But he was related to the de Courtenays, and that counted for a lot.
Marion stitched on in silence for a moment while she considered. It would be a significant achievement to once again have nobility in the family. And Avice could not wish for a better mate. None of the greater families would countenance having the daughter of a trader attach herself to them, and she was lucky that John had accepted her. Marion watched her husband affectionately. He was staring sulkily at the fire and refusing to meet her gaze.
“Husband, you know that it is best for her that she marries into a good family.”
“I would prefer her to be happy.”
“ I am happy.”
The softness of her tone made him look up, searching her face for a trace of falsehood. “But she seems set on this Venetian, and from the way he’s mooning around, if he doesn’t love her, I don’t know what love is.”
“That is not love, just infatuation. They will both grow out of it,” she said confidently. “Arthur, we know all about John and nothing about this other boy. Which is the safer partner for our daughter?”
“Did you know that Pietro is the son of a banker? The father is negotiating with the Abbot even now.”
She paused while she absorbed this. “Perhaps so, but money is not the only issue.”
“Marion, some of these Italian bankers are extremely rich. With that kind of money Pietro could buy a knighthood, maybe even a Dukedom.”
“A new title isn’t the same as an ancient one,” she protested uncertainly.
“And how do you know the Venetian isn’t from a titled family? Many of these Italian bankers come from noble stock.”
“I hardly think…”
“If he is, we are losing a good man for our daughter, aren’t we?”
“What do you suggest we do, then?”
“Only this: that we find out what we can about the Camminos. I shall set the groom on to this. Henry’s always been nosey. He’d love checking up on them.”
Marion considered, then nodded agreement. “If you think it’s worthwhile, husband.”
Arthur watched his wife as she returned to her needlework. She appeared content, and when she glanced up and saw his look, she smiled again. He returned to his staring at the fire; he would never understand women. Still, he resolved to have enquiries made about the Venetians as quickly as possible. If he was to bow to his daughter’s wishes, he would first have to make sure that she would not later have cause to regret her choice.
Margaret took the cloth from the merchant and held it up against her body while Jeanne considered it. Then they both began giggling again. Jordan kept his pleasant expression, but it was becoming a little fixed. When he glanced at Hugh, all he could see was a morose scowl, and he had to wonder to which of the two women the miserable-looking sod belonged. If his wife had possessed a servant such as that, he swore, he would dismiss the creature immediately.
Hugh was weighed down with the mass of foodstuffs and his arms felt inches longer. The gaiety of the women was incomprehensible to him, and he didn’t trust the salesman, either. Jordan Lybbe seemed too pat, too smarmy in the way he sang the praises of the pair as they held bolts of material against themselves. It was bordering on the familiar, and Hugh was deeply suspicious. The man almost seemed to be flirting, and what made it worse was that the women gave every appearance of loving it.
Hugh glanced up and down the alleyway. The day was drawing in, and people were clearing from the pathways between the stalls, preparing to return to their rented houses, or rooms at inns and taverns, some to get back to their warm beds in the straw over the horses. Firstly, though, all would be looking forward to the entertainers who inevitably tagged along in the wake of the fair. In the alcoholic haze in many rooms tonight, people would be blearily watching fools performing acrobatics or singing, and few if any of them would remember a thing about it in the morning. Their only reminder would be the size of their hangover and lightness of their purses.
He could visualize it only too well, and he wanted to be a part of it. But there was precious little chance that he could enjoy any of the festivities while his master was the guest of the Abbot. It would be unseemly for a bailiff’s servant to cavort with jugglers or dancers while staying in a convent.
As another gale of mirth rang out, he carefully set the baskets on the ground, leaning against a pole. Here he could feel the last gleam of the sun, and he closed his eyes and enjoyed the faint warmth. It was rare enough that he had time to sit in the sun nowadays. That had all stopped once he left home to earn his own living. Before that he had been first a bird scarer, throwing stones at the pigeons and crows, and sometimes getting a lucky hit and food for supper, until he was eight and old enough to become a shepherd, and if the winter months were cold and cruel-working in the snow trying to find missing animals and protecting the young lambs from foxes, buzzards, crows, wolves and all the other animals which preyed on the long-legged and stupid creatures-the summer months more than compensated. Then he could sit in the pastures with his pouch of food and a skin full of ale, and doze in the sunlight while the young sheep continually circled their grazing: walking and cropping, walking and cropping.
In his mind’s eye he could see the pasturelands now, as if he was back on the hill near Drewsteignton, the forty-odd animals in front of him, their jaws moving rhythmically, taking a slow step at a time as they followed after their leader. The vision was so strong, he felt he could almost reach out and touch the nearest sheep.
Then he snapped back to wakefulness as he heard the voice.
“My friends say you’re from France. That right?”
Hugh looked first to the women: they were silent but unharmed. The merchant had been talking with such concentration he had not noticed the three men who had stealthily encircled him. Hugh moved quietly behind the pole, his hand falling on his old knife and testing it in the sheath.
“They reckoned you couldn’t understand English. Said you had problems with it before.”
They had timed their attack perfectly, Hugh saw. The clothseller and the women had been busy at the back of the stall, and it was hard to see the lane now, they were so far from the trestle at the front. If they were to call for help, it was likely they would be unconscious and their attackers far away before anyone dared to enter and find out what was happening. Not many people would care to risk their lives to protect another stallholder. Hugh stood still, and so far as he could see, none of the men had noticed him.
The leader of the three, the one who had spoken, hefted a large blackthorn club in his hand, and let it rise and fall two or three times. “Let’s see if this teaches you the King’s English, you foreign bastard. Get him, lads!”
The two men at either side of Lybbe reached out to grasp him, but the merchant was too quick for them. He sprang forward, knocking the leader’s cudgel aside and gripping the man’s wrist. Ducking under his shoulder, still holding his arm, Lybbe twisted, wrenching the man’s arm back. The leader was now bent over in agony; Lybbe took the club from his unresisting fingers and rested it on his attacker’s shoulder, pushing the man away from him and forcing a little gasp of pain from his lips.
“I understand English well enough, I reckon,” Jordan said coldly. “It seems your friend didn’t, though. I told him I’d get angry if anything happened to my things here, but he obviously didn’t get my meaning.” He twisted the arm and held it higher, and the leader’s legs crumpled as he tried to stop his shoulder being prized from its socket. “I wonder, do you understand me? If I have any more of this, I’ll have to keep lifting your arm up, and then you’ll need to see the monks to get it mended. It might take some time.”