1356

by Bernard Cornwell

  Hugh was crying, but on seeing Roland he ran to him. Roland had told him stories, Hugh liked him, and he clung to Roland, who flinched as Robbie hit the priest a third time, knocking Marchant’s head back hard against a wine barrel. ‘You’d blind her, you bastard?’ Robbie shouted.

  ‘What …’ Roland began.

  ‘We must go!’ Genevieve shouted.

  Sculley seemed to be amused by what he had seen. ‘Nice titties,’ he said to no one in particular, and that seemed to startle Robbie into a realisation of what he had done.

  ‘Go where?’ Robbie asked.

  ‘Find a hole and bury yourself,’ Sculley advised, then looked back to Genevieve. ‘Bit small, but nice.’

  ‘What happened?’ Roland at last managed to ask.

  ‘The bastard wanted to blind her,’ Robbie said.

  ‘I like titties,’ Sculley said.

  ‘Quiet,’ Robbie snarled at him. He had thought he had found purpose and spiritual reassurance in the Order of the Fisherman, but the sight of the hawk slashing its beak at Genevieve’s eye had opened his own eyes. He realised he had run from his old oaths, that he had betrayed his promises, and now he would make good. He had ripped his sword out of its scabbard and taken the hawk’s head off in one sweep, then turned on Father Marchant and punched him with the sword’s hilt, breaking the priest’s lips and teeth. Now he had no idea what he should do.

  ‘We have to leave now,’ Genevieve said.

  ‘Where?’ Robbie asked again.

  ‘A very deep hole,’ Sculley said, amused, then frowned at Robbie. ‘Are we fighting anyone?’

  ‘No,’ Robbie said.

  ‘Get my cloak,’ Roland ordered Michel, and when the squire brought the garment the virgin knight draped it around Genevieve’s bare shoulders. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You were under my protection,’ he said, ‘and I failed.’

  Robbie looked at Roland. ‘We must go,’ he said, sounding frightened.

  Roland nodded. Like Robbie he was finding his world turned inside out. He was desperately trying to think what he should do, what was the right thing to do. The girl was a heretic and, only this same evening, he had sworn an oath before God to join the Order of the Fisherman, yet here was the Order’s chaplain, moaning and bleeding, and the heretic was looking at him with one eye, the other still covered by her hand, and Roland knew he had to save her. He had promised her protection. ‘We must go,’ he echoed Robbie.

  Both were aware that they were deep inside a castle that was suddenly a hostile place, but when Roland looked out into the passage there was no one there, and the noise from the great hall where men still drank had surely been loud enough to smother the sound of Genevieve’s scream. Roland strapped on his sword belt. ‘We just go,’ he said, sounding astonished.

  ‘Your boots, sire,’ Michel said.

  ‘There’s no time,’ Roland said. He was feeling panicky. How were they to leave?

  Father Marchant tried to get up and Robbie turned and kicked his head. ‘Kick him hard, Sculley, if he moves again.’

  ‘Am I fighting for him or for you?’ Sculley asked.

  ‘Who do you serve?’ Robbie demanded.

  ‘The Lord of Douglas, of course!’

  ‘And what am I?’

  ‘A Douglas.’

  ‘Then don’t ask stupid questions.’

  Sculley accepted that. ‘So you want me to kill the bastard?’ he asked, looking at the priest.

  ‘No!’ Robbie said. To kill a priest was to invite excommunication, and he was in trouble enough already.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Sculley offered. ‘I haven’t killed anyone in a week. No, it’s been even longer. It must be at least a month! Jesus! Are you sure we’re not fighting anyone?’

  Roland looked at Robbie. ‘We just walk out?’

  ‘We don’t have a great deal of choice,’ Robbie said, sounding nervous again.

  ‘Then let’s go!’ Genevieve wailed. She had found a cleaning rag that she was clutching to her eye with one hand, while the other held the cloak at her neck.

  ‘Take the boy,’ Roland ordered Michel, then he stepped out into the passageway. ‘Sheathe your sword,’ he said to Robbie.

  ‘Sheathe it?’ Robbie seemed confused.

  Roland glanced at the sword, which had a smear of bloody feathers. ‘We’re guests here.’

  ‘For the moment.’

  ‘What in Christ’s name are we doing?’ Sculley demanded.

  ‘Fighting for the honour of Douglas,’ Robbie said curtly.

  ‘So we are fighting?’

  ‘For Douglas!’ Robbie snarled.

  ‘No need to shout,’ Sculley said, and, as Robbie sheathed his sword, he drew his own long blade. ‘Just tell me who you want slaughtering, eh?’

  ‘No one for now,’ Roland said.

  ‘And keep quiet,’ Robbie added. Roland glanced at Robbie as if seeking reassurance, but the young Scotsman was just as nervous as the Frenchman. ‘We must keep moving,’ Robbie suggested.

  ‘Are we leaving the castle?’

  ‘Think we have to, yes,’ he paused, looking around, ‘if we can.’

  Roland led the way into the courtyard. A few fading fires on which men had baked oatcakes smoked in the wide space, but the moonlight was bright, the shadows dark. No one took any particular notice of them. Genevieve was swathed in the cloak, and Hugh was clutching at its folds as they threaded their way through the sleeping horses and men. Other men passed wineskins and talked in low voices. Someone sang. There was

  the low chuckle of laughter. Lantern light glimmered in the gatehouse.

  ‘Look for my horse,’ Roland said to Michel.

  ‘You think they’ll just let us ride out?’ Robbie whispered.

  ‘Don’t look for my horse,’ Roland said, wondering how they were to escape on foot.

  ‘Your boots, sire?’ Michel offered them.

  ‘No time,’ Roland said. His world had fragmented; he no longer knew where his salvation lay, unless it was his honour, which meant he must save a heretic even if it meant breaking a church-sworn oath. ‘I’ll tell them to lower the drawbridge,’ he told Robbie, and strode towards the gatehouse.

  ‘Stop them!’ The shout came from the door behind them. Father Marchant, holding onto the doorpost, was pointing at them. ‘Stop them! In the name of God!’

  The men in the courtyard were slow to respond. Some were sleeping, others were trying to sleep, and many were lulled by wine, but now they stirred as more men took up the shouts. Sculley swore, then nudged Robbie. ‘Are we fighting yet?’

  ‘Yes!’ Robbie shouted.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Everyone!’

  ‘About bloody time!’ Sculley said, then slammed his sword in a backhanded blow against a man struggling to free himself of a cloak. The man collapsed, blood dark on his forehead, and Sculley sawed the sword through a skein of ropes tethering three horses to a ring set in the wall. He pricked one of the horses with his sword’s point, and the animal bolted, causing chaos among the waking men. He slapped the other two, and all through the yard horses were whinnying and rearing.

  ‘Drawbridge!’ Roland shouted. Two men were facing him, both with swords, but he was suddenly calm. This was his trade. So far he had only fought in tournaments, but his victories in the lists were the result of hours of practice, hour upon hour of obsessive sword practice, and he flicked one enemy’s blade wide, feinted back, stepped forward and his sword slid between the ribs of the left-hand man, and he stepped into the other man, inside his wild swing, and brought his sword arm back so his elbow smashed into the man’s belly.

  ‘I have him,’ Robbie called, just as if they were in a tournament’s melee.

  Roland stepped to his left and gave a short downswing, and the first man was out of the fight and he had hardly drawn breath. Now two sentinels had come from the gatehouse, and he went for them fast. One carried a spear, which he jabbed, but Roland could see the nervousness
on the man’s face and he hardly even had to think to parry the thrust and then flick the sword up so that its tip raked a horrid wound across the man’s face. He cut lips, nose and an eyebrow, and the man, one eye filling with blood, reeled back into the second guard, who panicked, backing into the guardhouse. ‘Bring Lady Genevieve,’ Roland called to Michel, ‘into the arch!’

  Roland vanished into the guardroom, while Robbie and Sculley barred the entrance to the deep arched tunnel that was blocked at its further end by the closed drawbridge. ‘It’s got bloody bolts,’ Sculley said.

  Michel spoke no English, but he had seen the bolts and dragged the right-hand one free of its stone socket. Genevieve reached up and tried to free the other, but it would not budge and the cloak fell off her shoulders. Men in the courtyard saw her naked back and shouted to see more. Michel came to help her and the vast iron bolt squealed back.

  ‘Hold them, Sculley!’ Robbie shouted.

  ‘Douglas!’ Sculley bellowed his war shout at the men in the courtyard.

  One guard was left inside the guardroom, but he shrank away from Roland who ignored him. Instead, Roland climbed the winding stairs that led to the big chamber above the gate arch. There was no one there, but it was dark, the only light was the moon’s dim glow leaking through the arrow slits, but Roland could see the vast windlass on which the drawbridge’s chains were spooled. The windlass’s drum was as wide as the arch and stood four feet high. There were huge handles at either end, but Roland could not budge the nearer one. He heard shouts below and the clash of blades. He heard a scream. A horse whinnied. For a few seconds he stood helpless, wondering how to release the mechanism, then as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw a vast wooden lever by the far handle. He ran to it, took hold and pulled. For an instant it resisted his strength, then it suddenly gave way and there was an appallingly loud click and the vast drum spun fast and the chains whipped off the spools, jerking and shaking, and one snapped and the broken links whipped back to slash the side of Roland’s face just as an almighty crash announced that the drawbridge was down.

  He staggered, half stunned by the whiplashing chain, then recovered to pick up his sword that he had dropped to pull the lever, and started down the stairs.

  The gate was open.

  ‘Sir?’ Sam touched Thomas’s shoulder.

  ‘Jesus.’ Thomas breathed the name. He had been half asleep, or rather his mind was drifting vaguely like the tenuous mist that was sifting off the moon-touched moat of Labrouillade’s castle. He had been thinking of the Grail, of the common clay bowl he had hurled into the sea, and been wondering, as he often did, whether it truly was the Holy Grail. Sometimes he doubted it, and sometimes he shivered for the audacity of concealing it beneath the eternal roll and thunder of the waves. And before that, he thought, he had sought the lance of Saint George, and that too was gone, and he had been thinking that if he did find la Malice then perhaps that also should be hidden for ever, and while his mind was wandering he had seen the sudden dull glimmer of firelight appear in the castle’s arch and then came the great crash confirming that the drawbridge had fallen.

  ‘Are they coming out?’ Sam wondered aloud.

  ‘Bows!’ Thomas called. He stood and bent his great black yew stave, looping the cord over the horn nock. He touched the inside of his left wrist, confirming that the leather bracer was there to protect him from the string’s lash. He pulled an arrow from his bag.

  ‘No horsemen,’ a man said. The archers had moved out of the trees to where they could shoot unimpeded.

  ‘Someone’s coming out,’ Sam said.

  Why would they lower the drawbridge, Thomas thought, unless it was to make a sortie? But if they planned a surprise night attack on his encampment then why were the horses not already galloping across the open meadow that stretched down to the moon-whitened castle? He could see a few people crossing the bridge, but no horsemen. Then he saw more men following, and there was the glint of moonlight on blades. ‘Forward!’ he called. ‘Get in range!’

  Thomas cursed his limp. It was not crippling, but he could not run as fast as he had once run, and his men easily outstripped him. Then Karyl and two other men cantered past on horseback, their swords drawn. ‘That’s Hugh!’ someone shouted.

  ‘And Genny!’ Another English voice. Thomas had a glimpse of shapes against the lit gateway, thought he saw Genevieve and Hugh, but then saw another shape, a man with a crossbow. He halted, raised the great war bow and drew the cord.

  The muscles of his back took the enormous tension. Two fingers drew the cord, two more steadied the arrow on the stave as he tilted the bow towards the stars. This was as long a range as any longbow could shoot, maybe too long. He gazed at the gateway, saw the crossbowman kneel and raise the weapon to his shoulder, and Thomas drew the cord back past his right ear.

  And loosed.

  Roland expected to die. He was frightened. It seemed that the screeching, hammering, clangorous noise of the unreeling windlass drum was still ringing in his ears like the scream of some unearthly devil who was filling him with terror. He just wanted to hide, to curl into a ball in some dark corner and hope the world passed him by, yet he moved instead. He leaped down the stairs, still without his boots, and he expected that Labrouillade’s men would have retaken the guardhouse and that he would

  be cut down by vengeful blades, yet to his astonishment there was only the one man still in the guardhouse chamber, and he was even more frightened than Roland. Robbie was shouting at Roland to hurry.

  ‘Jesus,’ Roland said, and it was a prayer.

  Sculley was bellowing at the men in the courtyard to come and be killed. Three men lay at his feet and the firelight reflected from the glossy black of their blood that filled the spaces between the cobbles. ‘Genevieve’s gone,’ Robbie shouted at Roland, ‘now come on! Sculley!’

  ‘I’m no finished,’ Sculley snarled.

  ‘You are finished,’ Robbie said, and tugged at Sculley’s shoulder. ‘Run!’

  ‘I hate running away.’

  ‘Run! Now! For Douglas!’

  They ran. They had survived thus far because the men in the courtyard were half asleep and confused, but they were awake now. Men pursued the fugitives, then Roland heard a sound he feared, the ratchet of a crossbow being tensioned. He pounded in his bare feet across the drawbridge, heard the snap of the crossbow being released, but the bolt went wide. He did not see the bolt, but he knew there must be others. He snatched at Hugh’s hand and dragged him onwards and just then something white flashed by the corner of his sight. Another white flash! In his panic and fear he thought they must be doves. At night? A third slashed past and a shout sounded behind and he realised they were arrows in the night. Goose-feathered arrows, arrows of England, arrows whipping through the darkness to strike the men coming from the castle. One skidded on the path, skittering past Roland, and then the arrows paused as four horsemen thundered across the grassland, swords drawn, and the horses went past the fugitives, turned and the long blades slashed down at the pursuers. The horsemen did not stop, but kept going, curling around behind Roland, and the arrows flew again, pouring relentlessly into the gateway’s open arch where the crossbowmen were crammed.

  Then suddenly the fugitives were surrounded by men with longbow staves, and the horsemen were a shield behind and they kept going out of range of the castle till they reached the trees, and there Roland fell to his knees. ‘Dear God,’ he said aloud, ‘thank you.’ He was panting, shaking, and still held Hugh’s hand.

  ‘Sir?’ Hugh asked nervously.

  ‘You’re safe,’ Roland told him, and then someone came and scooped the boy up, carrying him away to leave Roland alone.

  ‘Sam!’ a harsh voice shouted. ‘Keep a dozen men on the tree line. Bows strung! The rest of you! Back to the farm. Brother Michael! Where are you? Come here!’

  Roland saw men crowding around Genevieve. He was still on his knees. The night was filled with excited English voices, and Roland had rarely fe
lt so solitary. He glanced around to see that the long moonlit meadow between the wood and the castle was empty. If the Count of Labrouillade or Father Marchant were planning a pursuit it had not yet started. Roland thought how he had only been trying to be honourable, and yet it had turned his life upside down. Then Michel tapped his shoulder. ‘I lost your boots, sire.’ Roland did not answer, and Michel crouched. ‘Sire?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Roland said.

  ‘I lost the boots and the horses, sire.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter!’ Roland said more sharply than he had intended. What was he to do now? He had thought he was employed on two quests, one of them of high sanctity, yet they had led to this lonely despair. He closed his eyes in prayer, begging for guidance, then became aware that someone was breathing in his face. He shuddered, then felt a wet lick and opened his startled eyes to see a pair of wolfhounds standing over him.

  ‘They like you!’ a cheerful voice said, but as the man spoke in English Roland had no idea what was said. ‘Now come away, you two,’ the man went on, ‘not everyone wants to be christened by a pair of bloody hounds.’

  The dogs romped away and Thomas of Hookton took their place. ‘My lord?’ he said, though there was no respect in the voice. ‘Should I kill you or thank you?’

  Roland stared up at le Bâtard. The virgin knight was still shaking and did not know what to say, so he turned and stared at the castle again. ‘Will they attack?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Of course not?’

  ‘They were half asleep or half drunk. Maybe they’ll be ready for a sortie by dawn? Though I doubt it. That’s why my men have two rules, my lord.’

  ‘Rules?’

  ‘They can get drunk as much as they like, but only when I tell them. And no rape.’

  ‘No …’ Roland began.