Warlord(106)

The Bishop was standing now by the window, staring out at the snow-covered cathedral: ‘Look at it, Sir Alan – just imagine its splendour when completed! It is my life’s work; it is the fruit of a life dedicated to Almighty God. Is that magnificent monument to the Mother of Christ not worth a little mummery with an old bowl?’

I stood and looked past the Bishop’s shoulder and saw … a building – an enormous, very grand, beautifully constructed, three-parts-built, snow-covered building. But a just building nonetheless – and one that had indirectly caused the death of my father and my friend. I made no reply to the Bishop but sat down on the bed again, suddenly overwhelmed with a great weariness.

The Bishop turned and regarded me for a while: ‘I came,’ he said, ‘to make an apology to you. And perhaps to try to explain myself, and seek your forgiveness for what has passed between us. But I can see that you would not welcome that little speech. And so I will leave you with a gift of information. It is this: if you seek Brother Michel – and I suspect that even if you do not wish to encounter him again now, you or your hard-faced master will decide to seek him out one day – you will find him in the south, in Aquitaine. Viscount Aimar of Limoges is his cousin; they were boyhood friends – and he told me once, after he had taken too much wine, that it was in those lands, and those lands only, that he felt truly happy and at peace. When he has no other place to run to, Michel will go south, and you will find him under his cousin’s protection. And, if you do meet him again, you may give him my curse.’



I thanked the Bishop for his counsel, and once again for his hospitality, although I could not find it in my heart to utter words of forgiveness, and he blessed me and took his leave. And then I thought about the information that he had given me, and felt a heavy weight on my heart. I could not even contemplate a journey so far to the south on a mission of vengeance. Robin was right: revenge was an idiotic indulgence. Besides, the thought of another encounter with the Master chilled my stomach. I finished the wine, crawled into my blankets and, although it was not yet noon, I was asleep in an instant.


I left Paris in the spring, still weak and low in spirits, but at least able to ride the ambling horse that I had purchased for the journey – Robin had sold the courser and had arranged for Shaitan under the care of two grooms to be sent back to Westbury months ago. Before I left, I bade farewell to the noble French family in the big house on the Rue St-Denis – my family. Adèle had visited me often in my cot at the Hotel-Dieu, bringing me hot soup and egg possets and fresh fruit, and fussing over me in an irritating but also deeply comforting way. Reuben had departed in February, with my heartfelt gratitude, saying that he could do no more than that which the monks at the Hotel-Dieu and my own constitution might achieve. And he had business matters to attend to in Montpellier, anyway; he could not spend the rest of his life fussing over me like a mother. Roland and the Seigneur had visited me twice at the Hotel, but they were both uncomfortable in a sick-room, as I have found many fit and active men to be, as if my wound could somehow weaken their own robust bodies. But they made an attempt at joviality, and shrugged off my thanks for saving my life as if breaking into an abbey and battling deluded would-be Templar knights was nothing out of the ordinary.

When I called on them before my departure from Paris, the Seigneur greeted me in the big dining chamber on the ground floor with a bear-hug, Roland clasped my arm warmly and beautiful Adèle kissed me on both cheeks. I was pleased to see that Roland’s face had healed and the scar – a large pink shiny patch on his left cheek – was not as disfiguring as it might have been.

My cousin seemed to hold no grudge against me for marking him in such a cruel way: ‘In battle a man will do what he must to defeat an opponent,’ he told me. ‘I might have done the same to you, had our positions been reversed. But God forbid that it should ever come to that again.’ I felt a rush of affection for my newly discovered cousin and his chivalrous attitudes. He would never stoop to petty revenge, and I was certain that he would be a very good man to have beside you in the battle line.

We dined simply, as Thomas and I were to leave Paris the next morning and we had much to do before our departure, taking only a little wine and cold meat and cheese at the Seigneur’s board.

The talk turned, inevitably, to the war. While the truce between Richard and Philip had been largely observed – apart from some discreet castle-rebuilding on both sides and a few reckless raiding forays by the wilder knights in both armies – we all knew that it could not last for ever. It was March by now, a month rightly named for the Roman God of War, and the beginning of the campaigning season. The warmer spring weather would bring the bellicose spirits on both sides bubbling up to the surface. A raid would lead to a skirmish, and that might end in a battle or a siege. A truce was not a peace, after all – and as long as King Philip’s men occupied large parts of Normandy, Richard was bound by his sense of honour to fight him. It was his patrimony, after all, granted him by God and his father, Henry – it was his duty to recover the territories for himself and for his as yet unborn descendants.