PART FIVE

Chapter 1

On a brilliant morning in June, on an unpaved country road to the south of Paris, a coach and four came round a bend from behind a clump of majestic chestnut trees with a jingling of harness and a pounding of horses' hooves. Aside from the noises made by the horses, and by the creaking of the swaying coach, there was nothing to be heard but the hum of the cicadas and the loud cry of the coachman: "Gee up there, Holdfast!"

The coach was a big one, painted yellow and red, and it had two footmen on top behind the driver.

There was a similar coach fifty feet behind it, and behind that, several horsemen moving along at a smart canter. A dozen mules were at the rear.

Inside the lead coach were six people. Two children — a good-looking young boy of nine or ten, and his sister, a girlwoman of fourteen with a head of crisp red curls and a pert expression on her comely face.

The others were adults, wedged together uncomfortably but making the best of it.

The coach had begun to lurch badly. Had one of the following horsemen galloped up beside it, he would have seen that the right front wheel was making a curious looping movement. The coachman felt the change and pulled his horses back just as the wheel came off, and the coach came to rest on its axle.

The leading horseman, a corpulent, red-faced man, pulled up beside the window of the coach.

"Hallo! Everybody all right in there?"

"We're fine, sir," the boy said.

The horseman bent over and peered inside. He nodded to the adult passengers, but his eyes rested on Puss.

"I am Sir Oliver Denning of Tewkesbury," he told her.

"I am Miss Carlyle," she said, "and this is my brother, Quentin. Are you part of the pilgrimage, sir?"

"I am," the man said. "If all of you will get out of the coach, I'll have my man Watt see what he can do with that wheel." He jerked his head at Watt, a dark little Welshman.

"We are obliged to you, sir," said Puss.

"Not at all," said Sir Oliver. "We could have a bit of a picnic while Watt gets the wheel back on." His vague glance didn't quite include the other occupants of the coach.

They found a sunny, grassy spot in a small clearing not far from the coach, and Sir Oliver unfolded a camp blanket that smelled not unpleasantly of horse. He was evidently an old campaigner, because he had victuals and even some utensils packed in a leather saddlebag.

"This is very nice indeed," Sir Oliver said, once they were settled down and he had a nicely roasted drumstick in his hand. "How often have I eaten like this during the recent wars in Italy, where I had the honor of serving with the renowned Sir John Hawkwood."

"Did you see much action, sir?" Quentin asked, more to be polite than any other reason, because he had decided that Sir Oliver spent most of his time around the quartermaster's wagon.

"Action? Oh, yes, a goodly amount," Sir Oliver said, and he spoke of a clash of arms outside of Pisa as though all the world should have heard of it. After that he alluded familiarly to other armed encounters in and around the Italian cities, which he termed desperate engagements. Quentin had cause to doubt this since he remembered his father telling him that most of the warfare in Italy consisted of bellicose public words and behind-the-scenes private negotiations, after which a city would fall or a siege be abandoned according to what had been agreed upon. He also remembered hearing that that wasn't true when the French were involved, but held for the most part in dealings between the Italians and the Free Companies. Sir Oliver never mentioned the French. Only the Colonnas and Borgias and Medicis and suchlike foreigners. Sir Oliver had some rousing tales of early-morning engagements in which small groups of warriors would engage similar groups with sword and lance. He spoke of midnight vigils in the south of Italy, where the Saracens still held sway, and told of sudden desperate encounters at little walled cities where death might drench you from above in the form of boiling oil and molten lead.

Sir Oliver was a short, thickset man, built like a block of wood. Middle-aged and balding, he had a habit of jerking his head emphatically as he made his point, and when he did that his little goatee waggled. He often punctuated his more dire pronouncements with a peremptory clearing of his throat. Puss, who was always up for any kind of mischief, had begun to imitate him, and Ouentin was hardpressed to restrain his laughter.

At length Watt came over and declared the wheel fixed. Sir Oliver said he was well pleased, and accepted everyone's thanks with manly modesty. He said that since they were all part of the pilgrimage to Venice, he expected to see a great deal of all of them, plainly assuming that the company of so handy and so distinguished a warrior would be to everyone's liking. Puss said in her gravest voice that everyone welcomed him not least because the company might have further need of his services if another wheel came off. Sir Oliver found nothing funny in this speech, but accepted it as his due, and didn't even wonder why Puss and Quentin and several other ladies fell simultaneously into a fit of coughing.

Later that day, the pilgrimage finally met the nun who was supposed to be traveling with them but who had not shown up at the point of rendezvous. She came riding up on a palfrey, with a servant following her on a mule and carrying her falcon. The coach stopped, there were hasty conferences, and room was made for her inside.

Mother Joanna was mother superior of an Ursuline convent near Gravelines, England. Her family name was Mortimer, and she made sure everyone knew she was closely related to the well-known Shropshire Mortimers. She had a large, broad face tanned by the sun, she carried a falcon wherever she went, and she lost no chance during the stops to take the bird out and loose the jesses and send it questing whenever any suitable prey was in sight. When it brought back some mouse or vole, all bloody and broken, she'd clap her hands and say, "Good score, Mistress Swiftly," for that was her name for the falcon. Quentin couldn't stand the way she talked to it, prattling on in her squeaky voice until he thought he'd burst into giggles. At last several members of the company prevailed on her to let the bird ride atop the coach with her servant. Mother Joanna sulked then until she saw a stag break cover at the edge of the forest. She tried to convince the other pilgrims to stop for an impromptu hunt, but they had no dogs along, except for somebody's little pug — and it would have been hard put to go up against a rat.

And so the long day passed.

Chapter 2

Sir Oliver leaned back in the saddle and looked about. They were still in open country. Pleasantly rounded little hills stretched on the left for many miles. On the right, a swift-moving stream sparkled.

Ahead he could already see the outlying clumps of big trees that marked the start of the forest.

But there was something else, something that moved, a dot of red, coming down from the hills, coming down to intercept the road half a mile ahead of the pilgrimage train.

Mother Joanna rode up beside him on her well-trained bay. "What is the matter?" she asked. "Why have we stopped?"

Sir Oliver said, "I want to take a look at the territory before we plunge into it."

"What on Earth could you hope to see?" Joanna asked.

"I am looking for some sign of the bandits that are said to infest these parts," Oliver said.

"We already have our protection," Joanna said. "Those four crossbowmen who are feeding from our provisions."