He shot me a suspicious glance. “I do.”
“You have taken their honey, but if they now get more, will you take that, too?”
He chuckled. “It is impossible! If they can get more honey this season, they can keep it, and sell it at the fair if they wish.”
The next day was dull, for the maire was a narrow, bigoted, unhealthy man who thought of little but squeezing the peasants and no doubt robbing his lord. Despite his restlessness I kept him at the inn or in the fields, always with the peasants in sight.
“We must watch them,” I insisted. “They might steal something you could not steal in turn.”
“What was that?” His sharp little eyes stared.
“I said they might steal as much as they feel they earn,” I replied.
They did not steal, for we observed them carefully, and I, who am a curious man, did some other watching. Things, I decided, were going well.
At a table in the inn I said, “Today the peasants stole nothing. Do you agree? They did not leave the fields?”
“They did not!” The maire’s face was smug with satisfaction.
“Bear witness,” I said to my host, “the maire states the peasants stole nothing, that they did not leave the field.”
The innkeeper was puzzled, but the maire was staring suspiciously. I, being a sometimes evil and conniving man, enjoyed it all very much.
“The gold? When do we begin with the gold?”
“Soon,” I said, “I had to be sure the peasants were busy and not watching us. What we do must be done in secret.”
It was dark before the maire returned to his home on the second day, and I was well pleased with myself and the inimitable ways of nature.
Jacques came wearily to the inn, accompanied by Paul. “Wine! A flagon for my friends, the sellers of honey!”
“You jest. What honey have we to sell?”
“Tomorrow,” I said, “look to your hives. You will find them filled with honey.”
They did not call me a liar, for the wine was on the table, and I ordered another leg of mutton. This time I cut a slice for each, and a thick slice for each of those at home. “Now fall to. When you look to your hives tomorrow you must be skeptics indeed if you think you have no honey.”
Suddenly, there was a tremendous clamor outside, and the maire burst into the room, accompanied by two of the watch. “Seize them!” He pointed at Jacques and Paul. “They are thieves! They have stolen my honey!”
“Hold!” I lifted a hand and, rising to my feet, stood taller than either of the watch. “Your honey is gone?”
“All of it! Every bit!”
“But we have watched the peasants for two full days. Did you not say this day that they had stolen nothing? Did they ever leave the fields? I, too, watched closely, and not until nightfall did they go to their homes or leave their work.”
“He said they had stolen nothing,” my host said, “that they had not left the fields.”
The men of the watch looked to the maire who did not know what to say.
Leaning across the table and putting on my sternest expression, I said, “This is a plot to defraud the lord. By claiming the honey stolen you could keep it all yourself, depriving your master of his just share.” Turning to the men of the watch, I said, “See to it the maire delivers three large jars of honey to his lord, even if he must buy them himself.”
Gathering my cloak about me, and picking up my gear, I said, “I shall go now, but I shall speak of this matter. It demands investigation. It seems all matters here need investigation.”
“No!” the maire protested. “I will deliver the honey to my lord.”
“See that you do, and see that you steal no more from those who work for him.” I leaned across the table. “Think you, my fat friend. You know they did not steal the honey, then is not the hand of God in this? Or a spirit, perhaps? Be wary, my friend. The good man Jacques and good man Paul are men to treat with care.”
Stepping outside, I drew the door shut after me and started for my horses.
The maire rushed after me. “But the gold?” he protested.
Drawing my cloak about me, I said, “A man who will cheat poor peasants and attempt to defraud his master is no man to have for a partner.
“Moreover”—I almost accidentally held out my hand—”I shall ride to your lord to report this … unless it pays me to take another route.”
His fat jowls quivered with agitation. “There would be trouble! Much trouble!” He leaned toward me, putting a purse in my hand. “Take another route! Oh, please, take another way!”
A short distance down the road I drew up before a peasant’s hut. Leaning from the saddle, I rapped loudly. A frightened woman opened the door, and I gave her the purse.
“This is for Jacques to share with the others,” I said. “Tell him it is from Kerbouchard, the man who commands bees!”
With that I rode into the night, reflecting on the habits of bees. Busy creatures they are, avid in their search for sweets, flying into every bush, every crevice … every window.
Busy creatures, indeed, but no fools. They gather nectar from flowers to make honey, but even a bee will not gather nectar if there is ready-made honey at hand.
30
The France to which I returned was vastly different from Islamic Spain, and I learned to take no part in discussions, yet it went sore against me. We Bretons are inclined to silence, but, nonetheless, Celts have a love for argument. It was hard to be silent, but usually I was.
The universal lack of cleanliness, as well as the overbearing pride and ignorance of both nobles and churchmen, astonished me. For all their effect on the Western world, the Greek thinkers, except for Aristotle, might never have lived. Of Muslim and Jewish thinkers and scientists nothing at all was known, and the practice of medicine was frightening.
During time past I had become accustomed to the easy give-and-take discussion in Córdoba, to the hot, lazy baths, and lighted, paved streets. Everywhere in Córdoba, Toledo, Seville, and Malaga there was wit, poetry, excited discussion of ideas.
Yet even in France I found a growing curiosity, a willingness to listen and a desire for learning among the young. Here and there in the monasteries scholars such as Peter Abelard were thinking, writing, talking. They were few, and often in trouble, but their number was growing.
At long last, a month after our leave-taking in Brittany, I rejoined the caravan.
They were at Cambrai. Difficulties had arisen at Bruges and Lille, and those fairs had been avoided. Business had been good, and I returned to find our silk sold but for a few bolts and our money invested in the cloth of Flanders. We turned southeast to Chalons-sur-Marne, and six weeks later went on to St. Denis, near Paris.
It was at St. Denis that Safia said, suddenly, “Mathurin, I shall leave you here.”
She had been quiet since my return, and I knew she had problems she did not confide in me, nor did I question her. As long ago as Montauban she had received a message from her old associates, and now she would resume where she had left off.
“I shall miss you.”
Her eyes held mine. “Do you still wish to find your father?”
“More than anything.”
Her eyelids seemed to flutter a little, and I knew she knew more than she cared to tell me. “It would be better if you did not think of him again.”
“He is dead?”
“No, but he is beyond your reach. I fear for your life if you persist.”
“I have no choice.”
She was silent. We were in a small grove on the banks of the Seine. Tomorrow we would ride into Paris and say our good-byes there. We had been good friends, with mutual admiration and respect. She was a shrewd, intelligent woman, one of a network extending through the Islamic world, and there were several such, working for different ideals, different causes, and there was war between them, a war unseen, untalked of, but a vicious, deadly war nonetheless.
Finally, she asked, “Have you ever heard of the Old Man of the Mountain?”
“Of the Assassins? Yes, I know of them.”
“He has a fortress high in the mountains, beyond the Caspian Sea. There are several castles, as a matter of fact, but only one concerns you. It is the fortress of Alamut.”
“My father is there?”
“He is a slave there, and, Mathurin, nobody—and I mean nobody—enters that castle unless he is one of the Assassins.”
“You are sure he is there?”