‘A miracle,’ Father Ortiz said and fell on his knees and gave thanks to God.
XLI
Saint-Ybars
THE VILLAGE SLUMBERED under the hot sun. The grey stone houses were different to the north; they all had curved pink tiles on their roofs and each tile rested on a companion that was exactly the same but inverted. The eaves were weighted with large stones to prevent the mistral lifting the tiles from their position. The Romans had built their houses this way, they said.
The air was rich and somnolent, spiced with wild thyme. Dragonflies hovered among the cornflowers. The mountains of Castile had disappeared into the haze.
There were ripe figs lying under the trees and Gilles de Soissons got down from his horse and opened one, sucking at the soft grainy fruit inside. They all huddled under a hastily erected silk canopy, seeking shelter from the enervating heat. Over their heads, a banner with a cross, surmounted by the fleur-de-lis of the King of France, stirred and then was still.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘they refuse to open the gates to us. They are Trencavel’s men inside. They insult us and call us invaders and godless.’
Roger-Raymond Trencavel was the local viscount. He had been warring with Count Raymond of Toulouse for years and was accustomed to being invaded. His soldiers knew a siege like a summer’s day.
‘We have supplies enough to continue,’ Simon said.
‘I do not care about supplies, I care about their insolence. Do we leave a nest of heretics behind us, unharmed, when I have sworn on the holy cross to come here and eradicate them?’
The baron’s voice was high-pitched and grated on the nerves. A curious one, Simon thought. He walks like a nobleman; nothing could disguise the gait of a man who had spent most of his life in the saddle. He just didn’t look like one, in Simon’s opinion. He was from the north, from Normandy, but not dark, as most of them were. His hair was white, even his eyelashes, and he had no beard. His eyes were pale, almost pink.
His boots were thick with the pale dust of the Midi, he had heavy spurs strapped to them and blood upon the spikes. So he is cruel to his horse, Simon thought. That tells you something.
It had been a surprise to find one of these castra, as they called these fortified towns in the Albigeois, still defiant. Every other town they had passed since Béziers had been deserted. Simon was not sure that massacre should become a Christian principle, but as a tactic of war it had succeeded in spectacular fashion.
‘We should capture the town,’ Gilles said.
‘It is three hundred souls. Why bother? We have no siege engines.’
‘We don’t need siege engines. It is not a proper fortress. The walls are not high; most form part of the houses on the perimeter. They cannot be properly guarded and even if they could, by my estimate the garrison is not large enough to do it. There are a score of Trencavel’s men in there, two score at most. A handful of my men can scale the walls during the night and at first light they can rush the gate and throw it open to us.’
‘You do not have enough men for this,’ Simon said.
‘Correct me, Father, but you and Father Ortiz are here to lend spiritual direction to the crusade, not advise professional soldiers on tactics. Am I right?’
Simon turned to Father Ortiz for support, but he looked away.
‘We should join the siege at Carcassonne. They were our instructions.’
‘We do better service ensuring the army’s rear.’
‘If they had wanted this village they would have taken it.’
‘Perhaps they were in a hurry to reach Carcassonne. For them this would be like swatting at a fly. It is better left to smaller armies, such as mine.’
Simon understood the baron’s eagerness to start his war. It required only forty days of active campaigning under the cross to earn the remission of all his sins, so the sooner he began, the sooner he could mark his place in heaven and go home.
He rubbed at the skin of his back through the woollen cassock, feeling the raised cicatrices of his scars. They itched him when he sweated, hard as bone and inflamed in this heat. Did I really do that? ‘If the people won’t come out, then we will go in after them. Their defiance can only mean that they are harbouring heretics in there. If they will not bow down to Jesus they will bend their knee to the fire. I came here to do God’s work and I am ready to begin.’
‘It is the soldiers who defy you,’ Simon said. ‘Not the townspeople. They have no choice.’
‘Very well, Father Jorda. Tomorrow morning I shall invite any who believe in the Holy Church to leave the village so we shall know there are only the godless left inside.’
‘This is futile! Even if you capture it, you have not the men to garrison it.’
‘There will be nothing left to garrison. I shall do as the Host did at Béziers. We will burn it to the ground and any heretics we find will scorch with it.’
Simon looked at Father Ortiz. ‘Do you agree with his plan?’
‘In Spain we have a proverb. “Where a blessing fails, a good thick stick will suffice.”’
Simon looked up the hill towards the castrum. The watch lamps were already shining from the corner of the ramparts. ‘Father, I do not think a big stick is a weapon that Jesus favoured. I thought we were here to save souls.’
‘We are here to drive the Devil from his lair by any means at our disposal. Those that will be saved, we shall save. But our first duty is to defend Jesus Christ.’
‘Tomorrow I will offer the good Catholics of the town their freedom,’ Gilles said. ‘If they do not choose to accept our mercy, then they shall reap the consequences.’ It was late in the afternoon and his men had started to build their cook fires. ‘Two nights hence we shall be warming our toes by a larger fire than any of these. The fire will have a name. We shall call it Saint-Ybars.’
XLII
ONE OF THE younger soldiers was retching with nerves somewhere in the darkness and his more experienced comrades, ordered to silence, were kicking him with their boots to shut him up. No moon, only the light at the watchtowers to show them the way.
Diego and Simon stood at the front of the column beside Gilles’s white destrier, a massive beast with red eyes. It jerked on the reins, stamping its hoof, excited by the press of soldiers around it. Two squires struggled to hold it.
A scream startled him. The fight had started at the portal. Half a dozen of Gilles’s men had scaled the walls during the night and were now attacking the soldiers at the gate.
Gilles had told Father Ortiz he must wait for his signal before he gave the men his benediction. Now there was no further need for silence, Gilles twisted around in his saddle and pointed at the friar. ‘Say what you have to and be quick about it!’
‘Men of Normandy,’ Father Ortiz shouted, ‘God is with you today! Your enemy is Christ’s enemy! Your crusade is greater than even those who fight in the Holy Land, for the men you go against are not mere heathens, who sin only from ignorance, but men inspired by the Devil himself, Christians once saved by the blood of Christ who in their wretchedness have now turned against him! They have massacred priests and profaned churches and spat on the cross! They kiss the anus of a black cat and call it Jesus! You can give such people no quarter!’
There were warning shouts and the sound of death from the portal. Gilles pulled on the reins of the destrier so that it rose into the air and the great iron hooves crashed down inches from Simon’s face. The gates of Saint-Ybars swung open. Someone was swinging a torch to give the signal.
Gilles did not wait for Diego to finish his valediction. He spurred his horse forward and shouted the command to attack. His chevaliers – his mounted troops – and foot soldiers surged behind him.
The Norman army converged on the gate. Simon watched, horrified and afraid.
‘Are you all right?’ Father Ortiz said.
‘I’m all right.’
‘Will you join me in song then?’ He raised the cross above their heads, just as the sun rose over the mountain. It
touched the very tip and flashed gold. He started to sing: ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus . . .’
There was an explosion of flame at the portal, then another. They finished the hymn. Diego shuffled under the weight of the gold-plated cross. ‘They are taking a long time to pass the gate,’ he said.
Simon heard the panicked shriek of a horse. Soldiers ran from the portal, on fire. Something was wrong. They should have been inside by now.
‘Shall we sing the hymn again, Brother Simon?’
They sang the Veni Sancte Spiritus twice more. As the sun rose higher in the sky, two thick plumes of black smoke spiralled into the sky.
‘What you said to them,’ Simon murmured. ‘That business about the black cat.’
‘What of it?’
‘I have lived here in the southern lands all my life. I never heard of such a thing.’
‘I have it on good authority.’
‘These bons òmes are misguided on many things, it is true. But I do not believe any of them would do such a thing to a cat.’
‘Does this matter so much to you at this moment, Brother Simon?’
‘I believe that God made us guardians of a great truth. We do not need to embellish it with falsehoods.’
One of Gilles’s foot soldiers ran back down the hill, his leather tunic smouldering. He ripped it off, howling in pain. Another followed. Soon there were dozens of them, stumbling, bleeding, cursing.
Now the chevaliers came, all Gilles’s little army in ragged retreat.
‘What has happened?’ Father Ortiz shouted.
One of the soldiers came over. He had lost his helmet and clutched at his arm, which hung useless at his side. Blood dripped steadily from his fingers. ‘It wasn’t just Trencavel’s men on the walls! The whole village was waiting for us. Filthy Devil-fuckers!’
The last to return was Gilles himself. He looked like a hedgehog, his coat of mail bristling with arrows. Simon had heard it was hard to kill any knight, even at close quarters, as their armour was mostly impenetrable. It was only ever the foot soldiers that died, for they only had a piece of leather or a shield to protect them. Now he could see for himself that everything he had been told was true.
Perhaps that was why men like Gilles loved war so much.
The Norman removed his helmet and flung it into the dirt. His boy’s face was flushed with sweat, his thin white hair plastered to his skull. More arrows quivered in his destrier’s armour, though one had penetrated, near the shoulder, and dark blood streamed down its foreleg. It jittered and circled in pain and agitation.
‘What happened, my lord?’ Father Ortiz shouted.
‘The townspeople are fighting alongside the soldiers. They had chains ready across the street to bring down our horses and even the burghers were on the roof hurling rocks down at us. Then they set fire to two hay carts and pushed them down the street. I lost two of my knights and God Himself knows how many men!’
‘I told him we were not prepared for this,’ Simon said to Father Ortiz.
‘You said we were only fighting soldiers!’ Gilles shouted at them. ‘You said the people were good Catholics and it was only Trencavel’s soldiers that would fight us! Show mercy, you said! Well, now see you where mercy has got us! There’s not one of them in there that is not a Devil-kissing bastard!’
He drove his sword hard into the dirt, point down.
‘This will not stand!’ he said, pointing at them both as if they were responsible for his defeat. ‘They will rue the day they stood against Gilles de Soissons!’
XLIII
ANOTHER LONG DAY on the road. It seemed the whole world was on their way to Lyons. It was pilgrim season, and they had passed thousands of them, all on their way to the southern lands. Holy wars are good for business, or so the innkeepers said.
They made their way alone or in groups, singing hymns, following monks and priests, and carrying banners. Everyone was walking: beggars, minstrels, serfs out of bond, students. Only rarely did Philip and his men encounter other horsemen: a baron or a bishop, or an ox-cart carrying timber or lead for a church roof. It was hard going nevertheless, for every league or so a flock of sheep or cattle slowed their progress and fouled the road.
Late one afternoon, just out of Lyons, they stopped to rest. The écuyers unsaddled the horses, cooling their coats with willow leaves they had dipped in the river. Philip’s body was numb from exhaustion after a week of hard riding and chafed by the heavy coat of mail. He removed a heavy gauntlet to wipe the sweat and dirt from his eyes. Renaut helped him out of his travelling armour; he groaned with relief as he shook himself free of it, then he followed the other chevaliers down to the water’s edge to scoop handfuls of cool water over his head and neck, drinking till his stomach felt stretched to burst.
As soon as the horses were watered they made camp; their tents, heavy baggage carts and cook fires extended a hundred paces along the bank. Night fell quickly. Philip had Renaut post sentries, then wrapped himself in his travelling cloak and tried to sleep, listening to the crackle of dead twigs in the fire, the low murmur of the men gathered around it. The salted pork they ate for their dinner had left him thirsty and restless. Please God, let me be on time. Don’t let my boy die. A screech owl cried in the wood. Werewolves and goblins walked abroad on moonless nights like this. He touched the cross at his throat for protection.
Don’t let my little boy die.
*
He woke to Renaut shaking him roughly by the shoulder.
‘Seigneur, with your pardon, wake up.’
A soldier’s instinct: he was instantly awake. ‘What is it?’
Two of his men-at-arms stood there with flaming torches, a small boy between them. They were holding him by the arms, with some difficulty, for he was twisting and struggling and trying to kick them. One of the men got tired of this and hit him with the hilt of his sword. The boy’s eyes rolled back in his head and he sank to his knees.
‘Enough!’ Philip shouted. He jumped to his feet and turned to Renaut. ‘What’s going on?’
‘The sentries found him sneaking into the camp. He was trying to steal our food.’
Philip crouched down. The lad was tousle-haired and filthy, and scrawny as a tent pole. He lifted the boy’s head. ‘Who are you?’
But the boy was still senseless from the blow and couldn’t answer. So they dragged him down to the river and ducked his head into the water to revive him. The child came round, shaking his head like a dog.
‘Who are you?’ Philip asked him again.
The boy’s eyes focused, took in Philip’s clothes, his velvet tunic and garnet ring. ‘Well, here’s a fine one,’ he said. ‘You look like the King of France.’
‘Hit him again,’ Renaut said to the sentry.
Philip shook his head. ‘Leave him.’ He took the boy by the shoulders. ‘What is your name?’
‘Loup, sir.’
‘How did you come by such a name?’
‘My mother gave it to me. Who are you?’
‘You insolent little dog,’ Renaut said and would have slapped him with his gauntlet but Philip held him off.
‘My name is Philip, Baron of Vercy. I am the man you were trying to steal from.’
‘I’m starving. Have you got anything to eat?’
Philip looked at Renaut. ‘What shall we do with him?’
‘If it were up to me, I should cut his ear off to teach him respect and then throw him in the river.’
‘Have mercy, Renaut. He is not much older than you were when they brought you to me.’
‘I’m just hungry, seigneur. I never meant any harm.’
‘You’re a thief.’
‘Well, perhaps, seigneur. But either I’m a thief with one ear or I’m a stiff lying by the side of the road and I know which I’d rather be.’
Philip grinned despite himself. He hauled the boy up on to the bank and shoved him towards Renaut. ‘Give the wretch something to eat.’
‘Seigneur, this is not a good idea.’
‘A bit of salted pork and some bread if he is so desperate. If he can keep it down then he’s a better man than I am and he should have it. For mercy’s sake, Renaut. I am asking God for His good graces, should I not answer someone else’s prayer if it is in my power?’
Renaut shrugged. He grabbed the lad’s arm and dragged him up the bank to the camp. Philip smiled. Loup. Wolf. A good name for a scavenger. He would feed the urchin and in the morning he would see him on his way.
The men were snoring and the fire was down to ashes. Loup huddled beside it, tearing at the salted pork with his teeth and scarcely bothering to chew. Renaut stood over him with a lighted brand. Philip studied him: a runt with a hawk face and limbs too long for his body. He had that beaten-dog look about him, eyes that watched for any unexpected movement, head constantly twisting and turning, ready to flinch, ready to flee.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘Don’t you have a home?’
‘I did, when my father lived. But he died and so we were headed for Paris where my mother has a cousin. She said he would look after us but she died on the road. Took a fever, she did.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Over there,’ he said. ‘Under a tree.’
Philip nodded to Renaut and the two men-at-arms. ‘Leave us. I commend you for your duty. You did well. Thank you, Renaut.’ He squatted down beside the boy, his back warmed by the dying embers of the fire.
‘Where are you going?’ Loup asked him.
‘The Albigeois. A place called Saint-Ybars.’
‘Why are you going there? There’s a war. Are you joining the crusade?’
‘No, we’re not crusaders. I was a crusader once in Outremer and I shall never be one again.’
Stigmata Page 15
