stood around a big metal cylinder, narrower at the top than the bottom, propped and angled up on logs. A bulky man with black hair explained something to the others as they approached.

“What is that?” she asked.

“A toy. You will see how it works.”

He tied the horses to a tree and walked over to the men. She wrapped her cloak more tightly around her and sat down on the dried grass near a small fire that had been built. David and the others fiddled and fussed with the toy a long time, and the black-haired man kept crouching behind the low end of the cylinder and spying along its length. Her eyes followed the man's line of sight, and in the distance she saw an old wooden building.

David poured some sand in it from a leather bag and stuck a stick down after it. He lifted a large stone from in front of it. A mason had clearly worked it, for the stone was perfectly round. He rolled the stone into the cylinder.

He came over to the fire and lifted a flaming torch.

“Cover your ears,” he said. He lit a line of the sand snaking along the lower end of the toy.

A moment later the loudest clap of thunder that she had ever heard cracked the winter silence. Smoke spewed out of the cylinder and it jumped back. Across the deep field, a few seconds after the toy was fired, the farm building's roof burst into pieces.

She jumped up and crossed over to the smoking cylinder. The black-haired man drew the other two aside and began to explain something that sounded a lot like geometry.

“What is this?” she asked, peering into the hot hollow.

“The future. It is called a gonne.”

She walked along its length, and noted the stack of round stones nearby. “It is a siege machine, isn't it?”

“Aye, that it is.”

She knew more than she wanted about siege machines. As a child she had watched the towers and catapults built outside Harclow. She had seen the horrible damage that they wrought and had lived in fear of those flying missiles and baskets of fire. She looked at the farm building. Only the shells of its side walls remained. It had been old, and built of wood, but this toy possessed more force in hurling its small stones than any of the machines which she had seen at Harclow.

“Do you plan to make and sell these?”

“Nay. But they will be made by others. It is inevitable. I first saw them on my way home on my first trip. There was a demonstration near Pisa. They didn't work well, and never hit their mark then, but already they improve. They fascinate me, that is all. This one is for Edward. Other kings will have them, so he must.” He walked toward the horses. “I am going to check the building. You can come if you want to.”

She wasn't at all sure that she wanted to, but she went nonetheless.

She gazed at the tatters of the building. No wonder David did not want to be a knight. Of what use were armor and shields against war machines like this?

There were other buildings nearby, all neglected. This had once been a horse farm with many stables.

“I should tell you that this section of the property is not yours,” he explained as he dismounted.

She saw no signs of labor here. It appeared that David had kept the poorest portion for himself. “You need a field with old buildings to play with your toys?”

“Aye. And to collect that which makes them work.” He led the way into one of the stables.

The roof of this structure was in disrepair, and splotches of sunlight leaked through its holes. David went into one of the stalls and crouched down. He wiped his fingers across the dried dirt and lifted his hand. A sandy substance glittered.

“It is found in stables like this that have been used a long time, and other places where animals live. The powder that makes the machine work requires it. It is said that the secret was brought back overland from Cathay in the Far East. It has no English name, although some translate it to saltpeter.”

“Are those men back there from the King?”

“Two are. The other brought the machine from Italy.”

“Will Edward use it? Will he take it with him to France? To Bordeaux?”

He did not answer her. They remounted and rode back to the men who had already prepared the machine again. David spoke in Italian to the black-haired one and then led her away.

“I know that you overheard Edward in my study, Christiana,” he finally said. “You know, I'm sure, that you cannot repeat such things. Even when everyone else suspects and talks of it, you should pretend ignorance.”

It was true, then. She had heard the King mention Bordeaux and had seen the rolled parchment under his arm. It was one of those maps she had noticed that day in David's study. Her husband did not just deliver messages. He did other things for Edward as well. Much more dangerous things. Dangerous enough and important enough that the King told him about Bordeaux.

She prayed that now that Edward had chosen his
course, David would be out of it. He wasn't a knight or noble. It wasn't fair for the King to use him thus when he would see little profit and significant loss from such wars.

They approached the house from the rear. The tilers' wagon had left. A new horse was tethered by the side of the house, however, and a man stood beside it.

David stopped his horse. He gazed hard at the newcomer.

The stranger was a tall man with long white hair and a short beard. A dull brown cloak, no more than a shapeless mantle, hung to the ground. The horse beside him looked bony and old.

David dismounted and lifted her off her horse.

“Wait outside while I speak with this man.”

“It is cold.”

“I am sorry for it, but do not come in.”

They had been out most of the day, and the chill had long ago penetrated her cloak. “I will go up to the solar and you can use the hall,” she suggested.

“You are not to come into the house while he is here,” he ordered harshly. His gaze had not left the waiting man. “I insist that you obey me on this, my girl.”

His tone stunned her. She watched his absorbed attention with the figure by the house. His awareness of her had essentially disappeared. The withdrawal was so complete that she had never felt more separate from him than she did at that moment, not even the night when she first met him as a total stranger in his solar. This sudden indifference, contrasting so vividly with the constant attention that he had shown her since their wedding, sickened her heart.

Giving the stranger a more thorough examination, she strolled toward the garden.

David walked slowly toward the house, and with each step the eerie internal silence grew more absorbing. Scattered thoughts scrambled through his mind, and odd emotions welled inside his chest. Emotions that he could not afford to either acknowledge or examine now.

Nor could he afford to indulge himself in the usual fascination with the sound of Fortune's wheel turning yet again. He shook off the silence.

The man waited and watched. He stood too tall and proud to make the worker's cloak an effective disguise, but David doubted that anyone else had paid much attention.

He had expected this man eventually, but not today and not here. Oliver had received no report yet, for one thing. That must mean that he had come by way of a northern port, and not one along the southern or eastern coasts. A long detour, then, to ensure safety. It was the sort of refined and careful strategy that David could appreciate. He had come alone, too. Either he was very brave or very sure of himself. Probably both.

He tied the horses' reins to a post near the stable building and then walked over to the man. The white head rose as high as his own. Deep brown eyes regarded him carefully.

They did not greet each other but David suspected that the odd familiarity which he experienced was felt by the other, too.

“How did you find me?” David asked.

“Frans learned from its previous owner that you had acquired this property. I thought that you might bring your bride here. A beautiful girl, by the way. Worthy of her bloodline. Worthy of you.”

He ignored the compliment, except to note that it was
not one which a man like this would normally give a merchant. “Frans has a friendship with Lady Catherine? Is she one of yours? A watcher?”

The man hesitated and David had his answer. No doubt Lady Catherine would do anything for a price.

“You should have waited until my wife was not with me. I do not want her involved in any way.”

“I could not wait forever. I am here at great risk to myself. If you had left her side for a few hours …”

The man's voice drifted away and a full silence fell. It held for a long time. They faced each other, both knowing that whoever spoke first again would be at the disadvantage.

David calmly let the moments throb past. He had much more experience in waiting than his guest. A lifetime of it, in fact.

“Do you know who I am?” the man finally asked.

“I know who you are. I assume that you seek what Frans sought, and since I told him I would not help, I wonder about the reason for this meeting.”

The man reached into the front of his mantle and withdrew a folded piece of parchment. “This is one of yours. It was found amongst the papers of Jacques van Artevelde.”

“Your man and I have already discussed my relationship with Jacques. My letters to him were matters of trade, nothing else.”

“His relationship with you and others like you got him killed.”

Jacques van Artevelde, the leader of Ghent's pro-English burghers, had become a friend. His death last year at the hands of a mob had been more than a political loss for David, and he resented this offhand reference to it.

It went without saying that the Count of Flanders had been behind that mob's murder. Had this other man been involved, too?

“We met for business and nothing more,” David said blandly.

“Let us skip the games, Master David. As Frans explained, we know about you. Not everything, I'm sure. But enough. Besides, it was not the content of this letter that made him bring it to me. It was the seal.” His long fingers played with the parchment. “An unusual seal. Three entwined serpents. How did you come to use it?”

“It was on a piece of jewelry that my mother owned. It was as useful a device as any other.”

“This item of jewelry. Was it a ring? With a gray stone?”

David let the silence pulse as he absorbed this astounding question and its unexpected implications.

“Aye. A ring.”

The man sighed audibly. He stepped closer and scrutinized David's face. “Aye, I can see it. The eyes, but not their color. His were brown. The mouth. Even your voice.”

David met that piercing gaze with his own. “I, of course, have no way of knowing if you are right or if you lie. You want something from me. It is in your interest to claim a resemblance.”

“I do not come here to trick you into treason.”

“Merely meeting with you might be construed as treason. Your presence here compromises me. You should have given me a choice.”

“It was essential that I see you. I had to know. Surely you understand that.”

“I'm not sure that I do.”

“Why did you never come to us?”

“I had no need of you, and you none of me.”

“We have need of you now.”

David examined the man's serious, expectant expression. “You must want this very badly, to appeal to a stranger.”

Shrewd eyes met David's own. “Aye, I want it badly. I want it for my country but I want it for myself, too. You are not such a stranger. I have made it my business to learn about you. Your accomplishments in trade will not satisfy you much longer. Already those small victories seem thin and shallow, do they not? Especially compared to the politics of monarchies.”

David glanced away, knowing even as he did so that the reflex signaled a certain defeat.

He gestured for the man to follow him into the house.

Christiana huddled in her cloak on the bench under a tree in the garden. She was not at all pleased to be stuck out here while David held this secret meeting. She was even less pleased with the way he had dismissed her, and his tone when he ordered her obedience.

That tall man's presence had obviously surprised him, and that explained some of it. Still, she doubted that this meeting had anything to do with trade or finance. The stranger was no merchant, despite his simple cloak and humble horse. He could no more hide his true status than he could hide his height. She had recognized him for what he was. Any time, any place, nobles knew each other when they met.

They were talking a very long time. Her hands felt a little numb from the raw chill, and she wrapped them in the billows of her cloak.

If David didn't come and get her soon, she was going to disobey him and go inside. It was one thing to be
a dutiful wife, and quite another to sit out here and freeze like an idiot who didn't know when to come in from the cold.

She stomped her feet and huddled smaller. She tried to distract herself by thinking about that strange invention David had shown her earlier. For someone who didn't like knights and war, David had a peculiar fascination with siege machines.

Her eyes scanned the house, looking for some sign of movement. They were probably in the solar in front. From her vantage point she could see the rump of the stranger's horse tied by the side of the building.

David had ordered her to stay outside. He hadn't said where.

She got up and walked through the garden, heading to the sorry-looking animal. Not much of a horse for a nobleman. Perhaps it was someone down on his luck seeking a loan.

A bag lay over the animal's hind quarters. Soothing him with her hands and voice, she eyed the loose flap.

She really shouldn't. It was definitely none of her business.