A Clash of Lions Read online

‘How do you think Master Blyth knew that Edward de Tracey needed more money? He knows more about Tracey’s plot than he says, I think.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that too. He spoke fairly well of Gilbert de Tracey, but he knew the latter had secrets, and I suspect he knows, or has guessed, at some of them. Men of commerce spend quite a lot of their time spying on one another. What Blyth said today could be a way of letting me know obliquely that Gilbert was involved, without giving up his own sources.’

  She walked towards him until she was standing about a foot away, looking up into his face. ‘You were very frank with your questions today. About the money, and Sir Gilbert. Everyone knows who you are, and what you are searching for. Is that not dangerous?’

  ‘It is kind of you to worry,’ he said gently. ‘But the only people who matter already knew who I am, long before I left London. The man from the north certainly knows I am searching for him. There is little point in concealment.’

  ‘You will draw lightning around your head.’

  ‘That is what I am hoping for. In order to attack me, they will have to come out of hiding.’

  She took his hands in hers and, in a surprisingly soft gesture, lifted them to her lips and kissed them. ‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘I am not ready for you to die, not yet.’ She looked at him, very seriously. ‘I know I am not the woman you dream of. The woman you lost.’

  His scalp began to tingle. ‘I have never asked you to be.’

  ‘Another man might have done so. You have never told me her name.’

  ‘She was called Yolande,’ Merrivale said after a moment.

  ‘A beautiful name. But then, I imagine she was a beautiful woman.’

  Her fingers began undoing the laces at the neck of her gown. The tingling increased. ‘I cannot promise much,’ he said. ‘There has been a lot of hard riding in the past few days.’

  A smile lit up her face. ‘What a pity,’ she said. ‘For tonight, all I have to offer is more of the same.’

  Merrivale laughed. Reaching out, he caressed her face with gentle fingers. ‘What do you see in me?’ he asked.

  ‘Hope,’ she said, and she reached up and kissed him, with feathery softness, on the lips.

  7

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 23rd of September, 1346

  Morning

  Six days until Michaelmas; six days until the truce expired, and the sword fell on the outstretched neck of northern England. In Newcastle the merchants and traders counted their takings, and despite the high walls and stone-throwing machines that defended them, thought about places to bury their money when the invaders came. From the defenceless villages around the city came a slow trickle of people carrying their moveable goods on their shoulders, looking for places of safety before it was too late. The air was heavy with premonition.

  Restless and on edge, Tiphaine put on a pair of pattens and a dark cloak with a hood to cover her hair and went out into the town. The wind was still fresh from the east but it had blown the clouds away; the sun shone brightly in a burnished blue sky. The streets were full of traffic, wagons and porters shouldering heavy loads, and from nearby she heard the clang of hammers and smelled the hot tang of charcoal. She walked past the hospital towards the church of Saint Nicholas, brooding.

  She was worried about Simon. He had departed at dawn, without taking Mauro or Warin; he had been bidden to come alone, he said, and alone he would go. He had said nothing about the attack on the road near Chester-le-Street, but Mauro had told her and she had been furious. ‘Why did you not tell me yourself?’ she demanded as he mounted his horse in the courtyard. ‘Do I mean so little to you?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ he said, looking down from the saddle. ‘I am trying to protect you.’

  ‘I have told you, many times. I do not wish to be protected.’

  ‘I know,’ he said gently. ‘But you must forgive me if I wish to extend my protection all the same. Call it a selfish desire on my part.’

  There was no answer to that. He had ridden away towards this horrible sounding place, Black Middens – she had been in the north country long enough to know that a midden was a dungheap – leaving her to fret resentfully about the injustice of a situation where he was allowed to take risks and she was not. She tried to tell herself she regretted going to his room last night, but she knew that was a lie.

  Up ahead was the great market, packed with people selling eggs, salmon, cheeses, baskets of apples, late season vegetables. Trade was brisk, but the voices around her were anxious and faces often turned towards the north. Although she had learned a fair amount of English during the summer campaign, the burred, clipped local dialect often defeated her, but she did not need words to tell her what was in the air. She could smell the fear around her.

  She spotted a man walking ahead of her, wrapped in a dark cloak like her own with the hood pulled forward. He walked stiffly with one arm pressed close to his side as if in pain, and it was this that first caught her eye. But there was something about him that seemed familiar too, and then she stopped suddenly, breath hissing with shock. No, she thought, it can’t be! But then the man reached up and pulled his hood back a little, and she saw a gleam of golden hair. Shock hit her again, so hard she felt briefly nauseous.

  Rollond de Brus was not with the Scottish army mustering at Perth. He was here, walking through the streets of Newcastle.

  Shivering, she forced herself to be calm. She looked around for the town watch, but there was no one in sight; of course, she thought, constables are never there when you need them… On the other hand, if Brus was arrested now, they would never know why he was here. Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, planting her feet carefully in the wooden pattens and putting as many people as possible between him and herself, she followed Brus out of the market past another big church and then up a long street lined with inns and stables towards the north gate of the town. People surged around her; she used the crowd as cover, following the distant figure of Brus. Her heart was beating very hard.

  Opposite the Franciscan friary was another inn, a big two-storey building of stone with timber jetties. Rollond opened the front door and went inside. Tiphaine watched for a few minutes, but he did not come out again. She turned and hurried away.

  Back at Blyth’s house she ran up to her chamber. In amongst the clothes she had bought in London was the outfit she had worn through the summer campaign in France, a man’s shapeless coat and shirt several sizes too large for her, both faded and a little ragged, hose patched at the knees, badly scuffed leather boots, a plain girdle, a long knife in a wooden sheath and a leather cap. Changing quickly, she checked to see if the stair was clear. It was; the household were all hard at work elsewhere. She ran downstairs and out into the street, walking back towards the market. Anonymous in her baggy coat, no one paid her any attention.

  Back on Pilgrim Street she took up position where she could watch both the door and the gate into the inn’s courtyard. Pilgrims walked past, wearing dark cloaks and broad-rimmed hats decorated with badges from the shrines they had visited. A man driving a cart loaded with firewood swore at her and told her to get out of the way, but mostly she was ignored; just another lad idling in the street. She watched the inn, waiting.

  An hour passed, and she began to think he must have left the inn while she was back at the house. Just as she was preparing to give up and go home, the gate to the courtyard opened and Rollond de Brus came out, leading a saddled bay horse. She watched him mount, grimacing with pain and holding his ribs as he settled into the saddle. So, she thought, not without satisfaction; he may have survived Crécy, but he did not get away scot-free.

  Brus rode slowly down the street towards the river. There was a stable next to the friary. Tiphaine ran inside, accosting a startled groom and mustering her English. ‘I need to hire a horse. How much?’

  The groom looked at her ragged clothes. ‘A penny an hour, in advance. And there’s a deposit.’

  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a handful of coin
s and pressed them into his fist. ‘Take all of it. Bring me a horse, now.’

  A moment later she was in the saddle, riding down the street and looking around for her quarry. She caught sight of him near the big church, heading down the slope towards the bridge. The guards at the gatehouse paid him no heed, nor did they do more than glance at her; they were interested in people coming into the town, not going out. Once across the bridge Brus spurred his horse to a canter and turned left, passing the coal pits of Gateshead and picking up the road towards the coast. Puzzled, she followed him.

  South Shields, 23rd of September, 1346

  Midday

  South Shields was a huddle of fishermen’s cottages along the south bank of the Tyne. Boats were drawn up on the foreshore and nets hung on wooden racks drying in the sun. A single church tower jutted up from the marketplace; on the hilltop behind it, the crumbling ruins of a Roman fort overlooked the village and the sea.

  Seeking a vantage point, Tiphaine turned her horse and rode uphill to the fort. The ramparts were like broken teeth protruding from the ground, brought down in some places by weather and in others by scavengers looking for building stone. The interior buildings were mostly just grassy mounds of rubble, but the old double-arched gatehouse still stood, roofless but solid. Dismounting and tethering her horse to a lump of stone covered with weathered inscriptions, she climbed cautiously up onto a section of wall and stood looking around, shading her eyes against the sun.

  Below, the village squatted on the banks of the river, its chimneys smoking. She saw a few people, a woman feeding chickens, a man chopping wood, another sitting outside mending a fishing net. There was no sign of Rollond or his horse. Turning, she looked towards the sea. Here was a greater bustle of activity, people and horses and wagons all busy on the golden sands of the beach. Close to hand was a saltern, big rectangular evaporation pools full of seawater separated by narrow stone dykes; next to them were open-sided sheds wreathed in smoke where the thick, treacly salt sludge was scooped out of the pools and boiled down to get rid of the last moisture. Beyond the saltern people were hard at work gleaning the beach for sea coal, some raking the sand and piling up the precious black lumps in little heaps, others plunging into the sea and dragging the bottom. Wagons moved slowly across the strand, collecting the harvested coal.

  None of this was new or strange to Tiphaine. She knew all about sea coal, prized for its exceptional heat and the cleanness of its flame, and there were salt works on the west coast of Normandy not far from what had been her family home. She shaded her eyes again, scanning the beach. One of the coal wagons, half loaded, had pulled to halt and the driver had climbed down from the bench and stood holding the horses’ heads. Rollond de Brus was standing just beyond the wagon, talking to a big man in the dark cape of a Dominican friar. With his hood back, the Frenchman’s fair hair glinted like minted gold in the strong sunlight. Further on she spotted three more men whom she guessed were watchers, placed to ensure that the two could talk in private. Brus’s horse was away near the saltern, its reins held by a fourth man.

  Tiphaine’s stomach fluttered briefly, but then a cold calm descended as she assessed the situation. The watchers were on the seaward side of the wagon, keeping an eye on the coal gatherers to make sure they did not come too close. If she came in from the landward side, using the wagon as cover, she might get close enough to hear what Rollond and the Dominican were saying.

  Slipping out of the gatehouse, she scrambled down the grassy bank to the head of the beach. Keeping the saltern to the left, she walked casually towards the wagon, head down as if she was combing the beach. Fortune favoured her; she came across an abandoned wooden rake and began dragging it through the sand. After a moment she found a lump of coal, jet-black, hard and as big as her fist, and dropped it into her coat pocket. Rollond was beyond the wagon, hidden from view, and its team obscured the driver. All three watchmen had their backs to her, still watching the coal gatherers.

  At first the voices were an indistinct murmur carried on the wind, but as she drew closer the words began to come more clearly. She squatted down as if examining something she had found in the sand, listening.

  ‘Man, you look in a bad way.’ That was the friar speaking, in French with a heavy local accent. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

  ‘I broke two ribs when my horse went down at Crécy,’ said Brus. ‘They haven’t fully mended yet.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re fit to carry on?’

  ‘Mind your own business. What orders were you given in Durham?’

  ‘To follow the herald and report his movements. That’s what I was doing when you summoned me out to this desolate spot.’ The Dominican sounded annoyed. ‘As a result, I’ve now lost him. God knows where he is.’

  ‘I know where he is,’ Brus said. ‘He is on his way to Bellingham. Don’t worry about him, he is no longer any concern of yours.’

  ‘Durham might beg to differ. As a matter of interest, was it your lot who tried to kill Merrivale on the Great North Road yesterday morning?’

  There was a short pause. ‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’

  ‘A gang of bandits attacked him. They were about to finish him when a hunting party happened along and saved the day. Clennell and Harkness were both with the hunting party, by the way.’

  Brus’s voice sounded puzzled. ‘Why in hell did they interfere?’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t realise it was Merrivale’s hide they were saving. So nothing to do with you, then?’

  ‘No. As I said, forget about Merrivale. He no longer exists.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean, he will be dead by sundown.’

  Tiphaine’s hand closed hard on the handle of the rake. ‘They won’t like that in Durham,’ the friar said sharply. ‘A dead herald means trouble, and they don’t want trouble, not at this stage.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn what Durham wants. I give the orders here.’

  ‘Oh, aye? If you want their cooperation, that’s not the way to get it.’

  ‘I don’t want their cooperation,’ Brus said. ‘I want their obedience. Durham will come to heel, or I will burn their cathedral and hang the monks in their own cloister. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Very,’ said the friar, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘Good. Now, I need your services, Brother Oswald. I pay better than the priory, remember.’

  There was a moment of silence. ‘All right. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I need a messenger to deliver a letter to Lord Percy and his son at Warkworth. Tell them I want a reply, and make sure they give it to you. At the same time, get message to the leaders of the Disinherited. Tell them to meet me in Berwick in three days’ time, at the usual place. They are to understand that this is an order, not a request.’

  ‘I’ll pass the word.’

  ‘And come to that meeting yourself, too. I will need you again.’

  The meeting was coming to an end. Tiphaine knew she had to get away, and she rose and started back towards the fort. One of the horses saw the movement from the corner of its eye and snorted, rearing up in the traces. Cursing, the driver came around to calm the animal, and as he dragged the horse back down he saw Tiphaine.

  ‘You! Boy! Come here, you little bastard!’

  Leaving the horses he ran towards her, drawing a knife from his belt. In a flash Tiphaine pulled the lump of coal from her pocket and threw it hard and accurately, hitting the driver on the point of the chin. He stumbled and fell flat on his face on the sand. Even as he went down, Rollond de Brus came around the end of the wagon, sword in hand, his face wild with anger. The Dominican friar followed him, armed with a heavy wooden staff and moving to cut off her escape to the fort. Tiphaine turned and fled.

  She could hear Brus’s harsh breathing behind her and knew he was very close. Putting her head down, pumping her arms, she ran until her own breath was burning in her lungs, across the beach past the piles of sea coal
where men turned and stared at her. She knew the three watchmen were running too, one cutting across to intercept her, two more giving chase and further barring her escape route. Ahead lay the evaporation pools. She realised she could no longer hear Brus, and she slowed her pace a little and turned her head. He was down on one knee a hundred yards behind her, head down and clutching at his side. Good, she thought, I hope his ribs break again and puncture his lung.

  But the first of the watchmen was close upon her. She ran down the narrow stone dykes between the evaporation pools, full of milky sludge glistening in the sun. Fast as she ran, the other man gained on her; now she could hear his breath too, in her imagination almost feel it on the back of her neck. Reaching a crossing between dykes, she turned and slashed at the man with her knife. He dodged the sweeping blade, but his boots slipped on the salt-encrusted stone. Arms flailing, he fell into an evaporation pool with a heavy splash. She saw him struggling to get up, the thick liquid clinging to his clothes and clogging his eyes and nose, and realised she had lost track of the other two, and the friar. She turned and ran towards the boiling sheds, hoping to use them as cover.

  The air in the sheds was hot and acrid with smoke and fumes. Salt pans bubbled over low fires. Men moved around them, stirring the contents and feeding the fires with lumps of coal; they glanced at Tiphaine and returned to their work. Breathing hard, she moved from one shed to the next, looking for a way of escape, picking up a wooden spade to use as a weapon as she went.

  A bank of smoke wrapped around her, and she coughed. When the smoke cleared the second watchman was standing in front of her, a big man with long red hair and beard and a dagger with no cross guards in one hand. He grinned at her, showing gapped yellow teeth. She smiled back, winsomely, and swung the spade at his head, but he seized it and ripped it out of her hands, then stepped forward, dagger upraised. Grasping her own knife firmly, Tiphaine ducked low and stabbed him in the leg. The big man bellowed with pain and turned, lashing out at her, and in turning he stumbled over the spade. His injured leg gave way, and he lost his balance and fell backwards into one of the boiling salt pans.