a face horribly scarred from the pox, grinned, 'they do know her and they do love her.' Which meant, presumably, that he had paid his dues to the men of Cherbourg and Carteret. However, he had paid no dues to Neptune or whatever spirit governed the winter sea for, though he claimed some special foreknowledge of winds and waves and asserted that both would be calm, the Ursula rolled like a bell swung on a beam: up and down, pitch-ing hard over so that the cargo slid in the hold with a noise like thunder; and the evening sky was grey as death and then sleet began to seethe on the torn water. The captain, clinging to the steering oar with a grin, said it was nothing but a little blow that should not worry any good Christian, but others in his crew either touched the crucifix nailed to the single mast or else bowed their heads to a small shrine on the afterdeck where a crude wooden image was wrapped in bright ribbons. The image was supposed to be St Ursula, the patron of ships, and Thomas said a prayer to her himself as he crouched in a small space under the foredeck, ostensibly sheltering there with the other passengers, but the overhead deck seams gaped and a mixture of rainwater and seawater continually slopped through. Three of the archers were sick and even Thomas, who had crossed the channel twice before and had been raised among fishermen and spent days aboard their small boats, was feeling ill. Robbie, who had never been to sea, looked cheerful and interested in every thing that was happening aboard.
'It's these round ships,' he yelled over the noise, 'they roll!'
'You know about ships, do you?' Thomas asked. 'It seems obvious,' Robbie said. Thomas tried to sleep. He wrapped himself in his damp cloak, curled up and lay as still as the pitching boat would let him and, astonishingly, he did fall asleep. He woke a dozen times that night and each time he wondered where he was and when he remembered he wondered whether the night would ever end or whether he would ever be warm again.
Dawn was sickly grey and the cold bit into Thomas's bones, but the crew was altogether more cheerful for the wind had dropped and the sea was merely sullen, the long foam-streaked waves rising and falling sluggishly about a wicked group of rocks that appeared to be home for a myriad seabirds. It was the only land in sight. The captain stumped across the deck to stand beside Thomas. 'The Casquets.' he said, nodding at the rocks. 'A lot of widows have been made on those old stones.' He made the sign of the cross, spat over the gunwales for luck and then looked up to a widening rift in the clouds. 'We're making good time,' he said, 'thanks be to God and to Ursula.' He looked askance at Thomas. 'So what takes you to the islands?'
Thomas thought of inventing some excuse, family perhaps, then thought the truth might elicit something more interesting. 'We want to go on to Normandy,' he said.
'They don't like Englishmen much in Normandy, not since our King paid them a visit last year.'
'I was there.'
'Then you'll know why they don't like us.'
Thomas knew the captain was right. The English had killed thousands in Caen, then burned farms, mills and villages in a great swathe east and north. It was a cruel way to wage war, but it could persuade the enemy to come out of his strongholds and give battle. Doubt-less that was why the Count of Coutances was laying Evecque's lands waste, in hope that Sir Guillaume would be enticed out of his stone walls to defend them. Except Sir Guillaume had only nine men and could not hope to face the Count in open battle.
'We've business in Caen,' Thomas admitted, 'if we can ever reach the place.'
The captain picked at a nostril, then flicked something into the sea. 'Look for the troy frairs,' he said. 'The what?'
'Troy Frairs,' he said again. 'It's a boat and that's her name. It's French. She ain't big, no larger than that little tub.' He pointed to a small fishing boat, her hull tarred black, from which two men cast weighted nets into the broken sea about the Casquets. 'A man called Ugh„ Peter runs the Troy Frairs. He might carry you to Caen, or maybe to Carteret or Cherbourg. Not that I told you that.'
'Of course not,' Thomas said. He supposed the captain meant that Ugly Peter commanded a boat called Les Trois Freres. He stared at the fishing boat and wondered what kind of life it was to drag sustenance from this hard sea. It was easier, no doubt, to smuggle wool into Normandy and wine back to the islands. All morning they ran southwards until at last they made landfall. A small island lay off to the east and a larger, Guernsey, to the west, and from both rose pillars of smoke from cooking fires that promised shelter and warm food, but though that promise fluttered in the sky, the wind backed and the tide turned and it took the rest of the day for the Ursula to beat down to the harbour where she anchored under the loom of the castle built on its rocky island. Thomas, Robbie and Father Pascal were rowed ashore and found respite from the cold wind in a tavern with a fire burning in a wide hearth beside which they ate fish stew and black bread washed down with a watery ale. They slept on strawfilled sacks that were home to lice. It was four days before Ugly Peter, whose real name was Pierre Savon, put into the harbour, and another two before he was ready to leave again with a cargo of wool on which no duty would be paid. He was happy to take passengers, though only at a price which left Robbie and Thomas feeling robbed. Father Pascal was carried free on the grounds that he was a Norman and a priest which meant, according to Pierre the Ugly, that God loved him twice over and so was unlikely to sink Les Trots Freres so long as Father Pascal was aboard.
God must have loved the priest for he sent a gentle west wind, clear skies and calm seas so that Les Trois Freres seemed to fly her way to the River Orne. They went up to Caen on the tide, arriving in the morning, and once they were ashore Father Pascal offered Thomas and Robbie a blessing, then hitched up his shabby robe and began walking east to Paris. Thomas and Robbie, carrying heavy bundles of mail, weapons, arrows and spare clothing, vent south through the city.
Caen looked no better than when Thomas had left it the previous year after it had been laid waste by English archers who, disregarding their King's orders to dis-continue their attack, had swarmed over the river and hacked to death hundreds of men and women inside the city. Robbie stared in awe at the destruction on Ile St Jean, the newest part of Caen, which had suffered most from the English sack. Few of the burned houses had been rebuilt and there were ribs, skulls and long bones showing in the rivers' mud at the falling tide's margin. The shops were half bare, though a few countryfolk were in town selling food from carts and Thomas bought dried fish, bread and rock-hard cheese. Some looked askance at his bowstave, but he assured them he was a Scotsman and thus an ally of France. 'They do have proper bows in Scotland, don't they?' he asked Robbie.
'Of course we do.'
'Then why didn't you use them at Durham?'
'We just don't have enough,' Robbie said, 'and besides, we'd rather kill you bastards up close. Make sure you're dead, see?' He stared open-mouthed at a girl carrying a pail of milk. 'I'm in love.'
'If it's got tits you fall in love,' Thomas said. 'Now come on.' He led Robbie to Sir Guillaume's town house, the place where he had met Eleanor, and though Sir Guillaume's crest of three hawks was still carved in stone above the door there was now a new banner flying over the house: a flag showing a hump-backed boar with great tusks.
'Whose flag is that?' Thomas had crossed the small square to talk with a cooper who was hammering an iron ring down the flanks of a new barrel.
'It's the Count of Coutances,' the cooper said, 'and the bastard's already raised our rents. And I don't care if you do serve him.' He straightened and frowned at the bowstave. 'Are you English?'
' Ecossais,' Thomas said.
'Ah!' The cooper was intrigued and leaned closer to Thomas. 'Is it true, monsieur,' he asked, 'that you paint your faces blue in battle?'
'Always,' Thomas said, 'and our arses.'
'Formidable!' the cooper said, impressed.
'What's he saying?' Robbie asked.
'Nothing.' Thomas pointed at the oak which grew at the centre of the small square. A few shrivelled leaves still clung to the twigs. 'I was hanged from that tree,' he told Robbie.
'Aye, and I'm the Pope of Avignon.' Robbie heaved up his bundle. 'Did you ask him where we could buy horses?'
'Expensive things, horses,' Thomas said, 'and I thought we might save ourselves the bother of buying.' 'We're footpads now?'
'Indeed,' Thomas said. He led Robbie off the island across the bridge where so many archers had died in the frenzied attack, and then through the old city. That had been less damaged than the Ile St Jean because no one had tried to defend the narrow streets, while the castle, which had never fallen to the English, had only suffered from cannon balls that had done little except chip the stones about the gate. A red and yellow hanner flew from the
