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

by Bernard Cornwell

  The horsemen had gone from the valley. It took Thomas most of the morning to satisfy himself of that, but eventually he saw a pig-herder bringing his animals towards the woods and, shortly after that, the road leading south beside the stream was suddenly busy with folk who looked like fugitives for they were carrying huge loads and pushing handcarts piled with goods. He guessed the horsemen had got bored waiting for him and had attacked a nearby town or village instead, but the sight of the people reassured him that no soldiers were close and so they went on westwards.

  The next day, as they took a high southern route that kept them away from the valleys and roads, he heard the gun in the distance. At first he thought it was a strange kind of thunder, an abrupt clap with no fading rumble, but there were no dark clouds in the west, and then it sounded again, and at midday a third time and he realized it was a cannon. He had seen cannons before, but they were uncommon, and he feared what the strange device might do to his friends in the castle. If they were still his friends.

  He hurried, tending north now towards Castillon d’Arbizon, but forced to take care each time he came to an open valley or a place where horsemen might lie in ambush. He shot a roe deer that evening and they each had a morsel of the uncooked liver for they dared not light a fire. At dusk, when he carried the roe back to their encampment, he had seen the smoke to the north-west and known it came from the cannon, and that meant he was very close, so close that he stayed on guard till the heart of the night, then woke Philin and made him serve as a sentry.

  It was raining in the morning. The coredors were miserable and hungry and Thomas tried to cheer them by promising them that warmth and food were not far off. But the enemy were also nearby and he went cautiously. He dared not leave his bow strung, for the rain would weaken the string. He felt naked without an arrow on the cord. The sound of the gun, firing every three or four hours, grew louder, and by the early afternoon Thomas could hear the distinct crash of the missiles striking stone. But then, as he breasted a rise and the rain at last ended, he saw that the Earl of Northampton’s flag still hung drab and damp on the keep’s high staff and that gave him encouragement. It did not denote safety, but it promised an English garrison to fight at his side.

  They were close now, perilously close. The rain might have stopped, but the ground was slippery and Thomas fell twice as he scrambled down the steep wooded slope which led to the river that curled about the castle’s crag. He planned to approach the castle as he had escaped it, by crossing the weir beside the mill, but as he reached the foot of the slope, where the trees grew close to the mill pond, he saw his fears had been justified and that the enemy had anticipated him for a cross-bowman was standing in the mill’s doorway. The man, wearing a chain mail coat, was beneath a small thatched porch that hid him from any archers on the castle battlements though, when Thomas looked up the hill, he saw no archers there. The besiegers doubtless had crossbows in the town and would shoot at any man who exposed himself.

  ‘Kill him.’ Genevieve was crouching beside Thomas and had seen the lone crossbowman across the river.

  ‘And warn the others?’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘He’s not alone there,’ Thomas said. He reckoned the miller and his family must have gone because the spillway chute had been lowered and the great waterwheel was motionless, but the besiegers would not have posted a single man to guard the difficult route across the weir’s top. There were probably a dozen men there. He could shoot the first, that was no problem, but then the others would shoot at him from the door and from the two windows facing the river and he would have no chance of crossing the weir. He stared for a long time, thinking, then went back to Philin and the coredors who were hiding farther up the slope. ‘I need flint and steel,’ he told Philin.

  The coredors travelled frequently and needed to make fires every night so several of the women had flint and steel, but one also had a leather pouch filled with the powder made from puffball fungi. Thomas thanked her, promised her a reward for the precious powder, then went downstream until he was hidden from the sentry standing under the mill’s porch. He and Genevieve searched the undergrowth for small scraps of kindling and for newly fallen chestnut leaves. He needed twine so he pulled a strand from the shirt Genevieve wore beneath her mail coat, then piled some kindling on a flat stone, liberally sprinkled it with powder, and gave the steel and flint to Genevieve. ‘Don’t light it yet,’ he told her. He did not want smoke drifting out of the almost bare trees to alert the men across the river.

  He took the thicker scraps of kindling and bound them to the head of a broad-head arrow. It took time, but after a while he had a thick bunch of kindling that he would protect with the big chestnut leaves. A fire arrow had to be burning well, but the rush of its flight could extinguish the flames and the leaves would help prevent that. He wet the leaves in a puddle, placed them over the dry twigs, tied the twine off, then shook the arrow to make certain the bunched kindling was secure. ‘Light it now,’ he told Genevieve.

  She rapped the flint and the puffball powder flared instantly, then the kindling took and a brief, bright flame shot up. Thomas let the fire grow, held the arrow to it, let it catch and then held it an instant so that all the kindling was burning. The ash shaft blackened as he edged downhill until he could see the mill’s thatched roof.

  He drew. The fire scorched his left hand so he could not draw to the bow’s full extent, but the distance was short. He prayed no one was staring out of the mill’s windows, said another prayer to St Sebastian that the arrow would fly properly, and loosed.

  The broad-head flew. It arched from the trees, trailing smoke, and thumped into the thatch halfway up the roof. The sound must have alerted the men inside the mill, but at that moment the gun fired in the town and that much greater noise would probably have distracted them.

  He stamped out Genevieve’s small fire, then led her back upstream and beckoned Philin and the men with the crossbows to creep down to the wood’s edge. Now he waited.

  The mill’s thatch was damp. It had been raining heavily and the mossy straw was dark with moisture. Thomas could see a wisp of smoke coming from where the arrow had buried itself in the dirty, ragged roof, but there were no flames. The crossbowman was still in the doorway, yawning. The river had been swollen by the rain and was pouring over the weir in a thick, green-white rill that would tug at the ankles as they tried to cross. Thomas looked back to the mill roof and thought the smoke was dying. He would have to do it all again, and keep doing it until he was discovered or the fire caught, and just as he was making up his mind to take Genevieve back downstream to find new kindling, the roof suddenly emitted a surge of smoke. It thickened fast, billowing up like a small rain cloud, then a flame appeared in the thatch and Thomas had to hush the coredors who had begun to cheer. The fire spread with extraordinary rapidity. The arrow must have carried the kindling into the drier layer beneath the dark, wet straw and the flames now burst through the black, moss-covered outer sheath. In only seconds half the roof was ablaze and Thomas knew this was a fire that would never be extinguished. It would set light to the beams, the roof would collapse, and then the mill’s great wooden workings would burn until there was nothing left but a smoke-blackened stone shell.

  Then the men burst out of the door. ‘Now,’ Thomas said, and his first broad-head seared across the stream and threw a man back through the door, and the coredors were loosing their crossbows that gave clicks as the cords were freed. The bolts clattered on stone, struck a man in the leg, and Thomas’s second and third arrows were on the way before the crossbows shot again. One of the men from the mill succeeded in scrambling away behind the burning building, doubtless going to alert the other besiegers, and Thomas knew time was short, but more men came from the mill and he shot again, saw he had put an arrow through a woman’s neck, had no time for regrets, pulled the cord and loosed again. Then the doorway was empty and he pulled one of the crossbowmen away from bank and told the others to keep shooting at an
yone who showed in the doorway. ‘Cross now!’ he called to Philin.

  Thomas and the crossbowman negotiated the weir first. The stone sill was about as broad as a man’s foot, and it was slippery, but they edged across, the water fierce against their feet. Philin, his son on his shoulders, led the other coredors across as Thomas, at last gaining the town bank, sent an arrow into the flamelit interior of the mill. There were bodies by the doorway. Some still moved. The woman he had shot looked at him with wide, dead eyes. A crossbow bolt hammered down from the wood which lay between the mill and the town wall above and the quarrel narrowly missed Thomas to splash into the mill pond, but then a white-feathered arrow hissed down from the keep’s rampart and slashed into the trees where the crossbowman was hidden. No more bolts came.

  A woman slipped on the weir and screamed as she fell down its face into the churning white water. ‘Leave her!’ Philin shouted.

  ‘Up the path!’ Thomas yelled. ‘Go, go!’ He sent one of the coredors up first because the man was armed with an axe; Thomas had told him to hack through the small gate in the wall at the hill’s top. He turned to the cross-bowmen over the river whose aim was now obscured by the folk scrambling up the town bank. ‘Come on!’ he called to them, and though none spoke English they understood him well enough, and then a great crash sounded from the mill as a section of the roof collapsed and a gout of sparks and flames erupted from the fallen joists and rafters.

  And at that instant the mill’s last defender came running from the doorway. He was a tall man, dressed in leather rather than mail, and his hair was smoking from the fire and his face, as ugly as any Thomas had ever seen, was fixed in a rictus of hate. The man leaped the barrier of dead and dying and for a second Thomas thought the man was charging him, but then he twisted away in an attempt to escape and Thomas pulled the cord, loosed, and the arrow plunged between the man’s shoulder-blades and hurled him forward. The wounded man had been carrying a belt which had a sword, a knife and a crossbowman’s quiver attached to it, and the belt skidded away in the wet leaves. Thomas thought that any spare missiles would always be welcome and so he ran to pick up the belt, and the man, who had to be dying, snatched at Thomas’s ankle. ‘Bastard,’ the man said in French, ‘bastard!’

  Thomas kicked the man in the face, breaking his teeth, then stamped down with his heel to break some more. The dying man released his grip and Thomas kicked him again, just to keep him still. ‘Up the hill!’ he shouted. He saw that Genevieve had crossed the weir safely and he tossed her the belt with its weapons and quarrel-case, then followed her up the path towards the small gate behind St Sardos’s church. Would the enemy be guarding it? But if they were, that enemy was in trouble, for more archers were on the castle’s tower now and they were shooting down into the town. They were standing, shooting, ducking down and Thomas could hear the sound of crossbow bolts banging into the castle’s stone.

  The path was steep and wet. Thomas kept glancing to his left, looking for enemy, but none showed on the slope. He hurried, lost his footing, saw the wall so close ahead and climbed on. Genevieve was in the gate now, looking back for him, and Thomas scrambled the last few feet and ran through the splintered gate, following Genevieve down the dark alley and out into the square. A crossbow bolt spat into the cobbles, bounced up, and someone was shouting and he saw men-at-arms in the main street, was aware of an arrow sizzling past him just as he saw that half the gate arch had been destroyed, that a pile of rubble half obscured the castle’s entrance, that a pile of naked corpses was lying in the square under the castle’s curtain wall and that crossbow quarrels were skidding across the stones. Then he jumped the rubble, bounced off the remaining part of the arch and was safe inside the yard where his feet flew from beneath him because the stones were slippery. He slid a few feet, then banged against a timber barricade stretching across the yard.

  And Sir Guillaume, one eyed, evil-looking, was grinning at him. ‘Took your time coming, didn’t you?’ the Frenchman said.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Thomas said. The coredors were all there except for the woman who had fallen from the weir. Genevieve was safe. ‘I thought you’d need help,’ he said.

  ‘You think you can help us?’ Sir Guillaume said. He lifted Thomas to his feet and enfolded his friend in an embrace. ‘I thought you were dead,’ he said, and then, embarrassed at this display of feeling, he jerked his head at the coredors and their children. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Bandits,’ Thomas said, ‘hungry bandits.’

  ‘There’s food in the upper hall,’ Sir Guillaume said, and then Jake and Sam were there, grinning, and they escorted Thomas and Genevieve up the stairs where the coredors stared at the cheese and salt meat. ‘Eat,’ Sir Guillaume said.

  Thomas remembered the naked corpses in the town square. Were they his men? Sir Guillaume shook his head. ‘Bastards attacked us,’ he said, ‘and the bastards died. So we stripped them and threw them over the wall. Rats are eating them now. Big bastards, they are.’

  The rats?’

  ‘Big as cats. So what happened to you?’

  Thomas told him as he ate. Told of going to the monastery, of Planchard’s death, of the fight in the wood, and of the slow journey back to Castillon d’Arbizon. ‘I knew Robbie wasn’t here,’ he explained, ‘so I reckoned only my friends would be left.’

  ‘Nice to die among friends,’ Sir Guillaume said. He glanced up at the hall’s high narrow windows, judging the progress of the day by the angle of the light. ‘Gun won’t fire for another couple of hours.’

  ‘They’re knocking down the gate arch?’

  ‘That’s what they seem to be doing,’ Sir Guillaume said, ‘and maybe they want to bring down the whole curtain wall? That would make it easier for them to get into the courtyard. It’ll take them a month, though.’ He looked at the coredors. ‘And you bring me extra mouths to feed.’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘They’ll all fight, even the women. And the children can pick up the crossbow bolts.’ There were plenty of those strewn about the castle and, once the vanes had been straightened, they would serve the coredors’ crossbows well enough. ‘First thing, though,’ Thomas went on, ‘is to get rid of that bloody gun.’

  Sir Guillaume grinned. ‘You think I haven’t thought about doing that? You reckon we’ve just been sitting on our backsides playing dice? But how do you do it? A sally? If I take a dozen men down the street half of them will be spitted by quarrels by the time we reach the tavern. Can’t be done, Thomas.’

  ‘Kindling,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Kindling,’ Sir Guillaume repeated flatly.

  ‘Kindling and twine,’ Thomas said. ‘Make fire arrows. They’re not storing their damned gunpowder in the open air, are they? It’s in a house. And houses burn. So we burn the bloody town down. All of it. I doubt our arrows can reach the houses by the gun, but if we get an east wind the fire will spread fast enough. It’ll slow them anyway.’

  Sir Guillaume stared at him. ‘You’re not as daft as you look, are you?’

  Then a gasp made both men turn round. Genevieve, sitting close by, had been toying with the quarrel-case that Thomas had snatched up at the mill. The lid, which fitted neatly over the circular leather case, had been sealed with wax and that had intrigued her so she had scraped the wax away, lifted the lid, and found something inside, something which had been carefully wrapped in linen and padded with sawdust. She had shaken the sawdust off, then unwrapped the linen.

  And everyone in the room now gazed at her in awe.

  For she had found the Grail.

  —«»—«»—«»—

  Joscelyn decided he hated Guy Vexille. Hated the man’s air of competence, the slight sneer that always seemed to be on his face and which, without words being said, seemed to condemn whatever Joscelyn did. He also hated the man’s piety and self-control. Joscelyn would have liked nothing better than to order Vexille away, but his men were a valuable addition to the besieging force. When the assault came, when there was a charge across the rubbl
e of the castle gateway, Vexille’s black-cloaked men-at-arms could well mean the difference between defeat and victory. So Joscelyn endured Vexille’s presence.

  Robbie also endured it. Vexille had killed his brother and Robbie had sworn to take vengeance for that, but by now Robbie was so confused that he did not know what his oaths meant any more. He had sworn to go on pilgrimage, yet here he was, still in Castillon d’Arbizon; he had sworn to kill Guy Vexille, yet the man lived; he had sworn allegiance to Joscelyn, and now he recognized that Joscelyn was a brainless fool, brave as a pig, but with no trace of religion or honour. The one man he had never sworn an oath to was Thomas, yet that was the man he wished well in the unfolding tragedy.

  And at least Thomas lived. He had managed to cross the weir, despite the guard Guy Vexille had placed on the mill. Vexille had come to Castillon d’Arbizon, discovered the river crossing was unguarded, and put the sour, dour Charles Bessières in command at the mill. Bessières had accepted the order because it kept him away from both Vexille and Joscelyn, but then he had failed, and Robbie had been astonished at the delight he had felt when he realized that Thomas had again outwitted them, and that Thomas lived and was back in the castle. He had seen Thomas run across the square, the air humming with crossbow bolts, and he had almost cheered when he saw his friend make the safety of the castle

  Robbie had seen Genevieve too and he did not know what to think about that. In Genevieve he saw something he wanted so badly that it was like an ache. Yet he dared not admit it, for Joscelyn would just laugh at him. If Robbie had a choice, and his oaths meant he had none, he would have gone to the castle and begged Thomas’s forgiveness, and doubtless he would have died there.

  For Thomas, though he lived, was trapped. Guy Vexille, cursing that Charles Bessières had failed at such a simple task, had put men in the woods across the river so that there was now no escape across the weir. The only way out of the castle was down the main street and out the town’s west gate or north to the smaller gate by St Callic’s church, which opened onto the water meadows where the townsfolk grazed their cattle, and Joscelyn and Vexille, between them, had well over a hundred men-at-arms waiting for just such an attempt. Crossbowmen were placed in every vantage point in the town, and meanwhile the gun would gnaw and hammer and undermine the castle-gate bastions until, in time, there would be a rough path across the ruins and into the castle’s heart. Then the slaughter could begin and Robbie must watch his friends die.