The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic (133 page)

‘I do so swear it,’ Robbie said solemnly and laid his hand on the cross. ‘By God and my mother’s own life, I swear it.’ Joscelyn, watching, seemed amused.

Sir Guillaume gave in. He knew he could have kept Joscelyn and the other prisoners, and that in the end a means of conveying all the ransom money would be found if he did keep them, but he also knew that he would face weeks of unrest. Robbie’s supporters, and there were many of them, especially among the routiers who had joined the garrison, would claim that by waiting he risked losing all the money, or else they would suggest that he was planning to take the cash and cheat them, and Robbie would encourage that unrest and in the end the garrison would fall apart. It was probably going to fall apart anyway for, without Thomas, there was no compelling reason to stay. The men had never known that the Grail was their quest, but they had sensed Thomas’s urgency, sensed that he had a cause, and that what they did had a meaning; now, Sir Guillaume knew, they were just another band of routiers who were lucky enough to hold a castle. None of them would stay long, Sir Guillaume thought. Even if Robbie did not pay his share Sir Guillaume could still ride away much richer than he had arrived, but if Robbie kept faith then Sir Guillaume would have enough money to raise the men he needed to gain his revenge on those who had stolen his lands in Normandy.

‘I expect the money to be here within a week,’ Sir Guillaume said.

‘Two,’ Joscelyn said.

‘One week!’

‘I shall try,’ Joscelyn said off-handedly.

Sir Guillaume pushed the crucifix across the table. ‘One week!’

Joscelyn looked at Sir Guillaume for a long time,
then
placed a finger on the broken body of Christ. ‘If you insist,’ he said. ‘One week.’

Joscelyn left next morning. He rode in full armour, his banner, horses and men-at-arms restored to him, and with him rode Robbie Douglas and sixteen other men-at-arms, all of them Gascons who had served Thomas, but who now preferred to take gold from the Count of Berat. Sir Guillaume was left with the men who had come to Castillon d’Arbizon, but at least that meant he had the archers. He stood on the castle’s topmost rampart and watched Joscelyn ride away. John Faircloth, the English man-at-arms, joined him there. ‘Is he leaving us?’ he asked, meaning Robbie.

Sir Guillaume nodded. ‘He’s leaving us. We’ll not see him again.’

‘So what do we do?’ Faircloth asked, in French this time.

‘Wait for the money, then go.’

‘Just go?’

‘What else in God’s name can we do? The Earl of Northampton doesn’t want this town, John. He’ll never send anyone to help us. If we stay here, we die.’

‘And we go or die without the Grail,’ Faircloth said. ‘Is that why the Earl sent us here? He knew about the Grail?’

Sir Guillaume nodded. ‘The knights of the round table,’ he said, amused, ‘that’s us.’

‘And we abandon the search?’

‘It’s
a madness
,’ Sir Guillaume said forcefully, ‘a goddamned madness. It doesn’t exist, but Thomas thought it might and the Earl thought it worth an effort. But it’s pure moonstruck idiocy. And Robbie’s caught up in it now, but he won’t find it because it isn’t there to be found.
There’s
just us and too many enemies, so we’ll take our money and go home.’

‘What if they don’t send the money?’ Faircloth asked.

‘There’s honour, isn’t there?’ Sir Guillaume said. ‘I mean we plunder, thieve, rape and kill, but we never cheat each other over ransoms. Sweet Jesus! No one could ever trust anyone else if that happened.’ He paused, staring at Joscelyn and his entourage who had stopped at the valley’s end. ‘Look at the bastards,’ he said, ‘just watching us.
Wondering how to get us out of here.’

The horsemen were indeed taking a last look at Castillon d’Arbizon’s tower. Joscelyn saw the impudent standard of the Earl of Northampton lift and fall in the small breeze, then he spat onto the road. ‘Are you really going to send them money?’ he asked Robbie.

Robbie looked startled at the question. ‘Of course,’ he said. Once he had been paid the agreed ransom then honour insisted that he would have to pass on Sir Guillaume’s share. It had never occurred to him to do otherwise.

‘But they fly the flag of my enemy,’ Joscelyn pointed out. ‘So if you send them the money, what’s to stop me taking it back?’ He looked at Robbie, waiting for a response.

Robbie tried to work out the ramifications of the suggestion, testing them against his honour, but so long as the money was sent, he thought,
then
honour was satisfied. ‘They didn’t ask for a truce,’ he said hesitantly, and it was the answer Joscelyn wanted because it suggested Joscelyn could start a fight the moment the money was paid. He smiled and rode on.

They reached Berat that evening. A man-at-arms had ridden ahead, warning the town of their new lord’s approach, and a delegation of consuls and priests met Joscelyn a half-mile from the eastern gate. They knelt to welcome him and the priests presented the Count with some of the cathedral’s precious relics. There was a rung from Jacob’s ladder, the bones of one of the fishes used to feed the five thousand, St Gudule’s sandal, and a nail used to crucify one of the two thieves who had died with Christ. All had been gifts to the town from the old Count, and now the new Count was expected to dismount and pay the precious relics, all encased in silver or gold or crystal, due reverence. Joscelyn knew what he was expected to do, but instead he leaned on his pommel and glowered at the priests. ‘Where is the bishop?’ he demanded.

‘He is ill, lord.’

‘Too ill to welcome me?’

‘He is sick, lord, very sick,’ one of the priests said, and Joscelyn stared at the man for an instant,
then
abruptly accepted the explanation. He dismounted, knelt briefly, made the sign of the cross towards the proffered relics,
then
nodded curtly at the consuls who held out the town’s ceremonial keys on a cushion of green velvet. Joscelyn was supposed to take the keys and then return them with a kind word, but he was hungry and thirsty so he clambered up into his saddle and spurred past the kneeling consuls.

The cavalcade entered the town by its western gate where the guards went on their knees to their new lord, and then the horsemen climbed to the saddle between the two hills on which Berat was built. To their left now, on the lower hill, was the cathedral, a long,
low church
that lacked tower or spire, while to their right a cobbled street stretched to the castle on the taller hill. The street was hung with painted signs that forced the horsemen to ride in single file, while on either side of them the citizens knelt and called out blessings. One woman strewed vine leaves on the cobbles while a tavern-keeper offered a tray of wine pots that got spilled when Joscelyn’s horse sidled into the man.

The street opened into the marketplace, which was dirty with trampled vegetables and stinking from the dung of cows, sheep and goats. The castle was ahead now and its gates swung open as the guards recognized the banner of Berat carried by Joscelyn’s squire.

Then it all became confusing for Robbie. His horse was taken by a servant and he was eventually given a room in the east tower where there was a bed and a fire, and later that evening there was a raucous feast to which the dowager Countess was invited. She proved to be a small, plump and pretty girl, and at the feast’s end Joscelyn took her by the wrist and led her to his new bedchamber, the old Count’s room, and Robbie stayed in the hall where the men-at-arms stripped three serving girls naked and took their turns with them. Others, encouraged by Joscelyn before he disappeared, were dragging bundles of old parchments from the shelves and feeding them to the big fire that blazed mightily and bright. Sir Henri Courtois watched, said nothing, but became as drunk as Robbie.

Next morning the rest of the shelves were emptied. The books were thrown out of a window into the castle yard where a new fire burned. The shelves were hacked down and followed the books and parchments out of the window. Joscelyn, in high spirits, supervised the room’s cleansing, and in between he received visitors. Some had been servants of his uncle: the huntsmen, armourers, cellarers and clerks who wanted to make sure their jobs were safe. Some were lesser lords from his new domain who came to swear fealty by placing their hands between the Count’s, swearing the oath of allegiance and then receiving the kiss that made them Joscelyn’s own men. There were petitioners wanting justice and even more desperate men who had been owed money by the late Count and who now dared hope that his nephew would honour the debts. There were a dozen priests from the town who wanted the new Count to give them money to say Masses for his uncle’s soul and Berat’s consuls climbed the stairs in their red and blue robes with arguments why the town’s tax yield should be lower; and amidst it all Joscelyn was roaring at his men to burn more books, to feed more parchments to the fire, and when a young and nervous monk appeared to protest that he had not yet finished searching the muniments, Joscelyn chased him from the hall and so found the monk’s lair, which was full of still more documents. All were burned, leaving the monk in tears.

It was then, as the newly discovered hoard of parchments was flaring high to scatter burning scraps throughout the courtyard and threaten the thatched roof of the castle’s
mews, that
the bishop, apparently not sick at all, arrived. He came with a dozen other clergymen, and with them was Michel, the old Count’s squire.

The bishop hammered his staff on the cobblestones to get Joscelyn’s attention and when the new Count deigned to notice him the bishop pointed the staff at Joscelyn. A hush fell over the courtyard as men realized a drama was unfolding. Joscelyn, the fire gleaming from his round face, looked belligerent. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded of the bishop who had not, he thought, shown sufficient deference.

‘I want to know,’ the bishop demanded, ‘how your uncle died.’

Joscelyn took a few paces towards the deputation, the sound of his boots echoing from the castle walls. There were at least a hundred men in the courtyard and some of them, having suspected that the old Count had been murdered, made the sign of the cross, but Joscelyn looked quite unconcerned. ‘He died,’ he said loudly, ‘in his sleep, of a sickness.’

‘It is a strange sickness,’ the Bishop said, ‘that leaves a man with a slit throat.’

A murmur sounded in the yard and swelled to a roar of indignation. Sir Henri Courtois and some of the old Count’s men-at-arms put hands to their sword hilts, but Joscelyn was equal to the challenge. ‘What do you accuse me of?’ he snarled at the bishop.

‘I accuse you of nothing,’ the bishop said. He was not willing to pick a fight with the new Count, not yet, but instead attacked through Joscelyn’s hirelings. ‘But I do accuse your men. This man,’ he drew Michel forward, ‘saw them cut your uncle’s throat.’

A murmur of disgust sounded in the yard and some of the men-at-arms moved towards Sir Henri Courtois as if assuring him of their support. Joscelyn ignored the protest and instead looked for Villesisle. ‘I sent you,’ he said loudly, ‘to seek an audience with my dear uncle. And now I hear that you killed him?’

Villesisle was so taken aback by the accusation that he said nothing. He just shook his head in denial, but so uncertainly that every man there was sure of his guilt. ‘You want justice, bishop?’ Joscelyn called over his shoulder.

‘Your uncle’s blood cries for it,’ the bishop said, ‘and the legitimacy of your inheritance depends on it.’

Joscelyn drew his sword. He was not in armour, just breeches, boots and a belted woollen jerkin, while Villesisle wore a leather coat that would be proof against most sword strokes, but Joscelyn jerked his blade to indicate that Villesisle should draw his own weapon. ‘A trial by combat, bishop,’ he said.

Villesisle backed away. ‘I only did what you . . .’ he began,
then
had to retreat fast because Joscelyn had attacked him with two quick strokes. Villesisle became frightened that this was no dumb show put on to placate a troublesome bishop, but a real fight. He drew his sword. ‘My lord,’ he pleaded with Joscelyn.

‘Make it look good,’ Joscelyn said softly, ‘and we can sort everything out afterwards.’

Villesisle felt a surge of relief, then grinned and made an attack of his own that Joscelyn parried. The watching men were fanning out to make a half-circle around the fire in front of which the two men could fight. Villesisle was no novice, he had fought in tournaments and skirmishes, but he was wary of Joscelyn who was taller and stronger, and Joscelyn attacked now, making use of those advantages, scything his sword in massive strokes that Villesisle parried desperately. Each clash of blades echoed twice, once from the castle’s curtain wall and once from the big keep, one triple ring fading as the next began, and Villesisle was backing away, backing away, and then he leaped aside to let one of Joscelyn’s murderous cuts waste itself on the smoky air and immediately pressed forward, lunging with the point, but Joscelyn had been waiting for it and he turned the lunge and bulled forward, throwing Villesisle off his feet so that he sprawled on the cobbles and Joscelyn loomed over him. ‘I might have to imprison you after this,’ he said almost in a whisper, ‘but not for long.’ Then he raised his voice. ‘I ordered you to go and talk with my uncle. Do you deny it?’

Villesisle was happy to play along with the deception. ‘I do not deny it, lord,’ he said.

‘Say it again!’ Joscelyn ordered. ‘Louder!’