The Lazarus Vault

XXVIII

They say the ground shakes when two lines of horsemen come together. If you’re one of the riders, you don’t notice: your whole world is a shaking anyway. The rise and fall of the horse, the sway of the lance, the creak of leather and the rattle of shifting armour. Some of the knights wear knotted cords tied to their helmets, to snap and crack as they blow behind them. It’s vanity: just one more thing for an enemy to grab hold of.

But for now, everything is still. The drums and horns have fallen silent. The crowd are hushed. I sit in my saddle, feeling the cantle dig into my back. A cold wind catches the pennon on the tip of my spear. The horses stamp and blow hot air through their nostrils. Across the field, some two hundred mounted knights wait in line in front of a grandstand. It’s draped with cloth which spreads and billows in the wind, so that the whole construction seems to wobble.

A herald calls ‘laciez’. Four hundred men pull their helmets on. I tie my chinstrap tight under my chin. From under the brim, I scan the opposing line for any sign of Guy de Hautfort’s banner. It’s part of my ritual, part of the danger. We’re far from Normandy, but men travel a long way for the tourney.

Something at the far end of the opposing line catches my eye. A familiar shade of blue, or perhaps the shape. It’s too far away to see clearly: the device is hidden behind another knight’s banner. But it worries me. Usually we get there with enough time to ask the heralds who’s on the other side, but we were delayed on the road from Poitiers and only arrived last night.

A trumpet sounds. We charge.

This is my fifth tournament in Etienne’s company. In my first, at Dijon, I captured three knights and five horses. Etienne sold four and let me keep one, a chestnut charger. I was just getting used to him when I lost him again, in the next tournament. It happened in the first charge: a lance caught me plum on the boss of my shield and bowled me out of the saddle. I was lucky I only lost my horse.

Since then I’ve been more successful. Ada tells me to be careful, that the last thing I want is a reputation, but if you hold back in the heat of battle — even a mock battle like the tourney — you’ll probably find yourself on the ground. Do you want me to do my worst? I ask her. Wheel and flee rather than face the other knights?

She never answers, but I can see it in her face. If you loved me, you’d flee. I don’t know how to make her understand that the two aren’t incompatible. I do love her — but I have to fight.

I survive the first charge, though only just. I’m still worrying about the banner I saw, and don’t have my lance properly sat in its fewter. But they call it the tourney because the true test is when you hear the shout of tournez. Turn again. Any fool with enough courage can risk the first charge. It’s turning to go back that really tests your mettle, when your arm’s shivering and your lance is a splintered stump, when you no longer have your comrades riding knee to knee. Reining in a horse from full gallop, bringing him round and spurring him to the next charge is no easy feat. If you’re too slow, you’ll get broadsided by the enemy who turned faster.

I wheel about and spur forward, trying to edge down the line to my left. I can’t see where the banner’s gone. There are no blunted weapons on this field: if Jocelin’s here, it would be easy to kill him.

A knight on a bay charger comes galloping at me, heading me off. I put the banner out of my mind and draw my sword. It’s always more dangerous the second time. Neither of you, man or horse, is as focussed. The worst injuries happen now: the shield you don’t hold high enough, the piece of armour that’s come unlaced, the dazed horse who staggers at the crucial moment.

I prick my spurs and return to the battle.

It’s a good day for us. By the time the bugles end it, we’ve taken a dozen prisoners, including a castellan’s son who should fetch a good price. My body aches all over, though nothing compared with what it’ll be like tomorrow. I’ve got a cut above one eye where a splinter caught me, but otherwise it’s only bruises.

Yet I still feel uneasy. I watched for it all day, but I never found the banner I’d spotted. After the second charge, the tourney splintered into scores of skirmishes and individual combats, gradually spreading over miles of fields. I had to stay close to my company; I couldn’t risk myself alone.

I tell myself it’s probably nothing. Lots of knights carry blue banners — and even if it was Jocelin, he could have broken his lance on my shield and never recognised me. But I’m eager to get back to our camp and find Ada.

The tent’s empty; she’s not there. Etienne and the men have gone to feast in the Count’s castle, but one of the grooms is sitting by the fire, drinking wine we took as ransom for a Burgundian knight.

‘Where’s Ada?’

He wipes wine from his mouth. ‘She went to meet a horse-dealer at the chapel of Saint Sebastian, near the forest.’

Why not the horse market? I hurry down between the rows of tents, trying not to snag my spurs on the guy ropes. I’m so busy watching my footing I don’t see the young squire approaching. I barrel clean into him. It’s only as I draw back, murmuring an apology, that I see his face. The red-brown hair in loose curls, the mouth that droops down at the corners, the cheeks that never quite lost their youthful fat.

‘William?’

‘Peter?’

He’s not happy to see me. He knots his hands together and twists them in his tunic. He doesn’t know what to say.

‘It’s good to see you again.’ I have a fixed smile on my face; my mind’s racing. How much does he know? Who can he tell?

‘Have you taken service with another knight?’

He shakes his head. ‘I’m here with Jocelin.’

I should kill him — cut his throat, sink him in the town ditch. But we lived in each other’s pockets for six years: sparred, played, joked and fought together. He isn’t my enemy.

I put my hands on his shoulders and force him to look at me.

‘Where can I find Jocelin?’

William stares at the ground. He mumbles something — I probably wouldn’t have caught it, but I heard the name just five minutes ago.

‘The chapel of Saint Sebastian.’

The chapel stands on the edge of a mown field, with a walled crypt beside it. I arrive on my charger, armed and helmed. I don’t see anyone there.

A cry comes to me on the evening air. I follow the sound, around the churchyard wall to the place where the forest comes hard up against it.

She’s tied to a birch tree wearing nothing but her shift, so badly ripped that there’s barely a palm’s breadth of cloth intact. Rasping blows have lacerated her skin, and there are burn marks on her arms that look like the tip of a heated sword.

Her eyes open, tiny points of light against deep wells of shadow. ‘Peter?’

I jump down and run towards her, my sword drawn to cut the ropes.

‘Go away.’

They’re the last words she speaks to me and I wish she hadn’t said them. I want to remember her voice as it was, full of life and spirit. Not this cry, dragged out of her in agony.

A harness jangles to my left. I turn. A knight rides out of the shadows of the forest, flanked by four or five men on foot with spears. One of them runs to my horse and grabs the bridle.

‘What have you done to her?’

‘Not what you think. Not yet.’

I can’t see Jocelin’s face, but I know his voice. It’s rich with triumph.

‘She’s still my father’s property, for all she’s whored herself to you. Perhaps when he’s finished with her, he’ll give her to me. And when I’m finished, I’ll give what’s left to the stable boys for their sport.’

I wish I hadn’t dismounted. I wish I’d never come to this tournament. I wish I’d killed Jocelin that night in the tower.

‘Let her go. Let her go and take me.’

He laughs. ‘I don’t have to choose.’

They’re paltry words. But in that clearing, with blood in my mouth and guilt flooding through me, they make me snap. I’m back in Guy’s hall fighting over a stolen book. I know I can’t beat him: he’s on horseback, fully armed, but it doesn’t matter. I put up my sword and charge at Jocelin. One of his men drops into a crouch and hurls his spear at me. Out of pure instinct, I duck.

The spear sails over my head and makes a soft, clean landing, barely a sound. I turn, though I already know what I’ll see. It struck Ada clean through the breast, pinning her to the tree. Her hands clutch the shaft: she’s trying to pull it out. She doesn’t have the strength. Her arms go limp, still gripping the spear; her head drops. Blood flows down the ash, touches her hand and drips onto the ground.

Even Jocelin didn’t mean that to happen. His surprise is a fraction slower than my fury. I fly towards him and get inside his guard: he pulls his boot from his stirrup and kicks the sword out of my hand, but I grab his arm and sink my teeth into his exposed hand. He screams and loosens his grip. I grab the sword by the blade and wrest it out of his hands. It cuts my fingers and I let it fall. He wants to bring his shield round, to chop it down on my head, but the straps get caught on the pommel.

I cling on to his leg, trying to wrestle him out of the saddle. Something comes away in my hand — his spur. Gripping it like a knife, I plunge it into the exposed leg just above his knee.

There’s a howl of agony. I want to keep hold of the spur, to keep stabbing him until all the blood drains from his body. But surprise makes the horse move. My frenzied thrust misses Jocelin’s leg and sinks into its flank.

The sound of a screaming horse is worse than a screaming man. The horse rears up; its hooves drum the air inches from my face. It lurches forward, trying to outrun the agony of the spur stuck in its side. I fling out my arms to grab on to Jocelin, but a hoof strikes my chest, kicking me back onto the ground. Then he’s gone.

The other men flit about me, shadows on the edge of the clearing. I can hear a couple running after Jocelin; the other two wait, wondering what to do. They could kill me easily, but perhaps they don’t know if Jocelin wants me alive.

Shouts and hooves in the falling darkness decide them. If I twist on my side, I can see fire on the meadow, horsemen with torches riding towards us. They’re calling for me.

Jocelin’s serjeants melt into the forest as Etienne and his men gallop up to the clearing. It’s as well they’re carrying torches or they might have ridden straight over me.

‘Peter?’

They’re all staring at Ada, speared to the tree. The weight of the shaft has prised open the wound: her white shift is drenched in blood that’s black in the firelight. Shock’s written on their faces. They all liked her.

I fall on my knees and vomit onto the ground. Etienne puts a tentative arm on my shoulder, but I shake him off.

He thinks he’s saved me. But Ada’s dead, my mother and father and brother are dead, and the men who did it haven’t been punished. I’ve failed everyone I ever loved.

Nothing can save me now except revenge.