Free 1356 by Bernard Cornwell Page B

down.’
    ‘And maybe I will.’
    He had heard news on the journey, though such travellers’ tales were always unreliable. It was said that the rampaging English army had burned Narbonne and Villefranche, others said Toulouse itself had fallen. The merchants had grumbled. The English
chevauchée
was a tactic to destroy a country’s power, to starve the lords of taxes, to burn their mills, uproot their vines, to demolish whole towns, and the only way such a destructive force could be stopped was by another army, yet the King of France was still in the north, far away, and the Prince of Wales was running riot in the south. ‘King Jean should come here,’ one of the merchants had said, ‘and kill the English princeling, or else there’ll be no France to rule.’
    Fra Ferdinand had kept silent. The other travellers were nervous of him. He was gaunt, stern and mysterious, though his companions were grateful that he did not preach. The Black Friars were a preaching order, destined to wander the world in poverty and encourage it to godliness, and when the merchants turned southwards they gave him money, which Fra Ferdinand suspected was in gratitude for his silence. He accepted the charity, offered the donors a blessing, and walked north alone.
    He kept to the wooded parts of the country to avoid strangers. He knew there were
coredors
, bandits, and routiers who would think nothing of robbing a friar. The world, he thought, had become evil, and he prayed for God’s protection and his prayers were answered because he saw no bandits and found no enemies, and late on a Tuesday evening he came to Agout, the village just south of the hills where the tower stood, and he went to the inn and there heard the news.
    The Lord of Mouthoumet was dead. He had been visited by a priest accompanied by men-at-arms, and when the priest left the Sire of Mouthoumet was dead. He was buried now, and the men-at-arms had stayed at the tower until some Englishmen had come and there had been a fight and the Englishmen had killed three of the priest’s men and the rest had run away.
    ‘Are the English still there?’
    ‘They went away too.’
    Fra Ferdinand went to the tower the next day where he found the Sire of Mouthoumet’s housekeeper, a garrulous woman who knelt for the friar’s blessing, but hardly ceased her chatter even as he gave it. She told how a priest had come, ‘He was rude!’, and then the priest had left and the men who remained behind had searched the tower and the village. ‘They were beasts,’ she said, ‘Frenchmen! But beasts! Then the English came.’ The English, she said, had worn a badge showing a strange animal holding a cup.
    ‘The Hellequin,’ Fra Ferdinand said.
    ‘Hellequin?’
    ‘It is a name they take pride in. Men should suffer for such pride.’
    ‘Amen.’
    ‘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