Ciarán lay there for a moment, listening to the sound of his own breath. Then he rose to his feet.
“Don’t be daft, lad!” Dónall yelled. But Ciarán started toward the cave’s mouth, gripping the sword’s hilt. Any moment, he expected the first of the warriors to charge into the cave.
From outside, a great din erupted, as if all the warriors were joining in a battle cry. Screams followed, horses whinnied, and branches snapped.
Peering out of the cave, Ciarán could hardly believe his eyes. The archers were under attack.
*
Alais felt the ground tremble beneath her feet, and as she watched, the prior’s expression went from concern to outright panic. The pounding hooves of so many horses, accompanied by the cries of men, raised a frightful din before she even saw the first cavalrymen through the woods ahead, setting upon the bishop’s soldiers. At least a dozen more men than her captors, in chain mail and iron helms and charging with leveled lances, caught Fulk of Anjou’s men flat-footed. Spears smashed through the Angevins’ painted shields, splitting wood and plunging into the bodies of men. Alais saw one warrior pierced through the neck. Another toppled from his mount, felled by the bloody arc of a cavalryman’s sword. The cavalrymen were beardless, and one carried a banner of a crimson lion: the arms of her cousin, William of Aquitaine.
Alais felt a sudden surge of hope. Thadeus, she thought, finally they came!
The prior cast a fearful glance to his monks, who were scattering into the woods like rats from a burning barn. Alais stood there alone, watching wide-eyed as the fierce riders of Aquitaine hacked away at the Angevins, who were so stunned by the sudden attack that they could not form a defensive column or dismount to establish a shield wall. The Angevin archers, who moments ago had nearly killed Dónall and Ciarán, died on the points of Aquitaine lances. Other Angevins, who were scaling the hillside toward the cave, now returned to defend their frantic comrades, who were fighting back as best they could. An Aquitanian mount toppled onto the churned earth, a spear protruding from its belly. Its rider fell clear, only to be crushed under the hooves of a panicked Angevin destrier, whose rider died an instant later when an Aquitainian sword cleaved through the side of his neck.
Alais’ awe at the initial attack quickly turned to vengeful glee. With each Angevin sent to his death, she felt a sense of justice. She scanned the chaotic scene for Bishop Adémar. He had fallen behind a cluster of Angevins. Seeing a blade flash before the bishop’s face, she drew a sharp breath, praying the sword would strike true. But then, seeing the blade sink into the neck of one of William’s men, she realized that it was in the bishop’s hand.
She watched in horror as the bishop struck down another, wielding his blade like a trained swordsman, fighting his way toward the center of the Angevin force, where the black-bearded count of Anjou battled the cavalrymen with the fury of a wild beast. Fulk the Black plunged his sword into an Aquitainian horseman, then withdrew it in a backhanded swipe that cleaved through a second horseman’s jaw. Alais could hear Fulk’s voice above the din of battle. “Kill!” he roared. “By the souls of God, kill them all!” William’s men pressed forward, battering through the Angevin shields, but reaching Fulk, the attack broke like a wave against a sheer cliff. He split the head of one of the Aquitainian mounts, which bucked in death, spilling its rider into a sea of stamping hooves. Fulk’s rage inspired his Angevin forces, who held fast as their leader continued his bloody onslaught. In a heartbeat, Fulk cut past another rider to challenge the one holding the banner of the crimson lion. The standard-bearer raised his shield, which Fulk split with a hard downward blow. Then the count recovered and thrust his sword, and the crimson banner fell beneath the cavalry’s hooves.
Alais’ hopes faltered as the Angevins let out a cheer. But the Aquitainian cavalry surged, spurred on by their leader, who was cutting his own path toward the count. The left flank of the Angevin wall began to buckle, and for the first time, Alais saw Fulk and the bishop backing their mounts toward the woods. William’s men outnumbered the Angevins and had already taken more than half of them to their deaths. A battle cry rose among the Aquitainian ranks as one of the lead Angevins fell, a broken lance protruding from his mailed chest. Alais held her breath, teetering between fear and elation, until Fulk’s pocket of resistance began to collapse. The riders of Aquitaine swelled into the gaps, and the Angevin horsemen broke and fled into the woods.
The Aquitainian leader rode forward. He had a proud face with a sharp nose and prominent jaw. Grateful tears tinged Alais’ eyes, for she recognized Lord Raymond, one of William’s dearest friends, whom she had known since childhood.
“No mercy!” Raymond cried. “Chase them down for William, for Aquitaine, and for God!”
“No!” cried a voice from above them on the hillside. It was the older Irish monk, Dónall, who had climbed down the rocky incline near the falls. The younger one, Ciarán, was just behind him.
Raymond glanced toward the monks as his cavalrymen gathered in a semicircle around him.
“My lord,” Dónall said between huffing breaths, “call back your men, that they might live to fight another day.”
“But we have them!” Raymond shouted.
“You’ve won through surprise,” Dónall replied, “but there are evil forces in those woods.”
“Then all the better to strike them down!”
Dónall shook his head. “No, my lord. There be sorcerers, minions of the devil. Not even the pope himself could stand against them.”
“But God stands with us this morning! Back off, old man, or be trampled!” Raymond reared his destrier, and its forelegs kicked the air.
“Raymond, no!” Alais ran into the clearing. “He speaks true.”
Raymond pulled off his helmet. His black hair was cut short in the Roman fashion. “Alais?” he gasped.
“These men freed me from Fulk’s soldiers at Selles,” she said, standing between Dónall and the Aquitaine lord. “But I sense it, too. There’s something wicked about this place and about those men.” Alais believed every word she told him, yet in her mind the wickedness of which she spoke had an all-too-human shape in the form of Adémar of Blois. But there was something about the prior and her captors from Saint-Bastian’s, something about their haunting chant, that told her Dónall was right.
Raymond dismounted. “Were you hurt?”
She winced but shook her head. She didn’t want to tell him—or anyone. She began choking on her tears but fought them back. “I am fine.”
Raymond embraced her. “They bound your hands,” he said, anger flashing again in his eyes. He unsheathed a dagger and carefully cut the cords around her wrists. This time she embraced him and kissed the corner of his mouth. “We received word of Geoffrey’s passing,” Raymond said softly. “William sent me to secure your lands at Selles. We arrived there yesterday at dusk. I know what happened. Fulk of Anjou will pay for what he did, as will that vile bishop.”
She gave a thankful sigh. “These monks were trying to escort me to Poitiers. They are in need of sanctuary.”
“Yet they would have me forego our chance to run the enemy down?”
“If you are meant to destroy him,” Dónall interjected, “then at the right time, God shall make it so. But for now, take the story of this victory to your duke and make him proud.”
Raymond’s eyes narrowed. He thought for a moment and then spoke. “For the sake of the lady, I will desist. But do not think that it means an Irish monk can tell a lord of Aquitaine when to fight.” Raymond called to his men. “This is Alais, the lady of Selles-sur-Cher and cousin of our beloved Duke William. Treat her accordingly.”
As the cavalry gathered, Ciarán turned to Alais. “Are you truly all right?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “I feared you had been killed.”
“They tried,” he said. “But they killed Remi.”
Alais felt a sudden sadness for the Benedictine. “Why would they do this?” she asked, noticing the pain in Dónall�
�s eyes.
“Lucien betrayed us,” Dónall said grimly.
“But why?” she asked.
He looked down and shook his head. “Because I’ve been a fool for far too long.”
PART III
And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirit and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling.
—Enoch 15:8
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE LION OF POITIERS
On the second morning of their journey, the first snowfall of winter came—a scattering of white flakes on a breeze thick with the scent of pine.
Ciarán drew his cowl over his head. He rode beside Dónall on a horse abandoned by one of the dead Angevins, whom Lord Raymond had left for the crows in a clearing not far from Saint-Bastian’s. The first drifting flakes soon turned into a steady snowfall that blanketed the surrounding pines and obscured the road from view. Fortunately, Lord Raymond and his men knew these lands well, and despite the snow, they never strayed into the tangled forests or down some other path that might lead them to danger.
Riding with a column of cavalrymen was far different from the rest of their journey since Paris. Ciarán and Dónall rode in the middle of the column, with cloaked riders bearing painted shields before and behind them, following a cavalier who carried the standard of Poitiers: a crimson lion over gray, with claws of gold. When the column passed through villages, the local lords either welcomed Raymond with gifts or gave his men a wide berth, and if there were bandits afoot, they were not inclined to waylay twenty-four armed and mounted soldiers.
Ciarán had barely seen Alais. She rode near the column’s head alongside Lord Raymond, whom she clearly knew well from some earlier time. Perhaps they had been more than friends, for the few times Ciarán had glimpsed Alais, she clung to Raymond’s side. When he first saw this, Ciarán turned away, realizing right then how little he liked the Aquitainian lord. Maybe it was the way Raymond ignored the Irishmen, as if they were beneath his station, or how he rode so proudly through his ranks, who, with their short hair and clean-shaven faces, seemed to fancy themselves the last of the Roman legions. Or maybe it was because of Alais. That could be what troubled Ciarán the most—besides Dónall.
Ciarán’s mentor had sunk into melancholy since the battle with Bishop Adémar and Fulk the Black. He had barely spoken of the events at Saint-Bastian’s. Ciarán had never seen Dónall so grim, and he could only imagine the troubled thoughts churning in his mind as he grappled with the deaths of Nicolas and Remi, and the betrayal by Prior Lucien of Saint-Bastian’s, who would have killed them all. Today Dónall rode weary-eyed, in silence, as flecks of snow collected on his beard.
When the column slowed to cross a bridge over one of the land’s many rivers, Dónall turned to Ciarán and finally spoke. “I never saw it,” he said softly.
The comment out of the blue surprised Ciarán. “You mean Lucien.”
“I was so confident that our brothers’ deaths were the result of Gerbert’s ruthless ambition and Adalbero’s blindness. Yet could Lucien have been manipulating them all along? And now he’s in league with Adémar of Blois. But does this bishop truly hunt heretics, or does he side with Lucien’s dark master in this so-called war?”
“Both bishop and prior pursue the prophecy,” Ciarán said. “That’s why Adémar wants the Book of Maugis. And both of them have killed for it.”
Dónall shook his head. “I had become too complacent in my belief that it was all just a figment of Remi’s madness and your father’s obsession. When I saw others drawn to that obsession like moths to a flame—innocents like your mother, who paid the highest price for believing in it—I came to view the prophecy as destructive, a mad riddle penned by Maugis after the Fae arts had addled his mind.”
“Lucien believes in the prophecy. I think he fears it.”
Dónall looked at Ciarán grimly. “I’ve had the same thought. And if Remi was right about the timing . . .”
“Then we have barely two months,” Ciarán said. “But to do what—find Enoch’s device? Where do we even start to look?”
Dónall tilted his chin toward the falling snow. “I wish I knew,” he said. “By God, I wish I knew.”
*
They arrived at Poitiers on the fifth day of their journey. The city was breathtaking, grander even than Paris—and, for that matter, than any other city Ciarán had ever seen. Perched on a promontory, the city overlooked the snow-lined banks of the river Clain. Halfway up the promontory loomed gigantic walls with half-round turrets and battlements, their warlike aspect softened by mantles of snow. Above the walls, the spires of at least a dozen churches and abbeys rose amid a sea of slanted rooftops, with smoke from hundreds of chimneys drifting into the December sky. At the city’s pinnacle stood a fortress, an imposing structure with crimson banners fluttering from the highest towers—the banners of William, duke of Aquitaine.
“You look impressed,” Dónall said, pulling his horse abreast of Ciarán’s.
“Just look at the walls!” said the awestruck Ciarán.
“They’re Roman, and never since Rome fell have men built such things. I still remember the first time I saw them.”
“You’ve been here?”
“Twice actually, with your father. As students, we took a pilgrimage to Aquitaine, to the tombs of Turpin, Roland, and Oliver, and returned again years later when searching for Rosefleur.”
“Rosefleur?”
“According to Maugis’ book, it’s the tower of Orionde, the Fae who taught him the secrets he recorded. Maugis wrote that the gateway to Rosefleur lies in the heart of Aquitaine.”
“Did you ever find it?”
“God, no! At some point, I fear, the Fae retreated from these lands and closed the gateways to their Otherworld.”
The column of horsemen crossed a wooden bridge over the River Clain. The bridge was built of logs and planks so sturdy that they barely creaked under the weight of so many destriers and armored men. At the head of the column, Lord Raymond, followed by Alais, started up the winding road toward one of the city’s massive gates. Great stone blocks, framed by wild bushes white with snow, jutted from the hillside along the road. As they neared the wall, the stone blocks became more massive, the many crenellations more awe inspiring. Every twenty paces or so stood a half-round tower, and from its battlements, thirty feet above the wall’s foundation, soldiers witnessed the cavalry’s return. The city’s massive gates stood open, and soon the head of the column disappeared under the arched gateway. The air inside the gateway was dank, and the tunnellike entrance spanned nearly twenty feet, which made Poitiers’ defenses more forbidding than any except the walls of Troy—the only suitable comparison Ciarán could imagine.
Emerging from the tunnel, Ciarán caught his first glimpse of the townsfolk, who clapped and cheered the warriors’ return. The men, women, and even children reminded him of the Parisians, though they bundled themselves in cloaks, many of which were brightly colored, and gathered along the narrow streets in rows six deep. Others watched from the balconies above their shops. Towering over the buildings was one of the bell towers Ciarán had seen from outside the walls. It belonged to a church of yellow-hued stone, which, judging from the black robed nuns who stood watching the procession, must be part of a convent. The sight of the nuns, many of them elderly and with stern faces hardened by years of rigorous discipline, made Ciarán think of his mother. Briefly he wondered how her convent would have reacted had she returned from France heavy with child.
Past the convent, the column of horsemen turned up another narrow street and then quickly down another, seemingly in the opposite direction, though still ascending the steep hillside. After a few more turns, Ciarán sensed that a madman must have designed the streets of Poitiers, for they seemed to form an anarchistic maze pinched between cramped buildings and towering church spires. An icy sludge had built up along the sides of the roads, and the crisp air was tinged with the whiff of refuse,
reminding Ciarán once again why he preferred the humble, earthy environs of Derry to these crowded cities of the Continent. He had long ago lost sight of the head of the procession, and could see only a half-dozen riders ahead of him before the column snaked up some other crooked causeway. After climbing what must have been hundreds of feet of urban hillside, he finally spied the fortress.
The horsemen slowed to a near stop. Ahead, the fortress towers loomed over the pitched roofs of the surrounding buildings. The fortress, which Dónall referred to as the palace, was built of the same pale gray stone, though many of the blocks had the now familiar yellowish hue. Arched windows and arrowslits climbed up the tower walls, while small statues of Aquitainian warriors perched like gargoyles on brackets jutting near the battlements, where gray banners bearing crimson lions fluttered in the wintry breeze. Riders at the forefront began dismounting, and stable boys in drab brown tunics scurried to take their mounts while the men disappeared through a tall open gateway. Lord Raymond and Alais must have already gone in, for Ciarán caught not a glimpse of them.
“What happens to us now?” he asked Dónall.
“I suppose we’ll discover how hospitable this duke is.”
Once all the cavalrymen had dismounted, two stable boys met Ciarán and Dónall and waited impatiently until both had dismounted. As soon as they were on the ground, and without so much as a word, the stable boys grabbed the reins and led their horses away, leaving them alone on the snow-covered pavement outside the palace gates.
“So much for hospitality,” Ciarán muttered. “Where do you suppose we go?”
Dónall surveyed the area. A block away, a church steeple peered over the pitched roofs.
“With luck, it will be an abbey,” he said. “If not, maybe the priests will welcome us in.”
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