1356 (Special Edition)

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Because it belongs to your brother?’ Thomas guessed.

  ‘I wish it did, sire, but it’s owned by my cousin.’

  Thomas laughed, threw the man a coin, and rode under the high arch. The sound of his horse’s hooves echoed from the buildings, the bell tolled steadily and Thomas rode towards the church of Saint Peter, besieged suddenly by the fecal stench of a city. A man in a red and blue tunic and carrying a trumpet with the banner of the Virgin dangling from its pipes ran past the horses. ‘I’m late!’ he called to Thomas.

  The men guarding the gates began to swing them shut. ‘You’ll have to wait till morning!’ they called to the carters.

  ‘Wait,’ another guard called. He had seen eight riders crossing the cleared ground, their horses’ hooves kicking up puffs of ash and dust as they hurried towards the city. ‘Some bloody lord or other,’ the guard grumbled. One of the riders unfurled a banner to show that they came on noble business. The flag displayed a green horse on a white background, though the leading rider had a black jupon that carried the badge of a white rose. All eight horsemen wore mail and carried weapons. ‘Make way for them!’ the guard shouted at the carters.

  ‘If you’re going to let them in,’ a carter who had a load of firewood pleaded, ‘then why not us?’

  ‘Because you’re scum and they’re not,’ the guard said, then bowed to the riders, who clattered through the arch. ‘I have business here,’ the leader of the riders explained to the guards, who demanded no further explanation, but just slammed the big gates closed and dropped the bar into its brackets. ‘My thanks,’ the leader of the riders said, and rode on into the city.

  Roland de Verrec had come to Montpellier.

  Five

  ‘The proposition,’ Doctor Lucius bellowed loud enough for his words to be heard by the fish in the Mediterranean six miles to the south of Montpellier, ‘is that a child who dies unbaptised is thereby condemned to the endless torments of hell, to the eternal fires of perdition, and to separation from God for ever with all the pain, agony, remorse, regret and tribulation that this doom entails. My question: is this proposition true?’

  No one answered.

  Doctor Lucius, who wore an ink-stained white gown of the Dominican order, glared at his cowed students. Thomas had been told that the Dominican was the cleverest man in all Montpellier’s university and so had come with Brother Michael to the doctor’s lecture hall, which, to Thomas’s eyes, appeared to be a hastily constructed chamber made by roofing over a small cloister of the Monastery of Saint Simeon. The good weather had vanished overnight to be replaced by low angry clouds from which the rain fell to drip through the ill-laid tiles of the lecture hall’s roof. Doctor Lucius was sitting on a platform, behind a dais, while facing him were three rows of benches on which a score of dull-faced students slumped in robes of black or dark blue.

  Doctor Lucius stroked his beard. It was a massive beard, falling to the frayed rope belted about his waist. ‘Are we dull-witted?’ he demanded of his students. ‘Are we asleep? Did we drink too much of the grape last night? Some of you, God help His holy church, will become priests. You will have a flock to care for, and among that flock will be women whose infants will die before they receive the sacrament of baptism. The mother, tearful and eager for your comfort, will ask whether her infant has been received into the company of the saints, and what will your answer be?’ Doctor Lucius waited for a response, but none came. ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ the doctor snarled, ‘one of you must have an answer.’

  ‘Yes,’ a young man with a scruffy black student’s cap from which long black hair fell half over his face answered.

  ‘Ah! Master Keane is awake!’ Doctor Lucius cried. ‘He has not travelled all this way from Ireland to no purpose, God be thanked. Why, Master Keane, will you tell the grieving mother that her dead infant is in paradise?’

  ‘Because if I tell her it’s in hell, doctor, she’ll go on bawling and crying and there’s few things worse than a wailing woman. Best just to get rid of her by telling the poor creature what she wishes to hear.’

  Doctor Lucius’s mouth twitched, perhaps in amusement. ‘So you do not care, Master Keane, about the truth of the proposition, only that you will be spared the sound of a woman weeping? You would not think it a priest’s duty to comfort the woman?’

  ‘By telling the poor thing that her wee babe has gone to hell? Jesus, no! And if she was comely I’d certainly be wanting to offer her comfort.’

  ‘Your charity knows no bounds,’ Doctor Lucius said sourly, ‘but let us return to the proposition. Is it, or is it not, true? Anyone?’

  A pale young man whose cap and gown were spotless cleared his throat, and most of the other students groaned. The pale boy, skinny as a starved rat, was plainly the assiduous student whose achievements belittled the efforts of the rest of the class. ‘Saint Augustine,’ he said, ‘teaches us that God will not remit the sins of any but the baptised.’

  ‘Ergo?’ Doctor Lucius asked.

  ‘Therefore,’ the young man said in a precise voice, ‘the child is condemned to hell because it was born containing sin.’

  ‘So we have our answer?’ Doctor Lucius enquired. ‘Upon the authority of Master de Beaufort,’ the pale boy smiled and tried to look modest, ‘and of the blessed Saint Augustine. Do we all agree? Can we now move on to discuss the cardinal virtues?’

  ‘How can a baby go to hell?’ Master Keane asked, disgusted. ‘What has it done to deserve that?’

  ‘It was born of a woman,’ the student called de Beaufort answered sternly, ‘and lacking the sacrament of baptism the child is doomed to suffer for the guilt of the sin it thereby contains.’

  ‘Master de Beaufort cuts to the quick of the argument, does he not?’ Doctor Lucius suggested to the Irish student.

  ‘God is not commanded by the sacraments,’ Thomas interjected, speaking, like everyone else, in Latin.

  There was silence as everyone turned to look at the stranger who leaned, dark and hard-faced, against a pillar at the cloister’s edge. ‘And who have we here?’ Doctor Lucius asked. ‘I trust you have paid to attend my teaching?’

  ‘I’m here to say that Master de Beaufort is full of shit,’ Thomas said, ‘and does not understand or has not read the teachings of Aquinas, who assures us God is not bound by the sacraments. God, not Master de Beaufort, will decide the baby’s fate, and Saint Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that a child born to a couple of whom one parent is a pagan is holy to God. And Saint Augustine, in The City of God, declared that the parents of the dead child could find a way to redeem its soul.’

  ‘Could, not would,’ yapped de Beaufort.

  ‘You are a priest?’ Doctor Lucius ignored de Beaufort and asked the question of Thomas, who was swathed in a black cloak.

  ‘I’m a soldier,’ Thomas said. He let the cloak fall slightly open to reveal his mail.

  ‘And you?’ Doctor Lucius demanded of Brother Michael, who had backed into one of the old cloister arches in an effort to dissociate himself from Thomas. The young monk was unhappy being anywhere near the university and seemed to be sulking. ‘Are you with him?’ Doctor Lucius asked Brother Michael, gesturing at Thomas.

  Brother Michael looked flustered. ‘I’m looking for the School of Medicine,’ he stammered.

  ‘The bone-setters and piss-sniffers give their lectures in Saint Stephen’s.’ Master de Beaufort sniggered as the doctor looked back to Thomas. ‘A soldier who speaks Latin!’ the Dominican said in mock admiration, ‘God be praised, but it seems the age of miracles has returned. Shouldn’t you be killing someone?’

  ‘I’ll get around to that,’ Thomas said, ‘after I’ve asked you a question.’

  ‘And once you have paid for my answer,’ Doctor Lucius retorted, ‘but for the moment,’ he now gestured for the attention of his students, ‘though I have no doubt our visitor,’ he waved an inky hand towards Thomas, ‘wins his arguments on the field of battle by brute force, he is entirely wrong in this
matter. An unbaptised baby is doomed to the endless torments of hell, and Master de Beaufort will now demonstrate why. Stand, Master de Beaufort, and enlighten us.’

  The pale scholar jumped to his feet. ‘Man,’ he said confidently, ‘is made in the image of God, but woman is not. The laws of the church are clear on that distinction. I cite the Corpus Iuris Canonici in support of that contention.’ But before he could recite the church law there were heavy footsteps in the open corridor outside, and de Beaufort’s voice dribbled to nothing as six armed and armoured men came through the arch into the lecture room. They were dressed in mail haubergeons over which they had jupons with the image of the seated Virgin, and all were carrying spears and wearing helmets. They were followed by two men in the blue and rose robes of Montpellier’s consuls, the city’s governors, and then by a man wearing the badge of the white rose: Roland de Verrec.

  ‘You interrupt us,’ Doctor Lucius said indignantly, but in Latin so that none of the newcomers understood him.

  ‘That is him.’ Roland de Verrec ignored the doctor and pointed at Thomas. ‘Arrest him now!’

  ‘For what?’ Doctor Lucius used French this time. He was hardly defending Thomas by the question, instead he was defending his dignity, which had been affronted by the arrival of the armed men, and he was trying to establish his authority in the lecture room.

  ‘For the abduction of another man’s lawful wife,’ Roland de Verrec answered, ‘and for the worse crime of heresy. He is excommunicate, outlawed from the church and hated by men. His name is Thomas of Hookton and I demand he now be given into my custody.’ He gestured for the armed men to capture Thomas.

  Who swore under his breath and took two steps backwards. He seized Brother Michael, who was still gawking at the newcomers. Thomas had left his sword with Genevieve, for he would have been forbidden entrance to the monastery if he had arrived armed, but he had a short knife at his belt and he drew it, put his left arm around Brother Michael’s neck and the point of the knife against his throat. Brother Michael made a strangulated noise that checked the city guards. ‘Go back,’ Thomas told them, ‘or I kill the monk.’

  ‘If you surrender peaceably,’ Roland de Verrec told Thomas, ‘I shall plead with the Count of Labrouillade to treat you leniently.’ He paused, as if expecting Thomas to lower the blade. ‘Take him,’ he ordered the guards when the knife stayed at Brother Michael’s throat.

  ‘You want him dead?’ Thomas shouted. He tightened his grip on the young monk’s throat, provoking a terrified whimper.

  ‘A reward to the man who takes him,’ Roland de Verrec announced, stepping forward himself. The thought of a reward excited the students, who had been gazing wide-eyed at the sudden drama that had enlivened their theology lecture. They gave a roar like hunters seeing their prey close, and kicked over the benches in their hurry to capture Thomas.

  ‘He’s dead!’ Thomas bellowed, and the students stopped, fearing that the monk’s blood would suddenly spurt. ‘Tell Genevieve,’ Thomas whispered in Brother Michael’s ear, ‘to join Karyl.’ Genevieve, barred by her gender from entering the monastery, had stayed at the tavern with Hugh, Galdric and the two men-at-arms.

  ‘Jesus God, save me!’ Brother Michael gasped, and Thomas let go with his left arm and thrust the monk violently forward into the press of students, then ran left into another open corridor. The pursuers roared again, whooping and bellowing. Doctor Lucius shouted for order, but in vain, and Thomas heard the footsteps, saw a door to his right and slammed it open. A lavatorium! Three monks were at stool, perched on stone benches that ran down the sides of the stinking room, which had an arched door at its far end. The monks gaped at Thomas, but dared not move, and Thomas seized one by the beard and spilled him, naked arse, filth and all, across the floor. He did the same to a second one and ran on to the room’s far end. Pursuers crowded into the lavatorium, tripped over the fallen monk, and Thomas was through the door. No bolt to lock it shut. A passageway stretched ahead with doors on either side. Monks’ cells? He ran hard, cursing the old wound in his leg that meant he was not as fast as he used to be, but he was managing to stay ahead of his pursuers. He burst through a further door with a bolt on the wrong side. Through that into what seemed to be a laundry room with big stone bowls, jugs and heaps of robes. He spilt robes on the floor, pushed through a further door and was in a small enclosed herb garden. No one there and no way out except the door he had just used, and men were shouting in the passage, they were close, too close. It was raining harder. A high wall barred one side of the garden and Thomas jumped, took hold of the coping and used his huge archer’s muscles to haul himself up. He kicked up a leg, straddled the wall, stood and ran along the wide coping to where the wall joined a sloping tiled roof. Men spilt into the herb garden as he climbed the roof. The rain made the tiles slippery and he flailed for a few heartbeats before scrambling up to the ridge. ‘He’s there!’ the Irishman Keane shouted enthusiastically. ‘Going towards the kitchens!’

  Thomas ripped a tile from the roof and hurled it down at the students, then another. Keane swore vilely, ducked, and then Thomas was on the roof ridge, running, lost to sight, but he could hear the students whooping and shouting, released to the joy of the hunt. Chasing an heretical Englishman was far more enjoyable than discussing the four cardinal virtues or the necessity of infant baptism.

  A crossbow bolt whipped past Thomas, and he looked left to see a man in the city’s livery reloading a weapon on the scaffolding about a church. Damn. He sat on the ridge, then slid down the roof’s greasy slope until his feet crashed hard into a small stone parapet. ‘He’s on the refectory!’ a man shouted. Thomas ripped another tile free and hurled it far and high, through the rain and over the roof to fall wherever it might. He heard it crash home, heard the clatter of shards. ‘Other way!’ a voice called. ‘He’s on the chapter house!’ A bell started to toll, then another joined in, and Thomas heard feet on the roof beyond the ridge. He looked left and right, saw no easy escape, and so peered cautiously over the low stone parapet. There was another garden beneath him, a small one, thick with fruit trees. ‘Go left!’ a voice shouted somewhere behind him.

  ‘No, he went this way!’ It was the Irish student, Keane, and he sounded very sure of himself. ‘This way!’ he bellowed, ‘I saw the bastard!’

  Thomas listened as the noise of the pursuit faded. Keane was taking them in entirely the wrong direction, yet even so Thomas was not out of danger. He had to find a way off the rooftops and so he decided to risk the small garden. He swung his legs over the parapet and sat there, hesitant because it was a long drop, then reckoned he had no choice. He jumped, thrashing through blossom and branches and wet leaves. He landed hard and was thrown forward onto his hands. There was a sharp pain in his right ankle so he stayed on all fours, listening to his pursuers, whose voices became fainter. Stay still, he thought. Stay still and let the hunters draw away. Wait.

  ‘This crossbow,’ the voice said very close behind him, ‘is aimed at your backside. It’s going to hurt you. So very much.’

  It had been a stroke of genius, Father Marchant thought, to choose the Abbey of Saint Denis as the place where the Order of the Fisherman would have their vigil and receive their solemn consecration. There, beneath the roof’s soaring stone vaults, under the evening light that glowed dust-rich through the glory of the stained-glass windows and before an altar heaped with golden vessels and lustrous with silver, the Knights of the Fisherman knelt to be blessed. A choir chanted, the melody seemed sad yet inspiring as the male voices rose and fell in the great abbey where the kings of France lay cold in their tombs and the oriflamme waited on the altar. The oriflamme was France’s war banner, the great red silken pennant that flew above the king when he went into battle. It was sacred. ‘It’s new,’ Arnoul d’Audrehem, a Marshal of France, growled to his companion, the Lord of Douglas. ‘The goddamned English captured the last one at Crécy. They’re probably wiping their arses with it now.’

  Douglas grunted for answe
r. He was watching his nephew kneeling at the altar with four other men, where Father Marchant, resplendent in robes of crimson and white, said a mass. ‘The Order of the bloody Fisherman,’ Douglas said sarcastically.

  ‘Rank nonsense, I agree,’ d’Audrehem said, ‘but a nonsense that might persuade the king to march south. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  ‘I came here to fight the English. I want to march south and thrash the goddamned bastards.’

  ‘The king is nervous,’ d’Audrehem said, ‘and he looks for a sign. Perhaps these Knights of the Fisherman will convince him?’

  ‘He’s nervous?’

  ‘Of English arrows.’

  ‘I’ve told you, they can be beaten.’

  ‘By fighting on foot?’ D’Audrehem sounded sceptical. He was in his fifties, old in war, a hard man with short grey hair and a jaw misshapen from the blow of a mace. He had known Douglas a long time, ever since, as a young man, d’Audrehem had campaigned in Scotland. He still shuddered at the memory of that cold, far land, at the thought of its food, its raw and comfortless castles, its bogs and crags and mists and moors, yet if he disliked the country he had nothing but admiration for its people. The Scots, he had told King Jean, were the finest fighters in Christendom, ‘If indeed they are in Christendom, sire.’

  ‘They’re pagan?’ the king had asked anxiously.

  ‘No, sire, it is just that they live on the world’s edge and they fight like demons to keep from falling off.’

  And now two hundred of the demons were here in France, desperate for a chance to fight against their old enemy. ‘We should be back in Scotland,’ Douglas grumbled to d’Audrehem. ‘I hear the truce is broken. We can kill the English there.’

  ‘King Edward,’ d’Audrehem said calmly, ‘recaptured Berwick, the war is over, the English won. The truce is reinstated.’

  ‘God damn Edward,’ Douglas said.