“Losing your temper.”
“Acting in a way that they deem lacks honour.”
And yet Guilhem had never shown her any violence. Nothing but calm and patience and much talk about his dreams and ambitions. He was a bit of a mystery, in fact. She decided that maybe his words were bigger than his deeds and he just didn’t get on with his family. That would explain it. It had better explain it. I’m stuck with him until 31 December.
“I would like to know more about 1302 and 1303. Are you willing to talk about those years?”
“What should I tell you? When the prince and the pope argued, my responses did not please the prince?”
“You came of age?” Artemisia guessed.
“In some ways.” Guilhem’s wry smile was more for himself than for Artemisia.
“I don’t understand why, in answer to the king, you talk to the Templars. I thought he didn’t like the Templars.”
“He hasn’t noticed them yet. When he sees them, then he will dislike them. That is how Philippe’s mind works.”
“But why do you want to join them?”
“I am not sure yet if I want to. When I was young I wanted order and duty and the return of Jerusalem and the Templars promise that.” Artemisia wanted to say, Don’t think about the Templars. They’ll all be gone in two years, many tortured. You won’t like it. She couldn’t, however. She didn’t know what it would do. No-one really knew about their effects on the timeline. That’s what Luke said, though he hid it beneath ten thousand words, most of them pompous. Guilhem didn’t guess her thoughts. “Now I am less certain,” he continued. “I am exploring possibilities.”
“Staying out of the way?”
“With the master of the Commanderie at Pézenas keeping a close eye on me.”
“Ah, the way out has become part of the prison.”
“Sometimes you see too much.”
When she got home and wrote up her notes on the conversation, Artemisia smiled to herself. She saw Guilhem in her mind’s eye, far too young, standing in front of those portentous councils that changed the relationship between monarch and pope forever, thinking that the right of the case ought to prevail, standing up for the Christians who were caught in between two rulers. She saw him expostulate and shout and finally turn a desk over and leave the chamber.
Guilhem had told her all this, by the end of the hour. He had not told her the names he had called his cousin the king or the vilification and violence. Even without this, Artemisia thought that this was not the way to win the support of Philippe IV, who was known down history for his coldness. Or maybe not even the way to have a career as a knight or a Templar. Or anything.
If he were in the twenty-first century, he would be given counselling for his temper. In the fourteenth, he had probably been given all kinds of advice as well. Guilhem was not the sort to listen to kind advice. What a moment that must have been, telling everyone what he thought over the French king’s bid for power against the papacy.
Oh, what a way to murder one’s future prospects.
* * *
Fiz was in a fine mood. He passed Fr Louis and Sibilla on the street. He assessed the way the priest’s head tilted in Sibilla’s direction, and said, “You should marry her.”
Louis’ face became red and he tilted that head towards the boy. He reached out and landed a great whack around the boy’s ear. So heavy was his blow that Fiz fell to the stone pavement. When he didn’t get up, the priest just looked down, arms crossed, unperturbed.
Sibilla regarded Louis and screamed, “This is how you treat your son, you unholy bastard, and you complain that I won’t come to your bed.”
Chapter Forty-One
Bitter Truths
There was no weather. There never would be weather again. Time travel had done it. Made all the weather go away.
Of course, there was weather if one walked through the door to outside. “Can’t do that.” She wished. Luke, however, had finally responded to the briefing and a follow-up discussion by confining them all. In her mind, she took twenty steps forward, five left and then ran the rest of the way and yanked the invisible doors open in a grand heroic gesture and then stood in the bright mountain sunshine.
That was an alternative universe. In this one, she was locked up until they could work out how many lives would be risked if she were sent home. Artemisia was taking up more than her share of the precious space. Making everyone even more crowded, even more cranky and, in some cases, even more scared. Not everyone thought she was wrong. And if she was right, they were all in trouble.
Maybe she was being melodramatic. Maybe it wasn’t all so bad. But if that were the case, why on earth had Sylvia thrown such a tantrum? She hoped Luke would solve it. That Ben would step in and calm things down.
She hadn’t realised how much she missed the outside and how small the caves were until now. She hadn’t realised how much she hurt when there was no news from Lucia. She knew there wouldn’t be anything (for Lucia didn’t have clearance, she’d been told, quite severely, two days before she left), but she still wanted an email, even three words, as long as those three words said, “Treatment a success.” At this moment she despaired. Lucia was a cat caught in a box, neither dead nor alive.
Artemisia wanted to go home.
* * *
Guilhem was in church. He was often in church, but this time he was noticing that it was a holy place. Normally it was the time he emptied his mind and dwelled not on his worries. Maybe this was the higher matters the priest assumed, and maybe not.
Today he was in Fr Peire’s church, celebrating the eighth Sunday after Pentecost. Halfway through Deus in loco sancto he found himself wondering if the hills around Saint Guilhem were holy. If they were, what did that say about the folk under the hill? Should he talk to a priest? Or to the Templar fool? Or would that put Artemisia in danger?
He would leave it to God to decide if the place were holy and if the people were holy. It was a subject for theologians - who were not present - or for God, not for the power-hungry abbot or the stupid parish priests. All these men of God and they hadn’t been able to assist on simple matters - he could not trust them on something as subtle as Artemisia’s soul.
If the Bishop of Pamiers made his stand against the king again, Guilhem would not argue against his condemnation. He might not support Philippe, but he no longer saw the clergy as true men of God. He puzzled on this, reaching no good conclusion, right until the Ita missa est.
* * *
Peire was being calm. Despite everything. He stood in the middle of the street, radiating calmness with all his might. If he did not, then that fool woman who sat at the foot of the wall, watching as if they were a group of travelling entertainers performing for her benefit, that woman would be murdered.
Berta wasn’t helping. Nor was Fr Louis. In fact, Louis was scolding Berta and when anyone tried to intervene, he would say, “The heathens must go”, and return to the scolding.
Calmness was all Peire could manage, and he was having trouble even with that.
Louis changed his tune. “You whore,” he said to Sibilla. “You usurer. You shame our town.”
“That’s rude,” said Fiz, approvingly. “You should hit her the way you hit me.”
Louis swatted vainly towards Fiz’s head. This time the boy was prepared and ducked out of the way. He hit Sibilla instead. Louis started calling the boy names. Inevitably, he called Fiz a bastard. “Bastard, son of a bastard,” he said. “Son of a prostitute.”
“Everyone knows that.” Fiz was trying to be encouraging.
Sibilla had been nursing her ear; Louis had hit her hard.
“Not everyone knows that the bastard who fathered you is the priest who is calling you names,” she said.
Calm descended. Also silence. This time the whole village had heard.
Chapter Forty-Two
Being Debonnaire
“I want,” said Guilhem, out of nowhere, “I want next Eastertide with my family.” Exc
ept that the word wasn’t family, it was gens - family/peers/kin. Artemisia was glad not to have to translate. “I want a new sword from Toledo, and a helmet. I want a shield that is cloven half way through. I want to look down upon the field of battle and feel alive. I want to live again.”
Artemisia felt sick. It was one thing to know that Guilhem lived in a warrior culture. It was another thing entirely to hear it as a wish list for a happy Christmas. Dear Santa, I want to murder ten people and get a model train and a giant lollipop.
“Why can’t you have that Eastertide?” Artemisia asked, tying to steer the conversation in the safer direction.
Guilhem’s eyes shuttered and he looked inside himself. “I killed all the prisoners after a siege. Everyone expected it. It was Gascony. I did not show good judgement. I didn’t spare those who could pay ransom. I didn’t spare those who were related or who had arrangements. I killed them all myself, in anger. I am here because of the anger.”
“You killed…” Artemisia began.
“That’s not all,” Guilhem’s eyes unshuttered and his face looked whimsical. “I also told my cousin that he looked like a tanner. That alone brought me here rather than to a more comfortable place to mend my ways.”
“Calling your cousin a tanner was worse than murder?”
“Not worse. Different. Courtoisie and being debonnaire,” Guilhem said, and shrugged. “There are places when insults are worse and places when insults can be laughed away. War is about honour and livelihood. I impugned his honour and lost many of their ransoms.”
Murder didn’t even come into it. I should have known this, thought Artemisia. I did know this. This is the sub-text of the saints’ lives and the epics. I didn’t know… she thought and her thoughts stumbled... I didn’t know it was people. Or I didn’t know what it meant that it was people, that it’s real, that it has emotional human truths behind it. Books are safer. Stories are safer. This man sitting next to me, he’s not at all safe. None of them are, who carry swords. She felt sick to her stomach.
Guilhem didn’t feel sick. In his head echoed “Patience is the virtue of kings” as he announced his kind and generous response to Philippe’s action. Guilhem hated his cousin, the king, with all his soul. Guilhem knew then and knew even more now that death was preferable to exclusion.
Despite his promises to the town, Guilhem felt isolated. No-one wanted him to be a part of their community. He played with his seal as if tossing and turning it could create a legal document it could then be used on. He wondered if it were the people from under the hill who created this barrier. If they could somehow be explained, be brought into the real world, maybe he himself would be less isolated.
He still had choices: knight-errant, Templar, or obedient marriage and acceptance of his family as his lords. He wanted none of those. None. He also didn’t want to become a small prud’homme in a place deserted by everyone except God.
Intimate conversations inevitably led to more intimate conversations. How could Artemisia have forgotten this?
“Your skin is too dark for beauty,” said Guilhem, running a finger along her jaw.
“Stop that,” Artemisia said, and took a step back. She stumbled on the sloping hillside and Guilhem held her steady by her elbow, smiling indulgently. As if he were claiming ownership.
That evening ran parallel to the afternoon.
“I love your Italian skin,” said Geoff. “So beautiful.”
He bent down and kissed her gently in the moonlight, first on her mouth then gradually over her whole face.
* * *
17 November
The partial solar eclipse started at 7.30 pm. Luke wanted everyone up on the hilltop, observing. “Bonding,” he said. “Final haul. Prepare emotionally for the last weeks.”
The whole team was stubbing toes on stones and tripping on tussocks and getting in Sylvia’s way and in Geoff’s way. It felt a lot better than it had. Being confined had frayed too many nerves.
Maybe we’re finally all seeing the same picture, from the same direction. Maybe it is bonding, thought Artemisia, after a kind.
* * *
Guilhem was haunted by Dicit Dominus throughout November. Every time he went to church, it seemed he heard it. He couldn’t puzzle out its meaning. What was God saying? Or was it God? Was the Church laying down messages for his soul?
Last time he had read messages from the echoes of liturgy, he had agreed to take himself to Jerusalem, in penance. His soul had been very healthy as a result, but he had been deprived of a significant amount of land. His family considered him unstable, extravagant rather than generous, unreliable in temper, and told him, even now, that he put himself above family needs.
“You choose not to belong,” his cousin had said. “We choose to let you, this time.” His own choices made. One day he made one choice. Another day he made another.
If he chose the Templars he would owe a duty to the patriarch in Jerusalem. He would live in the world but be sworn to poverty and to chastity and to obedience. The Patriarch was a temptation - it would free him from many of his conflicts. To be able to tell his cousin, “I am sworn elsewhere” would be a delight. The rest, however, required thinking. Especially that part of the rest that was a mob of soldiers, everywhere. He needed to talk to his ‘friend’ at the Commanderie again.
The talk was explosive. The two men nearly came to blows.
Guilhem walked furious out of the Templar fortifications. Guilhem was tired of losing his temper. This time he didn’t confess. He refused to accept that his loss of control and judgement was a bad thing.
“At certain times I am on the field of battle and I know, inside, that the poets are right. There is glory inside me. At other times I see the field and on it are my friends. I will not see them again in this world. Their wives, their children, their mothers, their friends, will not know them.”
* * *
Artemisia noticed that someone had been accessing the Godefroy. She traced back the access to find who - it was Ben Konig. Good. She left it alone. Ben spoke modern French better than she did: Old French was not such a stretch if one had a good base. And it meant she would have backup, perhaps, if the constant worries became tangible reality. She didn’t tell Luke. Luke was currently pretending that the rest of the team followed protocol. Artemisia was tired of Luke’s lies. Ben’s lies were lesser creatures.
Tony was sitting on the hillside, wrangling some twine to the right length for his garden plot, when he cut himself. It was a deep cut and, after a bit of a struggle, Tony realised he couldn’t do anything. He called out for a little, then gave up. He lay there, his blood seeping into the soil. Bona found him while her brother was stalking the cat. Bona knew what to do. She applied pressure to slow the bleeding and she sent her brother off to get help.
Within minutes, Geoff felt a tug on his right sleeve.
“Fairy, we need you. Come. Come!” Geoff didn’t understand, but followed the insistent pull on his sleeve.
Sitting around the dining table that night, it dawned on Tony’s workmates that those children had saved Tony’s life. The chatter hushed, gradually, and was replaced by silence. The silence was replaced by a very special tension. Every member of the time team started a vehement discussion about the cat. It was better than thinking of the alternatives. The whole group was divided over the damn cat and its interference. It distracted them from the matters they would not face.
* * *
Guilhem and Artemisia were talking about language. Specifically, they were discussing the phrase “bread, wine and the rest”. This simply meant ‘food’. Artemisia loved it.
“I say this,” said Guilhem, “and I know I am of the Languedoc, despite my father and his family. Despite my brothers and my language I speak good French, the French of France, of Paris, but I know I am not of France because when I want to eat, I think of bread, wine and the rest.”
“I bake bread sometimes,” said Artemisia. “Not here, of course. At home. It’s very sweet? No, not
sweet. Calming.” She was so involved in trying to find an Old French word for ‘soothing’ that she failed to notice that Guilhem’s face had frozen over at her mention of baking.
He continued the conversation perfectly affably. Artemisia didn’t realise that she had just committed a serious error.
Guilhem was entirely taken aback by her comment. He wondered if he had misinterpreted her other-ness. “Maybe she is not noble but strange? Maybe she is a peasant, with education? In her world many things can happen - she says so. The devil never sleeps - how can I be certain of her good character?”
Artemisia baked bread. Guilhem couldn’t get it out of his mind. She talked and acted as if she was of good family. Her hands were fine. Her manners were learned. She read and she spoke the same French of France as he himself did. But she was not from France and he had excused her oddities as due to that, and that alone. What if they were because they were not noble? Was she then more available? He found himself dreaming of her. He did not dismiss those dreams.
* * *
Guilhem was still thinking of William and Guiborc. Guilhem didn’t know if he dreamed of that option - himself transforming into a great hero and Artemisia becoming a hero wife and a good Christian. If Artemisia were converted, that would be a good solution. One’s past was washed away with baptism, even if that past included work not suited to a wife of Guilhem. In his mind, Geoff was Marsile, Guiborc’s husband, who deserved to die.
Guilhem found his hand clenching into a fist as he thought of the way the man’s eye looked at Artemisia and how he walked the hills as if he knew all the boundaries and owned the very rocks beneath. If any of the team were a devil or a fairy or a pagan king, it was the tall brown man. Then his mind slipped to another story of Charlemagne, one of Roland’s tales, not William’s. He remembered the hour of Roland’s death as they told it in Aragon, where the Sarrasin Falceron gave him comfort. Roland had been Guilhem’s distant kin. Was one of Artemisia’s friends his Falceron? Certainly his friends were not his Falceron, Bertrand and Philippe and the others were all good Christians.
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