FOUR
The sea trip from London to the island of Walcheren on the coast of the Holy Roman Empire was typically an uneventful crossing, though to minimize exposure on the open water, Willehalm Zenthffeer ordered the fleet to hug the English coast for most of the day following their departure from Queenhithe. Storm clouds were boiling along the eastern horizon on the second morning, and even though the captain of the lead ship expressed concern about turning the ships out into the North Sea, Willehalm gave the order anyway.
During the evening meal the previous night, several of the other ambassadors had expressed their concern about the weight of silver each ship was carrying. Hubert Walter, the queen’s exchequer, had made it clear to them several weeks ago the approximate sum that was being given to them, and Willehalm could tell the number had not really sunk in. Not until the wagons started arriving at the docks and the soldiers had started unloading the barrels. It had taken most of the morning to load the ships.
Six ships. Each laden down with a full crew and cargo. Each carrying enough silver for any one of the ambassadors to buy a title and land in Spain or Italy—as well as a private army to protect their new holdings. All that silver made them nervous, afraid that someone would try to steal it. Willahelm privately thought they were all fools, for not one of them had given any thought to taking it themselves.
As soon as the ships made the turn to starboard, the storm pounced on them, shrouding the six ships with dark clouds. Winds blew the sails taut, making the masts creak and the rigging sing, and the decks were awash with rain. For a few hours, there had been concern that one of the smaller ships would be swamped by the high waves, but her captain managed to get the ship’s nose pointed into the brunt of the storm.
It blew them off course, and they finally reached Middelburg a day later than they had been expected. Another day would be lost making repairs and adjustments for taking the ships upriver. Once the ships were secured at the docks, Willehalm went ashore to find out what the weather was like on the Lower Rhine.
And to get a decent meal. The food in England had been abysmal. His stomach had grumbled incessantly the entire time he had been in London, and his bowels were still unsettled.
He took a carriage to an inn several streets away from the noise and stench of the docks. His purse was bulging with silver. He had opened several barrels on each ship prior to leaving England, just to make sure that England wasn’t sending his emperor barrels full of sand and rock. Spending it on a good meal and a bottle of wine were part of his privilege.
Partway through his meal, he was approached by a man who claimed to speak for the king of France. Willehalm had the innkeeper bring another glass to the table, and he poured the man a measure of wine.
Then he listened intently to the man’s proposal, and when his visitor explained how a French invasion would result in an eradication of all things English, Willahelm glanced down at his plate of decidedly non-English food.
Willehalm smiled.
An hour’s ride east of Strasbourg, Maria came upon a small village caught in the throes of some celebration. The main cluster of houses was set along the verge of a broad forest that blanketed the long valley. There was a handful of farms and fields prior to reaching the village green, and Maria judged that the number of families living in this village was less than three dozen. And yet, it appeared that several times that number were staggering around the main square. On the southern edge of the village, she found a long swath of open land that had been marked off by stakes topped with red strips of cloth.
On the far side of the field, she spotted tall posts with white circles on them.
Archery targets.
There was a field filled with horses, and a pair of dirty-faced boys who appeared to be in charge of watching the animals. Saddles and tack were neatly stacked along the fence. The boys eyed her with some suspicion as she dismounted—taking in, no doubt, the dry mud on her boots and the disheveled disarray of her hair (which she had not brushed out in the last few days), but their moods changed when she tossed each a silver coin. They broke into gap-toothed smiles and jostled each other in their enthusiasm to unsaddle and brush down her horse.
“What celebration is this?” she asked, wishing that Feronantus were with her. His German was much better than hers.
“End of harvest,” one boy said.
“Ember Days,” the other replied.
Maria nodded sagely as if she understood what the boys were saying. The Church had been slowly transforming all the local customs as its priests raised their churches and exhorted the local peoples to worship Jesus Christ. This confluence of rites led to confusing aberrations—not quite pagan, not quite Christian, but understood and celebrated nonetheless. All that mattered, really, was that an excuse had been enjoined for festivities, and those festivities included games of skill and martial prowess.
She wandered through the village, smiling and nodding as drunken men bumped into her. Some of them leered, a few pawed at her, and most of them were intoxicated enough that they were easily avoided. She followed the cheering and jeering, and eventually managed to reach the edge of the field where an awning had been raised over a low platform.
Tables and chairs were scattered across the wooden stage. At the near end, chairs were clustered around a narrow table across which men tested the strength of their arms against one another. At the far end, there were no tables, and the chairs were all facing the field. Sprawling in these chairs were the men competing in the archery tournament.
There appeared to be three groups: local hunters, who wore rough, homespun clothing and who were disgruntled about having to compete with strangers; a quartet of Germans, who all wore finer clothing and who appeared to be not as in command of the tournament as they’d expected to be; and a final group of three, who wore unadorned clothes that were of the same quality or better than the men from the city but which had been worn much longer. The last three were also more unkempt, more boisterous, and more drunk than any of their competitors.
A serving woman struggled past Maria, and she quickly intercepted the woman, dropped several coins down the front of her low-cut gown, and plucked both of the jugs of wine she was carrying from her hands. She flashed the woman an understanding smile and shoved her way through the crowd to the platform. Wine sloshed out of one of the jugs onto her cloak, and the wet stain only made her illusion more complete.
She crossed to the archers and started pouring wine into empty cups. One of the locals eyed her suspiciously, trying to place her, and she turned her back on him quickly, moving on to his partners. The men from the city were readying their bows and arrows for the next round of shooting, and she took the opportunity to fill their cups without having to worry about being accosted by them. Behind her, one of the three complained loudly about having to wait for more wine, though if she would shake her ass a bit more he wouldn’t mind waiting longer.
He spoke English, expecting that she wouldn’t understand what he was saying.
She poured carefully, dwelling overlong on her task, and was nearly finished when a boot was firmly placed against her behind. “Move,” the English speaker growled in German, firmly pushing her out of the way. Startled, she complied, realizing she had been blocking his view of the archers.
The Germans were using crossbows, and she understood why the locals were agitated. The crossbow had better range and more power than a hunting bow. Less skill was required to shoot the crossbow, and she surmised that the village’s magistrate had, for reasons that were most likely financial in nature, opted to allow the Germans to compete in the village’s festival games with the heavier weapons. She glanced about, wondering if the English were using crossbows as well, and noticed several long staves strung with taut lines of hemp. Longbows.
And the attitude of the competitors suddenly made sense. The locals were grumpy that crossbows were being used, putting their talents at a disadvantage, but the crossbowmen were also losing to a trio of drunk Englishmen who were using traditional bows, albeit ones that were nearly twice as tall as the hunting bows.
One of the Germans raised his crossbow to his shoulder, laid his cheek against the stock, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon jerked in his hands, and the crowd fell silent for a second, everyone intently staring at the wooden post on the other side of the field. A distant thwok echoed back—the sound of the bolt burying itself in the wood—and the crowd cheered.
Maria peered at the post. There were several rings drawn on the white circle, and on the edge of the innermost ring, there was a dark blot—the end of the crossbow bolt protruding from the target.
The German grinned at the other competitors and then began the laborious process of drawing back the string on his crossbow. One of the Englishmen, the fair-haired one with a neat beard and an easy grin, made a disparaging remark about how the audience was going to age a day before the German finished reloading his weapon. One of the other Germans barked an insult in return, but his words were lost beneath the general laughter that swept through the crowd.
The German with the crossbow ignored both the jibe and the crowd’s response. He raised his reloaded weapon to his shoulder and shot a second bolt. It struck the target in the middle of the second ring.
The fair-haired Englishman made a rude noise, eliciting further glee from the audience.
The German’s third shot pierced the center of the target, and the audience reacted with an extended silence. It was broken by a clapping sound from the fair-haired Englishman. “Nicely shot,” he called to the German. “I admire a man who can shoot under duress.”
The German crossbowman had the grace to incline his head and thank the Englishman for his compliment.
The long-legged Englishman had said nothing after admonishing Maria to get out of his way, and as the Germans returned to their chairs and their cups of wine, he unfolded himself from his seat. He strode over to Maria, pausing before her to inspect her face closely for a moment, and then he handed her his cup. She stared back at him, noting his crooked nose and his flashing green eyes. His hair was long and fell across his face, and his beard was a tangled mass of brown and red. He was an attractive man, and while he seemed to be aware of his beauty, he was not arrogant about his looks.
Unlike King Richard, for instance.
Suddenly flustered by his gaze, she accepted his cup. Her fingers brushed his, not entirely by accident, and she found herself offering him a shy smile as he put his hair back with his hand and turned to select one of the three longbows.
It was nearly as tall as he, and pulling three arrows from a cloth bag filled with them, he walked to the same spot from which the German had shot his weapon. He stuck two arrows in the dirt in front of him, and laying the third across his bow, he turned to his companions. “How long did it take Gerhardt to shoot all three of his bolts?” he asked in German.
“Several minutes,” the stockier of his companions replied. He had a heavyset face with a deep cleft in his bare chin, wide shoulders, and thick forearms. He reminded Maria of a bear.
“An eternity,” the fair-haired one said with a laugh.
“Indeed,” said the longbowman. “Would you be so kind as to count to twenty?” he asked the German crossbowman who had just finished shooting.
“Twenty?” the German responded, somewhat confused.
“I’ll do it,” Maria heard herself saying.
The longbowman looked at her. “Even better,” he said with a grin. “An innocent observer. Count to twenty, please. As fast as you can.”
Maria nodded. She took a deep breath as the longbowman turned to face the distant target. She began counting, the numbers spilling from her lips as fast as she could say them.
The longbowman convulsed, seeming to collapse around his tall bow as he raised it, and then stretched his body out again—his back straight, his chest thrust up and out. The string of his bow sang, and she gasped slightly between “three” and “four.” His right hand dropped, grasping the fletching on one of his remaining arrows, and he repeated the same motion again. “Eight,” she said as the hard echo of the first arrow reached the crowd. There was no other sound than the creak of his bow, the tightening strain of his string, and her voice, calling out the numbers. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
“Fourteen,” she said and stopped. He had released his third arrow already, and in the wake of her voice came the sound of it hitting the target. The noise was different from the other two. There was still the heavy report of the arrow striking the wood, but it was preceded by splintering noise. A brief crackle of wood breaking.
The longbowman didn’t even bother to examine the target. He turned his back on the field and walked over to her, plucking his wine cup from her hands. “Thank you,” he said simply, raising the cup in salute and then taking a long drink from it.
Around him, the crowd was starting to make noise. Isolated murmurs of wonder at first and then, like a spark landing on dry kindling, a whooshing noise as the audience erupted into loud cheers. Maria glanced past the longbowman, peering at the target.
At first, she couldn’t make out where the longbowman’s arrows had landed, but then she realized all three arrows were buried deep in the wood, much deeper than the crossbow bolts had gone. All three were clustered in the center of the target. One above the center, one below, and the third had shattered the German’s crossbow bolt as it had pierced the very center of the target.
“A most impressive display,” she said.
He shrugged as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.
“Tell me,” she said, raising one of her jugs to refill his cup. “Do your friends shoot as well?”
“No,” he said with a large grin, “but not for a lack of trying.”
“Ignore him,” said his broad friend who had risen from his seat and wandered over. “He only shoots like that when he is drunk. Most of the time, he can’t even draw his bow.”
“You are jealous, John,” the longbowman replied good-naturedly, “because it only takes a few drinks for me to regain my skill. No amount of wine or practice will ever make you that good.”
John clapped the other man on the back, smiling broadly at Maria. “He is a liar and a cad,” he said to her, “and you should not believe anything he says.”
“I do not have to if he can shoot like that,” she said.
“See, Robin,” John said, “she is only interested in what you can put on the table. She does not wonder of your expertise in other domestic areas.”
“I wonder about a great many things,” Maria said, “but right now, I am wondering if there is more to your party than the other man over there.”
“Who? Will?” John looked over his shoulder at the third longbowman. “He’ll do, in a pinch.”
Ignoring John, Robin asked, “How many others?” all trace of levity gone from his voice. He appeared to be quite sober suddenly, and his gaze was fierce and focused.
“Enough to save the king of England,” she said, switching to English, ensuring that she had their attention and that no one else could understand what she was saying.
The fire from the burning boat turned the water of the Rhine orange and yellow. Its railings and the lower third of its main mast were blackened, and tiny flowers of flame still danced around the upper portion of the thick pole. Tattered streamers of ash-streaked sail lingered near the very tip of the mast. The ship leaned to port, its hold filling slowly through the open holes in its hull. It would sink eventually, quenching the fire that slowly devoured its wooden frame. From the top of its half-burned mast, a flag bearing the imperial seal hung limply.
The ship had been cut loose from its moorings at the Wesel docks when the fire had threatened to leap to other boats. On the dock, a line of armed men separated the swarm of locals from five other ships, flying the same flag, and a scattered mess of heavy barrels that had been rapidly off-loaded from the burning ship before it had been scuttled. The magistrates of Wesel, as well as the local militia, were attempting to maintain order, but the fear of fire about the other ships had created a smoldering panic onshore that was not dying very quickly.
Otto Shynnagel leaned against a stone wall of a storehouse, watching the confusion. The ship that had been fired and scuttled was one of the treasure ships from England. Judging by the fury of activity that preceded the vessel being shoved back from the dock, he suspected the crew had managed to off-load the ship’s cargo, but now they were faced with having one-sixth of the imperial ransom sitting openly on the Wesel dock. Whoever was in charge of the treasure ships was certainly going to be worried that someone might discover what cargo he was transporting.
Who knew what would happen then?
Otto was curious as to how the fire had started. It seemed unlikely that a French spy could have gotten on board the ship. Had the fire truly been an accident? If he hadn’t been warned to watch out for such activity, he would have lamented the bad luck that had befallen the caravan, but he wouldn’t have suspected sabotage.
He thought the imperial ambassadors would be trying to acquire another ship, and he was surprised when a wagon arrived and was ushered through the line of soldiers. Sailors began loading the cart, and when more wagons arrived, the sailors began off-loading barrels from the other boats.
Otto didn’t understand why they weren’t going to continue by boat. Had the fire spooked them that badly? He thought about the routes they might take. They would travel along the eastern side of the Rhine. Would they cross the river at Duisburg and head for Kaarst, Bergheim, and Kerpen? It was a less-traveled route than along the path of the Rhine, but it would be quicker as the crow flew.
It was also closer to France.
It all started to make sense to Otto. The emperor had been right. The French were trying to steal the silver, and they had someone working for them in the imperial party. Someone making sure the caravan was heading right into an ambush.