‘He doesn’t even know me,’ I protested. I thought I saw an expression of surprise — or was it disbelief? — in my companion’s eyes and continued irritably, ‘Whatever you may have surmised, sir, that couldn’t possibly have been his reason. Have you tried to find him?’
Sir Lionel looked pardonably annoyed. ‘Of course I’ve tried to find him! I told you! He’s stolen one of my best stallions, Caesar, a big, handsome black with white stockings. Part Arab. Worth far more than anything Walter Gurney was owed in wages, wizard though he was with the animals. I sent four of my men out in all directions as soon as his and the horse’s disappearance was reported to me. But to no avail.’
‘And you blame me for this loss.’
He laughed awkwardly. ‘No, of course not. I presume you were only acting under orders and weren’t to know that the man would take fright.’ The blue eyes narrowed suddenly. ‘Or did you suspect that this might happen?’
‘No. Or I shouldn’t have alerted him to my coming. I’d have arrived unannounced. Furthermore,’ I went on, ‘the message I had to give him was merely one of remembrance from a lady in Gloucester to whom he had once been betrothed.’ I considered it more prudent to give this simpler version of events. There was no point, in the circumstances, to complicate matters.
‘I see.’ Sir Lionel rubbed his chin. ‘An explanation which makes Walter’s sudden flight seem rather strange.’ My host was clearly not convinced by my story, but was too much the gentleman to question it. He smiled and once again pushed back his chair. ‘In that case, we’ll let the subject rest. You’ll do me the honour of spending the night here? I assure you I can offer you better hospitality than you’ll find at the abbey.’
‘Mine will be the honour, Sir Lionel,’ I answered formally, then suddenly grinned. I was beginning to like the man.
‘That’s settled then.’ He gave me an answering smile, but I had the feeling that it was not as spontaneous as it seemed. ‘Do you play chess?’ he asked.
‘Not at all, I’m afraid. I’ve watched men play, of course, but I’ve no knowledge of the rules of the game.’
‘I believe the Du- I mean, King Richard is an excellent player,’ was the seemingly irrelevant response.
‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’
Once again, my host gave me the leery look that implied he quite understood my discretion. Not for the first time, I silently cursed Margaret Walker and her friends, who had spread the idea throughout Bristol that I was a part of King Richard’s inner circle and privy to all its confidential secrets. (In fairness, though, I have to admit that the notion had begun to take hold without the aid of their chattering tongues.)
In the end, Sir Lionel and I whiled away the hours before bedtime with a game or two of Three Men’s Morris, and I entertained him with the story of how I had once taken part in a game of Nine Men’s Morris played with live ‘counters’, of which I had been one. This amused him greatly. Halfway through our third game, however, the servant, Robin, a big, burly fellow with a broken nose and a scarred cheek, came in and whispered something in his master’s ear, and this seemed to be the sign for our retirement. Sir Lionel’s housekeeper was summoned and bidden to show me to the room which she had prepared for me.
‘I’d be grateful,’ I said, ‘if I could have my dog returned. He gets restless in strange surroundings if we’re parted for too long.’
‘Of course.’ The knight was immediately sympathetic and despatched Robin to the kitchens to seek out Hercules. While we were waiting, I told Sir Lionel of the circumstances in which the dog and I had been thrown together, and made him laugh with a description of the animal’s less endearing habits. In return, he disclosed that one of his favourite hounds had recently died and that he had been so distressed by his loss that he had had poor Wolf, as he called him, buried within the manor precincts, in a vacant plot of land, close to the chapel.
By this time I had been reunited with Hercules, who greeted me ecstatically and embraced my left leg with embarrassing familiarity. After which, I said a hurried goodnight to my host and followed the housekeeper up to bed.
TEN
The housekeeper had allotted me a small room over the entrance porch of the house which she obviously considered more in keeping with my lowly status than any of the manor’s larger bedchambers. In spite of this, the sheets were clean, the mattress comfortable and my ‘all-night’, consisting of half a loaf and a substantial beaker of ale, placed within easy reach on the ledge of a fine circular window that overlooked the courtyard below. A jug of water and a bowl had been provided for me to wash with, while a lighted candle and tinderbox stood on a handy shelf.
Hercules, as tired by his long walk as I was, leapt on to the bed and had settled down before I had even removed my boots. But as soon as I had stripped and splashed a few token drops of water about my person, I was not long in following his example. Only pausing to blow out the candle, I was asleep in minutes.
I don’t know how long I slept before being roused by the dog’s restless behaviour. Hercules was standing on his hind legs on the edge of the bed, his front paws placed on the window ledge, his ears pricked forward, every inch of him alert and listening.
‘What is it, lad?’ I whispered.
I could hear nothing, the window being fast shut, but it was plain that his acute hearing had picked up some noise that he thought it worthwhile to investigate. I slid out of bed and knelt beside him, but the thick, opaque glass prevented any sound from reaching my ears. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, however, I noticed a catch at the base of the window frame, and when this was released, the window tilted on a central crossbar. Cautiously, I eased it open an inch or two, then, removing the ‘all-night’ to the far side of the bed, wriggled around until I was in a position to squint down into the courtyard. I was in luck. This was faintly illumined by the flickering radiance from a torch placed high on a wall beyond my range of vision, and by its feeble light I was able to make out the figures of two men standing with heads close together, obviously deep in conversation.
After a moment or two, I recognized the man on the left as Lionel Despenser, but his companion was unknown to me. I certainly hadn’t met him so far during the course of my visit, but that didn’t mean to say that he wasn’t attached to the manor in some capacity or other. He was, however, dressed in a travelling cloak with a hood pulled up over his head and I recollected the servant, Robin, bringing a message to his master during supper and wondered if this meeting, which bore all the indications of secrecy, had anything to do with it. Even as the thought crossed my mind, there came the clop of hooves and a moment later Fulk — there was no mistaking him — led up a horse ready for the stranger to mount.
The other two continued their low-voiced, extremely earnest conversation for a short while longer, then clasped each other in a farewell embrace before the second man swung himself into the saddle with expert grace. And at exactly that moment a gust of wind must have torn at the flame of the wall torch making it flare into brightness. For five or six seconds, the courtyard was sufficiently well lit for me to see that the horse the visitor was straddling was black with four white stockings.
I closed the window gently, making no sound, and went slowly back to bed. It was a long time, however, before I fell asleep, my thoughts going round and round like a squirrel in a cage.
There was little doubt in my mind that the horse I had seen was the one Lionel Despenser had accused Walter Gurney of stealing. It was remotely possible, I supposed, that the knight might have two animals with identical markings, but I thought it extremely unlikely. Or did the beast have some additional distinguishing mark that I had missed? Somehow I didn’t think so. The horse, fresh from the stables and eager to be off, had shifted, half-turning towards me, but apart from the liquid flash of his eye in the torchlight, I could remember nothing but the ‘stockings’.