Warlord (Outlaw 4)

by Donald, Angus

  In the morning, we would fight again – and I was certain that we would not be able to keep them out this time.

  In the morning, the French knights, hungry for their vengeance, would easily smash through the charred gate, leap their great destriers over the chest-high tangle of barrels and chairs and stable-yard detritus, and the final slaughter inside the castle would begin.

  In the morning, we would all die.

  Chapter Four

  In the morning, when I awoke – stiff, my whole body bruised and aching, my blond hair and eyebrows singed – King Philip and the bulk of his army were gone.

  It seemed a miracle, and I gave thanks on my knees to God and St Michael, the warrior archangel, whom I felt certain had preserved us. We were still besieged, of course, but the great royal tent with the fluttering fleur-de-lys was nowhere to be seen, and more than half the enemy’s strength had departed. The siege engines were still there, the trebuchets and the mangonel; companies of men-at-arms still marched about the camp; French breakfasts were still being cooked over hundreds of small fires; and scores of horses were still tethered in their neat lines – but, astoundingly, our doom had been lifted. I watched the enemy encampment with Sir Aubrey from the roof of the tower, and though I tried very hard, it was impossible not to believe that we were saved.

  Sir Aubrey was pale – he had had the crossbow quarrel removed the night before and he was walking only with great difficulty – but he managed the climb to the top of the tower without a word of complaint. He was clearly a man with steel in his spine.

  ‘Where do you think they have gone?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged – then tried to disguise a wince. ‘I think they must have overestimated our strength. They cannot know how weak we are or, as we speak, they would be tearing down the gate and bursting into the courtyard.’

  ‘We must not relax our vigilance,’ I said, trying to appear the stern warrior, quite unmoved by our unexpected reprieve from certain death.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Sir Aubrey. ‘They would still have more than enough men to take this castle if they had the strength of will to see it through.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said, but I found that I was beaming at the older man, and I saw that a relieved smile had wreathed his leathery, pain-marked features as well.

  The enemy, it seemed, were not of a mind to try conclusions with us again that day; and having seen that wakeful sentries were posted, and all the men had food and watered wine, and our horses were as comfortable as we could make them, I set off for the makeshift infirmary to check on the wounded and visit Father Jean.

  I took Thomas with me, and found the priest cradling a dying man, giving him the comfort of absolution. The fellow was one of my men-at-arms, a former farmhand from the Locksley valley who had sought adventure in the ranks of Robin’s men and become a good, steady cavalryman. He had been eviscerated by an axe blow in the last attack against the right-hand side of the wall, Sir Aubrey’s section, the evening before. With that gaping wound, and the pink-white ropes of his guts plainly visible, I was surprised that he had lasted this long. He was in agony but gripped my hand hard and died almost silently, weeping few tears and only crying out once – ‘Oh Lord Christ Jesus, save me’ – as Father Jean made the sign of the cross on his forehead. I found I was much moved by his courage, and felt my own eyes begin to moisten. I thought grimly that one day it would be me lying on a mound of dirty, bloody straw, in a draughty stable somewhere far from home, surrounded by other stricken men, riding into the next life on a wave of white-hot pain. I shuddered; I hoped I’d make as brave a death as he did when my time came. As I looked away from his corpse, I saw that Thomas was standing by the side of the open stable door and sobbing openly and without the slightest sense of shame.

  I stood and went over to him and put my arm around his shoulders. ‘Do not weep, Thomas,’ I said. ‘He was a good man, a good soldier and a good Christian, and he is at peace in Heaven with God and his angels now.’

  Thomas stared up at me with his deep, oak-brown eyes. ‘It is not him, so much as all of them. All those dead men; and the ones I killed, especially.’

  I tried to think of some soothing piece of wisdom that would comfort him: I knew that Robin would have had one ready to hand. But I could not. ‘We are all in God’s keeping,’ was the best I had to offer. ‘All we can do is our duty to God in Heaven and our liege lord here on Earth.’

  ‘I saw them last night,’ Thomas continued, mindless of me, ‘the burning men; the men I burned: running, burning, and screaming, trying to escape a fiery death that I inflicted on them. It was truly awful; and I did it to them …’

  I had to jolt him from this path of thought, and so I straightened up and cuffed him none too gently on the shoulder: ‘War is cruel, Thomas. It is monstrously cruel. But you played your part well, like a man, like a soldier. Think of your fate if those Frenchmen you singed yesterday had got inside the castle. What then?’ My voice sounded unnecessarily loud and harsh, but I could not help myself. ‘That would be you lying there right now.’ And I pointed over at the blood-drenched cavalryman, just as Father Jean closed his eyes for the last time. The boy said nothing.

  ‘Now, Thomas, I want you to go and find Peter the vintenar and tell him I shall be making an inspection of the castle defences at noon. And his men had better be ready – or I’ll have the hide off somebody’s back. Run along now.’

  The obedient fellow sniffed, wiped a snail’s trail from his nose with his sleeve, and trotted away.

  Father Jean would not leave the wounded, even for half an hour to talk on a matter of great importance to me – and so I stayed with him as he made his rounds, helping the wounded men to drink cool river water from earthenware cups, and mopping the fresh blood and pain-sweat from the men’s ripped and ruined bodies. It meant that our conversation was broken by screams and moans and appeals to the Almighty. But I was intent on hearing his tale, and longed so much to learn all he knew, that the awful sufferings of my men only remain in my memory as a blur. I wiped brows and helped to set broken limbs, and cleaned the filthy voidings from between their legs as Father Jean and I spoke, yet, God forgive me, I recall none of their heartbreaking travails in detail, while I remember his story with perfect clarity.

  ‘As I think you already have guessed,’ Jean de Puy began, ‘I knew your father in Paris. I first met Henri d’Alle in the autumn of the thirty-sixth year of the reign of King Louis, the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ eleven hundred and seventy two. I was twenty-two years old, of an age with your father, and our meeting occurred in unforgettable circumstances. We were both young monks attached to the cathedral of Notre-Dame as choristers; it was our duty, indeed our honour, to sing the Mass inside the small portion of the new cathedral that had been completed – as well as in the old Merovingian cathedral, which was still standing then. We sang joyfully, for the glory of God and for the edification of our fellow men.

  ‘Even in its uncompleted state, the new cathedral was a beautiful space and the sound of our voices echoing up through that huge space must surely have been a God-pleasing sound. I did not know Henri – there were fifty or so monks who gave their voices to God there under the energetic and much-loved Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully. As I was new to the choir myself, I did not yet know all the monks who belonged to it. But, as I say, I met your father in a fashion that it would be impossible to forget. In fact, I remember our meeting with a good deal of pleasure.

  ‘I was hurrying towards the cathedral from the chapter house where I had been receiving extra tuition in Latin grammar from the master; it was mid-morning and I was late for the office of Nones when I came upon a crowd of young monks and novices beside a pile of masonry next to the half-built outside wall of the choir – they were mostly choristers, but also some visiting monks too; from Cluny, I believe. They were laughing and shouting – it was quite unsuitable behaviour for men of the cloth just outside a House of God and, worse, they were taunting a young novice, whom they called Trois Pou
ces. He was a thin boy from somewhere in the far south, I believe – younger than us and very good-looking, and I think some of the older monks had been sorely tempted by his beauty – but he did have one defect that gave rise to his unusual name. On his left hand he had an extra thumb, which was why they called him Three Thumbs. The two duplicated digits were small but well formed with a complete nail on each one and both growing out of a central root. It was as if someone had taken a knife and split his true thumb about halfway down the centre and the two halves had healed themselves as two perfect new digits. Some said it must be the sign of the Devil, others said that, having given him immense physical beauty, God had decided that there must be one tiny flaw in Trois Pouces to keep him from the sin of pride. But either for his looks or his extra thumb, or for what-ever reason, the other young monks did not like him. And they made his life a living Hell, tormenting him night and day, making up little hurtful rhymes about his deformity and calling him Trois Pouces – or sometimes, casually, just Pouces.

  ‘The young monks were at their sport when I came hurrying around the corner, late for the service in the cathedral. A gang of them had surrounded Pouces and were chanting something hurtful that had made the boy cry. The ringleader, a big, brawny fellow named Fulk, had Pouces by his left wrist and was holding up his arm to display the wretched boy’s misfortune for his friends’ ridicule. And then your father arrived.’

  At this point, Father Jean took a deep swig from the water jug, washed the stable dust out of his throat and spat into the straw.

  ‘Now, Sir Alan, while I understand that you are one of those who fights, a knight, I must tell you that I do not approve of violence. I believe that Christ taught us to turn the other cheek, and we must listen to his message and obey if we wish to call ourselves Christians and assure ourselves of Salvation. Violence, to me, is distasteful. It leads to … well, to this.’ And he waved a hand around that blood-splashed stable, strewn with mangled, dying men.

  ‘But on this occasion,’ he said, ‘I think that God was acting through your father to punish those unruly monks in a swift and necessary fashion. Your father did not hesitate for a heartbeat – there must have been a dozen monks around Pouces, but Henri charged in like a madman, his fists swinging like great bony hammers. He was a strong man and he laid about him left and right, boxing ears and crushing noses and doubling up his brothers with swift hard blows to their midriffs. He set about Fulk in a particularly alarming fashion, hammering him again and again in the face with his left fist, then breaking his jaw with a tremendous cross blow from his right. The monks scattered in the face of his righteous fury, hauling away the half-unconscious Fulk with them – and I was somewhat alarmed too, but I saw that your father’s anger had been inspired by a desire to thwart evil, and I was reminded of Christ clearing the money-changers from the steps of the Temple. So I plucked up my courage and went over to him when the others had fled to tell him of my admiration for his actions.

  ‘Well, the long and the short of it is, we became friends – the three of us, Henri, myself, and poor little Pouces. And for the next six months we were inseparable.’

  I found I was smiling to myself. It pleased me to think of my father as a fighter protecting the weak from bullies. And Father Jean noticed my expression.

  ‘You know, you are extraordinarily like him, Sir Alan. Not just in your build and features, but also in the way you move. I saw you yesterday on the wall, repelling those dogs of King Philip, and you reminded me of your father attacking a crowd of unruly monks single-handed.’

  I could not speak for pride and dropped my eyes. After a moment, Father Jean continued.

  ‘So Henri, Pouces and I were fast friends, and we spent every spare moment we had together. Henri had the best voice, he sang like a bird, and he was fearless and strong. But he also had a weakness for women. He loved them, he loved them all, and I am certain he made the cheeks of his confessor glow red on more than one occasion when he related his carnal sins with the girls of the Parisian taverns. Even if the calamity that occurred the next spring had not taken place, I do not think that Henri was made by God for a life in the Church. He had a warrior’s soul, I fear. He brawled several times in the streets with common men who offended him in some way, and he went with women – may God have mercy on him. But though he was probably a bad monk, he was also undoubtedly a good man, and my good friend, and I pray for his soul.’

  In my mind’s eye, I pictured this bully-punishing, brawling, womanizing monk, and I thought to myself – this is very far from the gentle, musical man I knew growing up: but I would have loved this side of him, too.

  Father Jean continued: ‘Pouces was the cleverest of the three of us; and he was for ever coming up with tricks and japes and little adventures that he devised to amuse us in our leisure time. He encouraged us to creep out of the cloisters at night and get a boatman to take us across the Seine and into the Ville de Paris, even though it was strictly forbidden by the order of Bishop de Sully himself and we ran the risk of being arrested by the provosts of the city, who maintained a curfew. But we felt that it was a great adventure, and we revelled in our disobedience. Once, Pouces stole Brother Cellarer’s keys and the three of us crept into his cellar and swapped the contents of a barrel of his very best Rhone wine for some cheap vinegary muck that was so full of debris, bits of twig and grape skins and such that you had to drink it with your teeth closed to sieve out the detritus. The cellarer was a lazy man and, without tasting it, served this wine at a tremendous feast for the arrival of Heribert, the Bishop of Roda. The Bishop’s face when he tasted the wine – what a picture! He thought he was being poisoned.’ Jean was chuckling. ‘We served the best wine out to the beggars of Paris, for free – just gave it away! Pouces said we were teaching the Bishop and the cellarer a lesson in Christian humility. Oh, that was a wonderful day.

  ‘We were punished severely, of course – a whipping apiece and confined to our cells on bread and water for a week – but, God forgive me, it was worth it.’

  For the moment, all was quiet in the stable, save for a moan or two. We had been kneeling beside a man with a flesh wound on his leg, a Welsh archer named Gerry, and Jean had been cleaning and re-bandaging the deep cut as we talked. ‘You had a high old time in your youth, Father, really kicked up your heels, didn’t you?’ said Gerry to the priest, with a smirk. ‘Let’s hear a bit more about all the tavern sluts this young fellow Henry tumbled, then.’

  ‘You hold your tongue, Gerald ap Morgan.’ I glared at the man. ‘If you are truly so badly wounded you would do well to lie still and keep silent. But if you are feeling lively I can easily have you on the wall doing sentry duty!’

  Father Jean stood up and stretched his back. ‘Let us enjoy a little sunshine,’ he said, and he went over to the door of the stable and looked out at the courtyard, where the castle was drowsing in a bright, warm spring morning. All was quiet, it seemed, and for a moment it was difficult to believe that there was a hostile army outside the gates. I quickly checked that the sentries were all in their places and alert, and then gave my attention back to the priest.

  ‘It was Bishop Heribert’s visit that was your father’s downfall, of course. He was a great man, very rich, well born and well connected – he had rather grand relatives in England, if I recall. The Murdacs – do you know them?’

  I clenched my teeth and shook my head.

  ‘Well, at that time Heribert was only bishop of a minor diocese far to the south in the Pyrenees, but he was ambitious. And he was surprisingly rich for a man with such a small see. He had an enormous retinue, more than a hundred servants – we had the devil of a job accommodating all his people; monks thrown out of their cells to allow his servants a proper bed, all sorts of chaos. He was planning to stay with Bishop de Sully for several months to learn about the construction process of the cathedral, and because he was very fond of the new music we were making in the choir – and it was something quite special, may God forgive me my pride. In fact, Heriber
t became so enamoured of our voices that after a while he was attending every Mass and every service at which we sang: Matins, in the dead of night, in freezing January, in that draughty half-built church – he was there. The monks who had been allocated the duty of singing that office may have been sore with cold and slightly hoarse and longing for their warm beds, but Heribert was there. Praying on his knees, beaming at us, sometimes singing along – and not completely out of tune either. He even began to think of himself as one of us, but of grander rank, obviously, as our chanter, our choir master, in fact. He began to think that he was responsible for the music we were making, that we could not make it without him. This annoyed us no end, but Heribert, who was a little mad, I think, was connected to some of the best families in France and our own Bishop de Sully asked us to indulge him in his harmless fancies. But, as God willed it, Heribert had to cut his visit short. He was robbed. Right inside the Bishop’s palace, if you can believe it. One of his store chests was broken into by a thief and several costly items were taken. And, as I’m sure you have been told, your father was blamed for the crime.’