‘I think so.’
‘I have been talking to your prior about you. It seems God has seen fit to give you a quick mind and a profound understanding of His Word. We need men like you.’
‘What would you have me do?’
‘A great cataclysm is about to take place and it will start in the Albigeois. The Church here has grown fat and lazy, and a cancer has taken hold. We are the laughing stock of the laity; there are monks and canons who have taken wives and live by usury. Some have even set up as minstrels. They eat swans for breakfast and give their mistresses rubies the size of pigeon eggs. They have turned the Church here into a scandal. Men are dying with their sins still upon them while the Archbishop of Narbonne counts his money.
‘Meanwhile these southern lands have been infected with every kind of damnable heresy. The Count of Toulouse and his kind have allowed these bons òmes, as they call themselves, licence to go about the country preaching their filth and none to stop them. Do you know what was reported to me the other day? There is a village deep in the mountains in Foix where these heretics chased out the priest, scrubbed the murals of the crucifixion from the walls of the chapel and now hold their monstrous services there. In God’s own holy place!’
Simon nodded. ‘I have heard these things too.’
‘What else have you heard?’
‘I have heard they disdain sexual congress, even in marriage.’
‘That is because they are all notorious sodomites!’
‘This may be so,’ Simon said, ‘though if I may speak plainly, the same thing is said of our Bishop.’
‘No one will dispute you on that point, Brother Simon. The Church must be cleansed from within as well as without.
‘Jesus admonished us for our sins and asked that we set them aside and trust in him. I do not understand why this is so hard a thing for some men to comprehend.’ He sat down again. ‘Brother Jorda, as you know, for several years I have tried to speak peace to the people here, besought them with my tears to return to the Holy Church, but to no avail. Now the Holy Father’s patience is at an end. Force will prevail where gentle persuasion has failed.
‘Rome has called for a great crusade against the heretics of the south to stop the abominable heresies that have taken place here. But this will not be a war of siege and sword. We must not only destroy the church of the heretics, but remake our own.’
He leaned forward. ‘I have been directed to join the crusade and provide spiritual direction to the brave knights who have joined us in our holy quest. I need a good men to join me, well grounded in philosophy, theosophy and debate.’ His eyes were fierce. ‘A man of good virtue, who can teach others to walk in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.’
Simon pressed his hands together in a prayer of fierce gratitude. It was the sign he had waited for. ‘Look no further,’ he said. ‘You have found your man.’
XXVIII
Château Vercy, Burgundy
LITTLE RENAUT OPENED his eyes. He looked anxiously around the room. Philip leaned forward. ‘I am right here, son,’ he said. The boy looked so frail that the pile of furs on top of him might crush the life from him. All that was left of her. He stroked a stray lock of hair from the boy’s face.
Satisfied that he was not alone, Renaut went back to sleep.
Philip heard larks outside the window and knew that it was morning. He went to the window, opened the shutter a fraction to peer out. The morning was foggy and cold. Even the palisades of the château had vanished into a cloying white mist. No sun yet to burn it away. A hunting horn, muffled by the fog, echoed along the valley. His squire, Renaut, would be leading a pack of russet and white hounds across the ford below the castle, waiting for the mist to clear, hoping to find a boar or a stag before they returned to the deep forest.
These days he often wondered what might have happened to him if he had not taken up the cross. Alezaïs would have died just the same, he supposed. But it was the injustice of it that tormented him. He had gone to Outremer in God’s name; wasn’t he deserving of a greater reward than this?
What did he achieve, what had any of them won for their sacrifice? That’s what people here didn’t understand about the Holy Land: the great waste of it all. The Templars were all mad, and did as they liked in the name of the Pope, doing deals with the Muslims and even living like them; no one there wanted to fight the Saracen any more, they did not have the energy after they had finished fighting each other over what remained of the ever dwindling kingdom of Jersualem. The Christian princes charged with the defence of God’s land were neither very adroit nor very fervent and they would rather be drinking sherbets with their whores than guarding pilgrims and fighting Saracens. But he had stayed on and given his full year of service.
It had all been futile. He wished now he had stayed in France with his wife.
Renaut sat up suddenly, and vomited on to the floor. When he was done he looked contrite, as if dying like this was some mischief that required reprimand.
‘It’s all right,’ Philip said. ‘I’ll clean it up.’
Renaut tried to say something but instead dropped back exhausted on to the bed.
Philip fetched a rag and a water pail from the corner and knelt to mop up the mess, then went down to the scullery to get warm water from the hearth. He could have a servant girl do all this but he told himself that if God saw his dedication He would give him a miracle and give him back his son.
As soon as he got back, Renaut started retching again. Philip held a bowl under his son’s chin, then wiped his face with a linen towel. There was nothing much left in him but bile.
It was cold. He relit the fire in the hearth and flung on a handful of dried herbs. The air was stale and foul, but he could not open the shutters; they said that Death crept in through windows and doors and perhaps it was true.
Renaut fell asleep again. Philip called one of the servant girls, told her to watch his son and then went down to the chapel.
A century of incense clung to the dark stones. Greasy black smoke from a branched candlestick rose to the vault, a dark prayer on its way to heaven for blessing, while the wax dripped on the flagstones. Two of his wife’s ladies whispered novenas to a statue of Our Lady. He had ordered that all the ladies of the castle should take turns to say litanies there for his son day and night.
He dismissed them, told them to return after nones. When they were gone, he slumped to his knees on the prie-dieu. The bronze crucifix above the altar appeared to tremble in the aura of the candles. He sent his entreaty to his savage God.
Help me.
Why do you keep me alive, just to suffer like this? And there is no doubt, you have blessed me with more luck in battle than most. Three times I nearly died in Outremer and here I still am. So what is it you want from me? Don’t keep me alive just so that I can suffer more. Show me some meaning to all of this.
Please God, do not let him die. I will do anything. Leave me one thing of her, one thing that I love. If you’re really there in your heaven, listen to me now, and make him well again.
Look, he’s just a boy. If you like, take me instead. He has a whole life to live and I have had mine, at least enough of it that I have loved and warred and had my chance. He has had none of that. Take me in his place. I am ready to die; this sadness I feel has stricken me to my very bones. There it is, my bargain. Take me and leave the boy.
The candles flickered in a draught and the cold stone beneath his knees seeped into his bones. But he stayed and prayed. When the ladies returned at nones, his joints were so stiff he could not properly stand. But he did not find an answer and God did not speak.
XXIX
HE HAD NOT wished to remarry. There was no one to replace Alezaïs in his bed or in his heart. But a man, of noble blood or not, did not marry for love. Marriage was for the forging of alliances and the making of sons. There must be someone to run the household and scold the servants when he was not there. He had a duty to his name and to those who called him lord.
There was no doubt that his new wife was capable as well as beautiful. The carved escutcheons on the walls were freshly painted, and there was white napery on the tables. Giselle had insisted they make some effort to abandon the drab existence to which present circumstances had brought them for the visit of his cousin, Étienne. He had been given the place of honour at the high end of the table, at Philip’s right hand. Giselle sat at his left, affecting gaiety in a long gown of raspberry silk, the sleeves so long they dragged on the ground. Two of her maidservants held them for her when she ate.
A fine wife. He just couldn’t stand the sight of her, and none of it was her fault.
Étienne selected a morsel from the stew and brought it to his trencher, dripping gravy on the polished oak table. ‘You will not join the Pope’s crusade against the Count of Toulouse?’
‘I have earned my ease in heaven, Étienne. I spent a year in Outremer for God and for Jerusalem. Besides I do not see how one Christian lord can go against another Christian lord and call it holy. Though I am sure a churchman could explain it to me.’
‘The Pope says that the Count has been harbouring heresy.’
‘If Count Raymond burns every heretic in the south lands he will not have any subjects left. If the Church thought more of men’s souls and less of tithes and taxes she might find herself better thought of in Provence. What about you, will you take up the battle cry again?’
‘I thought I might show my devotion another way. A pilgrimage at this moment might be a wise step.’
‘Bare feet and a hair shirt?’
‘I was thinking more of a good horse and good whores. They say the women in León bear looking at.’ The servitors brought wine, the boy splashing more of the good Rhenish on the table than he did in their cups. Étienne leaned forward and said, in a whisper, so that Giselle might not hear over the general hubbub: ‘Talking of such matters, cousin, who warms your bed these days? Not your wife, if rumour is correct.’
‘I care for her as well as I can.’
‘What is wrong? She’s beautiful enough. Do you have a mistress?’ Philip shook his head. ‘You never used to be so gloomy, Philip. When we were squires, you were lusty enough.’
‘A man can change.’
‘You cannot mourn Alezaïs for ever. She may have been an agreeable wife, but a woman is just a woman. They are making more of them all the time.’
Philip envied and pitied his cousin. A joust, a roll in the hay with a serving girl and a good dinner and he was happy. Perhaps it is me. I think too much, I feel too much. Alezaïs used to tease me about it, and then said it was what she loved most about me. Giselle broke in. ‘What are you two plotting over here?’
‘I was asking your husband how little Renaut fares.’
‘I am afraid he grows weaker every day.’ she said.
‘I am sorry to hear it. Children are too mortal. That is why we need a lot of them.’
Étienne had himself lost two sons before they were weaned. But he had heeded his own advice and bred two more. It was the sensible thing. He knew his duty to his family, to his lands.
Giselle was distracted by a minstrel and clapped and cheered with the others as he started to sing.
‘Why did you marry her?’ Étienne whispered.
‘She looks like her,’ he said.
‘You married your second wife to remind you of your first? As poor a reason to marry as ever I heard.’ Philip’s stewards brought a roast swan from the kitchen. It had been artfully attached to the hindquarters of a pig. It brought shouts of amusement and a round of applause from his guests. Philip selected the choicest cuts from it with his fingers and placed them on Étienne’s trencher.
Étienne leaned in. ‘It is not my place to intrude on your affairs, but I hope you are wary of Giselle’s kin. Her brothers are poor and grasping. Her father had too many sons and not enough land. They do not wish you well.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I am saying that they would be only too glad if you were to die without an heir. So you should see to it that they are disappointed.’
After dinner was finished and all his guests were drunk or snoring, the tables were pushed back to the wall and the trouvères and minstrels brought in so that the ladies and the young squires might dance. Philip left his squire Renaut to be the master of the festivities and when Étienne slipped away with one of Giselle’s ladies he went upstairs to sit with his son and hold his hand.
XXX
AND SO: THE doctor, in his hood and biretta, standing in a corner of the room examining his patient’s urine, which he swirled around a wooden bowl. He sniffed at it and then placed a finger into it to taste it.
‘It is slightly astringent and the colour is dark. I shall bleed him again tomorrow.’
‘Why not do it now?’ Philip asked.
‘He was born under Capricorn and by my calculations today is not a lucky day for either bleeding or purging.’
‘You have bled and you have purged and still he sickens. Is this all the medicine that you have?’
‘I trained in Paris. You will not find better than me.’
‘But I think it is time that I tried. Get out of here. Don’t come back.’
‘It is God’s punishment,’ Giselle said. ‘You refused the Pope’s call to arms. Now you are paying the price.’
‘For pity’s sake,’ he murmured. He asked for a little more hot water for his bath but she would not permit the servant girl to do it; didn’t trust her apparently. It might have been more pleasant, he supposed, if she had poured the scalding water into the bath instead of tossing the whole bucket over his back. Hearing him roar in pain only seemed to make her more angry. ‘What sort of man refuses to fight for God?’
‘Warring for Rome is not always the same thing as fighting for God.’
‘That’s a blasphemy!’
‘They are pitting Christian against Christian.’
‘The Albigensians are not Christians! Heretics, all of them. If you wore the cross, you would earn remission of all your sins and, by my counting, they are plenty. And an assured place in heaven! Is that not worth fighting for? Instead your son is sick, and all because you will not fight.’
‘I have never shirked a fight if there is just cause in it. And I wore the cross in the Holy Land for the Pope for one full year, so it baffles me to hear you talk this way. Why would God seek to punish me now?’
‘What if one of your servants expected you to feed him for his entire life because he once saddled your horse? You ride every day.’
‘The promise of heaven was for one crusade against the Saracen, not to fight all Christendom for the rest of my life!’
He eased his head against the edge of the wooden tub and took a calming breath. The scent of the dried rose petals that perfumed the water eased his frayed nerves. But not for long. The second bucket of water went over his head. Praise God, this one was cold and not scalding.
‘God’s blood, woman!’
‘If you don’t care for your soul or for the Pope you might at least give thought to bringing back some silver to pay off your debts.’
‘Debts that were accrued fighting for the Pope the last time! Heresy is the Church’s business, not mine. Raymond of Toulouse may be an inveterate liar but he does not worship the Devil and he is brother-in-law to the King of England. How can a war against such a man be a holy war?’ He swung his legs out of the bath. There was no ease to be found here. Giselle took her time handing him a cloth to dry himself.
‘What are you staring at?’
‘Reminding myself what it looked like.’
Philip dressed quickly. A quilted tunic instead of a woollen one, a fashion he had brought back with him from the Orient. He put on rich hose of royal blue velvet; he could not afford them but was damned if he would advertise his penury.
‘He was sickening before the Pope called this crusade.’
‘God knew what you would do.’
‘You have an answer for ever
ything.’
Giselle stood, hands on hips, by the window. He closed his eyes, imagined Alezaïs with him, tried to conjure the comfort she once gave him when he was troubled.
‘Every day he gets sicker,’ he murmured. ‘I have watched him waste to a skeleton in front of my eyes. At Epiphany he was a normal boy chasing the dogs around the hall and eating more than the Bishop. Now . . . if it were not for the bearskin rugs on him I swear he would float away. He cannot keep anything down. I beat every day at the gates of heaven for a miracle but I get no answer.’
‘He’s dying, husband. Everyone but you knows it.’
‘He is not going to die!’
‘It is God’s will.’
‘Then God will have to think again, because I am not going to let him die!’
Giselle folded her arms. ‘There is nothing you can do about it.’ What was this? Gloating?
‘He is not going to die!’ he repeated and stormed out. They had heard the yelling in the great hall below and when he came down the stairs all the servants ran to get out of his way.
XXXI
PHILIP STORMED ACROSS the courtyard, shouting for someone to bring his horse. When he reached the stables, a boy leaped from the straw where he had been dozing, only for Philip to push him back down again. ‘Don’t bother, lad, I’ll do it myself.’
Leyla, his six-year-old Arab, pricked up her ears at his approach. She was a handsome high-stepper, a chestnut with white tail and white mane, with white spots on her forefeet. He fetched an undercloth from the rail and a bridle and riding saddle.
The stable boy hovered.
‘Just stay out of my way,’ Philip told him.
He galloped out of the gate, rode her hard for over a league at full tilt. Instead of crossing the ford he headed blindly into the forest, splashing through the shallows and up on to the bank into a meadow of buttercups. Leyla’s flanks heaved; sweat foamed around her bridle.
He released the reins and dropped from the saddle. He raised his face to the sky and shook his fist at heaven. ‘Damn you, God! Damn you!’
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