by Alys Clare
He stood up. ‘All right.’
Both Josse and Ninian guessed that de Loup would run for home. Denied his aim of placing the black figure beneath the cathedral, surely his only alternative would be to return her to the tower at World’s End. It was only a guess, though, and, as they urged their horses on down the smooth, flat road that ran south-east beside the River Eure, Josse prayed that it was the right one.
As the sun came up across the water to their left, they saw ahead of them a long-maned white horse, head down as it grazed the lush grass beside the river. Beneath a willow tree, leaning back against its trunk with his knees drawn up and his head in his hands, sat Philippe de Loup.
He looked up at Josse and Ninian, wry resignation on his lined, chalk-white face. ‘So you have found me once more,’ he remarked. ‘You are persistent; I will say that for you.’ He closed his eyes.
‘What ails you?’ Josse asked.
De Loup opened his eyes and glared up at him. ‘As I said last night, the boy has a heavy hand with a bolt of wood,’ he said. He put up a hand and touched the back of his head. ‘I believe he cracked my skull.’
Josse slipped off Horace’s back. ‘Let me look,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we can assist, or help you to where you can receive treatment.’
De Loup began to laugh. ‘I said you were a fool,’ he observed, ‘and I was right. Do you not recognize an enemy when he stares you in the face?’ Before Josse could reply, he added, ‘Besides, it is too late.’ He took a breath and squared the slumped shoulders. ‘I can no longer feel the left side of my body.’
Josse thought rapidly. He had seen men take a blow to the head, get up and appear to be all right and then some time later, just like de Loup, take sick and die. It was as if the brain refused at first to admit it was fatally damaged.
Ninian had also dismounted. ‘I will take her,’ he announced, advancing on de Loup.
Something was wrong; it was only the swiftest of impressions but it registered in Josse’s mind. Even as he yelled to Ninian, ‘Watch out!’ de Loup uncurled himself, his short, lethal knife an extension of his right hand, and with the full impulsive power of his push off the ground, hurled himself on Ninian.
Terror turning him icy-cold, Josse thought it was all over in that first savage attack, but Ninian fought like a street urchin and by some trick he wriggled free of the stabbing knife, twisting round so that he kept his slim body out of reach. But de Loup, despite his injury, was stronger; soon he had Ninian’s arm up behind his back, the knife to the boy’s throat.
‘Now I finish what I tried to do at World’s End,’ he panted. ‘We needed two victims that night and we only offered up one, and the boy squealed like a girl while we dispatched him. He was not worthy of us or our great ceremony.’
Ninian struggled, his face contorted with rage. ‘You had no right to take his life!’ he cried. ‘You tortured and shamed him, and his last moments on earth were polluted by your foul desires!’
De Loup wrenched up the boy’s captive hands and Ninian bit down a scream of pain. ‘As would yours have been, my pretty lad, but for the interruption! Make no mistake — what you heard us do to the first boy was in store for you too.’
Josse made a move forward but instantly the knifepoint dug into Ninian’s neck. ‘Stay where you are,’ de Loup warned.
Josse watched Ninian. The boy’s eyes were closed and he was moving his lips; oh, God, Josse thought, he is praying — he believes his life is about to end and he prays for forgiveness of his sins! But then the blue eyes shot open and looked straight at Josse. Amazingly, Ninian smiled. Then he went limp.
De Loup, feeling the sudden weight of the body sagging in his arms, was taken off guard and bent with the load. Ninian slipped to the ground, de Loup crouching over him. Then, as de Loup put out both hands to support himself, Ninian shot up and kneeled on the older man’s chest, his hands pinning down the arms.
De Loup stared up at him, his face suddenly impassive. ‘So,’ he sighed, ‘again you evade me.’
His deadly pale face was beaded with sweat and his breath came unevenly. He is dying, Josse thought. Ninian must have seen it too, but he did not relax his hold.
‘You are fortunate in your allies,’ de Loup said with a sigh, ‘for you attract better fighters than I do.’ The white face twisted into a smile. ‘Two against so many, back at my tower on Oleron, but then one of those was rather special.’
Josse was puzzled; the two must have been Piers and Ninian himself, and he had had no idea that Piers had been a great fighter. On the face of it, it seemed unlikely, but then a man did not always display his full prowess until he had to. ‘Piers of Essendon was a surprising man, then,’ he said.
Both Ninian and de Loup turned to stare at him. Ninian looked guilty; de Loup was laughing softly.
‘Shall I tell him or will you?’ he asked Ninian. The boy did not reply, save only to tighten his grip on de Loup’s arms. ‘Very well,’ de Loup said, smiling, ‘I shall.’
He turned his head so that he could meet Josse’s eyes more comfortably. ‘Piers protested the moment we took the first boy and tied him to the altar,’ he said, his voice pleasant and conversational, as if he were speaking about what he had eaten for supper. ‘The Knights of Arcturus are not what they were. As you have seen for yourself, many of us are old and feeble. Nevertheless, restraining Piers was well within our capabilities and we made him witness what we did. We dispatched the first boy and were in the middle of our preparations for the second when we were interrupted.’ He sighed heavily. ‘The intruder burst into the upper chamber and took us by surprise,’ he went on. ‘He released Piers, pushed him on down the stairs and kept us at bay with that great sword of his. That’s the problem with a narrow stair,’ he added, frowning. ‘Such things are built, naturally, for those within to defend themselves, for of course only one attacker at a time can advance. By the same token, however, they also help those who retreat. He kept us there while Piers released his boy and fetched a couple of horses. He wounded three of us and that had the effect of discouraging the others. By the time we got down the stairs, the three of them had escaped.’
‘And they raced across the island to the waiting boat,’ Josse said. He stared at Ninian. ‘It was you — you were the slighter, shorter man, and Piers was the fair one!’ Piers’s hair had been light brown turning to grey; under the moonlight, he would have appeared fair.
That made two, and the third one had been the king.
Everything Josse had so painstakingly worked out suddenly fell apart. ‘I thought… I believed the king was one of the Knights of Arcturus,’ he said. ‘I thought Piers and Ninian escaped, and you — ’ he glared at de Loup — ‘set off in pursuit with the king and another knight.’
De Loup calmly returned the stare. ‘You were wrong.’
He shifted his position slightly and Ninian renewed the pressure of his knees on the older man’s chest. ‘King Richard did not care for our activities in the tower at the end of his mother’s island,’ de Loup said. ‘He was always very fussy about what could and could not be allowed to go on in Aquitaine; Queen Eleanor brought him up in the firm belief that the whole country would be his one day and he acted as if that day had already come.’ A sly smile creased his face. ‘Still, you know what they used to say about him. He might have appreciated the particular nature of our ceremonies on any other night and it was sheer bad luck that- Aaagh!’
Ninian had shifted his right hand from de Loup’s upper arm to his throat and he cut off the flow of words. He does not believe the filthy rumours muttered about the king any more than I do, Josse thought warmly. Good for him, he De Loup’s freed left arm had slid like a snake across the grass and now he had his knife in his hand. He swept it up towards Ninian’s belly and in the same instant Josse threw himself forward, pushing Ninian off de Loup’s chest and landing with his full and considerable weight in the boy’s place. The knife was between him and de Loup; he had time only for a very swift prayer.
De L
oup groaned and coughed. Blood ran out of his mouth and he tried to draw air into his crushed chest. Josse moved off him; the knife lay flat against de Loup’s stomach. Rapidly Josse inspected himself and de Loup, but neither of them had been wounded by the blade.
De Loup was struggling for breath, the white flesh around his mouth turning grey. His eyelids fluttered closed and he mouthed some silent words; with no breath, he could make no sound. After a few agonizing moments, the convulsive movements in his chest slowed and then ceased. Josse leaned down over him. Then, standing up again, he said, ‘He’s dead.’
Ninian found the black statue, carefully wrapped in one of de Loup’s saddlebags. He was in favour of setting out for the coast, and a ship to take them back to England, immediately, but Josse knew they could not be so hasty. There were two more things he must do, and the first of them was right there.
With Ninian’s grudging help, they dug a grave for Philippe de Loup. It was not as deep as Josse would have liked, but the ground was quite soft and they managed to cover the corpse with sufficient depth of earth for it not to attract predators. Josse was troubled by the lack of a priest to speak the necessary words; he mentioned this to Ninian, who said scornfully that de Loup would not have had any time for the priest or his prayers. ‘He walked a very different path, Josse,’ the boy added gravely. ‘He must meet whatever awaits him in the same unorthodox way that he lived his life.’
There was nothing that Josse could think of to reply to that. When they had finished, Ninian stowed the figure in his pack and, leading de Loup’s horse — for they could not leave the animal running loose — they set off back along the Eure. They did not follow the road all the way back to Chartres; as the city’s walls appeared in front of them, the low, early sun making them appear to glow orange, Josse turned off to the north-west so as to avoid the city and they gave it a wide berth. Once they were clear, however, Josse led them back to the well-maintained road beside the river and they followed it as it meandered to and fro, all the time going steadily north.
Late in the evening, they neared the spot where the Eure joined the mighty Seine, looping and winding its way between dramatic limestone cliffs at the end of its long journey to the sea. Somewhere over to the east, Josse knew, was King Richard’s Chateau Gaillard, his beloved ‘saucy castle’, bane of King Philip’s life; the king, bless him, had declared in his usual single-minded way that the place was impregnable and when Philip had suggested the contrary, Richard had shouted colourfully that he would hold his beloved castle on the rock from his lifelong enemy even if its walls were made of butter. What a flamboyant, towering figure the world had lost with the king’s death.
They made camp on an outcrop of rock high above the Eure, hurrying now as it approached the greater river. Ninian tended the three horses, while Josse made a simple shelter and set out stones for a hearth. He lit a fire and prepared a meal; their provisions were low, but with luck they would not have to last much longer. When they had eaten, they rolled in blankets and cloaks and were very soon asleep; it had been a long day, following an even longer night.
Josse woke from a deep sleep and lay quite still, wondering what had disturbed him. To his amazement, he thought he heard a baby crying, but the sound ceased and straight away he decided he must have heard a vixen’s shriek, or a night bird’s cry. Either that or the small sound had been part of a dream. He turned on his side and went back to sleep.
They set out early the next morning. Close to their destination, they stopped at an inn to eat breakfast and do what they could to wash themselves and brush the travel stains off their clothing. Then they rode on and, shortly before midday, came to Rouen.
Queen Eleanor had told Josse she would be in the city by mid-July. He was not entirely sure what the date was, but he thought June had turned into July a few days past. It was very likely that he and Ninian would reach Rouen before her, in which case they could find somewhere comfortable to stay and have a well-deserved rest. On the other hand, it might be later than he thought and she could be there already; it was because of this that he had insisted he and Ninian smarten themselves up.
They ate the midday meal at a busy tavern by the river. Josse listened to the chatter all around him and soon it became clear that a very grand visitor was in residence at the castle where she expected her son, the newly proclaimed King John, to join her at the end of the month.
Josse finished his meal and waited while Ninian wolfed down a second helping. Josse felt strangely calm: he had the answer he had gone searching for and he looked forward to revealing all that he had discovered to Queen Eleanor. He made himself concentrate on that happy prospect to the exclusion of everything else. He did not dare think about Joanna. The time would come when he would have to, he knew it, but he would try to wait until he was back home in England. There he could be sure of the support of people who loved him to help him through his grief.
Ninian had finished at last. Leaving the horses in the inn’s stables, they set off for the castle.
Josse had explained to Ninian why they were in Rouen and what they had to do. The boy had accepted it without comment and Josse had believed he was not particularly anxious at the prospect of telling his story to the queen. If only, Josse mused, he knew… But it was not his secret to tell and firmly he arrested the thought.
Now, however, as they waited in a huge anteroom for the summons to go before the queen, Ninian looked very nervous. He was probably reliving that terrible night in the tower, Josse thought. Such memories would be enough to make anyone look apprehensive.
The servant who had taken Josse’s message to the queen returned and led the way up some wide stone stairs, along a corridor, up some more steps and into a large room sumptuously furnished with beautifully carved chairs, chests and tables, its walls hung with colourful tapestries whose general theme seemed to be the lauding of the Plantagenets and their deeds. Queen Eleanor was seated in a high-backed chair on a low dais. She nodded an acknowledgement to Josse’s low, respectful bow and, dismissing both the servant and the two ladies who had been sitting beside her, beckoned him forward. Ninian remained by the doorway.
Josse kneeled before her, lowered his head and said, ‘My lady, your son the late king was on the Ile d’Oleron that night in March.’ He heard her quick, sharp intake of breath. ‘His purpose, however, was not to participate in what was going on in the tower at World’s End but to stop it.’
There was a long silence. Josse did not dare look up. Presently the queen said, ‘You are quite sure of this?’ Her voice was low and oddly hesitant, as if, having steeled herself for bad news, she could not quite believe that it was not forthcoming.
‘Utterly certain,’ Josse said firmly. ‘The… er, the night’s proceedings were under way and someone was being held there awaiting.. well, waiting to be taken to the upper chamber. King Richard found out what was going on — indeed, what had apparently been going on for some time, for the men who were there that night met often — and he recognized that what they were doing was an outrage that abused your territory and must not be allowed to continue. He broke up the… er, the meeting and rescued the person who had been imprisoned.’
The queen did not speak for a moment. Then she said, ‘Sir Josse, look at me.’
Reluctantly he raised his head and stared into her deep, dark eyes. ‘My lady?’
‘We both know what went on in that tower,’ she said very softly, ‘and I applaud your reserve in not going into details. What you are telling me is that my son prevented the grave misuse and death of a young man?’
‘Aye, he did.’ There was no need to mention the first poor lad, tortured and killed before the king got there.
‘And you have spoken to this man? He has told you himself that my son saved his life?’
Josse risked a smile. ‘Aye, my lady. Better than that, I’ve brought him with me so he can tell you himself. May I present him to you?’
Her eyes were looking over his head towards Ninian, standing unbowed
at the back of the room. ‘This is the man? Sir Josse, he’s little more than a boy!’
‘He is fourteen, madam.’
‘A boy,’ she repeated under her breath. Josse, watching her, saw her expression and wondered if she was only now appreciating the full horror of what they had done at World’s End. Then, with a curt nod, she said, ‘Bring him forward.’
Josse beckoned to Ninian and watched as he walked gracefully up to the dais and bowed before the queen. As he straightened up, the queen stared down into his face and Josse thought he heard her give a tiny gasp. Then, recovering, she said, ‘What is your name?’
‘Ninian de Courtenay, my lady.’
‘And where do you come from? I feel that I recognize the name but I cannot place it.’
‘It is the name of my mother’s kin, madam.’
The queen was still staring at him, a faint frown deepening the creases on her brow. ‘De Courtenay… I believe I once met a Marie de Courtenay, but she would have been too old to be your mother — your grandmother, perhaps.’ She shook her head as if to free it from that thought and, with an obvious effort, smiled at Ninian and said, ‘But we are not here to discuss your grandmother. You have something to tell me, I am told?’
With a shining and very apparent honesty, Ninian told his tale. Josse noticed with interest and approval that the boy too obeyed the same instinct as he had done himself not to risk distressing the queen. Like Josse, he did not speak of the true horror of what had happened that night.
‘And King Richard took you and your master out to his ship?’
‘Yes, my lady.’
Josse went to say something but stopped himself. You did not speak to a queen; you waited until she spoke to you.
She must have sensed he had something to add. ‘Sir Josse?’
‘Madam, it was the man who rowed the king, the boy and his master to the ship who disclosed the secret of the king’s presence on Oleron that night,’ he said. ‘He spoke the truth, my lady.’