Authors: Tom Harper
She made herself walk to the lifts without screaming. In the lift he was all over her, pressing her against the mirrored wall and rubbing himself against her. She didn’t resist. The moment they were inside his room, he started fumbling with his belt, while the other hand pawed at her buttons.
Ellie pushed him away and went back to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
She didn’t miss the edge in his voice.
You think Lechowski is such a fool he cannot smell the rat?
He might play the buffoon, but he was used to getting his way. She remembered what Doug had said, back in the summer.
The first sign of weakness, they’ll tear you limb from limb.
She waved the plastic Do Not Disturb sign at him, and hooked it over the outside door handle.
‘We don’t want any interruptions. I’m not in any rush.’ Her mouth was dry; she hoped it came out husky rather than croaky.
‘I thought you had a flight first thing.’
‘Monsalvat can afford another ticket.’
She closed her eyes. Lechowski had undone her top: he buried his face in her cleavage and squeezed her like something he could get juice out of. If he noticed that she was as limp as a doll, he didn’t complain. Perhaps he liked it.
There is not one woman who does not prefer a little rough handling to too much consideration.
‘I knew it.’
Ellie’s eyes snapped open. Light from the corridor flooded in to the dim room. Doug stood in the doorway, his face twisted in fury.
‘You little slut.’
‘Please, Doug.’
Ellie stepped back. Lechowski stared. His flies gaped open. ‘Who –?’
‘Shut it!’ With a move straight from the rugby field, Doug dropped his shoulder and sent Lechowski sprawling back on the bed. Before Lechowski could react, Doug picked him back up by his shirtfront, and threw him down on the floor.
‘If I ever hear one word that Ellie was here tonight, I’m going to hunt you down and make you wish you’d never touched her! I’ll cut off your cock and make you eat it! Do you understand?’
He grabbed Ellie’s wrist and dragged her towards the door. She just had time to snatch up the folder on the dresser on her way out.
‘“Make you eat it?” That’s disgusting. Where did you get it from?’
They were back in the car. Outside the windows, the grey blocks of suburban Luxembourg dragged by. Doug, driving, looked embarrassed.
‘Must have come from a film or something.’
‘You were great. Really scary.’ She squeezed his knee. He flinched.
‘Seriously, don’t ever do that to me again. It was horrible.’
‘It wasn’t any better for me.’
Doug drove on, staring stiffly ahead. A sullen silence gripped the car.
‘Stop here.’
He glanced at her, saw the look on her face and didn’t argue. He pulled over in front of a mini-market. ‘What?’
She reached across the car, cupped her hand around his
head and pulled him towards her. She kissed him hard, feeling the warmth of his mouth against hers. He tried to pull back after a decent interval, but she refused to let him go until she felt the muscles in his neck relax, until his eyes shut and his arms closed around her. She wanted him to understand.
‘I’m sorry.’
She didn’t say for what. If he’d asked, she’d probably have told him everything. But he didn’t. The strain on his face seemed to loosen a little. He attempted a smile.
‘I suppose we taught that creep a lesson he won’t forget. Where now?’
Ellie opened the folder. Three pages in was a map.
‘South.’
France, 1142
This is the tale of Erec’s deeds,
Adventuring with fair Enide,
Which some poor storytellers dangle
Before Kings and Counts – and mangle.
I bow towards my audience. Laughter goes round the hall. There are no kings and few counts among them, but they appreciate the flattery.
This story that I now begin
Will last as long as men do sin,
A tale to sit in memory:
So much does Chrétien guarantee.
My boast gets their attention. They lean forward to listen, to see if I can deliver on my promise. I’m sitting to one side of the fire, my face half in the light and half in shadow. They don’t see
me: their eyes are full of the knights, castles, kings and damsels I’m conjuring for their imaginations. But I can see them. I scan their faces, searching for one I recognise.
I need to get back to Troyes to find the man who recruited me, the goldsmith with the silver hand and the sky-blue eyes. But Troyes is a long journey from Châteaubriant, and the money I took from the abbot won’t get me far. So I’m following the tournaments again, a ghost in my own former life, scraping pennies and lodging where I can as I wander east.
I don’t ride in the battle line any more – I’ve kept that much of my promise to the hermit. In the mornings, I serve as a herald, announcing the knights as they parade past the stands. Everyone watches the knights: no one sees the man standing right in front of them, calling out their names. A herald’s job is to know everyone. The night before the contest, I ferret my way among the tents and through the town’s lodgings, asking the name and arms of every knight. I visit the lists and the rings to see the single combats, and the men who watch them. Malegant found all his knights that way – surely someone will return to their old paths.
I miss my old life. I miss the horse swaying under me, the smells of oil, resin and hot metal. I miss the thrilling fear of waiting for the charge, and the bond with the men beside me. Sometimes, I can barely resist throwing myself into the ring with the other knights. I don’t. The promises I made the hermit are vague, but they definitely preclude fighting for gain.
In the evenings I go to the banquets and tell stories, of knightly deeds long ago, when Arthur was king. The knights like those stories. They imagine themselves as the heroes, and feel vindicated.
*
Back in the hall the candles have burned low. The audience leans in. I tell them how Erec saw Enide and fell in love at first sight; how life in the castle bored them; how they went adventuring together and learned to trust each other. I tell how they fought a hundred knights, and two giants; how they freed the kingdom of King Evrain from a murderous custom. And, at last, how Erec brought Enide to Carduel and installed her as his queen to live happily ever after. When you’re telling the story, you can choose how it ends.
Thus Chrétien ends his tale of deeds
Done by Erec and fair Enide.
We leave them kissing by the door,
The story ends – there is no more.
And should a man say otherwise,
I promise you: he’s telling lies.
Laughter and applause ripple around the hall. I watch the faces change as the lords and ladies come back to the present. It’s as close to magic as I’ve seen in this world. Speak the right words, in the right way, and you can change their hearts.
The story ends – there is no more
. They want to believe it. They want to inhabit a world of certain endings, of happiness fixed forever. In all my tales, it’s the biggest fiction of all.
Minstrels come in; benches get pushed back for dancing. The audience mill about. Some leave to return to their lodgings, or relieve themselves, or meet lovers in draughty stable-blocks. I watch the doors, scanning faces. A man in a cloak embroidered with lions looks as though he’s paying me close attention – I keep my eye on him for a moment, until he gets drawn into conversation with the lady beside him. My gaze moves on.
And there he is. A grey, one-eyed face I’ve seen before,
standing by a ring watching men sport.
I work for a man who’s always interested to see good fighters
. He wore a black coat that day – now he’s dressed in scarlet – but the face is clear in my memory. That puckered socket isn’t one you forget. Has he recognised me?
He’s going out the door. I disengage from the crowd around me and hurry after him. By the time I get out he’s already on the far side of the courtyard, a shadow in the braziers’ smoky light. My footsteps seem too loud on the flagstones, but he doesn’t look back.
The town is built on a hill, with the castle at the summit and the houses sloping towards the river. I follow the one-eyed man down. Tournament crowds still throng the main street, drinking and singing: it’s easy for me to hide among them, harder to keep him in sight. Twice I think I’ve lost him. I try and close the gap.
The houses end at a stretch of open ground just inside the walls. Normally, the townspeople pasture their sheep here, but tonight it’s become a makeshift encampment for the makeshift army who’ve descended on the town. I battle back memories of the nights Ada and I spent in these camps – maybe in this very town.
The one-eyed man seems to know where he’s going. He turns between two tents, down a narrow, muddy path. He’ll see me if I follow him. I go on and slip between the next row of tents, paralleling his path. Stakes and ropes reach out of the darkness to snare me.
Ahead, the glow of a campfire flickers on canvas. I crouch and edge forward, peering around the tent wall. Four men, still in the quilted tunics they wore under their armour, are sitting on logs roasting songbirds on sticks. The man I followed crouches beside them, trailing the hem of his
expensive mantle in the mud, and talks in a low voice. I can’t hear what he’s saying, but the gestures he makes are sharp and urgent.
I creep forward to try and listen in. A purse changes hands.
‘
…
bring it to me there.’
‘And how –?’
But the one-eyed man isn’t listening. He’s staring past the fire, straight towards me. The puckered skin around his blind socket goes taut, as if a phantom eye is stretching to see me. But there’s no problem with his other eye – and in trying to hear him, I’ve been drawn into the light.
‘
That’s him.
’
Too late, I realise he’s hired them to kill me. I could hardly have made it easier for them. The knights snatch weapons from around the fireside and jump to their feet. Just for an instant, fear keeps me fixed to the spot – not fear for my life, but fear that if I lose sight of my quarry now, I’ll never see him again. Never find Malegant, never find answers.
But I won’t find him if I’m dead. I turn and run through the campsite, hurdling ropes in the dark, pushing past onlookers before they can stop me. I see the road ahead and swing left, through an arch and across the bridge. A gatehouse guards the far side – beyond that, I can surely lose them in the forest. I grab a ring in the gate and heave.
The gate’s locked. The castellan must be worried about brigands drawn to the tournament. I bang on the door, but there are no lights in the barbican tower. The gatekeeper’s probably gone to enjoy the festivities. He doesn’t realise he’s just signed my death warrant.
I turn, pressing my back against the gate. A single lamp hangs over the arch: the four knights prowl like wolves just beyond the ring of light. They all have swords in their hands.
I promised the hermit I wouldn’t fight: I’m not carrying so much as a paring knife. I look for help, but the only other man on the bridge is a beggar, stumbling forward tapping his staff. One of the knights gives him a warning gesture, a hand slicing across his throat.
‘Why do you want to kill me?’ I shout. The night swallows the sound.
The nearest knight shrugs. He doesn’t know why. All he knows is what he’s been paid to do. He puts up his sword to strike – and pauses. The beggar’s still coming, his staff tap-tapping the wooden bridge. Maybe he’s blind. The knight makes a sign to one of his men to get rid of him. I want to shout a warning, but the words won’t come.
Chaos and shadow make it hard to see what happens next. There’s a blur of movement, a rush and a splash. Suddenly, there are only three knights on the bridge. The beggar seems to have grown six inches: he’s thrown off his cloak and holds the staff like a cudgel. Two of the knights run towards him. One gets hit in the chest so hard I hear the ribs crack. He drops like a stone. The man behind him trips on the body and stumbles forward, into the path of a scything blow that sends him reeling to the parapet. Another prod of the staff tips him over the edge.
Now it’s just three of us standing on the bridge. The beggar lowers his staff like a spear and walks slowly towards the remaining knight. The knight edges backwards until he comes up against the parapet. He’s got nowhere else to go. He weighs his chances and makes his choice. He jumps in the river.
All this time, I’ve stayed rooted in place. Have I been rescued? The beggar turns towards me.
‘Peter of Camros?’
The voice is familiar, though I don’t know where from. I
stare. Now that his cloak has come off, I can see a wine-coloured tunic embroidered with lions. The man who was watching me in the hall.
How did he know my name?
‘I’m Chrétien. Peter is dead.’
‘Not to us.’
Something strikes the side of my head. Like a candle being pinched out, I sink into the darkness.
Chalon-sur-Saône, France
Ellie wanted to avoid the motorways and drive through the night. Doug resisted and won on both points.
‘They don’t know our car, and they don’t know where we’re going. They can’t put watchers on every bridge in France.’
‘They won’t take long to work out where we’re going. Someone inside Talhouett must know about Mirabeau. The moment they find that person, they’ll be all over it.’ She remembered Saint-Lazare’s private jet. ‘They move quickly.’
‘That’s why we should take the motorway.’
She surrendered. And when, halfway through the night, Doug turned into a service area and parked up at a motel, she didn’t argue. She snuggled up to Doug and was asleep almost before he’d turned out the light.
People who rhapsodised about French cuisine had never eaten a 6 a.m. breakfast at a roadside rest stop. While Doug got the food, Ellie tried the number on Harry’s card from a payphone again. All she got was the voicemail, a recorded epitaph.
They chewed greasy croissants and read over the file they’d taken. Juggernauts thundered past on the motorway, the heavy cavalry of commerce.