Savage landed badly on the altar top. One of his feet skidded wildly in de Lacy’s blood and he finally lost his balance completely, toppling backwards onto the floor.
He landed heavily on his back, grunting as the wind was driven from his body.
Sensing victory, Ceannaideach ran towards him, axe raised.
Suddenly the Scottish lord stumbled and sprawled headlong across the floor.
There was a short laugh and Savage saw that MacHuylin, still tied to the wooden pillar, had managed to sweep his leg round and take the feet from under the running Ceannaideach.
Enraged, Ceannaideach scrambled back to his feet and turned his attention on MacHuylin. His axe had a wicked-looking spike on the top of it and Ceannaideach reversed the weapon, stabbing downwards at the bound galloglaich. MacHuylin twisted away from the blow as best he could. He was unable to get out of the way completely and the point of the axe gouged deep into his thigh, unleashing a cry of anguish from him.
By this time Savage was back on his feet also. He charged Ceannaideach while he was still bending over MacHuylin and drove the point of his sword into the back of the Scottish lord’s chest. With the full weight of Savage’s body behind it, the blade skewered its way right through his body to burst out above his heart, unleashing a torrent of blood that showered down over MacHuylin.
Ceannaideach made a brief gurgling sound as blood bubbled up from his punctured lungs and overflowed from his mouth. Then he fell dead upon the moss-covered flagstones.
There were a few moments silence as Savage got his breath back and surveyed the grim carnage. De Lacy was dead too. Killed by shock and blood loss, his corpse still knelt, propped up against the altar in a parody of prayer.
Galiene looked like she had fallen asleep.
‘Release me!’ Alys shouted.
Savage snapped out of his battle trance and ran to her. He grasped her head and kissed her fiercely.
‘Thanks. That’s nice, but we’ve got more important things to do,’ Alys said.
Savage took Ceannaideach’s dagger and sliced the ropes holding her. She quickly ran to Galiene and examined her, pressing fingers against her neck and opening her eyelids.
‘She’s in a very deep sleep because of the henbane. Unconscious,’ Alys said, her beautiful face wrought with worry. ‘We have to get her that antidote.’
‘Have you got it?’ Savage asked as he cut MacHuylin free.
Alys shook her head as she came over to MacHuylin to inspect his wound. ‘You’re going to have to go down to the forest to get it.’
‘How will I know what to look for?’
‘I’ll show you. I’ve a book in my bag with drawings of the plants needed but I’ve got to stop this bleeding first,’ Alys said as she unbuckled MacHuylin’s sword belt. She wound it around the galloglaich’s wounded thigh and pulled hard, mercilessly tightening the belt through its own loop around the limb.
‘Sweet Jesus, go easy!’ MacHuylin gasped through clenched teeth.
‘I have to stop the bleeding or you’ll die,’ Alys said.
‘What can I do?’ Savage asked, feeling superfluous as he stood helplessly nearby.
‘Get the Grail!’ MacHuylin shouted as Alys tightened the belt further. A thick globule of blood gurgled up from his wound. ‘Then at least this whole trip hasn’t been a waste of time!’
Savage looked at Alys.
‘You may as well,’ she said. ‘We can’t do anything until I get this leg bound and the bleeding staunched.’
Savage nodded. He sheathed his sword and ran out of the chapel.
Alys worked feverishly, twisting the belt ever tighter, ignoring MacHuylin’s cries of pain. Sweat dripped from her brow with the effort but soon the bleeding slowed and then finally stopped. She looked up but MacHuylin had passed out from the agony.
‘At least he’s quiet,’ she said to herself as she opened her leather shoulder bag. Inside were various herbs and bandages and in no time she had packed MacHuylin’s wound with sage, waybread and honey, then bound it in a new linen bandage.
Alys sighed and stood up, turning her attention back to Galiene.
At that moment the door of the church opened again. She looked round, expecting to see Savage returning with the Grail.
Instead she saw John Bysset standing in the doorway, his kidney dagger drawn.
‘Hallo, my dear,’ Bysset said, an evil grin creasing his face. ‘So nice to see you again.’
57
Savage ran across the mountaintop towards the low burial mound. The weather had cleared up and the clouds that had cloaked the summit had blown away. Had he had time, he could have admired the stunning view that opened up, revealing a vista that stretched right to the Irish Sea and beyond it to Ireland itself. The wind still roared across the mountain but the Scottish countryside below was bathed in the warm orange glow of late summer evening as the sun dipped towards the horizon and shadows began to flow into the valleys below like black water.
What this meant to Savage was that he would have to get down the mountain to pick the antidote for Galiene and back up again in the dark.
As he approached the stone-mantled entranceway, however, thoughts of Galiene, Alys and MacHuylin slipped momentarily from his mind. Could this ancient mound really be the resting place of the Holy Grail?
The sun was setting directly opposite the mound and its last rays bathed the approach to the mound in golden rays that reached right inside. Savage walked up the short corridor of stones that led to the door. He ducked his head to get through the low doorway and entered the cool darkness of the mound.
Inside was a round chamber, completely built of stone. Sheltered from the roar of the wind, the quietness immediately enveloped him like a calming bath. There were entranceways to many little chambers around the walls and the late rays of the setting sun lit up a round stone right in the centre of the mound. It was covered in carvings: intricate spirals that looped and curled their way around the faces of the stone in ever-spinning loops.
On top of the stone sat a cup. It was gold, a long-stemmed goblet, which was studded with red and green precious stones. The evening sunlight glittered across it and sparkled on the gems. This must be the Grail.
Savage reached out tentatively then stopped, suddenly nervous about even touching such an object. Could this really be the actual cup of Christ? The vessel that bore his blood at the Last Supper?
Savage went to reach out again but paused once more. Had he just heard something? He thought it was Alys’s voice but he knew that was impossible. He was inside the mound and outside the wind would snatch away any words spoken.
He grabbed the cup and shoved it into the leather shoulder bag he had carried since Castle Corbenek.
He had things to do.
58
Inside the crumbling chapel, Alys de Logan was backed up against the altar. John Bysset stalked towards her, the long, pyramid-shaped blade of his kidney dagger held before him.
‘There will be no trickery this time, my dear Alys,’ Bysset sneered. ‘No secret passageways and escape routes. This time you are mine.’
Alys felt the cold stone of the altar behind her and realised she had nowhere to go. The only exit was the door and Bysset blocked that way out. She had no weapon, though several were discarded on the floor.
‘You worthless shit,’ she spat. ‘You’re not in this for the Grail, for Ireland or for Scotland. You’re just in it for yourself.’
Bysset chuckled. ‘How right you are. And after all the Crusaders, zealots, patriots and believers are dead, killed by their convictions, I’ll be the one who comes out of this alive and richer.’
‘What would your friend Montmorency say if he heard that?’
‘Oh he is one of them all right: a true believer in the Grail,’ Bysset said as he edged ever closer. ‘He believes in the Grail. He’s obsessed by it. But he’s every bit as treacherous, two-faced and untrustworthy as me. The difference is that he excuses himself by insisting the end justifies
the means. I like to think I’m a lot more honest.’
Alys knew her only chance was to go for the door. She ran forward, trying to duck past him but Bysset caught her easily and tossed her back against the altar. His left hand snaked around her throat and tightened, squeezing the airway so she could not breathe or shout.
‘Why do you think we are here anyway?’ he growled. ‘I don’t know how you did it but killing Ceannaideach and de Lacy has saved Montmorency and I the trouble of having to do it ourselves. With both Edward and Robert Bruce out of the country this is the perfect opportunity to sneak back here and take the Grail. We shall wield its power and no one – no princes, kings or popes – will be able to stand against us.’
‘We?’ Alys gasped, her face reddening.
‘Ah you know me so well, my dear,’ Bysset said. ‘A pity our marriage will be such a short one. Yes indeed I will also have to get rid of my friend the Hospitaller at some stage, but that is a battle for the future.’
‘Marriage?’ Alys’s vision was starting to darken; she could feel panic rising in her chest.
‘Montmorency will marry us – he is a monk after all, albeit a warrior monk. Then I will be legally entitled to your lands.’
‘Who would know?’ Her words came as little more than a strangled whisper.
‘I would.’ Bysset smiled. ‘I’m a simple man and despite what you might think I still believe in certain things. It will also please me to see you so humiliated. Just before you die: you and your bastard child.’
Savage pushed open the crumbling door of the chapel. For the second time the scene that met his eyes shocked him.
Alys’s eyes flickered towards Savage standing in the doorway. Bysset spotted this straight away and looked over his shoulder. He smiled and let go of Alys’s throat, then drove his dagger down into her shoulder. She shrieked in pain then he punched her hard on the face, sending her spinning backwards into the altar and onto the floor.
‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Bysset sneered, sheathing his dagger and drawing his sword, ‘after I’ve dealt with your lover boy. I thought you were dead, Savage. No matter: that will soon be the case.’
Savage drew his own sword and advanced into the church.
Bysset moved towards him. ‘You are another follower of the Grail, I believe, Savage. You may have beaten me in the tournament but there will be no rules here to protect you.’
Suddenly Bysset stopped, a look of stunned shock on his face. His grip on his sword loosened and he dropped it, then he sank to his knees. Behind him stood Alys de Logan. In her hand was a dagger, taken from the corpse of de Lacy that still lay beside the altar. Its blade dripped blood from where she had driven it into Bysset’s back, puncturing his liver and one kidney, then quickly withdrawing it again.
‘I would have thought by now, John, you would have learned never to turn your back on me,’ Alys said with bitterness, then she grabbed the kneeling Bysset by the hair, wrenched his head back and drew the blade across his throat, unleashing a torrent of blood that gushed out over the floor of the chapel.
Alys let go of Bysset’s hair and his corpse fell forward face first onto the floor. She gasped and clutched her left shoulder where her own blood welled up.
Savage rushed to her and grabbed her in his arms.
‘Are you all right?’ he pleaded.
‘It’s not serious, just a flesh wound. The worthless bastard couldn’t even stab me right,’ Alys replied. ‘I can treat it myself but I’m not the one you should be worried about. Galiene needs those herbs from the forest.’
Savage looked at the pale face of the unconscious Galiene and felt utterly helpless.
‘What can I do?’ he asked.
Alys drew a leather-bound book from a pouch in her dress. She winced in pain as she leafed through several of the velum pages, which Savage could see bore coloured drawings of different herbs and plants. She stopped at one page and pointed to the drawing of a star-shaped white flower with a black heart.
‘This is henbane,’ she said, then drew her finger to the drawings on the page opposite. It showed a bell-shaped purple-green flower with deep black berries. ‘This is belladonna: deadly nightshade. It will be growing in the woods at the foot of the mountain. I need you to get some.’
‘Isn’t that poisonous?’
‘Yes. One of the most deadly I know of,’ Alys replied. ‘And by one of those odd contradictions of Mother Nature, a preparation made from it is also the only known antidote for henbane poisoning. If prepared correctly it induces massive purging of the body.’
‘It will be dark soon,’ Savage said. ‘I doubt I will be able to see what I am picking.’
‘There will be a full moon tonight,’ Alys replied. ‘When it comes up it will be as clear as day.’
‘I can’t leave you here alone,’ Savage insisted. ‘If Bysset was here, Montmorency must be around somewhere too—’
‘If anyone but you walks through that door I’ll put that axe through their skull,’ Alys said with a smile that was close to a grimace. ‘Richard, I must stay here to tend to Galiene. Please, just go. Quickly.’
Savage nodded. There was nothing else for it. He took Alys in his arms and kissed her, then turned and ran out of the church.
Outside the wind buffeted him again and he leaned forward as he ran past the cairn towards the edge of the mountain summit. His legs still ached from the ascent, and he was not looking forward to the gruelling task ahead of him.
Savage reached the edge of the mountaintop and stopped. He had made a mistake. In his haste to get help for Galiene and still distracted from the fighting, he had gone the wrong way and made for the side of the summit that fell away to a cliff.
Now the clouds had cleared he could see that the mountainside plummeted away for several hundred feet of sheer rock until it terminated in a little mountain lake, its cold, still waters a deep peat-soaked black. There was no way down in that direction. He would have to go back the way he had come.
Cursing his own stupidity and the waste of precious moments, Savage turned.
Standing behind him was a figure robed almost completely in black, save for the white, equal-armed cross that emblazoned the shoulder of his sable cloak. His sword was drawn and glinted in the evening sunlight.
It was Hugo Montmorency.
59
‘Richard Savage. The sodomite English King’s tame Templar,’ Montmorency said, looking at Savage through narrowed, suspicious eyes. ‘I am getting bored with you turning up where you are least wanted.’
‘Hugo Montmorency,’ Savage returned, drawing his own sword, ‘the excommunicated Scottish King’s pet Hospitaller. Tell me, Montmorency, how do you reconcile working with the anathematised Robert Bruce with your vows to the Holy Father?’
‘I have climbed all the way up this mountain,’ Montmorency said ignoring Savage’s question, ‘and I find that a certain valuable item is no longer in the place where I left it. I assume you have something to do with the Grail not being in Merlin’s burial mound where it is supposed to be. Thankfully God has ensured I was here in time to catch you before you made off with it. As it says in the book of Exodus: “You shall not steal.” Breaking the commandments of the Lord must be punished. Be assured, Savage, I will now do that.’
‘You accuse me of stealing?’ Savage laughed bitterly at the man’s audacity. ‘Montmorency, you’re here to steal the Grail yourself.’
‘Steal? How can I steal what rightfully belongs only to God?’ Montmorency shouted.
Savage frowned. With his left hand he drew the golden cup from his leather shoulder bag. ‘Is this what you are looking for?’
Montmorency’s eyes lit up. He stared at the goblet the way most men stare at the naked flesh of a woman.
‘How many men have you killed for this, Montmorency?’ Savage asked. ‘How many have you betrayed, stabbed in the back, lied to? Your Templar brethren in Garway for a start – do you know how painfully some of them died in that dungeon after you betrayed us
?’
A look of recognition dawned in Montmorency’s eyes and his smile broadened. ‘Garway? I knew I’d seen you before somewhere but could not quite place it. Yes, I remember Garway and the old fool who was commander there. What was his name again?’
‘De Vere.’
‘Ah yes, Commander de Vere. If he had listened and given over the Grail to me when those French Templars arrived with it, there would have been no need for the unpleasant outcome. I was forced to pursue them north here to Scotland. Unfortunately by the time I tracked them down they had already offered their service – and the Grail – to King Robert Bruce.’
‘And you were forced to do the same?’ Savage concluded. ‘So you could wait for the day you could steal the Grail yourself and betray Bruce too?’
‘Very clever, and correct in a way,’ Montmorency said, ‘but you use such critical language. What I do is God’s work. Everything is for Him, so how can I be blamed for anything?’
Savage saw a strange look in Montmorency’s eyes and realised that what he saw there was not the light of inspiration, but the cold, fish-like deadness of certainty.
‘You speak of betrayal.’ Montmorency smiled. ‘But did you not abandon a wife and a daughter in Ireland to go and seek the Grail? Are we really that different?’
Savage thought of Galiene lying dying in the chapel while he wasted more time talking. He knew that if he bought his own escape with the Grail and left Montmorency up on the mountaintop the Hospitaller would kill Galiene, Alys and MacHuylin anyway. He had to fight him and he had to end this, one way or the other. He dropped the goblet back into his shoulder bag and grasped his sword hilt with both hands.
‘Come and get your trinket,’ he challenged.
Montmorency’s smile faded. ‘Very well. A l’outrance: to the death!’
Lions of the Grail Page 39