30 - King's Gold by Michael Jecks

Stephen was keen to be off. There were many long miles to cover. Ten leagues or more, in fact. With a cart, that would take at least two days, what with rivers to cross and the poor state of the roads. A cart would rarely manage ten miles in a day. Still, he was paying for fifteen miles a day, and he would make it, come what may.
    A shiver ran through his frame, and he gave a little grin, thinking that his brother Thomas would have said it was someone walking over his grave. Stephen reckoned that was being overly optimistic. The prospect of his dying naturally and being placed in a coffin with weeping maids and children all about was nice to dream of, but highly unlikely.
    He gave the sky another look, and tipped the drinking horn upwards, emptying it, before crossing to the wall where his horse was tethered to a large ring. Pulling the reins free, he led his pony along the road towards Ham’s house.
    Time to go.
    ‘My friend, please!’ called Father Luke. He had seen the man rise and walk from the inn even as he himself hurried towards Ham’s house.
    ‘Father?’ The man stopped and waited for the priest.
    The fellow had the clear features and open, bright eyes of a man in his prime – but as Luke drew nearer, he saw that he had the wrinkles of someone ten years older. What’s more, his dark eyes were watchful, as though he did not entirely trust even a priest.
    ‘My son, I have heard that you are a purveyor, and that you have asked our Ham to accompany you to Kenilworth?’
    ‘What of it?’
    ‘Nothing, except I have a chest I need to take there and wondered if I could join you.’
    ‘Why would you want to join me?’
    Father Luke blinked. ‘I would not wish to travel so far alone, that is all. It is a great distance to Kenilworth, and such journeys can prove hazardous.’
    ‘That’s true enough.’
    To Father Luke’s dismay, the man demonstrated little enthusiasm. It was discourteous in the extreme, the way that he was frowning at his priestly robes. ‘Very well. If you do not want company—’ he began, hurt.
    ‘No, Father, I would be happy with your companionship for the journey. I was only wondering whether you would not prefer to find a more comfortable means of travelling.’
    ‘I am perfectly capable of walking that distance!’
    ‘Then I should be most glad to have your company,’ Stephen said.
    ‘How many carts are there?’
    ‘Only the one.’
    ‘All that way, and there’s only one cart?’
    Stephen said nothing, but merely stood with a thin smile on his face.
    ‘Oh,’ Father Luke said.
    ‘We leave shortly. You need to bring food and drink for the journey.’
    ‘Not only that. I have a chest, as I said. Ham will need to come to my church to collect it. It is very heavy,’ Father Luke fretted.
    ‘Then get him to go with you to fetch it,’ the purveyor said. ‘ And hurry .’

 

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Exeter
    Many miles to the south, Sir Baldwin de Furnshill walked amidst the din and smoke of the local smithies.
    Sir Baldwin was a tall knight, strong in the arm, with a neck thick and muscled from long years of wearing a heavy steel helmet. The neat beard that traced the edge of his jaw had less black in it now, and was thickly salted with white, while the hair on his head was turning grey all over.
    His was a face marked by experience. At his cheek was a long scar from the Siege of Acre in the Holy Land, but that was less prominent than the creases that passed over his brow and down at either side of his mouth, showing the pain he had endured in his long life.
    He was tired. The last year had seen such unrivalled madness that he was weary to remember it. From the invasion of the Queen and her lover, their swift progress across the kingdom, snapping up towns as they went, the revolt in London, the slaughter of Bishop Walter II of Blessed Memory, the King’s capture, the executions . . . All had happened in so short a space of time it was a miracle the realm had not collapsed.
    To have