The Seal(60)

Etienne could not help but give a laugh. ‘When we speak we seem to stew things down to nothing! Is that what philosophers do?’

‘I am sure of it!’

It was near dark and the trees made a canopy over their heads.

Etienne had more to say. ‘But you have almost got it right.’

‘Almost?’ Jourdain’s voice was full of amazement.

‘Almost,’ said Etienne, happy to once again have the boy on the edge of his saddle. ‘These commandments are laws that work upon us from without. The covenant was the promise that men would follow these commandments and in the same spirit do we follow our rule. But it is my feeling that it shall, some day, be time for a new covenant, a law that comes from the heart . . .’

There was silence for a time. Gideon ahead of them was fast becoming a shadow draped in a fading world. All around them quiet hung like a wall.

Jourdain dug his chin into his cloak; something was bothering him. ‘You say that a law must come from within . . . each man will feel such a law differently . . . What I wonder, then, is how faith can remain the same when all men follow different rules.’

‘Faith is a living thing, Jourdain, that moves and weaves in the soul and so is never the same from man to man. It is not

always held by habit and cannot be fixed by a rule.’

Jourdain pulled a frown over his features. ‘I can see that, Etienne, that faith alters from man to man . . . but it seems to me that if a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind. When there is no law to follow, faith becomes disordered. Perhaps because of it God shall not continue to have faith in us.’

Etienne could hear an old longing that seemed to him ill placed in the tone of that youthful voice.

How could the boy think differently, he asked himself, when he was like a speck in the wind that knows nothing of its destination or the reason for its movement?

‘Why should our faith remain in the same position, Jourdain? When the ground has moved from beneath us, and we have no rule, it is natural that our faith shall lose its place until it finds a handhold to balance itself and return to where it once stood. In my estimation it shall take time for that inner voice to replace the outer one, and when it does it will lend us a footfall when the world is in confusion and there are no rules left to us.’ Etienne gave a weary smile. ‘God’s faith in his children, on the other hand, is a thing solid and steadfast and needs no floor upon which to rest. At least, that is what we must hope.’

Etienne saw something then that made him pause, and his animal paused also, unsure of its master’s desire.

There was a whistle from Delgado behind the group, who, confronted by the sudden and unexpected standstill, pulled the reins in time to prevent a collision

‘Hey!’ he said.

But there was something to Etienne’s silence and strange pause that made all men look in the direction of his gaze.

The trees moved against the breeze-blown snow. Shadows stirred the darkness and something else besides the tree limbs above and to the left of their track. Etienne urged his horse past Jourdain and Gideon to a place almost disguised by trees and dimness. He let go the reins, retrieved the knife from his boot and reached for the sword over his shoulder. Everything was still, save the sleet falling about the ears.

The men followed, quiet and watchful.

Etienne stretched the long blade in the air until it touched something.

There were a dozen that he could see, perhaps more, swinging from the trees, naked, like limbs without leaves, or so they had at first looked to him. Wisps of snow fell over them. In the gloom what was seen most clearly were the crosses . . .

Painted over the pale flesh of the breasts in blood.





25


BODIES

Darkling they went under the lonely night through the shadow and through the empty dwellings and unsubstantial realms of Hades.

Virgil, Aenid


Etienne stirred a foot with his sword, dangling as though it were decoration, and sniffed the air around it. ‘Fresh killed,’ he said. ‘Today.’ He fidgeted his horse forward, Jourdain followed him. He motioned for Gideon and Delgado to bring up the rear. With Jourdain close behind, Etienne surveyed the darkening thicket, the tangled, matted mass of vines and brambles and trees and snow coming down. He listened to that unnatural quiet, wherein he heard the snapping of twigs under the hoofs of the horses and the straining of the jaw in the ears – listening, straining to listen. Then it came.

From out of the trees, no more than shapes.

‘Desperte ferre!’ he heard from the Catalan and there was no time to call out ‘Beauseant’, only to fend off a shadow that, bearing down at him on one side, made him push with an out-throw of strength that sucked the breath from his lungs. He turned around and raised the sword as the figure came up. ‘I will fight!’ he shouted, letting it fall through the head and to the breastbone. As the body collapsed Etienne undertook to tug the weapon free but he was struck by a blow to the shoulder and, having lost his balance, was forced to follow his weapon – stuck as it was in the body of his enemy – downward from his horse and into the darkness. He landed on the hilt awkwardly, driving it into his side and the blade into the ground at the other end.