‘I don’t understand,’ Robbie muttered.
‘Wasn’t there someone who played the lute while his city burned?’
‘Nero,’ Robbie said, ‘I think.’
‘We’re to play at tournaments while the English piss all over France. No, not piss, while they drop great stinking turds all over King Jean’s precious land, and does he give a rat’s fart for that? He wants a tournament! So get your horse, pack up, be ready to leave. Tournament! I should have stayed in Scotland!’
Robbie looked around for Roland. He was not sure why, except that he admired the young Frenchman and if anyone could explain God’s reason for inflicting this defeat then surely it was Roland, but Roland was deep in conversation with a man who wore a livery unfamiliar to Robbie. The man’s jupon displayed a rearing green horse on a white field, and Robbie had seen no other men in King Jean’s army wearing that badge. The man spoke softly and earnestly to Roland, who appeared to ask a few questions before shaking the stranger’s hand, and when Roland turned towards Robbie his face was suffused with happiness. The rest of the king’s army might be dejected because the hopes of France were now a burning mass of timber in a wet field, but Roland de Verrec fairly glowed with joy. ‘I have been given a quest,’ he told Robbie, ‘a quest!’
‘There’s going to be a tournament in Paris,’ Robbie said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be needed there.’
‘No,’ Roland said. ‘A maiden is in trouble! She has been snatched from her lawful husband, carried off by a villain, and I am charged with her rescue.’
Robbie just gaped at the virgin knight. Roland had said those words with utmost seriousness, as if he believed he truly was a knight in one of the romances that the troubadours sang.
‘You will be paid generously, sire,’ the knight in the green and white jupon said.
‘The honour of the quest is payment enough,’ Roland de Verrec said, but added hastily, ‘Though if your master the count should offer some small token of thanks then I will, of course, be grateful.’ He bowed to Robbie. ‘We shall meet again,’ he said, ‘and do not forget what I said. You have been saved for a great purpose. You are blessed. And so am I! A quest!’
The Lord of Douglas watched Roland de Verrec walk away. ‘Is he really a virgin?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘He swears so,’ Robbie said.
‘No wonder his right arm is so bloody strong,’ the Lord of Douglas said, ‘but he must be mad as a sack of bloody stoats.’ He spat.
Roland de Verrec had a quest, and Robbie was jealous.
PART TWO
Montpellier
Four
‘Forgive me,’ Thomas said. He had not meant to speak aloud. He spoke to the crucifix above the main altar in the little church of Saint Sardos that stood beneath Castillon d’Arbizon’s castle. Thomas was kneeling. He had lit six candles, which burned on the side altar of Saint Agnes where a young, pale-faced priest counted bright new genoins.
‘Forgive you for what, Thomas?’ the priest asked.
‘He knows.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘Just say the masses for me, father,’ Thomas said.
‘For you? Or for the men you killed?’
‘For the men I killed,’ Thomas said. ‘I gave you enough money?’
‘You gave me enough to build another church,’ the priest said. ‘Remorse is an expensive thing, Thomas.’
Thomas half smiled. ‘They were soldiers, father,’ he said, ‘and they died in obedience to their lord. I owe them peace in their afterlife, don’t I?’
‘Their liege lord was an adulterer,’ Father Levonne said sternly. Father Medous, his predecessor, had died a year before and the Bishop of Berat had sent Father Levonne as his replacement. Thomas had suspected the newcomer was a spy, because the bishop was a supporter of the Count of Berat, who had once possessed Castillon d’Arbizon and wanted the town back, but it seemed the bishop had sent the priest in order to rid himself of a nuisance. ‘I pricked the bishop’s conscience,’ Levonne had explained to Thomas.
‘Pricked it?’
‘I preached against sin, sire,’ Levonne had said, ‘and the bishop did not like my sermons.’
Since that conversation, Father Levonne had learned to call Thomas by his name, and Thomas had come to depend on the young, earnest priest for advice, and whenever he returned from a foray into enemy territory he would come to the church of Saint Sardos, say confession and pay for masses to be said for the men he had killed. ‘So if the Count of Villon was an adulterer,’ Thomas now asked, ‘he deserved to be castrated and killed? Father, you’d have to put half this town to death if that was true.’
‘Only a half?’ Father Levonne asked, amused. ‘Speaking for myself,’ he went on, ‘I would have preferred God to determine Villon’s punishment, but perhaps God chose you as his instrument?’
‘Did I do wrong?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Just say the masses, father,’ Thomas said.
‘And the Countess of Labrouillade,’ Father Levonne went on, ‘a brazen adulteress, is here in the castle.’
‘You want me to kill her?’
‘God will choose her fate,’ the priest said gently, ‘but the Count of Labrouillade may not wait for that. He will try to reclaim her. The town prospers, Thomas. I don’t want it invaded by Labrouillade or by anyone else. Send her away, far away.’
‘Labrouillade won’t come here,’ Thomas said vengefully, ‘he’s nothing but a fat fool and he fears me.’
‘The Count of Berat is also a fool,’ the priest said, ‘and a rich one, and a brave one, and he’s looking for allies to fight against you.’
‘Only because he’s lost every time he’s tried before,’ Thomas said. Thomas had captured the town and castle from the count, who had twice tried to reclaim the property, and twice had been defeated. The town lay on the southern edge of the County of Berat and was protected by high stone walls and by the river that flowed around three sides of the crag on which the town was sited. Above the town was the castle on the crag’s high rocky summit. The castle was not large, but it was high and strong, and protected by a new gatehouse, turreted and massive, which replaced the old entrance that had been battered down by a cannon. The Earl of Northampton’s banner, the lion and stars, flew from the gatehouse and from the keep, but everyone knew that it was Thomas of Hookton, le Bâtard, who had taken the castle. It was the base from which his Hellequin could ride east and north into enemy country.
‘The count will try again,’ Levonne warned Thomas, ‘and Labrouillade might help him next time.’
‘And not just Labrouillade,’ Thomas said grimly.
‘You’ve made new enemies?’ Father Levonne asked with mock scorn. ‘I am astonished.’
Thomas gazed up at the crucifix. The church of Saint Sardos had been poor when he first captured the town, but now it glittered with wealth. The saints’ statues were newly painted and hung with semi-precious beads. The Virgin wore a crown of silver. The candlesticks and vessels on the altar were silver and gilt; the walls glowed with pictures of Saint Sardos, Saint Agnes, and the final judgement. Thomas had paid for it all, just as he had paid to decorate the other two churches in the town. ‘I’ve made new enemies,’ he said, still gazing at the blood-spattered Christ on his gilt-bronze cross, ‘but first, father, tell me what saint kneels in a cleared patch of snow?’
‘In a cleared patch of snow?’ Father Levonne asked, amused, then saw that Thomas was serious. ‘Saint Eulalia, perhaps?’
‘Eulalia?’ Thomas asked.
‘She was persecuted,’ Father Levonne said, ‘and her tormentors threw her naked into the street to shame her, but the Blessed Lord sent a snowstorm to cover her nakedness.’
‘No,’ Thomas said, ‘this was a man, and the snow seemed to avoid him.’
‘Saint Wenceslaus then? The king? We’re told the snow melted where he walked.’
‘This was a monk,’ Thomas said, ‘and in the picture I saw he’s kneeling on the gras
s and there’s snow all around him, but none on him.’
‘Where was this picture ?’
Thomas told him of meeting the Pope in Avignon’s Salle des Herses, and of the old painting on the wall there. ‘The man wasn’t alone,’ he said, ‘there’s another monk watching from a cottage, and Saint Peter is handing him a sword.’
‘Ah,’ Father Levonne said in an oddly regretful tone, ‘Peter’s sword.’
Thomas frowned at the priest’s tone. ‘You make it sound evil. Is the sword bad?’
Father Levonne ignored the question. ‘You say you met the Holy Father? How was he?’
‘Frail,’ Thomas said, ‘and very gracious.’
‘We’re asked to pray for his health,’ the priest said, ‘which I do. He’s a good man.’
‘He hates us,’ Thomas said, ‘the English.’
Father Levonne smiled. ‘As I said, he’s a good man.’ He laughed, then looked serious again. ‘It isn’t surprising,’ he said carefully, ‘that a painting of Peter’s sword should be in the Holy Father’s palace. Perhaps it just means that the papacy has abandoned the use of the sword? A picture to demonstrate that we must give up our weapons if we are to be holy?’
Thomas shook his head. ‘It’s a story, father. Why else would another monk be watching from a cottage? Why the cleared snow? Pictures tell stories!’ He pointed at the church walls. ‘Why do we put these paintings here? To tell the unlettered the stories we want them to know.’
‘Then I don’t know that story,’ Father Levonne said, ‘though I have heard of Peter’s sword.’ He made the sign of the cross.
‘In the picture,’ Thomas said, ‘the sword had a thick upper blade. More like a falchion.’
‘La Malice,’ Father Levonne said very quietly.
Thomas was silent for a few heartbeats. ‘The Seven Dark Lords possessed it,’ he quoted the verse that the Black Friars had been spreading through Christendom, ‘and they are cursed. He who must rule us will find it, and he shall be blessed.’
‘The sword of the fisherman,’ Father Levonne said. ‘It isn’t a sword, Thomas, but the sword. The sword that Saint Peter used to Christ’s displeasure, and because of that disapproval they say the blade is cursed.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I’ve told you all I know!’ Father Levonne said. ‘It’s only an old story, but the story says la Malice carries Christ’s curse in her blade and if that’s true then la Malice must be horribly powerful. Why else would the sword bear that name?’
‘And Cardinal Bessières searches for her,’ Thomas said.
Levonne looked sharply at Thomas. ‘Bessières?’
‘And he knows I look for her too.’
‘Oh dear God, but you choose powerful enemies, Thomas.’
Thomas climbed from his knees. ‘Bessières,’ he said, ‘is a devil’s turd.’
‘He’s a prince of the church,’ Levonne said in mild admonishment.
‘He’s a prince of turds,’ Thomas said, ‘and I killed his brother not a quarter-mile from here.’
‘And Bessières wants revenge?’
‘He doesn’t know who killed his brother. He knows me, though, and he’ll pursue me now because he thinks I know where la Malice is.’
‘Do you?’
‘No, but I let him think I knew.’ Thomas genuflected to the altar. ‘I dangled a bait in front of him, father. I invited him to pursue me.’
‘Why?’
Thomas sighed. ‘My liege lord,’ he said, meaning the Earl of Northampton, ‘wants me to find la Malice. And Bessières, I think, is looking for the same thing. The trouble is I don’t know how to find it, father, but I want to be close to Bessières in case he finds it before I do. Keep your enemies close, isn’t that good advice?’
‘La Malice is an idea, Thomas,’ Father Levonne said, ‘an idea to inspire the faithful. I doubt she exists at all.’
‘But she must have existed once,’ Thomas said, ‘and why is there a picture of Saint Peter giving the sword to a monk? That monk must have possessed it! So I need to know which saint is painted kneeling in a cleared patch of snow.’
‘God alone knows,’ Levonne said, ‘but I don’t. Maybe it’s a local saint? Like Sardos here.’ He waved at a wall painting of Saint Sardos, a goatherd, who was driving wolves away from the lamb of God. ‘I’d never heard of Sardos before I came here,’ the priest went on, ‘and I doubt anyone ten miles from here has ever heard of him! The world is full of saints, there are thousands! Every village has a saint no one else knows.’
‘Someone must know.’
‘A learned man, yes.’
‘I thought you were learned, father.’
Father Levonne smiled sadly. ‘I don’t know who your saint is, Thomas, but I do know that if your enemies come here then this town and its good people will be destroyed. Your enemies may not capture the castle, but the town can’t be defended for long.’
Thomas smiled. ‘I have forty-two men-at-arms, Father, and seventy-three archers.’
‘Not enough to hold the town walls.’
‘And Sir Henri Courtois commands the castle garrison. He won’t be beaten easily. And why would my enemies come here? La Malice isn’t here!’
‘The cardinal doesn’t know that. You risk the safety of all these good people,’ Father Levonne said, meaning the townsfolk.
‘Protecting these good people is my task and Sir Henri’s responsibility.’ Thomas spoke more harshly than he had intended. ‘You pray and I’ll fight, father. And I’ll search for la Malice. I’ll go south first.’
‘South? Why?’
‘To find a learned man, of course,’ Thomas said, ‘a man who knows all the stories.’
‘I have a feeling, Thomas,’ the priest said, ‘that la Malice is an evil thing. Remember what Christ said when Peter drew the sword.’
‘‘‘Put up your sword,”’ Thomas quoted.
‘That is a command from our Redeemer! To abandon our weapons. La Malice earned his displeasure, Thomas, so it should not be found, it should be destroyed.’
‘Destroyed?’ Thomas asked, then turned because hooves and the squeal of ungreased axles sounded loud in the street. ‘We can argue about this later, father,’ he said, and strode down the nave and pulled open the door to be dazzled by the spring sunshine. Pear blossom was white on the trees around the well where a dozen women watched a cumbersome four-wheeled wagon being dragged by six horses. A score of horsemen accompanied the wagon, all of them Thomas’s men except for two strangers. One of those strangers was wearing expensive plate armour beneath a short black jupon on which a white rose had been embroidered. His face was hidden by a tournament helmet that was crested with a black-dyed plume, and his horse, a war-destrier, was swathed in a striped cloth of black and white. He was accompanied by a servant who carried a banner with the same symbol of the white rose.
‘These buggers were waiting down the road.’ A mounted archer jerked a thumb at the strangers in their white rose livery. The archer, like the rest of the men who guarded the wagon, wore the Hellequin’s badge of the yale holding a cup. ‘There are eight of the bastards, but we said only two could come into the town.’
‘Thomas of Hookton,’ the rider wearing plate armour demanded, his voice muffled by the big helmet.
Thomas ignored the man. ‘How many barrels?’ he asked the archer, nodding at the wagon.
‘Thirty-four.’
‘Good Christ,’ Thomas said in disgust, ‘only thirty-four? We need a hundred and thirty-four!’
The archer shrugged. ‘Seems the bloody Scots have broken the truce. The king needs every arrow in England.’
‘He’ll lose Gascony if he doesn’t send arrows,’ Thomas said.
‘Thomas of Hookton!’ The rider kicked his horse closer to Thomas.
Thomas still ignored him. ‘Did you have any problems on the road, Simon?’ he asked the archer.
‘None at all.’
Thomas walked past the rider to the big wagon and hauled himself up onto
the bed where he used the hilt of his knife to knock off a barrel lid. Inside were arrows. They were stacked fairly loosely to make sure the feathers of the fledging did not become distorted or else the arrows would not fly true. Thomas pulled a couple free and sighted down their ash shafts. ‘They look well enough made,’ he said grudgingly.
‘We loosed a couple of dozen,’ Simon said, ‘and they flew straight.’
‘Are you Thomas of Hookton?’ The knight of the white rose had pushed his destrier close to the wagon.
‘I’ll talk to you when I’m ready,’ Thomas said in French, then spoke in English again. ‘Cords, Simon?’
‘Whole sack of them.’
‘Good,’ Thomas said, ‘but only thirty-four barrels?’ One of his constant worries was the supply of arrows for his feared longbowmen. He could provide new bows in Castillon d’Arbizon because the local yew trees were good enough to be fashioned into the long war staves, and Thomas, like a half-dozen of his men, was a proficient enough bowyer, but no one knew how to make English arrows. They looked simple enough: an ashwood shaft tipped by a steel head and flighted by the feathers of a goose; but there were no pollarded ash trees near the town, and the smiths could not fashion the needle-sharp bodkin heads that could pierce armour, and no one knew how to bind and glue the feathers. A good archer could shoot fifteen shafts in a minute, and in any skirmish Thomas’s men could loose ten thousand in ten minutes, and though some arrows could be reused, many were destroyed by fighting, and so Thomas was forced to buy replacements from the hundreds of thousands that were shipped from Southampton to Bordeaux and then distributed to the English garrisons that protected King Edward’s lands in Gascony. Thomas put the lid back on the barrel. ‘This lot should last us a couple of months,’ he said, ‘but God knows we’ll need more.’ He looked at the rider. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Roland de Verrec,’ the man said. He spoke French with a Gascon accent.
‘I’ve heard of you,’ Thomas said, which was hardly surprising because Roland de Verrec’s name was spoken with awe throughout Europe. There was no finer tournament fighter. And, of course, there was the legend of his virginity, imposed by a vision of the Virgin Mary. ‘You want to join the Hellequin?’ Thomas asked.
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