Bernard Cornwell - Heretic

‘I’m English,’ Thomas agreed.

‘But an English priest is as bad as any other,’ she accused him.

‘Probably,’ Thomas agreed. He put the lantern on the floor and sat beside the open door because the stench in the cell was so overwhelming. ‘I want you to stop your screaming,’ he went on, ‘because it upsets people.’

She rolled her eyes at those words. ‘Tomorrow they are going to burn me,’ she said, ‘so you think I care if fools are upset tonight?’

‘You should care for your soul,’ Thomas said, but his fervent words brought no response from the beghard. The rush wick burned badly and its horn shade turned the dim light a leprous, flickering yellow. ‘Why did they leave you naked?’ he asked.

‘Because I tore a strip from my dress and tried to strangle the jailer.’ She said it calmly, but with a defiant look as though daring Thomas to disapprove.

Thomas almost smiled at the thought of so slight a girl attacking the stout jailer, but he resisted his amusement. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked instead.

She was still defiant. ‘I have no name,’ she said. ‘They made me a heretic and took my name away. I’m cast out of Christendom. I’m already halfway to the next world.’ She looked away from him with an expression of indignation and Thomas saw that Robbie Douglas was standing in the half-open door. The Scot was gazing at the beghard with a look of wonderment, even awe, and Thomas looked at the girl again and saw that under the scraps of straw and embedded filth she was beautiful. Her hair was like pale gold, her skin was unscarred from pox and her face was strong. She had a high forehead, a full mouth and sunken cheeks. A striking face, and the Scotsman just stared at her and the girl, embarrassed by his frank gaze, hugged her knees closer to her breasts.

‘Go,’ Thomas told Robbie. The young Scotsman fell in love, it seemed to Thomas, like other men became hungry, and it was plain from Robbie’s face that he had been struck by the girl’s looks with the force of a lance hammering into a shield.

Robbie frowned as though he did not quite understand Thomas’s instruction. ‘I meant to ask you,’ he said, then paused.

‘Ask me what?’

‘Back in Calais,’ Robbie said, ‘did the Earl tell you to leave me behind?’

It seemed an odd question in the circumstances, but Thomas decided it deserved a response. ‘How do you know?’

‘That priest told me. Buckingham.’

Thomas wondered why Robbie had even talked to the priest, then realized that his friend was simply making conversation so he could stay near to the latest girl he had fallen so hopelessly in love with. ‘Robbie,’ he said, ‘she’s going to burn in the morning.’

Robbie shifted uneasily. ‘She doesn’t have to.’

‘For God’s sake,’ Thomas protested, ‘the Church has condemned her!’

‘Then why are you here?’ Robbie asked.

‘Because I command here. Because someone has to keep her quiet.’

‘I can do that,’ Robbie said with a smile, and when Thomas did not respond the smile turned into a scowl. ‘So why did you let me come to Gascony?’

‘Because you’re a friend.’

‘Buckingham said I’d steal the Grail,’ Robbie said. ‘He said I’d take it to Scotland.’

‘We have to find it first,’ Thomas said, but Robbie was not listening. He was just looking hungrily at the girl who huddled in the corner. ‘Robbie,’ Thomas said firmly, ‘she’s going to burn.’

‘Then it doesn’t matter what happens to her tonight,’ the Scotsman said defiantly.

Thomas fought to suppress his anger. ‘Just leave us alone, Robbie,’ he said.

‘Is it her soul you’re after?’ Robbie asked. ‘Or her flesh?’

‘Just go!’ Thomas snarled with more force than he meant and Robbie looked startled, even belligerent, but then he blinked a couple of times and walked away.

The girl had not understood the English conversation, but she had recognized the lust on Robbie’s face and now turned it on Thomas. ‘You want me for yourself, priest?’ she asked in French.

Thomas ignored the sneering question. ‘Where are you from?’

She paused, as if deciding whether or not to answer, then shrugged. ‘From Picardy,’ she said.

‘A long way north,’ Thomas said. ‘How does a girl from Picardy come to Gascony?’

She hesitated again. She was, Thomas thought, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old, which made her overripe for marriage. Her eyes, he noticed, had a curious piercing quality, which gave him the uncomfortable sensation that she could see right through to the dark root of his soul. ‘My father,’ she said. ‘He was a juggler and flame-eater.’

‘I’ve seen such men,’ Thomas said.

‘We went wherever we wished,’ she said, ‘and made money at fairs. My father made folk laugh and I collected the coins.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Dead.’ She said it carelessly as if to suggest she could not even remember her mother. ‘Then my father died here. Six months ago. So I stayed.’

‘Why did you stay?’

She gave him a sneering look as if to suggest the answer to his question was so obvious that it did not need stating, but then, presuming him to be a priest who did not understood how real people lived, she gave him the answer. ‘Do you know how dangerous the roads are?’ she asked. ‘There are coredors .’

‘ Coredors? ’

‘Bandits,’ she explained. ‘The local people call them coredors . Then there are the routiers who are just as bad.’ Routiers were companies of disbanded soldiers who wandered the highways in search of a lord to employ them and when they were hungry, which was most of the time, they took what they wanted by force. Some even captured towns and held them for ransom. But, like the coredors , they would regard a girl travelling alone as a gift sent by the devil for their enjoyment. ‘How long do you think I would have lasted?’ she asked.

‘You could have travelled in company?’ Thomas suggested.

‘We always did, my father and I, but he was there to protect me. But on my own?’ She shrugged. ‘So I stayed. I worked in a kitchen.’

‘And cooked up heresy?’

‘You priests do so love heresy,’ she said bitterly. ‘It gives you something to burn.’

‘Before you were condemned,’ Thomas said, ‘what was your name?’

‘Genevieve.’

‘You were named for the saint?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said.

‘And whenever Genevieve prayed,’ Thomas said, ‘the devil blew out her candles.’

‘You priests are full of stories,’ Genevieve mocked. ‘Do you believe that? You believe the devil came into the church and blew out her candles?’

‘Probably.’

‘Why didn’t he just kill her if he’s the devil? What a pathetic trick, just to blow out candles! He can’t be much of a devil if that’s all he does.’

Thomas ignored her scorn. ‘They tell me you are a beghard?’

‘I’ve met beghards,’ she said, ‘and I liked them.’

‘They are the devil’s spawn,’ Thomas said.

‘You’ve met one?’ she asked. Thomas had not. He had only heard of them and the girl sensed his discomfort.

‘If to believe that God gave all to everyone and wants everyone to share in everything, then I am as bad as a beghard,’ she admitted, ‘but I never joined them.’

‘You must have done something to deserve the flames.’

She stared at him. Perhaps it was something in his tone that made her trust him, but the defiance seemed to drain out of her. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall and Thomas suspected she wanted to cry. Watching her delicate face, he wondered why he had not seen her beauty instantly as Robbie had done. Then she opened her eyes and gazed at him. ‘What happened here tonight?’ she asked, ignoring his accusation.