‘No, I’m coming with you.’
Richart had dragged in an unconscious crusader. He heeled the broken door closed. ‘Quickly, help me strip him! Only a sergeant, more’s the pity, but decent chainmail.’
He lifted the man’s shoulders while Adela undid the leather belt and Derwent slid the spattered surcote up the body. The hauberk was harder to work free. Richart did not bother with the gambeson. He tugged the hauberk over his tunic. Mercifully, the chainmail was sufficiently loose. She felt relieved that he was armoured now. He would still be on foot, but the coif and helmet would give some protection from any blows from horseback.
‘Al—Adela, listen!’ He clasped her forearms. ‘I am going to throw you across my shoulder. While we are in the street, beat your fists upon me and struggle. Use no words, but scream your head off as though I’m about to ravish you. As for you, Derwent, hood up! Pretend to be her son or young brother pulling at me to let her go. And somehow we are going to get across that blessed bridge. If we die, it’s God’s will. Ready?’
Her elbows were needed to keep her face from bumping against his ribs. She obediently pummelled his back, her shrieks a release of the utter horror she witnessed as he stumbled between the bodies bloodying the cobbles. Twice he almost crushed her against the wall as he jolted back to evade the savage horsemen. Women and children lay slaughtered across doorsteps. She saw bodies with eyes gouged, hands half slashed off, severed limbs. Some of the screaming was hers. And still, miraculously, the beloved man carrying her kept walking. Derwent’s hand tugged urgently on her skirt. She lifted her head and saw they were reaching the city wall, felt Richart swing around so she pummelled and kicked. Someone grabbed her head up by the hair. ‘Pah, man, can’t you do better than that piece of dung?’ She glimpsed the gap-toothed face beneath the kettle helmet before her head fell again. ‘Come along with us.’
Richart laughed, shook his head and carried his struggling burden past them.
‘Just as well you’re grimy,’ he muttered into her skirts. ‘If they knew how beautiful you were under all that grease, they’d have had you. The gate’s not manned, Adela, and we’re approaching it now.’
Foot soldiers passed them, carrying out benches and trestles, piling them onto wagons beyond the ditches; one ribaud was trying to catch a riderless horse and a flock of lawless geese was running amok around everything. Beneath the portcullis, a priest with a notary at his side was consulting a list, questioning the line of people who were being marched out of the city. One old man on crutches, a Jewish merchant by his dress, was weeping and calling on God as he was forced across the drawbridge.
Richart broke into a run. Adela was bounced against his body with Derwent mewling and blubbering, his hand tight around her ankle. It was a miracle that they reached the other side of the bridge without being challenged, but then she heard Richart swear. He faltered, his chest heaving against her legs as he halted.
‘Per Crist!’ He made pretence of resting against the stone wall of the bridge, or rather, Adela’s shoulders did the leaning. The world was upside down beneath his arm, but she made out that facing them, some three hundred paces away, were row upon row of enemy tents, and in the gap between the bridge and the encampment, the crusaders had started a bonfire. She guessed that was where the benches and wooden movables were being unloaded, but shuffling forward towards the carts was a long tail of citizens. Around the fire were men-at-arms and chanting priests, and watching from the encampment were women and horseboys.
She crossed herself. Dear God! The crusaders were burning the heretics.
‘Alright!’ muttered Richart’s voice against her thigh. ‘I’m making for the camp. If anyone gets to Heaven before me, tell God to curse the pope.’
‘Got another one there, have you?’ yelled some voice of authority. With a wail, Derwent swiftly hid his face like a child in Richart’s side and Adela fisted Richart’s shoulder blades as a knight on horseback rode up to circle them. ‘Over there, then! Get ’em in the line!’
Richart answered in the northern tongue. ‘Sir, I’ve just rescued this mother from being raped. I did not take the cross to fuck innocent women.’
‘And who do you think you are to dispute orders, the Holy Roman Emperor?’
‘Savin’ your pardon, sir knight, but how do we know these are heretics? They’ve not been tried.’
‘There will be no trials, sergeant. Abbot Amaury has given us orders to burn the whole lot of them and let God decide.’
Richart gasped in disbelief. ‘You jest.’
‘No exceptions. So stop your dawdling, man! Take the whore and her brat across. By the look of this pair, they’ll sizzle fast.’
Richart lowered Adela slowly to her feet. Save yourself, her eyes pleaded. Grim-faced, knowing the knight was watching, he made pretence of hauling them slowly towards the back of the long line, then he veered, marching her parallel with the column, some twenty paces away. The knight shouted. They could not avoid drawing nearer to the fire.
Adela halted, her breathing filled with the stench of burning flesh.
‘Sweetheart.’ She could hear the despair in Richart’s voice as she turned away from him to face the horror. His hands fastened supportively round her shoulders.
Ahead of her, soldiers were stripping the outer garments off the citizens. As each prisoner reached the bonfire, they were seized by the arms and flung into the flames. Well, she would run up the line and throw herself on head first. It would be terrible but swift. Biting her lip, she touched Derwent’s hood.
‘Flee among the tents! Go!’ Unable to look at her beloved rescuer, she said over her shoulder, ‘My dearest lord, pursue him! Don’t stay and watch.’ Neither man obeyed. ‘Richart please.’
His fingers tightened. ‘We stay together.’
‘I love you with all my heart. Go, safeguard your city. Go!’ She shook free and started walking towards the bonfire. There was shouting. From Richart. From soldiers yelling at her to get in line. She was aware of the priests turning as she stared straight towards the flames.
And then God intervened.
‘’Ere!’ A broad-bosomed harridan with a cross daubed on the shoulder of her kirtle plonked herself in the way, insolently shoving Adela in the chest. It was Maud! Eyes-blazing, indignant Maud. ‘She ain’t no Cathar, you con!’ she snarled at Richart. ‘You’ve only picked up one of ours, you ruddy halfwit! An’ you!’ A beefy hand slapped Adela’s cheek. ‘I been lookin’ for you all day, you dim slut! Tryin’ to thieve in Béziers, were you? I’ll give you what for, you lazy cow!’ The mighty shove towards the tents had Adela stumbling. A last catapult of words was kept for Richart. ‘You want more truck wi’ ’er, soldier, come back later!’
The bloody crusader on horseback was shouting at Richart. ‘Back to the city, you son of a whore! Fetch more out! An’ give him here!’ Derwent was still in Richart’s grip.
Derwent! Adela struggled against Maud’s fierce hold.
‘Come on!’ the woman hissed. ‘I’m not savin’ ’im as well.’
A loud oath ripped the air, Richart doubled over, clutching his belly, and Derwent thudded towards the enemy tents. Adela sent a prayer to the patron saint of guy ropes as two of the foot soldiers took off in pursuit. Her beloved Lord of Mirascon straightened only to receive a violent cuff on the ear from the horseman which sent him staggering back, but he managed to send her a brief, wicked, jubilant smile across his shoulder before he set his face once more to Béziers.
Chapter Twenty-five
Pois preyatz me, senhor,
qu’eu chan, eu chantarai.
Since you request me to sing for you, my lords,
I shall sing.
Pois Preyatz Me, Senhor by Bernard de Ventadorn
‘Ouch!’
The hands working the river sand through Adela’s short hair were over-vigorous. ‘Scrubbin’ the grease off you, ain’t I, before they use you for a frying pan. Gives me summat to do while them bloody priests are burnin’ folk.’
‘Don’t you go weepin’ again neither. Ain’t nuffin either of us can do to save them poor wretches.’
A row of bonfires now gartered the land between the camp and the river. Maud had pulled the tent flap down against the smoke and the scorching sun, but the appalling stink of human flesh, constantly replenished, was inescapable. It was already in the weave of the clean kirtle and cap that Maud had found for her, and in every breath.
‘Sleep, that’s what you need, my girl. Ain’t nuffin’ to be done until night. Now, drink this!’
Guessing there was valerian in it, she still drank. If Richart failed to come for her—if he were slain—she would be pleading for hemlock. Weak and exhausted, she lay down on the rough sacking stretcher and fell into a blessed sleep for the first time since the night she had lain with him.
She woke slowly, groggily, aware of Maud’s voice outside, of a brief blaze of light as a kind face inspected her, and fell back into slumber for another hour. It was late afternoon when gracious oblivion gave way to unkind reality.
Outside it was like Good Friday at Calvary come again. A pall of darkness shrouded the sky and the wind, hot as a roasting fire, was scattering the ashes of the dead upon the living. In front of the tents, a dozen women were dividing a hoard of bloodstained clothes into baskets. More soldiers and ribauds were adding to it, tossing the stained clothing to the ground as carelessly as they had flung people into the flames. Clothing pilfered from—she clasped a hand to her mouth.
‘Help me!’ snapped Maud, seeing Adela’s disgust. One of the sergeants turned, leery eyes assessing fresh flesh.
‘I’m ’ere, ain’t I!’ Teeth tightly clenched, Adela quickly took the handle of the pannier. What if Richart had been killed? Was this her destiny?
‘Not another word, you hear me!’ hissed her friend as they started towards the riverbank. ‘You been seein’ things here that his bloody holiness should be ashamed of, that I’m ashamed of, but keep a still tongue an’ you’ll be safe.’
‘Maud—’ A fierce scowl silenced her. The other women were beginning to ask who she was and she let Maud answer. At least she looked like a waif—scrawny, ragged-haired. Now she must hide her repugnance at the smell of blood as Maud handed her a spattered gambeson.
‘It’s my livin’, Adela. We need to get this done while the stains are fresh. Now slosh that in the water and hold your tongue! An’ don’t wash any red crosses or they’ll run.’
The cold river water swirled rosy between her fingers—someone’s lifeblood washed away. For all she knew, it could be an innocent child’s. O, Richart, my dearest lord, may the saints be merciful and protect you! Derwent, too! Had he found somewhere safe to hide?
‘Won’t be perfect,’ muttered Maud, regarding a patch she had just scrubbed, ‘but—’
‘O, Sweet Mother of God!’ one of the women was shrieking. Beyond the bridge, behind the great walls, the entire city was now burning. The wind had changed and they could see the truth of it—immense flames bursting from the roofs of the churches that Adela knew only from their bells. Above the cathedral, a great spiral of fire was whirling towards Heaven as though it was bearing up the souls of the dead.
Kneeling upon the crackly grass, some of the washerwomen straightened, round-eyed as frightened rabbits, crossing their breasts while others clenched their hands in prayer.
‘Just like Sodom!’ Smugness curled the lips of the woman neighbouring Adela. ‘Tha’ be God’s answer.’
‘Nah,’ said another. ‘Mayhap them contrary southerners lit the fire to thwart us keepin’ the city.’
One woman, bedecked like a queen of ribauds in her tight scarlet gown and tinkling bracelets snorted, ‘Nay, dafty, that’s our doin’. My man said if them nobles wouldn’t let the likes of ’im keep their stash, then he an’ his friends would burn the lot. ’Sides, who took the poxy city in the first place? But I ain’t seen anyfink like that.’
The stitched cross of the surcote between Adela’s mindless fingers slid into the water, its scarlet abusing the bleached threads, spreading swiftly like a death wound. Heedless, she set the ruined garment to one side and picked up another garment; her gaze was only for the city.
The terror of it all was almost unbearable. Were the kitcheners slaughtered now, every one of them? She felt no sense of revenge or bitterness, just a void, a numbness in her breast; the anguish would come later in the nightmares—if she survived. But her intellect was trying to find reasons. Where was the forgiving heavenly Father that Christ spoke of? How could this abbot have the arrogance to think that burning thousands of people, not just heretics, would please God?
And what had the Cathars done to deserve this? Had they slaughtered those who did not agree with them? Had they stolen, burned homes, thrown babies on bonfires? No, they believed evil ruled mankind and souls were reincarnated. Where was the harm? But here this day was proof that greed and violence ruled the world. Would beauteous Mirascon share Béziers’ fate? Oh, better to be a worm crawling on the earth than be witness to mankind’s endless cruelty to each other.
‘Better to be silent than burned,’ Maud muttered as if sensing her thoughts. ‘We just do our best, eh?’
Amen, then. Mindlessly, Adela took one garment after another, swirling, scrubbing, wringing until all their load was done. Then she helped Maud carry the heavy pannier back.
‘My new man, Peter, if he survived, will be askin’ questions,’ Maud warned her as they neared the tent. ‘He’s a sergeant from Leicester, one of Lord Simon’s force, so you be careful. Saints willing, he ain’t back yet,’ she added, grabbing the canvas flap aside, ‘but, look ’oo is. Both of ’em.’
‘Jesu be praised!’ Adela followed Maud into the stifling heat of the tent, her heart bursting with thankfulness that Richart and Derwent had survived. She wanted to run across and fling her arms around Richart, but Maud planted herself between them, hands on her hips. ‘Made yourselves at home, I see.’ The laundress was frowning at the discarded hauberk and sullied surcote dumped aside and her man’s honing stone in Richart’s hand.
‘And you are Maud,’ he said dryly. He rose from the ground where he had been sitting cross-legged, sharpening his sword-blade, and bowed. ‘Thank you for what you did.’
‘Well, we women ’ave to stick together. There’s a bowl there if you want to wash, but I wouldn’t be hangin’ around if I was you.’ Maud picked up the stone and replaced it amongst some other male items. Behind her broad back, Richart pulled a face and Adela smothered a smile.
Miraculously, neither man had been hurt. Richart’s dark brown hair was speckled with ash, grim shadows haunted his eyes and running into his beard growth were dried rivulets of sweat. Dark freckles—not bestowed by nature—spattered his face and wrists. So he, too, had killed.
Subdued and pale like a child who had witnessed too much, Derwent barely acknowledged the women. Noli me tangere was writ upon his face. The leaves clinging in his curls hinted that he had been on close acquaintance with a thicket.
Adela carried the ewer to Richart and held it as he plunged his hands into the water and cleansed his face. It was dangerous in this village of tents to speak more than was necessary and his tight smile told her he understood. They were both aware of Maud watching them, open-lipped, teeth-clenched. She wanted the men gone.
Richart looked across at her. ‘Since the weapons of war have not been unpacked, the army may leave soon. Do you know where they go next?’
A shrug, a shake of head, then Maud said sourly, ‘It might be wise to join ’em, don’t you think? My man’s in Sir Simon’s company. He could take you to ’im if you like.’
It was Richart who saw the tiny shake of curtain. ‘A troubadour like me?’ he said loudly, jabbing a warning finger to the door. Maud moved, swift as a pouncing cat. She flung a coverlet over the discarded hauberk and sat down upon it, beckoning Adela to stand
beside her.
‘Woman, are you in there?’
‘I ain’t nowhere else.’
‘What’s going on? Who the plaguey Hell are these beggars, Maud?’ The man’s voice was as thickset as his body. Red-nosed and thatched with greying chestnut hair, Maud’s large replacement for Emmott marched in. A knotted cloth of loot dangled from his fist and a bundle of clothing was jammed beneath his arm. He set the former down with a clang and surveyed the strangers in his small, canvas demesne with a furious jut of his lower lip.
Maud spread her skirts, pleating her lips, smoothing her apron. ‘Friends, Peter,’ she explained in English and then seeing the foxy-bearded man, who had entered with him, she bobbed her head. ‘Oh, greetings, my lord Simon.’ Her hand grabbed at Adela’s skirt and tugged.
Was this one of the commanders? O, Jesu, save them! Curtseying, Adela glimpsed the tight seam of Richart’s lips as he touched his forehead in respect.
‘My lord of Leicester, is it not?’ The old Derwent suddenly returned to life. He pirouetted, spread a leg and bowed with a flourish. ‘Good morrow to you and this good fellow. Jongleurs at your service.’
Despite being confronted with a dwarf speaking Norman, the earl ignored him; his gaze was fixed suspiciously upon Richart. Adela saw, with growing concern, that he was noting the tanned skin of a southerner. Maybe his instincts were picking up the pride and loathing, too. ‘You are not harbouring heretics are you, Peter?’ he asked coldly.
‘Upon my soul, I never saw ’em before in my life, my lord. What you hidin’, Maudie? Why ain’t you showin’ respect to his lordship?’
‘The custom of women is upon me, Peter,’ she muttered, not budging. ‘Must be all this excitement, save his lordship don’t want to know that. Embarrassin’.’
Indeed, the baron’s white skin, the bits that weren’t already like boiled lobster, was rosying beneath his stubble, but in his eyes suspicion was smouldering. Adela was praying that Richart would say little; even in his best Northern French, he had the accent of an Occitaner.
Troubadour Page 36
