LI

The Duke was as good as his word. He arrived outside the town on a Tuesday with a small force of a hundred men. He demanded to be let in. Of course the gates were opened and the mayor hurried up to greet his liege lord and offer him the freedom of the town. The Duke was pleased to accept, and dispositions were made for the men to be quartered and their horses fed. It was mid-May now, eleven hundred and nineteen years after the death of Our Lord. The weather fine but windy, tickling the waters of the lake.

Henry clearly did not think that the siege of the castle was going to be a grand affair. One hundred knights hardly counted as a skirmish, but it was twice as many as we had, and he did have the advantage of being Duke in his own country. We were technically revolting and could be hung from some battlement if he defeated us.

The Duke made no effort to contact the castle and stayed in the town overnight. Juliana kept to her room and brooded. The rest of us waited for we knew not what.

In the morning we were summoned to a parley by a trumpeter. Juliana emerged from her room, dressed regally in red. The trumpeter was dressed in all the trimmings; gold braided jerkin and hose, his trumpet draped with the royal crest. He delivered his message in that strange French they talk in England.

‘The Duke comes in peace and requests his daughter the Comtesse de Breteuil to accompany him to Barfleur so that she may embark with all the company and spend Christmas with him in England.’

‘That she will not do,’ said a clear, proud voice, before any of the rest of us could reply.

It was Juliana, of course, looking every inch a princess. She had joined our little group, coming up behind us without our noticing as was her way.

‘Is that the answer you wish me to give to the Duke?’ asked the herald.

He would have to brave the Duke’s famous temper if he came back with the wrong reply.

‘Indeed it is,’ said Juliana.

She was the mistress here. There was no point in any of the rest of us speaking.

‘You can go back to the Duke and tell him that we will open our gates to him and ten knights, and we will parley with him at our drawbridge. We have already made plans, which I cannot break, to spend Christmas in Normandy.’

The herald took his leave, none too happily, and returned to the town.

‘He comes in peace!’ said Juliana, derisively. ‘My arse!’

She had a ripe turn of phrase when she wished. But it was a lovely arse, and now it was gone from me forever. I felt diminished.

‘What would you like me to do, Comtesse?’ asked the Marshal as we walked across the bailey. ‘I can keep our men in hall or round at the postern, out of sight. Or would you like them to surround you as you talk to your father across the moat with the drawbridge up?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Have the men around you. There is not a great deal of space around the bridge. We will look more than we are.’

‘If they manage to gain entry we are finished,’ said Juliana. ‘They will take me prisoner, and take you away to fight in their wars.’

‘Or cut off our heads,’ said the Marshal.

‘I hope not,’ said Juliana. ‘That would be a poor reward for your service. I shall make sure you keep your head on. And you too, Latiner.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Just in case we are over-run, I have ordered your palfrey to be saddled up and ready, with a mounted knight attending, and the gate to be opened for you, so you can make your escape to Pacy,’ the Marshal told her.

‘Thank you, Marshal. I do not think it will come to that. We just have to see that no one lets down the drawbridge,’ said Juliana. ‘Simple enough.’

She turned and walked off with her head held high.

‘Simple enough,’ muttered the Marshal, ‘but nothing is simple in war, and everything has the potential for cock-up.’

‘I shall be sorry to leave Breteuil,’ I told him.

He looked at me sharply.

‘Have you given in already?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘My pupils are dead and there is no more for me to do here. I must move on. I have to make my fortune.’

‘We could use you as a knight.’

‘Thank you, Marshal, but I don’t think it’s for me, though I am your man in the coming fight. I am drawn to the town for a change.’

‘What? Breteuil town?’

‘No, no. Some big place. Not Paris, it’s French and not too friendly to a Norman. But somewhere like … Caen … or Rouen. Yes, a man could make money there and grow to be a lord, like my father. I shall go to Rouen, if I am able, when this is over.’

‘Well, I shall miss you, Latiner.’

‘And I you, Marshal. You shall come and visit me and eat a great deal of fish.’

He was an honest man, which counted for much in those days of half-war on the marches of eastern Normandy, with the French King Louis sniffing around for opportunity like a dog in a houseful of bitches.

I sneaked out of the castle that evening to talk, as Eliphas had urged me to do if trouble came, with the landlord of The Bear. He told me about a place in the woods that gave folk in need a bed for the night. He did not say ‘folks on the run’, but he meant it. I made note of his directions and thanked him heartily. I rather thought I had visited that place already with Juliana. It sounded like the house of Mother Merle.