He’d only met Bertle once before the night the old man had come to one of his fights. Dressed in his dusty blacks, Bertle had paid for a penny seat and watched it alclass="underline" from the finger signals Derry gave the fighters, to the chalk board of odds and how they shifted. When the crowd went home, the old man remained, coming up to him with a gleam in his eye as Derry paid four or five bruised and battered men their share of the takings. Recognizing him, Derry had waved off the lads who might have shoved him out into the night and just let Bertle sit and observe. It had been after midnight when they’d cleared the warehouse of all sign that it had been used. Whoever the owner was, he didn’t know he’d hosted fights that night. He’d never know unless he found blood under the fresh sawdust, but either way, they never used the same place twice.
Even then, Derry had sensed Bertle’s amusement and delight at mixing with the rough fight crowd. He’d let all the others go until the old man was the only one remaining.
‘What is it then, you old sod?’ Derry had said to him at last. He remembered Bertle’s slow smile then, a hard little man who’d seen most kinds of evil and shrugged at them all.
‘Proper little king-thief, ain’t you, son?’ Bertle had said.
‘I do all right. I don’t cross the gangs, or not often. I make a living.’
‘You do it for coin then, do you? To make an honest crust?’
‘Man has to eat,’ Derry shot back.
Bertle had just waited, raising his eyebrows. Derry still remembered the way the old man’s face creased in delight when he’d given an honest answer. He still didn’t know why he had.
‘I do it because it’s fun, you old devil, all right? Because no matter who wins, I always do. Satisfied?’
‘Maybe. Come and see me tomorrow, Derry Brewer. I might have a job or two for you, something worth doing.’
The old man had shuffled off into the night, leaving Derry staring after him. He’d been certain he wouldn’t go, of course. Yet he had gone anyway, just to see.
Derry shook off the daze of memories, knowing he couldn’t just drift while the ox ambled along. He’d thought through a lot of lines to say when he strolled up to the Duke of York at the wedding. As long as he could find a place to wash and change first, of course. The grubby sack he rested on was filled with carefully folded garments, good enough to transform him if he could just get there with his throat uncut. He wondered what the farmer thought of the strange passenger who looked like he couldn’t afford a meal, but could still pay good silver to ride through the night. Derry grinned to himself at the thought, glancing up at the man’s wide back. The road had cleared as the sun set, but they’d rolled on, as Derry needed to be there. He’d even dozed, rocked to sleep by the cart and only waking once when the ox let out a tumultuous fart like the crack of doom. It had Derry chuckling into his sack at the sheer silliness of his position.
The eastern sky lightened in shades of grey long before he could see the burning line of the sun. Derry had been to Anjou a few times in his travels, placing and taking messages from men in his employ. He knew there had been a trial and execution of some Jewish moneylender a month or so before and he had a rough idea of the debts incurred by René of Anjou. The man had secured his position with a bit of ruthlessness Derry could appreciate, but he wondered idly if he should investigate the man’s holdings a little further. Before the rents from Anjou and Maine came in, he’d be vulnerable. A couple of burned shops, perhaps a crop sowed with salt so that it rotted in the fields — the possibilities were endless. With just a little push, René of Anjou might have to come begging to his daughter’s new husband for a loan — and then they’d have a lever into the French court. That was assuming Derry could survive the wedding day, of course. The lords Suffolk and Somerset had their instructions if Derry didn’t arrive, but knowing that was hardly a comfort.
As dawn came, the drover insisted he had to rest, feed and water the great black ox that had ambled its way south for two days. Derry could see the double tower of the cathedral of Tours standing above the fields in the distance. It could not be more than a few miles away. With a sigh, he jumped down from the cart and stretched his legs and back. The road was mercifully empty in both directions. He assumed those who had travelled to see the wedding were all there by then. He was the only one still on the road, with the possible exception of the duke’s riders still searching the countryside for him.
Even as he had the thought, he caught a glimpse of a dust cloud in the distance and ran for the verge, jumping into a bank of wild grasses almost as high as his head.
‘Three silver deniers if you say nothing,’ he called out in French, digging himself in as deep as he could. It would have surprised Lord Suffolk to hear Derry’s perfect fluency in that language.
‘Eleven,’ the drover replied as he attached a feed bag to the slobbering mouth of his ox.
Derry half-rose in indignation.
‘Eleven! You could buy another ox with eleven, you bastard!’
‘Eleven is the price,’ the man said, without looking round. ‘They’re getting closer, my fine English lord.’
‘I’m not a lord,’ Derry grated from the long grass. ‘Eleven, then. My word on it.’
The sun had risen and he chafed at every lost moment. He could not take another step towards the cathedral with riders in sight. He wondered if he could creep away on his hands and knees, but if they saw the grasses move from the height of a saddle, it would be all over and done for Derry Brewer. He remained where he was, trying to ignore the flies and bright green grasshoppers that crept and buzzed around him.
He dropped his head right down when he heard the jingle and clatter of horsemen approaching the cart. They were so close he felt he could have reached out and touched them. He heard a braying English voice speaking execrable French as it shot questions at the drover. Derry breathed out in relief as the man said he had seen no one. The riders didn’t waste much time on one more grubby peasant and his ox. They trotted on quickly, so that silence returned to the roadside and Derry could hear birdsong and bees once again. He stood up, looking after the troop as they disappeared in the direction he wanted to go.
‘Eleven deniers,’ the drover said, holding out a great spade of a hand.
Derry reached into his sack and counted out the coins. He handed them over.
‘Some would call this robbery,’ he said.
The man only shrugged, smiling slightly at the wage he had earned for himself. As he turned back to the cart, he didn’t see Derry draw a billy club from his sack. One blow to the base of the man’s neck sent the drover staggering. Derry rapped him again on the dome of his skull, watching him fold with satisfaction.
‘They would be wrong,’ Derry told the unconscious figure. ‘That was just force majeure negotiation. This is robbery.’
He took his coins back and eyed the road to Tours and the risen sun. The ox chewed contentedly, looking at him through long lashes that would have suited a beautiful woman. The cart was too slow, Derry decided. He’d just have to run the last few miles.
Leaving the drover to wake in his own time, Derry set off, pounding down the road to Tours. After only a short way, he cursed aloud and came back. The drover was groaning, already beginning to wake.
‘You must have a lot of bone in that big head,’ Derry told him. He counted out three silver coins and placed them in the man’s hand, folding the fingers over.