We Speak No Treason Vol 2 by Rosemary Hawley Jarman Page A

Pol.
    ‘Come,’ he said, touching my arm lightly. ‘A diversion would be well—for both of us. I know a fine inn, where you shall recover from me your three shillings.’
    A cluster of esquires came darting, gibbering in the alien tongue I was beginning to hate. They brought us cloak and horse and, riding down the cobbled slope across the square, where pigeons, wind-frozen, snuggled together, we shook off their company; they were but foreigners, and weakly.

    I had to stoop to enter the tavern, and he did not, yet it was at him that they looked. There was an unreality about the people within. A line of brawny young men occupied the bench along one wall. They rolled their heads about against the panels, laughing lackteeth at some frolic. A brace of them confronted one another, palms clasped, elbows sliding in a puddle of spilled ale. With gruff cries they urged each other on, in this test of strength. Two merchants sat at a far table, their voices softer by a breath than the slight chink of coin passing from hand to hand, muffled by velvet pouch. Three Flemish women nodded over hot ale, their faces plain as platters. A Spanish seaman like a monkey postured and smirked, offering (in Latin too, the holy tongue of philosophers and the Church!) to sing of his adventures. Jesu! I thought, when shall I hear English voices about me again? The landlord shuffled forward, and it was all unreal, like a tableau set up for a play. His eyes were crusted by a film of age and sickness. He made owlish looks at my lord, who stood wrapped in his plain blue cloak (a present from the Governor). The tavern-keeper did not know him; I was on the point of crying: ‘Make way, master, for a prince of England,’ when I heard Richard say, in courteous French:
    ‘Your best, a flagon, friend, and a private chamber.’
    ‘You are merchants?
Hoe veel gelt
?’ said the landlord, his eyes crawling from Richard to me.
    ‘We are thirsty men,’ replied my lord. ‘If you would know our names, mine is Dickon Broome, this gentleman... Mark—Mark Eye.’ Ah! the whims of princes! Yet my counterfeit name pleased me, for it smacked of Toxophilus. Gloucester took money from his pouch—I missed its value but it drew a smile from our host’s withered gums, and he shed ten winters.
    ‘
Als’t’u belieft
,’ he said, taking a handful of flickering light from one of the tables. He urged us up steep stairs into a small firelit room. He crept about for a moment, casting on fresh peats, then poured a dark-looking wine into pewter hanaps, and left us.
    ‘I am grateful to my lord,’ I said, feeling warmed at last.
    He laughed. ‘It is the Governor’s money.’ Though he spoke cheerily, I knew that this fact irked him, and that his flashing mood was a match to mine that night. We were like two restive steeds.
    ‘To your Grace!’ I drank, and knew this wine would undo me. All the fierce foreign suns had been spawned in it. A dagger’s white fire had bred mischief in it. My bold and melancholy humour rose to meet its downward thrust. I sat opposite Richard, and the carved wood pressed my back, so stiff was I, so martial and controlled.
    ‘How like you your name, Mark Eye?’ he said. ‘I had to think of something pleasing to you.’
    ‘I like it well, my lord,’ I answered. ‘And your own trips easily from the tongue.’
    ‘Broome,’ he murmured. ‘The glorious
planta genista
. Plantagenet wearing a coat of yellow flowers. Geoffrey d’Anjou’s blazon. Edward used to do this,’ he said, pleased as a child. ‘He would enter houses under a pseudonym and folk would become enamoured of his charm and graciousness. They would talk to him as if he were not the King of England.’
    For a while then we cast the dice, and again he won; feigning despondency, I drank deep with a mocking smile. He did for me the service I was bound to do for him in England—he poured the drink before I could guess his intent. He was still unquiet; his hands were not as steady