‘To eat?’
‘Why not?’ You’d think I was suggesting that we stick them up our noses. ‘Nobody owns them.’
‘Babylonne, it’s not safe to eat things fresh from the ground.’ He’s still speaking quietly, as if he’s afraid of being overheard. ‘You can make yourself very sick, doing that.’
‘We’ll cook them, then. It’s better than letting them go to waste.’ They’re a little spindly, but they’re a good colour. (And they snap when they break, too.) I wonder why the sheep didn’t get to them. Because the garden’s tucked away behind a stone wall? ‘Come closer, please. I can’t reach you.’
They must have sown other crops, the people who tilled this garden. Turnips, perhaps? Cabbages? I can’t see a trace of either. Everything’s so choked with weeds, I wouldn’t expect to find more. The beans are miracle enough.
What’s that?
Isidore catches his breath. My muscles seize up; I can’t move.
Someone’s having a muted discussion nearby.
God save us! The horses!
Beans scatter as Isidore drops his skirt. Before I can catch him, he strides out to confront whatever lies beyond the ruinous wall that shields us. (Wait, you fool! It could be anyone! Brigands! Frenchmen!)
Ah.
But we’re lucky.
‘Who are you?’ says Isidore. The two men by the horses stare at him like rats trapped in a corn-bin. They wear dark robes and sandals.
One of them carries a bucket.
‘Well?’ says Isidore, imperiously. He sounds like a bishop questioning a cow-herd. ‘Who are you? Do you live here?’
‘It’s all right.’ Let’s calm down, everyone. There’s no need to panic. ‘They won’t kill us, Father, they can’t. They’re not allowed to kill anything.’ And to demonstrate our goodwill, here’s the full melioramentum: hands clasped, knees bent, head to the ground, three full bows. ‘Bless us, bless us, bless us. Good Christians, give us God’s blessing and yours. Pray the Lord for us that God may keep us from an evil death and bring us to a good end or into the hands of faithful Christians.’
‘Uh . . . from God and from us you have the benediction.’ The older Perfect has a faint, feeble voice like a lamb’s fart. ‘And may God bless you and save your soul from an evil death, and bring you to a good end.’
I don’t recognise him. I don’t recognise either of them, thank God. The older one is a sad sight: a burned-out candle of a man, all waxy skin and guttering strength. His hair is silver, his back is bent; his hands shake as he makes the sign of the benediction. His friend is about Isidore’s age, but much smaller. He has the worst case of boils I’ve ever seen: great open sores, seeping scabs, oozing pus . . . He looks like a pile of offal left to breed maggots in a slaughterman’s yard. There’s even a sore on his bottom lip.
‘You’re a believer?’ he says hoarsely, fixing me with a red-rimmed gaze. ‘From where?’
‘Uh—from Castelnaudary.’ I must remember to keep my own voice hoarse and low. ‘My name is Benoit. This is Father Isidore.’
They both stare at him, horrified, as he pushes back his hood. (A Roman priest! In the flesh!) The look on their faces—it almost makes me laugh.
‘Father Isidore is no bent stick.’ Good work, Babylonne. You don’t sound like yourself at all. ‘He is my good master. We are both running from the French army, because it’s coming this way. And no one is safe from an army.’
‘That is true,’ wheezes the older Perfect. ‘No one is safe. They tear up vines and burn houses . . .’
‘We have heard the drums,’ his friend interrupts. ‘You saw it yourself, this force?’
‘Taking the road from Saverdun,’ Isidore replies, before I can open my mouth. He touches my shoulder gently. ‘But it cannot keep to the road. It’s too big for that.’
‘You’re right. There will be scouts. Looking for food and women.’ Boil-face turns to his waxy friend. ‘We must hide. At once.’
‘Hide?’ says Isidore. ‘Hide where?’
The two Perfects look at him. They remind me of two fledglings, fallen from a nest. As they blink and sway, a horn bleats in the distance.
The four of us turn as one.
‘There!’ the old man squeaks. ‘It’s coming! The army of Satan!’
‘We must go,’ says Isidore. He reaches for his palfrey’s bridle. ‘We must be quick. Can you ride, Benoit?’
‘I—I . . .’ I don’t know. Perhaps. I can certainly try.
As I hesitate, the Perfects begin to steal away, kicking up dust with their sandals. Isidore calls after them.
‘Wait!’ If he had cracked a whip, it would have had the same effect. Both Perfects halt. And turn. ‘Wait,’ Isidore continues. ‘Where are you hiding? Will you show us? Will you hide our horses too?’
The Perfects exchange glances. They don’t like Isidore. I can tell.
‘Please, Holy Fathers.’ If I have to kiss their pustulant feet, I’ll do it. ‘Please let us come with you. We have food here, and wine.’
‘We cannot hide the horses,’ Boil-face replies. ‘There is no place for them.’
‘Are you sure?’ We can’t leave the horses. It would be like leaving fresh tracks in snow. ‘Is there no thicket? No hidden byre?’
‘If by chance we are discovered,’ Isidore adds, ‘these horses will bear two men apiece. With the horses, we might escape. Without them, we’ll have no hope.’
That’s a good point. It certainly impresses Boil-face. He strikes me as the sharper of the two.
‘All right,’ he says at last. ‘You can come. And you can bring the horses. There is a place . . . it might work . . .’
Praise the Lord and all his angels. This is a lucky chance. As we begin to move, the horn sounds again— closer, this time. The old man whimpers.
‘Courage, Brother,’ his friend says softly. ‘We are in God’s hands.’
I certainly hope so. Beyond the northern wall of the forcia, the land drops away quite steeply into a tangle of brush and thorn and vine that looks impenetrable, from up here: a dense, silvery grove at the bottom of a cleft. This cleft, I feel certain, marks the passage of a watercourse, though not one that flows in the heat of high summer.
‘There.’ Boil-face points at a goat’s track that careens down into the cleft. (I hope our horses can manage it.) ‘We take this trail.’
‘Before we do, would you object to giving us your name, fellow traveller?’ Isidore inquires. ‘Since we have given you ours.’
Boil-face looks wary, but finds the courage to speak. ‘I am Gui. This is Imbert,’ he replies. ‘We must hurry.’
Easier said than done, my friend. It’s a tricky descent, made even trickier by the horses, which refuse to be rushed on such a narrow, winding, unstable path. My mount, in particular, baulks at the task expected of it; I can sense that it’s a beast of the river flats. It snorts and jibes at the bit.
‘Shh!’ says Gui—as if I have it in my power to stop a horse from snorting. (What does he want me to do, stick rocks in its nostrils?) Imbert moves more quickly than I would ever have imagined. He takes the lead, disappearing suddenly beneath a canopy of greyish leaves, bucket in hand.
‘There is no water down here,’ Gui murmurs, tossing the remark over his shoulder as he reaches the bottom of the cleft, where a dry watercourse is all but choked with eager plants. ‘Not in the summer. That is why we must use the well.’
And the garden, presumably. But how long have they been here, these Perfects, hiding like mice in the undergrowth? Are they using this place as an inn, or have they made themselves a permanent home? I remember how Arnaude used to talk about the four months she spent in somebody’s cellar during one of the summer campaigns, when Simon de Montfort seemed to be everywhere at once, and no Perfect within his reach was safe from burning.
These two look as if they’ve been doing the same thing. They have the scurrying, sun-dazed appearance of men who have spent far too much time crawling around rocks like lizards. They’re skinny and
dirty and weathered and worried. Not like Isidore, who strides along with a firm tread, his pale face smooth and almost luminous above the darkness of his robe.
But the Perfects are more holy. I have to remember that. You don’t get close to God by eating pickled olives and reading expensive books. You do it by fasting, and praying, and not washing very much.
Ahead of me, Gui has followed the creek-bed to a thick hedge of wild oak and nettles, which suddenly rises up like a wall in his face. The creek-bed disappears straight into it, under overhanging branches. ‘Here,’ he says. ‘The entrance is here.’
‘We’ll never get the horses through that,’ Isidore observes, from behind me.
‘The horses aren’t going in there,’ Gui rejoins. ‘They must go around, and up again. I’ll show you.’
Whereupon he moves off to the left of the watercourse, plunging into a patch of waist-high grass. Isidore and I exchange glances.
‘I can’t lead both horses,’ Isidore mutters. ‘Not through that.’
‘Then I’ll come with you.’
‘But let me go first, Benoit.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Hurry, or we’ll lose Gui. He’s already vanished into the bushes, though I can hear his footsteps— crunch, crunch, crunch. Our valley is very narrow, by now; there are low, crumbling cliffs closing in on both sides, converging ahead of us behind the screen of wild oak and nettles. Old Imbert seems to have gone to ground somewhere beyond that tangle of growth. But Gui has managed to skirt it, plotting a narrow course between the left-hand wall of the cleft and the reaching, clawing branches of wild oak to his right.
It’s a matter of dodging the ones that slap back after being pushed aside by Isidore’s palfrey—ouch! You really have to keep your wits about you.
And there’s Gui again. He’s climbed out of the scrub in front of us, slowly mounting the tumble of rocks and earth that marks the end of our cleft, and the beginning of higher ground. It seems to me that we’re standing at the base of what might, in heavy rains, become a waterfall; the actual cascade would largely be hidden by all that wild oak to my right. Unless I’m mistaken, Imbert must be hiding in the cliff face somewhere—perhaps there’s a cave behind the waterfall (or where the waterfall should be, at least). And the path to the top of the falls has been picked out along a slightly gentler slope, directly ahead of Isidore, to the left of the non-existent cascade.
Of course, though it might be a gentler slope than the sheer drop of the waterfall, it’s not exactly a river-wharf either.
‘We’ll never get the horses up there.’ What does Gui think they are—goats? ‘It’s too steep.’
‘We must try,’ says Isidore.
‘But—’
‘There’s no time to go back.’
Did you hear that, horse? There’s no time to go back. And it’s no good rolling your eyes at me, because I’m not in charge here. I’m just doing what I’m told.
Gui is already at the top, peering down at us. The path isn’t quite as bad as I expected. It’s more like a set of stairs than anything else. The rocks are fixed hard in the baked earth, not rolling around underfoot. And with Isidore’s beast leading the way, my own seems more amenable.
Yeow! God! Except when he steps on my foot!
‘What is it?’ says Isidore, trying to look back.
‘Nothing.’ It comes out sounding like the creak of a hinge.
‘What happened? Are you hurt?’
‘No.’ As far as I can tell, I’m not about to lose any toes. ‘Quick. Hurry.’
And here we are, at last. There’s more growth up here than I expected—must be something to do with the creek-bed, which is all fissured mud and dry pebbles. There’s even a wild olive, I notice. And beyond it, over to the south, a glimpse of the forcia, back on our level.
Now I understand where we are.
‘There’s a rear entrance just up here,’ says Gui, whose boils look worse than ever against the sweaty red flush that’s engulfed his face. ‘If we leave the horses in this copse, they might not be seen. And even if they are,’ he adds, ‘the back entrance is practically invisible.’
‘We’ll have to unload everything,’ says Isidore. ‘We’ll have to bring the saddles and the halters—’
‘Hurry, then. Can’t you hear it?’
I can hear it, all right. The roll of drums. Quick! We have to move!
‘I’ve nothing to tie the horses with,’ Isidore frowns, already unstrapping the saddlebags. ‘No ropes or thongs.’
‘We shouldn’t tie them.’ Keeping my voice down serves to disguise it. ‘If we tie them, we’re leaving a trail.’
‘But—’
‘If we let them loose, they might easily have wandered.’
‘If we let them loose, they will wander,’ Isidore protests, working away furiously. ‘And then we’ll lose them.’
‘Better to lose our horses than to lose our lives.’
‘Will you please hurry?’ Gui hisses, from over near a patch of nettles. ‘We haven’t time for this!’
‘We’ll leave the halters on,’ Isidore suddenly decides, hauling the saddle off his palfrey. ‘Just drape your bridle over that branch, as if it’s snagged there accidentally—’
‘And leave the other one free.’ Of course! ‘If my horse has been caught, his friend might stay.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Come on!’ grunts Gui, who’s struggling with a great weight. A rock, is it? He’s crouched near a patch of pink flowers—and he’s not the only one struggling with a great weight. By the black bile of Beelzebub, this saddle is heavy!
‘In here.’ Gui has rolled aside several rocks, to reveal a hole in the ground. A very small, dark hole in the ground. ‘If you crawl through this tunnel,’ he explains, ‘you’ll come to the cave where Imbert is hiding. I’ll roll the rocks back after you, and return the other way.’
But—
‘Quick! Quick!’ Gui’s boils are practically erupting, he’s so frightened. ‘Get in!’
‘I’ll go first,’ says Isidore, who’s brought up the rear with his saddle and his saddlebags. (I hope they’re all going to fit.) ‘You can follow me, Benoit.’
‘Couldn’t we—um—light a candle or something?’ It looks awfully murky in there.
‘You won’t need a candle. There are fissures and cracks that let in the light until you’re nearly at the cave. Then you’ll see Imbert’s lamp.’ Gui gives me a push. ‘Go on!’
Isidore’s already crawling into the hole, which is like a burrow. It seems to ease him down gently. Once his hands and face have been swallowed up, the rest of his black shape simply merges with the shadows, disappearing more quickly than I would have thought possible. I can’t help thinking of gullets. And graves. And wolves’ eyes shining yellow in the darkness.
‘Go on,’ Gui repeats, already poised to cover the gaping, toothless mouth.
Now it’s my turn.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There once was a beautiful princess who was swallowed by a giant whale. For three long days she wriggled down its throat, and on the fourth day she emerged into its stomach, which was as big as a cathedral. All around her were gold and silver and precious gems, because the whale had swallowed more kings and kingdoms than there were stars in the sky. And the princess took the treasure, and travelled to the end of the world, and laid her priceless gift before the band of noble knights who awaited her in their ivory castle ...
I almost wish that this was a whale’s throat. At least it would be softer on the knees. (Ouch!) And now Isidore has stopped again, for about the tenth time.
Surely he’s skinny enough to get through this tunnel? I’m not crawling out of here backwards—I don’t care how small it gets.
‘What is it?’ Go on! ‘Why are you stopping?’
‘Wait,’ he gasps. There’s a flurry of feet and skirts and all at once he’s disappeared. Disappeared!
In his place I can see a flickering light, dancing about like an insect.
‘Come,’ croaks Imbert. ‘There’s a bit of a drop.’
As if to demonstrate, the saddle that I’ve been pushing in front of me suddenly falls away. Vanishes. Thump. Hands reach for me—Isidore’s hands—and fasten themselves to my arms. Ow! Wait! Don’t pull yet, I’m—
Whoops!
I’m on the ground. All tangled up in Isidore’s soft, black robe. Above me, the mouth of the tunnel yawns like the end of a pipe: a round, dark hole punched into the wall.
‘Are you hurt?’ Isidore demands.
‘No.’ You broke my fall. ‘Is this it?’
‘Apparently.’ He doesn’t sound very enthusiastic, and I don’t blame him. It’s not nearly as big as I expected. The ceiling is so low that even I can barely stand upright. The ground is so uneven that there’s only enough flat space to allow one person a good night’s sleep. (You might fit two people, providing that they slept nose to nose, with their arms wrapped around each other.) Everything else is jagged rock, some of it too sharp to sit on. There’s a blanket, and a bucket, and a few little rag-wrapped bundles that might be food. There’s also a jug that’s missing a handle. I hope the jug is a piss-pot. I’d hate to think that the Perfects were using their water-bucket to piss in.
‘Welcome,’ says Imbert, timidly. He settles onto one of the rocks, folding his hands in his lap. Isidore begins to stack the saddles and baggage on a kind of stony shelf, and I suppose that I’d better sit opposite the Perfect. Leaving as much distance between us as I can, naturally.
At last Isidore finishes. Sidling past Imbert, he wedges himself next to me, barking his shin in the process.
What happens now, I wonder?
‘We must be very quiet,’ Imbert mutters. ‘If we speak too loudly, it will be heard outside. Just as we can hear the people who pass overhead.’
‘We are in no danger yet, though, I think,’ says Isidore. ‘The hoofbeats of so many horses would shake the very ground, would they not?’
Imbert doesn’t reply. He’s listening hard—for Gui, probably. Gui must be retracing his steps, coming back down the side of the valley and entering via the front entrance, which is almost certainly around that corner over there.
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