‘You,’ said Guillaume, in a rough, guttural accent that was barely French at all. ‘You are in my place.’
And the big man reached down to his boot and pulled out a broad knife.
I had my legs underneath me by that point but I stopped myself from diving at him — he would have gutted me like a fish. Instead, I half-stood and took a step towards him — and swayed to the right just in time as his blade plunged towards my belly. His right arm passed through the space between my ribs and my left arm, and I clamped his forearm with my elbow against my waist, and curled my left hand around to grasp his upper arm — so trapping his right arm and knife immobile against my body. My right hand had been moving at the same time, and I plunged a hard index finger into his left eye, and felt a popping squelch that caused him to scream with rage and pain. He wrestled his knife arm free, and roaring, his left hand cupping his damaged eye, he slashed at me again with the blade, and I pulled back to avoid its slice. Then he stabbed again, lunging forward with his right leg, like a swordsman, and I moved with him, forward and left, dodging the strike, my weight on my right leg. I lifted my left leg chest high and stamped down as hard as I could on the inside of his forward right knee, pushing the joint outwards, dislocating it with a brisk pop, and causing him to splash screaming to the cell floor, half-turned away from me. I punched down hard, using all the weight of my shoulders, and smashed my fist into the back of his neck. There was a muted crack and a bolt of agony shot up my wrist: but he flopped down face-first into the filth, and I was on him as fast as a hunting weasel. Both my knees crashed into his back, with my full weight behind them, pinning him to the cell floor. I punched him again, hard in the back of the neck — and then leaned my left forearm on the base of his skull, grabbed a handful of greasy hair with my right hand, and kept his face firmly pressed into the slurry on the floor. His knife was lost, but his arms flailed wildly about him as I bore down with my full strength, mashing his head into the six inches of liquid sewage that covered the stone floor. He wriggled and kicked, but I held him there. He gave one last desperate heave that nearly unseated me, but I kept my place, my fifteen stones of weight between his shoulder blades — and his mouth and nose below the stinking surface.
Finally, he moved no more.
When I was certain he was dead, I scrabbled around in the slurry and found the knife. Tucking it in belt, my chest still heaving, my right hand a blur of agony, I retook my place against the wall and offered up a long-overdue prayer to Almighty God, St Michael and all the other saints who, between them, once again had preserved me from the wrath of my enemies.
The door crashed open; again light flooded the cell and two of the Provost’s men-at-arms stood in the doorway.
‘Which of you is Sir Alan Dale?’ said one of the guards.
I lifted my aching right hand.
‘You have been called,’ he said, looking at me doubtfully. ‘Will you come with us peacefully, or must we come down there and bind you?’
Chapter Seventeen
When I stumbled out of that cell, dripping, stinking, half-blinded by the daylight, I was astonished to find that the first person I saw was Roland d’Alle.
‘Good day to you, cousin,’ he said.
I squinted at him, and then I saw that beyond this knight, who had just publicly acknowledged our kinship, were the familiar figures of Thomas and Hanno. The Bavarian was grinning like a gargoyle, and Thomas was frowning and holding out a large blue cloak for me to wear. I waved my young squire and his voluminous cloak away. And ignoring the insincere offer of a supporting arm from Roland, I walked, head high, out of the arched gates of the Grand Chastelet and a dozen yards to the right by the river bank.
‘Wait here,’ I said, and fumbling at the linen belt that secured my braies, and the ties that kept up my hose, I walked down the earthen bank and plunged into the river.
If I had spent a week in the Seine, scrubbing my body raw with soap and a stiff brush, I don’t think I would have felt truly clean, but after I had removed shoes, hose, braies and chemise — and let them float away downstream, and splashed and washed as best I could in the cold, brownish water, I did feel a little better. And, wrapped in Thomas’s large cloak and naked as a baby underneath, I walked barefoot up the Rue St-Denis, and explained to Roland and my men what I thought had happened in the gaol.
It all came out in a gabbling, barely intelligible rush, for I was feeling the mind-spinning effects now of my dance with Death. ‘It was another attempt to murder me — obviously. The “man you cannot refuse”, the Master, or whatever you want to call him — my enemy — that bastard — he sent a bandit called Guillaume in there with orders to kill me. That fucking bastard. He had Fulk murdered to stop him helping me, then had me arrested, and while I was in that hellish hole, he sent in a man to kill me, with a fucking knife. Of course he did. The cunning bastard. And if he killed Fulk, it means that Fulk’s theory about the Grail is correct. It must be right. Don’t you see, it must be!’
‘The what?’ said Roland. Thomas and Hanno were looking puzzled, too. And I realized that I had not yet had the chance to explain poor Master Fulk’s idea to them.
I took a deep breath. ‘Never mind about that for the moment,’ I said. ‘How did you get me out of there?’
‘When we saw where they had taken you, we went first of all to the episcopal palace to enlist Brother Michel’s help,’ said Thomas. ‘But he was not there — the servants said that he had been suddenly called away that morning to the Abbey of St Victor to attend Bishop de Sully.’
‘So then they came to see me,’ said Roland cheerfully. ‘The Seigneur called on the Provost of Paris — they are old friends, of course — they had a quiet chat, a little silver changed hands, and the Provost dispatched me with a docket for your release. Quite simple really.’
‘I am most grateful to you… Cousin,’ I said.
And I was. Roland and his father had pulled me out of that stinking hell of a gaol; they had undoubtedly saved my life — and for that I would be for ever in their debt.
We arrived soon enough at the Seigneur’s big house, and I had no sooner washed myself thoroughly again, and finished dressing myself in Roland’s spare clothes, when the Lady d’Alle came in. We were in Roland’s small chamber at the top of the building, and I had been telling an admiring audience of Hanno, Thomas and Roland how I had defeated Guillaume with my bare fists, when the lady of the house entered. ‘Are you well, Alan?’ she said, full of concern. She was even lovelier than I had remembered.
I told her I was unharmed — and did not bother to mention that I feared I had broken the third finger on my right hand, which Hanno had strapped tightly to the little one beside it.
‘Such an awful place; such awful people — it is a miracle that you survived it.’
‘It might appear so, my lady,’ I said. ‘But it was in truth a miracle wrought by your family.’
There was a slight pause, and the lady said: ‘The Seigneur has asked me to tell you that he would very much like to speak with you downstairs when you are fully restored to your comforts.’
‘I will be down directly,’ I said. ‘But first I would like to have a word with you in private, if I may be so bold.’
When Hanno, Thomas and Roland had left the room, I said: ‘My lady, I owe you an apology. When you told me about your, um, friendship with my father, I confess I was angry with you. But I now see that I was wrong: love is a strange madness, sometimes a curse, sometimes a blessing, but it is not ours to command. I also believe that it is an affliction that comes from God and His son Jesus Christ, and so must be honoured even when it seems destructive.’
‘Do you forgive me, then?’
‘With all my heart,’ I said, and she stepped forward and took my hands in hers.
I could see that her eyes were wet, but she smiled at me and said: ‘Then all is well.’
The Seigneur greeted me gruffly, self-consciously in the downstairs chamber and gave me a cup of wine and began reciting a little speech that he had obviously spent some time preparing.
‘I think you are an honourable man, Sir Alan,’ he began, staring hard at the floor between us. ‘And doubtless a brave and puissant knight. And I do not believe that you seek anything from my family except that which you demanded at our last meeting. I apologize for my rudeness — I was… in a bad humour, and suspicious of your intentions, but by your conduct then and since, I am satisfied that you mean me and the members of my family no
