The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic

by Bernard Cornwell

  'A man came from the south,' de Taillebourg said to Collimore again, 'and the crest on his shield was a yale holding a cup.'

  'A Vexille,' Collimore said.

  'A Vexille,' de Taillebourg said, 'who knew your name. Now why, brother, would a heretic from the southern lands know the name of an English monk in Durham?'

  Brother Collimore sighed. 'They all knew,' he said tiredly, 'the whole family knew. They knew because Ralph Vexille was sent to me. The bishop thought I could cure him of madness, but his family feared he would tell me secrets instead. They wanted him dead, but we locked him away in a cell where no one but I could reach him.'

  'And what secrets did he tell you?' de Taillebourg asked.

  'Madness,' Brother Collimore said, 'just madness.' The servant stood in the doorway and watched him.

  'Tell me of the madness,' the Dominican ordered.

  'The mad speak of a thousand things,' Brother Collimore said, 'they speak of spirits and phantoms, of snow in summer and darkness in the daylight.'

  'But Father Ralph spoke to you of the Grail,' de Taillebourg said flatly.

  'He spoke of the Grail,' Brother Collimore confirmed.

  The Dominican let out a sigh of relief. 'What did he tell you of the Grail?'

  Hugh Collimore said nothing for a while. His chest rose and fell so feebly that the motion was scarcely visible, then he shook his head. 'He told me that his family had owned the Grail and that he had stolen and hidden it! But he spoke of a hundred such things. A hundred such things.'

  'Where would he have hidden it?' de Taillebourg enquired.

  'He was mad. Mad. It was my job, you know, to look after the mad? We starved or beat them to drive the devils out, but it did not always work. In winter we would plunge them into the river, through the ice, and that worked. Devils hate the cold. It worked with Ralph Vexille, or mostly it worked. We released him after a while. The demons were gone, you see.'

  'Where did he hide the Grail?' De Taillebourg's voice was harder and louder.

  Brother Collimore stared at the flicker of reflected water light on the ceiling. 'He was mad,' he whispered, 'but he was harmless. Harmless. And when he left here he was sent to a parish in the south. In the far south.'

  'At Hookton in Dorset?'

  'At Hookton in Dorset,' Brother Collimore agreed, 'where he had a son. He was a great sinner, you see, even though he was a priest. He had a son.'

  Father de Taillebourg stared at the monk who had, at last, given him some news. A son? 'What do you know of the son?'

  'Nothing.' Brother Collimore sounded surprised that he should be asked.

  'And what do you know of the Grail?' de Taillebourg probed.

  'I know that Ralph Vexille was mad,' Collimore said in a whisper.

  De Taillebourg sat on the hard bed. 'How mad?'

  Collimore's voice became even softer. 'He said that even if you found the Grail then you would not know it, not unless you were worthy.' He paused and a look of puzzlement, almost amazement, showed briefly on his face. 'You had to be worthy, he said, to know what the Grail was, but if you were worthy then it would shine like the very sun. It would dazzle you.'

  De Taillebourg leaned close to the monk. 'You believed him?'

  'I believe Ralph Vexille was mad,' Brother Collimore said.

  'The mad sometimes speak truth,' de Taillebourg said.

  'I think,' Brother Collimore went on as though the Inquisitor had not spoken, 'that God gave Ralph Vexille a burden too great for him to bear.'

  'The Grail?' de Taillebourg asked.

  'Could you bear it? I could not.'

  'So where is it?' de Taillebourg persisted. 'Where is it?'

  Brother Collimore looked puzzled again. 'How would I know?'

  'It was not at Hookton,' de Taillebourg said, 'Guy Vexille searched for it.'

  'Guy Vexille?' Brother Collimore asked.

  'The man who came from the south, brother, to fight for France and ended in my custody.'

  'Poor man,' the monk said.

  Father de Taillebourg shook his head. 'I merely showed him the rack, let him feel the pincers and smell the smoke. Then I offered him life and he told me all he knew and he told me the Grail was not at Hookton.'

  The old monk's face twitched in a smile. 'You did not hear me, father. If a man is unworthy then the Grail would not reveal itself. Guy Vexille could not have been worthy.'

  'But Father Ralph did possess it?' De Taillebourg sought reassurance. 'You think he really possessed it?' 'I did not say as much,' the monk said.

  'But you believe he did?' de Taillebourg asked and, when Brother Collimore said nothing, he nodded to himself. 'You do believe he did.' He slipped off the bed, going to his knees and a look of awe came to his face as his linked hands clawed at each other. 'The Grail,' he said in a tone of utter wonder.

  'He was mad,' Brother Collimore warned him.

  De Taillebourg was not listening. 'The grail,' he said again, 'le Graal!' He was clutching himself now, rocking back and forth in ecstasy. 'Le Graal!'

  'The mad say things,' Brother Collimore said, 'and they do not know what they say.'

  'Or God speaks through them,' de Taillebourg said fiercely.

  'Then God sometimes has a terrible tongue,' the old monk replied.

  'You must tell me,' de Taillebourg insisted, 'all that Father Ralph told you.'

  'But it was so long ago!'

  'It is le Graal !' de Taillebourg shouted and, in his frustration, he shook the old man. 'It is le Graal ! Don't tell me you have forgotten.' He glanced through the window and saw, raised on the far ridge, the red saltire on the yellow banner of the Scottish King and beneath it a mass of grey-mailed men with their thicket of lances, pikes and spears. No English foe was in sight, but de Taillebourg would not have cared if all the armies of Christendom were come to Durham for he had found his vision, it was the Grail, and though the world should tremble with armies all about him, he would pursue it.

  And an old monk talked.

  The horseman with the rusted mail, broken-strapped breastplate and scallop-decorated shield named himself as Lord Outhwaite of Witcar. 'Do you know the place?' he asked Thomas.

  'Witcar, my lord? I've not heard of it.'

  'Not heard of Witcar! Dear me. And it's such a pleas-ant place, very pleasant. Good soil, sweet water, fine hunting. Ah, there you are!' This last was to a small boy mounted on a large horse and leading a second destrier by the reins. The boy wore a jupon that had the scalloped cross emblazoned in yellow and red and, tugging the warhorse behind him, he spurred towards his master.

  'Sorry, my lord,' the boy said, 'but Hereward do haul away, he do.' Hereward was evidently the destrier he led. 'And he hauled me clean away from you!'

  'Give him to this young man here,' Lord Outhwaite said. 'You can ride?' he added earnestly to Thomas.

  'Yes, my lord.'

  'Hereward is a handful though, a rare handful. Kick him hard to let him know who's master.'

  A score of men appeared in Lord Outhwaite's livery, all mounted and all with armour in better repair than their master's. Lord Outhwaite turned them back south. 'We were marching on Durham,' he told Thomas, 'just minding our own affairs as good Christians should, and the wretched Scots appeared! We won't make Durham now. I was married there, you know? In the cathedral. Thirty-two years ago, can you credit it?' He beamed happily at Thomas. 'And my dear Margaret still lives, God be praised. She'd like to hear your tale. You really were at Wadicourt?'

  'I was, my lord.'

  'Fortunate you, fortunate you!' Lord Outhwaite said, then hailed yet more of his men to turn them about before they blundered into the Scots. Thomas was rapidly coming to realize that Lord Outhwaite, despite his ragged mail and dishevelled appearance, was a great lord, one of the magnates of the north country, and his lordship confirmed this opinion by grumbling that he had been forbidden by the King to fight in France because he and his men might be needed to fend off an invasion by the Scots. 'And he was quite right!' Lord
Outhwaite sounded surprised. 'The wretches have come south! Did I tell you my eldest boy was in Picardy? That's why I'm wearing this.' He plucked at a rent in the old mail coat. 'I gave him the best armour we had because I thought we wouldn't need it here! Young David of Scotland always seemed peaceable enough to me, but now England's overrun by his fellows. Is it true that the slaughter at Wadicourt was vast?'

  'It was a field of dead, my lord.'

  'Theirs, not ours, God and His saints be thanked.' His lordship looked across at some archers straggling southwards. 'Don't dawdle!' he called in English. 'The Scots will be looking for you soon enough.' He looked back to Thomas and grinned. 'So what would you have done if I hadn't come along?' he asked, still using English. 'Cut the Scarecrow's throat?'

  'If I had to.'

  'And had your own slit by his men,' Lord Outhwaite observed cheerfully. 'He's a poisonous tosspot. God only knows why his mother didn't drown him at birth, but then she was a goddamned turd-hearted witch if ever there was one.' Like many lords who had grown up speaking French, Lord Outhwaite had learned his English from his parents' servants and so spoke it coarsely. 'He deserves a slit throat, the Scarecrow does, but he's a bad enemy to have. He holds a grudge better than any man alive, but he has so many grudges that maybe he don't have room for one more. He hates Sir William Douglas most of all.'

  'Why?'

  'Because Willie had him prisoner. Mind you, Willie Douglas has held most of us prisoner at one time or another and one or two of us have even held him in return, but the ransom near killed Sir Geoffrey. He's down to his last score of retainers and I'd be surprised if he's got more than three halfpennies in a pot. The Scarecrow's a poor man, very poor, but he's proud, and that makes him a bad enemy to have.' Lord Outhwaite paused to raise a genial hand to a group of archers wearing his livery. 'Wonderful fellows, wonderful. So tell me about the battle at Wadicourt. Is it true that the French rode down their own archers?'

  'They did, my lord. Genoese crossbowmen.' 'So tell me all that happened.'

  Lord Outhwaite had received a letter from his eldest son that told of the battle in Picardy, but he was desperate to hear of the fight from someone who had stood on that long green slope between the villages of Wadicourt and Crecy, and Thomas now told how the enemy had attacked late in the afternoon and how the arrows had flown down the hill to cut the King of France's great army into heaps of screaming men and horses, and how some of the enemy had still come through the line of newly dug pits and past the arrows to hack at the English men-at-arms, and how, by the battle's end, there were no arrows left, just archers with bleeding fingers and a long hill of dying men and animals. The very sky had seemed rinsed with blood.

  The telling of the tale took Thomas down off the ridge and out of sight of Durham. Eleanor and Father Hobbe walked behind, leading the mare and sometimes interjecting with their own comments, while a score of Lord Outhwaite's retainers rode on either side to listen to the battle's tale. Thomas told it well and it ryas plain Lord Outhwaite liked him; Thomas of Hookton had always possessed a charm that had protected and recommended him, even though it sometimes made men like Sir Geoffrey Carr jealous. Sir Geoffrey had ridden ahead and, when Thomas reached the water meadows where the English force gathered, the knight pointed at him as if he were launching a curse and Thomas countered by making the sign of the cross. Sir Geoffrey spat.

  Lord Outhwaite scowled at the Scarecrow. 'I have not forgotten the letter your priest showed me' — he spoke to Thomas in French now — 'but I trust you will not leave us to deliver it to Durham yourself? Not while we have enemies to fight?'

  'Can I stand with your lordship's archers?' Thomas asked.

  Eleanor hissed her disapproval, but both men ignored her. Lord Outhwaite nodded his acceptance of Thomas's offer, then gestured that the younger man should climb down from the horse. 'One thing does puzzle me, though,' he went on, and that is why our lord the King should entrust such an errand to one so young.'

  'And so base born?' Thomas asked with a smile, knowing that was the real question Lord Outhwaite had been too fastidious to ask.

  His lordship laughed to be found out. You speak French, young man, but carry a bow. What are you? Base or well born?'

  'Well enough, my lord, but out of wedlock.' 'Ah!'

  'And the answer to your question, my lord, is that our lord the King sent me with one of his chaplains and a household knight, but both caught a sickness in London and that is where they remain. I came on with my companions.'

  'Because you were eager to speak with this old monk?'

  'If he lives, yes, because he can tell me about my father's family. My family.'

  'And he can tell you about this treasure, this thesaurus. You know of it?'

  'I know something of it, my lord,' Thomas said cautiously.

  'Which is why the King sent you, eh?' Lord Outhwaite queried, but did not give Thomas time to answer the question. He gathered his reins. 'Fight with my archers, young man, but take care to stay alive, eh? I would like to know more of your thesaurus. Is the treasure really as great as the letter says?'

  Thomas turned away from the ragged-haired Lord Outhwaite and stared up the ridge where there was nothing to be seen now except the bright-leaved trees and a thinning plume of smoke from the burned-out hovels. 'If it exists, my lord' – he spoke in French – 'then it is the kind of treasure that is guarded by angels and sought by demons.'

  'And you seek it?' Lord Outhwaite asked with a smile.

  Thomas returned the smile. 'I merely seek the Prior of Durham, my lord, to give him the bishop's letter.'

  'You want Prior Fossor, eh?' Lord Outhwaite nodded towards a group of monks. 'That's him over there. The one in the saddle.' He had indicated a tall, white-haired monk who was astride a grey mare and surrounded by a score of other monks, all on foot, one of whom carried a strange banner that was nothing but a white scrap of cloth hanging from a painted pole. 'Talk to him,' Lord Outhwaite said, 'then seek my flag. God be with you!' He said the last four words in English.

  'And with your lordship,' Thomas and Father Hobbe answered together.

  Thomas walked towards the Prior, threading his way through archers who clustered about three wagons to receive spare sheaves of arrows. The small English army had been marching towards Durham on two separate roads and now the men straggled across fields to come together in case the Scots descended from the high ground. Men-at-arms hauled mail coats over their heads and the richer among them buckled on whatever pieces of plate armour they owned. The army's leaders must have had a swift conference for the first standards were being carried northwards, showing that the English wanted to confront the Scots on the higher ground of the ridge rather than be attacked in the water meadows or try to reach Durham by a circuitous route. Thomas had become accustomed to the English banners in Brittany, Normandy and Picardy, but these flags were all strange to him: a silver crescent, a brown cow, a blue lion, the Scarecrow's black axe, a red boar's head, Lord Outhwaite's scallop-emblazoned cross and, gaudiest of all, a great scarlet flag showing a pair of crossed keys thickly embroidered in gold and silver threads. The prior's flag looked shabby and cheap compared to all those other banners for it was nothing but a small square of frayed cloth beneath which the prior was working himself into a frenzy. 'Go and do God's work,' he shouted at some nearby archers, 'for the Scots are animals! Animals! Cut them down! Kill them all! God will reward each death! Go and smite them! Kill them!' He saw Thomas approaching. 'You want a blessing, my son? Then God give strength to your how and add bite to your arrows! May your arm never tire and your eye never dim. God and the saints bless you while you kill!'

  Thomas crossed himself then held out the letter. 'I came to give you this, sir,' he said.

  The prior seemed astonished that an archer should address him so familiarly, let alone have a letter for him and at first he did not take the parchment, but one of his monks snatched it from Thomas and, seeing the broken seal, raised his eyebrows. 'My lord the bishop writes to you
,' he said.

  'They are animals!' the prior repeated, still caught up in his peroration, then he realized what the monk had said. 'My lord bishop writes?'

  'To you, brother,' the monk said.

  The prior seized the painted pole and dragged the makeshift banner down so it hung near to Thomas's face. 'You may kiss it,' he said grandly.

  'Kiss it?' Thomas was quite taken aback. The ragged cloth, now it was close by his nose, smelt musty.

  'It is St Cuthbert's corporax cloth,' the prior said excitedly, 'taken from his tomb, my son! The blessed St Cuthbert will fight for us! The very angels of heaven will follow him into the battle.'

  Thomas, faced with the saint's relic, went to his knees and drew the cloth to his lips. It was linen, he thought, and now he could see it was embroidered about its edge with an intricate pattern in faded blue thread. In the centre of the cloth, which was used during Mass to hold the wafers, was an elaborate cross, embroidered in silver threads that scarcely showed against the frayed white linen. 'It is really St Cuthbert's cloth?' he asked.

  'His alone!' the prior exclaimed. 'We opened his tomb in the cathedral this very morning, and we prayed to him and he will fight for us today!' The prior jerked the flag up and waved it towards some men-at-arms who spurred their horses northwards. 'Perform God's work! Kill them all! Dung the fields with their noxious flesh, water it with their treacherous blood!'

  'The bishop wants this young man to speak with Brother Hugh Collimore,' the monk who had read the letter now told the prior, 'and the King wishes it too. His lordship says there is a treasure to be found.'

  'The King wishes it?' the prior looked in astonishment at Thomas. 'The King wishes it?' he asked again and then he came to his senses and realized there was great advantage in royal patronage and so he snatched the letter and read it himself, only to find even more advantage than he had anticipated. 'You come in search of a great thesaurus?' he asked Thomas suspiciously.