Kate Sedley - The Dance of Death

‘I don’t care if he does,’ was the spirited retort. ‘He’s a great brute! An unfeeling bully! He. . he. . He’s a man!’

‘Oh, Mistress Chapman, you mustn’t judge us all by Robert Armiger,’ came a voice from behind, and we spun round to find William Lackpenny close on our heels. ‘I just couldn’t stay another instant in the same room with that man,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘If I had, I wouldn’t have been responsible for my actions.’ He fell into step beside us. ‘Did I understand you to say that you would be leaving Paris soon? You’ve finished your business already, Roger? In so short a time?’

This interest in my affairs immediately reanimated my suspicions regarding my smart young gent. Why did he want to know?

‘Oh, nothing’s decided,’ I replied airily. ‘I shall see how things go. We may bump into one another again, I daresay, but for now, we’ll say goodbye.’

He smiled slightly, but took what was virtually a dismissal very well. He was, in any case, close to the Place de Grève, where he was lodging.

‘And God be with you, too,’ he answered, bowing low over Eloise’s hand. ‘Mistress Chapman, your humble servant.’

‘You weren’t very polite to him,’ Eloise chided me as we crossed back to the Île de la Cité by the Pont aux Meuniers and entered the Rue de la Barillerie, but it was a gentle reproach, not at all like her usual abrasive self. Indeed, she didn’t pursue the subject, not even waiting for me to justify myself or think up an excuse to satisfy her. Instead, she gave my arm a squeeze. ‘I’m beginning to like it,’ she went on seriously, ‘when people call me Mistress Chapman.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Do you feel the same way, Roger?’

I was struck dumb. What could I possibly say? I was a married man. I had children. I loved my family, but at the moment, they seemed a very dim memory and very far away. I hadn’t seen any of them for months, and in the meantime I had been to Scotland. Now I was in France. And I couldn’t deny that, over the past two weeks, I had, against my will, grown fond of Eloise. No, more than that if I were honest. And it was this need to suppress my feelings that had led to many of the quarrels and most of the tension between us.

She was expecting an answer; I could see it in her face. She was not going to turn it into a joke, as she had done once or twice before. She had caught me on her hook and this time she was not going to free me.

I took a deep breath. ‘I. .’ I began feebly.

Suddenly, her grip on my arm tightened. ‘To your left, Roger,’ she whispered excitedly. ‘There!’ She pointed with her other hand. ‘He’s just disappeared into one of those alleyways. Quick! We can catch him if we run!’

‘Who?’ I demanded distractedly. ‘Who’s just-’

‘Raoul d’Harcourt! I only caught a glimpse, but I’m certain it was him.’

‘Raoul d’Harcourt? But-’

‘Oh, come on!’ she cried impatiently, and, hitching up her skirts, began to run.

I followed her across the busy street and into the narrow opening between two houses, but here we came to a stop. Unlike most of the alleyways off the Rue de la Barillerie, it led nowhere, a six-foot-high wall at the end making it impossible to proceed any further, while the walls of the two enclosing houses rose solidly on either side. Of Raoul d’Harcourt — or whatever his real name was — there was no sign.

‘There must be a door somewhere,’ Eloise insisted. ‘He can’t just have vanished into thin air.’

But there was no trace of a door or window, and it was only as we were about to leave, defeated, and as my eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom, that I became aware of a number of stones in the end wall standing proud of the surface, enabling a fit man to gain a toehold and thus climb over it. Cursing, I clambered up, but our quarry had long gone, vanishing into the noise and bustle of the next street.

‘Shit!’ I said, brushing down the front of my green tunic and noticing a dark stain on one knee of my brown hose. They were already snagged in various places and it was only by the grace of God that I hadn’t just ripped them on one of the projecting stones. It was not that I was growing particular in my dress, but I had no doubt at all that Timothy would subtract money for any damage done from whatever payment was due to me on our return to London.

I took back my cloak from Eloise, who had been holding it while I scaled the wall, and wrapped it round me. The November day had suddenly grown extremely cold, with a sharp wind blowing off the Seine, and as we re-entered the Rue de la Barillerie, a shaft of light from an upstairs window showed frost already glittering on the paving stones. It was going to be a bitter night. Moreover, I was suddenly conscious of the non-stop pealing of the church bells echoing and re-echoing in my ears, making my head ache.

I asked almost angrily, ‘Are you sure it was Raoul d’Harcourt that you saw? The light is poor. You could easily have been mistaken.’

‘No, I’m certain it was him.’

Her confidence riled me. ‘I don’t see how you could possibly tell. You admitted yourself a glimpse was all you had.’

‘Then where did he go, if not over that wall? And why would he do that unless to avoid a meeting with us?’

‘Perhaps you were wrong in thinking anyone entered the alleyway at all.’

We were still arguing when Marthe, who had seen us coming, opened the door of our lodgings and urged us, with many gestures, to come in out of the cold.

John Bradshaw was in the parlour, warming his hands at the fire and shivering slightly as if he, too, had just got in. Our raised voices must have preceded us because as we joined him, he said, in a voice that trembled with exasperation, ‘For the love of God, can’t you two make friends? Must you be forever squabbling like a pair of children?’ But when he heard what the argument was about, he took the possible sighting of the Frenchman far more seriously than I had expected him to, opening the window and staring uneasily out into the street. ‘I’ll send Philip to go and look around,’ he decided. ‘He’s done nothing all day but loaf around the kitchen.’

It struck me that he had never really liked Philip from the very beginning, but that his dislike had increased during our travels. I supposed — no, I knew — that Philip could be awkward and that the loss of Jeanne had made him more so. Indeed, there had been times during the past week when I had found it difficult to keep my hands off him. All the same, I could not help wondering why John had risked the displeasure of both Duke Richard and Timothy Plummer in order to bring Philip with us. There must have been other old soldiers he could have hired to help with the horses, old friends from those long-ago days when our armies had fought and rampaged their way across France.

Philip, when he finally answered John’s summons, had reverted to his former surly mood, doing as he was bidden with a look of sullen defiance. As he let himself out into the street, I noticed that he had a great bruise covering almost the whole of one cheek. When he had gone, I looked an enquiry at John, who grimaced sheepishly, hunching his shoulders.

‘ Mea culpa ,’ he admitted. ‘I shouldn’t have done it, I know. It was wrong of me. But he makes me so angry.’

Before I could answer, there was a knock on the street door, and when I opened it, Jules pushed past me, addressing himself immediately to John in a stream of rapid French. When he had finished, John swore.

‘It seems,’ he said to Eloise, ‘that your cousin Maître le Daim has postponed his visit until the middle of the week. We shall be here for a few days more yet.’