King's Gold

Baldwin smiled. ‘I should be pleased to have your company.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tuesday after the Feast of the Annunciation

Near Warwick

It had been a long journey, and as Simon and Sir Richard rode along the main road towards Warwick, they were too tired to talk.

Over the last day or two they had spent much of the time chatting quietly, sometimes even the normally taciturn Hugh joining in with a comment or two, but now, all fell quiet.

For Simon, the peace was a relief. He did not dislike the knight – on the contrary, he was fond of the man – but Sir Richard’s taste in humour ran to quantity rather than quality, and so much delight from such a kindly, generous, but above all exceedingly loud companion, was very wearing. He had memories of travelling with Baldwin – long hot rides in the sun and torrential rain – yet, never was he so worn down as now, with Sir Richard.

Hugh, he could see, was more resilient. The servant always complained about his poor riding skills, but for a man who was raised on a little farm in Dartmoor, who had spent his early days on the moors with the sheep, that was no surprise. Few peasants would ever be able to afford to ride a horse, whether their own or a borrowed one, because by and large, horses were for the wealthy. Men like Hugh were lucky to see anything more than an ox to work the farm, and perhaps a donkey for journeying. Not that the folks about Drewsteignton were likely to be a able to use donkey. The paths and tracks there were so poor that even packhorses found the going troublesome.

It was as they reached a little crossroads that they met the men.

Near Tidintune

Senchet and Harry were glad to have found the cottage.

The woman who lived there, Helen, had been very helpful, especially since there could have been few widows who would have welcomed three men to feed, but she told them that they were her guests, and if they needed food, she could provide them with some for one night.

Dolwyn had been weak when they arrived, but the following morning, while Senchet was hitching the horse to the shafts and settling the reins along his back and up to the cart, he heard Harry bellow. He sprang from the cart’s bed and ran to the cottage. Inside, Helen stood wringing her hands beside Dolwyn’s prostrate body.

‘Help me, Sen,’ Harry called, and Senchet hurried to his side.

‘He tried to get up, and collapsed after two paces,’ Helen said. ‘He looked all right when he stood, a little rocky, perhaps, but now look at him. He is not well, gentles. Not at all well.’

‘Helen, I think we will need to impose upon your hospitality a little longer than we had hoped,’ Senchet said, his hand at Dolwyn’s forehead. ‘Ah, the poor fellow is burning up. Feel his brow – here, see? His body is afire.’

Harry wrinkled his face. ‘Ach! He has a fever.’

‘That is bad,’ Senchet said. He glanced down at Dolwyn’s flank, where the knife had penetrated. ‘We should look at the wound.’

Harry nodded, and reached out for the man’s tunic.

‘No,’ Helen said. ‘Leave me with him. I shall nurse him to health, God willing. You two must make yourselves useful. Fetch wood for the fire and fill my pot with water. You will have to make a pottage. There are plenty of leaves in my garden. Go and seek out what you may. And one of you, can you find some meat?’

Senchet nodded and hurried out to the vegetable garden. It was difficult to know what to fetch for the best. He knew the physician’s favourites for an invalid: hot plants or cold, dry or wet, to suit the different humours. But he had no idea whether this man was choleric or phlegmatic, sanguine or melancholic. Without that most basic information, it was impossible to decide what would be the best remedy for his illness. Probably best just to fill the poor man’s belly, he decided, and took some handfuls of the leaves from the meagre vegetable garden.

When he returned, Harry had already filled the pot from the well outside, and was lighting the fire. Soon the room was filled with the clean odour of scorched bark as Harry blew on his tinder.

Senchet left him to it, wandering outside and looking for some means of capturing a bird or rabbit. There were nets in a small pile in an outside house, and he looked through them with a frown. Perhaps suitable for catching rabbits if he had a ferret, but nothing else. What he really needed was a bow to shoot a pigeon from a tree.

He knew that there was some food still in the back of the cart. Rather than waste time now, he returned to it, hunting through the items on the bed while he searched for the bag with the food in it. When he had last seen it, it was just beneath the plank on which Dolwyn had sat, but when the horse was taken from the cart last night and the shafts rested on the ground, all the items in the cart had slid forward. Now he must pull the bags out of the way.