Authors: Tom Harper
I trot over the sand dunes to the riverbank. The water’s brackish, the flask isn’t nearly big enough, but it’ll have to do. I try to fill my helmet, but it leaks out through the rivets. I stare at myself in the river: gaunt, bloodied, filthy and lined with cares. This wasn’t the sort of knight I dreamed of being. If my eight-year-old self saw me now, he’d run in terror.
Flies dance over the reflection, as if picking over a corpse. I put on my helmet and mount my horse one last time. The tide suddenly seems to be coming in faster: I don’t want it to carry away the boat without me. I spur to the top of the dunes and look down.
The boat’s still there – but it’s not alone. A horse is cantering along the beach, a black horse with a black rider. He sees me and halts.
‘
Peter
.’
The wind blows the name back at him. Giant though he is, the strain in his voice is obvious. He’s been riding and fighting at least as hard as I have.
I ease my horse down the dune and trot out on to the beach. A bowshot away from him, I stop. Waves crash on the shore;
the wind snaps at the horse’s mane. We might be the last two men on earth. We lower our spears.
Malegant pricks his spurs. I’m not wearing any, but my horse knows what to do. We charge together, as fast as our horses can manage. The wind sings in my face. I couch my spear and tilt it across the horse’s neck; I crouch in my stirrups, knees bent, head forward, just the way Gornemant taught me.
The collision is immense. Against Malegant’s lance, the archer’s shield isn’t worth two bits of bark. It doesn’t even deflect the blow – the point carries on, cuts through my chain mail and slices open my arm, just missing the muscle. Malegant gallops on, his momentum tearing the shield off my arm. He almost pulls me off with it.
I’m shaking; I can barely hold on to my spear. But I have to get around before Malegant does. I haul the reins in, dragging the horse. This is why they call it the
tourney
– only now we’re not fighting for ransoms or glory.
I’m fast – but Malegant can match me, and I don’t have a shield any more. We start closer for the second charge, but the horses are slower: it seems to take an age to come together. Plenty of time to dodge Malegant’s lance, though it means my own strike barely touches him.
We wheel again. Now we’re so close there’s no need to charge. We hammer at each other, blunt bodyblows without the power to pierce armour. My foot comes loose from my stirrup; my saddle starts to slip. I feel the girth snap. But my blows are beginning to tell too: Malegant’s having just as much trouble staying upright. He slides back, his spear goes up; I see my chance and lunge, catching him high on the shoulder. He falls backwards out of the saddle and thumps down on the sand.
But the motion unbalances me too. Before I can press home
the advantage, the saddle slips round. I dive off, rolling away so as not to be dragged under the horse.
We both leap to our feet and draw our swords. To buy time, and gather my breath, I shout, ‘What was I to you?’
Under the helmet, Malegant’s lips draw back in a sneer. ‘Nothing.’
‘Why did you take me to the Île de Pêche?’
‘To kill you.’
‘Why me?’
‘Unfinished business.’ He laughs. ‘I’d already killed the rest of your family.’
Afterwards, I’ll always wonder if that was true – or just a lie told to provoke me. It certainly has that effect. Numb and dazed from the blows I’ve sustained, I don’t question it. I’m ten years old again, back in the burning compound of my father’s home. And like the boy I was, all I want to do is attack.
No fight is pretty, but this is worse than most. We’re exhausted from last night’s battle, and from the blows we’ve already traded. I lumber towards him across the sand. I swing at him, miss; he steps away, then scythes his sword at my helmet. I duck. Not soon enough: the blow catches it on the crown, snaps the laces and whips it off. My head’s ringing like a bell. He raises his sword to split my bare skull. Instinctively, I throw up my shield arm
But I don’t have a shield. I catch his blow hard on my forearm. The bone snaps; the arm hangs limp and twisted. Blood drips through the links of my armour and drizzles like rain on the sand. Under my sleeve I can feel the bone sticking out through my skin. When I try to move it, the splintered bone catches in the chain mail: I scream so hard I almost faint. Malegant laughs.
And yet, and yet – I still have the arm. His sword should
have cut clean through – bone, armour and all. The blow was certainly strong enough.
His sword’s blunt: it lost its edge in the night’s battle and he hasn’t sharpened it. My blade is keen and well honed.
The pain brings clarity. I stagger backwards, my sword dangling from my good arm, as if I no longer have the strength to hold it. Malegant sees his chance and comes after me. He’s as tired as I am and desperate to finish me quickly. I slow down; I start to totter. He quickens his pace and aims for my skull.
But though my body’s swaying, my legs are firmly planted. Suddenly I kick off, launching myself forward: my sword comes up. He runs straight on to the blade. All I have to do is hold it firm and let his momentum do the rest.
The point pierces his armour and opens up his belly. He swings his sword, but I’m too close; there’s no momentum behind the blow, and the blade’s too dull to cut me.
I stand back, put my boot against his groin and pull the blade free. Blood leaks from his stomach, but he’s still on his feet. A second blow slashes his helmet, smashing the nose-guard in to his mouth and breaking three teeth. He drops to the ground.
I cut the laces on his helmet and pull it free. He’s still resisting me. A knife’s appeared in his hand; he staggers to his knees. He no longer looks dangerous – just pathetic.
I grip my sword like an axe and swing. The strength comes: the neck severs. His head rolls down the beach and comes to rest just below the tide mark, rocking gently. At my feet, his open corpse pumps blood on to the sand.
Loqmenez
Ellie had thought she was immune to pain. For a second, she didn’t feel the bullet at all. Then the pain exploded through her
side. She collapsed to the ground, shielding the stone with her body, while her blood gushed over it. Through the agonised haze she was dimly aware of Blanchard crouching on top of her, trying to wrestle her off. His polished, urbane mask was gone: he clawed and tore at her like a frenzied animal.
The ground shook again, though she didn’t see what had caused it. Blanchard didn’t look up.
A tall figure, silhouetted against the red sky, pulled Blanchard away from Ellie. Blanchard spun around. She saw Doug’s face and cried out, though perhaps it was just a dream brought on by death. The gun came up.
Doug had seen it. Before Blanchard could fire, Doug dropped his shoulder and charged into him. Blanchard doubled over, stumbled back, and–
Flat on the ground, Ellie didn’t see him fall. She just heard his scream echo off the valley, then die away.
Wales
Hugh lies straight in the bottom of the boat, his arms folded across the sword on his chest, his eyes closed. I lean down and whisper in his ear, ‘We saved the King. We got the lance.’
He doesn’t hear me. He’ll never hear anything again. With clumsy, inexpert hands, I step the mast and rig the sail. It’s poorly done, but it’s enough. The wind catches the canvas and carries us out to sea.
Glastonbury, 1143
The monks watch me anxiously. There’s no good way to hide what I’m carrying – I’ve wrapped it in sackcloth, but they can guess what it is. The covering only makes them more nervous, particularly when I announce that I want to see the abbot.
I’ve travelled a long way since that beach in Wales. Now I’m back in England. The kingdom’s still at war – neither Stephen nor Maud can press home an advantage. Rather than fight each other, they lay waste each other’s lands. If you can’t kill the King, kill his kingdom.
I remember what Hugh said.
A blessed time – a golden age
, against what would have happened if the spear had killed the King. I have to believe he was telling the truth. Otherwise, so much was for nothing.
But here at Glastonbury Abbey the monks seem well enough – certainly fatter and more content than the brothers I lived with in Brittany. I think of them sometimes, like now, when I hear the drone of a psalm drifting out of church like bees on a summer’s day. I wonder how my life would have been if I’d
stayed there, locked in the library copying old words. Or if I’d taken the path laid before me when I was eight years old, when they cut the tonsure into my head. Would I have been happier?
The abbot receives me in his chapel. It’s ornately decorated, as befits the richest monastery in England. A mosaic in the floor makes intricate, angular paths, criss-crossing each other in a web which has neither beginning nor end. Through the window behind him, I can see the steep slopes of Glastonbury Tor rising out of sight, the strange corrugations under the grass like some lost labyrinth or sunken castle.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Abbot Henry says. His eyes flick across to the sackcloth bundle. He looks older than when I last saw him. His cheeks have sunk, his hair greyed, but the stones in his rings are unchanged, bright and colourful as summer. They still tinkle like bells when he moves his hand.
I tell him almost everything. Our capture by Morgan ap Owain, the desperate ride through Wales and the battle on the hilltop. A lot of it he’s heard before – from William of Ypres and the other men who came back, from his brother the King himself. But not from anyone who knew what happened afterwards.
I end my story on the beach.
‘And the lance?’ the abbot says. He knows the answer – his gaze hasn’t left my bundle since I stepped in the room. My hand trembles as I give it to him. I hope he doesn’t guess why.
He unties the cloth and pulls out the lance. The iron is black and mottled, forged in a rush. The smith who made it for me couldn’t understand why anyone should want a solid iron spear. I hold my breath. If Henry’s held the real lance before, he won’t be fooled by my counterfeit.
He touches it with reverence. His eyes are wide with awe. I’ve got away with it – I try not to let my relief show.
‘And the other
…
object. You saw what happened to it?’
‘Lazar de Mortain escaped with it.’
A grey, distant look enters his face. ‘We’ll find him.’
There’s a finality in those words, his mind already turning to other matters. I’ve served my purpose and he’s a busy man. I don’t know what function he serves in Hugh’s Brotherhood, but he’s also Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester, king’s counsellor and royal brother. But just as he reaches the door, he pauses.
‘What will you do?’
I don’t imagine he’s concerned for my wellbeing. He doesn’t owe me anything. I may have brought him the lance, as far as he knows, but at best that’s partial amends. And I know too much for him to let me go entirely free.
‘I thought I would return to France.’
‘You have land there?’
‘No.’
‘Family?’
‘None.’
He frowns. Land and family are the levers of his world. Without them, he can’t comprehend me.
‘William said you were an accomplished storyteller.’
‘I let my audience judge.’
He ignores the false modesty. ‘My brother, the Count of Blois, enjoys stories. I think I can find you a sinecure at his court in Troyes. He isn’t a member of my Brotherhood, but he’s sympathetic to our cause.’
I bow.
Wiltshire, England
Even on the motorway you could feel the spring life bursting out of the earth on a sunny May morning. Ellie and Doug
drove down from Oxford and joined the M
4
at Newbury, then headed west. They didn’t speak much. Ellie stared out of the window, resting her hand on her stomach. Doug, driving, noticed the gesture.
‘Is it the wound?’ he asked.
‘It’s fine.’ The bullet scar still ached when she walked, but she didn’t notice it so much these days. It would heal. She gave him a smile he didn’t understand. She hadn’t told him yet – it would be another week or so before she could be certain – but she knew. She could feel the life growing inside her, a buried seed slowly germinating. She was happy.
They drove through the downs, where high-tech industries clustered on top of an ancient landscape: where standing stones signposted paths that had been walked for four thousand years, where carved animals branded the hills white. Ellie wound down the window and let the air blast her face.
Back in London, regulators and accountants were crawling over the Monsalvat offices, slowly dismembering its assets. There had been a few news stories when it collapsed, but not many. It wasn’t the first bank to go under that year, and it wouldn’t be the last. No one in the City was very surprised. Monsalvat had always been a loose cannon, they said, playing by its own rules – it was inevitable it would come unstuck. You couldn’t get away with that sort of behaviour these days. Most of them, having been on the wrong end of those tactics at one time or another, were glad to see it gone.
The motorway divided – Doug took the M48 towards Chepstow. Just before the Severn Bridge he pulled off and drove through a small village, down a lane that came out on the banks of the river between an electricity substation and a
sewage treatment plant. They sat there like a pair of lovestruck teenagers, staring out at the water.
‘Is this your idea of a romantic day in the country?’ Ellie teased.
‘It depends what you mean by romance.’
She waited for him to go on.
‘Leon – your man in the castle. You said – he said – the poem was a bluff. That the real clues to the lance’s resting place were in Chrétien’s
Conte du Graal
.’
Ellie nodded.
‘In the story, when Chrétien’s describing the Grail castle, he mentions two real places as metaphors. He says of the castle’s tower, “From there to Beirut you couldn’t find a better one.” Talking about the galleries, he says, “They were more splendid than any you could see from there to Limoges.”’