When the little man — who turned out to be one of Timothy’s agents, bringing the news about Olivier le Daim — had departed, I taxed John with his deception.
He laughed. ‘If you think back, I did say that I could parlez vous as well as you two, but when young madam took exception to my remark — her mother having been French — I didn’t bother arguing the point. I let her think what she liked. And, of course, up to a point, she’s right. No Frenchman in his right mind would mistake me for a native, but he’d understand me, I don’t doubt. The truth is, one of my grandmothers was a Frenchwoman. Can’t recollect which one, but she came from somewhere called Clervaux. Anyway,’ he continued, sobering and slapping me on the back, ‘we must be off first thing in the morning. Dawn if possible. We’ve a lot of ground to cover and not much time to do it in. This business of Oliver Cook is a bugger, but we daren’t let it hold us up.’
I had asked him what his thoughts were on the subject, but his reply had been cagey. It was fairly obvious that he considered foul play to be the answer and it was making him edgy, anxious to get on and to get our mission over and done with. Whether or not the cook’s murder — if that was what it really was — had anything to do with our reason for being in France, he refused to speculate.
‘All I know,’ he had said quietly, as we walked indoors together, ‘is that here is as good a chance as we’re likely to get to shake off the Armigers and Master Lackpenny. And I tell you straight, Roger, I shan’t be sorry to see the back of them, especially Master Blue Feather.’
And lying there in bed, staring into the darkness, listening to Eloise’s gentle breathing, I could not doubt his sincerity, any more than I could deny my own relief at seeing the last of our unwanted companions. With a sigh, I turned over on to my side and tried to get back to sleep, but it refused to come. Recalling John’s words about his grandmother had reminded me of something I had half forgotten: that Jane Armiger also claimed a French grandmother, who had been one of the Dowager Duchess of York’s seamstresses. I had intended to quiz Jane on the matter, but somehow, what with one thing and another, it had slipped my mind.
I rolled on to my back and shut my eyes tightly, willing myself to sleep, but still unable to command it. Instead, all I could see inside my closed lids were the grinning skeletons of my earlier dream, bearing away their harvest of dead bodies. There had been too many bodies since my return from Scotland and being charged with this new mission for Duke Richard: Humphrey Culpepper, the boatman Jeremiah Tucker and now, seemingly, Oliver Cook. As an accompaniment, there had been the news of more personal deaths: Jeanne Lamprey and Reynold Makepeace.
Abruptly I got out of bed, slipped silently between the bed-curtains and went across to the window, softly opening one of the shutters. A shaft of light from a nearby sputtering wall torch illuminated a wet and windy world. In the distance, a watchman cried the hour, and a mangy cat slipped by across the gleaming cobbles, in search of its unfortunate prey. A dog barked and then fell silent. In a doorway on the opposite side of the street, a shadow moved. A beggar, perhaps, seeking shelter for the night? But then it resolved itself into the figure of a man whom I thought I recognized, the same one surely that I had seen that other night landing at the water-stairs of Baynard’s Castle. The features were hidden by a hood drawn well forward over the face, but the movements, light and quick as he slipped along in the shadow of the houses, were surely the same. I leaned further out of the window, but he was gone, melting into another doorway further along the street.
Frustrated, and increasingly uneasy, I went back to my cold half of the bed and awaited the coming of morning, convinced that I should never sleep. Eloise stirred, muttering unintelligibly to herself, turned over and flung an arm across my body, at the same time snuggling into my side, but without awakening. The human contact was unutterably comforting and I held my breath, afraid to move and disturb her. Cautiously, I freed my right arm from the bedclothes and eased it around her head, my hand coming to rest on her shoulder. And so, finally, I slept.
During the night, she must have moved again, for when I awoke to the crowing of some distant cock and the faint light of dawn seeping through the slats of the shutters, she was lying on her back on her own side of the mattress, the tip of her cold nose just showing above the blankets, scenting the early morning air, like the snout of some small animal emerging from its burrow. As I sat up, the great violet-blue eyes turned in my direction, with a slightly puzzled expression as though she was struggling to remember something.
The bed by now was icy cold and I resigned myself to the prospect of getting up. I pushed aside the bedclothes and reluctantly put my feet to the floor.
‘We didn’t. .?’ she murmured. ‘Did we. .?’
‘If we had,’ I answered roughly, ‘you’d remember it. So you can rest easy on that score. You’ve been muttering and snoring all night.’
The softness, almost tenderness, drained from her face and she bounced up in bed, spitting venom. ‘Conceited pig! If it comes to snoring,’ she retorted, ‘you take the prize. And you can add farting to that, as well.’
‘Oh, just get dressed! John wants us on the road as soon as possible.’ I dumped both her saddlebags on the bed, closed the curtains again and began pulling on my breeches.
It was obvious that the journey ahead of us would not be easy. I wondered what was wrong with the pair of us that made us so scratchy and unfriendly all the time.
But I suppose, really, in my heart of hearts I knew the cause.
Our travelling companions were not yet out of bed when, after gobbling our breakfast, the four of us — John Bradshaw, Philip, Eloise and myself — left the Blue Cat and made our way towards one of the great gates.
A quick word with the landlord of the inn had ascertained the fact that no Oliver Cook had turned up during the night. But then, nobody had really expected him to. The lady, his sister, had insisted on sitting up until midnight had been called, when her husband had more or less carried her bodily upstairs.
‘In floods of tears, poor soul,’ the landlord had added. ‘There’s no doubt her brother’s drowned. The Channel can be a treacherous beast in the autumn gales, that’s for certain.’
He had then assured us that he would make our farewells to the rest of the party, giving it as his opinion that they were all so worn out by their trouble that none of them was likely to put in an appearance until dinnertime.
Here, however, he was wrong. I happened to be alone, while John and Philip went to the nearby livery stable to fetch the horses they had hired the previous day, and while Eloise was upstairs doing whatever it is women find to do before setting out on even the shortest of journeys, when Jane Armiger entered the parlour. She had looked dishevelled and distraught, her uncombed hair tumbling down her back, a cloak flung anyhow over her night-rail, two dark rings, like bruises, under eyes, which were wild and staring.
‘Oh!’ she said, pulling up short when she saw me. ‘I. . I heard a noise. Voices. I thought. . perhaps. .’ She broke off, her lips quivering, tears welling up and running down her cheeks.
‘No. I’m sorry. It was only my-my wife and me. We’re leaving early.’ I went forward and led her to a chair. ‘Sit down, my dear child. Have some ale.’ I reached for the jug of small beer, still standing on the table among the remains of our breakfast, poured some into a beaker and pushed it towards her.
She gave me a watery smile and took a few sips. ‘Robert’s asleep,’ she explained. ‘Of course,’ she added quickly, ‘he’s just as worried as I am, but. . but. .’