“Tomorrow,” she said softly, and drifted away down the hall.
So I slept, collapsing to the mattress and not even moving until Robard nudged me awake with his boot.
“Rise, squire. The High Counsel has returned and there’s something else you need to see,” he said, anticipation tinged with apprehension in his voice.
“What is it?” I groused, for I had not rested well. Dreams of Celia, pleasant though they were, had intruded on my sleep and woken me several times during the night. Now fully awake, I felt tired and out of sorts.
“You’ll see,” he said, turning toward the door. “Hurry.”
Robard led me back to the bailey, and I squinted in the bright sun as we left the dimness of the keep. He bounded farther up the stairs to the battlements atop Montsegur’s walls, and shortly we stood above the southwest gate.
“What is it?” I asked again.
“Look for yourself.” He pointed to the field below us, rocky and steep. I peered out, shocked at how many more of the High Counsel’s men had joined his original force. There were at least several hundred men mounted near the tree line. I located him at the head of the column, moving onto the field below the castle, his horse prancing along and his cape flowing behind him. To his immediate rear rode the color bearer carrying a large green-and-white flag, and next to him, a rider carried another banner: the familiar brown-and-white Templar flag.
Suddenly, nothing made sense. Why would the High Counsel have a Templar regimento with him? My eyes traveled back to where he sat upon his stallion, and I recognized the rider next to him instantly. The meal I’d eaten the night before roiled in my stomach, and I thought for a moment I might be sick on the spot.
Sir Hugh.
17
Even though I knew he would never stop trying to find me, a small part of me had prayed that something would delay Sir Hugh. Bad weather, a wayward arrow, poison, anything. But he had managed to crush even that small hope.
“How? How does he do it? He escapes from Acre, a city overrun by Saracens, he follows us across an ocean and survives a storm that sinks our ship, and now he finds us here in the middle of nowhere, stuck in a tiny castle! Has he given his soul to Satan, just for the privilege of thwarting me at every turn?” I muttered on longer until I had nothing left to say. Though I was not as experienced at cursing as Robard, I ran through every one I knew. Sir Hugh. A snake, a weasel and a polecat all rolled into one.
If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve said Robard was amused by my futile rant. “What now?” he asked. The steel in his voice brought me back into focus. Robard had a look in his eyes I had noticed before in our time together. Despite his frequent protests, and his genuine desire to return home, he loved a fight. Especially if it involved teaching a harsh lesson to a couple of pompous jackasses like Sir Hugh and the High Counsel. Yet he was also a realist.
“This changes things. Your friend the High Counsel might have eventually given up the siege. I doubt we can say the same about your friend Sir Hugh,” he said.
He was right, of course. We were locked in, and I knew Sir Hugh would kill every last man, woman and child here in order to get the Grail. I had foolishly trapped us in this fortress, and now we would pay a heavy price trying to get out of it. To Robard’s credit he did not remind me that he had counseled against such a move in the first place.
“Do you think he can be bought off?” Robard asked.
“How?”
“With whatever it is you’re carrying. Think about it. Give him what he wants and it’s over.”
Robard did not understand. Giving Sir Hugh the Grail would not save our lives. He’d kill us all anyway so no one else would know he had it. It wouldn’t be over until I had delivered the Grail safely to Father William at Rosslyn or until Sir Hugh or I were dead.
“Robard. . I can’t. I swore an oath to Sir Thomas. If you had given a vow to your father, would you break it?”
Robard said nothing for a while, looking out at the ground below the fortress.
“Oaths are funny things, Tristan. Some are worth dying for, I’ll grant you. Your people, your family, even your country sometimes. Some, though, become more than the giver can bear. My father swore his fealty to King Henry, and what did it get him? When Henry died, his sniveling son took over”-Robard paused to spit at the mention of King Richard-“and everything my father fought and bled for was suddenly meaningless. You are my friend. I’ve come to trust you, like I’ve trusted few before. So I ask you, is what you carry worth dying for?”
“Sir Thomas thought so,” I said.
“I never met Sir Thomas, so I don’t know what kind of man he was. You swear by his memory, so I’ll take you at your word. But even if he were alive and standing here before me, I’m not asking him. I’m asking you. Is what you carry worth dying for?”
Robard’s question made me think long and hard before I answered. Sir Thomas believed it with all his heart. He entrusted it to me, and from what I had witnessed of the Grail so far, I knew I would die before I let Sir Hugh possess it.
“Yes, Robard, it is.”
“Then that is enough for me. I’ll see you through this, Tristan. Until you tell me it’s done.”
I was so moved by Robard’s words that I couldn’t speak. Something about him had changed since he’d returned to us in the village below. He was still headstrong and temperamental, of course, but calmer. He had committed to something he didn’t fully understand, but maybe here among his new friends he had found a struggle worthy of his gifts-unlike his experience in Outremer, which had only left him bitter and angry.
“Why the sudden change of heart? Before this you wanted only to get to England. Now it’s quite possible we won’t get out of here alive. Why?”
“Because you are my friend,” he said. He left me then. This was his final word on the matter. In his own way, Robard had sworn an oath, and I felt better than I had in days.
I stood there alone, the wind hitting my face. It was a cool morning and the breeze had picked up. I heard movement behind me but didn’t turn.
“Tell me what you see,” Celia said to me.
“Trouble,” I replied.
To my surprise, she laughed.
“We certainly have no shortage of that here,” she said.
“So it would seem.”
She stood beside me and closed her eyes.
“I love the feel of wind in my hair, don’t you?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it before.” And I wasn’t thinking about it now. I stared at her, and despite our circumstances, she looked peaceful, almost serene.
“Really?” she answered. “All the time you grew up in a monastery, contemplating God and his miracles, and you never once stopped to feel a breeze on your face? What did you do all day?”
“Mostly worked,” I replied. “There were always chores. I’m not sure the abbot would have found ‘contemplating the feel of the wind’ a worthwhile use of time.”
“Hmph. Sounds like a very ill-mannered man.”
“Not really. Stern. But fair. Brilliant even, in many ways.”
“I’ve yet to meet any cleric whom I would consider brilliant. Bigoted. Prejudiced. Judgmental. I’ve met many of those.”
“I can’t argue. I can only say that the monks who raised me were kind. Industrious to be sure, but I never wanted for anything.”
“What about your parents? Didn’t you wish to know who they were?”
“Of course. But the monks had no control over that. They simply took me in.”
