1356

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Is that velvet?’ Keane asked, fingering one of the young men’s jackets. ‘I always saw myself in velvet.’

  Thomas dragged the boots off all three men and found a pair that fitted him. One of the horses had saddlebags with a flask of wine, some bread, and a hunk of cheese, and he split them with Keane. ‘You can ride a horse?’

  ‘Jesus, I’m from Ireland! I was born on horseback.’

  ‘Tie them up. Strip them naked first.’ Thomas helped Keane truss the three men, then stripped off his damp clothes and found a pair of hose that fitted him, a shirt, and a fine leather jacket that was too tight around his archer’s muscles, but dry. He strapped a sword belt around his waist. ‘So you killed the beggar?’ he asked one of the three. The man said nothing so Thomas hit him hard around the face. ‘You’re lucky I’m not cutting your balls off,’ he said, ‘but the next time you ignore my question I’ll take one of them. Did you kill the beggar?’

  ‘He was dying,’ the young man said sullenly.

  ‘So it was an act of Christian charity,’ Thomas said. He stooped and held his knife between the man’s legs. He saw the terror on the sullen face. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Pitou, my father’s a consul, he’ll pay for me!’ He was gabbling desperately.

  ‘Pitou’s a big man in town,’ Keane said, ‘a vintner who lives like a lord. Eats off gold plates, they say.’

  ‘I’m his only son,’ Pitou pleaded, ‘he’ll pay for me!’

  ‘Oh, he will,’ Thomas said, then cut the twine from Pitou’s ankles and wrists. ‘Get dressed,’ he said, kicking his own damp clothes towards the frightened youth. He tied Pitou’s wrists again when the boy was dressed, and he was little more than a boy, perhaps seventeen years old. ‘You’re coming with us,’ he said, ‘and if you hope to see Montpellier again you’d better pray that my servant and two men-at-arms are alive.’

  ‘They are!’ Pitou said eagerly.

  Thomas looked at the other two. ‘Tell Pitou’s father his son will be returned when my men reach Castillon d’Arbizon. And if they don’t have their own weapons, mail, horses and clothes then his son will be sent home without his eyes.’ Pitou stared at Thomas when he heard those words, then suddenly bent forward and vomited. Thomas smiled. ‘He’s also to send a grown man’s right glove filled with genoins, and I mean filled. Do you understand?’

  One of them nodded, and Thomas lengthened the stirrups of the largest horse, a grey stallion, and swung into the saddle. He had a sword, a spear, a horse, and hope.

  ‘The hounds will come with us,’ Keane announced as he climbed onto a brown gelding. He took the reins of the third horse on which Pitou was mounted.

  ‘They will?’

  ‘They like me, so they do. Where do we go now?’

  ‘I have men waiting close by, we go north.’

  They rode north.

  Roland de Verrec was unhappy. He should have been ecstatic, for the successful completion of his quest was in sight. He had captured Thomas of Hookton’s wife and child, and, though he had no doubt that they would be exchanged for the adulterous Countess Bertille de Labrouillade, Roland had still hesitated before making the capture. It went against the grain of his romantic ideals to use a woman and child, but the men-at-arms who supported him, all six of them loaned by the Count of Labrouillade, had persuaded him. ‘We’re not going to hurt them,’ Jacques Sollière, the leader of the count’s six men, had persuaded Roland, ‘just make use of them.’

  The capture had been simple. The consuls of Montpellier had lent him even more men, and Genevieve and her son had been taken as they tried to leave the city with two men-at-arms and a servant as their only protection. Those three attendants were now in Montpellier’s citadel, but they were none of Roland’s business. His duty was to reach Labrouillade and exchange his captives for the count’s wayward wife, and then his quest would be done.

  Yet somehow it did not feel chivalric. Roland insisted that Genevieve and her child be treated with courtesy, yet she returned that favour with defiant scorn, and her words hurt him. If Roland had been a more perceptive man he would have seen the terror beneath the scorn, but he felt only the lash and he tried to deflect it by telling tales to young Hugh. He told the boy the story of the golden fleece, then how the great hero Ipomadon had disguised himself to win a tournament, and then how Lancelot had done the same, and Hugh listened in fascination while his mother appeared to despise the tales. ‘So why did they fight?’ she asked.

  ‘To win, my lady,’ Roland said.

  ‘No, they fought for their lovers,’ Genevieve said. ‘Ipomadon fought for Queen Proud, and Lancelot for Guinevere who, like the Countess of Labrouillade, was married to another man.’

  Roland coloured at that. ‘I would not call them lovers,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘What else?’ she asked with reeking scorn. ‘And Guinevere was a prisoner, as I am.’

  ‘Madame!’

  ‘If I’m not a prisoner,’ she demanded, ‘let me go.’

  ‘You are a hostage, madame, and under my protection.’

  Genevieve laughed at that. ‘Your protection?’

  ‘Until you are exchanged, madame,’ Roland said stiffly, ‘I swear no harm will come to you if it is in my power to prevent it.’

  ‘Oh stop your witless blathering and tell my son another tale of adultery,’ she spat.

  So Roland told what he thought was a much safer story, the glorious tale of his namesake, the great Roland de Roncesvalles. ‘He marched against the Moors in Spain,’ he told Hugh. ‘Do you know who the Moors are?’

  ‘Pagans,’ Hugh said.

  ‘That’s right! They are heathens and pagans, followers of a false god, and when the French army came back across the Pyrenees they were treacherously ambushed by the pagans! Roland commanded the rearguard and he was outnumbered twenty to one, some say fifty to one! Yet he possessed a great sword, Durandal, that had once belonged to Hector of Troy, and that great blade slew his enemies. They died in their scores, but not even Durandal could hold back that pagan horde and the poor Christians were in danger of being overwhelmed. But Roland also possessed a magic horn, Olifant, and he blew the horn, he blew it so hard that the effort killed him, but the sound of Olifant brought King Charlemagne and his magnificent knights to slaughter the impudent enemy!’

  ‘They may have been impudent,’ Genevieve said, ‘but they were never Moors. They were Christians.’

  ‘My lady!’ Roland protested.

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said. ‘Have you ever been to Roncesvalles?’

  ‘No, madame.’

  ‘I have! My father was a juggler and fire-eater. We went from town to town collecting pennies and we listened to the stories, always the stories, and in Roncesvalles they know it was the Basques, Christians to a man, who ambushed Roland. They killed him too. You just pretend it was the Moors because you can’t abide thinking that your hero was killed by peasant rebels. And how glorious a death is it? To blow a horn and fall down?’

  ‘Roland is a hero as great as Arthur!’

  ‘Who had more sense than to kill himself by blowing a horn. And speaking of horns, why do you serve the Count of Labrouillade?’

  ‘To do right, lady.’

  ‘Right! By returning that poor girl to her pig of a husband?’

  ‘To her lawful husband.’

  ‘Who rapes his tenants’ wives and daughters,’ she said, ‘so why aren’t you punishing him for adultery?’ Roland had no answer except to frown at Hugh, distressed that such a subject should be aired in front of a small boy. Genevieve laughed. ‘Oh, Hugh can listen,’ she said. ‘I want him to be a decent man like his father, so I’m educating him. I don’t want him to be a fool like you.’

  ‘Madame!’ Roland protested again.

  Genevieve spat. ‘Seven years ago, when Bertille was twelve years old, she was carried to Labrouillade and married to him. He was thirty-two then and he wanted her dowry. What choice did she have? She was twelve!’

 
‘She is lawfully married, before God.’

  ‘To a disgusting creature whom God would spit on.’

  ‘She is his wife,’ Roland insisted, yet he felt exquisitely uncomfortable. He wished he had never taken this quest, but he had, and honour demanded it must be seen through to its end and so they rode northwards. They stayed at a tavern in the marketplace of Gignac, and Roland insisted on sleeping just outside the chamber where Genevieve slept. His squire shared the vigil. Roland’s squire was a clever fourteen-year-old, Michel, whom Roland was training in the ways of chivalry. ‘I don’t trust the Count of Labrouillade’s men,’ Roland told the boy, ‘especially not Jacques, so we sleep here with our swords.’ The count’s man had been eyeing the fair-haired Genevieve all day, and Roland had heard the laughter behind him and suspected the men-at-arms were discussing his captive, but they made no attempt to get past Roland during the night, and next morning they rode northwards and joined the high road heading towards Limoges while Genevieve tormented Roland by suggesting that her husband would have escaped Montpellier.

  ‘He’s difficult to capture,’ she said, ‘and terrible in revenge.’

  ‘I do not fear fighting him,’ Roland said.

  ‘Then you’re a fool. You think your sword will protect you? Do you call it Durandal?’ She laughed when he reddened, for he obviously did. ‘But Thomas has a span of dark-painted yew,’ she said, ‘and a cord of hemp with arrows of peeled white ash. Have you ever faced an English archer?’

  ‘He will fight courteously.’

  ‘Don’t be such a fool! He’ll cheat you and trick you and deceive you, and at the end of the fight you’ll be as stuck full of arrows as a brush has bristles. He might already be ahead of you! Maybe the archers are waiting on the road? You won’t see them. The first you’ll know is the strike of the arrows, then the screams of horses and the death of your men.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Jacques Sollière put in.

  Roland smiled bravely. ‘They will not shoot, lady, for fear of hitting you.’

  ‘You know nothing! At two hundred paces they can pick the snot out of your nose with an arrow. They’ll shoot.’ She wondered where Thomas was. She feared that the church would seize her again. She feared for her son.

  The next night was spent in a monastery’s guest house, and again Roland guarded her threshold. There was no other way from the room, no escape. On the road, before they reached the monastery, they had passed a group of merchants with armed guards, and Genevieve had called out to them, saying she had been captured against her will. The men had looked worried until Roland, with his calm courtesy, had said she was his sister and moon-touched. He said the same thing whenever Genevieve appealed to passers-by. ‘I take her to a place where she might be treated by holy nuns,’ he said, and the merchants had believed him and passed on.

  ‘So you’re not above telling lies,’ she had mocked him.

  ‘A lie in God’s service is no lie.’

  ‘And this is God’s service?’

  ‘Marriage is a sacrament. My life is dedicated to God’s service.’

  ‘Is that why you’re a virgin?’

  He blushed at that, then frowned, but still answered the question seriously. ‘It was revealed to me that my strength in battle rests on purity.’ He paused to glance at her. ‘It was the Virgin Mary who spoke to me.’

  Genevieve had been mocking him, but something in his tone checked her scorn. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She was beautiful,’ Roland said wistfully.

  ‘And she spoke to you?’

  ‘She came down from the chapel ceiling,’ he said, ‘and told me I must live a chaste life until I marry. That God would bless me. That I was chosen. I was only a boy then, but I was chosen.’

  ‘You had a dream.’ Genevieve sounded dismissive.

  ‘A vision,’ he corrected her.

  ‘A boy dreams of a beautiful woman,’ Genevieve said, the scorn back in her voice, ‘that’s no vision.’

  ‘And she touched me and told me I must stay pure.’

  ‘Tell that to the arrow that kills you,’ she had said, and Roland had fallen silent.

  Now, on the third day of travel, he constantly searched the road ahead for any sign of the Hellequin. There were plenty enough travellers; merchants, pilgrims, drovers, or folk going to market, but none reported seeing armed men. Roland was becoming ever more cautious and had sent two of the count’s men-at-arms a quarter-mile ahead to scout the road, but as the day passed they reported nothing threatening. He worried that their progress was so slow, suspecting that Genevieve was deliberately causing delay, yet he could not prove it and his courtesy demanded that he respect every request she made for privacy. Were women’s bladders really that small? Yet in two days more, Roland thought, he would reach Labrouillade and could send a message to the Hellequin demanding Bertille’s return in exchange for the safety of Thomas’s wife and child, and so he tried to reassure himself that the quest was almost finished. ‘We must find a place to spend the night,’ he said to Genevieve as the sun sank on the their third day of travel.

  Then he saw his scouts hurrying from the north. One of them was gesturing wildly.

  ‘He’s seen something,’ Roland said, more to himself than to any of his companions.

  ‘Jesus,’ one of the men-at-arms said, because now they could see what had alarmed the scouts. The evening was drawing in and the sun cast long shadows across the countryside, but on the northern skyline, suddenly bright in that fading sunlight, were men. Men and steel, men and iron, and men and horses. The light glinted off armour and off weapons, from helmets and from the finial of a banner, though the flag was too far off to be seen clearly. Roland tried to count them, but the distant horsemen were moving around. Twelve? Fifteen?

  ‘Maybe you won’t live to see the night,’ Genevieve said.

  ‘They can’t have got in front of us,’ Jacques said, though without much conviction.

  Panic made Roland hesitate. He rarely felt panic. In a tournament, even in a wild melee, he was calm amidst the chaos. He felt, in those moments, as if an angel guarded him, warned him of danger, and showed opportunity. He was fast, so that even in the most disastrous turmoil, it seemed to him as if other men moved slowly. Yet now he felt real fear. There were no rules here, no marshals to stop the fighting, just danger.

  ‘The first you’ll know,’ Genevieve said, ‘is the flight of an arrow.’

  ‘There’s some kind of village over there!’ One of the scouts, his horse white with sweat, galloped up to the hesitant Roland and pointed to the east. ‘There’s a tower there.’

  ‘A church?’

  ‘God knows. A tower. It’s not far, maybe a league?’

  ‘How many men did you see?’ Roland asked.

  ‘Two dozen? There could be more.’

  ‘Let’s go!’ Jacques snarled.

  A rough track led through a wooded valley towards the hidden tower. Roland took it, leading Genevieve’s mare by its reins. He hurried. He glanced back to see that the distant men had vanished from the skyline, then he was among trees and ducking to avoid low branches. He fancied he heard hooves behind, but saw nothing. His heart was pounding in a way it never did in the tournament lists. ‘Go ahead,’ he told his squire, Michel, ‘find who owns the tower and demand shelter. Go! Go!’

  Roland told himself it could not be Thomas pursuing him. If Thomas had escaped Montpellier then he would be south of Roland surely, not north? Maybe no one pursued him? Perhaps the armed men were on some innocent journey, yet why would they be armoured? Why wear helmets? His horse pounded through the leaf mould. They splashed through a shallow stream and cantered beside a puny vineyard. ‘Thomas’s men call their arrows the devil’s steel hail,’ Genevieve said.

  ‘Be quiet!’ Roland snapped, forgetting his courtesy. Two of the count’s men were riding close to her, making sure she did not try to fall off her horse and so slow them down. He rode up a slight slope, looked behind and saw no pursuer, then they breasted the s
hallow crest and there was a small village and, just beyond, the tower of a half-ruined church. The sun had almost gone and the tower was in shadow. It showed no lights.

  The horses crashed through the village, scattering fowl, dogs and goats. Most of the houses were derelict, their thatch blackened or fallen in, and Roland realised this must be a village denuded by the plague. He made the sign of the cross. A woman snatched her child from the path of the big horses. A man called out a question, but Roland ignored it. He was imagining the devil’s steel hail. Imagining the arrows slicing from the twilight to slaughter men and horses, and then he was in a small graveyard and one of his men was in the broken nave of the church and had found the steps that climbed into the old bell tower. ‘It’s empty,’ he called.

  ‘Inside,’ Roland ordered.

  And so, in the dusk, Roland to the dark tower came.

  Seven

  Thomas, Keane, and their prisoner reached the mill to find Karyl and nine remaining men-at-arms ready, though what they were ready for none of them knew. They were all in mail, their horses were saddled, and they were nervous. ‘We know about Genevieve,’ Karyl greeted Thomas.

  ‘How?’

  Karyl jerked his scarred face towards a man dressed only in hose, shirt, boots, and coat. The man had been shrinking from Thomas’s sight, but Thomas spurred towards him. ‘Keep an eye on that bastard,’ he told Karyl, indicating Pitou, ‘if he annoys you, hit him.’ He curbed his horse by the reluctant man and looked down into a very anxious face. ‘What happened to your monk’s habit?’ he asked.