Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

The pale scholar jumped to his feet. ‘Man,’ he said confidently, ‘is made in the image of God, but woman is not. The laws of the church are clear on that distinction. I cite the Corpus Iuris Canonici in support of that contention.’ But before he could recite the church law there were heavy footsteps in the open corridor outside, and de Beaufort’s voice dribbled to nothing as six armed and armoured men came through the arch into the lecture room. They were dressed in mail haubergeons over which they had jupons with the image of the seated Virgin, and all were carrying spears and wearing helmets. They were followed by two men in the blue and rose robes of Montpellier’s consuls, the city’s governors, and then by a man wearing the badge of the white rose: Roland de Verrec.

‘You interrupt us,’ Doctor Lucius said indignantly, but in Latin so that none of the newcomers understood him.

‘That is him.’ Roland de Verrec ignored the doctor and pointed at Thomas. ‘Arrest him now!’

‘For what?’ Doctor Lucius used French this time. He was hardly defending Thomas by the question, instead he was defending his dignity, which had been affronted by the arrival of the armed men, and he was trying to establish his authority in the lecture room.

‘For the abduction of another man’s lawful wife,’ Roland de Verrec answered, ‘and for the worse crime of heresy. He is excommunicate, outlawed from the church and hated by men. His name is Thomas of Hookton and I demand he now be given into my custody.’ He gestured for the armed men to capture Thomas.

Who swore under his breath and took two steps backwards. He seized Brother Michael, who was still gawking at the newcomers. Thomas had left his sword with Genevieve, for he would have been forbidden entrance to the monastery if he had arrived armed, but he had a short knife at his belt and he drew it, put his left arm around Brother Michael’s neck and the point of the knife against his throat. Brother Michael made a strangulated noise that checked the city guards. ‘Go back,’ Thomas told them, ‘or I kill the monk.’

‘If you surrender peaceably,’ Roland de Verrec told Thomas, ‘I shall plead with the Count of Labrouillade to treat you leniently.’ He paused, as if expecting Thomas to lower the blade. ‘Take him,’ he ordered the guards when the knife stayed at Brother Michael’s throat.

‘You want him dead?’ Thomas shouted. He tightened his grip on the young monk’s throat, provoking a terrified whimper.

‘A reward to the man who takes him,’ Roland de Verrec announced, stepping forward himself. The thought of a reward excited the students, who had been gazing wide-eyed at the sudden drama that had enlivened their theology lecture. They gave a roar like hunters seeing their prey close, and kicked over the benches in their hurry to capture Thomas.

‘He’s dead!’ Thomas bellowed, and the students stopped, fearing that the monk’s blood would suddenly spurt. ‘Tell Genevieve,’ Thomas whispered in Brother Michael’s ear, ‘to join Karyl.’ Genevieve, barred by her gender from entering the monastery, had stayed at the tavern with Hugh, Galdric and the two men-at-arms.

‘Jesus God, save me!’ Brother Michael gasped, and Thomas let go with his left arm and thrust the monk violently forward into the press of students, then ran left into another open corridor. The pursuers roared again, whooping and bellowing. Doctor Lucius shouted for order, but in vain, and Thomas heard the footsteps, saw a door to his right and slammed it open. A lavatorium! Three monks were at stool, perched on stone benches that ran down the sides of the stinking room, which had an arched door at its far end. The monks gaped at Thomas, but dared not move, and Thomas seized one by the beard and spilled him, naked arse, filth and all, across the floor. He did the same to a second one and ran on to the room’s far end. Pursuers crowded into the lavatorium, tripped over the fallen monk, and Thomas was through the door. No bolt to lock it shut. A passageway stretched ahead with doors on either side. Monks’ cells? He ran hard, cursing the old wound in his leg that meant he was not as fast as he used to be, but he was managing to stay ahead of his pursuers. He burst through a further door with a bolt on the wrong side. Through that into what seemed to be a laundry room with big stone bowls, jugs and heaps of robes. He spilt robes on the floor, pushed through a further door and was in a small enclosed herb garden. No one there and no way out except the door he had just used, and men were shouting in the passage, they were close, too close. It was raining harder. A high wall barred one side of the garden and Thomas jumped, took hold of the coping and used his huge archer’s muscles to haul himself up. He kicked up a leg, straddled the wall, stood and ran along the wide coping to where the wall joined a sloping tiled roof. Men spilt into the herb garden as he climbed the roof. The rain made the tiles slippery and he flailed for a few heartbeats before scrambling up to the ridge. ‘He’s there!’ the Irishman Keane shouted enthusiastically. ‘Going towards the kitchens!’

Thomas ripped a tile from the roof and hurled it down at the students, then another. Keane swore vilely, ducked, and then Thomas was on the roof ridge, running, lost to sight, but he could hear the students whooping and shouting, released to the joy of the hunt. Chasing an heretical Englishman was far more enjoyable than discussing the four cardinal virtues or the necessity of infant baptism.

A crossbow bolt whipped past Thomas, and he looked left to see a man in the city’s livery reloading a weapon on the scaffolding about a church. Damn. He sat on the ridge, then slid down the roof’s greasy slope until his feet crashed hard into a small stone parapet. ‘He’s on the refectory!’ a man shouted. Thomas ripped another tile free and hurled it far and high, through the rain and over the roof to fall wherever it might. He heard it crash home, heard the clatter of shards. ‘Other way!’ a voice called. ‘He’s on the chapter house!’ A bell started to toll, then another joined in, and Thomas heard feet on the roof beyond the ridge. He looked left and right, saw no easy escape, and so peered cautiously over the low stone parapet. There was another garden beneath him, a small one, thick with fruit trees. ‘Go left!’ a voice shouted somewhere behind him.

‘No, he went this way!’ It was the Irish student, Keane, and he sounded very sure of himself. ‘This way!’ he bellowed, ‘I saw the bastard!’

Thomas listened as the noise of the pursuit faded. Keane was taking them in entirely the wrong direction, yet even so Thomas was not out of danger. He had to find a way off the rooftops and so he decided to risk the small garden. He swung his legs over the parapet and sat there, hesitant because it was a long drop, then reckoned he had no choice. He jumped, thrashing through blossom and branches and wet leaves. He landed hard and was thrown forward onto his hands. There was a sharp pain in his right ankle so he stayed on all fours, listening to his pursuers, whose voices became fainter. Stay still, he thought. Stay still and let the hunters draw away. Wait.

‘This crossbow,’ the voice said very close behind him, ‘is aimed at your backside. It’s going to hurt you. So very much.’

It had been a stroke of genius, Father Marchant thought, to choose the Abbey of Saint Denis as the place where the Order of the Fisherman would have their vigil and receive their solemn consecration. There, beneath the roof’s soaring stone vaults, under the evening light that glowed dust-rich through the glory of the stained-glass windows and before an altar heaped with golden vessels and lustrous with silver, the Knights of the Fisherman knelt to be blessed. A choir chanted, the melody seemed sad yet inspiring as the male voices rose and fell in the great abbey where the kings of France lay cold in their tombs and the oriflamme waited on the altar. The oriflamme was France’s war banner, the great red silken pennant that flew above the king when he went into battle. It was sacred. ‘It’s new,’ Arnoul d’Audrehem, a Marshal of France, growled to his companion, the Lord of Douglas. ‘The goddamned English captured the last one at Crécy. They’re probably wiping their arses with it now.’