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  Sam looked confused for a moment, then changed the subject. ‘And we fetched the countess as well,’ he said.

  ‘Fetched her?’

  Sam jerked his head southwards. ‘She’s in a farm back there. Pitt’s making sure the silly bitch doesn’t run off.’

  ‘Why the hell did you bring her?’

  ‘In case you want to exchange her,’ Sam said. ‘It was Father Levonne’s idea. He’s here too.’

  ‘Father Levonne? Why?’

  ‘He wanted to come. He’s not sure you should exchange her, but …’ Sam’s voice died away.

  ‘It would be a simple solution,’ Thomas said. He was thinking that he should not be wasting time here. There was la Malice to discover and, more importantly, the news that the Prince of Wales was marching an army somewhere through France. Archers and men-at-arms were ravaging a swathe of countryside, wrecking estates, burning towns and spreading panic, all in hope of luring a French army into range of the long war bows and their goose-feathered arrows. Thomas knew his place was with that army, but instead he was trapped here because Genevieve and Hugh were prisoners, and the simple solution was indeed to offer Bertille, Countess of Labrouillade, back to her vengeful husband, but if he did that Thomas would face Genevieve’s wrath. Well, he thought, let her be angry. Better to be enraged and free than imprisoned and helpless.

  ‘You have sentinels?’ he asked Sam.

  ‘All along the wood’s edge. Couple more on the road east, dozen around the farm.’

  ‘You did well,’ Thomas said again. The moon was rising as the last daylight drained from the west. Thomas gestured for Keane to join him as he walked towards the farm where Bertille was held. ‘I want you to ride within hailing distance of the castle,’ he told the Irishman. ‘No weapons. Hold your hands out wide to show you’re unarmed.’

  ‘And will I be unarmed?’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘Jesus,’ the Irishman said. ‘So how far can a crossbow shoot?’

  ‘Much farther than you can shout.’

  ‘You want me dead, then?’

  ‘If I went,’ Thomas said, ‘I think they might shoot, but they don’t know you, and you have a brisk tongue.’

  ‘You noticed that, did you?’

  ‘They won’t shoot,’ Thomas said reassuringly, hoping it was true, ‘because they’ll want to hear what you have to say.’

  Keane snapped his fingers and the two wolfhounds came to his heels. ‘And what do I have to say?’

  ‘Tell them I’ll exchange the countess for Genevieve and my son. There are to be no more than three men as escorts on either side, and the exchange will happen halfway between the wood and the castle.’

  ‘Is that what all this fuss is about?’ Keane asked. ‘The countess?’

  ‘Labrouillade wants her back.’

  ‘Ah, that’s touching. The man must love her.’

  Thomas preferred not to think why the count wanted Bertille back because he knew that by exchanging her he was condemning her to misery and possibly death, but Genevieve and Hugh were infinitely more important to him. It was a pity, he thought. It was unavoidable.

  ‘And just when do I deliver this message?’ Keane asked.

  ‘Now,’ Thomas said. ‘There’s enough moonlight for them to see you’re not armed.’

  ‘Enough to aim a crossbow too.’

  ‘That too,’ Thomas agreed.

  He found the countess in the farm’s enormous kitchen, a room crossed by heavy beams from which hung drying herbs. Father Levonne, the priest from Castillon d’Arbizon, was there, and Pitt was guarding her. Pitt, he owned to no other name, was a tall, lean and taciturn man with a gaunt face, lank hair tied with a frayed bowstring, and deep-set eyes. He was English, from Cheshire, but he had joined the Hellequin in Gascony, riding out of a forest as though he belonged to them and then just falling into line and saying nothing. He was black-humoured, morose, and Thomas suspected he had deserted from some other company, but he was also a superb archer and knew how to lead men in battle. ‘Glad you’re back,’ he growled when he saw Thomas.

  ‘Thomas,’ Father Levonne said in relief, and stood up from the chair beside Bertille.

  Thomas waved the priest down. Bertille sat at the big table where two candles burned smokily. A maid, provided by Genevieve from among the girls at Castillon d’Arbizon, knelt beside her. The countess’s eyes were red from crying. She looked up at Thomas. ‘You’re going to give me back, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘Thomas …’ Father Levonne started.

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas said harshly, cutting off whatever protest the priest was about to make.

  Bertille lowered her head and began crying again. ‘Do you know what he’ll do to me?’

  ‘He has my wife and son,’ Thomas said.

  She sobbed quietly.

  ‘Jesus,’ Keane hissed beside Thomas.

  Thomas ignored the Irishman. ‘I’m sorry, my lady,’ he said.

  ‘When?’ she asked.

  ‘Tonight, I hope.’

  ‘I’d rather be dead,’ she said.

  ‘Thomas,’ Father Levonne said, ‘let me go and talk to the count.’

  ‘What the hell good do you think that will do?’ Thomas asked more curtly than he had intended.

  ‘Just let me talk to him.’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘The Count of Labrouillade,’ he said, ‘is an evil bastard, a fat malevolent angry bastard, and by this time of night he’ll probably be half drunk, and if I let you go into his castle you probably won’t come out.’

  ‘Then I stay there. I’m a priest. I go where I’m needed.’ Father Levonne paused. ‘Let me talk to him.’

  Thomas thought for a moment. ‘From outside the castle, maybe.’

  Levonne hesitated, then nodded. ‘That will do.’

  Thomas plucked Keane’s elbow and took him into the farm’s yard. ‘Don’t let Father Levonne go into the castle. They’ll likely make him another hostage.’

  The Irishman, for once, seemed lost for words, but finally found his tongue. ‘God’s blood,’ he said wistfully, ‘but she’s a beautiful creature.’

  ‘She belongs to Labrouillade,’ Thomas said harshly.

  ‘She could dim the stars,’ Keane said, ‘and turn a man’s mind to smoke.’

  ‘She’s married.’

  ‘A creature so lovely,’ Keane said wonderingly, ‘it just makes you believe that God must really love us.’

  ‘Now find a fresh horse,’ Thomas said, ‘and you and Father Levonne take that message to Labrouillade.’ He turned to the priest who had followed them into the moonlight. ‘You can say your words, father, but unless you can persuade the count to let Genevieve go, then I’m exchanging the countess.’

  ‘Yes,’ Father Levonne said unenthusiastically.

  ‘I want this finished,’ Thomas said harshly, ‘because tomorrow we’re riding north.’

  Riding north. To join a prince, or to find la Malice.

  Roland de Verrec felt his soul soar like a bird in a clear sky, a bird that could pierce the clouds of doubt and rise to the heights of glory, a bird with wings of faith, a white bird, white as the swans that swam in the moat of the Count of Labrouillade’s castle, where now he knelt in the candle-lit chapel. He was conscious of his heart beating, not just beating, but drumming hollowly in his chest as if it kept time with the beating wings of his rising soul. Roland de Verrec was in ecstasy.

  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, f
ather. 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.’

  The count grunted. He had been summoned to Bourges by the Duke of Berry. The duke, of course, was just some snot-nosed child, and the count had been tempted to pretend the summons had never arrived, but the snot-nosed child was a son of the French king and the arrière-ban had been delivered with a letter which delicately pointed out that the count had ignored two previous summonses, and that a failure to obey an arriere-ban justified the confiscation of land. ‘We are sure,’ the letter said, ‘that you wish to retain your estates and so we anticipate your arrival at Bourges with joy, knowing you will come with many arbalists and men-at-arms.’

  ‘Arbalists,’ the count grumbled. ‘Why can’t he call them crossbowmen? Or archers?’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘The duke, you fool. He’s a damned child. Fifteen? Sixteen? Still wet. Arbalist, by Christ.’ Still, the count would take forty-seven arbalists and sixty-seven men-at-arms to Bourges, a considerable force, greater even than the small army he had led against Villon to retrieve Bertille. He had thought to let on
e of his captains lead the force while he stayed at home where he would be guarded by the twenty crossbowmen and sixteen men-at-arms who would garrison the castle, but the threat of losing his land had persuaded him to travel himself. ‘So fetch the woman!’ he snapped at his steward, who had hesitated, thinking his lordship might have further questions.

  The count crammed a woodcock against his mouth and gnawed at the honey-flavoured flesh. Not as delicate as the ortolan, he thought, and so he let the woodcock fall and thrust a tenth ortolan into his mouth.

  He was still sucking on the little carcass as Genevieve and her son were brought into the small hall where he had chosen to eat. The great hall was filled with his men-at-arms, who were drinking his wine and eating his food, though he had made sure they were not served venison, ortolans or woodcock. The count crunched the bones of the songbird, swallowed, and pointed to a space close enough to the table for the big candles to illuminate Genevieve. ‘Put her there,’ he said, ‘and why did you bring the boy?’

  ‘She insisted, my lord,’ one of the men-at-arms said.

  ‘Insisted? It’s not her place to insist. Skinny bitch, isn’t she? Turn around, woman.’ Genevieve stayed still. ‘I said turn around, all the way around, slowly,’ the count said. ‘If she doesn’t obey, Luc, you can hit her.’

  Luc, the man-at-arms who had held Genevieve’s arm to bring her into the hall, drew back his hand, but had no need to strike. Genevieve turned around, then looked defiantly into the count’s eyes. He dabbed at his mouth and chins with a napkin, then drank wine. ‘Strip her,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Genevieve protested.

  ‘I said strip her,’ the count said, looking at Luc.

  Before Luc could obey, the door of the chamber opened and Jacques, now the count’s senior captain, stood there. ‘They’ve sent two messengers, my lord,’ he said, ‘offering to exchange the woman for the countess.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They have the countess here, my lord,’ Jacques said.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘So he says.’

  The count stood and limped around the table. The arrow wound in his leg throbbed, though it was healing well enough. It still hurt to put his considerable weight on that leg, and he flinched as he stepped off the dais to confront Genevieve. ‘Your husband, madame,’ he growled, ‘defied me.’ He waited for her to respond, but she stayed silent. ‘Tell their messengers to come back in the morning,’ the count ordered, not taking his eyes off Genevieve, ‘we’ll exchange her at dawn.’