We did not have long to wait. A fat clergyman on a mule heading towards Bordeaux trotted past without noticing us. A pair of vineyard labourers, gnarled sun-browned men with mattocks across their shoulders, trudged along the road without raising their heads. And then, a little before mid-morning, I nudged Roland – a swift moving cloud of dust approaching our stand of trees indicated a horseman. Or horsemen. For as it drew closer, I could see that it was not Mercadier travelling alone, as we had assumed it would be. I could make out five steeds.
Five riders.
It was the moment to make a hard decision. Five against two. Now this was no quietly efficient ambush, a sudden rush from our hiding place to take an outnumbered foe by surprise, followed by a cut or two with our swords and Mercadier lying dead in the dust. We were looking at a mêlée, and a far more uncertain outcome.
‘We can still do this, Alan, I know we can,’ pleaded Roland. ‘You and I together – who can stand against us?’ The desperate look in his eyes tugged at my heart. I weighed the odds. The sensible thing to do would be to sit tight and allow the more numerous enemy to ride past unmolested. The proper, the right thing to do would be to do nothing, to go home and make another, better plan. Recklessness, Robin had told me many times, is a grave failing for anyone who considers himself a serious soldier.
‘Come on, then, cousin,’ I said, a mad grin nearly splitting my face, and we swung up into the saddle, drew our swords, booted our horses in the ribs and charged out of that copse – straight into the path of the five startled mercenaries.
But our horses were not the destriers that we were used to riding into battle, merely hired hacks from a common stable and they refused to charge into the flanks of the enemy horses – in all fairness, they had not been trained to – instead, they shied away at the last moment and passed alongside at just over a sword’s length away. My first strike from Fidelity, which had I been astride Shaitan would certainly have cut the head off the outermost mercenary on that side, whistled through the air a good two inches from his face as I thundered past.
I saw that Roland had been more skilful; he had managed to strike and wound a short, squat mercenary in the shoulder as he galloped by, but the man, bleeding and cursing foully, was still in the saddle. I heard Mercadier’s familiar stony voice with its faint Gascon twang order his men to wheel, and engage us again, and then five hardened routiers were upon us.
And just like that, we were now the prey.
I exchanged a ringing cut with one very skinny man, whose gaunt, snarling face seemed familiar. But before I could remember where I had seen him last, Mercadier loomed to my left, bellowing something and hacking down at my head with his sword. I took the blow on my shield, but felt the manic force of it shudder through my upper arm. I could sense rather than see a third man behind me, and then a lance grazed past the waist of my hauberk, snagging and ripping my red surcoat, its vicious point thrusting out in the space between my hip bone and elbow. I blocked another sword swipe from the man on my right and desperately turned the horse – the animal was very frightened and confused, near panicked, by the shouting and the clash of steel – and spurred it off the road and into the vines. I did not seek to escape, to cravenly abandon Roland to his fate – I swear it on my honour – but I had to get out of that awkward triangle or I would have been a dead man. As I galloped into the rows of vines, I heard the urgent pounding of hoofbeats behind. I reached the end of the lane and turned the horse with some difficulty, and raced back down the next row, back towards the road, a line of thick stubby vines between me and the oncoming horseman. It was the lance-man, a long-haired villain with a flat-topped metal cap and a furious scowl – and I cursed my luck. His weapon, a twelve-foot spear, couched between his elbow and ribs and aimed at my chest, had a far longer reach than my sword. But I was committed. We closed, his lance seeming to stretch out towards me as if eager to pierce my heart. And at the last moment, I twitched my sword and flipped the lance aside, out of its line, and safely over my right shoulder, and as his horse flashed past me I hacked backwards with Fidelity, timing it perfectly, and crunching the long blade into the back of his neck, cutting through the long greasy hair below his helmet and seeing the blood spurt red. I snatched a quick look backwards and saw him flop in the saddle and then crumple slowly from his cantering mount. And then I was back on the road.
One body lay in the dust – a victim of Roland’s skill. But my cousin was in the same position I had been, with three horsemen surrounding him and raining down blow upon blow. He was desperately fending them off with sword and shield.
I screamed, ‘Westbury!’ and spurred my horse forward into the mêlée. A squat horseman, alerted by my war cry, peeled away and came at me, yelling, whirling a long sword above his head. But I saw that his shield was drooping on his wounded shoulder. This was the man Roland had struck in our first disastrous attack. He was open, his guard was weak, and as our horses closed, Fidelity snaked out, a tongue of sharp steel, and skewered his throat before he could ever land his blow. He gave a despairing blood-choked cough and flopped back in his saddle. And now the battle was two against two.
Mercadier looked behind him, and I saw that he recognized me. He smiled grimly, and hauled the horse round, jerking viciously on its reins. Roland was exchanging blows with the remaining mercenary, the skinny, familiar-looking man; my cousin’s shield was up, his blows were fast and precise, rhythmical and even elegant, but his right leg was sheeted with blood and his face under his helmet was bone white.
Mercadier trotted over to me. He lifted his sword and said, ‘So you have sunk to murder and robbery on the Queen’s highway, Sir Knight. I am not at all surprised. Your villein’s blood was bound to come to the fore. And I shall enjoy seeing the colour of it.’
And his horse leaped towards mine.
I should have been concentrating on my enemy – for he was a truly formidable man – but my eye was dragged to Roland and his opponent, hammering at each other sword and shield, sword and shield. Then Roland mistimed his block, and the mercenary’s sword clanged off his helmet. My friend reeled in the saddle. The thin man closed with Roland and launched a flurry of blows at his head and shoulders. My cousin just managed to parry and block them – but he was weakened by the blow to the head, and if I could see it from ten paces away, so could his opponent.
Yet Mercadier’s sword was arcing down at my own head. I took the full force of the strike on my shield, and cut back at him laterally, aiming for his waist. But the dark mercenary captain had already spurred out of range and my long blade hissed through air.
I stole a quick glance at Roland, and to my surprise saw that he still lived. He was lolling in the saddle somewhat but his enemy had apparently decided to break off the engagement and flee. The familiar-looking mercenary was now fifty yards down the road, galloping towards the Château de Rouillac.
I had not time to ponder his prudence – or cowardice – for Mercadier’s destrier barged into my horse’s shoulder, and the scarred fighter cut left and right and right again at my upper body with astounding speed and strength and, to be honest, I was very hard-pressed to keep his steel from my flesh. I blocked with shield and sword, and even managed a low lunge that made him rein back and keep his distance. But he pressed back again, as fast as a cat. His horse peeled back its lips and snapped its huge yellow teeth at the muzzle of my mount, scaring the poor beast and causing him to rear alarmingly. And while I was busy merely keeping my seat, Mercadier launched a hacking blow that would have split my skull if it had landed. I just got my sword beneath it in time, catching his blade with my cross-guard. But a sideways slice came next, flowing seamlessly from Mercadier’s first blow, and that chopped the corner from my shield, the small triangle of leather-covered wood striking me in the face. I cut back at Mercadier’s shoulder, missed, and was very nearly skewered by his lightning counterstroke. I was going to lose this duel – I knew it in my heart. His warhorse was better trained, to be sure, and that gave him a huge advan
tage – but he was also, without a shred of doubt, a better swordsman than me.
However, I was not alone. And he was.
Roland recovered his battered wits, straightened in the saddle, jammed back his spurs. His horse bounded forward; my cousin hacked down once from behind – and sunk his blade deep into Mercadier’s waist, hauling it free in a spray of red mist. The mercenary captain gave a short desperate bark of pain; and now the gore welled thick and dark from his opened side, drenching his leg and the horse’s flank. He stared round at Roland, a look of almost comical indignation on his face. And he was down, slipping from his saddle to crumple into the dust of the road. Roland dismounted slowly, with great difficulty – his right leg was badly gashed – and he pulled a dagger from the sheath at his belt. He hobbled over to where Mercadier was lying, a dark pool spreading beneath his body.
‘Remember me?’ said Roland, his body casting a shadow over Mercadier’s scarred face and staring, agonized eyes. The mercenary said nothing but I thought I saw him give the merest shake of his head.
‘Let me remind you,’ said my cousin quietly. And he bent down and flicked the blade of the dagger through Mercadier’s right eyeball. The fallen man gave a grunt of pain, no more, as blood and pale jelly oozed from the eye socket.
‘Still nothing?’ said Roland. ‘Well, you’ll doubtless meet many men in Hell that you have wronged – men who, even if you do not recall them, I am certain will recall you. May the Devil allow their revenge to be slower and more painful than mine.’
And he stabbed down once with the dagger, squarely piercing Mercadier’s remaining eye and driving the blade deep into his brain.
Chapter Twelve
While Nur salved and bandaged Roland’s wounded leg in the infirmary of the Abbey of St Andrew, I went in search of an old friend, my former music teacher Bernard de Sezanne, who now served Queen Eleanor and whom I had bumped into the day before at the Easter feast.
I was experiencing the familiar flat, melancholic humour that I always had after a bout of bloody combat. Roland and I had barely spoken during our slow ride back to Bordeaux, and I had taken him directly to the Abbey’s infirmary before carefully sponging the spatters of blood from the horses’ hides and their saddles and returning them to the livery stable by the western gate. There were two things that greatly concerned me that afternoon: firstly, I could see that Roland’s wound was deep, and I worried that our reckless revenge might result in the loss of his leg, or even his life; the second thing was the mercenary who had fled so abruptly from the fight and escaped down the road to Rouillac. If he was familiar to me, was I, too, familiar to him? And would his fellow mercenaries – knowing that I had been responsible for the death of their captain – come seeking their own revenge? Had I, in short, begun a dangerous, bloody feud with these routiers, these lawless killers-for-hire?
The death of Mercadier, Queen Eleanor’s fighting man and her protector on the dangerous roads of France, would soon be reported in Bordeaux; the hue and cry would doubtless be raised and a culprit would be sought. And so I needed to find my old mentor Bernard. I did not need his advice, nor his music, nor yet one of his funny stories – I wanted his help with another of his special talents.
I found Bernard in a tavern in the least reputable part of the city, surrounded by a gang of oafish, drunken cronies, a brimming beaker before him, his silk-clad elbow in a small lake of spilled wine, his face blotched, his head already lolling on his shoulders, although it was only an hour or so past noon.
‘The hour of day is entirely irrelevant, my dear boy,’ slurred Bernard, when I pointed this out. ‘A great artist such as myself must nourish his Muse with the fruit of the vine from dawn to dusk or it will surely wither and die. I drink to live, I live to drink, and I drink to you, my friend, my brother in art … once my most promising pupil, a musician of talent but now reduced to little more than an armed thug, a killer of men, the hallowed Muse long flown from his soul, her delicate sensibilities put to flight by the hideous screams of battle…’
Bernard drew a breath and sank the entire contents of his beaker before continuing. His cronies were grinning in anticipation. I had heard this refrain before: my friend believed I was squandering my talent by choosing the life of a knight, of a warrior, rather than that of a musician and poet.
‘When was the last time you tuned your vielle? When did you last pluck a tender note?’ he said, squinting at me out of one eye.
‘I must confess, Bernard, that it has been a few weeks; my vielle was destroyed in a fire when Westbury was attacked…’ And I told him briefly about that night.
‘You see, you see – the wages of sin! Your chosen life of barbarism and brutality has laid you low. Now that sacred box, the heavenly machine that once allowed us to hear the very whispers of the voice of God, is no more – destroyed by beast-like killers, burned to ashes by uncouth men of the sword, violent men cut from the very same cloth as yourself.’
I was beginning to become irritated. ‘I need your help, Bernard,’ I said through my teeth. ‘And I need it rather urgently.’
‘Of course you do, my boy, of course you do. And it is not too late – oh no, no – it is not yet too late for you to turn aside from the red path of violence and rediscover your gentler, finer musical self. Even a gore-soaked slaughterman such as yourself can be saved. But first we must find you a new instrument. I know of a vielle-maker in Toulouse, a well-regarded man but expensive…’
The oafish cronies were hooting by now. And while I knew that Bernard was merely making sport with me for his own sodden amusement, I feared that I would do something rash, something I’d regret, if I did not shut off his teasing forthwith. So I grasped him by the elbow, my thumb digging into the soft point behind the knob of bone, and raised him up from the wine-stained table. He squawked a good deal but meekly allowed me to lead him to a table on the far side of the tavern away from his cackling friends.
‘My wine…’ he bleated.
‘No more wine for the moment, Bernard. I need you as sober as possible – so that you can help your old pupil and friend.’
My former mentor sat forlornly at the empty table, staring at me with a sort of bemused aggrievement in his eyes, as I pulled up a stool and sat down opposite him.
‘You’ve become just like him, you know,’ he said miserably.
‘Who?’
‘Your master, the Earl of Locksley – you and he are quite a pair. Always in a hurry and always wanting something from me.’
‘Bernard, I’m sorry, but I really do need your help urgently.’
‘You know that you have fresh blood on your hose?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that is what I need to talk to you about.’
Robin’s happiness was coming off him in a kind of glow, like Mediterranean sunshine reflecting from a white stone wall. All the Companions were gathered in the refectory of the Abbey of St Andrew, and were eating a supper of roasted mutton with wild garlic on trenchers of fine white bread – a rare treat for the refectory of a religious house, which was due to the fact that it was the evening of Easter Monday, a holy day. Roland, too, while he had an obvious limp, seemed to be inordinately cheerful, beaming at his fellows and calling out bawdy jests across the table to Little John. I believe that Nur, when she had finished treating the bloody gash in his leg, may have given him some powerful drug for the pain, but perhaps I am maligning my cousin – perhaps the joy of his successful revenge was the sole cause of his hectic spirits. He and Robin, who was joyful after two full days in his beloved’s company, gave the whole gathering a festive spirit, and we were all, I think, even silent, black-shrouded Nur, enlivened by their exuberant gaiety.
We had only just started eating when Robin, who was beside me, gave a shout of happiness and leaped up from the bench. Then my lord was embracing a squat, fat figure in a black robe with thin hair the colour of rabbit fur cut in the tonsure. Then Robin was introducing him to the table: ‘This, my friends, is Father Tuck! An old comrade and a very g
ood man. Come, sit down here beside young Alan. Have some of this tender mutton…’
And I found myself smiling into a round, red face with a lumpy nose and kind, mellow eyes the colour of hazelnuts.
‘Hello, Alan,’ said Tuck, ‘how have you been keeping?’
While my old friend and I exchanged our news, I took in the changes that time had wrought on the Countess of Locksley’s personal chaplain. The former monk and follower of Robin in the old days in Sherwood seemed a little greyer and a little fatter than last time I had seen him – but for a man of more than fifty years he still seemed to be strong and tough enough for two men. Tuck might be a man of God but he was also a warrior to his fingertips – very skilled in the yew bow and with sword and quarterstaff. And while he might tend to the Countess of Locksley’s spiritual needs, he also was quite capable of guarding her body against anyone who might wish to harm her. We had barely finished catching up with each other’s lives, when Robin was on his feet once more.
‘My friends, I have an announcement to make,’ said my lord happily. ‘I am very pleased to inform you that Father Tuck here will be joining us on our quest. He has long been interested in the particular object of our search and I believe that his knowledge of the Grail will prove invaluable to us all.’
There were universal calls of approval from those who knew Tuck, and polite smiles and nods from those who did not. Sir Nicholas de Scras called out, ‘The blessing of Our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you, Father. And be welcome among us: we could sorely use a man of God in our company!’
Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) Page 17
