Bernard Cornwell - Heretic

‘Yes,’ Thomas said.

‘And he seeks the Grail?’

‘By seeking me,’ Thomas said. ‘And I don’t know where it is.’

‘But he was searching for the Grail before he knew you existed,’ the young priest pointed out, ‘which suggests to me that he possesses some knowledge denied to us. I would advise, my lord, that we seek this Guy Vexille.’

‘We’d be two dogs chasing each other’s tails,’ Thomas put in sourly.

The Earl waved Thomas to silence. The priest looked back at his notes. ‘And, opaque though these writings are,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘there is one thread of light. They seem to confirm that the Grail was at Astarac. That it was hidden there.’

‘And taken away again!’ Thomas protested.

‘If you lose something valuable,’ Buckingham said patiently, ‘where do you begin your search? At the place where it was last seen. Where is Astarac?’

‘Gascony,’ Thomas said, ‘in the fief of Berat.’

‘Ah!’ the Earl said, but then was silent.

‘And have you been to Astarac?’ Buckingham asked. He might have been young, but he had an authority that came from more than his job with the King’s Exchequer.

‘No.’

‘Then I suggest you go,’ the priest said, ‘and see what you can learn. And if you make enough noise in your searching then your cousin may well come looking for you, and you can find him and discover what he knows.’ He smiled, as if to suggest that he had solved the problem.

There was silence except that one of the Earl’s hunting dogs scratched itself in a corner of the room and on the quays a sailor let loose a stream of profanities that might have brought a blush to the devil’s face. ‘I can’t capture Guy by myself,’ Thomas protested, ‘and Berat offers no allegiance to our King.’

‘Officially,’ Buckingham said, ‘Berat offers allegiance to the Count of Toulouse, which today means the King of France. The Count of Berat is definitely an enemy.’

‘No truce is signed yet,’ the Earl offered hesitantly.

‘And won’t be for days, I suspect,’ Buckingham agreed.

The Earl looked at Thomas. ‘And you want archers?’

‘I’d like Will Skeat’s men, sire.’

‘And no doubt they’d serve you,’ the Earl said, ‘but you can’t lead men-at-arms, Thomas.’ He meant that Thomas, not nobly born and still young, might have the authority to command archers, but men-at-arms, who considered themselves of higher rank, would resent his leadership. Will Skeat, worse born than Thomas, had managed it, but Will had been much older and far more experienced.

‘I can lead men-at-arms,’ one of the two men by the wall announced.

Thomas introduced the two. The one who had spoken was an older man, scarred, one eye missing, hard as mail. His name was Sir Guillaume d’Evecque, Lord of Evecque, and he had once held a fief in Normandy until his own King turned against him and now he was a landless warrior and Thomas’s friend. The other, younger man was also a friend. He was a Scot, Robbie Douglas, taken prisoner at Durham the year before. ‘Christ’s bones,’ the Earl said when he knew Robbie’s circumstances, ‘but you must have raised your ransom by now?’

‘I raised it, my lord,’ Robbie admitted, ‘and lost it.’

‘Lost it!’

Robbie stared at the floor, so Thomas explained in one curt word. ‘Dice.’

The Earl looked disgusted, then turned again to Sir Guillaume. ‘I have heard of you,’ he said, and it was a compliment, ‘and know you can lead men-at-arms, but whom do you serve?’

‘No man, my lord.’

‘Then you cannot lead my men-at-arms,’ the Earl said pointedly, and waited.

Sir Guillaume hesitated. He was a proud man, thirty-five years old, experienced in war, with a reputation that had first been made by fighting against the English. But now he possessed no land, no master, and as such he was little more than a vagabond and so, after a pause, he walked to the Earl and knelt before him and held up his hands as though in prayer. The Earl put his own hands round Sir Guillaume’s. ‘You promise to do me service,’ he asked, ‘to be my liege man, to serve no other?’

‘I do so promise,’ Sir Guillaume said earnestly and the Earl raised him and the two men kissed on the lips.

‘I’m honoured,’ the Earl said, thumping Sir Guillaume’s shoulder, then turned to Thomas again. ‘So you can raise a decent force. You’ll need, what? Fifty men? Half archers.’

‘Fifty men in a distant fief?’ Thomas said. ‘They won’t last a month, my lord.’

‘But they will,’ the Earl said, and explained his previous, surprised reaction to the news that Astarac lay in the county of Berat. ‘Years ago, young Thomas, before you were off your mother’s tit, we owned property in Gascony. We lost it, but we never formally surrendered it, so there are three or four strongholds in Berat over which I have a legitimate claim.’ John Buckingham, reading Father Ralph’s notes again, raised an eyebrow to suggest that the claim was tenuous at best, but he said nothing. ‘Go and take one of those castles,’ the Earl said, ‘make raids, make money, and men will join you.’

‘And men will come against us,’ Thomas observed quietly.

‘And Guy Vexille will be one,’ the Earl said, ‘so that’s your opportunity. Take it, Thomas, and get out of here before the truce is made.’

Thomas hesitated for a heartbeat or two. What the Earl suggested sounded close to insanity. He was to take a force into the deep south of French territory, capture a fortress, defend it, hope to capture his cousin, find Astarac, explore it, follow the Grail. Only a fool would accept such a charge, but the alternative was to rot away with every other unemployed archer. ‘I shall do it, my lord,’ he said.

‘Good. Be off with you, all of you!’ The Earl led Thomas to the door, but once Robbie and Sir Guillaume were on the stairs, he pulled Thomas back for a private word. ‘Don’t take the Scotsman with you,’ the Earl said.

‘No, my lord? He’s a friend.’

‘He’s a damned Scot and I don’t trust them. They’re all goddamned thieves and liars. Worse than the bloody French. Who holds him prisoner?’

‘Lord Outhwaite.’

‘And Outhwaite let him travel with you? I’m surprised. Never mind, send your Scottish friend back to Outhwaite and let him moulder away until his family raises the ransom. But I don’t want a bloody Scotsman taking the Grail away from England. You understand?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘Good man,’ the Earl said and clapped Thomas’s back. ‘Now go and prosper.’

Go and die, more like. Go on a fool’s errand, for Thomas did not believe the Grail existed. He wanted it to exist, he wanted to believe his father’s words, but his father had been mad at times and mischievous at others, and Thomas had his own ambition, to be a leader as good as Will Skeat. To be an archer. Yet the fool’s errand gave him a chance to raise men, lead them and follow his dream. So he would pursue the Grail and see what came.

He went to the English encampment and beat a drum. Peace was coming, but Thomas of Hookton was raising men and going to war.

The Count of Berat was old, pious and learned. He had lived sixty-five years and liked to boast that he had not left his fiefdom for the last forty of them. His stronghold was the great castle of Berat. It stood on a limestone hill above the town of Berat, which was almost surrounded by the River Berat that made the county of Berat so fertile. There were olives, grapes, pears, plums, barley and women. The Count liked them all. He had married five times, each new wife younger than the last, but none had provided him with a child. He had not even spawned a bastard on a milkmaid though, God knew, it was not for lack of trying.