Relics (14 page)

The Sieur de Kervezey howled. It was a worse sound than the foxes above Capton, more empty, more despairing, more devoid of humanity. His back arched convulsively, and he jerked backwards. I waved the hand feebly.
'Te absolvo,'
I told him. I tried to roll away, but the knight's knife-hand was flailing at me and I felt an icy needle bury itself in my shoulder. As the street began to open beneath me and suck me I saw him rise to his knees. His good eye blazed from a welter of blood. He shrieked again and I heard him stagger away as the darkness closed over me.

Chapter Nine

T

he heat of the sun on my face woke me at last - not the awakening that comes from a good night of sleep, but a sudden rushing-in of the world: one moment oblivion; the next, noise, smell, heat and dazzle. I lay on my back; beneath me was something soft. I was gazing up at a sky of the purest blue, and my first thought was that I had overslept by hours, and that there would be hell to pay at college. Then I noticed that everything was heaving, and although my head was spinning as if from the foulest hangover, the sickening lurches and plunges I felt were outside, as well as inside me. I started to look around, but a sharp pain in my neck made me hesitate. I gritted my teeth and turned a little further. Something came into view. I was looking at a tree-trunk festooned with ropes. Not a tree, exactly, but a high stout pole, supporting a great sheet of dirty cloth that ballooned out in the breeze. I was looking at a sail. With that revelation I jerked upright, and my body rebelled with a swarm of aches, pains, stings and twinges. I yelled, feebly. But I was still alive, apparently, so I steeled myself for another look around.

I was indeed aboard a ship. The only water-craft I had ever been on were the little coracles that the Dart fishermen used. Imagine, then, my utter confusion now. It seemed as though I were on a floating island of wood. I lay on a thick pile of sheepskins, which I now noticed still smelled strongly of the tanners. The ship stretched away in front of me for several yards, rising up to a stubby point. Beyond, the sea rose and fell from view. Behind me, the deck ended in a wall that rose up into the glare of the sun. As my senses returned to their usual state I saw that men were working all around, heaving on ropes, moving barrels and sacks, scrubbing the deck. The wind hissed in the sail, and water hissed somewhere below.

My head and face hurt. I explored with cautious fingers. My ears felt hot and swollen, but I could still hear. My forehead carried a lump the size of a hen's egg. My nose felt both numb and extraordinarily painful, numb when I breathed and raw when I tried to wrinkle it. I touched it very carefully, but it still seemed roughly in its rightful shape, although there was a big bump on the bridge, and as I felt a tiny scrape of bone on bone the silver mist of a faint poured over me. Then a hand was forcing my head down between my knees. I gagged, and then the world regained colour and form.

'So you are alive, Master Petroc. I am so very happy - but not happy enough to welcome any more puke on my boots. Welcome aboard the
Cormaran!

The voice was clear, but strange. There was an accent - almost French, but not quite. I had heard it before, I thought, but as to where . . .

'Drink this.' A flask appeared under my nose and, not really having any choice, I took a sip. The liquid was thick and strong, like mead but fiery and full of tastes I did not recognise. I took a longer pull. The man above me laughed.

"You like it? Drink deep. You need it.'

The mead was already buzzing in my blood, and I felt better. A great deal better, apparently, as I found myself staring into the face of the man with the odd voice.

The sun was behind him, and at first I could make out only a halo of curly hair. It was dark brown, and later I would see that it was shot through with silver. The curls framed a dark, lined face, clean-shaven, in which shone a pair of slate-grey eyes that seemed to pin me to the deck. The man had an eagle's nose, but his mouth was wide and he was smiling. His teeth were very white against his tanned face.

It was the smile - the first I had seen in a great age - that brought me fully to my senses. I was alive, possibly without serious damage, and in the hands of someone who smiled, laughed and dispensed strong drink. A rush of pure joy surged through me from toes to fading tonsure. I clambered to my unsteady feet, and tried to stretch my arms. Pain erupted in my neck, and the man with the white teeth grabbed my right arm and held me steady.

'Keep still, master. I am sorry - that arm should be in a sling.'

'My arm? It is not my arm that hurts,' I said.

You took a knife-thrust, lad.' He touched me gently on my left shoulder, where the muscle rose towards my neck. 'It went through here. Very lucky. A little lower and it would have been in a lung. A little to the side . . .' And he moved his hand to my neck, where I could feel my blood pulse strongly. 'But the knife was very sharp and thin, and made a clean wound. Keep it still and you will knit together in a few days.'

'Are you Adric's friend?' I asked suddenly.

'Michel de Montalhac, sometimes called the Frenchman, also Jean de Sol. I'm honoured to meet you, Master Petroc. Gilles has told me something of your adventure.'

Then everything came back to me, and I sat down heavily on the sheepskins. De Montalhac knelt beside me.

'Do not call it an adventure, sir, please. I have lived in hell for ... I don't remember. But I have pulled others down with me. My friend Will, and Adric. And Gilles: was he killed?'

'Do not worry about Gilles. He is extremely good at looking after himself, as are Rassoul and Pavlos.'

'Did they bring me here?' I asked.

'No, I found you myself. The . . .' he hesitated for an instant. 'You were brought down almost at our gangplank. I reached you just in time. Although you seemed to have given quite an account of yourself without my assistance.'

What about Sir Hugh - the man who attacked me?' I asked.

'Aha. It seems you put out one of his eyes. I would have run him down and cut his throat—' and I flinched as he drew his hand sharply across his own neck '—had not Gilles and the boys come up then with the Watch at their heels. But in any case he may well be dead. I confess that I have been on fire with curiosity these last three days—' de Montalhac saw my surprise, and went on: You did not come aboard last night. We have been at sea for two whole days and nights, Petroc. You were unconscious at first, and we worried, but then it seemed that you were just asleep, and we did not wish to wake you before you were ready.'

I shook my head in amazement. The longest, finest sleep I had had in who knew how long, and I had taken it on board a ship, surrounded by strangers. But something in what the man had just said made me look at him more closely.

'Do you know something of Sir Hugh de Kervezey, sir?' I enquired carefully.

'Know of him? More than that. I know him very well, in some ways at least. But we are not friends. Or were not.'

My face must have betrayed the horror that the thought of Sir Hugh brought back to me. The fragrant flask was again at my lips. I took a draught. The man was speaking to me gently.

The sun is shining. You are safe. He cannot follow.' He patted my shoulder. 'Let me show you my ship. Then we will eat, and talk some more.'

A little later, I was dressed in clean clothes and seated in a leather-backed chair in de Montalhac's cabin. My beautiful tunic, caked in blood and other things, had been given to one of the sailors, who expressed doubts that it could be rescued. Then de Montalhac had shown me below. Under the main deck was a long, dimly lit space where men slept in hammocks. It was ripe with sweat and old cooking, but not dismal. At one end a cloth had been hung, forming a private space where I found a pitcher of water and a large bowl. There were clean clothes: loose, ankle-length breeches of sailcloth, a sailor's tunic and a sleeveless sheepskin surcoat. I was left to wash myself. The water in the pitcher was perfumed with some kind of oil which smelled of roses. I hesitated before using it. 'Is this for washing or for drinking?' I called out. There was laughter from behind the sheet.

'This is no monastery, Petroc,' de Montalhac replied. 'On this ship we keep our bodies clean, as well as our souls.' He was chuckling. 'Roses will not hurt you. Do not take offence, but we would all rather smell the scent of a rose than that of a dead horse. Give thanks that you could not smell yourself.'

I had never thought about washing in these terms, and I confess I was shocked. The only person I knew who smelled like anything other than the day's sweat had been Sir Hugh, although as I thought longer I remembered that Gilles, Rassoul and the swordsman had also seemed faintly perfumed. But, I reflected, I was certainly damned in so many other ways that one more aberration would not harm me now. I rinsed myself stiffly, trying not to jostle my wounded shoulder. Then I dressed and found de Montalhac waiting for me. He held out a pair of low boots made from supple deep-red leather. 'Spanish,' he told me. 'Good boots. But you would do better to go barefoot on deck. Less slippery.' He gave me a belt in richly tooled leather that matched the boots. I thought it was a curious choice to go with my sailor garb, but de Montalhac anticipated my question.

'You need something to hold this,' he said, holding out his hand to me. In his palm lay something long and narrow. A knife in a sheath of some green material. I took it gingerly. The sheath was rough to the touch. I rubbed it experimentally with my thumb.

'Shagreen,' said de Montalhac. 'The skin of a sting-ray. Do you recognise it?'

I did not. The knife had a hilt of a cool green stone, and where the stone widened to form a pommel, two red gems twinkled. I drew the blade, and almost dropped it in shock. I was looking at the cold, slender steel of Thorn.

'A prince once owned that knife,' de Montalhac was saying. 'It was made in Damascus a century and more ago. There are plenty of men on this ship who will be delighted to teach you its proper use.' Seeing my pale face and shaking hands, he added, 'Now put it away before you cut yourself.'

He said it in such a solemn, parental voice that Thorn's spell was broken. I laughed out loud as I slipped her back into the green sheath.

'How . . .' I stuttered.

'It was buried in your shoulder when I found you. And now,' said de Montalhac, let us eat.'

He showed me to his cabin, where Gilles de Peyrolles, who was delighted to see me up and about, and who seemed unmarked by his brawl on the Dartmouth waterfront, was waiting. The room was small and low. An arched doorway gave out onto the main deck, and I had been lying next to it on my pile of sheepskins - which I noticed had now disappeared. Opposite the door was a line of three windows that looked out on the ship's wake. I had stuck my head through one of them on first entering the cabin and found myself looking down -quite a long way down, I thought - on the green water that boiled and foamed out from under the stern. Gulls were following us, swooping and sometimes hovering low over our white trail. It was then that I realised I did not feel in the least bit seasick; one of the few things I knew about boats was that they made land-folk feel terrible, but I was fine. Perhaps, I reflected, I had come to terms with the ship's heaving while I was dead to the world. Whatever the reason, though, I was famished, and was delighted to find, when I pulled my head back into the room, that a great cold ham was waiting for us on the little round table that took up most of the centre of the room. Sitting down, I was reaching for Thorn with my good arm - the other was now in a sling and strapped tight across my chest - when the captain laid a hand on my arm.

'Do not ask a Moslem blade to cut pork if you wish her to serve you well,' he said gravely and handed me a plain, wooden-handled knife. You can keep this one,' he said. 'It is an apostate and won't care what you carve.'

Gilles gave a snort of rueful amusement from across the table. 'I'm sure that our guest is too hungry to give the faith of his cutlery much thought,' he said.

He was right. The food was plain but good, and I ate a great deal of it, and drank all the wine that Gilles poured into my pewter goblet. When at last I was full, and fell back in my chair with a barely stifled belch, I realised that my hosts had been silent the whole time. They had eaten too, but less ravenously than I, and they had taken care to keep my plate well stocked. But now de Montalhac spoke.

'Gilles called you our guest,' he said, 'but that is not strictly true. No, you are not our prisoner,' he added quickly. 'But you cannot return to England, as you know, and we will not be making landfall anywhere that you would wish to stay, not for a very long time. So—' and he glanced at Gilles, who nodded gravely,'—I propose to take you on as one of my crew.'

"Where are we going?' I asked, suddenly uncomfortable. My mouth was perhaps a little behind my mind, or else I would have been more worried about my sudden transformation from cleric to seaman.

The two men laughed. They seemed pleased. 'North. Far, far to the north, where the Skraelings live,' said the captain. 'And then, with a little luck, south.' Seeing I was ready with another question, he held up a hand.

'Don't worry, Petroc. We won't make you climb the mast if you don't want to. Your head will be more use to us than your muscles, although they will not go amiss. No, you have a quick wit and a strong spirit. Anyone, boy or man, who could keep one step ahead of a wolf like Kervezey - such a man has skill enough to find honour on this ship.'

'And now is the time to tell your story, before the wine sends you to sleep for another three days,' Gilles said, filling our goblets once more.

And so I told them. Beginning with Sir Hugh's golden trap at the Crozier and the next evening's horror in the cathedral, I let the tale unfold. And indeed, now that I was looking back on things and not living them, I found that it all seemed like invention, more a tale than reality. The memory of the deacon's blood made me pause. The knife that had killed him was now at my belt, and I wondered at the grim circles that fate drew with men's lives. I hastened over Will's death, but then I was explaining my escape, and my long days of travel, and finally my return to the abbey. De Montalhac interrupted to ask about Adric, but Gilles silenced him with a raised finger. I glossed over the final stretch of my journey. In those early days I was filled with a confusion of emotions: sorrow for my lost future; mourning for Will; burning regret; and a creeping sense of shame at my flight. My body would knit fast, but these other hurts would be long in the healing. So now I hastened on to my stay under the graveyard tree, and my audience had the good grace to laugh at how the gravediggers provided me with lunch. 'And the rest you know,' I finished.