not from God, and so he went back to where Genevieve was trying to dry their heavy cloaks in the small heat of the fire. Thomas helped her, draping the woollen cloth over a frame of larch sticks. Then he crouched by the flames, watching the red embers glow, and he thought of his doom. He remembered all the pictures he had seen daubed on church walls: pictures showing souls tumbling towards hell with its grinning demons and roaring fires. You are thinking of hell,“ Genevieve said flatly. He grimaced. I was,” he said and he wondered how she had known.
You really think the Church has the power to send you there?“ she asked and, when he did not reply, she shook her head. Excommunication means nothing.”
It means everything,“ Thomas said sullenly. It means no heaven and no God, no salvation and no hope, everything.” God is here,“ Genevieve said fiercely. He is in the fire, in the sky, in the air. A bishop cannot take God away from you. A bishop cannot suck the air from the sky!”
Thomas said nothing. He was remembering the bishop's staff striking the cobbles and the sound of the small handbell echoing from the castle walls.
He just said words,“ Genevieve said, and words are cheap. They said the same words to me, and that night, in the cell, God came to me.” She put a piece of wood onto the fire. I never thought I would die. Even as it came close I never thought it would happen. There was something inside me, a sliver, that said it would not. That was God, Thomas. God is everywhere. He is not a dog on the Church's leash.'
We only know God through His Church,“ Thomas said. The clouds had thickened, obscuring the moon and the last few stars, and in the dark the rain became harder and there was a grumble of thunder from the valley's high head. And God's Church,” he went on, has condemned me.'
Genevieve took the two cloaks from their sticks and bundled them up to keep the worst of the rain from their weave. Most people don't know God through the Church. she said. They go and they listen to a language they don't understand, and they say their confession and they bow to the sacraments and they want the priest to come to them when they are dying, but when they are really in trouble they go to the shrines the Church doesn't know about. They worship at springs, at holy wells, in deep places among the trees. They go to wise women or to fortune-tellers. They wear amulets. They pray to their own God and the Church never knows about it. But God knows because God is everywhere. Why would the people need a priest when God is everywhere?“ To keep us from error,” Thomas said.
And who defines the error?' Genevieve persisted. The priests!
Do you think you are a bad man, Thomas?'
Thomas thought about the question. The quick answer was yes because the Church had just expelled him and given his soul to the demons, but in truth he did not think he was bad and so he shook his head. No.'
Yet the Church condemns you! A bishop says words. And who knows what sins that bishop does?'
Thomas half smiled. You are a heretic. he said softly. I am. she said flatly. I'm not a beghard, though I could be one, but I am a heretic, and what choice do I have? The Church expelled me, so if I am to love God I must do it without the Church. You must do the same now, and you will find that God still loves you however much the Church might hate you.' She grimaced as the rain beat the last small flames out of their fire, then they retreated to the larch shelter where they did their best to sleep under layers of cloaks and mail coats.
Thomas's sleep was fitful. He dreamed of a battle in which he was being attacked by a giant who roared at him, then he woke with a start to find that Genevieve was gone and that the roaring was the bellow of thunder overhead. Rain seethed on the larch and dripped through to the bracken. A slither of lightning pierced the sky, showing the gaps in the branches that half sheltered Thomas, and he wriggled out from beneath the larch and stumbled in the dark to find the broken hovel's doorway. He was about
to shout Genevieve's name when another crack of thunder tore the sky and echoed from the hills, so near and so loud that Thomas reeled sideways as if he had been struck by a war-hammer. He was bare-footed and wearing nothing but a long linen shirt that was sopping wet. Three lightning whips stuttered to the east and in their light Thomas saw the horses were white-eyed and trembling and so he crossed to them, patted their noses and made sure
their tethers were still firm. Genevieve!“ he shouted. Genevieve!” Then he saw her.
Or rather, in the instant glare of a splintering streak of light ning, he saw a vision. He saw a woman, tall and silver and naked, standing with her arms raised to the sky's white fire. The light ning went, yet the image of the woman stayed in Thomas's head, glowing, and then the lightning struck again, slamming into the eastern hills, and Genevieve had her head back, her hair was unbound, and the water streamed from it like drops of liquid silver. She was dancing naked beneath the lightning.
She did not like to be naked with him. She hated the scars that Father Roubert had seared into her arms and legs and down her back, yet now she danced naked, a slow dance, her face tilted back to the downpour, and Thomas watched in each successive light ning flash and he thought she was indeed a draga. She was the wild silver creature of the dark, the shining woman who was dangerous and beautiful and strange. Thomas crouched, gazing, thinking that his soul was in greater peril still for Father Medous had said the dragas were the devil's creatures, yet he loved her too; and then the thunder filled the air to shake the hills and he squatted lower, his eyes fast closed. He was doomed, he thought, doomed, and that knowledge filled him with utter hopelessness. Thomas.“ Genevieve was stooping in front of him now, her hands cradling his face. Thomas.”
You're a draga,“ he said, his eyes still closed. I wish I was,” she said. I wish flowers would grow where I walked. But I'm not. I just danced under the lightning and the thunder spoke to me.'
He shuddered. What did it say?'
She put her arms round him, comforting him. That all will be well.'
He said nothing.
All will be well. Genevieve said again, because the thunder does not lie if you dance to it. It is a promise, my love, it is a promise. That all will be well.
Sir Guillaume had sent one of the captured men-at-arms to Berat to inform the Count that Joscelyn and thirteen other men were prisoners and that ransoms needed to be negotiated. Joscelyn had reported that his uncle had been at Astarac, but Sir Guillaume assumed the old man must have returned to his castle. Yet it seemed he had not, for four days after Thomas and Genevieve had left, a pedlar came to Castillon d'Arbizon and said that the Count of Berat was sick with the fever, perhaps dying, and that he was in the infirmary of Saint Sever's monastery. The man-at-arms sent to Berat returned the next day with the same news and added that no one in Berat possessed the authority to negotiate Joscelyn's freedom. All that Sir Henri Courtois, the garrison commander, could do for Joscelyn was send a message to Astarac and hope that the Count was well enough to cope with the news.
Now what do we do?' Robbie asked. He sounded aggrieved for he was eager to see the ransom's gold. He and Joscelyn sat in the great hall. They were alone. It was night. A fire burned in the hearth.
Joscelyn said nothing.
Robbie frowned. I could sell you on. he suggested. That was done often enough. A man took a prisoner whose ransom would be considerable, but rather than wait for the money he would sell the prisoner to a richer man who would pay a lesser sum and then endure the long negotiations before realizing his profit. Joscelyn nodded. You could. he agreed, but you won't make much money.
The heir to Berat and Lord of Beziers?' Robbie asked scornfully. You're worth a big ransom.
Beziers is a pig field. Joscelyn said scornfully, and the heir to Berat is worth nothing, but Berat itself is worth a fortune. A fortune. He stared at Robbie in silence for a few heartbeats. My uncle is a fool. he went on, but a very rich one. He keeps coins in his cellars. Barrel after barrel of coins, filled to the top, and two of those barrels are crammed with nothing but genoins. Robbie savoured the thought. He imagined the money sitting in the dark, the two barrels filled with the marvellous coins of Genoa, coins made of pure gold, each tiny genoin sufficient to keep a man fed and clothed and armed for a year. Two barrels!
But my uncle. Joscelyn went on, is also a mean man. He won't spend money except on the Church. If he had a choice then he would rather that I was dead, that one of my brothers was his heir and that his coins were undiminished. At night, sometimes, he takes a lantern down to the castle cellars and stares at his money. Just stares at it.
You're telling me. Robbie said bitterly, that you won't be ransomed?'
I'm telling you,“ Joscelyn said, that so long as my uncle is the Count, then so long will I be your prisoner. But if I was the Count?” You?' Robbie was not sure where the conversation was going and sounded puzzled.
My uncle is sick. Joscelyn said, and perhaps dying.“ Robbie thought about that and saw what Joscelyn was
