The Jester Read online

  “I have a dilemma,” I said as I sat on the ground next to him. I looked Daniel Gui in the eye, man to man.

  “You have a dilemma?” The chatelain laughed, showing me his bonds.

  “Mine first.” I smiled. “I am at the head of an army, but I know little of how to fight a great battle.”

  “Is this a riddle, jester? If it is, let me play. I know how to fight, yet my army is disarmed and scattered.”

  I offered him a sip of ale. “It seems we are aligned yet opposite. But you command the duke’s forces.”

  “I command Treille’s forces,” he responded firmly. “My job was to lead them in defense of my city, not slaughter innocent subjects that our lordship did not trust.”

  [374] “Treille is Baldwin, though. You try and separate them, but you cannot.”

  “My dilemma.” The chatelain smiled. He showed me his wrists. “By which I am now unfortunately bound.”

  “I need a general, chatelain. If we march on Borée, we will not overcome it with sleight of hand.”

  He took another sip of ale, seemed to think this over. “What do I get if I help you take this city?”

  I smiled. “Mostly a lot of trouble with your old boss.”

  Daniel Gui grinned. “I’m not exactly sure I can return to that job now anyway.”

  Indeed, Baldwin would be already savoring the taste of someone to blame. “Only a chance,” I answered. “The same chance any of us have. To sue for peace and go back and live our lives as free men.”

  “There’s an irony here somewhere.” The chatelain chuckled. “So far, you have taken my castle and put my liege in chains. You don’t seem too bad a soldier for a man in a checkerboard suit.”

  “I was at Antioch and Civetot,” I said, “in the Crusade…”

  The chatelain nodded in a deep and acknowledging way.

  “So, will you help us? I know it will mean breaking your pledge to Baldwin. Your career may not be the brighter for it. Yet we are not such a bad bunch, for heretics and rebels and fools.”

  Daniel took in a deep breath and smiled. “I think I will fit in just fine.”

  Chapter 128

  WE CAME OUT OF THE FOREST the next day facing a river. A truly terrifying sight stood before us.

  On the high ground, directly in our path, waited an ominous horde of warriors. Maybe three hundred of them.

  They wore no colors, just rough skins and high boots, swords and shields gleaming in the noonday sun. They were long-haired and filthy, and regarded us with no particular alarm. They looked ready for a fight.

  Panic shot through our troops, and through me as well. The ferocious-looking horde just stood there, watching us assemble out of the trees. As though battle were an ordinary thing for them.

  Horns blew. Horses whinnied. A few carts toppled over. At any moment, I expected them to charge.

  I ordered our column to a halt. The rabble ahead of us looked restless. Shit, had I led us into a trap?

  Odo and Daniel ran up to me. I had never seen Odo this scared.

  “They growl like Saxons,” Odo muttered. “These ugly bastards are meaner than shit. I heard they live in caves and when food is scarce, they eat their young.”

  “They are not Saxon.” Daniel shook his head. “They are [376] from Languedoc. From the south. Mountain men. But they are known to eat their young even when the harvest is good.”

  His depiction gave me chills. “Are they from Stephen?” I asked.

  “Could be.” He shrugged. We watched them watching us, showing no concern about our larger ranks. “Mercenaries. He has used them before.”

  “Have the men fan along the ravine,” I said. I hoped to make a show of strength. This threat had come upon us so suddenly. “Lances to the front in case they charge.”

  “Keep the horses in reserve,” Daniel said. “If these bastards come at us, they’ll do so on foot. To a Languedocian, it’s a sign of cowardice not to.”

  Everyone rushed into formation. Then we stood there, hearts tense, holding our shields. The field was silent.

  “Seems a good enough day to meet my maker.” Odo strapped on his mallet. “If you’re still listening, God.”

  All of a sudden, there was movement in the Languedocian camp. Get ready. I gripped my lance.

  Then two riders rode out from the pack and galloped toward us.

  “They wish to talk,” Daniel said.

  “I’ll go,” I said. “Here.” I turned to Odo. “Hold the lance.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Daniel said.

  Daniel and I rode out between the armies. The two Languedocians sat there indifferently, eyeing us as we came up to them. One was large and stout, built like an ox. The other was leaner but just as mean looking. For a moment, no one spoke. We just regarded one another, circling.

  Finally, the ox grunted a few words in a French I could barely make out. “You are the jester Hugh? The one with the lance?”

  “I am,” I replied.

  “You’re the little fart who has led the peasants and bondmen against their lords?” the other growled.

  [377] “We’ve risen up in the face of murder and oppression,” I replied.

  Ox snickered. “You don’t look so big. We were told you were eight fucking feet tall.”

  “If we have to fight, it will seem that,” I said.

  The Languedocians looked me up and down in a way I could not read. Then they looked at each other and started to laugh. “Fight you?” The big one chortled. “We’ve come to join you, fool. Word reached us you intend to march on Treille. We are sworn enemies of that prick Baldwin. We’ve been enemies of Treille for two hundred years.”

  I looked at Daniel and we broke into grins. “This is good news… but you’re too late. Treille is already taken. We are marching on Borée.”

  “Borée?” the thinner one said. “You mean against that prick Stephen?”

  I nodded. “The same.”

  For a moment, the two Languedocians drew their horses close and huddled together. I could hardly understand the tongue they were speaking in. Then Ox looked back to me and shrugged. “All right, we march on Borée.”

  He raised his sword to his ranks and they erupted-lifting their swords and spears in a riotous cheer.

  “You’re lucky.” Ox grinned through his beard. “We’ve been enemies of Borée for three hundred years.”

  Chapter 129

  STEPHEN WAS IN his dressing room when Anne stormed in and found him, in a chair, peeling an apple. Annabella, a lady of the court, was bent over his waist, swallowing his cock.

  At the sight of Anne, Annabella gagged. She jumped, frantically replacing Stephen’s leggings as if to hide the evidence. Stephen looked on, seeming not to care.

  “Oh, do not bother, Annabella.” Anne sighed. “When the lord hears what news I bear, we shall all be amused to see to what size his manhood shrinks.”

  The lady smoothed her ruffled tresses, curtsied, then scurried out of the room.

  “These are my private quarters, not your parlor,” Stephen said, hitching himself up. “And do not feign offense, dear wife, since you obviously knew what business you would find here.”

  “I do not feign offense.” Anne eyed him sharply. “Only regret, to have interrupted you from such pressing work.”

  “So.” Stephen rose. “By all means, let me know. What’s the big surprise?”

  “A runner has arrived from Sardoney. He’s brought word that your little jester is on the way. Two days out. With his lance.”

  “This is the news you thought would disarm me?” Stephen seemed to yawn, taking another deep bite from his apple. “That this poor fool marches on us? Why should this mean any more [379] to me than a bite of this fruit, I say? But come,” he said, eyeing the bulge in his hose, “as long as the table is set, why not put the little weasel to some work?”

  Anne crept behind him and smoothed her hands across his chest, even though the pretense of such affection was as repulsive to her as kissing a snake. Sh
e bent down to his ear and whispered, “It is not the fool that I thought would concern you, my husband.” She rubbed her hand near his cock. “But the thousand men who march along with him.”

  “What?” Stephen twisted around. He screwed up his face in disbelief.

  “Oh, has the weasel crept back in his little cave?” Anne laughed. “Yes, my liege, apparently an army follows him that is even greater than before. An army of lost souls, heretics, thanks to you. And thanks to Baldwin, fully armed.”

  Stephen jumped out of his seat, hot with rage. “Impossible! They damn their souls to follow him.”

  “No, husband, it is your soul that is damned.”

  “Get out of my way.” Stephen shot out his hand. It slashed across Anne’s face, knocking her to the floor. “If you have any hope for that little brat you call your cousin, you will mock me no more.”

  “If you harm her, Stephen…” Anne forced herself up to her palms.

  Stephen burned his gaze right through her. He moved as if to strike again. She did not flinch. Then the color came back into his face, and he softened and knelt, cupping her quivering face in the palm of his hand.

  “Why would I want to hurt her, my precious wife? She is a part of you.” He raised himself, smoothing his tunic, the veins in his forehead now calm. “I have merely detained her for her own protection. There are dangerous conspirators about who plan us harm, even within these very walls. Haven’t you heard?”

  Chapter 130

  “LOOK.” Men began to point. “Up on the hill. There it is. Borée!”

  Above the rolling hills of vineyards and farms, its limestone towers rose with roofs of blue, like lapis etched into the sky. There was the facade of the famous cathedral, gleaming white; and the castle that I had stayed in, its donjons reaching to the sky-where Emilie was.

  As we neared, the exhilaration spread: “I’m gonna take Stephen in one arm and his largest hen in the other, and squeeze them till they both lay a fucking egg,” a boastful farmer yelled.

  Behind me, my new army stretched for nearly a mile. In every row, men marched in different clothing: tailors, woodsmen, and farmers in their own garb, but with thrown-together mail and helmets they had swiped from Baldwin. They carried pennants from their towns, pikes and clubs and bows on their backs. Some even spoke different dialects.

  The vast line included men and horses, carts drawn by heavy oxen, and catapults, mangonels, and trebuchets with their loads of heavy stone. All beat a cloud of dust that seemed to smother the sky.

  But the giddy boasts and dares began to fade the closer we got to Borée. This was no ant’s nest in the middle of nowhere [381] with a pompous duke who did not want to dirty his hands with combat. This was a city, the largest many of us had ever seen. We had to take this place! It was protected by rings of walls, each manned with archers and artillery. Its reserve of knights was twice our number, many of them emboldened by bloody victories in the Crusade. The closer we got, the higher the walls loomed over us. I knew the same reality drummed through every soul: Many of us would die here.

  All around, farms close to the city were shuttered and abandoned, livestock nowhere to be seen. Plumes of smoke trickled into the sky, from bales of hay and grain carts set afire. Stephen was giving us no sustenance or quarter. He was preparing for a siege.

  People we passed did not cheer us as at Treille. They spat at us or averted their eyes. “Go home, rebels, heretics. You’re God’s curse!”

  “Look at what you’ve brought on us,” a woman wailed, scavenging for food. “Go on, your welcoming committee lies just ahead.”

  Welcoming committee … ? What did she mean by that?

  As we neared the city, men at the front pointed to what seemed a row of crosses lining the road. A few ran ahead.

  As they did, their faces lost some color. A silence came over the ranks, which only moments before had been boasting of what they would do when they reached Borée.

  The welcoming committee.

  These were not crosses but bodies, some still alive, muttering, moving their limbs feebly, impaled on long shafts that split their torsos.

  Some through the anus. Others, even worse, upside down. Men, young and old, farmers, tradesmen in common garb. Women too, stripped naked like whores, moaning, choking for breath, eyes glazed over in agony. There was a row of thirty of them.

  [382] “Get them down,” I shouted. My heart sank as at Civetot, or riding into the damned village of St. Cécile. What had these poor people done? I rode by, barely able to look.

  Then I stopped at one of the bodies. My blood came to a halt. My eyes actually rolled back in my head.

  It was Elena, Emilie’s maidservant.

  I jumped off my horse and with my sword started to hack at the stake until it sheared, then I gently eased her down.

  I lifted Elena’s head in my hands and stared at her chafed white face, peeking through tufts of bloodied hair. She was in torn, soiled rags, desecrated like some shameless murderess. All the poor soul had done was serve her lady.

  Anger dug into my ribs, sharp as a knife. If this was Elena, what had happened to Emilie?

  What kind of warning was this monster giving me?

  My breath stuck in my chest. I turned to the man behind me. “Bury her as well.”

  Chapter 131

  FARTHER AHEAD, we came to a fieldstone bridge that crossed the river along the outskirts of the city.

  It was guarded by a stone tower. I drew the ranks to a halt about sixty yards away. Three or four of Stephen’s knights were waiting there, mounted on horseback, draped in their lordship’s green and gold colors.

  The first sign of the enemy.

  They began to taunt us, questioning the size of our balls. “You call this rabble an army?” one yelled. He lifted his leg as a dog pees. “It’s a bunch of peasants who wouldn’t know a fight from a good fart.”

  “They are only trying to bait us into something stupid,” Daniel cautioned. “Stay your ground. They will fall back as soon as we advance.”

  A few of the men, fueled by the horrific sight they had just seen, ignored him and ran toward the taunting soldiers, ready to do battle with their clubs and swords.

  When they were about twenty yards away, archers appeared in the tower armed with crossbows. They sent a volley of arrows whooshing down. Four men dropped immediately, clutching their chests. The rest peeled back out of range.

  Behind me, I heard Alphonse yell out, “They want their fight, they’ll g-get it!”

  [384] “No,” I called, “we can’t lose more.” But against my futile shout, he took off. He and his group ran bravely toward the tower.

  Arrows hissed down on them, thudding into their shields. Another man fell, struck in the thigh. Our own archers loaded and sent a reply of fire arrows toward the tower.

  Now our men were pinned, huddled under their wooden shields. I saw Alphonse race out and pull one wounded man out of range.

  Then one of our arrows struck the wooden roof of the guard tower. Chaos broke out among the archers as the flames caught. Our ranks began to cheer. For a second the enemy archers disappeared, then we caught sight of them on the ground, scampering back with their heavy bows toward the city walls.

  Our men set after them, Alphonse leading.

  At first, they were met by knights on horseback, who fought bravely. But soon there were too many of us to fight. Stephen’s knights were pulled down from their mounts, their bodies bludgeoned with swords and clubs. Several of us went after the retreating archers, overtaking them in a gully by the river. One knelt, ready to fire into the back of one of our men, but Alphonse leaped and clubbed him into a heap.

  To a man, the archers were hacked to bits. A chorus of cheers rose in our ranks. Our party of rescuers returned, dragging the wounded and dead, raising aloft captured crossbows.

  It was our first engagement, and we had shown Stephen we were here to fight.

  Alphonse passed by me, tossing a captured crossbow into a supply cart. Tho
ugh I was relieved to see him safe and held back reproaching him for his recklessness, he could see I was angry. Four of our men lay dead.

  He shot me a contrite wink. “Wouldn’t know a fight from a good fart, eh?”

  Chapter 132

  EMILIE PULLED HER COVERS UP to warm herself in the dark, drafty tower room that had been her cell over the past days. The narrow slit of a window high up on the wall barely let in an angle of outside light. She was not sure if it was day or night.

  For the past few hours, she had heard the rumble outside of troops and heavy carts being dragged down to the walls. Something was happening. A flicker in her heart told her it had to do with Hugh.

  A pitcher of drinking water and a plate of half-eaten food rested on a table by her side with a few of her books and embroideries. But she had no appetite and no mind to read or weave.

  Stephen was a dog, foaming with the madness of greed. All honor and law had been set aside to detain her. All reason too.

  But it was fear for Hugh that gnawed at her, festered in her heart through the dark, isolated nights.

  Hugh… Stephen would not dare harm her, but he would see Hugh dead with the relish of a cruel child picking the wings off a fly. Now he prepared his army, his awful Tafurs, his archers, and his death-dealing machines of war.

  “Do not come,” she prayed, whispering herself back to sleep. “Please, Hugh… do not come.”

  [386] But something was different this day. There was a far-off rumble. And a sharpness to the voices nearby. The tremor of large machines being wheeled into place.

  Battle machines!

  Emilie threw the covers from her bed. She had to know what was going on. The commotion outside grew louder. Horses, shouting, the constant hammering of wood. Preparations for war.

  Emilie wrapped herself in her bedclothes and dragged a table beneath the high window. Then she hoisted a sitting bench and placed it on top of the table. As a child she had played such games of “king of the hill” with the boys. High above the floor, she balanced herself on the bench and raised herself to her toes.