The Devil's Cup Read online

But still the worm of anxiety tunnelled through her thoughts. The tracks around the Wash were perilous. The weather was liable to change very quickly, and there was the tide, too, to worry about. What if something had happened? What if the King had endangered himself? Josse, she knew only too well, wasn’t a man to stand back. He would rush to help, no matter what the danger to himself.

  There was someone coming. A horse, hard-ridden, was flying up the road towards the town. The rider, urging him on with heels and with voice, went in through the town gates, already beginning to pull the horse up; even as he slid to the ground, one of the senior officers came hurrying towards him.

  Meggie and Faruq didn’t have long to wait and wonder. In the strange way that ill news spreads through a crowd like fire through a hay field, very soon people were turning to each other, muttering, exclaiming; pausing only briefly to exchange an opinion with their friends before passing the word on.

  ‘There’s been an accident!’ a fat, well-dressed townswoman told Meggie and Faruq, her eyes wide with the avid, excited fascination of an uninvolved onlooker in a stranger’s misfortune. ‘The King’s party was rounding the Wash and tried to cross a flooded stream, and a dozen are drowned if not more! They say the King wouldn’t wait for low water!’

  Meggie’s legs suddenly didn’t feel like her own. She felt herself sag, and Faruq caught her before she fell. ‘It will not be your father,’ he said calmly. ‘Also, it is in the nature of gossips that they exaggerate, and probably the true figure of the dead is less.’

  The fat woman, overhearing, gave an indignant sniff. ‘I’m no gossip!’ she said crossly. ‘And, as for exaggerating, I’m not, I’m only repeating what he said!’ She jerked her head towards a skinny man standing nearby, the movement so violent and abrupt that she disturbed her elaborately folded and crisply white headdress.

  Faruq gave her a polite little bow. ‘I apologize, madam,’ he said. ‘I meant no insult.’

  She gave a little shrug, like a hen shaking water off its feathers, then hurried away to spread the news to the rapidly diminishing number of people who hadn’t yet heard it.

  There was quite a lot of movement now among the throng, and Meggie and Faruq utilized it to get a little nearer the front of the crowd, although the best they could manage was still several rows back. Then they waited.

  As the long hours passed, the crowd gradually fell quiet. There was no more laughter and cheering. But, oddly, even more people seemed to be arriving.

  It was dark by the time the King’s party finally appeared in the distance. Heralded by a cloud of dust (the day had remained dry here), people stopped even the few, over-repeated remarks they had still been exchanging and went utterly silent, everyone straining their ears to hear the horses’ hooves on the road.

  The first riders came into view: a pair of guards, well armed, with another pair immediately behind. Then a row of four men, none of them young, watchful, their eyes everywhere as they scanned the crowds lining the route. Meggie knew without being told that these were old knights like Josse, summoned as he had been. They had such a look of him about them that her heart gave a small lurch.

  The King came next.

  He wore a gorgeous sky-blue cloak over tunic and hose of darker blue. His high boots were of black leather, fine quality but muddy and wet. His hood was thrown back, and on his shoulder-length russet hair, streaked widely now with grey, he wore a gold circlet. He rode a beautiful chestnut gelding, graceful and high-stepping, a star-shaped white mark on its brow, its gingery mane and tail long and luscious. Both horse and man looked the picture of dejection, heads down, eyes on the ground.

  Nobody cheered. Nobody spoke.

  More armed men followed, and then came a pair of packhorses and two light carts, each drawn by a pair of horses.

  As the packhorses went by, one of them, dazed with fatigue, stumbled. The crowd drew an anxious breath, but the horse recovered. As if this had given a signal, suddenly someone cried, ‘God protect King John!’

  Someone else cheered. There was a burst of clapping, quickly stopped. But then others were taking up the cry, calling out a welcome, invoking God’s blessing on the King, cheering, applauding. The noise grew swiftly until it was all but deafening.

  Which was why, when Josse, Yves and Geoffroi rode by and Meggie yelled herself hoarse trying to catch their attention, they didn’t hear.

  Struggling through the crowds, Meggie raced towards the town gates, pushing, shoving, yelling for people to make room, using her elbows when all else failed. Desperate to catch up with her father, she was only vaguely aware of Faruq behind her, his progress hampered by having to lead their two horses.

  But they were too slow. By the time they reached the entrance to the town, there was no sign of the three big men. Meggie stood on tiptoe, peering round the shoulder of the man who was barring her way, trying to see where the new arrivals were heading so that she could follow.

  The man would not let her through.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ he said sternly, staring down at her. ‘Nor your companion.’ His eyes raked Faruq and he frowned. ‘Not from hereabouts, I’ll warrant.’

  Given Faruq’s distinctly foreign looks, there seemed no point in denying it. ‘No, we’re not. But we—’

  ‘It’s orders, see,’ the man said, slightly more kindly. ‘What with the King’s enemies being close, and nobody really knowing friend from foe, we’re to be very careful over who’s let in. Most of the townsfolk we can recognize, but strangers we turn aside. Sorry, lass.’

  ‘But I was summoned!’ she cried. ‘I’m a healer, and he’s my assistant!’ She put a hand on Faruq’s arm.

  ‘A healer?’

  ‘Yes! I was sent for because they fear an outbreak of sickness, with so many men crowded together in the King’s service, and—’

  ‘There’s no sickness here.’ The man spoke decisively, but Meggie saw him surreptitiously cross himself.

  ‘Yes I know, but I was summoned in case there should be!’ she protested. She was beginning to believe the fiction herself. If it hadn’t happened it ought to have done, since it would be a wise precaution. ‘What’s the use of waiting till I’m needed before getting me here?’

  He was staring at her intently. ‘Well …’

  ‘Oh, please!’

  She wondered, even as she spoke, whether her very evident desperation would count against her. It wasn’t logical, surely, for a healer to be quite so eager to get to her work.

  And then the man shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, lass, but I can’t let you through.’ He must have seen her expression, for quickly he added, ‘Not tonight, anyway, but I’ll check with my superior and maybe he’ll say I can admit you in the morning.’

  She opened her mouth for one last appeal, but he had already turned away.

  Listlessly she followed Faruq away from the town. Trying to raise her spirits, he said encouragingly, ‘We’ll find somewhere to camp, then we’ll try again in the morning.’ He peered into her face. ‘Oh, Meggie, don’t look so desolate! Do you think I do not feel the same? I, too, have an imperative need to be inside the town.’ He paused, then, more quietly, said, ‘It will be all right, I’m sure.’

  But Meggie, who knew that something terrible was about to happen, would not be comforted.

  She did not sleep. She lay away for what felt like hours, then gave up and, sliding quietly out of her bedroll, got up and paced to and fro till morning.

  THIRTEEN

  Within the town, Josse and his companions had barely had time to settle the horses and cleanse their faces, hands, clothing and boots of the worst of the sweat, dust, and mud, when the summons came from the King. ‘He’s sending for the old knights,’ the messenger said laconically to Josse. ‘The others—’ he shot a dismissive glance at Yves and Geoffroi – ‘can eat at the mess hall, down there on the right.’ He waved an arm to indicate.

  Yves gave Josse a sympathetic glance. ‘Rather you than me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Aye,’ J
osse agreed heavily. ‘He’ll be in no mood for revelry and good cheer tonight. He’ll probably drink himself into oblivion, and be as ill in the morning as he was back at Lynn.’ He scraped at a stubborn stain on his tunic. ‘Do I look all right?’

  Yves shook his head. He fetched a cloth and, dampening it, sponged at the mark. ‘That’s the best I can do.’ Then he looked into his brother’s face. ‘Dear old Josse,’ he said affectionately. ‘You were always the ragged one, weren’t you?’

  Josse folded him in his arms, and, just for a moment, the brothers exchanged an embrace. ‘Good to have you here,’ Josse said gruffly. Then he strode away.

  Josse was shown into the King’s presence. John had been accommodated in a brash new hall that gave evidence of having been only recently completed. The wood of its beams was green timber, and brought with it a smell of the forest. In one or two places, awkwardly placed hangings suggested that the walls weren’t quite finished. But whoever owned the hall had managed to secure the customary dais and long, well-made table for the King’s use, and John sat there on a throne-like chair, attendants buzzing round, five or six of the old companions seated nearby. Looking up and spotting Josse, the King beckoned him.

  ‘Drink with me, Josse d’Acquin,’ he commanded.

  Josse bowed and, drawing up a stool, sat down beside the King and took the proffered pewter cup.

  ‘I await news,’ the King said.

  There was no need to ask, news of what?

  John, it seemed, needed company while he waited. Josse wasn’t sure why, since the King didn’t say a word during the interminable time that ensued. Perhaps, he concluded, it was simply that John didn’t like to drink alone. But then, he realized, the King wasn’t really drinking, either. From time to time he would pick at one or two of the dainties on his gold platter, but, each time the serving boy edged forward to offer wine, the King waved him away. Once or twice, he reached for an earthenware mug and took a draught of water. It was, Josse thought, extraordinary behaviour.

  Josse noticed that the usual gold cup wasn’t in the King’s hand. Instead, a silver one stood before him. They’d been right, then, when they had surmised that the lost cart had been the one bearing the King’s most treasured personal possessions.

  The interminable evening went on. Hours passed.

  Suddenly there was a burst of activity in the wide doorway, and the sound of hasty, muttered speech. Then a couple of wet, travel-stained and all but exhausted men were ushered up to the King’s dais. Josse recognized them as two of the group that had been sent back to wait by the stream.

  The King eyed them wearily. ‘I can tell by your very expressions that you do not bring the news I want to hear,’ he said tonelessly. ‘But tell me, anyway.’

  The older of the two men stepped forward, his cap in his hands, and fell on to his knees. ‘My lord King, all attempts to recover the treasure failed. We waited until the water fell, and although we paddled into the stream, right up to that sand bar, and we prodded and poked as far as we could reach, we found nothing, and not a sign of the horses and the drowned man.’

  ‘You didn’t even retrieve the cart?’ The King’s tone – of polite interest – must surely be deceptive, Josse thought. These were the worst tidings.

  ‘We expected to see wooden items bobbing up, indeed we did, my lord,’ the man said eagerly. ‘But that quicksand doesn’t behave like anything else on God’s good earth, and what it takes, it keeps.’ The man’s face fell. ‘We lost another man, my lord King,’ he added. ‘Well, a lad, really, from one of the nearby hamlets. Thought he could help, he did, and insisted on going right out on to that little island. He …’ The man choked, lowering his head and wiping at his eyes. ‘He died, my lord. His mother tried to go and save him, but her husband wouldn’t let her. They took it grievously hard.’

  Josse, his heart wrung with pity, glanced at the King. But John’s face remained expressionless.

  After some time, he waved a dismissive hand, and the man got up and crept away.

  Josse found it very difficult to read the King’s mood that night. It was as if – he struggled to work it out – as if he’d had news of the most agonizing bereavement; as if someone he had deeply loved for untold years had suffered a sudden and shocking death. The King was deathly pale, his cheeks sunken, deep, greyish circles around the blue eyes, dulled now with loss.

  But why? Josse asked himself. The King had lost his treasured belongings, aye; his personal chapel and all its accoutrements had been on the cart, as well as several chests of jewels and precious objects. He had other jewels, though, surely, and a small, portable chapel was readily replaced. King John was renowned for the careful precaution of distributing his gold, his jewels and his other treasured belongings in many different locations, all of them as secure and reliable as the deepest, most secret vault. Rumour had it, indeed, that he had a stash at Hawkenlye Abbey, although Josse was pretty sure there was no truth in it.

  What was it about this loss that so affected him?

  Or was this deep, grieving malaise the symptom of something else?

  After what seemed like hours, at last the King turned to Josse.

  ‘I am heartsick, old friend,’ he said. ‘The wine is good,’ – he held up his silver cup – ‘but it does not revive and cheer me, and I have no appetite for it.’

  Josse didn’t know how to answer. ‘Perhaps a little food would put new vigour in you?’ he suggested tentatively.

  ‘It would, undoubtedly,’ the King agreed, ‘but I have no stomach for food, either. The more I try to drink, the more queasy I feel.’ He frowned down into his wine, as if by failing to provide the usual effect, it had seriously and unaccountably let him down.

  Josse forbore to say that queasiness was the inevitable result of wine on an empty stomach.

  Still staring at his silver goblet, the King said, ‘I’ve lost my gold cup, Josse d’Acquin. It is gone. It sank down into those devilish, greedy, sucking sands, and it will never come back.’ He suppressed a burp, not very well, and Josse smelt the tang of slightly sick-smelling breath. He managed not to lean back.

  ‘I am sorry for that, my lord King,’ he said.

  ‘I loved that cup,’ the King went on. ‘Had it since I was a lad.’ You told me, Josse thought. It was a present from Queen Eleanor. ‘My mother gave it to me when she and my shit of a father finally accepted they couldn’t keep me shut away in fucking Fontevraud for the rest of my life.’ He winced, a hand on his belly. ‘It was the first beautiful thing I possessed, and I kept it close to me always, always, through all the years since I was seven …’ The desolate voice trailed off.

  He looks so sad, Josse thought.

  ‘My lord King,’ he ventured to say, ‘the one you use instead is very beautiful, is it not?’

  And indeed it was. To any man not comparing it with one of solid gold given to him in his childhood by his dead mother, it was a glorious object. It was silver, and in the form of a wide, shallow bowl, set upon a graceful stem that rose out of a firm, weighty base. The rim of the cup was set with opals: milk-white opals in which flashes of brilliant blue, pink and green lay hidden, and fiery orange opals which, when they caught the light, almost hurt the eye with their brightness.

  John glanced at it, frowning. ‘Beautiful? Perhaps.’ His frown deepened. Then, with a decisive gesture, he turned it upside down and the contents spilled out on to the table. ‘In the absence of my gold cup, it will have to do, and I suppose I shall become accustomed to it.’ He turned to Josse with a ferocious scowl. ‘But not tonight.’ Then he pushed back his chair, summoned his body servants with a snap of his fingers, jumped down off the dais and strode away.

  12 October 1216

  Meggie and Faruq were waiting outside the town gates early the next morning, determined to be there even as they were opened after the night.

  But still they were not to be admitted: there would, indeed, have been little point. The man who had spoken to them the previous evening took the troub
le to come out to find them, and he had news for them.

  ‘The King’s leaving again today, and all his followers with him,’ he said. ‘There’s a right uproar going on in there—’ he jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the town – ‘and no point whatsoever in you joining in.’

  ‘Where are they going?’ Meggie asked.

  ‘They’re saying he’s going north,’ the man replied. ‘Now I can’t swear that’s right, but then I’ve heard nothing to say it’s wrong. Anyway, it’s the best I can do. If I were you,’ he added, ‘I’d get on the road quickly, before the heavy wagons start out. If it rains, they’ll churn the surface into a sea of mud, and if it stays dry, they’ll put up clouds of dust. I should head north-west towards Sleaford, then on to Newark. That’s the route he normally follows. Know the way, do you?’ Meggie shook her head, so he gave directions.

  ‘Thank you for taking the trouble to tell us all this,’ Meggie said.

  ‘Well, the way I see it, you’re trying to help, like all healers,’ he said. ‘Like I said, my advice is to make your way to Sleaford – or maybe Newark would make better sense – and make sure you speak to someone there; convince them of your worth and persuade them to admit you, before the King and his party arrive.’

  In the Sanctuary at the edge of the Great Forest, Helewise and Tiphaine watched their patient anxiously. Hadil’s condition was not improving. Tiphaine had tried every remedy she could think of, to no avail, and now Hadil was turning her face away when the old herbalist approached with her little cup. Helewise couldn’t get her to eat either.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Hadil said, over and over again. ‘Let me rest.’

  ‘I’d not only let her rest, I’d encourage it,’ Tiphaine muttered to Helewise as they stood in the sunshine just outside the little room, ‘if I could only convince myself that rest was helping.’

  ‘But it isn’t,’ Helewise agreed sadly. ‘For when she lies back with her eyes closed, it is not the deep, relaxed sleep that brings healing but a sort of rigidly imposed immobility, as if she is challenging herself to see how long she can keep silent and still.’