The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic

by Bernard Cornwell

  'My father,' a woman said, 'gave that book to the church.'

  'I know he did,' Thomas said, then he closed the bible and he turned to look at Jeanette and he was almost frightened to see her in case she was less beautiful than he remembered, or perhaps he feared the sight of her would engender hatred because she had abandoned him, but instead he felt tears in his eyes when he saw her face. 'Merle,' he said softly, using her nickname. It meant Blackbird.

  'Thomas.' Her voice was toneless, then she flicked her head towards an old woman dressed and veiled in black. 'Madame Verlon,' Jeanette said, 'who is nervous of life, told me that an English soldier was stealing the bible.'

  'So you came to fight the soldier?' Thomas asked. A candle guttered to his right, its flame flickering as fast as a small bird's heart.

  Jeanette shrugged. 'The priest here is a coward and would not challenge an English archer, so who else would come?'

  'Madame Verlon can rest safe,' Thomas said as he put the bible back under the altar.

  'She also said' – Jeanette's voice had a quaver in it – 'that the man stealing the bible had a big black bow.' Which was why, she implied, she had come herself instead of sending for help. She had guessed it was Thomas.

  'At least you did not have to come far,' Thomas said, gesturing to the side door which led into the yard of Jeanette's father's house. He was pretending not to know that she had lost the house.

  Her head jerked back. 'I do not live there,' she said curtly, 'not now.'

  A dozen women were listening and they stepped nervously back as Thomas came towards them. 'Then perhaps, madame,' he said to Jeanette, 'you will let me escort you home?'

  She nodded abruptly. Her eyes seemed very bright and big in the candlelight. She was thinner, Thomas thought, or perhaps that was the darkness in the church shadowing her cheeks. She had a bonnet tied under her chin and a great black cloak that swept on the flagstones as she followed him to the western door. 'You remember Belas?' she asked him.

  'I remember the name,' Thomas said. 'Wasn't he a lawyer?'

  'He is a lawyer,' Jeanette said, 'and a thing of bile, a creature of slime, a cheat. What was that English word you taught me? A tosspot. He is a tosspot. When I came home he had bought the house, claiming it was sold to pay my debts. But he had bought the debts! He promised to look after my business, waited till I was gone, then took my house. And now I am back he won't let me pay what I owed. He says it is paid. I said I would buy the house from him for more than he paid, but he just laughs at me.'

  Thomas held the door for her. Rain was spitting in the street. 'You don't want the house,' he told her, 'not if Charles of Blois comes back. You should be gone by then.'

  'You're still telling me what to do, Thomas?' she asked and then, as if to soften the harshness of her words, she took his arm. Or perhaps she put her hand through his elbow because the street was steep and slippery. 'I will stay here, I think.'

  'If you hadn't escaped from him,' Thomas said, 'Charles was going to marry you to one of his men-at-arms. If he finds you here he'll do that. Or worse.'

  'He already has my child. He has already raped me. What more can he do? No' – she clutched Thomas's arm fiercely – 'I shall stay in my little house by the south gate and when he rides into the town I will sink a crossbow quarrel in his belly.'

  'I'm surprised you haven't put a quarrel into Belas's belly.'

  'You think I would hang for a lawyer's death?' Jeanette asked and gave a short, hard laugh. 'No, I shall save my death for the life of Charles of Blois and all Brittany and France will know he was killed by a woman.'

  'Unless he returns your child?'

  'He won't!' she said fiercely. 'He answered no appeals.' She meant, Thomas was sure, that the Prince of Wales, maybe the King as well, had written to Charles of Blois, but the appeals had achieved nothing, and why should they? England was Charles's most bitter enemy. 'It's all about land, Thomas,' she said wearily, 'land and money.' She meant that her son, who at three years old was the Count of Armorica, was the rightful heir to great swathes of western Brittany that were presently under English occupation. If the child were to give fealty to Duke Jean, who was Edward of England's candidate to rule Brittany, then the claim of Charles of Blois to sovereignty of the duchy would be seriously weakened and so Charles had taken the child and would keep him till he was of an age to swear fealty.

  'Where is Charles?' Thomas asked. It was one of the ironies of Jeanette's life that her son had been named after his great-uncle in an attempt to win his favour.

  'He is in the Tower of Roncelets,' Jeanette said, 'which is south of Rennes. He is being raised by the Lord of Roncelets.' She turned on Thomas. 'It's almost a year since I've seen him!'

  'The Tower of Roncelets,' Thomas said, 'it's a castle?' 'I've not seen it. A tower, I suppose. Yes, a castle.' 'You're sure he's there?'

  'I'm sure of nothing,' Jeanette said wearily, 'but I received a letter which said Charles was there and I have no reason to doubt it.'

  'Who wrote the letter?'

  'I don't know. It was not signed.' She walked in silence for a few paces, her hand warm on his arm. 'It was Belas,' she said finally. 'I don't know that for sure, but it must be. He was goading me, tormenting me. It is not enough that he has my house and Charles of Blois has my child, Belas wants me to suffer. Or else he wants me to go to Roncelets knowing that I would be given back to Charles of Blois. I'm sure it was Belas. He hates me.'

  'Why?'

  'Why do you think?' she asked scornfully. 'I have something he wants, something all men want, but I won't give it to him.'

  They walked on through dark streets. Singing sounded from some taverns, and somewhere a woman screamed at her man. A dog barked and was silenced. The rain pattered on thatch, dripped from the eaves and made the muddy street slippery. A red glow slowly appeared ahead, growing as they came closer until Thomas saw the flames of two braziers 'varming the guards on the south gate and he remembered how he and Jake and Sam had opened that gate to let in the English army. 'I promised you once,' he said to Jeanette, 'that I would fetch Charles back.'

  'You and I, Thomas,' Jeanette said, 'made too many promises.' She still sounded weary.

  'I should start keeping some of mine,' Thomas said. But to reach Roncelets I need horses.'

  'I can afford horses,' Jeanette said, stopping by a dark doorway. 'I live here,' she went on, then looked into his face. He was tall, but she was very nearly the same height. 'The Count of Roncelets is famous as a warrior. You mustn't die to keep a promise you should never have made.'

  'It was made, though,' Thomas said.

  She nodded. That is true.'

  There was a long pause. Thomas could hear a sentry's footsteps on the wall. 'I—' he began.

  'No,' she said hastily.

  'I didn't ...'

  'Another time. I must get used to your being here. I'm tired of men, Thomas. Since Picardy . . .' She paused and Thomas thought she would say no more, but then she shrugged. 'Since Picardy I have lived like a nun.'

  He kissed her forehead. 'I love you,' he said, meaning it, but surprised all the same that he had spoken the thought aloud.

  For a heartbeat she did not speak. The reflected light from the two braziers glinted red in her eyes. 'What happened to that girl?' she asked. 'That little pale thing « ho was so protective of you?'

  'I failed to protect her,' Thomas said, 'and she died.'

  'Men are such bastards,' she said, then turned and pulled the rope that lifted the latch of the door. She paused for a moment. 'But I'm glad you're here,' she said without looking back, and then the door was shut, the bolt slid home and she was gone.

  Sir Geoffrey Carr had begun to think his foray to Brittany was a mistake. For a long time there had been no sign of Thomas of Hookton and once the archer arrived he had made little effort to discover any treasure. It was mysterious and all the time Sir Geoffrey's debts were growing. But then, at last, the Scarecrow discovered what plans Thomas of Hookton was hatching. Tha
t new knowledge took Sir Geoffrey to Maitre Belas's house.

  Rain poured on La Roche-Derrien. It was one of the wettest winters in memory. The ditch beyond the strengthened town wall was flooded so it looked like a moat, and many of the River Jaudy's water meadows resembled lakes. The streets of the town were sticky with mud, men's boots were thick with it and women went to market wearing awkward wooden pattens that slipped treacherously on the steeper streets and still thick mud was smeared on the hems of their dresses and cloaks. The only good things about such rain was the protection it offered against fire and, for the English, the knowledge that it would make any siege of the town difficult. Siege engines, whether catapults, trebuchets or guns, needed a solid base, not a quagmire, and men could not assault through a marsh. Richard Totesham was said to be praying for more rain and giving thanks every morning that dawned grey, heavy and damp.

  'A wet winter, Sir Geoffrey,' Belas greeted the Scare-crow, then gave his visitor a covert inspection. A raw and ugly face, he thought, and while Sir Geoffrey's clothes were of a fine quality, they had also been made for a fatter man which suggested that either the English-man had recently lost weight or, more likely, the clothes had been taken from a man he had killed in battle. A coiled whip hung at his belt, which seemed a strange accoutrement, but the lawyer never presumed to under-stand soldiers. 'A very wet winter,' Belas went on, waving the Scarecrow into a chair.

  'It's a pissing 'vet winter,' Sir Geoffrey snarled to cover his nervousness, 'nothing but rain, cold and chilblains.' He was nervous because he was not certain that this thin and watchful lawyer was as sympathetic to Charles of Blois as tavern rumour suggested, and he had been forced to leave Beggar and Dickon in the courtyard below and he felt vulnerable without their protective company, especially as the lawyer had a great hulking attendant who was dressed in a leather jerkin and had a long sword at his side.

  'Pierre protects me,' Belas said. He had seen Sir Geoffrey glancing at the big man. 'He protects me from the enemies all honest lawyers make. Please, Sir Geoffrey, sit yourself.' He gestured again at a chair. A small fire burned in the hearth, the smoke vanishing up a newly made chimney. The lawyer had a face as hungry as a stoat and pale as a grasssnake's belly. He was wearing a black gown and a black cloak edged with black fur and a black hat with flaps that covered his ears, though he now pushed one flap up so he could hear the Scare-crow's voice. 'Parley-vous francais?' he asked.

  'No.'

  'Breroneg a ourit?' the lawyer enquired and, when he saw the dumb incomprehension on the Scarecrow's face, shrugged. 'You don't speak Breton?'

  'I just told you, didn't I? I don't talk French.'

  'French and Breton are not the same language, Sir Geoffrey.'

  'They're not bloody English,' Sir Geoffrey said belligerently.

  'Indeed they are not. Alas, I do not speak English well, but I learn fast. It is, after all, the language of our new masters.'

  'Masters?' the Scarecrow asked. 'Or enemies?'

  Belas shrugged. 'I am a man of, how do you say? Of affairs. A man of affairs. It is not possible, I think, to be such and not to make enemies.' He shrugged again, as if he spoke of trivialities, then he leaned back in his chair. 'But you come on business, Sir Geoffrey? You have property to convey, perhaps? A contract to make?'

  'Jeanette Chenier, Countess of Armorica,' Sir Geoffrey said bluntly.

  Belas was surprised, but did not show it. He was alert, though. He knew well enough that Jeanette wanted revenge and he was ever watchful for her machinations, but now he pretended indifference. 'I know of the lady,' he admitted.

  'She knows you. And she don't like you, Monsieur Belas,' Sir Geoffrey said, making his pronunciation of the name sound like a sneer. 'She don't like you one small bit. She'd like to have your collops in a skillet and kindle a fierce fire under them.'

  Belas turned to the papers on his desk as though his visitor was being tedious. 'I told you, Sir Geoffrey, that a lawyer inevitably makes enemies. It is nothing to worry about. The law protects me.'

  'Piss on the law, Belas.' Sir Geoffrey spoke flatly. His eyes, curiously pale, watched the lawyer, who pre-tended to be busy sharpening a quill. 'Suppose the lady got her son back?' the Scarecrow went on. 'Suppose the lady takes her son to Edward of England and has the boy swear fealty to Duke Jean? The law won't stop them chopping off your col-lops then, will it? One, two, snip, snip and stoke the fire, lawyer.'

  'Such an eventuality,' Belas said in apparent bore-dom, 'could have no possible repercussions for me.'

  'So your English ain't bad, eh?' Sir Geoffrey sneered. 'I don't pretend to know the law, monsieur, but I know folk. If the Countess gets her son then she'll go to Calais and see the King.'

  'So?' Belas asked, still pretending carelessness.

  'Three months' — Sir Geoffrey held up three fingers — 'four, maybe, before your Charles of Blois can get here. And she might be in Calais in four weeks' time and back here with the King's piece of parchment inside eight weeks, and by then she'll be valuable. Her son has what the King wants and he'll give her what she wants, and what she wants is your collops. She'll bite them off with her little white teeth and then she'll skin you alive, monsieur, and the law won't help you. Not against the King, it won't.'

  Belas had been pretending to read a parchment, which he now released so that it rolled up with a snap. He stared at the Scarecrow, then shrugged. 'I doubt, Sir Geoffrey, that what you describe is likely to happen. The Countess's son is not here.'

  'But suppose, monsieur, just suppose, that a party of men is readying themselves to go to Roncelets and fetch the little tosspot?'

  Belas paused. He had heard a rumour that just such a raid was being planned, but he had doubted the rumour's truth for such tales had been told a score of times and come to nothing. Yet something in Sir Geoffrey's tone suggested that this time there might be some meat on the bone. 'A party of men,' Belas responded flatly.

  'A party of men,' the Scarecrow confirmed, 'that plans to ride to Roncelets and watch until the little darling is taken out for his morning piddle and then they'll snatch him, bring him back here and put your collops in the frying pan.'

  Belas unrolled the parchment and pretended to read it again. 'It is hardly surprising, Sir Geoffrey.' he said carelessly, 'that Madame Chenier conspires for the return of her son. It is to be expected. But why should you bother me with it? What harm can it do me?' He dipped the newly sharpened quill in his ink pot. 'And how do you know about this planned raid?'

  'Because I ask the right questions, don't I?' the Scare-crow answered.

  In truth the Scarecrow had heard rumours that Thomas planned a raid on Rostrenen, but other men in the town had sworn that Rostrenen had been picked over so often that a sparrow would die of starvation there now. So what, the Scarecrow had wondered, was Thomas really doing? Sir Geoffrey was certain that Thomas was riding to find the treasure, the same treasure that had taken him to Durham, but why would it be at Rostrenen? What was there? Sir Geoffrey had accosted one of Richard Totesham's deputies in a tavern and bought the man ale and asked about Rostrenen and the man had laughed and shaken his head. 'You don't want to ride on that nonsense,' he told Sir Geoffrey.

  'Nonsense?'

  'They ain't going to Rostrenen. They're going to Roncelets. Well, we don't know that for certain,' the man had continued, 'but the Countess of Armorica is up to her pretty neck in the whole business, so that means it must be Roncelets. And you want my advice, Sir Geoffrey? Stay out of it. They don't call Roncelets the wasp's nest for nothing.'

  Sir Geoffrey, more confused than ever, asked more questions and slowly he came to understand that the thesaurus Thomas sought was not thick golden coins, nor leather bags filled with jewels, but instead was land: the Breton estates of the Count of Armorica, and if Jeanette's little son swore allegiance to Duke Jean, then the English cause in Brittany was advanced. It was a treasure in its way, a political treasure: not so satisfying as gold, but it was still valuable. Quite what the land had to do with D
urham the Scarecrow did not know. Perhaps Thomas had gone there to find some deeds? Or a grant made by a previous duke? Some lawyer's nonsense, and it did not matter; what mattered was that Thomas was riding to seize a boy who could bring political muscle to the King of England, and Sir Geoffrey had then wondered how he could benefit from the child and for a time he had toyed with the wild idea of kid-napping the boy and taking him to Calais himself, but then he had realized there was a far safer profit to be made by simply betraying Thomas. Which was why he was here, and Belas, he suspected, was interested, but the lawyer was also pretending that the raid on Roncelets was none of his business and so the Scarecrow decided it was time to force the lawyer's hand. He stood and pulled down his rain-soaked jerkin. 'You ain't interested. monsieur?' he asked. 'So be it. You know your business better than I do, but I know how many are going to Roncelets and I know who leads them and I can tell you when they're going.' The quill was no longer moving and drips of ink were falling from its tip to blot the parchment, but Belas did not notice as the Scarecrow's harsh voice ground on. Of course they ain't told Mr Totesham what they're doing, on account that officially he'd disapprove, which he might or he might not, I wouldn't know, so he thinks they're going to burn some farms near Rostrenen, which maybe they will and maybe they won't, but whatever they sav and whatever Master Totesham might believe, I know they're going to Roncelets.'

  'How do you know?' Belas asked quietly.

  'I know!' Sir Geoffrey said harshly.