safely.'
'That's good,' Raffe said absently, still preoccupied by the thought of Elena and Raoul.
'Though if I'd known who he was, I'd have charged him double.'
Raffe grinned. He might have known that Talbot would find out somehow that the man was a priest. To be honest, if it had just been the priest's life at stake, Raffe wouldn't have much cared whether he reached France or not, but there was always the danger that if he was captured he might start talking. Raffe knew that they'd merely have to show that little runt the hot irons for the priest to start spilling every name in his head, even proclaiming the Blessed Virgin Mary a co-conspirator if he thought it would spare him pain.
'Maybe not as good as you think,' Talbot said. 'I get the feeling for some reason he took against you, the ungrateful bastard. Thing is,' Talbot leaned in closer, dropping his voice even lower, 'there's another package to be delivered and our friend insists he wants you to take charge of it personally.'
Raffe frowned. 'Speak plainer, man.'
Talbot glanced around the shadowy room. Everyone appeared deeply engrossed in their own muted conversations; all the same, he was taking no chances. He tapped Raffe on the arm and gestured with his head towards the door, Raffe rose and, slipping a more than generous payment for the scarcely touched eel pie to the serving woman, he left the inn and wandered out beyond the cottages to a small, open wooden shelter where the fowlers stored their nets and wicker tunnels for driving the ducks. The air was sharp after the fug of the inn, and even the stench of rotting vegetation and mud smelled clean compared to the fishy stench of the burning seabirds.
Raffe perched on an upturned keg in the darkness, listening to the gurgle of the black waters and the rustling of the reeds. Then he heard soft footsteps behind him. Talbot slipped into the shelter and squatted close to Raffe, facing in the opposite direction, so that he could watch the door of the inn.
You wanted me to speak plain,' Talbot said, keeping his voice so low that Raffe had to lean in to hear him. 'Word from the priest is that a messenger from France needs safe passage for a meeting at Norwich.'
'With whom?' Raffe asked.
Talbot shrugged. 'Not likely to give us names, is he? But if this envoy is on France's business you can safely wager it won't be John's friends he wants to meet.'
'I'll not do it!' Raffe burst out angrily.
Talbot gripped his arm. 'Keep your voice down,' he whispered.
He glanced anxiously about him, but Raffe was too angry to stay silent though he did lower his voice.
'Much as I'd gladly see that devil John hanging from the highest gallows in the land, I'll not betray my country to the French. You think I want Philip on the throne? This is England and I'd no more see it under France's heel than I would be slave to the Saracens.'
'But it isn't your country, is it?' Talbot said quietly. Your mam wasn't squatting on English soil when she gave birth to you, nor her dam, nor hers afore that. What allegiance can a man have for any land save the one that drank his mother's blood when he was born?'
The truth of what he said hit Raffe like an unexpected blow from a fist. For so many years, even before he set foot on it, he had thought of this land as his own. It was Gerard's home and he had pledged life and limb to Gerard, and therefore to his lord's land and lineage. All through those years as they'd travelled and fought for King Richard, then John, the men had sat around the camp fires in the evening talking of home, of their favourite inns and serving wenches, of familiar hunting forests and grey stone manors, the trees they had climbed and the meadows in the shires where they had played as boys.
And Raffe had almost come to believe that their memories were his own. Like them, he too spoke longingly of the comforts of home. And the home he meant was England. He belonged here. It was the only place where he had ever been allowed to think he belonged. And any idea that others might still consider him a foreigner had long since vanished from his head. Talbot's challenge stung him as smartly as a splinter driven under his fingernail.
'I took an oath