he would have seen the terror beneath the scorn, but he felt only the lash and he tried to deflect it by telling tales to young Hugh. He told the boy the story of the golden fleece, then how the great hero Ipomadon had disguised himself to win a tournament, and then how Lancelot had done the same, and Hugh listened in fascination while his mother appeared to despise the tales. ‘So why did they fight?’ she asked.
‘To win, my lady,’ Roland said.
‘No, they fought for their lovers,’ Genevieve said. ‘Ipomadon fought for Queen Proud, and Lancelot for Guinevere who, like the Countess of Labrouillade, was married to another man.’
Roland coloured at that. ‘I would not call them lovers,’ he said stiffly.
‘What else?’ she asked with reeking scorn. ‘And Guinevere was a prisoner, as I am.’
‘Madame!’
‘If I’m not a prisoner,’ she demanded, ‘let me go.’
‘You are a hostage, madame, and under my protection.’
Genevieve laughed at that. ‘Your protection?’
‘Until you are exchanged, madame,’ Roland said stiffly, ‘I swear no harm will come to you if it is in my power to prevent it.’
‘Oh stop your witless blathering and tell my son another tale of adultery,’ she spat.
So Roland told what he thought was a much safer story, the glorious tale of his namesake, the great Roland de Roncesvalles. ‘He marched against the Moors in Spain,’ he told Hugh. ‘Do you know who the Moors are?’
‘Pagans,’ Hugh said.
‘That’s right! They are heathens and pagans, followers of a false god, and when the French army came back across the Pyrenees they were treacherously ambushed by the pagans! Roland commanded the rearguard and he was outnumbered twenty to one, some say fifty to one! Yet he possessed a great sword, Durandal, that had once belonged to Hector of Troy, and that great blade slew his enemies. They died in their scores, but not even Durandal could hold back that pagan horde and the poor Christians were in danger of being overwhelmed. But Roland also possessed a magic horn, Olifant, and he blew the horn, he blew it so hard that the effort killed him, but the sound of Olifant brought King Charlemagne and his magnificent knights to slaughter the impudent enemy!’
‘They may have been impudent,’ Genevieve said, ‘but they were never Moors. They were Christians.’
‘My lady!’ Roland protested.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ she said. ‘Have you ever been to Roncesvalles?’
‘No, madame.’
‘I have! My father was a juggler and fire-eater. We went from town to town collecting pennies and we listened to the stories, always the stories, and in Roncesvalles they know it was the Basques, Christians to a man, who ambushed Roland. They killed him too. You just pretend it was the Moors because you can’t abide thinking that your hero was killed by peasant rebels. And how glorious a death is it? To blow a horn and fall down?’
‘Roland is a hero as great as Arthur!’
‘Who had more sense than to kill himself by blowing a horn. And speaking of horns, why do you serve the Count of Labrouillade?’
‘To do right, lady.’
‘Right! By returning that poor girl to her pig of a husband?’
‘To her lawful husband.’
‘Who rapes his tenants’ wives and daughters,’ she said, ‘so why aren’t you punishing him for adultery?’ Roland had no answer except to frown at Hugh, distressed that such a subject should be aired in front of a small boy. Genevieve laughed. ‘Oh, Hugh can listen,’ she said. ‘I want him to be a decent man like his father, so I’m educating him. I don’t want him to be a fool like you.’
‘Madame!’ Roland protested again.
Genevieve spat. ‘Seven years ago, when Bertille was twelve years old, she was carried to Labrouillade and married to him. He was thirty-two then and he wanted her dowry. What choice did she have? She was twelve!’
‘She is lawfully married, before God.’
‘To a disgusting creature whom God would spit on.’
‘She is his wife,’ Roland insisted, yet he felt exquisitely uncomfortable. He wished he had never taken this quest, but he had, and honour demanded it must be seen through to its end and so they rode northwards. They stayed at a tavern in the marketplace of Gignac, and Roland insisted on sleeping just outside the chamber where Genevieve slept. His squire shared the vigil. Roland’s squire was a clever fourteen-year-old, Michel, whom Roland was training in the ways of chivalry. ‘I don’t trust the Count of Labrouillade’s men,’ Roland told the boy, ‘especially not Jacques, so we sleep here with our swords.’ The count’s man had been eyeing the fair-haired Genevieve all day, and Roland had heard the laughter behind him and suspected the men-at-arms were discussing his captive, but they made no attempt to get past Roland during the night, and next morning they rode northwards and joined the high road heading towards Limoges while Genevieve tormented Roland by suggesting that her husband would have escaped Montpellier.
‘He’s difficult to capture,’ she said, ‘and terrible in revenge.’
‘I do not fear fighting him,’ Roland said.
‘Then you’re a fool. You think your sword will protect you? Do you call it Durandal?’ She laughed when he reddened, for he obviously did. ‘But Thomas has a span of dark-painted yew,’ she said, ‘and a cord of hemp with arrows of peeled white ash. Have you ever faced an English archer?’
‘He will fight courteously.’
‘Don’t be such a fool! He’ll cheat you and trick you and deceive you, and at the end of the fight you’ll be as stuck full of arrows as a brush has bristles. He might already be ahead of you! Maybe the archers are waiting on the road? You won’t see them. The first you’ll know is the strike of the arrows, then the screams of horses and the death of your men.’
‘She’s right,’ Jacques Solliere put in.
Roland smiled bravely. ‘They will not shoot, lady, for fear of hitting you.’
‘You know nothing! At two hundred paces they can pick the snot out of your nose with an arrow. They’ll shoot.’ She wondered where Thomas was. She feared that the church would seize her again. She feared for her son.
The next night was spent in a monastery’s guest house, and again Roland guarded her threshold. There was no other way from the room, no escape. On the road, before they reached the monastery, they had passed a group of merchants with armed guards, and Genevieve had called out to them, saying she had been captured against her will. The men had looked worried until Roland, with his calm courtesy, had said she was his sister and moon- touched. He said the same thing whenever Genevieve appealed to passers-by. ‘I take her to a place where she might be treated by holy nuns,’ he said, and the merchants had believed him and passed on.
‘So you’re not above telling lies,’ she had mocked him.
‘A lie in God’s service is no lie.’
‘And this is God’s service?’
‘Marriage is a sacrament. My life is dedicated to God’s service.’
‘Is that why you’re a virgin?’
He blushed at that, then frowned, but still answered the question seriously. ‘It was revealed to me that my strength in battle rests on purity.’ He paused to glance at her. ‘It was the Virgin Mary who spoke to me.’
Genevieve had been mocking him, but something in his tone checked her scorn. ‘What did she say?’
‘She was beautiful,’ Roland said wistfully.
‘And she spoke to you?’
‘She came down from the chapel ceiling,’ he said, ‘and told me I must live a chaste life until I marry. That God would bless me. That I was chosen. I was only a boy then, but I was chosen.’
‘You had a dream.’ Genevieve sounded dismissive.
‘A vision,’ he corrected her.
‘A boy dreams of a beautiful woman,’ Genevieve said, the scorn back in her voice, ‘that’s no vision.’
‘And she touched me and told me I must stay pure.’
‘Tell that to the arrow that kills you,’ she had said, and Roland had fallen silent.
Now, on the third day of travel, he constantly searched the road ahead for any sign of the Hellequin. There were plenty enough travellers; merchants, pilgrims, drovers, or folk going to market, but none reported seeing
