"I drink a little each day now, to accustom my body to it. A full dose all at once would be deadly." Guillaume peered at it. "Were you to drink it all at once and then be frozen, you'd not die until thawed out centuries later."
"Yes, but why do such a thing?"
"Why indeed . . . but now to your Frigidarium. Suppose that peasants found it, peasants who could not read the revival instructions. They might think you a corpse, and carry your body away for burial in consecrated soil in some warm valley. Your flesh would thaw, the worms would eat you."
Vitellan held up a small lead tube that hung from his neck on a leather thong. "Nobody will find me. Tom hid the Frigidarium well, and the only map of its location is in here. His men were blindfolded when they were taken to dig it, and now Tom himself is dead. In a day or two I shall break the seal, study the map, then give it to the countess before setting off alone to sleep in the ice again."
Guillaume nodded as if satisfied, then reached into his tunic and withdrew something that he showed only to Vitellan and asked, "What might this be?"
"It looks to be a favor, such as a lady might give a knight who is about to fight in a tourney or battle." Guillaume stood up, then slowly walked around to the front of the table, the side where the food was served from. He stood with his back to the fire.
"I am Jacque Bonhomme, King of the Jacquerie!" he announced. He took a pace back in anticipation of their reaction, but was disappointed. Vitellan's expression did not change, the militia captain and innkeeper looked up to the rafters, and the local priest suddenly took a strong interest in a stain on the tablecloth. Raymond turned to the countess, who gave a slight sneer and folded her arms, as if Guillaume had done something as ill mannered as farting.
"After the burning of Meaux my husband made at least thirty villeins confess to being Jacque Bonhomme under torture," she said coldly. "Many others have admitted to the name to gain notoriety, and all were more convincing than you."
Guillaume gloated for a moment, then smiling broadly he held up a gold bracelet tied with a braid of brunette hair and I*t7
tossed it among the bones of the piglet on the pewter dish. The countess shrieked as she recognized both hair and bauble, then jammed her fist into her mouth.
"My sister, what is it?" asked Raymond.
She lowered her hand. Blood streamed from the knuckles. "He has Lucretia."
Raymond snatched up his eating dagger even as the countess seized him, and they fell struggling across the table. The trestles collapsed, bringing it crashing down. The knight was restrained with some difficulty by his own men.
"Very wise of the countess," said Guillaume. "My death would mean her daughter's death."
"What do you want?" she asked, her voice contorted by a conflict between fear and contempt.
"Nothing that you can give me, great lady," he replied, while staring straight at Vitellan. Slowly and deliberately, as if he were picking up the gauntlet of challenge, Vitellan bent over and lifted the braid and bangle from the scattered bones on the floor.
"You have the child and you are dangerous," he said bluntly, "but that does not make you Jacque Bonhomme. How did you abduct her?"
"The good countess sent for a great scholar to instruct her daughter in religion, arts, and the philosophies. A benign and pious man. I met him on the road, spoke with him at length, then sent him to paradise and continued to her castle in his place. When I arrived the countess had departed for the Alps with you, and the count was away helping the Dauphin defend Paris, or so I was told. The servants readily accepted and trusted me, as I was obviously a great scholar—"
"Who are you?" screamed the countess.
"Why, His Royal Majesty Jacque Bonhomme, none other."
"The real King of the Jacques was Guillaume Cale," said Raymond. "Charles of Navarre captured him at Clermont—"
"By unchivalrous treachery!" snarled the priest. "He was put in chains, crowned King of the Jacques with a circlet of red-hot iron, then beheaded." Guillaume paused, gasping
for breath as he fought down emotion. "But / was the original Jacque Bonhomme. I was a priest, and a teacher of great repute. A wealthy knight employed me to instruct his children, but after a few months the eldest girl was got with child. The little vixen named me as the father, and it was her word against mine. Noble against cleric! Of course the judgment went against me, but as a sop to my obvious innocence it was arranged that I should escape and flee.
"Ruined, bitter, and a fugitive, I took refuge in the nearby village of St. Leu. I noticed that there was discontent among the villeins, their lot had never been easy. Their work supported everyone, yet they got nothing but crumbs and abuse for their toil. Brigands and the Free Companies stole their livestock, their seed grain, even their cooking pots—and finally the Dauphin sent his nobles to seize supplies for the blockade of Paris.
"That was too much. The nobles had let King John be captured through their cowardice at Poitiers, and now they were fighting among themselves instead of defending then-people against the English and brigands. What of their noblesse
oblige? The nobles felt no obligation to their villeins.
"One day after vespers there was a gathering of angry men in the cemetery. They'd been recently set upon and robbed. A few speakers got up and ranted incoherently against the nobles, then it was my turn. I am a trained orator and well educated, I put ideas behind their resentment, I rallied them. I stood on the earth of a freshly dug grave and shouted that the nobles of France had betrayed the realm, that they were a disgrace and that they should all be killed. I got the men shouting and cheering, they waved pitchforks, pikes, knives, and scythes and called for blood. More and more came over to see what was the fuss. I had, oh, six hundred men hanging on my every word.
"I pointed to the house of a knight who lived not far from town and told the crowd to burn and kill all gentry. They did just that. We killed the knight and his family and burned their place to a shell. More flocked to us, and as the numbers grew, so did my courage. I led my army to the castle of my former student's father. His guards fled at our approach, and we took the place with not much trouble. We tied him to
a post and made him watch while his highborn daughters and wife were stripped and held down on the good soil of Beauvais. This time I did sample the charms of my dainty little student, aye, and with all of my loyal villeins cheering. As many villeins as felt inclined then bestrode the women of that family while the knight looked on and screamed himself hoarse. Then we cut their throats. As the castle burned I was proclaimed King of the Jacques, and we went on to burn, loot, kill, aye, and plough the furrow of many a lady of high birth."
The countess turned away, unable to face Guillaume any longer, but she caught sight of the braid and bangle in Vitellan's hand. Her daughter was being held by the very men who had done those atrocities, and for all her rank and authority she was powerless. Black specks gathered and swarmed before her eyes as she fainted. Lew, Guy, and Raymond carried her to a bench against the wall.
"So she doesn't like my story," sneered Guillaume. "Well, what about one by another Guillaume, Guillaume de Ju-mieges, for example? He wrote of a peasant uprising in Normandy two hundred years ago. Not a violent battle, just honest men throwing off harsh laws. They elected deputies to speak with their duke, but he sent soldiers to scatter them and seize the deputies. He had their hands and feet chopped off and returned them to their villages as a lesson in obedience. Well? Was that any better? I could tell dozens more such tales from the years before and since." The countess remained insensible. The others said nothing.
"My Jacques were unstoppable. We burned five dozen castles and great houses, we could have gone on to seize the whole of France. Oh, the nobles came in force against us, yet they had no nerve and more villeins flocked to our ranks than they could kill. We began to recruit men with military training, Guillaume Cale and even Etienne Marcel. We had a hundred thousand men . . ." His voice trailed off, and he lowered his gaze to the straw at his f
eet.
"Yet the invincible Jacquerie were crushed at Meaux," Vitellan concluded for him.
"Silence!" bellowed Guillaume, looking up and clench-
ing his fists. Silence followed. He looked about the room, took a deep breath, then stared coldly at Vitellan. "Mind your tongue, historian of the future. Lucretia's life hangs by my fingertips."
"If you try to leave in a mind to kill her, you will not leave here alive." Vitellan's voice was equally cold and emphatic.
"If the moon touches the peaks before I return she will die in any case. Jean, my deputy, has clear instructions."
"So, we had better ensure that you leave in a good humor. What do you want with me?"
"Meaux, Meaux," he muttered. "You want to know why I need your help, Roman? It's because God's judgment was against me at Meaux. There was a miracle. We had the Dauphin's wife, sister, daughter, and three hundred other noble ladies penned up in the Market of Meaux. The mayor, the magistrates, the citizens all came over to us and opened the town. My Jacques were all ready to do a stout job of ploughing those noblewomen, and they were defended by scarcely ten dozen fighting men. Then ... it was a miracle, there's no other accounting for it. Twenty-five knights and a mere hundred men-at-arms against nine thousand Jacques, odds of seventy-five to one. They cut down our vanguard on the bridge between the Market and the city, then began to advance. Suddenly men-at-arms who had been cowering in their houses saw what was happening and came rushing down to rally behind them. It was God's judgment, and it was against me."
He looked around the room, almost as if expecting sympathy.
"Hellfire cannot come too quickly for you," said the reviving countess as Raymond helped her to sit up.
"For what? Killing knights, nobles, and their whores? Nobles should protect their villeins, yet you treated us as cattle, then abandoned us to the English Free Companies. Villeins who dared to even whimper were killed or mutilated, their goods pillaged, their wives bent over the nearest wall and bulled, and their daughters carried off to be harlots. Where was your justice for my people?"
"Your people?" shouted the countess. "You are a priest
and a scholar. The villeins are not your people, you should minister to them but not become one of them. We are your people!"
"Oh ho, so now you want me back? Father Guillaume, Father Guillaume, please come back, it was all a mistake."
"Is Lucretia unharmed?" asked Vitellan, breaking a long, delicately balanced silence.
"Would I damage the walls that keep me safe? Of course she's unharmed. She's been forced to eat good peasant bread and walk the road on her own two feet. She has wind and blisters, nothing more."
"What do you want in exchange for her?"
"The means to escape unpardonable sin and hellfire," Guillaume replied smoothly.
"There is no unpardonable sin," exclaimed the Marlenk priest, trying to sound magnanimous and reassuring. "Let me confess you, give back the girl, then go your way."
"Fool! God performed a miracle to stop me, He sided with the nobles of France. I hate Him for that!" His voice had risen to a scream, but he caught himself. He stood facing them, panting and shivering. "I despise divine justice, but I fear hellfire. I could confess my sins, yet I'm not sorry for them so they cannot be forgiven. Centurion Vitellan, your noble French patrons forced me into sin, so you must help me escape. I want your Frigidarium."
"You—want my Frigidarium? How could that help you?"
Although he was desperate, Guillaume's one means of escape clearly terrified him. His nostrils flared, his eyes protruded like those of a terrified ox before the butcher's stall. At last he took a deep breath and began to explain.
"Were I a pagan Greek, I might have planned to steal Charon's boat and drop the anchor midstream in the River Styx, suspending myself between life and death to escape punishment in the afterlife. Because I am a Christian I don't believe in Charon, yet I have still devised a way to suspend myself between life and death. I'll freeze myself undead in your ice chamber, with nobody knowing my location and nobody to revive me. The Day of Judgment will pass, and my immortal soul will be suspended in ice for eternity. Your Frigidarium will let me cheat God Himself." The Marlenk priest was appalled. "Blasphemy, heresy!" he cried. "God can see everything, he'll melt the ice. His justice—"
"But God is lazy, and cares nothing for justice. He watches over nobles and ignores ciphers like me until our allotted time is done. He'll not bother to melt all the ice of the Berner Alpen to catch me."
"The elixir will ravage your stomach unless you accus-tomize yourself to it for months," warned Vitellan. "To drink a full dose means death within days, at most."
"What do 1 care for a stomach? I'll burn holes in it with your elixir, then freeze myself before death can claim me."
"And your Jacques? Surely they cannot all wish to be frozen for eternity?"
"They think that I'm here to steal an elixir of invisibility from you. I'll take them to the Frigidarium, and when they drink your elixir we'll all be saved from eternal punishment together. My Jacques will never know what a favor I did them."
Vitellan took out*the bottle and stared at it. "I do not know the method of making the elixir. What remains in this bottle is the last that I have."
"Then your choice is more difficult. Those Jacques across the ravine have ravished more noblewomen and their daughters than anyone in all the world, Centurion Vitellan. Choose between your Frigidarium and the girl. A scrap of parchment and a bottle of poison for her virginity and life."
"Ho there Jean, he's back," called the lookout as the figure of the priest appeared in the moonlight. The Jacques were edgy, and none of them were asleep. They tumbled out of their tents and stood waiting. There were ten of them, the elite of the Jacques, all surly, confident villeins. Some were armed with axes and two had swords. The rest had bound spear-blades to their pilgrim staffs. Lucretia was hobbled, and tethered to one of the Jacques by a length of rope. She began to whimper as she was hauled after him.
"He's walkin' as brisk as always, so they can't have tortured him," Jean observed as the priest reached the bridge.
"Lord Bonhomme, did ye get the elixir to make men invisible?" called the lookout. The priest held up slim phials in bpth hands, then reached down hurriedly as the bridge swayed under him.
"Fool!" shouted Jean as he backhanded the lookout across the face. "He nearly dropped 'em. Shut up and stand back until he's safely over. All of ye!"
The moment that he stepped off the bridge they crowded anxiously around him—but the phials in his hands suddenly became daggers as Vitellan reversed them and plunged one into Jean's throat, then backhanded the other into the lookout's eye. A man holding a spear lunged forward, but the blade only scraped hidden chainmail before Vitellan dropped one dagger to seize the shaft and pull him down onto the other. A sword thudded heavily onto the mail on his back, sending him reeling, yet he lunged forward at the Jacque who was tethered to Lucretia, feinting an overhand blow with the shaft of the spear before stabbing him in the abdomen with his dagger. He ripped upward as the man gave a wheezing shriek, then dropped the dagger and faced the others with the spear.
Now luck came to the Roman's aid. One of the six remaining Jacques backed off too far. He lost his footing and tumbled into the gorge with a piercing, echoing scream. At this the others broke and fled. One ran across the bridge, only to be seized and hurled into the gorge by the sentries. Where the road followed a narrowing of the ravine the rest were cut down by a shower of arrows that lashed across the gap from the hidden Marlenk militia.
Vitellan cut the girl free. She did not move, except to stare from one body to another as if unable to comprehend that her long nightmare could have been ended so quickly.
"Are you the Roman soldier?" she asked in Latin.
Vitellan pushed back the hood and moonlight gleamed on his face.
"Yes, I am Vitellan. And are you Lucretia under all that grime?"
She threw her arms around his neck
by way of reply, and did not let go until he had carried her across the bridge to the countess.
Jacque Bonhomme had betrayed everyone. After Vitellan surrendered the sealed map and elixir to him he had cut the lead tube open and studied Tom Greenhelm's directions. Then he left, telling them to stay where they were, and that the girl would be sent across the bridge before it was destroyed to cover their retreat. They waited, but Lucretia did not come. Lew crept out to check with the sentries at the bridge. They reported that nobody had crossed since sunset, and in the moonlight Lew found fresh footprints in the snow leading off into the highlands behind Marlenk. The moon was nearing the mountain peaks as Vitellan put on his mailshirt and borrowed robes from the Marlenk priest. The Jacques would be expecting a priest to return across the bridge, and after that the odds would be merely ten to one. That was still more than seven times better than the odds when he had faced the Jacquerie at Meaux beside the Count de Foix and the Captal de Buch . . . and the Roman army had trained its officers exceptionally well. Raymond and his squire helped Vitellan out of his chain-mail.
"God be praised that the girl is safe," said the knight. "Yet what a pity that the monster Jacque Bonhomme escaped all punishment by using your Frigidarium."
"He has not escaped God's justice," Vitellan assured him. "Tom Greenhelm worked out an infallible means for my revival in the final Frigidarium that he dug. His men hollowed out a great boulder, lowered it into a deep crevasse in a glacier, then dug the boulder into the wall of the crevasse. Glaciers flow slowly to the lowlands, then melt. The boulder with Jacque Bonhomme inside will be carried down until one day, centuries from now, it is freed of the ice in some warm valley. If the gold coins that were dug into the ice around it do not attract people to revive him, then he will die and rot as the boulder warms. If he is revived, the elixir's hurt to his stomach will kill him anyway. Whatever the path, he will be judged by God. Whether hellfire follows is not for me to say."
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