Morgan handed him Richard’s unfinished ale. “Drink it down, Arne, then tell us what happened. Were they the duke’s men? How did you get away?”
Arne gulped the ale in several swallows. “No, I think they were the moneychanger’s friends, for they interrogated me there in the street, not at the castle. They were satisfied with the answers I gave and let me go. I told them I had the bezants because my master was coming back from the Holy Land. I explained he had not returned with Duke Leopold and the other Austrians because he’d been very ill at Acre, but he recovered and fought under the Duke of Burgundy’s command until the peace was made.”
“So you gave them the name of the knight you’d accompanied to Acre. That was quick thinking, Arne.”
Arne was too unnerved to appreciate the praise. “It was all I could think to say. My master had been a household knight of Sir Hadmar von Kuenring and I mentioned his name, too. What I said was true . . . except that my master did not survive, but I thought no one would know that. I told them he had stopped at Holy Cross Abbey in Heiligenkreuz to rest because he was ailing and sent me on ahead to buy supplies. And they believed me. The Almighty truly guided my tongue,” he whispered, and shivered again. “But this is a dangerous place, Sir Morgan. Too many men are looking for the king, greedy for the reward they think they’d get from the duke. We need to leave here straightaway.”
Morgan and Guillain looked at each other and then over at Richard’s motionless form. “We cannot do that, Arne, not yet,” Guillain said, keeping his voice low. “The king is still too ill to ride. He needs to rest for another day or two.”
Morgan nodded in agreement. “As long as we take care, we ought to be safe enough here. Did you get the aqua vitae, lad? And the food?”
Arne pointed toward the sacks he’d dropped by the door. “Wait till you see all I bought! I’ve blankets and a pillow for the king and the aqua vitae and herbal potions and lots of food. . . .” He frowned suddenly, rooting about in the sacks. “It is gone! The beaver tail I bought for the king! Those wretches must have taken it whilst they were questioning me. . . .”
They had no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded so ludicrous that they both laughed. When Richard awoke hours later and was told the story of the stolen beaver tail, he laughed, too, and Arne considered the loss well worth it, then, for this was the first time they’d heard Richard laugh in days, not since he’d had to leave the rest of his men behind in Friesach.
THE NEXT DAY IT snowed and the men hunkered down in the widow’s house. Richard passed the hours sleeping, Guillain and Morgan napping and playing hazard with their new dice, Arne doing chores for Els and telling her sons about the strange beasts called camels that he’d seen in the Holy Land. The next morning dawned cold but clear and Richard seemed better, too, so it was decided they would depart on the following day.
Els had told Arne this was the saint’s day of Thomas the Apostle, just four days from Christmas, and he thought it would be a memorable one, for by then they’d have reached safety in Moravia. He was nervous about making another trip into Vienna, but they needed food. Richard was still sleeping, Guillain had gone to the smithy to groom their horses, and Morgan had offered to cut firewood for Els, so there was no one to see Arne off. Taking care not to awaken the king, he fastened his mantle and then looked around for Guillain’s woolen cap; the knight had said he could borrow it for the ride into town. In his search through their meager belongings, he came across Richard’s gloves and pulled them out to admire them. Gloves were still a novelty, worn only by churchmen or the nobility; this pair was made of fine calfskin, lined with vair fur, embroidered with gold thread. Arne couldn’t resist trying them on and they felt so good that he was reluctant to take them off, for the air outside was so frigid that the village seemed encased in ice and men’s breaths trailed after them like white smoke. He jammed Guillain’s cap down upon his head—it was too big, but at least it covered his ears—and then checked to make sure Richard’s sleep was restful; they were fearful that his quartan fever might come back, and each day without the telltale chills was a great relief to them all.