1356 by Bernard Cornwell
Thomas turned the last page and froze.
Because there he was, the monk in the snow.
The countess smiled. ‘You see? You didn’t need a scholar, just an old lady.’
This picture differed from the painting in Avignon. The monk in the book was not kneeling in the cleared patch, but lying down, curled up in sleep. There was no Saint Peter, but there was a small house on the right-hand side, and a second monk was peeping through a window. The sleeping monk, who had the halo of a saint, was lying on grass, but the rest of the landscape, like the roof of the cottage, was smothered in deep snow. It was night-time, and the stars were painted against a rich dark-blue sky, and a single angel watched from among those stars, while in the page’s flower-painted border was the name of the saint.
‘Saint Junien,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘I doubt many people have!’
‘Junien,’ he said the name again.
‘He was a nobleman’s son,’ the countess said, ‘and he must have been very pious because he walked a very long way to study under Saint Amand, but he arrived at night and Amand had locked his door. So Junien knocked on the door. But Saint Amand thought it must be bandits coming to rob him, so he refused to open the door. I can’t understand why Junien didn’t explain himself! It was winter, it was snowing, and all he had to do was tell Amand who he was! But apparently Junien was as stupid as the rest, and because he couldn’t get into Amand’s house he lay down to sleep in the garden, and, as you can see, God kindly made sure that the snow didn’t fall on him. So he had a good night’s sleep and next day the misunderstanding was happily cleared up. It isn’t a very exciting story.’
‘Saint Junien,’ Thomas repeated the name, staring at the sleeping monk. ‘But why is he in the book?’ he wondered aloud.
‘Look in the front,’ the countess suggested.
Thomas turned back the stiff pages to see that a coat of arms was painted on the very first page. It showed a red lion rearing against a white background. The lion snarled and had its claws extended. ‘I don’t know that badge,’ he said.
‘My mother-in-law came from Poitou,’ the countess explained, ‘and the red lion is the symbol of Poitou. All the saints in that book, my dear, have connections with Poitou, and I suppose there simply weren’t enough of them who were blinded, scalded, beheaded, disembowelled or sawn in half, so they added poor little Junien just to fill a page.’
‘But not Saint Peter,’ Thomas said.
‘I don’t think Saint Peter was ever in Poitou, so why would he be in the book?’
‘I thought Saint Junien met him.’
‘I’m sure all the saints visited each other, my dear, just to chat about happy things like the litany, or which of their friends had recently been burned or skinned alive, but Saint Peter died long before Junien was caught in the snow.’
‘Of course he did,’ Thomas said, ‘but there is a link between Junien and Peter.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ the countess said.
‘But someone will,’ Thomas said, ‘in Poitou.’
‘In Poitou, yes, probably, but first you have to leave Montpellier,’ the countess said, amused.
Thomas half smiled. ‘Back over the wall to the monastery, I suppose.’
‘I’m sure whoever’s looking for you will be watching the monastery. But if you can bear to wait till nightfall?’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Thomas said gallantly.
‘You can leave after dark. Once Compline is said the nuns do like to sleep. Straight out of my door, down the passage, and there’s a way out to the street through the almoner’s room which is at the far end. It won’t take you more than a minute, but till then we must pass several hours together.’ She looked at him dubiously, then suddenly brightened. ‘Tell me, do you play chess?’
‘A little,’ Thomas said.
‘I used to be adequate,’ the countess said, ‘but old age?’ She sighed and looked down at the cat. ‘My mind is as fluffy as your fur, isn’t it?’
‘If it would please you to play,’ Thomas said.
‘I won’t play well,’ she said sadly, ‘but all the same, shall we make it more intriguing by playing for money?’
‘If you like,’ Thomas said.
‘Say a leopard for each game?’ she suggested.
Thomas flinched. A leopard was worth almost five shillings of English money, a week’s wages for a highly skilled craftsman. ‘A leopard?’ he asked, prevaricating.
‘Just to make it interesting. But you must pardon my forgetfulness. The mandrake wine makes me dozy, I fear,’ she sounded vague, but managed to pull herself together, ‘very dozy, and I do make the silliest mistakes.’
‘Then perhaps we shouldn’t play for money.’
‘I can afford a few leopards,’ she said tentatively, ‘maybe one or two, and it does add spice to the game, doesn’t it?’
‘A leopard, then,’ Thomas agreed.
The countess smiled and gestured that he should bring the chess board and pieces to the small table beside her chair. ‘You can play silver, my dear,’ she said, and she was still smiling as Thomas advanced his first pawn. ‘This is going to hurt you,’ she went on, sounding anything but vague, ‘so very much!’
Six
It was easier leaving the convent than Thomas had dared to hope. The countess had been right. Down the passage, through a room stacked with vile-smelling cast-off clothes that were to be given to the poor, and out to the street through a door secured by a single bolt. Thomas had been given a lesson in chess and was seven leopards poorer, but he had discovered the name of the saint receiving Peter’s sword, though that knowledge was useless unless he managed to escape Montpellier. He had waited till deep in the night before leaving the convent, knowing that the city gates would be locked till dawn. He would have to wait till then, because he doubted he would be able to drop down from the walls. The city’s flag-hung ramparts had looked too high and were doubtless well guarded.
He drew his dark cloak around him. It had stopped raining, but the streets were still wet, glistening the shivering reflection of a feeble lantern hanging in the archway of a house across the street. He needed somewhere to hide till sunrise, and then he needed good fortune to escape the men who were doubtless hunting for him.
‘A soldier who speaks Latin,’ the voice said, ‘now isn’t that just a miracle?’ Thomas turned fast, then stopped. The two tines of a pitchfork were pointing at his belly, and holding the pitchfork was the tall Irish student, Master Keane. He was swathed in his scholar’s gown, black in the night. ‘I’m supposing you still have the knife,’ Keane said, ‘but I’m thinking my pitchfork will pierce your guts before you can cut my throat.’
‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Thomas said.
‘Now that’s a relief to hear, and there was me worrying that I’d be dead before Matins.’
‘Just put the pitchfork down,’ Thomas said.
‘I’m comfortable where it is,’ Keane said, ‘and feeling sort of pleased with myself.’
‘Why?’
‘They all chased you half around the town like a bunch of puppies hunting a stag, but I reckoned you could only have dropped into Saint Dorcas’s, and right I was. Now isn’t that clever of me?’
‘Very clever,’ Thomas said, ‘so why did you send them all away from Saint Dorcas’s?’
‘Away?’
‘I heard you shouting I’d gone in the other direction.’
‘Because they’re offering money to the man who catches you! To a poor student that’s a wonderful enticement! Why share it with others? I keep the pitchfork just where it is and I get a couple of months of free ale, free whores, free wine, and singing.’
‘I’ll offer you more,’ Thomas said.
‘Now that’s good to hear. The singing’s free, of course, but the ale, wine, and the whores? Expensive in this town. Have you ever noticed how the whores’ fees go up in towns where there’s a lot of churchmen? Strange that, or per
‘I’ll spare your life.’
‘My God, the mouse offers the pussycat its life!’
‘Drop the pitchfork,’ Thomas said, ‘help me get out of this town and I’ll pay you enough to whore for a year.’
‘Your woman’s been captured,’ Keane said.
Thomas felt his body chill. He stared at the young Irishman. ‘Is that true?’
‘Stopped at the north gate, taken with three men and a bairn. Sire Roland de Verrec has her, so he does.’
‘Dear God,’ Thomas said. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘The rumour says that the virgin knight is taking her west to Toulouse, but that’s only what they said in the Stork Tavern, and half the things you hear in there are fables. Last year they said the world would end on Saint Arnulf’s Day, but we’re still breathing. D’you think he really is a virgin?’
‘How would I know?’
‘Just seems curious to me. A virgin! And a good-looking fellow he is too.’
Thomas leaned against the convent wall and closed his eyes. Genevieve taken. The church still pursued her because, when Thomas had first met her, she was in a condemned cell, waiting to be burned on the charge of being a beghard, a heretic. He swore.
‘It’s no good quoting the psalmist,’ Keane said.
Thomas kept his eyes closed. ‘I’m going to take that pitchfork off you,’ he said bitterly, ‘and ram it through your belly.’
‘That’s not the best idea you’ve ever had,’ Keane said, ‘because I won’t be much good to you with a pitchfork through my entrails.’
Thomas opened his eyes. The pitchfork had dropped so that it was pointing at his legs. ‘You want to help me?’
‘My father’s a chief, see? And I’m the third son, and that’s a bit like being the fifth hoof on a horse, so he wants me to be a priest, God help me, because it always helps to have a priest in the family. It makes the forgiveness of sins so much more convenient, but it’s not to my taste. My elder brothers get to fight and I’m doomed to pray, but I don’t do my best work on my knees. So I just need someone to give me a horse, a coat of mail, and a sword and I’ll be a great deal happier.’
‘Oh God, you and Brother Michael?’
‘That monk? I thought he was with you, but no one would believe me. He didn’t look frightened enough when you had that knife at his throat.’
‘What’s your name?’ Thomas asked.
‘Éamonn Óg Ó Keane,’ Keane said, ‘but take no notice of the Óg.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just don’t. It means I’m younger than my father, but we all are, aren’t we? It’ll be a strange day in paradise when we’re older than our fathers.’
‘Well, Éamonn Óg Ó Keane,’ Thomas said, ‘you are now one of my men-at-arms.’
‘And thank the good Christ for that,’ Keane said, lowering the pitchfork to the cobbles. ‘No more of that little turd Roger de Beaufort. How can he believe a wee baby is doomed to hell? But he does! The cretinous little slug will end up as Pope, you mark my words.’
Thomas waved the Irishman to silence. Where was Genevieve? Wherever she was the only thing Thomas could be sure about was that he needed to get out of this city. ‘Your first duty,’ he told the Irishman, ‘is to get us through the gates.’
‘That’ll be difficult. They’re offering a rare reward for your capture.’
‘They?’
‘The city consuls.’
‘So get me out of the city,’ Thomas said.
‘Shit,’ Keane said after a brief pause.
‘Shit?’
‘Shit-carts, turd-wagons really,’ the Irishman said. ‘They collect the stuff and cart it out of the city, at least they do from the rich folks’ homes. The poor folk just wade in the muck, but there’s enough rich people to keep the dung-carts rolling. There’s usually a couple of wagons waiting to leave the city when the gates open, and,’ he paused to look earnestly at Thomas, ‘you can trust my word on this opinion, the city guards don’t take a real close look at the carts. They sort of step back, hold their noses, wave them through and wish them God speed.’
‘But first,’ Thomas said, ‘go to the tavern by Saint Pierre’s church and …’
‘The Blind Tits, you mean?’
‘The tavern by Saint Pierre’s …’
‘The Blind Tits,’ Keane said, ‘that’s what it’s called in town on account that the sign shows Saint Lucia with no eyes and a ripe pair …’
‘Just go there,’ Thomas said, ‘and find Brother Michael.’ The reluctant monk had been lodging at the tavern, and Thomas hoped he would have reliable news about Genevieve’s fate.
‘I’ll be waking the tavern,’ Keane said dubiously.
‘Then wake it.’ Thomas dared not go himself because he was certain the tavern was being watched. He took a coin from his pouch. ‘Buy some wine, loosen their tongues. Look for that monk, Brother Michael. See if he knows what happened to Genevieve.’
‘She’s your wife, yes?’ Keane asked, then frowned. ‘Can you believe Saint Lucia dug her own eyes out? Jesus! And all because a man complimented her eyes? Thank Christ he didn’t like her tits! Still, she’d have made a good wife.’
Thomas gaped at the young Irishman. ‘A good wife?’
‘My father always says that the best marriage is between a blind woman and a deaf man. So where will I find you after I’ve loosened the tongues?’
Thomas pointed at an alleyway beside the convent. ‘I’ll wait there.’
‘And then we become shit-haulers. Jesus, I love being a man-at-arms. Do you want this Brother Michael to join us?’
‘Christ, no. Tell him his duty is to learn medicine.’
‘Poor fellow. He’s going to be a piss-taster?’
‘Go,’ Thomas said. Keane went.
Thomas hid in the alley, sheltered by shadows black as a monk’s cowl. He heard the rats scuttling though the rubbish, a man snoring behind a shuttered window, a baby crying. A pair of watchmen carrying lanterns strolled past the convent, but neither looked down the alley where Thomas closed his eyes and prayed for Genevieve. If Roland de Verrec handed her to the church then she would be condemned again. But surely, he thought, the virgin knight would hold her for ransom, the ransom being Bertille, Countess of Labrouillade, and that meant de Verrec would keep her safe till the exchange was done. The sword of Saint Peter could wait; Thomas would settle with the virgin knight first.
It was almost dawn when Keane returned. ‘Your monk wasn’t there,’ he said, ‘but there was an ostler with a flapping tongue. And you’re in trouble because the city guard are told to look for a man with a mangled left hand. Was that a battle?’
‘A Dominican torturer.’
Keane flinched as he looked at the hand. ‘Jesus. What did he do?’
‘A screw-press.’
‘Ah, they’re not allowed to draw blood, are they, because God doesn’t like it, but those fellows can still wake you out of a deep sleep.’
‘Brother Michael wasn’t at the tavern?’
‘He was not, and my fellow hadn’t seen him and didn’t even seem to know who I was talking about.’
‘Good, he’s gone to learn medicine.’
‘A lifetime of sipping piss,’ Keane said, ‘but the ostler did tell me your other fellow left the city yesterday.’
‘Roland de Verrec?’
‘That’s the man. He took your wife and bairn westwards.’
‘Westwards?’ Thomas asked, puzzled.
‘He was sure of that.’
So de Verrec was going towards Toulouse? What was at Toulouse? Questions seethed and provoked no answers; all Thomas could be sure of was that Roland had left Montpellier and that suggested the virgin knight was no longer interested in Thomas. He possessed Genevieve and must have known he could exchange her for Bertille, while Thomas, Roland would assume, would be captured by the city guard of Montpellier. ‘W
Keane led him westwards. The first house doors were opening. Women carried pails to the city wells, and a stout girl was selling goat’s milk beside a stone crucifix. Thomas kept his wounded hand hidden beneath his cloak as Keane led him through alleys and small streets, and past yards where cattle bellowed. The city’s church bells were ringing, summoning the faithful to early prayers. Thomas followed the Irishman downhill to where the streets were uncobbled and the mud stained with blood. This was where cattle were butchered, where the city’s poor lived, and where the stench of sewage led them to a small square in which three carts were parked. Each cart had a pair of oxen in harness, and their beds were filled with big-bellied barrels. ‘Jesus, but rich people’s shit stinks,’ Keane said.
‘Where are the carters?’
‘They drink in the Widow,’ Keane pointed to a small tavern, ‘and the widow is a tough old biddy who also owns the wagons, and the wine is part of their wages. They’re supposed to leave when the gates open, but they tend to linger over their wine, which is a surprise.’