Stigmata (24 page)

He spurred Leyla forward. It was what she had been born to do, and she bent her ears back and galloped, her neck muscles straining with every stride. Already the two arms of the pincer had begun
to close and the first of their attackers appeared in front of them. His lance smashed into Philip’s shield and splintered.

Another rider turned in front of him, Philip swung with his sword, felt the blow strike helmet or shield or armour, he did not know which, then he was past him as Leyla charged on. Suddenly he
saw Redbeard beside him, his visor up, grinning. Philip swung backhanded with his sword.

Leyla reared, confronted by three more horsemen.

Men were screaming and shouting and cursing all around him, but Philip could no longer hear them. He was aware only of those closest to him, the next enemy, the next combat. He fought as he had
been taught from a boy, striking at the nearest target, continually turning Leyla so that he could not be taken from behind. He saw Renaut beside him, then a hand grabbed at his squire’s
reins and he slashed down with his sword and severed the hand at the wrist.

For a single heartbeat he stopped, saw the severed limb spouting blood, a crusader reeling back in horror and pain. Then he felt a blow to the back of the helmet. A Norman on a dun horse raised
his sword to strike again and he thrust with his own sword, found the gap in the man’s hauberk just below the armpit and the man screamed and fell backwards off his horse.

He wheeled Leyla around again, searching for Renaut. He was gone.

Their charge had stalled. Three of his men lay on the meadow, spitted or clubbed; more of Redbeard’s knights were rushing at him. He was dazed from the blow to his helmet. His vision was
doubling; he could not focus. There was no way out of this, he realized. He was going to die.

It surprised him how dearly he yet wanted to live.

His sergeant, Godfroi, was suddenly beside him. He thrust his sword into the ribs of one of the less well-armoured chevaliers, then grunted to retrieve it, tugging and swearing. Another rider
came at Godfroi with his lance. Philip turned Leyla’s head and charged at him, knocking off his aim and then slashing with his sword. He thought he had missed his blow but then the man fell
and blood sprayed in an arc across the grass.

He clutched at his horse’s mane to keep from falling. Everything was blurred. He saw a path open in front of him and he galloped Leyla through it, towards the road.

Finally he stopped and looked back, felt something warm on the back of his neck; he tore off his gauntlet and reached behind. When he looked at his hand it was covered in blood. Someone rode
towards him, his sword raised. ‘Seigneur!’ It was Godfroi, his sergeant. More of his men had broken away and were close behind.

‘Where’s Renaut?’ Philip said. He started to slip from the saddle. Godfroi grabbed him and held him there. He heard him say:
We have to get him out of here,
and that was
the last he remembered of the day.

P
HILIP OPENED HIS
eyes, blinked twice, tried to remember where he was. He stared up at the sky, the light dappled through
forest leaves. He heard the rushing of a stream, and sat up. Godfroi, his sergeant-at-arms, was sitting on a large rock soaking his feet in the water. When he saw that Philip was awake he got up
and padded over in his bare feet.

‘You’re lucky he didn’t take your head off, seigneur.’

‘Who?’

‘Redbeard. He swung at you with his battle axe.’ He reached down and picked up Philip’s helmet. ‘See, the dent.’ He knocked it against his thigh. ‘Good Toledo
steel, or else there wouldn’t be much of you left.’

Philip took the helmet and tried to study the damage, but he still could not focus his eyes properly. He tossed it aside again. ‘Where are the rest of the men?’

‘This is it,’ Godfroi said.

‘Only five of us left?’

‘We were lucky any of us got away.’

Philip stumbled to the river’s edge and put his head into the water to rouse himself. He put a hand gingerly to the back of his head. Blood had caked into his hair, and there was a lump
there the size of an apple.

‘We are not safe here,’ Godfroi said. ‘They are still searching for us. They passed close by a little while ago while you were still passed out under the tree. They will not
give this up easily.’ Godfroi put a hand to his chest. He had bandaged it with a strip of linen but it was soaked in blood now and useless. He looked around at the rest of his men. Each of
them nursed some kind of wound.

‘They have Renaut?’

‘Dare say he is dead, along with the others.’

‘You saw him dead with your own eyes?’

‘Yes.’ Godfroi looked to the others for support. Philip wondered if they would try to lie to him as well. They hated him now; it was in their eyes.

‘I have to see it for myself. I will not leave if there is a chance he is still alive.’

‘But, seigneur, the crusaders are still hunting us and now we are only five men!’

‘Honour is not a matter of numbers,’ Philip said. He stood up, staggered. Redbeard had given his head a good rattling. Well, perhaps next time it would be his turn.

He remembered his squire on his piebald pony, in the rain, that very first time. ‘
Are you cold?
’

‘
I’ve been colder.
’

If he were dead, he would not leave him to rot in the sun; a Christian burial at least. There was yet a chance he might be alive, hiding out in the woods.

They didn’t like it, Godfroi and the others. But they didn’t have to like it. It was their lot, and it was not much worse than his. He could hardly claim privilege now.

And he was right; they did find Renaut.

He was sitting near a well with a bloodied bandage over his eyes. Once a shepherd might have used it to water his sheep, for the place stank of animals. They had left him near the meagre trickle
so that he would not die; at least, not straight away. Their horses’ hooves had stirred up the mud around the well and trampled the grass.

Philip scrambled down from his horse and dropped to his knees. ‘Oh God, Renaut, what have they done to you?’

‘Seigneur, don’t shout, it hurts when you shout.’ The lad was shivering from head to foot, like a wounded animal. He remembered when Leyla had taken an arrow in her shoulder
near Acre, how she had just stood motionless, just like this, her flanks quivering.

A gout of blood dropped from Renaut’s nose. Philip turned to Godfroi, called for water, called for a comfort no one could give, called for the Devil to rise from the earth and take away to
damnation whoever had done this to the boy.

There was not much he could do for him but wrap a clean linen bandage around the wound. Renaut’s breathing was ragged, his hands rested on Philip’s shoulders as he worked. Philip
gave him fresh water, and all they had left of their red wine to replace the blood he had lost. He wished they had opium or belladonna.

When he had finished he had Renaut’s blood all over him, his blood and his tears.

‘I knew you’d come back,’ Renaut said.

‘I would not leave you.’

‘They thought you might. They waited here for a while, I could hear them, in the trees. But then they gave up and left.’

‘Are there are any others surviving?’

‘Only me. I lost my sword in the fight and they overpowered me. Seigneur, I would rather these devils had killed me.’

‘I will avenge you, Renaut, I swear it, I swear it on my father’s tomb.’

‘No, just take me home,’ Renaut said. ‘I don’t want to die here.’

Philip got him to his feet and with Godfroi’s help he put him on Leyla, hoisting him up into the saddle. The other men turned their heads as this was done, could not bear to look at what
they had done to him. He must be in searing pain, Philip thought, yet he makes no sound.

‘What a place you led us to,’ Godfroi said.

Philip did not answer him. ‘The sun is near to setting,’ he said. ‘Let’s get away from here and find some shelter.’ They heard the distant howling of a wolf. A
vulture flapped lazily into the trees, replete.

N
OT A LIVING
soul between them and Avignon, at least none that would show their faces to armed men, as sorry a sight as
they were. It was already twilight when they found a hamlet in the shadow of a defile. It had been freshly torched, and the rotten straw in the barn was still smoking. But the church and a few
ragged huts had escaped the flames and these would at least provide some shelter.

Godfroi sniffed at the acrid smell of burned meat. ‘We might even find something to eat, seigneur.’

‘Nothing that isn’t charcoal by now.’

‘Then it looks like we’ll be eating crow shit again,’ another of the men said.

The grass was still on fire, the undergrowth crackling as it burned. Red smoke drifted along the valley, backlit by the dropping sun. Philip thought it remarkable how the aftermath of
destruction and terror could appear so eerily beautiful.

‘Look at that,’ he said to Renaut before he could stop himself.

A sparse dinner: some wild figs, a handful of olives. They watched their shadows dance on the smoke-blackened walls of the hut, tried not to look at the young man sitting hunched and miserable
and shivering in the corner. Renaut would not eat. One by one they drifted outside, preferring to sleep under the trees in between their watches than listen to his muffled sobs.

‘I promise you,’ Philip said when they were alone, ‘I will find the man who did this to you.’

‘Seigneur, this was not your fault. Don’t blame yourself.’

‘I led you here, Renaut. You warned me of the dangers.’

‘You were trying to save your son. I spoke then from fear. Though I did not tell you this before, I so admired you for what you did. I would not have had the courage.’

‘Yet you followed me here.’

‘I had no choice. You are my liege lord.’

Philip jumped to his feet, put his mailed fist into the wall. The daub and wattle crumbled away under the blow. ‘What kind of men would do this?’

Renaut let out a small cry. ‘It hurts so much,’ he said.

It outraged him to see such a beautiful young boy reduced to this huddled and shivering wretch. ‘I will take good care of you, Renaut.’

‘I don’t want to live like this,’ he said.

Philip did not know what to say to that. I should not want to live without my eyes either, he thought.

‘Do you remember that soldier we found on the road? They had cut off his hands and feet. He begged you to kill him, remember?’

‘It is not so easy to take a life when the blood is cold.’

‘So you would not do it for me if I asked you?’

‘Especially not for you. Do not ask it of me.’

A log cracked in the fire. Outside the humming of the cicadas rose to a crescendo. ‘You are a good man, seigneur. A man of honour. I wanted to be like you one day. I am proud that I served
with you. I always wanted to fight alongside you, and I did, didn’t I, for that one time.’

I have lost two sons now, Philip thought. The son I had, and the son I could have made this boy into. It was black outside, black as God’s heart. Inside himself he felt a cold ache, worse
than hunger.

‘Please my lord,’ Renaut said. ‘Do not pace like that. Come here and sleep by me.’

Philip did not remember falling asleep. He started awake to a filthy dawn, grey and treacherous. Where was Godfroi? They should have had the horses saddled by now. He got up and
went outside.

His sergeant-at-arms and the rest of the men were gathered around something they had found in the bushes. They all backed away when they saw him and by the looks on their faces he knew that
whatever it was, they feared he would hold them responsible.

Renaut.

But Renaut had gone to sleep right there beside him. Why was he out here?

‘These two were on sentry duty,’ Godfroi said, nodding in the direction of two of his men. ‘They said they didn’t fall asleep but I say they did. How else could this have
happened?’

Renaut lay on his belly, his hands trapped beneath him. Philip rolled him over as gently as he could. He had used Philip’s own dagger, taken from his belt while he slept. Expertly done,
too, by the look of it; he had held the point just under his ribs so that when he fell it would travel straight upwards, into the heart. He would have died quickly. But still, no easy thing to die
quietly, he supposed; die and not even wake the sentries.

‘It’s not your men’s fault. Sooner or later he would have found a way.’ He stood up. ‘Do we have anything to bury him with?’

Godfroi shook his head.

‘Then help me. We’ll take him down there to the defile, by the stream. The ground will be softer there. We’ll not leave him for the carrion crows. I’ll dig his grave with
my own hands if I have to.’

‘We do not have time! The crusaders, seigneur! They will be hunting for us at first light. The sooner we are out of the Pays d’Oc, the better.’

‘We’ll leave when I say so,’ he said.

It was a shallow grave at best, but they weighted it with large stones from the river to deter the wolves and the foxes, and Philip said a prayer over him.

Godfroi shook his head. ‘No good praying, my lord. He’s a suicide. You know what happens to suicides up there.’ And he glanced to the heavens.

‘If God will not allow this good young man entry and opens his gates instead to the men who did this to him, just because they wear a red cross on their tunics, then it’s not a
heaven that I should wish to go to.’

Godfroi crossed himself when he heard that and exchanged dark looks with the others. Philip did not care that he had spoken a blasphemy. His heart was not on the eternal; all he wanted at that
moment was to rip out the heart of the man who had done this to his squire and his friend.

A
FTER THEY HAD
buried Renaut, as best they might, the men were eager to be on their way. Philip ignored their entreaties
and went instead into the ruins of the church. Such a church it was: a pitiful square box with bare limestone walls, and a floor of beaten earth, save for a few paved stones at the choir and the
altar. No windows. There was a smoke-blackened wooden crucifix on the wall. Somehow it had not burned when they had looted it.