Three Great English Victories: A 3-book Collection of Harlequin, 1356 and Azincourt

‘You would be better with soldiers. There are bandits everywhere.’

‘I do not fear my own countrymen, Sir Simon.’

‘Then you should,’ he said tartly. ‘How many servants?’

‘Two.’

Sir Simon told the clerk to note two companions on the pass, then looked back to Jeanette. ‘You really would be much safer with soldiers as escort.’

‘God will preserve me,’ Jeanette said.

Sir Simon watched as the ink on the pass was sanded dry and a blob of hot wax was dropped onto the parchment. He pressed a seal into the wax, then held the document to Jeanette. ‘Maybe I should come with you, madame?’

‘I would rather not travel at all,’ Jeanette said, refusing to take the pass.

‘Then I shall relinquish my duties to God,’ Sir Simon said.

Jeanette took the pass, forced herself to thank him, then fled. She half expected that Sir Simon would follow her, but he let her go unmolested. She felt dirty, but also triumphant because the trap was baited now. Well and truly baited.

She did not go straight home, but went instead to the house of the lawyer, Belas, who was still eating a breakfast of blood sausage and bread. The aroma of the sausage put an edge to Jeanette’s hunger, but she refused his offer of a plate. She was a countess and he was a mere lawyer and she would not demean herself by eating with him.

Belas straightened his robe, apologized that the parlour was cold, and asked whether she had at last decided to sell the house. ‘It is the sensible thing to do, madame. Your debts mount.’

‘I shall let you know my decision,’ she said, ‘but I have come on other business.’

Belas opened the parlour shutters. ‘Business costs money, madame, and your debts, forgive me, are mounting.’

‘It is Duke Charles’s business,’ Jeanette said. ‘Do you still write to his men of business?’

‘From time to time,’ Belas said guardedly.

‘How do you reach them?’ Jeanette demanded.

Belas was suspicious of the question, but finally saw no harm in giving an answer. ‘The messages go by boat to Paimpol,’ he said, ‘then overland to Guingamp.’

‘How long does it take?’

‘Two days? Three? It depends if the English are riding the country between Paimpol and Guingamp.’

‘Then write to the Duke,’ Jeanette said, ‘and tell him from me that the English will attack Lannion at the end of this week. They are making ladders to scale the wall.’ She had decided to send the message through Belas, for her own couriers were two fishermen who only came to sell their wares in La Roche-Derrien on a Thursday, and any message sent through them must arrive too late. Belas’s couriers, on the other hand, could reach Guingamp in good time to thwart the English plans.

Belas dabbed egg from his thin beard. ‘You are sure, madame?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’ She told him about Jacques and the ladders and about the indiscreet English supervisor, and how Sir Simon had forced her to wait a week before venturing near Lannion on her expedition to the shrine at Louannec.

‘The Duke,’ Belas said as he ushered Jeanette to the house door, ‘will be grateful.’

Belas sent the message that day, though he did not say it came from the Countess, but instead claimed all the credit for himself. He gave the letter to a shipmaster who sailed that same afternoon, and next morning a horseman rode south from Paimpol. There were no hellequin in the wasted country between the port and the Duke’s capital so the message arrived safely. And in Guingamp, which was Duke Charles’s headquarters, the farriers checked the war horses’ shoes, the crossbowmen greased their weapons, squires scrubbed mail till it shone and a thousand swords were sharpened.

The English raid on Lannion had been betrayed.

Jeanette’s unlikely alliance with Thomas had soothed the hostility in her house. Skeat’s men now used the river as their lavatory instead of the courtyard, and Jeanette allowed them into the kitchen, which proved useful, for they brought their rations with them and so her household ate better than it had since the town had fallen, though she still could not bring herself to try the smoked herrings with their bright red, mould-covered skins. Best of all was the treatment given to two importunate merchants who arrived demanding payment from Jeanette and were so badly manhandled by a score of archers that both men left hatless, limping, unpaid and bloody.

‘I will pay them when I can,’ she told Thomas.

‘Sir Simon’s likely to have money on him,’ he told her.

‘He is?’

‘Only a fool leaves cash where a servant can find it,’ he said.

Four days after the beating his face was still swollen and his lips black with blood clots. His rib hurt and his body was a mass of bruises, but he had insisted to Skeat that he was well enough to ride to Lannion. They would leave that afternoon. At midday Jeanette found him in St Renan’s church.

‘Why are you praying?’ she asked him.

‘I always do before a fight.’

‘There will be a fight today? I thought you were not riding till tomorrow?’

‘I love a well-kept secret,’ Thomas said, amused. ‘We’re going a day early. Everything’s ready, why wait?’

‘Going where?’ Jeanette asked, though she already knew.

‘To wherever they take us,’ Thomas said.

Jeanette grimaced and prayed silently that her message had reached Duke Charles. ‘Be careful,’ she said to Thomas, not because she cared for him, but because he was her agent for taking revenge on Sir Simon Jekyll. ‘Perhaps Sir Simon will be killed?’ she suggested.

‘God will save him for me,’ Thomas said.

‘Perhaps he won’t follow me to Louannec?’

‘He’ll follow you like a dog,’ Thomas said, ‘but it will be dangerous for you.’

‘I shall get the armour back,’ Jeanette said, ‘and that is all that matters. Are you praying to St Renan?’

‘To St Sebastian,’ Thomas said, ‘and to St Guinefort.’

‘I asked the priest about Guinefort,’ Jeanette said accusingly, ‘and he said he had never heard of him.’

‘He probably hasn’t heard of St Wilgefortis either,’ Thomas said.

‘Wilgefortis?’ Jeanette stumbled over the unfamiliar name. ‘Who is he?’

‘She,’ Thomas said, ‘and she was a very pious virgin who lived in Flanders and grew a long beard. She prayed every day that God would keep her ugly so that she could stay chaste.’

Jeanette could not resist laughing. ‘That isn’t true!’

‘It is true, my lady,’ Thomas assured her. ‘My father was once offered a hair of her holy beard, but he refused to buy it.’