Bernard Cornwell - Heretic

The small crowd dispersed. Twilight wreathed the church tower and closed about the castle’s battlements. A man of God had come to Castillon d’Arbizon and the small town was at peace.

The man of God ate a dish of cabbage, beans and salt bacon. He explained to Father Medous that he had made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain to pray at the tomb of St James and now he was walking to Avignon to fetch new orders from his superiors. He had seen no raiders, English or otherwise.

‘We have seen no English in many years,’ Father Medous replied, making a hasty sign of the cross to avert the evil he had just mentioned, ‘but not so long ago they ruled here.’ The friar, eating his meal, appeared not to be interested. ‘We paid taxes to them,’ Father Medous went on, ‘but then they went and now we belong to the Count of Berat.’

‘I trust he is a godly man?’ Friar Thomas asked.

‘Very pious,’ Father Medous confirmed. ‘He keeps some straw from the manger at Bethlehem in his church. I would like to see that.’

‘His men garrison the castle?’ the friar demanded, ignoring the more interesting topic of the baby Jesus’s bedding.

‘Indeed,’ Father Medous confirmed.

‘Does the garrison hear Mass?’

Father Medous paused, obviously tempted to tell a lie, then settled for a half-truth. ‘Some do.’

The friar put down his wooden spoon and stared sternly at the uncomfortable priest. ‘How many are they? And how many of them hear Mass?’

Father Medous was nervous. All priests were nervous when Dominicans appeared, for the friars were God’s ruthless warriors in the fight against heresy and if this tall young man reported that the folk of Castillon d’Arbizon were less than pious then he could bring the Inquisition and its instruments of torture to the town. ‘There are ten of them in the garrison,’ Father Medous said, ‘and they are all good Christians. As are all my people.’

Friar Thomas looked sceptical. ‘All of them?’

‘They do their best,’ Father Medous said loyally, ‘but …’ He paused again, evidently regretting that he had been about to add a qualification and, to cover his hesitation, he went to the small fire and added a log. The wind fretted at the chimney and sent a back-draught of smoke whirling about the small room. ‘A north wind,’ Father Medous said, ‘and it brings the first cold night of the autumn. Winter is not far off, eh?’

‘But?’ The friar had noted the hesitation.

Father Medous sighed as he took his seat. ‘There is a girl. A heretic. She was not from Castillon d’Arbizon, God be thanked, but she stayed here when her father died. She is a beghard.’

‘I did not think the beghards were this far south,’ the friar said. Beghards were beggars, but not just any importunate folk. Instead they were heretics who denied the Church and denied the need to work and claimed all things came from God and therefore that all things should be free to all men and women. The Church, to protect itself against such horrors, burned the beghards wherever they were found.

‘They wander the roads,’ Father Medous pointed out, ‘and she came here, but we sent her to the bishop’s court and she was found guilty. Now she is back here.’

‘Back here?’ The friar sounded shocked.

‘To be burned,’ Father Medous explained hurriedly. ‘She was sent back to be burned by the civil authorities. The bishop wants the people to see her death so they know the evil is gone from among them.’

Friar Thomas frowned. ‘You say this beghard has been found guilty of heresy, that she had been sent here to die, yet she is still alive. Why?’

‘She is to be burned tomorrow,’ the priest said, still hastily. ‘I had expected Father Roubert to be here. He is a Dominican like yourself and it was he who discovered the girl’s heresy. Perhaps he is ill? He did send me a letter explaining how the fire was to be made.’

Friar Thomas looked scornful. ‘All that’s needed,’ he said dismissively, ‘is a heap of wood, a stake, some kindling and a heretic. What more can you want?’

‘Father Roubert insisted that we use small faggots and that they stand upright.’ The priest illustrated this requirement by bunching his fingers like sticks of asparagus. ‘Bundles of sticks, he wrote to me, and all pointing to heaven. They must not lay flat. He was emphatic about that.’

Friar Thomas smiled as he understood. ‘So the fire will burn bright, but not fierce, eh? She will die slowly.’

‘It is God’s will,’ Father Medous said.

‘Slowly and in great agony,’ the friar said, relishing the words, ‘that is indeed God’s will for heretics.’

‘And I have made the fire as he instructed,’ Father Medous added weakly.

‘Good. The girl deserves nothing better.’ The friar mopped his dish with a piece of dark bread. ‘I shall watch her death with joy and then walk on.’ He made the sign of the cross. ‘I thank you for this food.’

Father Medous gestured at his hearth where he had piled some blankets. ‘You are welcome to sleep here.’

‘I shall, father,’ the friar said, ‘but first I shall pray to St Sardos. I have not heard of him, though. Can you tell me who he is?’

‘A goatherd,’ Father Medous said. He was not entirely sure that Sardos had ever existed, but the local people insisted he had and had always venerated him. ‘He saw the lamb of God on the hill where the town now stands. It was being threatened by a wolf and he rescued it and God rewarded him with a shower of gold.’

‘As is right and proper,’ the friar said, then stood. ‘You will come and pray to the blessed Sardos with me?’

Father Medous stifled a yawn. ‘I would like to,’ he said without any enthusiasm.

‘I shall not insist,’ the friar said generously. ‘Will you leave your door unbarred?’

‘My door is always open,’ the priest said, and felt a pang of relief as his uncomfortable guest stooped under the door’s lintel and went into the night.

Father Medous’s housekeeper smiled from the kitchen door. ‘He’s a good-looking one for a friar. Is he staying tonight?’

‘He is, yes.’

‘Then I’d better sleep in the kitchen,’ the housekeeper said, ‘because you wouldn’t want a Dominican to find you between my legs at midnight. He’ll put us both on the fire with the beghard.’ She laughed and came to clear the table.

The friar did not go to the church, but instead went the few paces down the hill to the nearest tavern and pushed open the door. The noise inside slowly subsided as the crowded room stared back at the friar’s unsmiling face. When there was silence the friar shuddered as though he was horrified at the revelry, then he stepped back into the street and closed the door. There was a heartbeat of silence inside the tavern, then men laughed. Some reckoned the young priest had been looking for a whore, others merely supposed he had opened the wrong door, but in a moment or two they all forgot about him.

The friar limped back up the hill to St Sardos’s church where, instead of going into the goatherd’s sanctuary, he stopped in the black shadows of a buttress. He waited there, invisible and silent, noting the few sounds of Castillon d’Arbizon’s night. Singing and laughter came from the tavern, but he was more interested in the footsteps of the watchman pacing the town wall that joined the castle’s stronger rampart just behind the church. Those steps came towards him, stopped a few paces down the wall and then retreated. The friar counted to a thousand and still the watchman did not return and so the friar counted to a thousand again, this time in Latin, and when there was still nothing but silence above him he moved to the wooden steps that gave access to the wall. The steps creaked under his weight, but no one called out. Once on the wall he crouched beside the high castle tower, his black robe invisible in the shadow cast by the waning moon. He watched down the wall’s length where it followed the hill’s contour until it turned the corner to the western gate where a dim red glow showed that the brazier was burning strongly. No watchmen were in sight. The friar reckoned the men must be warming themselves at the gate. He looked up, but saw no one at the castle’s rampart, nor any movement in the two half-lit arrow slits that glowed from lanterns inside the tall tower. He had seen three liveried men inside the crowded tavern and there might have been others that he had not seen, and he reckoned the garrison was either drinking or asleep and so he lifted his black skirts and unwound a cord that had been wrapped about his waist. The cord was made of hemp stiffened with glue, the same kind of cord that powered the dreaded English war bows, and it was long enough so that he was able to loop it about one of the wall’s crenellations and then let it drop to the steep ground beneath. He stayed a moment, staring down. The town and castle were built on a steep crag around which a river looped and he could hear the water hissing over a weir. He could just see a gleam of reflected moonlight glancing from a pool, but nothing else. The wind tugged at him, chilled him, and he retreated to the mooncast shadow and pulled his hood over his face.