James Patterson - The Jester

Anne crept behind him and smoothed her hands across his chest, even though the pretense of such affection was as repulsive to her as kissing a snake. She bent down to his ear and whispered, “It is not the fool that I thought would concern you, my husband.” She rubbed her hand near his cock. “But the thousand men who march along with him.”

“What?” Stephen twisted around. He screwed up his face in disbelief.

“Oh, has the weasel crept back in his little cave?” Anne laughed. “Yes, my liege, apparently an army follows him that is even greater than before. An army of lost souls, heretics , thanks to you. And thanks to Baldwin, fully armed.”

Stephen jumped out of his seat, hot with rage. “Impossible! They damn their souls to follow him.”

“No, husband, it is your soul that is damned.”

“Get out of my way.” Stephen shot out his hand. It slashed across Anne’s face, knocking her to the floor. “If you have any hope for that little brat you call your cousin, you will mock me no more.”

“If you harm her, Stephen…” Anne forced herself up to her palms.

Stephen burned his gaze right through her. He moved as if to strike again. She did not flinch. Then the color came back into his face, and he softened and knelt, cupping her quivering face in the palm of his hand.

“Why would I want to hurt her, my precious wife? She is a part of you.” He raised himself, smoothing his tunic, the veins in his forehead now calm. “I have merely detained her for her own protection. There are dangerous conspirators about who plan us harm, even within these very walls. Haven’t you heard?”

“LOOK.” Men began to point. “Up on the hill. There it is. Borée!”

Above the rolling hills of vineyards and farms, its limestone towers rose with roofs of blue, like lapis etched into the sky. There was the facade of the famous cathedral, gleaming white; and the castle that I had stayed in, its donjons reaching to the sky-where Emilie was.

As we neared, the exhilaration spread: “I’m gonna take Stephen in one arm and his largest hen in the other, and squeeze them till they both lay a fucking egg,” a boastful farmer yelled.

Behind me, my new army stretched for nearly a mile. In every row, men marched in different clothing: tailors, woodsmen, and farmers in their own garb, but with thrown-together mail and helmets they had swiped from Baldwin. They carried pennants from their towns, pikes and clubs and bows on their backs. Some even spoke different dialects.

The vast line included men and horses, carts drawn by heavy oxen, and catapults, mangonels, and trebuchets with their loads of heavy stone. All beat a cloud of dust that seemed to smother the sky.

But the giddy boasts and dares began to fade the closer we got to Borée. This was no ant’s nest in the middle of nowhere [381] with a pompous duke who did not want to dirty his hands with combat. This was a city, the largest many of us had ever seen. We had to take this place! It was protected by rings of walls, each manned with archers and artillery. Its reserve of knights was twice our number, many of them emboldened by bloody victories in the Crusade. The closer we got, the higher the walls loomed over us. I knew the same reality drummed through every soul: Many of us would die here.

All around, farms close to the city were shuttered and abandoned, livestock nowhere to be seen. Plumes of smoke trickled into the sky, from bales of hay and grain carts set afire. Stephen was giving us no sustenance or quarter. He was preparing for a siege.

People we passed did not cheer us as at Treille. They spat at us or averted their eyes. “Go home, rebels, heretics. You’re God’s curse!”

“Look at what you’ve brought on us,” a woman wailed, scavenging for food. “Go on, your welcoming committee lies just ahead.”

Welcoming committee … ? What did she mean by that?

As we neared the city, men at the front pointed to what seemed a row of crosses lining the road. A few ran ahead.

As they did, their faces lost some color. A silence came over the ranks, which only moments before had been boasting of what they would do when they reached Borée.

The welcoming committee.

These were not crosses but bodies, some still alive, muttering, moving their limbs feebly, impaled on long shafts that split their torsos.

Some through the anus. Others, even worse, upside down. Men, young and old, farmers, tradesmen in common garb. Women too, stripped naked like whores, moaning, choking for breath, eyes glazed over in agony. There was a row of thirty of them.

[382] “Get them down,” I shouted. My heart sank as at Civetot, or riding into the damned village of St. Cécile. What had these poor people done? I rode by, barely able to look.

Then I stopped at one of the bodies. My blood came to a halt. My eyes actually rolled back in my head.

It was Elena , Emilie’s maidservant.

I jumped off my horse and with my sword started to hack at the stake until it sheared, then I gently eased her down.

I lifted Elena’s head in my hands and stared at her chafed white face, peeking through tufts of bloodied hair. She was in torn, soiled rags, desecrated like some shameless murderess. All the poor soul had done was serve her lady.

Anger dug into my ribs, sharp as a knife. If this was Elena, what had happened to Emilie?

What kind of warning was this monster giving me?

My breath stuck in my chest. I turned to the man behind me. “Bury her as well.”

FARTHER AHEAD, we came to a fieldstone bridge that crossed the river along the outskirts of the city.

It was guarded by a stone tower. I drew the ranks to a halt about sixty yards away. Three or four of Stephen’s knights were waiting there, mounted on horseback, draped in their lordship’s green and gold colors.

The first sign of the enemy.

They began to taunt us, questioning the size of our balls. “You call this rabble an army?” one yelled. He lifted his leg as a dog pees. “It’s a bunch of peasants who wouldn’t know a fight from a good fart.”

“They are only trying to bait us into something stupid,” Daniel cautioned. “Stay your ground. They will fall back as soon as we advance.”

A few of the men, fueled by the horrific sight they had just seen, ignored him and ran toward the taunting soldiers, ready to do battle with their clubs and swords.

When they were about twenty yards away, archers appeared in the tower armed with crossbows. They sent a volley of arrows whooshing down. Four men dropped immediately, clutching their chests. The rest peeled back out of range.

Behind me, I heard Alphonse yell out, “They want their fight, they’ll g-get it!”

[384] “No,” I called, “we can’t lose more.” But against my futile shout, he took off. He and his group ran bravely toward the tower.

Arrows hissed down on them, thudding into their shields. Another man fell, struck in the thigh. Our own archers loaded and sent a reply of fire arrows toward the tower.

Now our men were pinned, huddled under their wooden shields. I saw Alphonse race out and pull one wounded man out of range.

Then one of our arrows struck the wooden roof of the guard tower. Chaos broke out among the archers as the flames caught. Our ranks began to cheer. For a second the enemy archers disappeared, then we caught sight of them on the ground, scampering back with their heavy bows toward the city walls.

Our men set after them, Alphonse leading.

At first, they were met by knights on horseback, who fought bravely. But soon there were too many of us to fight. Stephen’s knights were pulled down from their mounts, their bodies bludgeoned with swords and clubs. Several of us went after the retreating archers, overtaking them in a gully by the river. One knelt, ready to fire into the back of one of our men, but Alphonse leaped and clubbed him into a heap.