The men-at-arms returned with a chorus of ‘God be with you, Brothers’, and they briskly walked away without giving us a second glance. I began to relax – in our black robes and cowls, and with Tuck’s utter self-confidence as our blazon, it was quite clear that we eight interlopers were easily accepted as rightful denizens of Casteljaloux.
And, better still, the gate of the castle was wide open before us. As we approached, I saw that another group of soldiers – four men this time, likewise also in the surcoats of our enemies – were about to leave the courtyard of the castle, striding out in their fine clothes with torches in their hands and swords on their hips, and a total disregard for the security of their citadel. Our black cowls pulled well forward, we crossed paths with them on the very threshold of the castle, Tuck calling out a jolly salutation as the two bodies of men passed each other, one going in and one going out. And we were inside. I could hardly believe it. If only the tower, looming on the far side, the north-eastern side of the castle, would prove as easy to penetrate.
Yet we were challenged, after a fashion, as we walked across the courtyard towards the keep, still in our double column. A man-at-arms, a small balding fellow in a red and gold tunic who was clearly drunk, stumbled into our path and, after greeting Tuck like an old and trusted friend, asked him in passable French if we had seen a big bastard of a sergeant called Fournier. Tuck greeted him in a friendly way and informed him courteously that he had not and, in turn, asked the man whether the Captain of the Tower was to be found at his post.
‘Not him,’ slurred the man in a reasonable approximation of Tuck’s French. ‘He’s gone to St Mary’s with all the other bigwigs. They’re all there for the initiation ceremony – all those high and mighty foreign knights are there, along with our good Seigneur. It’s not right, Father, not right at all. I’ve heard they get up to all manner of ungodly tricks at these initiations, blasphemy, trampling the Cross … begging your pardon, Father, but I think it’s a sinful debauch that—’
‘So who is holding the Tower, then?’ Robin interrupted from inside his deep cowl.
‘Oh, it’s only old Guilhabert, the turnkey,’ the man said.
‘Would you be good enough to take us to him?’ Tuck asked. ‘We need to speak to him on a matter of the gravest importance.’
It really was that simple. We were a gaggle of harmless-looking Benedictine monks, led by a roly-poly, happy-faced priest who was personally known to one of the castle’s men-at-arms. We were in.
The friendly and slightly drunken man-at-arms – Tuck called him Sabatier – happily escorted us to the base of the tower and hammered on an arched wooden door reinforced with iron studs.
‘Hey, Guilhabert, wake up,’ shouted the man. ‘I have some mos’ distinguished guests for you…’ He winked at me in the second rank, and I smiled back at him in a suitably pious manner.
There was no response from inside, and our friend hammered again, and again, and bawled out the same message until, finally, the door opened a crack and a grizzled head poked out and I found I was looking into the face of an astoundingly ugly old man, who had evidently just been awakened.
‘What do you want, Sabatier, you dog?’ growled the man. ‘I’ve had enough of your tomfoolery for today. Go away and sleep it off.’ He caught sight of the eight cowled figures behind the man-at-arms and his eyes opened fully in surprise.
In half a heartbeat, Robin was through the door. He had the shocked old jailer in an armlock and was forcing him backwards into the dim interior of the tower. The man was beginning to squawk in alarm, when I stepped into him and seized his lean, unshaven jaw in my left hand, cutting off his attempts at speech. My right held my long misericorde with its needle tip pressed into the pouched, grey skin below his eye.
‘Make another noise,’ I hissed, ‘and you die.’
The other dark-clad Companions were bundling into the tower. Sabatier was still on the lip of the doorway, staring at us in astonishment, and I saw Little John, at the end of our column, slap a hand over his gaping mouth and pick him up bodily and carry him inside. Roland slammed the door behind him, and we were all inside the keep.
And, so far, undetected.
It was ill-lit. A single candle stood on a table on the left-hand side of the square room. A three-legged stool bore a pair of iron manacles, a crust of bread and a leather cup of ale. A rumpled cot on the right indicated the place from which Guilhabert had been disturbed. And that was it. But the room was growing lighter, I suddenly realized – a man was coming down the stone staircase in the back left corner of the room bearing a wavering light and soon enough I heard him calling out: ‘Guilhabert, who is that with you down there?’
The grizzled jailer, writhing suddenly in Robin’s arms, tore his face from my hand before I could react, and bellowed, ‘Roger! To arms…’ And I twisted my wrist and whipped the round pommel of my misericorde hard into the side of his head There was a faint crack of bone and the man went limp and slipped to the floor.
But by then we were fighting. Men-at-arms were tumbling down the stairs from above; one … two … three…
We were hampered a little by our thick robes, but I managed to get the oak shaft of my flanged mace out from my belt and into my right hand and transfer the misericorde to my left. I broke the upper arm of the first man down the stair with a crushing strike from my right hand; he screamed once, a horrible high girlish sound, and his sword clattered on the steps. The second man, right on his heels, jumped down into the room, yelling madly and waving a long spear at Robin.
My lord said, ‘Be silent, sir’, dodged a vicious jab at his face from the spear, stepped past the haft and plunged his sword right through the man’s throat. The next fellow in a black and gold surcoat who jumped into the room and blundered forward waving a sword was immediately seized around the chest by Roland, who neutralized him by wrapping both arms around him tightly and lifting him off his feet. Little John reached forward and grasped his skull with his two big hands and, with a sharp twist, broke his neck. Roland allowed him to flop to the floor. I crushed the skull of the man whose arm I had broken, who was sobbing on his knees before me, with a single downward swipe of the mace – and we were in silence, save for the ragged panting of some of the Companions and the shuffling limbs of my victim as he lay in the floor and twitched his last few moments away on this earth.
‘Gavin,’ said Robin. ‘Quick now. Look outside and see if the alarm has been raised.’
Sabatier had been shocked into total stillness. He just stood by the door with his mouth open and his empty hands hanging loosely by his sides as Gavin pushed roughly past him and stuck his head out of the solid arched door. The fight had taken less than five heartbeats. Tuck went over to the terrified little soldier, all the cheap wine and good humour now flown from his body, and said kindly, ‘Sabatier, you will not be harmed if you help us – and if you do not try to shout out for aid. Tell me now: where is the prisoner being held?’
The man dumbly shook his head.
‘All quiet outside,’ called Gavin from the door.
‘Where is the knight who calls himself Peter of Horsham being held?’ asked Tuck again. He shook Sabatier briefly by the shoulders. ‘Is he being kept below?’ Our stout priest gestured towards a set of stone steps in the far corner of the room that led down into darkness.
But Thomas was ahead of the rest of us. He’d found a stub of candle, ignited it from the one on the table and was halfway down the stair.
‘I don’t know, Father,’ mumbled the frightened man. ‘I honestly don’t know. The foreign knights took him away this afternoon. They went to the Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, I think. I could not say for certain…’
‘There is no one in the cells below,’ said Thomas, emerging from the dark stairwell like a swimmer from the sea. At the same time, Little John’s bulk stepped out from the stairs leading upwards, and he clumped towards Robin.
‘He’s not here,’ the big man said flatly. ‘Not anywhere.’
/> Robin stalked over to the little man-at-arms and stood looking down at him for a few moments without speaking. The poor man seemed to quail under Robin’s blank metallic gaze.
‘Where is the Chapel of St Mary the Virgin?’ he asked quietly. ‘Is it near here?’
‘Yes, sir,’ whimpered the little man. ‘A few hundred yards, no more, at the end of the street of the parchment-makers, near the western wall. Not very far, sir…’
‘I know it,’ said Tuck. ‘It’s the chapel in the crypt below St Peter’s Church. Though I have not been inside.’
‘How many knights are there?’ my lord said. His eyes were boring into Sabatier.
‘I do not know, sir. Perhaps a dozen, a score … I cannot truly say … Please do not kill me, sir, I beg…’
Robin turned away. I caught a glimpse of his expression; he looked utterly serene, like a man on a peaceful Sunday stroll. But I knew he could not truly be that calm. ‘Right, everyone,’ he said. ‘Back into robes and cowls; weapons out of sight. We’re leaving.’
‘Shall I silence this one, sir?’ asked Gavin. He was standing behind the little man-at-arms with a long dagger in his hands.
Robin looked at him and, for a moment, I thought he would give the lethal order. Then he said, ‘Tie him up and gag him.’
Outside the tower, we formed up again in our double column, with Tuck and Robin at the front. But, as we shuffled across the courtyard, I saw with a sinking heart that a pair of men-at-arms in the colours of Casteljaloux were in the process of swinging the gates closed. As we approached, the man on the right, a junior officer of some kind, ceased his labours with the door halfway closed and marched up to us, demanding to know who we were and what our business was in the castle.
‘God be with you, good sir, on this fine evening,’ said Tuck. ‘My brothers and I have come from the Abbey and we have been visiting our honest friend Guilhabert in the tower…’
The man was suspicious. I saw him look at Nur, smaller than all the rest of us by some margin, and in the torchlight of the courtyard, it was easy to see that her black gown was not cut from the same cloth as our robes.
‘Guilhabert is a Godless bastard; he has no friends at the Abbey. I’d be surprised to learn that he has any friends at all. Stay exactly where you are. Do not move.’ He half-turned towards the other man. ‘Pierre, go and fetch Sergeant Fournier from the—’ And he got no further.
Tuck pulled back his big round head, went up on his toes and smashed his forehead into the bridge of the officer’s nose, powering through skin, gristle and bone, dropping the man unconscious on the ground like a dropped sack of onions. It was a move that I frankly did not know the old priest had in him – and then we were all running for the half-open gate. The second man-at-arms ran towards us, and Little John planted a beautiful right-handed punch on his cheekbone as we passed him, hurling him backwards off his feet, and we were through the gates and sprinting for the darkness on the other side of the square.
We gathered panting, laughing, wheezing, all of us in a huddle, two streets and a couple of hundred paces away. There was no sound of pursuit, barely a sound at all in the quiet streets. But it could only be a matter of time; then every man in Casteljaloux would be on us like a swarm of wasps on a honeycomb.
‘What now, Robin?’ asked Roland. ‘Do we cut and run? We can get out by the postern gate and be away before the castle troops get properly organized. We could come back and try again another day?’
‘No, we are not leaving this town without Sir Nicholas. If the Knights of Our Lady are holding an initiation at the Chapel of St Mary, the Master will surely be there – and so will the Grail. We still have a little time, I am sure, before this town becomes too hot for us. Take us to the chapel, Tuck. Everybody fit? Everybody ready? Good. Come on!’
My lord, I realized, was thoroughly enjoying himself.
A little while later, we were standing in a line in the moon shadow cast by the overhang of the second floor of a grand house in the street of the parchment-makers. We had abandoned our cowls and robes, and I was glad once again to have free access to Fidelity. Robin, who was standing beside Tuck by the corner of the street, beckoned me forward. He put his face close to my ear and whispered, ‘A single sentry. By the entrance to the crypt yonder. Can you take him down quietly?’
I peeped around the corner, looking to my left, and saw a small, plain stone church and a lone man in mail with a tall spear and a shield slung on his back standing at the head of a set of steps that could just be made out disappearing down into darkness. He wore a white surcoat with a blue cross on the chest and a black border around it, and I noticed that the man swayed slightly from foot to foot as if in some slight discomfort. But he was alert and armed, and blocking our path.
‘Well, I can try,’ I said, and reached for my boot top and slid the misericorde into the left sleeve of my mail hauberk.
Robin grinned, his teeth white in the darkness, and clapped me on the shoulder. I touched my sword pommel for luck, and on jelly legs I attempted to stride nonchalantly towards the tall man-at-arms by the entrance to the little Chapel of St Mary the Virgin. I had taken no more than five paces, and was still a good fifteen yards from the sentry, before I knew that I had already failed in my task.
‘You, sir. Halt, sir. What is your business here?’ called the soldier loudly, speaking French with the accent of Maine, his voice echoing around the empty space before the chapel.
I had an insane urge to make a shushing noise to quiet him but instead, I answered in the same language in a normal tone.
‘Am I too late for the ceremony? My damned shield strap broke and I wasted time trying to find another. Then my squire spilled wine down my surcoat. I know I’m improperly dressed but the Seigneur will have my hide if I miss the service.’
These words were a feeble subterfuge, of course, but they were just enough to carry me across the space between the wall where my comrades lurked and the sentry. From his point of view – assuming that he had not yet heard about the fight in the tower – I was an incompetent idiot who only wanted to attend a church service. The sentry did not know me by sight, and yet he heard me speaking good French with a Norman accent, and saw that I was dressed as a knight, and he naturally assumed that, like him, I had recently been recruited to the Master’s banner from somewhere in the north. He smiled and relaxed.
‘They have just started,’ he said, ‘but if you are quiet you could slip in and stand at the back, and I’m sure nobody would notice.’ He turned side on to me and pointed to a dark opening in the cobbles of the street and I saw a set of steps leading downwards. ‘The entrance is down there…’
I reached for my left sleeve and the handle of the misericorde slipped easily into my right fist. As he turned away to indicate the steps, the eight-inch long blade shot upwards behind his head and fell like an axe, driven by all the considerable power of my right arm, the needle point slamming into the place where his neck joined his shoulder. The weapon punched straight through his iron-link mail and down, down deeply into his chest until the narrow blade pierced his heart. It happened almost faster than thought; in fact, I truly felt as if another man were doing the deed, not myself – perhaps the spirit of my murderous old Bavarian friend Hanno, acting through me. The unfortunate man, a kindly soul I am sure, made a kind of choking gasp and I slapped my free hand over his mouth to stifle any further outcry, but I need hardly have bothered, he died almost silently as the long blade of the misericorde delved into his chest cavity, his legs spasming a little as his soul ebbed away with the merest trickle of blood that pooled in his collar bone and spilled down over his mailed chest. As I gently lowered the corpse to the floor, I heard the scuffle and stamp of running feet and then Companions were all around me.
‘It’s down there,’ I said, pointing at the steps. ‘The ceremony has already started but…’
By then Little John was already past me. There was a flash of silver in the moonlight from his axe blade, as the big man leap
ed down into the darkness. A noise of a heavy blade carving into living flesh, once, twice, and a sharp cry of agony abruptly cut off. And the Companions were piling after John, like a river of mailed men flowing into a drain. I wiped my misericorde clean on the dead man’s surcoat, muttering a brief prayer for God’s forgiveness, and sheathed it once again in my boot. I stood upright, pulled Fidelity from its scabbard and made to follow my comrades down the stone steps into the crypt. Down the steps and into battle.
At the bottom of the stair was a wooden door, partly open, with yellow light spilling from it on to the gashed corpses of two mailed men in the white and blue surcoats of the Knights of Our Lady. From inside the crypt I could hear shouts of pain and the ring of steel on steel. I stepped over the bodies, went through the little door and into the underground chapel with my unsheathed sword in my hand and the blood thumping in my ears.
The crypt was a long, low stone room, with an altar at the far end, blazing with candles – but my first impression was of a scrum of men snarling like a pack of hounds around a wounded hart. The hart was not one beast but three men: Robin, Gavin and Little John, back to back, with a dozen armoured men in white and blue surcoats surrounding them, shouting insults and trading blows. To my left, Roland was fencing with a tall knight, and despite his wounded leg, I could see he had the upper hand; to my right, Thomas had his sword blade embedded in a man’s throat, and as I stepped into the crypt, he ripped it out with a shout of triumph. Tuck was under siege from two swordsmen, and he was only fending them off with his long oak staff with some difficulty. Nur jumped nimbly on to the back of one of the men raining sword blows down on Tuck, put a skinny white arm around his neck and began to batter at his bare head with her hatchet.
Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) Page 21