driven them through his body, pinning him to the ground. He could hear shouts and screams, cries choked off in blood as those around him died. He tried to shout for help, but his voice remained locked in his throat. Gisele fell beside him and he saw her die before he died too, and woke to find himself in hell.
There was a devil with black eyes and a trim, grey beard who kept poking and prodding at his wounds with a sharpened knife, and muttering to himself in a strange language full of hawkings and words that sounded like 'Beelzebub!' Sometimes the devil would attempt to communicate with him by speaking in halting French, but Benedict would pretend not to hear, and close his eyes. There were others, his minions, who came and went. On several occasions, Benedict was visited by a priest wearing a dark brown habit, a heavy silver cross hanging upon his breast. The priest urged him to repent of his sins so that he night be shriven. Benedict could not remember revealing any-thing to him, but he must have done so, for he could still distinctly feel the slick anointing of the holy oil between his brows. Were there confessions and anointings in hell?
Cautiously he raised his lids and looked around. On this occasion, no-one leaned over him to pronounce judgement, -his eyes met cool, whitewashed walls and a high, wooden ceiling, a cupboard of dark oak, and an arched aumbry above it n which stood a terracotta oil lamp. A path of sunlight streamed through the shutters of an open window and traversed the foot of his bed, brightening the colourful stripes on he coverlet of woven linen. Three ripening oranges glowed on he sill, drawing his eye with their intensity of hue. He frowned. Wherever he was, it was certainly not the hell of his fevered dreams; nor yet was it heaven. And there was pain. His entire left side from armpit to groin felt like a bar of red-hot iron.
He strove to sit up, and quickly discovered himself so stiff and sore that he was as stranded as a beetle cast over upon its back. Then, right-armed, he eased back the sheet and coverlet o look at himself. Layers of linen bandage were wrapped round his upper left arm and secured with a small cloak pin. On his torso there were livid bruises, and another wad of bandage which covered his left side from his lower ribcage to his protuberant hip bone. He had never carried much meat on his body, but now there was scarcely enough for a vulture to pick lean.
The thought of a vulture sent unpleasant images jolting trough his mind. Bodies strewn on a river bank, and huge birds descending to feast, while he watched, powerless to love. Human vultures stalking among the dead, knives like beaks rending and tearing.
The door opened, and amidst a rustling whisper of silk robes, le devil of his dreams with the hawk nose and black eyes of a bird of prey stood over him. This time, however, Benedict was lucid enough to see that he was a man of Moorish extraction in his early middle years, slender and small. His loose tunic was of striped silk in deep citrus shades that complimented his dark skin.
'Ah, you are awake,' the Moor said in careful French and smiled, revealing a gleam of white teeth. 'I was beginning to think that I might lose you. You must be wondering who I am and where you are?'
Benedict swallowed. 'I thought I was in hell at first.'
The smile became a wry chuckle. 'You would not be the first. My name is Faisal Ibn Mansour, and I am a physician in the employ of Lord Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, who is also known among my people as El Cid, the Lord – may Allah grant him many blessings and a long life.'
Benedict struggled with the names. The Moor was watching him as if expecting the titles to mean something. He thought that he might have vaguely heard of Rodrigo Diaz in a hostel along the way, but at the time he had taken small notice.
'You are in one of Lord Rodrigo's castles on the road to Burgos,' the Moor continued, and the black eyes softened. 'We brought you out of the river beyond Roncevalles, half-dead with cold and suffering from arrow wounds. You were the only one of your company to survive. I am sorry.'
Benedict drew a deep breath and released it shakily. So that part of his nightmare had been true. 'My wife,' he said. 'She was in the river with me, filling our water bottles.'
The physician shook his head sorrowfully. 'She was shot to the heart. One arrow. It is a dangerous road through that pass.'
'We were on pilgrimage to Compostella, to pray for her mother's soul. She hated travelling. It was only because it was her duty… her accursed duty.' Benedict's eyes burned and filled. He looked through a polish of tears at the Moor. 'I was with her; she thought that she was safe.'
'Do you desire to speak to a priest for comfort?'
'No!' Benedict almost choked on the word. 'That is the last thing I want to do.' He bit his lip, struggling for control, and when he had mastered himself, looked at the physician, who was eyeing him the way he might eye a strange creature in a cage. 'I want to sit up, but I cannot move.'
'Small wonder, the size of the hole in your side. Allah be praised that the arrow did not pierce a fraction deeper, or you would now be dead.'
'Allah be praised?' There was a note of cynicism in Benedict's voice. Just now he was not sure whether living was a blessing or a curse.
'Allah be praised,' Faisal ibn Mansour repeated firmly, and grasping him by the right arm, manipulated him gently upright, supporting his spine with more pillows. The pain was briefly blinding and it took Benedict a moment to recover, leaning back, his eyes tightly closed. When he opened them once more, the older man was staring at him curiously, his hands folded within his sleeves.
'You see that you are wearing nought but a loin cloth,' he said. 'That is to help your wounds heal. If you wish to leave your bed, clothes can be found for you. Your tunic, the one you were wearing when we fished you out of the river, is locked in the chest in my chamber. If you had a money pouch, I fear it has been robbed.'
Benedict's gaze sharpened. The pain had sufficiently diminished for him to be aware of the reason for the Moor's curiosity. It was not every pilgrim who carried a fortune in silver sewn into the lining of his tunic. 'I did have a money pouch,' he said slowly, 'with enough in it to give alms to the poor and pay out for our board and lodging where necessary, but as you have realised, that is not where the bulk of my wealth was stored.'
The physician unfolded his hands from his robe and went to the cupboard, returning with a jug of wine and a cup. He filled one from the other. 'Drink,' he commanded. 'You must restore your strength.'
Benedict took several swallows, and rested his head against the heavily stuffed pillows. His left arm and side throbbed painfully. 'How long have I lain here?'
'You have been three days on the road, and three days in this bed. This morning is the fourth.'
Benedict tried to order his thoughts. It seemed as if eternity had passed since the attack, and conversely, no time at all. 'My wife,' he said hesitantly, 'and the others. What happened to them… I mean, what did you do?'
Faisal spread apologetic hands. 'We were only a small party, we could not carry them with us, but we composed the bodies decently, and spoke to a priest as soon as we met habitation. He promised that he would attend to the matter of their burial. I will take you to the village when you are recovered, if you wish.'
'Thank you.'
Faisal cocked his head on one side. 'We still do not know your name, or how we should address you. Outside this room, they call you the Young Frank, but there is more to you than that, I think.'
Benedict's mouth curved in a bleak half-smile. 'I prefer the simplicity of being 'the Young Frank',' he said, 'but if you desire to know my name I will tell you. I am Benedict de Remy and I call Normandy and England my home. My father is a prosperous wine-merchant, and my father-in-law breeds horses for the Duke of Normandy and the King of England.'
'Ah,' said Faisal, looking interested, but not particularly impressed. A man, as El Cid was always saying, should be judged on what he is, not who his forefathers were. Although a breeder of horses might take exception to that theory. 'But what of yourself?' he asked.
The half-smile deepened. 'I would not blame you if you thought I had been sent on a pilgrimage to stiffen my character -it is something that rich fathers do for their decadent sons.'
'I make no such judgements. Only Allah sees what is in a man's heart.'
Benedict shrugged, not entirely in agreement, but did not argue the point. 'You ask what of myself,' he said after a moment. 'The easiest reply is that I too breed horses, that I am an assistant to my father-in-law. My wife came here to visit the shrine of St James at Compostella, and I elected to escort her because I wanted to buy Spanish horses to improve our bloodstock in the north. It is my desire to breed the best warhorses in the Christian world.'
'Even if the best warhorses of the moment are Moslem bred?' Faisal asked mischievously.
