Kate Sedley: The Dance of Death

My companion looked thoughtful. ‘So, as you rightly ask, what is the purpose of sending us to Paris? My cousin Olivier, although a very shrewd man as I understand it, can only tell us what we already know.’

‘Guess,’ I corrected her. ‘As for the rest,’ I went on scornfully, ‘our superiors, those set in authority over us, don’t need reasons for squandering money. The discovery that you and this Olivier le Daim are in some vague way related to one another is a heaven-sent pretext for Master Plummer to arrange a secret mission for us into France. It makes him look as though he’s busy protecting the safety of the realm. Our wonderful spymaster general, ever vigilant!’

She laughed. ‘You sound like a man with a grudge.’

‘I am. I should be on my way home now to my wife and family, none of whom I’ve seen for months. Instead, that little runt has enmeshed me in one of his precious schemes, which, as far as I can see, is a waste of time.’ I poured what remained of the wine into my mazer, tossed it off and felt slightly better. ‘However, there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’d better resign myself to making the best of a bad job. At least it doesn’t seem as though it’ll take long, not if this cousin of yours really is going to be in Paris some time soon. Mind you,’ I added gloomily, ‘a dozen things could go wrong or he could simply change his mind.’

‘A possibility,’ Eloise agreed, smiling. ‘Because it won’t, of course, be Olivier who changes his mind, but the king. And Louis is a great one for altering his plans at the last moment.’

I regarded her curiously. ‘You speak of him — the king, that is — as if you were fond of him. I noticed it before.’

She rose from her stool and smoothed down her skirt. ‘I’ve never set eyes on him, so I can hardly be fond of him, but I admire him greatly, as my parents did.’ She looked at me defiantly. ‘You appear to find that odd.’

I shrugged. ‘Most people seem to dislike him. I’ve heard him described as devious, cunning, crafty. Someone compared him to a spider sitting in the middle of his web, spinning his schemes. I saw him once.’ She looked surprised. ‘From a distance, you understand. I was at Picquigny. A very unprepossessing man and not dressed at all like a king.’

‘No.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘My mother said he had no interest in clothes and was always attired like one of his lowlier servants. But an extremely clever man. According to Maman, when he became king, France was a nation torn apart by a dozen rival factions, after the long years of war with the English. But when you were finally kicked out — ’ she gave me a cheeky grin, tinged with malice — ‘Louis set about unifying the country again by any means at his command. And he has done so. If you’re right, Burgundy will be brought to heel very soon. . Now, I must be off. As I mentioned, I’ve no need of your company. I can look after myself.’ She moved towards the door, then with her hand on the latch, glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Why does my lord of Gloucester want to see you?’ she asked.

‘What?’ The question caught me off guard. ‘Oh. . Didn’t you hear what Timothy said?’ What the devil had he said? Something about Duke Richard wanting to thank me. ‘He. . er. . he wishes to express his gratitude for my-my care of the Duke of Albany in Scotland.’

I don’t suppose she believed the story for a moment, but the mention of Albany and Scotland made her take herself off in a hurry with the promise to see me in this same room the next morning, after dinner, if not before. I made no immediate move to follow her, but sat for a while longer, staring into space, thinking.

At first, Eloise’s admiration for King Louis seemed to me to sort ill with her undertaking of the present mission, but after a very few minutes mulling it over, I considered it less strange. To begin with, she didn’t really have a choice but to comply with Timothy’s and his royal master’s wishes. Being convicted of sorcery and witchcraft meant being burned at the stake. She must know she was lucky to be alive and would throw no rub in the way of remaining so. Secondly, our mission was in no sort damaging or harmful to either the French king or his country.

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more unnecessary it seemed and the more my anger increased. It appeared to me that I was being made a fool of. Well, perhaps not a fool precisely, but that I was being kept in London against my will for no very obvious reason. But in that case, I told myself, there must surely be a hidden motive. In spite of what I had said to Eloise Gray, I couldn’t really believe that either Timothy or, more particularly, the Duke of Gloucester would despatch me to France simply to bring back information that would probably soon be common knowledge. God forbid that I should be as cynical as that!

I had been told that my role was passive, that I was being sent in order to afford Eloise protection and to add to her disguise as an ordinary traveller. A woman alone would be too conspicuous and open to all manner of unwelcome advances from predatory men. But I was beginning to wonder if the opposite were not really the truth: if she were not my protection and my disguise. But against what? Or whom? What was this secret mission that I was to undertake for Prince Richard? And it was to be kept secret even from my companion. Now why?

My head was aching and I became conscious of a crick in the back of my neck. I was also aware of how rigid my shoulders had become, and I got to my feet, stretching my arms in order to ease the tension. I walked over to the window again, pushing the casement a little wider and breathing in the stale odours of London: fetid water, fish, seaweed, the smells of a hundred cook-shops, the blood and guts of the Shambles and the stink of the drains, full to overflowing by this time in the afternoon. The noise, too, the cacophony of a myriad voices and rumbling traffic, interlaced as it was with the constant chiming of bells, smote my ears, reminding me, in case I was in any danger of forgetting it, that this was a capital city, the hub of the country and one of the largest trading ports in the whole of Europe. But Paris, I had been reliably informed, was even bigger, noisier and of far greater importance. After the comparative quiet of Scotland that had embraced me for the past few months, I wasn’t looking forward to my enforced visit.

Two people came out of the castle and stood at the top of the water-stairs just below me. I recognized them as the couple I had seen earlier: the young — at least I presumed she was young — woman, still cloaked from head to foot and with her back towards me, and her escort, as debonair and jaunty as ever. The blue feather in his hat positively quivered in the sunlight, the sun having recently deigned to show its face again.

‘Wagge! Wagge! Go we hence!’ the man yelled at a passing boat, and the boatman, on the lookout for a new fare, immediately rowed to the foot of the steps. My smart young gent ran lightly down, blew a kiss to his lady with the tips of his fingers and was rowed away upstream. The woman watched for a moment or two, then turned with a swirl of her cloak and disappeared once more indoors.

I turned from the window. Before I came back for my meeting with Timothy, and then with His Grace of Gloucester, I had visits of my own to make, old acquaintances to be looked up and friendships renewed.

I emerged into the hustle and bustle of Thames Street and, by way of Fish Hill, Trinity Street and the Walbrook, found myself at last in the Stock’s Market, from where it was only a few minutes’ walk to the Leadenhall and Cornhill. It being the middle of the week, I guessed that my old friend Philip Lamprey would be working, so I made first for the market, where the noise was a little less insistent than outside, but not by much. The stalls, each with its own haggling, shouting crowd surrounding it, were so close together that it was impossible to force a path between them and I had to use the main aisles, pushing and shoving aside the press of people, loudly cursing and being as enthusiastically sworn at in return.