They did not cringe, nor cry out. Instead their faces grinned slyly.
“We hear you’re off to find our Keeper,” said one, and it was a female, for her voice was curiously woman-like. “We do wish you good seeking.”
“Thomas,” said another, male this time. “Beware of what you think is evil and what you think is good.”
“And do beware,” said yet another, “of who you think is the hunted, and who the hunter.”
They laughed, the sound as soft and as melodic as their voices, and then they reached for him…
Thomas jerked up from the bed, wide-eyed and sweating, his breath rattling harshly through his throat.
There was nothing untoward in the chamber: the Biermans lay to one side of him, deep in sleep.
In the other bed, Marcel, Karle and Marcoaldi lay still, their breathing slow and deep.
Thomas looked at the window. It was tightly shuttered. He turned his gaze to the door. It was closed, and the fire still burned bright in the hearth, casting enough light around the chamber to show that it was empty apart from himself and his travelling companions.
He swallowed and managed to bring his breathing under control. He lifted a hand, clenched it briefly to stop its trembling, and crossed himself, then sat and bowed his head in prayer for a few minutes, appealing to St Michael and Christ for protection.
He did not close his eyes, but kept them roving about the room, lest the…the demons should leap out from a shadowed recess.
Finally, after almost an hour of prayer, Thomas lay down. He stared at the ceiling. He did not sleep again that night.
Even though the room appeared empty of all save its legitimate occupiers, Thomas knew that, somehow, he was still being watched.
Somewhere, eyes still gleamed.
“The King comands, and I must to the warres.”
“thers others more enow to end those cares.”
“but I am one appointed for to goe,
And I dare not for my liffe once say noe.”
“O marry me, and you may stay att home!
Full 30 wekes you know that I am gone.”
“theres time enough; another Father take;
heele loue thee well, and not thy child forsake.”
A Jigge (for Margrett)
Medieval English ballad
The Vigil of the Feast of St John the Baptist
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(Wednesday 23rd June 1378)
—Midsummer’s Eve—
Thomas wrapped his cloak tightly about his body, and pulled his hood forward so it cut out as much of the chill wind as possible. It was high summer—Midsummer’s Eve—but this far up in the Alps it meant nothing save that the road was not waist-high in snow. He lifted his head and squinted into the mountains.
They were massive, higher than anything Thomas had ever seen. Great craggy peaks, still snow-covered, reared into the afternoon sky, tendrils of mist swirling about their tops.
He shivered. Folklore maintained that mountains and deep forests were the haunt of demons, sprites and unkind elves, and looking at these horrific crags, Thomas could well believe it himself.
And tomorrow, he would have to dare them.
The alpine passes were legendary, and most grown men had been reared on the stories of old men who claimed to have bested them. The great chain of Alps cut Italy, with all her great trading ports and industrial cities, off from northern Europe. Apart from the uncertainties of sea carriage, the only way to get expensive spices and silks from the Far East into northern Europe was via the alpine passes: the Brenner Pass in the western Alps, used by travellers to central and eastern Europe, and the St Gothard and Great St Bernard Pass in the eastern Alps for movement into the west of Europe.
And any who desired travel between the Italian city states and northern Europe also had to use the passes unless, as Thomas had on his journey to Rome, they possessed the courage, or the inclination, to dare the perilous sea voyage.
There were only two periods in the year when the passes were open: high summer and deep winter. Spring and autumn were too dangerous—these were the times of greatest risk from avalanche, when the snow melted, or was only newly laid. In high summer most of the snow had gone; in deep winter it was largely frozen in place.
Now it was high summer, and the passes were safe.
Relatively.
Thomas was under no illusions as to the hazards he and his companions would face in the next few days.
They’d travelled rapidly from Florence—Thomas atop a hefty but swift brown gelding, and desperately trying not to enjoy riding a horse again. Marcel, Karle and Bierman had between them a large consignment of cloths, both Florentine wools and Far Eastern silks and tapestries, to sell in the northern European markets, but they had entrusted most of this cargo to the trusty, though ugly and slow, cog ships that plied the trading route between Venice and the northern cities of the Hanseatic League. The banker Marcoaldi travelled with nothing but a pair of well-braced, locked chests on a packhorse. He never let the chests out of his sight, and had them guarded by six heavily-weaponed and armoured men.
Thomas recognised them instantly as Swiss mercenaries, and thought that Marcoaldi must be wealthy indeed to be able to afford such expensive guards.
Wealthy…or extremely anxious.
Apart from Marcoaldi’s packhorse and mercenaries, Thomas and the merchants, the train consisted of eight packhorses laden with the merchants’ personal effects and small packages of spices to sell in Nuremberg, as well as gifts for their families, and twelve rather rough but apparently reasonably professional German mercenaries who acted as guards for the entire train. The Swiss mercenaries kept themselves to themselves, as Swiss soldiers tended to do, but the Germans were congenial, some fairly well educated, and those not on guard joined Thomas and his companions about the campfire at night when they camped out.
Generally, the merchants and Marcoaldi preferred to find an inn or a monastery guest house to stay in for the night; camping out was all very well, but they vastly favoured the comforts of a mattress above the chill and inflexible comforts of the ground.
And so they had this night. There was a Benedictine monastery at the foot of the Brenner Pass, catering for all manner of travellers, whether traders and merchants, pilgrims, footloose mercenaries, or noble diplomats moving between the Italian cities and the court of the Holy Roman Emperor. The accommodation was better than most monastic houses—Thomas assumed this was because the monastery had been made rich from centuries of patronage by noble pilgrims—and Marcel and his companions were currently enjoying a glass of German wine and sweetmeats in the guest house refectory with their host, the hosteller.
Thomas shook his head, thinking of the accommodation: not only did every guest have his own straw mattress, every guest had his own latrine!
Wealth, indeed.
“Thinking of the difficulties of the Brenner, my friend?” said a soft voice behind him.
Thomas turned around, and grinned.