I ran into the castle, expecting Stephen and a fight to the death. I was in the living quarters. No sign of the bastard anywhere.
“Where are you?” I hollered down the halls. Only echoes answered.
I smashed through a door and into Stephen and Anne’s private quarters. I looked around madly. I had been here that night when I hunted for Anne after finding Sophie in the dungeon.
I looked down at my side. A damp patch of blood was spreading on my tunic. “Stephen,” I yelled. “God damn it, come fight with me.”
His voice came from behind me. “You want me, I am here, jester. Tell me a joke.”
Stephen emerged from a corner smirking, a loaded crossbow aimed at my chest. “I may be a jester short, as you say,” he said, “but you, it seems, are the one who is out of tricks.”
A chill went down my spine. I backed up to the wall. There was nowhere to run.
“What do you say? Our little fool is out of tricks? He dreams of being noble, but he has only fucked one. Shame about the lance, though,” he said with a grin. “Don’t you agree, wife?”
Wife …? Anne?
Chapter 150
ANNE STEPPED into the light, remaining behind Stephen. My legs grew weak. A hollowness was in my gut.
In her hand she held the lance. The holy lance … not the ordinary one I had cast so theatrically into the fire. The lance I had entrusted to her last night! Entrusted.
“I am a fool,” I said, seeking out her eyes. How could Emilie have been so wrong about Anne? How could I?
I looked at the crossbow leveled at my chest. And Stephen’s mocking grin. For the first time, I felt ready to die.
“One last word, jester.” Stephen smirked. “Your death is trivial to me, serf. All that mattered was the lance. But what would you do with such a thing, anyway? You could not possibly know the power it holds. I hunted the world for it. By all God’s justice, it is mine.” He tensed his finger on the trigger of the crossbow.
“Then have it, Stephen.” Anne’s voice rang from behind him.
Suddenly Stephen lurched and his eyes wrenched open. I stiffened, expecting my guts to fall into my hands. But no arrow came from his crossbow.
I heard the most horrible sound-the splitting of ribs and sinew, the tearing of flesh. An awful gasp came from Stephen’s mouth. But instead of words, a river of blood followed.
[438] Anne pushed forward strongly. This time, the blade of the lance pierced the base of his neck and came out before his very eyes. “Have it, husband.”
Then Anne put her mouth close to his ear and whispered, “But know how worthless it is now, our Savior’s blood having mingled with your own.”
Stephen looked down. He stared disbelievingly at the Roman eagle and the bloody tip of the holy lance’s blade protruding from his neck.
Then he fell to the floor.
I stared at Anne, dumbstruck. She merely stared in return. Neither of us spoke. Then I saw a softening in her eyes and she nodded, as if we shared some kind of understanding, one that would never be put into words.
“I think it’s safe to say,” she said, “that when we pulled you from the ditch that day, such an ending would not have entered our minds.”
“Very safe, madame.”
I heard footsteps from down the hall. Emilie burst into the room, breathless. Our eyes met and my heart nearly exploded with joy. She looked at Stephen crumpled on the floor. Then at Anne standing over him. Then at me again, her eyes darting to the blood leaking from my side.
She gasped. “You are wounded.”
“And you are always nursing me back to health,” I said. “Oh God, Emilie, you cannot know how it feels to see you now.”
“I do know,” she said.
Emilie ran to me and flung herself into my arms. I lifted her off her feet and squeezed her as tightly as I have ever held anything in my life. I kissed her over and over, kisses of hope and gratefulness. For the first time, I actually realized that she was mine.
My eyes were moist as I thought of all that had taken place since I first set out from Veille du Père. All who had died. “I [439] have nothing. Not a denier to my name,” I muttered. “Not even a career. How is it possible that I feel like the richest man in all the world?”
Emilie took my hand and whispered, “Because you are free.”
Chapter 151
THE LANGUEDOCIANS WERE THE FIRST to leave, early the following morning. Ox told me there was a saying in their part of the woods: No sense hanging around the wine cask when the party’s over.
He and his men assembled at the gates at dawn, their horses loaded with sacks of grain, a few pigs, and hens fluttering behind. I went out in the early light to bid them farewell.
“You should stay,” I told him. “Anne has promised to address all your claims. You deserve a lot more.”
“More? We are farmers,” Ox said. “What else do we need? If we came back laden with gold chalices, our people would think they were to piss in.”
“In that case…” I patted him on the shoulder and flashed him a glimpse of a plate of gold engraved with Stephen’s crest that I intended to give him as a memento. “No need to leave with this.”
Ox looked around and then tucked it in his saddle pouch. “I guess I’ll have to teach them some proper manners.” He grinned.
I embraced him, patting the warrior warmly on his broad back.
“Look us up, jester, if you ever have the urge to return that lance.” He winked. He slapped his horse and signaled his men forward.
[441] I watched until the last of them had disappeared through the city gates. Stephen was being buried later that day. That was one last thing I had to do.
A few of my men were there as the coffin was brought to the cathedral. It was not a service befitting a duke who had died in battle. Only Anne, their son, Emilie, and I were inside the church with the bishop.
The duke’s coffin was carried into a crypt deep inside the castle and placed in a marble sarcophagus. In this dark, narrow space, well below ground, lay the remains of past bishops and members of the ruling family. There was barely enough air to fuel a torch.
The blessing was simple and quick. What was there to say?
That Stephen had bargained his honor away for greed and power. That he had been a shit to his wife and an indifferent father to his son. That he had plundered the Holy Land in search of loot.
The bishop of Borée, the same who had excommunicated us, muttered through a quick prayer, his eyes darting toward the lance. Emilie looked on, holding my hand. When the blessing was done, Anne bent over the casket and planted a dry kiss upon Stephen’s cheek.
Then a final blessing was said. Anne led her son out of the crypt, the bishop stumbling close behind.
“Give me a moment,” I said to Emilie.
She seemed not to understand.
“I need to say something for my wife and son.”
She finally nodded and left me. Just Stephen and I.
I looked at his deep-set eyes, his turned-down hawk nose. “If there ever was a bastard in this world, you are it,” I said. “May you rest in Hell, you prick.” I closed the coffin.
I held the holy lance in my palms. It brought back memories of all those whose lives had been changed by it. Maybe years from now someone would find it, I thought. In a different time, when it would be celebrated for what it was. Something miraculous, close to God.
[442] You were a hell of a good walking stick. I smiled. But as a relic, you brought more blood than peace.
I placed the holy lance inside the sarcophagus. Then I moved the heavy lid into place and looked away.