Warlord (Outlaw 4)

by Donald, Angus

  ‘After I left you the other week, Sir Alan,’ Master Fulk began, ‘I started to think hard about your father’s story and the goods that were stolen from Bishop Heribert all those years ago. And I remembered something, which I think may be significant. You recall the magical object – the wondrous relic that defeats disease and holds back death – that Heribert was rumoured to possess?’

  I said that I did.

  ‘Now, let me ask you another question: have you heard of a trouvère known as Christian of Troyes, who used to serve Philip, Count of Flanders? He died a few years ago.’

  I nodded. ‘I read one of his poems called “Erec and Enide” and I was impressed. He was good, very good, some of his poetry was truly lovely.’

  ‘And have you read “Le Conte du Graal”?’

  I sat up straighter on my stool. ‘No,’ I said, ‘but I have heard other trouvères speak of this bizarre story. Indeed, they speak of it with something approaching awe.’

  ‘It is the tale of a young knight called Perceval and his adventures. I have a copy here: will you allow me to read you a little from it?’ Master Fulk pulled a small, fat book bound in brown leather from the sleeve of his robe. He muttered to himself as he leafed through the vellum pages until he found the passage he wanted.

  ‘Perceval has been invited to dine in the castle of a mysterious fisherman king,’ Fulk said, ‘they are sitting together on a great bed in the hall. Listen to this!’ And he began to read:

  ‘While they talked of this and that, a young attendant entered the room, holding a shining lance by the middle of the shaft. He passed between the fire and those seated on the bed, and all present saw the shining lance with its shining head. A drop of blood fell from the tip of the lance, and that crimson drop ran all the way down to the attendant’s hand. The youth who had come there that night beheld this marvel – he means Perceval,’ Fulk said, interrupting himself before continuing – ‘and refrained from asking how this could be. He remembered the warning of the man who had made him a knight, he who had instructed and taught him to guard against speaking too much. The youth feared that if he asked a question, he would be taken for a peasant. He therefore said nothing.

  ‘Two more attendants then entered, bearing in their hands candelabra of fine gold inlaid with niello. Handsome indeed were the attendants carrying the candelabra. On each candelabrum ten candles, at the very least, were burning. Accompanying the attendants was a beautiful, gracious, and elegantly attired young lady holding between her hands a graal. When she entered holding this graal, such brilliant illumination appeared that the candles lost their brightness just as the stars and the moon do with the appearance of the sun. Following her was another young lady holding a silver carving platter. The graal, which came first, was of fine pure gold, adorned with many kinds of precious jewels, the richest and most costly found on sea or land – those on the graal undoubtedly more valuable than any others. Exactly as the lance had done, the graal and the platter passed in front of the bed and went from one room into another.’

  Fulk paused and looked at me meaningfully. I looked back at him, not entirely sure how I was supposed to react.

  ‘What exactly is a graal?’ I asked. Like the knight in the story, I was concerned that in my ignorance I would be taken for a peasant.

  ‘Normally, it’s a serving dish, about so big,’ Fulk replied holding his hands a foot apart. ‘It is the kind of serving dish that you might use to bring a large cooked fish to the table. The word is a southern one, an Occitan word – we would call it a “grail” in French.’

  He was beginning to exhibit a little excitement: ‘But that is not important: in this story the graal, or grail is a wondrous object that can bestow eternal youth, defeat disease and grant immortality. Does this not strike you as significant, in the light of what you know about the theft of the goods from Bishop Heribert?’

  ‘Well, it is a rather odd story …’ I began.

  But Master Fulk had become fully animated, his eyes were shining with excitement and he brusquely interrupted me, speaking to me as if I were one of his slower pupils: ‘The candlesticks, the silver carving platter … come on, Sir Alan, come on …’

  ‘You think that Bishop Heribert had somehow gained possession of these marvellous objects from a poet’s fairy story – you believe that they actually exist? – and that they were subsequently stolen from him in Paris?’

  ‘Exactly so, and only the candlesticks and the carving platter were recovered – the least valuable, the least miraculous items were planted in Henri d’Alle’s cell to throw the blame on him. They were sacrificed so that the Grail – the most holy and wondrous of all of these objects – and perhaps the lance, too, might be retained by the thief.’

  ‘But surely Christian’s poem is just a story, an allegory, a fantasy – I have composed a few fantastical tales myself and I’d not expect any man to take them as Gospel truth.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Master Fulk. ‘Quite so.’ He seemed suddenly deflated. ‘You may very well be right, Sir Alan. But I thought that you might be interested in hearing the tale.’ The light seemed to be dying in his eyes, and he was once again his solid, pungent, rational self. ‘I am in the process of making further enquiries into this Grail; I have heard tell of a young man in Burgundy called Robert de Boron who is said to be investigating these matters. And I’ve written to him to seek his advice. We may learn more.’

  Master Fulk’s theory seemed preposterous at first hearing. But as I sat there and thought about it, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, there might be something in this tale. Many a man has invented a fantastical tale to amuse a rich patron, but, equally, many a man has taken an old tale and used it as the basis of his own story. Perhaps there was some grain of truth behind this Conte du Graal.

  The sun was sinking in the west, behind the towers of the palace of the King, which cast long shadows over the river, and I soon took my leave of the big man, after thanking him warmly for taking such an interest in my own quest – and for a very interesting and informative afternoon. Before I left, I asked him a final question: ‘Tell me, Master Fulk, how did Christian, this excellent and inventive poet from Troyes, come to die? Was it peacefully in his bed in quiet old age?’

  ‘I had a student from Champagne who came to me last year and he told me a curious story about Christian the trouvère,’ said Fulk. ‘Apparently, the man was working quietly in his house one evening, alone – working on the Graal story, in fact – when thieves broke in and killed him for his purse. But they were most singular thieves: they did not bother to take all his valuables – leaving his deep money coffer untouched and only taking the few objects of value that were close to hand – and the manner of his death, my student told me, was also highly unusual. Christian of Troyes was stabbed, only once, and killed instantly by a dagger-blow directly to the heart.’

  I needed time to think and so I went to the church of St Julien-Le-Pauvre, which was on the corner of the Rue Garlande. The priest was beginning to say Vespers as I slipped through the door, and I joined the meagre congregation and stood at the back of the church, half-listening to the comfortingly familiar Latin words and half-filling my mind with dark thoughts of magical fish dishes and murdered poets. Although Master Fulk’s theory – that this Grail had been the real object of the theft that my father had been blamed for – still seemed to be far-fetched, it did at least fit all the facts. Somebody was going about merrily murdering people in an attempt to preserve this secret, and therefore it had to be a secret of great magnitude to be worth killing so many for. Could this wondrous serving dish, this Grail, really hold back death? If it were true that the Grail could bestow eternal youth, defeat disease and grant immortality, then it clearly would be the most miraculous object in the world. And I could easily imagine the ‘man you cannot refuse’ and his cohorts – the apparently disbanded, but still very real Knights of Our Lady – killing to keep it in their possession; and killing again to prevent anyone from discovering their s
ecret.

  It occurred to me that there was one man in Paris who might be able to enlighten me about whether Bishop Heribert had claimed to possess the Grail or not. It was the man I had been waiting to see since I had arrived in Paris all those weeks ago, but who seemed to be reluctant to talk to me about the matter: Bishop Maurice de Sully.

  As the priest concluded the service of Vespers, and all were joined in the final prayer, I resolved that I would seek out Bishop de Sully the very next day; I would go to his palace and demand to see him – I had waited long enough. I would go there and refuse to leave the hall until I had been granted a few moments of his time.

  ‘Sir Alan, I am so sorry, please forgive me, as God surely knows, you have been more than patient – but the Bishop cannot see you today, and he may not be able to see you for some time.’ Brother Michel’s kindly face was a picture of misery; he seemed to be taking this news harder than me.

  I had consumed a light and hurried breakfast at the Widow Barbette’s and had then marched over the Petit-Pont, turned right past the Hotel-Dieu and, without even taking a minute to gaze in awe at the cathedral, which had been my unfailing habit these past weeks, I strode up to the wide doors of the episcopal palace, knocked loudly and demanded to see Brother Michel.

  ‘He is avoiding me,’ I said to the harassed-looking monk, determined that I would not leave until I had been granted a personal audience with the Bishop himself.

  ‘He is not, I swear it – I swear it by Almighty God and the Blessed Virgin. May I be struck dead if I lie. His Grace the Bishop of Paris is not trying to avoid you.’

  I looked at Brother Michel’s face and, in spite of myself, I believed him. He seemed worn out, the lines of age cutting deep furrows on his still handsome face.

  ‘The Bishop is not avoiding you,’ he said, after a long pause, and with a resigned sigh. ‘The truth is that he is not well. He has been ill for some weeks now, but I was commanded to keep this a secret from the world. I had hoped that he would recover in due course and then might have time for an audience with you. But I am afraid that he has taken a turn for the worse.’

  ‘Perhaps I might be allowed to visit him, very briefly, at his sickbed,’ I said, though without much hope. ‘Just a few moments; I swear I will not badger him.’

  ‘His Grace is not here – he has retired to the Abbey of St Victor, beyond the city boundaries, where he keeps a house. He has long been a benefactor of St Victor’s, and he plans to live out his remaining days there in prayer and contemplation. I am sorry, Sir Alan, but I am afraid it is impossible for you to see him. His doctors have insisted on complete rest, no excitement or upsets. We will pray for him, of course, night and day, but I fear that His Grace, that good and holy man, will soon be gathered to God’s side.’

  It did not occur to me to argue any further; something about the honest way that Brother Michel had opened his heart to me stilled my tongue. As I walked back to the Widow’s house, my head hanging low, I felt a great weight of despair settle around my shoulders. I felt that I should never manage to unravel the mystery surrounding my father’s expulsion: the little I had discovered seemed to have taken me no further towards revealing the identity of the ‘man you cannot refuse’. And wild tales of magic serving bowls and secret knightly orders only seemed to confuse the matter. I felt as if I were being mocked by Paris itself for my fumbling attempts to find the truth about my father. It was as if the very stones, the bricks and beams of the city were laughing at me.

  As I trudged over the Petit-Pont, approaching Master Fulk’s house, I heard a shout that jerked me out of my doleful reverie. ‘There! There he is! Catch him – he’s the murderer. Catch him!’

  There was a knot of people, I saw, gathered outside Master Fulk’s house, including half a dozen men-at-arms. A student in a dirty black robe, a fellow called Benoît whom I knew only by sight, was pointing at me and shouting: ‘He’s the murderer! He is! I saw him leaving Master Fulk’s house yesterday evening. It must have been him.’ Then the men-at-arms were running towards me. I felt a passer-by grab my arm. Someone shouted: ‘He’s a murderer; don’t let him get away! Catch him, you fellows!’

  Murderer? My stomach grew icy. For an instant I thought of drawing Fidelity and cutting my way clear – but there were too many people in the press around me, and I would have had to kill or maim dozens of unarmed folk to make my escape. And so I stayed still as a rock and when the youngest and fleetest man-at-arms came running up to me, I asked, as coolly and calmly as I could: ‘Tell me, sir, is Master Fulk dead?’

  ‘That he is,’ panted the man-at-arms, grabbing my shoulder with his sweaty hand.

  ‘Was it a stab wound to the chest – here?’ I asked, pointing to my own breast, about an inch or two to the left of my sternum.

  ‘You should know,’ said the man, taking a firm grip on my arm. ‘Folk on the bridge are saying that you’re the one who did this foul deed.’

  I have been unfortunate enough to spend time in more than a few gaols – the damp, rat-infested dungeon below Winchester Castle, a pitch-dark storeroom in the fortress of Nottingham, and several others besides – but the crowded stone cell at the foot of the Grand Chastelet on the north side of the Grand-Pont was easily the worst of them all.

  I had been stripped of my arms and fine outer clothing, bound and led ignominiously north through the streets of the Île de la Cité to the Grand-Pont by the men-at-arms. I caught a glimpse of Hanno and Thomas in the crowds that followed me, and that gave me some heart, but the black feeling of despair continued to dog me. At the Grand Chastelet, the men-at-arms presented me to the provost-sergeant on duty, and I was informed that I would be held until the grave charge of murder had been thoroughly investigated. I had been the last person seen to leave Master Fulk’s house the evening before, and he had been killed – as I had rightly feared – by a single dagger thrust to the heart at about that time. It occurred to me that the real killer must have watched me leave, and entered Master Fulk’s house shortly afterwards.

  The provost-sergeant ignored my protests of innocence, and when it was revealed that I was an English knight taking advantage of the truce to visit Paris, that knowledge seemed to blacken my name even further. Despite the fact that I had never tried to hide my identity, I heard the word ‘spy’ whispered more than once by the men-at-arms. Somebody, it seemed, had informed on me to the Provost’s office, and suggested that I was not only a murderer, who had quarrelled with Master Fulk and then killed him in rage, but that I was also an agent of King Richard’s, bent on causing any amount of murder, mischief and mayhem in Paris.

  The charges were clearly absurd, and would have been laughable, save for the fact that I was now being bundled through an iron-bound door into a small chamber packed almost to its dripping ceiling with the human scum of Paris.

  Mercifully, my hands had been freed, and I sprawled on the floor of that tiny cell on to a carpet of legs. I was immediately kicked and stamped on by dozens of feet, shod and bare, for the gaol, which was no more than six foot wide by eight foot long, contained eighteen men in various stages of degradation. They were seated on the stone floor hip-high in noisome ooze with their backs around the slime-covered walls while their outstretched legs filled the entire space in the middle. The stench was indescribable. There was no place for me to sit and, after having been kicked and pummelled to my knees, then to my feet, I found myself crouching in the middle of that tiny box, unable to stand fully upright as the ceiling was a mere five feet from the floor. I have been in beds that were bigger than that prison and the reek and squalor of the place would have made an ordure-eating scavenger-pig swoon.

  Within an hour or two my back was aching from standing in such a stooped position. By the time that the light from a tiny barred window high on the wall was fading – and I calculated that I had been there for six or seven hours – I was in agony, the muscles of my legs and back burning. And I knew that if I was going to survive my incarceration in that stinking hell, I’d have to fin
d a space to sit, and to do so in that rock coffin, I was going to have to behave like a beast – a ferocious creature of the wild.

  I am not proud of what I did next – and although I have killed many men in my long life, the man who lost his life that evening in that cramped and stinking pit is one of the souls that haunts my conscience most regularly. I picked a small man, for the ease of it, a thin and sickly one – may God have mercy on me – and hauled him bodily out of his place by the wall and clubbed him down with my fists. He saw me coming for him and, knowing the likely outcome, he fought like a madman, scratching and trying to bite me, kicking wildly with his feet. I steeled my mind and battered him unmercifully, punching at his head and body, cracking his ribs and breaking his nose and jaw, until he was down and, as he lay moaning, bleeding in the six inches of slurry on the floor, the other men in the cell finished the job and kicked and stamped him until he lay silent and still in the muck. The other prisoners did not say a word to me about the fight; a few eyed me indifferently, but each was sunk too deep in his own personal Hell for fellow human feeling. A few had pulled their legs in to give us room during my fight, or to avoid being stamped upon, but no one suggested that I was not within my rights to tear that little man apart and take his place, most gratefully, God forgive me, against the slime-streaked wall.

  The battered corpse lay in the centre of the floor, with other men casually resting their legs upon it, all through that long and terrible night. During the last few minutes of daylight, while I could still see their gaunt, bearded faces, I tried to make some conversation with the men whose shoulders were squeezed next to mine, but one of them, the man to my left, was seriously ill, coughing violently from time to time and expelling a wad of bloody mucus with each hacking retch. I knew he was not long for this world. The man on my right, a big-boned man, now as thin as a broomstick, seemed to be more than a little crazed. I asked him how long he had been in that cell and he asked me in return what month it was: when I told him it was September, he laughed wildly and shockingly loudly, then said: ‘March, I came here in March. In spring when all the world was fresh and new! Ha-ha!’