It was empty. All men feared lepers and it seemed to Thomas that Vexille must have driven them away so his men could search the sheds. We can't hide here,“ he whispered to Genevieve. They'll search again.”
We don't hide,“ she said, and she went into the biggest shed and came out with two grey robes. Thomas understood then. He helped drape one robe over Genevieve, pulling its hood over her golden hair, donned the other and then took two clappers from the handful left on the table. Genevieve, meanwhile, had put the arrow sheaves and Thomas's bow on a sledge that the lepers used to gather firewood and Thomas heaped some of the firewood over the weapons and put the sledge's looped rope over his shoulders. Now we go,” Genevieve said.
Thomas hauled the sledge, which ran easily on the damp ground. Genevieve went ahead and, once out of the gate, she turned north and west, hoping to avoid the horseman. The fog was their ally, a grey cloak in which their own cloaks melded. A tongue of wood land reached from the western ridge and Genevieve walked towards it, not sounding the clapper, but just watching. She hissed once and Thomas went still. A horse's hooves sounded; he heard them go away, and he hauled on. He turned after a while and saw that the monastery had vanished. The trees ahead were gaunt black shapes in the vapour. They were following a track that the lepers used when they went to gather mushrooms from the woods. The trees came closer, then the thud of hooves sounded once more and Genevieve rattled her clapper in warning.
But the horseman was not deterred. He came from behind them and Thomas shook his own clapper as he turned. He kept his head low so his face would not be seen under the robe's hood. He saw the horse's legs, but not the rider. Mercy, kind sir,“ he said, mercy.” Genevieve reached out her hands as if seeking charity, and the scars on her skin left by Father Roubert looked grotesque. Thomas did the same, revealing his own scars, the skin white and ridged. Alms,“ he said, of your kindness, sir, alms.” The unseen horseman stared at them and they dropped to their knees. The horse's breath came as great clouds of thicker fog. Have pity on us.“ Genevieve spoke in the local tongue, using a rasping voice. For God's sake, have pity.”
The horseman just sat there and Thomas dared not look up. He felt the abject fear of a defenceless man at the mercy of a mailed rider, but he also knew that the man was torn by indecision. He had doubtless been ordered to look for two people
escaping the monastery, and he had found just such a couple, but they appeared to be lepers and his fear of leprosy was fighting with his duty. Then, suddenly, more clappers sounded and Thomas sneaked a look behind him to see a group of grey shrouded figures coming from the trees, sounding their warn ings and calling out for alms. The sight of more lepers, coming to join the first two, was more than the horseman could take. He spat at them, then wrenched his reins to turn away. Thomas and Genevieve waited, still on their knees, until the man was half cloaked in the fog and then they hurried on to the trees where at last they could throw down the clappers, strip off the stinking grey robes and retrieve the bow and arrow sheaves. The other lepers, driven from their refuge at the monastery, just stared at them. Thomas took a handful of coins from those Sir Guillaume had given him and left them on the grass. You have not seen us," he said to them, and Genevieve repeated the words in the local language.
They walked on west, climbing out of the fog, keeping to the trees until there were no more woods, only a rocky slope going up to the ridge. They scrambled up, trying to stay behind boulders or in gullies, while behind them the fog burned off the valley. The roof of the abbey church appeared first, then the other roofs, and by mid-morning the whole monastery was visible, but Thomas and Genevieve were already on the crest, going south. If they had kept going westwards they would descend into the valley of the River Gers where the villages lay thick, while to the south was emptier, wilder country and that was where they were headed. At midday they stopped to rest. We have no food," Thomas said.
Then we go hungry,“ Genevieve said. She smiled at him. And where are we going?”
Castillon d'Arbizon,“ Thomas said, eventually.” Going back there!“ She was surprised. But they threw us out: why would they take us back?”
Because they need us," Thomas said. He did not know that, not for sure, but he had listened to Vexille talking to Planchard and had learned that some of the garrison had gone over to the Count of Berat, and he reckoned Robbie must have led that group. He could not imagine Sir Guillaume breaking his allegiance to the Earl of Northampton, but Robbie had no allegiance outside of Scotland. It was Thomas's guess that the men left at Castillon d'Arbizon were his own men, the men he had recruited outside Calais, the Englishmen. So he would go there, and if he found the castle slighted and the garrison dead then he would go on, ever westwards, until he reached the English possessions.
But first they would go southwards for that was where the great woods stretched in folds across the ridges running out of the mountains. He picked up his baggage and, as he did, the grail box, which had been stuffed into his archer's bag on top of the spare arrow heads, sharpening stone and cords, fell out. He sat again and picked up the box. What is it?" Genevieve asked.
Planchard believed it was the box that held the Grail,“ he told her, or maybe the box that was supposed to make men think it had held the Grail.” He stared at the fading inscription. Now that he could see the box properly, in the sunlight, he saw that the lettering had been in red and that where the paint had been rubbed away there was still a faint impression on the wood. There was another faint impression inside the box, a circle of dust that had been forced into the wood as if something had rested there a long time. The two iron hinges were rusted and fragile, and the wood so dry that it weighed almost nothing.
Is it real?" Genevieve asked.
It's real,“ Thomas said, but whether it ever held the Grail, I don't know.” And he thought how often he had said those last three words whenever he talked about the Grail.
Yet he knew more now. He knew that seven men had fled Astarac in the previous century, back when the forces of France, wearing the crusaders" cross, had come to burn a heresy from the southland. The men had fled, claiming to take a treasure, and they had pledged to defend it, and now, so many years later, only Guy Vexille had kept the twisted faith. And had Thomas's father really possessed the Grail? That was why Guy Vexille had gone to Hookton and murdered his way through the village, just as he had now murdered Planchard. The descendants of the dark lords were being purged for betraying the trust, and Thomas knew exactly what would happen to him if his cousin caught him.
It's a strange shape for a Grail. Genevieve said. The box was shallow and square, not tall as though a stemmed cup had once been stored in it.
Who knows what the Grail looks like?" Thomas asked, and then he put the box into his haversack and they walked on southwards. Thomas constantly glanced behind and around mid-afternoon he saw dark-cloaked men riding up to the ridge from the monastery. There were a dozen of them and he guessed they would use the ridge as a lookout. Guy Vexille must have searched the monastery again and found nothing so now he was spreading his net wider. They hurried. As evening approached they were in sight of the jumbled rocks where Genevieve had been wounded; the wood lands were not far ahead now, but Thomas kept looking behind, expecting the dozen riders to appear at any moment. Instead, more men appeared to the east, another twelve climbing the track which led across the ridge, and Thomas and Genevieve ran across the grass and vanished into the trees just moments before the new horsemen appeared on the crest.
The two lay in the undergrowth, catching their breath. The twelve new riders sat in the open, waiting, and after a while the first horsemen appeared like a line of beaters. They had been searching the open part of the ridge, hoping to flush Thomas and Genevieve out of cover, and Thomas understood that his cousin had foreseen exactly what he would do, had foreseen that he would try to reach Castillon d'Arbizon, or at least journey west towards the other English garrisons, and now his men were combing all the landscape west of Astarac. And
even as Thomas watched, his cousin came into sight, leading another score of men who joined the others on the grassy crest. There were now over forty men-at-arms on the high ground, all in mail or plate, all cloaked in black, all with long swords.
What do we do?“ Genevieve breathed the question. Hide,” Thomas said.
They wriggled backwards, trying to make no sound, and when they were deep in the trees Thomas led her eastwards. He was going back towards Astarac because he doubted Guy would expect that, and when they reached the edge of the high ground and could see the valley spread out in front of them, Thomas sidled north again to see what his pursuers were doing.
Half of them had gone on westwards to block the tracks crossing the neighbouring valley, but the rest, led by Vexille, were riding towards the trees. They would be the beaters again, hoping to drive Thomas and Genevieve out towards the other men-at-arms and, now that the horsemen were closer, Thomas could see that some of them were carrying crossbows.
We're safe for the moment," Thomas told Genevieve when he rejoined her in the rocky gully where she sheltered. He reckoned he had slipped inside his cousin's cordon that was driving outwards, and the farther it went the wider that cordon would become and the easier it would be to slip between its gaps. But that must wait till morning because the sun was already sinking towards the western clouds, touching them pink. Thomas listened to the sound of the woods, but heard nothing alarming, only the scrabble of claws on bark, the wing beats of a pigeon and the sigh of the wind. The black-cloaked riders had gone westwards, but to the east, down in the valley, their work was visible. There were still soldiers down there and those men had fired the lazar house so that its smoke smeared all the sky above the monastery, and they had also burned what remained of the village, reckoning the flames would drive anyone concealed in the cottages into the open. More men were in the ruins of the castle, and Thomas wondered what they did there, but he was much too far away to see.
We have to eat. he told Genevieve.
We have nothing," she said.
Then we'll look for mushrooms,“ Thomas said, and nuts. And we need water.”
They found a tiny streamlet to the south and they both slaked their thirst by thrusting their faces against a rock down which the water trickled, then Thomas made a bed of bracken in the streamlet's gully and, when he was satisfied that they would be well hidden there, he left Genevieve and went in search of food. He carried his bow and had a half-dozen arrows in his belt, not just for defence, but in hope of seeing a deer or pig. He found some mushrooms in the leaf mould, but they were small and black vaned and he was not sure whether they were poisonous. He went farther, looking for chestnuts or game, always creeping, always listening, and always keeping the edge of the ridge in sight. He heard a noise and turned fast and thought he saw a deer, but the shadows were lengthening and he could not be certain; he put an arrow on the string anyway and crept to where he had seen the flickering movement. This was the rutting season and the stags should be in the woods, looking for others to fight. He knew he dared not light a fire to cook the meat, but he had eaten raw liver before and it would be a feast this night. Then he saw the antlers and he moved to one side, half crouching, trying to bring the stag's body into view and just then the crossbow shot and the bolt hissed past him to thump into a tree and the stag took off in great bounds as Thomas twisted round, hauling back the bowcord, and saw the men drawing their swords.
He had walked into a trap.
And he was caught.
PART THREE The Darkness
The search of the monastery had yielded nothing except the body of Abbot Planchard and Guy Vexille, on being told of the old man's death, loudly blamed his missing cousin. He had then ordered a search of all the buildings, commanded that the village and lazar house be fired to make certain no fugitives were hiding in either, and then, reluctantly convinced that his prey had fled, he sent horsemen to search all the nearby woods. The discovery of a pair of discarded lepers“ robes and two wooden clappers in the western woods suggested what had happened and Vexille confronted the horsemen who had been guarding that side of the monastery. Both men swore they had seen nothing. He did not believe them, but there was little to be gained by challenging their assertions and so, instead, he sent horsemen to rake every path which led towards the English possessions in Gascony. When he ordered Charles Bessieres to add his men to the search, however, Bessieres refused. He claimed his horses were lame and his men tired. I don't take your orders,” Bessieres snarled. I'm here for my brother."
And your brother wants the Englishman found,“ Vexille insisted. Then you find him, my lord,” Bessieres said, making the last two words sound like an insult.
Vexille rode west with all his men, knowing that Bessieres probably wanted to stay behind to plunder the village and monastery,
and that was precisely what Charles Bessieres did, though he found little enough. He sent six of his men to rake through the pathetic belongings that the villagers had saved from the new flames, and they discovered some pots and pans that might sell for a few sous, but what they really wanted were the coins that the villagers would have hidden when they saw armed men coming. Everyone knew that peasants hoarded small amounts of cash, and buried it when mailed raiders appeared, and so Bessieres's men tortured the serfs to make them reveal the hiding places and, in so doing, discovered something far more intriguing. One of Charles's men spoke
the language of southern France and he had been sawing at a prisoner's fingers when the man blurted out that the old Count had
been digging in the castle ruins and had uncovered an ancient wall beneath the chapel but then had died before he was able to delve farther. That interested Bessieres, because the man suggested there was something behind the wall, something that had excited the old Count and which the abbot, God save his soul, had wanted hidden and so, once Vexille had vanished westwards, Bessieres led his men up to the old fortress.
It took less than an hour to prise up the flagstones and reveal the vault, and in another hour Bessieres had pulled out the old coffins and seen that they had already been plundered. The man from the village was fetched and he showed where the Count had been digging and Bessieres ordered his men to uncover the wall. He made them work fast, wanting to finish the job before Guy Vexille returned and accused him of desecrating his family's graves, but the wall was stoutly made and well mortared, and it was not until one of his men fetched the blacksmith's heaviest hammer from the plunder taken from the burned village that he made real progress. The hammer crashed on the stones, chipping and dislodging them, until at last they were able to get an iron spike between the lower blocks and the wall came tumbling down.
And inside, on a stone pillar, was a box.
It was a wooden box, perhaps big enough to hold a man's head, and even Charles Bessieres felt a surge of excitement as he saw it. The Grail, he thought, the Grail, and he imagined riding north with the prize that would give his brother the papacy. Out of the way," he snarled at a man reaching for the treasure, then he stooped into the low space and took the wooden box from its pedestal. The chest was cunningly made, for it seemed to have no lid. On one side, Bessieres assumed it was the top, was inset a silver cross that had become tarnished over the years, but there was no writing on the box and no clue as to what might be inside. Bessieres shook it and heard something rattle. He paused then. He was thinking that perhaps the real Grail was in his hands, but if the box proved to hold something else then this might be a good time to take the fake Grail from the quiver at his belt and pretend he had discovered it beneath Astarac's ruined altar.
Open it. one of his men said.
Shut your mouth. Bessieres said, wanting to think some more. The Englishman was still at large, but he would probably be caught, and suppose he had the Grail and the one at his hip was thus revealed as a fake? Bessieres faced the same dilemma that had puzzled him in the ossuary when he'd had a simple chance to kill Vexille. Produce the Grail at the wrong time and there would be no
easy life in the papal palace at Avignon. So it was best, he thought, to wait for the Englishman's capture and thus make sure there was only one Grail to be carried to Paris. Yet perhaps this box contained the treasure?
He carried it up to the daylight and there he drew his knife and hacked at the box's well-made joints. One of his men offered to use the blacksmith's hammer to splinter the wood apart, but Bessieres cursed him for a fool. You want to break what's inside?" he asked. He cuffed the man aside and went on working with the knife until he finally succeeded in splitting one side away. The contents were wrapped in white woollen cloth. Bessieres eased them out, daring to hope that this was the great prize. His men crowded around expectantly as Bessieres unwound the old, threadbare cloth.
To find bones.
A skull, some foot bones, a shoulder-blade and three ribs. Bessieres stared at them, then cursed. His men began to laugh and Bessieres, in his anger, kicked the skull so that it flew down into the vault, rolled for a few paces, and then was still. He had blunted his good knife to find the few remaining bones of the famous healer of angels, Saint Sever.
And the Grail was still hidden.
The coredors had been intrigued by the activity around Astarac. Whenever armed men pillaged a town or village there would be fugitives who made easy pickings for desperate and hungry outlaws, and Destral, who led close to a hundred coredors, had watched the harrowing of Astarac and noted the folk fleeing the soldiers and watched where they went.
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