Warlord(33)

I said nothing, staring at the writhing scrum around the struggling brown-clad monk. One of the routiers had a firm grip on the monk’s bare ankle, and as I watched with horror he and his fellows wrestled the limb towards the fire and, with a heave, plunged the bare sole of the foot into a heap of orange-glowing embers at the edge of the blaze. There was a sizzle and a puff of grey-ish smoke and a stench like rancid roasting pork was released into the air.

The monk let out a long, high scream of agony. I felt sick – my mind went back to a damp dungeon in Winchester some years ago, and the pain of a red-hot iron being applied to my soft under-parts.

‘His cries have a somewhat musical quality, do you not think so, Sir Alan?’ said the mounted mercenary captain. ‘Perhaps you might compose something from his noise.’

‘What is his crime, that you should torment him so?’ I asked Mercadier, feeling my anger rise and wishing to Christ that the poor man, clearly the guardian of the shrine, would stop his terrible yowling.

‘Crime?’ said the scarred captain. ‘His crime is that he has failed to render unto Caesar those things that are rightfully Caesar’s.’

‘What?’ I was taken aback. I had not expected Mercadier to quote the scriptures.

He sighed. ‘He will not tell us where he keeps his silver, his coin, his valuables – the rich offerings from pilgrims who come to pray at this holy little shit-hole.’

‘Perhaps he has none,’ I said.

‘That is what we intend to find out,’ was the flat reply.

But I was slipping off my horse by then, all sense of caution flown to the winds. I marched over to the knot of men around the monk and roughly pulled one of them away by the shoulder.

‘Put him down,’ I said, quietly and firmly to the rest of them. Hanno was still in the saddle, but I could see that the loaded crossbow just happened to be resting on the pommel of his saddle and pointing unwaveringly in our direction.



The routiers around the monk were confused; some glanced over at Mercadier for orders, others glared at me for interrupting their sport. They still grasped the monk by his legs, shoulders and arms, but the man was no longer struggling nor, thank God, screaming. I saw his face for the first time: he was old, perhaps sixty, very gaunt, twig-thin, with watery blue eyes and only wisps of white hair on the papery skin of his scalp.

‘Put him down,’ I said again, this time louder and with a little more iron in the tone. ‘Put him down, gently!’

‘Why don’t you fuck off, Sir Knight, and find your own church mouse to play with,’ said a squat red-bearded man who was holding one of the monk’s twig-thin arms. ‘This one is ours!’

Without pausing even for an instant to think of the consequences of my actions, I swayed my shoulders and powered my head down and across in a short hard arc, smashing my forehead with massive force into the bridge of his nose. The redhead staggered back and fell to one knee, blood spurting from his flattened nose. He should have counted himself lucky that it had been too hot that day for me to wear my steel helm. The rest of the men holding the monk dropped their load as if it was a bar of red-hot iron, stepped back and began fumbling for their weapons. My hand went to my sword hilt and I half-drew the blade.

‘Leave him be,’ said a cold, dead voice with a slight Gascon accent, and every man around that fire froze. I ignored the men and their half-pulled weapons and reached down and tried to help the monk to his feet, but halfway through my action I realized that he would not be able to stand, so I picked him up bodily and slung him over my shoulder. He weighed no more than a ten-year-old.

I straightened up and looked round the circle of statue-like routiers, a hard challenge in my stare. And I caught Mercadier’s eye as I began to move away, the monk balanced on my left shoulder, heading back towards Ghost. He was smiling sardonically down at me from his horse. A blur of movement to my right: the redhead I had knocked down was on his feet, an axe in his hand, and he was coming for me. My sword hilt was entangled in the priest’s skinny legs. My heart banged once. The world slowed. I saw the red man, bloodied face snarling, draw back his axe to chop at my undefended head – then there was a twang, a thump and he was swept backwards, off his feet. And I found myself looking down at his writhing body, a black quarrel jutting from the centre of his chest.

Turning my head I saw that Hanno had already slung the crossbow from his saddle and drawn his sword. I moved quickly back towards Ghost, heaved the monk on to the grey’s haunches behind the high wooden saddle, and climbed into the seat as swiftly as I could. The men on the far side of the fire were still frozen, watching me, and making the air heavy with their silent hatred.