Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

That evening he had learned about the Order of the Fisherman. He had listened to Father Marchant tell him of the Order’s purpose and of the quest to retrieve la Malice . ‘But I know about la Malice ,’ Roland had said.

Father Marchant had been taken aback, but recovered. ‘You know?’ he had asked. ‘So what do you know, my son?’

‘It is the sword Saint Peter carried in Gethsemane,’ Roland had said, ‘a sword that was drawn to protect our Saviour.’

‘A holy weapon,’ Father Marchant had said gently.

‘But cursed, father. They say it is cursed.’

‘I have heard that too,’ Father Marchant had said.

‘Cursed because Saint Peter drew it and Christ reproved him.’

‘“ Dixit ergo Iesus Petro mitte gladium in vaginam …”’ Father Marchant had begun the quote from the gospel, then checked because Roland had looked so distressed. ‘What is it, my son?’

‘If evil men hold the sword, father, they will have such power!’

‘That is why the Order exists,’ the priest had explained patiently, ‘to ensure that la Malice belongs only to the church.’

‘But the curse can be lifted!’ Roland had said.

‘It can?’ Father Marchant had seemed surprised.

‘It is said,’ Roland had told him, ‘that if the blade is taken to Jerusalem and blessed within the walls of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre then the curse will be lifted and the sword will become a weapon of God’s glory.’ No other sword, not Roland’s Durandal, not Charlemagne’s Joyeuse, not even Arthur’s Excalibur could compare to la Malice . She would be the holiest weapon on God’s earth if her curse could be lifted.

Father Marchant had heard the awe in Roland’s voice, but instead of saying that a journey to Jerusalem was about as likely as Saint Peter reappearing he had nodded solemnly. ‘Then we must add that duty to the Order’s tasks, my son.’

Now, in the candle-bright chapel, Roland was inducted into the Order. He had made his confession, he had received absolution, and now he knelt at the altar step. The other knights were behind him, standing in the small, white-painted nave. Roland had been pleased to find Robbie in the Order, but the second Scotsman, the bone-hung Sculley, had shocked him. Even a few moments in Sculley’s presence was to be struck by the man’s coarseness: the perpetual sardonic grin, the curses, the malevolence of the man, the mockery and the appetite for cruelty. ‘He is indeed a crude instrument,’ Father Marchant had told Roland, ‘but God makes use of the humblest clay.’

Now Sculley was shuffling his feet and mumbling about wasting time. The other knights were silent, watching as Father Marchant prayed in Latin. He blessed Roland’s sword, laid his hands on Roland’s head, and placed a sash with the fisherman’s embroidered keys around Roland’s neck. And as he prayed, the candles in the chapel were being extinguished one by one. It was like the service of Good Friday, when to mark the Redeemer’s death the churches of Christendom were plunged into darkness. And when the last candle guttered, there was only the pale light of the moon beyond the chapel’s sole high window and the small red flame of the eternal presence, which cast shadows the colour of dark blood on the silver crucified Christ at which Roland gazed with adoration in his eyes. He had found his cause, he had found a quest worthy of his purity, and he would find la Malice .

Then Genevieve screamed.

And screamed again.

Keane and Father Levonne had ridden close to the drawbridge where the Irishman shouted up at the sentinel, who just glanced at the two horsemen in the moonlight and then walked a few paces along the gatehouse parapet. ‘Are you listening?’ Keane shouted. ‘Tell your lord we’ve got his woman! He wants her back, doesn’t he?’ He waited. His horse stamped its foot. ‘Jesus, man, are you hearing me?’ he called. ‘We’ve got his lady here!’ The sentinel leaned between two of the merlons to look at Keane again, but he offered no answer, and after a moment he pulled back behind the stones. ‘Are you deaf?’ Keane asked.

‘My son,’ Father Levonne shouted, ‘I am a priest! Let me talk to your lord!’

There was no answer. The moon illuminated the castle and shivered white on the wind-rippled moat. There had only been the one man visible on the gatehouse wall, but he had now vanished to leave Keane and Levonne seemingly alone. The Irishman knew Thomas and a dozen other men were looking on from the trees, but he wondered who else watched from the dark slits in the curtain wall and in the moon-shadowed towers, and whether those watchers had tensioned crossbows loaded with short heavy bolts tipped with steel. The two wolfhounds who had followed Keane whined. ‘Is anyone hearing us?’ Keane called.

A gust lifted the flag on the castle’s keep. The banner stirred, then dropped as the small wind died. An owl called across the valley, and the two hounds lifted their heads and smelt the air. Eloise growled softly. ‘Gentle now,’ Keane told her, ‘quiet yourself, girl, and tomorrow we’ll run some hares. Maybe a deer if you’re lucky, eh?’

‘Englishman!’ a voice bellowed from the castle.

‘If you must insult a man,’ Keane called back, ‘can you not be clever about it?’

‘Come back in the morning! Come at first light!’

‘Let me talk to your lord!’ Father Levonne shouted.

‘You’re a priest?’

‘I am!’

‘Here’s your answer, father,’ the man shouted, and a cord thrummed in one of the towers and a crossbow bolt slammed through the moonlight to strike the track twenty yards short of the two horsemen. The bolt tumbled on the turf, skidding to a halt between the startled dogs.

‘It seems we have to wait till morning, father,’ Keane said. He turned his horse, kicked back his heels, and rode out of range of the crossbows.

Till the morning.

The Count of Labrouillade had been at supper. There was a venison pastry, a roasted goose, a ham coated in thick lavender-flavoured honey, and a platter of millet-fattened ortolans, which was the count’s favourite dish. He had a cook who knew how to drown the tiny birds in red wine, then roast them fast on a fierce fire. The count sniffed one. Just perfect! The aroma was so delicious it almost made his head swim, and then he sucked on the tiny bird and the yellow fat dribbled down his chins as he scrunched the fragile bones. The cook had roasted three woodcock too, drenching the needle-beaked birds with a mixture of honey and wine.

The count liked to eat. He was mildly annoyed that his guests, the severe Father Marchant, Sir Robbie Douglas, and the risible virgin knight, were fooling around in the chapel, but he would not wait for them. The ortolans were piping hot, and the woodcocks’ dark breasts too delicious to delay, and so he left word that his guests could join him at their leisure. ‘Sire Roland has done well, eh?’ he remarked to his steward.

‘Indeed, my lord.’

‘Fellow got hold of le Bâtard ’s wife! Roland might be a virgin,’ the count chuckled at that, ‘but he can’t be a total idiot. Let’s have a look at her.’

‘Now, my lord?’

‘Better entertainment than that fool,’ the count said, gesturing towards a minstrel who played a small harp and sang of the count’s excellence in battle. The song was largely invented, but the count’s household pretended to believe it. ‘Is everything ready for the morning?’ the count asked before the steward could leave on his errand.

‘Everything, my lord?’ the steward asked, confused.

‘Packhorses, armour, weapons, provisions. Christ’s belly, man, do I have to do it all?’

‘Everything is ready, my lord.’