Grail Knight: Number 5 in series (Outlaw Chronicles) Read online

  The reconnaissance, however, was less than fruitful. From the north face of the mountain, we looked up at the square keep of the castle, its highest point. There was no way to attack from this side: the mountainside was sheer, almost bare rock, and an army of battle-hardened Welsh mountaineers would have had trouble scaling it, let alone fighting a fierce battle once they reached the top. From the north-east the same, and perhaps even more difficult, for to attack from that direction would mean starting in a deep ravine filled with thorny scrub, which lay at the bottom. The eastern side, however, was more promising. A narrow spur of land extended down from the southernmost point of the castle directly towards the rising sun, a steep-sided but gently sloping spine of rock that wended down over half a mile to the treeline. An attack might have been possible from the east along this spur – except for two things. First, a twelve-foot-high stone rampart had been constructed at the top of the spur some thirty yards beyond the castle proper, as an extra defence on this weakest of sides, and I could see that it was manned by half a dozen alert men. Second, in broad daylight, an enemy could be seen coming for miles as they slogged up. Any half-awake garrison, seeing this attack coming, would have an hour or more to prepare their defences – which were already truly formidable. An army struggling up that way could be bombarded with a trebuchet set up inside the castle walls, and knocked off the single-file path like skittles, or if the defenders lacked stone-throwing machines, the attacking force could be simply mown down with a blizzard of crossbow bolts as they approached, forced by the landscape to advance slowly on such a narrow front. We could not attack from that direction, I concluded.

  The south too was impossible: a sheer rock face leading up to a blank twenty-foot stone wall. Which left the west. This side housed the main gate and a steep winding path, no more than a goat track, that led up from the saddle of land where the road ran past Montségur to the north. This was the ordinary way that a peaceable traveller might approach, and the track the peasants who rebuilt the fortifications must have used, and I could clearly see that the stony path worn by many feet, and even with some crude steps cut into the rock, ended at a round arched double door in the thick castle walls. Once again, on a beautiful cloudless May day such as that one, an enemy could be clearly seen slogging up to the front door and there would be plenty of time to roll rocks down on to his head, skewer him with an avalanche of crossbow bolts, or fry him alive with boiling oil.

  We returned to the cave a little after noon, tired from the long unsuccessful scramble around that stark mountain and, I must admit, a little despondent that we had not found even a remotely suitable avenue of attack.

  I reported back to Robin by mid-afternoon, having rewarded Maury with a silver penny from Mercadier’s black leather purse and repeated my warning not to let anyone in our camp know that he had been ordered to take a particular road to Montségur by the treacherous Count of Foix.

  Robin had brought discipline back to our thinned company, I saw, and a mound of freshly dug earth concealed the bodies of our fallen comrades. Sir Nicholas de Scras, I later learned, had said the holy words over the grave and led the mercenaries in prayer for the fallen.

  Tuck still lived, praise God, and I found him lying in the small copse of trees where we had defeated the ambushing crossbowmen the day before. Someone had crudely stitched the flap of scalp back into position and washed the worst of the blood from his face, but he was still and quiet, in a profound state of slumber and his face was unnaturally waxy and pale. His stomach wound had been strapped and bandaged and his chest had been covered with a flap of blood-soaked cloth that trembled with every escaping breath of air from his punctured lungs.

  I kissed the old man on his blood-streaked pate and went to report to Robin. My lord was conferring with Sir Nicholas by our horses – those we had brought to the field and those we had acquired by right of battle. I noticed, too, that Little John and Gavin were wandering over the battlefield and collecting up the discarded swords of our enemies.

  ‘Well, Alan, you seem to be in a calmer humour: tell me all about Montségur,’ my lord said, after we had exchanged our greetings.

  I described for my lord the various aspects of the castle, and of the landscape around it, and the advantages and disadvantages of an attack from each of the cardinal points. When I had finished, I looked down at the green turf, unsure of how to conclude my report. ‘I cannot … I cannot see a way in. That is the truth. I cannot see a way in which with the few troops we have we can conquer a castle that is this well fortified by man and nature. Maybe with a mighty army and a year-long siege … But, we cannot do it. It bruises my heart to say this but it is impossible.’

  I felt I was condemning both Tuck and Goody with my words. Yet I could only tell the truth, as I saw it, to my lord.

  ‘Impossible?’ said Robin, cocking an eyebrow. ‘I very much doubt that. What you mean is that it is going to be rather difficult.’

  Although this was no more than a well-worn platitude, I was encouraged by my lord’s cheerfulness. A few well-chosen words and the world seemed a brighter place. He possessed this skill, Robin, one of his main talents, I believe, that enabled him to put fresh heart into a man when he was feeling at his lowest.

  ‘Well, no point sitting around here,’ said Robin, ‘I think we’d better get the men off their fat behinds and go and look at this “impossible” castle of yours. Go and get them all saddled up, will you, Alan.’

  I led the Companions and the surviving mercenaries to the cave under the mountain. We carried Tuck there in a litter made of spears and roughly stitched cloaks and placed him on the altar rocks at the back, where he would be out of the way of any careless boots. Robin took one look at the castle, high above us, and detached two of the lightly wounded mercenaries to take the horses back down the road to a stretch of pasture that we’d passed on the way.

  ‘This is no task for cavalry,’ my lord said, gripping my shoulder. ‘We must see this business through on our own two feet.’

  Despite his apparent confidence, I sensed that Robin was a little surprised at just how difficult it would be to take the Castle of Montségur. I saw him eyeing the battlements and looking for paths up the sheer rock face – in vain. Over the next few days, while the men idled in the cave, Robin scouted around the mountain with only Maury for company, spending hours each day staring up at the walls. But there were no attack points that were practicable – of that I was quite certain. And I noticed that we, in turn, were being observed by several score of tiny figures in blue-and-white surcoats on the ramparts, as we went about our business at the foot of the mountain.

  Up there, I thought to myself, up there somewhere was the Master. Up there was the man who had killed my father, who was responsible for the murder of my friend Hanno. The man who had nearly killed me once in Paris and who had ordered Westbury burned to the ground. Up there was the man who stood between me and the Grail. His miserable life, I said to myself, was all that prevented me saving the lives of Goody and Tuck. The fury began to flow in my belly, like a river of fire.

  On the third day after our arrival at Montségur, Robin came to me, fresh from one of his unsuccessful rambles on the slopes. ‘We’d better go up and speak to him,’ he said, with no preamble.

  ‘The Master?’

  ‘We need to find out what is in his mind,’ my lord said. ‘And I want to gauge his strength of will to resist us.’

  I merely nodded.

  Robin constructed himself an ad hoc white flag with a clean linen chemise from his saddlebag and one of the Count of Foix’s long spear shafts, and accompanied by myself, Roland and Sir Nicholas de Scras, set off up the steep, well-worn track under its dubious protection. The climb, even taken slowly, was a taxing one, especially with my half-healed calf, and in the bright May sunshine. And in my armour and carrying a heavy shield, I was sweating rivers and panting like a broken bellows as we neared the top of the mountain. The closer we got, the more difficult the task of capturing the castle s
eemed.

  We halted about thirty yards from the main gate: a vast double door of thick, dark-brown wood that looked as if it could withstand a dragon’s fiery wrath. We stood stock still under the flapping white banner. Me, Robin, Roland and Sir Nicholas. Four knights, armed and armoured, standing in a line. Waiting.

  I could see the helmeted heads of a dozen Knights of Our Lady as they passed between the crenellations, presumably moving along a walkway behind the walls. Occasionally, a man would pause and stare out at us, before disappearing again. But we were offered no hostility, although we were well within crossbow range. The flag of truce, it seemed, was being dutifully observed.

  ‘I’m tempted to walk up there and just knock on the door,’ said Robin after we had been standing there for perhaps the time it takes to say ten Hail Marys. ‘He must have been told that we were coming. I think he’s just being deliberately rude.’ Robin grinned at me to tell me he was joking … and at that moment there was a blast of trumpets, at least three long brass instruments, shockingly loud, that seemed to split the sunshine.

  And there was the Master, standing atop the ramparts, unarmed, his sandalled feet spread wide, his hands resting on his robe over his hips, and towering over the helmeted heads of the defenders on the walkway beneath him. He looked a little younger than the last time I had seen him, a bound captive awaiting torture outside the Château Chalus-Chabrol, a little more than a year ago. He was smiling indulgently at us, like a father watching over his unruly children. His face had been lightly tanned by the sun, but I could still make out the faint marks of the pox that had scarred him as a young man. He was clean-shaven, and his hair was neatly cut. His robe was clean – pure black – but of some fine and faintly shiny, rich material, perhaps silk, a silver crucifix hung from a chain around his neck. But he looked happy, fit and handsome, a holy man from whom wholesomeness and Christian kindness seemed to pour like light from a lamp.

  I realized then that I had forgotten the power of his presence. In my mind he had been this dark monster, lurking in the shadows, striking viciously at me and my friends from concealment like a footpad in a darkened street. But, looking up at him framed by the pure blue sky, it was difficult to imagine that he was evil at all. Indeed, he looked like goodness personified. He even looked a little like the images I have seen of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I found I was smiling at him, and secretly hoping that he would greet me with a friendly word.

  Disgusted with myself, I jerked my head to the right and looked at Robin. He too was staring at the Master, and smiling, but there was a curl of gentle contempt around his mouth that I had seen on his lips many times before.

  For a long, long time, neither spoke, and neither moved. They seemed to be intently taking each other’s measure and there was no sound but for the wind whistling over the battlements and the far-away cry of a hunting bird. It suddenly seemed to me that they were in some absurd competition, a contest to see who could remain silent the longest, and to determine who would lose by speaking first.

  If it truly was a bout of wills, then Robin lost.

  ‘We had an agreement once, you and I,’ said Robin quietly, calmly, but in a carrying voice. ‘We divided the world in two at the line of the English channel. I had dominion over England, and you over France – and we were at peace with each other for ten long years. We could have that once again…’

  Robin stopped speaking. The Master slowly nodded his head.

  ‘Yes, for ten years I allowed you to play your childish games in Sherwood. That is true. But you broke our accord when you sent your man’ – the Master jerked his chin at me – ‘to Paris to hunt me down. And, by your actions, I was hounded from that city, and away from my beautiful cathedral – my whole life’s work.’

  ‘You reached out your arm into my domain and killed Sir Alan’s father,’ said Robin. ‘Was he supposed to meekly forgive that? Was I? And later you sent men to England – treacherous Templars and their creatures – to trap me by stealth and cunning and have me hanged as a—’

  My lord’s voice had not risen in volume but, nonetheless, he seemed to have lost a little of his composure. He stopped speaking abruptly and seemed to take a moment to regain his mastery of himself. Then he sighed with what might have been taken for regret: ‘We have wronged each other, you and I, we must both acknowledge that. We have been at war. That is the truth. But we can mend our discord, restore our honour – a word or two and some small gesture of good faith, a little forgiveness, and we can have peace again, on the same terms if you wish, you in France, and I in England. Would that please you, my old friend?’

  The Master laughed – a light, musical, happy sound. It lifted my heart just to hear it. But his words were anything but joyful.

  ‘The Earl of Locksley talks of peace – the man whose name is a byword for dissimulation, deceit and knavery, a man who has murdered dozens of my knights, and slain scores of my men-at-arms, a man who has tricked and robbed half the magnates of Europe – he comes to me now, stands before my gates, calls me “old friend” and talks softly to me of peace and forgiveness!’

  The mockery was thick as curd, but the Master’s voice, to my ears anyway, sounded oddly gentle and entirely reasonable.

  Neither man said anything for a few moments. The Master said meditatively, ‘And how would we achieve this lasting peace, I wonder? What could this small good-faith gesture be?’

  ‘You know what I desire, I believe,’ said Robin, his tone calm and friendly. ‘If you deliver it up to me, my men and I will ride away from here and return to our own lands and you need never be troubled by us again. Give me the Grail and I shall go – and there can be harmony between us for the rest of our lives.’

  ‘Do you think I am in fear of you? I assure you, I am not.’ The Master laughed again; this time it seemed with real mirth. ‘You cannot hope to take this castle – ever – and a man such as you, a man who mocks God, shall never possess the Grail while I have strength. What I have in my possession is worth a thousand men-at-arms. I have the vessel that has been blessed by Our Lord’s holy blood. There is no more precious object in all the world. None can prevail against me – not you, not your raggedy paid men, not even all the noblest knights of Christendom, were they ranged against me – for while I hold the Grail, God, His only son Jesus Christ and his Holy Virgin Mother stand at my side.’

  The Master spread his arms wide, adopting the position suffered by Our Lord on the cross at Calvary, seeming to touch the sky on either side of him. And his voice changed when he spoke, becoming deeper, warmer, somehow golden – seeming to vibrate with a weird and powerful music all of its own.

  ‘You will go from this place, now, Robert of Locksley, Prince of Deceivers, I command you! You will go from this place or it will become the place of your death. By the power of the Grail, by the power of God Himself, I command you to go!’

  And, so help me, I felt an almost overpowering urge to obey him; I felt an actual force, like an invisible hand pushing me down the mountainside – and I swear I wanted, just then, to depart from Montségur and never to come back.

  Incredibly, I heard Robin give a low chuckle. ‘For goodness sake, Michel,’ said my lord, ‘we have known each other too long for this sort of silly I-command-you nonsense – do you think we are all as feeble-willed as your deluded followers?’

  Robin’s words were a splash of icy water in my face, breaking the Master’s spell like a hand through a cobweb. I glared up at my enemy, flushed with embarrassed rage at the weakness of my own will.

  The imposing black-robed monk standing atop the battlements of Montségur lowered his arms; he looked a little hurt, disappointed by Robin’s words.

  But my lord was speaking again: ‘It’s really very simple, Michel, you give me the Grail and I will depart and leave you in peace. Otherwise, I will come over that wall and get it myself.’

  ‘I would roast in Hell before I gave up such a holy treasure to a Godless killer such as you.’

  ‘Is that your final
answer?’ asked Robin.

  ‘No,’ said the Master. ‘This is.’

  And two score of crossbowmen, all in the white surcoats of the Knights of Our Lady, appeared at the crenellations below the Master’s feet, forty weapons aimed down at the four of us. They put the crossbows to their shoulders, and looked down the length of the iron-tipped wooden quarrels, ready to loose a black rain of death upon our heads in an instant.

  ‘Go now,’ said the Master, ‘or die.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  We were moving even before the Master spoke his final words – for none of us was unversed in war, and none of us had really trusted him to respect the flag of truce. I had my big, kite-shaped shield up and was scrambling down the rocky mountainside the moment the crossbowmen popped up on the battlements and aimed their loaded weapons down at us. And the others were just as quick to flee the place of parley.

  But not a bolt flew, not a quarrel was loosed. We four brave, soldierly men re-met about a third of the way down, well out of crossbow range, each of us looking half-defiant, half-sheepish at having fled so quickly, and without being offered any real harm; although, in truth, there would have been no point in standing still and taking a bolt to the belly merely to prove our manhoods.

  ‘Did you really expect him to hand over the Grail?’ I asked Robin, when I caught my breath after the undignified rush down the hill.

  ‘Not really,’ he replied with a rueful grin. ‘But I wanted to get a closer look at the gate and the walls. And to get a sense of the strength of the castle and number of men he has at his command.’