James Patterson - The Jester

“Marie’s right,” said her husband, Georges, the miller. “It is Hugh who killed Norcross and avenged my son.” He helped me to my feet and put out his hand. “I’m grateful you’re back, Hugh.”

“And I,” said Odo, his voice booming. “I’m sick of quaking every time I hear horsemen come near town.”

“You’re right.” Martin the tailor hung his head. “It is our own liege who is responsible, not Hugh. But what can we do? We are pledged to him.”

It hit me there, in that moment, as I observed my neighbors’ helplessness and fear. I knew what we must do. “ Then break the pledge ,” I said.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“Break the pledge?” the tailor gasped.

People turned to one another and shook their heads, as if my words were a sign that I was mad. “If we break the pledge, Baldwin will come back. This time it won’t be just our houses that he burns.”

“Then next time, friends, we’ll be ready for him,” I said, turning to catch every eye.

A wary silence filled the square. These people looked at me as if the words I uttered were heresy that damned us all.

I knew that these words, and this idea, could set us free.

I stared out at them and shouted, “Break the pledge!”

EMILIE STORMED PAST the guards to Anne’s bedchamber. “Please, ma’am.” One guard went to restrain her. “The lady is resting.”

Emilie’s blood was surging. The duke had returned the night before, yet it was not Stephen who was in her mind but Anne, her mistress, the person she served, who had lost touch with right.

All morning, Emilie had prayed about what to do. She knew she had crossed a line with Hugh. My God, she had given aid to someone who’d killed a member of the duke’s guard. For that she could be imprisoned. She had asked herself over and over, If I cross this line, am I prepared to lose everything? My family’s blessing, my position in the court. My name… And each time the answer had come back clear and strong. How could I not?

She pushed open the large wooden door to Anne’s chamber.

William, Anne’s nine-year-old son, was about to leave, dressed in his hawking attire. Anne waved him off. “Go. Your father awaits you, son. Catch a prize for me.”

“I will, Mother,” the boy said, running off. Anne was in bed at this late hour, still wrapped in bedclothes.

“You are ill, madame?” Emilie asked.

“You storm into my chambers,” Anne said, turning her face away, “as if concern were not the issue at all.”

[246] “On the contrary, I have much to take issue with you,” Emilie said.

“Take issue, child… No doubt this, as all things, concerns your protégé, the fool.”

“You are right, madame, he is a fool. But only to have trusted you. As am I.”

“So, this is no longer about him, I see. But you and me…”

“You have wronged him in a great way, my lady, and by doing so, wronged me.”

“Wronged you?” Anne laughed coldly. “Your Hugh is a wanted man now. A murderer, a deserter as well. He is sought in two duchies and will be caught. And once he is, he’ll be hanged in the square.”

Emilie stared, aghast. “I am hearing your voice, lady,” she said, “but the words do not seem as if they could come from you. What has become of the woman who was like a mother to me? Where is the Anne who stood up against her husband? Who ruled in his absence with even temper and grace.”

“Go away, child. Please go. Do not lecture me on things you do not know.”

“I know this . Your men raided his village. They killed his son, stole and imprisoned his wife. She is dead now. In your prison. You knew.”

“How would I know?” Anne shot back. “How would I know some worthless harlot thrown in our dungeon was in fact this man’s wife. I do not govern these Tafurs. They are my husband’s. I do not know whom they rouse and what insane deeds they do.”

“These deeds, lady.” Emilie met her eyes. “They are now imprinted on you.”

“ Go .” Anne waved her away. “Do you think that if I knew the person we sought all along was here, at Borée, in our court, your jester would still be running around, pained and aggrieved, but alive? He’d be as dead as his wife.”

[247] “You sought Hugh?” Emilie blinked. “For God’s sake-why?”

“Because the fool holds the greatest prize in Christendom, and he does not know it.”

“What prize? He has nothing. You have taken everything from him.”

“Just go.” Anne sank back in bed. “And take with you your mighty sense of what is right and just. All that propelled you to run away from your father and your destiny. Go, Emilie!” In her anger, Anne turned to face Emilie, exposing for the first time what she had concealed.

There was a large red welt. And much worse.

“What is that?” Emilie moved forward.

“Stay away,” Anne snapped, shrinking into her pillows.

“Please, my lady, do not turn from me. What is the bruise on your face?”

Anne took a sharp breath. She dropped her head. “It is my own prison, child. You want to see it-well, look!”

Emilie let out a gasp. She rushed over and, against Anne’s efforts, gently stroked the wound. “Stephen did that to you?”

“You should know it, child, for it is the very truth that you claim to know so well. A woman’s truth.”

Emilie recoiled in horror. The side of Anne’s face was swollen to twice its normal size.

THE FIRST THING I DID was go up to the hill overlooking town where my infant son, Phillipe, lay buried.

I knelt by his grave and crossed myself. “Your mother spoke of you in her last breath.” There I sat, on the hard earth. “Dear, sweet Phillipe.”

I still did not know what these sons of bitches wanted with me. What they thought I possessed, which clearly I didn’t. Why my wife and son had to die.

I dug up the objects I had brought back from the Crusade and spilled them onto the grass.

The gilded perfume box I had bought for Sophie in Constantinople… How sure I had been that I would bring it back to her with pride. Just thinking of all that had happened-Nico, Robert, Sophie-I felt my eyes fill up.

I looked at the inlaid scabbard with the writing I had found crossing the mountains. Then the gold cross I had taken from the church. Were these the treasures? The things that cursed me? If I gave them back, would they leave me, and the town, alone?

A wave of anger swept over me, mixed with grief and tears. “Which are you?” I screamed at the pieces. “Which is the thing that caused my wife and son to die?”

[249] I picked up the cross and went to hurl it into the trees. Trinkets! Baubles! None of it worth the lives of my wife and son!

Then I held back, remembering Sophie’s last words: “Don’t give them what they want.”

Don’t give them what, Sophie? Don’t give them what?

I sat by my Phillipe’s grave and cried, my fingers digging into my scalp. “Don’t give them what?” I whispered over and over again.

Finally, I pulled myself up, spent and exhausted. I gathered the things and laid them in the hole, replacing the displaced earth. I took a deep breath and said good-bye.

Don’t give them what they want.

All right , Sophie. I won’t.

Because I don’t know what in God’s name it could be.

SUMMER GAVE WAY to autumn, and bit by bit, I fell back into the life of the village.

Rebuilding.

I picked up the work Matthew had begun on the inn. All day, I lugged heavy logs, hoisted them into place, and notched them together in joints to form walls. At night I slept in Odo’s hut, his wife and two kids and I curled up by the hearth in a single room, until I had rebuilt my quarters behind the inn.