Harlequin

Sir Simon looked into the Prince's eyes for the first time. You damned miserable little pup, he thought, with your mother's milk still sour on your unshaven lips, then he shook as he was struck by the coldness of the Prince's eyes. He bowed, knowing he was being banished, and he knew it was unfair, but there was nothing he could do except appeal to the King, yet the King owed him no favours and no great men of the realm would speak for him, and so he was effectively an outcast. He could go home to England, but there men would soon learn he had incurred royal disfavour and his life would be endless misery. He bowed, he turned and he walked away in his dirty shirt as silent men opened a path for him. The cannon fired on. They fired four times that day and eight the next, and at the end of the two days there was a splintered rent in the castle gate that might have given entrance to a starved spar-row. The guns had done nothing except hurt the gunners" ears and shatter stone balls against the castle's ramparts. Not a Frenchman had died, though one gunner and an archer had been killed when one of the brass guns exploded into a myriad red-hot scraps of metal. The King, realizing that the attempt was ridiculous, ordered the guns taken away and the siege of the castle abandoned. And the next day the whole army left Caen. They marched east-wards, going towards Paris, and after them crawled their wagons and their camp followers and their herds of beef cattle, and for a long time afterwards the eastern sky showed white where the dust of their marching hazed the air. But at last the dust settled and the city, ravaged and sacked, was left alone. The folk who had succeeded in escaping from the island crept back to their homes. The splintered door of the castle was pushed open and its garrison came down to see what was left of Caen. For a week the priests carried an image of Saint Jean about the littered streets and sprinkled holy water to get rid of the lingering stink of the enemy. They said Masses for the souls of the dead, and prayed fervently that the wretched English would meet the King of France and have their own ruin visited on them.

But at least the English were gone, and the violated city, ruined, could stir again.

Light came first. A hazy light, smeared, in which Thomas thought he could see a wide window, but a shadow moved against the window and the light went. He heard voices, then they faded. In pascuis herbarum addinavit me. The words were in his head. He makes me lie down in leafy pastures. A psalm, the same psalm from which his father had quoted his dying words. Calix meus inebrians. My cup makes me drunk. Only he was not drunk. Breathing hurt, and his chest felt as though he was being pressed by the torture of the stones. Then there was blessed darkness and oblivion once more.

The light came again. It wavered. The shadow was there, the shadow moved towards him and a cool hand was laid on his forehead.

I do believe you are going to live," a man's voice said in a tone of surprise.

Thomas tried to speak, but only managed a strangled, grating sound.

It astonishes me," the voice went on, what young men can endure. Babies too. Life is marvellously strong. Such a pity we waste it ,

It's plentiful enough," another man said.

The voice of the privileged,“ the first man, whose hand was still on Thomas's forehead, answered. You take life,” he said,'s o value it as a thief values his victims."

And you are a victim?"

Of course. A learned victim, a wise victim, even a valuable victim, but still a victim. And this young man, what is he?“ An English archer,” the second voice said sourly, and if we had any sense we'd kill him here and now."

I think we shall try and feed him instead. Help me raise him." Hands pushed Thomas upright in the bed, and a spoonful of warm soup was put into his mouth, but he could not swallow and so spat the soup onto the blankets. Pain seared through him and the darkness came again.

The light came a third time or perhaps a fourth, he could not tell. Perhaps he dreamed it, but this time an old man stood outlined against the bright window. The man had a long black robe, but he was not a priest or monk, for the robe was not gathered at the waist and he wore a small square black hat over his long white hair.

God," Thomas tried to say, though the word came out as a gut-tural grunt. The old man turned. He had a long, forked beard and was holding a jordan jar. It had a narrow neck and a round belly, and the bottle was filled with a pale yellow liquid that the man held up to the light. He peered at the liquid, then swilled it about before sniffing the jar's mouth.

Are you awake?"

Yes."

And you can speak! What a doctor I am! My brilliance astonishes me; if only it would persuade my patients to pay me. But most believe I should be grateful that they don't spit at me. Would you say this urine is clear?"

Thomas nodded and wished he had not for the pain jarred through his neck and down his spine.

You do not consider it turgid? Not dark? No, indeed not. It smells and tastes healthy too. A good flask of clear yellow urine, and there

is no better sign of good health. Alas, it is not yours.“ The doctor pushed open the window and poured the urine away. Swallow,” he instructed Thomas.

Thomas's mouth was dry, but he obediently tried to swallow and immediately gasped with pain.

I think," the doctor said, that we had best try a thin gruel. Very thin, with some oil, I believe, or better still, butter. That thing tied about your neck is a strip of cloth which has been soaked in holy water. It was not my doing, but I did not forbid it. You Christians believe in magic, indeed you could have no faith without a trust in magic, so I must indulge your beliefs. Is that a dog's paw about your neck? Don't tell me, I'm sure I don't want to know. However, when you recover, I trust you will understand that it was neither dog paws nor wet cloths that healed you, but my skill. I have bled you, I have applied poultices of dung, moss and clove, and I have sweated you. Eleanor, though, will insist it was her prayers and that tawdry strip of wet cloth that revived you.

Eleanor?"

She cut you down, dear boy. You were half dead. By the time I arrived you were more dead than alive and I advised her to let you expire in peace. I told her you were halfway in what you insist is hell and that I was too old and too tired to enter into a tugging contest with the devil, but Eleanor insisted and I have ever found it difficult to resist her entreaties. Gruel with rancid butter, I think. You are weak, dear boy, very weak. Do you have a name?“ Thomas.”

Mine is Mordecai, though you may call me Doctor. You won't, of course. You'll call me a damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of Christian children.“ This was all said cheerfully. How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life's lessons.” Doctor?" Thomas croaked.

Thomas?"

Thank you."

An Englishman with manners! The world's wonders never cease. Wait there, Thomas, and do not have the bad manners to die while I'm gone. I shall fetch gruel."

Doctor?"

I am still here."

Where am I?"

In the house of my friend, and quite safe."

Your friend?"

Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, knight of the sea and of the land, and as great a fool as any I know, but a good-hearted fool. He does at least pay me."

Thomas closed his eyes. He did not really understand what the doctor had said, or perhaps he did not believe it. His head was aching. There was pain all through his body, from his aching head, down to his throbbing toes. He thought of his mother, because that was comforting, then he remembered being hauled up the tree and he shivered. He wished he could sleep again, for in sleep there was no pain, but then he was made to sit up and the doctor forced a pungent, oily gruel into his mouth and he managed not to spit it out or throw it up. There must have been mushrooms in the gruel, or else it had been infused with the hemp-like leaves that the Hookton villagers had called angel salad, for after he had eaten he had vivid dreams, but less pain. When he awoke it was dark and he was alone, but he managed to sit up and even stand, though he tottered and had to sit again.

Next morning, when the birds were calling from the oak branches where he had so nearly died, a tall man came into the room. The man was on crutches and his left thigh was swathed in bandages. He turned to look at Thomas and showed a face that was horribly scarred. A blade had cut him from the forehead to the jaw, taking the man's left eye in its savage chop. He had long yellow hair, very shaggy and full, and Thomas guessed the man had been handsome once, though now he looked like a thing of nightmare. Mordecai,“ the man growled, tells me you will live.” With God's help," Thomas said.

I doubt God's interested in you,“ the man said sourly. He looked to be in his thirties and had the bowed legs of a horseman and the deep chest of a man who practises hard with weapons. He swung on the crutches to the window, where he sat on the sill. His beard was streaked with white where the blade had chopped into his jaw and his voice was uncommonly deep and harsh. But you might live with Mordecai's help. There isn't a physician to touch him in all Normandy, though Christ alone knows how he does it. He's been squinting at my piss for a week now. I'm crippled, you Jewish halfwit, I tell him, not wounded in the bladder, but he just tells me to shut my mouth and squeeze out more drops. He'll start on you soon.” The man, who wore nothing except a long white shirt, con-templated Thomas moodily. I have a notion,“ he growled, that you are the godforsaken bastard who put an arrow into my thigh. I remember seeing a son of a whore with long hair like yours, then I was hit.”

You're Sir Guillaume?"

I am."

I meant to kill you," Thomas said.

So why shouldn't I kill you?“ Sir Guillaume asked. You lie in my bed, drink my gruel and breathe my air. English bastard. Worse, you're a Vexille.”

Thomas turned his head to stare at the forbidding Sir Guillaume. He said nothing, for the last three words had mystified him. But I choose not to kill you,“ Sir Guillaume said, because you saved my daughter from rape.”

Your daughter?"

Eleanor, you fool. She's a bastard daughter, of course,“ Sir Guil-laume said. Her mother was a servant to my father, but Eleanor is all I've got left and I'm fond of her. She says you were kind to her, which is why she cut you down and why you're lying in my bed. She always was overly sentimental.” He frowned. But I still have a mind to slice your damned throat."

For four years,“ Thomas said, I have dreamed of slitting yours.” Sir Guillaume's one eye gazed at him balefully. Of course you have. You're a Vexille."

I've never heard of the Vexilles,“ Thomas said. My name is Thomas of Hookton.”

Thomas half expected Sir Guillaume to frown as he tried to remember Hookton, but his recognition of the name was instant. Hookton,“ he said, Hookton. Good sweet Christ, Hookton.” He was silent for a few heartbeats. And of course you're a damned Vexille. You have their badge on your bow."

My bow?"

You gave it to Eleanor to carry! She kept it.“ Thomas closed his eyes. There was pain in his neck and down his back and in his head. I think it was my father's badge,” he said, but I don't really know because he would never talk of his family. I know he hated his own father. I wasn't very fond of my own, but your men killed him and I swore to avenge him.“ Sir Guillaume turned to gaze out of the window. You have truly never heard of the Vexilles?”

Never."

Then you are fortunate.“ He stood. They are the devil's offspring, and you, I suspect, are one of their pups. I would kill you, boy, with as little conscience as if I stamped on a spider, but you were kind to my bastard daughter and for that I thank you.” He limped from the room.

Leaving Thomas in pain and utterly confused.

Thomas recovered in Sir Guillaume's garden, shaded from the sun by two quince trees under which he waited anxiously for doctorMor-decai's daily verdict on the colour, consistency, taste and smell of his urine. It did not seem to matter to the doctor that Thomas's grotesquely swollen neck was subsiding, nor that he could swallow bread and meat again. All that mattered was the state of his urine. There was, the doctor declared, no finer method of diagnosis. The urine betrays all. If it smells rank, or if it is dark, if it tastes of vinegar or should it be cloudy then it is time for vigorous doctoring. But good, pale, sweet-smelling urine like this is the worst news of all."

The worst?" Thomas asked, alarmed.

It means fewer fees for a physician, dear boy.“ The doctor had survived the sack of Caen by hiding in a neigh-hour's pig shed. They slaughtered the pigs, but missed the Jew. Mind you, they broke all my instruments, scattered my medicines, shattered all but three of my bottles and burned my house. Which is why I am forced to live here.” He shuddered, as though living in Sir Guillaume's mansion was a hardship. He smelled Thomas's urine and then, uncertain of his diagnosis, spilled a drop onto a finger and tasted it. Very fine,“ he said, lamentably fine.” He poured the jar's contents onto a bed of lavender where bees were at work. So I lost everything,“ he said, and this after we were assured by our great lords that the city would be safe!” Originally, the doctor had told Thomas, the leaders of the garrison had insisted on defending only the walled city and the castle, but they needed the help of the townsfolk to man the walls and those townsfolk had insisted that the Ile Saint Jean be defended, for that was where the city's wealth lay, and so, at the very last minute, the garrison had streamed across the bridge to disaster. Fools,“ Mordecai said scornfully, fools in steel and glory. Fools.”

Thomas and Mordecai were sharing the house while Sir Guil-laume visited his estate in Evecque, some thirty miles south of Caen, where he had gone to raise more men. He will fight on,“ the doctor said, wounded leg or not.”

What will he do with me?"

Nothing,“ the doctor said confidently. He likes you, despite all his bluster. You saved Eleanor, didn't you? He's always been fond of her. His wife wasn't, but he is.”

What happened to his wife?"

She died,“ Mordecai said,'s he just died.” Thomas could eat properly now and his strength returned fast so that he could walk about the Ile Saint Jean with Eleanor. The island looked as though a plague had struck, for over half the houses were empty and even those that were occupied were still blighted by the sack. Shutters were missing, doors splintered and the shops had no goods. Some country folk were selling beans, peas and cheeses from wagons, and small boys were offering fresh perch taken from the rivers, but they were still hungry days. They were also nervous days, for the city's survivors feared that the hated English might return and the island was still haunted by the sickly smell of the corpses in the two rivers where the gulls, rats and dogs grew fat. Eleanor hated walking about the city, preferring to go south into the countryside where blue dragonflies flew above water lilies in the streams that twisted between fields of overripe rye, barley and wheat.

I love harvest time,“ she told Thomas. We used to go into the fields and help.” There would be little harvest this year, for there were no folk to cut the grain and so the corn buntings were stripping the heads and pigeons were squabbling over the leavings. There should be a feast at harvest's end,“ Eleanor said wistfully. We had a feast too,” Thomas said, and we used to hang corn dollies in the church."

Corn dollies?"

He made her a little doll from straw. We used to hang thirteen of these above the altar,“ he told her, one for Christ and one each for the Apostles.” He picked some cornflowers and gave them to Eleanor, who threaded them into her hair. It was very fair hair, like sunlit gold.

They talked incessantly and one day Thomas asked her again about the lance and this time Eleanor nodded.

I lied to you,“ she said, because he did have it, but it was stolen.” Who stole it?"

She touched her face. The man who took his eye.“ A man called Vexille?”

She nodded solemnly. I think so. But it wasn't here, it was in Evecque. That's his real home. He got the Caen house when he married."

Tell me about the Vexilles," Thomas urged her.

I know nothing of them,“ Eleanor said, and he believed her. They were sitting by a stream where two swans floated and a heron stalked frogs in a reedbed. Thomas had talked earlier of walk-ing away from Caen to find the English army and his words must have been weighing on Eleanor's mind for she frowned at him. Will you really go?”

I don't know." He wanted to be with the army, for that was where he belonged, though he did not know how he was to find it, nor how he was to survive in a countryside where the English had made themselves hated, but he also wanted to stay. He wanted to learn more about the Vexilles and only Sir Guillaume could satisfy that hunger. And, day by day, he wanted to be with Eleanor. There was a calm gentleness in her that Jeanette had never pOssessed, a gentleness that made him treat her with tenderness for fear that otherwise he would break her. He never tired of watching her long face with its slightly hollow cheeks and bony nose and big eyes. She was embarrassed by his scrutiny, but did not tell him to stop.

Sir Guillaume,“ she told him, tells me I look like my mother, but I don't remember her very well.”

Sir Guillaume came back to Caen with a dozen men-at-arms whom he had hired in northern Alencon. He would lead them to war, he said, along with the half-dozen of his men who had survived the fall of Caen. His leg was still sore, but he could walk without crutches and on the day of his return he summarily ordered Thomas to go with him to the church of Saint Jean. Eleanor, working in the kitchen, joined them as they left the house and Sir Guillaume did not forbid her to come.

Folk bowed as Sir Guillaume passed and many sought his assur-ance that the English were truly gone. They are marching towards Paris,“ he would answer, and our king will trap them and kill them.”

You think so?“ Thomas asked after one such assurance. I pray so,” Sir Guillaume growled. That's what the King is for, isn't it? To protect his people? And God knows, we need protection. I'm told that if you climb that tower,“ he nodded towards the church of Saint Jean that was their destination, you can see the smoke from the towns your army has burned. They are conducting a chevauche .” Chevauchee ?" Eleanor asked.

Her father sighed. A chevauche , child, is when you march in a great line through your enemy's country and you burn, destroy and break everything in your path. The object of such barbarity is to force your enemy to come out from his fortresses and fight, and I think our king will oblige the English."

And the English bows,“ Thomas said, will cut his army down like hay.”

Sir Guillaume looked angry at that, but then shrugged. A marching army gets worn down,“ he said. The horses go lame, the boots wear out and the arrows run out. And you haven't seen the might of France, boy. For every knight of yours we have six. You can shoot your arrows till your bows break, but we'll still have enough men left to kill you.” He fished in a pouch hanging at his belt and gave some small coins to the beggars at the churchyard gate, which lay close to the new grave where the five hundred corpses had been buried. It was now a mound of raw earth dotted with dandelions and it stank, for when the English had dug the grave they had struck water not far beneath the surface and so the pit was too shallow and the earth covering was too thin to contain the corruption the grave concealed.

Eleanor clapped a hand to her mouth, then hurried up the steps into the church where the archers had auctioned the town's wives and daughters. The priests had thrice exorcized the church with prayers and holy water, but it still had a sad air, for the statues were broken and the windows shattered. Sir Guillaume genuflected towards the main altar, then led Thomas and Eleanor up a side aisle where a painting on the limewashed wall showed Saint John escaping from the cauldron of boiling oil that the Emperor Domitian had prepared for him. The saint was shown as an ethereal form, half smoke and half man, floating away in the air while the Roman soldiers looked on in perpiexity.

Sir Guillaume approached a side altar where he dropped to his knees beside a great black flagstone and Thomas, to his surprise, saw that the Frenchman was weeping from his one eye. I brought you here,“ Sir Guillaume said, to teach you a lesson about your family.” Thomas did not contradict him. He did not know that he was a Vexille, but the yale on the silver badge suggested he was. Beneath that stone,“ Sir Guillaume said, lies my wife and my two children. A boy and a girl. He was six, she was eight and their mother was twenty-five years old. The house here belonged to her father. He gave me his daughter as ransom for a boat I captured. It was mere piracy, not war, but I gained a good wife from it.” The tears were flowing now and he closed his eye. Eleanor stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, while Thomas waited. Do you know,“ Sir Guillaume asked after a while, why we went to Hookton?” We thought because the tide took you away from Poole.“ No, we went to Hookton on purpose. I was paid to go there by a man who called himself the Harlequin.”

Like hellequin?" Thomas asked.

It is the same word, only he used the Italian form. A devil's soul, laughing at God, and he even looked like you.“ Sir Guillaume crossed himself, then reached out to trace a finger down the edge of the stone. We went to fetch a relic from the church. You knew that already, surely?”

Thomas nodded. And I have sworn to get it back.“ Sir Guillaume seemed to sneer at that ambition. I thought it was all foolishness, but in those days I thought all life was foolishness. Why would some miserable church in an insignificant English vil-lage have a precious relic? But the Harlequin insisted he was right, and when we took the village we found the relic.” The lance of Saint George,“ Thomas said flatly. The lance of Saint George,” Sir Guillaume agreed. I had a contract with the Harlequin. He paid me a little money, and the balance was kept by a monk in the abbey here. He was a monk that everyone trusted, a scholar, a fierce man whom folk said would become a saint, but when we returned I found that Brother Martin had fled and he had taken the money with him. So I refused to give the lance to the Harlequin. Bring me nine hundred livres in good silver, I told him, and the lance is yours, but he would not pay. So I kept the lance. I kept it in Evecque and the months passed and I heard nothing and I thought the lance had been forgotten. Then, two years ago, in the spring, the Harlequin returned. He came with men-at-arms and he captured the manor. He slaughtered everyone

- everyone, and took the lance."

Thomas stared at the black flagstone. You lived?“ Scarcely,” Sir Guillaume said. He hauled up his black jacket and showed a terrible scar on his belly. They gave me three wounds,“ he went on. One to the head, one to the belly and one to the leg. They told me the one to the head was because I was a fool with no brains, the one in the guts was a reward for my greed and the one to the leg was so I would limp down to hell. Then they left me to watch the corpses of my wife and children while I died. But I lived, thanks to Mordecai.” He stood, wincing as he put his weight onto his left leg. I lived,“ he said grimly, and I swore I would find the man who did that,” he pointed at the flagstone, and send his soul screaming into the pit. It took me a year to discover who he was, and you know how I did it? When he came to Evecque he had his men's shields covered with black cloth, but I slashed the cloth of one with my sword and saw the yale. So I asked men about the yale. I asked them in Paris and Anjou, in Burgundy and the Dauphine', and in the end I found my answer. And where did I find it? After asking the length and breadth of France I found it here, in Caen. A man here knew the badge. The Harlequin is a man called Vexille. I do not know his first name, I do not know his rank, I just know he is a devil called Vexille."

So the Vexilles have the lance?"

They have. And the man who killed my family killed your father.“ Sir Guillaume looked ashamed for a brief instant. I killed your mother. I think I did, anyway, but she attacked me and I was angry.” He shrugged. But I did not kill your father, and in killing your mother I did nothing more than you have done in Brittany. True,“ Thomas admitted. He looked into Sir Guillaume's eye and could feel no hatred for his mother's death. So we share an enemy,” Thomas said.

And that enemy,“ Sir Guillaume said, is the devil.” He said it grimly, then crossed himself. Thomas suddenly felt cold, for he had found his enemy, and his enemy was Lucifer. That evening Mordecai rubbed a salve into Thomas's neck. It is almost healed, I think,“ he said, and the pain will go, though per-haps a little will remain to remind you of how close you came to death.” He sniffed the garden scents. So Sir Guillaume told you the story of his wife?"

Yes."

And you are related to the man who killed his wife?“ I don't know,” Thomas said, truly I don't, but the yale suggests I am."

And Sir Guillaume probably killed your mother, and the man who killed his wife killed your father, and Sir Simon Jekyll tried to kill you , Mordecai shook his head. I nightly lament that I was not born a Christian. I could carry a weapon and join the sport.“ He handed Thomas a bottle. Perform,” he commanded, and what, by the by, is a yale?"

A heraldic beast," Thomas explained.

The doctor sniffed. God, in His infinite wisdom, made the fishes and the whales on the fifth day, and on the sixth he made the beasts of the land, and He looked at what He had done and saw that it was good. But not good enough for the heralds, who have to add wings, horns, tusks and claws to His inadequate work. Is that all you can do?"

For the moment."

I'd get more juice from squeezing a walnut," he grumbled, and shuffled away.

Eleanor must have been watching for his departure, for she appeared from under the pear trees that grew at the garden's end and gestured towards the river gate. Thomas followed her down to the bank of the River Orne where they watched an excited trio of small boys trying to spear a pike with English arrows left after the city's capture.

Will you help my father?" Eleanor asked.

Help him?"

You said his enemy was your enemy."

Thomas sat on the grass and she sat beside him. I don't know, he said. He still did not really believe in any of it. There was a lance, he knew that, and a mystery about his family, but he was reluctant to admit that the lance and the mystery must govern his whole life. Does that mean you'll go back to the English army?" Eleanor asked in a small voice.

I want to stay here,“ Thomas said after a pause, to be with you.” She must have known he was going to say something of the sort, but she still blushed and gazed at the swirling water where fish rose to the swarms of insects, and the three boys vainly splashed. You must have a woman," she said softly.

I did,“ Thomas said, and he told her about Jeanette and how she had found the Prince of Wales and so abandoned him without a glance. I will never understand her,” he admitted. But you love her?" Eleanor asked directly.

No," Thomas said.

You say that because you're with me,“ Eleanor declared. He shook his head. My father had a book of Saint Augustine's sayings and there was one that always puzzled me.” He frowned, trying to remember the Latin. Nondum amaham, et amare amabam. I did not love, but yearned to love."

Eleanor gave him a sceptical look. A very elaborate way of saying you're lonely."

Yes," Thomas agreed.

So what will you do?" she asked.

Thomas did not speak for a while. He was thinking of the penance he had been given by Father Hobbe. I suppose one day I must find the man who killed my father,“ he said after a while. But what if he is the devil?” she asked seriously. Then I shall wear garlic,“ Thomas said lightly, and pray to Saint Guinefort.”

She looked at the darkening water. Did Saint Augustine really say that thing?"

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam?“ Thomas said. Yes, he did.” I know how he felt," Eleanor said, and rested her head on his shoulder.

Thomas did not move. He had a choice. Follow the lance or take his black bow back to the army. In truth he did not know what he should do. But Eleanor's body was warm against his and it was comforting and that, for the moment, was enough and so, for the moment, he would stay.

Next morning Sir Guillaume, escorted now by a half-dozen men-at-arms, took Thomas to the Abbaye aux Hommes. A crowd of pet-itioners stood at the gates, wanting food and clothing that the monks did not have, though the abbey itself had escaped the worst of the plundering because it had been the quarters of the King and of the Prince of Wales. The monks themselves had fled at the approach of the English army. Some had died on the ile Saint Jean, but most had gone south to a brother house and among those was Brother Germain who, when Sir Guillaume arrived, had just returned from his brief exile.

Brother Germain was tiny, ancient and bent, a wisp of a man with white hair, myopic eyes and delicate hands with which he was trimming a goose quill.

The English,“ the old man said, use these feathers for their arrows. We use them for God's word.” Brother Germain, Thomas was told, had been in charge of the monastery's scriptorium for more than thirty years. In the course of copying books,“ the monk explained, one discovers knowledge whether one wishes it or not. Most of it is quite useless, of course. How is Mordecai? He lives?” He lives,“ Sir Guillaume said, and sends you this.” He put a clay pot, sealed with wax, on the sloping surface of the writing desk. The pot slid down until Brother Germain trapped it and pushed it into a pouch. A salve,“ Sir Guillaume explained to Thomas, for Brother Germain's joints.”

Which ache,“ the monk said, and only Mordecai can relieve them Tis a pity he will burn in hell, but in heaven, I am assured, I shall need no ointments. Who is this?” He peered at Thomas. A friend,“ Sir Guillaume said, who brought me this.” He was carrying Thomas's bow, which he now laid across the desk and tapped the silver plate. Brother Germain stooped to inspect the badge and Thomas heard a sharp intake of breath.

The yale," Brother Germain said. He pushed the bow away, then blew the scraps from his sharpened quill off the desk. The beast was introduced by the heralds in the last century. Back then, of course, there was real scholarship in the world. Not like today. I get young men from Paris whose heads are stuffed with wool, yet they claim to have doctorates.

He took a sheet of scrap parchment from a shelf, laid it on the desk and dipped his quill in a pot of vermilion ink. He let a glistening drop fall onto the parchment and then, with the skill gained in a lifetime, drew the ink out of the drop in quick strokes. He hardly seemed to be taking notice of what he was doing, but Thomas, to his amazement, saw a yale taking shape on the parchment. The beast is said to be mythical,“ Brother Germain said, flicking the quill to make a tusk, and maybe it is. Most heraldic beasts seem to be inventions. Who has seen a unicorn?” He put another drop of ink on the parchment, paused a heartbeat, then began on the beast's raised paws. There is, however, a notion that the yale exists in Ethiopia. I could not say, not having travelled east of Rouen, nor have I met any traveller who has been there, if indeed Ethiopia even exists.“ He frowned. The yale is mentioned by Pliny, however, which suggests it was known to the Romans, though God knows they were a credulous race. The beast is said to possess both horns and tusks, which seems extravagant, and is usually depicted as being silver with yellow spots. Alas, our pigments were stolen by the English, but they left us the vermilion which, I suppose, was kind of them. It comes from cinnabar, I'm told. Is that a plant? Father Jacques, rest his soul, always claimed it grows in the Holy Land and perhaps it does. Do I detect that you are limping, Sir Guillaume?” A bastard English archer put an arrow in my leg,“ Sir Guillaume said, and I pray nightly that his soul will roast in hell.” You should, instead, give thanks that he was inaccurate. Why do you bring me an English war bow decorated with a yale?“ Because I thought it would interest you,” Sir Guillaume said, and because my young friend here,“ he touched Thomas's shoulder, wants to know about the Vexilles.”

He would do much better to forget them," Brother Germain grumbled.

He was perched on a tall chair and now peered about the room where a dozen young monks tidied the mess left by the monastery's English occupiers. Some of them chattered as they worked, provok-ing a frown from Brother Germain. This is not Caen marketplace!“ he snapped. If you want to gossip, go to the lavatories. I wish I could. Ask Mordecai if he has an unguent for the bowels, would you?” He glowered about the room for an instant, then struggled to pick up the bow that he had propped against the desk. He looked intently at the yale for an instant, then put the bow down. There was always a rumour that a branch of the Vexille family went to England. This seems to confirm it."

Who are they?" Thomas asked.

Brother Germain seemed irritated by the direct question, or per-haps the whole subject of the Vexilles made him uncomfortable. They were the rulers of Astarac,“ he said, a county on the borders of Languedoc and the Agenais. That, of course, should tell you all you need to know of them.”

It tells me nothing," Thomas confessed.

Then you probably have a doctorate from Paris!“ The old man chuckled at this jest. The Counts of Astarac, young man, were Cathars. Southern France was infested by that damned heresy, and Astarac was at the centre of the evil.” He made the sign of the cross with fingers deep-stained by pigments. Habere non potest,“ he said solemnly, Deum patrem qui ecciesiam non habet matrem.” Saint Cyprian,“ Thomas said. He cannot have God as his father who does not have the Church as his mother. ”

I see you are not from Paris after all,“ Brother Germain said. The Cathars rejected the Church, looking for salvation within their own dark souls. What would become of the Church if we all did that? If we all pursued our own whims? If God is within us then we need no Church and no Holy Father to lead us to His mercy, and that notion is the most pernicious of heresies, and where did it lead the Cathars? To a life of dissipation, of fleshly lust, of pride and of perversion. They denied the divinity of Christ!” Brother Germain made the sign of the cross again.

And the Vexilles were Cathars?" Sir Guillaume prompted the old man.

I suspect they were devil worshippers,“ Brother Germain retorted, but certainly the Counts of Astarac protected the Cathars, they and a dozen other lords. They were called the dark lords and very few of them were Perfects. The Perfects were the sect leaders, the heresiarchs, and they abstained from wine, intercourse and meat, and no Vexille would willingly abandon those three joys. But the Cathars allowed such sinners to be among their ranks and promised them the joys of heaven if they recanted before their deaths. The dark lords liked such a promise and, when the heresy was assailed by the Church, they fought bitterly.” He shook his head. This was a hundred years ago! The Holy Father and the King of France destroyed the Cathars, and Astarac was one of the last fortresses to fall. The fight was dreadful, the dead innumerable, but the heresiarchs and the dark lords were finally scotched.“ Yet some escaped?” Sir Guillaume suggested gently. Brother Germain was silent for a while, gazing at the drying vermilion ink. There was a story,“ he said, that some of the Cathar lords did survive, and that they took their riches to countries all across Europe. There is even a rumour that the heresy yet survives, hidden in the lands where Burgundy and the Italian states meet.” He made the sign of the cross. I think a part of the Vexille family went to England, to hide there, for it was in England, Sir Guillaume, that you found the lance of Saint George. Vexille . .“ He said the name thoughtfully. It derives, of course, from vexillaire, a standard-bearer, and it is said that an early Vexille discovered the lance while on the crusades and thereafter carried it as a standard. It was certainly a symbol of power in those old days. Myself? I am sceptical of these relics. The abbot assures me he has seen three foreskins of the infant Jesus and even I, who hold Him blessed above all things, doubt He was so richly endowed, but I have asked some questions about this lance. There is a legend attached to it. It is said that the man who carries the lance into battle cannot be defeated. Mere legend, of course, but belief in such nonsense inspires the ignorant, and there are few more ignorant than soldiers. What troubles me most, though, is their purpose.”

Whose purpose?" Thomas asked.

There is a story,“ Brother Germain said, ignoring the question, that before the fall of the last heretic fortresses, the surviving dark lords made an oath. They knew the war was lost, they knew their strongholds must fall and that the Inquisition and the forces of God would destroy their people, and so they made an oath to visit vengeance on their enemies. One day, they swore, they would bring down the Throne of France and the Holy Mother Church, and to do it they would use the power of their holiest relics.” The lance of Saint George?" Thomas asked.

That too," Brother Germain said.

That too?“ Sir Guillaume repeated the words in a puzzled tone. Brother Germain dipped his quill and put another glistening drop of ink on the parchment. Then, deftly, he finished his copy of the badge on Thomas's bow. The yale,” he said, I have seen before, but the badge you showed me is different. The beast is holding a chalice. But not any chalice, Sir Guillaume. You are right, the bow interests me, and frightens me, for the yale is holding the Grail. The holy, blessed and most precious Grail. It was always rumoured that the Cathars possessed the Grail. There is a tawdry lump of green glass in Genoa Cathedral that is said to be the Grail, but I doubt our dear Lord drank from such a bauble. No, the real Grail exists, and whoever holds it possesses power above all men on earth.“ He put down the quill. I fear, Sir Guillaume, that the dark lords want their revenge. They gather their strength. But they hide still and the Church has not yet taken notice. Nor will it until the danger is obvious, and by then it will be too late.” Brother Germain lowered his head so that Thomas could only see the bald pink patch among the white hair. It is all prophesied,“ the monk said; it is all in the books.”

What books?" Sir Guillaume asked.

Et confortabitur rex austri et de principibus eius praeva/ebit super eum," Brother Germain said softly.

Sir Guillaume looked quizzically at Thomas. And the King from the south will be mighty,“ Thomas reluctantly translated, but one of his princes will be stronger than him.”

The Cathars are of the south,“ Brother Germain said, and the prophet Daniel foresaw it all.” He raised his pigment-stained hands. The fight will be terrible, for the soul of the world is at stake, and they will use any weapon, even a woman. Filiaque regis austri veniet ad regem aquilonis facere amicitiam."

The daughter of the King of the south,“ Thomas said,'s hall come to the King of the north and make a treaty.”

Brother Germain heard the distaste in Thomas's voice. You don't believe it?“ he hissed. Why do you think we keep the scriptures from the ignorant? They contain all sorts of prophecies, young man, and each of them given direct to us by God, but such knowledge is confusing to the unlearned. Men go mad when they know too much.” He made the sign of the cross. I thank God I shall be dead soon and taken to the bliss above while you must struggle with this darkness."

Thomas walked to the window and watched two wagons of grain being unloaded by novices. Sir Guillaume's men-at-arms were play-ing dice in the cloister. That was real, he thought, not some babbling prophet. His father had ever warned him against prophecy. It drives men's minds awry, he had said, and was that why his own mind had gone astray?

The lance,“ Thomas said, trying to cling to fact instead of fancy, was taken to England by the Vexille family. My father was one of them, but he fell out with the family and he stole the lance and hid it in his church. He was killed there, and at his death he told me it was his brother's son who did it. I think it is that man, my cousin, who called himself the Harlequin.” He turned to look at Brother Germain. My father was a Vexille, but he was no heretic. He was a sinner, yes, but he struggled against his sin, he hated his own father, and he was a loyal son of the Church.“ He was a priest,” Sir Guillaume explained to the monk. And you are his son?“ Brother Germain asked in a disapproving tone. The other monks had abandoned their tidying and were listen-ing avidly. I am a priest's son,” Thomas said, and a good Christian.“ So the family discovered where the lance was hidden,” Sir Guil-laume took up the story, and hired me to retrieve it. But forgot to pay me.

Brother Germain appeared not to have heard. He was staring at Thomas. You are English?"

The bow is mine," Thomas acknowledged.

So you are a Vexille?"

Thomas shrugged. It would seem so.

Then you are one of the dark lords,“ Brother Germain said. Thomas shook his head. I am a Christian,” he said firmly. Then you have a God-given duty," the small man said with sur-prising force, which is to finish the work that was left undone a hundred years ago. Kill them all! Kill them! And kill the woman. You hear me, boy? Kill the daughter of the King of the south before she seduces France to heresy and wickedness.

If we can even find the Vexilles,“ Sir Guillaume said dubiously, and Thomas noted the word we”. They don't display their badge. I doubt they use the name Vexille. They hide."

But they have the lance now,“ Brother Germain said, and they will use it for the first of their vengeances. They will destroy France, and in the chaos that ensues, they will attack the Church.” He moaned, as if he was in physical pain. You must take away their power, and their power is the Grail."

So it was not just the lance that Thomas must save. To Father Hobbe's charge had been added all of Christendom. He wanted to laugh. Catharism had died a hundred years before, scourged and burned and dug out of the land like couch grass grubbed from a field! Dark lords, daughters of kings and princes of darkness were figments of the troubadours, not the business of archers. Except that when he looked at Sir Guillaume he saw that the Frenchman was not mocking the task. He was staring at a crucifix hanging on the scriptorium wall and mou thing a silent prayer. God help me, Thomas thought, God help me, but I am being asked to do what all the great knights of Arthur's round table failed to do: to find the Grail. Philip of Valois, King of France, ordered every Frenchman of mili-tary age to gather at Rouen. Demands went to his vassals and appeals were carried to his allies. He had expected the walls of Caen to hold the English for weeks, but the city had fallen in a day and the panicked survivors were spreading across northern France with terrible stories of devils unleashed.

Rouen, nestled in a great loop of the Seine, filled with warriors. Thousands of Genoese crossbowmen came by galley, beaching their ships on the river's bank and thronging the city's taverns, while knights and men-at-arms arrived from Anjou and Picardy, from Alencon and Champagne, from Maine, Touraine and Berry. Every blacksmith's shop became an armoury, every house a barracks and every tavern a brothel. More men arrived, until the city could scarce contain them, and tents had to be set up in the fields south of the city. Wagons crossed the bridge, loaded with hay and newly harvested grain from the rich farmlands north of the river, while from the Seine's southern bank came rumours. The English had taken Evreux, or perhaps it was Bernay? Smoke had been seen at Lisleux, and archers were swarming through the forest of Brotonne. A nun in Louviers had a dream in which the dragon killed Saint George. King Philip ordered the woman brought to Rouen, but she had a harelip, a hunchback and a stammer, and when she was presented to the King she proved unable to recount the dream, let alone confide God's strategy to His Majesty. She just shuddered and wept and the King dismissed her angrily, but took consolation from the bishop's astrologer who said Mars was in the ascendant and that meant victory was certain.

Rumour said the English were marching on Paris, then another rumour claimed they were going south to protect their territories in Gascony. It was said that every person in Caen had died, that the castle was rubble; then a story went about that the English themselves were dying of a sickness. King Philip, ever a nervous man, became petulant, demanding news, but his advisers persuaded their irritable master that wherever the English were they must eventually starve if they were kept south of the great River Seine that twisted like a snake from Paris to the sea. Edward's men were wasting the land, so needed to keep moving if they were to find food, and if the Seine was blocked then they could not go north towards the harbours on the Channel coast where they might expect supplies from England.

They use arrows like a woman uses money,“ Charles, the Count of Alencon and the King's younger brother, advised Philip, but they cannot fetch their arrows from France. They are brought to them by sea, and the further they go from the sea, the greater their problems.” So if the English were kept south of the Seine then they must eventually fight or make an ignominious retreat to Normandy. What of Paris? Paris? What of Paris?“ the King demanded. Paris will not fall,” the Count assured his brother. The city lay north of the Seine, so the English would need to cross the river and assault the largest ramparts in Christendom, and all the while the garrison would be showering them with crossbow bolts and the missiles from the hundreds of small iron guns that had been mounted on the city walls.

Maybe they will go south?“ Philip worried. To Gascony?” If they march to Gascony,“ the Count said, then they will have no boots by the time they arrive, and their arrow store will be gone. Let us pray they do go to Gascony, but above all things pray they do not reach the Seine's northern bank.” For if the English crossed the Seine they would go to the nearest Channel port to receive reinforcements and supplies and, by now, the Count knew, the English would be needing supplies. A marching army tired itself, its men became sick and its horses lame. An army that marched too long would eventually wear out like a tired crossbow. So the French reinforced the great fortresses that guarded the Seine's crossings and where a bridge could not be guarded, such as the sixteen-arched bridge at Poissy, it was demolished. A hundred men with sledgehammers broke down the parapets and hammered the stonework of the arches into the river to leave the fifteen stumps of the broken piers studding the Seine like the stepping stones of a giant, while Poissy itself, which lay south of the Seine and was reckoned indefensible, was abandoned and its people evacuated to Paris. The wide river was being turned into an impassable barrier to trap the English in an area where their food must eventually run short. Then, when the devils were weakened, the French would punish them for the terrible damage they had wrought on France. The English were still burning towns and destroying farms so that, in those long summer days, the western and southern horizons were so smeared by smoke plumes that it seemed as if there were permanent clouds on the skylines. At night the world's edge glowed and folk fleeing the fires came to Rouen where, because so many could not be housed or fed, they were ordered across the river and away to wherever they might find shelter.

Sir Simon Jekyll, and Henry Colley, his man-at-arms, were among the fugitives, and they were not refused admittance, for they both rode destriers and were in mail. Colley wore his own mail and rode his own horse, but Sir Simon's mount and gear had been stolen from one of his other men-at-arms before he fled from Caen. Both men carried shields, but they had stripped the leather covers from the willow boards so that the shields bore no device, thus declaring themselves to be masterless men for hire. Scores like them came to the city, seeking a lord who could offer food and pay, but none arrived with the anger that filled Sir Simon. It was the injustice that galled him. It burned his soul, giving him a lust for revenge He had come so close to paying all his debts, indeed, when the money from the sale of Jeanette's ships was paid from England he had expected to be free of all encumbrances, but now he was a fugitive. He knew he could have slunk back to England, but any man out of favour with the King or the King's eldest son could expect to be treated as a rebel, and he would be fortunate if he kept an acre of land, let alone his freedom. So he had preferred flight, trusting that his sword would win back the privileges he had lost to the Breton bitch and her puppy lover, and Henry Colley had ridden with him in the belief that any man as skilled in arms as Sir Simon could not fail.

No one questioned their presence in Rouen. Sir Simon's French was tinged with the accent of England's gentry, but so was the French of a score of other men from Normandy. What Sir Simon needed now was a patron, a man who would feed him and give him the chance to fight back against his persecutors, and there were plenty of great men looking for followers. In the fields south of Rouen, where the looping river narrowed the land, a pasture had been set aside as a tourney ground where, in front of a knowing crowd of men-at-arms, anyone could enter the lists to show their prowess. This was not a serious tournament, the swords were blunt and lances were tipped with wooden blocks, but rather it was a chance for masterless men to show their prowess with weapons, and a score of knights, the champions of dukes, counts, viscounts and mere lords, were the judges. Dozens of hopeful men were entering the lists, and any horseman who could last more than a few minutes against the well-mounted and superbly armed champions was sure to find a place in the entourage of a great nobleman.

Sir Simon, on his stolen horse and with his ancient battered sword, was one of the least impressive men to ride into the pasture. He had no lance, so one of the champions drew a sword and rode to finish him off. At first no one took particular notice of the two men for other combats were taking place, but when the champion was sprawling on the grass and Sir Simon, untouched, rode on, the crowd took notice.

A second champion challenged Sir Simon and was startled by the fury which confronted him. He called out that the combat was not to the death, but merely a demonstration of swordplay, but Sir Simon gritted his teeth and hacked with the sword so sav-agely that the champion spurred and wheeled his horse away rather than risk injury. Sir Simon turned his horse in the pasture's centre, daring another man to face him, but instead a squire trotted a mare to the field's centre and wordlessly offered the Englishman a lance.

Who sent it?" Sir Simon demanded.

My lord."

Who is?"

There," the squire said, pointing to the pasture's end where a tall man in black armour and riding a black horse waited with his lance.

Sir Simon sheathed his sword and took the lance. It was heavy and not well balanced, and he had no lance rest in his armour that would cradle the long butt to help keep the point raised, but he was a strong man and an angry one, and he reckoned he could manage the cumbersome weapon long enough to break the stranger's confidence.

No other men fought on the field now. They just watched. Wagers were being made and all of them favoured the man in black. Most of the onlookers had seen him fight before, and his horse, his armour and his weapons were all plainly superior. He wore plate mail and his horse stood at least a hand's breadth taller than Sir Simon's sorry mount. His visor was down, so Sir Simon could not see the man's face, while Sir Simon himself had no faceplate, merely an old, cheap helmet like those worn by England's archers. Only Henry Colley laid a bet on Sir Simon, though he had difficulty in doing it for his French was rudimentary, but the money was at last taken.

The stranger's shield was black and decorated with a simple white cross, a device unknown to Sir Simon, while his horse had a black trapper that swept the pasture as the beast began to walk. That was the only signal the stranger gave and Sir Simon responded by lowering the lance and kicking his own horse forward. They were a hundred paces apart and both men moved swiftly into the canter. Sir Simon watched his opponent's lance, judging how firmly it was held. The man was good, for the lance tip scarcely wavered despite the horse's uneven motion. The shield was covering his trunk, as it should be.

If this had been a battle, if the man with the strange shield had not offered Sir Simon a chance of advancement, he might have lowered his own lance to strike his opponent's horse. Or, a more difficult strike, thrust the weapon's tip into the high pommel of his saddle. Sir Simon had seen a lance go clean through the wood and leather of a saddle to gouge into a man's groin, and it was ever a killing blow. But today he was required to show the skill of a knight, to strike clean and hard, and at the same time defend himself from the oncoming lance. The skill of that was to deflect the thrust which, having the weight of a horse behind it, could break a man's back by throwing him against the high cantle. The shock of two heavy horsemen meeting, and with all their weight concentrated into lance points, was like being hit by a cannon's stone. Sir Simon was not thinking about any of this. He was watching the oncoming lance, glancing at the white cross on the shield where his own lance was aimed, and guiding his horse with pressure from his knees. He had trained to this from the time he could first sit on a pony. He had spent hours tilting at a quintain in his father's yard, and more hours schooling stallions to endure the noise and chaos of battle. He moved his horse slightly to the left like a man wanting to widen the angle at which the lances would strike and so deflect some of their force, and he noted that the stranger did not follow the move to straighten the line, but seemed happy to accept the lesser risk. Then both men rowelled back their spurs and the destri-ers went into the gallop. Sir Simon touched the horse's right side and straightened the line himself, driving hard at the stranger now, and leaning slightly forward to ready himself for the blow. His opponent was trying to swing towards him, but it was too late. Sir Simon's lance cracked against the black and white shield with a thump that hurled Sir Simon back, but the stranger's lance was not centred and banged against Sir Simon's plain shield and glanced off.

Sir Simon's lance broke into three pieces and he let it fall as he pressed his knee to turn the horse. His opponent's lance was across his body now and was encumbering the black-armoured knight. Sir Simon drew his sword and, while the other man was still trying to rid himself of the lance, gave a backswing that struck his oppon-ent like a hammer blow. The field was still. Henry Colley held out a hand for his winnings. The man pretended not to understand his crude French, but he understood the knife that the yellow-eyed Englishman suddenly produced and the coins, just as suddenly, appeared.

The knight in the black armour did not continue the fight, but instead curbed his horse and pushed up his visor. Who are you?"

My name is Sir Simon Jekyll."

English?"

I was."

The two horses stood beside each other. The stranger threw down his lance and hung the shield from his pommel. He had a sallow face with a thin black moustache, clever eyes and a broken nose. He was a young man, not a boy, but a year or two older than Sir Simon.

What do you want?" he asked Sir Simon.

A chance to kill the Prince of Wales."

The man smiled. Is that all?"

Money, food, land, women," Sir Simon said.

The man gestured to the side of the pasture. There are great lords here, Sir Simon, who will offer you pay, food and girls. I can pay you too, but not so well; I can feed you, though it will be common stuf and the girls you must find for yourself. What I will promise you is that I shall equip you with a better horse, armour and weapons. I lead the best knights in this army and we are sworn to take captives who will make us rich. And none, I think, so rich as the King of England and his whelp. Not kill, mark you, but capture."

Sir Simon shrugged. I'll settle for capturing the bastard," he said.

And his father,“ the man said, I want his father too.” There was something vengeful in the man's voice that intrigued Sir Simon. Why?" he asked.

My family lived in England,“ the man said, but when this king took power we supported his mother.”

So you lost your land?" Sir Simon asked. He was too young to remember the turmoil of those times, when the King's mother had tried to keep power for herself and for her lover and the young Edward had struggled to break free. Young Edward had won and some of his old enemies had not forgotten.

We lost everything,“ the man said, but we shall get it back. Will you help?”

I told you so.

Then you had best employ me,“ Sir Simon said, with my man.” He nodded towards Henry Colley.

Good," the Harlequin said.

So Sir Simon had a new master and the King of France had gathered an army. The great lords: Alencon, John of Hainault, Aumale, the Count of Blois, who was brother to the aspiring Duke of Brittany, the Duke of Lorraine, the Count of Sancerre, all were in Rouen with their vast retinues of heavily armoured men. The army's numbers became so large that men could not count the ranks, but clerks reckoned there were at least eight thousand men-at-arms and five thousand crossbowmen in Rouen, and that meant that Philip of Valois's army already outnumbered Edward of Eng-land's forces, and still more men were coming. John, Count of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia, a friend of Philip of France, was bringing his formidable knights. The King of Majorca came with his famed lances, and the Duke of Normandy was ordered to aban-don the siege of an English fortress in the south and bring his army north. The priests blessed the soldiers and promised them that God would recognize the virtue of France's cause and crush the English mercilessly.

The army could not be fed in Rouen, so at last it crossed the bridge to the north bank of the Seine, leaving a formidable garrison behind to guard the river crossing. Once out of the city and on the long roads stretching through the newly harvested fields, men could dimly comprehend just how vast their army was. It stretched for miles in long columns of armed men, troops of horsemen, battalions of crossbowmen and, trailing behind, the innumerable host of infan-try armed with axes, billhooks and spears. This was the might of France, and France's friends had rallied to the cause. There was a troop of knights from Scotland, big, savage-looking men who nourished a rare hatred of the English. There were mercenaries from Germany and Italy, and there were knights whose names had become famous in Christendom's tournaments, the elegant killers who had become rich in the sport of war. The French knights spoke not just of defeating Edward of England, but of carrying the war to his kingdom, foreseeing earldoms in Essex and dukedoms in Devonshire. The Bishop of Meaux encouraged his cook to think of a recipe for archers" fingers, a daube perhaps, seasoned with thyme? He would, the bishop insisted, force the dish down Edward of Eng-land's throat. Sir Simon rode a seven-year-old destrier now, a fine grey that must have cost the Harlequin close to a hundred pounds. He wore a hauberk of close-ringed mail covered with a surcoat that bore the white cross. His horse had a chanfron of boiled leather and a black trapper, while at Sir Simon's waist hung a sword made in Poitiers. Henry Colley was almost as well equipped, though in place of a sword he carried a four-foot-long shaft of oak topped with a spiked metal ball.

They're a solemn bunch,“ he complained to Sir Simon about the other men who followed the Harlequin. Like bloody monks.” They can fight," Sir Simon said, though he himself was also daunted by the grim dedication of the Harlequin's men. The men were all confident, but none took the English as lightly as the rest of the army, which had convinced itself that any battle would be won by numbers alone. The Harlequin quizzed Sir Simon and Henry Colley about the English way of fighting, and his ques-tions were shrewd enough to force both men to drop their bombast and think.

They'll fight on foot,“ Sir Simon concluded. He, like all knights, dreamed of a battle conducted on horseback, of swirling men and couched lances, but the English had learned their business in the wars against the Scots and knew that men on foot defended territory much more effectively than horsemen. Even the knights will fight on foot,” Sir Simon forecast, and for every man-at-arms they'll have two or three archers. Those are the bastards to watch.“ The Harlequin nodded. But how do we defeat the archers?” Let them run out of arrows," Sir Simon said. They must, eventu-ally. So let every hothead in the army attack, then wait till the arrow bags are empty. Then you'll get your revenge.

It is more than revenge I want,“ the Harlequin said quietly. What?”

The Harlequin, a handsome man, smiled at Sir Simon, though there was no warmth in the smile. Power,“ he answered very calmly With power, Sir Simon, comes privilege and with privilege, wealth. What are kings,” he asked, but men who have risen high? So we shall rise too, and use the defeat of kings as the rungs of our ladder."

Such talk impressed Sir Simon, though he did not wholly under-stand it. It seemed to him that the Harlequin was a man of high fancies, but that did not matter because he was also unswervingly dedicated to the defeat of men who were Sir Simon's enemies. Sir Simon daydreamed of the battle; he saw the English prince's frightened face, heard his scream and revelled in the thought of taking the insolent whelp prisoner. Jeanette too. The Harlequin could be as secretive and subtle as he wished so long as he led Sir Simon to those simple desires.

And so the French army marched, and still it grew as men came from the outlying parts of the kingdom and from the vassal states beyond France's frontiers. It marched to seal off the Seine and so trap the English, and its confidence soared when it was learned that the King had made his pilgrimage to the Abbey of Saint Denis to fetch the oriflamme. It was France's most sacred symbol, a scarlet banner kept by the Benedictines in the abbey where the Kings of France lay entombed, and every man knew that when the on-flamme was unfurled no quarter would be given. It was said to have been carried by Charlemagne himself and its silk was red as blood, promising carnage to the enemies of France. The English had come to fight, the oriflamme had been released and the dance of the armies had begun.

Sir Guillaume gave Thomas a linen shirt, a good mail coat, a leather-lined helmet and a sword. It's old, but good,“ he said of the sword, a cutter rather than a piercer.” He provided Thomas with a horse, a saddle, a bridle and gave him money. Thomas tried to refuse the last gift, but Sir Guillaume brushed his protest aside. You've taken what you wanted from me, I might as well give you the rest.“ Taken?” Thomas was puzzled, even hurt, by the accusation. Eleanor."

I've not taken her," Thomas protested.

Sir Guillaume's ravaged face broke into a grin. You will, boy,“ he said, you will.”

They rode next day, going eastwards in the wake of the English army that was now far off. News had come to Caen of burned towns, but no one knew where the enemy had gone and so Sir Guillaume planned to lead his twelve men-at-arms, his squire and his servant to Paris. Someone will know where the King is,“ he said. And you, Thomas, what will you do?”

Thomas had been wondering the same ever since he woke to the light in Sir Guillaume's house, but now he must make the decision and, to his surprise, there was no conflict at all. I shall go to my king," he said.

And what of this Sir Simon? What if he hangs you again?“ I have the Earl of Northampton's protection,” Thomas said, though he reflected it had not worked before.

And what of Eleanor?" Sir Guillaume turned to look at his daughter who, to Thomas's surprise, had accompanied them. Her father had given her a small palfrey and, unused to riding, she sat its saddle awkwardly, clutching the high pommel. She did not know why her father had let her come, suggesting to Thomas that perhaps he wanted her to be his cook.

The question made Thomas blush. He knew he could not fight against his own friends, but nor did he want to leave Eleanor. I shall come looking for her,“ he told Sir Guillaume. If you still live,” the Frenchman growled. Why don't you fight for me?"

Because I'm English."

Sir Guillaume sneered. You're Cathar, you're French, you're from Languedoc, who knows what you are? You're a priest's son, a mongrel bastard of heretic stock."

I'm English," Thomas said.

You're a Christian,“ Sir Guillaume retorted, and God has given you and me a duty. How are you to fulfil that duty by joining Edward's army?”

Thomas did not answer at once. Had God given him a duty? If so he did not want to accept it, for acceptance meant believing in the legends of the Vexilles. Thomas, in the evening after he had met Brother Germain, had talked with Mordecai in Sir Guillaume's garden, asking the old man if he had ever read the book of Daniel. Mordecai had sighed, as if he found the question wearlsome. Years ago,“ he'd said, many years ago. It is part of the Ketuvim, the writings that all Jewish youths must read. Why?” He's a prophet, yes? He tells the future."

Dear me, Mordecai had said, sitting on the bench and dragging his thin fingers through his forked beard. You Christians,“ he had said, insist that prophets tell the future, but that wasn't really what they did at all. They warned Israel. They told us that we would be visited by death, destruction and horror if we did not mend our ways. They were preachers, Thomas, just preachers, though, God knows, they were right about the death, destruction and horror. As for Daniel . . . He is very strange, very strange. He had a head filled with dreams and visions. He was drunk on God, that one.” But do you think,“ Thomas had asked, that Daniel could foretell what is happening now?”

Mordecai had frowned. If God wished him to, yes, but why should God wish that? And I assume, Thomas, that you think Daniel might foretell what happens here and now in France, and what possible interest could that hold for the God of Israel? The Ketuvim are full of fancy, vision and mystery, and you Christians see more in them than we ever did. But would I make a decision because Daniel ate a bad oyster and had a vivid dream all those years ago? No, no, no." He stood and held a jordan bottle high. Trust what is before your eyes, Thomas, what you can smell, hear, taste, touch and see. The rest is dangerous.

Thomas now looked at Sir Guillaume. He had come to like the Frenchman whose battle-hardened exterior hid a wealth of kind-ness, and Thomas knew he was in love with the Frenchman's daughter, but, even so, he had a greater loyalty.

I cannot fight against England,“ he said, any more than you would carry a lance against King Philip.”

Sir Guillaume dismissed that with a shrug. Then fight against the Vexilles."

But Thomas could not smell, hear, taste, touch or see the Vexilles. He did not believe the king of the south would send his daughter to the north. He did not believe the Holy Grail was hidden in some heretic's fastness. He believed in the strength of a yew bow, the tension of a hemp cord and the power of a white-feathered arrow to kill the King's enemies. To think of dark lords and of heresiarchs was to flirt with the madness that had harrowed his own father. If I find the man who killed my father,“ he evaded Sir Guillaume's demand, then I will kill him.”

But you will not search for him?"

Where do I look? Where do you look?“ Thomas asked, then offered his own answer. If the Vexilles really still exist, if they truly want to destroy France, then where would they begin? In England's army. So I shall look for them there.” That answer was an evasion, but it half convinced Sir Guillaume, who grudgingly conceded that the Vexilles might indeed take their forces to Edward of England. That night they sheltered in the scorched remains of a farm where they gathered about a small fire on which they roasted the hind legs of a boar that Thomas had shot. The men-at-arms treated Thomas warily. He was, after all, one of the hated English archers whose bows could pierce even plate mail. If he had not been Sir Guillaume's friend they would have wanted to slice off his string fingers in revenge for the pain that the white-fledged arrows had given to the horsemen of France, but instead they treated him with a distant curiosity. After the meal Sir Guillaume gestured to Eleanor and Thomas that they should both accompany him outside His squire was keeping watch, and Sir Guillaume led them away from the young man, going to the bank of a stream where, with an odd formality, he looked at Thomas. So you will leave us,“ he said, and fight for Edward of England.”

Yes."

But if you see my enemy, if you see the lance, what will you do?"

Kill him," Thomas said. Eleanor stood slightly apart, watching and listening.

He will not be alone,“ Sir Guillaume warned, but you assure me he is your enemy?”

I swear it," Thomas said, puzzled that the question even needed to be asked.

Sir Guillaume took Thomas's right hand. You have heard of a brotherhood in arms?"

Thomas nodded. Men of rank frequently made such pacts, swear-ing to aid each other in battle and share each other's spoils. Then I swear a brotherhood to you,“ Sir Guillaume said, even if we will fight on opposing sides.”

I swear the same," Thomas said awkwardly.

Sir Guillaume let Thomas's hand go. There,“ he said to Eleanor, I'm safe from one damned archer.” He paused, still looking at Eleanor. I shall marry again,“ he said abruptly, and have children again and they will be my heirs. You know what I'm saying, don't you?”

Eleanor's head was lowered, but she looked up at her father briefly, then dropped her gaze again. She said nothing. And if I have more children, God willing,“ Sir Guillaume said, what does that leave for you, Eleanor?”

She gave a very small shrug as if to suggest that the question was not of great interest to her. I have never asked you for any-thing.“ But what would you have asked for?”

She stared into the ripples of the stream. What you gave me,“ she said after a while, kindness.”

Nothing else?"

She paused. I would have liked to call you Father.“ Sir Guillaume seemed uncomfortable with that answer. He stared northwards. You are both bastards,” he said after a while, and I envy that."

Envy?" Thomas asked.

A family serves like the banks of a stream. They keep you in your place, but bastards make their own way. They take nothing and they can go anywhere.“ He frowned, then flicked a pebble into the water. I had always thought, Eleanor, that I would marry you to one of my men-at-arms. Benoit asked me for your hand and so did Fossat. And it's past time you were married. What are you? Fifteen?”

Fifteen," she agreed.

You'll rot away, girl, if you wait any longer,“ Sir Guillaume said gruffly,'s o who shall it be? Benoit? Fossat?” He paused. Or would you prefer Thomas?"

Eleanor said nothing and Thomas, embarrassed, kept silent. You want her?“ Sir Guillaume asked him brutally. Yes.”

Eleanor?"

She looked at Thomas, then back to the stream. Yes," she said simply.

The horse, the mail, the sword and the money,“ Sir Guillaume said to Thomas, are my bastard daughter's dowry. Look after her, or else become my enemy again.” He turned away. Sir Guillaume?“ Thomas asked. The Frenchman turned back. When you went to Hookton,” Thomas went on, wondering why he asked the question now, you took a dark-haired girl prisoner. She was pregnant. Her name was Jane."

Sir Guillaume nodded. She married one of my men. Then died in childbirth. The child too. Why?“ He frowned. Was the child yours?”

She was a friend," Thomas evaded the question.

She was a pretty friend,“ Sir Guillaume said, I remember that. And when she died we had twelve Masses said for her English soul.”

Thank you."

Sir Guillaume looked from Thomas to Eleanor, then back to Thomas. A good night for sleeping under the stars,“ he said, and we shall leave at dawn.” He walked away.

Thomas and Eleanor sat by the stream. The sky was still not wholly dark, but had a luminous quality like the glow of a candle behind horn. An otter slid down the far side of the stream, its fur glistening where it showed above the water. It raised its head, looked briefly at Thomas, then dived out of sight, to leave a trickle of silver bubbles breaking the dark surface.

Eleanor broke the silence, speaking the only English words she knew. I am an archer's woman," she said.

Thomas smiled. Yes," he said.

And in the morning they rode on and next evening they saw the smear of smoke on the northern horizon and knew it was a sign that the English army was going about its business. They parted in the next dawn.

How you reach the bastards, I do not know,“ Sir Guillaume said, but when it is all over, look for me.”

He embraced Thomas, kissed Eleanor, then pulled himself into his saddle. His horse had a long blue trapper decorated with yellow hawks. He settled his right foot into its stirrup, gathered the reins and pushed back his spurs.

A track led north across a heath that was fragrant with thyme and fluttering with blue butterflies. Thomas, his helmet hanging from the saddle's pommel and the sword thumping at his side, rode towards the smoke, and Eleanor, who insisted on carrying his bow because she was an archer's woman, rode with him. They looked back from the low crest of the heath, but Sir Guillaume was already a half-mile westwards, not looking back, hurrying towards the oriflamme. So Thomas and Eleanor rode on.