Bernard Cornwell - 1356 (Special Edition)

‘Unhood her?’ Roland asked. It seemed a strange thing to do in the night-time.

‘She is a calade ,’ Father Marchant said.

‘A calade ?’ Roland asked.

‘Most calades discover sickness in a person,’ Father Marchant explained, ‘but this bird also has the God-given talent of discovering the truth.’ He stepped away from Roland. ‘You look tired, my son. Might I suggest you sleep?’

Roland smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve slept little these past nights.’

‘Then rest now, my son, with God’s good blessing on you, rest.’ He watched Roland walk away, then turned to where his other knights were waiting at the passage’s end. ‘Sir Robbie! Will you bring the girl and her boy?’ He pushed open a random door and found himself in a small room where wine barrels were stacked around a table on which stood jugs, funnels, and goblets. He swept them off, clearing the table’s top. ‘This will do,’ he called, ‘and bring candles!’

He stroked the hawk. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked the bird. ‘Is my darling hungry? We shall feed you very soon.’ He stood to one side of the small chamber as Robbie brought Genevieve through the door. She was clutching her torn dress to her breasts. ‘It seems you have met the heretic before?’ Father Marchant suggested to Robbie.

‘I have, father,’ Robbie said.

‘He’s a traitor,’ Genevieve said, and spat into Robbie’s face.

‘He is sworn to God’s purpose,’ Father Marchant said, ‘and you are cursed by God.’

Sculley dragged Hugh through the door and pushed him down beside the table.

‘Candles,’ Father Marchant demanded of Sculley. ‘Fetch some from the hall.’

‘Like to see what you’re doing, eh?’ Sculley said with a grin.

‘Go,’ Father Marchant ordered harshly, then turned back to Robbie. ‘I want her on the table. If she resists, you may strike her.’

Genevieve did not resist. She knew she could not fight Robbie, let alone Robbie and the ghastly man with the bones in his hair who now brought two huge candles that were placed on wine barrels. ‘Lie flat,’ Father Marchant ordered her, ‘as if you were dead.’ He saw her shivering. She had placed her hands on her breasts to keep the torn dress in place, and the priest now unwound the jesses from his glove and put the hawk on her topmost wrist. The claws dug into her thin flesh and she made a small whimpering sound. ‘ In nomine Patris ,’ Father Marchant said softly, ‘ et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti , amen. Sir Robert?’

‘Father?’

‘We have no notary to record this sinner’s confession, so you will pay attention and be a witness to what is said. You have a holy duty to remember the truth.’

‘Yes, father.’

The priest looked at Genevieve who lay with closed eyes and clasped hands. ‘Sinner,’ he said gently, ‘tell me why you went to Montpellier.’

‘We took an English monk there,’ Genevieve said.

‘And why?’

‘He was to study medicine at the university.’

‘You wish me to believe that le Bâtard went all the way to Montpellier just to escort a monk?’ Father Marchant asked.

‘It was a favour to his liege lord,’ Genevieve said.

‘Open your eyes,’ the priest ordered. He still spoke softly. He waited till she obeyed. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, ‘have you heard of Saint Junien?’

‘No,’ Genevieve said. The hooded hawk did not move.

‘You are excommunicated, are you not?’

She hesitated, then gave a small nod.

‘And you went to Montpellier as a favour to a monk?’

‘Yes,’ she said in a small voice.

‘It would be in your interest,’ Father Marchant said, ‘to tell the truth.’ He leaned forward and unlaced the hood, slipping it off the hawk’s head. ‘This is a calade ,’ he told her, ‘a bird that can tell whether you speak true or false.’ Genevieve looked up into hawk’s eyes and shuddered. Father Marchant stepped back. ‘Now tell me, sinner,’ he said, ‘why you went to Montpellier?’

‘I told you, to escort a monk.’

Her scream echoed through all the castle.

Nine

Roland was startled awake by the scream.

The count had not thought to provide beds. The castle was crammed with men waiting to march to Bourges, and they slept where they could. Many were still drinking in the great hall, while some had bedded down in the courtyard where the horses that had no room in the stables were sleeping, but Roland’s squire, Michel, had cleverly found a chest filled with banners that he spread on a stone bench in the antechamber to the chapel. Roland had just fallen asleep on that makeshift bed when the scream echoed down the passageways. He woke confused, thinking he was back home with his mother. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

Michel was staring down the long passage. The boy said nothing. Then a bellow of anger echoed down the corridor, and that brought Roland to full wakefulness. He rolled off the bench and snatched up his sword. ‘Your boots, sire?’ Michel said, offering them, but Roland was running. A man at the passage’s far end was looking alarmed, but no one else seemed to have been disturbed by the scream and the shout. Roland pushed open the door of the wine store and gaped.

The room was almost totally dark because the candles had been knocked over, but in the dim light Roland saw Genevieve sitting on the table with one hand clasped to an eye. Her torn dress had fallen around her waist. Father Marchant was sprawling on his back with bloody lips, a beheaded hawk was twitching on the floor, while Sculley was grinning. Robbie Douglas was standing with a drawn sword over the priest, and, as Roland took in the scene, the Scotsman used the sword’s hilt to hit Marchant again. ‘You bastard!’

Hugh was crying, but on seeing Roland he ran to him. Roland had told him stories, Hugh liked him, and he clung to Roland, who flinched as Robbie hit the priest a third time, knocking Marchant’s head back hard against a wine barrel. ‘You’d blind her, you bastard?’ Robbie shouted.

‘What …’ Roland began.

‘We must go!’ Genevieve shouted.

Sculley seemed to be amused by what he had seen. ‘Nice titties,’ he said to no one in particular, and that seemed to startle Robbie into a realisation of what he had done.

‘Go where?’ Robbie asked.

‘Find a hole and bury yourself,’ Sculley advised, then looked back to Genevieve. ‘Bit small, but nice.’

‘What happened?’ Roland at last managed to ask.

‘The bastard wanted to blind her,’ Robbie said.

‘I like titties,’ Sculley said.

‘Quiet,’ Robbie snarled at him. He had thought he had found purpose and spiritual reassurance in the Order of the Fisherman, but the sight of the hawk slashing its beak at Genevieve’s eye had opened his own eyes. He realised he had run from his old oaths, that he had betrayed his promises, and now he would make good. He had ripped his sword out of its scabbard and taken the hawk’s head off in one sweep, then turned on Father Marchant and punched him with the sword’s hilt, breaking the priest’s lips and teeth. Now he had no idea what he should do.

‘We have to leave now,’ Genevieve said.

‘Where?’ Robbie asked again.

‘A very deep hole,’ Sculley said, amused, then frowned at Robbie. ‘Are we fighting anyone?’

‘No,’ Robbie said.

‘Get my cloak,’ Roland ordered Michel, and when the squire brought the garment the virgin knight draped it around Genevieve’s bare shoulders. ‘I am sorry,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘You were under my protection,’ he said, ‘and I failed.’

Robbie looked at Roland. ‘We must go,’ he said, sounding frightened.