The King’s Arrow (7 page)

“Promise me,” he said.

“What if it rains?”

It would be pleasant to have a pretty smile waiting for him at night after a day in London's hectic, duty-ridden court. With a smile and a measure of wine, even a marshal might feel he was very much like a human being, if not one graced by Heaven's favor—he had killed too many men. A wife like Emma would be the surest route to a new life and certain happiness. She'd have a meager dowry, but the warmest embrace in Christendom.

But the king would not approve of such a match—he preferred his right-hand men to be undistracted by marriage. Roland owed much to King William. When Lord Marshal Bennett tumbled down the stone steps of the Thames embankment and drowned a few summers ago, Roland had worked hard at resuscitating the jolly old drunk, pummeling his master's body, trying to pound it back to life. The effort had won the king's approval, and he had awarded Roland the signet of office right there, the gold ring still warm from Bennett's finger.

“I'll send my sergeant Grestain, Emma,” he said, “to see you home safely.”

“My brothers would laugh me to shame,” she said, “if I showed up with a royal sergeant dogging my steps.” She put her arms around him.

Emma might well have a brother waiting behind this beech tree, or that towering elm, waiting to step out with a charcoal burner's ax and split the royal marshal's head.

She had three brothers, all heavily muscled and experienced at chopping and splitting. They could have the royal marshal turned to ash by morning, with no one the wiser.

“Besides,” said Emma, “upon my soul, Grestain makes me uneasy.”

“Follow the high road home, Emma,” he said. “Be careful.”

“Whatever do you care, Roland?” she asked in return. “What if Mad Jack springs out on me and cuts me to chops?”

Roland hurried alone, back toward the smoke and murmur of the lodge, feeling the possibility of English spite from behind every shadowy tree. Their women sometimes saw the lord marshal's merit, but their men were cunning and resentful. A forest where trapper-thieves worked within bow shot of the lodge was no safe place for a king to ride.

He would warn King William again: stay in the lodge and let the cup bearers comfort you with drink.

But when did the king ever listen?

10

“Out besporting yourself, my lord marshal?” came the query from the candlelight. “Out jigging in the bracken with a lass?”

Frocin approached, dancing a flat-footed caper, trying yet again for the impossible—to draw a laugh from Marshal Roland.

Frocin was a very small man with a large grin. Roland had long ago given up even trying to pretend to smile at his efforts. He had come to feel a subdued sort of pity for the royal dwarf, one of the king's favorite companions. Perhaps, thought the marshal, someday Frocin would do the court a genuine favor and cut his own throat.

“Where is Climenze?” inquired Roland with an air of careful patience.

“At bread or at beer,” said the comic.

Roland made a show of not following Frocin's meaning.

“Over there,” sighed the dwarf. He added, in a murmur, “If you would but give me a smile.”

Roland knew that the glance he gave the dwarf at that moment would have frightened a hangman.

“My lord marshal,” said Frocin, correcting himself, “if you would but grace me with the music of your laugh.” He folded his hands on his breast and bowed so low that his absurdly shapeless cap toppled onto the floor. This was a contrived mishap. Roland's fear was that someday, while chortling at some wheezy tomfoolery like this, the king would not see the approach of an assassin.

Although Roland had to admit that the stunt with the cap was almost funny.

“I ate well in London, my lord, if I may say so,” said Climenze with a grin. “Old mutton and fresh loaf, as the saying is.”

Roland and Climenze sat in a corner of the lodge where they could speak in confidence, the rest of the big hall screened by sheets of canvas hung by the royal tenters for what little privacy such a place could offer. A low fire of blue and golden flame simmered in an iron brazier—fine charcoal made by Emma and her brothers, and purchased by the hundredweight for the lodge.

“Your mother and father, with Heaven's mercy,” asked Roland, “are well?”

“And still grateful that the king's marshal gave a lowly lad like me a chance in the royal court, my lord, and that's the truth.”

“And a wise choice it's proven to be,” said Roland.

Climenze waved off this compliment. He had a long, agreeable countenance, like a reliable horse. “My old father can still hoist a dray mule,” said Climenze, his language a sort of Norman debased with the occasional English verb.
Hoist
. No one in Paris had ever heard of such a word.

“I am sure the skill proves useful,” said Roland, recalling the skinner's yard near Cripplegate, carcasses of plow horses flayed and gutted, suspended by hooks the size of anchors. Men greasy with their work bawled out instructions in a language peculiar to their trade, and the youthful Roland had helped block-and-tackle the work-emaciated hulks of oxen up into the skinner's workplace, for fun—until his father forbade it, saying it was no sport for a gentleman.

“But even my deaf father, my lord,” said Climenze, “has heard the talk of unsettling signs.”

“Do we believe in omens, Climenze?” asked Roland, keeping his conversation artful, but inwardly alive with curiosity. “Or are we rational enough to trust our wits?”

“There is an unsettling occasion in London, my lord marshal,” said the undermarshal, resorting to the official language of clerks to make himself clear, and to determine that his superior took his report seriously.

“There is always some brew-house riot,” said Roland, fond of the big town, and wishing he were there.

“You're right as to that,” said Climenze with a knowing smile. “But this is something new in the way of troubling indications, my lord marshal, if I may put it so.”

Roland liked Climenze. This was the man he sent to warn the local goatherds to pen their livestock when summer was high. An injured peasant left a gap in the harvest, a skill missing during harness mending, and a strong pair of arms when it was time to beat the fields for hares. Climenze could punish—but not too severely.

Climenze, however, had been a man of enigmatic habits recently. He had taken to vanishing for hours, and showing up for duty with the perfume of expensive wine on his breath. Something warned Roland now.
Don't trust him
.

A soft-voiced intruder, with a quiet step, startled the two of them.

“Ask him what sort of troubling indications,” urged Prince Henry, entering the circle of light cast by the nearly smokeless coals. The two stood and gave a bow at the approach of the prince, and Henry gave a smile and a nod in return.

Roland was surprised. “Do you know my man Climenze?” he asked.

“Indeed,” said the prince, “I know your undermarshal to be as capable with the bow as he is in the saddle.”

Roland would have thought Climenze was far better with ax or pike than he was at archery, but he was flattered that the prince took notice of one of his men.

Flattered, but puzzled. In the daily life of the royal court, a prince and an undermarshal would know each other by sight, but conversation between them would be rare. Roland did not enjoy this sort of by-the-way surprise. He counted on knowing men and what they were likely to do.

At this time of night—late, with nearly all the dining tables and benches broken down and cleared off—the prince was almost always stupid with drink. This night, however, Prince Henry was apparently sober.

Climenze did not speak until Roland lifted his forefinger, granting permission.

He said, “The dogs, my lords, have vanished from the city streets.”

The prince gave the short, silent exhalation that was his version of laughter.

“God's teeth, Climenze, this is a sure calamity. The dogs are gone! Let us fly to our ships!”

“The dog packs have disappeared entirely?” asked Roland.

Packs of large mongrels had plagued the streets of London in recent months. They roamed only at night, and had the effect of discouraging nightwalkers—beggars and wandering lunatics. Even so, they impeded horsemen in the early-morning hours, disturbing even the bravest steed with their barking and slavering. The king, it had been generally agreed, would have to order a slaughter of the dogs before winter.

“Every last pup, my lords,” said Climenze.

“Only a fool trembles at every unsettling rumor,” said the prince when he and the marshal were alone.

“This is not an omen, my lord prince,” said Roland. “This is evidence.”

The prince stepped over to the heavy linen cloth separating them from the main atrium of the lodge. Such cloth barriers provided but scant privacy. He peered, making sure no one was listening, and then froze.

He put a finger to his lips.

The prince whisked the cloth aside, overturning a three-legged stool with a clatter. A sleeper somewhere stirred, but no spy was disclosed by the candlelight.

“I thought I heard someone,” said the prince. He shrugged and gave a little laugh, like a man relieved he did not have to use a weapon after all.

“Evidence of what?” asked the prince, encouraging Roland to continue.

“Before we left the city, I ordered two dozen new pike shafts,” said Roland.

“And?” asked the prince.

“The armorer told me none could be found,” said Roland, soft-stepping to the very edge of the illumination cast by the steadfast candles. “There is a shortage of ash wood and hazel in London.”

The prince looked at the drinking cup in his hand. He thought for a long moment, and then swallowed his wine. “My dear Roland, London's wives have no doubt broken their sticks beating their wayward husbands.”

“By the dozen, my lord prince?”

“Do you think some conspirator,” said Prince Henry, “has bought up every wooden shaft?”

“To make pikes and spears—that is exactly what I believe. And this secret enemy has killed off the dogs, my lord prince, to clear the streets for fighting.”

“Who would he be, this troublemaker?”

“Not a common Englishman, I think,” said Roland. “Not in London. We have them well beaten in the city, although they still test their fangs in the countryside.”

“Who, then,” asked the prince, “is the conspirator?”

11

Any number of noble schemers were likely suspects, thought Roland—Norman barons and newly minted English dukes. The throne of England had been a prize for the taking for a hundred years, and no doubt some grasping men felt it was ready and waiting for them now.

But Roland did not voice any of this. He kept his own counsel, believing a judicious silence was his wisest course. Somewhere off in the drowsy hunting lodge, someone was getting sick, disgorging a day's worth of wine or west-land cider. The sound ceased, and the lodge was quiet again.

The prince, Roland thought, did not much resemble his brother.

The king was red-haired and ruddy-cheeked, and expressed nearly every feeling—from glee to anger—with some variety of laughter. The prince, however, spoke in even tones, with a searching, sideways glance. He liked to make other men laugh, but he rarely smiled himself.

“Marshal Roland,” said Prince Henry, “you would make a challenging enemy.”

This sounded like a compliment, but Roland felt a chill.

“I am loyal to my lord the king,” said the marshal. He meant:
I am no conspirator
.

“And when,” said the prince, “under Heaven's mercy, my brother comes to die, you will still owe the same duty to the throne.”

Roland was appalled. Such mention of a monarch's death was never so brazenly voiced, even by a brother of the king. This was a trap, Roland realized—a test to discover his possible disloyalty.

“Our king is in spitting health, my lord prince,” said Roland, adding, “God be thanked.”

Henry's gaze was steady. Roland felt his soul being weighed, marred specimen though it was. I should not have killed the poacher, thought the marshal.
Henry did not like it then, and he does not like it now
. The prince, thought Roland, was one of those quiet, unforgiving men.

“What if I myself,” said the prince, “ordered the dogs slain and the pike shafts readied?”

“I would be required to report as much to the king.”

The prince laughed quietly. “Of course, I was speaking only to test you,” he said.

“You are cunning, my lord prince.”

“Do you enjoy bloodshed, Roland?” asked the prince in the tone of someone considering a matter of philosophy.

“In past years I did very much, my lord, but no longer.”

“Would you wish for a more peaceful season, dear Roland?”

This was true enough—Roland would be glad when his life became serene, the way his father's had been. His father had been the royal chandler, with responsibility for the king's candles, but the job had a status beyond that of simply providing illumination for the long winter nights. Chandlers were generally reliable and respected men, attended by cheerful and efficient servants.

His father had been full of praise for the ancestral home of Montfort, refuge of scholars and holy men, and how finely scented the beeswax of that place had been and how softly woven the wicks. His father could pass by the heads of a dozen men on pikes, gaping and eyeless, ignoring them because his heart was full of nostalgia for Candlemas as it had been celebrated in his boyhood.

In Roland's view, the English were lucky to learn Norman ways. Not long ago a goose girl who lived in a hole in the ground near the river, a pathetic hovel, accepted a quarter silver penny to lie with him. A quarter of a penny could buy a flock of geese, a goose girl, and a bushel basket for the eggs, but in his tenderness he had felt a generosity, and was just settling in with the lass when young Simon Foldre had stumbled across them.