Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

‘Her future,’ Thomas said, ‘is to cause dissension among the men.’

‘Good,’ Genevieve said, ‘because men cause enough trouble for women. I’ll protect her.’

‘Dear God,’ Thomas said in exasperation, then turned to look at Bertille. She was, he thought, a rare beauty. His men were staring at her with undisguised longing, and he could not blame them. Men would die for a woman who looked like Bertille. Brother Michael had found a cloak rolled up behind the cantle of the count’s saddle and he shook it out, carried it to her and offered it as a covering for her torn dress. She said something to him and the young monk blushed as scarlet as the western clouds. ‘It looks,’ Thomas said, ‘as though she already has a protector.’

‘I will do a better job,’ Genevieve said, and she walked to the count’s horse and reached for the blood-stained gelding knife that hung by a loop from the saddle’s pommel. She crossed to the count, who flinched at the sight of the blade. He glowered at the silver-mailed woman who looked down at him with disdain. ‘Your wife will ride with us,’ Genevieve told him, ‘and if you make any attempt to take her back then I will cut you myself. I will cut you slowly and make you squeal like the pig you are.’ She spat at him and walked away.

Another enemy, Thomas thought.

The genoins came as dusk shaded into night. The coins were loaded on two packhorses and, once Thomas was satisfied that all the coins were there, he went back to the count. ‘I shall keep all the coins, my lord, the bad and the good. You’ve paid me twice, the second payment for the trouble you caused me today.’

‘I’ll kill you,’ the count said.

‘It was our pleasure to serve you, my lord,’ Thomas said. He mounted, then led his men and all the captured horses westwards. The first stars pricked the darkening sky. It was cold suddenly because a northern wind had blown up, bringing a hint of winter.

And in the spring that followed, Thomas thought, there would be another war. But first he must go to Armagnac.

And so the Hellequin rode north.

Three

It would have been easy enough for Fra Ferdinand to steal a horse. The Prince of Wales’s army had left their horses outside Carcassonne, and the few men guarding the animals were bored and tired. The destriers, those big horses that the men-of-arms rode, were better guarded, but the mounts of the archers were in a paddock and the Black Friar could have taken a dozen, but a lone man on a horse is noticeable, a target for bandits, and Fra Ferdinand dared not risk the loss of la Malice , and so he preferred to walk.

It took him ten days to reach home. For a time he travelled with some merchants who had hired a dozen men-at-arms to guard their goods, but after four days they took the road south to Montpellier, and Fra Ferdinand continued northwards. One of the merchants had asked him why he carried la Malice , and the friar had shrugged the question away, ‘It’s just an old blade,’ he had said, ‘it might make a good hay knife?’

‘Doesn’t look like it could cut butter,’ the merchant had said, ‘you’d do better to melt it down.’

‘And maybe I will.’

He had heard news on the journey, though such travellers’ tales were always unreliable. It was said that the rampaging English army had burned Narbonne and Villefranche, others said Toulouse itself had fallen. The merchants had grumbled. The English chevauchée was a tactic to destroy a country’s power, to starve the lords of taxes, to burn their mills, uproot their vines, to demolish whole towns, and the only way such a destructive force could be stopped was by another army, yet the King of France was still in the north, far away, and the Prince of Wales was running riot in the south. ‘King Jean should come here,’ one of the merchants had said, ‘and kill the English princeling, or else there’ll be no France to rule.’

Fra Ferdinand had kept silent. The other travellers were nervous of him. He was gaunt, stern and mysterious, though his companions were grateful that he did not preach. The Black Friars were a preaching order, destined to wander the world in poverty and encourage it to godliness, and when the merchants turned southwards they gave him money, which Fra Ferdinand suspected was in gratitude for his silence. He accepted the charity, offered the donors a blessing, and walked north alone.

He kept to the wooded parts of the country to avoid strangers. He knew there were coredors , bandits, and routiers who would think nothing of robbing a friar. The world, he thought, had become evil, and he prayed for God’s protection and his prayers were answered because he saw no bandits and found no enemies, and late on a Tuesday evening he came to Agout, the village just south of the hills where the tower stood, and he went to the inn and there heard the news.

The Lord of Mouthoumet was dead. He had been visited by a priest accompanied by men-at-arms, and when the priest left the Sire of Mouthoumet was dead. He was buried now, and the men-at-arms had stayed at the tower until some Englishmen had come and there had been a fight and the Englishmen had killed three of the priest’s men and the rest had run away.

‘Are the English still there?’

‘They went away too.’

Fra Ferdinand went to the tower the next day where he found the Sire of Mouthoumet’s housekeeper, a garrulous woman who knelt for the friar’s blessing, but hardly ceased her chatter even as he gave it. She told how a priest had come, ‘He was rude!’, and then the priest had left and the men who remained behind had searched the tower and the village. ‘They were beasts,’ she said, ‘Frenchmen! But beasts! Then the English came.’ The English, she said, had worn a badge showing a strange animal holding a cup.

‘The Hellequin,’ Fra Ferdinand said.

‘Hellequin?’

‘It is a name they take pride in. Men should suffer for such pride.’

‘Amen.’

‘But the Hellequin did not kill the Sire of Mouthoumet?’ the friar asked.

‘He was buried by the time they arrived.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘No, the Frenchmen killed him. They came from Avignon.’

‘Avignon!’

‘The priest came from there. He was called Father Calade.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘He had green eyes and I did not like him. The sire was blinded! The priest gouged his eyes out!’

‘Dear God,’ Fra Ferdinand said quietly. ‘How do you know they came from Avignon?’

‘They said so! The men he left behind told us so! They said if we didn’t give them what they wanted then we would all be damned by the Holy Father himself.’ She paused just long enough to make the sign of the cross. ‘The English asked too. I didn’t like their leader. One of his hands was like the devil’s paw, like a claw. He was courteous,’ she said that grudgingly, ‘but he was hard. I could tell from his hand that he was evil!’

Fra Ferdinand knew how superstitious the old woman was. She was a good woman, but saw omens in clouds, in flowers, in dogs, in smoke, in anything. ‘Did they ask about me?’

‘No.’

‘Good.’ The friar had found a refuge in Mouthoumet. He was becoming too old to walk the roads of France and rely on the kindness of strangers to provide a bed and food, and a year earlier he had come to the tower and the old man had invited him to stay. They had talked together, eaten together, played chess together, and the count had told Fra Ferdinand all the ancient stories of the Dark Lords. ‘The English will come back, I think,’ the friar said now, ‘and perhaps the French too.’

‘Why?’

‘They search for something,’ he said.

‘They searched! They dug up the new graves even, but they found nothing. The English went to Avignon.’