The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic (70 page)

I
t was dark in the cathedral. So dark that the bright colours painted on the pillars and walls had faded into blackness. The only light came from the candles on the side altars and from beyond the rood screen where flames shivered in the choir and black-robed monks chanted. Their voices wove a spell in the dark, twining and falling, surging and rising, a sound that would have brought tears to Thomas's eyes if he had possessed any tears left to shed. 'Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna,' the monks intoned as the candle smoke twisted up to the cathedral's roof. Deliver me, Lord, from everlasting death, and on the flagstones of the choir lay the coffin in which Brother Hugh Collimore lay undelivered, his hands crossed on his tunic, his eves closed and, unknown to the prior, a pagan coin placed beneath his tongue by one of the other monks who feared the devil would take Collimore's soul if the ferryman who carried the souls of the departed across the river of the after-world was not paid.

'
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine
,' the monks chanted, requesting the Lord to give Brother Collimore eternal rest, and in the city beneath the cathedral, in the small houses that clung to the side of the rock, there was weeping for so many Durham men had been killed in the battle, but the weeping was as nothing to the tears that would be shed when the news of the disaster returned to Scotland. The King was taken prisoner, and so was Sir William Douglas and the Earls of Fife and of Menteith and of Wigtown, and the Earl of Moray was dead as was the Constable of Scotland and the King's Marshal and the King's Chamberlain, all of them butchered, their bodies stripped naked and mocked by their enemies, and with them were hundreds of their countrymen, their white flesh laced bloody and food now for foxes and wolves and dogs and ravens. The gorestained Scottish standards were on the altar of Durham's cathedral and the remnants of David's great army were fleeing through the night and on their heels were the vengeful English going to ravage and plunder the lowlands, to take back what had been stolen and then to steal some more. 'Et lux perpetua lucent cis,' the monks chanted, praying that eternal light would shine upon the dead monk, while on the ridge the other dead lay beneath the dark where the white owls shrieked.

'You must confide in me,' the prior hissed at Thomas at the back of the cathedral. Small candles flickered on the scores of side altars where priests, many of them refugees from nearby villages sacked by the Scots, said Masses for the dead. The Latin of those rural priests was often execrable, a source of amusement to the cathedral's own clergy and to the prior who sat beside Thomas on a stone ledge. 'I am your superior in God,' the prior insisted, but still Thomas stayed silent and the prior became angry. 'The King has commanded you! The bishop's letter says so! So tell me what you seek.'

'I want my woman back,' Thomas said, and he was glad it was dark in the cathedral for his eyes were red from crying. Eleanor was dead and Father Hobbe was dead and Brother Collimore was dead, all of them knifed and no one knew by whom, though one of the monks spoke of a dark man, a servant who had come with the foreign priest, and Thomas was remembering the messenger he had seen in the dawn, and Eleanor had been alive then and they had not quarrelled and now she was dead and it was his fault. His fault. The sorrow came to him, overwhelmed him and he howled his misery at the cathedral's nave.

'Be quiet!' said the prior, shocked at the noise.

'I loved her!'

'There are other women, hundreds of them.' Disgusted. he made the sign of the cross. 'What did the King send you to find? I order you to tell me.'

'She was pregnant,' Thomas said, gazing up into the roof, 'and I was going to marry her.' His soul felt as empty and dark as the space above him.

'I order you to tell me!' the prior repeated. 'In the name of God, I order you!'

'If the King wishes you to know what I seek,' Thomas spoke in French though the prior had been using English, 'then the King will be pleased to tell you.'

The prior stared angrily towards the rood screen. The French language, tongue of aristocrats, had silenced him, making him wonder who this archer was. Two men-at-arms, their mail clinking slightly, walked across the flagstones on their way to thank St Cuthbert for their survival. Most of the English army was far to the north, resting through the dark hours before resuming their pursuit of the beaten enemy, but some knights and men-at-arms had come to the city where they guarded the valuable prisoners who had been placed in the bishop's residence in the castle. Perhaps, the prior thought, the treasure that Thomas of Hookton sought was no longer important; after all, a king had been captured along with half the earls of Scotland and their ransoms would wring that wretched country dry, yet he could not rid himself of the word thesaurus. A treasure, and the Church was ever in need of money. He stood. 'You forget,' he said coldly, 'that you are my guest.'

'I do not forget,' Thomas said. He had been given space in the monks' guest quarters, or rather in their stables for there were greater men who needed the warmer rooms. 'I do not forget,' he said again, tiredly.

The prior now gazed up into the roof's high darkness. 'Perhaps,' he suggested, 'you know more of Brother Collimore's murder than you pretend?' Thomas did not answer; the prior's words were nonsense and the prior knew it, for he and Thomas had both been on the battle-field when the old monk had been killed, and Thomas's grief over Eleanor's murder was heartfelt, but the prior was angry and frustrated and he spoke unthinkingly. Hopes of treasure did that to a man. 'You will stay in Durham,' the prior commanded, 'until I give you per-mission to leave. I have given instructions that your horse is to be kept in my stables. You understand me?'

'I understand you,' Thomas said tiredly, then he watched the prior walk away. More men-at-arms were entering the cathedral, their heavy swords clattering against pillars and tombs. In the shadows, behind one of the side altars, the Scarecrow, Beggar and Dickon watched Thomas. They had been shadowing him since the battle's end. Sir Geoffrey was wearing a fine coat of mail now, which he had taken from a dead Scotsman, and he had debated whether to join the pursuit, but instead had sent a sergeant and a half-dozen men with orders to take whatever they could when the pillage of Scotland began. Sir Geoffrey himself was gambling that Thomas's treasure, because it had interested a king, would be worthy of his own interest and so he had decided to follow the archer.

Thomas, oblivious of the Scarecrow's gaze, bent for-ward, eves tight shut, thinking he would never be whole again. His back and arm muscles burned from a day of drawing a bow and the fingers of his right hand were scraped raw by the cord. If he closed his eyes he saw nothing but Scotsmen coming towards him and the bow making a dark line down memory's picture and the white of the arrows' feathers dwindling in their flight, and then that picture would vanish and he would see Eleanor writhing under the knife that had tortured her. They had made her speak. Yet what did she know? That Thomas had doubted the Grail, that he was a reluctant searcher, that he only wanted to be a leader of archers, and that he had let his woman and his friend go to their deaths.

A hand touched the back of his head and Thomas almost hurled himself aside in the expectation of some-thing worse, a blade, perhaps, but then a voice spoke and it was Lord Outhwaite. 'Come outside, young man,' he ordered Thomas, 'somewhere that the Scarecrow can't overhear us.' He said that loudly and in English, then softened his tone and used French. 'I've been look-ing for you.' He touched Thomas's arm, encouraging him. 'I heard about your girl and I was sorry. She was a pretty thing.'

'She was, my lord.'

'Her voice suggested she was well born,' Lord Outhwaite said, 'so her family will doubtless help you exact revenge?'