Belle's Song (21 page)

It was all the time I had and I’d not even mentioned Luke. I tried to kneel for longer but was forced up and, along with all those others with offerings not valuable enough for display at the front of the tomb, was ushered toward the back. I deposited my pendant reluctantly, and watched it slither away. In amongst all these riches, why would St. Thomas care about such a thing? I immediately wanted it back. Then I was frightened. Even to think such a thought was an insult to St. Thomas.

One of the deacons poked me in the ribs. It was time to leave. Luke was already vanishing into the crowd, as was everybody else in our party. I tried to follow, but an anxious mother holding up a sickly baby was in my way. “Help my baby,” she pleaded loudly and frantically. “No more vomiting, no more fits. Help him!” She repeated herself again and again, stretching higher and higher, her arms too thin to manage the weight of even such a tiny burden. When the strain became intolerable, she carefully lowered the baby and hugged him to the side of her face the way I often hugged Poppet to mine. A deacon tried to hurry her. She took no notice. He shook her. The baby’s head lolled, and both the mother and the deacon peered at it. I saw the mother freeze. The deacon summoned a priest who peered also, then snatched the baby from the mother’s arms. “A miracle!” he shouted. “We have a veritable miracle. This lady prayed for relief of her baby’s suffering and St. Thomas has taken the poor mite to himself. The babe suffers no more. He’s in a better place!”

The mother began to scream and I wanted to scream too. Was this how miracles were made, by twisting the words of the desperate? I fled as best I could, trying to remember the exact words of my own prayer. Had I stressed enough that when I asked for my father to be without pain, I didn’t mean that he should die? Had I specified that he should be able to walk
on earth
?
Had I used the word
live
? I thought I had but the more I thought, the less sure I was. I became as frantic as the mother. If my careless action had caused my father’s injuries, would my careless words now cause his death?
What if God twisted my prayer too?
And because I hadn’t prayed for Luke, did that mean something terrible would happen to him?

I knew what I needed to do. I needed to make my offering and my prayer all over again, this time removing any ambiguities. I tried to return to the tomb. I pleaded with the ushers. But no matter how I struggled, I was shoved down the long side aisle toward the door. Then I was back in the square, shaking.

Pilgrims who had already been absolved were milling about, some talking excitedly about their experience, others standing stunned. I saw nobody familiar until I spotted the Master waiting on a side street. Beside him was a groom holding Dobs and Granada, Granada fully saddled and Dobs irritable under half a dozen saddlebags. Luke had already reached them and Master Chaucer was urging him to mount Granada. “Luke!” I cried. “Luke!”

He heard me. Master Chaucer, though, shook his head. Luke looked uncertain, then mounted. I shoved and pushed my way through. Luke couldn’t go, not now, not like this. I reached him just in time and clung to Granada’s stirrup.

Master Chaucer was more flustered than I’d ever
seen him. “Let go, Belle. If he rides hard, he can catch the tide. His job with me is over. He must go.” He had to stop himself glancing constantly over his shoulder. Luke took up Dobs’s reins. “It’s best not to drag out our good-byes,” he said tightly, looking down at me. “I hope you prayed that I’d be a good monk.”

I was mad with fear. “All my prayers went wrong. A baby died. The mother’s words were all distorted. Now I don’t know—do you think—how can God—?”

“No time for this, Belle,” interrupted the Master. “We’ve said our good-byes and Luke’s
got
to go
now
.” His eyes were gimlets boring into me. Behind his head, I saw Master Summoner accompanied by two armed men at the opening of the street. The time for games was over.

I dug my nails into my arms. Where was Walter? We must get the ring from Dobs. But Walter was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he already had the ring. I’d no idea. I began to babble. “Granada doesn’t like to be crowded and you’ll manage him better on his own. I’ll take Dobs. Please let me do that.” I took Dobs’s reins to lead him.

“Just get on,” Master Chaucer said, pushing Dobs and I both away, “go, go. Give my best regards to the abbot. Don’t forget to tell him you’ve been my mainstay. A real mainstay. Tell him that exactly.”

“I’ll tell him,” said Luke, “and the rest. Thank you, Master Chaucer.”

Master Chaucer waved his arms. I think Luke could hardly believe he was being bundled off so unceremoniously. “It all seems to have gone so quickly—”

“Yes, yes, now go.” The Master’s urgings were verging on rudeness. From up on Granada, Luke could see beyond us. He could see the approaching summoner who, back in his usual clothes, was back to his evil self. “I’m begging you, Luke,” the Master pleaded. “As you love me, go.”

“Come on,” I said, grabbing Granada’s reins and tugging. Granada balked, then jogged. Somehow we rounded the corner. Luke, straining backward for a last glimpse of the Master, left Granada to me. I urged both horses into a trot, veered up another side street, then darted down an alley and around another corner until, between the circumlocution and the crowd, it would have been hard for anybody to follow our trail. Luke didn’t pick up the reins himself until we reached the boundary wall and began to follow it toward the eastern gate. “What’s going on, Belle?”

“I’ve just done everything wrong.” A huge lump formed in my throat. I was going to cry—no, not cry—I was going to sob with those great racking sobs that take you over and which you think will never stop.

“Belle! Belle! You’ve done nothing wrong except to love me,” Luke said. His face was very gray. “And you’ll stop doing that.”

“I won’t, I won’t.”

He was half concentrating on me and half still looking backward. “But that’s not everything, is it? I saw the summoner. He had armed men with him. Is the Master in some kind of trouble? You’ve got to tell me.”

I shook my head.

“Belle! Don’t lie. If you know, you must tell me!”

I gripped Granada’s reins and forced myself to be calmer. “The summoner wanted to take you into Archdeacon Dunmow’s service.” It was the first thing that came into my head. “Those men were supposed to escort you.”

“Me in the service of an archdeacon?”

“Yes.” Now that I’d started talking, it seemed easier to keep going than to stop. “The summoner was very impressed with all the things you did over the cloud and the gold and he told the Master you’d be more useful to the Church in England than to a monastery in France, so he’d decided to force you to go with him and become a priest.”

“Force me? He has nothing to force me with.”

“Yes, yes, he does.” How my legs prickled under the silk bandages. “Blackmail,” I said. “Something to do with the Master, not you, and the Master didn’t tell you because he didn’t want you to be worried. That’s why he sent you off so quickly. Once you’re on board a ship, you’ll be safe.” A little truth always makes a stronger lie.

“What? How do you know all this?”

“I guessed from something the summoner said. You know how he was with me. He tried to draw me in but I refused.”

Luke was frowning. He had myriad more questions, but we’d reached the gate. This was it. This was where we would have to say good-bye. My breath stuck in my throat at the sight of the road down which Luke would ride away. How would I actually be able to watch? And I still hadn’t checked Dobs for the ring. We were through the gate, and, as the road cleared, Granada lengthened his stride. Now I had to run. Dobs, ears back, resented the pace and I was thrown about and bruised. Luke, grim faced, slowed Granada and took Dobs’s reins from me. “You can’t run all the way to the coast,” he said, and those gray eyes were very dark.

“You must hurry,” I said, panting. “You mustn’t let the summoner’s men catch you.” But I clung on.

“They mustn’t,” Luke said, but didn’t speed up.

“Give me your knife,” I said.

Luke’s eyes flew wide. “For God’s sake, Belle—”

“No, no! I’m not going to harm myself,” I babbled. “I just thought—I just thought—I just thought that the Master’s been so fond of Dobs, he should have a hank of hair as a remembrance.”

“Of course.” Luke fumbled to pull out his knife. “Trust you to think of something like that.”

I reached up and took the knife from him. Trust? What did that mean anymore? “I’ll cut it from underneath,” I said, “so as not to spoil Dobs’s natural beauty.” I don’t know how I actually made a joke. I delved deep into the thicket of mane. The ring was still exactly where the Master had fastened it. It was hard to get the hank away. I had to saw, and all the while Granada was trying to speed up and Dobs to slow down. It seemed ages before I had the hank in my hand. I let go of Dobs and knotted it with the ring safely in the middle. “There,” I said. “Dobs won’t miss this and the Master will like to have it.” Only now did I come to a halt. “You must go as fast as you can.” I tried to be matter-of-fact, but it was too hard. Above me, his face tilted and the sun casting a halo around his hair, Luke was the Helmetless Knight again. I held on to his knee. “Luke …”

“Belle …”

There was shouting. We both glanced behind. The summoner’s men were through the gate. “Don’t let them catch you.”

He hesitated only a moment longer, leaned down, tried to say something, breathed against my cheek, then dug his heels into Granada’s sides. The horse leaped forward. Dobs got spooked and leaped too. “Watch out, you clumsy oaf!” shouted a muleteer swerving to avoid them.

That’s how Luke and I parted. Without any grand gesture, without any tears, without even a sigh and a final embrace, he disappeared into a river of traffic, and I was left with a knife, a hank of hair, and the king’s ring and no idea what would happen next.

13

For he had subtly formed a gang of spies
Who taught him where his profit might arise,
And he would spare one lecher from his store
To teach the way to four-and-twenty more
.

What did happen next happened very quickly. Indeed, by the time I got back to the inn, some of it had already happened. With Luke gone and the pilgrimage over, the summoner had had the Master marched back to the hostel, and there, directly and openly, with the horses milling about and the baggage carts being filled, accused him of sending messages to the French king on behalf of King Richard and of using King Richard’s ring as his authority. The last proof needed, so the summoner declared, was that Luke had been sent off at suspicious speed. Not that this mattered, since he would be arrested any moment now and brought back to face the commission to answer charges of his own. And of course, as if this wasn’t enough, the summoner knew just how to twist the knife. The Master had been clever, he said. He might survive because of his fame and his name, but Luke wouldn’t. Luke would be arraigned for treason and receive the traitor’s reward.
This, so the summoner heavily implied, had all been part of the Master’s calculation.

During the stunned silence that greeted this extraordinary news I stumbled back into the yard, retaining enough presence of mind to stuff the hank of hair down the front of my dress. This was a mistake, since it gave me a lumpy look in the summoner’s favorite place on a woman. I crossed my arms, then uncrossed them and wished I’d stuffed the hank somewhere else.

“Luke knows nothing and carries nothing. He’s just anxious to start God’s work,” the Master began to protest, though he was unconvincing. The other pilgrims were either blankly incredulous or wouldn’t look at Master Chaucer at all. Walter was standing by Arondel’s head, biting his lip and with no sparkle in his eyes. When he saw me, his face expressed, by turns, relief, sympathy, and alarm. He’d no idea whether or not I had the ring. The summoner saw me too and squinted to see if Luke was being brought in behind me. When he saw he was not, he glared and made his noose gesture. “The boy’ll be found before the tide turns,” he said.

This made Master Chaucer bluster. “The abbot at St. Denys will take a very poor view of your malicious arrest of one of his young novices.” Under his hat, his face was red and sweat beaded his forehead.

“He’s not a novice yet,” the summoner said. At a gesture, his men closed in around the Master.

Master Chaucer took a step forward. “Are you arresting me?” he asked.

The summoner hesitated and his men, seeing this, hesitated too.

“If you’ve anything more than the cock-and-bull story you’ve dreamed up, you’d better produce it now,” Master Chaucer said, wiping his forehead. There was a pause. “Well, Master Summoner? Isn’t it the truth that you can’t arrest me because there’s nothing to arrest me for?” The Master’s confidence began to return.

The summoner’s face set in fleshy ridges, his boils round red stones. “We’ll see just how clever you are, Master Chaucer, when we have the boy.” But he was forced to draw his men back. I could still feel Luke’s breath on my cheek but I could also feel the king’s ring burning against my chest and see my belongings stowed as usual in the blue armor wagon, Poppet sticking haphazardly out of the top. Dulcie and Arondel, saddled and ready, stood together. Picardy stood separately, restless and neighing for Dobs.