Stigmata (46 page)

She held up her hands to cover her eyes, the torch blinding her. ‘Father Jorda?’

‘Take off your clothes,’ he repeated. He gave her a woollen tunic and a cloak and some boots. ‘Put these on. Get dressed, quickly.’

She fumbled with the rotted rags she wore, but the numbing cold made her fingers clumsy. ‘Turn your head,’ she said. She put on the new robe and cloak he had brought her. The cloak
was of bear fur and it had a hood. It was so warm; she had not felt warm since they put her in here.

‘We should hurry,’ he said.

‘What is happening? Where are you taking me?’

‘Away from here.’

‘Has Father Ortiz released me?’

How could he answer her question without telling her all of it? Instead he knelt down in front of her. ‘Do you often think of what we did that day?’

‘Sometimes,’ she said.

He lifted his cassock. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Here. What is it you see?’

He held the torch so that she could see. She gagged and looked away.

‘I wanted to live a chaste life, like Christ, but thoughts of you haunted me day and night, even after I made my confession to the prior. I tried to purify myself through pain. I whipped
my back until the blood ran but I still thought of you, at prayer, while singing a psalm. Even after what I did, I knew it was wrong, but soon I wanted to do it again. And so I did this. I thought
that by removing my vilest member it would set me free to carry out the honourable ministrations of my office. I did it for God, and I did it to be free of
you
.’

He shook his head. ‘I almost died. I was months in the infirmary. Even now, the wound gives me pain every day and I cannot pass my water properly. So now you see, of all people, I
understand what true penitence is.’ He pulled down his robe. ‘I thought after this I should be free of thoughts of women. Yet from the moment I saw you again the old longings returned,
even though I no longer have the flesh to satisfy them. So tell me, Fabricia, is this the love the troubadours sing of?
Amour courtois?
For even though I can never have you again, I cannot
bear to see you suffer and I will stake my life to preserve yours.’

He stood up. ‘There is a great abomination of eunuchs in the church and I have had to keep this secret. Only the prior and the infirmarian at Saint-Sernin knew of it. But they kept their
silence for my sake and now they are both dead.’

‘Is it really such a sin to want a woman, Simon?’

‘It takes us from God. Even your
bons òmes
agree with us on that.’

Another monk came down the ladder into the dungeon, a body in a linen shroud over his shoulder. He tossed the corpse on to the floor, and drew back his hood.

‘Philip!’

He put his arms around her. ‘You see? I am not dead. No one shot arrows at me. Your dreams are just dreams.’ He scooped her up. ‘Let’s get her out of here,’ he said
to Simon.

Simon went to the body of the camp follower and removed the shroud. Now Gilles would have the corpse of a young woman in his dungeon should he remember he had ever thrown one down here; Ganach
had earned two months’ wages in a single night and the dead girl had earned her absolution. Everyone’s interest was served.

A fierce cold set the bones to aching; he smelled wood smoke, night-soil and the strong taint of horse from the stables. Philip kept to the shadows, away from the eyes of the
night watch. The stable boy jumped up when he heard them but Simon tossed him some coins and told him to go back to sleep.

Loup was waiting, appearing suddenly out of the darkness, dogging their heels. ‘Where are we going?’ he said.

‘You’ll see.’

‘What’s he doing here?’ Simon said. ‘I don’t have a horse for him.’

‘He doesn’t need one. He can ride with me.’ Philip pushed open the grille.

Simon held up the flare, found the tunnel entrance and started down it. They would have to hurry in case the stable boy decided to raise the alarm.

‘Are we going back to your castle in Burgundy?’ Loup said.

‘No, we can’t go back there, lad.’

‘Why not?’

‘After this, there will be no reprieve from the Church for me, I assure you.’

‘Then what will you do?’

‘Become a
faidit
, I suppose. Go to Catalonia. I can always find employment as a soldier somewhere.’

‘You will really give up your castle and your lands?
For this woman?
Is that what you are offering me? A life like I had before?’

‘I won’t abandon you, Loup, I gave you my word. I owe you my life. But I did not promise you life in a castle, all I promised was that I would not leave you.’

Loup fell silent. One moment he was there, trotting beside them in the dark, the next moment he was gone.

There were two horses waiting in the cave. They were restless, their breath rising in thick clouds.

Philip helped Fabricia on to one of the horses. ‘Only two mounts?’ he said to Simon. ‘Are you not coming with us?’

‘I am a priest, I have dedicated my life to the divine. Where would I go?’

‘The boy will talk. He will betray you.’

‘If I am damned, then this time I shall be damned as a man and not half of one.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘She will tell you,’ Simon said. ‘Now go, before someone raises the alarm.’

Fabricia held out a hand to him; Simon took it, and kissed her fingers. ‘Go with God,’ he said.

Philip jumped on the other horse and nudged her forward. The wind moaned through the mouth of the cave and brought with it flurries of ice. ‘Goodbye, priest,’ Philip said.

‘
Dieu vos benesiga
,’ Simon repeated and disappeared into the dark.

G
ILLES WOKE SWEATING
. Another bad dream. One of his stewards was standing over him shaking him by the shoulder. He slapped
the man’s hand away and sat up.

‘What are you doing in here?’

The man backed away. ‘Seigneur, I am sorry to wake you. But there is someone to see you.’

‘It is the witching hour, by the bowels of God!’

‘He says it is vital that he see you now.’

One of the guards threw the interloper into the room. The steward handed Gilles his gown and he got out of bed and stared at the upstart who had dared to come to his chamber at this hour. It was
just a runt. ‘What is this?’

The boy seemed not the least afraid, damn him. ‘I’m Loup, sir.’

‘Beat him and throw him out,’ he said to the guards.

‘No, seigneur! Please, seigneur, you will want to hear what I’ve got to say. You won’t be sorry.’

‘What could you know that would possibly interest me?’

‘Information, seigneur. Things you would like to hear of.’

Gilles wanted to give him a good kicking but he held his temper. ‘What kind of information?’

‘About the Frenchman, the one you don’t like. The one who came from the Bishop with the new soldiers.’

‘What about him?’

‘He lied about his name to Father Ortiz. His real name’s Philip of Vercy. He’s the one that ambushed your men.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I was with him. I saw it all.’

Gilles folded his arms. ‘Who are you, boy? How did you get into Montaillet? Are you with the pilgrims?’

‘I’m a shadow, seigneur. I slip here, I slip there, no one notices me. I have seen things about Philip of Vercy that you would like to know. If I could tell you where he is now,
wouldn’t you like to hear of it?’

‘He’s here in the fortress.’

‘He was, seigneur, but not any more.’

‘What do you mean? He has gone? How?’

‘You want to see him cold and dead, don’t you? So first we bargain, seigneur. That’s the right way.’

‘Bargain?’ He means it too, Gilles thought. This piece of dirt, this gutter trash wants to deal with me? ‘The bargain is this. You will tell me what you know and I won’t
have you beaten to death in the yard.’ He stood over him. The boy Loup did not flinch. Well he had balls, no mistake, and he was no bigger than a poker. Gilles held out his hand and the
steward handed him his purse. He gave the boy a silver denier. ‘Tell me where he is.’

The boy Loup handed back the coin. ‘I don’t want money, seigneur.’

‘What do you want then?’

‘I want a horse with one white patch over its eye. And I want to sleep in a feather bed. I want you to take me to Normandy to your castle and make me a squire.’

Gilles grabbed him by the throat and pushed him against the wall. God’s blood, he should squeeze him out like a rag and throw him out of the window. But then he threw back his head and
laughed. ‘By the Devil, you are an impudent little rogue. Very well, you shall have your wish.’ He let him go. ‘Tell me what you know and be quick about it.’

‘There is a tunnel under the stables; it leads out of the castle by a secret way. He has taken the woman from the prison, and he intends to ride with her to Catalonia.’

‘How did he get her out of the prison?’

‘The priest helped him.’

‘The priest? By the Devil’s hairy unholy balls, why would he do that?’

‘I don’t know, seigneur. But I know that he has done it. Saw it with my own eyes, I did.’

Gilles lifted him by the arms and threw him on the bed. ‘There, boy, there’s your feather bed. Make him comfortable, steward, for he has earned it. Fetch me my armour and wake my
sergeant-at-arms. Tell him he has work to do.’

‘What about my horse?’ Loup said.

Gilles stared at him. ‘I’ll take you to Normandy to be my little shadow there. If you do me the same kind of service as you have done me here, then one day you shall have a
horse.’ He shook his head. ‘When your balls drop, lad, they’ll hear them clang in Constantinople.’ He turned to his steward. ‘Hurry! I have work to do!’

A
BLIZZARD SWEPT
in from the
causses
during the night and threw a white veil over the valley. But the dawn broke
cold and blue and the glare of the snow in the bright sunlight hurt her eyes.

They were in the high passes and the way was treacherous. Philip led both horses by their halters. Fabricia, still sick from her ordeal in the prison, had to cling to her horse’s withers
to keep from fainting. Her body was numb with cold, even inside the bearskin cloak that Simon had given her.

The snow had obscured the path up the mountain. The world up here was silent save for the occasional jarring crash of a branch somewhere in the forest giving way under its burden of snow.

‘The monastery of Montmercy is just over the ridge,’ she said.

As if on cue, a fox ran across the snow with its prize, a chicken hanging limp in its jaws. ‘Only one place to steal chickens from up here,’ he said. The bird’s blood stained
the snow, claret on virgin white.

‘I never thought to see you again, seigneur.’

‘It would have been so easy to go back. I was tempted. I could not do it.’

‘What happened in Toulouse?’

‘I persuaded the Bishop I was his man. After he accepted my penance he gave me a hundred men to bring to Simon de Montfort. We parted on the best of terms, though he may not speak quite so
well of me after this.’

‘Your penance?’

‘On my knees, bare-backed, with a penitent’s cord around my neck, followed by a hundred lashes of the rod, rather meekly applied, I thought. Afterwards I was welcomed back into the
loving embrace of the Church.’

‘You let him beat you?’

‘It was worth it. The pain was not overmuch.’ Well, a slight exaggeration, the popish bastard beat me like a dog. What it took, grovelling to that sanctimonious bastard!

He stopped, stared across the valley. In the distance he could make out the far sentinels of the Pyrenees, the gateway to Catalonia and safety. His horse shivered, its hoof stamping the ground.
Vapour rose from its nostrils. He had to tell her about her father sometime. She had to know. He wondered how he would find the words to say it.

‘Fabricia,’ he began, and he did not have to say more. His face told her everything.

She put her fingers to his lips. ‘Please. Don’t say it.’

But he had to tell her, how much Anselm had sacrificed for her.

‘He came back for you. Father Ortiz had him –’

He did not finish. He heard a sound in the woods to their left, the jangling of a horse’s bridle. He squinted against the glare of the snow, saw a troop of riders, watching them, very
still, from the tree-line. What he did not see was the archer whose arrow took him full in the middle of his chest and sent him tumbling over the edge of the cliff into the gorge.

‘P
HILIP!
’

Fabricia tumbled from her horse. But as soon as her feet touched the ground she slipped on the ice and almost went over the edge as well.

She lay on her back, stunned. She heard the clip of horses’ hooves and a man laughing. They came out of the trees then, a dozen of them, all wearing hoods and cloaks. On their shields were
the three blue eagles of the house of Soissons.

One of the men held a crossbow. He grinned at her. He had a broken tooth.

Gilles climbed down from his horse, giving the reins to his sergeant-at-arms. He took off his leather gauntlets and tucked them into his belt.

He crouched down. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re the mason’s daughter, aren’t you? If I’d had my way I’d have burned you with your damned mother.
It might have saved that monk’s life, but he never listened to me.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You mean you don’t know? Of course, you were shut up in the prison. Didn’t he tell you, your noble lover? That Spanish monk ordered your father to repair the church and
somehow the old bastard persuaded him to go up the scaffold with him. As soon as Ortiz was up there he grabbed him and threw them both off it. It was an earth floor so they left quite a hollow. We
burned your father’s body and pounded his bones to dust, as we would with any heretic.’

Fabricia spat in his face. Her mouth was dry so it wasn’t much but it pleased her to see him flinch. He slapped her hard before he wiped his face. ‘Show me your hands,’ he
said.