'Another time. I must get used to your being here. I'm tired of men, Thomas. Since Picardy . . .' She paused and Thomas thought she would say no more, but then she shrugged. 'Since Picardy I have lived like a nun.'
He kissed her forehead. 'I love you,' he said, meaning it, but surprised all the same that he had spoken the thought aloud.
For a heartbeat she did not speak. The reflected light from the two braziers glinted red in her eyes. 'What happened to that girl?' she asked. 'That little pale thing « ho was so protective of you?'
'I failed to protect her,' Thomas said, 'and she died.'
'Men are such bastards,' she said, then turned and pulled the rope that lifted the latch of the door. She paused for a moment. 'But I'm glad you're here,' she said without looking back, and then the door was shut, the bolt slid home and she was gone. Sir Geoffrey Carr had begun to think his foray to Brittany was a mistake. For a long time there had been no sign of Thomas of Hookton and once the archer arrived he had made little effort to discover any treasure. It was mysterious and all the time Sir Geoffrey's debts were growing. But then, at last, the Scarecrow discovered what plans Thomas of Hookton was hatching. That new knowledge took Sir Geoffrey to Maitre Belas's house. Rain poured on La Roche-Derrien. It was one of the wettest winters in memory. The ditch beyond the strengthened town wall was flooded so it looked like a moat, and many of the River Jaudy's water meadows resembled lakes. The streets of the town were sticky with mud, men's boots were thick with it and women went to market wearing awkward wooden pattens that slipped treacherously on the steeper streets and still thick mud was smeared on the hems of their dresses and cloaks. The only good things about such rain was the protection it offered against fire and, for the English, the knowledge that it would make any siege of the town difficult. Siege engines, whether catapults, trebuchets or guns, needed a solid base, not a quagmire, and men could not assault through a marsh. Richard Totesham was said to be praying for more rain and giving thanks every morning that dawned grey, heavy and damp.
'A wet winter, Sir Geoffrey,' Belas greeted the Scare-crow, then gave his visitor a covert inspection. A raw and ugly face, he thought, and while Sir Geoffrey's clothes were of a fine quality, they had also been made for a fatter man which suggested that either the English-man had recently lost weight or, more likely, the clothes had been taken from a man he had killed in battle. A coiled whip hung at his belt, which seemed a strange accoutrement, but the lawyer never presumed to under-stand soldiers. 'A very wet winter,' Belas went on, waving the Scarecrow into a chair.
'It's a pissing 'vet winter,' Sir Geoffrey snarled to cover his nervousness, 'nothing but rain, cold and chilblains.' He was nervous because he was not certain that this thin and watchful lawyer was as sympathetic to Charles of Blois as tavern rumour suggested, and he had been forced to leave Beggar and Dickon in the courtyard below and he felt vulnerable without their protective company, especially as the lawyer had a great hulking attendant who was dressed in a leather jerkin and had a long sword at his side.
'Pierre protects me,' Belas said. He had seen Sir Geoffrey glancing at the big man. 'He protects me from the enemies all honest lawyers make. Please, Sir Geoffrey, sit yourself.'
He gestured again at a chair. A small fire burned in the hearth, the smoke vanishing up a newly made chimney. The lawyer had a face as hungry as a stoat and pale as a grass-snake's belly. He was wearing a black gown and a black cloak edged with black fur and a black hat with flaps that covered his ears, though he now pushed one flap up so he could hear the Scare-crow's voice. 'Parley-vous francais?' he asked.
'No.'
'Breroneg a ourit?' the lawyer enquired and, when he saw the dumb incomprehension on the Scarecrow's face, shrugged. 'You don't speak Breton?'
'I just told you, didn't I? I don't talk French.'
'French and Breton are not the same language, Sir Geoffrey.'
'They're not bloody English,' Sir Geoffrey said belligerently.
'Indeed they are not. Alas, I do not speak English well, but I learn fast. It is, after all, the language of our new masters.'
'Masters?' the Scarecrow asked. 'Or enemies?'
Belas shrugged. 'I am a man of, how do you say? Of affairs. A man of affairs. It is not possible, I think, to be such and not to make enemies.' He shrugged again, as if he spoke of trivialities, then he leaned back in his chair. 'But you come on business, Sir Geoffrey? You have property to convey, perhaps? A contract to make?'
'Jeanette Chenier, Countess of Armorica,' Sir Geoffrey said bluntly. Belas was surprised, but did not show it. He was alert, though. He knew well enough that Jeanette wanted revenge and he was ever watchful for her machinations, but now he pretended indifference. 'I know of the lady,' he admitted.
'She knows you. And she don't like you, Monsieur Belas,' Sir Geoffrey said, making his pronunciation of the name sound like a sneer. 'She don't like you one small bit. She'd like to have your collops in a skillet and kindle a fierce fire under them.'
Belas turned to the papers on his desk as though his visitor was being tedious. 'I told you, Sir Geoffrey, that a lawyer inevitably makes enemies. It is nothing to worry about. The law protects me.'
'Piss on the law, Belas.' Sir Geoffrey spoke flatly. His eyes, curiously pale, watched the lawyer, who pre- tended to be busy sharpening a quill. 'Suppose the lady got her son back?' the Scarecrow went on. 'Suppose the lady takes her son to Edward of England and has the boy swear fealty to Duke Jean? The law won't stop them chopping off your collops then, will it? One, two, snip, snip and stoke the fire, lawyer.'
'Such an eventuality,' Belas said in apparent bore-dom, 'could have no possible repercussions for me.'
'So your English ain't bad, eh?' Sir Geoffrey sneered. 'I don't pretend to know the law, monsieur, but I know folk. If the Countess gets her son then she'll go to Calais and see the King.'
'So?' Belas asked, still pretending carelessness.
'Three months' — Sir Geoffrey held up three fingers — 'four, maybe, before your Charles of Blois can get here. And she might be in Calais in four weeks' time and back here with the King's piece of parchment inside eight weeks, and by then she'll be valuable. Her son has what the King wants and he'll give her what she wants, and what she wants is your collops. She'll bite them off with her little white teeth and then she'll skin you alive, monsieur, and the law won't help you. Not against the King, it won't.'
Belas had been pretending to read a parchment, which he now released so that it rolled up with a snap. He stared at the Scarecrow, then shrugged. 'I doubt, Sir Geoffrey, that what you describe is likely to happen. The Countess's son is not here.'
'But suppose, monsieur, just suppose, that a party of men is readying themselves to go to Roncelets and fetch the little tosspot?'
Belas paused. He had heard a rumour that just such a raid was being planned, but he had doubted the rumour's truth for such tales had been told a score of times and come to nothing. Yet something in Sir Geoffrey's tone suggested that this time there might be some meat on the bone. 'A party of men,' Belas responded flatly.
'A party of men,' the Scarecrow confirmed, 'that plans to ride to Roncelets and watch until the little darling is taken out for his morning piddle and then they'll snatch him, bring him back here and put your collops in the frying pan.'
Belas unrolled the parchment and pretended to read it again. 'It is hardly surprising, Sir Geoffrey.' he said carelessly, 'that Madame Chenier conspires for the return of her son. It is to be expected. But why should you bother me with it? What harm can it do me?' He dipped the newly sharpened quill in his ink pot. 'And how do you know about this planned raid?'
'Because I ask the right questions, don't I?' the Scare-crow answered. In truth the Scarecrow had heard rumours that Thomas planned a raid on Rostrenen, but other men in the town had sworn that Rostrenen had been picked over so often that a sparrow would die of starvation there now. So what, the Scarecrow had wondered, was Thomas really doing? Sir Geoffrey was certain that Thomas was riding to find the treasure, the same treasure that had taken him to Durham, but why would it be at Rostrenen? What was there? Sir Geoffrey had accosted one of Richard Totesham's deputies in a tavern and bought the man ale and asked about Rostrenen and the man had laughed and shaken his head. 'You don't want to ride on that nonsense,' he told Sir Geoffrey.
'Nonsense?'
'They ain't going to Rostrenen. They're going to Roncelets. Well, we don't know that for certain,' the man had continued, 'but the Countess of Armorica is up to her pretty neck in the whole business, so that means it must be Roncelets. And you want my advice, Sir Geoffrey? Stay out of it. They don't call Roncelets the wasp's nest for nothing.'
