Cross of Fire

by David Gilman

  All he had to do was find it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The sun was low in the sky as Henry turned his face to the breeze carrying the tang of woodsmoke. He had run tirelessly for miles but now he slowed, his thoughts filled with trepidation as he remembered everything Cateline had explained about the castle. The landscape broadened, curving away from the rutted track he had come upon when leaving the forest hours before. It had taken him longer than he thought because of his desire to stay hidden in the forest, but as he followed the track the first houses came into view and beyond them, rising above the woodland canopy, the crenellated walls of the castle, its boar’s head banner curling in the light wind.

  ‘Boy!’ a voice challenged.

  Henry turned and faced four rough-looking men who, by the tools they carried, were obviously returning from the fields. Before he had a chance to answer them the men advanced. ‘You thieving, are you, lad?’

  They closed in on him. He was downwind and the tough-looking peasants stank of rancid sweat. Their insular way of life made them suspicious of any stranger. Henry stood his ground and where others might have turned and ran he faced down the men. ‘I am a pilgrim and seek sanctuary with my Lord Mael Babeneaux.’

  Henry felt a rush of relief when he saw their expressions alter from open hostility to what he perceived as being more welcoming. One of them smiled. ‘Then you are a fortunate traveller, young man.’ The speaker seemed to be more senior than the others. He addressed his companions. ‘You get on home. I’ll show this devout lad the way to the castle.’ The men nodded their agreement. They muttered good wishes to Henry and wished him well on his journey. ‘This way, young man,’ said their leader. ‘You’ve travelled far, then?’

  ‘I have,’ said Henry not wishing to give away too much in case it incriminated him. ‘Tiron.’

  The man sized up the youth who strode along silently next to him. ‘I see you are not a boy who enjoys the sound of his own voice. I know silence is the rule of the house at the abbey, but, Master Pilgrim, find your tongue when my Lord Mael questions you.’ The old man laughed. ‘Or he’ll cut it out.’

  The villager led Henry down the woodland paths and when he stepped out into the open ground he realized why the fortress could not be assaulted. By the time they had wound their way along the stone road towards the broad ramp that led to the main gate, soldiers had appeared on the battlements. ‘A pilgrim!’ shouted the old man to those above the portcullis. The grinding chains lifted the defence and as soon as it was high enough for a man to enter without bending the elderly villager slapped Henry’s back. ‘I will pray for you, stranger. My lord does not take kindly to vagrants so choose your words with care. I have seen others who heard of my lord’s generosity hanging from the walls with a rope around their neck and their balls cut off. They were liars who sought his shelter and food and drink. And if that be the case with you then I will be rewarded for bringing a charlatan to my lord’s door so he may exact his pleasure. As I said, I will pray for you,’ He gave a broken-toothed grin and spat. ‘I’ll pray that you are a lying miscreant.’ He turned away into the fading sunlight.

  Henry was escorted into the outer ward where twenty men or more lazed beside their quarters. Some sharpened weapons; others washed clothing; one man hauled a bucket up from a well, spilling water into a trough. Henry took in as much as he could of his surroundings. Men were plentiful. Crossbowmen lined the walls, and soldiers milled about in and out of various buildings. Lady Cateline could not have known just how many men served her husband and from what Henry could see there must be close to a hundred men in this outer ward. Did that mean there were more within? They outnumbered his father more than he could realize. A sentry from the main gate accompanied him until met by a burly man whose surcoat, worn from years of use, still showed the boar’s head blazon. He was bareheaded and his unwashed hair touched his shoulders. His beard reached his deep chest, and he was as tall as Henry’s father. He reminded Henry of Meulon: a wild-looking man who might have spent a lifetime fighting wars. From the way the men responded to him Henry took him to be a sergeant-at-arms or one of Lord Mael’s captains.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he demanded of the sentry.

  ‘A lad on pilgrimage. They brought in him from the village.’

  The big man grunted. He suddenly reached out and grabbed Henry’s face in his calloused fist. ‘Scratched and bleeding. Wandering lost like an innocent in the forest. Scared, were you, lad?’

  Henry had recoiled but instinctively struck out at the arm that held him to knock it away. It was as solid as a tree branch. The man released him. ‘No simpering monk in waiting, this one. Where are you from, boy?’

  ‘The Abbaye de la Sainte-Trinité de Tiron.’

  The big man studied him a moment longer. ‘Take him to the kitchen. Feed him.’

  ‘Aye, my lord.’

  Lord Mael Babeneaux laughed, yellow teeth parting his beard. ‘Look at his face! He thought me a common soldier. Kick him in the arse if he speaks out of turn.’ With that he strode past towards the soldiers.

  The sentry gave the shocked Henry a firm push in his back. ‘Move!’

  This time Henry restrained his impulse to strike back. This Breton lord was master of a greater territory than most other lords. To feed, clothe and pay so many fighting men and to equip them with horses, which also needed fodder and farriers, meant he had wealth and power.

  They took Henry through another gate to the inner ward and he followed the sentry’s orders to clamber up the steps towards the great hall in the keep. Henry felt suddenly alone and fearful – and his foolishness in taking Gabriel’s place taunted him as he ascended the steps to the keep’s main door. At the top platform two sturdy ropes attached through iron eyelets were looped to the final rungs of the wooden steps. If an attack was made against the castle they could be raised to keep invaders away from the keep. His father’s assessment had been correct. Lord Mael’s castle was prepared for any assault and it would take an army to seize it. He salivated as he caught a whiff of roast meat from the kitchens.

  The sentry turned the iron ring handle and put his shoulder against the studded door; then he stepped back. ‘Inside, lad. Follow your nose. Tell them Lord Mael said to feed you. In with you!’

  Henry stepped into the gloom, his eyes taking time to adjust. They had ushered him into a great hall but no fire burned in the vast fireplace despite the autumnal chill in the room. Faggots and logs lay stacked ready for use but it seemed obvious Lord Mael did not believe in creature comforts or gaily decorated rooms. A dining table and benches sat in the room’s middle, bare except for the spiked iron candle holders, the wax columns unlit, half used, rivulets of dried wax furled at their base. Narrow windows high in the wall admitted meagre shafts of light. The reed floor looked freshly laid and the benches around the fireplace were made of heavy chestnut like the beams supporting the floor above. Another staircase rose on the far wall and he guessed that led to where Lady Cateline’s son was held. Lord Mael’s quarters would be in the baronial hall in the more elegant building beyond the keep.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ said a gruff voice from the far side of the fireplace where there was obviously a passage leading through to the kitchens. A servant in a grease-covered leather apron looked as though he could have been the castle’s blacksmith, so big was his girth. He pointed a wicked-looking carving knife towards the intruder when he asked the question.

  ‘I am a pilgrim,’ said Henry. ‘Lord Mael said to feed me.’

  The man huffed and turned away out of sight. Henry stepped further into the hall. Mael’s blazon hung across one stone wall as big as a battle banner. It was grimy and dust-laden, the image of the boar’s head blackened by smoke from the fireplace – when lit – making its teeth and tusks look as though the beast had just emerged from a thicket. Henry picked his way along the benches that boxed the space around the fireplace; a slab of planed wood made up the top of a dining table surrounded by several stools. The heat from
the kitchen fire wrapped itself around him as he stepped into the room where the sweating, burly cook was basting a pig on a spit over the crimson embers of what had once been a large fire. A cauldron of boiling water steamed suspended from the iron rack across the fires. The evening’s gloom had already settled on the kitchen but cresset lamps, their flames spluttering in their oil-filled shallow dishes, gave enough light to those working at the stone slab used for food preparation.

  Something lurched in the corner of Henry’s vision. A mastiff, as grey as the stone floor, lunged from beneath the cook’s table. The dog’s slavering jaws issued a rumbling growl. The brute was as high as Henry’s waist and he recoiled, slamming back against the wall.

  The cook raised a hand. ‘No!’

  The dog obediently dropped to its belly.

  ‘My lord keeps his hunting dogs in their kennels but this bastard lives in my damned kitchen until it’s called to its master’s feet at night – in there,’ he said with a nod towards the keep’s empty hall. ‘And if it lives here, it obeys me. I feed it. It does what it’s told. There’s a lesson there for vagrants like you. Get me?’

  ‘I understand,’ said Henry.

  ‘You want food?’

  ‘I would be grateful, sir.’

  ‘Sir, is it? Aye, right enough, you know how to toady up to those you need. Well, Master Pilgrim, no one gets fed here without earning it. Out there in the yard there’s a well. Draw water and bring it here. Take that bucket.’

  Henry slipped his bedroll from over his shoulders and laid it on the bench along with his meagre food sack; then, obediently, he took the leather bucket and followed the man’s gesture to go out of the small doorway at the other end of the kitchen. A rickety ladder leaned against the doorsill; it was steep and felt immediately unstable as Henry put his weight on the first rungs. He wondered whether the cook was having fun at his expense by sending him down this ladder instead of the main stairway into the keep. If that was his intention then Henry was determined not to falter. As he made his way down he realized that they would not allow the kitchen boys to enter through the main entrance and that this was what they had to endure every day.

  Henry gazed down into the darkness of the well. The size of the windlass’s barrel told him it was a well of great depth and to haul up the water-filled bucket at the bottom would take strength. Grabbing the handle with both hands he put his back into it and wound the handle. His action gave him time to look around the inner yard. Whoever had built the castle had planned carefully. On the far side of the yard were the stables and their proximity to the well meant the horse troughs could be filled quickly. The grain and hay store was at the far end of the stables and abutted the inner curtain wall. If he could light a torch from the kitchen fire, then he could burn the hay and signal his father. He was ahead of himself. First, he had to find the boy and then the postern gate. And even then his father’s men would have a fight on their hands within the confines of the castle. By the time he had thought it through the bucket had drawn level with the well’s low wall. He grabbed it and spilled the contents into the leather pail. Climbing back up the ladder with the unsteady pail took balance and strength. He was sweating from effort when he reappeared in the kitchen. He delivered the water without thanks from the cook and saw that his bedroll had been undone and his food sack opened. The cook kept his back to him. It was obviously a rite of passage to see whether a pilgrim carried anything of value. The cook glanced at him.

  ‘Over there,’ said the cook, nodding to a bench at the table. He ladled pottage from a pan into a wooden bowl and handed it to Henry; then he deftly sliced meat from the boar on the spit and tossed it to the dog. ‘He’s more important than you. Understand, pilgrim? You eat what we eat; he gets the choice cuts. Him and his lord. Do well to remember your place here. Understand? It’s lower than the dog’s belly.’

  Henry remained silent and spooned the peas, beans and onions. The cook placed a dark loaf of rye bread on the table, sliced it and put the thick piece in front of him. ‘That’s what you’ll get tonight but you’d best get on your knees when the bell tolls in the morning. My lord likes to see prayers being said by them who thinks themselves baptized and saved from Satan’s clutches. You got sins, have you, boy?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘No?’ the cook said, raising his voice. ‘Hear that? We’ve a virgin here.’

  Henry was suddenly aware that there was another room behind the kitchen from where sniggering laughter emanated. Two kitchen boys emerged carrying baskets of prepared vegetables. ‘If poverty is a virtue, he’s a virgin right enough. There were nuthin’ in that bedroll.’

  Henry thought the two youths looked to be a couple of years younger than him. One of them glared, arms resting on the table. ‘You sleep in the corner; we get our backs against the grate, understand?’

  Henry nodded, lowering his eyes, not wishing the bully to see the challenge in them. When the time came, he knew that if necessary he would have to kill the two servants, but the cook was a big man and it would take strength to bring him down. He gathered his bedroll and sack and retreated to the shadows in the corner of the kitchen. Between him and the boy he had come to rescue were the three servants and a hungry-looking brute of a dog.

  Doubt plagued him: fear of his own inability to kill the servants while they slept.

  In cold blood.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Shadows reached into the courtyards, smothering the buildings and defences as darkness crept across the castle walls. Lanterns were lit and guard-post braziers flared along the parapets. Henry watched as silence fell as quickly as the night. The only sound was the dull clanging of the compline bell from the castle’s chapel. Henry watched the yard below but saw no evidence of soldiers or their lord going to pray before retiring for the night. The kitchen boys served Lord Mael’s food while the men in the courtyard returned to their quarters and others manned their posts.

  The brute dog barked.

  ‘Captain?’ said the cook as a man entered his domain from the keep’s hall. There was little respect in his voice and he remained seated, slumped on a bench, his back against the wall.

  ‘Keep it back,’ said the captain. The cook raised a hand; the dog growled but stayed where he was. Babeneaux’s captain looked as tall and broad as his master. His beard had wisps of grey and his hands bore scars that were visible even in the dim light. Henry thought the man would as soon kill the dog as have it made obedient, but that would incense his sworn lord.

  ‘Lord Mael wants it inside.’ He glanced at Henry who sat, knees hunched, in the corner. ‘And the pilgrim.’

  A low whistle came from the hall and the dog bounded forward, nearly knocking the heavyweight man back on his heels as he avoided the dog’s salivating jowls.

  ‘Goddamn beast,’ the captain muttered and turned back from where he had come.

  The cook grabbed Henry’s arm as he went to follow the man-at-arms. ‘You might see me as a coarse peasant whose only skill is with a ladle, but I am God-fearing. That man is not. Captain Roparzh would eat raw human flesh if our Lord Mael let him. God knows our master is a brutal man, but Roparzh… Well, all I am saying is do not cast your eyes on him because pilgrim or not the moment you step beyond Lord Mael’s protection, Roparzh would gouge your eyes out and let you go blindly to meet your maker.’

  Henry nodded his thanks and with a thudding heart followed in the killer’s footsteps. The fire in the hall had not been lit but extra candles now cast their warm glow around the hall. Babeneaux was stripped to his linen shirt, impervious to the chill air; his sword belt and surcoat were draped across the nearest stool. The pewter plates on the table bore remnants of food, which he tossed to the mastiff. Lord Mael swept a hand across the table, clearing the last crumbs.

  ‘Name?’ he asked. The captain stood behind him and Henry felt that one wrong answer might be a signal for the Breton lord to have his captain despatch him where he stood.

  ‘I am Henry d
e Sainteny,’ he answered, using his mother’s maiden name.

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘My grandfather fought the English, that much I do know.’

  Babeneaux sipped from a dark thick glass that obscured the colour of the red wine, making it appear as black as blood. He drank slowly, his voice without threat – almost kindly now that he was out of sight of his soldiers where perhaps he felt the need to behave more coarsely. ‘I don’t know the name, boy, but I am certain that he honoured his family. Does he still live?’