Bernard Cornwell - Harlequin

Thomas kneeled beside the priest. ‘Father?’

Father Ralph opened his eyes and saw the bow. He grimaced, though whether in pain or disapproval, Thomas could not tell.

‘Did you kill any of them, Thomas?’ the priest asked.

‘Yes,’ Thomas said, ‘a lot.’

Father Ralph grimaced and shuddered. Thomas reckoned the priest was one of the strongest men he had ever known, flawed perhaps, yet tough as a yew stave, but he was dying now and there was a whimper in his voice. ‘You don’t want to be a priest, do you, Thomas?’ He asked the question in French, his mother tongue.

‘No,’ Thomas answered in the same language.

‘You’re going to be a soldier,’ the priest said, ‘like your grandfather.’ He paused and whimpered as another bolt of pain ripped up from his belly. Thomas wanted to help him, but in truth there was nothing to be done. The Harlequin had run his sword into Father Ralph’s belly and only God could save the priest now. ‘I argued with my father,’ the dying man said, ‘and he disowned me. He disinherited me and I have refused to acknowledge him from that day to this. But you, Thomas, you are like him. Very like him. And you have always argued with me.’

‘Yes, Father,’ Thomas said. He took his father’s hand and the priest did not resist.

‘I loved your mother,’ Father Ralph said, ‘and that was my sin, and you are the fruit of that sin. I thought if you became a priest you could rise above sin. It floods us, Thomas, it floods us. It is everywhere. I have seen the devil, Thomas, seen him with my own eyes and we must fight him. Only the Church can do that. Only the Church.’ The tears flowed down his hollow unshaven cheeks. He looked past Thomas into the roof of the nave. ‘They stole the lance,’ he said sadly.

‘I know.’

‘My great-grandfather brought it from the Holy Land,’ Father Ralph said, ‘and I stole it from my father and my brother’s son stole it from us today.’ He spoke softly. ‘He will do evil with it. Bring it home, Thomas. Bring it home.’

‘I will,’ Thomas promised him. Smoke began to thicken in the church. The raiders had not fired it, but the thatch was catching the flames from the burning scraps that filled the air. ‘You say your brother’s son stole it?’ Thomas asked.

‘Your cousin,’ Father Ralph whispered, his eyes closed. ‘The one dressed in black. He came and stole it.’

‘Who is he?’ Thomas asked.

‘Evil,’ Father Ralph said, ‘evil.’ He moaned and shook his head.

‘Who is he?’ Thomas insisted.

‘ Calix meus inebrians .’ Father Ralph said in a voice scarce above a whisper. Thomas knew it was a line from a psalm and meant ‘my cup makes me drunk’ and he reckoned his father’s mind was slipping as his soul hovered close to his body’s end.

‘Tell me who your father was!’ Thomas demanded. Tell me who I am, he wanted to say. Tell me who you are, Father. But Father Ralph’s eyes were closed though he still gripped Thomas’s hand hard. ‘Father?’ Thomas asked. The smoke dipped in the church and sifted out through the window Thomas had broken to make his escape. ‘Father?’

But his father never spoke again. He died, and Thomas, who had fought against him all his life, wept like a child. At times he had been ashamed of his father, but in that smoky Easter morning he learned that he loved him. Most priests disowned their children, but Father Ralph had never hidden Thomas. He had let the world think what it wanted and he had freely confessed to being a man as well as a priest and if he sinned in loving his housekeeper then it was a sweet sin that he never denied even if he did say acts of contrition for it and feared that in the life hereafter he would be punished for it.

Thomas pulled his father away from the altar. He did not want the body to be burned when the roof collapsed. The silver chalice that Thomas had accidentally crushed was under the dead man’s blood-soaked robe and Thomas pocketed it before dragging the corpse out into the graveyard. He lay his father beside the body of the man in the red and green coat and Thomas crouched there, weeping, knowing that he had failed in his first Easter vigil. The devil had stolen the Sacraments and St George’s lance was gone and Hookton was dead.

At midday Sir Giles Marriott came to the village with a score of men armed with bows and billhooks. Sir Giles himself wore mail and carried a sword, but there was no enemy left to fight and Thomas was the only person left in the village.

‘Three yellow hawks on a blue field,’ Thomas told Sir Giles.

‘Thomas?’ Sir Giles asked, puzzled. He was the lord of the manor and an old man now, though in his time he had carried a lance against both the Scots and the French. He had been a good friend to Thomas’s father, but he did not understand Thomas, whom he reckoned had grown wild as a wolf.

‘Three yellow hawks on a blue field,’ Thomas said vengefully, ‘are the arms of the man who did this.’ Were they the arms of his cousin? He did not know. There were so many questions left by his father.

‘I don’t know whose badge that is,’ Sir Giles said, ‘but I shall pray by God’s bowels he screams in hell for this work.’

There was nothing to be done until the fires had burned themselves out, and only then could the bodies be dragged from the ashes. The burned dead had been blackened and grotesquely shrunk by the heat so that even the tallest men looked like children. The dead villagers were taken to the graveyard for a proper burial, but the bodies of the four crossbowmen were dragged down to the beach and there stripped naked.

‘Did you do this?’ Sir Giles asked Thomas.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then I thank you.’

‘My first dead Frenchmen,’ Thomas said angrily.

‘No,’ Sir Giles said, and he lifted one of the men’s tunics to show Thomas the badge of a green chalice embroidered on its sleeve. ‘They’re from Genoa,’ Sir Giles said. ‘The French hire them as crossbowmen. I’ve killed a few in my time, but there are always more where they come from. You know what the badge is?’

‘A cup?’

Sir Giles shook his head. ‘The Holy Grail. They reckon they have it in their cathedral. I’m told it’s a great green thing, carved from an emerald and brought back from the crusades. I should like to see it one day.’

‘Then I shall bring it to you,’ Thomas said bitterly, ‘just as I shall bring back our lance.’

Sir Giles stared to sea. The raiders’ boats were long gone and there was nothing out there but the sun on the waves. ‘Why would they come here?’ he asked.

‘For the lance.’

‘I doubt it was even real,’ Sir Giles said. He was red-faced, white-haired and heavy now. ‘It was just an old spear, nothing more.’

‘It’s real,’ Thomas insisted, ‘and that’s why they came.’

Sir Giles did not argue. ‘Your father,’ he said instead, ‘would have wanted you to finish your studies.’

‘My studies are done,’ Thomas said flatly. ‘I’m going to France.’

Sir Giles nodded. He reckoned the boy was far better suited to be a soldier than a priest. ‘Will you go as an archer?’ he asked, looking at the great bow on Thomas’s shoulder, ‘or do you want to join my house and train to be a man-at-arms?’ He half smiled. ‘You’re gently born, you know?’

‘I’m bastard born,’ Thomas insisted.

‘Your father was of good birth.’

‘You know what family?’ Thomas asked.

Sir Giles shrugged. ‘He would never tell me, and if I pressed him he would just say that God was his father and his mother was the Church.’

‘And my mother,’ Thomas said, ‘was a priest’s housekeeper and the daughter of a bowyer. I shall go to France as an archer.’