The Seal(21)

Beneath and in front of the aperture arrows found the carcasses of men and horses that mingled in the dust. Etienne, having a thought for his shield, moved from behind the olive press on his belly, using the body of the horse as cover. The wooden shield had been thrown from his hand as he fell and he was now about to take it up and make a run into the ruined building when he heard a noise like wood splintering, then a muffled cry and more sounds of scuffle coming from within. He raised an eye and saw no Catalan upon the roof. The man, he realised, had fallen through as Jourdain had warned. He saw Jourdain rush into the mouth of the church then, and a moment later from out of the gloom there was heard a cry, a snapping and then silence. Jourdain was first to come out with a grim look, carrying a body, which he threw on the ground into the pile of dead things.

‘I know this man, his name is Pierre!’ he said to Etienne. ‘The blacksmith.’

Behind him Delgado was dragging another man by the legs. The crossbow he held in his hands he threw down at Etienne’s feet. His captive’s legs were let go and they fell with a dusty thump. Etienne saw the man had an arrow through one cheek that came out at the other. The Catalan dragged him by the hair to a kneeling position and steadied him with a hand on the head, patting it and smiling.

‘Here is our friend, Lord Etienne – he would not die and I have left him to you, so that you may take the pleasure of it.’

Etienne looked through the sunlight to the man, trembling and holding his jaw together with both hands. Tears came from the eyes and blood dripped from the parallel wounds on his cheeks.

Etienne recognised him. ‘Jourdain,’ he said with a flat voice. ‘See this?’

Jourdain came to him and looked at the man. ‘Why, if it isn’t Alphonse!’ the young captain said. ‘The disrobed scribe . . .’

The wounded man raised his head and squinted away the tears and the sun, to look from Jourdain to the figure of the seneschal.

‘You are in the service of Ayme d’Oselier?’ Etienne said to him, frowning.

There was a careful nod and a moan deep in the throat and more tears.

Etienne made a squat and his abused leg gave a pang of dis-agreement so that he had to put the other knee to the ground and use his sword to steady him. He was now at the level of the man’s eye.

‘If your mother could see you now, Alphonse,’ Etienne told him, ‘she would take back all the food you gave her.’

The man moaned and sobbed.

‘Listen to me . . . it is your wish that I have pity on you, am I right?’

The man nodded.

‘You may not speak, but I know you can write with quill on parchment, and so you will be my messenger,’ he said. ‘Tell the marshal that if he wishes to see one more night, he will leave this day and he will not look over his shoulder. Do you understand? This day without so much as a look!’

The man closed his eyes and nodded, for he understood.

‘Tell him I will not be his judge, but God in his heaven.’

The man nodded again.

‘Good.’ He leant on the sword and stood, and to Jourdain he said, ‘Get his horse and let him go.’

Jourdain dragged the man to his feet, threw him on his horse and gave a loud slap to the flank of the animal so that it bolted down the track with the man barely hanging on with one hand and holding his face with the other. It would be a painful ride.

Etienne spat dirt from his mouth and looked around. His head cooked in the sun and his eyes hurt to see.

Gideon had a blade in his hand and was pulling the breeches off one of the carcasses. ‘What?’ Etienne asked him.

‘The sacs, I will cut them out,’ he said.

‘Sacs?’

Aubert smiled solicitously to Etienne and motioned to the jacket made up of patchworks of leather, which his compatriot wore over his chest. ‘See it, lord? Made of skin from the ball sacs of his enemies – there is good protection in it.’ He was all matter-of-fact. ‘Your mail is no match for it – it is magic!’

The Catalan smiled all white teeth in a brown face and cocked his head to one side, looking to Etienne from eyes shy of the sun. ‘Gideon is a heathen,’ he said, as merry as a girl, ‘and will not meet our Lord in heaven.’

Gideon looked up from his work and gave the Catalan a look full of malice. ‘You make fun, Spaniard, but one day I shall cut out your sacs and I shall leave them for the hawks and wolves since they shall be no good for anything else!’

Delgado considered this with a serious face. ‘You are right, Gideon!’ he said. ‘For I shall have withered all their magic from an abundance of use!’ He looked to Aubert and to Jourdain and from him there came a laugh and he slapped his knee and laughed again. ‘But yours, my Gideon! Yours shall have good magic from lack of use because Norman women smell like goats in season and have the feel of wrinkled prunes!’