Ring in the True live

 

Ring in the True – fourth in the Redemption of Bohun series, Henryk Sienkiewicz spinoff

 

US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09581MC9P

UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09581MC9P

 

Sugar and spice and all things nasty - part one, Stoop to a deadly lure chapter 1

 This is a book of one novella and two novelettes, in which Felicia and co go in search of more falcons to hunt for their table, largely because I like Rafe and it gives him a chance to show his stuff. Whilst there, they are, of course, mixed up in smuggling and skullduggery, with the odd murder on the side. It isn't really edited at all, so be aware. I've been doing things to the master document and will do more to it ere it goes to my editor because I already know her red pen would be through the whole of this chapter and a 'rewrite with a decent bit of convo' on it.

1 Stoop to a deadly lure

 

 

Chapter 1

 

We were in Valkenswaard for the October Bird Fair to celebrate Rafe’s award of Arms the queen had bestowed, and we were to purchase for him a lanner to commemorate the occasion.  Such is a bird as is permitted an esquire and as he was now allowed one of his own it seemed a good way to celebrate.

We had been thinking of coming anyway, for we could do with some new birds too for the mews.  The ones that had been in the mews when we had arrived at Hobbes Hall had not been young even when the Hall’s previous owner was executed and we had arrived some three years after that.  Larger hawks may live up to twenty years, but half that or even less is more typical.  We could do with a couple of new lanners for our own hawking; we had acquired one by taking it from the mews of our wards, since the bailiff we left, Cutt Falconer, was but a yeoman not entitled to armitage and therefore permitted no more than a goshawk.  And though he was a trained falconer as Rafe was, without a steward of higher rank in residence he would be in a difficult legal situation exercising the lanner.  We had left him half the goshawks, that he might use freely, and brought the other three home to Suffolk.  They are ill-natured birds but useful to hunt for the table.  We had also from there the three merlins that are a lady’s bird.  Pernel was almost old enough to rate a merlin rather than a child’s kestrel; and her kestrel Thetis would do to start teaching the art of Hawking to Sebastian who was near five years old and old enough to learn as Emma was not interested.  And at that it might not be a bad idea to have a few more kestrels to teach our other wards to hawk; and our pages.  Especially those who might be expected to fulfil positions of high estate one day; as might young Gregory, known as Grig Fitzcharles, who had recently joined us as a favour to his probable natural father Sir Charles Somerset, Duke of Beaufort.

Grig being a quiet, studious boy, more interested in his Greek studies than in the sportive arts that be necessary to take an active part at court, was not especially interested in Hawking; but it were an art he needed to know, even an he use it but little.

He was more interested in what makes each hawk or falcon different and was surprised to find that Robin prefered the squire’s lanner to the saker he be entitled to as a knight; but once we had explained that a saker was not used for river quarry, and most of our game was in either the marsh or on the river, Grig considered our choice of bird far more sensible than picking a bird that be as prestigious as we might be permitted.

So far he had proved a nice little boy of some eleven years old, studious, quiet, polite and his only vices a tendency to ask constant questions – once he found out we would answer them fully and truthfully – and a bad habit of disappearing with a book without telling anyone where he was going; and then forgetting the time.

As ‘twas a vice shared by Robin and me we could scarce complain; at least not with justification.

And Crispin readily forgave him the same on account of his scholarship; being only one of four to date that was studying Greek as well as Latin, Grammar, Logic and Mathematics.

We had stolen one of Crispin’s Greek scholars in the person of Pernel for this trip since she was so knowledgeable; and had Kistur along too as Robin’s page and Fanchon nominally as Pernel’s maid and really for her ability with the hawks too.

I had Libbe along as my maid; her Robkin stayed in the nursery with the twins and Cecily.  Connie deserved time with her Vivian while we waited for the banns to be read as they must be in Lavenham as well being their mother parish; and they would wed when we returned.

Besides, Libbe liked travel and to see new places.

Rafe had made half disapproving noises about being named Robin’s squire, rather than being his man as he had been since we had known him; and Robin said ‘nonsense’ with an airy wave of his elegant hand.  Kistur as a page might do everything his man might be expected to do, an Robin were such an effete creature as to need anything done for him save pick up the things he would drop haphazardly on the floor if he was concentrating on a painting, as should be the task of one of his apprentices anyway.  As Robin also threatened to engage a man for Rafe that a squire should have, Rafe dropped the subject hastily.

 

We were planning to bid at the bird auctions on three or four kestrels, perhaps as many goshawks and a lanner or two plus one for Rafe; and hoping to get the larger females, not lannerets, for the female birds tend always to be better.  And Pernel and I refrained with great restraint from making any jibe to our menfolk over that fact.

And for those birds we should be lucky to get much change out of an hundred and fifty sovereigns. Which was being paid largely by the Abbey of St Edmundsbury courtesy of a law suit I had taken out against them for the slander by Father Jerome in front of half the town of Beccles.  It helps to know socially the King’s Attorney General.

Birds are expensive; but they do pay their way in helping fill the table, taking game that is hard to shoot, for its size, save for an expert shot like Rafe, who was a fine sniper with long bow and crossbow both, and snipe was often therefore on our table.  Kestrels bring in but little for being so small; but even sparrows may be good eating and field mice may feed the other birds, as do the offerings of vermin the cats bring us.  And a child taught with a kestrel may hunt more efficiently when permitted a larger bird.  I was but an indifferent falconer, never having learned in childhood; and it seemed sensible to give our children the skills to get the best out of the marsh.  

And Rafe wanted to try the bold experiment of rearing kestrel chicks in captivity that we should support, though I was myself dubious that it was possible.

We should see.

 

Which being so, we had sailed across the German ocean and up the river Dommel, our trim hoey Valkensluft making light of the journey; for the way was well known to our sailing master Ruud for having had the ship hired often enough to make this same trip ere we had bought her from her previous owner.  And that was a purchase we had been much glad of.

I like hoeys.  The sprit rig means that they can go almost anywhere and do not wallow like a fat merchant’s wife upended in a gutter as do keels and wares that are boxes with a mast, and which always made me feel like the wise men of Gotham that went to sea in a sieve.

 

The falconers of Valkenswaard begin trapping the migrating birds on the first day of October; which being St Bavo of Ghent’s day, the patron saint of falconers seems appropriate.  St Bavo was not that saintly as a youth, being a rich Frankish nobleman and  having sold servants and been rather wild and dissipated.  He reformed, apparently, after hearing a sermon by St Amand, and gave his wealth to the poor.  I suppose he was a patron of falconers having been a nobleman, and as such would be depicted with a falcon of course.  I had wondered myself how much misery his conversion would have caused his daughter; for having given away all his wealth the poor girl would have no dowry, and every man knows that a golden purse  and shining jewels is more beautiful than golden hair and shining eyes to most.

Whatever the rights and wrongs back in the seventh century, falconers in Valkenswaard have prayed to their patron and caught falcons more or less ever since;  and may even have undertaken the same rituals bar the praying before that time.  They would have spent September making the ‘legge’ or traps to catch the birds; and a successful falconer might catch as many as thirty birds each year.  As they sell from between fifty and seventy guilders each that is a very respectable income.  A guilder is worth around the same as a crown, or a ducat or a florin or an écu, that is a French crown; a crown is four shillings and eight pence and the other coins hover around four to five shillings depending on the current exchange rate as determined by who is at war with whom.  In practice all are used interchangeably by most mercers and traders.

However once you work out even the worst rate that a guilder might be worth you still find an income any knight would be pleased to have; and the birds mark you untrained by their captors, that must be done by the purchaser.

An they sold half and trained half to sell for twice the price to those as did not have the trained falconer to do it for them that would be yet more.  It was no wonder that the town had an air of solid, complacent wealth.  Never had hawking been so popular a pastime; for it was quite a fashion to hawk and a falcon was almost as much a necessary item for a young man to have if he wished to prove himself a man of the world as  a fashionable hat.  Such was foolishness; and the falconers might as well make the most of it for surely such unnecessary extravagance will prove short lived, like that sad fashion for slashed and embroidered upper stocks.

We were there for more sensible reasons; and we had already sent ahead to bespeak rooms in a hostelry, called appropriately enough  ‘The bells and lure’.

It was a big place, and prosperous; and I wager it took most of those of a second level of estate such as ourselves that had come; those of nobility would doubtless hire whole houses for themselves and their entourage since few seem able to travel without a household of at least a score.  My Grandfather was an exception in that he liked to travel light with but his man Mark.  Still, the townsfolk doubtless did well enough out of letting their property for a couple of weeks in the season of the Fair.

The hostelry had a large hall as a receiving area with big fireplace and comfortable chairs with backs and settles; and this part too served as the main dining area with big static table and chairs all about it and salt firmly at both ends.  Presumably servants ate in some nether region.

As we came in we were approached by watchful servants and the expansive Hostler who ascertained that we were expected and whisked off our luggage to our chambers.  We had taken a suite of three chambers, the main one to be for Robin and me, the first of other two to be for Pernel with Libbe and Fanchon to share it with her; and the other for Rafe and Kistur.

Ruud and his crew slept on board the hoey that they found more convivial and gave them to the chance to do as they pleased in the town so long as one at least always guarded both ship and our valuables that we left there.

Only a fool takes all they have to an hostelry an they have any choice.

I should have been quite happy to have continued to lie on the ship, but it was one of the nuisances of having estate that one must do things more or less conventionally.  Being a Baron’s granddaughter and a knight’s wife had its compensation but it was wholly tedious at times.

 

Mine Host was called Per Vandervalk, who told us proudly that he was a retired falconer and had bought this fine hostelry with the proceeds of a successful career catching and selling birds.  And I wager the hostelry kept him as well as his falconry.  It was as big as a manor house and I wager it had as many as thirty or forty rooms, all good big chambers, in addition to the various common areas in it where guests might meet and talk or make merry.

Mynheer Vandervalk had a pretty, if slightly gormless looking daughter called Kristina, who had a three-month-old baby on her hip.

“Cuh, Ma, she do look like Sidony!” muttered Pernel.

I could not but agree.  Sidony was distinctly wanting; and one reason she was not here as Pernel’s maid was because we were afraid of her wandering off and getting into worse trouble by accident than Fanchon might that was likely to be looking for it, being enough like Pernel to be a good companion too.

And from the way Mine Host looked askance at the bonny baby boy, the child was begotten this time last year and the unfortunate girl able better to spread her legs than to spread any intellectual wings.

 

This surmise was somewhat confirmed when the newcomer arrived and Per Vandervalk gave an exclamation of anger and glared at him after a glance at Kristina.

I had come down, with Libbe, to try the virginals in the corner of the Hall, that I had never played; but the concept of being nosy about newcomers was more attractive than wrestling with the intricacies of a new instrument.

The newcomer was really just the first part of a party who arrived with him.  He was a big, blonde, bluff fellow, and he was followed by a woman and a man who seemed of lower estate than him but were definitely not servants.  A maid servant followed the woman.

As there had been shouts from without ere he entered to put up the bird and see to the horses one assumed other servants were without seeing to the animals’ requirements.  I would have assumed this man to have bespoken rooms also had not Vandervalk given him such a look, that bespoke surprise that this expensive newcomer have the effrontery to come here.

Kristina was beaming at him fondly.

The newcomer noticed neither look.

He was of the habitually swaggering type that one associated with Germanic nobility; and every part of his apparel above the thighs exhibited the slashed fashion the Germans so love.  His hose were at least of a sensible and serviceable brown for travel with good Spanish leather boots; but sky blue satin peeped coyly through the upper stocks that were embroidered in gold and blue thread.  The same sky blue satin peeped out of the pavanazzo-coloured samite doublet that seemed to me a prodigious waste of a good fabric that was so expensive to dye to get that peacock-chest shimmer that he should wear it slashed.  The heavy rich silk was also heavily ornamented with embroidery, though I would have let the fabric speak for itself an I were wearing it.  The jerkin over it was of the best woollen, napped and sheared often enough that it draped most beautifully with a surface almost like velvet; it was a rich russet and was lined with miniver, Russian squirrel fur, that being predominantly but not entirely belly fur had patterns of grey across the white, such as lead to the formalised depiction of ‘vair’ or fur in heraldry. It had sleeves in the most modern fashion that were wide but came only to the elbow where they might be held cinched by a drawstring, showing the rich samite of the doublet’s sleeves embroidered with gold.  At least he wore not the jerkin’s wide sleeves slashed, though I had seen some that did since we got here.  He wore also a chain of considerable richness and fine old rings over embroidered gloves and jewels of immense size pinned into his blue velvet biretta equally slashed and lined with white satin; and beneath which lurked a face of such amiable vacuousness that it was easy to imagine that so much weight of gold had dragged every thought from his head to trickle out through the slashes in his clothing and drown them in a river on the way.

The man and woman who came in with him looked enough alike to be brother and sister or some other close relation; and they too were plainly wealthy though equally plainly of a very different estate to My Lord Vacuous.

The woman – girl really – wore a good woollen gown, cut without need for thrift to allow the bias to give it a better line, that was as soft and well napped as the richer man’s jerkin.  It was a rich black that indicated that scarlet had probably been used in the dying of it; and it was purfled with green velvet that matched the sleeves too, and also the girl’s eyes.  She wore a gable-style headdress that hid her hair and had some jewels on it amongst the embroidery.  She also picked at the emerald collar that she wore as though not used to it.  Her brother – I thought he must be so for he treated her as Adam treated Pernel and Emma with offhand deference – was also well dressed.  He favoured a sober skirted doublet of good Suffolk Blue wool of equal fineness to the girl’s gown and embroidered in gold at the bands and guarded with matching velvet; and his hose were a good black, as was his jerkin, that was guarded and lined with a rich dark fur, likely wolf but possibly marten.  He was scowling slightly.

The German nobleman beamed expansively on Per Vandervalk.

“Ho, Per!  I’ll have mine usual rooms, and put my betrothed and her brother in the other two chambers by it!”  he said.

“That you will not, Milord Von Torberg,” said Per Vandervalk  “For the English Milord already bespoke those chambers for himself and his lady and their retinue.    And what makes you think as I’d give you house room after you took my Kristina’s virtue last time?” he added accusingly.

The German gave an embarrassed laugh.  The lady – his betrothed one must suppose – gave a gasp; and her brother said with some gloomy satisfaction,

“I TOLD you it was a fool idea to want to wed out of our estate Barbara; he’s naught but a philanderer!”

If any sought proof he be her brother such a comment was ample of such.  The lady frowned at him impatiently.

“Dirk, I pray you be quiet!” she said.

“My beloved!” said Milord Von Torberg “It was ere I set mine eyes on your beauty!  Nay, I do not deny it; and Mynheer Vandervalk, I shall bestow a good purse on my fine offspring! But I shall tell you that it takes two to play bedroom games and thy daughter was not averse!”

“We had goodly fun,”  put in Kristina in the same tone as Amabel Cooper was wont to talk about her amorous adventures ere Vivian rescued her from her father’s prostituting of her.  “Look Hasso, here be your son!”

“Men like you ought to be castrated and flogged,”  opined Mynheer Vandervalk.

Kristina gave her father a faintly reproachful look and smiled at her erstwhile lover with vacuous pleasure to see him again.

“Great God,” said Dirk “The girl’s even more wanting than your embroidered footstool is Bab.”

“Poor baby,” said Barbara “Hasso, my lord, we will take him into our own household when we are wed and rear him as thy page and an  I not be able to give you a son, shalt adopt him.”

I liked the combination of calling him ‘my lord’ and using the familiar form of speech to him in a tone that ordered him about nicely.

The embroidered footstool did not seem to mind.

“Precious flower!” he said “I am yours to command!”

He kissed his fingers to her.

It was as good as a mummer play.

Dirk sniffed.  He plainly thought Von Torberg affected.  It made me think of Adam’s attitude to Berengar Woodhill’s suggestion of a betrothal to Pernel.

“Reckon her won’t give up babby so easy,” said Vandervalk, slightly mollified at the idea of getting rid of the evidence of his daughter’s fall from grace but concerned about the difficulties of bringing this about.

“Nonsense,” said Barbara “Leave that to ME, good Mynheer.  She will soon see it is in the interests of her son.”

A somewhat spoilt piece she was, this Barbara, and used to having her own way. I could not see how any woman would willingly give up a child she was plainly fond of; despite Ibbett Fosser being happy to sell any of her daughters as might turn a profit.

Of course one might argue that it WAS in the boy’s best interests in some respects; though his mother’s father was at least wealthy enough that any of the stumbling blocks of bastardy would likely be smoothed for the lad in any case.  Wealth brings forgiveness for the sins of the father far more readily than virtue.

And it was besides none of my business.