Stigmata

by Colin Falconer

  He stood up. ‘There is a great abomination of eunuchs in the church and I have had to keep this secret. Only the prior and the infirmarian at Saint-Sernin knew of it. But they kept their silence for my sake and now they are both dead.’

  ‘Is it really such a sin to want a woman, Simon?’

  ‘It takes us from God. Even your bons òmes agree with us on that.’

  Another monk came down the ladder into the dungeon, a body in a linen shroud over his shoulder. He tossed the corpse on to the floor, and drew back his hood.

  ‘Philip!’

  He put his arms around her. ‘You see? I am not dead. No one shot arrows at me. Your dreams are just dreams.’ He scooped her up. ‘Let’s get her out of here,’ he said to Simon.

  Simon went to the body of the camp follower and removed the shroud. Now Gilles would have the corpse of a young woman in his dungeon should he remember he had ever thrown one down here; Ganach had earned two months’ wages in a single night and the dead girl had earned her absolution. Everyone’s interest was served.

  *

  A fierce cold set the bones to aching; he smelled wood smoke, night-soil and the strong taint of horse from the stables. Philip kept to the shadows, away from the eyes of the night watch. The stable boy jumped up when he heard them but Simon tossed him some coins and told him to go back to sleep.

  Loup was waiting, appearing suddenly out of the darkness, dogging their heels. ‘Where are we going?’ he said.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Simon said. ‘I don’t have a horse for him.’

  ‘He doesn’t need one. He can ride with me.’ Philip pushed open the grille.

  Simon held up the flare, found the tunnel entrance and started down it. They would have to hurry in case the stable boy decided to raise the alarm.

  ‘Are we going back to your castle in Burgundy?’ Loup said.

  ‘No, we can’t go back there, lad.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘After this, there will be no reprieve from the Church for me, I assure you.’

  ‘Then what will you do?’

  ‘Become a faidit, I suppose. Go to Catalonia. I can always find employment as a soldier somewhere.’

  ‘You will really give up your castle and your lands? For this woman? Is that what you are offering me? A life like I had before?’

  ‘I won’t abandon you, Loup, I gave you my word. I owe you my life. But I did not promise you life in a castle, all I promised was that I would not leave you.’

  Loup fell silent. One moment he was there, trotting beside them in the dark, the next moment he was gone.

  *

  There were two horses waiting in the cave. They were restless, their breath rising in thick clouds.

  Philip helped Fabricia on to one of the horses. ‘Only two mounts?’ he said to Simon. ‘Are you not coming with us?’

  ‘I am a priest, I have dedicated my life to the divine. Where would I go?’

  ‘The boy will talk. He will betray you.’

  ‘If I am damned, then this time I shall be damned as a man and not half of one.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘She will tell you,’ Simon said. ‘Now go, before someone raises the alarm.’

  Fabricia held out a hand to him; Simon took it, and kissed her fingers. ‘Go with God,’ he said.

  Philip jumped on the other horse and nudged her forward. The wind moaned through the mouth of the cave and brought with it flurries of ice. ‘Goodbye, priest,’ Philip said.

  ‘Dieu vos benesiga,’ Simon repeated and disappeared into the dark.

  CI

  GILLES WOKE SWEATING. Another bad dream. One of his stewards was standing over him shaking him by the shoulder. He slapped the man’s hand away and sat up.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’

  The man backed away. ‘Seigneur, I am sorry to wake you. But there is someone to see you.’

  ‘It is the witching hour, by the bowels of God!’

  ‘He says it is vital that he see you now.’

  One of the guards threw the interloper into the room. The steward handed Gilles his gown and he got out of bed and stared at the upstart who had dared to come to his chamber at this hour. It was just a runt. ‘What is this?’

  The boy seemed not the least afraid, damn him. ‘I’m Loup, sir.’

  ‘Beat him and throw him out,’ he said to the guards.

  ‘No, seigneur! Please, seigneur, you will want to hear what I’ve got to say. You won’t be sorry.’

  ‘What could you know that would possibly interest me?’

  ‘Information, seigneur. Things you would like to hear of.’

  Gilles wanted to give him a good kicking but he held his temper. ‘What kind of information?’

  ‘About the Frenchman, the one you don’t like. The one who came from the Bishop with the new soldiers.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He lied about his name to Father Ortiz. His real name’s Philip of Vercy. He’s the one that ambushed your men.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I was with him. I saw it all.’

  Gilles folded his arms. ‘Who are you, boy? How did you get into Montaillet? Are you with the pilgrims?’

  ‘I’m a shadow, seigneur. I slip here, I slip there, no one notices me. I have seen things about Philip of Vercy that you would like to know. If I could tell you where he is now, wouldn’t you like to hear of it?’

  ‘He’s here in the fortress.’

  ‘He was, seigneur, but not any more.’

  ‘What do you mean? He has gone? How?’

  ‘You want to see him cold and dead, don’t you? So first we bargain, seigneur. That’s the right way.’

  ‘Bargain?’ He means it too, Gilles thought. This piece of dirt, this gutter trash wants to deal with me? ‘The bargain is this. You will tell me what you know and I won’t have you beaten to death in the yard.’ He stood over him. The boy Loup did not flinch. Well he had balls, no mistake, and he was no bigger than a poker. Gilles held out his hand and the steward handed him his purse. He gave the boy a silver denier. ‘Tell me where he is.’

  The boy Loup handed back the coin. ‘I don’t want money, seigneur.’

  ‘What do you want then?’

  ‘I want a horse with one white patch over its eye. And I want to sleep in a feather bed. I want you to take me to Normandy to your castle and make me a squire.’

  Gilles grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against the wall. God’s blood, he should squeeze him out like a rag and throw him out of the window. But then he threw back his head and laughed. ‘By the Devil, you are an impudent little rogue. Very well, you shall have your wish.’ He let him go. ‘Tell me what you know and be quick about it.’

  ‘There is a tunnel under the stables; it leads out of the castle by a secret way. He has taken the woman from the prison, and he intends to ride with her to Catalonia.’

  ‘How did he get her out of the prison?’

  ‘The priest helped him.’

  ‘The priest? By the Devil’s hairy unholy balls, why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, seigneur. But I know that he has done it. Saw it with my own eyes, I did.’

  Gilles lifted him by the arms and threw him on the bed. ‘There, boy, there’s your feather bed. Make him comfortable, steward, for he has earned it. Fetch me my armour and wake my sergeant-at-arms. Tell him he has work to do.’

  ‘What about my horse?’ Loup said.

  Gilles stared at him. ‘I’ll take you to Normandy to be my little shadow there. If you do me the same kind of service as you have done me here, then one day you shall have a horse.’ He shook his head. ‘When your balls drop, lad, they’ll hear them clang in Constantinople.’ He turned to his steward. ‘Hurry! I have work to do!’

  CII

  A BLIZZARD SWEPT in from the causses during the night and threw a white veil over the valley. But the dawn broke cold and blue and the gl
are of the snow in the bright sunlight hurt her eyes.

  They were in the high passes and the way was treacherous. Philip led both horses by their halters. Fabricia, still sick from her ordeal in the prison, had to cling to her horse’s withers to keep from fainting. Her body was numb with cold, even inside the bearskin cloak that Simon had given her.

  The snow had obscured the path up the mountain. The world up here was silent save for the occasional jarring crash of a branch somewhere in the forest giving way under its burden of snow.

  ‘The monastery of Montmercy is just over the ridge,’ she said.

  As if on cue, a fox ran across the snow with its prize, a chicken hanging limp in its jaws. ‘Only one place to steal chickens from up here,’ he said. The bird’s blood stained the snow, claret on virgin white.

  ‘I never thought to see you again, seigneur.’

  ‘It would have been so easy to go back. I was tempted. I could not do it.’

  ‘What happened in Toulouse?’

  ‘I persuaded the Bishop I was his man. After he accepted my penance he gave me a hundred men to bring to Simon de Montfort. We parted on the best of terms, though he may not speak quite so well of me after this.’

  ‘Your penance?’

  ‘On my knees, bare-backed, with a penitent’s cord around my neck, followed by a hundred lashes of the rod, rather meekly applied, I thought. Afterwards I was welcomed back into the loving embrace of the Church.’

  ‘You let him beat you?’

  ‘It was worth it. The pain was not overmuch.’ Well, a slight exaggeration, the popish bastard beat me like a dog. What it took, grovelling to that sanctimonious bastard!

  He stopped, stared across the valley. In the distance he could make out the far sentinels of the Pyrenees, the gateway to Catalonia and safety. His horse shivered, its hoof stamping the ground. Vapour rose from its nostrils. He had to tell her about her father sometime. She had to know. He wondered how he would find the words to say it.

  ‘Fabricia,’ he began, and he did not have to say more. His face told her everything.

  She put her fingers to his lips. ‘Please. Don’t say it.’

  But he had to tell her, how much Anselm had sacrificed for her.

  ‘He came back for you. Father Ortiz had him –’

  He did not finish. He heard a sound in the woods to their left, the jangling of a horse’s bridle. He squinted against the glare of the snow, saw a troop of riders, watching them, very still, from the tree-line. What he did not see was the archer whose arrow took him full in the middle of his chest and sent him tumbling over the edge of the cliff into the gorge.

  CIII

  ‘PHILIP!’

  Fabricia tumbled from her horse. But as soon as her feet touched the ground she slipped on the ice and almost went over the edge as well.

  She lay on her back, stunned. She heard the clip of horses’ hooves and a man laughing. They came out of the trees then, a dozen of them, all wearing hoods and cloaks. On their shields were the three blue eagles of the house of Soissons.

  One of the men held a crossbow. He grinned at her. He had a broken tooth.

  Gilles climbed down from his horse, giving the reins to his sergeant-at-arms. He took off his leather gauntlets and tucked them into his belt.

  He crouched down. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re the mason’s daughter, aren’t you? If I’d had my way I’d have burned you with your damned mother. It might have saved that monk’s life, but he never listened to me.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know? Of course, you were shut up in the prison. Didn’t he tell you, your noble lover? That Spanish monk ordered your father to repair the church and somehow the old bastard persuaded him to go up the scaffold with him. As soon as Ortiz was up there he grabbed him and threw them both off it. It was an earth floor so they left quite a hollow. We burned your father’s body and pounded his bones to dust, as we would with any heretic.’

  Fabricia spat in his face. Her mouth was dry so it wasn’t much but it pleased her to see him flinch. He slapped her hard before he wiped his face. ‘Show me your hands,’ he said.

  Fabricia did not move. He grabbed her wrists, pulled off her gloves and stared at one hand, then the other, and then turned them over. ‘Where are these wounds everyone speaks of?’

  ‘They’ve gone.’

  ‘So, it was just another story. I thought so. What about your magical healing powers? Or were they just another of your whore’s tricks?’ He slapped her again and stood up. He nodded towards the cliff. ‘He died quicker than I had hoped. I wanted to do it myself at my own leisure. Still, honour is served.’

  It was as she had dreamed. Philip was gone and now this pink-eyed monster was going to kill her too. She did not care, everyone she loved and who loved her was dead now. She would rather join them.

  ‘Is it true that you heretics believe that all murder is wrong?’

  ‘No matter what else you say about me, I tell you, I am no heretic.’

  ‘Then prove it to me.’ He took a dagger from his belt, held the blade under her nose, turning it in the weak sunlight, then ran it lightly across her thumb so that she could see how easily it sliced through her skin. ‘Take it,’ he said.

  She shook her head, but he grabbed her wrist and forced it into her hand. ‘Take it! Now – kill me. Prove to me that you are no heretic. A Cathar would not do it, am I right? It would be a blot on their soul. But you have just told me you are no heretic. Yet you have just cause, I ordered the men to build the fire that burned your mother and I have just killed your lover. You must hate me more than any man alive. It’s true; I can see it in your eyes. So kill me and show me you are a good Christian.’ He held a finger against his neck. ‘Strike here. It is the best spot.’

  The sergeant-at-arms fidgeted on his horse. ‘Seigneur . . .’

  Gilles held up a hand to silence him. ‘If you cut the vein,’ he said to Fabricia, ‘there will be nothing anyone can do. It will be the perfect revenge. You want that, don’t you?’

  His eyes never left hers. He smiled and pointed again to his neck, goading her.

  A part of her really wondered if she could do it. Perhaps he wonders too; that is what he is waiting for, a merest flicker of my eyes as I prepare to strike, and that will be his warning. As soon as I move he will grab my wrist and break it.

  ‘You are thinking my men will kill you if you harm me,’ he said, ‘and you are right, they will. But with them it will be quick. My way, if you let me live, it will be slow. That is your choice.’

  Philip would not hesitate, she thought. Do it, do it. Was she weak, or was she strong? It would serve nothing, change nothing, to kill him.

  Do it now, she heard Philip whisper.

  She dropped the knife into the snow.

  ‘I am disappointed,’ he said. ‘I thought that you would at least try, if only for your lover’s sake. He was your lover, wasn’t he? That’s why he came back for you. You, a common little slut he could have bought for two pennies anywhere. What a fool he turned out to be.’

  He picked up the knife and put it back in his belt. ‘You should have done it while you had the chance. Things will go very badly for you now. Very badly indeed.’

  CIV

  PHILIP OPENED HIS eyes to a sky the colour of grey quartz. He tried to move his head and groaned at the pain in his skull. Snow drifted on to his face. He put out his tongue to catch one or two flakes, felt the ice crystals in his beard. ‘Fabricia?’ he said. He remembered leading her horse by the bridle. What had happened then?

  He tried to sit up and saw the arrow sticking out of his chest. He gasped and grabbed the shaft lodged in the chain mail he wore under his cloak. He snapped off the end of the feathered bolt and threw it aside.

  ‘Fabricia?’

  He felt his gorge rise and he turned to the side and retched. He found himself staring into an abyss. He struck out a hand to pull himself back.

  He lay there, fight
ing back the bile. He did not dare to move. He was lying on a small ledge in a sheer rock wall. The wind stirred the ice, throwing tiny shards of it into his face.

  How long have I been here? How far did I fall? He bent both his legs at the knees, testing them. Then he took a deep breath and felt a sharp pain in his back. He supposed his body was too cold to hurt badly. The real pain would come when he was warm again.

  If I live to be warm again.

  Well, he could not lie here much longer, he would freeze to death. He had to try and get to his feet, climb back up the cliff. He could not do that wearing his coat of mail. It had saved his life for the last time.

  First he took off his heavy leather gauntlets, then he reached down to his belt and felt for his dagger. His fingers closed around the handle; they were almost frozen, he could hardly feel them. He flexed them; they felt numb and he blew on them to try and warm them. They would need to be nimble; if he dropped the knife, there would be no way out.

  He moved slowly and deliberately, first cutting open his surcoat so that he could reach the ties to the hauberk. It was hard enough to get it on and off standing in the bedchamber of his castle with his steward and another servant to help him; doing it here, flat on his back, seemed an impossible task.

  He sat up slowly, his head spinning, and found a crack in the rock. He hooked the fingers of his left hand into it and clung on till the dizziness had passed.

  He reached behind him with the knife, found the bottom strap with his left hand and sawed at it with the blade of the knife.