‘Although I hated the very sight of the knight Amanieu d’Albret, I submitted to his every whim; I pleasured him in all the ways that I had learned in the garden of women, night and noon, at daybreak and dusk; I gave my body to him in any way he wanted, whenever he wanted, and yet still he beat me. That, too, I discovered, was his pleasure. I thought of ways to kill him, a knife in the eye perhaps, while he slept, or maybe poison in his wine, but he was careful and quick of movement, and he slept like a cat and never in the same bed as me. And his guards, the hard-faced serving men in black, were ever watchful.
‘But strangest of all to tell, this brutal man who ripped me and used me, who beat me and bruised me, this monster came to believe that he loved me. He told me so with tears in his eyes, after three months of our being together – as if that animal could even say love’s name without defiling it. And I dissembled, I lied, I looked into his ugly face and I pretended that I too was in love with him. And sometimes, just sometimes, that filthy lie saved me from a beating.
‘After he had taken his pleasure on me, of an evening, the knight liked to drink wine and talk. He talked of his family, the d’Albrets, who were a power in Gascony with wide lands and many castles. He was a seigneur of his very own castle, he told me – the Jealous Castle, it was called, a town with a high tower and long walls, by a swift cold river on the edge of a vast pine forest that stretched all the way to the grey western sea. When he was drunk, he liked to indulge himself in a fantasy: that one day we should be married and live together in the Jealous Castle as lord and lady, and raise knightly sons. And, he once assured me with a kindly pat on the shoulder, I should not need to worry about being unworthy because of my low birth, my lack of Christian faith, for he knew of a magical bowl that could wash even the foulest stains from my heathen soul. Then he drank too much, and beat me for my presumption, and told me I was a worthless whore before he stumbled off to bed.’
In spite of myself, I did then feel pity for Nur and disgust for this barbarous knight. I hoped that she had found some way to punish him for his treatment of her.
‘It was in Ayas that I first began to practise the craft,’ Nur continued. She was by now tightly fenced in by a circle of staring eyes, captivated by her horrific tale; some were angry, some sad, but none was indifferent.
‘In Ayas, in the household of Amanieu d’Albret and his fellow soldier-monks, there was an old slave woman, a woman of Africa called Kalisha, who tended my cuts when I had been beaten. She taught me the arts of her people, demonstrating them on my battered body; at first, she merely showed me how to use herbs and plants to mend sick and broken men and women of the household, then she taught me the twelve spirit cures, how to channel the power of the dead to bring healing to the living; but later she also told me about other darker uses of her powers…
‘I was interested in her wisdom, and she had much of it to give, for I longed to feed my master something deadly with his wine. But Kalisha persuaded me that poison was not the right path to take – it would be easily discovered, she said, and there were other ways, using the power of the spirit world, that would allow me to be revenged safely and in secret. In time, she became like a mother to me, big, warm Kalisha. She was kind and loving when I was weak and frightened. And I can hear her voice yet, like a trickle of honey – may the spirits guard her and keep her.
‘A few nights later, d’Albret came to me. Again he was drunk, but I managed to avoid a beating by allowing him to swiftly satisfy his lust. Again he indulged himself in this moon-crazed fantasy that he would leave his Christian brothers and we would be married and live together happily as man and wife in his Jealous Castle. And, timidly, respectfully, I asked him to tell me about the magical bowl that could wash away all my sins. He was reluctant at first, but I cajoled him and flattered him, and after a little while he told me something that he considered to be a great secret. He said that, while he was a member of the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, and he was the preceptor of their house in Ayas, he was also a member of another order, this one within the Templars, which had miraculous knowledge that the ordinary Templars did not possess.’
I caught Robin’s eye, and he raised his eyebrows as if to say, ‘You see! Alan, I told you!’ But I was still angry with him for springing the witch on me in the abrupt way that he had, so I ignored him and looked back to Nur.
‘This secret order of Templars, inside the Templars, venerated the Mother of Christ,’ Nur was saying, ‘and their Master, a wise and powerful man, was the possessor of the cup of Christ, a vessel that had once held the Son of God’s blood. It was the holiest, most powerful object in the world, d’Albret told me, and it had been housed for a while in an underground chapel within the walls of the Jealous Castle.’
Every man under that aft-castle was leaning forward, listening intently to Nur’s words by now, even me. The black-clad witch held us all like raw potter’s clay in her hands; hers to twist and mould and fashion as she liked.
‘But this was all ten years or more ago,’ I said grumpily, deliberately trying to break her hold over the Companions. ‘The Grail may not be there now. It could be anywhere. It could be in Caen or Carcassonne … or even Constantinople. If this is the price of Nur’s place among us – if this is all the meat she brings to our pot – then we have been thoroughly cheated.’
Robin scowled at me. ‘Do try to think before you speak, Alan. Of course we cannot be certain that the Grail is at this Jealous Castle – but it is surely a good place to begin our search. I have ascertained from a friend in Aquitaine that the castle is still held by this Amanieu d’Albret, who left the ranks of the Templars in disgrace three years ago and has retired to a quiet life on his lands. With the right persuasion, I think he might be able to tell us the whereabouts of the Master – and the Grail. But you have interrupted the lady’s flow, Alan. Please continue, my dear…’
‘Thank you, lord,’ said Nur. ‘There is little more to tell. The Seigneur d’Albret tired of me quickly soon after that night in Ayas; a few short months after declaring his love, he grew indifferent to me, and he took his pleasure less and less often. I was pleased at first, and then I grew fearful and uncertain of my future. And one day, just after we had heard that a fresh shipment of slave girls had come into port, I was surprised while washing my body in my little cell by two of the Templar sergeants. They forced me to submit to them both at the same time, one at each end – and when I choked out that the Seigneur would punish them for their abuse of me, they merely laughed, and shackled me, and said that I would never see him again.
‘I was taken to the dock and herded with several other girls on to a merchant ship, and thence I went to Messina and into the house of a spice trader there as one of his concubines. And it was there, in Messina, during the sack of the town by the Christian army, that I met Sir Alan and was kindly offered his protection.’
I looked at my boots. While I hated Nur for what she had done to Goody, I knew that in our past relationship, I had not truly behaved in a chivalrous, gentlemanly fashion towards her. Indeed, my conduct had been shameful. When Richard’s soldiers were unleashed on Messina, in a long, terrible night of fire and blood, I had rescued Nur and taken her under my wing. I had, of course, immediately fallen in love with her, and promised to cherish her and guard her for all time, in the reckless way that young men do. But, as I have said, in Acre she had been captured and mutilated by my enemy, and while I had been satisfactorily revenged on him afterwards, I had been unable to hide my disgust of her cruelly savaged face. I knew then that I could never love her again. And she had seen the disgust in my eyes when I first saw her after the mutilation and had fled from me – and, in my heart, I have never forgiven myself.
When I looked up again, I saw Roland’s scarred face scowling at me. I was about to ask what ailed him, that he should glower at me like an ogre, when Nur began to speak again. It seemed she had a little more meat to add to the pot.
‘I did visit the Jea
lous Castle once,’ she said. ‘I found myself in Gascony, heading for England and travelling on the road from Toulouse to Bordeaux. It was three years after I had last seen Amanieu d’Albret and I had not thought much about him since. But I was full of rage at the world and he came into my head as I trudged that dusty road under a brutal sun. I was hungry and a little feverish and in a strange and hostile land – but a beautiful idea came into my head as I walked: I would go to the Jealous Castle – or Casteljaloux as some call it – and confront this d’Albret with his cruelty and either demand recompense from him or have my vengeance for the insults I had suffered at his hands. I think my wits were scattered, at the time, and perhaps I was a little mad – I had been travelling for a long time, with little food and much hardship – for I wanted to see his expression when he saw my face; I wanted to bring fear to his house, as he had made me fear him when I was his slave.’
I was amused that Nur should consider that she had been a little mad, at this time, on the road in Gascony, as if at all other times she was as sane as anyone.
‘Amanieu had told me where his castle lay and I found it easily, taking the road due south from Marmande for perhaps a dozen miles and keeping the deep pine forest on my right. When I arrived, footsore and still a little sick, I begged for my bread in the streets of his town for a few days, in the very shadow of the high tower of the Jealous Castle, hoping to catch a glimpse of Amanieu as he came and went. But the few folk in those parts who were prepared to speak to me said that the Seigneur was away in Paris, and after a week or so, the men-at-arms from the castle demanded to know my business there and, when I would not answer, they beat me with their spear butts and sent me on my way, back on to the road north.’
‘Well, you shall see the Jealous Castle again, my dear,’ said Robin. ‘And no man will beat you. I swear it. You shall lead us there, and this time, perhaps you shall have the chance to pay that coward Amanieu d’Albret back in his own filthy coin.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Little John, rumbling like a furious bear. ‘I swear to you, lady, by God’s great dangling gonads, that this Templar turd will pay in full. In full, I say.’
The rest of the voyage passed uneventfully – except for a violent storm in the Bay of Biscay when we were, unusually, out of sight of land. The tempest was short-lived, a matter of a few hours at most, and left us unharmed save for a few bruised limbs and sour empty stomachs – but it was still a terrifying experience for me. A purple-black sky rushed in from the west to blot out the sun, and the sea-world filled to the very brim with noise and fury. We clung to the poles that supported the fighting platform, and endured as best we could as the wind howled around the bucking ship, the rain lashed us and huge waves smashed over the deck and threatened to snap the spine of our frail craft.
A tempest at sea is far worse than any land battle, I believe, for the inactivity makes one prone to fear – one cannot do anything at all to reduce the risks, no amount of ferocity or determination or battle-skill can defeat a raging universe of wind and water. I have never felt comfortable sitting quietly to receive my doom and I have a peculiar horror of death at sea. I do not wish my corpse to end up as a sodden lump of pummelled flesh swept away by the waves to spend eternity in the deep. I would die on dry land with a sword in my hand; my body to be planted in the comfort of solid earth until the Day of Resurrection.
However, while I and the other Companions clung fearful, soaked to the bone and horribly nauseous to the aft-castle, our bodies smashed time and again by hard packets of spray, and hurled about recklessly, constantly in violent motion as if on the back of a wildly kicking horse, Nur reacted in her own special way to the rage of the elements. While we chattered teeth and shivered with cold, and prayed silently for an end to the torment, Nur suddenly stood on the capering deck and screamed, ‘Enough – I will have no more of this. Spirit of the sea, spirit of the wind, I command you both to be still!’
She had clearly been driven mad by the storm, I thought, or rather, driven even madder.
Before anyone could stop her, Nur stripped off her sodden outer clothes, hopped to the middle of the ship and slowly began to climb the rigging. Dressed only in a thin, very dirty, linen shift, which clung to her skeletal form and became almost transparent in the wet, and with the little dark-grey leather bag swinging on its string against her flat chest, Nur seized hold of the rope ladder that hung from the main mast and slowly, painfully, she began to climb. The tempest tried its level best to pluck her from the slick ropeway, but she clung on, somehow, her wet shift now billowing with the wind, now flattened to her skin, and up she inched her way, up and up. After a few moments the rotten fabric ripped and the garment flowed horizontally like a thin flag, before being torn away. The sea-wise mariners gawped up at her as she continued to ascend, now baby-naked expect for the leather sack, seemingly crawling upwards like some gawky, white insect on a spindly twig into the heart of the storm. Miraculously, Nur did finally attain the top of the mast, a good fifty feet above the heaving deck, and clambered into the crow’s nest and settled herself in place until all that could be seen over the bucket-rim of the look-out post was a pair of bony shoulders and an otter-sleek head. With her lofty perch rocking to and fro through an arc of twenty feet, I was convinced that the witch would soon be hurled free, catapulted like a rock from a mangonel and launched far out into the depths, to disappear in the raging spume.
Instead, Nur wrapped one arm tightly around the mast and began to curse the storm.
I could not hear exactly what threats and imprecations she uttered, the noise of the tempest drowned all but a few snatches of sound, nor could I tell in what language she damned the elements, but her mouth moved and her free arm waved, and her long bony fingers made intricate patterns in the air as she sang her songs and shrieked her threats. On and on, she cursed, seemingly filled with an energy, a demonic rage that was quite unquenchable; the wind howled, the witch howled back at it; the black rain thrashed her body, her long, white arm seemed to lash back at the deluge itself.
I believe that every man on that ship marvelled at her courage, as she raved and screamed at the sky, challenging the storm, riding it like a wild stallion, and seeking in her madness to make it submit to her will. A deafening crack of thunder overhead and a blue-white spear of lightning reminded me of the true risk she ran – she was defying God himself, begging him to strike her down. But the Almighty, in His wisdom, chose not to, and after less than an hour – incredibly – the tempest began to subside, cowed by the fearsome ranting of the witch.
I knew that it could not truly have been her power that brought the storm to heel yet I felt a touch of awe. And magical or not, it was a courageous performance – and when she finally climbed down from her high perch, mother naked, the ship by now rocked only by a gentle swell, and moistened by drizzle, every man on board cheered and applauded. And even I could not prevent myself from granting her a tight smile as she put her customary black robes back on. Before she reattached the veil that covered her face I looked at that poor ravaged head: the bone-white skin and pinky-yellow old scars, the cropped grey hair, and I felt a change within me. For the first time since I had seen her mutilation, I was not repulsed by it. She was still the ugliest woman I had ever laid eyes on, and evil too, I hastily reminded myself, responsible for poor Goody’s plight, but I found that I could look upon her devastated features without the sense of disgust and horror that I had always felt before.
Just as Samuel had promised, we entered the mouth of the mighty Gironde Estuary in the middle of Holy Week, on the Wednesday before Easter, the fifth day of the month of April in the Year of the Incarnation twelve hundred. We had been some three weeks aboard The Goose by then, and I was heartily sick of her. I was sick of being damp, cramped and immobile all day long; I was sick of eating stale bread, salt fish and pickled vegetables – I could not wait for Easter Day, the end of Lenten restrictions, and the chance to eat meat and eggs and cheese once again – but most of all I was sick of the sigh
t of so many of my comrades treating Nur as if she were a family member, a favourite sister or a beloved young aunt.
Since the day of her story, and more so since the day of the storm, the witch had been slyly working to capture the hearts of the men. Clearly she had been a good pupil in that delightful garden of women – for, even without her former beauty, she knew how to beguile and seduce a man. She made Little John a battle-charm for his axe by holding it over a candle flame until a layer of soot had formed on the metal, and then scratching weird shapes and patterns with a seagull feather. She told Little John that he would be invincible in battle as a result. Was it true magic? I have no idea. But the big man seemed delighted by her charm and I saw him gazing at it for hours on end, twisting his axe so that the blade caught and reflected the watery sunlight.
Occasionally she would cast the contents of her little sack on to the deck near the men. As she squatted down beside it, I realized with horror that the fragments were not wooden, as I had supposed, but the bones from a tiny human hand. A baby’s hand. The bones were grey-white and perfectly dry. Cleaned of all flesh. Immaculate. She would stare at the bones and mutter to herself for a while, before gathering them reverently and replacing them in her bag.
‘What is she doing?’ I asked Robin uneasily, the first time I saw this up close. I was having difficulty fighting down a growing sense of fear, a coldness around my shoulders.
‘She is divining,’ said my lord, who was watching her intently from my side. ‘She is seeking out the Grail for us. I asked her to use all of her powers to locate the Master and his men.’
‘She is using magic?’ I was surprised at how much this act disturbed me. ‘Do you believe she can really find it like that?’
Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) Page 15