Warlord oc-4

by Angus Donald

  The chapel was small but stone-built, with the main door set in an arch at the western end, a font in the centre of the space and a large altar at the eastern end. On the altar was a huge golden cross, and set before that was a wooden box, slightly larger than a foot square, nestled on a vast purple velvet cushion. The box was of dark brown wood, polished with beeswax and seemed to be the centre of veneration on the altar. Beyond the altar, in the north-eastern corner of the chapel, I saw a wooden door, perhaps a discreet entrance for the priest, perhaps leading to a vestry or storeroom of some kind.

  The rest of the chapel was sparsely furnished, a couple of benches, pushed up against the far wall and the two impressive chairs that held Hanno and I captive — but it was filled with the most marvellous light, shafts of red, brown, blue and green, which streamed through a large stained-glass window directly opposite our chairs, in the southern wall of the chapel. The window occupied almost all the wall before our eyes, beginning perhaps four foot from the ground and soaring up to the high domed roof of the chapel sixteen feet above. It was about four foot wide and constructed of small coloured panes of glass held in place between delicate strips of lead. Perhaps inevitably, it depicted an image of Our Lady, cradling the infant Jesus and looking with deep compassion at the miserable mortal sinners huddled at her feet. It was breathtakingly beautiful, a masterpiece of light and colours; a true visual treasure. And I found that I could not look away. As the hours passed and the sunlight shifted, I grew mesmerized by that exquisite coloured image of Our Lady; I prayed to her, asking for her to intercede with Almighty God for my sins — for I felt certain that I would soon be meeting the Lord — and I vowed that I would be a better man if I managed to survive this encounter with the three-thumbed ‘man you cannot refuse’. I do not know if I slept or dreamed, but as time passed the face of Our Lady seemed to change — and began to resemble Goody, my beloved. I realized that I had not seen her in so many months, and I felt the absence like a void in my soul. A part of me wished that, instead of coming to Paris to track down this evil man who had ordered my father’s death, I had instead forsworn vengeance and gone home to Goody. Perhaps Robin had been right: if I had been content to let the matter lie, I might now be in Goody’s arms instead of anticipating my death like a bound pig awaiting the November slaughter, in a foreign land far from all those whom I loved.

  After three or perhaps four hours, Sir Eustace entered the chapel by the big door to my right. He stood in front of us, still wearing his amiable idiot’s grin, but his eyes, I noted, were cold black shards in his handsome face. His hand toyed with something that hung from the right-hand side of his belt.

  ‘You are a persistent fellow, Alan Dale,’ he said. These were the first words that he had uttered since capturing us in the garden. ‘Persistent even for a gutter-born busybody who can’t keep his nose out of better men’s affairs.’

  I said nothing but looked down at the object he was toying with at his belt. It was a weapon of some kind, unlike any I’d ever come across. A wooden handle in the shape of the capital letter T protruded from a broad leather scabbard about eight inches long. His blunt fingers stroked the horizontal crosspiece of the handle as he spoke.

  ‘You were warned to leave well alone, and by your liege lord, no less, your superior before God, but you refused to listen to him,’ he said, his words humming with anger. And I thought: Robin — he knows that Robin told me to drop my enquiries. This angry moron and the three-thumbed freak, and the rest of the murderous Knights of Our Lady, are all acquainted with Robin, and their relationship is such that they can ask Robin to tell me not to investigate my father’s death. A cold, black pit opened up in my stomach. But Sir Eustace was still speaking.

  ‘You were thoroughly warned, but you would not let it pass; and now we have all had enough of your meddling. You are a hard man to kill, I give you that, Dale, and you have the luck of the Devil in battle; but today your luck has run out. Today is the day that you will die. Today you will see the face of God.’

  Sir Eustace paused, and took a gulp of air; he had worked himself up into some sort of state, and was trying unsuccessfully to control himself. When he spoke again it was in short panting breaths. ‘But you are blessed, too; more blessed than you deserve or than you can imagine. Your death will be swift and painless; and your Salvation will be assured.’

  He stopped. I said nothing, but Hanno then spoke.

  ‘You talk too much,’ said my bold Bavarian. ‘When you have some killing to do, you don’t talk — you kill. Only a fool talks before he strikes. But you, you are a talking fool. Talk, talk, talk. I will tell you this for nothing, talky fool: you threaten us, you’d better kill us good while you have the chance, because when I get out of this God-damned chair, I am going to rip out your cowardly liver and choke you with it. That will stop your talky mouth!’

  The fury on Sir Eustace’s face was now obvious: he pulled out the strange weapon from its sheath and brandished it in front of our faces. ‘You see this, you sacrilegious scum! You see this,’ he was shouting, and I felt a speck of his hot spittle graze my cheek. I stared at his weapon; truly I had never seen its like before. It was the head of a broad-headed lance, an elongated diamond shape about two inches across at its widest point and tapering to a wicked needle tip. The iron of the lance head looked ancient, pitted here and there, but had clearly been well cared for and burnished brightly. In the socket where the long shaft would once have been fitted was a stubby wooden T-shaped handle, approximately four inches long, fitting the lance-head socket snugly. Sir Eustace gripped the wooden crossbar in his palm, and made a fist, so that the lance head protruded from between his second and third fingers.

  ‘You see this!’ Sir Eustace bellowed, his words again accompanied by a storm of spittle. ‘This is the instrument of your deaths. And while you are not worthy to even look at it, by the mercy of the Blessed Virgin, and her son Our Lord, you shall receive death from it; and solely because of its sacred power, you shall be received into Heaven. This is the Holy Lance that pierced Our Saviour’s body on the Cross, this blade has been anointed with the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ! Christ’s holy blood…’

  Eustace had a light froth around his mouth now; his black eyes gleamed with madness. And while I stared mutely in hopeless fascination at the extraordinary object in my enemy’s hands, Hanno spoke.

  ‘Talk, talk, talk…’ he said. ‘That is all you can do, you talky fool…’

  Sir Eustace took two steps towards Hanno, his right fist lashed out like a bolt of lightning, and he punched the lance-dagger deep into Hanno’s chest. It was a single thrust, snake-fast and perfectly accurate, an inch to the left of the sternum, directly into my friend’s living heart.

  I heard the door opening to my left, and a voice from the east end of the chapel shouting: ‘Eustace, no! I told you to leave them be!’

  Sir Eustace stepped back, ripping the bloody lance-dagger free of Hanno’s punctured chest. Thick dark blood was bubbling from the wound. And I twisted my head to stare into my old friend’s eyes as he died. There was a slight smile on his lips, and he managed to utter one word, just a whisper, before his eyes rolled and he slumped unstrung against his bonds.

  The word was: ‘Perfect!’

  Something of myself died with Hanno that day. And the memory of his ugly, battered face and his proud final word, still makes my eyes prick and burn four decades later. But I console myself by thinking that Hanno died happy: no sane man wishes to die, but many a warrior I have known has spoken to me of the manner in which he would prefer to depart this earth. Usually, these men say ‘in battle, with a ring of enemy slain around me, like the heroes of old’ or something similar; but I think Hanno — who always strived for perfection in everything, and especially in the arts of war — would not have been dissatisfied by the manner of his passing. He was killed by a skilled enemy; by a man who must have made a considerable study of the perfect way to kill. I think that perhaps Hanno was content to die at his hand, and
may even have provoked him for that very purpose. But I pray that Sir Eustace was right, and that the Holy Lance did indeed have the power to confer entry into Heaven with its lethal punch. I also silently vowed that I would split Eustace’s cowardly heart one day, if God gave me the opportunity, and look in his eye while he died.

  Those were not my uppermost thoughts at the time, however. I was more concerned with my own demise. Sir Eustace stood before me as I sat there bound and helpless, the dripping lance-dagger in his hand and a killing gleam in his mad black eyes. He was breathing heavily, like a man who had just run a race. And I was certain that nothing would restrain him from plunging that blade into my breast.

  The voice spoke again, nearer this time. ‘Eustace, command yourself! You will step away from Sir Alan.’

  I wrenched my gaze away from the madman in front of me and glanced left towards the chapel door. Brother Michel was approaching fast, his sandals slapping the stone floor of the chapel like brisk applause. But it was the man walking beside him, a tall dark man in a long black robe, who made me gape in surprise. It was the man whom I had glimpsed in the garden, and the same man I had seen lurking round and about me in the streets of Paris.

  It was my old friend and comrade Reuben of York.

  I was dimly aware that a dozen men wearing the white linen surcoats of the Knights of Our Lady had filed into the chapel behind these two men, but my eyes were locked on Reuben’s dark face. Was he friend or foe? What was he — a Jew — doing in this Christian abbey? And why had he been following me so relentlessly through the Paris streets?

  Brother Michel stepped forward and placed his hands on the shoulders of Sir Eustace — and I could not help but stare in horrified fascination at the twin thumbs on his left hand. Brother Michel was oblivious to me; he was murmuring quietly to Eustace and eventually he turned him and led him away from my chair to a dim corner of the chapel where he began speaking to him urgently and yet rhythmically, the half-heard drone of his voice oddly soothing. I pulled my attention back to Reuben, standing before me, smiling sadly — his kindly brown face a little more worn, his dark hair now streaked with threads of grey — he looked far older than the last time I had seen him in the Holy Land. But I took comfort from his presence and from his first words:

  ‘I imagine that you must have many questions, Alan, my friend, but for the moment, keep your silence, I beg you, and know that I am here as Robin’s representative, and that I speak for him. I am so very sorry that I could not save Hanno — but I swear that, if it is in my power, I will not allow any harm to come to you. Hold your tongue and husband your courage, and we will see what can be salvaged from this situation.’

  ‘Cut me free, Reuben, and give me a weapon,’ I said, glancing at Hanno’s corpse, still slumped gorily against the restraining ropes, and my own voice sounded thick and clogged. I had it in my mind that I would kill Sir Eustace without delay — and Brother Michel too, if I could manage it — before the assembled Knights of Our Lady, now standing quietly and watching us from the shadows of the chapel, cut me down.

  ‘Alas, Alan, I cannot do that yet,’ said Reuben. ‘I have told Brother Michel, in the most forceful terms, that killing you would certainly bring the wrath of the Earl of Locksley, and all his considerable might, down on his Order, ensuring its destruction, and possibly Robin’s too — and he has agreed to discuss the matter with me. But I cannot cut you free, not yet. Be patient.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I was still quite astonished to see him in front of me.

  ‘I am Bishop de Sully’s esteemed new doctor — I have been for three days now. But I fear that the poor man is slowly dying. The Crab is in his stomach, and he may last another year, maybe two at best. There is nothing I can do but make him as comfortable as I can.’

  ‘I don’t care about de Sully. I mean, what are you doing here in Paris?’

  ‘Robin summoned me from Montpellier and sent me here to watch over you — but no more questions now, Alan. Stay silent and allow me to see whether I can extricate us from this predicament.’

  Over his shoulder I could see Brother Michel striding towards us, his handsome face serene. I was suddenly struck by something that had been in the back of my mind since I had first met him: he resembled Robin. But the resemblance was not one of flesh and bones, or in the angle of eye or mouth, but rather he had that air about him of invisible power and utter, iron-cast confidence, the conviction that whatever task he was about, however wrong it might appear to lesser men, it was the right thing to do because he was doing it. I had the bizarre sensation that if he ordered something, anything, I would obey him.

  ‘I fear you have upset poor Sir Eustace,’ he said.

  I opened my mouth to reply, but caught Reuben’s eye and shut it with a snap.

  ‘I think perhaps it would be best,’ said Reuben, ‘if we all considered our positions in a calm and reasonable manner. First of all, let us have poor Hanno taken away for burial, and let us release Alan from his bonds, and then perhaps we could discuss this over a glass of wine.’

  ‘He stays there,’ Brother Michel said quietly. ‘Sir Alan is a formidable man, even unarmed — I am told he dispatched my Guillaume, an iron-hard fellow and skilled with a knife, in a matter of moments. Sir Alan, I’m afraid, must remain bound till we have determined his fate.’

  ‘But my dear Brother Michel…’ Reuben began in a soothing tone.

  ‘You may call me Master — Jew. I am the Master of the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Our Lady and the Temple of Solomon,’ the monk’s voice was icy, and he drew himself up to his full height and made a bold gesture with his right hand behind him to the exquisite stained-glass window. ‘I serve the Queen of Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And, knowing this, Jew, you will accord me the appropriate honour to my station and address me as Master!’

  ‘Very well, “Master” it shall be,’ said Reuben, with a wide agreeable smile. ‘Now, Master, could we perhaps-’

  ‘You fought in Spain,’ I said, looking directly at Brother Michel. It was somehow hard to look at him, as if he were a bright and shining light that burnt my eyes. Of course, it came from the low sun shining through the magnificent window behind him, but still its glare was painful and I closed my eyes and continued: ‘And you scrambled to the top of the dung pile, to the title of Master, over the bodies of your comrades. Even when they disbanded the Order, you kept it alive, in secret; a handful of knights at first, and then more, younger ones, men who wished to serve God with their swords but would never have been accepted as true Templars.’

  ‘You are insolent, my friend, but not inaccurate — do you think knowledge will help to save your life? Keep talking and we shall see. What else do you know?’

  I opened my eyes and squinted at him through the harsh light. ‘I know that my father protected you from bullies at Notre-Dame and that you repaid his kindness by blackening his name and allowing him to take the blame for your crime against Bishop Heribert. I know that you are Trois Pouces!’

  The superior smile on the Master’s face was wiped away by my words. He tucked his hands across his chest, back into their habitual position in the sleeves of his robe, and stared at me stone-faced.

  ‘I have not been called that for a long, long time,’ he said slowly. ‘And were it not for the dire threats that this Jew has made to me on behalf of the Earl of Locksley, I would kill you now, this very instant, for those words.’

  He paused for a few moments, and I caught Reuben’s eye. He was frowning at me, glaring and shaking his head — it was almost comical. Then Brother Michel said: ‘But God has taught us that to lie is a sin, any lie, and indeed I must own my actions. Yes, I did steal from Bishop Heribert, and yes, I did allow your father to take the blame for my crime, and yes, I did order his death at the hands of Sir Ralph Murdac because I feared that he would expose me. I admit all of that, freely. And I will answer to God for it on Judgment Day — but, I tell you Sir Alan, I would do it all over
again, a hundred times, if I had to. For I serve a higher purpose, one that soars above the concerns of petty morality, above the life or death of one man, even a dozen men, a hundred; I serve the highest purpose of all. I serve the Queen of Heaven! I serve Our Lady! All that I do, everything, from the moment I wake to the time I fall exhausted into my miserable cot, is directed towards that one aim. And every day, when I contemplate my sins, I can look out of my window and see that monument to her greatness, the superb embodiment of her majesty, that goal that I strive for, rising, slowly, inexorably, week after week, month after month-’

  ‘The cathedral of Notre-Dame,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Sir Alan, yes. The cathedral! It will be the most magnificent church in Christendom and a fitting tribute to the Mother of God. When I returned to Paris from Spain, my Order disbanded, destroyed by those blind fools of the Temple, I found that the work had almost ceased on the cathedral for lack of funds to pay the workmen. It was almost too much to bear: the Order gone, the grand church of Our Lady half-built, abandoned and silent. It was I who found the necessary silver for de Sully to continue the work; and it was I who breathed new life into the Knights of Our Lady. I saved them both — all for her glory!’

  ‘And does the venerable Bishop de Sully know that the money for the cathedral comes from banditry? That it comes to him stained by the blood of the travellers robbed and murdered by the likes of Guillaume du Bois?’

  Brother Michel remained silent.

  ‘Does he?’

  ‘The cathedral is everything, nothing else matters. That impious old fool closes his eyes. I tell him the money comes from the donations of pilgrims, from the thousands of faithful who come to see Notre-Dame and pray before its holy relics, and he chooses to believe it. It is not important. Only the work of building for her glory is important.’