you.'
'About me?' Thomas was even more confused now.
'About the Vexille family. It seems one of your foul brood fought at the King's side this summer, and now he has submitted to the Church. The Inquisition have had . . .'
Brother German paused, evidently seeking the right word, '. . . conversations with him.'
'With Guy?' Thomas asked. He knew Guy was his cousin, knew Guy had fought on the French side in Picardy and he knew Guy had killed his father in search of the Grail, but he knew little more.
'Who else? And now, they do say, Guy Vexille is reconciled to the Church,' Brother Germain said as he turned the pages. 'Reconciled to the Church indeed! Can a wolf lay down with lambs? Who wrote this?'
'My father.'
'So you are Hachaliah's grandson,' Brother Germain said with reverence, then he closed his thin hands over the book. 'Thank you for bringing it to me,' he said.
'Can you tell me what the Hebrew passages say?' Thomas asked, baffled by Brother Germain's last words.
'Tell you? Of course I can tell you, but it will mean nothing. You know who Hachaliah was? You are familiar with the Tirshatha? Of course not. The answers would be wasted on you! But I thank you for bringing me the book.' He drew a scrap of parchment towards him, took up his quill and dipped it in the ink. 'If you take this note to the sacris-tan he will give you a reward. Now I have work.' He signed the note and held it towards Thomas.
Thomas reached for the book. 'I can't leave it here,' he said.
'Can't leave it here! Of course you can! Such a thing belongs to the Church. Besides, I must make a copy.' Brother Germain folded his hands over the book and hunched over it.
'You will leave it,' he hissed.
Thomas had thought of Brother Germain as a friend, or at least not as an enemy, and even the old monk's harsh words about Sir Guillaume's treachery had not altered that opinion, Germain had said that the book must go to Paris, to the Dominicans, but Thomas now understood that Germain was allied with those men of the Inquisition who, in turn, had Guy Vexille on their side. And Thomas understood too that those formidable men were seeking the Grail with an avidity he had not appreciated until this moment, and their path to the Grail lay through him and this book. Those men were his enemies, and that meant that Brother Germain was also his foe and it had been a terrible mistake to bring the book to the abbey. He felt a sudden fear as he reached for the book. 'I have to leave,' he insisted.
Brother Germain tried to hold onto the book, but his twig-like arms could not compete with Thomas's bow- given strength. He nevertheless clutched it stubbornly, threatening to tear its soft leather cover. 'Where will you go?' Brother Germain demanded, then tried to trick Thomas with a false promise. 'If you leave it,' he said, 'I shall make a copy and send the book to you when it is finished.'
Thomas was going north to Dunkirk so he named a place in the other direction. 'I'm going to La Roche- Derrien,' he lied.
'An English garrison?' Brother Germain still tried to pull the book away, then yelped as Thomas slapped his hands. 'You can't take that to the English!'
'I am taking it to La Roche-Derrien,' Thomas said, finally retrieving the book. He folded the soft leather cover over the pages, then half drew his sword because several of the younger monks had slipped from their high stools and looked as though they wanted to stop him, but the sight of the blade dissuaded them from any violence. They just watched as he walked away.
The porter was coughing still, then leaned against the arch and fought for breath while tears streamed from his eyes. 'At least it ain't leprosy,' he managed to say to Thomas, 'I know it ain't leprosy. My brother had leprosy and he didn't cough. Not much anyway.'
'When is St Clement's Day?' Thomas remembered to ask.
'Day after tomorrow, and God love me if I live to see it.'
No one followed Thomas, but that afternoon, while he and Robbie were standing up to their crotches in flooding cold river water and pounding thick moss into the Pente- cost's planking, a patrol of soldiers in red and yellow livery asked Pierre Villeroy if he had seen an Englishman dressed in mail and a black cloak.
'That's him down there,' Villeroy said, pointing to Thomas, then laughed. 'If I see an Englishman,' he went on, 'I'll piss down the bastard's throat till he drowns.'
'Bring him to the castle instead,' the patrol's leader said, then led his men to question the crew on the next boat.
Villeroy waited till the soldiers were out of earshot. 'For that,' he said to Thomas, 'you owe me two more rows of caulking.'
'Jesus Christ!' Thomas swore.
'Now He was a properly skilled carpenter,' Villeroy observed through a mouthful of Yvette's apple pie, 'but He was also the Son of God, wasn't he? So he didn't have to do menial jobs like caulking, so it's no damn good asking for His help. Just bang the moss in hard, boy, bang it in hard.'
Sir Guillaume had held the manor from its attackers for close on three months and did not doubt he could hold it indefinitely so long as the Count of Coutances did not bring more gunpowder to the village, but Sir Guillaume knew that his time in Normandy was ended. The Count of Coutances was his liege lord, Sir Guillaume held land of him as the Count held land of the King, and if a man was declared a traitor by his liege lord, and if the King supported the declaration, then a man had no future unless he was to find another lord who owed fealty to a different King. Sir Guillaume had written to the King and he had appealed to friends who had influence at court, but no reply had come. The siege had continued, and so Sir Guillaume must leave the manor. That saddened him for Evecque was his home. He knew every inch of its pastures, knew where to find the shed deer antlers, knew where the young hares lay trembling in the long grass, and knew where the pike brooded like demons in the deeper streams. It was home, but a man declared a traitor had no home and so, on the eve of St Clement's, when his besiegers were sunk in a damp winter gloom, he made his escape.
He had never doubted his ability to escape. The Count of Coutances was a dull, unimaginative, middle-aged man whose experience of war had always been in the service of greater lords. The Count was averse to risk and given to a blustery temper whenever the world escaped his understanding, which happened frequently. The Count certainly did not understand why great men in Paris were encouraging him to besiege Evecque, but he saw the chance of enriching himself and so he obeyed them, even though he was wary of Sir Guillaume. Sir Guillaume was in his thirties and had spent half his life fighting, usually on his own account, and in Normandy he was called the lord of the sea and of the land because he fought on both with enthusiasm and effectiveness. He had been handsome once, hard-faced and golden-haired, but Guy Vexille, Count of Astarac, had taken one eye and had left scars that made Sir Guillaume's face even harder. He was a formidable man, a fighter, but in the hierarchy of kings, princes, dukes and counts he was a lesser being and his lands made it tempting to declare him a traitor. There were twelve men, three women and eight horses inside the manor, which meant every horse but one had to carry two riders. After nightfall, when rain was softly falling across Evecque's waterlogged fields, Sir Guillaume ordered planks, put across the gap where the drawbridge should have been, and then the horses, blindfolded, were led one by one across the perilous bridge. The besiegers, huddled from the cold and rain, saw and heard nothing, even though the sentries in the forwardmost works had been placed to guard against just such an attempt to escape.
The horses' blindfolds were taken off, the fugitives mounted and then rode northwards. They were challenged just once by a sentry who demanded to know who they were. 'Who the hell do you think we are?' Sir Guillaume retorted, and the savagery in his voice persuaded the sentry not to ask any_ more questions. By dawn they were in Caen and the Count of Coutances was still none the wiser. It was only when one of the sentries saw the planks spanning the moat that the besiegers realized their enemy was gone, and even then the Count wasted time by searching the manor. He found furniture, straw and cooking pots, but no treasures.
An hour later a hundred black-cloaked men arrived at Evecque. Their leader carried no banner and their shields had no badges. They looked battle-hardened, like men who earned their living by renting their lances and swords to whoever paid the most, and they curbed their horses beside the makeshift bridge over Evecque's moat and two of them, one a priest, crossed into the courtyard. 'What's been taken?' the priest demanded curtly. The Count of Coutances turned angrily on the man who wore Dominican robes. 'Who are you?'
