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‘But the Hellequin did not kill the Sire of Mouthoumet?’ the friar asked.

  ‘He was buried by the time they arrived.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘No, the Frenchmen killed him. They came from Avignon.’

  ‘Avignon!’

  ‘The priest came from there. He was called Father Calade.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘He had green eyes and I did not like him. The sire was blinded! The priest gouged his eyes out!’

  ‘Dear God,’ Fra Ferdinand said quietly. ‘How do you know they came from Avignon?’

  ‘They said so! The men he left behind told us so! They said if we didn’t give them what they wanted then we would all be damned by the Holy Father himself.’ She paused just long enough to make the sign of the cross. ‘The English asked too. I didn’t like their leader. One of his hands was like the devil’s paw, like a claw. He was courteous,’ she said that grudgingly, ‘but he was hard. I could tell from his hand that he was evil!’

  Fra Ferdinand knew how superstitious the old woman was. She was a good woman, but saw omens in clouds, in flowers, in dogs, in smoke, in anything. ‘Did they ask about me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ The friar had found a refuge in Mouthoumet. He was becoming too old to walk the roads of France and rely on the kindness of strangers to provide a bed and food, and a year earlier he had come to the tower and the old man had invited him to stay. They had talked together, eaten together, played chess together, and the count had told Fra Ferdinand all the ancient stories of the Dark Lords. ‘The English will come back, I think,’ the friar said now, ‘and perhaps the French too.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They search for something,’ he said.

  ‘They searched! They dug up the new graves even, but they found nothing. The English went to Avignon.’

  ‘You know that?’

  ‘That’s what they said. That they would follow Father Calade to Avignon.’ She crossed herself again. ‘What would a priest from Avignon want here? Why would the English come to Mouthoumet?’

  ‘Because of this,’ Fra Ferdinand said, showing her the old blade.

  ‘If that’s all they want,’ she said scornfully, ‘then give it to them!’

  The Count of Mouthoumet, fearing that the rampaging English would plunder the graves of Carcassonne, had begged the friar to rescue la Malice. Fra Ferdinand suspected that the old man really wanted to touch the blade himself, to see this miraculous thing that his ancestors had protected, a relic of such power that possession of it might take a man’s soul directly to heaven, and such was the old man’s desperate pleading that Fra Ferdinand had agreed. He had rescued la Malice, but his fellow friars were preaching that the sword was the key to paradise, and all across Christendom men were lusting after the blade. Why would they preach that? He suspected that he was to blame himself. After the count had told him the legend of la Malice, the friar had dutifully walked to Avignon and recounted the story to the master general of his order and the master general, a good man, had smiled, then said that

  a thousand such tales were told each year and that none had

  ever held the truth. ‘Do you remember ten years ago?’ the master general had asked, ‘when the pestilence came? And how all Christendom believed the Grail had been seen? And before that, what was it? Ah, the lance of Saint George! And that was a nonsense too, but I thank you, brother, for telling me.’ He had sent Fra Ferdinand away with a blessing, but maybe the master general had told others of the relic? And now, thanks to the Black Friars, the rumour had infested all Europe. ‘“He who must rule us will find it, and he shall be blessed,’’’ the friar said.

  ‘What does that mean?’ the old woman asked.

  ‘It means that some men go mad in search of God,’ Fra Ferdinand explained, ‘it means that every man who wants power seeks a sign from God.’

  The old woman frowned, not understanding, but she believed Fra Ferdinand was strange anyway. ‘The world is mad,’ she said, picking on that one word. ‘They say the English devils have burned half of France! Where is the king?’

  ‘When the English come,’ Fra Ferdinand said, ‘or anyone else, tell them I have gone to the south.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘It’s not safe for me here. Perhaps I will return when the madness is over, but for now I am going to the high hills by Spain. I shall hide there.’

  ‘To Spain! They have devils there!’

  ‘I shall go to the hills,’ Fra Ferdinand reassured her, ‘close to the angels,’ and next morning he walked southwards and only when he was well out of sight of the village and sure that no one watched him did he turn north. He had a long journey to make and a treasure to protect.

  He would return la Malice to her rightful owner. He would go to Poitou.

  A small man, dark-faced and scowling, with a paint-spattered shock of black hair, was perched on a high trestle and using a brush to touch brown pigment onto an arched ceiling. He said something in a language Thomas did not understand.

  ‘You speak French?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘We all have to speak French here,’ the painter said, changing to that language, which he spoke with an execrable accent, ‘of course we damned well speak French. Have you come to give me advice?’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the fresco, of course, you damned fool. You don’t like the colour of the clouds? The Virgin’s thighs are too big? The angels’ heads are too small? That’s what they told me yesterday,’ he pointed his paintbrush across the ceiling to where flying angels played trumpets in the Virgin’s honour, ‘their heads are too small, they said, but where were they looking from? From up one of my ladders! From the floor they look perfect. Of course they’re perfect. I painted them. I painted the Virgin’s toes too,’ he dabbed the brush angrily at the ceiling, ‘and the goddamned Dominicans told me that was heresy. Heresy! To show the Virgin’s toes? Sweet holy Christ, I painted her with naked tits in Siena, but no one threatened to burn me there.’ He dabbed with the brush, then leaned back. ‘I’m sorry, ma chérie,’ he spoke to the image of Mary that he was painting onto the ceiling, ‘you’re not allowed to have tits and now you’ve lost your toes, but they’ll come back.’

  ‘They will?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘The plaster’s dry,’ the painter snarled as though the answer was obvious, ‘and if you paint over a fresco when it’s dry then that paint will peel off like a whore’s scabs. It will take a few years, but her heretical toes will reappear, but the Dominicans don’t know that because they are damned fools.’ He switched into his native Italian and screamed insults at his two assistants, who were using a giant pestle to mix fresh plaster in a barrel. ‘They are also fools,’ he added to Thomas.

  ‘You have to paint on wet plaster?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘You came here to have a lesson in how to paint? You damned well pay me. Who are you?’

  ‘My name is d’Evecque,’ Thomas said. He had no wish to be known by his real name in Avignon. He had enemies enough in the church, and Avignon was the home of the Pope, which meant the town was packed with priests, monks and friars. He had come here because the disagreeable woman in Mouthoumet had assured him that the mysterious Father Calade had come to Avignon, but Thomas now had a sinking feeling that his time was being wasted. He had enquired of a dozen priests if they knew of a Father Calade, and none had recognised the name, but equally no one had recognised Thomas either or knew he had been excommunicated. He was a heretic now, outside the church’s grace, a man to be hunted and burned, yet he could not resist visiting the great fortress-palace of the Papacy. There was a Pope in Rome too, because of the schism in the church, but Avignon held the power, and Thomas was astonished by the riches displayed in the vast building.

  ‘From your voice,’ the painter said, ‘I’d guess you’re a Norman? Or perhaps an Englishman, eh?’

  ‘A Norman,’ Thomas said.

  ‘So what is a Norman doing so far from home?’

  ‘I wish to see the Holy Father.’
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  ‘Of course you damned well do. But what are you doing here? In the Salle des Herses?’

  The Salle des Herses was a room that opened from the great audience chamber of the Papal palace, and it had once contained the mechanism that lowered the portcullis in the palace gate, though that winch and pulley system had long been taken out

  so that, evidently, the room could become another chapel. Thomas hesitated before answering, then told the truth. ‘I wanted somewhere to piss.’

  ‘That corner,’ the painter gestured with his brush, ‘in that hole beneath the picture of Saint Joseph. It’s where the rats get in, so do me a favour and drown some of the bastards. So what do you want of the Holy Father? Sins remitted? A free pass to heaven? One of the choirboys?’

  ‘Just a blessing,’ Thomas said.

  ‘You ask for so little, Norman. Ask for much, then you might get a little. Or you might get nothing. This Holy Father is not susceptible to bribes.’ The painter scrambled down from the scaffold, grimaced at his new work, then went to a table covered with small pots of precious pigments. ‘It’s a good thing you’re not English! The Holy Father doesn’t like the English.’

  Thomas buttoned up his breeches. ‘He doesn’t?’

  ‘He does not,’ the painter said, ‘and how do I know? Because I know everything. I paint and they ignore me because they can’t see me! I am Giacomo on the scaffold and they are talking beneath me. Not in here,’ he spat, as if the chamber he decorated was not worth the effort, ‘but I am also painting over the angels’ naked tits in the Conclave Chamber, and that’s where they talk. Chatter, chatter, chatter! They’re like birds, their heads together, twittering, and Giacomo is busy hiding tits on the scaffold above and so they forget I am up there.’

  ‘So what does the Holy Father say about the English?’

  ‘You want my knowledge? You pay.’

  ‘You want me to throw paint on your ceiling?’

  Giacomo laughed. ‘I hear, Norman, that the Holy Father wants the French to defeat the English. There are three French cardinals here now, all yammering in his ear, but he doesn’t need their encouragement. He’s told Burgundy to fight alongside France. He has sent messages to Toulouse, to Provence, to the Dauphiné, even to Gascony, telling men it is their duty to resist England. The Holy Father is a Frenchman, remember. He wants France strong again, strong enough to pay the church its proper taxes. The English are not popular here,’ he paused to give Thomas a sly look, ‘so it is good you’re not an Englishman, eh?’

  ‘It is good,’ Thomas said.

  ‘The Holy Father might curse an Englishman,’ Giacomo chuckled. He climbed the scaffolding again, talking as he went. ‘The Scots have sent men to fight for France and the Holy Father is pleased! He says the Scots are faithful sons of the church, but he wants the English,’ he paused to make a brush-stroke, ‘punished. So you came all this way just for a blessing?’

  Thomas had walked to the chamber’s end where an old painting faded on the wall. ‘For a blessing,’ he said, ‘and to look for a man.’

  ‘Ah! Who?’

  ‘Father Calade?’

  ‘Calade!’ Giacomo shook his head. ‘I know of a Father Callait, but not Calade.’

  ‘You’re from Italy?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘By the Grace of God I come from Corbola, which is a Venetian city,’ Giacomo said, then nimbly descended the scaffolding and went to the table where he wiped his hands on a rag. ‘Of course I come from Italy! If you want something painted, you ask an Italian. If you want something daubed, smeared or splattered, you ask a Frenchman. Or you ask those two fools,’ he gestured at his assistants, ‘idiots! Keep stirring the plaster! They might be Italians, but they have the brains of Frenchmen. Nothing but spinach between their ears!’ He picked up a leather quirt as if to strike one of his assistants, then abruptly fell to one knee. The two assistants also knelt, and then Thomas saw who had entered the room and he also snatched off his hat and knelt.

  The Holy Father had come into the chamber, accompanied by four cardinals and a dozen other priests. Pope Innocent smiled absently at the painter, then stared up at the newly painted frescoes.

  Thomas raised his head to look at the Pope. Innocent VI, Pope now for three years, was an old man with wispy hair, a drawn face, and hands that shook. He wore a red cloak, edged with white fur, and he was slightly bent as if his spine was crippled. He dragged his left foot as he walked, but his voice was strong enough. ‘You’re doing good work, my son,’ he said to the Italian, ‘most excellent work! Why, those clouds look more real than real clouds!’

  ‘All for the glory of God,’ Giacomo muttered, ‘and your own renown, Holy Father.’

  ‘And for your own glory, my son,’ the Pope said, and sketched a vague blessing towards the two assistants. ‘And are you a painter too, my son?’ he asked Thomas.

  ‘I am a soldier, Holy Father,’ Thomas said.

  ‘From where?’

  ‘From Normandy, Holy Father.’

  ‘Ah!’ Innocent seemed delighted. ‘You have a name, my son?’

  ‘Guillaume d’Evecque, Holy Father.’

  One of the cardinals, his red robe belted tightly about a glutton’s belly, turned fast from examining the ceiling and looked as if he was about to protest. Then he shut his mouth, but went on glaring at Thomas. ‘And tell me, my son,’ Innocent was oblivious of the cardinal’s reaction, ‘whether you have sworn fealty to the English?’

  ‘No, Holy Father.’

  ‘So many Normans have! But I don’t need to tell you that. I weep for France! Too many have died and it is time there was peace in Christendom. My blessing, Guillaume.’ He held out his hand and Thomas stood, walked to him, knelt again and kissed the fisherman’s ring that the Pope wore above his embroidered glove. ‘You have my blessing,’ Innocent said, laying a hand on Thomas’s bare head, ‘and my prayers.’

  ‘As I shall pray for you, Holy Father,’ Thomas said, wondering if he was the first excommunicate ever to be blessed by a pope. ‘I shall pray for your long life,’ he added the polite phrase.

  The hand on his head quivered. ‘I am an old man, my son,’ the Pope said, ‘and my physician tells me I have many years left! But physicians lie, don’t they?’ He chuckled. ‘Father Marchant says his calade would tell me I have a long life yet, but I would rather trust my lying physicians.’

  Thomas held his breath, conscious suddenly of his heartbeat. There seemed a chill in the room, then a quiver of the Pope’s hand made Thomas breathe again. ‘Calade, Holy Father?’ he asked.

  ‘A bird that tells the future,’ the Pope said, taking his hand from Thomas’s. ‘We do indeed live in an age of miracles when birds deliver prophecies! Isn’t that so, Father Marchant?’

  A tall priest bowed to the Pope. ‘Your Holiness is miracle enough.’

  ‘Ah no! The miracle is in here! In the painting! It is superb. I congratulate you, my son,’ the Pope spoke to Giacomo.

  Thomas stole a glance at Father Marchant, seeing a slim, dark-faced man with eyes that seemed to glitter; green eyes, forceful eyes, frightening eyes that suddenly looked straight at Thomas, who dropped his gaze to stare at the Pope’s slippers, which were embroidered with Saint Peter’s keys.

  The Pope blessed Giacomo and then, pleased with the progress of the new frescoes, limped from the room. His entourage followed him, all but for the fat cardinal and the green-eyed priest, who stayed. Thomas was about to rise, but the cardinal placed a heavy hand on Thomas’s bare head and pressed him back down. ‘Say your name again,’ the cardinal demanded.

  ‘Guillaume d’Evecque, Your Eminence.’

  ‘And I am Cardinal Bessières,’ the red-robed man said, keeping his hand on Thomas’s head, ‘Cardinal Bessières, Cardinal Archbishop of Livorno, Papal Legate to King Jean of France, whom God bless above all earthly monarchs.’ He paused, plainly wanting Thomas to echo his last words.

  ‘May God bless His Majesty,’ Thomas said dutifully.

  ‘I heard Guillaume d’Evecqu
e died,’ the cardinal said in a dangerous tone.

  ‘My cousin, Your Eminence.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘The plague,’ Thomas said vaguely. Sire Guillaume d’Evecque had been Thomas’s enemy, then his friend, and he had died of the plague, but not before he had fought on Thomas’s side.

  ‘He fought for the English,’ the cardinal said.

  ‘I have heard as much, Your Eminence, and it is to our family’s shame. But I hardly knew my cousin.’

  The cardinal withdrew his hand and Thomas stood. The priest with the green eyes was staring at the faded painting on the end wall. ‘Did you paint this?’ he demanded of Giacomo.

  ‘No, father,’ Giacomo answered, ‘it is a very old painting and very badly done, so it was probably daubed there by a Frenchman or perhaps a Burgundian? The Holy Father wants me to replace it.’

  ‘Make sure you do.’

  The priest’s tone drew the attention of the cardinal who now stared at the old painting. He had been looking at Thomas, frowning as if he doubted the truth of what Thomas had said, but the sight of the painting distracted him. The faded picture showed Saint Peter, identifiable because in one hand he held two golden keys, offering a sword towards a kneeling monk. The two men were in a snow-covered field, though the patch of ground about the kneeling man had been cleared of snow. The monk was reaching for the sword, watched by a second monk who peered apprehensively through the half-opened shutter of a small snow-covered house. The cardinal gazed at it for a long time and looked surprised at first, but then shuddered in anger. ‘Who is the monk?’ he demanded of Giacomo.

  ‘I don’t know, Your Eminence,’ the Italian answered.

  The cardinal glanced quizzically at the green-eyed priest, who merely answered with a shrug. The cardinal glowered. ‘Why haven’t you covered it over already?’ he demanded of the painter.

  ‘Because the Holy Father ordered the ceiling painted before the walls, Your Eminence.’

  ‘Then cover it now!’ the Cardinal snarled. ‘Cover it before you finish the ceiling.’ He snatched a glance at Thomas. ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded.