After they had gone and I still sat, enjoying the fire, the host came over, and I invited him to join me, which he did.
My host was a proper man with a proper gift of tongue, and he talked freely when drinking another man’s wine, although never a drink did he offer to buy himself. “Poor fellows! It is little enough they have and few who come this way offer to share, as you have. You noticed Jacques, did you not? He put his slice of meat in his pocket, and bread, too, all the while making believe to chew so you would think him eating? He will take the bread and meat to his wife and children and swear to them he ate his while here.
“Jacques it was, and Paul. They hived the bees and hid them, planning the yearlong to sell the honey at the fair to buy clothing for their youngsters, and then the maire took it from them. He’s a skinflint, that one, you will never see such a hunger for money as his.”
The fire was warm, and the wine had a fine body. Our glasses were filled once more, and my mind began to work, thinking thoughts of which I should be ashamed, and I should be ashamed that I was not ashamed.
The thought of the honey, the maire, and the poor defrauded peasants aroused my ire, but thoughts of honey brought thoughts of bees. Now bees were something we had upon the moors at home, and I understood them well.
“The maire is a skinflint you say? A lover of money?”
“Aye, he would cheat his own mother, and willingly, if he could have a coin by doing it.”
“He must have a store-place at the cour. Does he keep what he has in the house with him, or a separate place?”
“You think to steal it? You’d have no chance. The storehouse is in his own home, his bed hard by, and the table where he eats sits at the storehouse door. He has ears like a cat. You’d have no chance. You may be sure Jacques has thought of it, he’s that desperate.”
“The cour now? Is it the large building by the stream?”
It was, indeed. Mine is a conniving sort of mind, and the men who shared my meal had been honest, hardworking folk. By Allah, I thought—and then realized I must stop thinking of Allah, as this was the wrong land for it—I would lend them a hand.
“Tell Jacques,” I said, “to move his hives into the willows across the stream, and move them tonight, under cover of darkness. If what I plan can be made to work, he shall have his honey back.”
Leaving the host to ponder on the sense of that, I returned to my horses and rode along the road to the cour.
At the door I pounded angrily. Suddenly it opened, revealing the maire, furious. Much of what he had stolen from the serfs he had been putting behind his belt, which thrust out before him.
“Here, here! What is this? Go away from here!”
“What? You would send away a traveler with a gold coin? I want but a meal and lodging, and I could not stomach that vile inn.” I took a bright new gold coin from my pocket. “Put me up, good sir, and this gold coin shall be yours.”
He looked from my rough clothing to my fine horses and took the coin from my fingers. He trusted me not at all, but the gold insured his hospitality. “Come in, then,” he said.
Lucky it was that I had appetite, for I ate a second meal and drank a better wine.
“My tongue has a taste for sweet,” I said. “Do you have sweet grass? Or honey?”
“I have honey, but it is hard to come by.”
“But the gold coin? When did you have such a coin for a night’s lodging?”
He opened the door behind him, and there was the storehouse, a fine long room with louvered windows. He went to one of five large jars, at least a hundred pounds of honey, and dipped a taste for me.
“You are free with your coins,” he said, staring at me from his mean, pig eyes.
Refilling my glass from his bottle, I shrugged. “It is nothing. If others knew what I know, all would have gold. Look you—” From my shirt I took a leathern wallet and shook several coins upon the table, all bright, new, and shining. “This I have, but it is time for more. Gold is nothing for we who know, and blessed be the Good Lord we are so few!”
He stared at me as I swept the gold into my purse and returned it to my shirt. I gulped another glass of wine and stared wisely into the glass. “I have been serving in the wars in Andalusia, fighting the Moor. Ah, those Moors! They are the ones who understand gold!”
My glass was empty, and I filled it again. “Bright, is it not? Bright, bright new gold!” I winked at him. “If I had a place, a place to work for a few days, you and I might share a pretty thing.”
“Of what are you speaking?”
“Why, the Moors, and what one taught me to keep my knife from his throat. He was there among those bottles and tables, working at God knows what, when I surprised him. As I would with any other Moor I intended to have his heart out. Then he showed me a piece of gold, bright, new gold.”
“Gold?”
“Gold. What is now needed is a quiet place in which to work. This”—I touched the wallet in my shirt—”is all I have, and I shall need more when I come to Paris. I need a place”—I gestured—”a quiet place such as this, and we would share, fifty-fifty.”
Oh, he took the bait! He gulped it down so quickly I had to think rapidly to keep ahead of him. There was a room where I could work. He would get the necessary equipment. “One thing, there are plants I need which must be gathered in the dark of the moon. If I make haste—”
It was quite dark, yet I remembered the plants needed were growing beside the road. When one has such training as mine, one cultivates habits of attention. When riding I was ever aware of what herbs grew along the way, and many grow along the ditches of Europe that are important medicinally.
The one in which I was now interested was sometimes called the corn rose. The season was late, but the seeds would be there, and I had seen a few wilted blossoms. When spring is late the flowering will be late, but wild poppy grows along the roads where it is convenient.
When I returned, two glasses of wine had been poured, and the bottle remained on the table. Had there been time I would have made a syrup, but there was none. I moved toward the table, then I paused. Why bother? The maire was out and the storehouse near.
Swiftly, I opened the door, and although the room was dark, I knew where the honey jars were. Quickly, I uncovered each of them and opened the louvered windows a bit. Returning to the main room, I gathered my sword and gear.
The maire hustled back into the room, and from the expression on his features I knew he had been up to no good. “Where have you been?” I demanded. “Up to some deviltry, no doubt.”
“No, no!” he protested. “Household business, nothing more.”
He stared at me and the bundle I had brought back from the ditches. “You found what you wanted? May I see?”
“You may not. I no longer trust you.”
We argued, and I became angrier; finally I said, “I do not trust you or this house! Come with me to the inn. If after two days all goes well, we will begin to make gold; otherwise, I shall have nothing to do with you.”
He protested, argued, and I remained adamant. Finally, still protesting, he went to the inn with me. As we entered, I glanced at the host, and he nodded, ever so slightly.
I would be delaying my trip, but not for long. I must keep the old man from his house for two days, perhaps a bit less or a bit more.
“You locked your house?”
“Naturally! There are thieves about.” He gestured at the shabby men tolerated by the innkeeper. “Such as these.”
“If they are here, they cannot be stealing.”
“Give them a chance, and they will steal.”
“The honey tasted very good,” I said. “Do you keep bees?”
“They do, and what is theirs is mine. It is part of what they owe.”
“And you send it on to the lord of the estate?”