In Pursuit of the Green Lion (41 page)

I
T WAS LONG BEFORE
matins. The stars were still brightly shining when Hugo got up in the night. Traveling had been good to him; he’d ceased his agonized night wanderings and had his first real sleep in months. But now he’d had nightmares of the vast bulk of the Sieur d’Aigremont coming at him in the lists. Just as the Count had unhorsed him and dismounted to finish him off, he woke with a horrible start: he remembered he was a man under a curse. He was stained with a horrible sin—God could not favor him on the morrow, even if he was so clearly the better man in every other respect. “The curse, the curse,” he mumbled as he paced the floor among the straw palliasses where his men slumbered contentedly. Robert, his squire, turned on the mattress at the foot of the bed. He was snoring. “God, even to be a man at arms—a nobody—with an unstained heart,” Hugo whispered enviously. “Save me, Lord, save me. Forgive me. I’ll reform. I swear. Gilbert can tell me how to do it, to break this curse. There’s a holy man somewhere he knows about. Maybe there’s a shrine for the accursed—some saint. I’ll do a penance, God. Anything.” Prayers. Maybe prayers would do it. Beads, that was it. But who had any? Cis, that was who. “Damned slut! What does she need them for?” he muttered as he leaned to stare out the window at the dark dome of the sky. She’d vanished with that old dandy, the Sieur de Soule, the so-called ambassador. Snuck off without a hint of gratitude or loyalty. Who did she think she was anyway?

The cold night wind pushed banks of icy clouds across the face of the waxing moon. Come out of the sky, God! cried Hugo in his mind. Show Yourself and tell me that You hear me….

There was a clattering in the courtyard below. Hugo looked down and saw a familiar figure, huge and menacing, in the moonlight, mounted on a tall black horse. He was entirely enveloped in an immense black cloak that fell on either side of the saddle and whipped about his horse’s legs in the icy night wind. Hugo heard his deep voice calling,

“Come! I hunt tonight.” And from the shadows, two more cloaked horsemen joined him. One had a tightly curling black beard and immense eyebrows. The other Hugo recognized as the friar who had leaned against the Count’s great chair to whisper in his ear the night before. They pulled their little black cobs in behind the Count’s immense stallion. As Hugo watched, a parade of solemn figures on tall black palfreys, black without even a patch of white on them, seemed to emerge from nowhere to escort the first three figures. They, too, were cloaked in black, but their hoods were up so that their faces could not be seen—that is, if they had any faces at all. As they rode slowly to the inner bailey gate, Hugo noted with a start that there were thirteen of them.

“Open!” the Count’s deep voice cried, and the bailey gate swung wide without the aid of a gatekeeper.

“Coward!” shouted Hugo from the tower window. “Coward! You’re running out on me!”And those who were roused to look out the windows by his cries all saw the Count raise his bloodless face to the tower window and stare long, long, up at Hugo before he turned wordlessly to ride out of the gate.

“You damned coward, come back!” Hugo was racing down the stairs in a rage, all wrapped in his bed quilt, his night-napkin still on his head. Below, he saw unaccustomed lights, and heard sounds from the chapel. He heard chanting and, without a thought for his state of disattire, followed the rising swell of the notes. He paused at the door, which was already flung open, and shrank back in horror. There, on a high black-draped bier before the altar, lay the mangled body of the Comte de St. Médard.

Not a soul who saw the black cavalcade on that icy Saint Crispin’s night ever doubted that it was the shade of the Count himself, on his last ride to the gates of hell.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
TELL YOU, BROTHER, I SAW HIM, JUST AS PLAIN as day, riding out the gate, but the body was lying in state all along.” Hugo shuddered and crossed himself.

Gregory was lying on a narrow bed in the pilgrim’s hall, pulled as close as possible to the blazing fire. He was half propped up, heaped with blankets topped off by a vast wolf fur robe big enough to be a carpet, and Margaret was spooning soup into his mouth. Even though his eyes were open, he was having an unpleasant dream. He was dreaming that his brother Hugo had somehow appeared and was telling him ghost stories while Margaret tried to choke him with soup.

“Stop,” he said to no one in particular, and the soup spoon went away, while he doubled over to cough blood into the towel Margaret held before his face. He could feel her arms around him, holding him while he gasped for breath.

“It’s a sign, don’t you think? Brother, I may be spared after all. The curse may be lifted. The proper prayers. A pilgrimage perhaps. Brother, you must help me. I’ve sinned.”

“Oh, really? Who would have expected it.” Gregory rolled back and closed his eyes. His brother shook him by the shoulder.

“Open your eyes, Gilbert. You have to listen to me.”

“So what is it this time?” Gregory’s voice was barely audible. “Murder? Fornication? The razing of cottages containing widows and orphans? The torture of old men for hidden gold? How is that different from what any other soldier does? Get Father Three Aves to fix it for you. I’m not a specialist in these matters.”

“You don’t understand.” Hugo’s voice was desperate as he shouted into Gregory’s ear. “This is
real
sin. I’ve sworn falsely on the True Cross and signed a paper. I’m doomed. A terrible curse is on me.”

“False swearing? For you, nothing. Buy an indulgence. But the paper—that’s serious.” Sweat was rolling off Gregory’s grayish, pallid skin. His eyes were half closed, and he spoke in between labored breaths. Hugo’s face was twisted with anxiety. Margaret wanted nothing better than to strangle him for harassing Gregory, but there wasn’t a thing she could do.

The dream had gotten worse. His brother was shaking him, and Margaret had taken away the soup.

“What’s the paper about? Money? Land?”

“A promise of betrothal.”

Gregory turned his head to one side, and clutched his chest as his breath came in short gusts. Margaret picked up another towel. But no, he wasn’t coughing this time. He was laughing.

“I never thought you’d be caught in that trap, brother,” he whispered. “Only the Pope can get you off that one.”

Hugo clutched Gregory’s shoulder desperately.

“The Pope? You say the Pope can do it?”

“Of course,” said Gregory as he lost consciousness. Hugo stood up abruptly, and began to walk around the room wringing his hands. “The Pope,” he muttered. “The Pope. Connections—money—how on earth—? Somehow. Yes. That’s how—”

Brother Malachi was sitting on the large bed in the corner by the screen, while Hilde packed his things.

“Hilde, my love, do you think I’d look more dignified with a long beard?”

“Very distinguished, Malachi, especially with the gray that’s in it now. Otherwise it would be entirely too gingery for distinction.”

“Good. I’m glad you think it’s attractive. For you, attractive, for others, distractive.”

“What do you mean, Malachi? You’ve a plan?”

“Yes, of course. I fear that to accomplish my task, I must visit old haunts. Haunts where my—um—clerical attire may still be remembered. I cannot decide whether I would look better as a merchant of hides or perhaps of—say, something nicer. Flemish cloth, perhaps? English wool?” He took several seashells, wrapped up in a napkin, from his capacious purse. “Would you be so kind, my precious love, as to sew these on our cloaks? We will be returning from Compostela the easy way—without having been there.” He rummaged some more, and took out another, tightly bundled napkin that he spread before him. “Good—the green’s not faded yet. Best batch I ever made. Hmm. The rings are as good as new. Yes, our finances are in order.”

“Surely,” broke in Margaret, “we’re not leaving soon. Gregory is in no condition to be moved, especially through these mountains.”

“We may be moving sooner than you think. Have you noticed that the talkative Brother Anselm is missing? I fear he went to the Bishop to unburden himself of all that he saw last night. Sorcery, murder, suicide, alchemy—yes, without a doubt the Bishop will be here. If he’s honest, to clean up. If he’s sticky-fingered—well, the goods of a heretic, even one condemned postmortem, are forfeit. This place is rather a large and tempting prize. To tell the truth, I’d not be surprised at all if we had quite a few visitors soon. Nosy visitors, who will do a lot of questioning—with the aid of—oh, well, why burden you.”

“But look there, Malachi,” pointed out Mother Hilde reasonably enough, “he really can’t be moved. Even you can see that.” She pointed to Gregory where he lay, a living skeleton, with another of Margaret’s towels, this one wrung out in cold water, across his feverish forehead. “He’ll die, Malachi.”

“Oh, Hilde,” said Brother Malachi, and the sadness washed across his face again. “It’s far easier to die by God’s hand than in the hands of the Inquisition.”

That night the fever soared, and Margaret sat sleepless by the banked fire, watching and waiting. When the racking chills began shortly after midnight, she climbed in underneath the covers beside him to warm him with her own body. She was so exhausted, she fell asleep almost immediately, one arm thrown protectively over his skeletal ribs.

When she next awoke, the cold gray light of the mountains had already illuminated the room for many hours. The fire had been rekindled. Lazily she opened her eyes, and as she did, she felt that the grayish penumbra of death had faded around Gregory. She herself could hardly move; her bones felt bruised, as if she had wrestled with grim Death himself, all that past night. She turned her head. Hilde was by the fire, where she had warmed a posset for them.

“Is he still living?” Hilde asked gently.

“Yes, Mother Hilde. Hear him breathing?” Margaret whispered. She felt as weak as a kitten. Sure enough, Mother Hilde could make out the harsh rattle of his breath, coming evenly now.

“Where’s Malachi?” Margaret asked.

“Gone to explain to the Countess the predicament she’s in. He’s arranged with her physician to swear that the Count had an epileptic fit—that he had them all the time—and he fell out of the window by accident. That way she can bury him in the family tomb, instead of on unconsecrated ground. He’s proposing that she provide us with money and horses and a guide to take us out through the mountains in a way that avoids the main road. That way we can’t be questioned. Her own people she can rely on for silence. It must be working—I’ve already seen a team of workmen on their way to the secret chambers to demolish the evidence. Surely he’ll be back soon. Would you like this posset? You look completely drained.”

“That’s how I feel, Mother Hilde. I feel as if I wrestled all night with Death.” Margaret sat up and wrapped her hands around the warm goblet, as if she were too weak to lift it to her mouth, and could somehow take the warmth into her body through her hands to restore herself. Mother Hilde saw her hesitate, and came and tilted the goblet to Margaret’s mouth with her own hands.

“Knowing you, Margaret, that’s probably exactly what you were doing.”

I
HAVE NEVER FELT
less like getting out of bed than the morning when Brother Malachi came to announce that we were leaving the chateau immediately. Now if he’d been lugubrious, I might have borne it, but it was his infernal cheerfulness that made the thing so hateful.

“Why don’t you just go away and leave us here?” I grumbled at him, burying my head under the big wolf fur robe. We could just lie here, Gregory and I, until spring, when it was fit to travel. Excellent idea.

“Nonsense, nonsense. It’s all arranged, my dears.” I could hear his optimistic flutter even under the robe, so I poked just my eyes out to see what he was doing. He’d evidently made a detour via the kitchen, for he had a jug of applejack in one hand, and in the other, a large piece of boiled salt beef, wrapped up in a soggy napkin. Under one elbow he clutched an immense long loaf of bread. His new beard was growing out helter-skelter in every direction, and he looked so comic, I couldn’t help smiling.

“And now, to tempt Margaret the lazybones out of bed,” he announced. And putting down his load, he bowed before the bed and with an extravagant flourish produced an immense boiled goose egg from the bosom of his gown. “See that? Not an eye on it, and still warm. Consider the advantages of breakfast before travel, and favor us with the sunshine of your regard.” I poked my nose out from under the robe. “Better, better,” he said. “But I suggest you cannot eat breakfast with your nose. Besides, you need to sit up to properly appreciate my tale.” I put my whole head out. Certain now of his success, he turned and put the egg with the other things he’d brought, and uncorked the jug.

I could feel Gregory shift in his sleep; his breathing sounded much better. So, Margaret, it can’t be all bad, I thought to myself. Maybe it will all work out after all. I suppose you ought to get out of bed. When I sat up I couldn’t help looking down at my crumpled clothes, now not only torn and devastated, but slept in. Margaret, you’re a mess, I thought. It’s a good thing Gregory can’t see you now, or he wouldn’t have you. But, of course, when Malachi is set on telling a story about himself, everyone must listen, or he becomes morose and says he feels unappreciated. Besides, the breakfast he’d brought looked good.

“Oh, it’s a wonderful thing, to discuss matters of importance with a woman who can deal with logic,” he was rattling on, as he laid out the beef and took out his knife. “She hesitated. She looked at her ladies and the captain of her guard. ‘Why needlessly deprive your son of his inheritance just because your husband was a tiny bit more sinful than most?’ I asked. ‘Besides, it isn’t as if you knew about it all. You yourself are as innocent as a newborn lamb. And surely, you may now be one of the greatest ladies in France. You could travel—go to Orléans, Paris, mingle with the most elegant elements of society. Consider: There is nothing sadder than a widow without property, and no one happier than a widow with a fortune. It all hinges on your quick, decisive action.’ So she gave orders—and whoosh!—it was all done.” Brother Malachi finished cutting up the bread and beef while the jug made the rounds.

“Now, I’ll tell you, it was no such easy matter convincing that thickheaded brother of Gilbert,” Brother Malachi went on, after licking his fingers. “What a mutton brain! ‘I see no reason to leave now,’ he says. ‘I’ll just tell them the truth.’ ‘What truth is that?’ I ask. ‘Oh, that he was so frightened of meeting me on the field of honor in single combat in the morning that he jumped out of the window.’ I racked my brains. How to get through? Then I hit on it. ‘Surely, you wouldn’t deprive a widow of her last solace. If he can’t be buried in the family tomb, she will waste away with grief, and then you’ll have another sin on your conscience. Honor requires that you remain forever silent about his death.’ ‘Sin,’ he says, and gets all panicky-looking ‘Sin. I’ve got to see the Pope.’ ‘What better time than now?’ I say. Goodness, he does hold on to an idea, once it’s finally penetrated whatever mind resides in that thick skull. So now he’s off at the stables, getting things ready. Though how he expects to see the Pope, short of months spent waiting and bribing people, I do not know. He seems to think all he has to do is arrive, and he’ll be shown right in. Humph! Well, we must allow for the possibility of enlightenment before he gets there.”

It was not long before the Countess’s men had come with a stretcher to take Gregory to the waiting horse litter in the inner bailey. He stirred and groaned, but did not waken as he was wrapped in fur robes and loaded onto the litter with a stone that had been heated in the fire at his feet. I was beginning to feel restored not only by Malachi’s breakfast but by the new kirtle and surcoat provided by the Countess. They were quite foreign in cut, and large, to allow for my expanding condition. The kirtle was heavy dark green wool, suitable for the winter, with wide sleeves. The surcoat was embroidered brown velvet, grown as bald as a baby’s bottom with age and wear, but still redolent of a certain faded elegance. I’d unwrapped the Burning Cross when the buzzing had stopped, and it shone resplendently against its handsome background. She’d pronounced the effect attractive, but seemed shocked when I declined the offer of a proper tall French headdress. ‘What? No hennin?’ she cried. ‘You might as well be seen naked.’ But I convinced her that as a foreigner, I wasn’t used to such tall headgear, and might be at risk of my neck if I caught it in an overhanging branch while riding. It was all very friendly, if a bit hasty, and we all swore silence on a book of the Gospels that she had.

So very soon we were beyond the postern gate, headed to the main road by a roundabout way through the mountains. I was mounted on a little rough-gaited dun mare, and Brother Malachi on a rangy roan with Mother Hilde on the crupper behind him. The horse litter was slung between the mounts of two of Sir Hugo’s men, with Sim perched up behind the latter of the two. Sir Hugo, of course, was glorious in newly shined armor, with his pennant flying from his lance tip. Robert, his squire, rode beside him, carrying his shield, helm, and great sword. Hugo always liked to see things done right, and did not believe in slinking out by back ways in disguise. At the end of the party were Hugo’s sumpter mules. We were certainly leaving in better style than we came. There was, however, one of the Brokesford party missing. Cis, the false lady Margaret, had refused to be roused from the ambassador’s quarters, and the doors remained firmly barred while Hugo thumped and shouted insults in English outside.