He went to a search engine and typed two words.
Holy Grail.
The pointer hovered over the Search button.
‘If only it was that easy.’
He added ‘Annelise Stirt’ to the query and clicked Search. A couple more clicks brought up a page from the Literature Faculty at the Université de Reims Champagne-Ardennes. It listed an e-mail address and a phone number, beneath a photo of an owlish woman with round glasses and long grey hair.
Doug checked his watch. ‘Six o’clock. Let’s hope she works late.’
The café had headsets you could use to make phone calls over the Internet: Doug thought it would be pretty much untraceable. He bought some credit, hooked on the headset and was just about to dial when Ellie grabbed his arm.
‘Are you sure this is a good idea? You said she’s the world expert on Chrétien de Troyes. What if Monsalvat know about her?’
‘We’re running out of options.’ Doug turned out his wallet on the tabletop. ‘I’ve got seventy-seven euros and change. You?’
Ellie checked her purse. ‘About fifty.’
‘That’s a couple of tanks of petrol, or maybe a couple of nights in a hotel. And we need to eat. Unless we can find the Brotherhood soon, we’re going to end up out of money, out of time and out of luck. Then what do we do?’
Ellie thought, burrowing through her memories for any clue Harry might have given her. All she found were blank walls.
‘Mirabeau didn’t pan out,’ Doug said. ‘The box isn’t going to open any time soon. All we’ve got to go on is the poem.’
He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Look on the bright side. Monsalvat don’t know how desperate we are — they probably think we’re safe with the Brotherhood. This is the last thing they’ll be expecting.’
Reluctantly, Ellie nodded. Doug pressed the button and made the call.
‘Annelise Stirt.’
She sounded friendly enough. Perhaps it was the Scottish accent.
‘My name is Dr Douglas Cullum. I’m a fellow at St John’s College, Oxford.’
‘I don’t think I’m familiar with your work.’
‘I’m researching the poetry of Chrétien de Troyes. I’ve made a rather extraordinary discovery that I’d like to get your opinion on. I think you might like to see it too.’
A pause. ‘What is it?’
‘It would be easier to show you.’
‘Can you come by?’
‘We’re some distance from Reims at the moment.’ Doug checked his watch. ‘We couldn’t be there before about ten o’clock tonight.’
‘Even I don’t work that late.’ She sounded amused. ‘But I’ll still be up. If what you have to show me is that important, why don’t you come to my house?’
Doug took down the address, printed off a map and disconnected. His eyes met Ellie’s. Somehow, through the tiredness, they managed to share a smile.
‘This is mad,’ she said.
‘I’m beginning to lose my ability to tell.’
XLIV
I almost get a dagger down my throat for my pains. When I go back to the inn, Hugh has me pinned to the wall virtually before I’ve stepped through the door.
‘Where were you?’
He thought I’d left him. He thought I’d betrayed him to Malegant again. After what I did on the Île de Pêche, I can’t blame him.
I wait for him to take his arm away, then tell him what I heard. His body relaxes, though his face grows grimmer.
‘I didn’t understand it,’ I confess. ‘One moment, Alberic was preaching war; the next he was talking about the king’s victory.’
Hugh strides round the room, putting his few possessions into a bag.
‘Does it make sense to you?’
‘It does.’
‘Then what are they doing?’
I don’t expect an answer — at best, another riddle. Instead, Hugh turns and looks me straight in the eye.
‘They want to kill the King.’
And now we’re riding through the night, borrowed horses on borrowed time. Four knights, two pack horses loaded with our armour — and me. The wind sings in my ears.
Somewhere in the depths of the night I find myself riding beside Hugh. We’re pushing our horses as fast as we dare, but there’s a long way to go — at the moment, our pace isn’t much more than a trot.
‘Why are we doing this? I thought we were hunting for Malegant.’
‘We are.’ Two battling lions are traced in brass on the bow of his saddle. Their outlines make an eerie glow riding beside me. ‘What Malegant stole is a weapon of extraordinary power. Now he wants to use it.’
‘To kill the King?’
‘Malegant hates order. He wants a lawless, broken world where his evil can flourish unchecked.’
‘Will killing the king do that?’
I wait. When Hugh speaks again, his voice is fainter, distant like a prophet.
‘Power flows through the world like water. Sometimes it evaporates; sometimes it pools in deep reservoirs. It accumulates in people, but also in objects. Some of those objects and people bind the fabric of our world together; others try to rip it apart. When two come together, in violence … The wounds never heal.’
He falls silent. Afterwards, I can’t quite be sure if I dreamed it.
At dawn we find ourselves riding through a broad valley. It looks familiar, and then it hits me with a great pang of loss. I’ve been here before — years ago, a young squire fetching a bride for his lord. Then it was summer; now, a white hoar frost covers the hedgerows and the trees. In the darkness, I didn’t recognise it. Not so far from here must be the hall where I first met Ada, where she braided her hair with gold and carried a grail-dish like a servant.
The sun rises behind us, licking away the frost. Up on the ridge, it touches the flanks of a gleaming white horse carved into the hillside, as big as a church. I wonder who made it, who keeps it so white. I wonder if in the night I crossed the invisible boundary into a different world, a world of signs and marvels. I wonder if I’ll ever escape.
We reach a village, a wretched place near the river. Even the church is miserable: all that distinguishes it from the surrounding hovels is that its roof is intact. The other buildings languish half-open to the sky, as if someone started to rethatch them all at once and then abandoned it. But who thatches a house in January?
‘What happened to the roofs?’
‘They pulled the thatch off to feed their animals.’
I glance around. ‘I don’t see any livestock.’
‘Then maybe to feed themselves.’
It’s a town of living ghosts. As we ride in, villagers creep out of their homes to watch us pass. The clothes they wear aren’t nearly enough to keep out the January cold. Ahead, a knot of them spills into the road, blocking our path. I tighten my grip on the reins, but they don’t look hostile. They’re so thin, even my tired nag could skittle them out of the way.
‘Where are the women?’ Anselm murmurs.
He’s right. Their bodies are so thin it’s hard to tell, but when I look closer I realise all the villagers are men. Even the ones carrying children, some only babies: scrawny, whimpering bundles barely distinguishable from the rags they’re wrapped in.
We halt in front of them. The sullen crowd eyes us in silence. One, with a fur-trimmed cap perched incongruously on his head, steps forward. I assume he’s the reeve, the headman.
‘Where are your women?’ Hugh asks.
It’s like throwing corn to geese. A torrent of answers erupts around us, all deference forgotten. I can’t hear the words for the noise.
Eventually, the headman quiets them. ‘The Earl took them. When we couldn’t provide him crops or tithes, he took our women instead. He put them to work spinning and sewing — he sells the clothes they make for a fortune, while he pays them nothing. If they don’t produce as much as he wants, he strips them and beats them. They live locked in a cattle stall. Three of them have died there already.’