‘You are insolent, my friend, but not inaccurate – do you think knowledge will help to save your life? Keep talking and we shall see. What else do you know?’
I opened my eyes and squinted at him through the harsh light. ‘I know that my father protected you from bullies at Notre-Dame and that you repaid his kindness by blackening his name and allowing him to take the blame for your crime against Bishop Heribert. I know that you are Trois Pouces!’
The superior smile on the Master’s face was wiped away by my words. He tucked his hands across his chest, back into their habitual position in the sleeves of his robe, and stared at me stone-faced.
‘I have not been called that for a long, long time,’ he said slowly. ‘And were it not for the dire threats that this Jew has made to me on behalf of the Earl of Locksley, I would kill you now, this very instant, for those words.’
He paused for a few moments, and I caught Reuben’s eye. He was frowning at me, glaring and shaking his head – it was almost comical. Then Brother Michel said: ‘But God has taught us that to lie is a sin, any lie, and indeed I must own my actions. Yes, I did steal from Bishop Heribert, and yes, I did allow your father to take the blame for my crime, and yes, I did order his death at the hands of Sir Ralph Murdac because I feared that he would expose me. I admit all of that, freely. And I will answer to God for it on Judgment Day – but, I tell you Sir Alan, I would do it all over again, a hundred times, if I had to. For I serve a higher purpose, one that soars above the concerns of petty morality, above the life or death of one man, even a dozen men, a hundred; I serve the highest purpose of all. I serve the Queen of Heaven! I serve Our Lady! All that I do, everything, from the moment I wake to the time I fall exhausted into my miserable cot, is directed towards that one aim. And every day, when I contemplate my sins, I can look out of my window and see that monument to her greatness, the superb embodiment of her majesty, that goal that I strive for, rising, slowly, inexorably, week after week, month after month—’
‘The cathedral of Notre-Dame,’ I said.
‘Yes, Sir Alan, yes. The cathedral! It will be the most magnificent church in Christendom and a fitting tribute to the Mother of God. When I returned to Paris from Spain, my Order disbanded, destroyed by those blind fools of the Temple, I found that the work had almost ceased on the cathedral for lack of funds to pay the workmen. It was almost too much to bear: the Order gone, the grand church of Our Lady half-built, abandoned and silent. It was I who found the necessary silver for de Sully to continue the work; and it was I who breathed new life into the Knights of Our Lady. I saved them both – all for her glory!’
‘And does the venerable Bishop de Sully know that the money for the cathedral comes from banditry? That it comes to him stained by the blood of the travellers robbed and murdered by the likes of Guillaume du Bois?’
Brother Michel remained silent.
‘Does he?’
‘The cathedral is everything, nothing else matters. That impious old fool closes his eyes. I tell him the money comes from the donations of pilgrims, from the thousands of faithful who come to see Notre-Dame and pray before its holy relics, and he chooses to believe it. It is not important. Only the work of building for her glory is important.’
‘Your cathedral is built on the bones and bodies of murdered men and women; its stones are cemented with their blood – it is an abomination—’ I said, my anger rising like a red tide.
But the Master cut me off, saying too loudly: ‘You could not possibly understand the wonder of Our Lady and the gift of love she brings to the world …’
I stole a glance at Hanno’s body. ‘I understand that you are a gore-glutted monster, a ghoul whose soul is crimson with the blood of innocent men—’ I was almost shouting.
The Master goggled at me: ‘You do not speak to me in that manner.’
I kept my eyes on my dead friend. ‘I understand that you are a weakling and a coward, who caused the deaths of men whose boots you are not fit to lick,’ I said very loudly, my anger making me insanely reckless.
‘Be silent or I will have you gagged!’ The Master was shouting now, too.
‘Alan, please, we must be reasonable about this,’ said Reuben.
‘You caused the deaths of my father, and the priest Jean of Verneuil, and Cardinal Heribert, and Master Fulk, and my loyal friend—’ my voice was harsh, crackling with rage.
‘Sergeant! I want him gagged, now.’ The Master was beckoning to one of the white-surcoated men-at-arms.
‘Alan, please moderate your language, it cannot do us any good to abuse the Master in his own chapel.’ I noticed that as Reuben spoke he was jiggling a small round clay pot in his hands, the kind of common vessel in which doctors store rare ointments. But I was beyond moderation by then: ‘You are a filthy worm, a soft, gelatinous, gently steaming turd! A man you cannot refuse? I refuse you. I refuse to give you the slightest shred of respect; the would-be killer who cowers in the shadows and orders other men to do his bloody work, urging them on to their slaughter in the name of the Mother of God. You are a God-damned, cowardly, three-thumbed, child-fucking pimp—’