Fortune Like the Moon (2 page)

Weald. What
was
that, Weald? What did it mean? More to the point, where in God’s name was it? His mother had mentioned some town. Ton something. Ton what? Some place she was interested in – some place she actually knew, whatever the relevance of that might be – because there was a convent there. Some abbey, on the lines of her beloved Fontevraud. What had she said about the place? That it was ruled, as was Fontevraud, by a woman?

God’s boots, Richard thought, an abbey ruled by a woman.

He itched to get the letter out and reread it, more thoroughly this time. But Absolon was still droning on, and behind him three more bishops had lined up to have
their
say. And a papal legate was expected to arrive later in the day.

Richard sighed, trying to fix his mind on what the priest was saying. But concentration was proving elusive; he was distracted by Absolon’s left hand, gesticulating in emphasis, by his beard, with a single long, untrimmed hair that sprang out from the rest, by the old man’s yellowing teeth.

From the courtyard outside sounded the excited whinny of a horse, instantly answered by another. Someone emitted a laugh, quickly shushed. My men, Richard thought, are going hunting.

He stood up again, stepping down from his raised chair, this time careful to avoid the upthrusting slab. With a courteous bow to Absolon, who was standing with his mouth open, displaying several rotten teeth, Richard was about to murmur his excuses.

He changed his mind, and left the hall without another word. He was, after all, King.

*   *   *

He did not ride out with his men. Not, in any case, with the hunting party, whose boyish high spirits would have been as damaging to concentration as Absolon’s ramblings. Instead, he summoned one of his squires and a handful of the older men, one or two knights among them, leading them off into the forest at a pace which they had to exert themselves to follow. They rode for some miles, and then, as the others loosened rein and allowed their horses to amble along beside the small stream that flowed through the woods, Richard drew apart.

He dismounted, and settled himself on a grassy bank fragrant with wild flowers. And, as his tethered horse began to tear up mouthfuls of the lush pasture, at last returned to his mother’s letter.

It made no better reading this time. In fact it was rather worse, since, now that he wasn’t trying to listen to two people talking to him at the same time, he could give it his full attention.

The facts themselves were repugnant. A young nun, less than a year into her noviciate, raped and murdered, throat cut, body left exposed to anyone who passed. Poor, innocent child – in fact the woman was twenty-three, but his mother liked the sound of a ringing phrase – slaughtered for no apparent reason, unless it were robbery. A jewelled cross had been found nearby, and there was conjecture that the murderer had been disturbed, frightened into throwing away his spoils.

The location of the murder could not have been more inconvenient. The victim was a member of the community of Hawkenlye Abbey, and the abbey was situated a mere handful of miles from the town of Tonbridge. With its position on the Medway, at the place where the main London to Hastings road crossed the river, any horrified gossip that reached the town from the abbey would spread like fire in a cornfield up to London. To be received and discussed by the kingdom’s men of power, who would not hesitate to form opinions and pass judgement.

‘And there will be gossip,’ Richard muttered, ‘there always is. And how can it best be contained? Who, in God’s name, can advise me in my dealings with this barbaric place?’

‘Sire?’

He turned at the address, having thought himself out of earshot of the others. One of the older men stood before him – one of the knights – and, as Richard looked at him, he knelt.

‘Don’t kneel there, man!’ Richard said impatiently. ‘It’s muddy.’

‘Oh. So it is.’ The man looked resignedly down at his one soaked knee. ‘Next to new and clean on,’ he said, not quite quietly enough.

‘I’m honoured,’ Richard said laconically.

The man’s head flew up. ‘Sire, please, I didn’t mean … Of course I would dress in my best for you! I only meant—’

‘It is of no significance.’ Richard waved away the excuses. He was trying to remember who the man was, and why the sight of his tall frame and tough-featured, appealing face should somehow be reassuring … ‘What is your name?’ he asked abruptly.

The man fell on one knee again. The same knee, either, Richard thought with mild amusement, because this was how he habitually did it, or because he would thus avoid soiling both legs of the new hose. ‘Josse d’Acquin, sire,’ the knight said, turning his cap in his hands, then clumsily dropping it. A shame; it, also, looked new, and was in the latest fashion. A detail which, somehow, did not seem in keeping with the man. Perhaps he had made some attempt to smarten himself, knowing he would be in the company of the court set.

‘Well, Josse d’Acquin,’ Richard said, ‘I have been trying, and so far failing, to recall how you and I are acquainted. Will you enlighten me?’

‘It was years ago, sire,’ the man said eagerly, ‘it’s no surprise your grace doesn’t remember, why, we were nothing but boys, really, you, your brothers the Young King, God rest him, and Geoffrey, my, he was only fifteen! And you, sire, scarce a year older! As for us, the pages and squires, well, I was one of the oldest, and I wasn’t much more than thirteen.’ Throwing care to the winds, he shifted his position so that his not inconsiderable weight was borne on both knees, then went on, ‘Back in Seventy-three, it was, sire, and you and young Henry were in a right pother with your father, God rest his soul—’

‘Amen,’ Richard responded piously.

‘– over his refusal to give you more of a say in the running of things, in particular your own estates, and—’

‘We fought together!’ Memory had returned to Richard, full-blown and complete with sights, sounds, deeds and powerful emotions of a time sixteen years in the past. ‘We encountered a scouting party of my father’s and Henry said we should make a run for it, since you and the other squires were so young and we did not have the right to involve you in something so one-sided and foolhardy, and—’

‘And the lads and I said, we’re with you, we
want
to fight, we’re aching for a chance to draw blood, and—’

‘And so we launched a surprise attack, disarmed and unhorsed four of them, at which the rest fled!’

‘Four?’ Josse d’Acquin had a humorous face, and his generous mouth was quirking into a smile. ‘Sire, I would stake my life on its being six.’ He glanced at Richard. ‘At the very least.’

‘Six, seven, eight, think you?’ Richard was smiling, too.

‘What a day,’ Josse mused, sitting back on his heels.

‘Indeed.’ The King was staring at him, absently noting the muddy puddle water seeping into the seat of the hose and the hem of the elaborately bordered tunic. ‘I never forget a face,’ he said. ‘Knew perfectly well I’d met you before, Josse.’

Josse bowed his head. ‘Sire.’

They remained quite still for some moments, as if suddenly turned into a painting. Some knightly illustration, with the loyal servant waiting, head bent, for the command of his lord. Of his king.

The King, in this case, was thinking. Wondering, in fact, if the vague and general pleas for help which he had been sending up, immediately before this character from the past had reappeared, might just have been answered.

Deliberately Richard stilled his mind, allowed himself to be a receptacle.

After a moment, he had, he was quite sure, received the message he was waiting for.

He reached down and lightly touched Josse d’Acquin on the shoulder. ‘D’Acquin,’ he began, then, less distantly, ‘Josse. Oh, get up, man, you’ve got your backside in a puddle.’ Josse scrambled to his feet, instantly bending into a sort of half crouch; both he and Richard had noticed he was almost a head taller than the King.

‘Josse,’ Richard went on, ‘you’re a local man? Of Norman stock, yes?’

‘My family estates are at Acquin, sire. Near to the town of Saint Omer, a little to the south of Calais.’

‘Acquin?’ Richard ran swiftly through his mind to see if he’d heard of it, decided he hadn’t. ‘Ah. I see. And what of England, our new kingdom over the water? Are you familiar with England?’

‘England,’
Josse echoed, in the manner of someone saying, a
pigpen.
Then, as if instantly regretting it as less than tactful, when the land’s throne had just been inherited by the man standing in front of him, he said with patently false enthusiasm, ‘England, yes, indeed, sire, I know it quite well. My mother, you see, was an Englishwoman, born and bred in Lewes – that’s a town in the south-east – and in my youth she insisted that I get to know her country, her language, her people’s ways, that sort of thing.’ He smiled faintly. ‘People didn’t say no to my mother, sire.’

‘I know that sort of mother,’ Richard muttered feelingly. ‘So, England and the English hold no fears for you?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly, sire.’ Josse frowned. ‘There’s always fear attached to the unknown. Well, not fear, more apprehension. Well, maybe not even that, but—’

‘A sensible amount of wariness?’ Richard supplied.

‘Precisely.’ Josse smiled openly now, and his teeth, Richard observed, were a great improvement on Bishop Absolon’s. Then, as if remembering where the conversation had begun: ‘Sire? Why do we speak of England?’

‘Because,’ Richard replied simply, ‘I want you to go there.’

Chapter Two

Josse had gone to Richard the Poitevin’s court because of fond memories from the past, not because of hopes for the future. It had been enough, or so he’d thought, to be in that stimulating, action-packed company, where the restless energy of Richard seemed to permeate right through court society, so that you just never knew, from one day to the next, what was going to happen.

And, whenever the court hadn’t had to up sticks and follow Richard off to some distant part of his territory, there was the sheer exuberance of life back in Aquitaine. Richard, brought up in the expectation of inheriting those rich, colourful lands, had thrown himself into the ways of the people, cultivating the love of music, song, the poetry of the troubadors, and the free thinking that characterised his mother. He was utterly her son, and wealthy society in the Poitevin court faithfully reflected the character and habits of both of them.

As he set out on the dusty, crowded London road out of Hastings, Josse reflected how dramatic a change had happened to him, purely because he’d obeyed a sudden whim and joined the group that rode off with Richard that day in Normandy. He didn’t flatter himself with the notion that Richard had chosen him for this delicate mission because of any strengths Josse possessed; only an irredeemable egotist could think
that.
Why, the king had even had to be reminded of who Josse was!

No. It was nothing more than having been in the right place at the right time.

Something, Josse admitted modestly to himself, that whatever guardian angel it was who guided his footsteps was quite good at arranging.

He was, without a doubt, very pleased to have been entrusted with the job. Richard had briefed him fully, or as fully as he could, when he himself had only Queen Eleanor’s first report to go on. What emerged most powerfully, for Josse, was that Richard seemed genuinely disturbed at the thought of this magnanimous gesture, this releasing of prisoners, going wrong. Being misinterpreted.

Mind you, Josse thought as he edged his horse to a canter and hurried past an overloaded waggon that was creating clouds of choking dust, mind you, it always did sound a cockeyed notion. Me, I agree with that Augustinian canon in Yorkshire – what was his name? William of Newburg? – who was heard to remark that, through the so-called clemency of this new king, a crowd of pests had been released on the long-suffering public to commit worse crimes in future.

But maybe the King and his good lady mother weren’t as familiar with the sort of scum that habitually languished in England’s jails as Josse was. Josse was quite unsurprised at the concept of one such released felon reverting to his old ways; the surprise, in fact, was that they weren’t all at it.

*   *   *

As the long, bright day wore on, he became hotter, dustier, thirstier, sweatier, and more out of sorts. By mid-afternoon, he was beginning to wish he’d been anywhere but standing before the King when this notion of sending an agent to investigate the murder had been conceived.

If only I were back in Aquitaine, he mused as he encouraged his weary horse up the gentle but long slope to the High Weald, I would be relaxing in a shady courtyard, jug of fine wine at my elbow, perfumed air in my nostrils, music playing softly in my ears, prospect of an evening’s entertainment ahead. And a damned good dinner. And that pretty widowed lady, the one with the secret smile and the irresistible dimple, to seek out and pursue …

No. Best not to fantasise about her, since, in the absence of Josse, she would undoubtedly have turned her tempting dimple elsewhere by now.

Instead he turned his thoughts to his own lands. To Acquin, and his sturdy family home. Perhaps the squat buildings and the thick-walled courtyard were not exactly elegant, but they were safe. The gates were solid oak and barred with iron, and, in times of threat, there was room within the spacious yard not only for the family but for the majority of the peasants whose right it was to look to their lord for protection. Not that it happened often: Acquin, hidden in a fold of the sheltered valley of the Aa river, was well enough off the beaten track for danger, usually, to pass it by.

Occupied with thoughts of his brothers, his sisters-in-law and his many nephews and nieces, Josse was surprised to discover he was at the summit of the low rise he had been so laboriously climbing. Drawing rein, he stared out across the Medway Vale, opening up before him. Up to his left somewhere, on the fringes of the great Wealden Forest, was Hawkenlye Abbey, his ultimate destination. Waiting for him, together with its abbess. Richard had seemed quite in awe of its abbess, when he told Josse about her. The sudden proximity of both the abbey and its mistress concentrated Josse’s mind with swift efficiency; straightening his back, collecting his dozy mount, he stepped up the pace to a brisk trot and set off down the road to Tonbridge.