‘Yes.’
‘Did you see him?’
‘Thickset, broad-shouldered, with a slow sort of mien. I would not think him a nobleman. He didn’t have that kind of breeding.’
‘His face.’
‘Didn’t see it. He was in shadows. Lady Joan was between him and the torches.’
Queen Isabella nodded faintly. ‘Watch her, then, and let me know if you see him again.’
‘I will, my-’
‘You are taking your time, child. Is our queen’s toilet complete?’
‘Lady Alice, I think I can decide for myself when my toilet is complete. Where is Lady Joan?’
‘I do not know. She went out a little while ago.’
‘Perhaps you should send someone to ensure that she is quite safe? And while you are out there, you could send for my musicians. I think I need a little music to lighten my mood. I find myself a little distraite.’
‘Very well. Alicia, you go and-’
‘Countess Alice, I think I asked you to go,’ the Queen said. In her voice was a hint of steel. Although she did not turn her head to look at the Dowager Countess directly, there was enough menace in her tone to make Alice de Toeni colour.
‘I should insist, my lady. I am of noble blood, and it would be better if I did not leave you alone. We are in a foreign country, and-’
‘Lady Alice, this is the land of my birth. You suggest that my own countrymen would harm me? For sooth! Now, begone. If there is any trouble, you may point out that it was the absence of Lady Joan that forced you to leave me alone. Now, go!’
As soon as the door had slammed, she gave herself over to giggling. ‘Did you see her face? She was like a stuffed frog!’
Alicia was more concerned. ‘But what if she causes you trouble? She could tell the King that you sent her away like a serf.’
‘She will. With fortune, it will be too late,’ Queen Isabella said with a cold certainty, and Alicia wondered at that. It was not the first time she had heard that hard, ruthless edge to her mistress’s voice, but it was the first time that she had seen the glitter of certainty in her eyes.
While the Queen waited for her musicians, Alicia noticed that she appeared unsettled. Usually Alicia would leave to go about other duties while the musicians played, but tonight she was unusually tired. The effect of the journey and the feeling that she must spend her time in cautious observation of all those about her, she supposed.
The men trooped in, a very motley band. Still, as the first struck a tune on his gittern, and another started to saw on his rebec, she warmed to them. They might be the tattiest churls ever to have been scraped from the kennel, but they could certainly play their instruments. Even when they had been in a fight. The man with the bodhran was looking quite battered, although he stood there with his head turned away from the drum, his ear near the skin as he beat out the rhythms, like a man with nothing on his mind whatever, other than the urgent need for the music he had to play. Then the rebec player glanced over at the others in turn, each nodding to him, and he ducked his upper body and sawed faster on his fiddle, and as though by magic all the others joined in at the same time, this time playing a furious, quick dance tune. Alicia’s foot could not keep still — it began to tap in time.
But all the while her mind was not on the music. It was on the Queen, sitting here so close to her, her head moving, smiling all the while.
There was a fresh change of tempo, and now it was the gittern player who initiated it. He looked at the rebecman, then to the drummer and the recorder. All nodded.
And then she saw something else. It was so swift, so fleeting, that at first she thought she had been wrong. The bodhran man looked up quickly. Just for a moment, but Alicia saw it, and she also saw his slight nod. It was a momentary thing, but enough, she thought, to be over-familiar. Except Isabella did not seem to mind. Instead, she too nodded. A spasm of the neck that made her head move a fraction, only for an instant.
Alicia felt the breath in her lungs turn to ice. Isabella had a plan to which even Alicia was not privy. It was the first time Alicia had realised that there could be secrets which the Queen would keep even from her.
In the street outside the Queen’s apartments, Adam and the other musicians stood and counted their coins again. Ricard knew he ought to go back to their room and make sure that little Charlie was safe, but somehow it seemed hard to move his legs just now.
‘My God,’ Adam breathed. He stared at the coins glittering and shining in Ricard’s hands.
‘I know,’ Janin said. He could not believe what he held. He stared at the coins with a kind of longing. They were so beautiful, he hardly dared to put his rosin-stained hands near them. Large, solid coins. Fifty of them.
For his part, Ricard was all but speechless. It was only after he had stood there with the pile of coins in his hands for a while that he shook his head and muttered, ‘Keep this up, we’ll be able to retire in comfort.’
‘She must have been in a good mood tonight,’ Jack said.
‘She’s a queen. What’s there for her to be anxious about?’ Adam said, his eyes still fixed upon the mound in Ricard’s hand. ‘Can I feel one, Ric?’
‘She usually gives us a few coins, doesn’t she? One or two shillings for an evening’s banging and scraping. And tonight she gives us ten apiece, and you’re not interested in why?’
‘Just leave her alone, is what I say. She’s a lady, and she doesn’t deserve some arse like you sniffing around her,’ Philip said.
‘Me? Ho hum. So you still think I’m a spy now, do you?’
‘I don’t know what you are, but I know damn sure I don’t trust you,’ Philip snarled.
‘Ah, now, there’s a pity. When I could be such charming company, too,’ Jack said lightly.
‘Just leave the woman alone. She has enough to cope with.’
Adam gave a small sniff of contempt. ‘Like what? She’s a queen, Philip. She’s never been left out in the open with her instruments getting warped in the rain, has she? Never had to worry about where her next meal’s coming from, neither. Don’t see what you reckon-’
‘Have you wool in your head? You heard what Peter used to say. She’s been suffering a lot recently, what with her children taken away and her friends all gone. Despenser hates her, that’s what they say. So yes, she has plenty to worry about, I’d reckon.’
‘Let her worry. What do we care, as long as she keeps paying us?’ Jack said.
‘You shouldn’t keep talking about her as if she was just some slattern from the stews!’
‘Was I disrespectful, old man? Ah, now there. I hadn’t realised that talking amongst friends could be so dangerous. If I’ve upset you, that’s a shame.’
All was delivered in a calm, disinterested tone, as though Jack was absolutely unconcerned what Philip might think, and it was enough to make Philip forget where they were. Here, in the street, in the dark, it was hazardous to brawl where the Watch could catch a man, but he was past caring.
He growled low in his throat, and launched himself forward, his hands reaching out like a campball player’s14 to grab Jack. But as he sprang at him, Jack slipped aside and punched once, sharply. His fist connected with a solid-sounding thud just under Philip’s ear, and he fell to the ground like a pole-axed ox.
‘I think you’d best take care of him now, fellows. Don’t think he’d like me to be around when he wakens, eh?’
The last they saw of Jack that night, he was strolling away as though he had not a care in the world. It was only Adam who saw the figure slip from the shadow of a doorway further up the street and join Jack, walking in step with him as far as a bend in the road. They both stopped there and turned back to look at the musicians before walking on.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked.
‘What?’ Ricard had been carefully replacing the coins one by one in the neat purse, and looked up now as Janin tried to lift Philip to a sitting position.