be a leader of archers, and that he had let his woman and his friend go to their deaths. A hand touched the back of his head and Thomas almost hurled himself aside in the expectation of some-thing worse, a blade, perhaps, but then a voice spoke and it was Lord Outhwaite. 'Come outside, young man,' he ordered Thomas, 'somewhere that the Scarecrow can't overhear us.' He said that loudly and in English, then softened his tone and used French. 'I've been look-ing for you.' He touched Thomas's arm, encouraging him. 'I heard about your girl and I was sorry. She was a pretty thing.'
'She was, my lord.'
'Her voice suggested she was well born,' Lord Outhwaite said, 'so her family will doubtless help you exact revenge?'
'Her father is titled, my lord, but she was his bastard.'
'Ah!' Lord Outhwaite stumped along, helping his limping gait with the spear he had carried for most of the day. 'Then he probably won't help, will he? But you can do it on your own. You seem capable enough.' His lordship had taken Thomas into a cold, fresh night. A high moon flirted with silver-edged clouds while on the western ridge great fires burned to plume a veil of red-touched smoke above the city. The fires lit the battlefield for the men and women of Durham who searched the dead for plunder and knifed the Scottish wounded to make them dead so they could also be plundered. 'I'm too old to join a pursuit,' Lord Outhwaite said, staring at the distant fires, 'too old and too stiff in the joints. It's a young man's hunt, and they'll pursue them all the way to Edinburgh. Have you ever seen Edinburgh Castle?'
'No, my lord.' Thomas spoke dully, not caring if he ever saw Edinburgh or its castle.
'Oh, it's fine! Very fine!' Lord Outhwaite said enthusiastically. 'Sir William Douglas captured it from us. He smuggled men past the gate inside barrels. Great big barrels. A clever man, eh? And now he's my prisoner.' Lord Outhwaite peered at the castle as though he expected to see Sir William Douglas and the other high-born Scottish captives shinning down from the battlements. Two torches in slanting metal cressets lit the entrance where a dozen men-at-arms stood guard. 'A rogue, our William, a rogue. Why is the Scarecrow following you?'
'I've no idea, my lord.'
'I think you do.' His lordship rested against a pile of stone. The area by the cathedral was heaped with stone and timber for the builders were repairing one of the great towers.
'He knows you seek a treasure so he now seeks it too.'
Thomas paid attention to that, looking sharply at his lordship, then looking back at the cathedral. Sir Geoffrey and his two men had come to the door, but they evidently dared not venture any closer for fear of Lord Outhwaite's displeasure. 'How can he know?'
Thomas asked.
'How can he not know?' Lord Outhwaite asked. 'The monks know about it, and that's as good as asking a herald to announce it. Monks gossip like market wives! So the Scarecrow knows you might be the source of great wealth and he wants it. What is this treasure?'
'Just treasure, my lord, though I doubt it has great intrinsic worth.'
Lord Outhwaite smiled. He said nothing for a while, but just stared across the dark gulf above the river. 'You told me, did you not,' he said finally, 'that the King sent you in the company of a household knight and a chaplain from the royal household?'
'Yes, my lord.'
'And they fell ill in London?'
'They did.'
'A sickly place. I was there twice, and twice is more than enough! Noxious! My pigs live in cleaner conditions! But a royal chaplain, eh? No doubt a clever fellow, not a country priest, eh? Not some ignorant peasant tricked out with a phrase or two of Latin, but a rising man, a fellow who'll be a bishop before long if he survives his fever. Now why would the King send such a man?'
'You must ask him, my lord.'
'A royal chaplain, no less,' Lord Outhwaite went on as though Thomas had not spoken, then he fell silent. A scatter of stars showed between the clouds and he gazed up at them, then sighed. 'Once,' he said, 'a long time ago, I saw a crystal vial of our Lord's blood. It was in Flanders and it liquefied in answer to prayer! There's another vial in Gloucestershire, I'm told, but I've not seen that one. I did once stroke the beard of St Jerome in Nantes; I've held a hair from the tail of Balaam's ass; I've kissed a feather from the wing of St Gabriel and brandished the very jawbone with which Samson slew so many Philistines! I have seen a sandal of St Paul, a fingernail from Mary Magdalene and six fragments of the true cross, one of them stained by the very same holy blood that I saw in Flanders. I have glimpsed the bones of the fishes with which our Lord fed the five thousand, I have felt the sharpness of one of the arrow heads that felled St Sebastian and smelt a leaf from the apple tree of the Garden of Eden. In my own chapel, young man, I have a knuckle bone of St Thomas and a hinge from the box in which the frankincense was given to the Christ child. That hinge cost me a great deal of money, a great deal. So tell me, Thomas, what relic is more precious than all those I have seen and all those I hope to see in the great churches of Christendom?'
Thomas stared at the fires on the ridge where so many dead lay. Was Eleanor in heaven already? Or was she doomed to spend thousands of years in purgatory? That thought reminded him that he had to pay for Masses to be said for her soul.
'You stay silent,' Lord Outhwaite observed. 'But tell me, young man, do you think I really possess a hinge from the Christ child's tov box of frankincense?'
'I wouldn't know, my lord.'
'I sometimes doubt it,' Lord Outhwaite said genially, 'but my wife believes! And that's what matters: belief. If you believe a thing possesses God's power then it will work its power for you.' He paused, his great shaggy head raised to the darkness as if he smelt for enemies. 'I think you search for a thing of God's power, a great thing, and I believe that the devil is trying to stop you. Satan himself is stirring his creatures to thwart you.' Lord Outhwaite turned an anxious face on Thomas. 'This strange priest and his dark servant are the devil's minions and so is Sir Geoffrey! He is an imp of Satan if ever there was one.' He threw a glance towards the cathedral's porch where the Scarecrow and his two henchmen had retreated into the shadows as a pro-cession of cowled monks came into the night. 'Satan is working mischief,' Lord Outhwaite said, 'and you must fight it. Do you have sufficient funds?'
After the talk of the devil the commonplace question about funds surprised Thomas.
'Do I have funds, my lord?'
'If the devil fights you, young man, then I would help you and few things in this world are more helpful than money. You have a search to make, you have journeys to finish and you will need funds. So, do you have enough?'
'No. my lord,' Thomas said.
'Then permit me to help you.' Lord Outhwaite placed a bag of coins on the pile of stones. 'And perhaps you would take a companion on your search?'
'A companion?' Thomas asked, still bemused.
'Not me! Not me! I'm much too old.' Lord Outhwaite chuckled. 'No, but I confess I am fond of Willie Douglas. The priest who I think killed your woman also killed Douglas's nephew, and Douglas wants revenge. He asks, no, he begs that the dead man's brother be permitted to travel with you.'
'He's a prisoner, surely?'
'I suppose he is, but young Robbie's hardly worth ransoming. I suppose I might fetch a few pounds for him, but nothing like the fortune I intend to exact for his uncle. No, I'd rather Robbie travelled with you. He wants to find the priest and his servant and I think he could help you.' Lord Outhwaite paused and when Thomas did not answer, he pressed his request. 'He's a good young man, Robbie. I know him, I like him, and he's capable. A good soldier too, I'm told.'
Thomas shrugged. At this moment he did not care if half Scotland travelled with him.
'He can come with me, my lord,' he said, 'if I'm allowed to go anywhere.'
'What do you mean? Allowed?'
'I'm not permitted to travel.' Thomas sounded bitter. 'The prior has forbidden me to leave the city and he's taken my horse.' Thomas had found the horse, brought into Durham by Father Hobbe, tied at the monastery's gate.
Lord Outhwaite laughed. 'And you will obey the prior?'
