LITMIR.BIZ

      Thomas, Father Hobbe and Eleanor followed the prior and his monks who were still chanting, though the brothers’ voices were now ragged for they were breathless from hurrying. St Cuthbert’s corporax cloth swayed to and fro and the banner attracted a straggling procession of women and children who, not wanting to wait out of sight of their men, carried spare sheaves of arrows up the hill. Thomas wanted to go faster, to get past the monks and find Lord Outhwaite’s men, but Eleanor deliberately hung back until he turned on her angrily. ‘You can walk faster,’ he protested in French.

      ‘I can walk faster,’ she said, ‘and you can ignore a battle!’ Father Hobbe, leading the horse, understood the tone even though he did not comprehend the words. He sighed, thus earning himself a savage look from Eleanor. ‘You do not need to fight!’ she went on.

      ‘I’m an archer,’ Thomas said stubbornly, ‘and there’s an enemy up there.’

      ‘Your King sent you to find the Grail!’ Eleanor insisted. ‘Not to die! Not to leave me alone! Me and a baby!’ She had stopped now, hands clutching her belly and with tears in her eyes. ‘I am to be alone here? In England?’

      ‘I won’t die here,’ Thomas said scathingly.

      ‘You know that?’ Eleanor was even more scathing. ‘God spoke to you, perhaps? You know what other men do not? You know the day of your dying?’

      Thomas was taken aback by the outburst. Eleanor was a strong girl, not given to tantrums, but she was distraught and weeping now. ‘Those men,’ Thomas said, ‘the Scarecrow and Beggar, they won’t touch you. I’ll be here.’

      ‘It isn’t them!’ Eleanor wailed. ‘I had a dream last night. A dream.’

      Thomas put his hands on her shoulders. His hands were huge and strengthened by hauling on the hempen string of the big bow. ‘I dreamed of the Grail last night,’ he said, knowing that was not quite true. He had not dreamed of the Grail, rather he had woken to a vision which had turned out to be a deception, but he could not tell Eleanor that. ‘It was golden and beautiful,’ he said, ‘like a cup of fire.’

      ‘In my dream,’ Eleanor said, gazing up at him, ‘you were dead and your body was all black and swollen.’

      ‘What is she saying?’ Father Hobbe asked.

      ‘She had a bad dream,’ Thomas said in English, ‘a nightmare.’

      ‘The devil sends us nightmares,’ the priest asserted. ‘It is well known. Tell her that.’

      Thomas translated that for her, then he stroked a wisp of golden hair away from her forehead and tucked it under her knitted cap. He loved her face, so earnest and narrow, so cat-like, but with big eyes and an expressive mouth. ‘It was just a nightmare,’ he reassured her, ‘un cauchemar.’

      ‘The Scarecrow,’ Eleanor said with a shudder, ‘he is the cauchemar.’

      Thomas drew her into an embrace. ‘He won’t come near you,’ he promised her. He could hear a distant chanting, but nothing like the monks’ solemn prayers. This was a jeering, insistent chant, heavy as the drumbeat that gave it rhythm. He could not hear the words, but he did not need to. ‘The enemy,’ he said to Eleanor, ‘are waiting for us.’

      ‘They are not my enemy,’ she said fiercely.

      ‘If they get into Durham,’ Thomas retorted, ‘then they will not know that. They will take you anyway.’

      ‘Everyone hates the English. Do you know that? The French hate you, the Bretons hate you, the Scots hate you, every man in Christendom hates you! And why? Because you love fighting! You do! Everyone knows that about the English. And you? You have no need to fight today, it is not your quarrel, but you can’t wait to be there, to kill again!’

      Thomas did not know what to say, for there was truth in what Eleanor had said. He shrugged and picked up his heavy bow. ‘I fight for my King, and there’s an army of enemies on the hill here. They outnumber us. Do you know what will happen if they get into Durham?’

      ‘I know,’ Eleanor said firmly, and she did know for she had been in Caen when the English archers, disobeying their King, had swarmed across the bridge and laid the town waste.

      ‘If we don’t fight them and stop them here,’ Thomas said, ‘then their horsemen will hunt us all down. One after the other.’

      ‘You said you would marry me,’ Eleanor declared, crying again. ‘I don’t want my baby to be fatherless, I don’t want it to be like me.’ She meant illegitimate.

      ‘I will marry you, I promise. When the battle is done we shall be married in Durham. In the cathedral, yes?’ He smiled at her. ‘We can be married in the cathedral.’

      Eleanor was pleased with the promise, but too furious to show her pleasure. ‘We should go to the cathedral now,’ she snapped. ‘We would be safe there. We should pray at the high altar.’

      ‘You can go to the city,’ Thomas said. ‘Let me fight my King’s enemies and you go to the city, you and Father Hobbe, and you find the old monk and you can both talk to him, and afterwards you can go to the cathedral and wait for me there.’ He unstrapped one of the big sacks on the mare’s back and took out his haubergeon, which he hauled over his head. The leather lining felt stiff and cold, and smelt of mould. He forced his hands down the sleeves, then strapped the sword belt about his waist and hung the weapon on his right side. ‘Go to the city,’ he told Eleanor, ‘and talk to the monk.’

      Eleanor was crying. ‘You are going to die,’ she said, ‘I dreamed it.’

      ‘I can’t go to the city,’ Father Hobbe protested.

      ‘You’re a priest,’ Thomas barked, ‘not a soldier! Take Eleanor to Durham. Find Brother Collimore and talk to him.’ The prior had insisted that Thomas wait and suddenly it seemed very sensible to send Father Hobbe to talk to the old monk before the prior poisoned his memories. ‘Both of you,’ Thomas insisted, ‘talk to Brother Collimore. You know what to ask him. And I shall see you there this evening, in the cathedral.’ He took his sallet, with its broad rim to deflect the downward stroke of a blade, and tied it onto his head. He was angry with Eleanor because he sensed she was right. The imminent battle was not his concern except that fighting was his trade and England his country. ‘I will not die,’ he told Eleanor with an obstinate irrationality, ‘and you will see me tonight.’ He tossed the horse’s reins to Father Hobbe. ‘Keep Eleanor safe,’ he told the priest. ‘The Scarecrow won’t risk anything inside the monastery or in the cathedral.’

      He wanted to kiss Eleanor goodbye, but she was angry with him and he was angry with her and so he took his bow and his arrow bag and walked away. She said nothing for, like Thomas, she was too proud to back away from the quarrel. Besides, she knew she was right. This clash with the Scots was not Thomas’s fight, whereas the Grail was his duty. Father Hobbe, caught between their obstinacy, walked in silence, but did note that Eleanor turned more than once, evidently hoping to catch Thomas looking back, but all she saw was her lover climbing the path with the great bow across his shoulder.

      It

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