harm. Therefore I must say this…’ He cleared his throat, and lifted his gaze to my face.
‘I formally acknowledge you as my nephew, the son of my brother Henri, whom I once loved. And while you are in Paris under a flag of truce you are also under my personal protection.’ He gave me a small, chilly smile before continuing: ‘But, as God is my witness, you are also an enemy, a knight who is bound to King Richard, the mortal foe of my King, and if there comes a day when this truce is over and we must face each other on the battlefield, on that day I shall treat you as I would any other enemy knight. Is that understood?’
‘I understand, sir,’ I said.
‘But until that sad day arrives, Nephew, you are a welcome guest in my house.’ And the old warrior almost crushed my chest as he embraced me in his powerful arms.
We dined together then, the Seigneur, Roland, Adele and myself — and I told them a little of my father’s life in England, and of his death, and I recounted my quest so far to find the ‘man you cannot refuse’. The Seigneur became grave when I mentioned the name of my enemy. ‘I have heard of this man,’ my uncle said. ‘I have heard the Provost speak of someone who goes by that ugly title. He is said to have the wealth of Crassus and to command the loyalty of a number of gangs of bandits and thieves in the wild lands in the south of the Ile de France.’
‘The man I killed in the Grand Chastelet — Guillaume du Bois — he was one such bandit,’ I said. Uncle Thibault’s information seemed to confirm what I had suspected: that the ‘man you cannot refuse’ had sent Guillaume into that stinking cell with specific orders to kill me.
‘There are other stories about this “man you cannot refuse” — strange tales that tell of his possession of a magical relic that makes him all-powerful, impervious to death, impossible to kill,’ said the Seigneur, ‘although I doubt there is any truth in them.’
‘I am not so sure,’ I said. ‘A friend of mine, now with God and the angels, suggested something similar recently.’
‘I can easily see why he has claimed that title: the “man you cannot refuse”,’ said Roland. ‘It is rather dashing — mysterious, commanding, awe-inspiring… And with the degree of wealth that he is rumoured to have, he could buy whatever he wishes, or if his demands were ignored, enforce his will with his bandit-rascals or these knightly assassins that you spoke of before. Truly he is a “man you cannot refuse”. And having a supernatural gew- gaw only adds to the impression of awe he is trying to create, I suppose.’
‘So what will you do next?’ asked Adele, fixing me with her lovely green eyes. As she spoke to me, I could see the Seigneur gazing at her with quiet, complete adoration.
‘Well, I must speak with Bishop de Sully — no matter how enfeebled he is. And so I will be visiting the Abbey of St Victor as soon as I can arrange it.’
‘If there is any way in which I can be of assistance — I have a handful of loyal men-at-arms, a little money, some useful connections
…’ said the Seigneur.
I smiled at my uncle: ‘That is most kind, sir,’ I said. ‘And I thank you for your offer from the bottom of my heart. But I am merely planning to pay a brief visit to a sick old man.’
There are some decisions that a man makes which he must live with, for good or ill, for the rest of his life. One such was my decision to take Hanno with me when we set off two days later, for the Abbey of St Victor. It was early morning when we left, and Hanno had come home late the night before after visiting his ale-wife, and he was sleepy and more than a little hungover on that fateful morn. For a few moments, I considered leaving him behind with Thomas at the Widow Barbette’s house, and going alone to St Victor’s. A part of me said that I was merely going to see an invalid — and what need could I possibly have of a bodyguard in a House of God? Another part of me whispered that there had been three attempts on my life in the past three months, and the ‘man you cannot refuse’, if he discovered my plans, might well try to prevent me meeting the venerable Bishop. In the end, I waited while he had splashed his face, drunk a pint of watered ale and collected his weapons, and we rode off together. It was a decision I have weighed many times since then.
We headed south-east, just Hanno and myself, he on his palfrey, I on my courser, making our way along the southern bank of the River Bievre beyond the boundaries of Paris for less than a mile until we came to the high walls and stout gates of the Abbey. It was quiet and deeply peaceful out there, away from the bustle of the city streets and, as the fields outside the Abbey walls had been carefully cultivated by the canons over many years and sown with homely cabbages and leeks and onions, the whole area had a sleepy, village-like feel.
We told the porter at the gate, a half-deaf canon who must have been eighty or even older, that we had come from the cathedral of Notre-Dame with an urgent message from the Dean for Bishop de Sully. As I had hoped, it was enough to get us inside the gates and the old man pointed out a path to follow that would lead us to the south of the Abbey where the Bishop had his apartments.
The Abbey sprawled over a very large area; it had almost as wide a precinct as the Paris Temple, though of course it was much older, and had filled the space within its walls with dozens of stone buildings, including a huge abbey-church in the centre, as well as scores of humbler wooden constructions. And inside the high walls, it was as busy as a small market town, and nearly as populous. Wide roads drove through the abbey in a cross-shaped formation, meeting at the centre, and were trod by canons, scholars, merchants, workmen and men-at-arms; several well-laden carts clopped along these thoroughfares too and a haze of dust hovered above them in shifting brown clouds. To the north of the Abbey where the River Bievre flowed towards the Seine, there was a broad wooden dock and two large ships were moored there unloading and loading goods. Clearly the Abbey was rich — and I could assume that old Bishop de Sully would not lack for material comforts in his final days.
The Bishop’s lavish apartments, we were told by a passing canon, were tucked away in a secluded corner behind the abbey-church: they comprised a large stone house on two storeys, with outbuildings, a kitchen, a bakery, a private chapel for the Bishop’s use, and a big, square walled herb garden where food and medicines might be grown, which was surrounded by a well-swept path paved with flat yellow stones.
At the simple wooden gate of the garden, we were stopped by a servant, an old man, who demanded to know our business with the Bishop. Once again I lied and said that I came from the Dean of Notre-Dame with a message, and we were admitted, without further questioning. I was dressed in my finest clothes, a new silk tunic with a velvet-trimmed mantel, mounted on a fine horse and accompanied by an armed attendant — so I was clearly a knight and a man of consequence — but it was nonetheless surprisingly easy to obtain access to the most powerful man in Paris after the King.
We left the horses tied to a stunted apple tree outside the garden, and Hanno and I pushed through the simple wicket gate. Bishop Maurice de Sully was sitting on a low stone bench in a patch of September sun with a bowl of cut thyme in his lap and he was carefully separating the tiny green leaves from the spindly stalks. He looked truly ill, thin and worn; his grey hair sparse, his face deeply cut with the marks of long years and hard struggles. He was perhaps seventy, I guessed, and in no little amount of pain. The heavenly smell of crushed thyme — fresh, woody and sweet — filled the air of the herb garden.
As we made our way over to the Bishop, I glanced around that square open space, admiring the blocks of plants arranged in the centre in neat geometrical patterns, and I noticed a figure in a dark robe on the far side, just leaving the garden and entering an outbuilding. He was a tall man and although he was turned away from me, and I glimpsed him for only a moment, there was something about the way he moved that stirred my memory.
‘Your Grace,’ said the servant, and Bishop de Sully glanced up from the thyme bowl. ‘I humbly beg your pardon for disturbing you, but this gentleman says he has a message from the Dean; he says-’
‘Your Grace, I must speak to you about a very urgent and private matter,’ I interrupted, and Maurice de Sully looked directly at me for the first time. He had pale, almost colourless eyes and seemed wary, even rather alarmed at my words.
I hastened to reassure him: ‘I mean you no harm, Your Grace,’ I said, ‘and I admit I lied to your servant about a message from the Dean. But I have a great need to speak with you about my father, Henri d’Alle, who was once a monk here in Paris. I only wish to trouble you for a few moments and then I will gladly leave you in peace.’
That was true: I had told the Seigneur that I would dine with him and his family that day, and had sworn to be at the Rue St-Denis by noon for the feast. The servant, a slight, elderly man, was now looking between Hanno and myself, his mouth working soundlessly, his arms waggling jerkily from the shoulders: he seemed not to know whether he should make an attempt to lay hands on us and forcibly eject us from the Bishop’s presence. He hesitated, flapping like a bird, torn between fear and his duty to his master.
‘It is quite all right, Alban,’ said the Bishop to his man. ‘Calm yourself. Please be so good as to go and fetch
