I said nothing. My chest throbbed. He was right. And perhaps oddly, I no longer felt the burning urge for vengeance against the Master. Hanno was dead, I was alive, barely, and the Master was gone. I had not the strength for revenge: this time I would let it lie.
After a while Robin stole another fig from the bowl and said: ‘Did you ever lay eyes on this wondrous object that was the cause of all this trouble, the relic that the Master stole from Heribert as a young man – this Grail thing?’
‘No, but I believe it was in the box on the altar in the chapel. And the Master took it with him when he fled.’
‘And do you think it is real?’ he said, cocking his head to one side, eyes bright and looking more than a little like his avian namesake.
‘I think the Master believes it to be real, and Sir Eustace and the Knights of Our Lady – it is real to them.’
‘What would a holy relic like that be worth, I wonder?’ Robin mused. Then he added: ‘I’ve read Christian of Troyes’s poem; he describes it as being made of pure fine gold and being adorned with many kinds of precious jewels. It should fetch a pretty decent amount at market, I would have thought.’
I looked at him; he had on his acquisitive expression, a glimmering flame of larceny behind his silver-bright eyes. And, for one reason or another, I badly wanted to dowse it.
‘If it is real, it is beyond price,’ I said. ‘A vessel that was used at the Last Supper and that also once held the blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Men would die for it, kill others for it – it would be the most wondrous, valuable and powerful object in the world – but not something that could be bought or sold with mere money. On the other hand, if it isn’t real, it is no more than a golden bowl worth a few pounds – after looting the French King’s wagon train at Fréteval, I’m sure you already have several better pieces.’
Robin caught my eye and, sensing my impatience with him, he dropped the subject. Instead, he pulled out a blood-spotted parchment letter, and waved it under my nose. ‘When Reuben was cutting you about, we found a money belt around your middle and a sealed pigskin pouch, and this letter inside. It is none of my business, I know – but I’m rather curious. Can you tell me what it is?’
I noted that Robin had been rummaging through my most personal possessions while I was unconscious. But the man had saved my life, and so I suppressed my irritation. In fact, I was happy to talk about a subject other than the Grail or the Master, so I explained to Robin how the Templars took a traveller’s money at one preceptory, and returned it at another, in another country, perhaps years later. Robin listened intently; he seemed fascinated by the process, and asked innumerable questions. I answered him as best I could, and when I had finished, Robin said: ‘And they charged you three shillings for this service? No wonder those God-struck bastards are so damned rich.’
Then he made a strange request: ‘Alan,’ he said, ‘might I ask a favour from you? Could I borrow this letter for a week or so? You will not be needing it until you return to England, and I would like to show it to a friend of mine. I swear I will not lose it.’
The days passed, the weather grew colder and before long it was November, and although the flesh of my chest was healing, I caught a dangerous chill that went straight into my lungs. Thomas and Reuben rarely left my bedside in those fever-racked weeks and Reuben admitted afterwards that I came closer to death in that sweat-drenched whirling nightmare of oozing bloody phlegm and racking coughs than I had done in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing. My dead visited me night and day, clustering around the bed but rarely speaking: merely looking at me imploringly. Men I had killed in battle years before and very nearly forgotten came to me then; they sat at the foot of my bed, their wounds fresh and bleeding: their quietness chided me. I screamed for their forgiveness; I begged them to leave me be; but they returned my fevered shouts with a vast, aching silence.
November became December and the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity came and went without my being conscious of that holy celebration: Robin and Little John had been called away to attend King Richard, who was keeping Christmas at Rouen, but Reuben and Thomas remained with me, and I realized that I was receiving the attention that a prince of the Church would receive from the monks of the Hotel-Dieu; whatever Robin had said to Bishop de Sully had had a profound effect. I was all but pampered like a lapdog, brought fine foods and wrapped in costly furs; read to by the monks each day – mostly dull homilies and sermons, but I knew that they meant well – and with a brazier almost constantly burning in the small cell to keep the winter chill at bay.