This was the gold he had had on him when he was captured by the Templars back in Palestine at the castle of Montfort. This had been the gold that he and Rav’an had brought with them as they came to seek the Agha Khan. He was aware that their combined monies made them rich and resolved to tell his father as soon as possible. The opportunity came sooner than he had thought.
Sir Hughes, ever the generous man, wanted to give some of the silver to Talon who flatly refused it, saying he had gold of his own from the Holy Land and would share that with his father when the time came to rebuild the castle out of stone. His father had been puzzled by the statement, but Philip confirmed it when his brother discussed it with him later on.
“Your son has gold that he brought back from his adventures in the infidel countries, Hughes. He has no need for any of the silver. Keep it and build a castle to protect your family. This fort is not a fit place for one such as you. Talon will for sure share his wealth to make a castle of stone for you and the family. Our family deserves better than this miserable fortress.”
For Talon the relationship with Aicelina was now permanently changed, but she was as cool as ever the following days. They did sit and talk more often, which he enjoyed, but she made no effort to invite him to her bed during this time. He wanted to know more about her faith and she began to open up to him slowly.
“The people of our faith are Christians,” she insisted, “but we were not of the Church of Rome, and in fact disapprove of its path. I am angered at the corruption of the bishop of Albi,” she exclaimed, and Talon could not disagree with her. “To my people, our faith in God is of the light. The evil ways of men that the church often seems to sanction is contrary to our beliefs.”
“But where are your churches and places of worship?”
“We worship in the fields and woods and our houses. There are no bishops, but there are Bons Homes who are elected to be leaders in conferences.”
“What of the women? Are they bonded to the men, too, as in other societies?”
She looked uncomfortable at that. “Women in all societies are bonded to their husbands, it is true, and this is the God-given way. And it is true, women are considered unclean to the men of our faith and the Bons Homes are not supposed to consort with them.”
He looked bewildered so she shrugged and told him that it was complicated and that they would have to talk some more about it one day. They were interrupted as usual by Guillaume who’d been on the lookout for Talon and wanted to play at archery. Talon left with a backward smile at Aicelina, who waved him off and turned back to her duties.
Talon thought about it as he practiced with Guillaume and helped him with his bow. He was interested in the fact that these people did not feel the necessity to be bound to the Church of Rome, even though the Church seemed to be involved in every facet of life. It appealed to him all the more, not least because he had been raised in part by the free-thinking Ismaili, who were also considered heretics by the other two Muslim sects.
Talon spent time with his archers, making sure that Gareth kept up the patrols in the forest and ensuring that no strangers came anywhere near the castle without his knowledge. They all agreed that they did not want to be surprised nor discomforted by another visit from Marcel and his roving band.
Gareth had appointed one man to be close to Aicelina and Guillaume at all times. They did not discuss these arrangements with either Sir Hughes or Marguerite as Talon did not want to worry his father nor mother unduly, but he was concerned enough about the threat he had heard to safeguard them.
However, the raids on the outlying farms had stopped, which gave them hope that Guillabert was staying low and waiting for the trial.
There had been a training program going on during the last few weeks. Talon had, with Sir Hughes’ permission, gathered volunteers from among the villagers who wanted to become men-at-arms. The fort’s few retainers who had been men-at-arms, with Max leading and giving shouted directions, as well as the Welshmen all worked hard to bring them up to some standard where at least they could hold a pike and even shoot a bow in two cases. Feremundus was put to work making spearheads and blades and went at it willingly with the help of the boys and other men.
“It's not much of a defense if Sir Guillabert decides to come and visit,” Talon told Gareth morosely.
His friend nodded equally soberly. Some of the recruits were dressed in the captured hauberks and helmets, a couple of which were oversized for their occupants, making them look all the more ridiculous. Talon and Gareth watched them stumble about in the muddy field in front of the fort with pitchforks and the odd pike as Max tried patiently to move them forward in straight lines or to form defensive positions.
“We are indeed very thin on the ground, Talon, Bach. But go you and see that prince or Count of yours, and tell him what you know and may be he can do something.”
They ride in glittering gowns of silk,
He harnessed like a lord;
There is no gold about the boy,
But the crosslet of his sword;
The rest have gloves of sweet perfume,
He gauntlets strong of mail;
They broidered cap and flaunting plume,
He crest untaught to quail.
- Sir Walter Scott
Chapter 12
Carcassonne
A few days later Talon, Max, and Sir Philip left with a tiny escort: Anwl and a groom. They made good progress and arrived within view of the city late in the evening of the third day. It was clear that this was the seat of power for Talon had plenty of time to observe the countryside as they rode. Most of the roads were simple tracks except when they ran along a former Roman road. Then it became paved with great flat slabs but sometimes even here, because nothing was maintained, that became a problem as the great stones were rising at odd angles from the earth, often broken, making it difficult to ride past them.
They came down from the high hills above Mas Carbardes and from the slopes when Philip pointed to a distant blur on the low slopes many miles away.
“That is the city of Carcassonne, Talon.”
They had yet to cross the wide, flat plain that the city dominated. As they rode, Talon found that more and more the distant city seemed to rise above them. It was situated on the northern slopes of the foothills that eventually led to the Pyrenees. These distant mountain peaks gleamed with a crest of snow in the sunlight.
Traffic increased as they drew near to the city. Several roads converged upon the wider road that led to the gates, where carts and wagons drawn by slow oxen moved too slowly for the mounted men who had to ride around them. Talon noted that other riders paid scant respect to the peasants, often shouting abuse as they rode by. The peasants, often too poor to be dressed in anything other than one overshirt and a leather cap or straw hat were, it seemed, unable to respond for risk of a beating from the riders, so they shrugged and hunched their shoulders stoically.
Philip and Max seemed oblivious of the peasants, but not Talon.
He noticed that once when a particularly unpleasant knight had gone by a group of carters and their wagons, the carters shared a joke at his expense, followed by sardonic laughter and accompanied by discreet obscenities with their hands. The particular group that he was observing suddenly noticed him watching them and hurriedly adopted the normal pose assumed by the peasantry, servile and downcast.
The carter’s wife, though, stared back up at Talon with frightened eyes as though she knew they had stepped well out of bounds and been caught. As they rode by Talon grinned down at the cart driver, nodded and winked. The man after a brief moment of surprise grinned back a black-toothed smile of relief.
The small group paused on a hillside that gave them a view of the city. The evening sun was lighting the walls and battlements of the city in a golden glow. Talon was struck by the magnificent fortifications, among the best he had ever encountered. This was without doubt the largest city he had seen in Christendom thus far. It made Albi and the other fo
rtified towns he knew look rustic by comparison. This matched anything that existed in the world he had been familiar with in the Outré Mere. Philip turned to Talon and pointed. “This is one of the great cities of the Languedoc lands, and that includes the kingdom of France and England, I would wager.”
“Indeed, it would seem so, Uncle; the ruler of this city must be as rich and powerful as a king.”
“Yes, he is a powerful man, but still he is not a king. He is a Count and Viscount of many areas of the Languedoc and indeed Albi, our nearest town and region. Henry of England would like to have this city and indeed Toulouse for his own to add to his already extensive holdings of Aquitaine, but he failed to take it not so long ago. Just the once our own king managed to outwit the fox himself and hold onto Toulouse. The politics are difficult in these parts.” He scratched his side reflectively. “Well, we shall have to hurry or we will not be allowed in; the gates shut at Vespers. Come along.”
There were the usual gibbets and iron cages along the slopes that led to the approaches to the city, most of them occupied by the skeletal remains of former criminals and traitors. The stench of the dead enveloped the riders who held cloths or their sleeves to their noses as they rode by. The horses would skitter with apprehension at the noisome stink. Talon could see heads in various states of decay along the gateway battlements. No one remarked on this, other than to hold their noses when the wind shifted in their direction.
The walls were at least fifty feet high and seemed to Talon, craning his neck, to be a hundred. They were well made of light-colored, well-fitted stone that gleamed in the evening sun. The towers with their pointed slate roofs, set at regular intervals along the walls, seemed to reach to the sky. Upon most of the towers were flags, but above the gates was the unmistakable banner of the Viscount of Carcassonne of the house of Tranceval and the Tranceval shield with three gold horizontal bars with rows of what appeared to Talon to be spearheads with three dots above them in between. He assumed these to be trees.
The walls had stout overhanging defenses of wood which Philip, who knew a thing or two about castles, told Talon were called hoardings. They had openings in the floor of the battlements for dropping stones or filth upon attackers’ heads. Talon noted that there were slots for archers to fire directly down upon the luckless wretches sheltering at the base of the walls. His practiced eye told him that even he would find it difficult to scale these walls without a rope, although he wondered if Reza would be daunted by them. His Persian brother was like as spider on smooth surfaces. If he were to try for entry into this city he would probably have to use stealth and enter the gates in some disguise. He asked Philip why the walls sloped outward at their base, assuming it was simply to stabilize the walls.
“They drop big stones from the hoardings that strike the slope and then fly straight into the massed ranks of the enemy and can kill or maim many.” Phillip told him.
They rode up to the angled gatehouse on the outside of the moat, which was actually a wide swathe of land dug out around the castle where grass was growing and men were exercising horses and practicing swordsmanship with one another at the base of the great walls.
Philip and his group waited in line for the traffic to ease before they could cross the narrow bridge constructed of stone with wooden floors that could be pulled up in the event of attack. As soon as the sentries saw the Templar uniforms they were admitted without even being questioned—once again Philip and Sergeant Max wore their own passport. Philip was a large man so he stood out among the crowd, looking imposing, and he was shown a lot of respect by the city guards as they rode by.
Max pointed out the murder holes in the arched roof above them as they rode under the gatehouse between two raised portcullises. “They can trap the assaulting troops between the two portcullis’. Then they open the roof above, see there?” He pointed up at the trap door above them. “That's where they roll rocks onto the luckless wretches or pour boiling water on their heads.”
Talon thought about that for a minute and decided that this was a very modern, very defensible castle and city. He began to respect the engineering that had gone into the building of it. He reflected on the poor fort that his father lived in, and he decided that something had to be done about it. Between them they could afford to build a respectable stone keep that would have high outer walls and tall towers at least, nothing like this, but much more fitting for a man of Sir Hughes’ stature.
They could have billeted in the Temple house which was very grand when compared with the one at Mass Dieu, but Philip wanted to stay at an Inn as that gave Talon more freedom of movement. Their lodgings were basic, but adequate, as far as Talon was concerned.
The next day Philip went off to pay his respects to the Master of the Temple House, taking Max with him. Max returned briefly to tell Talon to look around the city as they would be staying with the Master on Templar business, but he should be back by noon so that they could attend the court after their meal. The Master of the Temple House was going to take Philip with him and Talon was told to dress his best and to be present. He was left to look around with Anwl.
Talon enjoyed walking about the narrow streets, seeing how life in a town of this size carried on its daily life. The town seemed to be full of people moving in all directions; the crowds pushed and shoved cheerfully in the narrow, smelly lanes. The top floors of the houses leaned out over the streets so as to almost touch so that the light was somewhat limited. In a way that was good as some of the objects and piles lying in the center of the street and piled against the walls did not bear investigation, giving off such a stench that they made one’s head ache.
It was a relief to come out into the wider space of the market square. There they saw a church with the foundations of a cathedral being constructed nearby. The construction site was swarming with laborers and masons working like ants, doing all the complicated things that were needed for the building of such places.
Talon led the way into the church to light a candle to Jean de Loche, his friend the priest in Persia, who had died there. He also prayed for his other friends and begged that God would allow him to return and find them. He had had no news of the two young people who meant so much to him since he left them. Their escape from Alamut, the sinister castle in the mountains of northern Persia, and their final meeting with the Agha Khan, had brought the three of them very close. Rav’an and Talon had even become lovers. Despite everything that he had encountered here in France these two were never far from his mind. But he was almost at the point where he mourned Rav’an because he could not imagine that she would be allowed to live if she carried his child.
Anwl was as agog as Talon at the sights and sounds all about them. He confided to Talon that Wales had no towns that were in any way comparable to this magnificent city, but he had heard that the English did. It was a city called London, where the English king lived. Perhaps another called Chester, but he wasn’t sure. They were both appalled at the number of beggars who were to be seen everywhere on street corners or hobbling on crutches with one leg missing, dressed in foul-smelling rags. Most of these wretches seemed to be in dire straights; particularly the one or two lepers who were given a wide birth.
“We have no people like this in my country,” Anwl exclaimed in disgust. “Will the Lord of this place not protect his own?”
“I don't know why it is so here, but where I lived in Persia there were also many beggars. I saw them in this huge city called Hamadan and again in Isfahan. These cities were much larger than this place, but still, the presence of beggars seems to be a part of city life.” Talon reached for a copper to toss to a starving woman who clutched an equally thin and wasted child. “It would seem that they are to be found in every city. It is a curse.”
“We do not have these kind of people in my land,” Anwl stated firmly. “If a man is very poor there is always the tribe to protect him and give him work so he can hold his head up among other men.”
There were an abundance of vendo
rs and assorted stalls selling anything from flyblown meat off newly slaughtered goats, to rough, homespun woolen bolts, to fine cloth from abroad, and copper utensils. Men and women were shouting their wares to the world at large and calling to anyone who even glanced at them, trying to entice them to examine their produce. More than once a pretty maid would call out to the two men and sway her bosom at them in an unmistakable gesture that would draw envious looks from the men and appraisal from the other women. Anwl nudged Talon once and gave a gap-toothed grin as a girl who sold flowers sidled up to Talon and, as she placed a rose in his hand, kissed him on the cheek.
“What is a handsome young man doing on his own, in streets full of young maidens, and not one of them on your arm?” she cried amid the laughter all around.
Talon could only grin, his face red with embarrassment, and take her coarse, work-scarred hand and bow in a clumsy show of gallantry. This earned approving cheers and more lewd comments as to what he should do with the other hand. He tossed her a copper then they moved on.
He noticed that there were monks and priests aplenty here in this town. The abbot had explained to Talon that the priests who stayed in the cities were often men of education who served a bishop or a more powerful man like the Count, providing him with the means to correspond and stay abreast of events farther abroad.
“You should remember that monks take vows, but that's not always true for the men who look like priests. They are as often as not advocates, men of ambition and education who serve powerful men in the hope of advancement to some lucrative position with a bishopric as title,” he had told Talon with a wry smile.
The city boasted large houses that he had not seen in Albi; only that of the Bishop of Albi’s came close to the size of some of the new merchant houses here. He could see that there was real wealth in this city as the new men of means, the merchants, established themselves under the protection of the Count.
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