Paul Doherty: The Darkening Glass

‘You’ll kill no more!’ I whispered to him.

‘Go away!’ Ausel had snatched a battle axe from his saddle horn.

I stared around.

‘Their valuables?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to strip them. .?’

‘And what?’ Ausel sneered. ‘Sell them in York? No, I want Alexander of Lisbon to see what I’ve done. So go.’ He pointed back to our horses. ‘Demontaigu, take your lady away. What she doesn’t see she will not remember.’ He lifted himself up. ‘Hell has devoured these sinners like wolves devour sheep. Satan’s henchmen will fill their gaping mouths with molten lead. I wish to leave Lisbon fair warning that he too will melt like wax before the fire.’ He was almost talking to himself, his usually good-natured face tense and pallid.

Demontaigu took me by the elbow and steered me further down the track-way, where our horses were hobbled. I went to look back but he almost pushed me into a small culvert between the straggling gorse. I sat down on a rock. Demontaigu collected his small wineskin and made me take a couple of mouthfuls, then we waited in silence. Sounds echoed from up the track-way. The terrors began to leave me. I grew aware of the wine taste in my mouth, how heavy my legs felt. The trees and bushes of the wastelands were bending under a breeze. I smelt a mingle of horse sweat, leather and the fragrance of wild flowers. A cormorant cried, to be answered by the raucous call of circling crows. Time passed. Demontaigu sat, eyes closed, mouth moving wordlessly in silent prayer. Ausel joined us. He’d used the clothes of one of the dead men as an apron. Now he tore these blood-soaked garments off and threw them into a bush.

‘I’m done,’ he murmured. ‘It’s finished.’

Demontaigu gathered the horses and we mounted. Ausel loudly announced that the Noctales would still be involved in their pursuit of the others. He proved correct. We rode safely out across the deserted heathland, reached a village and joined a line of carts taking produce to the Minster from one of its outlying farms. Ausel and Demontaigu rode ahead, talking quietly amongst themselves. I drifted gently into a half-sleep, shaken awake by the sounds around me. We reached Micklegate Bar, and went up its main thoroughfare and on to Ouse Bridge. Beggars clustered on the steps of St Michael’s chapel at the entrance to the bridge. One of these darted forward and grasped Ausel’s bridle, pleading for alms. I noticed how strong and muscular he was, his skin burnt dark by the sun of Outremer rather than the freezing wind of York. He was undoubtedly a Templar in disguise, passing on information. Ausel searched for a penny, tossed it at the mendicant then urged his horse on.

We stabled our mounts at The Road to Damascus, a stately pilgrims’ tavern fronted by a broad cobbled yard and flanked on either side by flower gardens. The tap room was highceilinged; no mush of dried reeds covered the floor; its black and yellow lozenge-shaped tiles were clean and polished. At the far end stood a long counter of burnished oak, gleaming in the light of pure oil lamps and beeswax candles. Barrels and buckets all ribbed with ash, hazel and iron lined one wall. Smoked ham hanging from the broad-beamed roof gave the room a pleasant tasty smell. We hired a table in an alcove with a small oriel window overlooking the garden. I remember such details well. The customers were a few guildsmen, wealthy travellers and pilgrims. Mine host wore a felt hat and a clean cloth apron with spotless white napkins crisscrossed over his chest. Around his muscular wrists hung two more to keep his fingers clean. He took our custom: stoups of ale, amber-glazed bowls of meat and vegetable broth, manchet loaves, still warm and wrapped in a linen cloth, as well as a small pot of butter. We cleaned our hands in the rosewater provided. Ausel quickly blessed the food. I went to talk, to break the silence, but Ausel leaned across. He still looked battle-crazed, eyes large and dark in his pale face.

‘The tongue,’ he whispered. ‘How small it is, yet a petty flame can consume a forest. The tongue,’ he continued, taking out his horn spoon, ‘is a whole wicked world in itself. It can infect the entire body with poison. It can catch fire from hell and set the world ablaze.’ His eyes were staring over my shoulder.

I turned. A hooded man had wandered over but then shifted away. We ate in silence. Ausel got up, nodded at me, patted Demontaigu on the shoulder and left.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

Demontaigu lifted a finger to his lips. I glanced around. The hooded man had come drifting over again. I stared hard at this individual dressed in dark green buckram and short leather boots. The cowl he wore was deep; I could only glimpse pinched white features. He turned to face us squarely; shadow-rimmed eyes stared out from a ghost-white face.

‘Your friend has left?’ the hooded man murmured. ‘Has he gone looking for the Key of David?’

‘No, friend.’ Demontaigu lifted his stoup of ale in toast. ‘The Key is not needed. The Tabernacle of Solomon is gone!’

The hooded man startled. ‘Gone?’ The whisper was hoarse.

‘Destroyed,’ Demontaigu replied tersely, ‘out on the heathland.’

‘Then, friend,’ the hooded man lifted his hand, palm extended in peace, ‘I’ll be gone.’ And he slipped across the tap room and out through the door.

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘Roger Furnival,’ Demontaigu replied. ‘Outlaw, wolf’s-head, defrocked priest. He was to meet us here with our comrades out of Scotland. Now. .’ He shrugged.

‘And Ausel’s strange words about the tongue?’

‘Someone betrayed us, Mathilde, perhaps not intentionally. Ausel wants us to return and question Geoffrey Lanercost.’

He collected his gloves and made to rise.

‘Bertrand.’ I gripped his wrist. ‘Ausel, what did he do out there on the track-way?’

‘Ausel’s words are like silver from a furnace,’ Demontaigu whispered, ‘seven times refined. He has sworn terrible vengeance against Alexander of Lisbon.’

‘On the track-way?’ I insisted.

‘He severed the head of that war-dog and those of its four dead masters. He placed them along the track-way where it narrows between the outcrops.’ Demontaigu paused. He glanced pityingly at me from the corner of his eye. ‘A Celtic thing,’ he murmured. ‘He also removed their genitals and thrust them between their gaping dead lips. Ausel has sent warning to Lisbon that our fight is lutte a l’outrance — to the death. .’

Living at court was a dappled existence of colours ranging from the brightest silver-gold to the deepest black. Glorious displays of power as brilliantly hued banners and pennants flapped bravely under a searing blue sky. Tables covered with the purest damask groaning under jewelled plate, bowls and goblets all brimming with the sweetest viands, succulent fruits and the richest wines from Bordeaux and the Rhine. Brilliant, dazzling tapestries decorated walls hanging down to floors tiled in the most exquisite fashion. Along such rich galleries, princes, ladies and lords paraded all dressed in cloth of gold and costly jewel-encrusted fabrics. In the courtyards outside, powerful destriers, splendidly harnessed, reared and neighed as knights in glittering mail prepared to break lances, jousting in nearby tilt-yards where the sand glowed like amber. Trumpets blew. Horns sounded. Bells chimed. In the courtly sanctuaries, priests in splendid copes under soaring rood screens offered the risen Christ back to His Father. Light poured through windows illuminated with flashing colours. Incense, thick and white, fragranced the air. Choirs intoned ‘Christus Vincit’. Close by, clerks in oak-panelled chambers grasped pens to write important letters of state sealed with purple wax. Outside the chamber clustered mailed knights and armoured men-at-arms eager to do the king’s will. Yet there were other aspects of life at court, like the sides of fortune’s dice just waiting to be turned. Ghastly killings out on lonely heathlands or in filthy alleyways, dingy taverns or rat-infested garrets. A world where assassins, capuchined and visored, flitted like shadows through the door, dagger or garrotte at the ready. Poisoned wine served with tainted meats. Scaffolds soaring dark against the sky, heavy with corpses, whilst across the square severed heads above lofty gateways dripped blood to patter to the ground like rain. Treason and treachery, bloodshed and betrayal, hypocrisy and hubris came wandering like twin demons garbed in all the horrors of death and the anguish of the tomb. I’d seen it all, be it in gorgeous pavilions with exquisite chambers or cobwebbed closets and garrets where the vermin came creeping under the doors.