James Patterson - The Jester

“Not in church, knight?” She scowled, her words stabbing with irony.

“Do not worry for me.” His cold voice crept out from the drawn hood. “I make peace with God in my own way.”

He came before her as a supplicant, yet he was possessed of the harshest cruelty. The tunic of a knight, but a disgraced one, dressed in rags. Still, she was forced to deal with him.

“I do worry for you, Morgaine,” Anne said scornfully, “for I think you will burn in Hell. Your methods are evil. They pervert the goal you aim to achieve.”

“I may burn, lady, but I will light the way for others to rest next to God. Perhaps even you …”

“Do not flatter yourself that you are God’s agent.” Anne sneered. “You make my skin crawl that you do my husband’s work.”

[207] He bowed, unoffended. “You need not bother with my work, madame. Just know that it goes well.”

“I saw how well it goes, knight. I was there .”

“ There , madame?” The knight’s eyes narrowed.

“St. Cécile… I saw what you did. Such cruelty even beasts from Hell would find shame in. I saw how you left that town.”

“It was left a better place than when we arrived. Closer to God.”

“Closer to God?” She stepped up to him, looked into his depthless eyes. “The knight, Arnaud. I saw him flayed apart.”

“He would not bend, my lady.”

“And the children… they would not bend as well? Tell me, Morgaine. For what precious prize did these innocents roast like cattle?”

“Just this ,” the hooded knight said plainly.

He reached under his cloak. His hand emerged with a small wooden cross in it the size of his palm. He placed it gently in Anne’s hand.

Though she wanted to spit on it and hurl it far into the bushes, Anne’s breath froze.

“It has journeyed far, my lady, this simple trinket. From Rome to Byzantium. A thousand years. And now you hold it here. For three hundred of them it slept in a coffin, the coffin of Saint Paul himself, word of our Lord. Until it was unearthed by Emperor Constantius. This cross has changed the tide of history.” A smile crept across his face. “That’s why your prayers for me are not needed, good lady.”

Anne’s hands trembled holding the relic. Her mouth went dry. “My husband will no doubt be honored,” she said. “Yet you know this is just the appetizer to what he hungers for. How does the real quest go?”

“We are working.” The dark knight nodded.

“You’d better work faster, knight. All the rest is just decoration. Even this piece is a bauble compared to the real prize. He [208] is in Nîmes, only days away. If Stephen finds you have failed him, it will be your head we’ll be looking at on a stake.”

“Then I will be smiling, lady, knowing that I will have everlasting life.”

“The smile will be mine, Morgaine, most assuredly.” Anne wrapped herself in her cloak and turned back to the castle. “Thinking of you rotting in Hell.”

I FOUND NO TRACE of the unholy soldiers I was seeking, or anyone who knew of mysterious knights in dark robes. Nor was I able to gain access to the barracks. Time was growing short. Stephen was due back at the castle in days. Once he returned, it would be too dangerous to press my case.

Two days later, Emilie took me aside as I was playing jack-straws with Anne’s son, William. She saw my demeanor was glum.

“Do not be so sad, jester,” she said with a smile. “I have a job for you. And a new pretext.”

There was to be a celebration that evening in the chatelain’s hall, she explained. A bachelor party. Gilles, the captain of the guard, was to be married in the next few days. There would be knights, soldiers, members of the guard. Lots of speeches and drink. Their guard would be down , so to speak.

“I have arranged for you to be the entertainment,” Emilie announced.

“You seem to have a skill at this sort of thing, my lady. Once again I owe you thanks.”

“Thank me by finding what you seek,” she said, and touched my hand. “And, Hugh, be careful. Please.”

That night there was lots of wine and awful singing. Gilles’s buddies stood and made bold and mocking speeches until they [210] slurred their words and fell back onto their benches. I was to be the last act before they dragged Gilles down to a brothel in town.

I had to make them laugh, and yet my eyes kept searching for the rogue knights. I did sleight-of-hand tricks to warm them up, simple stuff Norbert had shown me, pulling objects out of tunics to their drunken awe.

Then it was on to the jokes. “I know this man,” I announced, sliding to a stop on the tabletop in front of the groom to be, “whose cock was permanently engorged.”

“You flatter me.” Gilles pretended to blush. “But, joker, must you betray my secret to all ?”

“Try as he could,” I went on, “he could not get the damn thing to go down. Finally he sought out his local apothecary. There, he encountered a stunning young woman. ‘I’d like to speak to your father,’ the man with the problem said.

“ ‘My father is dead,’ she answered. ‘I run this apothecary with my sister. Anything you can tell a man, you can tell us.’ ‘All right,’ he agreed. In dire need, he pulled down his leggings. ‘Look, I have a permanent erection. Like a fucking horse. What can you give me for it?’

“ ‘Hmmm,’ ” the lady apothecary replied. ‘Let me go and confer with my sister.’ After a minute she returned with a small pouch and said, ‘How is one hundred gold coins and half the business?’ ”

The room roared with laughter. “Tell us more…”

I had begun another-the one about the priest and the talking crow-when from outside the walls, a terrible shout pierced the celebration. There was the clop of horses drawn to a stop. Then once again a man’s scream. “Please, God help me. I am being killed!”

The drunken laughter ceased. Several of the party rushed to a window overlooking the courtyard. I followed close behind. Through the narrow opening I saw two men dragging a third by the arms across the courtyard.

[211] I recognized them instantly! They wore slitted helmets and carried war swords strapped to their belts. It was just as Emilie had described. They wore no armor but robes. On their feet were worn sandals.

The prisoner hollered defiantly, his shouts for help echoing off the stone walls.

Then I caught a look at his face. My own twisted in horror.

It was the mayor of St. Cécile-who had stood up to Anne only a few days before.

They dragged the poor mayor toward the keep. “Who are these men?” I asked one of the soldiers at my side.

“These dogs? The duke’s new business partners. Les Retournés …”

“ Retournés …?” I muttered.

My eyes followed the soldiers and the poor mayor until they dragged him through a heavy wooden door and into the keep. The dying shouts of the prisoner faded in the night.

“Not our worry.” Bertrand, the chatelain, sighed. He stepped back from the window. “Come, Gilles, beauties await in town. How ’bout we get that blade of yours wiped one last time?”

Meanwhile, my heart was beating at a gallop. I had to talk to the mayor of St. Cécile. He might know why knights were being murdered and villages burned. And these awful killers… Les Retournés … I thought that I had seen them before.

But where?

THE FOLLOWING NIGHT I waited until long after dark. Norbert lay snoring on his bed. I crept off my mat and tucked a knife under my leggings.

I sneaked out of Norbert’s chamber, hurrying up the back stairs behind the kitchen to the main floor. I had to traverse the entire castle from the large rooms of the court to the military end. And talk my way past anyone who would stop me. Well, I was the jester after all.