The mystic rose

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The road was good and the sun hot; the company travelled quickly, passing through numerous settlements of the deep river valley. At several of these, the sky darkened and they smelled the sharp stench of sulphurous smoke; black ash rained out of the air, and they saw heaps of spent slag darkening the hillsides. The river turned an ugly rusty colour and barges loaded with pigs of rough iron floated slowly towards the harbour.

They soon left the last of the iron-working settlements behind, and the sky became clear and the air clean once more. Despite their long absence from the saddle, the knights rode easily and lightly, talking and joking as they went along, and making the hills echo with the sound of their banter. Cait liked hearing them; it confirmed in her the feeling that she had done well to save them and give them back their lives.

That first day, they rode as long into the evening as they could and then made a simple camp: grass sleeping-mats arranged around a stone-ringed fire with the star-flecked sky for a roof over their heads. They were on the move again as soon as light permitted the next morning, and the second day passed like the first; the only difference they noticed was that the settlements were smaller and further apart. On the third day, the hostler pointed out a tiny projection rising like a dark sliver from a distant hill. 'That is the bell tower of the church of Vitoria,' he told them.

The rest of the day they watched the tower slowly grow as they came nearer. They also began to smell a foul odour as they approached, for the town was supplied with no fewer than three tanneries which used water from the streams to wash the hides, and dumped the scraped offal and waste in the water to be carried away downstream. The heat of the sun raised a stink that could be smelled for a great distance around, which the party did its best to ignore.

It was only when they reached the town square that they gained some respite from the smell. The tower stood on one side of the square; attached to it was a church, which was connected to a monastery where, according to Archbishop Bertrano, they would find Brother Matthias. Cait slid down from the saddle, and dropped the reins on the dusty ground. 'Rognvald, come with me. The rest of you wait here,' she said, and went straight to the monastery gate and presented herself to the porter. He listened politely, and then conducted her and Rognvald to the friar.

'Brother Matthias is not here,' said the clean-shaven friar who met them outside the chapel. 'He was here-earlier this spring, for a time – but he is gone now.'

'Gone?' wondered Cait, as if trying to think what the word could mean. Frustration sharp as despair arrowed through her.

'Gone,' the friar confirmed. 'I am sorry. Good day to you.'

Caitriona stared at the insipid smiling cleric and thought of all the time and effort-not to mention expense!-she had employed just to get this far… only to be told by some fool of a priest that her pains had been for nothing.

It took a moment before she could trust her voice to speak. 'I would thank you to tell me where we might find him,' she said, masking her acute disappointment with a smile. 'We have journeyed a very long way to see him.'

'It makes no matter how far you have travelled,' replied the friar carelessly, 'he is not here and that is that. Now, if there is nothing else, I have duties elsewhere -' He made to leave, but Rognvald reached out a hand and took hold of his brown robe, bunching it in his fist and holding the monk firmly in his place.

'Perhaps,' the knight suggested, 'your duties are not so pressing that you could reconsider the lady's question with the courtesy it deserves.'

The friar spluttered indignantly; he gaped at the knight, saw that he was in earnest, and blurted, 'Oh, very well. He is at Palencia if you must know.'

'This Palencia,' said Rognvald, releasing the priest, 'is it far?'

The friar smoothed his robes and glared at his assailant. 'It is neither near nor far.'

'Neither near nor far,' repeated Cait, her brow lowering. 'Is that what passes for an answer in this festering stinkpot of a town? Or are you more of an idiot than you appear?'

'It is a middle distance, I would say,' sniffed the friar. 'Satisfied?' Rognvald raised his hand, and the friar quickly added, 'I have never been there. Ask in the town-one of the merchants will tell you.'

'One would think information more valuable than gold the way you hoard it,' Cait replied, her anger beginning to simmer. 'Tell me, miserly friar, when was the last time you gave a generous answer to a friendly question?' As the friar huffed and puffed, she added, 'It is as I thought-you cannot even remember!'

Cait turned abruptly and started away. Rognvald fell into step beside her. They had walked but four paces when the priest called after them, 'You are not thinking of going to Palencia.'

'We are,' Cait replied. She halted and turned around, regarding the cleric suspiciously. 'Why?'

'It is not allowed,' the friar informed them, allowing himself a grimace of satisfaction. 'The king has forbidden anyone to travel there.'

'And why, I pray you, is that?' demanded Cait, moving closer. Before the friar could reply, she held up her hand. 'No! Do not tell me, for I am keen to guess. Let me see… I know: the road has been scrubbed and put away for safekeeping.' She took another step closer. 'No? Then how about this: the king is annoyed with Palencia and wishes to punish it by denying it any visitors.' She took another step closer. 'No? What then? Is the sky the wrong colour? Or perhaps the moon makes all the citizens mad?' She was now face to face with the priest once more. 'Well, which is it?'

Realizing he was once more on precarious ground, the friar quickly explained that, alas, King Alfonso VII had died last year, and his son, Alfonso VIII, was king now. 'Until the king can re-establish order,' the monk told them, 'all roads to the south and east remain under control of the Muhammedans and bandits who prey on pilgrims and merchants.'

'I travel with my own army,' Cait replied, a fearsome frown bending the corners of her mouth. 'The bandits will not trouble us.'

'Then I wish you Godspeed,' the monk replied blandly, some of his former insolence returning. 'Only, you must first obtain a writ of passage from the king.'

'I cannot tell if you are more fool than knave,' replied Cait darkly, 'or whether it is the other way around. But if you value your ears, explain.'

'The writ can be had for the payment of a small tax-that is all I know.'

'Very well,' said Rognvald, 'we will go and see the king, and obtain this writ.'

'I do not think it will do any good,' the friar offered. 'The king sees no one but his mother and her attendants.'

'Why?' Cait asked, her frown deepening dangerously. 'Is he ill?'

'Ill? By no means, my lady.' The priest shrank from her threatening glare. 'God keep him, he is in the best of health. But he is only three years old.'

'Agh!' shrieked Cait. 'This is absurd! We are going to Palencia -with or without your mewling infant monarch's blessing.' She turned on her heel and stormed away. 'Stupid man.'

Rognvald caught up with her a few paces down the street. 'I will go and speak to the magistrate and see what he advises,' he offered. 'If you like, you could wait with the others in the square.'

'Go then,' Cait agreed, and Rognvald hurried off in the direction of the town's civic hall-a blocky fortress surrounded by a high wall of red stone, and a shallow dry moat. Cait walked slowly back to the square, which was now all but deserted; most of the townspeople had gone to their homes to escape the heat of the day, leaving only a few stragglers and gossips behind. The latter were standing in the centre of the square, holding forth with several idle tradesmen.

She found the rest of her party readily enough. A tall market cross stood in the centre of the square above the great round stone basin of a fountain. The knights, Abu, and Alethea were sitting around the base of the cross beside the fountain watching the hostler water his horses and pack mules in the basin. Cait joined them and sat down in the shade at the base of the cross to wait. It was passing midday; most of the market stalls had closed already, and in the rest, the merchants were dozing on their stools. An air of drowsy contentment hung like a gauzy curtain over the square; Cait leaned back against the cool stone, and took a deep, calming breath. She closed her eyes and listened to the droning of the knights' voices as they talked.

'You are sadly wrong, Svein,' Yngvar was saying. 'The Romans were never in this place. It was the Goths.'

'Victoriacum,' replied Svein knowingly. 'Does that sound like a Goth name to you?'

'Maybe the Goths spoke Latin,' countered Yngvar. 'Did you ever think of that?'

'Maybe you are not as clever as you think,' replied Svein. 'Did you ever think of that? Here now, Dag, what say you? Is it Roman, this place, or Goth?'

'Who cares?' answered Dag. 'They are not here now-I am.'

'Oh, yes,' said Yngvar, 'that is something. One day people will find this place and say, "Dag the Conqueror was here." I tell you it was Goths.'

Eyes closed in the cooling shade, Cait felt her steaming frustration slowly give way to the soothing air of the place. The ransomed knights were, she reflected, much stronger now, and becoming more themselves with every passing day. If nothing else, the long sea journey had been restorative, allowing them to recover their strength as the good food and air and water healed their hurting spirits. Whatever awaited them on the road ahead, they would, she felt, be ready to meet it.

Abu, however, was rapidly becoming an unwanted problem. Since the confrontation in Iria, he had grown increasingly truculent. Allowing him to join them had been a mistake; there was no denying it. With every mile further from the Holy Land, his usefulness dwindled that much more; and unless she could think of something for him to do, he would soon be far more trouble than he was worth. She was just thinking it might be best to send him back to Bilbao with the hostler, when she heard Rognvald hail them from across the square.

Cait opened her eyes and saw the tall knight striding towards them. He paused to lave water over his head and face before turning to her. 'I have no good news, my lady,' he said, his face and hair dripping. 'I was able to speak to the magistrate, who confirmed that a writ must be obtained. However, he refused to help us. He said that he could not allow us to travel until the bandits had been eradicated and the roads secured once more.

'It seems the Archbishop of Castile has requested the formation of a holy order of knights to guard the roads-the Knights of Calatrava, he called them. They have sent an embassy to Rome to secure the church's authorization -'

'But that could take months,' Yngvar pointed out.

If not years,' said Svein.

'Too true,' agreed Rognvald. 'But until the new order receives the blessing of the pope, the magistrate insists no one is to be allowed to use the roads.'

'If we cannot secure the king's permission, we will simply go without it.'

'Even that may not be so easy,' Rognvald went on to explain, 'for, without the writ, none of the tradesmen in this place will sell to us. They risk confiscation of their goods and, perhaps, imprisonment into the bargain.'

Cait, unable to fathom the idiocy of the Spanish authorities, was not of a mood to comply. 'Good!' She stood, making up her mind at once. 'I want nothing more to do with this flyblown dirt clod of a town anyway.' The others sat looking on. 'To your horses,' she told them, 'we go on to Palencia.'