Warlord(154)

I wanted to hear him scream for mercy.

Sir Eustace attacked again, using exactly the same manoeuvre: a swing of the sword and a snake-quick thrust with the lance-dagger. And once again I blocked the sword with my shield, and dodged the dagger thrust. Then I came at him – hard, fast and with all the bottled anger in my grieving soul. I swept Fidelity laterally at his neck, from the left and then the right, punched at the quarrel shaft protruding from his waist with my shield, driving it deeper into him, causing him to shout in pain and leap away – and then I took two quick steps in and smashed Fidelity hard and down into the outside of his mailed left knee. My blade did not penetrate but he howled, dropped to a kneeling position on the floor, I smashed the outer rim of my shield down on to his right wrist, and his sword clattered away. Immediately, he came surging up at me in a stumbling lunge, trying to grapple my shoulder with his empty right hand and plunge the lance-dagger into my belly with his left. I dodged to my right, out of his path, swung Fidelity and sliced down with all my might as he passed me, hacking through the mail and deep into his shoulder. He shouted once more, a short hard cry of shocked rage. His arm hung limp, useless, a deep purple gash of flesh exposed for an instant, a flash of round white bone. And then the blood fountained up; the lance-dagger dropped from his unfeeling fingers and skittered across the stone floor to land against my mailed foot. He turned to face me, and stood silent, massive-eyed, swaying, weaponless, his whole body drenched with his own spurting gore. I tucked Fidelity under my shield arm, bent down quickly and scooped up the lance-dagger in my right hand, hefted it, looked deeply into his black eyes, then stepped in and punched the blade into his chest, aiming for a spot an inch or so to the left of his sternum. He died there on his feet, staring back at me in disbelief for a single moment, before crashing to the floor.

I turned to the Master and saw that he was now on his knees. I grasped Fidelity once more. The man’s eyes were tightly shut, his head bowed in prayer, his hands still tucked together in the sleeves of his gown.

I was aware of a sigh, a gust of breath from half a dozen throats, followed by an admiring murmur from the assembled Westbury men, and sensed that others too were entering the room. There was a crush of bodies by the door, and I heard Thomas saying in a quiet steady voice: ‘Leave them be, this is Sir Alan’s task and his alone; stay back, boys, if you please, stand back.’

But my eyes were fixed upon the Master, and over the low hum of the watching folk behind me, I heard him repeat the familiar Latin words: ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Iesus. Sancta Maria mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae …’

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.

I looked down at him, Fidelity slack in my right hand. I must tell you, my friends, for all that I knew he was truly evil, it is no easy thing to kill a monk who is on his knees praying, no easy thing at all. I conjured up an image of Hanno in my mind, his laughing face, the shaven head and terrible teeth; I thought of the adventures we’d had together in far-off lands, his stories, his love of fat women and good ale, and still I hesitated to strike my enemy down.

I thought of my father – and finally lifted Fidelity, high above my head, my wrists cocked, ready to strike the final blow. Brother Michel opened his bright blue eyes and looked up at my face – and deep into my soul. His left hand emerged from the sleeve of his robe: it bore a small silver crucifix; plain, brilliant, the miniature figure of our Lord exquisitely rendered. He held it out towards me. He held it so that his ugly split thumb divided either side of the lower part of the cross, twin perfect digits, with well-trimmed white nails poking out to the left and right of Our Lord’s tiny, silver feet, as if supporting Him, as if easing His suffering in the hour of His death.

‘You cannot kill me, Alan,’ he said in a soft, calm, infinitely reasonable voice, raising the crucifix towards me. ‘You do know that, don’t you? I serve the Mother of God and her only son Our Lord Jesus Christ. I am a man of God. You could no more kill me than you could take your own life. To kill me is to deny God! I command you, by the power of the Almighty, by the power of Our Lady Mary, to lay down your sword.’

The world shook itself, and blurred sickeningly before my eyes. The muscles of my arms and back, the meaty fibres that supported Fidelity in its attack position above my head were frozen; I could never have moved, even if my life had depended on it. Suddenly I was transported to Nottingham Castle five years earlier – and Sir Ralph Murdac, my hated enemy, saying: ‘If you kill me, you will never know the secret of your father’s death.’