Elizabeth Chadwick - The Conquest

Complaining, the merchant opted for the main room, the smoky fire, and sleeping space on the filthy, trodden rushes. Benedict chose the stables, where the bedding was marginally cleaner, and the company more wholesome.

Gisele disappeared behind a stack of hay to change into dry garments from their pack, dry being a relative term, for even the fresh clothing was damp to the touch. Benedict stripped down to his loin cloth and set about making a thick, deep nest in the hay, then spread out the spare garments from his own pack to air, so that in the morning they might seem slightly drier.

The watery stew in the main room had not appealed to him, and he delved amongst his pack rations to see what he could find. There were small, hard cakes made of oats, raisins and honey, dried figs, a small cheese purchased from a shepherd's wife along the way, and some salty, spiced sausage from the same source. To wash it down there was wine mixed with water from a mountain stream. It was hardly a feast, but it was an improvement on the meal being served in the main room across the courtyard.

Gisele emerged from her hiding place and looked at Benedict with startled eyes when she saw his near-nudity.

'It will be warm enough beneath the hay,' he said. 'I don't want to sleep in damp clothes. If you had any sense, you'd take yours off too.'

Her colour heightened and her right hand rose to clutch at the silver cross hanging round her neck, and beside it, the reliquary she had bought in Toulouse. The small box with its facing of polished agates and emeralds purported to contain three eyelashes belonging to Mary Magdalene, who had, apparently, lived out her latter years in Southern Gaul. It had cost as much as a top quality warhorse, but Gisele had thought it worth every last silver penny. Benedict knew what he thought, but had reserved comment. The matter of the relic for Brize-sur-Risle was not his concern.

'Sit.' He gestured at the food.

Gisele abandoned her clutch on the reliquary and did as he bade her, tucking her gown neatly around her legs. Her gaze flickered over his shoulders and chest, the narrow smudge of hair running from nipple to nipple, and the fine line feathering down over the firm bands of stomach muscle and disappearing into the linen loin cloth. Her colour remained high. She nibbled daintily on a fig and sipped at the watered wine.

Benedict ate hungrily. The cheese was excellent, the sausage revolting, but he was famished and devoured both. Gisele ignored her portions, preferring instead to chew slowly on a honey cake. Her delicate stomach echoed her sensibilities.

The end of their meal was interrupted by Pons, who entered the stables with a laughing woman in tow, her brown hair indecently loose and her bodice in disarray.

Pons jerked to a halt when he saw Benedict and Gisele, and his foxy face became sharp with hostility. 'I thought everyone was in the hall. I always sleep here when I am guiding people through the passes.'

Benedict gestured around. 'There is room enough,' he said.

The woman with Pons murmured in his ear, detached herself from his embrace, and disappeared into the night. Pons scowled furiously at the interlopers. 'It is not safe out here. You should stay with the others.'

Benedict arched his brows. 'I'll take my chance.'

The Basque glanced over his shoulder at the stable entrance, then back at Benedict and Gisele. 'You Franks,' he sneered contemptuously. 'You think that you own the world.'

Benedict almost laughed at the irony of the statement. He wondered if Pons had ever listened to his own words. Mountain guides were notoriously arrogant. He said nothing, meeting the angry black stare with indifference.

Pons made to leave, but changed his mind and paused, his shoulder leaning against the door jamb. 'Travelling does not burden you the way it does some of the others,' he remarked. His posture remained hostile, but there was curiosity in his voice too. At his belt there were two knife scabbards, one sheathing a nine-inch hunting dagger, the other a smaller meat knife. Pons drew the latter and began paring his nails.

'I am accustomed to making long journeys.' Benedict tried to appear nonchalant, but he kept a wary eye on the knife. Beside him, Gisele was rigid with fear.

'Then you are a merchant?'

'Of sorts. I breed horses – destriers and sumpter ponies.'

Pons nodded and looked over the curve of his knuckles at Benedict. 'In Castile and Navarre, you will find the greatest horses on God's earth.'

'Yes, I know.'

'You come to buy?'

'Perhaps.'

The Basque sucked his teeth. 'These horses, they are expensive.' He rubbed his fingers and thumb together. 'Perhaps you do not have enough silver.'

'We shall see.'

Pons nodded. His eyes were still narrow, but the edge of anger had vanished, replaced with a glint of what might have been amusement. 'I am a merchant too,' he said. 'My whole family, they trade between our lands and yours, Frank.' He wiped the knife blade on his breeches and stabbed it into its sheath. 'I'll leave you to sleep now. Marisa and I will find somewhere else.' Bestowing a mocking flourish upon Benedict and Gisele, he disappeared into the night as silently as a cat. Like a dog, Benedict's hackles rose.

'As soon as we reach the plains, we'll hire a different guide,' he murmured to Gisele.

She clutched the reliquary at her breast, her grey eyes filled with fear. 'I don't like him,' she whispered.

Benedict made a wry face. 'And I don't trust him.'

The morning dawned bright and golden, with not a single cloud to mar the stunning blue of the sky. Shabby became quaint, primitive became rustic. The pilgrims took genuine pleasure in breaking their fast at the trestles set up in the meadow behind the hostel. Woodsmoke from the cooking fires hazed the air and carried upon it the smells of frying ham and batter cakes. There was milk and buttermilk to drink, and the air was clear and pleasantly warm.

Pons, who had not been in evidence for morning prayers, nor the main part of the meal, appeared as folk were rising from the tables. He snatched some left-over bread from a basket, speared a brown batter cake off the griddle iron on the point of his knife, and taking alternate bites from each one, set about mustering his charges.

He was in high good humour, whistling and singing as if the weather itself had entered his veins. But there was a tension about him too, like a storm building behind the sunshine.

'The road is easier today,' he announced. 'And the weather is fine. We'll make good progress.'

The pilgrims did indeed make good progress. The road was easier, but it was still narrow and stony with sharp outcrops of rock on either side. As the morning wore on, the pleasant warmth of the sun melted into a beating bronze heat. Water bottles were thirstily depleted; outer garments were removed. The Bordeaux merchant, his face the same mulberry shade as his robe, kept up an incessant litany of complaint, directed at the landscape, the weather, his fellow pilgrims, and most of all, at Pons.

The little Basque bore the merchant's tirade in silence, but his countenance steadily darkened, and he kept his fists clamped around his belt in an obvious effort to prevent himself from using them.

'I left civilisation when I left Bordeaux,' grumbled the merchant. 'If I did not love God and the blessed St James so much, I would not be here at all.'

Pons ceased walking and turned on the path to regard his charges. His dark eyes narrowed, his chest rose and fell rapidly, but it was with the effort of control, not because of the pace he had set. 'There is a wide stream beyond the next bend,' he said. 'Water the horses and fill your bottles. I'll join you in a moment.' He started to leave the path.

'Where do you think you are going?' The merchant's voice was like a whiplash.

Pons spread his hands. 'You want I should open my bowels in front of you? Do they do that in Bordeaux?' He gave the merchant a mocking stare and continued on his way, his step light and swift. Within moments he had vanished.

The merchant blustered and spluttered, his deluge of vocabulary temporarily arrested by the sheer insolence of their guide.

Benedict concealed a smile behind the pretence of wiping sweat from his face. He might not like or trust Pons, but that retort had hit the mark beautifully.

The stream was a stony mass of boulders and gravel, divided into several channels, some deep and narrow, others shallow and broad. The pilgrim company were only too pleased to dismount, water their horses and take a rest. The water was as clear and cold as glass, the pebbles on its bed shining like jewels. Gisele refilled the water skins whilst Benedict supervised their mounts, making sure that they did not drink too much.

One of the nuns daringly raised her habit above her ankles, revealing skinny white legs, and waded into the first, shallow channel. She uttered a small squeal at the coldness of the water and looked round at her sister nuns. They watched her dubiously for a moment, and then throwing caution to the wind, followed her example. The monk remained on the bank, washing his hands and face, and soaking a linen cloth to give cool respite to his sun-burned tonsure. The merchant removed his mulberry tunic, and puffing through his heavy jowls, sat down in the shade of a large rock.

He was the first to die. Silently, his windpipe severed. 'You were right about me,' Pons whispered as the merchant dumped. 'I would sooner slit your throat.'

The first Benedict knew of the attack were the two arrows that hit him, one through his side, the other through his left arm. The force spun him round and dropped him like a stone in the water. Gisele screamed and ran to him, floundering through the stream. Then she screamed again, the sound cut off before it had reached full pitch.

The water turned red and the colour eddied away down the current like scarlet fairing ribbons. Benedict was aware only of burning pain, of a weight across his body, driving that pain into every vital part of him. He tasted blood, and then the cold swirl of the water. It entered his nostrils and mouth, choking off his breath. He jerked his head up, gasping and gagging, and the pain redoubled. Gisele stared into his eyes, an expression of utter bewilderment on her face.

He tried to cry her name, but all that emerged was a wordless croak. To lift himself was agony. He pushed himself half-way to a sitting position, but the pain was too great, and he slumped back upon his wife's dead body, darkness claiming him.