The Grail Quest 3 - Heretic tgq-3

by Bernard Cornwell

  What about you?" Genevieve asked the Norman.

  My soul withered years ago,“ Sir Guillaume said grimly, then he turned and gazed down the main street. They'll be leaving men-at-arms outside the town to take you when you leave. But you can go out by the small gate behind Father Medous's house. They won't be guarding that, and you can cross the river at the mill. You'll be safe enough in the woods.”

  For a moment Thomas did not comprehend what Sir Guillaume was saying, then it struck him with awful force that he was being told to go. To run. To hide. To leave his first command, to abandon his new wealth, his men, everything. He stared at Sir Guillaume, who shrugged. You can't stay, Thomas,“ the older man said gently. Robbie or one of his friends will kill you. My guess is that a score of us would support you, but if you stay it will be a fight between us and them and they'll win.”

  You'll stay here?"

  Sir Guillaume looked uncomfortable, then nodded. I know why you came here/ he said. I don't believe the damn thing exists nor, if it does, do I think we have a cat's chance of finding it. But we can make money here, and I need money so, yes, I'm staying. But you're going, Thomas. Go west. Find an English garrison. Go home.“ He saw the reluctance on Thomas's face. What in Christ's name else can you do?” he demanded. Thomas said nothing and Sir Guillaume glanced at the soldiers waiting beyond the town gate. You can take the heretic to them, Thomas, and give her over to the burning. They'll lift your excommunication then.“ I won't do that,” Thomas said fiercely.

  Take her down to the soldiers,“ Sir Guillaume said, and kneel to the bishop.”

  No!"

  Why not?"

  You know why not."

  Because you love her?"

  Yes,“ Thomas said, and Genevieve took his arm. She knew he was suffering, just as she had suffered when the Church withdrew the love of God from her, but she had come to terms with the horror. Thomas had not and she knew it would take him time. We shall survive,” she said to Sir Guillaume. But you must leave," the Norman insisted.

  I know,“ Thomas could not keep the heartbreak from his voice. I'll bring you supplies tomorrow,” Sir Guillaume promised. Horses, food, cloaks. What else do you need?“ Arrows,” Genevieve said promptly, then she looked at Thomas as if expecting him to add something, but he was still too shocked to think properly. You'll want your father's writings, won't you?" she suggested gently.

  Thomas nodded. Wrap them up for me?“ he asked Sir Guillaume. Wrap them in leather.”

  Tomorrow morning, then/ Sir Guillaume said. Wait by the hollow chestnut on the hill/

  Sir Guillaume escorted them out of the castle, through the back alleys behind the priest's house to where a small door had been let through the town wall to give access to a path which led to the watermill on the river. Sir Guillaume shot the bolts and opened the gate warily, but no soldiers waited outside and so he led them down to the mill and there he watched as Thomas and Genevieve crossed the stone sill of the mill pond. From there they climbed into the woods.

  Thomas had failed. And he was damned.

  PART TWO Fugitive

  It rained all night. It was a pelting rain driven by a cold wind that snatched the leaves from the oaks and chestnuts and swirled spite fully into the ancient tree that had been broken by lightning and hollowed by time. Thomas and Genevieve tried to shelter in the trunk, flinching once when a burst of thunder sounded in the sky. No lightning showed, but the rain slashed down even more forcefully. It's my fault," Genevieve said.

  No. Thomas said.

  I hated that priest. she said. I knew I shouldn't shoot, but I remembered all he did to me.“ She buried her face on his shoulder so her voice became muffled and Thomas could hardly hear her. He would stroke me when he wasn't burning me. Stroke me like a child.”

  Like a child?"

  No. she said bitterly, like a lover. And when he'd hurt me he'd say prayers for me and tell me I was precious to him. I hated him.“ I hated him too. Thomas said, for what he did to you.” He had his arms about her. And I'm glad he's dead. he added, and then reflected that he himself was as good as dead. He had been sent to hell, cut off from salvation.

  So what will you do?“ Genevieve asked in the shivering dark. I won't go home.”

  So where will you go?"

  Stay with you. If you want.“ Thomas thought of saying that she was free to go wherever she wished, but he knew she had entwined her fate in his so he did not try to persuade her to leave him, nor did he want her to leave him. We'll go back to Astarac. he suggested instead. He did not know what good that would do, but he knew he could not just crawl home defeated. Besides, he was damned now. He had nothing to lose and all eternity to gain. And perhaps the Grail would redeem him. Perhaps now that he was doomed, he would find the treasure and it would restore his soul to grace. Sir Guillaume arrived soon after dawn, escorted by a dozen men who Sir Guillaume knew would not betray Thomas. Jake and Sam were among them and both wanted to accompany Thomas, but he refused. Stay with the garrison. he told them, or go back west and find another English fort.” It was not that he did not want company, but he knew it would be difficult enough to feed himself and Genevieve without having two other mouths to worry about. Nor did he have any prospect to offer them except danger, hunger and the certainty of being hunted across southern Gascony. Sir Guillaume had brought two horses, food, cloaks, Genevieve's bow, four sheaves of arrows and a fat purse of coins. But I couldn't get your father's manuscript,“ he confessed, Robbie took it.” He stole it?" Thomas asked indignantly.

  Sir Guillaume shrugged as if the fate of the manuscript was unimportant. Berat's men-at-arms have gone,“ he said,” so the road west is safe, and I sent Robbie east this morning to look for livestock. So ride west, Thomas. Ride west and go home.“ You think Robbie wants to kill me?” Thomas asked, alarmed. Arrest you, probably,“ Sir Guillaume said, and give you to the Church. What he really wants, of course, is to have God on his side and he believes if he finds the Grail then all his problems will be over.” Sir Guillaume's men looked surprised at the mention of the Grail and one, John Faircloth, began a question, but Sir Guillaume cut him off. And Robbie's persuaded himself that you're a sinner,“ he said to Thomas. Sweet Christ. he added, but there's nothing worse than a young man whose just found God. Except a young woman who finds God. They're insufferable.” The Grail?" John Faircloth insisted. There had been plenty of wild rumours about why the Earl of Northampton had sent Thomas and his men to Castillon d'Arbizon, but Sir Guillaume's careless admission had been the first confirmation.

  It's a madness Robbie's got in his skull. Sir Guillaume explained firmly," so take no damned notice..

  We should stay with Thomas. Jake put in. All of us. Begin again."

  Sir Guillaume knew enough English to understand what Jake had said and he shook his head. If we stay with Thomas. he said, then we have to fight Robbie. That's what our enemy wants. He wants us divided."

  Thomas translated for Jake. And he's right. he added forcibly. So what do we do?" Jake wanted to know.

  Thomas goes home. Sir Guillaume pronounced doggedly, and we stay long enough to get rich and then we go home too." He tossed Thomas the reins of the two horses. I'd like to stay with you. he said.

  Then we all die."

  Or we'll all be damned. But go home, Thomas. he urged, throwing down a fat leather bag. There's enough money in that purse to pay your passage, and probably enough to persuade a bishop to lift the curse. The Church will do anything for money. You'll do fine, and in a year or two come and find me in Normandy.“ And Robbie?” Thomas asked. What will he do?“ Sir Guillaume shrugged. He'll go home in the end. He'll not find what he's looking for, Thomas, and you know that.” I don't know that."

  Then you're as mad as he is. Sir Guillaume pulled off his gauntlet and held out his hand. You don't blame me for staying?“ You should stay. Thomas said. Get rich, my friend. You're in command now?”

  Of course."

  Then Robbie will have to pay you a third share of Jo
scelyn's ransom."

  I'll keep some for you. Sir Guillaume promised, then he clasped Thomas's hand, turned his horse and led his men away. Jake and Sam, as farewell gifts, threw down two more sheaves of arrows, and then the horsemen were gone.

  Thomas felt his anger simmer as he and Genevieve rode east wards in a soft drizzle that soon soaked through their new cloaks. He was angry at himself for having failed, though the only way he could have succeeded was by putting Genevieve on a pile of firewood and torching her, and he could never do that. He was bitter at Robbie for having turned against him, though he under stood the Scotsman's reasons and even considered that they were good ones. It was not Robbie's fault that he was attracted to Genevieve, and it was no bad thing for a man to have a care for his soul. So most of all Thomas was furious at life, and that rage helped to take his mind off their discomfort as the rain grew heavy again. They tended southwards as they went east, sticking to the woods where they were forced to duck beneath low branches. Where there were no trees they used the higher ground and kept a lookout for mailed horsemen. They saw none. If Robbie's men were in the east then they were keeping to the low ground and so Thomas and Genevieve were alone.

  They avoided farms and villages. That was not difficult for the country was sparsely populated and the higher ground was given to pasture rather than cultivation. They saw a shepherd in the afternoon who sprang up, surprised, from behind a rock and fished a leather sling and a stone from his pocket before he saw the sword at Thomas's side and swiftly hid the sling and knuckled his fore head as he bowed. Thomas paused to ask the man if he had seen any soldiers and Genevieve translated for him, reporting the man had seen nothing. A mile beyond the frightened shepherd Thomas put an arrow into a goat. He retrieved the arrow from the carcass, which he skinned, gutted and jointed. That night, in the roofless shelter of an old cottage built at the head of a wooded valley, they lit a fire with flint and steel, then roasted goat ribs in the flames. Thomas used his sword to cut branches from a larch, which he fashioned into a crude lean-to against one wall. It would keep the rain off for a night, and he made a bed of bracken beneath the makeshift shelter.

  Thomas remembered his journey from Brittany to Normandy with Jeanette. Where was the Blackbird now, he wondered? They had travelled in the summer, living off his bow, avoiding every other living person, and it had been a happy time. Now he did the same with Genevieve, but the winter was coming. He did not know how hard that winter would be, but Genevieve said she had never known snow in these foothills. It falls to the south,“ she said, in the mountains, but here it is just cold. Cold and wet.” The rain was intermittent now. Their horses were picketed on a patch of thin grass beside the stream that trickled past the ruins. A crescent moon sometimes showed through the clouds to silver the high wooded ridges on either side of the valley. Thomas walked a half-mile downstream to listen and watch, but he saw no other lights and heard nothing untoward. They were safe, he reckoned, from men if not from God, and so he went back to where Genevieve was trying to dry their heavy cloaks in the small heat of the fire. Thomas helped her, draping the woollen cloth over a frame of larch sticks. Then he crouched by the flames, watching the red embers glow, and he thought of his doom. He remembered all the pictures he had seen daubed on church walls: pictures showing souls tumbling towards hell with its grinning demons and roaring fires. You are thinking of hell,“ Genevieve said flatly. He grimaced. I was,” he said and he wondered how she had known.

  You really think the Church has the power to send you there?“ she asked and, when he did not reply, she shook her head. Excommunication means nothing.”

  It means everything,“ Thomas said sullenly. It means no heaven and no God, no salvation and no hope, everything.” God is here,“ Genevieve said fiercely. He is in the fire, in the sky, in the air. A bishop cannot take God away from you. A bishop cannot suck the air from the sky!”

  Thomas said nothing. He was remembering the bishop's staff striking the cobbles and the sound of the small handbell echoing from the castle walls.

  He just said words,“ Genevieve said, and words are cheap. They said the same words to me, and that night, in the cell, God came to me.” She put a piece of wood onto the fire. I never thought I would die. Even as it came close I never thought it would happen. There was something inside me, a sliver, that said it would not. That was God, Thomas. God is everywhere. He is not a dog on the Church's leash."

  We only know God through His Church,“ Thomas said. The clouds had thickened, obscuring the moon and the last few stars, and in the dark the rain became harder and there was a grumble of thunder from the valley's high head. And God's Church,” he went on, has condemned me."

  Genevieve took the two cloaks from their sticks and bundled them up to keep the worst of the rain from their weave. Most people don't know God through the Church. she said. They go and they listen to a language they don't understand, and they say their confession and they bow to the sacraments and they want the priest to come to them when they are dying, but when they are really in trouble they go to the shrines the Church doesn't know about. They worship at springs, at holy wells, in deep places among the trees. They go to wise women or to fortune-tellers. They wear amulets. They pray to their own God and the Church never knows about it. But God knows because God is everywhere. Why would the people need a priest when God is everywhere?“ To keep us from error,” Thomas said.

  And who defines the error?" Genevieve persisted. The priests!

  Do you think you are a bad man, Thomas?"

  Thomas thought about the question. The quick answer was yes because the Church had just expelled him and given his soul to the demons, but in truth he did not think he was bad and so he shook his head. No."

  Yet the Church condemns you! A bishop says words. And who knows what sins that bishop does?"

  Thomas half smiled. You are a heretic. he said softly. I am. she said flatly. I'm not a beghard, though I could be one, but I am a heretic, and what choice do I have? The Church expelled me, so if I am to love God I must do it without the Church. You must do the same now, and you will find that God still loves you however much the Church might hate you." She grimaced as the rain beat the last small flames out of their fire, then they retreated to the larch shelter where they did their best to sleep under layers of cloaks and mail coats.

  Thomas's sleep was fitful. He dreamed of a battle in which he was being attacked by a giant who roared at him, then he woke with a start to find that Genevieve was gone and that the roaring was the bellow of thunder overhead. Rain seethed on the larch and dripped through to the bracken. A slither of lightning pierced the sky, showing the gaps in the branches that half sheltered Thomas, and he wriggled out from beneath the larch and stumbled in the dark to find the broken hovel's doorway. He was about

  to shout Genevieve's name when another crack of thunder tore the sky and echoed from the hills, so near and so loud that Thomas reeled sideways as if he had been struck by a war-hammer. He was bare-footed and wearing nothing but a long linen shirt that was sopping wet. Three lightning whips stuttered to the east and in their light Thomas saw the horses were white-eyed and trembling and so he crossed to them, patted their noses and made sure

  their tethers were still firm. Genevieve!“ he shouted. Genevieve!” Then he saw her.

  Or rather, in the instant glare of a splintering streak of light ning, he saw a vision. He saw a woman, tall and silver and naked, standing with her arms raised to the sky's white fire. The light ning went, yet the image of the woman stayed in Thomas's head, glowing, and then the lightning struck again, slamming into the eastern hills, and Genevieve had her head back, her hair was unbound, and the water streamed from it like drops of liquid silver. She was dancing naked beneath the lightning.

  She did not like to be naked with him. She hated the scars that Father Roubert had seared into her arms and legs and down her back, yet now she danced naked, a slow dance, her face tilted back to the downpour, and Thomas watched in each successive light n
ing flash and he thought she was indeed a draga. She was the wild silver creature of the dark, the shining woman who was dangerous and beautiful and strange. Thomas crouched, gazing, thinking that his soul was in greater peril still for Father Medous had said the dragas were the devil's creatures, yet he loved her too; and then the thunder filled the air to shake the hills and he squatted lower, his eyes fast closed. He was doomed, he thought, doomed, and that knowledge filled him with utter hopelessness. Thomas.“ Genevieve was stooping in front of him now, her hands cradling his face. Thomas.”

  You're a draga,“ he said, his eyes still closed. I wish I was,” she said. I wish flowers would grow where I walked. But I'm not. I just danced under the lightning and the thunder spoke to me."

  He shuddered. What did it say?"

  She put her arms round him, comforting him. That all will be well."

  He said nothing.

  All will be well. Genevieve said again, because the thunder does not lie if you dance to it. It is a promise, my love, it is a promise. That all will be well.

  Sir Guillaume had sent one of the captured men-at-arms to Berat to inform the Count that Joscelyn and thirteen other men were prisoners and that ransoms needed to be negotiated. Joscelyn had reported that his uncle had been at Astarac, but Sir Guillaume assumed the old man must have returned to his castle. Yet it seemed he had not, for four days after Thomas and Genevieve had left, a pedlar came to Castillon d'Arbizon and said that the Count of Berat was sick with the fever, perhaps dying, and that he was in the infirmary of Saint Sever's monastery. The man-at-arms sent to Berat returned the next day with the same news and added that no one in Berat possessed the authority to negotiate Joscelyn's freedom. All that Sir Henri Courtois, the garrison commander, could do for Joscelyn was send a message to Astarac and hope that the Count was well enough to cope with the news.

  Now what do we do?" Robbie asked. He sounded aggrieved for he was eager to see the ransom's gold. He and Joscelyn sat in the great hall. They were alone. It was night. A fire burned in the hearth.