James Patterson - The Jester

Good Lord in Heaven. I heard myself gasp. I blinked, twice, to make sure I wasn’t in Heaven already.

My staff … the wooden staff I had taken from the church in Antioch, from the dying priest’s hands… It wasn’t a staff at all.

It was a lance.

I DO NOT KNOW how to describe what happened next.

Time seemed to stand still. Neither of us moved, held by the incredible sight. Whatever this was, I could tell by the Tafur’s stupefied amazement that the lance was what he had sought all along. Now, miraculously, it was in front of him. His eyes were as large as moons. Though it was rusted and dulled, just a common thing, a glow seemed to emanate from it.

Suddenly he lunged for it! I yanked it out of his reach. He was still above me, with all the advantage. He reared back his sword. I had no defenses. He would surely split my chest this time.

I thrust with the only thing I had-the lance. The blade split his mail and pierced his ribs. Black Cross cried out, his dark eyes open wide, but even with the lance in him, he did not stop. He went to raise his sword again. I pushed the lance in deeper. This time his eyes rolled back in his head. He tried to lift the sword once more, his arms reaching the height of his head, hands squeezing the hilt.

But his arms suddenly dropped. He gasped, opened his mouth as if to speak, and blood leaked out.

I pushed hard on the lance again and he froze, upright, disbelieving, as if he could not lose now, not with his prize in [296] sight, so close. Then with a final grunt, Black Cross crumpled and fell onto his back.

I lay there for a second, stunned that I was alive. I forced myself to my knees and crawled to the dying man, his hands wrapped around the shaft of the lance. “What is it?” I asked.

He did not answer. Only coughed: blood and bile.

“What is it?” I cried. “What is this thing? My wife and son died for it.”

I pulled the spear out of his body and held it close to the dying man’s face. He coughed again, but this time it wasn’t blood-he was laughing. “Do you not know?” His chest wheezed-and then, a thin smile. “All along… you were blind?”

“Tell me.” I pulled him by the mail. “Before you die.”

“You are a fool.” He coughed again and smiled. “You are the richest man in Christendom and do not know it. Do you not understand what lay in those tombs for a thousand years? Do you not recognize your own Savior’s blood?”

I stared at the ancient, bloodstained spear, my eyes almost bulging out of my head. The spear of Longinus, the centurion who had stabbed Christ while He was dying on the cross.

A numbness was in my chest. My hands began to tremble.

I was holding the holy lance.

I STAGGERED to my feet, cradling the precious relic in my hands. Emilie rushed up first and threw her arms around my neck. The battle had ended and we had won. Georges, Odo, and Father Leo came running toward me.

Other people approached, cheering, dancing with joy, but I could not take my eyes from the lance. “My staff…” I was barely able to speak. “All along, it was the holy lance.”

Everyone stopped, converged. A hush fell over the crowd.

“The holy lance…?” someone repeated. A ring formed around us. Murmurs of exclamation and joy. All eyes fell on the rusted blade, the tip slightly broken.

“Mother of God.” Georges stepped forward, his tunic splattered with blood. “Hugh has the holy lance.”

Finally everyone knelt, myself included.

Father Leo examined the lance without touching it, fixing on the old, hardened blood upon the blade. “God’s grace.” He shook his head with a look of wonderment in his eyes. He recited scripture from memory: “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”

“It’s a miracle,” someone shouted.

“It’s a sign,” I said.

[298] Odo spoke, his coarse voice on the verge of laughter: “Jesus, Hugh, were you trying to save this thing until we really needed it?”

I could not speak. People were shouting my name. Stephens henchmen were dead. I did not know whether it was our will or the lance that was responsible, but either way, we had beaten them back.

I looked at Emilie. What a knowing smile she had, as if to say, I knew , I knew. … I reached for her hand.

Everyone whooped and shouted. “Hugh. Lancea Dei .” Lance of God.

I had been saved. Not once but many times. Who could understand it? What had been entrusted to me? What did God want with an innkeeper? With a jester?

“The holy lance!” everyone shouted, and I finally threw my fist in the air.

But inside I was thinking, Good Lord , Hugh , what is next?

WHAT WAS NEXT was bolder and more amazing than anything I could have imagined.

Our victory was complete, but it came at a great cost. Thirteen of Stephen’s mercenaries lay on the ground, but we had lost four of our own: Apples; Jacqui, the stout and cheery milk woman; a farmer, Henri; and Martin, the tailor. Many others, like Georges and Alphonse, nursed messy wounds.

When the smoke cleared, the body of the Tafur I had fought with the lance was nowhere to be found. He had not died after all.

In the ensuing days, we extinguished the fires and bade good-bye to our brave fallen friends. For the first time in anyone’s memory, bondmen had stood up to a noble. And to the fear that we could not defend ourselves simply because they were rightly born and we weren’t.

Word spread fast. Of the fight and the lance. People from neighboring towns came to see. No one could believe it at first. Farmers and tradesmen had stood up against a noble and his men.

Yet I did not join much in the celebration. I spent the next several days in a troubled state atop the hill. I couldn’t work on the inn. I had to make sense of what had happened. That I had picked up the lance from the dying priest’s hand in Antioch. [300] That, penniless, I now held a prize worth kingdoms. Why had I been chosen? What did God want of me?

And a deeper dread hung over me. What would happen next-when news of the battle reached Stephen’s ears? When he learned that we possessed the prize he so desperately coveted. Or when word reached Baldwin in Treille.

Had the poor tailor been right? Had I saved them from one slaughter only to lead them to another?

Emilie stayed with me the whole while. I looked at the lance and did not know what to do, but to her, the answer was clear. She understood what I resisted. “You have to lead them, Hugh.”

“Lead them? Lead them where?” I asked.

“I think you know where. When Stephen hears of this he will send more men. And Baldwin… your village is pledged to him. He will not permit such rebellion in his domain. The stone has been pushed, Hugh. You’ve sought a higher destiny. Here it is. It’s in your hands.”

“I’m just a lucky fool,” I said, “who picked up a silly antique, a souvenir. I’ll end up the biggest fool of all time.”

“I saw you in that costume many times, Hugh De Luc.” Emilie’s eyes shone brightly. “And never once thought you a fool. A while back, you left this town on a quest to make yourself free. Now, leave it again and free them all.”

I picked up the lance, weighed it like a measure in my hands.

Lead them against Baldwin? Would anyone follow? Emilie was right on one thing. We could not remain here. Baldwin would burst a vein when he heard the news. Stephen would send more troops, this time hundreds. Something had been started that could not be drawn back.