His voice had a rasping authority.
‘Let us set forth at once!’ he ordered.
‘We looked to rest for a while,’ said Ralph.
‘You have delayed us long enough.’
‘That was unavoidable.’
‘We must press on.’
Ralph stiffened. ‘I will make that decision, my lord,’ he said firmly. ‘I bid you welcome and invite you to join us but you must do so on the clear understanding that it is I who will control the timing and the speed of our movements. I am Ralph Delchard and you should have been instructed that I am the arbiter here.’
He lifted an arm to signal to the others. ‘Dismount and take your ease.’
Trouville glowered in silence and remained in the saddle while the travellers got down from their horses. When Ralph introduced the other members of his party, the new commissioner was barely civil, managing a rough politeness when he met Golde but lapsing into undisguised contempt when Theobald and Benedict were presented to him. The archdeacon accepted the rebuff with equanimity but the scribe glowed with sudden benevolence.
‘I forgive you this unwarranted bluntness, my lord,’ he said.
‘When you come to know us better you will appreciate our true worth and set a higher value on our acquaintance.’
‘Do not preach at me!’ warned Trouville.
‘I merely extend the hand of Christian fellowship.’
‘Crawl back to your monastery where you belong.’
‘I have been called to render assistance to your great work and I do so willingly, my lord. You will find me able and quick-witted.’
‘I have no time for canting monks!’
‘God bless you!’ said Benedict with a benign smile as if responding to a rich compliment. ‘And thank you for your indulgence.’
Ever the diplomat, Archdeacon Theobald took him by the sleeve and detached him with a mild enquiry, leaving Trouville to mutter expletives under his breath before turning to bark an order to one of his men.
‘Ask my lady to join us!’
The soldier dismounted and crossed to a nearby cottage.
‘Your wife travels with you?’ said Ralph in surprise.
‘I would not stir abroad without her.’
‘It is so with me,’ said the other, sensing a point of contact at last. ‘Golde is indispensable. When she is not at my side I feel as if a limb has been hacked off. I am only happy when she is here.’
‘That is not the case with me,’ grumbled Trouville. ‘I would prefer to travel alone but my wife insists on riding with me. It is one of the perils of marriage but it must be borne.’
‘I do not see it as a peril.’
‘You are not wed to Marguerite.’
At that precise moment, the soldier stood back from the door of the cottage to allow a short, bulbous woman of middle years to come bustling out, her face, once handsome, now cruelly lined with age and puckered with disapproval, her body swathed in a cloak which failed to keep out the cold entirely and which, framing her features, accentuated the curl of her lip even more. Ralph could see at a glance that she was a potent woman with, no doubt, a demanding tongue and he even found himself feeling vaguely sorry for Trouville, imagining without much difficulty the lacerating encounters in the bedchamber which the man must endure, and deciding that they were the reason for his unrelieved surliness. But his conclusions, he soon discovered, were far too hasty.
‘Hurry up, Heloise!’ bellowed Trouville.
The woman who scurried across to her waiting palfrey was not the wife at all but Heloise, her maidservant and companion, a subordinate figure in the entourage yet one who exuded visibly the strong opinions she was not entitled to voice in company and who was not abashed by the presence of a troop of armed men, even the most lustful of whom was deterred from ribald comment by her forbidding appearance. There was a long pause before Philippe Trouville’s wife came out of the house as if she had deliberately been keeping them waiting in order to heighten their interest and assure complete attention from her audience.
The lady Marguerite was as unlike Heloise as it was possible to be. She was young, graceful and possessed of the kind of dazzling beauty which would make a saint catch his breath and consider whether his life had been quite as well spent as he believed.
Her cloak and wimple in no way diminished her charms. Indeed, they seemed to blossom before the watching eyes like snowdrops sent to hurry winter on its way and presage spring. Though almost thirty years younger than her husband, she was no innocent child sacrificed to a grotesque marriage by uncaring parents but a creature of poise and maturity with a haughtiness in her gaze which could unsettle the most strong-willed of men. Trouville immediately dismounted to draw her into the group and perform brief introductions. Marguerite surveyed them with a glacial indifference. It changed to mild curiosity when she saw Golde but reverted to disdain when she realised that Ralph’s wife was a Saxon. Golde was taken aback by the woman’s blatant rudeness.
‘Could you not wed a Norman lady?’ Marguerite asked him.
‘I could and I did, my lady. She died, alas.’
‘So you married a Saxon in her stead?’
‘I married the woman I love,’ said Ralph proudly.
Golde thanked him with a smile but Marguerite smouldered.
‘Why do we dawdle here?’ she snapped. ‘Let me ride away from this hateful place. I only stepped into that cottage to get warm but the stink of its occupants was a high price to pay for the comfort of their fire. Low-born Saxons have no self-respect. Take me out of here, Philippe.’
‘I will, Marguerite.’
‘When we have rested the horses,’ said Ralph.
‘Am I to be kept here against my will?’ demanded Marguerite.
‘There is nothing to prevent you from riding on ahead, my lady.’
‘Then that is what we will do.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said her husband, bowing to caution. ‘We will be travelling through dangerous countryside and need more protection than six men-at-arms can offer. Winter makes outlaws more desperate. Tarry awhile and we ensure safety.’
‘I wish to leave now, Philippe,’ she insisted.
‘The delay will not be long.’
‘Banbury depresses my soul.’
‘It uplifts mine,’ said Benedict cheerfully. ‘This church is a beacon of joy in the wilderness. It is a pleasure to linger here and feel God’s presence. Reach out to Him, my lady,’ he advised Marguerite, beaming familiarly at her and exposing huge teeth.
‘Let the touch of the Almighty bring you peace and happiness.’
Philippe Trouville glared at him, his wife stifled a retort and the teak-faced Heloise snorted with derision but the monk was unmoved by their hostile response. Ralph exchanged a worried glance with Gervase.
There would be a long and uncomfortable ride ahead of them.
When they crossed the county boundary into Warwickshire, there was at first no discernible change in the landscape. Woodland then began to recede and, as they traversed the Feldon, they found themselves in a region which was heavily cultivated. Open-field strip holdings were now rimed with frost and lush pasture was deserted and hidden beneath a white blanket but the party was conscious of riding through an expanse of fertile soil. With few trees to protect them and no friendly contours to shield them, the cavalcade was largely exposed to the elements and, for the most part, deprived of the urge to converse, unless it be to mouth some fresh protest about the weather. Brother Benedict, riding once more at the rear of the column, was the singular exception, a grinning flagellant who revelled in the whiplashes of the wind and whose voice rose above its howl in a high and melodious chant. Only a blinding snowstorm would have increased his joy.
Ralph Delchard had never been so glad to spy a destination.
Light was fading badly when the town finally came into view and he could only see it in hazy outline but it had a stark loveliness to him. Set in the Avon valley, Warwick had grown up beside the river itself to become the largest community in the shire. It was almost twenty years since he had last visited the place, travelling on that occasion as a member of the Conqueror’s punitive army and pausing there long enough to see its castle being raised, its town walls strengthened and the additional fortification of an encircling ditch being dug. The closer they got, the more anxious Ralph became to renew his acquaintance with the town and rediscover the lost pleasures of eating, drinking and relaxing in warm surroundings.