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Katrine’s appetite fled. ‘I thought they came to speak of peace.’
‘Pah! This English Edward acts like a merchant, not a king.’ Her uncle drained his goblet and slammed it down on the table for his wife to fill. The Baron’s wine was never watered. ‘He thinks the Count will break his God-given oath of fealty to King Philip for English gold.’
If the Count’s belly were as empty as those of his subjects, he certainly would. She had heard her uncle admire the Count’s loyalty to the French fleur-de-lys too often. The man cared more for fealty than his people’s stomachs.
A king was necessary, of course. You gave allegiance; he gave protection. Such loyalty was a luxury of the nobility and, she was beginning to think, a foolish one. While the lords battled, the burghers suffered. What did it matter to the dyers who claimed France’s crown? Why should the weavers care whether the throne passed through the daughter or the son? Cold winters grew thick wool all the same.
Her uncle waved his goblet. ‘Here’s to Philip of Valois. Now and for ever King of France.’
The men at arms, mouths full, echoed ‘Valois’ without looking up.
Katrine rested her head on cold hands. Deeds of arms, the English promised. Flanders’s soil would be soaked with blood as red as their eyepatches.
And she might never see her father again.
‘Is there word of my father? Do they want a ransom?’
‘No one cares about him now,’ he said.
Least of all you. ‘Then what about my wool? Can the Count get some from France?’ It would be poor stuff, but she could weave it.
He filled his spoon with fish and vegetables. ‘I didn’t ask.’
‘You promised!’ Her words exploded. The men at the closest table looked up. She lowered her voice. ‘I cannot make cloth without wool,’ Katrine said, angry at the Count, at the French, at the English, at all of them who cared for affairs of state instead of people’s lives. ‘The Count is bad for business.’
‘Catherine, hush. If anyone heard you, you might be imprisoned.’ Aunt Matilda peered anxiously at the knights breaking bread over their trenchers. ‘We all might be imprisoned.’
‘No one cares what she thinks,’ her uncle said with a shrug. ‘Her hair bears the mark of the Devil. She speaks French with a Flemish accent and has calluses on her fingers. No man of noble blood will soil himself with her.’
She winced at his words. He made her ashamed to be alive.
She pushed the pain away. ‘All the more reason for me to tend to my weaving.’ There, at least, she could do something of value.
‘Bad enough that my brother violated the God-given order of things, wielding scissors instead of the sword he was born to.’ At first, the family had tolerated her father’s dabbling in the cloth trade. He was a younger son and gold was always welcome. But with the gold and her father gone, her uncle unleashed his true feelings. ‘He let you grow up like the spawn of that weaver instead of a noblewoman.’
‘That weaver had a name.’ Giles de Vos, her father’s partner, had died childless two years ago and left his share to her. She missed him almost as much as she missed her father. ‘You welcomed Uncle Giles into your house as long as our looms turned wool into gold.’
Her uncle’s temper flared like a poked fire, lifting him out of his seat. ‘Don’t call him that! He was a common burgher. I am your uncle.’
She stood to face him, no longer caring who heard. ‘I wish I shared his blood instead of yours.’
‘Enough!’ He raised his fist.
Her aunt’s hand blocked it. ‘Mind your tongue, Catherine. Apologise.’
His hand wavered. No mealtime noises drifted up from the retainers’ table.
‘I’m sorry I offended,’ she said, to buy time. If only she could be like the smuggler, who let no word pass his lips before considering it. ‘I did not think before speaking.’
‘Now gather your things,’ her aunt said. ‘You heard your uncle. We leave this afternoon.’
Ducking her head, she held her tongue, glad to escape the room. She must leave the house unseen and return to the shop and the secretive stranger who was her last hope.
She sent up a prayer to the saint that he was still there.
Chapter Two
Renard hurried along the towpath, easily passing an uncomplaining ass pulling a boat with lowered mast beneath one of the city’s innumerable bridges. It was different, this city of weavers, with its stairstep rooflines and endless waterways. He missed the air of England.
The goldsmith who opened the door of the stone house facing the canal looked both ways before letting him in. ‘You leave today?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow,’ Renard replied, as he mounted the stairs to the goldsmith’s private solar.
He sympathised with the man’s nervousness. It took courage to harbour an English merchant in disguise.
It would have taken more had he known he was hosting a king.
But as Renard looked at King Edward, standing at the window, he was amazed the goldsmith had not guessed. Touched by sunlight, his hair glowed like a golden halo painted on a saint. Edward Plantagenet had never needed to seek his place in the sun. The sun had sought him out. Straight, strong, vigorous—surely no man had ever looked more like a king.
Many whispered that Edward and Renard could pass for brothers, both tall, blue-eyed, energetic young warriors. But Edward’s blond good looks and restless, expansive energy blazed like noonday while Renard’s chestnut-brown hair, self-contained air and mysterious past suggested the shadows of sunset.
Renard inclined his neck, a pale imitation of a bow. ‘Your Grace.’
‘Ah, there you are. What have you found?’ Edward looked as if he needed good news.
With the King’s permission, Renard poured some wine for himself. ‘There is no wool in the city, your Grace. Every weaver listened to my offer. I could empty our warehouse in Brussels.’ Or could if he had taken any coin for his promises. ‘The people support you. Only the nobles resist.’
Renard had opposed Edward’s wild trip from the start, but the King had insisted on sneaking ashore with the official embassy to assess the situation personally. Renard had come in advance and in disguise to put his rusty Flemish to work on behalf of his king.
Edward tightened his grip on his goblet. ‘Perhaps I should meet with the Count.’
Renard shook his head. ‘Better if no one knows you are here.’
‘Surely the Bishop can persuade him. He has brought three others to my side already. Only Brabant and Flanders remain.’
Renard wagered that the other duchies supported the King because they were related to Queen Philippa, not because of the Bishop’s persuasive powers, but he held his tongue.
‘I leave for Brabant tomorrow.’ Renard had requested that assignment. It would force him to face his past.
Edward paced the room, tapping his finger against his wine goblet. ‘I must have Flanders. Unless our trade resumes quickly, my wool growers will be just as unhappy as the Count’s weavers.’ He looked at Renard, narrowing his eyes. ‘Brabant can wait. Stay here.’
‘But you need the Duke’s support, too.’ Renard kept his voice calm, but he was weary of living at the King’s whim. Edward knew full well that Renard’s trip to Brabant was about more than diplomacy.
‘Yes, and I trust you’ll produce it, but if the Bishop fails here, I need an alternative. The citizens of Flanders have risen against the French before. If the Count refuses an alliance, you must create a revolt among the workers that will force him to my side.’
Renard swallowed his resentment. The King never controlled the quicksilver temperament they shared. Renard did. ‘I’m not sure I could pass as a flat-footed wool stomper to rally the rabble.’ Though living disguised among the artisans could hardly be more difficult than smuggling a king in and out of Flanders.
Edward sat down in a high-backed wooden chair near the fireplace. Suddenly, it looked like a throne. ‘I don’t expect you to rouse the ryffe and raffe personally. Find someone else who will.’
Renard bowed and sank into the chair opposite his liege, hiding a sigh. The King asked Renard to produce an uprising as if he were ordering a suit of chainmail. ‘I serve, your Grace.’
‘Just make sure the embargo holds. The longer they go without wool, the better for my cause. This should only take a few weeks, then Brabant and then you can come home.’
He longed for home, though he had nothing to return to: no family, no land, nothing that the King did not give. There had been talk of marriage, but as an illegitimate son, Renard had little to bequeath to a legitimate one.
Edward clasped his shoulder. ‘I need Flanders, whether you or the Bishop get it for me, but when you succeed, I’ll reward you with something worthy of all you have done. Something like…’ His face lit with a new idea. ‘Bishop! That’s it!’ He slapped the arm of the chair. ‘Bring me Flanders and I’ll make you a bishop.’
Bishop.
Renard’s heart beat in his ears and blood surged through his arms as if he had just been called to battle, but years of repressing his responses served him well. The reward was everything he could have hoped for. A secure position of power, safe from the temptations of the flesh. Once given, even a king could not take it away.
‘You honour me, your Grace.’
The King smiled. ‘Of course I do. Can’t run the country without money from the Church. Too many of them think their pope is more important than their king. I need bishops I can depend on.’
But as a bishop, Renard’s power and position would no longer depend on the King. ‘It will not be easy, your Grace.’ The King could propose a bishop, but the Pope must confirm him. ‘I am not yet of an age to be a bishop.’
Edward waved away the protest. ‘Ridiculous rule. I assumed the crown at fifteen. You can be bishop before thirty.’
‘And I have not led a life of celibate contemplation.’
Edward rose, impatient, and paced again. ‘Neither have any of the bishops I know, except perhaps Stoningham, and I’ve never quite trusted him.’
At the King’s move, Renard rose, more slowly, and leaned against the wall. Even when they were alone, Renard did not sit while his sovereign stood.
‘You are no lecher, Renard. In fact, I could use some of your self-control, but there’s no need to take up celibacy when you embrace the vows.’
‘Nevertheless, I will honour the vows I take.’ Unlike some, who broke more than they kept.
Thoughtless lust had brought him into this world without name or position. Renard refused to make the same mistake. Over a lifetime, he had battled passion as if it were a well-mounted enemy. If he could not unhorse his opponent every time, he could usually force him to withdraw from the field. As a bishop, he would be safely removed from temptation.
‘Then,’ he continued, ‘there is the matter of my station.’
The King stopped pacing and turned his piercing blue eyes on Renard. ‘I am fully aware that a bastard needs dispensation from the Pope. A letter of recommendation from the Bishop of Clare will solve that.’
He fought the urge to refuse the support of a pompous hypocrite like Henry Billesh, Bishop of Clare. After refusing to support young Edward’s ascension to the throne, the man had changed his tune only after the outcome became clear. Renard would never trust him. ‘He may be reluctant to write on my behalf.’
The King drained the last of his wine. ‘He is a man familiar with human transgression. He’ll understand yours.’
This time, he could not hold back the words. ‘But the transgression was not mine, your Grace.’
The temper they shared exploded. Edward hurled the goldsmith’s best goblet into the fire. Clattering, it bounced on to the hearth, scattering ashes across the floor. ‘You presume on our common blood! Do you forget that you possess only what I give you?’
‘Never, your Grace.’
Had Renard been born the illegitimate son of a prince, he would have had a place in the shadow of the throne. But he was the son of a princess. So the truth of his birth, and her shame, was a secret only the King shared.
As quickly as clouds passed over the sun, a hearty laugh wiped out Edward’s anger and he draped an arm around Renard’s shoulders. The laugh meant he forgave Renard’s insult. The gesture meant he forgave himself for insulting his cousin.
Smiling, the King reached for his wine goblet, surprised that it was not on the table.
Silently, Renard offered his own.
‘You are harsh on those of us who are mere mortals, my friend.’ An unusual moment of reflection stilled the King’s energy. ‘Just once, I would like to see you humbled by passion. You might find the kind of joy I’ve found with my queen.’
Renard shook his head. There was a reason lust was one of the seven deadly sins. Passion made you powerless as his mother had been when she could not resist—who? That secret, neither of them knew. ‘I shall welcome the vows.’
‘Be certain, my friend.’ Edward clasped his shoulder. ‘It is the highest honour I can give, but once bestowed, you will never be Renard again.’
Regret bit him. He had been so intent on controlling his joy, he had not even thanked his childhood friend. Power. Position. It would be everything the secret of his birth had denied him all his life. ‘Forgive me, your Grace. There is nothing I want more.’
Nothing, at any rate, that the King had the power to give. The King could award him many things, but he could never acknowledge his royal birthright.
Edward inclined his head and returned to the window, gazing across the canal as if he could see all the way to Paris. ‘There is something more I want, Renard, and you are going to make sure I get it.’
Renard silenced the growl of jealousy at the bottom of his heart. Edward already had a crown. Why did he need another?
Yet he knew the answer. Edward wanted his birthright, a birthright denied him because it came through the daughter of a king instead of through the son.
That, Renard could understand.
‘Just think, Renard, you’ll have a bishop’s ring as big as Clare’s.’ He laughed. ‘And you won’t have to bow to me any longer!’
Renard smiled for the first time. ‘A bishop bows only to the Pope—and to God.’
Now, unable to leave the city as he had planned, Renard knew he could prevail upon the goldsmith no longer. He needed a safe, inconspicuous haven. Perhaps the weaving woman’s house would serve. In a crowded city, an empty house would be perfect for a man who wanted to hide his comings and goings. But if he were to stay there, he must learn more of the woman with the tart tongue than the name he’d overheard when he followed her from the Cloth Hall. Her house might prove a sanctuary.
Or a trap.
When Katrine returned to the wool house, no indigo- eyed stranger waited at the window. She searched the counting room, then, frantic, climbed the stairs.
‘Renard?’
No one answered her unseemly shouts.
He had threatened to find another buyer. What if he had not waited? On the top floor, Katrine faced a row of straw pallets, long abandoned by apprentices. Had he left his sack here? If so, she could be certain he’d return.
She lifted the first pallet to find only bare wood.
Blinking back angry tears, she kicked aside the next pallet and the next, spewing straw across the planks until the room’s disorder matched her mood.
She lifted the last pallet, ready to hurl it out of the window in frustration.
He was her last hope. What would she tell her father if she failed?
Her pounding heart slowed and she caught a breath, knowing straw littered the floor behind her, stable-deep. Saint Catherine, will I ever master my temper?
When she turned to clean the mess, she faced the stranger holding a dagger.
He loomed taller than she had remembered, his eyes a darker blue. She had expected to feel relief at his return, but the uncertainty in her stomach felt more like fear. Or excitement. ‘So,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘the prodigal returns.’
Renard set down his sack and sheathed his dagger, its silver handle catching a glint of the afternoon sun. ‘You said I was to guard the house. I thought you were a thief.’
She groaned, looking at the floor, feeling the fool. Had he seen her display of temper? She had no excuse, so she would ignore it and treat him as if he were an errant apprentice. ‘I told you to be here when I returned. Where were you?’
The straw crunched as he stepped closer. He towered over her even as he stooped to avoid the rafters.
‘I do not recall, mistress, that reporting my whereabouts to you was part of our bargain,’ he said, in a tone as sharp as his dagger. ‘In fact, we don’t yet have a bargain.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We do not yet have a bargain.’
He reached for her chin with cool, firm fingers, turning her face towards the window, as if to read her by the sun’s light. She struggled for a breath.
‘Did your other source make you a better offer?’
She blinked, betraying herself.
A lazy wink disguised his emotions. ‘Then I take it we are agreed.’
‘Yes.’ She jerked her chin from his hand and started to put the room to rights.
He knelt beside her and shoved a handful of straw into the first pallet. Astounded that he would humble himself to help, she picked up another pallet and scooped the straw inside.
They worked in silence. She tried to study him, but his face was impassive. What manner of man would help clean up the mess she had created? He deserved some appreciation for that.
‘You have my thanks,’ she said, when they were done at last. ‘Why did you help?’
‘If I am to sleep here, I must keep it in order.’
She swallowed. Sleep. Suddenly it seemed much too intimate a word. ‘I have changed my mind. It is not safe to harbour you here. You must find other lodging.’
He shook his head. His eyes were implacable. ‘You cannot change the contract now. You want your wool, don’t you?’
The air around her seemed to crackle like lightning. She was beginning to fear that this wool was going to cost much more than she had bargained for.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then let’s break bread together to seal our agreement,’ he said.
‘I told you. I offer no board.’ The cupboards were bare.
A smile flickered across his face. ‘I bought my own. It seems only right to share.’ He paused, holding her eyes with his. ‘Please.’
Suspicious, her tongue curved around ‘no’, but her stomach growled. She had eaten nothing of the main meal. Maybe the tickle she felt was neither fear nor ex citement, but hunger.
She nodded.
Finished with the pallets, she led the way downstairs. He settled in front of the fireplace, leaning on one elbow, long legs stretched across the floor, and set out a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and some beer as if the hearth were his own. ‘Join me.’
She sank to the floor, skirt flaring around her. She must put this man on the defensive or he would take over. ‘Have you any oranges?’ She smiled, waiting for his answer. Oranges were dear in good times. In bad, they would be precious as wool.
His lips twitched. ‘There is an embargo, you know.’
Pulling out his eating knife, he cut a slice of the cheese and placed it carefully on the crust of bread. Not even that was done by chance.
‘You disappoint me. I would expect an expert smuggler to supply whatever I want, no matter how costly.’
‘Bread and cheese will have to serve.’
She reached for the bread and touched his fingers instead.
Her glance tangled in his. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Warmth from his fingers crept up her arm, weaving them together. Something sweet and weak happened inside her.
Flushed with shame, she snatched her hand back and popped the bread and cheese in her mouth. He took a swig of the beer, then handed it to her. She sipped it to wash down the cheese, then tried to hide her surprise. He might be a stranger, but he had found the best brewer in the quarter quickly enough.
What manner of man had she allowed under her roof? If she were not more careful, she might lose her coin and more.
‘Tell me of yourself, Renard. You must share our Count’s allegiance to King Philip to go to such lengths to overcome the English embargo.’
‘Kings are nothing to me,’ he said finally. An upraised eyebrow teased his face. ‘What, mistress, are they to you?’
Her gaze travelled over the familiar room. A lonely grey cloud of coarse Flemish fleece floated on one woven basket handle. Hooks were bare instead of piled with hanks of carded wool ready to sell to the spinsters. Empty shelves should have been stacked with ells of cloth ready for market.
She had a sudden, fierce desire for him to see it as it was supposed to be—busy, bustling, shelves piled high with a rainbow of fine woven woollens.
‘As you can see,’ she said, finally, ‘this shop has been one of their battlegrounds.’
‘A battleground? With whose forces do you fight? Valois or Plantagenet? Philip’s or Edward’s?’
She ignored his question, as he had hers, steeling herself this time not to fear silence. The more she talked, the more lies she had to tell. Nibbling her cheese, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. ‘I cannot fight. I am only a woman, not a chevalier.’
‘There are many ways to fight a war,’ he answered.
His words gave her pause. How did he fight?
And for whom?
‘This husband of yours, for example,’ he continued. ‘Where is he?’
Husband. Where is my husband? She took a bite of cheese, trying to think. Aunt Matilda was right. She should be mindful of her tongue. She was creating too many lies to count. She should never have left the man here alone. If he had prowled the house while she was away, he would know no man lived under this roof.
She took another sip of ale. ‘I told you I am responsible. He is away.’
‘Away.’ He pulled at the word as if it were the thread that could unravel a whole cloth. ‘And what is he doing…away?’
What lie is something like the truth? ‘Buying… selling.’
‘Buying and selling what?’
He leaned towards her. Too close. A shaft of late-afternoon sun sculpted his strong cheekbones, softened by an unruly curl of chestnut hair.
The silence grew so large that she had to fill it.
‘He is trying to find more wool.’ That at least was true. But it was her father, not her husband, who had travelled to England on a wool-buying trip.
‘How pleased he will be when he returns to find you have succeeded.’
‘Certainly he will be pleased when you succeed.’
He gave her a lazy smile. She let go of her breath. He was satisfied. There would be no more questions about her husband.
‘Has he been away long?’
She had relaxed too soon. ‘A while.’
‘You must miss him.’
She felt her face melt. Too late, she wondered if her expression was appropriate to a wife. ‘Yes.’
‘And where is your husband looking for this wool?’
She reached for the ale again. Any answer she gave would be wrong.
If she said her husband was in England, Renard would know he was either jailed or a traitor to the Count of Flanders.
If she admitted she had no husband, she would be caught in her lie and exposed as a vulnerable woman at Renard’s mercy.
If she admitted she was under her uncle’s protection, Renard would demand to confer with him.
‘I really don’t know where he is this week, Monsieur Renard,’ she said.
‘You’re unprotected?’
She bit the unguarded tongue that had revealed too much. Once again her impulsive words had led her to the brink of disaster. He must learn no more.