The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic (75 page)

'I wish I knew,' Thomas said, staring at the name Astarac. All he knew was that Astarac was a fief or county in southern France and the home of the Vexille family before they_ were declared rebel and heretic. He had also learned that Astarac was close to the Cathar heartlands, close enough for the contagion to catch the Vexilles, and when, a hundred years before, the French King and the true Church had burned the heretics out of the land they had also forced the Vexilles to flee. Now it seemed that the legendary Sir Perceval was a Vexille? It seemed to Thomas that the further he penetrated the mystery the greater the entanglement. 'Did my father ever talk to you of Astarac, sir?' He asked Sir Giles.

'Astarac? What's that?'

'Where his family came from.'

'No, no, he grew up in Cheshire. That's what he always said.'

But Cheshire had merely been a refuge, a place to hide from the Inquisition: was that where the Grail was now hidden? Thomas turned a page to find a long passage describing how a raiding column had tried to attack the tower of Astarac and had been repulsed by the sight of the Grail. 'It dazzled them,' Father Ralph had written, 'so that 364 of them were cut down.' Another page recorded that it was impossible for a man to tell a lie while he held his hand on the Grail, 'or else he will be stricken dead'. A barren woman would be granted the gift of children by stroking the Grail and if a man were to drink from it on Good Friday he would be vouchsafed a glimpse of 'she whom he will take to wife in heaven'. Another story related how a knight, carrying the Grail across a wilderness, was pursued by heathens and, when it seemed he must be caught, God sent a vast eagle that caught him, his horse and the precious Grail up into the sky, leaving the pagan warriors howling in frustrated rage.

One phrase was copied over and over in the pages of the book: 'Transfer calicern istem a me', and Thomas could feel his father's misery and frustration reaching through the repeated phrase. 'Take this cup from me,' the words meant and they were the same words Christ had spoken in the Garden of Gethsemane as he pleaded with God the Father to spare him the pain of hanging on the tree. The phrase was sometimes written in Greek, a language Thomas had studied but never mastered fully; he man-aged to decipher most of the Greek text, but the Hebrew remained a mystery.

Sir John, the ancient vicar of St Peter's, agreed that it was a strange kind of Hebrew. 'I've forgotten all the Hebrew I ever learned,' he told Thomas, 'but I don't remember seeing a letter like that!' He pointed to the symbol that looked like a human eye. 'Very odd, Thomas, very odd. It's almost Hebrew.' He paused a while, then said plaintively, 'If only poor Nathan was still here.'

'Nathan?'

'He was before your time, Thomas. Nathan collected leeches and sent them to London. Physicians there prized Dorset leeches, did you know that? But, of course, Nathan was a Jew and he left with the others.' The Jews had been expelled from England almost fifty years before, an event still green in the priest's memory. 'No one has ever discovered where he found his leeches,' Sir John went on, 'and I sometimes wonder if he put a curse on them.' He frowned at the book. 'This belonged to your father?'

'It did.'

'Poor Father Ralph,' Sir John said, intimating that the book must have been the product of madness. He closed the volume and carefully wrapped the soft leather cover about the pages.

There was no sign of de Taillebourg, nor any news of Thomas's friends in Normandy. He wrote a difficult letter to Sir Guillaume which told how his daughter had died and begging for any news of Will Skeat whom Sir Guillaume had taken to Caen to be treated by Mordecai, the Jewish doctor. The letter went to Southampton and from there to Guernsey and Thomas was assured it would be sent on to Normandy, but no reply had come by Christmas and Thomas assumed the letter was lost. Thomas also wrote to Lord Outhwaite, assuring his lordship that he was being assiduous in his search and recounting some of the stories from his father's book.

Lord Outhwaite sent a reply that congratulated Thomas on what he had discovered, then revealed that Sir Geoffrey Carr had left for Brittany with half a dozen men. Rumour, Lord Outhwaite reported, claimed that the Scarecrow's debts were larger than ever, 'which, perhaps, is why he has gone to Brittany'. It would not just be hope of plunder that had taken the Scarecrow to La Roche-Derrien, but the law which said a debtor was not required to make repayments while he served the King abroad. 'Will you follow the Scarecrow?' Lord Outhwaite enquired, and Thomas sent an answer saying he would be in La Roche-Derrien by the time Lord Outhwaite read these words, and then did nothing about leaving Dorset. It was Christmas, he told himself, and he had always enjoyed Christmas.

Sir Giles celebrated the twelve days of the feast in high style. He ate no meat from Advent Sunday, which was not a particular hardship for he loved eels and fish, but on Christmas Eve he ate nothing but bread, readying himself for the first feast of the season.

Twelve empty hives were brought into the hall and decorated with sprigs of ivy and holly; a great candle, big enough to burn through the whole season, was placed on the high table and a vast log set to burn in the hearth, and Sir Giles's neighbours were invited to drink wine and ale, and eat beef, wild boar, venison, goose and brawn. The wassail cup, filled with mulled and spiced claret, was passed about the hall and Sir Giles, as he did every night of Christmas, wept for his dead wife and was drunkenly asleep by the time the candles burned out. On the fourth night of Christmas, Thomas and Robbie joined the hogglers as, disguised as ghosts and green men and wild men, they pranced about the parish extorting funds for the Church. They went as far as Dorchester, encroaching on two other parishes as they did, and got into a fight with the hogglers from All Saints' and they ended the night in the Dorchester jail from which they were released by an amused George Adyn who brought them a morning pot of ale and one of his wife's famous hog's puddings. The Twelfth Night feast was a boar that Robbie had speared, and after it was eaten, and when the guests were lying half drunk and satiated on the hall rushes, it began to snow. Thomas stood in the door-way and watched the flakes whirling in the light of a flickering torch.

'We must be away soon,' Robbie had come to join him.

'Away?'

'We have work to do,' the Scot said.

Thomas knew that was true, but he did not want to leave. 'I thought you were happy enough here?'

'So I am,' Robbie said, 'and Sir Giles is more generous than I deserve.'

'So?'

'It's Mary,' Robbie said. He was embarrassed and did not finish.

'Pregnant?' Thomas guessed.

Robbie crossed himself. 'It seems so.'

Thomas stared at the snow. 'If you give her enough money to make a dowry,' he said, 'she'll thrive.'

'I've only got three pounds left,' Robbie said. He had been given a purse by his uncle, Sir William, supposedly with enough money to last a year.

'That should be enough,' Thomas said. The snow whirled in a gust of wind.

'It'll leave me with nothing!' Robbie protested.

'You should have thought of that before you ploughed the field,' Thomas said, remembering how he had been in just this predicament with a girl in Hookton. He turned back to the hall where a harpist and flautist made music to the drunks. 'We should go,' he said, 'but I don't know where.'

'You said you wanted to go to Calais?'

Thomas shrugged. 'You think de Taillebourg will seek us there?'

'I think,' Robbie said, 'that once he knows you have that book he'll follow you into hell itself.'

Thomas knew Robbie was right, but the book was not proving to be of any great help. It never specifically said that Father Ralph had possessed the Grail, nor described a place where a searcher might look for it. Thomas and Robbie had been looking. They had combed the sea caves in the cliffs near Hookton where they had found driftwood, limpets and seaweed. There had been no golden cup half hidden in the shingle. So where to go now? Where to look? If Thomas vent to Calais then he could join the army, but he doubted de Taillebourg would seek him out in the heart of Eng-land's soldiery. Maybe, Thomas thought, he should go back to Brittany and he knew that it was not the Grail or the necessity to face de Taillebourg that attracted him to La Roche-Derrien, but the thought that Jeanette Chenier might have returned home. He thought of her often, thought of her black hair, of her fierce spirit and defiance, and every time he thought of her he suffered guilt because of Eleanor.

The snow did not last. It thawed and a hard rain came from the west to lash the Dorset coast. A big English ship was wrecked on the Chesil shingle and Thomas and Robbie took one of Sir Giles's wagons down to the beach and with the aid of Jake Churchill and two of his sons fought off a score of other men to rescue six packs of wool that they carried back to Down Mapperley and presented to Sir Giles who thereby made a year's income in one day.

And next morning the French priest came to Dorchester.

The news was brought by George Adyn. 'I know as you said we should be watching for foreigners,' he told Thomas, 'and this one be real foreign. Dressed like a priest, he is, but who knows? Looks like a vagabond, he does. You say the word' — he winked at Thomas — 'and we'll give the bugger a proper whipping and send him on up to Shaftesbury.' 'What will they do with him there?' Robbie asked. 'Give him another whipping and send him back,' George said.

'Is he a Dominican?' Thomas asked.

'How would I know? He's talking gibberish, he is. He don't talk proper, not like a Christian.'

'What colour is his gown?'

'Black, of course.'

'I'll come and talk to him,' Thomas said.

'He only jabbers away, he does. Your honour!' This was in greeting to Sir Giles, and Thomas then had to wait while the two men discussed the health of various cousins and nephews and other relatives, and it was close to midday by the time he and Robbie rode into Dorchester and Thomas thought, for the thousandth time, what a good town this was and how it would be a pleasure to live here.

The priest was brought out into the small jail yard. It was a fine day. Two blackbirds hopped along the top wall and an aconite was blooming in the yard corner. The priest proved to be a young man, very short, with a squashed nose, protuberant eyes and bristling black hair. He wore a gown so shabby, torn and stained that it was little wonder the constables had thought the man a vagrant; a misconception that made the little priest indignant. 'Is this how the English treat God's servants? Hell is too good for you English!

I shall tell the bishop and he will tell the Archbishop and he will inform the Holy Father and you will all be declared anathema! You will all be excommunicated!'

'See what I mean?' George Advn asked. 'Yaps away like a dog fox, but he don't make sense.'

'He's speaking French,' Thomas told him, then turned to the priest. 'What's your name?'

'I want to see the bishop now. Here!'

'What's your name?'

'Bring me the local priest!'

'I'll punch your bloody ears out first,' Thomas said. 'Now what's your name?'

He was called Father Pascal, and he had just endured a journey of exquisite discomfort, crossing the winter seas from Normandy, from a place south of Caen. He had travelled first to Guernsey and then on to Southampton from where he had walked, and he had done it all without any knowledge of English. It was a miracle to Thomas that Father Pascal had come this far. And it seemed even more of a miracle because Father Pascal had been sent to Hookton from Evecque, with a message for Thomas.

Sir Guillaume d'Evecque had sent him, or rather Father Pascal had volunteered to make the journey, and it was urgent for he was bringing a plea for help. Evecque was under siege. 'It is terrible!' Father Pascal said. By now, calmed and placated, he was by the fire in the Three Cocks where he was eating goose and drinking bragget, a mixture of warmed mead and dark ale. 'It is the Count of Coutances who is besieging him. The Count!'

'Why is that terrible?' Thomas enquired.

'Because the Count is his liege lord!' the priest exclaimed, and Thomas understood why Father Pascal said it was terrible. Sir Guillaume held his lands in fief to the Count and by making war on his own tenant the Count was declaring Sir Guillaume an outlaw.

'But why?' Thomas asked.

Father Pascal shrugged. 'The Count says it is because of what happened at the battle. Do you know what happened at the battle?'

'I know,' Thomas said, and because he was translating for Robbie he had to explain anyway. The priest referred to the battle that had been fought the previous summer by the forest at Crecy. Sir Guillaume had been in the French army, but in the middle of the fight he had seen his enemy, Guy Vexille, and had turned his men-at-arms against Vexille's troops.

'The Count says that is treason,' the priest explained, 'and the King has given his blessing.'

Thomas said nothing for a while. 'How did you know I was here?' he finally asked.

'You sent a letter to Sir Guillaume.'

'I didn't think it reached him.'

'Of course it did. Last year. Before this trouble started.'

Sir Guillaume was in trouble, but his manor of Evecque, Father Pascal said, was built of stone and blessed with a moat and so far the Count of Coutances had found it impossible to break the wall or cross the moat, but the Count had scores of men while Sir Guillaume had a garrison of only nine. 'There are some women too' – Father Pascal tore at a goose leg with his teeth – 'but they don't count.'