I assume he’s being ironic. My hands are shackled together above my head and looped over a hook in the wall; I have to stretch my toes just to touch the floor. My legs ache, my arms burn, and half my face is covered in dried blood. It still feels as if my head’s split open.
My captor sees the disbelief on my face. ‘You don’t know what the others would have done.’
I squint through the one eye that isn’t crusted with blood. I’m in a round stone chamber. Arched windows ring it, but all I can see beyond is bright blankness. Grey light drills into my skull. It feels high up, a tower. I can’t see a door.
‘Who are you?’
My interrogator steps back. He’s an impressive man: tall, powerful and solid. He’s probably ten years older than me, but there’s a solemnity in his face that’s ageless. He reminds me of my father.
‘I belong to a holy order.’
I can’t think of anyone more different from the reedy, God-bothering monks I lived with.
‘A brotherhood. A group of men bound to protect a secret.’
I spit blood on the floor. ‘What have I got do with it?’
‘You’ve been part of it your whole life.’ He folds his arms and stands inches away from me. Even dangled from my hook, I have to look up. His grey eyes hold me like a fist. ‘Your father belonged to our order.’
He’s too close, his voice too loud. I wish he would curtain off the windows — the light’s killing me.
‘My father?’
‘The men who killed him were after our secret. The secret we kept on the Île de Pêche.’
I spin on my hook like a corpse on a gibbet. I know what he’s going to say next.
‘You helped Malegant take it. You betrayed yourself and everything your father stood for. You betrayed a secret we’ve kept for generations.’
My legs give way. I slump towards the floor, but the chains hold me back. They dig into my wrists — my arms almost pull out of their sockets.
Strong hands clamp around my side and lift me upright. His strength is incredible — he holds me as easily as a child.
‘The treasure Malegant stole is beyond all reckoning. We’ve killed men for less, Peter of Camros.’
At last I realise where I’ve heard his voice before. ‘That night in the fog. In the field of stones. That was you.’
‘We heard about Malegant’s plan and came to stop him. We were too late. All we found were corpses.’
The anguish in his voice cuts me worse than the chains. I can taste salt on my tongue: blood and sea air. No one escapes.
‘After the attack, Malegant disappeared. You’re the last man left alive to have seen him.’
‘What happened to the others?’
He ignores me. ‘Malegant’s been looking for you the length and breadth of Christendom.’
‘He knew my name,’ I murmur.
‘He knew everything about you. It amused him to involve you in his abomination. To rub the salt of your treachery in our wounds. Now that you’ve escaped, he’s terrified you’ll lead us back to him. That’s why you’re lucky we found you.’
He raises me up to unhook me, and lowers me gently on to the floor. I bury my head in my hands.
‘Why don’t you kill me?’ I’m almost pleading with him.
‘Because you’ve got what so many men never get — the chance to atone for your sins.’
My heart skips a beat as we pass through the Porte de Paris inside the city walls. The blood sings in my veins, like the morning of a battle: the world is full of brilliant colours and every sound, every movement, explodes on my senses. It makes me feel sick. I scan the crowds for faces from my nightmares, for the goldsmith with the silver hand, for Malegant.
I’m by myself, but not alone. Hugh, the knight who captured me, is ahead dressed as a Flemish cordwainer. Two more of his men are behind me, always watching. They could save their energy: there’s no danger I’ll try to escape. As long as Hugh’s leading me to Malegant, to the secrets he stole from the Île de Pêche and to some answers, I’ll follow him into the jaws of Hell.
I go to the goldsmith’s quarter and look for the shop under the sign of the eagle. The sign’s changed — it’s a golden cock now — but the clerks are still sitting at their tables out the front, sliding coins across the chequered cloths like chess pieces. A fat man in an ermine cape oversees them, prowling back and forth, checking their counting. Wine splashes out of the cup in his hand as he barks his commands. I tell him I’m looking for Malegant de Mortain.
‘Never heard of him,’ he says. He doesn’t notice I’m trembling when I say the name; he’s too busy watching his money.
‘How long have you had this shop?’
‘Six months.’
‘And the man who had it before you?’
‘The shop was empty when I took it. A merchant, a Norman, arranged it.’
I improvise. ‘My family had a cup stored in the vault here. Where can I find it?’
He shrugs. ‘The vaults were empty when I took over.’
I drift away, but keep watching. From the corner of my eye I can see Hugh standing in a doorway. He’s pretending to haggle with a man selling fish pies. I concentrate on the goldsmith’s shop. The owner might have changed but the commerce is the same: Italian merchants bring their native coins, and go away short-changed. Some of them leave with even less. They deposit their coins, and take nothing in exchange but a piece of paper.
I turn my attention to the clerks. Two of them are Italian, bantering with the merchants in their own language. The third doesn’t join in, but keeps his head down and frowns furiously at the accounts. There’s something familiar about him: when the shop closes for lunch, I follow him down the street and accost him in the square outside the church of Notre Dame.
‘I saw you at the goldsmith’s.’
Suspicious eyes watch me closely. Goldsmiths, even their clerks, don’t like strangers prying into their business. I try to smile.
‘Let me buy you a drink.’
I take him to a tavern. Hugh follows us in and takes a table by the door.
‘I visited that shop a few months ago, when it was under the sign of the eagle. You were working there then.’
He doesn’t deny it.
‘I want to know about the man who owned it. An old man with sky-blue eyes and a silver hand who sat in the crypt.’
A look of terror passes over his face. He’s suddenly very aware of the other men in the tavern.
‘His name was Lazar de Mortain.’ He stares at the table. ‘I only saw him twice. Most of the time he left his steward in charge.’
‘The one-eyed man?’
The clerk nods. ‘Alberic. He told us what to do.’
‘Do you know where he came from?’
‘Normandy, I think.’
‘But you don’t know where he went?’
He shakes his head. I change tack. ‘The merchants who give you money and just get paper in return — what are they doing?’
The question surprises him, but he’s glad to be on less treacherous ground. ‘The papers are bills of exchange. They confirm that the merchant has deposited a certain sum with us. The merchant can go home, take it to our corresponding bank in Pavia or Piacenza, and they will give him the money.’
‘If they take in paper and give out gold, won’t they soon end up bankrupt?’
‘We’re doing the same in the opposite direction. A French merchant coming home from Italy will give the corresponding bank his money, and bring us the paper. Twice a year, we add up how much we’ve paid out and how much we’ve received. The Italian bank does the same, and then whoever owes the other sends the money. Usually, the difference isn’t much. It saves dozens of merchants all taking gold over the Alps and falling prey to robbers.’
‘Did Lazar issue bills of exchange?’