Relics (3 page)

'I mean if someone is tardy with their debts, your man pays a visit. But I understand he is also employed in more complex matters. He tracks down heretics, apparently, and keeps an eye on anyone who strays from the true path.'

'He didn't look much like a scourge of the ungodly last night. More like a dandy with nasty Eastern habits.'

'Oh, yes,' Will added, taking a pull at my beer. 'He is, or rather was, a Templar Knight. Got kicked out over an affair of honour in Jerusalem.'

'Templars are monks first and soldiers second, I thought. They don't go in for affairs of honour.'

'As I said, he was kicked out.'

I spent the afternoon in the company of Aristotle, gazing at text, but thinking instead about the mad Templar. I knew about the Templars, of course: knights who served only the Lord, monks in armour who were the soul of honour and the scourge of the Infidel. Will's information explained the exotic dress and the sun-touched skin, not to mention the Moorish knife. It did not seem surprising that such a man would have found himself unsuited to life in an ascetic order. But now to be involved in Church matters? I suddenly remembered a nasty fact: he had known my name. How? How would a heretic-finder know the name of a lowly student, and, more importantly, why?

I was no heretic. I was plainly and honestly orthodox. Looking back, I can see that my spirituality had all the refinement of the tonsured rustics who taught me. I had an enquiring spirit, to be sure, but not in matters religious. I knew the beliefs of the moorland people, but those were nasty, odd superstitions. I was aware, of course, that the Mahometans and Jews followed a different path from ours, and had heard the uneducated slanders about idols and child sacrifice, which I did not believe. I knew that there were Christians who picked quarrels with Holy Writ, but I had little interest in that. In truth I cared little about doctrinal niceties. I fancied myself a historian, with a touch of the botanist to relieve all the dust and dead bones.

If anything, I felt a little safer now. I had sacrificed no children, after all. It was a coincidence, a malicious joke, a mistake. I began to shrug the encounter off along with my hangover.

And so I stayed at my books until evening, in that kind of near-trance that spidery writing, old pages and guttering tallow-light often conjures, much to the detriment of scholarship. It is now, when eyelids droop and the mind substitutes its own text for that on the vellum, that Satan reaches for ripe monastic souls. To my mind, bigger windows and a liberal expenditure on candles would keep more clerics on the strait path than a lifetime of hair shirts and midnight prayers. But forgive these maunderings. For the purposes of my story, however, they will perhaps deflect your attention from the boredom of that life, and from the fact that I have forgotten some of the smaller events of those days. Enough, I hope, to say that at some time after vespers I was walking past the great west doors of the cathedral, on my way, I suppose, to my lodgings. Balecester cathedral stands on the crown of a low but steep hill that rises out of a bend in the river. It is surrounded by a pretty, paved space, the Cathedral Yard. Shops and fine dwelling-places bound the Yard on three sides, and on the north side stands the great stone pile of the Bishop's Palace, more a fortress than a palace and guarded day and night by armed men bearing the crest of Bishop Ranulph: a yellow crozier and a white hound on a sky-blue field. The grim palace, such a contrast to the soaring, airy (if stone can be airy) presence of the cathedral itself, was the object of the townspeople's muttered resentment. If it was true to say that the Normans had replaced the ancient cathedral with a far more beautiful and majestic building, it was also true that the Bishop's palace was bald proof of the conquerors' power. But tonight my thoughts were still with the long-dead Romans and their legal tussles, and I heard nothing until a sudden rustle of clothing behind me broke into my reverie. I spun around, knowing as I did so that my tormentor had found me again.

There was a stronger moon tonight. It shone into the stranger's dark face, lighting the white crescents of his eyes, which stared unblinking into mine. I stood like a pillar of ice, all my fears, driven out by the boredom of the day, flocking about me like starlings returning to their roost. The man was dressed in the same green damask he had worn last night, but now a short surcoat of a darker green covered his body. Upon it I saw two long bones, embroidered in silver thread, forming an upright cross. Around it were four stars with long wavy arms, also in silver. The man put out his hand and, as my sinews clenched, laid it gently upon my shoulder. A smile appeared on his Hps. My terror only grew.

Well met, brother Petroc,' I heard. The voice was soft, nothing like the cold hiss I remembered from last night.

The man bent slightly and peered into my face. 'Petroc!' he said again, and shook me gently. 'Have you turned into a mooncalf, my young friend?'

I felt the power of speech return. My mouth was arid, but words began to form.

Who are you?' I managed. Not the most well-chosen words, I grant you. But the creature grinned. He gave my shoulder another companionable shake.

Your friend, Petroc, your friend - but you are still afflicted by last night.' Now there was concern in his voice as well. 'A game, truly, as I said it was. I would no more have cut you than . . .' his smile became rueful. 'Let us become friends, then? It is the least I can offer after curdling your wits like that. For which I beg your forgiveness.'

The advice of any sane man would be to mistrust anyone who calls you friend more than once in a single breath, but I was little more than a boy with country mud on his boots. God help me, I dropped my guard, and smiled.

'Last night was taken as no more than a game, sir. I struggle even to recall it.' Such a poor attempt at urbanity, but greater fates are sealed by less.

'I am happy for it, brother Petroc!' And with that, he linked his arm through mine and began to stroll. 'As to who I am, my name is Sir Hugh de Kervezey, knight of Monmouthshire and Brittany, late of Outremer and now Steward to his Excellency Bishop Ranulph.'

And so I found myself strolling in the cathedral precinct with the Bishop's Steward, too startled to resist - and who, indeed, would have resisted? This man was powerful. He had the Bishop's ear, and he was a crusader, as my own father had been. I was just worldly enough to know that fortunes turned on just such acts of chance. Patronage - I hardly knew what it meant, but it almost made me forget the knife that had gleamed in front of my nose so recently. Fortunes had been decided by a chance meeting; why not my own? Perhaps, I now thought - young idiot that I was - the knight's behaviour had been nothing more than some test well known to worldly men, which I had passed. In any event, no harm was likely to befall me in the shadow of the cathedral.

We walked thus, in companionable silence, until we had crossed the Cathedral Yard and the walls of the Bishop's palace rose in front of us. Then Sir Hugh stiffened, as if struck by a sudden thought.

Would you like a look inside the palace, brother?' he asked, turning to me. 'I must speak to the Bishop, but it will be a matter of a few minutes. Why not wait for me inside? A promising young man like you might well be spending time there soon enough, and it will be my pleasure to show you around.'

This was my daydream of power made reality. I nodded like a simpleton. "Yes please!' I gushed. 'Wonderful!' said the knight.

The guards at the palace gate bowed their heads respectfully to Sir Hugh, and let me past without question. Now we were inside, my companion became more talkative.

'A little while ago you were staring at my surcoat, Petroc,' he said.

'Forgive me, sir, but it is striking,' I said carefully.

To my relief, Sir Hugh laughed. Yes, it certainly is that,' he said. And there is a noble tale behind it. You shall hear it.' And not waiting for my reply, he continued.

'My grandfather went to the Holy Land with His Majesty King Philip of France,' he began. 'He was a knight in the service of the Duke of Morlaix - that is in Brittany - and when the Duke was killed near Aleppo, Grandfather was at his side.' He glanced down to where I scurried along beside him trying to keep up and listen at the same time. 'The Duke's dying wish was for his bones to rest in Brittany, and his heart in Jerusalem,' the knight continued. 'Grandfather saw to it that his lord's bones were boiled in wine, and then he carried bones and heart towards the Holy City. But his party were ambushed by the Saracens, and things went ill for them. A young page who lay hidden behind a great stone saw Grandfather fight to his last breath. When they found him later, he was lying on a hill of dead Mahometans. His sword was broken at the hilt, but in each hand he held one of the Duke's leg-bones, all smeared with the blood of the Infidel.' He sighed. 'The King gave us the crossed bones for our crest, and Grandfather lies buried near his lord's heart in Jerusalem.'

'Have you been there, sir - Jerusalem, I mean?' I said.

'Indeed I have,' he replied. And to Jaffa, Aleppo, Horns - strange and wonderful places.' He fell silent, and a certain wistfulness played across his face, softening it for a brief moment. We walked on a few paces, and then he seemed to shrug off his mood.

'How old are you, Petroc? Nineteen, twenty?' The voice was brisk and purposeful.

'Eighteen, sir.'

'And where are you from?'

'Dartmoor. Which is in Devon.'

'Devon.' Something in his voice hinted that his question might have been rhetorical. But how could he know my origins? Absurd misgivings, I told myself.

"Well, that moorland air has served you well - you seem older.'

'Thank you, sir,' I said, extremely flattered.

And here we are,' said Sir Hugh. Talking, we had strolled through a long stone-paved corridor, its walls hung with rather drab tapestries, then climbed a narrow spiral stair that seemed cut out of the thickness of the palace walls. At the top was another, wider passage, and the tapestries that hung here were finer and brighter. Rush torches burned in finely wrought wall-sconces. The door Sir Hugh was now leading me towards was flanked by two great iron candelabras, festooned with heavy swathes of dried wax like frozen honey. An armed man and a page, both in the Bishop's livery of white hounds rearing on a blue field, stood in the shadows.

'The Bishop's quarters. I'm afraid you will have to stay out here, my friend. But Tom—' and he gestured towards the page, who stiffened, then scurried over to us,'—will bring you a little refreshment. Won't you, Tommy?'

At once, Steward,' said Tom. The poor boy - younger than me anyway, I supposed - looked terrified.

'Thank you,' I said, embarrassed. Being waited upon by liveried servants was a new experience, and I wasn't sure if I liked it.

'Sit, brother,' the page offered, pointing to a wooden bench just beyond the light of the candles. 'I will return in a minute.' And he set off running.

Meanwhile, the guard had opened the door. A warm glow, of candles and firelight, ebbed out. Sir Hugh patted my shoulder gently.

'I will be a little while. Then, perhaps, you will be my guest for dinner? I have yet to make amends for last night.'

I was speechless yet again, and managed an idiot's nod.

'Very well, then. Tom will take care of you in the meanwhile.' And with that he stalked into the Bishop's chambers, and the guard pulled the door shut behind him.

And so I spent a pleasant half-hour in a corridor of the Bishop's palace, eating cold fowl from a silver plate and sipping at a goblet of some rich, garnet-red wine. The page, Tom, presented these delights to me with a nervous bow and then retreated to his place in the shadows by the door, from where he watched me like a timid owl. The wine's smoky fumes reached into my head like the roots of a tree that sends tendrils creeping into every tiny crevice of the rock on which it grows -and indeed I fell to thinking of the moor, and of a hot day in August when I had laid down to rest on a tor high above my home. I had dozed and woken to find a little adder asleep in the curve of my neck. I gasped in fright and it opened a yellow eye, gazed at me with surprise, and disappeared into a fold in the stone. I had been taught to fear the glossy brown vipers, short and stocky with a black zigzag running the length of their backs, but this little creature had been gentle and as afraid of me as I had been of it. Perhaps Sir Hugh is that sort of viper, I thought idly, picking at a chicken wing. But on the whole, I doubted it.

Finally the door to the Bishop's chambers swung open and Sir Hugh strode out. A smaller, wider man followed him to the threshold, and I recognised Bishop Ranulph. I had sprung to my feet as soon as I heard the creak of the door, and was surreptitiously wiping chicken grease from my fingers onto my habit when Sir Hugh beckoned to me.

'Brother Petroc,' he said, 'come.'

Ducking my head in dismay, I did as I was bid.

'I have commended you to His Excellency,' said the knight. You are greatly honoured.'

I looked up, and found myself looking at the Bishop's outstretched hand. Upon the fourth finger squatted an immense ring of gold and carnelian. I knelt and kissed it, shooting a moment's glance upward as I did so. Perhaps my daydream of the moors had not quite faded, for I realised that Bishop Ranulph, whom I had only ever seen from a distance, looked like a buzzard. A thick shock of grey hair fell close around a face that held close-set, slate-grey eyes either side of a hawkish nose, below which was a thin, curving mouth. The man even held his head cocked bird-like to one side as he looked down at me beadily and, I thought, hungrily. I had seen buzzards rip the guts from baby rabbits with just such an air of concentration, and I hurriedly dropped my eyes.

"You are a constant surprise to me, Hugh,' I heard him say. 'I hardly thought you'd be one for proteges.' The Bishop's voice was deep, flat, and every word had an inflection of finality. This was not a man who expected to be questioned.