‘I have not been called that for a long, long time,’ he said slowly. ‘And were it not for the dire threats that this Jew has made to me on behalf of the Earl of Locksley, I would kill you now, this very instant, for those words.’
He paused for a few moments, and I caught Reuben’s eye. He was frowning at me, glaring and shaking his head – it was almost comical. Then Brother Michel said: ‘But God has taught us that to lie is a sin, any lie, and indeed I must own my actions. Yes, I did steal from Bishop Heribert, and yes, I did allow your father to take the blame for my crime, and yes, I did order his death at the hands of Sir Ralph Murdac because I feared that he would expose me. I admit all of that, freely. And I will answer to God for it on Judgment Day – but, I tell you Sir Alan, I would do it all over again, a hundred times, if I had to. For I serve a higher purpose, one that soars above the concerns of petty morality, above the life or death of one man, even a dozen men, a hundred; I serve the highest purpose of all. I serve the Queen of Heaven! I serve Our Lady! All that I do, everything, from the moment I wake to the time I fall exhausted into my miserable cot, is directed towards that one aim. And every day, when I contemplate my sins, I can look out of my window and see that monument to her greatness, the superb embodiment of her majesty, that goal that I strive for, rising, slowly, inexorably, week after week, month after month—’
‘The cathedral of Notre-Dame,’ I said.
‘Yes, Sir Alan, yes. The cathedral! It will be the most magnificent church in Christendom and a fitting tribute to the Mother of God. When I returned to Paris from Spain, my Order disbanded, destroyed by those blind fools of the Temple, I found that the work had almost ceased on the cathedral for lack of funds to pay the workmen. It was almost too much to bear: the Order gone, the grand church of Our Lady half-built, abandoned and silent. It was I who found the necessary silver for de Sully to continue the work; and it was I who breathed new life into the Knights of Our Lady. I saved them both – all for her glory!’
‘And does the venerable Bishop de Sully know that the money for the cathedral comes from banditry? That it comes to him stained by the blood of the travellers robbed and murdered by the likes of Guillaume du Bois?’
Brother Michel remained silent.
‘Does he?’
‘The cathedral is everything, nothing else matters. That impious old fool closes his eyes. I tell him the money comes from the donations of pilgrims, from the thousands of faithful who come to see Notre-Dame and pray before its holy relics, and he chooses to believe it. It is not important. Only the work of building for her glory is important.’
‘Your cathedral is built on the bones and bodies of murdered men and women; its stones are cemented with their blood – it is an abomination—’ I said, my anger rising like a red tide.
But the Master cut me off, saying too loudly: ‘You could not possibly understand the wonder of Our Lady and the gift of love she brings to the world …’
I stole a glance at Hanno’s body. ‘I understand that you are a gore-glutted monster, a ghoul whose soul is crimson with the blood of innocent men—’ I was almost shouting.
The Master goggled at me: ‘You do not speak to me in that manner.’
I kept my eyes on my dead friend. ‘I understand that you are a weakling and a coward, who caused the deaths of men whose boots you are not fit to lick,’ I said very loudly, my anger making me insanely reckless.
‘Be silent or I will have you gagged!’ The Master was shouting now, too.
‘Alan, please, we must be reasonable about this,’ said Reuben.
‘You caused the deaths of my father, and the priest Jean of Verneuil, and Cardinal Heribert, and Master Fulk, and my loyal friend—’ my voice was harsh, crackling with rage.
‘Sergeant! I want him gagged, now.’ The Master was beckoning to one of the white-surcoated men-at-arms.
‘Alan, please moderate your language, it cannot do us any good to abuse the Master in his own chapel.’ I noticed that as Reuben spoke he was jiggling a small round clay pot in his hands, the kind of common vessel in which doctors store rare ointments. But I was beyond moderation by then: ‘You are a filthy worm, a soft, gelatinous, gently steaming turd! A man you cannot refuse? I refuse you. I refuse to give you the slightest shred of respect; the would-be killer who cowers in the shadows and orders other men to do his bloody work, urging them on to their slaughter in the name of the Mother of God. You are a God-damned, cowardly, three-thumbed, child-fucking pimp—’
The sergeant had managed to wrestle the gag around my mouth by then, a thick, musty-smelling woollen cloth that made it very hard to breathe, let alone rant and rave.
And I was finally silenced.
The Master was glaring at me: ‘You call me a coward? Do you think I am afraid of your master’s wrath? Do you think that I do not dare to kill you for fear that the Earl of Locksley will fall on me with all his power and might? You are quite wrong!’
He turned to the sergeant standing behind me, and said: ‘Cut his lying throat, this instant!’
And Reuben moved. His arm went back and he threw the small round ointment pot, hard and fast, and directly at the gorgeous, stained-glass window that I had been staring at for the past few hours. The missile smashed straight through the glassy face of the Mother of God, destroying it and leaving a jagged yellow hole of streaming sunlight, an empty space in the spot from which Our Lady had once gazed down so compassionately.
Everything happened very fast.
The Master gave a huge shout of horror at Reuben’s throw. I felt a hard hand on my shoulder as the sergeant behind my chair readied himself to cut my throat. And Reuben was moving again. His brown hand dipped into his robe and emerged bearing a slim black-handled knife. In one smooth flowing movement, Reuben’s hand went back and flicked forward, and for a moment I thought the knife was coming for my face. It whirred past my cheek and I heard a thunk, and a wet, gurgling cry and the rough hand clamped on my shoulder slipped away.
The knights and men-at-arms of the Order had all begun to move towards us the moment the Master had screamed at the desecration of the lovely stained-glass image. They were pulling swords from their scabbards. Reuben had pulled another knife from somewhere. I tugged at my bonds once again but still could not move them.
The huge window exploded into a thousand pieces as a giant black-clad form smashed through it, scattering shards of jewel-like glass in all directions.
Everybody in the chapel froze as the giant figure rose from the wreckage of the window, shrugged off the thick black woollen canon’s robe that had protected him from the broken glass and revealed itself to be a huge man with an ugly, red, battered face framed by two blond plaits. In his hands he carried an enormous double-headed war axe, and a round iron-bossed shield.
Little John threw back his head and bellowed a war-cry that seemed to shake the stone foundations of the chapel, then turned and, almost gracefully, sunk his mighty axe into the head of the nearest Knight of Our Lady, splitting the helmeted poll in two. He wrenched the blade free and, almost as a continuation of the same stroke, sliced into the waist of another unfortunate soldier. Now more dark figures were leaping through the smashed window – and there was Roland of Alle, and his father the Seigneur, swords in hand – and last of all a smaller figure that revealed itself to be Thomas, my brave squire.
My heart banged at the sight of so many friends; and their battle skill was a joy to watch. Roland ran a man-at-arms through the belly, pulled his sword clear, whirled and blocked a scything blow from a yelling Knight of Our Lady. The Seigneur, though past his prime, was clearly still a fine warrior: he engaged a pair of knights simultaneously, swiftly dropped one with a slash to the ankles and stunned the other with a smashing pommel blow to the head. Little John killed another knight, and another, and within a couple of heartbeats a full-pitched battle was in progress. Reuben hurled a knife that smacked into the chest of a crossbowman who was aiming his weapon at Little John’s back – and by now there were ha
lf a dozen dead and dying soldiers of Our Lady sprawled across the floor.
The Master shouted: ‘Eustace! Eustace!’ and the black-eyed fiend burst through the main door at the western end of the chapel, leading a crowd of men-at-arms. The soldiers rushed at my friends, engaging them in a mad, hacking mêlée – a whirl of sharp cries, clashing metal, glittering sword sweeps, and bright sprays of blood. My friends advanced in a line, Little John in the centre, his great axe swinging with a terrible rhythm; Roland on his left moved with a sinuous grace, his sword flickering out like a reptile’s tongue to steal men’s lives. The Seigneur d’Alle’s style was old-fashioned, but he killed with a relentless ferocity and surprising energy. And all about the enemy knights were staggering, falling, bleeding, dying. I remember thinking: These men, these Knights of Our Lady, could never have been true Templars, never.
The Master shouted once more: ‘Eustace, the Grail!’ and rushed towards the altar at the east, shoving the slight form of Thomas out of his path. And without a moment’s hesitation, Sir Eustace left his men to their fate, coming fast on the Master’s heels. He gave my reeling squire a kick in the belly as he came level with my chair; Thomas, winded, sat down abruptly on the stone floor and dropped his knife, his plan to cut me free thwarted. I saw the Master reach the altar, grasp the square wooden box on its purple cushion and without the merest backward glance to see his men dying under the swords of their enemies, he headed towards the door in the northeastern corner of the chapel and disappeared through it.
Sir Eustace took three paces after him, then stopped. He turned towards me – bound, gagged and helpless in my chair – and swiftly pulled the lance-dagger from its broad leather sheath at his right side. He advanced on dancer’s feet and the killing blow, when it came, hurt no more than a heavy punch to the breast, a feeling of hard pressure rather than pain. I looked down in surprise to see Sir Eustace’s mailed sleeve, and his fist on the wooden handle, and the Holy Lance embedded deep in my chest, perhaps an inch or two to the left of my sternum.
He pulled it out with a wet tearing noise, a gust of stale lung air, and a gush of bright blood. And with the blood, the pain came roaring through me.
I looked up at his face, and he smiled at me, his amiable idiot’s grin. He saluted me by lifting the blood-smeared lance-dagger to his brow, and then he ran to the north-eastern corner of the chapel, and disappeared through the same door that had swallowed his Master.
Part Three
Chapter Nineteen
Young Alan is back with us again at Westbury a mere month after his last visit. He has been sent home in disgrace after savagely beating a fellow squire with his fists after some petty boys’ disagreement in Kirkton. The other lad’s father, Lord Stafford, is said to be extremely angry. And Marie, Alan’s mother, blames me.
‘It is your silly stories that have made him behave in this barbaric way, you old fool! You should know better at your age. I told you that you shouldn’t be wallowing in your violent past again, dredging up your blood-hungry tales; I told you that no good would come of it. And wasn’t I proved right?’
Although I dearly love her, she can be something of a shrew, my daughter-in-law.
‘Boys fight,’ I told her. ‘It is quite natural, but, if you wish, I will speak to young Alan about the matter.’
My grandson was unrepentant about his victory over the other boy: ‘He insulted the honour of our family, and so I was obliged to punish him,’ he said, and when I enquired further, he told me that the boy had been spreading the word among the other noblemen’s sons at Kirkton that Alan’s great-grandfather, my own father Henry, had been a villein, who had been hanged as a thief by the Sheriff.
‘I told him all about the tale you are setting down, Grandpa, and the search for the “man you cannot refuse” who ordered your father’s death, and he went off and told everyone else. They all started to call me “plough boy” and “dirty serf”. And so I took my vengeance on him. I paid him back for his insolence. Tell me honestly, Grandpa, would you not have done the same thing yourself?’
I found it difficult to answer him: I might very well have done exactly the same in those circumstances; I well remembered a bully who called himself Guy who had tormented me when I was Alan’s age, and how I had been revenged upon him, but I knew that Marie would make my life a living hell if I did not try to teach the boy to behave himself in a civilized manner among his peers.
I scowled at him: ‘You are supposed to be learning how to be a knight, up there in Kirkton,’ I said sternly. ‘And a knight is a gentleman; he does not brawl like a tavern drunk with his fellows. Furthermore, Our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us that it is better to turn the other cheek when we are wronged. A true Christian knight would have forgiven his enemy for the wrong that had been done to him – he would have meekly turned away and given up his wrath for the sake of peace.’
At my age, after all that I have been through in this long life, I had thought myself beyond shame. But I felt the burn of shame then – it seemed as if my prating hypocrisy to my grandson were choking me – and young Alan could sense my falseness as keenly as a pig smells buried acorns.
‘Would you truly have forgiven a man who blackened your name like that; who insulted you and mocked you behind your back?’ asked Alan, his face blazing with innocence. He was honestly seeking the truth, desperately wanting to know how to be. I couldn’t look him in the eye: ‘The fruits of vengeance are almost always death and sorrow – for all concerned,’ I said, and I picked up a bundle of parchments. ‘Read this and you will see what happened to my good friend Hanno, and to me, as a direct result of my seeking vengeance on the “man you cannot refuse”. And perhaps this will persuade you that revenge is a futile path, and that there is a greater wisdom for Mankind in Christ’s teachings.’ And I shoved the second part of this tale at him; partly for his education, partly to get him to stop looking at me that way.
I did not pass out, at least, not then. I watched, gagged, bound and bleeding, as the Master and Sir Eustace de la Falaise made their escape from the side door in the Bishop’s chapel in the Abbey of St Victor. The skirmish was over; the surviving Knights of Our Lady, only three or four of them, seeing their Master flee, made a fighting retreat to the main door and ran for it themselves, and Little John let them go. Presumably they went to summon reinforcements or raise the hue and cry within the Abbey – we did not tarry long enough to find out.
My bruised and weeping squire Thomas cut my bonds and, under Reuben’s direction, he made a rough pad from the altar cloth and strapped it tightly over the wound in my chest. The gag had been removed and I was free to speak, but, convinced that I had only moments left to live, I kept repeating to Reuben the same phrase over and over: ‘You must get word to Goody – you must tell her how I love her. Tell her I am sorry …’ But my breath was short and I could feel puffs of wet air seeping through the bloody bandage on my chest every time I tried to utter a word.
‘Shush, shush, now, Alan! Be quiet and save your strength,’ Reuben said to me, as he felt for the pulse in my neck. I could feel his cool hand on my skin, and the throbbing of my vein under his fingers. Reuben was frowning, looking at me oddly, almost with a kind of awe.
When the last wounded Knight of Our Lady had been dispatched, Little John came across to me. His blue eyes in that ruddy face stared into mine, and for once he didn’t make a crude jest. ‘We must go now, Alan,’ he said. ‘You grip on tight to my neck. I shall carry you.’
‘What about Hanno?’ My breath hissed in my throat. Little John looked at my friend, sprawled in the chair next to mine, and he said: ‘The canons will give him a decent burial.’ And then he leaned forward and scooped me up in his arms, as if I was no heavier than a child’s doll.
We left the same way that Little John, Thomas and the d’Alles had entered: through the ruin of the window, the glittering shards crunching under their boots.
I was laid in the bed of a straw-filled wagon, and I saw Little John and my friends don
ning the robes of monks once more, five anonymous clerics and their wagon among the hundreds that streamed about the Abbey in the last few hours before Vespers and the closing of the gates.
And then I passed into oblivion.
I awoke to Robin’s long, handsome face, and a look of infinite concern in his grey eyes. I was in a narrow bed, in a small white-washed room, a cell of some kind. It was night-time and cold, and the room was lit by a single candle. But I knew somehow that it was not the same night as the fight in the chapel; I knew that I had been there for many days. I had a raging thirst, and a crushing ache along the whole of the left-hand side of my chest; a full bladder too.
‘I’m not dead,’ I said wonderingly. And then I said it again. ‘I’m not dead – am I?’
‘No,’ said Robin with a half-laugh. ‘You are not dead; and I sometimes think that you must be indestructible.’
‘Why am I not dead?’
‘Somebody stands a very good guard over you: God, the Devil, one of your myriad saints, the Blessed Virgin Mary …’
‘Not her.’
‘No, not her,’ Robin agreed.
‘You do. You stand guard over me.’
‘Well, I try to,’ he said, the candlelight turning his eyes to silver. ‘I cannot for the life of me say why: you are seldom grateful, you are far too wilful; you will not obey even the simplest of orders from your lord – I told you to leave these people alone, but would you ever listen—’
‘They told you to tell me to leave them alone.’
He said nothing.
‘How long have you known that it was Brother Michel who ordered my father’s death?’ I asked. ‘How long have you known that he was the Master, the “man you cannot refuse”?’
Silence.
‘And why did you never tell me?’
Another pause.
‘We will talk about it in the morning,’ said Robin finally. ‘You are not going anywhere for a while; and neither am I. Here,’ he lifted a clay cup from the table beside the bed, ‘Reuben says I am to make sure that you drink all of this.’
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