Vagabond

'So why do they want him?'

  'God knows and who cares? All that matters is that they've got him and the devil will have him soon.' Sir Lodewijk yawned hugely. 'And there's a dozen more of them out in the woods so we're riding out to find them.'

  Fifty horsemen rode westwards from the village. The sound of their hooves and their curb chains and creaking leather armour was loud, but quickly faded when they rode into the ridge's thick woods. A pair of kingfishers, startling blue, whipped up the river and vanished in shadows. Long weeds waved in the current where a flash of silver showed that the salmon were returning. A girl carried a pail of milk down the village street and wept because in the night she had been raped by one of the black-liveried soldiers and she knew it was futile to complain for no one would protect her or even make a protest on her behalf. The village priest saw her, understood why she was weeping, and reversed his course so he would not have to face her. The black and yellow flag on the Guêpier's ramparts flapped in a small gust of wind, then hung limp. Two young men with hooded falcons perched on their arms rode out of the tower and turned south. The great door grated shut behind them and the sound of the heavy locking bar dropping into its brackets could be heard throughout the village.

  Thomas heard it too. The sound shuddered through the rock on which the Guêpier was built and reverberated up the winding stair to the long, bare room where he had been taken. Two windows lit the chamber, but the wall was so thick and the embrasures so deep that Thomas, who was chained between the windows, could not see through either of them. An empty hearth stood on the opposite wall, the stones of its chimney hood stained black. The floor's wide wooden boards were scarred and worn by too many nail-studded boots and Thomas guessed this had been a barrack room. It probably still was, but now it was needed as his prison and so the men-at-arms had been ordered out and Thomas carried in and manacled to the iron ring set into the wall between the two windows. The manacles encircled his wrists and held them behind his back and were connected to the iron ring in the wall by three feet of chain. He had tested the ring, seeing if he could shift it or perhaps snap a link of the chain, but all he did was hurt his wrists. A woman laughed somewhere in the tower. Feet sounded on the circular stairs beyond the door, but no one came into the room and the footsteps faded.

  Thomas wondered why the iron ring should have been cemented into the wall. It seemed an odd thing to have so high up the tower where no horse would ever need to be tied. Maybe it had been placed there when the castle had been built. He had watched once as men hauled stones to the top of a church tower and they had used a pulley attached to a ring like this one. It was better to think of the ring and of stones and of masons making the tower than to reflect on his idiocy in being so easily captured, or to wonder what was about to happen to him, though of course he did wonder about that and nowhere in his imagination was the answer comforting. He tugged on the ring again, hoping that it had been there a long time and that the mortar that bedded it would have been weakened, but all he did was break the skin of his wrists on the manacles' sharp edges. The woman laughed again and a child's voice sounded.

  A bird flew in one of the windows, fluttered for a few heartbeats and then vanished again, evidently rejecting the room as a nesting site. Thomas closed his eyes and softly recited the prayer of the Grail, the same prayer that Christ had uttered in Gethsemane: 'Pater, si vis, transfer calicem istum a me.' Father, if you're willing, take this cup from me. Thomas repeated the prayer over and over, suspecting it was a waste of breath. God had not spared his own son the agony of Golgotha so why would He spare Thomas? Yet what hope did he have without prayer? He wanted to weep for his own naiveté in thinking he could ride here and somehow snatch the child from this stronghold that stank of woodsmoke, horse dung and rancid fat. It had all been so stupid and he knew he had not done it for the Grail, but to impress Jeanette. He was a fool, such a damned fool, and like a fool he had walked into his enemy's trap and he knew he would not be ransomed. What value did he have? So why was he even alive? Because they wanted something from him and just then the door to the room opened and Thomas opened his eyes.

  A man in a monk's black robe carried two trestles into the room. He had untonsured hair, suggesting he was a lay servant to a monastery. 'Who are you?' Thomas asked.

  The man, who was short and had a slight limp, gave no answer, but just placed the two trestles in the centre of the floor and, a moment later, brought in five planks that he laid across the trestles to make a table. A second untonsured man, similarly robed in black, entered the room and stared at Thomas. 'Who are you?' Thomas asked again, but the second man was as silent as the first. He was a big man with bony ridges over his eyes and sunken cheeks and he inspected Thomas as if he were appraising a bullock at slaughter time.

  'Are you going to make the fire?' the first man asked.

  'In a minute,' the second man said and he pulled a short-bladed knife from a sheath at his belt and walked towards Thomas. 'Stay still,' he growled, 'and you don't get hurt.'

  'Who are you?'

  'No one you know and no one you'll ever know,' the man said, then he seized the neck of Thomas's woollen jerkin and, with one savage cut, slit it down the front. The blade touched, but did not break Thomas's skin. Thomas pulled back, but the man simply followed him, slashing and tugging at the torn cloth until Thomas's chest was naked, then he slit down the sleeves and pulled the jerkin away so that Thomas was naked from the waist up. Then the man pointed at Thomas's right foot, 'lift it,' he ordered. Thomas hesitated and the man sighed. 'I can make you do it,' he said, 'and that will hurt, or you can do it yourself and it won't hurt.'

  He pulled off both of Thomas's boots, then cut the waist of his breeches.

  'No!' Thomas protested.

  'Don't waste your breath,' the man said, and he sawed and tugged and ripped with the blade until he had cut through the breeches and could pull them away to leave Thomas shivering and naked. Then the man scooped up the boots and torn clothes and carried them out of the room.

  The other man was carrying things into the room and placing them on the table. There was a book and a pot, presumably of ink, because the man placed two goose feathers beside the book and a small ivory-handled knife to trim the quills. Then he put a crucifix on the table, two large candles like those that would grace the altar of a church, three pokers, a pair of pincers and a curious instrument that Thomas could not see properly. Last of all he put two chairs behind the table and a wooden bucket within Thomas's reach. 'You know what that's for, don't you?' he asked, knocking the bucket with his foot.

  'Who are you? Please!'

  'Don't want you to make a mess on the floor, do we?'

  The bigger man came back into the room carrying some kindling and a basket of logs. 'At least you'll be warm,' he said to Thomas with evident amusement. He had a small clay pot filled with glowing embers that he used to light the kindling, then he piled on the smaller logs and held his hands to the growing flames. 'Nice and warm,' he said, 'and that's a blessing in winter. Never known a winter like it! Rain! We should be building an ark.'

  A long way off a bell tolled twice. The fire began to crackle and some of the smoke seeped out into the room, perhaps because the chimney was cold. 'What he really likes,' the big man who had laid the fire said, 'is a brazier.'

  'Who?' Thomas asked.

  'He always likes a brazier, he does, but not on a wooden floor. I told him.'

  'Who?' Thomas demanded.

  'Don't want to burn the place down! Not a brazier, I told him, not on a wooden floor, so we had to use the hearth.' The big man watched the fire for a while. 'That seems to be burning proper, don't it?' He heaped a half-dozen larger logs on the fire and then backed away. He gave Thomas a casual look, shook his head as if the prisoner was beyond help and then both men left the room.

  The firewood was dry and so the flames blazed high, fast and fierce. More smoke billowed into the room and gusted out of the windows. Thomas, in a sudden spurt of rage, dragged at the manacle
s, heaving with all his archer's strength to pull the iron ring from the wall, but all he achieved was to cut the iron gyves further into his bleeding wrists. He stared up at the ceiling, which was simply planks over beams, presumably the floor of the chamber above. He had heard no footsteps up there, but then there came the sound of feet just beyond the door and he stepped back to the wall.

  A woman and a small child came in. Thomas crouched to hide his nakedness and the woman laughed at his modesty. The child laughed too and it took Thomas a few seconds to realize that the boy was Jeanette's son, Charles, who was gazing at him with interest, curiosity, but no recognition. The woman was tall, fair-haired, very pretty and very pregnant. She wore a pale blue dress that was belted above her swollen belly and was trimmed with white lace and little loops of pearls. Her hat was a blue spire with a brief veil that she pushed away from her eyes to see Thomas better. Thomas drew up his knees to hide himself, but the woman brazenly crossed the room to stare down at him. 'Such a pity,' she said.

  'A pity?' Thomas asked.

  She did not elaborate. 'Are you really English?' she demanded and looked peeved when Thomas did not answer. 'They're making a rack downstairs. Englishman. Windlasses and ropes to stretch you. Have you ever seen a man after he's been racked? He flops. It's amusing, but not, I think, for the man himself.'

  Thomas still ignored her, looking instead at the small boy who had a round face, black hair and the fierce dark eyes of Jeanette, his mother. 'You remember me, Charles?' Thomas asked, but the boy just stared at him blankly. 'Your mother sends you greetings,' Thomas said and saw the surprise on the boy's face.

  'Mama?' Charles, who was almost four, asked.

  The woman snatched at Charles's hand and dragged him away as though Thomas carried a contagion. 'Who are you?' she asked angrily.

  'Your mother loves you, Charles,' Thomas told the wide-eyed boy.

  'Who are you?' the woman insisted, and then turned as the door was pushed open.

  A Dominican priest came in. He was gaunt, thin and tall with short grey hair and a fierce face. He frowned when he saw the woman and child. 'You should not be here, my lady,' he said harshly.

  'You forget, priest, who rules here,' the pregnant woman retorted.

  'Your husband,' the priest said firmly, 'and he will not want you here, so you will leave.' The priest held the door open and the woman, whom Thomas assumed to be the Lady of Roncelets, hesitated for a heartbeat and stalked out. Charles looked back once, then was dragged out of the room just before another Dominican entered, this one a younger man, small and bald, with a towel folded over one arm and a bowl of water in his hands. He was followed by the two robed servants who walked with folded hands and downcast eyes to stand beside the fire. The first priest, the gaunt one, closed the door, then he and his fellow priest walked to the table.

  'Who are you?' Thomas asked the gaunt priest, though he suspected he knew the answer. He was trying to remember that misted morning in Durham when he had seen de Taillebourg fight Robbie's brother. He thought it was the same man, the priest who had murdered Eleanor or else ordered her death, but he could not be certain.

  The two priests ignored him. The smaller man put the water and towel on the table, then both men knelt. 'In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,' the older priest said, making the sign of the cross, 'amen.' He stood, opened his eyes and looked down at Thomas who was still crouching on the pitted floorboards. 'You are Thomas of Hookton,' he said formally, 'bastard son of Father Ralph, priest of that place?'

  'Who are you?'

  'Answer me, please,' the Dominican said.

  Thomas stared up into the man's eyes and recognized the terrible strength in the priest and knew that he dared not give in to that strength. He had to resist from the very first and so he said nothing.

  The priest sighed at this display of petty obstinacy. 'You are Thomas of Hookton,' he declared, 'Lodewijk says so. In which case, greetings, Thomas. My name is Bernard de Taillebourg and I am a friar of the Dominican order and, by the grace of God and at the pleasure of the Holy Father, an Inquisitor of the faith. My brother in Christ' — here de Taillebourg gestured at the younger priest, who had settled at the table where he opened the book and picked up one of the quills — 'is Father Cailloux, who is also an Inquisitor of the faith.'

  'You are a bastard,' Thomas said, staring at de Taillebourg, 'you're a murdering bastard.'

  He might have spared his breath for de Taillebourg showed no reaction. 'You will stand, please,' the priest demanded.

  'A motherless murdering bastard,' Thomas said, making no move.

  De Taillebourg made a small gesture and the two servants ran forward and took Thomas by his arms and dragged him upright and, when he threatened to collapse, the bigger one slapped him hard in the face, stinging the bruise left by the blow Sir Lodewijk had given him before dawn. De Taillebourg waited till the men were back beside the fire. 'I am charged by Cardinal Bessières,' he said tonelessly, 'to discover the whereabouts of a relic and we are informed that you can assist us in this matter, which is deemed to be of such importance that we are empowered by the Church and by Almighty God to ensure that you tell us the truth. Do you understand what that means, Thomas?'

  'You killed my woman,' Thomas said, 'and one day, priest, you're going to roast in hell and the devils will dance on your shrivelled arse.'

  De Taillebourg again showed no reaction. He was not using his chair, but standing tall and arrow-thin behind the table on which he rested the tips of his long, pale fingers. 'We know,' he said, 'that your father might have possessed the Grail, and we know that he gave you a book in which he wrote his account of that most precious thing. I tell you that we know of these matters so that you do not waste our time or your pain by denying them. Yet we shall need to know more and that is why we are here. You understand me, Thomas?'

  'The devil will piss in your mouth, priest, and shit in your nostrils.'

  De Taillebourg looked faintly pained as if Thomas's crudity was tiresome. 'The Church grants us the authority to question you, Thomas,' he continued in a mild voice, 'but in her infinite mercy she also commands that we do not shed blood. We may use pain, indeed it is our duty to employ pain, but it must be pain without bloodshed. This means we may employ fire' — his long pale fingers touched one of the pokers on the table — 'and we may crush you and we may stretch you and God will forgive us for it will be done in His name and in His most holy service.'

  'Amen,' Brother Cailloux said and, like the two servants, made the sign of the cross. De Taillebourg pushed all three of the pokers to the edge of the table and the smaller servant ran across the room, took the irons and plunged them into the fire.

  'We do not employ pain lightly,' de Taillebourg said, 'or wantonly, but with prayerful regret and with pity and with a tearful concern for your immortal soul.'

  'You're a murderer,' Thomas said, 'and your soul will sear in hell.'

  'Now,' de Taillebourg continued, apparently oblivious to Thomas's insults, 'let us start with the book. You told Brother Germain in Caen that your father wrote it. Is that true?'

  And so it began. A gentle questioning at first to which Thomas gave no answers for he was consumed by a hatred for de Taillebourg, a hatred fed by the memory of Eleanor's pale and blood-laced body, yet the questioning was insistent and unceasing, and the threat of an awful pain was in the three pokers that heated in the fire, and so Thomas persuaded himself that de Taillebourg knew some things and there could be very little harm in telling him others. Besides, the Dominican was so very reasonable and so very patient. He endured Thomas's anger, he ignored the abuse, he expressed again and again an unwillingness to employ torture and said he only wanted the truth, however inadequate and so, after an hour, Thomas began to answer the questions. Why suffer, he asked himself, when he did not possess what the Dominican wanted? He did not know where the Grail was, he was not even certain that the Grail existed and so, hesitantly at first, and then more willingly, he talked.
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  There was a book, yes, and much of it was in strange languages and scripts and Thomas claimed to have no idea what those mysterious passages meant. As for the rest he admitted a knowledge of Latin and agreed he had read those parts of the book, but he dismissed them as vague, repetitive and unhelpful. 'They were just stories,' he said.

  'What kind of stories?'

  'A man received his sight after looking at the Grail and then, when he was disappointed in its appearance, he lost his sight again.'

  'God be praised for that,' Father Cailloux interjected, then dipped the quill in ink and wrote down the miracle.

  'What else?' de Taillebourg asked.

  'Stories of soldiers winning battles because of the Grail, stories of healings,' Thomas said.

  'Do you believe them?'

  'The stories?' Thomas pretended to think, then nodded. 'If God has given us the Grail, father,' he said, 'then it will surely work miracles.'

  'Did your father possess the Grail?'

  'I don't know.'

  So de Taillebourg asked him about Father Ralph and Thomas told how his father had walked the stony beach at Hookton wailing for his sins and sometimes preaching to the wild things of the sea and the sky.

  'Are you saying he was mad?' de Taillebourg asked.

  'He was mad with God,' Thomas said.

  'Mad with God,' de Taillebourg repeated, as though the words intrigued him. 'Are you suggesting he was a saint?'

  'I think many saints must have been like him,' Thomas replied cautiously, 'but he was also a great mocker of superstitions.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'He was very fond of St Guinefort,' Thomas said, 'and called on him whenever some minor problem occurred.'

  'Is it mockery to do that?' de Taillebourg asked.

  'St Guinefort was a dog,' Thomas said.

  'I know what St Guinefort was,' de Taillebourg said testily, 'but are you saying God could not use a dog to effect His sacred purposes?'

  'I am saying that my father did not believe a dog could be a saint, and so he mocked.'