Philippa Gregory - Changeling

‘We’re free,’ Isolde said. ‘Freize suddenly told his master that it was he who released us from the cellar under the gatehouse.’

Ishraq raised herself up onto one elbow. ‘Did he say that? Why? And did they believe him?’

‘He was convincing. He insisted. I don’t think they wholly believed him but at any rate, they accepted it.’

‘Did he say why he confessed to such a thing?’

‘No. I think it was to be of service to us. And better than that, they have said that we can travel with them while our roads lie together.’

‘Where are they going?’

‘They follow orders. They go where they are told. But there is only one way out of the village so we will all go east for the time being. We can travel with them and we will be safer on the road than with strangers or alone.’

‘I don’t like Brother Peter much.’

‘He’s all right. Freize swore to be my knight errant.’

Ishraq giggled. ‘He has a good heart. You might be glad of him one day. He certainly served us tonight.’

Isolde stripped off the blue gown, and came in her chemise to the side of the bed. ‘Is there anything you want? A small ale? Shall I sponge your bruises?’

‘No, I am ready to sleep again.’

The bed creaked gently as Isolde got in beside her. ‘Goodnight, my sister,’ she said, as she had said almost every night of her life.

‘Goodnight, dearest.’

VITTORITO, ITALY, OCTOBER 1453

The little party lingered for two more days in the village while Ishraq’s bruises faded and she grew strong again. Isolde and Ishraq bought light rust-coloured gowns for travelling, and thick woollen capes for the cold nights, and on the third day they were ready to set out at sunrise.

Freize had pillion saddles on two of the horses. ‘I thought you would ride behind the lord,’ he said to Isolde. ‘And the servant would come up behind me.’

‘No,’ Ishraq said flatly. ‘We ride our own horses.’

‘It’s tiring,’ Freize warned her, ‘and the roads are rough. Most ladies like to ride behind a man. You can sit sideways, you don’t have to go astride. You’ll be more comfortable.’

‘We ride alone,’ Isolde confirmed. ‘On our own horses.’

Freize made a face and winked at Ishraq. ‘Another time, then.’

‘I don’t think there will be any time when I will want to ride behind you,’ she said coolly.

He unfastened the girth on the pillion saddle and swept it from the horse’s back. ‘Ah, you say that now,’ he said confidently, ‘but that’s because you hardly know me. Many a lass has been indifferent at first meeting but after a while . . .’ He snapped his fingers.

‘After a while what?’ Isolde asked him, smiling.

‘They can’t help themselves,’ Freize said confidentially. ‘Don’t ask me why. It’s a gift I have. Women and horses, they both love me. Women and horses – most animals really – just like to be close to me. They just like me.’

Luca came out to the stable yard, carrying his saddle pack. ‘Are you not tacked up yet?’

‘Just changing the saddles. The ladies want to ride on their own, though I have been to the trouble of buying two pillion saddles for them. They are ungrateful.’

‘Well, of course they would ride alone!’ Luca said impatiently. He nodded a bow to the young women, and when Freize led the first horse to the mounting block he went to Isolde and took her hand to help her up as she stepped to the top of the mounting block, put her foot in the broad stirrup and swung herself into the saddle.

Soon, the five of them were mounted and, with the other four horses and the donkey in a string behind them, they rode out onto the little track that they would follow through the forest.

Luca went first, with Isolde and Ishraq side by side just behind him. Behind them came Brother Peter and then Freize, a stout cudgel in a loop at the side of his saddle and the spare horses beside him.

It was a pleasant ride through the beech woods. The trees were still holding their copper-brown leaves and sheltered the travellers from the bright autumn sun. As the path climbed higher they came out of the woods and took the stony track through the upper pastures. It was very quiet; sometimes they heard the tinkle of a few bells from a distant herd of goats, but mostly there was nothing but the whisper of the wind.

Luca reined back to ride with the two girls and asked Ishraq about her time in Spain.

‘The Lord Lucretili must have been a most unusual man, to allow a young woman in his household to study with Moorish physicians,’ he observed.

‘He was,’ Ishraq said. ‘He had a great respect for the learning of my people, he wanted me to study. If he had lived I think he would have sent me back to Spanish universities, where the scholars of my people study everything from the stars in the sky to the movement of the waters of the sea. Some people say that they are all governed by the same laws. We have to discover what those laws might be.’

‘Were you the only woman there?’

She shook her head. ‘No, in my country women can learn and teach too.’

‘And did you learn the numbers?’ Luca asked her curiously. ‘And the meaning of zero?’

She shook her head. ‘I have no head for mathematics, though of course I know the numbers,’ she said.

‘My father believed that a woman could understand as well as a man,’ Isolde remarked. ‘He let Ishraq study whatever she wanted.’

‘And you?’ Luca turned to her. ‘Did you attend the university in Spain?’

She shook her head. ‘My father intended me to be a lady to command Lucretili,’ she said. ‘He taught me how to calculate the profits from the land, how to command the loyalty of people, how to manage land and choose the crops, how to command the guard of a castle under attack.’ She made a funny little face. ‘And he had me taught the skills a lady should have – love of fine clothes, dancing, music, speaking languages, writing, reading, singing, poetry.’

‘She envies me the skills he taught me,’ Ishraq said with a hidden smile. ‘He taught her to be a lady and me to be a power in the world.’

‘What woman would not want to be a lady of a great castle?’ Luca wondered.

‘I would want it,’ Isolde said. ‘I do want it. But I wish I had been taught to fight as well.’

At sunset on the first evening, they pulled up their horses before an isolated monastery. Ishraq and Isolde exchanged an anxious glance. ‘The hue and cry?’ she muttered to Luca.

‘It won’t have reached here. I doubt your brother sent out any messages once he was away from the abbey. I would guess he signed the writ only to demonstrate his own innocence.’

She nodded. ‘Just enough to keep me away,’ she said. ‘Naming me as a witch and declaring me dead, leaves him with the castle and the abbey under his control, giving him the abbey lands and the gold. He wins everything.’

Freize dismounted and went to pull the great ring outside the closed door. The bell in the gatehouse rang loudly, and the porter heaved the double gates open. ‘Welcome, travellers, in the name of God,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How many are you?’

‘One young lord, one clerk, one servant, one lady and her companion,’ Freize replied. ‘And nine horses and one donkey. They can go in the meadow or in the stables as suits you.’

‘We can put them out on good grass,’ the lay brother said, smiling. ‘Come in.’