Warlord(40)

As I rode up to his tent, Mercadier was shaving himself, dipping a long dagger in a bucket of muddy water between strokes, glaring into a polished steel helm at his dark reflection, and carefully guiding the blade, which must have been extraordinarily keen, around his Adam’s apple.

My hand went unthinkingly to my own bristled chin. I did not wish to fall out with Mercadier on this day, a day when he would be facing mortal danger and I would very likely be safe from the fighting, and so I said in my most civil tone: ‘The King requests that you have your men ready to attack the outer wall at noon.’

‘Yes, fine, noon it is,’ he said, his Gascon accent particularly nasal.

I waited a moment for any further communication, and when he said nothing but merely continued to scrape away carefully at his jawline, I turned Shaitan and began to make my way towards the King.

While my back was turned, and I was a dozen yards away, I heard him speak: ‘Not with your precious priest today, Sir Knight?’

Scenting mockery, I turned in the saddle and saw that he was smiling crookedly at me, the bright sunlight making even more of a contrast between the long, puckered off-white scar and his half-shaven face. After weeks of campaigning, I noticed, his complexion was almost as dark as a Moor’s.

‘Not today,’ I said.

‘Well, you keep him safe, Sir Knight. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to such a saintly old man. That would be a terrible tragedy.’ And he laughed; a horrible dry sound.

I paused for a moment, groping for some rejoinder, but nothing came to me; and so I turned Shaitan’s head and rode on, a wave of grating laughter lapping in my wake.


Mercadier’s parting taunt turned my thoughts in the direction of Brother Dominic. We had been reunited at Tours and he seemed to be recovering from his ordeal, his feet healing steadily thanks to Elise’s charms and unguents. I discovered that he belonged to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity in Vendôme – the abbey in which the current abbot, who also had the dignity of the title cardinal, was … the erstwhile Bishop Heribert, author of my father’s expulsion from Notre-Dame.

‘Oh yes, the Cardinal is still in very good health for his years, praise God,’ quavered Dominic when I questioned him about his spiritual lord. This information lifted my heart – the Almighty had put this doddery old monk in my path, I was quite certain, for a reason, and I felt that the mystery surrounding my father’s death might not prove so impenetrable after all. It caused me to alter my plans for Dominic. When he was fit to travel, I hoped to send him back to Cardinal Heribert with a letter humbly requesting an audience. I had asked King Richard at Tours if I might be permitted to leave the army and pay a visit to the Cardinal myself, but I chose the wrong moment, it would seem. The King was in conference with a gaggle of his senior knights and barons, and was displeased to be interrupted with a petition such as mine. He had gruffly refused my request for leave and repeated what he had told me in Verneuil: that he could not spare me, he needed every sword, but that I might be permitted to pursue my quest at a later date.

As I headed back towards the ridge where Robin and the King were positioned, I saw that the outer wall of Loches Castle now had a gaping hole beside the main gate, which the defenders were making heroic efforts to plug with barrels and boxes and pieces of broken masonry. Before the wall, a loose and rocky ramp had been formed by tumbled stones and rubble from the defences. It was a rough and treacherous stair, but one that would make it possible for Mercadier’s nimble routiers to climb up and attack the breach. The enemy, however, had by no means given up: it was heart-breaking to watch those scurrying ant-like men hopelessly trying to patch the breach in their defences, for every few moments another huge stone missile would crash into the hastily repaired section, smashing the new wooden barricades to splinters and crushing the heroic men who were struggling to close the gap.

The massive keep, too, had been severely knocked about. The north-western corner had been gnawed away by Wall Eater and the other engines on the right-hand side of the road and a large section of the corner was missing, while the rest was pocked and scraped where the boulders had struck the masonry.

As I walked Shaitan up the slope towards the royal party, there was a flurry of activity in the eastern artillery company. Four of the big siege engines ceased their pounding, and four teams of oxen were led to the massive wooden frames and yoked up to them. The company was changing its point of attack. Whips cracked, sharp goads stabbed, the oxen leaned into their wooden yokes and the four machines rumbled fifty yards closer to the castle – though still well out of bow-shot. There was much shouting, and a scrum of men heaved at the engines as they were re-situated, but by the time I had rejoined the King and Robin, they had been secured in their new positions. And the pounding began anew – but this time joining their efforts to those of the big machines on the right of the road. Now fourteen ‘castle-breakers’ were concentrating their fury on the north-western corner of the keep.