Part 17 (1/2)

'No man can take armour and weapons from a mere woman fairly,' the Prince snapped. 'Where is the armour now, Jekyll?'

'Lost, sir,' Sir Simon spoke for the first time. He wanted to tell the Prince the whole story, how Jeanette had arranged an ambush, but that tale ended with his own humiliation and he had the sense to keep quiet.

'Then that mail coat will have to suffice,' the Prince declared. 'Take it off. And the sword too.'

Sir Simon gaped at the Prince, but saw he was serious. He unbuckled the sword belt and let it drop, then hauled the mail coat over his head so that he was left in his s.h.i.+rt and breeches.

'What is in the pouch?' the Prince demanded, pointing at the heavy leather bag suspended about Sir Simon's neck.

Sir Simon sought an answer and found none but the truth, which was that the pouch was the heavy money bag he had taken from Thomas. 'It is money, sire.'

'Then give it to her ladys.h.i.+p.'

Sir Simon lifted the bag over his head and held it out to Jeanette, who smiled sweetly. 'Thank you, Sir Simon,' she said.

'Your horse is forfeit too,' the Prince decreed, 'and you will leave this encampment by midday for you are not welcome in our company. You may go home, Jekyll, but in England you will not have our favour.'

Sir Simon looked into the Prince's eyes for the first time. You d.a.m.ned miserable little pup, he thought, with your mother's milk still sour on your unshaven lips, then he shook as he was struck by the coldness of the Prince's eyes. He bowed, knowing he was being banished, and he knew it was unfair, but there was nothing he could do except appeal to the King, yet the King owed him no favours and no great men of the realm would speak for him, and so he was effectively an outcast. He could go home to England, but there men would soon learn he had incurred royal disfavour and his life would be endless misery. He bowed, he turned and he walked away in his dirty s.h.i.+rt as silent men opened a path for him.

The cannon fired on. They fired four times that day and eight the next, and at the end of the two days there was a splintered rent in the castle gate that might have given entrance to a starved sparrow. The guns had done nothing except hurt the gunners' ears and shatter stone b.a.l.l.s against the castle's ramparts. Not a Frenchman had died, though one gunner and an archer had been killed when one of the bra.s.s guns exploded into a myriad red-hot sc.r.a.ps of metal. The King, realizing that the attempt was ridiculous, ordered the guns taken away and the siege of the castle abandoned.

And the next day the whole army left Caen. They marched eastwards, going towards Paris, and after them crawled their wagons and their camp followers and their herds of beef cattle, and for a long time afterwards the eastern sky showed white where the dust of their marching hazed the air. But at last the dust settled and the city, ravaged and sacked, was left alone. The folk who had succeeded in escaping from the island crept back to their homes. The splintered door of the castle was pushed open and its garrison came down to see what was left of Caen. For a week the priests carried an image of St Jean about the littered streets and sprinkled holy water to get rid of the lingering stink of the enemy. They said Ma.s.ses for the souls of the dead, and prayed fervently that the wretched English would meet the King of France and have their own ruin visited on them.

But at least the English were gone, and the violated city, ruined, could stir again.

Light came first. A hazy light, smeared, in which Thomas thought he could see a wide window, but a shadow moved against the window and the light went. He heard voices, then they faded. In pascuis herbarum adclinavit me. In pascuis herbarum adclinavit me. The words were in his head. He makes me lie down in leafy pastures. A psalm, the same psalm from which his father had quoted his dying words. The words were in his head. He makes me lie down in leafy pastures. A psalm, the same psalm from which his father had quoted his dying words. Calix meus inebrians. Calix meus inebrians. My cup makes me drunk. Only he was not drunk. Breathing hurt, and his chest felt as though he was being pressed by the torture of the stones. Then there was blessed darkness and oblivion once more. My cup makes me drunk. Only he was not drunk. Breathing hurt, and his chest felt as though he was being pressed by the torture of the stones. Then there was blessed darkness and oblivion once more.

The light came again. It wavered. The shadow was there, the shadow moved towards him and a cool hand was laid on his forehead.

'I do believe you are going to live,' a man's voice said in a tone of surprise.

Thomas tried to speak, but only managed a strangled, grating sound.

'It astonishes me,' the voice went on, 'what young men can endure. Babies too. Life is marvellously strong. Such a pity we waste it.'

'It's plentiful enough,' another man said.

'The voice of the privileged,' the first man, whose hand was still on Thomas's forehead, answered. 'You take life,' he said, 'so value it as a thief values his victims.'

'And you are a victim?'

'Of course. A learned victim, a wise victim, even a valuable victim, but still a victim. And this young man, what is he?'

'An English archer,' the second voice said sourly, 'and if we had any sense we'd kill him here and now.'

'I think we shall try and feed him instead. Help me raise him.'

Hands pushed Thomas upright in the bed, and a spoonful of warm soup was put into his mouth, but he could not swallow and so spat the soup onto the blankets. Pain seared through him and the darkness came again.

The light came a third time or perhaps a fourth, he could not tell. Perhaps he dreamed it, but this time an old man stood outlined against the bright window. The man had a long black robe, but he was not a priest or monk, for the robe was not gathered at the waist and he wore a small square black hat over his long white hair.

'G.o.d,' Thomas tried to say, though the word came out as a guttural grunt.

The old man turned. He had a long, forked beard and was holding a jordan jar. It had a narrow neck and a round belly, and the bottle was filled with a pale yellow liquid that the man held up to the light. He peered at the liquid, then swilled it about before sniffing the jar's mouth.

'Are you awake?'

'Yes.'

'And you can speak! What a doctor I am! My brilliance astonishes me; if only it would persuade my patients to pay me. But most believe I should be grateful that they don't spit at me. Would you say this urine is clear?'

Thomas nodded and wished he had not for the pain jarred through his neck and down his spine.

'You do not consider it turgid? Not dark? No, indeed not. It smells and tastes healthy too. A good flask of clear yellow urine, and there is no better sign of good health. Alas, it is not yours.' The doctor pushed open the window and poured the urine away. 'Swallow,' he instructed Thomas.

Thomas's mouth was dry, but he obediently tried to swallow and immediately gasped with pain.

'I think,' the doctor said, 'that we had best try a thin gruel. Very thin, with some oil, I believe, or better still, b.u.t.ter. That thing tied about your neck is a strip of cloth which has been soaked in holy water. It was not my doing, but I did not forbid it. You Christians believe in magic - indeed you could have no faith without a trust in magic - so I must indulge your beliefs. Is that a dog's paw about your neck? Don't tell me, I'm sure I don't want to know. However, when you recover, I trust you will understand that it was neither dog paws nor wet cloths that healed you, but my skill. I have bled you, I have applied poultices of dung, moss and clove, and I have sweated you. Eleanor, though, will insist it was her prayers and that tawdry strip of wet cloth that revived you.'

'Eleanor?'

'She cut you down, dear boy. You were half dead. By the time I arrived you were more dead than alive and I advised her to let you expire in peace. I told her you were halfway in what you insist is h.e.l.l and that I was too old and too tired to enter into a tugging contest with the devil, but Eleanor insisted and I have ever found it difficult to resist her entreaties. Gruel with rancid b.u.t.ter, I think. You are weak, dear boy, very weak. Do you have a name?'

'Thomas.'

'Mine is Mordecai, though you may call me Doctor. You won't, of course. You'll call me a d.a.m.ned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret wors.h.i.+pper of pigs and a kidnapper of Christian children.' This was all said cheerfully. 'How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life's lessons.'

'Doctor?' Thomas croaked.

'Thomas?'

'Thank you.'

'An Englishman with manners! The world's wonders never cease. Wait there, Thomas, and do not have the bad manners to die while I'm gone. I shall fetch gruel.'

'Doctor?'

'I am still here.'

'Where am I?'

'In the house of my friend, and quite safe.'

'Your friend?'

'Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, knight of the sea and of the land, and as great a fool as any I know, but a good-hearted fool. He does at least pay me.'

Thomas closed his eyes. He did not really understand what the doctor had said, or perhaps he did not believe it. His head was aching. There was pain all through his body, from his aching head down to his throbbing toes. He thought of his mother, because that was comforting, then he remembered being hauled up the tree and he s.h.i.+vered. He wished he could sleep again, for in sleep there was no pain, but then he was made to sit up and the doctor forced a pungent, oily gruel into his mouth and he managed not to spit it out or throw it up. There must have been mushrooms in the gruel, or else it had been infused with the hemp-like leaves that the Hook-ton villagers had called angel salad, for after he had eaten he had vivid dreams, but less pain. When he awoke it was dark and he was alone, but he managed to sit up and even stand, though he tottered and had to sit again.