‘Your grace,’ Dunheved retorted, ‘it is late spring. The seas are rough and dangers await there. I beg you to wait. The king, surely, will send messengers soon.’
‘I wonder.’ The queen stirred on her chair, gesturing at Demontaigu. ‘Continue reading. It’s good to hear how things should be rather than how they are. You have a fine voice; read that passage again about the knight entering Arthur’s court and challenging any of his paladins to a joust.’ Isabella clasped her hands. ‘Wouldn’t it be good to be back at Sheen, Windsor or Westminster, to wait for the sun, be out in the fields, to watch night returning?’ Her voice grew bitter. ‘Instead we are like rabbits on the moorlands, scuttling away from the shadow of the hawk. Lord Henry Beaumont is correct. This must be brought to an end, but how and when I cannot say. Mathilde, you may stay if you wish; if not. .’
I bowed and withdrew. I’d drunk quite deeply at the Beaumonts’ feast, so I retired to bed early.
The next morning a loud rapping on the door aroused me. Demontaigu stood there fastening on his war-belt, a cloak about his shoulders.
‘Come, Mathilde, come. There is a disturbance near the gatehouse. Rumour has it that Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales are about to leave.’
‘Let them go,’ I replied. ‘What use are they here?’
‘Now, Mathilde, please!’
I closed the door and hastily dressed, putting on a pair of coarse leather boots and wrapping a cloak firmly about me. I explained to one of the queen’s squires what I was doing and followed Demontaigu down across the mist-hung bailey to the barbican and the great gatehouse where Lisbon and his fellow demons waited in their black garb, standards fluttering, war-hounds barking. The bailey was crowded. Sumpter ponies had been led out with bags, chests and casks strapped to them. I stared at these men, this legion of demons who, for the last four years, had hung like some deadly miasma around the court. A coven of hideous malignity and malice, they’d dogged the steps of poor broken Templars, carrying out hideous murder and acting like the lords of hell. Now they were intent on leaving. The Castellan and his officers, serjeants of the bow and spear, were dismayed at being weakened by the departure of so many fighting men, especially when the danger lurking out on the misty moorlands had yet to be confronted. Alexander of Lisbon, one hand holding the reins of his sleek black destrier, was gesturing dismissively at the Castellan. Beside him a man-at-arms unfolded the black and gold banner of the Noctales, a sign that they were about to mount and leave. Demontaigu and I edged closer. Lisbon stepped to one side and waved forward a figure garbed in dry animal skins, hair and beard all tousled.
‘This is my guide,’ he yelled at the Castellan. ‘Oswyth of Teesdale. He says the king and Lord Gaveston with a sizeable host are not far. He’ll lead us by moorland paths to meet them.’
I gazed at Oswyth: that large head, the tangled hair and beard, those fierce eyes, cheekbones brushed raw by the wind. I listened to him chatter in the local patois, one word swiftly running into the other, which a clerk of the stables had to translate for both the Castellan and Lisbon. Oswyth, a mere churl, gave an accurate description of the royal party: the blue, gold and scarlet banners, the snarling leopards. The king and Gaveston, a host of Welsh archers swarming about them, were now marching north. I believed it myself. The news had to be true; a peasant could not invent such detail. Demontaigu squeezed my wrist.
‘Look upon his face, Mathilde,’ he whispered. ‘Do so carefully.’
Oswyth had all the mannerisms of a ploughman trying to impress his betters. He betrayed country ways, constantly moving, stamping his feet, scratching and muttering to himself. Now and again he’d step forward and chatter to the clerk of the stables. Only when he moved did I become more curious. I stared hard. Despite the tousled hair and beard, I recognised someone I knew. I gazed in horror! I did know Oswyth! No northern peasant or unlettered ploughman, he was Ausel the Irishman, the consummate mummer and mimic, God’s justice incarnate, His anger in flesh against Lisbon and his followers of Baal! Ausel had come to lead Alexander of Lisbon not to the king but to hell! I opened my mouth. I wanted to shout a warning. Even though I hated the Noctales, it is hard to watch men prepare so willingly and yet so unwittingly, for a violent death. Demontaigu gripped my wrist tighter, whispering that I should remain silent. I could only stare, marvelling at the Irishman’s cunning at posing as a peasant. A high-ranking Templar could provide detailed descriptions of the king, Gaveston and the royal cortege, but not a local unlettered peasant. What better way of convincing Lisbon? He certainly had. The Noctales were determined to leave and the Castellan could only protest.
‘God have mercy on them all,’ Demontaigu whispered. ‘There is nothing I can or want to do to stop it.’
The bells of the castle chapel clanged, summoning us to the Jesus mass, as the Noctales, banners and pennants unfurled, a long line of mounted men with their sumpter ponies and barking war-dogs, clattered through the yawning gate to meet their nemesis on that fog-bound moorland. To elude death is not easy. Try as we might, we soul-bearers must allow our souls to travel on when the Lord demands it. Lisbon and his devils were about to meet their God. The early-morning air held the taste of death. My mind began to play tricks, as if I could already hear the shrieks, the clatter of swords, the hiss of arrows and the slicing, sickening thud of the war-axe. Lisbon was hastening to hell; his slaughter bed was being prepared.
All I could do on my return was to whisper to the queen, who crossed herself in a moment of prayer. Demontaigu and I then attended mass. I did not take the sacrament. I could not. I was torn by guilt, though there was nothing I could do. Alexander of Lisbon would have simply scoffed at my warnings, whilst if I had betrayed Ausel, the Templar would have gone to a hideous death.
After mass, Demontaigu and I sat on the ale-bench in the castle buttery, breaking our fast and waiting for news. It arrived late that afternoon: a survivor of Lisbon’s group, still harnessed and all bloodied, his entire body a gaping wound, came hammering on a postern gate more dead than alive. He was helped into the castle’s infirmary and I was summoned. The survivor was a Parisian by birth, young in years but now openly feted by death. He had a mortal wound to the stomach, so there was little I could do except give him comfort and relief. He greedily drank the opiate, then babbled about playing in green fields, his mother and a young woman called Claricia. Eventually he broke from his drug-smeared dreams and, in haunting but lucid whispers, told me what had happened. How the Noctales had gone up into the fog, deep on to the moorlands, where water hags and demon wraiths swirled: a lonely, forbidding place. How many of his companions had become uneasy and began to curse Lisbon, but their leader remained insistent. The die was cast. An hour out from the castle, their guide led them into a trap as fast and as hard as any snare.
‘Who?’ demanded the Castellan, whom I’d immediately sent for.
‘Templars.’
‘Nonsense!’ the Castellan snapped.
‘Then ghosts,’ the man pleaded. ‘Out of hell, bent on vengeance. I tell you, I heard their battle cry, “Beauseant!” I glimpsed their piebald standard. They were ready and waiting like the wolf. A hail of hissing arrows, deadly sleet pouring through the mist, then they closed, spear thrusting and battle axe whirling. Our dogs and many of the horses took the brunt of the first assault.’
‘How many were your attackers?’
‘Their name must be legion. Alexander of Lisbon did his best. We dismounted, forming a spear hedge, but they cut through with axe, sword and mace. We became split into small groups, each man fighting for himself. The circle I was in broke. I remember receiving a burning cut here,’ his hand fell to his stomach, ‘then I fled. Behind me hideous screams and yells. It was easy to find my way back. I simply followed our tracks. I heard pursuers but a war-horn wailed; they must have wanted one of us to survive to tell the story.’ The young man arched in pain.