Timeline

09:04:01

Chris was awakened by the shouts of soldiers. He looked up, to see soldiers running across the mill bridge in great confusion. He saw a monk in a white robe climb out a window from the larger building, then he realized it was Marek, hacking at someone inside with his sword. Marek slid down on vines until he was low enough to risk jumping, then dropped into the river. Chris didn't see Marek come to the surface.

He was still watching when the flour mill exploded in a blast of light and flying timbers. Soldiers, thrown into the air by the force of the explosion, tumbled like dolls from the battlements. As the smoke and dust cleared, he saw that the flour mill was gone - all that remained were a few wooden timbers, now burning. Dead soldiers floated in the river below, which was thick with boards from the shattered mill.

He still didn't see Marek anywhere, and he didn't see Kate, either. A white monk's robe drifted past him, carried by the current, and he had the sudden sick feeling that she was dead.

If so, then he was alone. Risking communication, he tapped his earpiece and said softly, "Kate. André."

There was no response.

"Kate, are you there? André?"

He heard nothing in his earpiece, not even static.

He saw a man's body floating face down in the river, and it looked like Marek. Was it? Yes, Chris was sure: dark-haired, big, strong, wearing a linen undershirt. Chris groaned. Soldiers farther up the bank were shouting; he turned to see how close they were. When he looked back at the river again, the body had floated away.

Chris dropped back down behind the bushes and tried to figure out what to do next.

Kate broke the surface, lying on her back. She floated helplessly downstream with the current. All around her, beams of jagged wood were smashing down into the water like missiles. The pain in her neck was so severe it made her gasp for breath, and with each breath, electric shocks streaked down her arms and legs. She couldn't move her body at all, and she thought she was paralyzed, until she slowly realized that she could move the very tips of her fingers, and her toes. The pain began to withdraw, moving up her limbs, localizing now in her neck, where it was very severe. But she could breathe a little better, and she could move all her limbs. She did it again: yes, she could move her limbs.

So she wasn't paralyzed. Was her neck broken? She tried a small movement, turning ever so slightly to the left, then to the right. It was painful as hell, but it seemed okay. She drifted. Something thick was dripping into her eye, making it hard to see. She wiped it away, saw blood on her fingertips. It must be coming from somewhere on her head. Her forehead burned. She touched it with the flat of her hand. Her palm was bright red with blood.

She drifted downstream, still on her back. The pain was still so strong, she didn't feel confident to roll over and swim. For the moment, she drifted. She wondered why the soldiers hadn't seen her.

Then she heard shouts from the shore, and realized that they had.

Chris peered over the bushes just in time to see Kate floating on her back downstream. She was injured; the whole left side of her face was covered in blood, flowing from her scalp. And she wasn't moving much. She might be paralyzed.

For a moment, their eyes met. She smiled slightly. He knew if he revealed himself now he would be captured, but he didn't hesitate. Now that Marek was gone, he had nothing to lose; they might as well stay together to the end. He splashed into the water, wading out to her. Only then did he realize his mistake.

He was within bowshot of the archers still on the remaining bridge tower, and they began firing at him, arrows hissing into the water.

Almost immediately, a knight in full armor splashed out on horseback into the river from Arnaut's side. The knight wore his helmet, and it was impossible to see his face, but he evidently feared nothing, for he placed his body and horse in a position to block the archers. His horse sank deeper as it came forward, and it was eventually swimming, the knight waist-deep in the water when he hauled Kate across his saddle like a wet sack and then grabbed Chris by the arm, saying, "Allons!" as he turned back to shore.

Kate slid off the saddle and onto the ground. The knight barked an order, and a man carrying a flag with diagonal red-and-white stripes came running up. He examined Kate's head injury, cleaned it and stanched the bleeding, then bandaged it with linen.

Meanwhile, the knight dismounted, unlaced his helm, and removed it. He was a tall and powerful man, extraordinarily handsome and dashing, with dark wavy hair, dark eyes, a full, sensuous mouth, and a twinkle in his eyes that suggested amusement at the foolish ways of the world. His complexion was dark, and he looked Spanish.

When Kate had been bandaged the knight smiled, showing perfect white teeth. "If you will do me the great honor to accompany me." He led them back toward the monastery and its church. At the side door to the church stood a group of soldiers, and another on horseback, carrying the green-and-black banner of Arnaut de Cervole.

As they walked toward the church, every soldier they passed along the way bowed to the knight, saying, "My Lord… My Lord…"

Following, Chris nudged Kate. "That's him."

"Who?"

"Arnaut."

"That knight? You're kidding."

"Look how the soldiers behave."

"Arnaut saved our lives," Kate said.

Chris was aware of the irony. In twentieth-century historical accounts of this time, Sir Oliver was portrayed as something close to a soldier-saint, while de Cervole was a black figure, "one of the great evildoers of his age," in the words of one historian. Yet apparently the truth was just the opposite of the histories. Oliver was a despicable rogue, and Cervole a dashing exemplar of chivalry - to whom they now owed their lives.

Kate said, "What about André?"

Chris shook his head.

"Are you sure?"

"I think so. I think I saw him in the river."

Kate said nothing.

Outside the church of Sainte-Mère were long rows of men, standing with their hands bound behind their backs, waiting to go inside. They were mostly soldiers of Oliver in maroon and gray, with a few peasants in rough garb. Chris guessed there were forty or fifty men in all. As they went past, the men stared sullenly at them. Some of them were wounded; they all seemed weary.

One man, a soldier in maroon, said sarcastically to another, "There goes the bastard lord of Narbonne. He does the work too dirty even for Arnaut."

Chris was still trying to understand this when the handsome knight whirled. "Say you so?" he cried, and he grabbed a fistful of the man's hair, jerked his head up, and with his other hand slashed his throat with a dagger. Blood gushed down the man's chest. The man remained standing for a moment, making a kind of rasping sound.

"You have made your last insult," the handsome knight said. He stood, smiling at the man, watching as the blood flowed, grinning as the man's eyes widened in horror. Still the man remained standing. To Chris, he seemed to stand forever, but it must have been thirty or forty seconds. The handsome knight just watched silently, never moving, the smile never leaving his face.

Finally the man fell to his knees, head bowed, as if in prayer. The knight calmly put his foot under the man's chin and kicked him so he fell backward. He continued to watch the man's death gasps, which continued for another minute or so. At last he died.

The handsome knight bent over, wiped his blade on the man's hose, and wiped his bloody shoe on his jerkin. Then he nodded to Chris and Kate.

And they entered the church of Sainte-Mère.

The interior was hazy with smoke. The ground floor was a large open space; there would be no benches or pews for another two hundred years. They stood at the back, with the handsome knight, who seemed content to wait. Off to one side, they saw several soldiers in a tight, whispering knot.

A solitary knight in armor was down on his knees in the center of the church, praying.

Chris turned back to look at the other knights. They seemed to be in the middle of some intense dispute; their whispers were furious. But he could not imagine what it was about.

While they waited, Chris felt something drip on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw a man hanging directly above him, twisting slowly on a rope. Urine dribbled down his leg. Chris stepped away from the wall and saw half a dozen bodies, hands tied behind their backs, hanging from ropes tied to the second-floor balustrade. Three wore the red surcoat of Oliver. Two others had peasant garb, and the last wore the white habit of a monk. Two more men sat on the floor, watching silently as more ropes were tied above; they were passive, apparently resigned to their fate.

In the center of the room, the man in armor crossed himself and got to his feet. The handsome knight said, "My Lord Arnaut, here are the assistants."

"Eh? What do you say? Assistants?"

The knight turned. Arnaut de Cervole was about thirty-five years old and wiry, with a narrow, unpleasant, cunning face. He had a facial tic that made his nose twitch and gave him the appearance of a sniffing rat. His armor was streaked with blood. He looked at them with bored, lazy eyes. "You say they are assistants, Raimondo?"

"Yes, my Lord. The assistants of Magister Edwardus."

"Ah." Arnaut walked around them. "Why are they wet?"

"We pulled them from the river, my Lord," Raimondo said. "They were in the mill and escaped at the last minute."

"Oh so?" Arnaut was bored no longer. His eyes gleamed with interest. "I pray you tell me, how did you destroy the mill?"

Chris cleared his throat and said, "My Lord, we did not."

"Oh?" Arnaut frowned. He looked at the other knight. "What speech is this? He is incomprehensible."

"My Lord, they are Irishers, or perhaps Hebrideans."

"Oh? Then they are not English. That is something in their favor." He circled them, then stared at their faces. "Do you understand me?"

Chris said, "Yea, my Lord." That seemed to be understood.

"Are you English?"

"No, my Lord."

"Faith, you do not appear it. You look too mild and unwarlike." He looked at Kate. "He is as fresh as a young girl. And this one…" He squeezed Chris's biceps. "He is a clerk or a scribe. Certes he is not English." Arnaut shook his head, his nose twitching.

"Because the English are savages," he said loudly, his voice echoing in the smoky church. "You agree?"

"We do, my Lord," Chris said.

"The English know no way of life except endless dissatisfaction and interminable strife. They are always murdering their own kings; it is their savage custom. Our Norman brethren conquered them and tried to teach them civilized ways, but of course they failed. Saxon blood is too deeply barbaric. The English delight in destruction, death and torture. Not content to fight among themselves on their wretched chilly island, they bring their armies here, to this peaceful and prosperous land, and wreak havoc on a simple people. You agree?"

Kate nodded, gave a bow.

"As you should," Arnaut said. "Their cruelty is unsurpassed. You know their old king? The second Edward? You know how they chose to assassinate him, with a red-hot poker? And that, to a king! Little wonder they treat our countryside with even greater savagery."

He strode back and forth. Then turned again to them.

"And the man who next took power, Hugh Despenser. According to the English custom, in due course he too must be killed. You know how? He was tied to a ladder in a public square, and his privates were cut off his body and burned in front of his face. And that was before he was beheaded! Eh? Charmant."

Again he looked at them for agreement. Again, they nodded.

"And now the latest king, Edward III, has learned the lesson of his forebears - that he must perpetually lead a war, or risk death at the hands of his own subjects. Thus he and his dastard son, the Prince of Wales, bring their barbarian ways to France, a country that knew not savage war until they came to our soil with their chevauchées, murdered our commoners, raped our women, slaughtered our animals, ruined our crops, destroyed our cities and ended our trade. For what? So that bloodthirsty English spirits may be occupied abroad. So that they can steal fortunes from a more honorable land. So that every English Lady can serve her guests from French plates. So that they can claim to be honorable knights, when they do nothing more valiant than hack children to death."

Arnaut paused in his tirade and looked back and forth between their faces, his eyes restless, suspicious. "And that is why," he said, "I cannot understand why you have joined the side of the English swine, Oliver."

Chris said quickly, "Not true, my Lord."

"I am not patient. Say sooth: you aid Oliver, for your Magister is in his employ."

"No, my Lord. The Magister is taken against his will."

"Against… his.. ." Arnaut threw up his hands in disgust. "Who can tell me what this drowned rascal says?"

The handsome knight approached them. "My English is good," he said. To Chris: "Spek ayain." Speak again.

Chris paused, thinking, then said, "Magister Edwardus…"

"Yes…"

"… is prisoner."

"Priz-un-ner?" The handsome knight frowned, puzzled. "Pris-ouner?"

Chris had the feeling that the knight's English was not as good as he thought. He decided to try his Latin again, poor and archaic as it was. "Est in carcere - captus - heri captus est de coenobio sanctae Mariae." He hoped that meant "He was captured from Sainte-Mère yestermorn."

The knight raised his eyebrows. "Invite?" Against his will?

"Sooth, my Lord."

The knight said to Arnaut, "They say Magister Edwardus was taken from the monastery yesterday against his will and is now Oliver's prisoner."

Arnaut turned quickly, peered closely at their faces. In a low, threatening voice: "Sed vos non capti estis. Nonne?" Yet you were not taken?

Chris paused again. "Uh, we

…"

"Oui?"

"No, no, my Lord," Chris said hastily. "Uh, non. We escaped. Uh, ef - effugi - i - imus. Effugimus." Was that the right word? He was sweating with tension.

Apparently it was good enough, because the handsome knight nodded. "They say they escaped."

Arnaut snapped, "Escaped? From where?"

Chris: "Ex Castelgard heri.

…"

"You escaped from Castelgard yesterday?"

"Etiam, mi domine." Yes, my Lord.

Arnaut stared at him, said nothing for a long time. On the second-floor balcony, the men had ropes put around their necks and then were pushed over. The fall did not break their necks, and so they hung there, making gargling sounds and writhing as they slowly died.

Arnaut looked up at them as if annoyed to be interrupted by their death gasps. "A few ropes remain," he said. He looked back at them. "I will have the truth from you."

Chris said, "I tell you sooth, my Lord."

Arnaut spun on his heel. "Did you speak to the monk Marcel before he died?"

"Marcel?" Chris did his best to appear confused. "Marcel, my Lord?"

"Yes, yes. Marcel. Cognovistine fratrem Marcellum?" Do you know Brother Marcel?

"No, my Lord."

"Transitum ad Roccam cognitum habesne?" For this Chris didn't need to wait for the translation: The passage to La Roque, you know it?

"The passage… transitum

…" Chris shrugged again, feigning lack of knowledge. "Passage?. ..To La Roque? No, my Lord."

Arnaut looked frankly unbelieving. "It seems you know nothing at all." He peered closely at them, his nose twitching, giving the impression that he was smelling them. "I doubt you. In fact, you are liars."

He turned to the handsome knight. "Hang one, so the other talks."

"Which one, my Lord?"

"Him," Arnaut said, pointing to Chris. He looked at Kate, pinched her cheek, then caressed her. "Because this fair boy touches my heart. I will entertain him in my tent tonight. I would not waste him before."

"Very well, my Lord." The handsome knight barked an order, and from the second floor, men began to string another rope. Other men grabbed Chris's wrists and tied them swiftly behind his back.

Chris thought, Jesus, they're going to do it. He looked at Kate, whose eyes were wide with horror. The men started to drag Chris off.

"My Lord," came a voice from the side of the church. "If you please." The knot of waiting soldiers opened, and the Lady Claire emerged.

Claire said softly, "My Lord, I beg you, a word in private."

"Eh? Of course, as you wish." Arnaut walked over to her, and she whispered in his ear. He paused, shrugged. She whispered again, more intently.

After a moment, he said, "Eh? What will that serve?"

More whispering. Chris could not hear any of it.

Arnaut said, "Good Lady, I have already decided."

Still more whispering.

Finally, shaking his head, Arnaut came back to them. "The Lady seeks safe passage from me to Bordeaux. She says that she knows you, and that you are honest men." He paused. "She says that I should release you."

Claire said, "Only if it please you, my Lord. For it is well known the English are indiscriminate in killing, while the French are not. The French show the mercy that comes of intelligence and breeding."

"This is so," he said. "It is true that we French are civilized men. And if these two know nothing of Brother Marcel and the passage, then I have no further use of them. And so I say, give them horses and food and send them on their way. I would be in the good graces of your Magister Edwardus, and so I commend myself to him, and wish God grant you safe journey to join him at his side. And so depart."

Lady Claire bowed.

Chris and Kate bowed.

The handsome knight cut Chris's bonds and led them back outside. Chris and Kate were so stunned by this reversal that they said nothing at all as they walked back toward the river. Chris was feeling wobbly and lightheaded. Kate kept rubbing her face, as if she were trying to wake up.

Finally, the knight said, "You owe your lives to a clever lady."

Chris said, "Certes… ."

The handsome knight smiled thinly.

"God smiles upon you," he said.

He didn't sound happy about it.

The scene at the river was entirely transformed. Arnaut's men had taken the mill bridge, which now flew the green-and-black banner from the battlements. Both sides of the river were occupied by Arnaut's mounted knights. And now a river of men and matériel marched up the road toward La Roque, raising clouds of dust. There were men with horse-drawn wagons laden with supplies, carts of chattering women, ragtag children, and other wagons loaded with enormous wooden beams - disassembled giant catapults, to fling stones and burning pitch over the castle walls.

The knight had found a pair of horses for them - two ragged nags, bearing marks of the plow collar. Leading the animals, he guided them past the toll checkpoint.

A sudden commotion on the river made Chris look back. He saw a dozen men knee-deep in the water, struggling with a breech-loading cannon, cast of iron, with a wooden block as a mount. Chris stared, fascinated. No cannon this early had survived, or even been described.

Everyone knew primitive artillery had been used at this time; archaeologists had dug up cannonballs from the site of the Battle of Poitiers. But historians believed that cannon were rare, and primarily for show - a matter of prestige. But as Chris watched the men struggling in the river to lift the cylinder and hoist it back on a cart, it was clear to him that such effort would never be wasted on a purely symbolic device. The cannon was heavy; it slowed the progress of the entire army, which surely wanted to reach the walls of La Roque by nightfall; there was no reason why the cannon could not be brought up later. The present effort could only mean the cannon would be important in the attack.

But in what way? He wondered. The walls of La Roque were ten feet thick. A cannonball would never penetrate them.

The handsome knight gave a brief salute and said, "God bring you grace and safety."

"God bless you and grant you increase," Chris replied, and then the knight slapped the horses on their rumps, and they were riding off, toward La Roque.

As they rode, Kate told him about what they had found in Marcel's room, and about the green chapel.

"Do you know where this chapel is?" Chris said.

"Yes. I saw it on one of the survey maps. It's about half a mile east of La Roque. There's a path through the forest that takes you there."

Chris sighed. "So we know where the passage is," he said, "but André had the ceramic, and now he's dead, which means we can't ever leave, anyway."

"No," she said. "I have the ceramic."

"You do?"

"André gave it to me, on the bridge. I think he knew he'd never get out alive. He could have run and saved himself. But he didn't. He stayed and saved me instead."

She started to cry softly.

Chris rode in silence, saying nothing. He remembered how Marek's intensity had always amused the other graduate students - "Can you imagine? He really believes this chivalry shit!" - and how they had assumed his behavior was some kind of weird posturing. A role he was playing, an affectation. Because in the late twentieth century, you couldn't seriously ask other people to think that you believed in honor and truth, and the purity of the body, the defense of women, the sanctity of true love, and all the rest of it.

But apparently, André really had believed it.

They moved through a nightmare landscape. The sun was weak and pale in the dust and smoke. Here there were vineyards, but all the vines were burned, leaving gnarled gnome stumps, with smoke rising into the air. The orchards, too, were black and desolate, skeletal trees. Everything had been burned.

All around them, they heard the pitiful cries of wounded soldiers. Many retreating soldiers had fallen beside the road itself. Some were still breathing; others were gray with death.

Chris had paused to take weapons from one of the dead men, when a nearby soldier raised his hand and cried pitifully, "Secors, secors!" Chris went over to him. He had an arrow embedded deep in his abdomen, and another in his chest. The soldier was in his early twenties, and he seemed to know he was dying. As he lay on his back, he looked pleadingly at Chris, saying words Chris couldn't understand. Finally, the soldier began to point to his mouth, saying, "Aquam. Da mihi aquam." He was thirsty; he wanted water. Chris shrugged helplessly. He had no water. The man looked angry, winced, closed his eyes, turned away. Chris moved off. Later, when they passed men crying for help, he continued on without stopping. There was nothing he could do.

They could see La Roque in the distance, standing high and impregnable atop the Dordogne cliffs. And they would reach the fortress in less than an hour.

In a dark corner of the church of Sainte-Mère, the handsome knight helped André Marek to his feet. He said, "Your friends have departed."

Marek coughed, and grabbed the knight's arm to steady himself as a wave of pain shot up his leg. The handsome knight smiled. He had captured Marek just after the explosion at the mill.

When Marek had climbed out the mill window, by sheer luck he fell into a small pool so deep that he did not hurt himself. And when he came to the surface again, he found he was still beneath the bridge. The pool produced a swirling eddy, so the current hadn't taken him downstream.

Marek had stripped off his monk's habit and thrown it downstream when the flour mill exploded, timbers and bodies flying in all directions. A soldier splashed into the water near him, his body turning in the eddy. Marek started to scramble up onto the bank - and a handsome knight put a sword point at his throat and beckoned for him to come forward. Marek was still wearing the maroon and gray colors of Oliver, and he began to babble in Occitan, pleading innocence, begging for mercy.

The knight said simply, "Be silent. I saw you." He had seen Marek climb out the window, and discard his monk's garb. He took Marek to the church, where he found Claire and Arnaut. The Archpriest was in a sullen and dangerous mood, but Claire seemed to have some ability to influence him, if only by contradiction. It was Claire who had ordered Marek to sit silently in the darkness when Chris and Kate came in. "If Arnaut can set you against the other two, he may yet spare you and your friends. If you are three united before him, he will in rage kill you all." Claire had stage-managed the subsequent events. And all had turned out reasonably well.

So far.

Now Arnaut eyed him skeptically. "So: your friends know the location of this passage?"

"They do," Marek said. "I swear it."

"On your word, I have spared their lives," Arnaut said. "Yours, and the word of this Lady, who vouches for you." He gave a small nod to the Lady Claire, who allowed a faint smile to cross her lips.

"My Lord, you are wise," Claire said, "for to hang one man may loosen the tongue of his friend who watches. But as often, it may harden his resolve, so that the friend takes his secret to the grave. And this secret is so important that I would your Lordship have it for certain in his grasp."

"Then we will follow those two, and see where they lead." He nodded to Marek. "Raimondo, see to this poor man's mount. And provide him as escort two of your best chevaliers, as you follow behind."

The handsome knight bowed. "My Lord, if it please you, I will accompany him myself."

"Do so," Arnaut said, "for there may yet be some mischief here." And he gave the knight a significant look.

Meanwhile, Lady Claire had gone up to Marek and was pressing his hand warmly in both of hers. He felt something cool in her fingers, and realized it was a tiny dagger, barely four inches long. He said, "My Lady, I am greatly in your debt."

"Then see you repay this debt, knight," she said, looking into his eyes.

"I shall, as God is my witness." He slipped the dagger under his robes.

"And I will pray to God for you, knight," she said. She leaned over to kiss his cheek chastely. As she did, she whispered, "Your escort is Raimondo of Narbonne. He likes to cut throats. When he knows the secret, have a care he does not cut yours, and those of your friends, as well." She stepped away, smiling.

Marek said, "Lady, you are too kind. I shall take your kind wishes to heart."

"Good knight, God speed you safe and true."

"Lady, you are always in my thoughts."

"Good sir knight, I would wish-"

"Enough, enough," Arnaut said in a disgusted voice. He turned to Raimondo. "Go now, Raimondo, for this surfeit of sentiment makes my stomach heave."

"My Lord." The handsome knight bowed. He led Marek to the door and out into the sunlight.