Trying not to make a sound, I made for the entrance to the tent. The flaps were closed over but not laced up, and I opened them just enough to be able to see through. The stars were out but the moon was behind a cloud; the campfire had died long ago, leaving only gently smoking ash. Of whoever had been here there was no sign. Brandishing my knife in front of me, I ducked my head and ventured out.
The night was indeed cold. I was wearing just my tunic and my trews; I could move more quietly in bare feet and so I left my boots behind. Keeping low, I looked around. Eight tents stood around the fire, of which mine was one, but a few were pitched a short way back from it, and as I rounded the side of my own, I saw a short figure dressed in a black cloak, crouching in the shadows outside Serlo and Pons’s tent not half a dozen paces away.
The figure reached for the flaps, and as he did so I rushed forwards. He heard me coming and started to turn, but I was on him before he could do so, dragging him to his feet, reaching one hand around his torso and clamping it across his mouth, while with the other I brought my blade up towards his throat. The steel gleamed softly in the starlight.
He struggled and tried to cry out, but I was by far the stronger and I held firm, wrenching his head back so that the flat of my blade rested against his skin.
‘Make a sound and I will slit your throat,’ I said.
He couldn’t have been much more than a child, and a scrawny one at that, slight of build and half starved too, I didn’t wonder. A thief, most probably, or else one of the beggars we had passed by the bridge. Either way he had some nerve if he thought to try to steal from men like us.
‘Who are you?’ I demanded. ‘What are you doing here?’
His breath came in stutters as he shuddered, too afraid to answer, and then those shudders turned to tears as he began to sob.
‘Stop crying, boy.’ If he thought he was going to get any sympathy from me, then he was sorely mistaken. ‘Speak.’
‘Don’t k-kill me, lord, p-please.’
I froze in surprise. That was a girl’s voice. I lowered my knife and spun the child around, and as I did so her hood fell from her head and I saw her face. She was the young maidservant who had been with Beatrice earlier, her brown hair shining in the faint light.
‘P-please, lord,’ she said, her face streaming with tears, not daring to meet my eyes.
‘Why are you here?’
But she was sobbing so much that she did not answer. Still in shock, I didn’t doubt. We could not stay here, or someone would soon hear us. With my free hand I grabbed her wrist as I made for the river glittering under the stars. She did not resist, but let me pull her along, until I thought we’d put enough distance between ourselves and the camp that we could talk freely, without having to lower our voices.
‘I’m sorry, lord,’ she said as soon as we had stopped. ‘I didn’t know which one was yours. I didn’t mean to—’
The words came tumbling out and I raised my hand to quiet her. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?’
She bowed her head. ‘Papia.’
‘You’re one of Lady Beatrice’s maidservants.’
She nodded, still trembling, although at least her tears had ceased flowing now.
‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked.
‘Tancred a Dinant,’ she said, and I saw a lump form in her throat as she swallowed. ‘Seigneur of Earnford and once knight of the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Commines, may God rest his soul.’
Clearly she knew my face; she must have recognised me from earlier. But my fame was not so widespread that every serving-girl would naturally have heard that I had once served Robert de Commines.
‘Did Lady Beatrice send you?’
Again the girl nodded. ‘She would meet with you tonight, if you wish to see her.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Even as I speak she is waiting for you at the church of St Ealhmund.’
That she would send for me so soon seemed more than a little strange. Even as my heart stirred, suspicions were already forming in my mind. How could I know that this wasn’t some kind of trick?
‘Is she alone?’ I asked Papia.
‘She is alone, lord.’
Of course it was a pointless question, and that was no answer at all, for it was exactly what she would tell me if this were indeed a ruse designed to trap me.
‘We must go now if at all, lord,’ the girl said. ‘The longer my lady is out, the greater the risk she takes that someone will find her missing.’
I closed my eyes and offered a silent prayer for guidance, but none was forthcoming. The decision was mine to make, and God would not try to sway me.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Wait here while I fetch my cloak.’
It was not especially cold out, but I could hardly go to meet Beatrice in clothes that were covered in dust from the road, and I had brought no better tunic to wear instead.