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

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Lots of pebbles,’ Robbie said, ‘but none of them gold.’

  ‘You know what to do?’

  Robbie nodded cheerfully. ‘Wait till they’re in chaos,’ he said, ‘then charge.’

  ‘Don’t go early, Robbie.’

  ‘We’ll not go early,’ an Englishman called John Faircloth answered. He was a man-at-arms, much older and more experienced than Robbie, and although Robbie’s birth entitled him to the command of the small force, Robbie knew well enough to take the older man’s advice.

  ‘We’ll not let you down,’ the Scot said happily. His men’s horses were picketed just behind the mound. As soon as the enemy appeared they would run down from the small height and mount up, and when the enemy was scattered and broken by the arrows, Robbie would lead a charge that would curl round their rear and so trap them.

  ‘It might be my cousin coming,’ Thomas said. ‘I don’t know that,’ he added, ‘but it might be.’

  ‘He and I have a quarrel,’ Robbie said, remembering his brother.

  ‘I want him alive, Robbie. He has answers.’

  ‘But when you have your answers,’ Robbie said, ‘I want his throat.’

  ‘Answers first, though,’ Thomas said, then turned as Genevieve called him from the foot of the mound.

  ‘I saw something,’ she said, ‘in the chestnut woods.’

  ‘Don’t look!’ Thomas called to those of Robbie’s men who had overheard her, then, making a great play of stretching his arms and looking bored, he slowly turned and stared across the stream. For a few heartbeats he could see nothing except two peasants carrying bundles of stakes across the ford and he thought, for a second, Genevieve must have meant those men, then he looked beyond the river and saw three horsemen half hidden by a thicket of trees. The three men probably thought they were well concealed, but in Brittany Thomas had learned to spot danger in thick woods. They’re taking a look at us,’ he said to Robbie. ‘Not long now, eh?’ He strung his bow.

  Robbie stared at the horsemen. ‘One’s a priest,’ he said dubiously.

  Thomas stared. ‘Just a black cloak,’ he guessed. The three men had turned and were riding away. They were soon lost to sight in the thicker woods.

  ‘Suppose it’s the Count of Berat?’ Robbie asked.

  ‘Suppose it is?’ Thomas sounded disappointed. He wanted the enemy to be his cousin.

  ‘If we capture him,’ Robbie said, ‘there’ll be a rare ransom.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So would you mind if I stayed until it’s paid?’

  Thomas was disconcerted by the question. He was used to the idea that Robbie was leaving and so ridding his men of the rancour caused by his jealousy. ‘You’d stay with us?’

  ‘To get my share of the ransom,’ Robbie said, bridling. ‘Is there anything wrong with that?’

  ‘No, no.’ Thomas hurried to soothe his friend. ‘You’ll get your share, Robbie.’ He thought maybe he could pay Robbie’s share from his existing stock of cash and so spur the Scotsman on his penitential way, but this was not the time to make the suggestion. ‘Don’t charge too early,’ he warned Robbie again, ‘and God be with you.’

  ‘It’s time we had a good fight,’ Robbie said, his spirits restored. ‘Don’t let your archers kill the rich ones. Leave some for us.’

  Thomas grinned and went back down the mound. He strung Genevieve’s bow, then walked with her to where Sir Guillaume and his men were concealed. ‘Not long now, lads,’ he called, climbing onto the farm wagon to see across the yard’s wall. His archers were concealed in the pear orchard’s hedge beneath him, their bows strung and the first broad-heads resting on their strings.

  He joined them and then waited. And waited. Time stretched, slowed, crawled to a halt. Thomas waited so long that he began to doubt any enemy would come, or worse, he feared the horsemen had smelt out his ambush and were circling far up or down stream to ambush him. His other worry was that the town of Masseube, which was not so very far away, might send men to find out why the villagers had lit their warning pyre.

  Sir Guillaume shared the anxiety. ‘Where the hell are they?’ he asked when Thomas came back to the yard to climb onto the wagon so he could see across the river.

  ‘God knows.’ Thomas gazed into the far chestnuts and saw nothing to alarm him. The leaves had just started to change colour. Two pigs were rooting among the trunks.

  Sir Guillaume was wearing a full-length hauberk, the mail covering him from shoulder to ankle. He had a scarred breastplate that was tied in place with rope, one plate vambrace that he buckled on his right forearm, and a plain sallet for a helmet. The sallet had a wide sloping brim to deflect downward sword blows, but it was a cheap piece of armour with none of the strength of the best helmets. Most of Thomas’s men-at-arms were similarly protected with bits and pieces of armour they had scavenged from old battlefields. None had full plate armour, and all of their mail coats were patched, some with boiled leather. Some carried shields. Sir Guillaume’s was made of willow boards covered with leather on which his coat of arms, the three yellow hawks on a blue field, had faded almost to invisibility. Only one other man-at-arms had a device on his shield, in his case a black axe on a whjte field, but he had no idea whose badge it was. He had taken the shield off a dead enemy in a skirmish near Aiguillon, which was one of the principal English garrisons in Gascony. ‘Has to be an English shield,’ the man reckoned. He was a Burgundian mercenary who had fought against the English, been discharged at the truce after the fall of Calais and was now hugely relieved that the yew bows were on his side. ‘Do you know the badge?’ the man asked.

  ‘Never seen it,’ Thomas said. ‘How did you get the shield?’

  ‘Sword into his spine. Under the backplate. His buckles had got cut and the backplate was flapping around like a broken wing. Christ, but he screamed.’

  Sir Guillaume chuckled. He took half a loaf of dark bread from beneath his breastplate and tore off a chunk, then swore as he bit into it. He spat out a scrap of granite that must have broken off the stone when the grain was milled, felt his broken tooth and swore again. Thomas glanced up to see that the sun lay low in the sky. ‘We’ll be late home,’ he grumbled. ‘It’ll be dark.’

  ‘Find the river and follow it,’ Sir Guillaume said, then flinched with the pain from his tooth. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I hate teeth.’

  ‘Cloves,’ the Burgundian said. Tut cloves in your mouth. Stops the pain.’

  Then the two pigs among the distant chestnuts raised their heads, stood for a heartbeat and lumbered south in ungainly haste. Something had alarmed them and Thomas held up a warning hand as if the voices of his companions might disturb any approaching horsemen, and just at that moment he saw a gleam of reflected sunlight from the trees across the river and he knew it must come from a piece of armour. He jumped down. ‘We’ve got company,’ he said, and ran to join the other archers behind the hedge. ‘Wake up,’ he told them, ‘the little lambs are coming for their slaughter.’

  He took his place behind the hedge and Genevieve stood beside him, an arrow on her string. Thomas doubted she would hit anyone, but he grinned at her. ‘Stay hidden till they reach the field marker,’ he told her, then peered over the hedge.

  And there they were. The enemy, and almost as soon as they appeared Thomas saw that his cousin was not there for the flag, spread now as its carrier trotted from the trees, showed the orange and white leopard badge of Berat instead of the yale of Vexille. ‘Keep your heads down!’ Thomas warned his men as he tried to count the enemy. Twenty? Twenty-five? Not many, and only the first dozen carried lances. The men’s shields, each showing the orange leopard on its white field, confirmed what the banner said, that these were the Count of Berat’s horsemen, but one man, mounted on a huge black horse that was hung with armour, had a yellow shield with a red mailed fist, a device unknown to Thomas, and that man was also in a full harness of plate and had a red and yellow plume flying high on his helm. Thomas counted thirty-one horsemen. This would not b
e a fight, it would be a massacre.

  And suddenly, oddly, it all seemed unreal to him. He had expected to feel excitement and some fear, but instead he watched the horsemen as though they had nothing to do with him. Their charge was ragged, he noted. When they had first come from the trees they had been riding boot to boot, as men should, but they quickly spread out. Their lances were held upright and would not drop to the killing position until the horsemen were close to their enemy. One lance was tipped with a ragged black pennant. The horses’ trappers flapped. The sound was of hooves and the clash of armour as pieces of plate rapped each other. Great clods of earth were slung up behind the hooves; one man’s visor went up and down, up and down as his horse rose and fell. Then the onrush of horsemen narrowed as they all tried to cross the ford at its narrowest point and the first white splashes of water rose as high as the saddles.

  They came out of the ford. Robbie’s men had vanished and the horsemen, thinking that it was now a pursuit of a panicked enemy, touched spurs to destriers and the big horses thumped up the road, stringing out, and then the first of them were at the field marker and Thomas heard a trundling noise as the farm cart was pushed out to block the road.

  He stood and instinctively took a bodkin arrow instead of a broad-head. The man with the yellow and red shield rode a horse that had a great protective skirt of mail sewn onto leather and Thomas knew the broad-heads would never pierce it, and then he drew his arm back, the cord was past his ear and the first arrow flew. It wavered as it left the bow, then the air caught the goose-feather fledging and it sped low and fast to bury itself in the black horse’s chest and Thomas had a second bodkin on the string, drew, loosed, and a third, drew and loosed and he saw the other arrows flying and was astonished, as ever, that the first arrows seemed to do so little damage. No horses were down, none even slowed, but there were feathered shafts jutting from trappers and armour and he pulled again, released, felt the string whip along the bracer on his left forearm, snatched up a new arrow, then saw the first horses go down. He heard the sound of metal and flesh crashing on the ground and he sent another bodkin at the big black horse and this one drove through the mail and leather to bury itself deep and the horse began frothing blood from its mouth and tossing its head, and Thomas sent his next arrow at the rider and saw it thump into the shield to throw the man back against his high cantle.

  Two horses were dying, their bodies forcing the other riders to swerve, and still the arrows came at them. A lance tumbled, skidding along the ground. A dead man, three arrows in his chest, rode a frightened horse that veered across the line of the charge, throwing it into further confusion. Thomas shot again, using a broad-head now to cut down a horse at the rear of the group. One of Genevieve’s arrows flew high. She was grinning, her eyes wide. Sam cursed as his cord broke, then stepped back to find another and string it to his bow. The big black horse had slowed to a walk and Thomas put another bodkin into its flank, burying the arrow just ahead of the rider’s left knee.

  ‘Horses!’ Sir Guillaume called to his men and Thomas knew the Norman reckoned the enemy would never reach his barrier and so had decided to charge them. Where was Robbie? Some of the enemy were turning away, going back to the river and Thomas sped four fast broad-heads at those faint hearts, then loosed a bodkin at the black horse’s rider. The arrow glanced off the man’s breastplate, then his horse stumbled and went down to its knees. A squire, the man holding the flag of Berat, came to help the rider and Thomas slammed a bodkin into the squire’s neck, then two more arrows hit the man who bent backwards over his saddle’s cantle and stayed there, dead with three arrows jutting skywards and his flag fallen.

  Sir Guillaume’s men were hauling themselves into their saddles, drawing swords, taking their places knee to knee, and just then Robbie’s force came from the north. The charge was timed well, hitting the enemy at their most chaotic, and Robbie had the sense to charge close to the river, thus cutting off their retreat. ‘Bows down!’ Thomas called. ‘Bows down!’ He did not want his arrows cutting into Robbie’s men. He laid his bow by the hedge and drew his sword. It was time to overwhelm the enemy with pure savagery.

  Robbie’s men hammered into Berat’s horsemen with terrible force. They rode properly, knee to knee, and the shock of the men-at-arms threw three enemy horses down. Swords chopped hard down, then each of Robbie’s men picked an opponent. Robbie, shouting his war cry, kicked his horse towards Joscelyn.

  ‘Douglas! Douglas!’ Robbie was shouting, and Joscelyn was trying to stay in the saddle of a horse that was dying, that was down on its fore knees, and he heard the cry behind him and swept his sword wildly back, but Robbie met the blow on his shield and kept thrusting so that the shield, with its device of the Douglas red heart, struck a huge blow on Joscelyn’s helm. Joscelyn had not strapped the helm down, knowing that in a tournament it often helped to take the big steel pot off at the end of a fight to see a half-beaten opponent better, so now it turned on his shoulders, the cross-shaped eye slits vanished and he was in darkness. He flailed his sword into empty air, felt his balance going and then his whole world was a huge ringing blow of steel on steel and he could not see, could not hear, as Robbie thumped his helmet again with his sword.

  Berat’s men-at-arms were yielding, throwing down swords and offering gauntlets to their opponents. The archers were among them now, hauling men out of their saddles, and then Sir Guillaume’s horsemen thundered past to pursue the handful of enemy trying to gallop out of trouble through the ford. Sir Guillaume backswung his sword as he overtook a laggard and the blow ripped the man’s helmet clean off his head. The man following Sir Guillaume swept his sword forward and there was a burst of misting blood and the dead man’s head went bouncing into the river as the headless body kept riding.

  ‘I yield, I yield!’ Joscelyn screamed in pure terror. ‘I can be ransomed!’ Those were the words that saved rich men’s lives on battlefields and he shouted them again more urgently. ‘I can be ransomed!’ His right leg was trapped under his horse, he was still blinded by his skewed helmet and all he could hear were thumping hooves, shouts and the screams of wounded men being killed by archers. Then, suddenly, he was dazzled by light as his dented helmet was pulled off and a man stood over him with a sword. ‘I yield,’ Joscelyn said hurriedly, then remembered his rank. ‘Are you noble?’

  ‘I’m a Douglas of the house of Douglas,’ the man said in bad French, ‘and as well born as any in Scotland.’

  ‘Then I yield to you,’ Joscelyn said despairingly, and he could have wept for all his dreams had been broken in one brief passage of arrows, terror and butchery.

  ‘Who are you?’ Robbie asked.

  ‘I am the Lord of Béziers,’ Joscelyn said, ‘and heir to Berat.’

  And Robbie whooped for joy.

  Because he was rich.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  The Count of Berat wondered if he should have ordered three or four of the men-at-arms to stay behind. It was not because he thought he needed protection, but rather it was his due to have an entourage and the departure of Joscelyn, Father Roubert and all the horsemen left him only his squire, one other servant and the serfs who were scrabbling at the earth to clear the mysterious wall which seemed, the Count thought, to be hiding a cave beneath the place where the chapel’s altar had once stood.

  He sneezed again, then felt light-headed so sat on a fallen block of stone.

  ‘Come by the fire, my lord,’ his squire suggested. The squire was the son of a tenant from the northern part of the county and was a stolid, unimaginative seventeen-year-old who had shown no inclination to ride with Joscelyn to glory.

  Tire?’ The Count blinked up at the boy who was called Michel.

  ‘We made a fire, lord,’ Michel said, pointing to the far end of the vault where a small fire had been conjured from the splintered lids of the coffins.

  ‘Fire,’ the Count said, for some reason finding it hard to think straight. He sneezed and gasped for breath afterwards.
/>   ‘It’s a cold day, lord,’ the boy explained, ‘and the fire will make you feel better.’

  ‘A fire,’ the Count said, confused, then he discovered an unexpected reserve of energy. ‘Of course! A fire! Well done, Michel. Make a torch and bring it.’

  Michel went to the fire and found a long piece of elmwood that was burning at one end and gingerly extracted it from the flames. He took it to the wall where the Count was feverishly pushing the serfs aside. At the very top of the wall, which was made from dressed stones, there was a small gap, no bigger than a sparrow would need, and the hole, through which the Count had peered excitedly but uselessly, seemed to lead into a cavern behind. The Count turned as Michel brought the torch. ‘Give it here, give it here,’ he said impatiently, then snatched the burning wood and fanned it to and fro to make it flare up. When the elm was burning fiercely, he thrust it into the hole and, to his delight, the wood slipped right through, confirming that there was a space behind; he pushed it inside until it dropped and then he stooped and put his right eye to the gap and stared.

  The flames were already becoming feeble in the cavern’s stale air, but they threw just enough light to reveal what lay beyond the wall. The Count stared and drew in a breath. ‘Michel!’ he said. ‘Michel! I can see . . .’ Just then the flame guttered out.

  And the Count collapsed.

  He slid down the ramp of earth, his face white and mouth open, and for a moment Michel thought his master had died, but then the Count gave a sigh. But he stayed unconscious. The serfs gaped at the squire who stared at the Count, then Michel gathered his few wits and ordered the men to carry the Count out of the vault. That was hard, for they had to manoeuvre his weight up the ladder, but once it was done a handcart was fetched from the village and they pushed the Count north to Saint Sever’s monastery. The journey took almost an hour and the Count groaned once or twice and seemed to shiver, but he was still alive when the monks carried him into the infirmary where they placed him in a small whitewashed room equipped with a hearth in which a big fire was lit.