Stigmata (43 page)

She prayed to the Madonna for mercy.

But the face she saw when she prayed was not the Madonna’s; it was Philip’s. She even believed she could feel his warm breath on her face. ‘I am coming back for you,’ he
said. ‘Don’t give up.’

But it was just a dream.

Toulouse

I
AM COMING
back for you, he thought. Don’t give up.

It was a cold, bright day, the flag of Toulouse whipping in the north wind. The city had achieved a certain fame. Philip had heard travellers talk of it in Burgundy; finer than Paris, they said,
and certainly finer than Troyes. They reckoned there were more than three hundred turrets and towers across its skyline, though he did not know who might think to count them all.

And churches, too: there the round basilica of Saint-Sernin, there the square tower of Saint-Étienne, and over there the Notre-Dame de la Daurade, beside the white walls of the
Église Dalbade and the Saint-Romain, all clustered like great ships inside a harbour wall.

Rosy Garonne bricks glowed pink in the sun.

A sight to behold indeed; but once inside the gates the press of corbelled houses and the poles of tattered laundry blotted out the sky and Toulouse became something less than beautiful.

They were delayed in the streets by donkeys with swaying loads and farmers with flocks of grey-backed sheep. Carts had formed deep ruts in the mud and these had filled with all manner of
rubbish; the stink was dizzying.

He heard shouts; saw a gang of young men, all dressed in black and waving black banners, armed with swords and staves, clash with another yelling mob with red crosses sewn on their white robes.
People fled, pouring from the lane into the main street. More blood on the stones. Even in the Count’s own backyard the war still raged.

He was escorted through the palace like a leper and, having been kept waiting most of the morning, was finally directed into a panelled chamber, the usher curling a lip at his
muddied boots and his torn jerkin. That was the problem with servants; after a while they thought of their house of employment as if it were their own.

He was introduced to the Count’s principal secretary, Bernard de Signy, a stolid man whose unremarkable physical appearance was at odds with the clothes that he wore, all rich silks and
Rheims linen. His fingers bulged with rings of amber and silver. Raimon had warned him to expect tight clothes and foppish manners; he said the courtiers in the south had never chewed meat off the
bone in their life.

Philip had known men like de Signy before and they all sang the same song:
Let us be cautious, we should talk about this, don’t rush, think of the consequences, let us send a
deputation.
These men did not understand travails, had never seen a rat chewing at a corpse or a piece of brimstone as large as a horse stable coming at them over a castle wall; never witnessed
men scalded with boiling water, their skin hanging in strips down their back, being ordered back to their place at a battering ram.

He had soft hands and a mouth that smiled independent of his eyes. ‘So, seigneur,’ he said, after introductions had been made and Philip had stated his business. ‘This is . . .
unusual. If I may ask, Baron de Vercy, what is the interest of a nobleman such as yourself in the affairs of a small town in the Pays d’Oc?’

‘It is a private crusade, if you will. In the service of a just cause.’

‘A true knight? The troubadours should like to make a ballad for you. What is it you wish from us?’

‘I am here at the behest of Raimon Perella, second cousin to viscount Roger-Raymond Trencavel. I have brought embassy to Count Raymond.’

‘I am afraid that Count Raymond is not presently here in Toulouse.’

Philip’s shoulders sagged.

‘You had not heard this news?’

‘I have ridden night and day under escort from Montaillet.’

‘Which is under siege, I am told.’

‘We rode through their lines under cover of darkness.’

‘That was very . . . bold.’

‘The situation is desperate. We needed to be . . .
bold
.’

‘Then to better inform you in your boldness: the Church has placed our beloved Count under interdict. They have no grounds for this but it is our belief that they wish to confiscate his
lands and are using holy writ to do it. The Count is on his way to Paris to visit the King, then he intends to travel to Rome, to plead his case to the Pope in person.’

‘I am here to suggest to him that he would be better advised to make his case in the Montagne Noir.’

‘Please talk freely, seigneur.’

‘Montaillet has been under siege these last two months and during that time we have held off this supposedly invincible army of de Montfort’s. I can tell you this, they are a spent
force. The Duke of Burgundy and Count of Nevers have gone home and taken the larger part of the army with them. De Montfort has just thirty knights left and perhaps five hundred men, together with
a few godless priests and bishops and a ragged bunch of hangers-on. As we speak some of the castles that surrendered to him in the summer are rebelling. If Raymond would join the house of Trencavel
in this fight we can end this military expedition right now, so that these
crozatz
lose their appetite for warring here completely.’

A fat and ponderous finger was placed to the lips. Finally: ‘We understand the point you are making, but although I myself sympathize with the plight of the citizens and soldiers of
Montaillet, we believe it would be unwise for Count Raymond to get involved in this conflict. It would only inflame the situation further. De Montfort has recently met with the King of Aragon in
Montpellier and he refused to recognize him as the new viscount. So why should Raymond take up arms? This is exactly what the bishops want him to do. He need only wait and everything will resolve
itself without his intervention.’

The square window behind the courtier was protected by a grille. A pigeon strutted and cooed on the windowsill. It has learned its habits from watching de Signy, Philip thought.

‘But you could crush them if you attacked now. You could save Montaillet and resolve things more certainly than you can by doing nothing.’

‘We are hardly doing nothing. Diplomacy may be every bit as effective as swordplay, seigneur. I am sorry for the people of Montaillet, but in the larger purpose they count for nothing. We
must be politic.’

‘Montaillet counts for nothing? You pompous little fop.’ It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

De Signy’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Seigneur, I shall not tolerate such insults from a man such as yourself. The whole world knows you are excommunicate, that you have betrayed your
own.’

Philip got to his feet and grabbed the secretary by the hair. ‘They cut out my squire’s eyes, damn you! It rested upon my honour to avenge him!’

De Signy shrieked in fear and moments later the guards burst through the door, but seeing him armed they held back. So much for diplomacy, Philip thought. He showed himself out.

T
HERE WERE INNUMERABLE
candles burning in the choir; a penitent, dressed in rags and with ulcers on his feet, knelt before
the altar. Its black and violet covering was embroidered with pearls and silver. He kissed it, his fingers trembling as they touched the cloth.

With winter drawing on, the great crowds of pilgrims had thinned. The innkeepers and the hawkers and the pickpockets were always as sorry to see them go as the monks and the priests. But there
were still enough of them, Philip thought, all weeping and trembling as they filed through the ambulatory, gaping at the relics of the True Cross and the bloodied thorn of Jesus’s crown and
the blessed toenail of St Peter and whatever else the priests had put there. Just this church alone had fragments of no less than twenty-six such saints.

At Sens they had a fragment of Moses’s rod; at Saint-Julien in Anjou they had one of Christ’s shoes. He was yet to see either of these marvels, though it was said that a glimpse of
just one of these relics might bring a remission of sins amounting to a thousand years in purgatory. If only I had more faith, Philip thought, I might yet save myself a lot of time in the
sulphur.

It was right here in this church that she said she saw the Virgin move, he thought, just over there in her little shrine. He lit a taper and approached on his knees, ignoring the ache of the
cold stone to concentrate his mind on the divine. He addressed his petition not to God, but to the lady. How much more compelling her image than that of the tortured Christ; she just looked so
kind. He idly wondered what the world might be like if more men knelt here like this, instead of shouting their violent demands at the world. Would they as easily watch someone scream and burn for
her
?

He felt too numb to pray. Instead he just hung his head and whispered two words:
Help me.

‘What are you doing here?’

He looked up, startled. ‘Étienne?’

‘I thought you were dead!’

‘Only half-dead.’ He scrambled to his feet, shamed that someone he knew had found him on his knees. He felt like a pauper next to his cousin. The last time he had seen him was when
they had dined together at Vercy. Look at him, he thought, in his rich velvet cloak trimmed with marten fur, and his doublet of green silk and gloves of soft calf-leather. And here I am in the same
clothes I rode, fought and slept in these last two months.

‘You look half-starved. You are Philip, not his ghost?’

‘If I were Philip’s ghost, I should haunt somewhere warmer.’ They embraced, but Étienne seemed wary, unsure perhaps if Philip in his straitened circumstances might bring
him bad luck, or at least a bad reputation.

‘What are you doing here in Toulouse?’ Philip asked him.

‘I have been on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. I told you I was thinking of it.’

Philip smiled. A gentleman’s pilgrimage by the looks of it, retainers hovering to hold his cloak as he prayed and two men-at-arms to ensure his personage was not jostled by less celebrated
penitents.
A good horse and good whores
, Étienne had said.

‘Let me buy you a cup of wine and some supper. It seems you have need of it.’

Étienne shook his head. ‘Look at you! I have seen men in better straits chained to a stake waiting for the executioner. What has happened to you?’

The tavern smelled of wood smoke and spilled beer. A boy brought a jug of vinegary wine and a hock of lamb and half a loaf of rye bread to their table. ‘I have just this morning arrived
from the Montagne Noir. I got caught up in the fighting there.’

‘You rode here alone?’

‘I had escort, soldiers loyal to Viscount Trencavel. As soon as we reached the city they returned to the south, and the war.’

‘But how did this happen? Why are you warring down here alone? Your own men-at-arms returned to Vercy without you. They said you were dead.’

‘They left me for dead. A subtle difference but a significant one, don’t you think?’

‘Indeed.’ Étienne drained his goblet of wine and grimaced as if he had just swallowed ditch water. Étienne’s bully boys threw out two ruffians who had ventured
too close to their table. This was the way to do pilgrimage, Philip thought. No shuffling bare-legged through the ambulatory and sleeping in fields for Étienne. ‘But I must tell you,
cousin, that life is more of a problem for me than death. I fear I may be excommunicate.’

‘Yes, the whole of Burgundy is alive with rumour. They said you killed a crusader.’

‘I may have killed more than one.’

‘Well, no point in half measures.’ And then, in a whisper: ‘Please do not tell me you have been fighting on the side of the heretics?’

‘That was not my intention, though it might appear that way to some.’

Étienne wearily rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘One circumstance led to another. The blood runs hot, cousin.’

Philip could see the play of thoughts on his kinsman’s face; he was wondering what this might mean for Philip’s prospects, and then, of course, his own. A heretic in the family was a
hindrance to social or financial advancement.

‘Now I, too, have a confession to make. I lied about my presence here. It was no pilgrimage. I came here looking for you.’

‘For me?’

‘You are kin. And that sergeant of yours could not lie straight in his own grave. I came down here to make my own enquiries about his story, and I am glad that I did. Now tell me
all.’

Philip told him about the skirmish with the crusaders, and how they themselves were ambushed and how Soissons’s soldiers had mutilated Renaut. Étienne shook his head and cursed
under his breath. ‘Godfroi and his men shall be held to account for this, I promise you.’

‘What of Giselle?’

‘She complains she is a widow, but I have not seen too much grieving on her part. Her brothers have not been slow to dispute with the Crown for your lands and I believe she already has
several suitors. You must return there at once to save the situation.’

That, of course, was the real reason for Étienne’s presence in Toulouse; his family would dispute the ownership of the Vercy fief with the King’s lawyers should he not
return.

Étienne leaned in. ‘Is it true you came here looking for a wise woman to heal your son?’

‘Yes, it’s true.’

His cousin frowned. ‘Well, no one should slander you for trying to save your boy, by whatever means.’ But there was something else on his mind. ‘Did you ever think . . . there
were rumours, you know. About your boy.’

‘What rumours?’

‘That Giselle was jealous that you already had a son by another woman and that she poisoned him.’

It had never occurred to Philip before, but he dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. ‘People talk. I cannot believe she has it in her to do such a thing.’

‘Are you sure?’

No, now Etienne had raised the suspicion, he was not sure. But what did it matter now? What was done was done. ‘It’s too late now, anyway,’ he said.