The Seal(20)

Etienne gave a look to the Normans who were lying upon the earth with their swords beneath them, the Catalan who lay on his back relaxed, holding his axe as if it were a fine, light thing. Then he looked back at Iterius who stood behind them, trembling. His ignoble countenance was staring upwards to the cloud-free sky in a caricature, or so it looked to Etienne, of prayer.

A sound took away Etienne’s attention and he returned his gaze to the church, whereupon he saw a man dressed not in coif and mail but in ordinary dress come out of the ruin. The man looked around, arching his back, and took to the bushes nearby. He then proceeded to pull down his breeches in order to attend to the ministry of his intestinal needs.

Etienne thought this a fine piece of luck and made a signal for the Normans to move with stealth behind the body of the church. Gideon took it upon himself to come upon the man by surprise and after that Aubert found a position on one side of the church door while the Catalan moved to the other. Etienne then signalled Jourdain, who understood his intentions and went to fetch the horses.

When he returned and Etienne saw that Gideon had bested the man at his bodily toils and was now preventing him from shouting out with one hand while holding a long-bladed knife to his throat, he made a sign at the Egyptian, trying to catch his eye, and had to resort to throwing a stone at him. Iterius convulsed and trembled further and nodded. Etienne motioned for him to mount a horse but Iterius threw his superior a look of misery. The seneschal’s silent regard, however, caused him to take himself over his horse in an unsteady fashion so that he almost fell. Etienne and Jourdain mounted and followed behind, putting spurs to the horses and pointing them upwards over the lip of land dotted with loose rocks in a thunder of hoofs and a clatter that made a tempest of noise. This clamour and stirring of dust in the bright, indolent heat verged on the sound of a cavalcade and, being mixed up now with the wails of terror and pain emitted by the captured man, being poked by Gideon with his long-bladed knife, it flushed out three men one after the other, two with swords and one carrying a Turkish mace.

‘What?’ cried one man and Etienne saw only his eyes move from surprise to horror and become fixed as his head came under Delgado’s blade. The head fell to the ground with a thud and rolled forward, and the body, still moving, stumbled over it, collapsed and was still.

Aubert for his part took a jump onto the shoulder of the man carrying the mace. His short knife he stuck through one eye and there followed a discharge of blood from the face, accompanied by a throw of convulsions and screaming that would have sent the Norman flying off the man’s back except that his boot became entangled in the mace’s leather thong and he was drawn under as his victim’s body fell over him.

Into this melee of tangled bodies and horses came a third man headed for Etienne. Etienne raised his sword and leant low over the neck of his horse. He took a sweep with his broadsword and felt it make a deep cut; the man spun around but did not drop his weapon, instead he gathered to him his wits and with a holler set his sights on the flank of Etienne’s horse. Jourdain saw it and made for the man, driving his broadsword into his back, but not before a blade was driven into the animal. It gave a long terror-filled cry and collapsed over the body of its assailant, taking Etienne with it. Etienne lay pinned between man and beast. The pain in his leg shot upwards, branching across his abdomen, and it was all he could do to prevent his head from falling into blackness. Jourdain came to his aid and Etienne was only able to recover his bruised leg because the body of his enemy had taken the brunt of the load.

Now there were arrows flying through the air. One or, more likely, two men had grown some intelligence and were now shooting from inside the church. Etienne and Jourdain threw themselves behind the olive press to find that Iterius had already found refuge there and lay moaning and whimpering with a quarrel embedded in his calf.

From their vantage point they could see that Aubert had freed his foot and was scampering among the bushes near the aperture, to the place where stood Gideon who, having long disposed of his victim, was watching the little war with interest from the sidelines. The Catalan came up behind and passed the two men with a laugh and climbed nimbly atop the roof of the church with his face all smiles and his arms extended, like those of a performer or jongleur whose task was to provide distraction from boredom.

Jourdain had left Etienne to take what horses were not killed away from arrow fire. These he tied to a low-hung tree some way off and moved himself to the other side of the aperture to watch Delgado balancing on the roof like a cat. He smiled at the Catalan. ‘Eh Delgado, watch it doesn’t fall in!’