‘Sir Petrus Zennorius?’ It was a voice I knew, a woman’s voice, though I could not say whose it was. But all of a sudden the hairs stood up on my neck.
‘Down on your knees, man, before your Queen!’ barked one of the soldiers. I stiffened, for who was this fool to tell me what to do? But then I remembered where I had last heard that voice. The silver stain had faded from my eyeballs at last, and there, a few steps in front of me, Queen Isabella sat, dainty but coiled, in a high-backed chair. She raised a long, ring-weighted hand and tapped the arm of her throne.
‘You have kept us waiting, Sir Petrus,’ she murmured. ‘And that, sirrah, has not improved our temper.’
Chapter Twenty-five
Queen Isabella raised her long and elegant hand, and my arms were seized from behind. I knew enough not to struggle. I had been struggling for a long time now, years in fact, and it kept getting me nowhere.
‘Put him in that,’ said one of the knights whom I saw were standing around the walls. I was shoved down into a low chair with my lawyer’s bag behind me. I felt the ancient cloth inside it crepitate softly.
‘Now, Sir Petrus. It is a long time since we last saw you.’
‘At Royan, Your Majesty,’ I said politely. The men beside me held ropes, and I did not want to give them the excuse to lash me down.
‘Exactly. Do you recall the conversation?’
‘We talked of treasures as I recall, Your Majesty. My recollection is a little dim, however. I trust I have not missed my cousin’s wedding? I was rather urgently requested to be here, and if I am too late I humbly apologise.’
The Queen’s face did not move. It was as beautiful as it had been two years ago, though it had aged – we had all aged, of course, but Isabella’s skin seemed to have transformed into ancient ivory: smooth, white and webbed with fine dark lines. ‘Now then. We have been looking the length and breadth of Christendom for you.’
‘Might I ask why, Your Majesty?’
‘You are the expert in various matters. And there is one thing in particular that we desire to ask you about. One thing in particular.’
‘I am at your service,’ I said earnestly.
‘No you are not,’ snapped Queen Isabella. ‘You are decidedly not at our service. You have been in France all this time. You have been in the employ of our cousin Louis. Not content with delivering up to him the holiest relics known to the mind of man, you have plotted with him to find that most holy of all things, that secret thing …’
‘My dealings with the King of France are well known,’ I protested feebly. ‘We have spoken of this before, surely?’
‘Do not toy with us, creature.’ The Queen had one hand on her hip and the other caressing the air malevolently in front of her. No wonder old Hughues de Lusignan did what he was told. ‘The Crucifix of the Cathars. That is why you vanished after Saintes, and abandoned my son’s army into the bargain. Do not try to deny it. We will have the thing one way or another.’
‘I can assure you – nay, I will take an oath on the holiest relic in the kingdom – that I was not searching for that so-called crucifix,’ I said, which was indeed the truth so far as that went. And all the while, I’m sitting on it! I was screaming to myself.
‘Let me put it more plainly, because we seem to be at cross purposes,’ said the Queen. ‘If you have supplied, or have even attempted to supply that thing to Louis of France, we would regard it as treason. Our interest in it was well known to you – you, a vassal of my younger son! Villain, where is your loyalty?’
‘Your Majesty, I believe the Cathar Crucifix, or the rumoured miraculous image, whatever it may be, is nothing more than a myth, and – you must believe me – I know a great deal about such things.’ All this time I had been studying the Queen with every quivering nerve, every corner of my intellect. Surely they will search me, I thought, but I had dealt with monarchs before, and a horrid realisation began to dawn on me. They would not search me. It would not occur to her to do so, for she did not have the smallest knowledge of life’s practicalities, or any interest in those things whatsoever. Other people did those things. To her I was nothing but … an ape, an uncouth vessel of either convenience for her, or inconvenience. I began to see that my fate, without a doubt, had already been decided. Still, I persisted, if only to bring out some little spark of humanity. ‘If there is something else you would like me to find for you …’
‘Be quiet. It is distasteful to us to be bandying words with a tradesman. Oh, my son was generous in making you a knight, but where are you really from, Sir Petrus? We could find out.’ The Queen leaned on the arm of her chair. ‘Did you by chance see the building works outside? My dear son is rebuilding the old abbey, for the greater glory of Our Lord. It will be the finest church in the kingdom.’
‘I did not, Your Majesty. I will make a point of admiring it as soon as …’
‘Our cousin Louis is making a miracle out of stone in Paris,’ she went on as if I had not spoken. She was beginning to sound angry, and it was almost a relief to find some emotion in her. ‘Why could we not do the same thing here? The finest masons, artists, all have been found. Louis built his Sainte Chapelle around the wonders you brought him – traitorously, to be sure – and we will do the same.’
‘That is wondrous news,’ I said brightly. Sweat was running down my back and pooling under me. My satchel was strangely comfortable, pressed against my tailbone. I had the wild fancy, all of a sudden, that the ghastly image would somehow betray me, perhaps rising of its own will to stand in judgment, and I eased myself back against it. ‘What, though, do you believe this … this heretic crucifix to be?’
‘The Mandylion of Edessa,’ hissed the Queen. ‘Lost and then found again, first by the heretical beasts who brought it out of Greece, then by you or your company. Produce it. Produce it, or I will watch as your guts are pulled out of you inch by inch, and cooked under your nose. Do you know how traitors die in England? In public their death is as slow and as agonising as the hangman can make it. In private, where the audience is not so impatient, I can assure you that your torment will proceed at a much more leisurely pace.’
At that moment I would have given her the Mandylion, I think, reached behind me and pulled out my satchel. I would have opened it and shaken out the stained old cloth within. It was not worth my life, surely. But it had claimed many other lives, so why not mine? In the instant those thoughts took to form out of the desperately whirling smoke inside my brain-pan, the Queen clapped her hands, and I knew that, no matter what I did now, I would not live to see another morning.
‘Oh, Lord. We think you must be a heretic yourself, Sir Petrus,’ said Queen Isabella. She was passing sentence: I could hear the calm in her voice. ‘A heretic and a traitor. We do not like the way you grin at us. Certainly you understand that we can find out the truth. And now, enough. Take him downstairs. Make him talk, and be sure to leave enough of him to suffer a traitor’s death.’ She tugged at a stray lock of hair, thin-lipped, narrow-eyed, and winced. My heart was beginning to slam against my ribs, but I knew, in every muscle, that nothing I did now would make a difference. This was a creature who decided the fate of countries over luncheon. The life or death of a verminous brute such as myself … The Queen picked her nose distractedly, as if to prove my point. I was already dead. A year under siege had made me understand, as I never had before, what it means to be helpless, and so I closed my eyes and tried to make my thoughts go blank, as I remembered Gilles had tried to teach me once, long ago on his sunny cliff-edge. I took a deep breath, and as I did so, riving through the silence that had fallen on the chamber, a door handle rattled, hinges squealed and footsteps clacked. Somehow I sensed that the balance in the room had shifted, and I opened my eyes to see Bishop Ranulph of Balecester and two other men standing between me and Isabella. One of the men was Richard of Cornwall. The other, to my complete amazement, was the king.
‘What in God’s name can you mean by this?’ cried the Queen. I felt the guards cringe, but th
e men stood their ground.
‘I ask the same of you, mother!’ Richard of Cornwall snapped. ‘This man is my vassal. This is yet one more outrage against me. And please inform me, dear brother, how it is that you feel able to abduct a knight who is under my protection?’
‘I had nothing to do with it,’ protested Henry. His voice had grown a little higher, a little weaker than when I had last heard it. ‘This is another of Mama’s cursed schemes.’
‘This man is a traitor,’ said the Queen, looking somewhat affronted, but nothing more. ‘He has been conspiring with Louis Capet to overshadow Henry’s great plan for the abbey by delivering to him the heretic crucifix, or Mandylion, or whatever it is called. If that is not a crime …’ She was growing more animated again. ‘… It is a crime against God himself! Indeed it is clear to us that this Sir Petrus, so called, is nothing more than a Catharist heretic.’
King Henry turned and found me sitting behind him. He seemed mildly surprised. The last two years had been kind to him: his hair cascaded down on either side of his head in lovely golden curls, and he had grown a beard that hid his weak chin.
‘We remember you from the battle in front of Saintes,’ he said mildly.
‘I was there, Your Majesty,’ I agreed.
‘A dreadful mess, a dreadful, dreadful mess,’ he murmured. ‘And you did well. Well done.’
‘If he is conspiring with cousin Louis, he is hardly likely to be a heretic,’ said Richard, dry as dust.
‘Is this why you have grown so interested in the abbey recently, Mama? To spite Louis?’ Henry was standing his ground, despite the look his mother was scorching him with.
‘Your Majesties, Sir Petrus proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Mandylion of Edessa is a myth,’ said Bishop Ranulph. ‘Not one soul has seen it since the burning of Constantinople. If your royal cousin wishes to squander what is left in his coffers on a fruitless search, does that not serve the interests of Your Majesty?’
‘How can it be a myth?’ snapped Isabella. ‘Louis believes it is real, and he is not a fool.’ It might have been my fancy, but she seemed to fix her eyes on Henry as she spoke.
‘That does it, Mama. The abbey, do you hear me, is my business, or do you and honest Hughues de Lusignan wish to befoul it with your schemes, as you have fouled so much else? Do you know what our war in Poitou cost us, Mama? Apart from the scorn of the Continent, and the contempt of my barons, and the pleasure of seeing my own father-in-law turn his coat and toady to Louis? Apart from the shame, which I have not yet put a price on, it cost an ocean of silver, dear Mama, and the commons are not best disposed to fill it again. Now if you have some other evidence that this man is a traitor, I will hear it.’
‘I will vouch for Petrus Zennorius,’ said the Bishop of Balecester, drawing himself up to his full height, which was still impressive, though he had aged in the two years since I had seen him among the broken vines. ‘He came to my aid at Saintes and carried me to safety when I was hurt. He is no friend of heretics, as I know from our … our investigations together. And he has fulfilled a solemn and difficult promise to your son Richard. These hardly sound like the actions of a traitor.’
‘Balecester?’ hissed the Queen. ‘How dare you challenge us so? You owe your favour to …’
‘He owes it to me, mother,’ said Richard abruptly. ‘Ranulph opposed your fantasy war in Poitou with all his power. I should have listened to him. If we are bandying traitor around, meanwhile, you have never properly explained either to Henry or myself why exactly you drew us into a war it seems you never intended for us to win. My brother and I have been thinking about this a great deal.’
‘I did it for England!’ the Queen shouted.
‘Nonsense!’ Henry yelled. Something within him had evidently snapped. ‘Nonsense, I say! You did it for Hughues de Lusignan! You conspired to draw us into a profitless battle with Louis, and mother, your husband told us so himself: blame no one but your mother, he said at Taillebourg. I cannot … mother, I will brook no more interference from you. I command you to return to France as soon as you are able, and to keep your affairs, and those of your unlucky husband, separated from those of my kingdom!’
‘I will not,’ she said, an icy, dangerous smile parting her rouged lips. A mother and her two powerful sons – and she had given them their power. ‘I will not,’ she said again.
‘My honoured mother,’ said Henry, and he sounded stronger, all of a sudden. ‘I have lately been forced to sign a treaty with Louis Capet, and while he was kind enough not to make it an occasion for humiliating the crown I wear, nonetheless England is the laughing stock of Christendom. Your beloved husband has submitted utterly to Louis, and my brother will never reclaim Poitou now that Lusignan is a loyal vassal of France. And we know, mother: we know that it was you who urged Lusignan to rebel.’
‘That is a lie!’ Isabella stood bolt upright and a ripple of unease went around the room. But her sons stood firm.
‘By the Holy Face, mother! I find you here, about to have my brother’s man condemned as a traitor, while the only traitor I find in this room is you yourself! It was your vainglory that lured one Christian monarch to attack another,’ Henry continued, his voice rising. ‘God is my witness that I bear my cousin Louis no ill-will. I cannot even bring myself to hate my step-father, for he has shown that in the end he was weak and a dupe. No, it is you, mother. You have proved yourself to be a canker in the bosom of our kingdom, and that cannot be tolerated. You will be escorted back to your lands in France and there you may do what you will. And be sure that it is only because you gave me life that I am sparing yours!’
Someone tapped me on the arm. It was Bishop Ranulph, looking flushed.
‘Come away,’ he said. ‘This does not concern you.’
‘It did a minute ago,’ I said, standing up gratefully.
‘It did, indeed it did,’ he said. ‘Now come. We must attend a wedding.
‘I will join you,’ said Earl Richard. ‘Goodbye, mother.’ He bowed stiffly, and the three of us marched out between the frightened guards, leaving the king and his mother facing each other like maddened tomcats on a narrow wall.
‘My lord Richard,’ I said as we made our way through the private corridors of the palace, ‘I do not understand. You have rescued me, and yet I came here at your invitation to find myself … to find myself trapped,’ I finished abruptly. I was sick of tripping my tongue around the niceties of these grand folk.
‘My invitation?’ said Richard, sounding puzzled.
‘Sir Jeffrey of Abbot’s Dene chanced upon me in Toulouse. He told me of your urgent desire to have me attend my cousin Agnes’ wedding. And it seems there were people looking for me all over France.’
‘Jeffrey of Abbot’s Dene is one of Lusignan’s English knights,’ said Richard. ‘I never sent any such invitation. This wedding was … my mother took a liking to Lady Agnes after she heard of her bravery in the wagon train at Saintes. She rather pushed Agnes and that Frenchman, that …’
‘Sir Aimery,’ I prompted. ‘De Lille Charpigny. An old Burgundian family.’
‘Là. Well, she is your cousin, so I expect she won’t mind me telling you. She brought a proposal to me, a trading matter, the Levant and all that sort of thing …’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘In any case it prospered and both of us became somewhat the richer. My mother began badgering me about a wedding two months or so ago, and I agreed to sponsor it. But as for you, Sir Petrus, I am afraid that I supposed you dead.’
‘No, I did not die,’ I muttered.
‘Evidently not. I owe you a debt of thanks.’
‘Oh! My lord, I forgot! My heartiest congratulations on your own marriage,’ I said. ‘I heard in Toulouse.’
‘Thank you. Now I have things to attend to before this damned wedding. My brother has kicked a hornets’ nest, and he will have no idea what to do now.’ And he patted the bishop on the arm and loped off.
‘So there is a wedding then, my lord?’ I asked
the bishop.
‘Of course. In Saint Margaret’s Church. Couldn’t spare the Abbey for a commoner.’ He glanced at Earl Richard’s retreating figure, and then caught my arm.
‘Now then. Never mind what you told the Queen. Did you find it?’
I blinked at him, feeling as if I had just clawed my body out of a deep well only to lose my grip at the last moment. I had actually forgotten about my satchel and what it contained, though it still hung innocently against my hip. I wondered for an instant whether I should call Richard back and sell him the damned thing on the spot. But I had not given it to his mother, so why should he have it? I saw, very clearly, that I could not sell this thing. It could not go to any man or woman who saw power in it, for as the Captain had discovered, and I had also seen with my own eyes, it seemed to drive men headlong towards death. What would it do to the worldly ambitions of Earl Richard? And even pious King Henry …No.I would destroy it. But what if … What if ? I thought of flames eating the shadowy face on the shroud, and shuddered. No. It would have to go to someone who understood what it was but had no desire to use it, no desire for power. I opened my mouth to let out a name, but before it found the air I realised that someone was talking very loudly in my ear.
‘What about it? The Mandylion? Sir Petrus! I know you were searching for it.’ The Bishop of Balecester was staring at me with a mixture of impatience and concern.
‘My lord,’ I said, ‘I was, you are right. I looked … I followed the heretics. To Avignonet, where the Inquisitors were killed. To little villages where not one wretched ear has ever heard the true word of Mother Church. And do you know where I finished up, my lord? At Montségur itself.’
‘The Synagogue of Satan!’ He looked at me with awe and perhaps fear. ‘And it was there?’
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