The Lazarus Vault

XX

The storm drove water into the woodshed: the fire smoulders red, and smoke fills the hall. Guy paces angrily, while Gornemant, Jocelin, and the half-dozen knights he’s managed to summon stand attendance. I lean against a tapestry, woven in with the wool figures. I know I should be concentrating on their council, but all I can think about is Ada. I know she came back safely, alone, but I’m desperate to see her. I try to remember the soft skin of her breasts, her taste on my tongue and her body enclosing me. I clench my fists with frustration.

Guy is talking about Athold du Laurrier, his neighbour. I’ve never seen him, but I know his reputation. If sheep disappear from a field, or a hayrick burns, or someone steals the blades of a plough, Guy blames Athold. It occurs to me that Athold probably says the same about Guy.

‘While we were hunting, they raided Massigny,’ says Gornemant. Massigny is a village near the edge of Guy’s fiefholding. ‘They killed three men and drove off a dozen more.’

Guy slams the palm of his hand against a pillar. He’s not grieving; he couldn’t care about the lives of a few peasants. He’s furious about the insult to his authority — and the cost. Those men will need ransoms, and if Guy doesn’t contribute the peasants will start to think about switching their allegiance.

‘If he wants a war, I’ll give him a war.’

It’s a small, vicious war. There’s a lot of suffering, though not many deaths. It’s harder to kill someone when your arm’s chilled to the bone, your tunic’s soaked through and your sword is blunt with rust. It will never make a great tale. Sometimes I wonder if I brought this calamity down on Guy — if this war is God’s punishment for my sin. It doesn’t stop me sinning more. It’s hard to have an affair in a castle in a state of war — routines are unpredictable, corridors busy, eyes sharp. But we manage. Each encounter is brusque, the physical pleasure attenuated by the terror of discovery. Sometimes Ada cries and says she can’t go on. I cradle her head to my chest and tell her I love her.

When I’m alone, I sit and list the times and places. There in the stables behind the winter fodder; there in her own bedroom while Guy was away; there in the storeroom at the back of the tower, while mice scuttled around the grain sacks. I chart the encounters compulsively, surveying the battlefields of this invisible war we’re fighting against the world. I remember the press of her body against mine. I feel the wounds.

Guy’s war ends in March.

A misty morning: the world caught between winter and spring. Leafless trees seem to float in the fog; the rising sun makes a line of gold in the sky. Three of us are riding across a hillside meadow. We’re supposed to be patrolling for Athold’s men, but in this mist they could ride past a hundred yards away and they’d be invisible.

Jocelin rides in front; I follow a few paces behind with William, one of the other squires. Jocelin and I will never be friends, but as we’ve grown up, we’ve found ways of ignoring each other. We’re all fully armed, except for the spurs which none of us has won yet. The weight of the armour feels natural now, a second skin, and I’m grateful for the quilted undercoat which keeps me warm.

Ahead, Jocelin pulls up and stares at the ground. A muddy scar cuts across the turf. Hoof prints. It rained in the night — these tracks are fresh.

‘Just one of them,’ William mutters. Jocelin shoots him a withering look.

‘Only if he was riding a ten-legged horse. Look how close the prints are. They were riding single file, to hide their numbers.’

We follow the tracks down the hill to the river. They go in as one, but emerge individually: it’s hard to keep a strict line through water, hard to scramble up a bank where it’s already been trampled down. We count five or six sets of hooves, all pressed deep into the ground. Whoever’s riding them is carrying a lot of weight.

‘We should ride back, warn Guy.’

This time it’s my turn to feel Jocelin’s scorn. ‘Warn him that someone’s left footprints on his land? He’ll want more than that.’

Down in the valley, the fog’s thicker than ever, but I know there’s a village a few hundred yards upstream, around a bend in the hillside. It was part of Ada’s lands, now Guy’s, though Athold covets it for the mill. If he can sell flour, rather than the corn his tenants give him, he can raise more money, buy more land or men to conquer it. He has four young sons and an ambitious wife: he needs to expand.

We tether our horses in a stand of willows and make our way upriver towards the village. We cross on the weir. Usually, the miller charges travellers to use it as a footbridge, but there’s no one here now. We crawl across, clinging to the boards, which are slick and slippery from the spray. White water foams beneath us.

The village straggles along a rough track, pitted and furrowed. Wood-framed houses line the road: their thatched roofs pitched so low they almost touch the ground. Creeping from house to house, we come to a small church with a roofed gallery surrounding it. Once, my mother told me, they were built to keep the graves dry: now the dead are left to soak in the churchyard, and the roof shelters the commerce of hawkers, vagrants, friars and young lovers. This morning it’s empty. All the villagers have been gathered on the triangle of grazing land in front of the church, herded there by the quartet of mounted knights who rest their swords across their horses’ shoulders. A fifth, wrapped in a red cloak and with a red shield on his shoulder, sits astride his warhorse and addresses them from on high.

Jocelin tugs my sleeve. ‘Athold,’ he mouths to me. ‘Go back to Hautfort. Fetch my father.’

I’m trembling, but there’s no way I’m going to leave. ‘Send William.’

Jocelin scowls, but it’s no place to argue. William’s two years younger, with spindly red hair and a face like a cheese. He’ll do as he’s told.

‘Ride to the castle. Tell Guy that Athold is here, with a small force and vulnerable. Bring him as quick as you can.’

William slips away. Sheltering behind the church wall, Jocelin and I listen to what Athold is saying. All we can see is the cone of his helmet, and the point of his spear.

‘From now on, your tithes and your taxes come to me.’ He walks his horse back and forth in front of the villagers. The helmet traverses the top of the wall. One of the villagers must say something: all of a sudden, the helmet stops and Athold shouts.

‘Guy de Hautfort is no longer your lord. Can he protect you? Can he protect you?’ The spear rises and swings down. I hear a grunt and a scream. He must have cracked it over some poor unfortunate’s head.

‘Where is the miller?’

A shuffling in the crowd as the man comes forward.

‘You are my tenant now. For supplying my enemy, Guy de Hautfort, your mill is forfeit.’

I remember the miller, I’ve seen him before. An old man with white hair and white skin, as if flour had been ground into every pore. His voice is strong and clear. ‘The mill is my patrimony. My family have always kept it.’

‘Until now.’

A desperate note. ‘What will my son inherit?’

‘Your son? Is this him?’ The helmet turns a fraction, tilts forward. ‘Is it true you’re worried about your inheritance?’

I don’t hear the answer. Athold doesn’t either. ‘Speak up.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes …?’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘So.’ Athold considers this. Then, so fast I barely catch it, the spear spins around and stabs down. I hear a woman’s screams. An angry chatter rolls through the crowd, but Athold’s knights advance their horses and the noise stops. Everything but the screams, which subside to a low sobbing, as if someone’s heart’s been torn out.

‘Now you don’t need to worry about his inheritance.’

The helmet moves away. The spear-tip rises again, streaked with blood.

One by one, the villagers come forward and swear fealty to Athold. I can’t see, but I imagine they have to take it kneeling in the mud beside the still-bleeding corpse. A terrible dread hangs over the village. It’s not Athold they fear any more, but Guy. In a month or a year’s time, if he wins this war, he’ll sit on his horse in front of them and demand fealty, and someone else’s son will have to die as an example.

The gallery floor creaks. A gap-toothed man in a floppy cap has come round behind and is staring at us in shock. I put a finger to my lips and wave him to be quiet.

But he still has mud on his knees from swearing loyalty to Athold. He knows how to impress his new lord.

‘It’s Guy’s son.’

We race across the road and down a lane to the mill. Hooves pummel the ground behind us. I’m running so hard my heart might burst, but the weight of my armour holds me back. I see the river in front of me. The hooves drum in my ears. Then we’re on the weir, running across the treacherous planks so fast we don’t have time to fall. A spear clatters off one of the stone piers, and I look back.

Athold’s men have pulled up at the water’s edge. The river’s too fast and deep to cross, and their mounts would never manage the weir. They’ll have to go down to the ford, cross, ride back. It gives us a head start.

But the ford isn’t far, and by the time we’ve gathered our horses from the willow stand we’ve lost precious minutes. We follow William’s tracks, back up the hill and out of the mist towards Hautfort. It’s open heathland here, good riding country.

A horn sounds behind us. Looking back, I see five horsemen coming over the crest of the hill. They rise out of the mist like waves from the sea. The tips of their lances glint in the sunlight. Athold’s seen Jocelin: he knows if he can catch him now, he’ll have Guy checkmated.

I know where I fit on this chessboard — a front-rank pawn, blocking the way to the more valuable pieces. I turn my back and ride. I’m galloping, standing in my stirrups crouched low over the saddle. The horse’s mane billows back in my face. Something flies through the air to my right, an arrow. I’m riding so fast I could almost outpace it: they won’t get through my armour, but they might yet injure the horses. I kick my mount again, though he’s giving everything he can.

A low wall approaches. My mount clears it with a clean bound, but the horse behind isn’t so lucky. I hear an animal scream and the clatter of stone; when I turn back, a black horse is writhing on the ground, hooves flailing. Jocelin lies outstretched behind him.

I only have a split second to make the choice, and I don’t hesitate. I would happily see Jocelin trampled into the mud under Athold’s hooves, but Guy would never forgive it. I rein in my horse, turn, and charge towards the pursuing riders.

There are four of them, with another further back. I aim for the smallest and lower my spear. The knight draws his sword and spurs his horse faster.

It’s different from practising in the orchard. Apple trees don’t move: here, everything happens twice as fast. The wind makes my eyes tear; I can feel the ash-shaft hard against my palm. He lifts his shield. I aim my spear. I try to remember everything Gornemant said.

And then I’m past. I’ve missed him — I don’t know how. Was it cowardice? Did I shy away at the crucial moment, fail my first test as a knight? I’ve no time to think. There’s another rider ahead. He wasn’t expecting me to break through: his shield’s on his back and his sword still in its scabbard.

I’m not going to fail again. I raise my spear and try to hold it steady against the rise and fall of the horse. Everything is aligned: my eyes, my breath, the spear tip, the knight’s exposed face. Gornemant wouldn’t approve — he says you should aim for the body, the biggest target — but I don’t want to unhorse my enemy. I want to kill him.

This time I don’t shy away. The spear strikes and sinks in, so deep there’s no chance to pull it free. I have to let go or I’ll be yanked off my horse. My arm’s numb, shivering. It’s only later I realise that the lance went clean through his skull and struck the back of his helmet. I wheel my horse and look back.

The knight’s slumped over in his saddle, the spear still implanted in his head like a heron’s beak. Now I can see the device on the shield strapped to his back — a red field and a white bar. Athold’s arms.

The other knights are leaping down from their horses, casting their weapons to the ground, pulling off their helmets. I think Athold’s death must have broken them: then I see a dozen knights cantering towards us. Guy’s at their head on his chestnut charger, his banner floating behind him. He slips out of his saddle and runs to Jocelin, who groans and rubs his head. He’ll live, at least long enough to tell the story of how I saved him.

Surely now Guy will make me a knight.