Warlord(90)

‘The man I killed in the Grand Chastelet – Guillaume du Bois – he was one such bandit,’ I said. Uncle Thibault’s information seemed to confirm what I had suspected: that the ‘man you cannot refuse’ had sent Guillaume into that stinking cell with specific orders to kill me.

‘There are other stories about this “man you cannot refuse” – strange tales that tell of his possession of a magical relic that makes him all-powerful, impervious to death, impossible to kill,’ said the Seigneur, ‘although I doubt there is any truth in them.’

‘I am not so sure,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine, now with God and the angels, suggested something similar recently.’

‘I can easily see why he has claimed that title: the “man you cannot refuse”,’ said Roland. ‘It is rather dashing – mysterious, commanding, awe-inspiring … And with the degree of wealth that he is rumoured to have, he could buy whatever he wishes, or if his demands were ignored, enforce his will with his bandit-rascals or these knightly assassins that you spoke of before. Truly he is a “man you cannot refuse”. And having a supernatural gew-gaw only adds to the impression of awe he is trying to create, I suppose.’

‘So what will you do next?’ asked Adèle, fixing me with her lovely green eyes. As she spoke to me, I could see the Seigneur gazing at her with quiet, complete adoration.

‘Well, I must speak with Bishop de Sully – no matter how enfeebled he is. And so I will be visiting the Abbey of St Victor as soon as I can arrange it.’

‘If there is any way in which I can be of assistance – I have a handful of loyal men-at-arms, a little money, some useful connections …’ said the Seigneur.

I smiled at my uncle: ‘That is most kind, sir,’ I said. ‘And I thank you for your offer from the bottom of my heart. But I am merely planning to pay a brief visit to a sick old man.’


There are some decisions that a man makes which he must live with, for good or ill, for the rest of his life. One such was my decision to take Hanno with me when we set off two days later, for the Abbey of St Victor. It was early morning when we left, and Hanno had come home late the night before after visiting his ale-wife, and he was sleepy and more than a little hungover on that fateful morn. For a few moments, I considered leaving him behind with Thomas at the Widow Barbette’s house, and going alone to St Victor’s. A part of me said that I was merely going to see an invalid – and what need could I possibly have of a bodyguard in a House of God? Another part of me whispered that there had been three attempts on my life in the past three months, and the ‘man you cannot refuse’, if he discovered my plans, might well try to prevent me meeting the venerable Bishop. In the end, I waited while he had splashed his face, drunk a pint of watered ale and collected his weapons, and we rode off together. It was a decision I have weighed many times since then.

We headed south-east, just Hanno and myself, he on his palfrey, I on my courser, making our way along the southern bank of the River Bièvre beyond the boundaries of Paris for less than a mile until we came to the high walls and stout gates of the Abbey. It was quiet and deeply peaceful out there, away from the bustle of the city streets and, as the fields outside the Abbey walls had been carefully cultivated by the canons over many years and sown with homely cabbages and leeks and onions, the whole area had a sleepy, village-like feel.

We told the porter at the gate, a half-deaf canon who must have been eighty or even older, that we had come from the cathedral of Notre-Dame with an urgent message from the Dean for Bishop de Sully. As I had hoped, it was enough to get us inside the gates and the old man pointed out a path to follow that would lead us to the south of the Abbey where the Bishop had his apartments.

The Abbey sprawled over a very large area; it had almost as wide a precinct as the Paris Temple, though of course it was much older, and had filled the space within its walls with dozens of stone buildings, including a huge abbey-church in the centre, as well as scores of humbler wooden constructions. And inside the high walls, it was as busy as a small market town, and nearly as populous. Wide roads drove through the abbey in a cross-shaped formation, meeting at the centre, and were trod by canons, scholars, merchants, workmen and men-at-arms; several well-laden carts clopped along these thoroughfares too and a haze of dust hovered above them in shifting brown clouds. To the north of the Abbey where the River Bièvre flowed towards the Seine, there was a broad wooden dock and two large ships were moored there unloading and loading goods. Clearly the Abbey was rich – and I could assume that old Bishop de Sully would not lack for material comforts in his final days.