“And you really want to give up all those horses to have one now?”
“It sounds foolish when you say it like that.”
“I wouldn’t join the Templars just for a horse.”
“You’re a woman, you may not join the Templars.”
“What are your other choices?”
Guilhem became stubborn and refused to say. After Artemisia had gone, however, he started calculating. He walked round and round the group of rocks, wearing a path. Finally he decided to calculate how much he’d need if he wanted to upset his family in style and sell his services to the highest bidder.
Food - soldier 3 sous per day, squire 10 sous per day, attendants 2 ½ sous per day. He decided to call in some of his money, in case. He said to himself as his feet did his thinking (it had all been easier when he could ride whenever he needed to consider), “As they say, without money, one has no friends. Fortunately, even with my lands being controlled by my cousin and my mother, I have still some money. I can do this.”
* * *
Guilhem was feeling sorry for himself. He sat alone on the hillside and tried to rhyme his unhappiness. He failed miserably. He was not a poet.
“I am not a king, not a duke, not a count. I am not a bishop, not a monk, nor a clerk. My family has given me the scraps from their table, made me a knight and expected me to be as grateful as if they had given me everything. When I expressed just feeling and anger at what was happening in my own country and to the people I love, when I joined the Bishop of Pamiers in righteous indignation and not the King of France in bad rule, I was sent first on pilgrimage and then to war. When I behaved in war as a soldier will, I was sent here, to Saint-Guilhem-Beyond-the-Edge-of-the-World.”
This was Guilhem preparing, for the thousandth time, to make a decision, any decision, that would allow him to leave. “I could take orders,” he said. “Major orders. My family would honour me for this step. I could become a priest. Or I could marry. My family has a girl for me,” he reminded himself, failing to remember that he and she hated each other. “She has land and a powerful family,” which is why he had been unable to just walk away without putting himself out of her reach entirely, using religion. “If I married, it would consolidate my lands and give me back some of my power. It would also hamstring me - I would never be able to say again what I said about the king. I would still be a knight and forever be treated like a page. I should leave it all behind, all my scattered bits of land and all my family and all my sorrow and I could go as a paid soldier. Take my wealth on my back, break my duty to my new lord and not have to see the despite in his face again. I could leave behind my rank and make use of my training and carve out a new life with people who do not know France.”
He went round in circles. Round and round and round. So many choices. All simple. All with big consequences.
Artemisia stopped his thoughts by simply walking up to him. Guilhem smiled wanly, hoping he looked fraught. Artemisia noticed. After shaking hands and an informal salute (her greetings were never formal enough and her farewells always those of a stranger) she asked him what the problem was.
“There is a dispute in the village,” Guilhem chose to say, avoiding the deeper issues.
“Yes?” Artemisia wasn’t surprised.
“I was not called,” Guilhem felt he had to explain.
Artemisia, bless her, understood. “You are a knight. You can read and write. You should be able to help settle disputes.”
“Yes,” Guilhem answered.
“No,” Guilhem answered.
“Perhaps,” he said, finally. “In this town they nominate a prud’homme or maybe two to represent disputants and to make the peace. I am not of them, perhaps because I am a knight, perhaps because I have no kin here. I am not of them. I may belong one day. I do not belong now. I am excluded from justice.”
Artemisia didn’t know how to answer this, so she sat quietly, hoping that her silence would be interpreted as companionable.
“Would you like to see something?” Guilhem asked, his mood changing. He took an object out of his purse and he handed it over to Artemisia.
“It’s an astrolabe,” she said. “When I was younger I wanted to learn how to use one of these. They’re beautiful.”
“When I was younger, I dreamed of Jerusalem. When Jerusalem was no longer a dream but a hard-won reality, I bought myself a dream of travel and time to replace it.”
“A dream of travel and time,” Artemisia repeated as she held the dainty object.
* * *
Guilhem was spending more time with his supposed peers. Every time there were visitors who needed a little extra dignity, he was called upon, like a page, to be polite and to make those feel important. This was supposed to result in larger donations by the visitors to the abbey. Every time he did this, the village remembered who his cousins were and resiled from their reluctant half-acceptance. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he would never be seen as belonging.
All this frothed up and choked him when, one day, he sat quietly on the middle step leading up to his house and his neighbours walked past the alley, talking loudly.
“And he consorts with demons.”
“You mean they’re not ghosts?”
“Demons.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Family Matters
Finally Guilhem had his horse. It was true, Montpellier had everything. Even fine Andalusian palfreys. His contacts delivered his new pride and joy, as promised when he had handed over that money in Montpellier.
He managed to hang on to his horse for exactly two weeks.
After two weeks, his cousin passed through, pretending to be a pilgrim. He had nothing to give her. He tried to get her to accept his French translation of Vegetius. Isabella refused it in the charming way only a precious child can.
“I love you without gifts,” she proclaimed, and spoiled it all by saying, “Besides, you’re stuck here, beyond civilisation. You need everything you can get.” Then she took his horse.
It was the fault of the pilgrims. Guilhem wondered why he had ever mentioned the Templars as desirable. Pilgrims were plaguey and demon-possessed. Especially his little cousin Isabella, who had taken his horse when she left. Repeating that she had taken his horse felt good. She took his horse.
“What good is a horse like that in these hills,” she had scoffed. “You need a mule, like Guillaume d’Orange.”
“You want me to tear off its hind leg and defend myself against robbers,” he teased.
“You could do that.” She was serious.
He loved this little girl, with all her passion and all her intensity and all her lack of humour. He loved her even when she insisted on taking his beautiful new palfrey north. “One of my men will ride the beast and train the beast and the beast will be ready for you.”
“The beast,” Guilhem said. Isabella did not know horses very well yet. Or men. It was just as well he found her very easy to love.
He was explaining the whole debacle to Artemisia. “My cousin Isabella wants to marry me.”
“Didn’t you mention her age? I thought she was a child.”
“She is ten. Most certainly a child.”
“No,” said Artemisia. “Completely no.”
Guilhem laughed. “Betin Cassinel likes me,” Guilhem said, with pretend enthusiasm.
“I’m delighted to know that,” Artemisia said, with more than a trace of sarcasm. “Who is Betin Cassinel?”
“My cousin’s master of money. Isabella’s father’s master of money, to be precise. In charge of the coinage of the realm.”
“How useful is this to you?”
“Not much.”
Artemisia went straight back to the cave and looked up Betin Cassinel and tried to link the name to an Isabella. There was a Betin Cassinel or Bettino Cassinelli who was a moneyer - in charge of the French monies from 1287 to 1312. This would make Guilhem’s cousin Isabella the daughter of Philippe the Very Pretty, King of France. It also mea
nt she knew a lot more about Isabella than Guilhem did. Isabella would grow up in unexpected ways. About the only thing she didn’t do was marry a cousin called Guilhem. Anyway, if Guilhem was related to the king, what the hell was he doing pretending to be a poor knight in the middle of nowhere?
She had to tell Luke. Thank God the little cousin was gone. Guilhem, however, was still their chief contact. They could be changing history.
* * *
Every member of the time team was going about their business. Luke hadn’t altered a thing.
“Check it,” Luke had said. “Make sure you’re right.” He would not adjust operations unless Artemisia proved that there were real problems. Not the imaginary problems she was apparently devising out of pure hellish boredom.
There was only one way of fixing this. Artemisia asked Guilhem directly. “Who is your cousin?” she asked, next time they saw each other.
“Which one? My family is numerous as the stars in the heavens.”
“Your cousin whose master of money likes you.”
Guilhem took a coin out and flipped it. On one side was the pascal lamb. “Do all your cousins look like that?” Guilhem laughed and flipped it over. On the reverse was a king, seated in majesty on a throne. Artemisia’s heart sank. She knew that coin. She read the inscription anyway. Francorum rex, it said.
“My cousin the forger,” Guilhem said.
“You were exiled, then?”
“For telling the truth about the king.” Guilhem shrugged his shoulders shamefacedly.
“Was this in the debates in 1302?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I am a knight,” said Guilhem, with offended dignity, “And the son of a knight. This is important. Not my cousins. My lineage is a good lineage.”
But were your parents married? wondered Artemisia. Or was it your grandparents who didn’t get married. And what did you say about the king that got you into so much hot water? You called him a forger, for certain - you’ve admitted that. But other people called him that. What did you say or do at the meetings? Or maybe since then. How have you actually spent the last three years?
Artemisia went back to her chronology of the period before talking with Luke again. He said tiredly, “I need a briefing.”
* * *
Briefing: King vs Pope
Phil the Exceptionally Gorgeous argued with the Pope over who owed whom what. It was a long argument and way acrimonious. Lots of people were drawn into it. I have attached a chronology. Phil wanted a nation state is what I was taught, and the Pope wanted a Catholic universe. Boniface especially didn’t want the clergy to pay taxes. When he acted on this wish, Phil blocked supply. Not really, he just blocked income (same difference - no money and one can’t govern).
This led to ongoing skirmishes and battles. The best of them was probably in 1302, when Phil’s mates actually burned a Papal bull. The French Estates-General were formed (first time ever!) and wrote angry messages to the Pope supporting the king. The Pope responded with another bull (‘Unam sanctam’ - remember that name - it’s totally important historically) saying that the Church was more important than the State. Phil’s chief minister said that the Pope was a criminal. It was all amazingly cool and I don’t even begin to understand it. The debates got everyone sparking mad, though, and people in this region became heavily involved. Our knight apparently disgraced himself and didn’t support the king-his-cousin.
And I’ve run out of words. If you want to understand it, you’ll have to ask that my briefings be allowed to get big again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Companionship
Tony was alone in his garden. He had nothing really to do, but he enjoyed pottering. It helped him think. It also meant he could avoid being scolded. He really didn’t enjoy that. He also didn’t understand what the problem was. If people knew he didn’t remember things, they should stop expecting it of him. Eventually they would realise and all would be well. That’s what happened, every time.
After a while, he found the children pottering alongside him. He dug something, they dug the same thing. He used the unexpected help to extend his bed a little. Not a word was exchanged, but he and the children were happy.
After a while the children left. Badass then came to investigate all the new happenings. Tony nearly trod on the animal three times as it wove through his legs, purring. Eventually he resigned himself to the inevitable and picked the cat up. Badass was delighted and sat on Tony’s lap, demanding attention.
Tony’s thoughts expressed themselves fully on his face. The team members, who still mostly thought he was somewhat inscrutable, would have been surprised. The truth was that he had a social face. He never brought it to work, however, because if he did, people stopped and chatted and he hated that. It spoiled his concentration. He hated large groups and he hated anything that interfered with what he did. His face was his barrier, his privacy. With the children and the cat, he didn’t need words, and besides, he wasn’t really working. His face showed this. It glowed with gentle happiness.
The sound of a goat came from a few metres away. Badass jumped off Tony’s lap and went to investigate his other friend.
Tony looked around. His plot of land was hemmed in by space where he didn’t belong. For the first time since he came to 1305 he felt lonely.
* * *
Guilhem’s house was actually his own, through an odd quirk of inheritance. He supported it with lands nearby, for it had none itself through an even odder quirk. It was ironic, he contemplated, that for him the end of the world was being sent to his own house in disgrace.
He finally realised that this very fact had opened up another choice for his future. If he wanted, he could become accepted as a prud’homme and a villager. All that was missing was time. It wouldn’t take that much effort to be accepted. To belong. He could give up all dreams of greatness and settle down as a small landowner in the middle of nowhere. He contemplated this a bit longer. Then he remembered that he’d already decided to do that, and it had failed. And yet the town had given him a task.
He thought of other decisions he could take, ones his relatives had not considered. “Guillaume won his pagan lady,” said Guilhem to Artemisia.
Artemisia correctly interpreted where this was going. “I’m too old for you,” she pointed out. “I’m from a different world. We are not suited in any way. Do not ask. Do not even think of taking this path.”
“You smell as sweet as a saint,” Guilhem said, leaning closer.
Artemisia curtsied in the most saintly fashion she knew and she fled. Alone in the dark, in her bed, she had nightmares. The least of them had her laughing hysterically. A thousand virgin martyrs. She focussed on this one, not on the return of the ones from her teenage years. She was well past all of that.
Chapter Forty
Relationships
In his fit of enthusiasm for changes and in discovering that he had more income than he had thought, Guilhem ordered stuff from Narbonne. Cloth from Arras and Bruges. The vermilion cloth coloured with the local kermes dye he gave to Artemisia.
Artemisia tried to refuse it but couldn’t handle it when Guilhem begged her, very sweetly. He pointed out that the kermes dye was made in Saint-Guilhem. Guilhem knew that she would want it if he said that. He knew this woman very well, he thought, smugly.
Artemisia hated being so transparent. He knew that, too.
He was very pleased that she responded to pretend tears so very well. He knew what he wanted and this was one step closer to it. Guiborc wasn’t willing at first, either, he told himself. And all he was doing was wooing her - there was no force involved.
The cloth from Narbonne went to his household - they required no persuasion. Vintenas and canvas were useful. He also bought linen from Champagne and Rheims to be made into clothes for himself, and fustian from Lombardy. There was a load of mixed furs and sheepskin. He didn’t forget other household items: wax, loaf sugar, spices, soft and ha
rd soap. He was scolded by his people for buying some things they already made, but in a happy way, because he was learning to take care of his own.
He saved one item, a paternoster made of crushed rose petals. He had meant to give this to Artemisia now and the cloth later, but he had been so pleased with the cloth, he had forgotten. It would wait.
Later that day, Artemisia and Geoff were wasting time. They had taken themselves as far from the caves as they reasonably could. The atmosphere was poisoned and, as Geoff said, they needed fresh air and sanity.
Geoff taught her all his favourite hymns (the ones that he had told the others didn’t exist).
“Why?” asked Artemisia. “Why must I learn them?”
“You need them. You lost too much when you lost your family and your religion. Hymns are a good replacement.”
“I don’t believe anymore,” Artemisia warned him.
“Nor do I.” Geoff was unrepentant. “It’s the music. Never lose the music.”
So they sang hymns on that hillside, until it was time to return to the caves for dinner.
* * *
A week later, Artemisia sat on the hillside, listening as demurely as she could. Guilhem was trying to explain how he was seen by his peers back home.
“By my words in 1302, I announced I wasn’t one of the family,” he explained.
“I don’t understand,” said Artemisia, willing to try, given that Guilhem was no longer ranting about how happy he was to see his friends dead.
“I rebelled.”
“1302,” said Artemisia.
“There are other ways of telling the year,” Guilhem said, mildly.
“I like this one.”
“The following year, I was sent to Gascony to redeem myself. This was not good for anyone. To atone, I went to Jerusalem. My family was, I believe, happy about my pilgrimage, even when they complained. When I returned I was angry. Jerusalem is no longer God’s kingdom. The Templars suggested I join them and help make it so, and I listened for a moment, and they have now an interest in me. My family has asked that I stay away until I cease…”
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