Warlord oc-4

by Angus Donald

  My thirst had only partially been assuaged by the time the buckets had been scraped clean. I retook my place against the wall, reflecting gloomily that if I did not get out of here soon I would not last long. On only a couple of mouthfuls of soggy bread a day, I would lose my strength in a few weeks. Then I would be the one to be plucked from the wall and beaten and kicked to death by a still-powerful newcomer.

  The ancient yoke-men retrieved their empty wooden buckets an hour later, and all the prisoners settled down for the day. I dozed a little that morning myself, leaning against the wall, my buttocks and legs submerged in filth, and wondered what my friends were doing. Hanno and Thomas knew that I was in that stinking midden of death and I was certain that they would be striving to secure my release. There was still plenty of money at the Widow Barbette’s house, if some sort of surety was needed, and surely if approached by Brother Michel or Sir Aymeric de St Maur, or even by my squire Thomas, the Provost could be persuaded to set me free in exchange for a generous contribution to his private coffers.

  At about noon, the door of the cell opened, and in the bright sunlight that flooded the dim cell, I could see the hulking shape of a man. He was tall and well-made with broad shoulders and a mane of dark hair, and he was not, as I had been, hurled down the steps by the gaolers to sprawl on to the floor of the cell; he descended slowly, cautiously, on short, muscular legs. The door slammed behind him, but in the light from the barred window I could see his face clearly for the first time: unshaven with brutish features, cunning eyes, and several whitish scars around the jaw.

  ‘That is Guillaume du Bois,’ Michael whispered in my ear. ‘I never thought they would take him alive: he is a bandit from the wild woods south of Paris, a killer, and the leader of a gang of cut-throats. He is a man to be feared.’

  This Guillaume stood, so far as he was able, in the centre of the cell, his big head sunk on his shoulders and thrust forward, turning this way and that. He was scanning the faces in that dim place intently — he seemed to be looking for someone. His flat glaze slid over my face and moved on to Michael’s beside me — and I heard my comrade draw in a quick frightened breath — but the big man’s head carried on turning, as his questing continued. Then it stopped and his gaze returned along the line of faces against the wall — to me. He fixed his eyes on me and I stared straight back at him. I knew full well what was going to happen next.

  ‘You,’ said Guillaume, in a rough, guttural accent that was barely French at all. ‘You are in my place.’

  And the big man reached down to his boot and pulled out a broad knife.

  I had my legs underneath me by that point but I stopped myself from diving at him — he would have gutted me like a fish. Instead, I half-stood and took a step towards him — and swayed to the right just in time as his blade plunged towards my belly. His right arm passed through the space between my ribs and my left arm, and I clamped his forearm with my elbow against my waist, and curled my left hand around to grasp his upper arm — so trapping his right arm and knife immobile against my body. My right hand had been moving at the same time, and I plunged a hard index finger into his left eye, and felt a popping squelch that caused him to scream with rage and pain. He wrestled his knife arm free, and roaring, his left hand cupping his damaged eye, he slashed at me again with the blade, and I pulled back to avoid its slice. Then he stabbed again, lunging forward with his right leg, like a swordsman, and I moved with him, forward and left, dodging the strike, my weight on my right leg. I lifted my left leg chest high and stamped down as hard as I could on the inside of his forward right knee, pushing the joint outwards, dislocating it with a brisk pop, and causing him to splash screaming to the cell floor, half-turned away from me. I punched down hard, using all the weight of my shoulders, and smashed my fist into the back of his neck. There was a muted crack and a bolt of agony shot up my wrist: but he flopped down face-first into the filth, and I was on him as fast as a hunting weasel. Both my knees crashed into his back, with my full weight behind them, pinning him to the cell floor. I punched him again, hard in the back of the neck — and then leaned my left forearm on the base of his skull, grabbed a handful of greasy hair with my right hand, and kept his face firmly pressed into the slurry on the floor. His knife was lost, but his arms flailed wildly about him as I bore down with my full strength, mashing his head into the six inches of liquid sewage that covered the stone floor. He wriggled and kicked, but I held him there. He gave one last desperate heave that nearly unseated me, but I kept my place, my fifteen stones of weight between his shoulder blades — and his mouth and nose below the stinking surface.

  Finally, he moved no more.

  When I was certain he was dead, I scrabbled around in the slurry and found the knife. Tucking it in belt, my chest still heaving, my right hand a blur of agony, I retook my place against the wall and offered up a long-overdue prayer to Almighty God, St Michael and all the other saints who, between them, once again had preserved me from the wrath of my enemies.

  The door crashed open; again light flooded the cell and two of the Provost’s men-at-arms stood in the doorway.

  ‘Which of you is Sir Alan Dale?’ said one of the guards.

  I lifted my aching right hand.

  ‘You have been called,’ he said, looking at me doubtfully. ‘Will you come with us peacefully, or must we come down there and bind you?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I stumbled out of that cell, dripping, stinking, half-blinded by the daylight, I was astonished to find that the first person I saw was Roland d’Alle.

  ‘Good day to you, cousin,’ he said.

  I squinted at him, and then I saw that beyond this knight, who had just publicly acknowledged our kinship, were the familiar figures of Thomas and Hanno. The Bavarian was grinning like a gargoyle, and Thomas was frowning and holding out a large blue cloak for me to wear. I waved my young squire and his voluminous cloak away. And ignoring the insincere offer of a supporting arm from Roland, I walked, head high, out of the arched gates of the Grand Chastelet and a dozen yards to the right by the river bank.

  ‘Wait here,’ I said, and fumbling at the linen belt that secured my braies, and the ties that kept up my hose, I walked down the earthen bank and plunged into the river.

  If I had spent a week in the Seine, scrubbing my body raw with soap and a stiff brush, I don’t think I would have felt truly clean, but after I had removed shoes, hose, braies and chemise — and let them float away downstream, and splashed and washed as best I could in the cold, brownish water, I did feel a little better. And, wrapped in Thomas’s large cloak and naked as a baby underneath, I walked barefoot up the Rue St-Denis, and explained to Roland and my men what I thought had happened in the gaol.

  It all came out in a gabbling, barely intelligible rush, for I was feeling the mind-spinning effects now of my dance with Death. ‘It was another attempt to murder me — obviously. The “man you cannot refuse”, the Master, or whatever you want to call him — my enemy — that bastard — he sent a bandit called Guillaume in there with orders to kill me. That fucking bastard. He had Fulk murdered to stop him helping me, then had me arrested, and while I was in that hellish hole, he sent in a man to kill me, with a fucking knife. Of course he did. The cunning bastard. And if he killed Fulk, it means that Fulk’s theory about the Grail is correct. It must be right. Don’t you see, it must be!’

  ‘The what?’ said Roland. Thomas and Hanno were looking puzzled, too. And I realized that I had not yet had the chance to explain poor Master Fulk’s idea to them.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Never mind about that for the moment,’ I said. ‘How did you get me out of there?’

  ‘When we saw where they had taken you, we went first of all to the episcopal palace to enlist Brother Michel’s help,’ said Thomas. ‘But he was not there — the servants said that he had been suddenly called away that morning to the Abbey of St Victor to attend Bishop de Sully.’

  ‘So then they came to see me,’ said Roland ch
eerfully. ‘The Seigneur called on the Provost of Paris — they are old friends, of course — they had a quiet chat, a little silver changed hands, and the Provost dispatched me with a docket for your release. Quite simple really.’

  ‘I am most grateful to you… Cousin,’ I said.

  And I was. Roland and his father had pulled me out of that stinking hell of a gaol; they had undoubtedly saved my life — and for that I would be for ever in their debt.

  We arrived soon enough at the Seigneur’s big house, and I had no sooner washed myself thoroughly again, and finished dressing myself in Roland’s spare clothes, when the Lady d’Alle came in. We were in Roland’s small chamber at the top of the building, and I had been telling an admiring audience of Hanno, Thomas and Roland how I had defeated Guillaume with my bare fists, when the lady of the house entered. ‘Are you well, Alan?’ she said, full of concern. She was even lovelier than I had remembered.

  I told her I was unharmed — and did not bother to mention that I feared I had broken the third finger on my right hand, which Hanno had strapped tightly to the little one beside it.

  ‘Such an awful place; such awful people — it is a miracle that you survived it.’

  ‘It might appear so, my lady,’ I said. ‘But it was in truth a miracle wrought by your family.’

  There was a slight pause, and the lady said: ‘The Seigneur has asked me to tell you that he would very much like to speak with you downstairs when you are fully restored to your comforts.’

  ‘I will be down directly,’ I said. ‘But first I would like to have a word with you in private, if I may be so bold.’

  When Hanno, Thomas and Roland had left the room, I said: ‘My lady, I owe you an apology. When you told me about your, um, friendship with my father, I confess I was angry with you. But I now see that I was wrong: love is a strange madness, sometimes a curse, sometimes a blessing, but it is not ours to command. I also believe that it is an affliction that comes from God and His son Jesus Christ, and so must be honoured even when it seems destructive.’

  ‘Do you forgive me, then?’

  ‘With all my heart,’ I said, and she stepped forward and took my hands in hers.

  I could see that her eyes were wet, but she smiled at me and said: ‘Then all is well.’

  The Seigneur greeted me gruffly, self-consciously in the downstairs chamber and gave me a cup of wine and began reciting a little speech that he had obviously spent some time preparing.

  ‘I think you are an honourable man, Sir Alan,’ he began, staring hard at the floor between us. ‘And doubtless a brave and puissant knight. And I do not believe that you seek anything from my family except that which you demanded at our last meeting. I apologize for my rudeness — I was… in a bad humour, and suspicious of your intentions, but by your conduct then and since, I am satisfied that you mean me and the members of my family no harm. Therefore I must say this…’ He cleared his throat, and lifted his gaze to my face.

  ‘I formally acknowledge you as my nephew, the son of my brother Henri, whom I once loved. And while you are in Paris under a flag of truce you are also under my personal protection.’ He gave me a small, chilly smile before continuing: ‘But, as God is my witness, you are also an enemy, a knight who is bound to King Richard, the mortal foe of my King, and if there comes a day when this truce is over and we must face each other on the battlefield, on that day I shall treat you as I would any other enemy knight. Is that understood?’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ I said.

  ‘But until that sad day arrives, Nephew, you are a welcome guest in my house.’ And the old warrior almost crushed my chest as he embraced me in his powerful arms.

  We dined together then, the Seigneur, Roland, Adele and myself — and I told them a little of my father’s life in England, and of his death, and I recounted my quest so far to find the ‘man you cannot refuse’. The Seigneur became grave when I mentioned the name of my enemy. ‘I have heard of this man,’ my uncle said. ‘I have heard the Provost speak of someone who goes by that ugly title. He is said to have the wealth of Crassus and to command the loyalty of a number of gangs of bandits and thieves in the wild lands in the south of the Ile de France.’

  ‘The man I killed in the Grand Chastelet — Guillaume du Bois — he was one such bandit,’ I said. Uncle Thibault’s information seemed to confirm what I had suspected: that the ‘man you cannot refuse’ had sent Guillaume into that stinking cell with specific orders to kill me.

  ‘There are other stories about this “man you cannot refuse” — strange tales that tell of his possession of a magical relic that makes him all-powerful, impervious to death, impossible to kill,’ said the Seigneur, ‘although I doubt there is any truth in them.’

  ‘I am not so sure,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine, now with God and the angels, suggested something similar recently.’

  ‘I can easily see why he has claimed that title: the “man you cannot refuse”,’ said Roland. ‘It is rather dashing — mysterious, commanding, awe-inspiring… And with the degree of wealth that he is rumoured to have, he could buy whatever he wishes, or if his demands were ignored, enforce his will with his bandit-rascals or these knightly assassins that you spoke of before. Truly he is a “man you cannot refuse”. And having a supernatural gew-gaw only adds to the impression of awe he is trying to create, I suppose.’

  ‘So what will you do next?’ asked Adele, fixing me with her lovely green eyes. As she spoke to me, I could see the Seigneur gazing at her with quiet, complete adoration.

  ‘Well, I must speak with Bishop de Sully — no matter how enfeebled he is. And so I will be visiting the Abbey of St Victor as soon as I can arrange it.’

  ‘If there is any way in which I can be of assistance — I have a handful of loyal men-at-arms, a little money, some useful connections

  …’ said the Seigneur.

  I smiled at my uncle: ‘That is most kind, sir,’ I said. ‘And I thank you for your offer from the bottom of my heart. But I am merely planning to pay a brief visit to a sick old man.’

  There are some decisions that a man makes which he must live with, for good or ill, for the rest of his life. One such was my decision to take Hanno with me when we set off two days later, for the Abbey of St Victor. It was early morning when we left, and Hanno had come home late the night before after visiting his ale-wife, and he was sleepy and more than a little hungover on that fateful morn. For a few moments, I considered leaving him behind with Thomas at the Widow Barbette’s house, and going alone to St Victor’s. A part of me said that I was merely going to see an invalid — and what need could I possibly have of a bodyguard in a House of God? Another part of me whispered that there had been three attempts on my life in the past three months, and the ‘man you cannot refuse’, if he discovered my plans, might well try to prevent me meeting the venerable Bishop. In the end, I waited while he had splashed his face, drunk a pint of watered ale and collected his weapons, and we rode off together. It was a decision I have weighed many times since then.

  We headed south-east, just Hanno and myself, he on his palfrey, I on my courser, making our way along the southern bank of the River Bievre beyond the boundaries of Paris for less than a mile until we came to the high walls and stout gates of the Abbey. It was quiet and deeply peaceful out there, away from the bustle of the city streets and, as the fields outside the Abbey walls had been carefully cultivated by the canons over many years and sown with homely cabbages and leeks and onions, the whole area had a sleepy, village-like feel.

  We told the porter at the gate, a half-deaf canon who must have been eighty or even older, that we had come from the cathedral of Notre-Dame with an urgent message from the Dean for Bishop de Sully. As I had hoped, it was enough to get us inside the gates and the old man pointed out a path to follow that would lead us to the south of the Abbey where the Bishop had his apartments.

  The Abbey sprawled over a very large area; it had almost as wide a precinct as the Paris Temple, though of course it was much
older, and had filled the space within its walls with dozens of stone buildings, including a huge abbey-church in the centre, as well as scores of humbler wooden constructions. And inside the high walls, it was as busy as a small market town, and nearly as populous. Wide roads drove through the abbey in a cross-shaped formation, meeting at the centre, and were trod by canons, scholars, merchants, workmen and men-at-arms; several well-laden carts clopped along these thoroughfares too and a haze of dust hovered above them in shifting brown clouds. To the north of the Abbey where the River Bievre flowed towards the Seine, there was a broad wooden dock and two large ships were moored there unloading and loading goods. Clearly the Abbey was rich — and I could assume that old Bishop de Sully would not lack for material comforts in his final days.

  The Bishop’s lavish apartments, we were told by a passing canon, were tucked away in a secluded corner behind the abbey-church: they comprised a large stone house on two storeys, with outbuildings, a kitchen, a bakery, a private chapel for the Bishop’s use, and a big, square walled herb garden where food and medicines might be grown, which was surrounded by a well-swept path paved with flat yellow stones.