The Jester

My stomach went cold. All along, I was sure it was Norcross who had done these things to me, as punishment for going on the Crusade. Was it possible it was A

I should not stay there any longer, I thought. There was a danger that I could not place.

“Fool, ride up here,” A

“I ca

“I understand.” A

No, you do not, I said to myself.

We rode the rest of the way back in silence.

Chapter 66

THE NEXT FEW DAYS, I kept my eye on A

Her husband was returning in a matter of days, and all of Borée was in a state of anxiousness and preparation. Flags were hung from the ramparts; merchants put out their best wares; the chatelain led his troops in their welcoming formations. Whom could I trust?

I waited for Emilie on Sunday morning as she emerged from the chapel with the other ladies-in-waiting. I caught her eye and lingered until the others were gone.

“My lady.” I took her aside. “I have no right to ask. I shouldn’t ask. But I need your help.”

“Here.” She motioned, leading me to a prayer bench in a side chapel. She sat next to me and lowered the hood of her shawl. “What’s wrong, Hugh?”

This was very hard. I sought the right words to begin. “Be certain, I would never speak to you of this unless it was of the highest need. I know you serve your mistress with all your heart.”

She wrinkled her face. “Please do not hesitate with me. Haven’t I proven my trust for you enough?”

“You have. Many times,” I said.

[204] I took a breath and recounted the horror of my trip to St. Cécile. I told it in detail: the charred mounds, the eviscerated knight, the most graphic images sticking in my throat like memories that did not want to come out.

I told her of Adhémar, whose similar fate I had heard of at Baldwin ’s court. Both knights were slaughtered, their villages razed. Both had recently returned from the Crusade. Just as I had.

“Why do you tell this to me?” she finally asked.

“You have not heard of such deeds? At court? Around the castle?”

“No. They are vile. Why should I?”

“Knights who disappear and return? Or talk of sacred relics from the Holy Land? Things more valuable than a simple fool like me would know.”

“You are my only relic from the Holy Land.” She smiled, trying to shift the mood.

I could see her trying to put the puzzle together. Why these horrible murders? Why now?

She took a wary breath. “I did not know of any such violence. Only that word has spread that Stephen has sent an advance guard to conduct his affairs before he returns.”

My blood lit. “This guard-they are here? At the castle?”

“I overheard the chatelain speaking of them with some contempt. He has served the duke loyally for years, yet these men are charged with some horrid mission. He feels they are ill-trained for knights.”

“Ill-trained?”

“‘Beyond honor,’ he said. Owing no allegiance. He says it is fitting that they sleep with the pigs, since they have the hearts of them. Why do you ask me this, Hugh?” Emilie looked into my eyes. I could see fear and I felt awful for causing it.

“These men are hunting for something, Emilie. I do not know what. But your mistress… she is not i

“I ca

“It is not for A

I leaned back, trying to let the pieces fit together in my mind. This guard, doing the duke’s bidding. They had come from the Crusade. As had Adhémar. And Arnaud. And I.

“I must confront her,” Emilie said. “If A

“You must not say a word! These men are vicious. They kill without a thought to God’s judgment.”

“It is too late.” Emilie stared at me glassily. Her look was not anxious but perplexed. “The truth is, when you were away, Hugh, I may have seen something too.”

Chapter 67

ANNE FLINCHED in the maze of hedges under the balcony as she heard footsteps creeping up on her. A stealthy presence, most foul, like a shift in the wind. She turned and he was there.

His frame was large, his face ruined with scars from battle. But it was not these things that made her shiver. It was his eyes. Their remoteness-rigid, dark pools. His face was buried deep in his dark hood. On the hood, a small black cross.

“Not in church, knight?” She scowled, her words stabbing with irony.

“Do not worry for me.” His cold voice crept out from the drawn hood. “I make peace with God in my own way.”

He came before her as a supplicant, yet he was possessed of the harshest cruelty. The tunic of a knight, but a disgraced one, dressed in rags. Still, she was forced to deal with him.

“I do worry for you, Morgaine,” A

“I may burn, lady, but I will light the way for others to rest next to God. Perhaps even you …”

“Do not flatter yourself that you are God’s agent.” A

[207] He bowed, unoffended. “You need not bother with my work, madame. Just know that it goes well.”

“I saw how well it goes, knight. I was there.”

“There, madame?” The knight’s eyes narrowed.

“St. Cécile… I saw what you did. Such cruelty even beasts from Hell would find shame in. I saw how you left that town.”

“It was left a better place than when we arrived. Closer to God.”

“Closer to God?” She stepped up to him, looked into his depthless eyes. “The knight, Arnaud. I saw him flayed apart.”

“He would not bend, my lady.”

“And the children… they would not bend as well? Tell me, Morgaine. For what precious prize did these i

“Just this,” the hooded knight said plainly.

He reached under his cloak. His hand emerged with a small wooden cross in it the size of his palm. He placed it gently in A

Though she wanted to spit on it and hurl it far into the bushes, A

“It has journeyed far, my lady, this simple trinket. From Rome to Byzantium. A thousand years. And now you hold it here. For three hundred of them it slept in a coffin, the coffin of Saint Paul himself, word of our Lord. Until it was unearthed by Emperor Constantius. This cross has changed the tide of history.” A smile crept across his face. “That’s why your prayers for me are not needed, good lady.”

A

“We are working.” The dark knight nodded.