adore her without hope of consummation.
Wherever they went, a flock of young men surrounded Lady Beatrix, Lady Petronilla, and Mistress Blanche like brightly colored birds around a spillage of corn.
Adelia, to her surprise, attracted a
As she wandered the herb gardens, replenishing what stock from it she could, it was not unpleasant to be followed about by a youth who swore to the strum of a viol that he was wasting away for love of her.
Rowley didn’t agree. He made a beeline for her. “And who’s that popinjay when he’s at home?”
She said: “That’s Sir Guillaume de Chantonnay I think he sings rather well.”
“Really? I’ve heard more tuneful corncrakes.” He stalked off.
Practically the only person with whom Poitiers Palace did not agree was Father Guy He was outraged by the palace’s spiritual laxity in gambling. He loathed the singing that praised not God, but the female form. He saw damnation in the powder and paint, the low-cut dresses and trailing sleeves of the women-now ridiculously long- and in the short tunics that exposed the tightness of the hose over young men’s buttocks.
He said so, volubly, and was further outraged that his fellow chaplain seemed delighted by all he saw. “Will you imperil your hope of Paradise?” he yelled at Father Adalburt when he caught him sitting up late with some of Richard’s knights at a game of Hazard.
“But these worthy gentlemen
“Of course they did, you fool. You keep losing.”
Adelia’s only regret was that she now had no contact with Ulf The pilgrims had been accommodated for the duration in a monastery just outside the city. However, it was nice to see more of Locusta, who, for now, could cease shuttling up and down between the voyagers and their nights’ stay
“You should try and rest more often,” she told him. “You were beginning to look quite peaky.”
Locusta grimaced. “It wasn’t rest I was after.” He looked to make sure he wasn’t overheard. “To be honest, mistress, there’s a lady in town whose acquaintance I was hoping to renew. She was very, um, hospitable to me when my uncle and I last passed through Poitiers, but the duke sees to it that I am kept in his company”
He looked round again. “Between you and me, practicing sword fights and tilting at the quintain all day is neither my idea of rest nor entertainment.”
Smiling, Adelia sympathized. “Perhaps my Lord Mansur should claim you tomorrow to show him the town’s pharmacists, and you could slip away.”
“Mistress,” Locusta said. “He would have my eternal gratitude.”
But it was Adelia who was to slip away…
The next day Captain Bolt took her to one side. “You’ll be wanting somewhere to prepare your medicines and tinctures, mistress. There’s a nice little house down on the River Clain would suit you.”
“Thank you, Captain, but I don’t need it.” The palace’s cook general had allowed her a space in one of his kitchens in return for her witch hazel potion to clear up his skin trouble.
“Yes, you do, mistress,” Bolt insisted.
“No, I…” She saw his eyes. “Ah, perhaps I do.”
It was a very small, somewhat crumbling house, very drafty and damp; its lower floor was essentially a boathouse and the blue-painted shutters to its upper rooms opened out onto a creaking, curlicued little balcony overlooking a quiet and deserted section of the river. At the back there was an outhouse that served as a kitchen.
To whom it belonged, Adelia never found out, but, for the purpose for which it was now intended, it was perfection-a boat could approach it unseen.
Nevertheless, it posed a quandary which, suddenly embarrassed and not explaining matters at all well, she raised with Mansur.
He went to the core of it immediately. “You wish to be alone there.”
“Well, yes. In any case, as Lord Mansur you are too lofty to stay anywhere else except the palace, and for you and I to share such lowly accommodation would cause talk. But I don’t like leaving you here by yourself. Duke Richard doesn’t welcome you, for one thing, and, for another, you’re not supposed to understand what anyone says.”
But, it appeared, the former easygoing dukes of Aquitaine had been more tolerant of other races and beliefs than the present one was, and had brought back with them Arabs, even Jews, from the East who’d proved to be useful servants and had since become an accepted part of its palace’s fabric, whether Richard liked it or not.
“There is a scholar in the library here, old Bahir,” Mansur said. “He will keep me company, we shall play chess together. He translates Arabic texts so that the duke may learn more of Muhammad’s faithful before he goes to kill them.”
Captain Bolt had already been instructed to take care of her security From among his men-a ragbag of nationalities that he’d formed into a cohesive force for Henry Plantagenet’s sole use-one was deputed to assist Boggart in carrying Adelia’s luggage and equipment down to the house and to act as sentry from a position in the boathouse.
“He’s reliable, Rankin is, and not a talker,” Bolt said, “that being just as well, for he’s a Scot and most of the time nobody can’t understand a word he utters.”
Adelia doubted if anyone in the palace would be aware that she and her chaperone-Boggart-had left the palace; nearly all Eleanor’s people had spent time with their queen in Poitiers at one point or another and were too busy carousing with old friends to notice the absence of a couple to whom they paid little attention anyway Even if they did, the brewing of potions was a plausible excuse.
As she and Boggart set about cleaning their new premises-a process it needed badly-they heard a viol being struck up, immediately followed by a mellifluous voice from the direction of the riverbank.
“Blast that boy” Adelia said. She went out onto the balcony and tried to wave Sir Guillaume away
He waved back.
Crossly she returned to her work. “So much for privacy Why doesn’t he alert every bell ringer in town while he’s about it.”
“Sings lovely though, don’t he,” Boggart said.
“I suppose he does.” She was disturbed; there had been somebody else out there; she’d glimpsed a tall, thin man staring at her balcony from across the river before he disappeared amongst the trees. It had looked, she couldn’t be sure, but it had looked like the O’Donnell.
Sir Guillaume went on serenading.
The refrain ended abruptly. There was a squawk and a splash.
While Boggart ran to investigate, Adelia confronted a figure that had appeared in the doorway “What have you
