LITMIR.BIZ

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with the young chaplain. Their pack-ponies were laden, they said, with furs and amber, but a third pony carried a stack of wicker baskets with square openings through which appeared beaks and furious eyes, striped backs and mottled breasts. Falcons, ready to be tamed; rare and already priceless.

      Except for her own party and the silent trio, the rest of the travellers appeared to be men, for the most part respectably dressed, and mounted on strong beasts for which five days travel was nothing remarkable. And though she knew that the one for whom her eyes searched would not be present, the urge to comb the crowd for a certain breadth of shoulder, a certain height and arrogant stare could not be restrained. The most strident of her inner voices protested relief that he was not to be seen, joy at her artifice, pride at her cunning, but a quietly nagging voice sang to a different tune in a minor key.

      “A good crowd,” she said to her nurse. “We made the right choice.”

      She recognised the goldsmith and his assistant in the company of two young scholars who would be returning to Winchester after the feast days. Oblivious to the rest of the crowd, their conversation was conducted in a mixture of English and French, and Merielle felt herself fortunate to receive a quick smile and no more. There was a courier, eager to pass with his large leather saddle-bags and air of urgency; he would not be with them for long. There was an unmistakable scattering of palmers, professional pilgrims swathed in coarse wool and lidded with wide-brimmed hats, the front brims of which were turned up to display their collection of pilgrims’ badges like a jigsaw of armour-plating. Around and across their bodies was a medley of clanking tools, pouches, flasks and plates, ropes, sticks and spare shoes, ready for the moment their emaciated mounts dropped dead beneath them. Their talk, tooth-gapped and incessant, admitted only those who could boast of their hardships, adventures and achievements.

      They were not the only pilgrims; three noisy young Italians moved closer to Merielle’s party before she could see them coming, foisting upon her their own brand of English which completely disregarded the usual sentence structure. Finding their questions too fractured to understand and suspecting that they were too personal to be answered anyway, she looked behind to see whether a slight tactical manoeuvre was possible. But a party of part-armoured soldiers had moved in close behind them and, beyond the sumpter-horses led by Daniel, their laughing faces implied that the Italians’ antics were not new to them.

      The way south-west from Canterbury followed the gentle meander of the Great Stour, though soon the leaders of the cavalcade led them on to the higher ground to the north from where they could appreciate the wetlands and the distant herons reflected in the quiet sunlit waters. Despite all her expectations, the track appeared to be every bit as busy on this day as on any other, and the thought crossed her mind more than once over the next few miles that, if she had waited for Sir Rhyan’s escort, she would not now be wondering if she would get a bed to herself for the next two nights. Switching her mind to contemplate the scenery should have helped to postpone the problem, but the panorama filled as they merged first with the tail-end of one group and then another who had set out from the suburbs earlier than they. The groups were engulfed, sometimes overtaken completely like the entire household of one man’s family, chickens, pigs and all, but Merielle’s party swelled with each mile. With her nine horses, it was impossible for her to race ahead, and by the time they reached the gateway to the Norman castle at Chilham, the village square was teeming with people, many already breaking their fast, and Merielle’s hopes of being able to find, or even to reach, the privy at the back of the inn were dashed. The next best thing was a hedge with the outspread skirts of Allene and Bess to screen her.

      About the same business was an exceedingly pretty woman whose blonde tresses were bundled untidily at the back of her neck into a black net, with wisps pouring out on all sides like silk in a high wind. She stood and adjusted her travel-stained gown of worn velvet, pulled her mantle across the front of an extremely revealing bodice, smiled and walked away.

      Keeping the young chaplain and the two Icelanders in her sights and rescuing Bess from the unwanted attentions of the three Italians, Merielle took her brief meal standing, ready to mount when the leaders did. She found that the blonde young woman had moved nearer, and smiled encouragingly; there were few enough women of her own age with whom she might keep company.

      The woman nodded in the direction of two others. Her brother and sister, she told Merielle. “We started off yesterday,” she said, “but both our mounts cast shoes and the smith here at Chilham was at his mother’s funeral and we couldn’t hire a horse for love nor money. Never seen the way so crowded in all my life. My sister’s blind, you see, but even so we had to sleep in a room full of men. Nowhere else.” She hunched her shoulders. “We’d lost so much time having to walk it.”

      Merielle liked the sound of her and the look of the other two. Introduced as Emma, her brother as Adrian and the gentle blind sister as Agnes, the three appeared to offer the kind of company Merielle had been hoping for at the outset, good-natured, well-spoken and mannerly. The young man’s presence would no doubt deter the Italian infliction, too.

      “Pestered you, did they?” Agnes said. “I heard their shouting.”

      Merielle heaved a sigh, but forced a grin to back it up. “It’s young Bess I’m more concerned for. They’ve practically seduced her already.”

      Her new friends snuffled in amusement. “Well, then, why don’t you allow her to ride behind me?” Adrian suggested. “I’ll keep ’em at bay, I promise you. Agnes usually rides pillion with me, but she can go behind you, perhaps? Your chestnut looks as though he could carry a family.”

      “Oh, easily,” Merielle said. “That would solve the problem, thank you. And perhaps if we can move up to the front, we may do better for beds tonight. Shall we try?”

      “Where are your party heading for?”

      “Probably Wye next. Sometimes they give it a miss, I don’t know. Then to Charing, I suppose, and perhaps Harrietsham by suppertime. Look, the chaplain’s mounting. Shall we try and keep up with him?”

      The sightless Agnes was lifted up on to a pad behind Merielle’s saddle, the two arms passing around her waist imparting a comfort uncommonly sweet after the last few troublesome miles. Adrian, the eldest of the trio, took Bess up behind him and the journey from Chilham was lightened accordingly as Merielle described to Agnes everything they encountered along the river valley, through the great King’s Wood and along the side of the hill with the river flowing away from them like a ribbon of silver.

      They did not, after all, aim for Wye but skirted the hillside to Charing where Merielle would happily have called it a day, but dared not suggest it. Dinner was brief and taken standing by the track, looking, roaming and laughing at Adrian’s witty observations of their fellow-travellers whose trail stretched almost out of sight. His sisters obviously adored him and even Allene, usually the last person to be won over, agreed with Merielle that they had been fortunate to find such pleasant companions. Inevitably, Merielle was compelled to fend off gently probing questions about the reason for her journey, resorting to more general conversation at the first opportunity.

      But even while she avoided mentioning the escorts she might have had, her mind returned to the implications of her sudden decision, not only the journey itself but the certain explanations she would have to concoct at Winchester. And no sooner had she convinced herself that four days on the road should be enough time to make up a story suitable to smooth Sir Adam’s feathers, if not his nephew’s, than her more immediate plans for a comfortable night’s rest suffered a set-back, for the approach to Harrietsham was obstructed by the slow progress of a nobleman’s household. Three four-wheeled leather-covered waggons pulled by six oxen apiece, dozens of sumpter-horses, mules, men-at-arms, retainers and domestic officers, servants and pages, squires and grooms. The small village was jammed solid, all hopes of accommodation dwindling with the light. There was nothing for it but to wait or go on to the next place, wherever that might be.

      Merielle turned to consult Agnes but encountered the top of her head as she slipped nimbly to the ground. “Where are you off to?” she called to her departing friend.

      Agnes made no reply, but crossed with surprising confidence to her brother’s

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