Josse and the others watched them intently, admiring their efficiency; Josse for one was relieved when at last they were done and the ship began to pull away from the jetty. So total was the absorption of both passengers and crew upon the task in hand that hardly anybody noticed the strange behaviour of one of the monks, the last one to slither down the gangplank and in the rear of the rest of the party by some fifteen or twenty paces. A couple of sailors, anxious to draw back the gangplank, went to hurry him up; abruptly he turned and ran back along the narrow plank, now stretched over the gap of water that was already appearing between the ship’s sides and the wooden supports of the quay. With a brief nod to the sailors, who were watching him indifferently as if passengers changing their minds at the last moment were all in a day’s work, he sprang up on to the gunwale and ducked down out of sight into the companionway leading down to the cargo deck. His brother monks, already some twenty paces away, did not notice any more than most of those on board the ship had done. Even if they had, it would not have concerned them overly.
The man was the monk whom Joanna had thought was being ostracised.
He was not in fact a monk at all.
Late in the afternoon the Goddess entered the estuary of the river Rance. She sailed for a mile or two up the wide waters of the river’s mouth but the captain knew that he could not approach the port of Dinan, perhaps another six or seven miles upstream, until the tide was once again coming in and the sea building up towards high water.
Joanna, seeing Sabin standing up in the prow, went to join her.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked her quietly; Sabin had been very sick during the first night in the stuffy cabin. She had asked Joanna not to tell Gervase and Josse, explaining with a wry smile that she was meant to be the healer, not the patient. She had dosed herself with a remedy of her own making — Joanna had been interested in the ingredients, the main one of which was root of ginger — and she had not felt as bad again, although she had been frequently upset by the ship’s motion and had consequently felt queasy for most of the voyage.
Sabin smiled. ‘Better now that the end is all but in sight,’ she said.
‘You and Gervase intend to disembark at Dinan too?’
‘Yes,’ Sabin confirmed. ‘Gervase was for sailing on round to Nantes, but I have heard that the sea gets rough around the Breton peninsular and I was very reluctant to encounter anything worse than we have already experienced.’
Joanna was about to point out that the sea had been flat as a pond almost all the way, but it would have been unkind and so she didn’t. She had noticed that, while some people quickly grew accustomed to the way a ship pitched and tossed and were soon no longer nauseated by the motion, others could sail all their lives and still lose their most recent meal at the first wave. ‘So you will continue your journey by road?’
‘Yes. The captain sent for one of his sailors, a man who knows the area, and he told us that the road from Dinan to Rennes is good. The one from Rennes to Nantes, as I know from my own experience, is even better. At this time of year, we shall make good progress and perhaps even beat the Goddess into Nantes.’
‘Even if you don’t,’ Joanna observed, ‘you’ll arrive feeling better than if you’ve just rounded Armorica on a sailing vessel.’
‘Armorica?’ Sabin queried. ‘A Breton myself, I know the word, of course — it is the ancient name for Brittany — but I was not aware that anyone still called the land by that name.’
Joanna could think of no reply; a short, trite answer would have served, only she did not want to fob Sabin off with the trivial; the full explanation would have taken far too long. ‘I — er, I must have heard someone use the term somewhere,’ she said vaguely. Sabin eyed her curiously for a moment then, with a faint shrug, turned away.
The Goddess of the Dawn tied up at the quayside in the port of Dinan just as darkness fell. The journey upriver had been slow and tedious, especially for the crew, who had manned the oars for the last stretch. Their labours had been aided by the incoming tide, which sent the water flooding in up the river, but the men nevertheless had been hard put to it to keep the ship steady in mid-stream. Watching the swift expertise with which the hands secured the vessel to the quay, Josse thought that to a man they were undoubtedly looking forward to going ashore for a hot meal and a well-earned drink or two.
The captain sent four of his crew to bring the horses up from below and as Gervase and the two women set about stowing their bags and bedrolls behind the horses’ saddles, Josse went to say farewell to Harald.
‘When d’ye expect to return to England?’ Harald asked. ‘That is, if you’re intending to return?’
‘Aye, we’ll be going back,’ Josse confirmed. ‘As to when. .’ He shrugged. ‘I cannot say. It depends on how long it takes us to see to our various missions.’
Harald nodded sagely. ‘Men of affairs, then.’
‘Er — aye.’ It seemed easier to agree than to enter into extensive explanations which were, in any case, nobody else’s business.
‘We’ll not be calling in here on our return,’ Harald said, ‘but we’ll be bringing a consignment of wine up from Bordeaux to the monks on the Mont, so you might catch us there if you’ve a mind to. Won’t be for more than a fortnight at the very least, however, and longer than that if these westerlies keep up.’
Josse was hoping to be safely back in Hawkenlye before that. ‘Thank you, captain. We’ll see how we go.’
And, with a bow, he took his leave of both captain and ship and went down the gangplank to join the others.
They climbed the winding, cobbled street that led up from the port, leading the horses because of the steepness of the incline; in addition, the stones were slimy with the refuse of a day’s traffic and, despite the cobbles, more than once one or other of the horses slipped. The incline flattened out slightly as the road approached the town walls and, in single file now, the party went under the great arched gateway, its iron grille at present raised. Joanna, who had been here before, glanced up at the darkening sky: twilight was fast falling and within the hour it would be fully dark and the gates would be secured for the night.
She had not anticipated coming back to Dinan when she had agreed to accompany Josse to Armorica. In a place close by the town she had endured the worst time of her life: pregnant by one of the most famous men in the western world, she had been married off to an elderly lord and sent to live with him in his ancient family manor. For six years he had made her life hell and then he had taken a fall out hunting and his death had released her. She had fled, taking her young son, a few personal possessions, the boy’s pony and her own mare and taking ship to England, to seek refuge with the only person in the world whom she trusted.
And look, Joanna thought as she panted up the last steep incline of the Rue du Jerzual, what that flight has led to. .
She became aware that Josse was speaking and hastily began to listen.
‘. . find a place where they’ll provide a good meal and beds for the night?’ he suggested.
He seemed to be asking her; presumably he too remembered that she used to live in the area.
‘I do not know Dinan well,’ she said, ‘only having visited on rare occasions. I am sure there is decent accommodation to be found, although I cannot say where.’
Josse, she noticed, had flashed her a look of sympathy and understanding; she tried to recall exactly what she had told him of her life with Thorald de Lehon and, embarrassed, thought that she might have included a few details that she would have done better to have left out.