She would not meet his eyes, but stubbornly stared at the camp-fires that burned all along the road, while further north, on the night's horizon, great red glows showed where larger fires burned, and Thomas knew that English soldiers must have been ravaging the fields of Normandy just as the hellequin had harrowed Brittany. I can be near Charles if I'm in Brittany,' Jeanette said. Thomas shook his head. He was dimly aware that the sight of the army's destruction had forced them both into a reality from which they had been escaping in these last weeks of freedom, but he could not connect that with her sudden wish to head back to Brittanny.
You can be near Charles,“ he said carefully, but can you see him? Will the Duke let you near him?”
Maybe he will change his mind,' Jeanette said without much conviction.
And maybe he'll rape you again,“ Thomas said brutally. And if I don't go,” she said vehemently, maybe I will never see Charles again. Never!'
Then why come this far?'
I don't know, I don't know.“ She was angry as she used to be when Thomas first met her in La Roche- Derrien. Because I was mad,” she said sullenly.
You say you want to appeal to the King,“ Thomas said, and he's here!” He flung a hand towards the livid glow of the fires. So appeal to him here.'
Maybe he won't believe me,“ Jeanette said stubbornly. And what will we do in Brittany?” Thomas asked, but Jeanette would not answer. She looked sulky and still avoided his gaze. You can marry one of the Duke's men-at- arms,“ Thomas went on, that's what he wanted, isn't it? A pliant wife of a pliant follower so that when he feels like taking his pleasure, he can.” Isn't that what you do?' she challenged him, looking him in the face at last.
I love you,' Thomas said.
Jeanette said nothing.
I do love you,' Thomas said, and felt foolish for she had never said the same to him.
Jeanette looked at the glowing horizon that was tangled by the leaves of the forest. Will your king believe me?“ she asked him. How can he not?”
Do I look like a countess?'
She looked ragged, poor and beautiful. You speak like a coun-tess,“ Thomas said, and the King's clerks will make enquiries of the Earl of Northampton.” He did not know if that was true, but he wanted to encourage her.
Jeanette sat with her head bowed. Do you know what the Duke told me? That my mother was a Jewess!' She looked up at him, expecting him to share her indignation.
Thomas frowned. I've never met a Jew,“ he said. Jeanette almost exploded. You think I have? You need to meet the devil to know he is bad? A pig to discover he stinks?” She began to weep. I don't know what to do.'
We shall go to the King,“ Thomas said, and next morning he walked north and, after a few heartbeats, Jeanette followed him. She had tried to clean her dress, though it was so filthy that all she could manage was to brush the twigs and leaf mould from the velvet. She coiled her hair and pinned it with slivers of wood. What kind of man is the King?” she asked Thomas. They say he's a good man.
Who says?'
Everyone. He's straightforward.'
He's still English,“ Jeanette said softly, and Thomas pretended not to hear. Is he kind?” she asked him.
No one says he's cruel,' Thomas said, then held up a hand to silence Jeanette.
He had seen horsemen in mail.
Thomas had often found it strange that when the monks and scriveners made their books they painted warfare as gaudy. Their squirrel-hair brushes showed men in brightly coloured surcoats or jupons, and their horses in brilliantly patterned trappers. Yet for most of the time war was grey until the arrows bit, when it became shot through with red. Grey was the colour of a mail coat, and Thomas was seeing grey among the green leaves. He did not know if they were Frenchmen or Englishmen, but he feared both. The French were his enemy, but so were the English until they were convinced that he was English too, and convinced, moreover, that he was not a deserter from their army.
More horsemen came from the distant trees and these men were carrying bows, so they had to be English. Still Thomas hesitated, reluctant to face the problems of persuading his own side that he was not a deserter. Beyond the horsemen, hidden by the trees, a building must have been set on fire for smoke began to thicken above the summer leaves. The horsemen were looking towards Thomas and Jeanette, but the pair were hidden by a bank of gorse and after a while, satisfied that no enemy threatened, the troops turned and rode eastwards.
Thomas waited till they were out of sight, then led Jean ette across the open land, into the trees and out to where a farm burned. The flames were pale in the bright sun. No one was in sight. There was just a farm blazing and a dog lying next to a duck pond that was surrounded by feathers. The dog was whimpering and Jeanette cried out for it had been stabbed in the belly. Thomas stooped beside the beast, stroked its head and fondled its ears and the dying dog licked his hand and tried to wag its tail and Thomas rammed his knife deep into its heart so that it died swiftly.
It would not have lived,“ he told Jeanette. She said nothing, just stared at the burning thatch and rafters. Thomas pulled out the knife and patted the dog's head. Go to Saint Guinefort,” he said, cleaning the blade. I always wanted a dog when I was a child,“ he told Jeanette, but my father couldn't abide them.”
Why?'
Because he was strange.' He sheathed the knife and stood. A track, imprinted with hoofmarks, led north from the farm, and they followed it cautiously between hedges thick with cornflowers, ox-eye and dogwood. They were in a country of small fields, high banks, sudden woods and lumpy hills, a country for ambush, but they saw no one until, from the top of a low hill, they glimpsed a squat stone church tower in a valley and then the unburned roofs of a village and after that the soldiers. There were hundreds of them camped in the fields beyond the cottages, and more in the village itself. Some large tents had been raised close to the church and they had the banners of nobles planted by their entrances. Thomas still hesitated, reluctant to finish these good days with Jeanette, yet he knew there was no choice and so, bow on his shoulder, he took her down to the village. Men saw them coming and a dozen archers, led by a burly man in a mail hauberk, came to meet them.
What the hell are you?“ was the burly man's first question. His archers grinned wolfishly at the sight of Jeanette's ragged dress. You're either a bleeding priest who stole a bow,” the man went on, or an archer who filched a priest's robe.'
I'm English,' Thomas said.
The big man seemed unimpressed. Serving who?'
I was with Will Skeat in Brittany,“ Thomas said. Brittany!” The big man frowned, not certain whether or not to believe Thomas.
Tell them I'm a countess,“ Jeanette urged Thomas in French. What's she saying?”
Nothing,' Thomas said.
So what are you doing here?“ the big man asked. I got cut off from my troop in Brittany,” Thomas said weakly. He could hardly tell the truth, that he was a fugitive from justice
- but he had no other tale prepared. I just walked.“ It was a lame explanation and the big man treated it with the scorn it deserved. What you mean, lad,” he said, is that you're a bloody deserter.'
I'd hardly come here if I was, would I?“ Thomas asked defiantly. You'd hardly come here from Brittany if you just got lost!” the man pointed out. He spat. You'll have to go to Scoresby, let him decide what you are.
Scoresby?' Thomas asked.
You've heard of him?“ the big man asked belligerently. Thomas had heard of Walter Scoresby who, like Skeat, was a man who led his own band of men-at-arms and archers, but Scoresby did not have Skeat's good reputation. He was said to be a dark-humoured man, but he was evidently to decide Thomas's fate, for the archers closed around him and walked the pair towards the village. She your woman?” one of them asked Thomas. She's the Countess of Armorica,' Thomas said.
And I'm the bloody Earl of London,“ the archer retorted. Jeanette clung to Thomas's arm, terrified of the unfriendly faces. Thomas was equally unhappy. When things had been at their worst in Brittany, when the hellequin were grumbling and it was cold, wet and miserable, Skeat liked to say be happy you're not with Scoresby” and now, it seemed, Thomas was.
We hang deserters,“ the big man said with relish. Thomas noted that the archers, like all the troops he could see in the village, wore the red cross of Saint George on their tunics. A great crowd of them were gathered in a
