The shorter, rather stout man was clothed in
the glittering scarlet and gold vestments of a bishop just come
from a religious service. As for the other man, India thought she
would have recognized him even if she had come into the hall
unaware that he would be present. Half a head taller than Theu,
with close-cropped blond hair and blue eyes, he was the person who
several centuries later would inspire one of the greatest romances
of the Middle Ages, the hero in whose memory songs would be sung,
about whose life and death legends would be woven. The man later
ages would call Roland wore a simple, undyed woolen tunic. At his
side hung an unusually long sword, the famous Durendal.
“My lord Turpin,” said Theu, bowing to the
man in red.
“Welcome, my son.” Bishop Turpin extended his
hand so Theu could kiss the episcopal ring he wore. “We have
eagerly anticipated your coming.”
“Count Hrulund.” Theu made a slight bow to
the taller man.
“Well met, Firebrand.” There was little
warmth in Hrulund’s manner. “Since I see you alive and uninjured,
it seems you were able to put down that
very minor
rebellion
in Saxony, as Charles
ordered
you to do.”
At this insult, which implied that Theu had
been unwilling to do his duty voluntarily, India heard Marcion
murmuring an impolite comment about the great warrior’s
parentage.
“I see you still have your Lombard puppy with
you.” Hrulund looked at Marcion as if Marcion were beneath
contempt. “And your landless companion, too,” Hrulund added,
sparing a cold glance for Hugo.
“They are my valued friends,” Theu began, but
what he would have said next was interrupted by Bishop Turpin.
“Of course they are, my dear Count Theuderic,
and as your friends, they are every bit as welcome as you are
yourself. As are all of your men,” said Turpin.
From behind her, India heard Eudon grunt in
discomfort and sensed him shifting position. She thought his
injured right buttock was probably bothering him. It usually
happened at the end of a long day’s ride. She wished there were a
place where Eudon could sit or lie down to stretch out his leg. For
that matter, she would like to see a bed and a decent meal
herself.
Hrulund had noticed Eudon’s movement. With a
sharp, intense look that reminded India of some bird of prey
discovering a convenient victim, Hrulund came down the steps toward
Eudon.
“Have you brought the halt and the lame to
fight for you?” Hrulund asked Theu, speaking over his shoulder.
“This man is wounded. Tell me, fellow, how did you come by your
injury? Was it earned while fighting Saxons? If so, you are to be
commended, though you should not be here in this condition.”
“It is but a minor wound, and soon healed,”
Eudon said. “I was gored by a boar.”
“Were you, indeed? So you had time enough for
hunting. Not a Saxon in the forest, eh?” sneered the famous hero.
“And where is that boar now? Still roaming through Saxony?”
“We ate him for dinner.” It was Hugo who
responded, deliberately drawing Hrulund’s attention away from the
unfortunate Eudon. Taking full advantage of his superior height,
Hrulund stepped nearer, obviously bound on intimidating Hugo. But
Hugo did not retreat by a single step.
“I see,” said Hrulund, a faint glimmer of
respect creeping into his voice and his eyes at Hugo’s display of
quiet courage. “If you feasted on the carcass, then the day was not
entirely wasted.”
“Let us not stray from the matter at hand,
Count Hrulund,” Turpin urged from his position on the dais. “We
have much to discuss with Count Theuderic, and with our friend
Autar.”
Hrulund nodded at that, and took a step away
from Hugo, heading back toward the bishop and the two men standing
with him. His cold blue gaze passed casually across India’s face,
moved on, paused, then returned to her. Before she could blink an
eye or protest his action, Hrulund’s hand shot out to catch her
chin and turn her face toward the light so he could see her
better.
“By all that’s holy!” Hrulund snatched his
hand away as if India’s flesh had scorched him. “Theuderic, how
dare you bring a woman into this place?”
“A woman?” echoed Bishop Turpin, looking
startled.
“Indeed, my friends,” said Autar from his
place beside Theu. “That was part of the information I have been
waiting to report to you. This most unusual woman has been
traveling with Count Theuderic since well before I joined his
party.”
“This is disgraceful.” It was Hrulund, not
the bishop, who looked from India to Theu with an expression of
disgust on his face. “It is a sorry enough state of affairs if you
cannot restrain your basest desires, but to dress your concubine in
boy’s clothing is even more shameful.”
“I am no man’s concubine.” India stepped
forward, approaching Turpin, who looked her over with an eye
clearly appreciative of feminine charms.
“India,” said Theu in a tense voice, “be
silent.”
“Women only obey orders when it pleases
them,” Hrulund remarked scornfully.
India almost bit her tongue to keep herself
from asking him how any man who apparently disliked and avoided
women could possibly know that for sure.
“Why do you call her unusual?” Turpin asked
Autar.
“You have heard her speak,” Autar answered,
“so you know she cannot be a Frankish woman, yet no one knows the
name of her country.”
“You mean, none of Theu’s men would gossip
about her,” Hugo put in. “If you wanted information, Autar, why
didn’t you ask Theu – or India herself?”
“That would be too easy,” murmured Marcion,
but loud enough for Autar to hear him. “It is so much more
entertaining to gather facts by stealth.”
“India comes from a land far away.” Theu
spoke just in time to avert some hostile action on the part of
Autar, who had begun to unsheathe his sword while taking a menacing
step in Marcion’s direction. Theu then added the half-truth he had
once believed himself. “India carries a private message for
Charles, and she wears the medallion of a royal messenger.”
“Why would anyone use a woman to carry a
message?” asked Hrulund. “Everyone knows women are deceitful and
untrustworthy.”
“Nevertheless, if she has the medallion, we
must make her welcome,” Turpin said. “If there is falsity in her,
Charles will see it and punish her as she deserves.”
“Very well.” Hrulund gave in at the mention
of his beloved king. “We will leave the woman to Charles, who is
wiser than any of us. But I ask you, Turpin, to send her away now,
so we men can discuss serious matters without female
interruptions.”
“I will have her conducted to a private
chamber, where she can rest after her long ride,” Turpin said
smoothly. “One of my own men will guard her safety. As for your
people, Count Theuderic, allow me to house and feed them while you
remain at Tours.” He raised one white hand, and out of the shadows
at the side of the hall appeared several armed guards.
“We stay right where we are,” Marcion
declared, his hand straying toward his sword. “We won’t leave you,
Theu.”
“What admirable loyalty,” noted Bishop
Turpin.
“There’s no cause for concern, Marcion.”
Theu’s tone was mild, and he smiled as he spoke, but India was
aware of the tension in him. Like Marcion, she wanted to remain
within sight of Theu, who now turned to Turpin and bowed. “I am
certain that in my lord bishop’s care we are all completely safe
until it is time for us to resume the journey to our king.”
“You have my word on it,” responded
Turpin.
“This way,” said the burly armed man who
during this exchange had moved to stand next to India. She glanced
toward Theu. He nodded, indicating that she should go with the man.
With a growing sense of fear that she tried her best to conceal,
India let the guard escort her out of the hall into a smaller
chamber. There he took a torch from a wall sconce and used it to
light their way down a long flight of stone steps. At the bottom of
the steps, they entered a shadowy corridor. India was sure they
were by now well below ground level. They passed several stout
wooden doors before the guard stopped at one. He pushed it
open.
“In here.” He was not rude or threatening,
just completely uninterested in her as a person.
“Do you call this a guest chamber?” While the
guard lit an oil lamp, India looked around in disbelief at a thin
pallet upon the stone floor and a three-legged stool. In one corner
sat a covered pot, the smell coming from that area leaving no doubt
as to its purpose. There was nothing else in the room, and the only
light came through a narrow slit high in one wall. “I would like
hot water and a towel so I can wash.” She had no real hope that her
request would be granted, but she voiced it anyway, as the only
protest she dared make against what was clearly imprisonment.
“Food will be brought to you in the morning,”
the guard said. He set the oil lamp on the stool, where it did
little to relieve the general gloom.
“Why are you treating me like a prisoner when
I haven’t done anything wrong?” she demanded.
“I’m only following the orders I’ve been
given,” the guard said, not unkindly. “I will be outside your
chamber door so you won’t be disturbed during the night, but I warn
you, I am not permitted to enter this room once I have left it – at
least not until the bishop sends for you – so spare your breath and
your knuckles if you think to cry out or pound on the door until
someone else comes to release you.”
“Who gave you those orders? I never heard
them,” India began, but the guard only shook his head and went out.
A moment later, she heard a bar slide across the door on the outer
side.
Left alone in that cold and stony cell, she
knew real terror. She had been afraid since her arrival in that
unfamiliar time, and had experienced one or two flashes of near
panic, but always Theu had been with her on those occasions,
usually with Marcion and Hugo close by to offer additional aid if
it were needed. Now, for the first time, she was completely alone,
bewildered by what had happened and so frightened that her legs
would not support her. She fell to her knees on the pallet, quickly
discovering that it was padded with the thinnest possible layer of
scratchy straw, inadequate to fend off the damp chill of the floor.
Leaning back against the wall, she stretched out her legs, trying
to overcome her fear, trying to think calmly and clearly, if only
to stop the urge to weep or scream.
Theu had said they were all safe under
Turpin’s care, and the guard had shown no animosity toward her,
which suggested that she was not in any immediate physical danger.
But who had given the guard his orders?
After considering the question for a while,
she concluded that the arrangements must have been made in advance,
before Autar had set out to intercept Theu and his party. If this
was so, then it was possible that cells like hers had been prepared
for each of Theu’s men. They wouldn’t even have to be disarmed,
they could just be locked into their rooms, alone, with a
dependable guard posted outside each one. Which meant that Theu,
alone with Turpin, Hrulund, and their men, could be in danger. That
was the most frightening thought of all, for there was nothing she
could do to help Theu.
Time crept slowly by. The light coming
through the too-small window slit faded and disappeared. India was
thirsty, hungry, dirty, cold, and tired – and most of all,
frightened for herself and Theu and their friends. No sounds came
from the other side of the door. If the guard really was still
there, he was being remarkably quiet. She believed hours had
passed. Her shoulders stiff and sore from leaning against the stone
wall, she lay down at last on the pallet. After a while she fell
into an uneasy doze.
She wakened to total blackness and the sound
of the bar being drawn back across the door. The sudden glare of a
torch nearly blinded her.
“Come along,” said the guard, motioning to
her to pass through the door.
“Where am I to go?” India sat up, rubbing her
eyes, but she did not move off the pallet. “What time is it?”
“Past midnight. Bishop Turpin wants to see
you.” Again she noted the guard’s curious indifference to her, but
at least he was not threatening. India got to her feet.
“I hardly look presentable enough to see a
bishop,” she said, wondering what the man’s reaction would be.
“Could I have some hot water and soap?”
“If Turpin wants you clean, he’ll provide the
water,” the guard said. “Don’t keep him waiting.”
Deciding that it was probably best not to
annoy either the guard or Turpin by further delay, India went with
the man. He took her to the far end of the corridor, to a narrow,
winding stone staircase that led upward past the landings for two
other floors before he stopped her at the third level. They passed
through a small anteroom, bare and cold as the rest of that
forbidding building, to a door on the other side. The guard
knocked, and India heard Turpin’s voice bidding him enter.
The chamber into which she was now conducted
was so different from anything she had so far seen in Francia that
it made India catch her breath in surprise. There was a brazier
burning charcoal to warm the room and enough tall, thick, beeswax
candles to light and scent it. The Frankish bed pushed against the
wall to India’s left was covered in glowing red silk and well
padded with silk cushions in many colors. The floors were strewn
with patterned Arabic rugs over a layer of dried herbs and rushes.
A swath of more red silk had been draped across part of the wall
opposite the bed, covering what India assumed was a window. At a
table sat a scribe, using a quill pen to write upon a narrow
parchment scroll.
In the center of the room, facing the door,
stood Bishop Turpin. He had discarded his scarlet vestments in
favor of a bleached white linen cassock, cinched around his thick
waist with a knotted cord.