Culpepper smote his breast ferociously and with a black pride.
“And I have stayed it!” he peacocked. “I and no other. I—T. Culpepper—a made man!”
“Not so,” Poins answered stubbornly. “Thou wast sent to Paris to slay, and thou hast not slain!”
“Thou liest!” Culpepper asseverated. “I was sent to purge Paris town, and I ha’ purged un. No pothicary had done it better nor Hercules that was a stall groom and cleaned stables in antick days.” For, at the first breath of news that Culpepper was in the town, at the first rumour that the king’s assassin was in Paris, Cardinal Pole had gathered his purple skirts about his knees; at the second sound he had cast them off altogether and, arrayed as a woman or a barber’s leech, had fled hot foot to Brescia and thence to Rome.
“That was a nothing!” Culpepper asseverated. “Though I ha’ heard said that Hercules was made a god for cleaning stables that he found no easy task. But I will grant that it was no task for me to cleanse a whole town. For I needed no besoms, nor even no dagger, but the mere shadow of my beard upon the cobbly stones of Paris sufficed. I say nothing of that which befell in the day’s journey; but mark this! mark what follows!” He had set out from Paris upon a high horse, with a high heart; he had frighted off all robbers and all sturdy rogues upon the road; he had slept at good inns as became a made man, and had bought himself a goodly pair of embroidered gloves which he could well pay for out of his superfluity. Being in haste to reach England, where he had that that called for him, he had ridden through the town of Ardres at nightfall, being minded to ride his horse dead, reach Calais gates in the hour, and beat down the gate if the warder would not suffer him to enter, it being dark. But outside the town of Ardres upon a make of no man’s ground, being neither French nor English, he had espied a hut, and in the dark hut a lighted window hole that sparkled bravely, and, within, a big, fair woman drinking wine between candles with the light in her hair and a white tablecloth. And, feeling goodly, and Calais gate being shut, whether he broke it down one hour or three hours later was all one to him. He had gone into the hut to take by force or for payment a glass of wine from the black jacks, a kiss from the woman’s mouth, and what else of ease the place afforded.
“Now I will have you mark, cub,” he said—“cub that shall have to learn many wiles if thy throat be not cut by me within the next two hours. Mark this, cub: these were no Egyptians!” They were not Bohemians, not swearers, not subtle cozeners, not even black a-vised, or he would have been on his guard against them; but they were plain, fair folks of Normandy. So he had drunk his wine, and cast a main or two at dice with the woman and two men, losing no more and no less than was decent. And he had drunk more wine and had taken his kisses—since it was all one whether he came three hours or four hours later to Calais gate. And there had been candles on the table and stuffs upon the wall, and a crock on the fire for mulling the wine, and a sheet upon the feather bed. But when he awoke in the morning he had lain upon the hard earth, between the bare walls. And all that was his was gone that was worth the taking.
“Now mark, cub,” he said. “It was a simple thing this flitting with the hangings and the clothes and the pot rolled in bales and hung upon my horse. Upon my horse! But what is not simple is that simple folk of Normandy should have learned the arts of subtlety and drugging of wines. Mark that!” He pointed a finger at Poins.
“Had God been good to you you might have been as good a warring boy as Thomas Culpepper, who with the shadow of his hand held back the galleons of France and France’s knights from the goodly realm of England. For this I have done by frighting from Paris, Cardinal Pole that was moving the French King to war on us. Had God been good to you you might have been as brave. But marvel and consider and humble you in the dust to think that a man with my brain pan and all it holds could have been so cozened. For sure, a dolt like you would have been stripped more clean till you had neither nails to your toes nor hair to your eyebrows.”
Hal Poins snarled that Culpepper would have been shaved too but that red hair stunk in the nostrils even of cozeners and thieves.
Culpepper wagged his head from side to side.
“This is a main soft stone,” he said; “I am main weary. When the stone grows hard, which is a sign that I shall no longer be minded to rest, I will break thy back with a cudgel.”
Poins stamped his foot with rage and tears filled his eyes.
“An thou had a sword!” he said. “An only thou had a sword!”
“A year-old carrot to baste thee with!” Culpepper answered. “Swords are for men!” He turned to Hogben, who was sitting on the ground furbishing his pikehead. “Heard you the like of my tale?” he asked lazily.
“Oh aye!” the Lincolnshire man answered. “The simple folk of Normandy are simple only because they have no suitors. But they ha’ learned that marlock from the sailors of Rye town. For in Rye town, which is the sinkhole of Sussex, you will meet every morning ten travellers travelling to France in the livery of Father Adam. Normans can learn,” he
