Heretic. Part 16

It was Robbie. Once Sir Guillaume had him in the courtyard and was safe from the crossbowmen in the town, he could see that Robbie had not been wounded. Instead he had been stunned, probably by an arrow that had struck the lower edge of his helmet and left a fierce dent in the thick rim, which had thumped onto Robbie's skull and hurled him back. One inch lower and there would have been a dead Scotsman. As it was there was a very confused Scotsman who twitched in search of his sword as he real ized where he was.

Where's my money," Sir Guillaume growled, threatening Robbie with the Scotsman's own sword.

Oh, Jesus. Robbie groaned.

He's no d.a.m.ned use to you. If you want mercy, son, ask me. Ask them!" Sir Guillaume pointed at the archers and men-at-arms who were stripping the dead and injured of their weapons, armour and clothes. Cross-eyed Jake was grinning because one of the enemy dead had been wearing a ruby ring. Jake had sawn off the finger and now held the jewel aloft in triumph. Sam, the proud new owner of a fine coat of German-made mail, came to look at Robbie. He spat to show his opinion of the Scotsman. Robbie, tears in his eyes because of his humiliation, looked at the dead men, their unders.h.i.+rts laced with blood. Forty attackers had crossed the square outside the castle and over half of them were dead. He looked up at Sir Guillaume. I'm your prisoner," he said, and he wondered how he was supposed to pay one ransom to Lord Outhwaite in England and another to Sir Guillaume. You're b.l.o.o.d.y not my prisoner. Sir Guillaume said in crude English, then he changed back to French. I heard the shout outside. No prisoners. And you might remember that when we do take prisoners, we don't get ransoms. We just get pieces of parchment. Is that what honour means in Scotland?"

Robbie looked up into the savage, one-eyed face and shrugged. Just kill me. he said wearily. Kill me and go to h.e.l.l. Your friend wouldn't like that. Sir Guillaume said and saw the puzzlement on Robbie's face. Your friend Thomas. he explained. He likes you. He wouldn't want you dead. Got a soft spot for you, he has, because he's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned fool. So I'll let you live. Get on your feet." Sir Guillaume prodded Robbie up. Now go to Joscelyn and tell that spavined b.a.s.t.a.r.d that he can pay us what you owe us and then we'll leave. Got that? He pays the money, then you watch us ride away."

Robbie wanted to ask for the sword that belonged to his uncle and concealed a precious relic of Saint Andrew in its hilt, but he knew he would be refused and so, still dazed, he went back to the arch, followed by the jeers of the archers. Sir Guillaume bellowed at the crossbowmen in the town that the man coming out was one of their own. Perhaps they'll shoot you anyway. he said to Robbie, then shoved him out into the dusk.

None of the crossbowmen shot at Robbie who, with an aching head and a throbbing groin, stumbled down the street. The survivors of the attack were gathered by the still smoking gun; some of them had arrows in their arms or legs. Joscelyn was there, bare-headed; his hair had been flattened by the helmet's liner and his round face was slick with sweat and red with anger. He had been among the last to crowd into the gateway, had seen the chaos in front and had then been knocked over by an arrow strike on his breastplate. He had been astonished by the force of the blow, like being kicked by a horse, and the plate had a bright gouge in it. He had struggled up only to be hit by a second arrow which, like the first, had failed to pierce the thick plate, but he was knocked back again, and then the panic of the survivors had enveloped him and he had stumbled away with them. They let you go?" he greeted Robbie who he saw had a dark bruise on his forehead. They sent me with a message, lord. Robbie said. If they receive their money," he went on, they will leave without more fighting." It's your money!" Joscelyn snarled. So you pay them. Do you have it?"

No, lord."

Then we d.a.m.ned well kill them. We d.a.m.ned well kill them all!" Joscelyn turned on signor Gioberti. How long will it take you to bring down the whole archway?"

Gioberti thought for a second. He was a small man, nearly fifty, with a deeply lined face. A week, lord. he estimated. One of his bolts had hit the side of the arch and ripped out a barrowload of stones, suggesting that the castle was in ill repair. Maybe ten days. he amended his answer, and in another ten days I can bring down half the curtain wall."

We'll crush them in ruins. Joscelyn snarled, then slaughter the d.a.m.ned lot." He turned on his squire. Is my supper ready?" Yes, lord.

Joscelyn ate alone. He had thought he would eat in the castle's hall this night and listen to the screams of the archers having their fingers cut off, but fate had decreed otherwise. So now he would take his time, reduce the castle to rubble, then have his revenge. And next morning Guy Vexille and Charles Bessieres came to Castillon d'Arbizon with over fifty men. It seemed that Vexille had failed to find his heretic but, for reasons Joscelyn neither cared about nor understood, he believed the man and his beghard woman would be coming to the besieged castle.

You catch them. Joscelyn said, and the man's yours. But the woman's mine."

She belongs to the Church," Vexille said.

Mine first," Joscelyn insisted, the Church can play with her next and the devil can have her afterwards."

The gun fired and the castle gateway trembled.

Thomas and his companions spent a wet night under the trees. In the morning three of the coredors had vanished with their women, but fourteen men were left with eight women, six children and, most usefully, seven crossbows. They were all old bows with goat leg levers to draw the string, which meant they were less powerful than the steel-shafted bows that used cranked handles to draw the cord, but in a fight the old sort were quick to reload and lethal enough at short distances.

The hors.e.m.e.n 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 pus.h.i.+ng handcarts piled with goods. He guessed the hors.e.m.e.n had got bored waiting for him and had attacked a nearby town or village instead, but the sight of the people rea.s.sured 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 antic.i.p.ated him for a crossbowman 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 sc.r.a.ps of kindling and for newly fallen chestnut leaves. He needed twine so he pulled a strand from the s.h.i.+rt 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 Saint 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 sh.e.l.l.

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 cross bows 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 cross bowmen away from the bank and told the others to keep shooting at anyone 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 flame lit 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 cor edors 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 crossbowmen 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 under stood 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, s.n.a.t.c.hed at Thomas's ankle. b.a.s.t.a.r.d," the man said in French, b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" 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 Saint 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. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. 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, embarra.s.sed 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. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds attacked us. he said, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds died. So we stripped them and threw them over the wall. Rats are eating them now. Big b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 d.a.m.ned gunpowder in the open air, are they? It's in a house. And houses burn. So we burn the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 sc.r.a.ped the wax away, lifted the lid, and found some thing 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 what ever 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 a.s.sault came, when there was a charge across the rubble 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 Bessieres in command at the mill. Bessieres 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 Bessieres 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 Saint Gallic'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.

Half the castle's gateway was already down and Signor Gioberti had now realigned his bulbous gun so that its missiles would strike the right-hand side of the arch. The Italian reckoned it would take a week to bring the whole gate down, and he had advised Joscelyn that it would be best to spend still more time on widening the breach by bringing down those sections of the curtain wall either side of the ruined arch so that the attackers were not channelled into a narrow s.p.a.ce which the archers could fill with feathered death.

Pavises. Joscelyn said, and he had ordered the town's two carpenters to make more of the big willow s.h.i.+elds that would protect the crossbowmen as they ran to the breach. Those cross bowmen could then shoot up at the archers while the men-at arms streamed past them. One week," Joscelyn told the Italian, you've got one week to bring down the gate, then we attack." He wanted it over fast for the siege was proving more expensive and more complicated than he had ever imagined. It was not just the fighting that was difficult, but he had to pay carters to bring hay and oats for all the men-at-arms" horses, and he had to send men to scavenge for scarce food in a district that had already been plundered by the enemy, and each day brought new unforeseen problems that gnawed at Joscelyn's confidence. He just wanted to attack and get the wretched business over.

But the defenders attacked first. At dawn, on the day after Thomas reached Castillon d'Arbizon, when there was a chill north easterly wind blowing under a leaden sky, fire arrows seared from the tower ramparts to plunge into the town's thatch. Arrow after arrow trailed smoke, and the besiegers woke to the danger as the townfolk screamed for hooks and water. Men used the long handled hooks to pull the thatch from the roofs, but more arrows came and within minutes three houses were ablaze and the wind was pus.h.i.+ng the flames towards the gate where the gun was already loaded and the loam was setting.

The powder! The powder!" Signor Gioberti shouted, and his men began carrying the precious barrels out of the house near the gun, and smoke billowed across them and frightened folk got in their way so that one man slipped and spilt a whole barrel of unmixed powder across the roadway. Joscelyn came from his commandeered house and shouted at his men to fetch water, while Guy Vexille was ordering that buildings should be pulled down to make a firebreak, but the townspeople held the soldiers up and now the fires were roaring, a dozen more houses were ablaze and their thatch had become furnaces that spread from roof to roof. Panicked birds fluttered inside the smoke and rats, in their scores, fled out of thatch and cellar doors. Many of the besieging cross bowmen had made themselves eyries inside the roofs from where they could shoot through holes piercing the thatch, and they now stumbled down from the attics. Pigs squealed as they were roasted alive and then, just when it seemed the whole town would burn and when the first flying sparks were settling on the roofs near the cannon, the heavens opened.

A crash of thunder tore across the sky and then the rain slashed down. It fell so hard that it blotted out the view of the castle from the town gate. It turned the street into a watercourse, it soaked the powder barrels and it extinguished the fires. Smoke still poured upwards, but the rain hissed on glowing embers. The gutters ran with black water and the fires died.

Galat Lorret, the senior consul, came to Joscelyn and wanted to know where the townsfolk should shelter. Over a third of the houses had lost their roofs and the others were crowded with billeted soldiers. Your lords.h.i.+p must find us food," he told Joscelyn, and we need tents." Lorret was s.h.i.+vering, perhaps with fear or else from the onset of a fever, but Joscelyn had no pity for the man. Indeed he was so enraged at being given advice by a commoner that he struck Lorret, then struck him again, driving him back into the street with a flurry of blows and kicks. You can starve!" Joscelyn screamed at the consul. Starve and s.h.i.+ver. b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" He punched the old man so hard that Lorret's jaw was broken. The consul lay in the wet gutter, his official robes soaking with the ash-blackened water. A young woman came from the undamaged house behind him; she had glazed eyes and a flushed face. She vomited suddenly, pouring the contents of her stomach into the gutter beside Lorret. Get out!" Joscelyn screamed at her. Put your filth somewhere else!"

Then Joscelyn saw that Guy Vexille, Robbie Douglas and a dozen men-at-arms were staring open-mouthed at the castle. Just staring. The rain was lessening and the smoke was clearing and the castle's shattered frontage could be seen again, and Joscelyn turned to see what they gazed at. He could see the armour hanging from the keep's battlements, the mail coats stripped from his dead men and hung there as an insult, and he could see the captured s.h.i.+elds, including Robbie's red heart of Douglas, hanging upside down among the hauberks, but Guy Vexille was not staring at those trophies. Instead he was looking at the lower rampart, at the half broken parapet above the castle gate, and there, in the rain, was gold.

Robbie Douglas risked the archers in the castle by walking up the street to see the golden object more clearly. No arrows came at him. The castle appeared deserted, silent. He walked almost to the square until he could see the thing clearly and he peered in disbelief and then, with tears in his eyes, he fell to his knees. The Grail," he said, and suddenly other men had joined him and were kneeling on the cobbles.

The what?" Joscelyn asked.

Guy Vexille pulled off his hat and knelt. He stared upwards and it seemed to him that the precious cup glowed.

For in the smoke and destruction, s.h.i.+ning like the truth, was the Grail.

The cannon did not fire again that day. Joscelyn was not happy about that. The new Count of Berat did not care that the defenders had a cup, they could have had the whole true cross, the tail of Jonah's whale, the baby Jesus's swaddling clothes, the crown of thorns and the pearly gates themselves and he would happily have buried the whole lot under the castle's shattered masonry, but the priests with the besiegers went on their knees to him, and Guy Vexille did the same, and that obeisance from a man he feared gave Joscelyn pause.

We have to talk with them," Vexille said.

They are heretics," the priests said, and the Grail must be saved from them."

What am I supposed to do?" Joscelyn demanded. Just ask for it?"

You must bargain for it," Guy Vexille said.

Bargain!" Joscelyn bridled at the thought, then an idea came. The Grail? If the thing existed, and everyone about him believed it did, and if it really was here, in his domain, then there was money to be made from it. The cup would need to go to Berat, of course, where fools like his dead uncle would pay mightily to see it. Big jars at the castle gate, he thought, and lines of pilgrims throwing in money to be allowed to see the Grail. There was, he thought, profit in that gold, and plainly the garrison wanted to talk for, after displaying the cup, they had shot no more arrows. I will go and talk with them. Vexille said.

Why you?" Joscelyn demanded.

Then you go, my lord," Vexille said deferentially. But Joscelyn did not want to face the men who had held him prisoner. The next time he saw them he wanted them to be dead, and so he waved Vexille on his way. But you'll offer them nothing!" he warned. Not unless I agree to it."

I will make no agreement," Vexille said, without your permission." Orders were given that the crossbowmen were not to shoot and then Guy Vexille, bare-headed and without any weapons, walked up the main street past the smoking wreckage of the houses. A man was sitting in an alley and Vexille noticed that his face was sweating and blotched with dark lumps and his clothes were stained with vomit. Guy hated such sights. He was a fastidious man, scrupulously clean, and the stench and diseases of mankind repelled him. they were evidences of a sinful world, one that had forgotten G.o.d. Then he saw his cousin come onto the broken rampart and take the Grail away.

A moment later Thomas crossed the rubble that filled the gateway. Like Guy he wore no sword, nor had he brought the Grail. He wore his mail, which was rusting now, frayed at the hem and crusted with dirt. He had a short beard for he had long lost his razor and it gave him, Guy thought, a grim and desperate look. Thomas," Guy greeted him, then gave a small bow, cousin." Thomas looked past Vexille to see three priests watching from halfway down the street. The last priests who came here excom municated me. he said.

What the Church does. Guy said, it can undo. Where did you find it?"

For a moment it looked as if Thomas would not answer, then he shrugged. Under the thunder. he said, at the lightning's heart." Guy Vexille smiled at the evasion. I do not even know. he said, whether you have the Grail. Perhaps it is a trick? You put a golden cup on the wall and we just make an a.s.sumption. Suppose we are wrong? Prove it to me, Thomas."

I can't."

Then show it to me. Guy begged. He spoke humbly.

Why should I?"

Because the Kingdom of Heaven depends on it." Thomas seemed to sneer at that answer, then he looked curiously at his cousin. Tell me something first. he said.

If I can."

Who was the tall, scarred man I killed at the mill?" Guy Vexille frowned for it seemed a very strange question, but he could see no trap in it and he wanted to humour Thomas so he answered. His name was Charles Bessieres. he said cautiously, and he was the brother of Cardinal Bessieres. Why do you ask?"

Because he fought well. Thomas lied.

Is that all?"

He fought well, and he very nearly took the Grail from me. Thomas embroidered the untruth. I just wondered who he was. He shrugged and tried to work out why a brother of Cardinal Bessieres should have been carrying the Grail.

He was not a man worthy of having the Grail. Guy Vexille said. Am I?" Thomas demanded.

Guy ignored the hostile question. Show it to me. he pleaded. For the love of G.o.d, Thomas, show it to me."

Thomas hesitated, then he turned and raised a hand and Sir Guillaume, armoured in captured plate from head to foot and with a drawn sword, came from the castle with Genevieve. She carried the Grail and had a wine skin tied to her belt. Not too close to him," Thomas warned her, then looked back to Guy. You remember Sir Guillaume d'Evecque? Another man sworn to kill you?" We are meeting under a truce," Guy reminded him, then he nodded at Sir Guillaume whose only response was to spit on the cobbles. Guy ignored the gesture, gazing instead at the cup in the girl's hands.

It was a thing of ethereal, magical beauty. A thing of lace-like delicacy. A thing so far removed from this smoke-stinking town with its rat-chewed corpses that Guy had no doubts that this was the Grail. It was the most sought-after object in Christendom, the key to heaven itself, and Guy almost dropped to his knees in reverence. Genevieve took off the pearl-hung lid and tipped the stemmed gold goblet over Thomas's hands. A thick green gla.s.s cup fell out of the golden filigree and Thomas held it reverently. This is the Grail, Guy," he said. That golden confection was just made to hold it, but this is it."

Guy watched it hungrily, but dared make no move towards it. Sir Guillaume wanted only the smallest excuse to lift his sword and ram it forward and Guy had no doubt that archers were watching him from behind the slits in the high tower. He said nothing as Thomas took the skin from Genevieve's belt and poured some wine into the cup. See?" Thomas said, and Guy saw that the green had darkened with the wine, but that it also now possessed a golden sheen that had not been there before. Thomas let the wine skin drop to the ground and then, with his eyes on his cousin's eyes, he lifted the cup and drained it. Hic est enim sanguis meus, " Thomas said angrily. They were the words of Christ. This is my blood." Then he gave the cup to Genevieve and she walked away with it, followed by Sir Guillaume. A heretic drinks from the Grail," Thomas said, and there's worse to come." Worse?" Guy asked gently.

We shall put it under the gate arch," Thomas said. And when your cannon brings down the rest of the bastions then the Grail will be crushed. What you'll get is a twisted piece of gold and some broken gla.s.s."

Guy Vexille smiled. The Grail cannot be broken, Thomas." Then you risk that belief. Thomas said angrily and turned away. Thomas! Thomas, I beg you," Guy called. Listen to me." Thomas wanted to keep walking, but he reluctantly turned back for his cousin's tone had been pleading. It had been the voice of a broken man, and what did it hurt Thomas if he heard more? He had made the threat. If the attack continued then the Grail would be broken. Now, he supposed, he must let his cousin make what ever offer he wanted, though he did not intend to make that easy. Why should I listen," he asked, to the man who killed my father? Who killed my woman?"

Listen to a child of G.o.d," Guy said.

Thomas almost laughed, but he stayed.

Guy took a breath, framing what he wanted to say. He stared up at the sky where low clouds threatened more rain. The world is beset by evil. he said, and the Church is corrupt, and the devil does his work unhindered. If we have the Grail we can change that. The Church can be cleansed, a new crusade can scour the world of sin. It will bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth." He had been staring skywards as he spoke, but now looked at Thomas. That is all I want, Thomas."

So my father had to die for that?"

Guy nodded. I wish it had not been necessary, but he was hiding the Grail. He was an enemy of G.o.d."