Stephen Lawhead - Scarlet

"Hsst!" I said, putting my head through the gap in the door. "What is taking so long?"

Iwan glanced around as he pulled the strap tight. "We had to put some fellas to sleep," he said. "We're ready now."

"Then hurry!" I said. "We've been attacked."

"How many?" asked Siarles, gathering the reins of two fresh horses.

"Three knights," I said. "Two are down and the other surrendered. Hurry!"

I pulled open the stable doors, allowing Iwan and Siarles to lead the saddled horses out; they headed down the short ramp and into the quiet square. All was silent and dark.

Just as we started across to the church, however, the door to the guardhouse opened and out swarmed six knights or more. "Bloody blazes!" I said. "The monks must have told them. Fly!"

The Ffreinc saw us with the horses and cried for us to stop. Iwan leapt into the saddle of his mount and lit out for the church across the square, with Siarles right behind. I paused to loose an arrow at the soldiers, thinking to take at least one down. I missed the mark, but the arrow buried itself in the door frame. One fella, who was still inside, slammed the door hard, which briefly prevented any more Ffreinc from spilling out.

That was the last of my arrows, so I turned and hightailed it after the others. I ran but a half dozen strides and my leg buckled under me and I fell. In the same instant, a pain like no other ripped through the meaty part of my thigh. Reaching down, I felt the shaft of a lance. The spear had hit the ground and caught me as it bounced up. Even as I lay clutching the wound, with blood streaming through my fingers, I thought, That was lucky. I could have been killed. Hard on the heels of this thought came the next: Will, you bloody fool! Get up or they'll be carving your dull head from your shoulders.

I got to my feet and staggered forward; my injured leg felt like a lump of wood on fire, but I limped on. Bran and Iwan, mounted now, came charging from around the back of the church, bows in hand. Both loosed arrows at my pursuers, and two soldiers fell, screaming and rolling on the hard winter ground. Siarles, cradling Gwion in the saddle before him and holding the reins of one of the big Ffreinc horses, rode out to meet me. "Time to go," he said, tossing the reins to me.

I caught the traces and tried to haul my foot to the stirrup, but could not lift my leg. I tried once and missed. The Ffreinc were almost upon us. "Go on! Ride!" I said. "I'm right behind you."

Siarles wheeled his mount and galloped away without a backward glance as I tried once more to get my clumsy foot into the stirrup. I did catch the bar with my toe, but the horse, frightened by the noise and confusion, jigged sideways. My hands, slippery with blood, could not hold, and the reins slipped from my grasp. Unbalanced on one leg, I fell on my back, squirming on the frozen ground. I was still trying to get my feet under me when the Ffreinc rushed up and laid hold of me.

I glimpsed a swift motion above me, and the butt of a spear crashed down on my poor head… So that, Odo, is how they caught me," I tell him. He lifts his ink-stained hand from the page and looks at me with his soft, sad eyes. I shrug. "All the rest you know."

"The others got away," he says, and the resignation in his voice is that thick you could stuff it in your shoe.

"They did. Got clean away," I reply. "Fortunate for me that the sheriff was sleeping like the drunken lump he was, or I would have been strung high long since. By the time he woke up, Abbot Hugo already had me bound hand and foot and was determined to have his wicked way with me."

Odo scratches the side of his nose with the feathered end of his quill. He is trying to think of something, or has thought of something and is trying to think how to say it. I can see him straining at the thought. But as I have all the time God sends me, I do not begrudge him the time it takes to spit it out.

"About that night," he says at last. "Did Siarles leave you behind on purpose?"

"Well, I've asked myself the same thing once and again. Truth is, I don't know. Could he have helped me get away? He did bring the horse, mind. Could he have helped me more than he did? Yes. But remember, he had Gwion Bach with him, and any help he could have offered me would have risked all three of us. Could he have told Iwan or Bran to come back for me? Yes, he could have done that. For all I know, maybe he did. But then again, the Ffreinc were on me that quick, I don't think anyone could save me getting captured." I spread my hands and give him a shrug. "He did, more or less, what I would have done, I suppose."

"You would have made sure he got away, Will," Odo asserts.

"Why, Odo, what a thing to say," I reply. "A fella'd think you cared what happened to ol' Will here."

He makes a worm face and looks down at his scrap of parchment.

"You have to remember that it was dark and cold, and everything was happening very fast," I say. "I doubt anyone could have done more than they did. It was bad luck, is all. Bad luck from the beginning if you ask me." I pause to reflect on that night. "No," I conclude, "the only regret I have is that we didn't kill the sheriff when we had the chance."

"Why didn't you kill him?"

"We had some idea of holding him to justice," I say, and shake my head. "I suspect Bran wanted to make him answer before the king. God knows how we would have brought that about. Bran had a way, I guess. He has a way for most things."

Odo nods. He is thinking. I can see the tiny wheels turning in his head. "What about the ring and the letter?" he wants to know.

"What about them?"

"Well," says he, "who were they for?"

"Now, I've thought about that, too. The letter was addressed to the pope, so I suppose they were for him."

"Which pope?"

I stare at him. "The pope-head of the Mother Church."

"Will, there are two popes."

Dunce that he is, some of the most fuddling things come out of his mouth. "There are not two popes," I tell him.

"There are."

He seems quite certain of this.

I hold up two fingers-my bowstring fingers-and repeat, "Two popes? I'll wager a whole ham on the hoof that you didn't mean that just now. It cannot happen."

"It can," he assures me. "It happens all the time."

"See now, Odo, have you been staring at the sun again?" I shake my head slowly. "Two popes! Whoever heard of such a thing? Next you'll be tellin' me the moon is a bowl of curds and whey."

Odo favours me with one of his smug and superior smirks. "I do not know about the moon, but it happens from time to time that the church must choose between two popes. So it is now. I do not wonder that, living in the forest as you do, you might not have heard about this."

"How in the name of Holy Peter, James, and John has it come about?"

I have him now. A wrinkle appears on Odo's smooth brow. "I do not know precisely what has happened."

"Aha! You see! You think to play me for a fool, monk, but I won't be played."

"No, no," he insists, "there are two popes right enough." It is, he contends, merely that the facts of such an event taking place so far away are difficult to obtain, and more difficult still to credit. All that can be said for certain is that there has been some kind of disagreement among the powers governing the Holy Church. "Papal succession came under question," he tells me. "How it fell out this time, I cannot say. But kings and emperors always try to influence the decision."

"Now that I can believe, at least." Indeed, this last did not surprise me overmuch. It is all the same with kings of every stripe; nothing they get up to amazes me anymore. But as Odo spoke, I began to discern the glimmering of suspicion that this strange event and the appearance of the ring and letter in Elfael might in some way share a common origin, or a common end. Find the truth of one, and I might well discover the truth of the other.