I emulated him and curried my brute of a gelding. I seldom did — horses had become mere tools since Goldie — but I was under his spell, and even as I resented him, I sought his favour.
Sam came in in the last of the light, by which time my Hainaulters and I had woven a hordle — a fence of brush — to block the wind and hide the fire from prying eyes to the north. Then we gathered round the fire and got warm. The nuns served wine — I was surprised — and the Hainaulters, who were for the most part men as hard as me, all muttered their thanks and searched their memories for the manners they should show to noble women. And nuns.
Fra Peter walked away from the fire.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked. ‘The Bourc’s men may be out there and we need to set a watch.’
Fra Peter nodded. ‘Of course. I will be happy to take a turn. In the meantime, I intend to kneel. And pray. You are welcome to join me.’
I must have flushed.
He put a hand on my arm. ‘It is easy to resist change,’ he said. ‘It is easy to wall God out of your heart. But I sense that you want something more than life as a killer. What do you think about, when you contemplate your life? What do you want — beyond gold?’
I couldn’t meet his eye. ‘I want to be a knight,’ I said. ‘But I am not sure what that means.’
He nodded. ‘Come and pray. Let me show you how.’
‘I know how to pray,’ I shot back. ‘And you? Brother? When you killed those three men today, were you holier?’
He led me two more steps away from the fire. ‘I am not holy,’ he said. ‘Listen, boy. And I call you boy, because that is what you are. Listen, boy. When we take our vows, they ask us, would we take the cross if we knew that in killing, we risk hell? So that other, weaker men and women might achieve salvation?’ His dark eyes cut me like blades. ‘If I risk hell, killing the enemies of the church, what are you?’
‘Damned!’ I spat, like the angry boy he called me. ‘I don’t care.’
He shrugged. ‘It is the ultimate defence, is it not? Indifference.’ He shrugged again. And smiled. ‘Listen, William. Will you allow me to teach you to pray?’
‘Paternoster, qui es in Caelis, santificatur. .’ I began.
He laughed. ‘That isn’t prayer,’ he said. ‘That’s repetition.’
Despite my anger — the kind of anger young men achieve mostly through understanding their own shortcomings — he had me. I was curious. I wanted his regard.
I wanted to change, too.
‘Can you see pictures in your head, William?’ he asked me.
I suppose I shrugged. ‘What kind of pictures?’ I asked.
‘Can you see your sister?’ he asked. ‘Look into the darkness and close your eyes. See your sister.’
‘This is praying?’ I asked.
‘Do you see your sister?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I admitted. Truth to tell, I was horrified by how hazy my visual memory of my sister was.
‘What is your favourite scene in the Bible, William?’ he asked.
‘Epiphany,’ I said. ‘The gifts of the magi.’
‘Splendid,’ he said with real satisfaction. His pleasure relaxed me. ‘Can you imagine the blessed Virgin?’ he asked.
I discovered, to my horror, that the blessed Virgin bore a striking resemblence to Emile.
‘See her, in a lowly stable, surrounded by animals, William. With the newborn Christ child on her knee.’ He was speaking quietly. I was simply obeying. As he imagined the scene for me, I obediently filled in the details.
‘Now, can you see the magi? The three kings?’ he asked.
I added them.
‘And their retinues. They are, after all, kings.’ There was gentle humour in his voice.
I added men rapidly: Sir John Chandos, sitting on his horse, and Sam Bibbo, on his. Sir John Hawkwood and Bertrand du Guesclin. It was an odd, mixed set of retinues, and my three kings looked very much like the Black Prince, the Dauphin and Charles of Navarre.
‘Now put yourself there, William,’ he said.
And there I was. With snow on the ground, and a bite in the air, and the rattle of horse-tack and the feel of fur at my throat. The virgin’s crown and halo were a glow of gold past my Prince’s shoulder, and my horse fidgeted.
‘Can you see the Christ child?’ Fra Peter asked.
I could not. I tried to push forward, but all the men in front of me — all the better knights — blocked my view. I realized that I was far at the back, and that I had a wall of famous men between me and the Christ child.
I made to dismount. .
. . And Fra Peter was holding me up. I was swaying in the darkness, my eyes unfocused and his arm was around my waist.
‘So,’ he said. His teeth showed in the new moonlight. ‘You are your sister’s brother.’
‘That is prayer?’ I asked.
He blinked. ‘To those who can achieve it,’ he said. ‘You will leave us in the morning?’
‘I must,’ I said. But I was wondering if I shouldn’t simply ride away and follow Fra Peter.
‘You should sleep,’ he said.
Indeed, I was so shaken I couldn’t think.
‘Try,’ he said. ‘Try the prayer, when you can. I will be in Avignon for a long time. Come and see me there.’
‘And my sister?’ I asked.
‘Needs her dowry. But in truth, young master, your sister is better at seeing to her needs than you are to yours. You should visit her.’ He shrugged. ‘Will you accept my blessing?’ he asked.
I bowed my head.
When he had pronounced his benison, he said, ‘You intend to attack the convoy.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. Now I don’t know.’
He nodded. ‘Go with God,’ he said. ‘See where he takes you.’
The next morning he rode away, with his noble nuns, his two angry monks, his boy-soldier prisoner and six fully armed Hainaulters. I watched them until they were gone at the base of the valley.
‘I liked him,’ Sam said.
‘Me too,’ I allowed.
I thought about it all, silently, for the fifteen leagues of the ride back across the Bourc’s territory. Sam and John rode by me. We were as cautious as men crossing enemy territory in broad daylight can be. The ground was frozen, and we cut across fields, through hedgerows and over old stone fences, but often we had to go on the road.
We saw no black and white.
I came to the Bourc’s bridge from behind — from the Bourc’s side. Sam and I scouted it carefully, hearts hammering in our chests.
There were four men in a blind of branches, upwind of the bridge. Two were asleep and two awake. We were above and behind them, and Sam crept forward from cover to cover. I watched him from above as he went — an hour to move fifty paces.
I thought I was going to throw up. The tension was not my kind of tension. I prefer to be in the thick of it. I loved Sam Bibbo, and at another level, I’d saved him from the Plague, or whatever the hell he’d had, and he represented. . something. Something good.
I didn’t want him to die.
It was an education in stalking, watching him cover ground. Twice, I lost him, despite staring right at him from fifty paces away.
Finally, he rose to his feet with a slow inevitability. He had his bow in his hand, string, and four arrows in his fingers.
He drew and loosed so fast I scarcely followed the first shaft. I saw him draw the second to his ear, but I didn’t see him loose it, because I was on my feet and running for the Bourc’s men.
I might have saved my strength.
They had two crossbows cocked and ready, and neither of them ever left the blind, where they were pointed at the road. The four went down in five shafts. One died in his sleep.
When we went back to the road, John pointed mutely at the hillside behind us. He had a shaft in his own hand and he used it to point to a place on the hillside where a tree was dead.