In Pursuit of the Green Lion (32 page)

“No matter what I’m wearing, it will be a relief to be abroad. It’s stifling here, locked in with that barren, complaining stick of a wife.” Sir Hugo’s look of torment changed to one of profound self-pity.

“Good, then,” said the old lord. “It’s all settled. We’ll be able to keep our word to that Fray Whatshisname. Within the month, that French count will receive Gilbert’s ransom from the white hand of the fair Margaret de Vilers.” He shook his head. “Interesting man, that. Rather repellent. Nice little stud he was riding. But far too small. Fit for monks and ladies, that breed. But not a man’s horse.” Then he switched to French, and addressed his son. “Just be sure to leave very quickly,” he cautioned. “Remember, he’s obviously just after the woman. So as soon as you’ve got hold of Gilbert, leave by a ruse while the Frenchman’s busy with her.”

“Of course, Father. That’s understood,” answered Hugo.

“Ah, God, I only wish I were a fly on the wall at that fancy French chateau when you arrive with that wench,” said Sir Hubert, and he began to cough, because he was still not strong enough to laugh.

I
SUPPOSE THERE ARE
some folk who are born to be on the sea, and that is just as well, for the rest of us could never manage otherwise. I mean, how would we have herring in Lent or bring goods from far lands if some people were not mad enough to prefer a life on the salty waves to all others? Now, as for me, if I had known about the sea before I set out on it, I would have been about as eager as Master Kendall’s ghost to make the journey. But, of course, by then it was too late.

Brother Malachi had got us passage on a merchant cog that was carrying goods and the last pilgrims of the season to the English seneschal at Bayonne. But the ship, which looked so large in port, seemed to shrink considerably when it was on the open sea, and bobbed up and down so alarmingly that much of the two weeks I passed aboard it were spent clutching the rail, giving up my meals before I’d hardly had the good of them. All the while, the sailors were climbing up and down the mast and the rigging like squirrels, and, if you can believe it,
singing.
That’s what I mean about the sea.

“Come now, Margaret, you are being entirely unfair. The ocean is the inspiration of poets. And what’s more, it’s hardly been as difficult as you say. Why, we’ve had fair winds and a sea as calm as a bathtub the entire way. And you just stay huddled up below decks weeping. Come and smell the sea breeze. Or better, join Hilde and Sim and me tonight and see the stars. They’re even more beautiful than on land.”

“Stars? Night? It will be dark. Suppose I trip and roll off the edge? Or suppose, because of my sins, a big wave comes in the dark and washes me away? It’s all water, water, horrid heaving water, and I can’t even swim, and the fishes would eat me all up, and I’ve left my babies, and—and—it would serve me right, aooo—”And I went on howling even though Malachi was at his most charming and persuasive. Of course, the sea didn’t bother him. His face stayed rosy instead of turning green, like mine and the other pilgrims’. And as my supposed confessor, he had great sport offering spiritual advice to everyone on board, whether they wanted it or not. Finally even Mother Hilde had to tell him to quit because it was driving her crazy with the thought that she might burst out laughing and so give him away.

But even I cheered up when the long gray line appeared on the horizon, and the pilgrims lined the ship’s rail, cheering. Soon we had entered the mouth of a sluggish, muddy green river and the wild dunes—all lovely, lovely solid land—spread out on either side of us. Making slow progress up the Adour, we rounded a wide bend to spy in the distance the heavy yellow stone walls and glittering spires of a city lying on the river’s right bank in the bright autumn sun. Approaching the city port, we could see the squat, menacing towers of the fortress above the city walls, the yellow stone incongruously topped with low pinkish-tiled roofs and the gaudy pennants of the English seneschal and his lieutenants.

“My goodness, it certainly doesn’t look like England, Malachi,” observed Mother Hilde with a satisfied air.

“Or feel like it either—you wouldn’t see sun like this at home in this season,” answered Malachi, stretching out his limbs like some happy plant reaching its leaves to the light. But as I watched them tying up the ship, my joy at being on land gave way to a growing sense of gloom that even the sun couldn’t dispel. A stagnant little river, smelling of garbage, toiled its way through the city before trying to mingle with the majestic Adour at the dockside. Some of the ships that bobbed beside us looked more like privateers than merchantmen. Dark, savage-looking soldiers on the wharf strode between the crates of geese and bales of merchandise being loaded into some foreign ship, kicking at suspicious objects. I didn’t like the way they swarmed onto the ship for the landing fees, eyeing us with the appraising look of bandits. It was pretty clearly a rough place, this sea-capital of the mountains. And if this was the best, what was the worst like?

We struggled up the narrow streets to the cathedral, jostled by the pigs, laden donkeys, and drunken mercenaries that crowded the way. All around us incomprehensible street cries and oaths rattled; people gesticulated; a Gascon, shoved by someone, pulled his long knife. How on earth could I ever find Gregory in a land of hostile strangers like this?

But as I sat miserably on our baggage with Hilde in the little square in front of the cathedral porch, Malachi emerged from the shadowy nave in fine good humor with a little friar in tow. He’d found us a good room in a pilgrim’s inn squeezed between the tall houses on the Rue Mayou, and the friar was Brother Anselm, who was traveling on the road to Compostela in the party of the Abbot of Corbigny.

“All our needs are provided for,” announced Malachi happily, “and we’ll travel with an armed escort too.”

“Ten stout armed monks, a half a dozen pilgrims, two of them knights who have joined us on the way,” announced Brother Anselm, “with three friars like myself. Though I must say the prayers of the holy are worth more than a hundred swords against these godless Basque robbers, for they swarm without number in their mountains, and would kill a man for half a sou—to say nothing of what they do to women,” he said, eyeing me. “Still, your lady mistress will be well served. No matter what happens, her soul is assured of heaven if she achieves martyrdom on the road to Compostela in the company of such holy folk.”

Oh, lovely, I thought. Holy martyrdom. The perfect end to this wretched journey. But, of course, it didn’t seem to bother Malachi at all, who went off to sell our shipboard gear and buy mules for the long trek into the mountains.

But that evening he returned all dusty and empty-handed to the inn. “Not a mule or donkey is to be had in the entire city,” he announced over supper at the long table of the inn’s common room. “The sound ones have been taken by the English forces for the campaign, and the unsound ones were all sold off to pilgrims early in the summer. I’m afraid we’ll have to walk.”

“And thus emulate the example of Our Lord,” interrupted Brother Anselm, crossing himself and rolling his eyes up beneath his pale brows, as if he spied heaven just above the low, smoky beams of the ceiling. He sat next to Brother Malachi opposite us at the long trestle table before the fire. Brother Malachi’s pious cant had caught his fancy, and he seemed to have attached himself to us permanently. We had already received many confidences: about the boils God had sent him last Martinmas, about the distant highborn cousin he had, who might someday get him a place with the Bishop of Pamiers, as well as about the sins of every abbot from here to Byzantium, of which he had an entire catalogue, most of it too spicy to repeat. He had come via Toulouse from the north, where he had joined the Abbot’s party on the pilgrim route into Spain.

Now he leaned toward Brother Malachi conspiratorially and muttered in his high-pitched, spiteful voice, “Now that Abbot of Corbigny, who stays at the chateau like a gentleman, sipping fine wine and eating white bread, and not here at the inn like us humble folk, goes on pilgrimage on a white mule with a crimson saddlecloth and a bridle trimmed with little silver bells. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, all the way from Toulouse. Ah, my sore feet. As I limped through the dust behind him, I said to myself, ‘A lot of good a pilgrimage to Compostela will
do you
, you hypocrite and publican!’ Now, if you only knew what I knew about Corbigny. Why, they claim to have the relics of Saint Léonard, and with the money of the gullible they have built an immense shrine and furnished their table with luxuries, when all the time the genuine bones are at Noblat. Oh, they should blush with shame, those monks of Corbigny! For they have baptized a man a second time, and after he was a corpse, as well!”

“Goodness,” said Malachi, “a purveyor of false relics? Who could imagine such a dreadful thing? Ah, God protect us in these wicked times!”And he in turn crossed himself.

I couldn’t help listening in, even though Hilde and I were speaking to each other in English, for the little friar’s conversation was in clear French, the language of the north, rather than the incomprehensible southern dialects that rattled all around us at the table. Besides the travelers from the ship, there were others from the ports and cities of France, a party of Germans that included an elderly knight and his son, and those who had traveled under the protection of the Abbot and his suite. Among these last were a merchant with a wen, two priests, one of whom, the younger, was under a vow of silence, and several monks of various orders—the last of these being the gossipy Brother Anselm. He had a need to constantly unburden the contents of his mind on whomever he happened to fasten himself, and in the days before our departure we heard all about the barbarous habits of the Navarrais, whose language sounds like the barking of dogs, and who will kill a Frenchman for the clothes on his back.

“Ah, they are a wicked people, these Basques and Navarrais of the mountains,” Brother Anselm would say. “The
Liber Sancti Jacobi
does not exaggerate when it calls them ugly and full of malice, dishonest, false, and drunken.” I wished heartily he would go away and horrify someone else.

The evening before our departure, I groaned as Brother Anselm found us at table, and joined us without invitation.

“So, Brother Malachi, you shall walk and so shall your good dame and her old nurse, but from Ostabat I will be riding a fine mule into Spain. So think of that again when you boast about who is the cleverest.”

“Oh, so? How is that?” Brother Malachi rumbled, his mouth full of food.

Brother Anselm leaned close and whispered, “Those two priests who traveled with us from Toulouse—the one with the vow of silence—I’ve overheard them talking in secret to each other. And let me tell you—I misdoubt that they’re any priests at all, despite that psalm-singing old man. They’re wearers of the yellow wheel, who’ve doffed it for travel. The young one—she’s a woman with cropped hair. I imagine his wife. At Ostabat I’ll turn them in for the reward, and purchase the mule.”

“Why, that is clever of you. I must admit you’ve got the better of me this time. But we’ll match wits again, Brother Anselm. Now, try this riddle …” Brother Malachi’s face never lost its geniality as he poured all of his wine into Brother Anselm’s cup and allowed him to guess every riddle that he owned. Leaving the chinless little creature snoring on the table, he said to us with a formal flourish, “Good Dame Margaret and Mistress Hilde, it will be an early day tomorrow, I will see you to our room.” But at the door he cautioned silence and told us to bar the door. Sometime later when I heard his secret tap in the night, I rose to let him in, for Mother Hilde was fast asleep.

“Brother Malachi, what were you doing out there in the dark? You could have been killed, or picked up by the watch,” I whispered fiercely. “Then what would have become of us?”

“They’re off, Margaret, and I have new hope. Mule! Ha! That Brother Anselm deserves to walk all the way to Purgatory.”

“They? Then they were—”

“Of course. Man and wife, and not a yellow wheel between them. It would have been a nasty reception at Ostabat. But once they believed me, they were a wellspring of information. ‘You don’t happen to read Hebrew, do you? I’m looking for Abraham the Jew, the famous scholar, to translate a very—hmm—complex holy work I’ve acquired.’The man smiled—his first smile of the evening. ‘Abraham the Jew? He’s very hard to find. You won’t find him in France at all. Oh no. Not since the Jews were accused of causing the great pestilence and driven out with fire and sword. And Spain? Not even there, I’m sure. Take my advice and go to Avignon. That is where the last Jews in France have sheltered. Pope Clement himself decreed toleration, and none has revoked it since. Go to the papal university at Avignon and seek out Josceus Magister, who is the greatest Talmudic scholar remaining in this realm. Odd, isn’t it? In the shadow of the papal palace stands the last temple in the whole land. If Josceus is no longer living, you will find scholars in plenty. Good luck. Accept my adieux, brother. I fear that Gertelote and I must travel in the dark tonight.’ So here am I, fired with new hope. So close! So close! Just a brief detour to fetch Gilbert, and then—the Secret!”

As I lay down again, I could sense that he was not sleeping, but lying wide awake, staring into the dark.

CHAPTER NINE

S
HOW IN THE EMISSARIES OF THE COUNT of Foix.” The Sieur d’Aigremont had arranged himself on the dais at the end of his great hall to create the most impressive picture. His heavy cloak was thrown back across the arms of the great thronelike wooden chair in which he sat, revealing at the same time the richness of the miniver that lined the cloak and the exquisite pale blue satin of the gold-embroidered doublet that glistened over the rolling fat of his vast torso. His immense, ring-bedecked, and now hairless hands lay idly on the arms of the chair, as if they had nothing better to do in life than lift a pomander to his nostrils. Yet they also suggested a sort of latent menace and power—as if they might suddenly strangle a full-grown man in a single spasm of rage. The seemingly careless arrangement of hands, cloak, and gown was the result of a careful design, set to frame what he considered his most handsome feature: his muscular legs, the legs of a powerful horseman, hunter, warrior, and dancer, encased in white silk pulled taut across huge thighs with showy gold garters.

It seemed an irony that a body of this unusual height and massiveness should be finished off by a head disproportionately small. But as if to compensate, the jowls had grown large enough to conceal the heavy neck entirely. Were it not for the immense jeweled collar that sat at the hidden seam between body and head, it would have been impossible to discern at what place the body left off and the head began. A wide dark blue velvet cap, heavily embroidered with pearls, shadowed the piggy, calculating little eyes, concealing the full extent of their malevolence from observers.

The ambassadors, two knights still dusty from the road, knelt before him and delivered the message that could not be entrusted to writing.

“Join with him in a treaty of peace with the English, eh? Is he so fearful that this Prince of Wales will march east from Gascony that he will not back France?”

“My lord of Foix says, how well has the King of France served him recently, that he should give his lands over to pillage, without any hope of gain? He rides with his cousin, the Captal de Buch, to join the Teutonic knights in crusade against the pagan Slavs in the east, for the sanctity of his soul. He prays that there be peace between you and himself, and that you join with him on a campaign where there is wealth and glory enough for all.”

“And protect his backside from me while he’s gone, eh? What makes him think it is likely?”

“Does not the commendable desire for vengeance for Navarre, who lies this day in the King of France’s prison, and for the slain Norman lords of the alliance move you? Navarre’s allegiance is to the English; a treaty with the English prince at Bordeaux would spare your realm and give evidence of your love for your lord. This alone should dispose you to hear my lord of Foix’s words with favor, even without the tokens of his love for you that you have so graciously received.”

“How could I ever fail to hear the words of the most noble young Count of Foix with anything but the highest favor? Stay and partake of my hospitality while I consider his words.”

As they were shown out, and before the next petitioners entered, he turned to Fray Joaquin, who stood behind him at his shoulder.

“A loving cousin indeed! Has the message from Navarre been decoded yet?”

“This morning, lord. He says, do not bind yourself to any but him; he expects to escape soon and has laid plans for the recapture of his lands in the north, and yours as well.”

“Good. We’ll delay, then send a message of our eternal friendship to the lord of Foix. I need time now—time and money—to equip the army I’ve sworn to raise in my lord’s support. Damn that captain of thieves, that wretched English duke! If he weren’t squatting on my northern lands like some devil, I’d have the money in my hands already. And now this miserable Count of Foix pesters me! Gaston Phoebus, Gaston Phoebus! Why in hell’s name should everyone call him after Apollo just because he’s got a pretty profile? It’s me that should be called Reynaud Phoebus! Me! Who’s the better poet? Who’s the greater connoisseur? It’s me, not that degenerate lordling. Friendship—ugh—I wish I had him in my hands to show him what I think of him.” The fingers of the Sieur d’Aigremont’s huge hands clutched convulsively, as if tearing apart a cooked egret’s wing. Then he turned again to Fray Joaquin.

“How close is Messer Guglielmo? I’m tired of waiting for the gold. Did you tell him I’ll impale him if he doesn’t make better speed?”

Fray Joaquin’s conspiratorial whisper became even more hushed. “He says he needs more fixative for the quicksilver. The stuff you provided wasn’t the right quality. He doesn’t dare call Asmodeus again. He’s losing control of him; he’s become too powerful with the offerings you’ve made, and may break through into the world.”

“Out of control? Messer Guglielmo is a weakling. I won’t have it. Does that popinjay Gaston Phoebus have trouble with his Orthon? No, he’s got his familiar spirit brought to heel—as obedient as can be. And he hasn’t fed Orthon half as well as I’ve fed Asmodeus. I think Messer Guglielmo is telling tales—he’s stalling. And as for fixative, what I’ve sent him has had the highest aesthetic quality. For example, the last little one, who screamed when I—”

“Not here, my lord, not here. But I think I have found an answer to your needs in this respect.” Fray Joaquin saw the blood throbbing in his master’s temples with the hungry remembrance of last night’s work in the hidden chambers. How the fat old fool lost his mind when desire possessed him. It was the weakness by which Fray Joaquin maintained his control over him.

“An answer?” Spit oozed from the corner of the Count’s red lips, and he licked them as if they still tasted of blood.

“To the gold problem. The next petitioners. The pilgrim party. Keep them all here under any pretext. The fat friar among them is the most powerful adept in Europe. You’ve heard of Theophilus of Rotterdam?”

“Theophilus? The one who was rumored to have obtained the Secret, and then vanished from Paris just before King John tried to arrest him?”

“The very one. He wisely chose to disappear to escape being imprisoned to make gold for the rest of his life.”

“Tell him I’ll torture him if he doesn’t reveal the Secret.”

“It’s entirely unnecessary. He says he’ll trade the Secret for the life of Sir Gilbert de Vilers, also known to you as Gilbert l’Escolier.”

“Gilbert l’Escolier? How in the Devil’s name did he know he was here?”

“He says the Stone gives the All-Seeing Eye.”

“All-Seeing Eye? That’s far better than Orthon has ever promised that piddling countlet of Foix. I’d be the most powerful man in the world—no, I’m not letting him go. Theophilus must be made to give up his Secret. And as for that arrogant pseudo poet, I haven’t the least intention of giving him up to Theophilus or anyone else. I haven’t even begun to work on him. Do you know what he said today? He’s as stubborn as ever. No, no, he promises excellent sport—among the best, and I intend to enjoy every tiny little fragment of a moment of it. Beguile this friar—give him the impression I’ve agreed, and get hold of the Secret. Then we’ll eliminate them both.”

“I anticipated your wishes, my lord. I have said nothing, but welcomed the entire party and brought them here for your inspection. Offer them your hospitality for a lengthy stay, and I’ll pry the Secret from the man—if not by guile, then by force.”

“Do whatever is necessary.” The Count waved a hand idly. Fray Joaquin, black cloak rippling behind him like a great shadow, vanished into the long corridor that led to the hidden chambers as the Count of St. Médard greeted the band of pilgrims with a pious quotation.

“H
E CERTAINLY
SEEMS
HOSPITABLE
, dear Malachi,” Mother Hilde said as she slid off her wide pilgrim’s hat, now limp with damp, and laid her staff and bundle at the foot of one of the beds in the center of the long, arched “pilgrim’s hall” that faced the inner courtyard of the castle. For days we had toiled upward along rushing streams from the autumn-clad foothills into the gray and misty heights. Yesterday we had left the spreading apple orchards of the high valley of St. Médard-en-bas behind us in the morning frost, and by the time we had reached the steep, winding streets of St. Médard-en-haut, the mist had turned into a slushy rain that soaked our shoes through and froze our faces.

“What did I tell you, flower of my life? My old name still works magic among the fraternity,” said Malachi, spreading his damp things before the great fire with a self-satisfied air. “Theophilus of Rotterdam does not have to stay at that miserable inn in the village with hoi polloi, but Brother Malachi would have had no other choice.”

All about us in the hall, the lesser members of the abbot’s party were settling in. Behind a heavy screen at the end of the hall, pierced only by a low wooden door, lay the accommodation for women pilgrims. The smell of wet wool and the sound of travelers’ chatter filled the room, giving it a homely air. As I shook the water off my cloak my stomach kept telling me this was all a dismal mistake. I’d never felt farther from home. I couldn’t imagine Gregory was in a place like this. Maybe he’d left. Maybe he’d never been there. Margaret, Margaret, you are a stupid, headstrong woman, and look what it’s got you. You’re freezing and pregnant and standing in the ugliest rooms in Christendom, and you’ve left your children and a warm bed to follow dreams and imaginings. Everybody always told you not to be so stubborn, and you should have listened.

“Oh, the courtesy, the condescension of this pious lord d’Aigremont. Did you see his rings? He may well make us a gift to speed us on our way.” The talkative Brother Anselm plopped his bundle into the corner. “Of course, more than money, what I would like is a nice, surefooted mule. Oh, the treacherousness of those wicked false priests, slipping off like that! Without a doubt they were in league with the Devil, who tells the people of the yellow wheel how to evade God’s justice.”

But I had noticed something strange. Ever since we’d entered the huge iron gate of the chateau, I’d heard a thin, angry whine like a trapped wasp issuing from the Burning Cross. When I put my hand on it, it would stop, only to resume when I took my hand off again. In the great audience chamber, I feared the sound would be noticed, but luckily there was enough clatter of people coming and going to conceal it. But now, in the quiet of our rooms, it seemed more noticeable than ever, and I could feel it quivering on my breast as if it were alive, where it lay hidden under my surcoat.

The rooms, composed of a long stone chamber divided in two by a massive, carved wooden screen that reached to the ceiling, were completely open to foot traffic through several passages without doors. They were really more like corridors, except for the simple fur-covered bedsteads and little charcoal braziers that warmed them. Cold drafts blew through the door arches, meeting the breeze from the windows in a way that made the brazier flames dance and flicker. But the rooms were in an honorable location, near the chambers of the lady Iseut, the Count’s wife, and his young son and only heir. The location was a little too good for pilgrims, in my opinion, although hardly good enough, in the opinion of the more snobbish members of our party.

“Don’t look so glum, Margaret,” said Brother Malachi as he looked at my worried face. “Everything will work out—you’ll see. It’s all meant to be—and soon you’ll be joyful again.”

“Listen, Malachi, don’t you hear it?”

“What?”

“A humming sound, like a fly.”

“A fly? In this season? Mighty strange flies they have in this part of the world.”

I put my staff and bundle at the foot of one of the beds behind the screen. Now I gestured silently through the low wooden door to Mother Hilde to join me, away from the prying eyes of the men.

“Listen, Mother Hilde,” I whispered as I pulled the Burning Cross from its hiding place. As I held it away from my dress, the whining buzz grew louder.

“Dear Holy God,” she whispered. “It’s buzzing.”

“It’s all warm too,” I whispered back. “It got worse when I was near the Count. It can only be the air, Mother Hilde. Even the air is evil in this place.”

“You’re right, Margaret.” Mother Hilde looked very serious.

“Warn Brother Malachi, Hilde, but don’t let that chatterbox Brother Anselm know.”

I put it between my cupped hands, and it grew silent and cool.

“So, so, women must have their gossip, even at the cost of supper,” announced Brother Anselm in pointed tones as we emerged from the little door.

“So is it always. Ah, why I saddled myself with this obligation, I can’t imagine,” said Brother Malachi loudly. “But I, for one, am hungry. And I hear that this lord sets an elegant table from no less than Sim, who’s already inspected the kitchens while you two have been idling back there.”

And sure enough, when we looked around, there was Sim, looking as if he’d popped out of an opening in the earth.

“To supper, all. I fear the mounted ones have preceded us and taken the best places,” said Brother Malachi.

But he was wrong. Fine places at a middle table had been saved for us. Places too fine for simple pilgrims, I thought. There was an elegant supper, during which musicians played from a hidden gallery. And because there were ambassadors from some neighboring count there, the
entremets
were truly astonishing. There was an entire ship on wheels, made completely of pastry, and boys painted all in gold, dancing. And after supper, there were Moorish dances, with the dancers all painted dark and savage, dressed in jewels and little bells. Then, with the trestle tables cleared away, the table dormant was recovered with an elegant red cloth and games set out for the amusement of the high lords of the ambassador’s party that were the Count’s guests. By the time we left, the sun was already setting, and candles had been brought to the gaming table. The lords were well occupied with dice under the smoking new-lit torches, while the Countess and her ladies and
pucelles
sat to one side playing a game of draughts. At the foot of the table, a harper made the air sweet with a doleful song whose words I did not understand. As we wound our way through the torchlit passages to our rooms, the last notes of the song reverberated in my mind, notes that harmonized with the strange, almost inaudible hum from beneath my surcoat.