Weaving amongst the merchants, the drinkers, the costermongers and the swindlers were the pilgrims. Some – generally the more modestly dressed – were evidently delighted by their lively surroundings. Others – those more ostentatiously clad in the richest fabrics or the most meagre sackcloth – looked upon this orgy of common commercialism with queasy distaste, or haughty disapproval.
One other thing had boosted traffic through Calais of late. War. Richard himself had passed through here with the core of his army on his hasty journey to the crusade. There had been a steady flow of armed English or Anglo-Norman knights ever since, and here and there, French knights and other surly representatives of the crown looked on warily, resentfully, a little too keen to make trouble – perhaps imagining some future time when this Little England would seek to assert itself more fully.
“You!” Gisburne and Galfrid, leading their packed horses from the quay, had not advanced a hundred yards on French soil when the shout rang out. Galfrid’s furtive gaze had confirmed that it was indeed meant for them.
“Keep walking,” he had said, his hand gripping Gisburne’s elbow.
“Hey!”
Gisburne shot a glance behind them. A long-haired knight in a bright blue surcoat – obviously French – pushed his way towards them, a younger, beardless facsimile of himself following at his shoulder.
“Keep walking...” murmured Galfrid. “If questioned, say nothing...”
“You there!”
The cry was tinged with irritation this time. They did not stop. “Say nothing...” sang Galfrid, as if it were a monk’s incantation.
A gauntleted hand landed on his shoulder, turning him around. “What’s the matter with you? Are you deaf or stupid?”
“Is there a problem?” said Galfrid in his best French, and with the impressively-wrought air of an innocent. Almost, Gisburne thought, that of a simpleton.
“Whose horse is this?” the knight barked in Gisburne’s face.
“This is my master’s horse, as you see...” replied Galfrid.
“Have I developed a squint? I was talking to him, not you.” He returned his attention to Gisburne, looking him up and down with an expression of repugnance. “This is a knight’s horse. How did you come by it?”
“And what’s in the box?” said the younger knight, less convincingly. He circled behind them, looking their horses and gear up and down. Probably a token gesture – an insecure youth asserting himself, thought Gisburne – but he didn’t like the direction things were going. Galfrid’s eyes widened, still pleading with him to say nothing.
“You’re trying my patience...” The knight drew his sword. Galfrid leapt forward, his hands in a supplicatory gesture.
“Now, now – no need for unpleasantness. I’m sure we can all...” But before he could finish the sentence, from behind them came a sharp, metallic snap, and a cry of pain. Gisburne turned in time to see the younger knight recoil from the box, the forefinger of his ungloved right hand – beaded with a neat row of fresh, bloody punctures – going instinctively to his mouth.
“It bit me!” whined the young knight in disbelief. “The damn box, bit me!” His face looked suddenly flushed.
“Idiot!” said his older cousin, and with obvious exasperation shoved his comrade to one side, then Galfrid to the other. “You!” He slapped Gisburne on the side with the flat of his sword. “Who do you think you are, dolt?” His sword slapped again – harder, this time.
Before his blade could make contact a third time, it was snatched clean out of its astonished owner’s grasp. Gisburne’s free hand grabbed the knight by the throat and pulled him with such violence that he twisted and collapsed onto his knees. Gisburne stood behind him, the stolen blade across his throat, a space suddenly clear about them in the crowd, faces staring. “I am a knight,” he hissed into the man’s ear. “Dolt...”
“What is this?” The new voice – as heavy with authority as it was with age – boomed from an imposing man with greying beard and drooping moustache. His surcoat was of identical blue to the others – less gaudy in its cloth, but far finer in the making, its hems subtly embroidered with gold. The gawping onlookers stepped aside for this one as he strode past. He stopped before Gisburne and narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”
Gisburne straightened up, and made as if to speak – but before he could utter a word, Galfrid again thrust himself between them. “My lord de Belleville...” He bowed low before the old knight. “This man – my noble master – is Bernard of Ickleford, second cousin to Balian of Ibelin, benefactor to the nuns of Ventnor, and loyal knight to Richard the Lionhearted of England, en route to the Holy Land to join his King in the pursuit of the Lord God’s justice.”
De Belleville stared at Galfrid in amazement. Gisburne tried hard not to look like he was doing the same. He released his hold on the knight, who staggered to his feet, shooting Gisburne an aggrieved and murderous look.
“Is this true?” demanded de Belleville. It was a moment before the knight realised the question – and de Belleville’s indignation – were meant for him. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged.
“I am sure your man had every good reason to accost my master with a drawn sword,” continued Galfrid. “These are trying times for those without the wisdom to fully understand them – though your own wisdom and compassion are well known, my lord.” He bowed low again. De Belleville visibly softened before the flattery.
“He wouldn’t speak,” blustered the knight. “Can he not speak for himself?”
Galfrid, fearless, stepped up to the knight’s chin. “He has – had – taken a vow of silence, raising his voice to no other than God until such time as Jerusalem is returned to Christendom.”
“And you made him break it, imbecile!” barked de Belleville, striking the knight sharply across the head with his gauntleted hand. “You are lucky this man did not take your life, as by my reckoning he still has every right to do!” He then turned back to Gisburne, his expression full of remorse.
“Please accept my apologies, Sir Bernard. This man will do penance for his outrage.” He glared back at the knight. “We are sworn to protect pilgrims, and respect our betters – though there has been shamefully little evidence of either today.”
He turned his attention to the younger knight. “And where were you while all this was going on?” But the man merely shivered, and looked oddly distant, a sweat breaking out on his forehead in spite of the cold. “Gah!” exclaimed de Belleville, and turned from both in disgust.
Gisburne bowed his head, and offered up the knight’s sword, hilt first. De Belleville took it.
“Go in peace, with our humble blessings,” he said. “And, when you see your great and noble King, please tell him that Gervaise de Belleville sends his humble good wishes. We pray for his success, and hope he remembers us well.” He shot another hot glance at his knights. “And also that he forgives us our failings.” With that, he bowed low. Uncertain how else to respond, Gisburne bowed back.
Galfrid, seizing the advantageous moment to make an exit, began to push through the circle of knights. “Gentlemen...” They parted under de Belleville’s stern gaze to allow the pair to pass.
They walked rapidly away, resisting the urge to look back.
“You know him?” muttered Gisburne when they were thirty yards distant.
“I wouldn’t say ‘know’,” said Galfrid. “Know of. And it would hardly have helped matters if he had known me.”
And what would he know, if he had known you? wondered Gisburne. “So, do you ‘know of’ many people?”
“A few.”
“And... ‘Bernard of Ickleford’?”
Galfrid sighed, as if having to explain something very obvious to someone very stupid. “Gervaise de Belleville is a profoundly pious man. So I gave you the name of his favourite saint and a place so small that he could not possibly know it or anything that might contradict my claims. He also fought alongside Balian, and hero-worships Richard.”
�
�And the nuns?”
Galfrid shrugged. “I heard he liked nuns.”
Gisburne tried not to let his smile show. The little man might have his uses after all.
“Tell me one thing,” said Galfrid. “You weren’t about to divulge your real name back there, were you?”
Gisburne’s lack of response told Galfrid all he needed to know. He sighed deeply. “Just as well you’d taken a vow of silence then... Perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part.”
“I’m not a liar, Galfrid.”
Galfrid’s tone acquired a sharper edge. “You’re no thief, either. But you’ll have to learn to be both if we’re to get through this. It’s my arse in the fire, too, remember.”
Gisburne decided there and then to share more of the truth with Galfrid. If nothing else, he could test his response – see if it met with a knowing look, or surprise, or perhaps merely the pretence of it. Though whether he would be able to detect anything beneath that unflappable façade was another matter.
“You know what this is all about?” said Gisburne.
“A treasure,” said Galfrid. “That’s all.” His tone made it clear he neither expected nor needed more.
“A skull,” said Gisburne. “The skull of John the Baptist.”
Galfrid’s eyebrows rose. “I wish you’d said earlier. There’s one of those in a church in Kent.” He thought for a moment. “So, we get the skull. Skull goes in the box...” There was another thoughtful silence, at the end of which he added: “About that box...”
Gisburne stopped, and went to the unassuming wooden casket that hung behind Nyght’s saddle. At least, he had thought it was unassuming. It seemed, however, that at least one knight of France thought otherwise. Avoiding the row of six small steel spikes now projecting from just beneath the locked lid, Gisburne reached underneath, and pushed against an iron catch until there was an audible click. The spikes retracted into their holes and blended into the box’s simple decoration. He took Nyght by the reins again.
“It’s better you don’t know,” said Gisburne, and led his horse on.
Galfrid gave him a look. “Are you quite sure about that?” He gazed back towards the quayside where the crowd had closed about the blue-clad knights. “Our friend back there – the one who it... bit. He didn’t know. And by the time we left he was looking decidedly... ill.”
“He’ll be fine,” said Gisburne.
“Fine...”
“After a week or so, anyway.”
“And before that?”
Gisburne shrugged. “In a few minutes, he’ll start to think he’s on fire. Then he’ll collapse, expelling the contents of his stomach, bladder and bowels. Then he’ll lose the use of his legs and he will become temporarily blind. And probably bleed profusely from his nose. If he doesn’t choke to death, then he will probably start to hallucinate. And his whole body will be racked with violent cramps. Just for a few days.”
Galfrid nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “And if I had happened to take a look at the box?”
“I told you not to touch it. You just have to trust me, Galfrid. I am your master, after all.” He thought for a moment, then added – in a way intended to be conciliatory – “It’s not in my interest for you to be out of the game.”
“Hmm,” said Galfrid, looking somehow not quite convinced. He cast another glance back in the direction from which they had come. “Well, then... Perhaps we’d best get a move on. Before the collapsing and vomiting and hallucinating.”
At that, Gisburne had nodded. “Perhaps.”
And then they had mounted their horses and put Calais far behind them.
XIII
“THROW IT DOWN there,” barked Pig-Grease. “Then all the rest.”
Gisburne made no movement. He could just throw down the box, he supposed. Let it bite again. But giving anything up to a thief – being dictated to by one – stuck in his craw. “A good fighter denies his enemy everything,” Gilbert used to say. “When he’s ready to fight, frustrate him. When he is unprepared, attack him.” Gisburne had lived by this advice. He had also seen men die for ignoring it. And he had not yet got the measure of this enemy.
Impatient, Pig-Grease crept forward, his feet crunching on the icy snow. Nyght stamped and snorted, making him jump back. Rat-Face turned his bow on Gisburne again.
“My horse doesn’t like you,” said Gisburne.
The man’s eyes blazed. “I don’t give a shit what your stinking mare thinks!”
Nyght tossed his head, reared up and brought both front hooves down with a thud. Clearly he did not appreciate being mistaken for a mare.
There had been hundreds of mercenaries let loose over the years – soldiers taken on for a campaign, then set adrift when no longer needed. If these bandits were such men, they were dangerous indeed; if they had killed mercenaries to acquire their weapons, perhaps even more so. But Gisburne had seen many of those forbidding soldiers – had been one – and he did not see such men before him now.
“Jus’ give it!” bellowed Pig-Grease, jabbing his sword at Gisburne. But even as he spoke, his eyes were taking in the quality of the horse, processing the possible reasons for it, and shadows of doubt were already beginning to cloud his face.
The sword clearly deserved – and had once had – a scabbard. But there was no scabbard to be seen – nothing but a wide, crude belt from which hung all manner of things: a broken-tipped knife, a small war hammer showing a bloom of rust and encrusted with filth, the wrapping around its grip half gone, and what looked to be a brace of whole rabbit skins. A killer would have taken the the scabbard as well. A scavenger, then. Or a thief.
“I give you nothing,” said Gisburne. “If you want it, you’ll have to take it.”
“Then one of you dies.” Pig-Grease swung his sword point towards Galfrid. “Him...” Rat-Face immediately turned the bow on the little man.
Clever, thought Gisburne. Out of his depth he might be, but he was quick thinking; resourceful. Pig-Grease knew now Gisburne didn’t fear him. Perhaps had him pegged as a knight. So now he was exploiting his sense of chivalry instead – his supposed duty to protect the weak.
Gisburne’s eyes flicked to Rat-Face. Even from where he was, he could see the bow was poorly looked after. Its shaft was darkened and battered, the bowstring likely worn of wax, and damp right through. The wood too. Assuming Rat-Face’s arm didn’t give out, or the bow snap in half from being drawn so long – or rather half-drawn, as it now was – its power would be diminished. It would still kill one of them at this range, of course, if the aim was good, but he now knew three things.
These men didn’t know what they were doing, which meant their skills were poor. They preyed on those they believed weaker than themselves, which meant they feared a fight. And they had no idea what was about to happen to them.
“Kill him, then,” said Gisburne, with a shrug.
“What?” The exclamation came simultaneously from Pig-Grease and Galfrid.
“Kill him,” repeated Gisburne, more forcefully this time. “Then I can kill you.” He pointed at Pig-Grease, then turned to Rat-Face. “And then him.” Rat-Face’s left eye twitched. There was little doubt that Gisburne could move faster than he could loose a second arrow – if he even had a second arrow.
It was Gisburne’s turn to take a step forward now, his pilgrim staff clutched in his right fist. Pig-Grease flinched, sword still extended. Rat-Face switched his aim back to the knight, the arrow rattling against the yew of the over-tensioned bow. Gisburne thought he heard him whimper.
“Let’s get this over with,” said Gisburne, and took two sudden, decisive steps. Pig-Grease lunged at him with a roar. Gisburne sided-stepped and whipped the staff through the air in a broad arc.
The staff did not parry the sword blade. Nor did it hit the attacker’s body – but struck where the sword’s curved blade and cross-guard met. There was a sharp crack of impact. The sword went singing sideways through the air and sank into snow, its blank outline printed on the surfac
e. Its owner staggered, seemed ready to rally, then stopped and stared stupidly at a second, tiny dint in the snow a couple of yards from him – its edges red-stained, a fine, dotted trail of crimson linking him to it. It took a moment – and the sight of the fresh red blood melting into the white immediately before him – to comprehend what he was looking at. At the bottom of the bloody hole was his freshly severed forefinger.
By the time he knew it, the air was split again, and the iron head of Gisburne’s staff cracked across his temple. At the same moment, Galfrid spurred his horse with such violence that, even carrying all that weight, it reared high in the air, then thundered forward straight into the bushes where the cowering Rat-Face was watching his comrade fall. He yelped, panicked, tried to scramble backwards and fell, his arrow flying uselessly, pitifully into the air. Galfrid dismounted with surprising agility, kicked a rusty carving knife out of the whimpering clod’s hand and snatched up the bow. It was still oddly bent about the grip. Had it been kept under tension any longer, it would have snapped in two. Galfrid broke it across his knee and flung it aside. “If you’d had a father, he might have taught you something about bowmanship!” he spat, then backhanded the man across the chops with such force that it flipped the thin man over onto his face. He lay that way, face down in the snow, sobbing, while Galfrid divested him of his remaining weapons, a look of distaste on his face.
XIV
PIG-GREASE’S CEASELESS, INCOMPREHENSIBLE ranting was getting on Gisburne’s nerves. He’d seen it many times among men whose lives had disappointed them – who felt God, or the cosmos, or something owed them a favour. Whatever their bitterness towards the world, he couldn’t see how shaking their fists at it would help. It was a waste of energy. “A bitter adversary is at war with himself,” de Gaillon would have said, “and therefore has to fight on two fronts.” De Gaillon had a saying for just about everything.
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