is slowly dying. The Crab is in his stomach, and he may last another year, maybe two at best. There is nothing I can do but make him as comfortable as I can.’
‘I don’t care about de Sully. I mean, what are you doing here in Paris?’
‘Robin summoned me from Montpellier and sent me here to watch over you — but no more questions now, Alan. Stay silent and allow me to see whether I can extricate us from this predicament.’
Over his shoulder I could see Brother Michel striding towards us, his handsome face serene. I was suddenly struck by something that had been in the back of my mind since I had first met him: he resembled Robin. But the resemblance was not one of flesh and bones, or in the angle of eye or mouth, but rather he had that air about him of invisible power and utter, iron-cast confidence, the conviction that whatever task he was about, however wrong it might appear to lesser men, it was the right thing to do because he was doing it. I had the bizarre sensation that if he ordered something, anything, I would obey him.
‘I fear you have upset poor Sir Eustace,’ he said.
I opened my mouth to reply, but caught Reuben’s eye and shut it with a snap.
‘I think perhaps it would be best,’ said Reuben, ‘if we all considered our positions in a calm and reasonable manner. First of all, let us have poor Hanno taken away for burial, and let us release Alan from his bonds, and then perhaps we could discuss this over a glass of wine.’
‘He stays there,’ Brother Michel said quietly. ‘Sir Alan is a formidable man, even unarmed — I am told he dispatched my Guillaume, an iron-hard fellow and skilled with a knife, in a matter of moments. Sir Alan, I’m afraid, must remain bound till we have determined his fate.’
‘But my dear Brother Michel…’ Reuben began in a soothing tone.
‘You may call me Master — Jew. I am the Master of the Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Our Lady and the Temple of Solomon,’ the monk’s voice was icy, and he drew himself up to his full height and made a bold gesture with his right hand behind him to the exquisite stained-glass window. ‘I serve the Queen of Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. And, knowing this, Jew, you will accord me the appropriate honour to my station and address me as Master!’
‘Very well, “Master” it shall be,’ said Reuben, with a wide agreeable smile. ‘Now, Master, could we perhaps-’
‘You fought in Spain,’ I said, looking directly at Brother Michel. It was somehow hard to look at him, as if he were a bright and shining light that burnt my eyes. Of course, it came from the low sun shining through the magnificent window behind him, but still its glare was painful and I closed my eyes and continued: ‘And you scrambled to the top of the dung pile, to the title of Master, over the bodies of your comrades. Even when they disbanded the Order, you kept it alive, in secret; a handful of knights at first, and then more, younger ones, men who wished to serve God with their swords but would never have been accepted as true Templars.’
‘You are insolent, my friend, but not inaccurate — do you think knowledge will help to save your life? Keep talking and we shall see. What else do you know?’
I opened my eyes and squinted at him through the harsh light. ‘I know that my father protected you from bullies at Notre-Dame and that you repaid his kindness by blackening his name and allowing him to take the blame for your crime against Bishop Heribert. I know that you are Trois Pouces!’
The superior smile on the Master’s face was wiped away by my words. He tucked his hands across his chest, back into their habitual position in the sleeves of his robe, and stared at me stone-faced.
‘I have not been called that for a long, long time,’ he said slowly. ‘And were it not for the dire threats that this Jew has made to me on behalf of the Earl of Locksley, I would kill you now, this very instant, for those words.’
He paused for a few moments, and I caught Reuben’s eye. He was frowning at me, glaring and shaking his head — it was almost comical. Then Brother Michel said: ‘But God has taught us that to lie is a sin, any lie, and indeed I must own my actions. Yes, I did steal from Bishop Heribert, and yes, I did allow your father to take the blame for my crime, and yes, I did order his death at the hands of Sir Ralph Murdac because I feared that he would expose me. I admit all of that, freely. And I will answer to God for it on Judgment Day — but, I tell you Sir Alan, I would do it all over again, a hundred times, if I had to. For I serve a higher purpose, one that soars above the concerns of petty morality, above the life or death of one man, even a dozen men, a hundred; I serve the highest purpose of all. I serve the Queen of Heaven! I serve Our Lady! All that I do, everything, from the moment I wake to the time I fall exhausted into my miserable cot, is directed towards that one aim. And every day, when I contemplate my sins, I can look out of my window and see that monument to her greatness, the superb embodiment of her majesty, that goal that I strive for, rising, slowly, inexorably, week after week, month after month-’
‘The cathedral of Notre-Dame,’ I said.
‘Yes, Sir Alan, yes. The cathedral! It will be the most magnificent church in Christendom and a fitting tribute to the Mother of God. When I returned to Paris from Spain, my Order disbanded, destroyed by those blind fools of the Temple, I found that the work had almost ceased on the cathedral for lack of funds to pay the workmen. It was almost too much to bear: the Order gone, the grand church of Our Lady half-built, abandoned and silent. It was I who found the necessary silver for de Sully to continue the work; and it was I who breathed new life into the Knights of Our Lady. I saved them both — all for her glory!’
‘And does the venerable Bishop de Sully know that the money for the cathedral comes from banditry? That it comes to him stained by the blood of the travellers robbed and murdered by the likes of Guillaume du Bois?’
Brother Michel remained silent.
‘Does he?’
‘The cathedral is everything, nothing else matters. That impious old fool closes his eyes. I tell him the money comes from the donations of pilgrims, from the thousands of faithful who come to see Notre-Dame and pray before its holy relics, and he chooses to believe it. It is not important. Only the work of building for her glory is important.’
‘Your cathedral is built on the bones and bodies of murdered men and women; its stones are cemented with their blood — it is an abomination-’ I said, my anger rising like a red tide.
But the Master cut me off, saying too loudly: ‘You could not possibly understand the wonder of Our Lady and the gift of love she brings to the world…’
I stole a glance at Hanno’s body. ‘I understand that you are a gore-glutted monster, a ghoul whose soul is crimson with the blood of innocent men-’ I was almost shouting.
The Master goggled at me: ‘You do not speak to me in that manner.’
I kept my eyes on my dead friend. ‘I understand that you are a weakling and a coward, who caused the deaths of men whose boots you are not fit to lick,’ I said very loudly, my anger making me insanely reckless.
‘Be silent or I will have you gagged!’ The Master was shouting now, too.
‘Alan, please, we must be reasonable about this,’ said Reuben.
‘You caused the deaths of my father, and the priest Jean of Verneuil, and Cardinal Heribert, and Master Fulk, and my loyal friend-’ my voice was harsh, crackling with rage.
‘Sergeant! I want him gagged, now.’ The Master was beckoning to one of the white-surcoated men-at- arms.
‘Alan, please moderate your language, it cannot do us any good to abuse the Master in his own chapel.’ I noticed that as Reuben spoke he was jiggling a small round clay pot in his hands, the kind of common vessel in which doctors store rare ointments. But I was beyond moderation by then: ‘You are a filthy worm, a soft, gelatinous, gently steaming turd! A man you cannot refuse? I refuse you. I refuse to give you the slightest shred of respect; the would-be killer who cowers in the shadows and orders other men to do his bloody work, urging them on to their slaughter in the name of the Mother of God. You are a God-damned, cowardly, three-thumbed, child- fucking pimp-’
The sergeant had managed to wrestle the gag around my mouth by then, a thick, musty-smelling woollen cloth that made it very hard to breathe, let alone rant and rave.
And I was finally silenced.
The Master was glaring at me: ‘You call me a coward? Do you think I am afraid of your master’s wrath? Do you think that I do not dare to kill you for fear that the Earl of Locksley will fall on me with all his power and might? You are quite wrong!’
He turned to the sergeant standing behind me, and said: ‘Cut his lying throat, this instant!’
