He looked at the rider. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Roland de Verrec,’ the man said. He spoke French with a Gascon accent.
‘I’ve heard of you,’ Thomas said, which was hardly surprising because Roland de Verrec’s name was spoken with awe throughout Europe. There was no finer tournament fighter. And, of course, there was the legend of his virginity, imposed by a vision of the Virgin Mary. ‘You want to join the Hellequin?’ Thomas asked.
‘I have been given a mission by the Count of Labrouillade …’ Roland began.
‘The fat bastard will very probably cheat you,’ Thomas interrupted, ‘and if you want to talk to me, Verrec, take that goddamned pot off your head.’
‘My lord the count orders me …’ Roland began.
‘I said take the goddamned pot off your head,’ Thomas interrupted again. He had climbed on the wagon bed to inspect the arrows, but also because the bed’s height meant he could look down on the mounted man. It was always uncomfortable to confront a horseman on foot, but the discomfort now belonged to Roland. A score of Thomas’s men, made curious by the presence of the strangers, had come from the open castle gate. Genevieve was among them, holding Hugh’s hand.
‘You will see my face,’ Roland said, ‘when you accept my challenge.’
‘Sam?’ Thomas shouted up to the gatehouse rampart. ‘See this idiot?’ He pointed at Roland. ‘Be ready to put an arrow through his head.’
Sam grinned, put an arrow on his cord and half drew the bow. Roland, not understanding what had been said, looked up to where Thomas had shouted. He had to crane his head to see the threat through his helmet’s eye- slits.
‘That’s an arrow of English ash,’ Thomas said, ‘with a scarfed oak tip at the head and a steel bodkin sharp as a needle. It will slice through that helmet of yours, make a neat hole in your skull and come to rest in the open space where your brain ought to be. So either give Sam some target practice or else take the damned helmet off.’
The helmet came off. Thomas’s first impression was of an angelic face, calm and blue-eyed, framed by fair hair that had been compressed and shaped by the helmet’s liner so that the crown was tight against his skull like a cap, while the fringes jutted out in stubborn curls. It looked so strange that Thomas could not resist laughing. His men were laughing too. ‘He looks like a juggler I saw at Towcester Fair,’ one said.
Roland, not understanding why men laughed, frowned. ‘Why do they mock me?’ he asked indignantly.
‘They think you’re a juggler,’ Thomas said.
‘You know who I am,’ Roland said grandly, ‘and I am here to challenge you.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘We don’t hold tournaments here,’ he said. ‘When we fight, we fight for real.’
‘Trust me,’ Roland said, ‘so do I.’ He kicked his horse closer to the wagon, perhaps hoping he might intimidate Thomas. ‘My lord of Labrouillade demands that you return his wife,’ he said.
‘The scriptures teach us that the dog goes back to its vomit,’ Thomas said, ‘so your master’s bitch is free to return to him whenever she wants. She doesn’t need your help.’
‘She is a woman,’ Roland said harshly, ‘and has no freedom outside her master’s will.’
Thomas nodded towards the castle. ‘Who owns that? Me or your master?’
‘You, for the moment.’
‘Then for the moment, Roland of wherever it is you’re from, the Countess of Labrouillade is free to do what she wishes because she’s inside my castle, not yours.’
‘We can decide that,’ Roland said, ‘by fighting. I challenge you!’ He tugged off his gauntlet and threw it onto the wagon.
Thomas smiled. ‘And what does the fight decide?’
‘When I kill you, Thomas of Hookton, I shall take the woman.’
‘And if I kill you?’
Roland smiled. ‘With God’s help I shall kill you.’
Thomas ignored the gauntlet that had come to rest between two of the barrels. ‘You can tell your fat master, Roland, that if he wants his woman back then he’d better come and fetch her himself, not send his juggler.’
‘This juggler,’ Roland retorted, ‘has been charged to perform two deeds. To reclaim my lord’s lawful wife and to punish you for insolence. So, will you fight?’
‘Dressed like this?’ Thomas asked. He was in hose and shirt with loose-fitting shoes.
‘I will give you time to put on armour,’ Roland said.
‘Jeanette!’ Thomas called to one of the girls at the well. ‘Drop your bucket down the well,
‘Now?’ she asked.
‘Right now,’ Thomas said, then stooped to pick up the gauntlet, which was made of fine leather and plated with scales of steel. He handed it to Roland. ‘If you’re not out of this town by the time Jeanette hauls that bucket out of the well, I’ll let my archers hunt you down. Now go and tell your fat master to come and take his woman for himself.’
Roland looked at Jeanette, who was hauling her bucket’s rope with two hands. ‘You have no honour, Englishman,’ he said proudly, ‘and I will kill you for that.’
‘Go and dunk your head in a latrine pit,’ Thomas said.
‘I shall …’ Roland began.
‘Sam!’ Thomas interrupted him. ‘Don’t kill his horse. I’ll keep that!’
He had shouted in French and Roland at last seemed to take the threat seriously because he turned his destrier and, followed by his standard bearer, spurred downhill towards the town’s southern gate.
Thomas tossed a coin to Jeanette, then walked up to the castle. ‘What did he want?’ Genevieve asked.
‘To fight me. He’s Labrouillade’s new champion.’
‘He would fight to get Bertille back?’
‘That’s why he was sent, yes.’
Brother Michael came running across the courtyard. ‘Did he come for the countess?’ he asked Thomas.
‘What’s it to you, brother?’
The young monk looked confused. ‘I was worried,’ he said limply.
‘Well, you can stop worrying,’ Thomas said, ‘because tomorrow I’m taking you away.’
‘Away?’
‘You’re meant to go to Montpellier, aren’t you? So at dawn tomorrow we leave. Pack your things, if you have any.’
‘But …’
‘Tomorrow,’ Thomas said, ‘at dawn.’
Because Montpellier had a university, and Thomas needed a learned man.
The Lord of Douglas was angry. He had brought two hundred of Scotland’s best warriors to France, and instead of launching them against the English, the King of France was holding a tournament.
A bloody tournament! The English were burning towns beyond the frontiers of Gascony and besieging castles in Normandy, yet Jean of France wanted to play at soldiers. So the Lord of Douglas would play as well, and when the French suggested a melee, fifteen of King Jean’s finest knights against fifteen Scotsmen, Douglas took one of his warriors aside. ‘Put them down fast,’ Douglas growled.
The man, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, just nodded. His name was Sculley. He alone among the Lord of Douglas’s men-at-arms was not wearing a helmet, and his dark hair, streaked with grey, was worn long and twisted into pigtails into which he had inserted numerous small bones, and it was rumoured that each bone came from the finger of an Englishman he had killed, though no one ever dared ask Sculley the truth of that statement. The bones could just as easily have come from fellow Scotsmen.
‘Put them down and keep them down,’ Douglas said.
Sculley smiled, all teeth, no humour. ‘Kill them?’
‘Christ, no, you bloody fool! It’s a goddamned tournament! Just put them down hard, man, hard and fast.’
Money was changing hands as bets were made, and most of the cash was placed on the French, for they were superbly mounted, beautifully armoured, and each of the fifteen was a renowned tournament fighter. They
