By Sylvian Hamilton by Max Gilbert

said. Then he opened the chest that's how
I know it was full of money –and took out a handful of coins
and threw them into one of the bowls of holy water, and told me to
take it, and thank you very much, and why didn't I start back right
away?

    'I
headed straight for Alnwick. The roads up there are unbelievable.
Thank God it was dry; if it had been wet I'd never have got there. I
might never have got back home either; it's all bog when it isn't
flood. On the road a galloper passed me, going my way head down, but
I'd seen him before back there at Skelrig. And there he was again, in
Alnwick when I stopped for the night, lurking about and watching me.
So when I'd had enough of it I gave him the slip and followed him for
a change. He panicked about a bit when he realised he'd lost me, and
then went into a house and presently came out again with another man.
And this is where it gets queerer still. Guess who the other fellow
was.'

    'Who?'

    'That
Gregory's man, the one who came here after the finger of Saint
Thomas.'

    'His
name's Pluvis,' said Straccan thoughtfully. 'You're sure it was him?'

    'No
mistaking him, ugly sod.'

    'Did
he see you?'

    'He
didn't know me. I watched them while they talked, and then the
Skelrig man got on his horse and set off back the way we'd come. And
wotsisname, Pluvis, shouted to a servant and went back inside, and
presently five horses were brought to the door, and out he came with
two other men and two archers. Now one of the men I've seen before;
he was Eustace de Vesci. The other I didn't know. White face, black
hair and moustache. He and de Vesci wore mail. The archers looked
foreign, I think they were Saracens. I whined for charity and one of
them threw a handful of horse shit at me. De Vesci went off by
himself and the others rode north. I hung around a bit to ask who the
pale man was '

    'Well?'

    'Nobody
wanted to talk about him. I couldn't find out a thing beyond his
name: Rainard, Lord Soulis.'

    Chapter
9

    The
small thick gold coins felt unpleasantly greasy, and Straccan rubbed
his hands on his tunic after counting them, glad to be rid of them.
Pluvis had taken the relic, paid the balance due and gone. The
strange figure on the ugly coins wasn't an octopus, it was no
creature Straccan had ever seen –something like a toad with
tentacles round its mouth. Whatever it was, he disliked it and the
gold it decorated, and took it all to Eleazar the Jew to change for
other coinage, keeping just a few for curiosity's sake. That done,
clean silver in his purse and more at home in his safe place, he rode
again to Holystone to tell Prioress Rohese what Bane had discovered.

    'I
am amazed that your man was able to learn so much,' she said. 'Our
bailiff's son had no luck at all, and was a week away.' (Straccan had
given her an edited version of Bane's account and a list of his
expenses.) 'He ate and drank enough for two,' she observed sourly,
casting a critical eye down the listed items.

    'Bailiff
Ambrose's son?' said Straccan.

    'No,
your man Bane!'

    'I
told you he was intelligent. I never said he was abstemious,'
Straccan protested with a smile. 'It was a long hard journey, and he
was ill used by Skelrig's ruffians as well.'

    'I
am sorry for that, indeed. I suppose this precious thing must now go
to the Lady Julitta. Do you think she might be persuaded to sell it?'

    'Who
knows? I'll ask her, if you wish.'

    'I
know nothing of her brother,' the prioress said. 'I wonder where he
got the picture.'

    'His
uncle, or whatever he was, the Grand Master, would have been able to
lay hands on almost any holy thing,' said Straccan.

    'Julitta
de Beauris was no great heiress,' the prioress observed.

    'Her
mother was Alice de Ridefort, the last of twelve daughters if I
remember right, and her father some petty lordling, a Scot, I
suppose. However, Julitta inherited nothing. What there was went to
the heir, her brother, who was niggardly with her dowry. But she's a
great beauty. I have seen her, and all