Still he walked, listening for chance remarks caught in passing, pausing in the doorways of inns, lingering near any group of folk that talked and laughed among themselves while a bottle passed from hand to hand. The streets should be better lighted, he noted, especially the narrower ones; crime preferred shadows.
Then he lifted his head, hearkening. Somewhere near, a man was talking, and loudly—talking with the cadence and timbre of one who spoke to a crowd. This, especially, should be of interest. His spirit quickening, Tuan followed the sound of the voice.
He came into a small square—a triangle, rather, an open space ringed on three sides by house fronts, one of which bore the sign of an inn. A horse and cart were tied to a post, and several booths stood empty, awaiting farmers' produce on the morrow.
Across from the booths, a man stood on a hogshead, a man in a brown hooded robe with a black rope for a belt and a small yellow handle in a pocket on his chest. Tuan's eyes widened; he'd seen hedge priests before, but not in the habit of the order, and not in Runnymede town itself.
"They besiege us!" the monk cried. "All about us foul spirits spring from the rocks and dead souls rise from their graves! The ancient ghosts of the land rise up to daunt us! What can have brought them upon us?"
Tuan pricked up his ears. This was something new—and perhaps even pertinent. He settled back to hear the preacher's theory.
"The King!" The monk answered his own question, and Tuan stiffened. "The King stands for the land, for the whole of the nation! What thou and I are, what we all together make, the King doth stand for! The King is the meeting place of all that is good and right in us!"
And Tuan found himself agreeing. There was something about this preacher that almost compelled belief.
"Yet if we make the King, 'tis even as truthful that the King doth make us!" the preacher went on. "If the barons threaten the King, the land is in turmoil—yet equally, if the King doth threaten the barons, the land will be also in turmoil!"
Tuan began to see the direction the man was taking, and he didn't like it. Nonetheless, it seemed to make a certain amount of sense, and the crowd around the monk was beginning to rumble agreement.
"Yet the spirits do not haunt the King of their own accord!" the preacher cried. "Nay, it must needs be he who hath stirred them up!"
A few shouts of agreement came out of the crowd. With dread, Tuan recognized a kindred spirit—a man who was at least as talented a speaker as Tuan himself. The King eased back to murmur a few words in the ear of his closest guardsman. The man nodded and moved away.
"For centuries," the orator declared, "Holy Mother the Church hath kept the spirits at bay! For hundreds of years the Church hath brought holiness to the land and lulled its fell spirits to sleep! Thereby, if they now wake, what hath caused it?" He paused to let a rumble build, then capped it. "The King! He doth set himself up 'gainst the Church! In the souls of his people he doth raise up strife! And as he doth in the people, so he doth in the land!"
This time he had to pause till the rumble died down.
Tuan waited, too. The longer the preacher took, the more time his men would have to surround-the little plaza.
"The land is unquiet!" the preacher stated. "Nay, what could cause it but an unquiet soul in the King of the land? 'Tis the sin of the King in opposing the Church! In abiding corrupted Rome! In his heresy't"
The crowd roared.
The preacher let it build, satisfied.
So was Tuan; his men must have blocked the streets. He eased back into the shadows, waiting while the preacher whipped the crowd up to the point where they were calling for the King to abdicate, then sent them on their way to shout beneath the magistrates' windows. Tuan watched them stream by him, more certain than ever that there was more to the success of this rhetoric than well-chosen words. His men let the people pass; then, as the preacher climbed down off his hogshead, they strolled in from each alleyway. The monk looked up, smiling pleasantly. "What wouldst thou, good men?"
"I would have some words with thee about the doctrines thou hast but now espoused," Tuan answered.
The monk frowned; the language was scarcely that of a peasant. "Certes, my son. May I know thy name and rank?"
"Gladly will I give it." Tuan signed to his men, then pulled back his hood. "I am Tuan Loguire, King of Gramarye."
The monk froze in horror, eyes bulging, and in that second of paralysis husky peasants stepped up all about him. He recovered and glanced about him wildly, but saw the hardness of their faces, and his own expression smoothed. He straightened, relaxing. "What wouldst thou of me, milord?"
Tuan frowned, noting the avoidance of the term Majesty. "Dost truly believe the course thou didst but now preach?"
"By Heaven, I do!"
"Then," said Tuan, "thou shouldst not hesitate to come debate that course with an adherent of mine, who doth hold the contrary view."
A guarded look came into the monk's eyes. "And thou wilt truly listen?"
"Myself, and the Queen. Further, we shall not speak, but allow thee and my champion alone to discourse on the issue. Wilt thou come?"
"Willingly." The monk's eyes glittered. "I do not fear to defend my Faith!"
Chapter Thirteen
"Dinner? Indoors? How novel!"
"Be not so silly, Papa." Cordelia yanked on his arm. "Thou hast been on the road but one night."
"One night with you. Your brother kept me out for two nights before that!"
"As he did tell it, 'twas not he that kept thee," Cordelia retorted. "Come, Papa. Dost thou not wish to dine with me?"
"Oh, yes! Especially when I don't have to catch the main course first!" Rod stepped aside at the doorway and bowed his daughter into the inn. "After you, mademoiselle."
"I thank you, sir," she answered, tilting her chin up as she stepped past him.
They stepped into the usual hubbub of a small town's posting-inn, which meant that most of the customers were hard-working peasants spending a cheerful hour away from their wives. It also meant they weren't much for eating at the moment. Rod took a table against the wall and not too far from the door, holding the chair for Cordelia and bowing again as she sat, giving her the full gallant treatment. His reward was a radiant smile as he moved around the table and sat across from her. He glanced up to make sure he could see both the door and the kitchen behind her, out of habit—and noticed a peasant in keeper's green come in and sit down with a small group at a table. Nice to be where everybody knew everybody else— provided they didn't mind strangers. He also saw the landlord bustling up to them with a smile. Rod reflected that the man would have been kicking them out, not smiling, if they hadn't changed their clothes, washed, and cached their load of pots. But since they looked moderately prosperous, he rubbed his hands and beamed. "How may I serve thee, good folk?"
"Soup?" Rod looked up at Cordelia. She nodded and smiled. He asked the landlord, "What is it tonight?"
"Pease porridge, goodman."
"Hot?"
"Surely." The innkeeper frowned. "Wherefore would it not be?"
"Well, some like it cold. With bread, of course—and do you have meat?"
"Only a hen, goodman, who is past her laying days."