explained to him at the feast where cruets were used to represent the horsemen, but when he was watching, when the crash came, he did not understand it at all.
The Scots had seemed so ragged, yet at the last second they suddenly swerved inwards to make a column of horsemen, three riders in the front rank, and that column hammered through the French line like a nail driven through a sheet of vellum. Scottish lances crashed into shields, Frenchmen were thrown back onto their saddles’ high cantles, and the column sliced through the line to strike hard against the second smaller group of French riders, who, not expecting to be involved in the fight’s opening, were not ready for the impact. A lance caught a Frenchman at the base of his helmet and, though blunted, it cracked the helmet and threw the man back over his cantle. A horse screamed. The Scots in the following ranks had discarded their lances and drawn swords or else carried brutal lead-weighted maces, and they now moved outwards. Most were now behind their opponents who were blind to their attacks. Another Frenchman went down, dragged by his stirrup-trapped boot out of the melee.
So far as the cardinal could see it was sheer chaos, but it was clear the Scots were winning. Two more Frenchmen fell, and Sculley, conspicuous because he wore no helmet, was hammering his mace down on a magnificently plumed helm, hammering again and again, grimacing as he stood in his stirrups, and the horseman, plainly stunned, slid down to the turf as Sculley turned on another man, this time swinging the mace so that it slammed straight into the helmet’s eye-slits. That man went, felled in an instant, and the Scotsmen were now seeking new enemies, getting in each other’s way in their eagerness to finish off the French knights. Joscelyn of Berat was backing his horse, fighting off Robbie Douglas and another man. Joscelyn’s swordplay was fast and dangerous, but Sculley came behind him and slammed the mace into the small of his back, and Joscelyn, knowing he could not fight off three men, shouted that he yielded, and Robbie Douglas had to drive his horse between Joscelyn and Sculley to stop the mace coming again in a blow that threatened to snap the Frenchman’s spine.
Sculley wheeled away, saw a Frenchmen staggering to his feet with a drawn sword, so kicked him in the face and raised the mace to finish the man off, but the heralds were running to intervene and the trumpets were shrilling and another Scotsman stilled Sculley’s blow. The crowd was utterly silent. Sculley was growling, twitching, flicking his head from side to side in search of another man to hit, but of the Frenchmen only Joscelyn of Berat was still in his saddle, and he had yielded. The fight had been fast, brutal and one-sided, and the cardinal discovered he had been holding his breath. ‘A demonstration of Scottish prowess, my lord?’ he enquired of the Lord of Douglas.
‘Just imagine they had been fighting the English,’ Douglas growled.
‘That is a cheering thought, my lord,’ the cardinal said, watching as servants ran to rescue the fallen French knights, one of whom was not moving at all. His helm was battered and there was blood seeping from the visor’s eye-slits. ‘The sooner we release you against the English,’ Bessieres went on, ‘the better.’
Douglas turned to look at the cardinal. ‘The king listens to you?’ he asked.
‘I give him advice,’ Bessieres said airily.
‘Then tell him to send us south.’
‘Not to Normandy?’
‘Edward’s pup is in the south,’ Douglas said.
‘The Prince of Wales?’
‘Edward’s pup,’ Douglas said, ‘and I want him. I want him yielding to me. I want him on his damned knees whimpering for mercy.’
‘And will you grant it?’ Bessieres asked, amused at the passion in the Scotsman’s voice.
‘You know our king is prisoner in England?’
‘Of course.’
‘And the ransom will break our backs. I want Edward’s pup.’
‘Ah!’ Bessieres understood. ‘So your king’s ransom will be the Prince of Wales?’
‘Exactly.’
Bessieres reached out and touched a gloved finger to the Scotsman’s hand. ‘I shall do as you ask,’ he promised warmly, ‘but first I want you to introduce me to your nephew.’
‘To Robbie?’
‘To Robbie,’ the cardinal said.
Bessieres and Robbie met that evening as the survivors of the tourney feasted with the French court. They ate eels seethed in wine, mutton dressed with figs, roasted songbirds, venison, and a score of other dishes brought into a hall where minstrels played behind a screen. The Scottish warriors ate together, clustered at a table as if protecting themselves from the vengeful French, who had suggested that some strange pagan magic, born of the wild northern hills, had been used against their champions, so that when Robbie was summoned, and ordered by his uncle to obey the summons, he crossed the hall nervously. He bowed to the king, then followed the servant to the table where the cardinal had four trenchers in front of him. ‘You will sit beside me, young man,’ the cardinal ordered. ‘Do you like roasted larks?’
‘No, Your Eminence.’
‘Suck the flesh from the bones and you will find the taste delectable.’ The cardinal placed a tiny bird in front of Robbie. ‘You fought well,’ he said.
‘We fought as we always fight,’ Robbie said.
‘I watched you. In another moment you would have beaten the Count of Berat.’
‘I doubt it,’ Robbie said ungraciously.
‘But then your master’s beast intervened,’ the cardinal said, watching Sculley, who was hunched over his food as though he feared men might take it from him. ‘Why does he wear bones in his hair?’
‘To remind himself of the men he’s killed.’
‘Some think it is sorcery,’ the cardinal said.
‘Not sorcery, Your Eminence, just deadly skill.’
The cardinal sucked at a lark. ‘I am told, Sir Robert, that you refuse to fight against the English?’
‘I made an oath,’ Robbie said.
‘To a man who was excommunicated from the church. To a man who married a heretic. To a man who has proven to be an enemy of Mother Church, to Thomas of Hookton.’
‘To a man who saved my life when I caught the plague,’ Robbie said, ‘and to a man who paid my ransom so I could go free.’
The cardinal pulled a sliver of bone from his teeth. ‘I see a man who wears bones in his hair, and you tell me you caught the plague and lived with a heretic’s help. And this afternoon I watched you defeat fifteen good men, men who are not easily beaten. It seems to me, Sir Robert, that you have unnatural help. Perhaps the devil aids you? You deny using sorcery, but the evidence suggests otherwise, wouldn’t you agree?’ He asked the questions silkily, then paused to sip wine. ‘I might have to talk to my Dominicans, Sir Robert, and tell them that there is the stench of wickedness in your soul. I might be forced to encourage them to heat their fires and wind the ropes of their machines that stretch men till they break.’ He was smiling, and his plump right hand was massaging Robbie’s left knee. ‘One word from me, Sir Robert, and your soul will be in my care.’
‘I’m a good Christian,’ Robbie said defiantly.
‘Then you must prove that to me.’
‘Prove it?’
‘By realising that an oath made to a heretic is not binding in heaven nor upon earth. Only in hell, Sir Robert, does that oath have power. And I want you to do me a service. If you refuse me then I shall tell King Jean that evil has entered his kingdom and I shall ask the Dominicans to explore your soul and burn that evil from your body. The choice is yours. Are you going to eat that lark?’
Robbie shook his head and watched as the cardinal sucked the meat from the fragile bones. ‘What service?’ he asked nervously.
‘A service for His Holiness the Pope,’ Bessieres said, carefully not saying which Pope he meant. The service was for himself, who prayed nightly that he would be the next man to wear the fisherman’s ring. ‘Have you heard of the Order of the Garter?’
‘I have,’ Robbie said.
‘Or the Order of the Virgin and Saint George?’ Bessieres continued, ‘or the Order of the Sash in Spain? Or, indeed, King Jean’s Order of the Star? Bands of great knights, Sir Robert, sworn to each other, to their king, and to the noblest aims of chivalry. I have been charged with creating a similar order, a band of knights sworn to the
