The Devil's Crossing

by Hana Cole

  Gui rubbed his hands together, the quick, nervous gesture of a doctor considering an amputation. ‘While I was in Chartres, Agnes was detained by the inquisition. Bernard de Nogent arrived to question her.’

  The bushy eyebrows rose. ‘Then that is a very unhappy co-incidence.’

  ‘You understand.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘By the grace of God we were able to flee. But we are hunted. I am truly sorry, Philippe. There is no one else whom I can trust. I am sure we were not followed.’

  Philippe waved away Gui’s fears with his thick palm. ‘I don’t care if the bishop sends a legion. You are safe here.’ He poured a solemn draught from the carafe and inhaled from his goblet. ‘I thought de Nogent had gone south to torture Cathars with impunity.’

  ‘They said he came from the Île. I heard the University of Paris colluded in the latest burnings.’

  ‘Then Rome’s net widens.’

  Outside a street vendor cried his wares. Philippe pulled at his beard.

  ‘Do you know who informed him?’

  ‘We don’t.’ The lie shifted Gui in his seat.

  Agnes pitchedforward, slipped a glance at Gui. ‘It was my fault. Our son Etienne went missing while Gui was in Chartres. I sent him a note.’

  ‘And it found its way to de Nogent,’ said Philippe cracking another piece of panforte. ‘Your son is still missing I take it.’

  ‘It seems there was a shepherd boy preaching the cross in the Chartraine. He rallied a group of boys to crusade and we believe Etienne joined them.’ Gui rubbed the back of his neck. The merchant’s house gave onto a square and now the afternoon sun had made the roof line it was blazing in through the window, hot and oppressive at his collar. ‘We haven’t been able to find out anything more. Only rumours.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘They have been seen heading to the Fairs of Champagne, of Lendit, to the king, to the pope. They ascended into heaven.’ Gui dragged his hands down his face. ‘Can you keep Agnes safe here while I go to Paris?’

  ‘Of course I can.’ Philippe gave the same pout of reassurance he reserved for his customers fretful their fabrics would not arrive in time. ‘But I can do better than that. I can keep you both safe here.’

  ‘No, I cannot…’

  Philippe raised his hand. ‘The risk would not be worth the slim chance of reward for you to go alone. I have a much better chance of finding out where they are. ‘I have contacts from Marseille to Flanders, my friend,’ he said, articulating an arc with his hand. ‘Your best chance is to wait here until I can find out more, or some of these children return home.’ Philippe’s face sagged solemnly. ‘You have humiliated de Nogent for a second time, Gui. Don’t go running after trouble. They’ll kill you if they catch you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gui. ‘But Philippe, he is my son.’

  ‘And he needs you alive.’

  ‘I am so grateful, my friend, but I cannot have you risk yourself any further on our account. Agnes is a condemned heretic and I have sheltered her. I hardly need to tell you the consequences of helping us.’

  Agnes took Gui gently by the arm. ‘Philippe’s right. He is in a far better position than we are to find out where Etienne might be.’ She lifted her eyes to Philippe. ‘If he can do so without personally putting himself in danger.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ The merchant grabbed a fistful of his own flesh. ‘Let me assure you Philippe de Champol does none of his own errands these days.’

  A peal of relieved laughter filled the room.

  ‘Good.’ Philippe clapped his hands together. ‘Then, let us attend to practical matters. You will both need a bilaud for the season, and a cloak for winter. Gui, we should fit you for a tunic and hose. We can’t have you wandering around garbed in your employer’s cloth.’

  ‘I don’t think I will be seeing this month’s stipend.’

  Philippe opened a chest, holding up different swathes of cloth as though it were a game of dressing up. He picked a dark green linen for Agnes, ushering her away to be measured up by his housekeeper. He was holding up a light, woollen cloak for Gui when his rangy, sullen assistant appeared, bringing with him a letter on a silver tray. Philippe’s face darkened as he purused the seal.

  ‘I recognise it but I can’t place it,’ said Gui.

  ‘My cousin Amaury, you must remember?’

  ‘Of course. The fox of Maintenon.’ Gui wore his best smile. ‘He sometimes played with us in the summer. I thought he had gone overseas?’

  ‘To make his fortune on crusade? Ha! That is ten years gone, and the booty gone with it,’ Philippe scoffed. ‘The endless money pit that is fighting overseas has long since disabused him of trying it again.’ He drew Gui closer to him by the elbow. ‘For all the land he grabs locally, he rinses his estates twice as fast. I hear he’s even stooped to money lenders at the Fairs.’ Philippe waved his hand as though he were batting away a fly. ‘He can vow to kill all the Saracens he likes, but the bishop won’t lend him any more money that’s for sure.’

  ‘He has asked you?’

  Philippe laughed a little too keenly. ‘Half begging letter, half threat.’

  Gui shook his head. ‘He is really that hard up?’

  ‘And now you insult me!’

  For a junior son of a cadet family, Philippe had indeed advanced his name. Gui smirked. ‘Jealousy is an ugly thing. It’s a good job I am more handsome than you.’

  ‘It’s the priestly garb that really makes you irresistible I am sure.’ Philippe slapped his thigh like a jester. ‘Now. I shall send you to a discreet little tavern while I am away, just to be safe,’ he said. ‘I’ll prepare you a note to take this to the innkeeper. Wait for me there. He and his wife will get you anything you need. At my pleasure, of course.’

  The tavern was on an anonymous backstreet and the innkeeper’s wife wore a cloth above her station that bore all the hallmarks of Philippe’s generosity. Eyeing Gui and Agnes up and down with an arch brow, she flicked her head towards the stairs.

  A neat little box tucked away at the end of the first floor landing, it was too warm for being above the kitchen but it felt safe. Gui took a jug of beer and sat down on a prickly mattress that sagged between three planks of wood. Agnes laid her head on his shoulder and they rested in silence, pinned by the weight of the past week and the passing luxury of safety. Her breath quickened, and Gui knew her thoughts had turned to Etienne.

  ‘We will find him, my love.’ He caressed her hair. Newly scented with cedar oil from Philippe, the smoky balsam took him home and he closed his eyes, immersed in the sound of birds, the rich, dark soil and the mossy grass of the forest that had so often been their bed.

  ‘What if he has gone home?’ Agnes’s voice is taught with fear.

  ‘He will find out what has happened before he reaches the village.’ Gui wiped his brow, damp from the heat of their tiny room. ‘He can’t have gone beyond Philippe’s trade routes. We will know where he is within days.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then we will find a way.’

  Gui brushed her mouth with his thumb. Lips soft against his unshaven skin, Agnes kissed his cheek. He brought his mouth to hers. Agnes slid her hand inside his shirt, and he felt the tension in his body drain away under her touch. A bead of sweat ran over her collar bone. Gui traced it with his finger until he found her necklace. Lifting it up, he placed the ring that hung from it on his palm. Against the pink of her cheeks, her eyes were a vivid blue. Slowly her lips parted as he reached around to release the clasp.

  ‘Gui.’

  He regarded her solemnly for a moment, his chest pulsing with the steady, rhythm of his heart. He didn’t say anything as he lowered her down to lie beneath him, and taking the ring from the chain, slid it onto her finger.

  *

  The inquisitor flexed his spindly fingers against each other. The buzz of the new day drifted up from the street below. Just two weeks before there had not been enough chatter to disturb him at this hour
. Now though, as the sun approached its midsummer zenith, he noted those few moments extra of peace had been lost to the hubbub of ignorant peasants. Face pinched, he thought of them in a few days’ time, leaping over solstice bonfires chanting foul pagan rites.

  Outside someone cried clear passage for their wagon and a gust of wind brought the smell of horse shit to his nose. It was only the thought of the approaching Quarter Day rent payments that prevented his mood from souring further. He reached for the parchment to check the amounts due as someone rapped on his door.

  ‘Come,’ he barked. ‘Oh it’s you. I thought you were supposed to be on the road earning the coin I paid you?’

  A pair of generous lips parted behind the neatly clipped beard.

  ‘Well I was, I was. And I believe you’ll agree I’ve more than earned my stipend.’ Uninvited, the spy drew up a chair and sat, ankle resting over his knee.

  ‘I hope it is so.’ De Nogent slowly withdrew his hand from the ledger of rent collections. Christian grinned. A smile that meant to imply he had learned more about his host than would be comfortable.

  ‘Well, after the most unfortunate escape, they fled to Tours. He has surprisingly diverse connections, your priest.’

  ‘Guessing games do not divert me.’ De Nogent stared back at the mocking eyes.

  ‘No need to guess I’m sure. They are currently staying at the pleasure of a certain Philippe de Champol, a textile merchant from Chartres with whose name you may be acquainted.’ The spy studied his fingernails for a moment. Trimmed and polished like a courting troubadour. ‘And the thing is, this Etienne you asked about, the missing boy.’

  The inquisitor lent forward.

  ‘He is indeed their son.’ The plump lips broke into a smile, revealing the pearly teeth. ‘There wasn’t a single peasant in that village who thought otherwise. As clear as the nose on your face they said.’

  ‘I see,’ said Bernard de Nogent, ignoring the pun. He eyed the preening deviant before him like a kestrel assessing a rodent from a hundred feet.

  ‘And where is the boy?’

  The spy coughed. ‘He went missing after the devotional processions at Easter. From what I can gather he joined a group of shepherds and other peasants headed to the Fairs in the Île.’

  ‘The Île? For what purpose?’

  ‘To petition the king to crusade.’

  Bernard de Nogent let out a strangled yelp. It was the first time in years he had laughed in company.

  ‘I know. Entertaining, isn’t it? They are following a boy named Stephen, who claims to carry a letter from the Virgin herself for pity of the Holy Land.’

  The reverend brow darkened.

  ‘So I propose, for only the smallest of increments in my fee, to identify this Etienne in person. You can send a retainer to detain the couple.’ The spy opened his palms. ‘If only every case were so simply resolved.’

  De Nogent pressed his fingertips together and looked out through the small, oblong window over the rooftops to the fields beyond. The fields that would soon, God willing, be covered with wagons full of masonry, horses dragging timber, labourers bent over spades and hammers. Rising up from the earth, a beacon of new monasticism to shine a light where heresy had been allowed to lurk unchecked in the darkness.

  ‘I would require only a very modest increment,’ the spy prompted.

  The inquisitor’s head indicated negatively. The matter of the Le Coudray bastard was a delicate one and not one he was prepared to chance to the devious criminal seated before him. With all that was at stake, the last thing he wanted was for Maintenon to add the boy’s life as a precondition for his reward. No, until the boy was safely cloistered behind Church walls he was bargaining chip best protected by a professional mercenary.

  De Nogent grimmaced. ‘I consider it highly unlikely that even the best spy would be able to locate a peasant child in Paris.’

  Christian mouthed an ‘Oh’ of mock offense. ‘Of all the other chancers claiming to be spies you are discerning enough to hire me, but now you doubt my skill?’ He wagged his finger.

  The inquisitor sighed. ‘I consider it wasted coin. To pay you the travails of locating a child who can hardly be expected to survive alone on the roads of France.’

  ‘That can be arranged if you’d prefer?’ A flash of the teeth, but de Nogent didn’t bite. The spy was unperturbed. ‘I hope I have impressed with the speed of my results.’ He threw a lingering look out of the window. ‘Am I to understand that you require this matter to be concluded with a degree of haste?’

  De Nogent’s blood heated. Not one but two of the deadly sins; avarice and pride. The black, beady eyes blinked. Loathed as he was to hand further reward to the impudent thief, the end gain had no price.

  ‘Perhaps there is another matter,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’ The spy perked up.

  ‘The man who turned the Le Coudray whore over to the inquisition previously is a nobleman by the name of Amaury, Lord of Maintenon.’

  ‘I’ve heard the name,’ Christian said, his eyes roving over the gold embossed ledgers protectively wedged against de Nogent’s arm.

  ‘It has come to my attention that Maintenon’s motives may not have been as righteous as they appear. That he may have committed certain indiscretions. And I want to know what they are.’

  The spy looked up. ‘His reputation does rather precede him.’

  ‘Well, given his reputation I understand why you might be reluctant to take on the task.’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘An additional livre per diem?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Two.’

  Christian the spy tilted his head back as the sun made the roof top opposite, bathing his face in its warmth. ‘By Pentecost,’ he said.

  Outside, de Nogent could hear a peasant woman whining her tale of woe. Lies no doubt, strung together in order to part gullible women from their coin. You can’t hear this street rabble from the abbey, thought Bernard de Nogent.

  ‘Pentecost,’ he replied.

  *

  The knock of horses’ hooves on the towpath broke the eerie silence of the pre-dawn hour. A whinnying snort and the beast emerged from the gloom, visible now under the bargeman’s lantern, its harness straining under the tension of its load. The boatman squinted into the night, and there was something about the craggy face that told the spy the other man was more nervous than he ought to be. Aside the peculiar hour, he must have been navigating these rivers for many decades. What reason would he have to be anxious?

  From the scrubland beyond another lantern winked. The boatman scanned the shore with a lighthouse gaze. Christian shrunk further back into the bushes and held his breath. Not a hundred yards ahead a richly cloaked messenger emerged from the darkness. One of Maintenon’s men, he was sure. The message he intercepted had not been clear, and was all the more suspicious for it, so he permitted himself a wry smile of self congratulation as the boatman hollered the boat to a halt.

  Christian the spy wet his lips for a secret about to be revealed; but a whole adult life of trickery, espionage and theft had not prepared him for the sight. Hand over his mouth, he watched as the old river rat flipped open the hold with a stick. At first all he could see was their eyes, glinting against the backdrop of night, then slowly, terrified faces emerged from below, two at a time, until there were six children of Moorish appearance standing onto the towpath - four girls and two boys. He guessed the eldest was twelve and the youngest no more than seven.

  Maintenon’s retainer approached the shivering children, clicked his fingers, and the boatman prodded the eldest boy and girl forward. The others cowered as the messenger bared the boy’s unblemished chest, forced his mouth open to show a good set of teeth. An uncomfortable rush of blood surged to Christian’s loins as the man thrust his hand into the girl’s chemise and squeezed a breast. The girl began to sob. Three livres, Christian scoffed at the thought of his paltry stipend. To Amaury, Lord of Maintenon it would be worth more. Much, much mor
e.

  The messenger gave a hoot into the night, and to Christian’s surprise, two more girls crept out from the treeline; French girls, bound together at the wrist, mouths gagged with rag. From where he was it looked as though they were wearing habits. Without warning, a strange magnetic force he didn’t understand began to pull at him, as though it were trying to draw him out into the open to cut their bonds. Droplets of sweat seeping from his brow, he found himself in a panicked fight against his whim.

  Squinting, the old boatman reached for a box, peeled up a sheet of parchment, scratched a mark and offered it up to the messenger. Manhandling the Christian girls onto the barge, the messenger departed from view with the six slaves in tow. Then, muffled voices, the sound of the slaves being loaded into a wagon, and the lap of water against the hull of the barge, and Christian the spy was left gawping into the night, a queer sensation throbbing in his groin.

  Chapter Ten

  It had been over a week since Philippe left for Chartres. He had given Gui some coin and instruction to wait until he heard from him. Under no circumstances, the merchant had waggled a bejewelled finger, was he to go asking questions in the town. For the first few days it had been easy enough to enjoy the tavern’s respite. Their best chance was with Philippe, Gui told himself. If anyone could get them news from the roads, it was he. But soon the desire to scratch at the itch of his anxiety shrank the walls of the room and stifled what air there was circulating through the midsummer heat.

  Gui poured a jug of water into the washbowl and splashed his face, pulling the cool wetness through his hair. His legs ached for movement, something to displace the note of alarm that chimed constantly in his gut. Every day he waited was day that took Etienne further away, and no amount of water could wash away the images that hunted in his mind - his son lost, hungry, frightened, and worst of all, alone, not knowing he had a father, a protector in this world who would do anything to see him safe.