Chris looked at Sir Daniel questioningly.
Sir Daniel said, 'There, my scolere. The fires.'
He was pointing in the far distance. Squinting, Chris could just make out faint columns of smoke disappearing into the blue haze. It was at the limit of what he could see.
'That is the company of Arnaut de Cervole,' Sir Daniel said. 'They are encamped no more than fifteen miles distant. They will reach here in a day - two days at most. All know it.'
'And Sir Oliver?'
'He knows his battle with Arnaut will be fierce.'
'And yet he holds a tournament-'
'That is a matter of his honor,' Sir Daniel said. 'His prickly honor. Certes, he would disband it, if he could. But he does not dare. And herein lies your hazard.'
'My hazard?'
Sir Daniel sighed. He began pacing. 'Dress you now, to meet my Lord Oliver in proper fashion. I shall try to avert the coming disaster.'
The old man turned and walked out of the room. Chris looked at the boy. He had stopped scrubbing.
'What disaster?' he said.
33:12:51
It was a peculiarity of medieval scholarship in the twentieth century that there was not a single contemporary picture that showed what the interior of a fourteenth-century castle looked like. Not a painting, or an illuminated manuscript image, or a notebook sketch - there was nothing at all from that time. The earliest images of fourteenth-century life had actually been made in the fifteenth century, and the interiors - and food, and costumes - they portrayed were correct for the fifteenth century, not the fourteenth.
As a result, no modern scholar knew what furniture was used, how walls were decorated, or how people dressed and behaved. The absence of information was so complete that when the apartments of King Edward I were excavated in the Tower of London, the reconstructed walls had to be left as exposed plaster, because no one could say what decorations might have been there.
This was also why artists' reconstructions of the fourteenth century tended to show bleak interiors, rooms with bare walls and few furnishings - perhaps a chair, or a chest - but not much else. The very absence of contemporary imagery was taken to imply a sparseness to life at that time.
All this flashed through Kate Erickson's mind as she entered the great hall of Castelgard. What she was about to see, no historian had ever seen before. She walked in, slipping through the crowd, following Marek. And she stared, stunned by the richness and the chaos displayed before her.
The great hall sparkled like an enormous jewel. Sunlight streamed through high windows onto walls that gleamed with tapestries laced with gold, so that reflections danced on the red-and-gold-painted ceiling. One side of the room was hung with a vast patterned cloth: silver fleurs-de-lis on a background of deep blue. On the opposite wall, a tapestry depicting a battle: knights fighting in full regalia, their armor silver, their surcoats blue and white, red and gold; their fluttering banners threaded with gold.
At the end of the room stood a huge ornate fireplace, large enough for a person to walk into without ducking, its carved mantelpiece gilded and shimmering. In front of the fire stood a huge wicker screen, also gilded. And above the mantel hung a patterned tapestry of swans flying on a field of lacy red and gold flowers.
The room was inherently elegant, richly and beautifully executed - and rather feminine, to modern eyes. Its beauty and refinement stood in marked contrast to the behavior of the people in the room, which was noisy, boisterous, crude.
In front of the fire was laid the high table, draped in white linen, with dishes of gold, all heaped high with food. Little dogs scampered across the table, helping themselves to the food as they liked - until the man in the center of the table swatted them away with a curse.
Lord Oliver de Vannes was about thirty, with small eyes set in a fleshy, dissolute face. His mouth was permanently turned down in a sneer; he tended to keep his lips tight, since he was missing several teeth. His clothes were as ornate as the room: a robe of blue and gold, with a high-necked gold collar, and a fur hat. His necklace consisted of blue stones each the size of a robin's egg. He wore rings on several fingers, huge oval gems in heavy gold settings. He stabbed with his knife at food and ate noisily, grunting to his companions.
But despite the elegant accoutrements, the impression he conveyed was of a dangerous petulance - his red- rimmed eyes darted around the room as he ate, alert to any insult, spoiling for a fight. He was edgy and quick to strike; when one of the little dogs came back to eat again, Oliver unhesitatingly jabbed it in its rear with the point of his knife; the animal jumped off and ran yelping and bleeding from the room.
Lord Oliver laughed, wiped the dog's blood off the tip of his blade, and continued to eat.
The men seated at his table shared the joke. From the look of them, they were all soldiers, Oliver's contemporaries, and all were elegantly dressed - though none matched the finery of their leader. And three or four women, young, pretty and bawdy, in tight-fitting dresses and with loose, wanton hair, giggling as their hands groped beneath the table, completed the scene.
Kate stared, and a word came unbidden to her mind: warlord. This was a medieval warlord, sitting with his soldiers and their prostitutes in the castle he had captured.
A wooden staff banged on the floor, and a herald cried, 'My Lord! Magister Edward de Johnes!' Turning, she saw Johnston shoved through the crowd, toward the table at the front.
Lord Oliver looked up, wiping gravy from his jowls with the back of his hand. 'I bid you welcome, Magister Edwardus. Though I do not know if you are Magister or magicien.'
'Lord Oliver,' the Professor said, speaking in Occitan. He gave a slight nod of the head.
'Magister, why so cool,' Oliver said, pretending to pout. 'You wound me, you do. What have I done to deserve this reserve? Are you displeased I brought you from the monastery? You shall eat as well here, I assure you. Better. Anywise, the Abbot has no need of you - and I do.'
Johnston stood erect, and did not speak.
'You have nothing to say?' Oliver said, glaring at Johnston. His face darkened. 'That will change,' he growled.
Johnston remained unmoving, silent.
The moment passed. Lord Oliver seemed to collect himself. He smiled blandly. 'But come, come, let us not quarrel. With all courtesy and respect, I seek your counsel,' Oliver said. 'You are wise, and I have much need of wisdom - so these worthies tell me.' Guffaws at the table. 'And I am told you can see the future.'
'No man sees that,' Johnston said.
'Oh so? I think you do, Magister. And I pray you, see your own. I would not see a man of your distinction suffer much. Know you how your namesake, our late king, Edward the Foolish, met his end? I see by your face that you do. Yet you were not among those present in the castle. And I was.' He smiled grimly and sat back in his chair. 'There was never a mark upon his body.'
Johnston nodded slowly. 'His screams could be heard for miles.'
Kate looked questioningly to Marek, who whispered, 'They're talking about Edward II of England. He was imprisoned and killed. His captors didn't want any sign of foul play, so they stuck a tube up his rectum and inserted a red-hot poker into his bowels until he died.'
Kate shivered.
'He was also gay,' Marek whispered, 'so it was thought the manner of his execution demonstrated great wit.'
'Indeed, his screams were heard for miles,' Oliver was saying. 'So think on it. You know many things, and I would know them, too. You are my counselor, or you are not long for this world.'
Lord Oliver was interrupted by a knight who slipped down the table and whispered in his ear. This knight was richly dressed in maroon and gray, but he had the tough, weathered face of a campaigner. A deep scar, almost a welt, ran down his face from forehead to chin and disappeared into his high collar. Oliver listened, and then said to him, 'Oh? You think so, Robert?'
