The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic (64 page)

'And the Grail was among them?'

'So they said, but who knows?' Brother Collimore turned his head and frowned at the Dominican. 'If they possessed the Grail, why did it not help them? I have never understood that.' He closed his eyes. Sometimes, when the old man was pausing to draw breath and almost seemed asleep, de Taillebourg would look through the window to see the two armies on the far hill. They did not move, though the noise they made was like the crackling and roaring of a great fire. The roaring was the noise of men's voices and the crackling was the drums and the twin sounds rose and fell with the vagaries of the wind gusting in the rocky defile above the River Wear. Father de Taillebourg's servant still stood in the doorway where he was half hidden by one of many piles of undressed stone that was stacked in the open space between the castle and the cathedral. Scaffolding hid the cathedral's nearest tower and small boys, eager to get a glimpse of the fightil were scrambling up the web of lashed poles. The masons had abandoned their work to watch the two armies.

Now, after questioning why the Grail had not helped the Vexilles, Brother Collimore did fall into a brief sleep and de Taillebourg crossed to his black-dressed servant 'Do you believe him?'

The servant shrugged and said nothing.

'Has anything surprised you?' de Taillebourg asked.

'That Father Ralph has a son,' the servant answere 'That was new to me.'

'We must speak with that son,' the Dominican said grimly, then turned back because the old monk had woken.

'Where was I?' Brother Collimore asked. A small trickle of spittle ran from a corner of his lips.

'You were wondering why the Grail did not help the Vexilles.' Bernard de Taillebourg reminded him.

'It should have done,' the old monk said. 'If they possessed the Grail why did they not become powerful?'

Father de Taillebourg smiled. 'Suppose,' he said to the old monk, 'that the infidel Muslims were to gain possession of the Grail, do you think God would grant them its power? The Grail is a great treasure, brother, the greatest of all the treasures upon the earth, but is not greater than God.'

'No,' Brother Collimore agreed.

'And if God does not approve of the Grail-keeper then the Grail will be powerless.'

'Yes,' Brother Collimore acknowledged.

'You say the Vexilles fled?'

'They fled the Inquisitors,' Brother Collimore said with a sly glance at de Taillebourg, and one branch of the family came here to England where they did some service to the King. Not our present King, of course.' the old monk made clear, 'but his great-grandfather, the last Henry.'

'What service?' de Taillebourg asked.

'They gave the King a hoof from St George's horse.' the monk spoke as though such things were commonplace. 'A hoof set in gold and capable of working miracles. At least the King believed it did for his son vas cured of a fever by being touched with the hoof. I am told the hoof is still in Westminster Abbey.'

The family had been rewarded with land in Cheshire, Collimore went on, and if they were heretics they did not show it, but lived like any other noble family. Their downfall, he said, had come at the beginning of the present reign when the young King's mother, aided by the Mortimer family, had tried to keep her son from taking power. The Vexilles had sided with the Queen and when she lost they had fled back to the continent. All of them except one son,' Brother Collimore said, the eldest son, and that was Ralph, of course. Poor Ralph.'

'But if his family had fled back to France, why did 'ou treat him?' de Taillebourg asked, puzzlement marring the face that had blood scabs on the abrasions vhere he had beaten himself against the stone that norning. 'Why not just execute him as a traitor?'

'He had taken holy orders,' Collimore protested, 'he could not be executed! Besides, it was known he hated his father and he had declared himself for the King.'

'So he was not all mad,' de Taillebourg put in drily.

'He also possessed money,' Collimore went on, 'he was noble and he claimed to know the secret of the Vexilles.'

'The Cathar treasures?'

'But the demon was in him even then! He declared himself a bishop and preached wild sermons in the London streets. He said he would lead a new crusade to drive the infidel from Jerusalem and promised that the Grail would ensure success.'

'So you locked him up?'

'He was sent to me,' Brother Collimore said reprovingly, 'because it was known that I could defeat the demons.' He paused, remembering. 'In my time I scourged hundreds of them! Hundreds!'

'But you did not fully cure Ralph Vexille?'

The monk shook his head. 'He was like a man spurred and whipped by God so that he wept and screamed and beat himself till the blood ran.' Brother Collimore, unaware that he could have been describing de Taillebourg, shuddered. 'And he was haunted by women too. I think we never cured him of that, but if we did not drive the demons clean out of him we did manage to make them hide so deep that they rarely dared show themselves.'

'Was the Grail a dream given to him by demons?' the Dominican asked.

'That was what we wanted to know,' Brother Collimore replied.

'And what answer did you find?'

'I told my masters that Father Ralph lied. That he had invented the Grail. That there was no truth in his madness. And then, when his demons no longer made him a nuisance, he was sent to a parish in the far south where he could preach to the gulls and to the seals. He no longer called himself a lord, he was simply Father Ralph, and we sent him away to be forgotten.'

'To be forgotten?' de Taillebourg repeated. 'Yet you had news of him. You discovered he had a son.'

The old monk nodded. 'We had a brother house near Dorchester and they sent me news. They told me that Father Ralph had found himself a woman, a house-keeper, but what country priest doesn't? And he had a son and he hung an old spear in his church and said it was St George's lance.'

De Taillebourg peered at the western hill for the noise had become much louder. It looked as though the English, who were by far the smaller army, were advancing and that meant they would lose the battle and that meant Father de Taillebourg had to be out of this monastery, indeed out of this city, before Sir William Douglas arrived seeking vengeance. 'You told your masters that Father Ralph lied. Did he?'

The old monk paused and to de Taillebourg it seemed as if the firmament itself held its breath. 'I don't think he lied,' Collimore whispered.

'So why did you tell them he did?'

'Because I liked him,' Brother Collimore said, 'and I did not think we could whip the truth out of him, or starve it from him, or pull it out by trying to drown him in cold water. I thought he was harmless and should be left to God.'

De Taillebourg gazed through the window. The Grail, he thought, the Grail. The hounds of God were on the scent. He would find it! 'One of the family came back from France,' the Dominican said, 'and stole the lance and killed Father Ralph.'

'I heard.'

'But they did not find the Grail.'

'God be thanked for that,' Brother Collimore said faintly.

De Taillebourg heard a movement and saw that his servant. who had been listening intently, was now watching the courtyard. The servant must have heard someone approaching and de Taillebourg, leaning closer to Brother Collimore, lowered his voice so he would not be overheard. 'How many people know of Father Ralph and the Grail?'

Brother Collimore thought for a few heartbeats. 'No one has spoken of it for years,' he said, 'until the new bishop came. He must have heard rumours for he asked me about it. I told him that Ralph Vexille was mad.'

'He believed you?'

'He was disappointed. He wanted the Grail for the cathedral.'

Of course he did, de Taillebourg thought, for any cathedral that possessed the Grail would become the richest church in Christendom. Even Genoa, which had its gaudy piece of green glass that they claimed was the Grail, took money from thousands of pilgrims. But put the real Grail in a church and folk would come to it in their hundreds of thousands and they would bring coins and jewels by the wagonload. Kings, queens, princes and dukes would throng the aisle and compete to offer their wealth.

The servant had vanished, slipping soundlessly behind one of the piles of building stone, and de Taillebourg waited, watching the door and wondering what trouble would show there. Then, instead of trouble, a young priest appeared. He wore a rough cloth gown, had unruly hair and a broad, guileless, sunburned face. A young woman, pale and frail, was with him. She seemed nervous, but the priest greeted de Taillebourg cheerfully. 'A good day to you, father.'

'And to you, father,' de Taillebourg responded politely. His servant had reappeared behind the strangers, preventing them from leaving unless de Taillebourg gave his permission. 'I am taking Brother Collimore's confession,' de Taillebourg said.

'A good one, I hope,' Father Hobbe said, then smiled. 'You don't sound English, father?'

'I am French,' de Taillebourg said.

'As am I,' Eleanor said in that language, 'and we have come to talk with Brother Collimore.'

'Talk with him?' de Taillebourg asked pleasantly. 'The bishop sent us,' Eleanor said proudly, 'and the King did too.'

'Which King, child?'

'Edouard d'Angleterre,' Eleanor boasted. Father Hobbe, who spoke no French, was looking from Eleanor to the Dominican.

'Why would Edward send you?' de Taillebourg asked and, when Eleanor looked flustered, he repeated the question. 'Why would Edward send you?'

'I don't know, father,' Eleanor said.

'I think you do, my child, I think you do.' He stood and Father Hobbe, sensing trouble, took Eleanor's wrist and tried to pull her from the room, but de Taillebourg nodded at his servant and gestured towards Father Hobbe and the English priest was still trying to understand why he was suspicious of the Dominican when the knife slid between his ribs. He made a choking noise, then coughed and the breath rattled in his throat as he slid down to the flagstones. Eleanor tried to run, but she was not nearly fast enough and de Taillebourg caught her by the wrist and jerked her roughly back. She screamed and the Dominican silenced her by clapping a hand over her mouth.

'What's happening?' Brother Collimore asked.

'We are doing God's work,' de Taillebourg said soothingly, 'God's work.'

And on the ridge the arrows flew.

Thomas advanced with the archers of the left-hand battle and they had not gone more than twenty yards when, just beyond a ditch, a bank and some newly planted blackthorn saplings, they were forced to their right because a great scoop had been taken out of the ridge's flank to leave a hollow of ground with sides too steep for the plough. The hollow was filled with bracken that had turned yellow and at its far side was a lichen-covered stone wall and Thomas's arrow bag caught and tore on a rough piece of the coping as he clambered across. Only one arrow fell out, but it dropped into a mushroom fairy ring and he tried to work out whether that was a good or a had omen, but the noise of the Scottish drums distracted him. He picked up the arrow and hurried on. All the enemy drummers were working now, rattling their skins in a frenzy so that the air itself seemed to vibrate. The Scottish men-at-arms were heft-ing their shields, making sure they protected the pike-men, and a crossbowman was working the ratchet that dragged back his cord and lodged it on the trigger's hook. The man glanced up anxiously at the advancing English bowmen, then discarded the ratchet handles and laid a metal quarrel in the crossbow's firing trough. The enemy had begun to shout and Thomas could distinguish some words now. 'If you hate the English,' he heard, then a crossbow bolt hummed past him and he forgot about the enemy chant. Hundreds of English archers were advancing through the fields, most of them running. The Scots only had a few crossbows. but those weapons outranged the longer war bows of the English who were hurrying to close that range. An arrow slithered across the grass in front of Thomas. Not a crossbow bolt, but an arrow from one of the few Scottish yew bows and the sight of the arrow told him he was almost in range. The first of the English archers had stopped and drawn back their cords and then their arrows flickered into the sky. A bowman in a padded leather jerkin fell backwards with a crossbow bolt embedded in his forehead. Blood spurted skywards where his last arrow, shot almost vertically, soared uselessly.

'Aim at the archers!' a man in a rusted breastplate bellowed. 'Kill their archers first!'

Thomas stopped and looked for the royal standard. It was off to his right, a long way off, but he had shot at further targets in his time and so he turned and braced himself and then, in the name of God and St George, he put his chosen arrow onto the string and drew the white goose feathers back to his ear. He was staring at King David II of Scotland, saw the sun glint gold off the royal helmet, saw too that the King's visor was open and he aimed for the chest, nudged the bow right to compensate for the wind, and loosed. The arrow went true, not vibrating as a badly made arrow would, and Thomas watched it climb and saw it fall and saw the King jerk backwards and then the courtiers closed about him and Thomas laid his second arrow across his left hand and sought another target. A Scottish archer was limping from the line, an arrow in his leg. The men-at-arms closed about the wounded man, sealing their line with heavy shields. Thomas could hear hounds baying deep among the enemy formation, or perhaps he was hearing the war howl of the tribesmen. The King had turned away and men were leaning towards him. The sky was filled with the whisper of flying arrows and the noise of the bows was a steady, deep music. The French called it the devil's harp music. There were no Scottish archers left that Thomas could see. They had all been made targets by the English bowmen and the arrows had ripped the enemy archers into bloody misery, so now the English turned their missiles on the men with pikes, swords, axes and spears. The tribesmen, all hair and beard and fury, were beyond the men-at-arms who were arrayed six or eight men deep, so the arrows rattled and clanged on armour and shields. The Scottish knights and men-at-arms and pike-carriers were sheltering as best they could, crouching under the bitter steel rain. but some arrows always found the gaps between the shields while others drove clean through the leather-covered willow boards. The thudding sound of the arrows hitting shields was rivalling the sharper noise of the drums.