The first merchants had apparently been landless men, the drifters and adventurers that arise from any population in ferment. Often they were younger sons, outcasts who acquired money through local trade or were financed by officials of the church with secret loans. Some began as peddlers or hawkers in the towns, and acquiring a stock of goods, they took to the highways with others of their kind.
One of the merchants who rode ahead of me dropped back to talk. He was a thin, hawk-faced man from Lom-bardy named Lucca. “You have done well,” he said. “Von Gilderstern is the best Hansgraf on the road. In Swabia last year he began his own fair at a river crossing, for he can smell a market as other men smell a flagon of mead. Our wealth is rarely idle, or our hands, either.”
Lucca glanced at me. “The word is that you are a scholar? What manner of scholar?”
A fair question. What kind of scholar was I? Or was I a scholar at all? My ignorance was enormous. Beside it my knowledge was nothing. My hunger for learning, not so much to improve my lot as to understand my world, had led me to study and to thought. Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.
“A good question,” I replied, “but I am merely a seeker after knowledge, taking the world for my province, for it seems all knowledge is interrelated, and each science is dependent to some extent on the others. We study the stars that we may know more about our earth, and herbs that we may know medicine better.”
“You are a physician?”
“A little of one. So far I have had more experience in the giving of wounds than the healing of them.”
“If it is experience you wish, you will have your fill of both. We often deal with robbers who barter with a sword.”
“Then we will give them fair trade.” A thought came to me. “Is there not a fair in Brittany, then?”
“A small one, perhaps. Sometimes we go to St. Malo, but there is a robber baron there who ranges far afield.”
“Tournemine? Would that be the name, by chance?”
“By chance it is. You know the man?”
“Does he carry a scar upon his face? So?”
“He does, and I wish it were his throat.” Placing my hand upon my dagger, I said, “This point put it there. He killed my mother, all our people. If we go that way, I may pay him a visit.”
“Alone?”
“How else? These past years I have remembered him.”
“We must talk to the Hansgraf of this.” A spatter of rain began to fall as I rode back along the column. We topped the rise and looked upon a fair valley, masked now with rain, at the far end the gray tower of a castle. It was a lonely and forbidding sight, with the Pyrenees beyond, their crests lost in clouds. A slashing rain began to fall, but we pushed on as there was an inn ahead with a large stable where many of us could sleep.
Safia was hunched in her saddle but looked up when I came alongside. “I like the rain,” she said. “It is good to feel it on my face.”
“Enjoy it then, for we shall soon be inside.” We were tired and looked forward to the inn with pleasure. A pot of mulled wine, a loaf, and a bit of cheese—I was learning how easily one could be content. Yet I sorely missed my books, for there had been no time to turn a page since leaving Zaragoza. Ahead was the mountain pass of Roncevalles famous for the Song of Roland.
“The castle yonder?” Safia said. “Do you know whose it is?”
“It is an ugly place. I like it not.”
“It belongs to Prince Ahmed. You are in his lands now.”
What was it he had said at the party of Valaba? These are your domains, but I understand that Kerbouchard likes to travel.
My eyes strayed to the castle. I was a fool to put myself in my enemy’s hands. “He must not learn that I am here,” I said, “I must tell the Hansgraf.”
Leaving Safia, I galloped swiftly to the head of the train and explained the situation.
Von Gilderstern sat his horse like a monument, looking down the valley toward the inn. “You have done well to tell me of this at once. What have you in mind?”
“To ride for the mountains. I see no reason to implicate you in my affairs.”
“A noble thought, but a foolish one. In those mountains lurk brigands who await travelers. Remain with us. You are one of us now, and your troubles have become our troubles.”
He changed the subject. “Lucca informs me you know the Baron de Tournemine. Do you know his castle?”
“I know it. I rode there with my father when he told the baron the limits of his power. The baron did not like it.”
“An evil man, but a strong one. Under the pretense of keeping order he rides far afield to demand tribute, and he makes war upon merchants.”
“I shall seek him out.”
“We will talk of this again, in the meantime be assured that our company stands with you.”
The gray towers loomed ominously through the rain. I had no doubt that we were watched, for such a body of men would be immediately reported. Beyond the village, which was a cluster of houses, was a huge old inn. There was a court with a strong wall and wooden gates that could be closed against attack. Our burdens would be taken inside the court while the animals would, for a time, graze upon the meadows. On such a night as this all would stand guard in groups of twenty men each.
Prince Ahmed, Lucca told us, was rarely here, and he had protected the caravans that passed through his domains, occasionally trading with them. The Hansgraf drew up by the gate and sat on his powerful horse. He rarely made gestures, but each was a command. I have never known a man who better understood his role. He accepted rights due him without comment or apology, and he made the responsibilities of command seem a privilege.
The pack animals were stripped of their packs and led at once to the meadow, but the horses of the guards were kept inside and grain fed, ready for instant use. The Hansgraf, erect upon his horse, directed all arrangements with movements as skilled as those of an artist at his canvas. “You,” he said as I passed, “the four hours after midnight.”
They were the only words he spoke during the whole process of arrival.
This was a nightly affair for these men, and few directions were necessary. Many had visited this inn before, and the business of arrival, unloading, storing, and disposition of the animals was simple indeed.
By now I knew most of the company, but aside from the easygoing Lucca the one I knew best was a lantern-jawed man named Johannes, from Bruges. His history as a merchant was typical. A landless man, born in Bruges and left an orphan by the plague, he had begged, struggled, and fought his way to manhood. On a voyage at sea he helped in the capture of a prize and came ashore with a little money in hand.
Inland there was famine; at the port there was grain, so he bought both mules and grain and carried them inland and sold his grain for a good price. Everything was raised on a local scale, and there was no transportation away from the rivers, so famine might exist only a few days’ travel from an area of plenty.
A new class of citizen had come into being in what had been an exclusively agricultural society. The old ways when a few strong chieftains held all the land about them, and serfs worked for them, were changing. A new kind of wealth and a new means of creating wealth were being evolved. Merchants thrived on discontent. They brought to people things they needed but also created new desires by displaying cosmetics, fabrics, silks, jewels, and many simpler items.
Guido was a peasant from the Piedmont. His family had been wiped out by war. A young boy at the time, he had drifted with the refugees before an invading army and had come at last to Florence. For the first time he saw a ship, saw men coming ashore with modest wealth, so he shipped out.
His voyage ended in the Greek isles, his ship sunk, a few castaways reaching shore. They had stolen a boat, raided a village, and gone off to sea again. His second voyage ended in failure, but the third was a success. He gambled, lost all but a few pennies, but with that small sum he bought candles to sell to pilgrims and went from that to furnishing others with goods to sell. A few years later he joined a merchant caravan.