[Sir Richard Straccan 02] - Pendragon Banner

by Sylvian Hamilton

  Garnier opened his gloved fist. In it lay a heavy gold ring of antique design, set with a great ruby. He’d recognised it as soon as the Silent Man showed it to him. He’d seen it before, twenty-five years ago in the camp at the tourney field in Paris. A young priest then he’d been among the onlookers, just there for the entertainment, and instead had been called upon to give a dying man the last rites. He’d been there in the tent when the king of France, weeping, drew the ring of Brittany from Duke Geoffrey’s thumb and gave it to the new-made widow, the dry-eyed Duchess Constance. This was the same ring, of that he had no doubt.

  Like his namesake piece on a chessboard Gamier had been moved by the marvellous hand of God to this place and now he knew why. If the Silent Man spoke truth — and why should he lie? He was dying — a monstrous wrong had been done, and he, Gamier, must bring it to light and the wrongdoer to justice.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The first thing Lord William saw when the foraging party rode in at dusk was the cinnamon-coloured stallion that made the rest of the bunch they’d picked up look like donkeys. What a beauty!

  "Where’d you get that, Thibaut?’

  "On the Ludlow road, my lord, in the forest.’ He was pale and had a bandage on one hand. "Two men, there were, with this stallion and the brown gelding over there.’

  Breos frowned at the muzzle and the tight martingale which stopped the animal from raising its head. ‘Is that necessary?’

  "Better safe than sorry, my lord.’ After taking the animal Thibaut had tried to mount it, only to be flung like a bundle of washing into a holly bush. His men had laughed themselves silly, the fools, and laughed still more when he tried again and the beast bit him. All attempts to get on its back met with the grunting, striking, snapping repertoire of a horse trained to fight. A huge iron forehoof smashed the shoulder of one of his arbalists, and another was crushed against a wall, breaking his ribs. He began coughing blood and was dead by nightfall. It took every man in the troop hanging onto the animal to get it muzzled and the martingale on. Sulien was seeing to the injured now and had salved and bound up Thibaut’s hand.

  "What have you done to your hand?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, my lord.’ He’d hoped Lord William wouldn’t notice. ‘Just a scratch.’ He’d been lucky not to lose his thumb, and — more painful than his damaged pride — the bite had turned septic, throbbing with every pulse-beat; a red streak was spreading up his forearm from the base of his thumb and the evil-smelling stuff Sulien had smeared on it drew painfully at the wound.

  Breos ran his hand down the stallion’s flank; it twitched its skin and rolled its long-lashed eyes. Thibaut tensed, ready for any trick, but restricted as it was, that was all the horse could do.

  ‘Fine saddle, too,’ Lord William was saying. ‘What manner of man was it?’

  ‘A knight with his servant; we took their weapons. Hi! Girard! Bring the sword we took from the man in the forest.’

  Breos fingered the plain worn leather scabbard and drew the blade, looking closely at pommel and hilt. ‘Old-fashioned,’ he muttered, ‘but good steel… Hey, what’s this?’ Just below the crossguard, inlaid in the blade, was a silver cross within a circle, and beneath that some words in Latin, Advocato Sancti Sepulchri.

  ‘What does it say, my lord?’

  ‘“I defend the Holy Sepulchre.”’ Lord William ran his thumb over the silver letters. ‘An old crusader’s sword, by God! Who was he?’

  Thibaut shook his head. He hadn’t been ordered to demand names from those he was sent to rob, but he knew better than to say so.

  Breos snapped the blade back in its sheath. His own bore the legend Homo Dei, in which he saw no incongruity. ‘You should have left him his sword. An old crusader… Still, you weren’t to know. I’ll keep this. What else did you bring in?’ Pillaging supplied most of his band’s needs, but any deficiencies could be made good from Cwm Cuddfan’s stores. Having provided the hospital with many of its necessities for seven years, Lord William felt no compunction now in taking what he needed.

  A good haul, my lord: flour, wine, cheeses, blankets, five other horses and the personal baggage, of course. We haven’t sorted through that yet.’

  ‘Put the provisions in store and share out the rest.’ Tucking the sword under his arm, Breos went back inside. How much longer would he have to skulk here? By now his wife should have joined him but although each day he looked for news of her, none came.

  The road began easily, winding through low hills and skirting dark woods. Now and then they caught glimpses of ragged figures melting into the trees, but outlaws had no wish to tackle armed men and Bruno von Koln’s company had nothing to fear. The second day took them into wild foothill country, far from the March patrols and what passed in Wales for towns. That night they came to the small pentref of Maeselyn, where they hoped for a night’s shelter for Alis, only to find that William de Breos had been there before them. The huts still stood, charred and roofless but saved by rain. The rain couldn’t save the villagers, however; they’d been slaughtered like sheep.

  So had those of Llantali, which they entered at noon the next day, and by the time they reached the little town of Tresaint that evening they knew from the stink what to expect. Crows and ravens rose with noisy protests; rats and dogs ran away at their approach.

  The little church, being stone, still stood. Pinned to its door by several crossbow bolts was the brutalised naked corpse of an old man, by his tonsure priest of this place; and from the yew in the churchyard hung three bloated bodies, gutted like herrings, turning slowly at their ropes’ ends, heads on one side as if puzzled by this turn of events.

  Why?’ Havloc wondered. ‘These were his people, his villages. He was their lord.’

  ‘Was!’ said Straccan. ‘He’ll lay all waste sooner than let another have it.’

  When they reached the crossroads where Havloc and Alis were to strike off for Devilstone, Havloc came to Straccan with a suggestion.

  ‘You know Breos will be on the lookout,’ he said. ‘His men will be watching all who come, for fear of trickery. They’ll take note of a man alone, or two men, but they won’t look twice at a sick man with his wife.’

  ‘Wife?’

  ‘Me,’ said Alis.

  Lord William’s medicus had just bled him and was packing up his lancet and dishes when Thibaut came in.

  ‘My lord, Sulien asks to see you.’

  Lord William had been feeling pleasantly languorous but at this he jumped up eagerly, almost knocking over his restorative wine. His sleeve still hung loose and he held out his arm for Thibaut to fasten the cuff.

  ‘He must have news! Send him in!’ He stood watching the door to see the man’s face as he entered, but Sulien looked sombre, not like a man with glad tidings. Lord William’s heart sank.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, in dread to hear.

  ‘My lord, I have to tell you that your kinsman is dying.’

  ‘Kinsman?’ Not Mahaut? Not his son? Relief took him at the knees and he sat down with a thump. ‘What kinsman?’

  ‘The young man you sent here seven years ago, my lord. Geoffrey.’

  ‘Geoffrey?’ For a moment Lord William looked baffled, then awareness and something else — it looked surprisingly like fear — wiped the puzzlement from his face. He sat up straight, knocking his wine cup to the floor where it clanged and rolled. Thibaut dived for it anxiously; the cup was gold, if it should be dented Lord William would blame him.

  ‘Dying? Are you sure?’

  ‘It is a merciful release,’ Sulien said. ‘My lord, the man who cares for him has asked to speak with you. Will you see him?’

  Lord William was very still but a nerve jumped in his cheek, and jumped again, and would not stop. ‘Bring him in.’

  ‘He can’t come in; he is a leper. Will you hear him, my lord? He waits by the path to the lake.’

  From under the willows that grew densely right down to the shore of Llyn Gwydion a shape moved into Lord William’s pat
h, a darker shadow among shadows.

  Lord William rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘What do you want with me?’

  The tinny clank of a bell answered him and the shadow raised its hooded head. Although he had known the man was a leper, grue gripped the lord de Breos. Of all horrors, since childhood he had loathed lepers most. Some men feared spiders, others snakes, but for him the gut-dissolving terror of nightmare had always been lepers.

  ‘Keep back,’ he said loudly. ‘Keep off!’

  ‘God save you, my lord.’ Two black triangular eyeholes faced him with no gleam of life but the mask puffed in and out with breath as the leper spoke; a rasping, rusted husk of a voice, and to Breos’s surprise that of a well-born man speaking the polished Langue d’Oc, just as King Richard had done. It was seldom heard since the Lionheart’s death, for his brother favoured Poitevins above the men of Aquitaine.

  Lord William’s eye caught movement further back under the trees. Christ, was that another? It stepped forward, big, burly, leaning on a quarterstaff. The lord’s hand clenched on his sword hilt, drawing an inch or two of steel.

  ‘One step nearer and I’ll cut you down!’

  The first leper laid a gloved hand on the other’s arm. ‘Wait by the boat, Illtud.’ And to Breos, ‘I am no threat to you, my lord. See?’ And he stooped to lay his own staff on the ground.

  Sweating, Lord William threw his purse at the creature’s feet. ‘There! For my kinsman’s burial.’

  The leper ignored it. ‘That’s not why I am here, my lord. There is something I must ask you.’

  ‘In God’s name, ask and be gone!’

  ‘Who is he, my lord, the young man you sent here seven years ago?’

  The question hit Lord William like a blow from the quintain. He blinked and rocked on his heels. ‘Poor Geoffrey? One of my godsons.’

  ‘You have not visited your… godson,’ Lord William tensed at the emphasis, ‘or even sent word to him since you came here.’

  ‘God’s name, what’s that to you?’

  ‘He is my charge and he is dying.’

  It was true then. Breos crossed himself and murmured a prayer, partly for the dying man’s soul and partly in thanks because he was dying at last. God knew it had taken long enough.

  The leper’s dreadful voice went on and on. ‘I have sat with him these last few nights lest he die alone, although he did not ask it. He has not uttered a word in all his wretched years here. Did you know that, my lord? He kept himself apart even from us, his comrades in misery. Seven years ago he came here, silent as an image, and silent he’s been ever since. None of us knew he could talk: but at last he has, and I have listened.’

  Breos breathed deeply. The notion of murder surged and ebbed, and Gamier saw it in the tensing of the muscles and in the eyes.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he invited. ‘What is one more among so many souls that cry out to God against you.’ His ruined voice had a terrible authority. ‘His holy name which you use so freely is fouled in your mouth.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Lord William’s affronted pride swelled. To be rated so, by such a creature! ‘You go too far, by God! A stinking leper! Who do you think you are?’

  ‘As I stink in your nostrils,’ Gamier said, ‘your soul stinks in God’s. Look, my lord de Breos, see yourself as God sees you!’ He pulled off his hood and stepped out of the shadows.

  Lord William gave a cry of loathing. There in the sunlight was his fear made flesh: featureless, suppurating, rotting, like a man long drowned. He turned aside just in time to vomit in the bushes instead of over his own feet.

  ‘No,’ he whimpered, falling to his knees and heaving until his stomach had nothing left to cast up. ‘God help me! No!’

  ‘Who is Geoffrey?’ the leper persisted.

  Wiping his mouth, Breos mumbled something.

  ‘What was that, my lord?’

  ‘His name is Arthur!’ He tried to get to his feet but found it easier to stay on one knee, at least for now. It was the bleeding, of course, the fool medicus had taken more than he should. He’d have him whipped for it.

  ‘The prince?’ the leper asked. ‘The duke of Brittany?’

  ‘What has he told you? Name of God, does he want to see me?

  I won’t.… I can’t—’

  ‘He couldn’t see you if he would. He has been blind these past two years.’

  ‘No one told me,’ Breos whispered, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

  ‘I knew his mother, Duchess Constance,’ Gamier said. ‘I served in her household after her husband died. When Arthur was a child I knew him well but here, now, until he spoke, I had no idea who he was. All Christendom believes his uncle King John murdered the prince at Rouen; your own wife accused him. Did the king send him here?’

  Breos shook his head.

  ‘Then how did he come here? What really happened at Rouen?’

  Painfully at first, as if every word was physically scraped from him. Lord William began to talk, but once he got into his stride he couldn’t stop and frequently a note of self-pity, and sometimes of brag, crept in.

  It had been his wife’s idea, clever, ambitious Mahaut de Breos, who after a restless night dug her sharp elbow in her lord’s side and told him her audacious plan.

  ‘Get on the right side of him,’ she said.

  He was still half asleep. ‘Who?’

  ‘Arthur.’

  The prince was John’s prisoner. Powerless, useless. Why waste time sucking up to him?

  ‘Arthur? What on earth for?’

  She explained. Win the boy’s confidence, befriend him and help him escape.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be quiet and listen!’

  It was terrible; it was treason. Overthrow the king and proclaim Arthur the rightful ruler. John was unpopular. France and Brittany would rally to the cause. Then, with the crown set on his head by the might of the house of Breos, the young king would refuse them nothing. With Arthur married to a Breos daughter and his sister Eleanor married to a Breos son . . .

  "You see?’ Mahaut had whispered, right into his ear so that neither the page at the bed foot nor her women on their pallets might hear. ‘One day, a grandson of ours could wear the crown of England.’

  ‘It’ll never work,’ he’d protested but, ‘Trust me,’ she’d said, and he always had.

  He’d been nurturing the seeds and first frail shoots of Mahaut’s plan, winning the boy’s trust, sympathising, listening to him rage against his uncle the king and flattering him — he couldn’t get enough of that, there never was so vain a creature — while he tried to think of a way to get him out of the castle. And then John came to Rouen…

  Lord William’s voice droned on and the leper’s featureless mask stared. Arthur’s fury, John’s maudlin insistence on seeing him, the stinking cell, the screaming boy, the king’s drunken collapse, the huddled corpse with John’s dagger in it…

  ‘Who was the dead boy?’

  ‘No one. A thief from the pit, the right age, fair like the prince. A bit smaller but John hadn’t seen Arthur for some time.’ That was Mahaut’s idea too. He’d never have thought of it.

  ‘Take Arthur out in your retinue,’ she’d said. ‘No one will be looking for him now, he’s supposed to be dead. Get him out of France. We’ll keep him hidden until we’ve brought John down.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Gamier prompted.

  ‘Brought him to Wales, to my stronghold at Grosmont.’ Lord William scowled, remembering. ‘He wasn’t the least bit grateful! I’d saved him from being murdered by his uncle — well, he thought I had — you’d think he’d show a bit of gratitude, but no! I offered him my daughter in marriage. He refused! The arrogant little prick sneered at me, at me!’ His voice rose. ‘Said he intended to marry a daughter of the king of France. I could have killed him myself!’

  ‘He must already have been ill but I didn’t think there was anything really wrong with him. You don’t expect it, do you? Leprosy? Not princes.’

  �
�His mother died of it.’

  It was Lord William’s turn to stare. ‘Constance? Did she? Kept that quiet, didn’t they? So that’s where he got it! I always wondered.

  I didn’t realise what it was at first. He got spotty; boys do. You don’t think every spot on a boy’s face is leprosy. He wouldn’t leave his room; he’d always been vain, he couldn’t bear anyone to see him like that. I told him he’d grow out of it but it got worse. I still didn’t think…

  ‘He was shooting up fast, thin, weedy, and he coughed a lot, I remember; couldn’t shake it off. He whined a lot too. His legs ached. I told him it was growing pains. His fingers and thumbs felt prickly, he was always tired, his feet hurt, his skin felt like fire, his eyes were sore! Whingeing little sod. He made me sick too, sick of him!’

  ‘When my household moved to Whitecastle he wouldn’t budge. Short of trussing him up and carrying him, what could I do? I left half a dozen people to look after him, and God knows I was glad to leave him there! One day his barber saw the rash. Flung down dish and razor and ran! Left Arthur bleeding where the razor’d cut him, screaming with fury and fright, slapping and kicking the servants and demanding the barber be brought back and flogged.

  ‘He locked the door, wouldn’t let the servants in. They sent for me. I could hear him in there, breaking things, banging himself against the walls, howling. I sent everyone away and fetched a doctor. We had to smash the door down.

  ‘It was a shock,’ Breos said plaintively. ‘I hadn’t seen him for weeks. His face… There were lumps all over it. He was crying and shaking his hands about as if he was trying to get rid of them. The room was filthy, he’d torn the tapestries down, ripped up the bedding; there was blood and skin on the stones where he’d beaten his hands on the wall.

  ‘Leprosy, the doctor said. I paid him and let him go. He didn’t know who his patient was but I couldn’t risk it so I sent a man after him, one I could trust, and I saw to the barber and the servants myself.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do with him. I couldn’t keep him there or at any of my castles. He begged me to hide him. He was mad with fear lest anyone should see him so foul; I told you he was vain.’