The Last Crusade Read online

  He righted himself with some difficulty, but that gave the routier the chance to similarly recover, and the man tilted his pike and gripped it in the manner of a quarterstaff. D’Orbessan swung his blade with all his strength, and the mercenary caught the blow on the ash haft between his hands, knocking it aside and then swinging hard, bringing the butt-end of the weapon round to the Frank’s gut. D’Orbessan prayed his leg would hold up and lurched out of the path of the wooden staff, turning a full circle in the process, allowing the sword that had been knocked aside to continue to build up its momentum as it now came round for a second blow.

  His sword bit into the side of the man’s padded gambeson, tearing into the fabric, spilling out the contents and slamming into his ribs hard enough to break them. The routier bellowed his pain and fury as he fell away, and d’Orbessan ignored him further, turning his attention to the next man. A local in a leather jerkin with a padded cap threw himself forward bellowing his own war cry as he swung a hastily assembled mace formed from a heavy rock bolted to a club.

  ‘Moissac, droit, et Dieu!’

  D’Orbessan managed to duck to the side enough to take the blow only as a glancing one to the shoulder, painful but far from debilitating. His own counterstrike, an overhand chop, smashed the man’s weapon arm at the elbow, a blow that would leave him crippled for the rest of his life even if he lived through this day.

  Bellowing in agony, the man grabbed his flopping limb and staggered back. He would not have to worry about his future for Sir Giraud de Croi to the right landed a blow a moment later on the man’s temple, crushing his skull. With Giraud at his side, d’Orbessan began to bellow obscenities and wade into the mass of defenders. His conroi were with him, or three of them, anyway. The other was still on his horse, swinging his sword with glee a few paces away. Snarling, the four men hacked and hewed their way through the rabble, their armour protecting them while that of their opponents was largely poorly padded clothing. The well-armoured men of Moissac’s defence would shortly be on the walls and within the town.

  By the time the defenders at the barricade broke and ran, leaving their last few desperate men to die at the hands of the savage crusaders, the infantry was with the knights. Having crossed the ditch, many were dirty and soaked, some limping and all cursing in their own idiom.

  The wall breach lay ahead and, bellowing, the knights and their men at arms ran for it. A fresh volley of missiles from the walls thudded out now that the defenders could be sure of not hitting their own. D’Orbessan registered the death of Giraud de Croi with little time to mourn as a crossbow bolt smashed into the man’s visor, tearing through the metal and embedding itself in the knight’s face. The man to his left vanished too in a puff of pulverised matter as a stone fully a foot across smashed into him, driving him into the ground. D’Orbessan ran on, knowing that it was unseemly to wish ill on others and yet wickedly, selfishly grateful that his companions had taken the death blows rather than himself.

  As the knights and men at arms converged on the potential breach, he became aware of new voices and turned to see a fresh party of horsemen bearing down on the fight, coming to help exploit this breach. His eyes widened to see the banner of de Montfort himself among the riders. The commander of the army was coming to take heads himself for the glory of God.

  With a burst of renewed strength, determined to beat the great crusader earl to the wall, d’Orbessan ran, feet pounding, breath coming in laboured puffs within the metallic, echoing world of his helmet. With a prayer and a leap, he reached the wall and began to swing his blade above the hastily assembled redoubt. He felt it biting into flesh and bouncing from shields, swords and armour, but could not identify any specific target, for the world had become that narrow eye-slit and all he could see were shapes moving this way and that above the freshly-mortared stones. Something thudded into his shoulder and something else bounced off his helmet. He could just hear, above the din of what was happening around him, the distant peal of the bells, the faint harmony of the priests and, more importantly, the thud and thwack of crossbows atop the wall. He was relatively safe from them, being too close to make much of a target.

  He was completely unaware that the fight was over until suddenly he swung and there was nothing there to stop his blow. He jerked his head this way and that, trying to get a good view, but failed. Reaching up with his weak left arm, he unfastened the strap beneath his chin and pulled off the heavy steel helmet, tossing it away as he turned his blond-maned head this way and that, scattering sweat as he did so.

  The fighting had stopped. The enemy had pulled back into the breached wall and were still standing poised, ready to renew the action, but his own side had stepped back as well, and the missiles had ceased to fly freely. As the din receded, those two strange sounds once more filled the valley, the ring of bells and the chanting of monks.

  His eyes fell upon de Montfort, seated in the saddle within easy shot of the enemy crossbows, fearless, defying them to the last, surrounded by his nobles. His herald was waving a white flag of truce, and the enemy had responded with a temporary cessation.

  ‘Hear me, people of Moissac,’ the Earl of Leicester bellowed. ‘The Cathar heresy will not stand, but it is the objective of Father Dominic and his missionaries to bring these lost souls back to the bosom of mother Church, not to drown Occitania in their blood. The saving of souls is our business, not the murdering of men.’

  A tense, suspicious silence hung over Moissac. No one replied, and so de Montfort swept out his arm, indicating the city. ‘Moissac will fall this day, even if we must pay the price with every drop of blood in our bodies. This is the word of the Pope and the command of God, neither of which is to be gainsaid by us mere mortals. But in the interest of furthering our goal this is the time, and the only time, in which I shall offer terms.’

  The atmosphere became noticeably more intrigued, if the suspicion had not yet faded, but still no one spoke for the defenders.

  ‘These are my terms. You will accept them now, or we will press on and take Moissac amid a lake of blood and the rubble of your city, a landscape of death and destruction as not seen since God himself set his sights upon Sodom and Gomorrah. You will surrender Moissac to me. The garrison of routiers will be delivered to my army, along with any fighting men sent here from Toulouse. Their fates are not your concern. You will then agree to seek absolution from the Church for your heresy and will agree to seek a return to God’s love and to never again raise a hand to a Christian. In return for this, the people of Moissac will be spared in their entirety. Those who repent will be allowed to live on as before, and only those who are persistent in their heretical ways will pay a price. Moreover, my army will be kept outside the city and there will be no rapine or looting. These are the best terms for which you could hope, and they will be issued only this once. Speak your will, people of Moissac.’

  * * *

  The victorious crusader earl rode at the head of the column of knights. The majority of the army remained encamped in the valley as promised, while a score of the most important knights and clergy in the army moved into the city to take control. Behind de Montfort came the abbot of Moissac, ready to reclaim his seat, and d’Orbessan owed his presence to the absence of his master the baron, yet he rode proud in that group. De Montfort had offered terms more readily than usual, his piety driving him to preserve its famous abbey from harm, and his prosaic nature leading him to minimise the number of casualties he might risk, given that his force was still outnumbered in this land. Moissac had fallen and the Earl of Leicester himself had thanked d’Orbessan for his part in it. Such honours were not to be taken lightly.

  As they entered the wide square before the abbey church, a local in the drab clothes of a commoner hurried forward, bowing deeply. De Montfort stopped before him and motioned him to rise.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your lordship, we have gathered the routiers and the Toulouse men and housed them in the hôtel across the square. They have been disarmed a
nd are yours to command, my lord.’

  De Montfort nodded, frowning. ‘And where are your noblemen in this moment of crisis that a common man should be sent to address an earl?’

  The speaker, face draining of colour, faltered. ‘My lord, the duc has retreated to the abbey church and would have no part in this. As such I speak for the citizens of Moissac in his absence.’

  De Montfort nodded again. ‘You do a commendable service, sir. I predict that a man of such character will go far in the new Occitania.’ Ignoring him further, he turned to the man on the horse just behind and to the left, his brother Guy. ‘Have the routiers and the Toulouse men roped together and taken to the field by the river. There they will have their heads struck from their shoulders.’

  A stunned silence fell across those watching in the square.

  ‘Lord?’ called a man in a priest’s robes. ‘These men are your prisoners. Are they to be treated as criminals?’

  De Montfort rounded on the man. ‘These men are either enemies of the Church from the Count of Toulouse’s own house, or they are low and mean mercenaries who have chosen to fight beneath the banner of heresy purely for financial gain. They are not to be pardoned or released. They must pay the price. Are you so forgiving of heresy and evil, Churchman?’ There was no reply from the priest, and so the column moved on towards the church.

  As they dismounted before the doorway, De Montfort looked up at the great decorative tympanum above the door with appreciation and great interest. ‘A representation of the Last Judgment, is it not?’

  The abbot, also dismounted now and standing close by, smiled. ‘That it is, my lord. It is a celebrated work.’

  ‘And wholly in keeping with our business here.’

  With that, de Montfort strode into the shade of the church, his knights and priests following closely. D’Orbessan blinked as he adjusted to the relatively dim interior after the bright morning sunlight. A man dressed in rich clothing, his cote displaying the heretical yellow cross of the Cathars, stood in the centre of the nave, between the knights and the altar. De Montfort approached him and stopped at arm’s length.

  ‘You are the master of this town?’

  ‘I have had the honour of holding it against would-be conquerors who seek gold and land under the guise of piety, yes.’

  De Montfort’s gaze hardened. ‘You persist in your heresy?’

  ‘If you are asking whether I continue to hold true to my faith and not cower and bow to yours simply because you can master a rampart, then yes. I do.’

  ‘And you will not recant?’

  The man, face serene, shook his head.

  De Montfort turned and gestured to four of the locals who had followed them in through the door and stood at a distance. ‘Take him.’

  The nobleman remained proud and immobile as four nobodies grabbed at his arms, and De Montfort’s expression hardened ever further. ‘Four of your peasants murdered the nephew of the archbishop over there. What do the scriptures tell us again? The book of Exodus? “Soothly if the death of her followeth, he shall yield life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, sore for sore.” The Last Judgement indeed.’

  At a motion from, the earl, the four peasants drove the nobleman to the ground and held him there in the centre of the nave, kneeling on his wrists and ankles, pinning him down. De Montfort turned to the abbot, who d’Orbessan half expected to object to such a thing happening in his church, but the abbot’s eyes were gleaming with malice. This was, after all, the man who had held his own abbey against him in the name of a heresy.

  ‘My dear abbot, this is your call.’

  The churchman looked down at the stricken noble. ‘He who is unrepentant and an enemy of the lord cannot be saved.’ He turned and motioned to two monks who had followed in the train. D’Orbessan realised that this had been orchestrated beforehand. It was a show for the crowd, for de Montfort and the abbot had already known they would find this man here. The monks came forward carrying a stone cross that was clearly of immense weight from the struggling of the bearers. They heaved the thing over to the nobleman and then lowered it onto his chest. D’Orbessan winced at the sound of cracking bones under the weight. The nobleman’s eyes bulged as he gasped, trying to draw breath beneath the immense pressure on his breaking ribs and slowly compacting lungs.

  De Montfort turned an unmoved gaze from the man to the abbot. ‘We are not monsters. If he recants before he dies, do at least grant him the last rites.’

  And with that the siege of Moissac was over.

  Part One

  Conspiracy

  They made a wicked counsel on thy people, and they conspired against thy saints.

  Psalm 83

  Chapter One

  Homecoming

  Rourell, 27th September 1212

  Far from the war zone of Occitania, beyond the jagged barrier of the Pyrenees, Arnau reined in at the edge of the village, the sight of those houses so achingly familiar. The preceptory itself lay perhaps a mile further on through well-tilled fields and along well-metalled roads, but that was not their current destination. For tonight, the village was far enough. The others had similarly halted their mounts, all looking about appreciatively in the setting sunlight.

  ‘Are you sure of this?’ he asked.

  Balthesar nodded as he stretched out his arms. ‘Guillem will be here. It is his routine. Be patient.’

  The old, grey-haired knight sat easy in the saddle, the only one of them to have escaped the great battle at Las Navas with no seemingly ill effects. His squire sat at the rear, along with the other two, while Ramon edged his horse forward. The black-haired veteran had been sorely wounded in the clash, and even the surgeon had not offered good odds on his survival that first night. Yet Ramon was clearly made of hardy stuff, for he had pulled through during the night and gradually strengthened thereafter.

  Six men, the three knights and their squires, had ridden for home as soon as they had been permitted. The letter Arnau had received with the subtle message that the preceptrix Ermengarda was seemingly no longer in charge of Rourell had made all three brothers desperate to return and investigate what had happened, though they had been restricted by duty. After the fall of Ubeda the army had stopped its forward momentum, messengers had been exchanged with the Almohad caliph, and terms agreed. The war had ceased for now, but the six of them had not been released until the entire Templar contingent had finished their work. Eventually the task of consolidating the newly conquered territory had fallen to the Order of Calatrava and to the men of the Aragonese and Castilian kings, and the royal parties and the Templars had all turned and made for home.

  Arnau and his friends had moved as fast as they could realistically manage, though it was a long journey, and they had only travelled a matter of days ahead of the rest of the army, forced to a leisurely pace by the recuperating Ramon. Balthesar had been stoic about it all. Whatever had happened to remove Ermengarda was unlikely to change over the few extra days it would take them to return safely and in comfort, and Ramon’s continued recovery was paramount.

  So the six of them had finally reached Rourell. During the long journey they had discussed how best to approach the unknown situation, and it had been Balthesar who had decided upon the best plan of action.

  The fact that the preceptrix was no longer in charge was clear from the wording of Guillem’s letter, for he had purposefully used the word ‘preceptor’ in his text, and the fact that they were not supposed to be made aware of this was clear from the subtlety of how the scribe had slipped them that information. Thus the returning heroes could hardly walk straight into the preceptory and ask what was happening. They needed to be circumspect.

  Fortunately, Guillem remained their link. Rourell was ever a place where the most rigid of rules were softened for the ease of life, and that was certainly the case with Guillem and wine. The sergeant had come from a wine background, his family owning an estate, and with an uncl
e who was a vintner. As such, the man was exceedingly choosy with his wine, and had from the very beginning labelled Rourell’s own vintage as inferior. Something to do with the soil, apparently. Ermengarda had been easy on him and gave Guillem permission to leave the preceptory on alternate nights, as duties allowed, and head to the village where the hostelry maintained a Navarrese wine that was more to his taste.

  Thus it was a fifty/fifty chance that the scribe would be in the village tonight. Guillem, they had all known for years, was known to be hopelessly loyal to Preceptrix Ermengarda. He would be the man who could tell them what was going on without the knights blundering into the middle of something.

  The sun dipped behind the hills as the six men walked their mounts and spare pack horses to the stable at the rear of the tavern and tied them there, arranging their packs in a corner where the three squires would keep an eye on them; for three men entering the place would draw considerably less attention than six. Arnau was fully aware that they were breaking the Order’s Rule in many ways already, not least by the fact that they were all cloaked in nondescript bland mantles, their robes with the Templar cross carefully folded inside their packs. They had ridden in disguise often enough before, but always then on the Order’s duties. This, now, was for them alone.

  Appearing to be little more than weary travellers to anyone who did not know them facially, the three knights made their way into the tavern through the rear door. As Ramon and Balthesar found a table near a fireplace that had not been used in many months and smelled of old ash, Arnau approached the bar and acquired a bottle of wine and three earthenware cups. He smiled ironically at the Rourell label on the bottle, knowing that the money they had spent on it would make its way back to the preceptory.