A Flight of Arrows by A.J. MacKenzie (mobi reader android .txt) 📕

‘You said at Saint-Vaast that you would find the killer quickly,’ the king said. ‘That was more than two weeks ago. What progress have you made?’ Merrivale said nothing. ‘Make an end,’ the king repeated. ‘We have matters of greater moment. Did you hear that we have received an embassy?’

‘No, sire. From the adversary?’

‘From the pope, but that amounts to the same thing. Étienne Aubert is their leader. We are preparing a banquet to welcome him.’

The herald stared at him. ‘The Cardinal of Ostia? He is here?’

‘Along with another cardinal, Ceccano from Naples,’ Rowton said. ‘They come bearing an offer of peace, or so they say. They arrived an hour ago.’

‘Aubert knows you,’ the king said to Merrivale. ‘Clarenceux will handle the formalities, but I want you at the banquet too. Talk to his staff and tell me what you learn. They claim to want peace, but why are they really here?’

‘They are here at the behest of the adversary,’ the herald said. ‘While you halt and engage in peace talks, he wins more time to prepare and assemble his army at Rouen.’

‘Obviously,’ the king said impatiently. ‘But they may have another purpose as well. Aubert is close to the Queen of Navarre, remember. And I want to meet with her. I have been sending messages to her home in Évreux since before we sailed from Portchester, but there has been no reply.’

‘You are still determined to start a new Norman revolt, sire? With her Grace and the Count of Eu as leaders?’

‘Of course. If we can set Normandy alight, we can squeeze that bastard Philip between the jaws of a vice. But we need Jeanne of Navarre. Try to find out where she is and what she is doing. There is something going on deep below the surface here, and I want to know what it is.’

There are powerful forces at work, Thomas Holland had said, and now the king had said something similar. Merrivale wondered how much His Grace already knew. Impatient, arrogant and bellicose though he often was, Edward III was no one’s fool; unlike his son, he was an accomplished gambler and adept at the long game, and he had many sources of intelligence.

Merrivale stood behind the Prince of Wales as the latter was presented to the distinguished guests. Étienne Aubert’s cold eye fell on him. A tall man with black hair streaked with grey, wearing red robes that blazed with embroidery, the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia spoke with a nasal accent and clipped vowels suggesting his mother tongue had been Occitan rather than French. ‘Simon Merrivale, in a herald’s tabard. How times have changed.’

‘They have indeed, your Eminence,’ said the herald, bowing. The other cardinal, Ceccano, looked at him suspiciously as if he suspected him of insolence. Aubert waved an airy hand, his seal ring flashing red fire, dismissing the herald as being of no account. But he had taken note of Merrivale’s presence all the same, and it was no coincidence that Merrivale found himself placed at dinner next to Aubert’s secretary, Raimon Vidal, a rotund tonsured man in the brown habit of a Franciscan friar.

‘Well met, my friend,’ Vidal said cheerfully. ‘I see fortune’s wheel has turned in your favour.’

At the high table, the king and the cardinals were seated, and the rest of the company pulled out their benches and sat also. Stars gleamed high overhead; in the distance they could see lamps burning in the towers of the cathedral, where the bishop and his men kept watch.

‘And you also,’ Merrivale said. ‘You have landed a good post. His Eminence will be the next pope, they say, when Clement receives his reward in heaven.’

‘Heaven? If you say so. Most of us in Avignon assume the Holy Father will travel in the opposite direction. How fare you, my friend? I have not seen you since Savoy. Geoffrey of Maldon was there too, of course. How is the good brother? Is he here tonight?’

‘No.’ Briefly Merrivale told Vidal what had happened in Caen. ‘I don’t suppose you could persuade his Eminence to secure his release.’

Vidal looked amused. ‘Secure the release of Geoffrey of Maldon? You do remember what happened in Savoy, don’t you?’

‘Regardless of the past, Brother Geoffrey is a cleric who went to Caen as an ambassador. It was dishonourable of Bishop Bertrand to arrest him.’

‘So it was. I shall speak to his Eminence and see if something can be arranged.’

Dishes were set before them: cod with peas, stockfish with sauces made from verjuice, minced chicken decorated with thick sauces brilliant with colour and tasting of almonds; it was Wednesday, a fast day, so no meat was served. Wine splashed into their cups. Merrivale and Vidal added water to theirs. ‘You would never know there was a war being fought,’ the Franciscan said.

Merrivale looked at the watchful lights on the distant cathedral. ‘Some people would,’ he said. ‘Did you have a good journey?’

‘Atrocious,’ said Vidal, carving a duck leg with his knife. ‘As if the discomforts of the road were not bad enough, on approaching the town we were set upon by some of your barbarian archers and robbed of our horses and baggage. I trust his Grace will see them returned.’

‘I am certain he will. But why come all this way and endure such hardship?’

‘Do you not know?’ Vidal looked at him guilelessly. ‘The Holy Father desires most earnestly that the kings of England and France be reconciled with each other. He has instructed the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and the Cardinal-Archbishop of Naples to do their utmost to make peace. So we have come to open talks.’

‘Have you a peace proposal?’

‘Yes, but it is not one your king will want to hear. Restoration of the position ante bellum. Everyone gets their lands back and we pretend the last nine years never happened.’

‘Reset the pieces,’ the herald said. ‘And start the game again.’

‘Precisely. Edward will never agree, and everyone knows it.