States of Grace (Saint-Germain #18)

States of Grace (Saint-Germain #18) Page 21

At Antwerp, James Belfountain joined with the rest of Saint-Germain's escort which now numbered five; they traveled light, with only two pack-horses for their goods, and a single remount for each man in their remuda. Four leagues outside Antwerp, they turned south along the merchants' road to Cologne, through the sodden summer heat, and the persistent dust-cloud that marked their progress. On the road there had been delays-two the result of over-turned wagons, one caused by villagers throwing rocks at all who approached their gates, one caused by a fire in a field and grove of elms and oaks-putting them almost half a day behind what they had planned.

"Do we press on?" Belfountain asked as they approached the outskirts of Cologne. "It is three hours until sundown."

"The horses are weary," said Saint-Germain. "And the evening is not going to be much cooler than the day."

"Then we remount shortly and pony them in the remuda, all no faster than a trot," said Belfountain, patting the sweaty neck of his blood-bay. "We won't make up all the time we've lost, but we won't be even farther behind." He wiped his face with the hem of his light fustian summer cloak, worn more to keep off the dust than to provide unwanted warmth; he left a gritty smear across his forehead. "I would advise that we go on, if you want to reach Venezia within ten or eleven days."

Ruthger shaded his eyes and studied the clouds forming to the southwest. "We may yet have a thunderstorm before midnight."

"That we may," Saint-Germain agreed. "I should think we would not want to be in the open if a storm begins."

"There is the rain itself, and the risk of fire," Ruthger said. "Lightning can set a wood ablaze in an instant."

"It can also strike a house, or an inn, or a barn," Belfountain said. "If there is a thunderstorm, everywhere is dangerous."

Jacques Oralle, a seasoned soldier at twenty-two who was from Bensancon, ahead on their way south, said, "Even if it rains, I don't think we'll get caught in the mud, not if we keep to the main road."

"Why not cut across the open country?" Timothy Mercer, a young English soldier, interjected. "We could save time, and spare ourselves unpleasantness."

Oralle held up his hand. "No; we would lose time, not save it, at least not in this region. Without the merchants' roads and market roads, the fens would be unpassable, but the merchants' roads, in particular, are well-drained, and among the last to mire. The market roads, a little less so, but this summer has not proven to be too wet in spite of all the storms."

The wind sprang up suddenly, shifting around to the southeast, and as it whipped past the small group of mounted men, it bore to them the cloying, metallic odor of decaying flesh; as fast as it had shifted, the wind moved again back to the west. Belfountain and Saint-Germain exchanged quick glances, and Saint-Germain said, "All may not be well in Cologne."

"Not with the charnel house on the wind; I know that much," said Maddox Yeoville, who had only recently joined Belfountain's company, and had come-amid ambiguous reports-from the household cavalry of Henry VIII.

"If it is fever, then it will spread, and we must get beyond the miasma or we, too, will sicken," said Belfountain.

"If it is the charnel house, and not the gibbet," said Saint-Germain, aware from the smell that no disease had killed the bodies that carried that stench. "In either case, it may be easier to enter Cologne than to leave."

"It is often better not to do than to have to undo," Ruthger pointed out.

"It is probably best if we don't enter the city, not while there are secondary market roads we may travel. We have had to detour twice already; another such will not disaccommodate us, although it may delay us by another day." Belfountain looked at Saint-Germain, his brow rising inquiringly. "If we create delays, our pay can be held back, so moving on is to our benefit, isn't it, Grav?" he reminded them all. He leaned forward to ease his back a little, his brow touching the crest of his blood-bay's neck. "I think we could go along as far as Beau Roison before nightfall. We should reach there in two hours if there are no problems; that will allow us an opportunity to rest the horses and have our dinner before everything is soaked. And departing in the morning could be swifter than it would be from Cologne."

"If the rain is heavy, it could slow us tomorrow," Ruthger observed, noticing as he did that Saint-Germain was listening intently. He regarded Saint-Germain carefully. "What is it you hear, my master?"

"Bells, and not ringing changes, but sounding the alarum," said Saint-Germain, his tone slightly distant, his attention on the city ahead. "I think it would be best if we use the market road, not the merchants' roads, and keep on. When we near Beau Roison, then we can consider what to do."

Belfountain raised his hand to signal his men. "Then we will move on, away from the gates and on to the south market road. We'll leave the merchants' roads to larger trains than ours."

"And to the Spanish patrols; they keep to the merchants' roads, and pay not a copper for their doing so," said Mercer, made uneasy by his own remark.

"Most of the Hapsburg lands here are under the control of the Austrian branch of the family, and much less inclined to worry about heresy than the Spanish," said Saint-Germain. "We will shortly be out of reach of Spain and across the frontiers of Charles' Lorraine territories."

"A Hapsburg is a Hapsburg, and they are all treacherous," said Yeoville.

Saint-Germain glanced over at the young man. "While I may agree with you in many regards, I think Charles is a capable administrator, although his brother appears to like the minutiae of government more than Charles does."

"They all like killing honest Protestants," said Yeoville, and looked away, his face set, his manner guarded.

"Not all: another thing in Charles' favor: he dislikes having to kill his subjects over unanswerable questions," Saint-Germain remarked. "Given the Holy Roman Empire's present fracturing, Charles' policies have maintained it better than many another has." He remembered his first glimpse, not quite six hundred years before, of Otto the Great, who had not been content with Karl-lo-Magne's old title of Emperor of the Franks and Longobards and Imperial Governor of all the Romans in the West but had embraced the extended distinction of Holy Roman Emperor, the title the Frankish nobility had used unofficially since Haganrich the Fowler ruled; he dreaded what that tenth-century warlord would have done in the circumstances now confronting Charles V. He tried to shut out the recollection of cities sacked and put to the torch, of peasants rounded up to serve as slaves in the Emperor's household, of broken bodies cast into common graves, of children spitted on swords. "At least," he murmured in the tongue of Saxony six hundred years ago, "we have not come to that."

"Grav?" Belfountain asked.

Realizing something of his recollections must have shown in his face, he was able to summon up a half-smile. "I ask your pardon," he said quietly. "I was lost in thought-how politics and religion make for dangerous partners, as we see all around us."

"All the more reason for you to return to Venezia," said Mercer, nodding as if he had made an original point.

"Oh?" Ruthger interjected before Saint-Germain could speak. "You assume politics and religion are separate in Venezia?"

"No," said Mercer, affronted. "But it isn't as confusing as what is happening in the north, is it?"

"Not in the way that such matters are in upheaval, certainly; Venezia has a different style in dealing with dissidents," said Ruthger.

"That is exactly why Venezia will never have such disarray as they have in the Netherlands and the German States," Giulio delle Fonde said, speaking up for the first time; he was in charge of the pack-horses and the remuda, a position he found useful for staying out of any discussion of politics, claiming that the horses demanded all his attention.

"Or so we hope, and that is all we can do at present-hope, and that will change nothing but our own minds," said Belfountain as he nudged his blood-bay to the position slightly ahead of Saint-Germain. "The market roads are toll-roads, Grav. You will have to pay to use them."

"I have money in my glove," Saint-Germain said as he started his gray gelding moving again. The brief respite had not been sufficient to restore the horses, so they began at a walk, giving both men and animals a little easier time of it.

"We will change horses just before going through the gate; most toll-houses have a shelter-stall for such purposes." Oralle rose in the stirrups and looked back. "That group of men with their families and carts is still on the road, about half a league behind us now."

"Poor devils," said Belfountain. "To be uprooted from their homes and cast off on the world because they do not trust the Pope."

"Who does trust the Pope? De' Medici or not, Clemente is a pawn of the Spanish, or he would have to be a martyr," said Oralle, ready to press on, and fretting at their slow pace. "For all of us, it will be ten copper Fredericks."

Saint-Germain had only silver coins in his glove, but he knew what the men of his escort expected to hear. "Even secondary roads are becoming more expensive every day."

"So they are," said Belfountain, moving his open hand in a circle above his head to indicate to his men that they should follow him to the right at the next turn. "And with groups such as the one behind us using the roads, it is small wonder that the cost of them increases. In May I saw a much larger group of families from the Swiss Cantons bound for Calais, of all places. Their town-near Zurich-had come under Huldrych Zwingli's influence, and they would not renounce their Catholic faith, so were cast out on the world, like Cain."

"More's the pity," said Yeoville.

"If we avoid these groups, the armies patrolling the merchants' roads will pay less attention to us, or they have in the past," Belfountain declared. "It will not serve us to be detained by any of them."

"Do you assume that they suppose you're giving the wanderers protection?" Ruthger asked.

"That's their excuse-whether they believe it, who can tell," said Belfountain. "I'm surprised we have only come upon this one company. We will have to be careful if we encounter others."

"Who will scout?" Saint-Germain asked. "Oralle?"

"He comes from this region, and should know the by-ways, if such knowledge is necessary," said Belfountain, signaling to that young man to move ahead of them, adding in his English-accented French, "If anything seems amiss, inform us at once."

"I will," Oralle called back as he urged his spotted horse forward to a point about fifty yards ahead of the other six.

"These warm, close nights always seem hard to bear," said Mercer. "The horses fret, and no one sleeps well."

"True enough," Belfountain agreed. "You don't see many nights like this one back in England, as I remember."

"No; not too many," Mercer said, and gave his attention to the road ahead.

They traveled on through the fading afternoon, making no sound but the steady thud of their horses' hooves. At the toll station, they changed mounts, taking their evening horses from the remuda-line and returning their day horses to it. In half an hour they were saddled again and ready to continue; Saint-Germain paid their toll and a bit more for the use of the shelter-stall, and they continued on at the jogtrot into the clinging warmth of the evening as the declining sun left a glistening wake leading into low-lying clouds on the western horizon. They passed broad fields where cowherds and shepherds were driving their charges back toward farmsteads that seemed little more than hummocks and berms in the deepening twilight.

"That's Beau Roison," Oralle called from a bend ahead on the road.

"Where?" Belfountain responded, his voice unexpectedly loud.

"Perhaps forty yards ahead; just beyond where the road dips." Oralle had stopped on the road, waiting for the other six riders to catch up with him. "There." He pointed to a cluster of about fifty buildings, the remnants of an old stone wall encircling thirty of these, a monument to the age of the place. Five streets twisted through the buildings, most connecting to market-squares or ancient gates in the old wall. Spires of three churches poked into the violet sky, rising over the thatched roofs of the other buildings. "They say the Romans of old founded the town, because there is an old ruined building that legend says was a bath."

Saint-Germain realized he had been in this place during his travels with Gaius Julius Caesar during his conquest of Gaul; then this had been a rest-camp for wounded soldiers where he had spent time working with the wounded, and then recovering himself, in Aumtehoutep's care: the bath had been the only permanent building in the settlement. "A charming legend," he said.

"Legends won't help us now," Belfountain muttered, and spat to ward off the evil omen as an owl sailed over them on silent wings.

"Not many lights showing," Mercer observed as he peered through the dusk, and pointed out a few windows with a shine of goldensnouted lamps in them.

"No," said Belfountain thoughtfully, rousing himself to assess the surround so he might know best how to approach the town; he contemplated the road ahead, then turned to Saint-Germain. "Well, Grav, what do you think?"

Saint-Germain's dark eyes were not as hampered by night as were the eyes of living men, but he was careful not to give away too much of what he saw. "I would suppose that there is a travelers' inn on the edge of the town; that is the usual pattern in these isolated places. It might be best if we go there, rather than into the town."

"They'll have word at such an inn about what lies ahead," said delle Fonde; his voice was hoarse and his remark ended on a cough. "It's the dust," he explained.

"Cover your face with your neck-cloth, as I do," Yeoville suggested.

"He'd look like a highwayman," Mercer said testily.

"Then suffer and cough," said Yeoville, shrugging to emphasize his indifference.

"My men are tired," Belfountain said as much to stop the carping as to explain the resentment around him.

"Not surprising," said Ruthger.

"Do we go onward?" Belfountain asked, pointing toward the town. "At least as far as the travelers' inn?" He expected no answer and got none. "Where is the inn, Oralle? Do you know?"

"On the southeast side of the town," Oralle told him. "I should think they will have a lantern lit."

"Excellent," Belfountain approved, and decided to order the small party to move on; their progress toward the town was marked by a chorus of barks from farmers' dogs, although no farmer or other peasant came to greet them. "Not a good sign."

"Let us hope they have not armed themselves to keep us away," said Saint-Germain, who had often experienced such reception in the past.

"Do you think that likely?" Yeoville asked, reaching for his sword.

"No; I think that if they wanted to scare us off, they would have done so before the dogs started barking," said Saint-Germain, and saw Belfountain nod. "They may want us to ride on; that would account for their silence."

There was a brief silence, then Oralle said, "There may be smugglers in this region. The town would make a point of taking no notice of them."

"What would they be smuggling?" Ruthger asked.

"Beer, wine, jewels, weapons," said Oralle. "Some are even bringing masks and ornaments from the New World."

"Smugglers or no, the travelers' inn will welcome us," said Belfountain with conviction. "If we pay enough."

"That is no concern for any of you," said Saint-Germain, who knew it was expected of him. "I can offer a handsome sum for our stay."

Far to the west the piled clouds winked with lightning, but no grumble of thunder followed.

"Rain is coming," said delle Fonde. "And because of the rain, our horses will do better in a stall tonight."

"Then let us go on to the inn," said Belfountain, starting his horse walking again. "The southeast side of the town, you say?"

"As I recall it, it was," said Oralle. "It was thus four years ago. I will know the place when I see it."

"Good enough," said Belfountain, and chose a narrow track that appeared to circle around the town. "This should take us to what we want."

The path was a bit damp in places where the river that grazed Beau Roison's flank spread out to create a marsh, but other than that the way was as unimpeded as the merchants' road to Avignon. Finally a three-story building loomed up ahead; there was a courtyard surrounded by a stockade, and a barn that gave onto a good-sized pasture. There were the sounds of a dulcimer and shawm coming from the building, and a few voices lifted in song.

"That is where we are bound, it seems," said Belfountain, starting forward.

Mercer held back. "What if they are not-"

"This is a little town; I doubt we'll find a company of Spaniards in the taproom, or any men with illicit cargo in their packs. This is too obvious a place for such things, and there is too much gossip in travelers' inns," said Belfountain abruptly.

"I was thinking highwaymen, perhaps," said Mercer. "They're not as obvious as smugglers."

"Highwaymen," Yeoville repeated. "Why should there be highwaymen in this place more than another?"

"Because no one from the town has challenged us," said Mercer.

This simple statement was enough to make Belfountain rein in. "You mean that all this could be a trap for unwary travelers."

"I fear it may be; yes." Mercer glanced around at the others; delle Fonde shook his head, Oralle stared at the stockade as if determined to pierce through it by the intensity of his stare alone.

"Belfountain," said Saint-Germain, "I will go to the tavern, on my own. Either I will return to you, or I will ring the kitchen bell; if I do that, assume it is safe to come inside. If I summon you in any other manner, then leave this place and wait for me in Bensancon. If I fail to come in five days, Ruthger will pay your fee and he will depart for Venezia."

"But Grav," Belfountain exclaimed in amazement, "it is you we are bound to protect. You are the man who has bought his safety from us. You cannot put yourself in harm's way to save us-our obligation is to risk our lives to preserve yours."

"Then think of this as a kind of game I seek to play for my own amusement," said Saint-Germain.

"It is no game, my master," said Ruthger in Byzantine Greek.

Saint-Germain dismounted from his gray and looked up at Ruthger. "I know."

"Then why must you-?"

"We are all tired and hungry, and we must rest if we are to keep on at this pace. And we need to know what lies ahead." He had changed from Greek to French. "Better to risk one than lose all."

"I cannot argue that," said Belfountain. "But it should be one of us."

"Belfountain, think a moment. You are clearly a soldier: equally clearly I am not. Which of us do you think would be more welcome in the taproom if the inn is an honest one?" Saint-Germain gave Belfountain a short while to consider his answer, then said, "I will attend to this, make whatever arrangements I can, and will provide you the agreed signal."

Belfountain was uneasy with this approach, but could not come up with anything to offer instead. As Saint-Germain began to walk toward the inn, he said, "Have a care as you go. They may have men posted outside."

"If they do, I will trust that I will see them first," said Saint-Germain.

"But if they should capture you-" Belfountain persisted.

"Then we will all be at a disadvantage," said Saint-Germain, and continued on as if he had nothing more on his mind than the gathering storm and avoiding getting his fine silver-buckled boots smirched by the wallow that extended beyond the line of pigsties.

Text of a letter from Atta Olivia Clemens, from Orleans, to Sanct-Germain Franciscus, in care of Eclipse Trading Company in Amsterdam, written in Imperial Latin, carried by private courier, and delivered thirteen days after it was written.

To my most dear, most aggravating, most mystifying friend, in the present guise of Grav Saint-Germain, the affectionate greetings of Olivia, from my horse farm near Orleans on this, the 19thday of July, 1531, in great concern for your well-being.

So I have your note of the 5thday of July, saying you must return to Venezia in a short time. I am sending this to you in Amsterdam in the hope that it will arrive before you depart, but with the confidence that your factor will send it on to you if you have departed by the time this reaches the Lowlands. Your note tells me that you fear some irregularity in your finances may have put your associates in Venezia at an unintended disadvantage, and you must hasten to set the whole matter to rights. I wonder if those who have not been worthy of your trust have any idea what they will reap for their perfidy? You must forgive my delight in the confrontation I am imagining. For all the centuries and centuries I have been one of your blood, I have never known you to slack in the redress of wrongs, nor to mistake vengeance for rectitude. Though you say it is easier for you to pardon desperate acts because time does not weigh upon you as heavily as it does on the living, I know you will not expose yourself or others to injustice, and tolerant as you are, you do not give countenance to criminality.

In your determination to help those who have borne hardship because of you, do not, I pray you, decide to give over all you have in compensation to them. I know you, my most dear Sanct' Germain, and I know you can be generous to a fault; I laud your impulse to rectify all unjust misery that is caused by association with you, and I wish I had the greatness of heart to emulate you, but my nature is not as forbearing as yours, so I caution you that excessive recompense may create expectations that neither you nor anyone alive can fulfill, and that will prove a burden that will only increase, never diminish. Think of how Clodotius battened on you, greedy as a leech, with the intention of using all your kindness to sink his hooks still deeper into you. For one who has lived the millennia you have, to be taken in by so venal a man astonishes me, yet I am worried that you might fall into the same estimable error. For my sake, if not your own, stand firm for the sake of those to whose defense you are rising.

You still have that property near Attigny, do you not? You might find it serves your purpose to go there while the various courts address the treachery you have described. I realize that may put you in the path of various rural outrages undertaken to vindicate multifarious religious views, but where in Europe is this not so? South of the Alps there is the Church, but that does not spare you, for the Spanish seek to impose their will on the Pope at every occasion. In Attigny, you would be able to speed messages from the north or the south without having to be present yourself, and thus you would not have to expose yourself to detention and worse. I say this only because the upheavals among the peoples here have become increasingly violent, and if such violence should turn on you, it might be more than you are able to recover from: they are burning heretics, you know, and breaking others on the wheel, to be an example to those who do not accept the salvation they offer. My most-dear friend, I would rather you off in the remotest reaches of Asia or the Americas than broken on the wheel and cast into a pit of lye. I cannot bear the thought of you risking the True Death to correct some mistakes in arithmetic.

Here in France there are constant rumors about the excesses of the Protestants in the north and northeast. To hear the gossip, we are to expect legions of outraged Protestant Saxons and Hessians armed with staves and pitchforks to march across the fair land of France, destroying everything they encounter, and burning all those good Catholics who do not immediately renounce their faith in favor of Protestant teachings. The Abbe in the village has said that he is certain that there are peasants here who would welcome such an invasion, and I cannot wholly dismiss his concerns, which is why I have mounted a watch on my lands and buildings. It is bad enough that I am foreign, but I am a woman, and that makes me more subject to scrutiny than any foreign man, and so I am being as circumspect as I can in my search for a lover, as well as in my dealings with the Abbe and the townsfolk.

To inform you of more pleasant things, I have now four fine studs at this horse farm, and the prices they can command for covering the mares of others has kept this place expanding for the last quarter-century. One of the stallions may interest you, for almost all his get are gray, and I know your preference for grays. Shall I put three of my mares in foal to him for you, so that you have the foals to look forward to? I would count it a privilege to supply your stable.

With the hope that you do not have to pay too high a price-in gold or in things more precious-upon your return to Venezia, and with the warranty that my deep affection and my wholehearted love remains unswervingly yours, from now until I am dust,

In saeculi saeculorum, as the Abbe puts it, Olivia

By my own hand, given to Niklos Aulirios to carry to Orleans where he is to entrust it to a professional messenger.