Warlord(20)

I had to jolt him from this path of thought, and so I straightened up and cuffed him none too gently on the shoulder: ‘War is cruel, Thomas. It is monstrously cruel. But you played your part well, like a man, like a soldier. Think of your fate if those Frenchmen you singed yesterday had got inside the castle. What then?’ My voice sounded unnecessarily loud and harsh, but I could not help myself. ‘That would be you lying there right now.’ And I pointed over at the blood-drenched cavalryman, just as Father Jean closed his eyes for the last time. The boy said nothing.



‘Now, Thomas, I want you to go and find Peter the vintenar and tell him I shall be making an inspection of the castle defences at noon. And his men had better be ready – or I’ll have the hide off somebody’s back. Run along now.’

The obedient fellow sniffed, wiped a snail’s trail from his nose with his sleeve, and trotted away.


Father Jean would not leave the wounded, even for half an hour to talk on a matter of great importance to me – and so I stayed with him as he made his rounds, helping the wounded men to drink cool river water from earthenware cups, and mopping the fresh blood and pain-sweat from the men’s ripped and ruined bodies. It meant that our conversation was broken by screams and moans and appeals to the Almighty. But I was intent on hearing his tale, and longed so much to learn all he knew, that the awful sufferings of my men only remain in my memory as a blur. I wiped brows and helped to set broken limbs, and cleaned the filthy voidings from between their legs as Father Jean and I spoke, yet, God forgive me, I recall none of their heartbreaking travails in detail, while I remember his story with perfect clarity.

‘As I think you already have guessed,’ Jean de Puy began, ‘I knew your father in Paris. I first met Henri d’Alle in the autumn of the thirty-sixth year of the reign of King Louis, the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ eleven hundred and seventy two. I was twenty-two years old, of an age with your father, and our meeting occurred in unforgettable circumstances. We were both young monks attached to the cathedral of Notre-Dame as choristers; it was our duty, indeed our honour, to sing the Mass inside the small portion of the new cathedral that had been completed – as well as in the old Merovingian cathedral, which was still standing then. We sang joyfully, for the glory of God and for the edification of our fellow men.

‘Even in its uncompleted state, the new cathedral was a beautiful space and the sound of our voices echoing up through that huge space must surely have been a God-pleasing sound. I did not know Henri – there were fifty or so monks who gave their voices to God there under the energetic and much-loved Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully. As I was new to the choir myself, I did not yet know all the monks who belonged to it. But, as I say, I met your father in a fashion that it would be impossible to forget. In fact, I remember our meeting with a good deal of pleasure.

‘I was hurrying towards the cathedral from the chapter house where I had been receiving extra tuition in Latin grammar from the master; it was mid-morning and I was late for the office of Nones when I came upon a crowd of young monks and novices beside a pile of masonry next to the half-built outside wall of the choir – they were mostly choristers, but also some visiting monks too; from Cluny, I believe. They were laughing and shouting – it was quite unsuitable behaviour for men of the cloth just outside a House of God and, worse, they were taunting a young novice, whom they called Trois Pouces. He was a thin boy from somewhere in the far south, I believe – younger than us and very good-looking, and I think some of the older monks had been sorely tempted by his beauty – but he did have one defect that gave rise to his unusual name. On his left hand he had an extra thumb, which was why they called him Three Thumbs. The two duplicated digits were small but well formed with a complete nail on each one and both growing out of a central root. It was as if someone had taken a knife and split his true thumb about halfway down the centre and the two halves had healed themselves as two perfect new digits. Some said it must be the sign of the Devil, others said that, having given him immense physical beauty, God had decided that there must be one tiny flaw in Trois Pouces to keep him from the sin of pride. But either for his looks or his extra thumb, or for what-ever reason, the other young monks did not like him. And they made his life a living Hell, tormenting him night and day, making up little hurtful rhymes about his deformity and calling him Trois Pouces – or sometimes, casually, just Pouces.

‘The young monks were at their sport when I came hurrying around the corner, late for the service in the cathedral. A gang of them had surrounded Pouces and were chanting something hurtful that had made the boy cry. The ringleader, a big, brawny fellow named Fulk, had Pouces by his left wrist and was holding up his arm to display the wretched boy’s misfortune for his friends’ ridicule. And then your father arrived.’