The Nun's Tale (28 page)

It required considerable noise on Tildy’s part to wake them in the morning, and Owen had only just finished dressing when one of the archbishop’s grooms arrived, leading a fine mount. Lucie watched Owen strap his pack to the saddle, check all the fittings. He hummed as he worked. She remembered his high spirits last night. It had not been her imagination – he was happy to be on the move.

‘Will you be back for Corpus Christi?’ She hated the yearning in her voice.

Owen heard it, turned round, pulled her to him. ‘Unless fortune shines on us, I think not, my love. But once back from this, I shall not leave your side until the baby comes. Thoresby be damned.’ He stroked her hair, kissed her forehead. ‘Promise to take every care, Lucie.’

She held him, drinking in his scent, his warmth. She forced herself to smile up at him, not wanting him to remember her with tears in her eyes. ‘I have no reason to risk my life, and every reason to stay well, my love.’

They kissed. Lucie handed Owen a cup of warmed, spiced wine. It was a damp, cool morning for summer. He drank, kissed her again, hugged her hard, and took his reins in hand.

‘They await me at the minster gate.’

Lucie nodded, not trusting her voice to speak. What was the matter with her? In their nineteen months of marriage she had seen him off enough times to be over this anxious care. He always returned. She touched his arm. He put his hand over hers, pressed it, and slowly led the horse out to the street.

‘God go with you,’ Lucie called softly.

Owen did not hear over the horse’s hooves.

Lucie watched his broad back until he disappeared beyond St Helen’s Square. She hugged herself and pressed her feet into the ground, resisting the urge to run up the stairs and hang out their chamber window for one last glimpse. It took all of her willpower to stay put.

What was the matter with her? A premonition of danger? Or was it merely her condition making everything difficult? She would go to the minster and say a prayer at vespers.

Alfred sat stiffly in his saddle, fighting to keep wide the eyelids that preferred to close. Perhaps the workout had been too exhausting. But once they were on the move, he would perk up. Owen was glad to see Ned and Louth plainly dressed for the journey. They were headed into rough country and he did not relish attracting thieves. Ravenser saw them off, with Jehannes, as Archdeacon of York, giving the blessing.

It was a long, slow journey up onto heather-clad moorland. They spent their first night in the modest guest house of a Gilbertine priory in Malton. Owen and Ned rubbed Alfred’s upper back down with hot oil to loosen his cramping muscles. Louth watched the proceedings, amused.

‘I would fain pity you, but it was your own doing,’ Louth told Alfred. ‘The best remedy for sorrow is the solace of a head full of wine. What you chose was penance, not solace.’

Owen scowled at Louth. ‘If Alfred had passed out last night with a head full of wine, he would have slept fitfully and been no good for the journey today.’ He grew weary of Louth’s pampered paunch. Twice today they must need halt for him to rest a while. Owen hated travelling with such folk. He might have said much, but seeing Louth’s frown at his sharp tone and scowl, he stopped at that. For now it sufficed that Louth knew he did not agree, not at all.

The second day was an easy journey to Pickering Castle, one of Lancaster’s, where the company were to be joined by a Percy youth who would escort them through the forests and bogs that stretched out from Pickering to the North Sea. The castle was often used as a grand hunting lodge for nobles taking their sport in the Forest of Pickering, and their accommodations, in the Old Hall, were much more comfortable than those of the previous night. Although the castle stood on a bluff overlooking marsh and moor and caught the northern winds, the Old Hall was built into the curtain wall and enjoyed a sheltered situation.

After a pleasant evening meal, the travellers shared wine and swapped stories of their journeys. Owen thought he might learn something of Hugh Calverley from the young John Percy.

John grimaced. ‘Oh, aye, Hugh Calverley. Once met, not forgotten, unless you’re a fool. Cross him and he butts you with his horns, make no mistake about it.
I
have been so unfortunate.’ The young Percy was fair, with a toothy grin and boyish features.

‘You crossed him and he struck out?’ At a boy? Owen found that surprising.

John nodded. ‘I greeted him out on the street in Scarborough. When next he came up to the castle he sought me out and beat me, said I might have revealed him to the enemy. I have never seen a man so angry for so little cause.’

Owen thought it passing strange the Percies had allowed one of their own to be treated in such a manner by a merchant’s son. ‘Your family did not punish Calverley for such behaviour?’

John shook his head. ‘Nay. They looked the other way.’

Ned nodded. ‘Thought it a good lesson, didn’t they?’

John shrugged, but his eyes spoke of a festering anger.

Owen thought it best to speak of other matters. ‘How long have you been away from Scarborough?’

‘I have spent two years at Richmond Castle sharpening my bones, as my father says.’

‘There are Percies at Richmond?’

‘Nay. I have neither seen nor heard from my family in that time.’

‘Why are you now to Scarborough?’

John drew himself up straighter, puffing out his chest. ‘I am to be a customs warden, searching ships for wool and hides not customed and cocketed.’

And confiscating the goods for the King. Owen knew of such wardens. They tended to have short, tragic careers or to turn smuggler themselves. He wondered how much the lad understood about such a post. ‘’Tis dangerous work. Folk who have dared defy the King will not be shy of throwing a young customs warden overboard.’

The cocky young man grinned from ear to ear. ‘I am a Percy, Captain. I live for danger.’

Owen and Ned exchanged amused looks over the lad’s head.

Louth had no confidence in such a young, cocky guide. ‘Are you certain you remember the way from here to Scarborough? They say one needs a guide who knows the way well, so well that fog and mist do not turn him round. If it has been two years since you travelled there . . .’

The young Percy shrugged. ‘It will be different, for certain. The forests and bogs keep the trails ever changing. But I shall get us through.’

‘I have travelled this way with the archbishop in those years,’ Alfred offered.

His companions turned to him, surprised.

Alfred ran a hand through his coarse, sand-coloured hair, making it stand up in random peaks. He seemed unaware that he should have offered this information long ago. ‘We twice came this way, once to join another party making for Whitby, once to meet with Sir William Percy at the castle. Between John and me, we can find our way to Scarborough.’

‘Twice over terrain does not make you sure-footed.’ Louth still had his doubts.

‘Meaning no disrespect, Sir Nicholas, twice as one of the forward party teaches you much about the lie of the land.’

Owen and Ned agreed. Louth shrugged. ‘I do not have another plan to offer, so I must be content. But I shall pray all the more fervently tonight.’

Contrary to Louth’s expectations, they passed through Pickering and Wykeham forests without mishap. John Percy did know his way, that was clear. And Alfred worked well with him. When the path forked and John hesitated, considering, Alfred would sniff the air and search the ground like a bloodhound. Between the two of them, the forks hardly slowed down the party.

The boggy moorland proved more difficult. The wayside was laid with stone slabs to support the horses and donkeys slung with panniers that carried loads across the moorland, the rocks and bogs being too treacherous for carts. The company dismounted, their horses following the slabs, while the men cautiously trod the spongy ground alongside. It was slow going, and even worse when the slabs forked, for the road snaked round dangerous pools and outcroppings and it was not always the fork that seemed most direct that moved them towards their goal.

Once they chose the wrong fork and rode on unaware until young John Percy’s horse reared. Concentrating on steadying his mount, John paid no heed to his footing and slid backwards into a bog. Alfred and Owen ran to his aid, fishing him out, while Ned calmed the horse and studied the cause of the near disaster. The horse had stepped onto a slab that teetered over the bog. The tip of what had once been the next slab could be seen sticking out of the muck. John wrapped himself in the blanket from his pack and gamely led the way back and onto the correct fork, determined to make it out of the bogs before dark. Louth pulled his own cloak closer about him and prayed for their deliverance from this hellish landscape.

At sunset they could see the castle of Scarborough rising far to the east, seemingly carved out of the rocky headland. A magnificent and comforting sight, but too far to reach that night.

‘There is an inn just over the next rise,’ John said. ‘We should stop there for the night.’

All agreed.

The innkeeper’s surly greeting changed to a welcome when he recognised the Percy among them. ‘My father was groom at the castle as a lad. Sir Henry de Percy would let no one but my father touch the destrier that he rode against David the Bruce.’ He was even friendlier when he learned that the company travelled under Lancaster’s protection. The innkeeper led them to an airy sleeping loft, relatively clean, where they stored their packs, then provided a simple but hearty meal for them.

Owen soon realised that they were most fortunate for the man’s interest. The inn filled quickly, and latecomers were given the bad news that there was no room. In fact, some travellers who had arrived earlier were being displaced by Owen’s party.

Two of these unfortunates took exception to the news that they would be spending the night in the stables. A well scarred pair, their daggers notched and worn with use, they drew themselves up to full height and threatened the innkeeper, telling him they would upend everything not nailed down and skewer him on the signpost.

Owen and Ned rose to reason with them. Doe-eyed, elegant Ned whipped two daggers seemingly out of the air and threw one at the upraised arm of one of the men, nailing his sleeve to an oak beam. As Ned slowly approached the man, he tossed the other dagger from hand to hand and grinned lazily. Owen stretched out a long leg and tripped the other man, then grabbed him by the collar and lifted him until only his toes touched the ground.

Ned’s man looked uneasily at his mate, dangling in Owen’s grasp, then at the dagger that now rose and fell inches from him. ‘The stables will do us for tonight, gentlemen,’ he assured them.

‘And what do you say to our host?’ Owen asked.

‘We meant no harm. ’Twas the ale talking.’

Ned pulled his dagger from the oak beam, touched the man’s startled face gently with the blade. ‘’Tis a wise man knows when he’s had his fill.’

Owen released his catch, who stumbled again but jerked away from Owen’s steadying hand. Ned returned to the table, still tossing the daggers back and forth.

‘I grow eager to pass through the town gates,’ Louth muttered, wiping his brow.

‘Scarborough is a fair town, gentlemen,’ John Percy assured them. ‘My family are right proud to be stewards of the castle.’

‘From the bog I could see the great wall that snakes up the hill from the town and surrounds the keep,’ Louth said. ‘Perhaps it protects the castle folk from the town folk, eh? If it guards such a wild and lawless people . . .’

John Percy grinned. ‘Aye, you’d be hard pressed to find a worse lot all in one place. Pirates, every one of ’em. Even the Accloms and Carters, who take turns as bailiffs. Ask your lord of Lancaster about them. He has had to put them straight once or twice. But where is the honour in defending something that is never threatened? The Percies embrace the challenge.’ He nodded to Ned. ‘That was fancy work with the daggers.’

Ned flicked one out, tossed it, spinning, from hand to hand several times, then put it away. ‘It impresses the court ladies and discourages trouble. A worthwhile skill to develop, even if one has the formidable Percy clan behind one.’

John Percy blushed, hearing the tease in Ned’s words.

Owen grinned into his cup. It was good to be on the road with Ned. He felt alive.

Scarborough was walled on three sides, the fourth being the harbour, but it had long ago outgrown the walls. Almost two hundred years earlier a wide, deep ditch had been dug to encircle a new outer wall, but sufficient funds had not been found to build it, and now houses straggled far outside the old ditch. Within the walls the timbered, gabled houses squeezed one atop the next, down steep streets that ended abruptly at the sands of the harbour. Crowding was such that solars and stalls stretched out even there – in every generation there were fools who built on the sands and foreshore and had their homes and shops washed away by the fierce storms of the North Sea. It did not stop them rebuilding; everyone wished to be within convenient reach of the lucrative pirate trade and the fairs and markets that set up on the sands of the harbour.

As the company rode along the top ridge of streets to the castle walls, Owen stared down at the townspeople going about their business seemingly unaware of the steep incline, the growling sea below. Were they spiders that this dizzy slope bothered them so little? Or was it peculiarly disturbing to him, with his one-eyed balance? He did not ask the others, for to ask would be to admit his weakness. It was hard enough to know it himself. He just hoped that Hugh Calverley lived up in the castle precinct so he would not need to spend much time on the steep, narrow streets.