He can’t see beyond the spear tip. I draw it back to strike. Jocelin’s pupils pull apart as if tied to a string.
Will killing him heal my wound?
The weight of the spear in my hand tells me yes. It tugs at my shoulder, coaxing me to strike. I want to believe it.
But my arm’s numb— it won’t move. I remember the hermit — Will you show love to the loveless, pity to the pitiless?
I killed Ada. I thought I could play Tristan to her Yseult, and write unhappiness out of our story. I forgot that for every Tristan, there’s also a King Mark. If I’d wanted to kill Jocelin, I could have found him any time I liked. The real reason I didn’t, why I drifted around tournaments and mercenaries nursing my fantasies of storming Hautfort, was that in my heart I knew it was my fault.
Jocelin stole her and tied her to the tree. It was Jocelin’s man who threw the spear. If I was lying in the mud now under his blade, I’d already be dead. How much of my life have I spent waiting for this moment?
Pity to the pitiless.
The spear’s like lead in my hand. My arm’s trembling. I can’t hold it still any longer.
It’s easier just to plunge it down.
XLV
Annelise Stirt lived in the Champagne country south-east of Reims: a land of rolling valleys with vineyards on every hill. Ellie and Doug passed through village after village of squat, sandstone houses: shuttered windows and locked doors in the moonlight. They sawnoone. Just as Ellie decided they’d missed it, Doug pulled up at a pair of wrought iron gates, framing a long gravel driveway.
‘Are you sure this is right?’ Ellie had imagined that all academics lived in houses like Doug’s: cramped, shabby places mainly meant to accommodate books. Dr Stirt’s house was a full-on chateau: a three-storey mansion with tall bay windows, a gaggle of subordinate outbuildings and a turret hanging off one corner.
‘This is where the map says. It looks as if she’s still awake.’
The drive had taken longer than they’d expected — it was after eleven now — but light still shone from the downstairs windows. Ellie scanned the shadows around the house, wondering what they harboured.
‘Let’s leave the car here,’ she said.
‘If anyone’s there, they’ll already have seen us.’
‘That’s not exactly reassuring.’
‘I’ll go up and have a look. If anything happens, drive like hell.’
I’ve already put you in far too much danger, Ellie wanted to say. But Doug had opened the door and slipped into the night. Ellie watched him stride up the drive, his lanky silhouette moving with purpose. If he felt any fear, he didn’t show it. Ellie was trembling all over.
You don’t deserve this, she whispered to him. You don’t deserve what I’ve done to you.
Doug reached the top of the drive and looked around. Ellie watched him go left, then right, peering around the corners of the house. Her heart went into overdrive as he vanished behind an outbuilding, some sort of garage or workshop, but a moment later he was back, waving the all-clear to her.
She drove up the driveway and joined him at the door. Doug lifted the knocker — but before he’d let it drop the door swung in. A tall woman stood in the doorway, prettier than her photo on the website. She wore her greying dark hair loosely tied back, framing a heart-shaped face with round cheeks and a dimpled mouth.
‘Dr Cullum?’
Doug shook her hand. ‘This is my colleague, Ellie Stanton.’
As they shook hands, Ellie realised how filthy she must look. She’d washed her face at the restaurant, and brushed off all the mud she could, but there were still big stains down her jeans where she’d fallen in the lake, and her hair stank of smoke.
‘We had a flat tyre. I tripped and fell in a ditch while I was changing it.’
‘You poor thing.’ Annelise Stirt put an arm around Ellie’s shoulders and steered her through into a flagstoned hallway lined with paintings of hounds. ‘Do you want to change? Have you eaten?’
Doug demurred. ‘We’ve already kept you up far too late.’
Annelise led them into an elegant drawing room. A log smouldered in the hearth; a pair of gleaming shotguns were mounted above it, and long brocade curtains draped the windows. All the furniture looked at least a hundred years old.
‘I’ll just put the kettle on.’
Annelise disappeared. Ellie perched on the edge of a golden-upholstered chaise longue and hoped the mud wouldn’t stain it. She felt like a lost soul finding an oasis in the desert, unwilling to believe its shimmering welcome could be anything more than a mirage. Everything around her seemed so soft and warm and comforting she thought she might cry.
Annelise came back carrying a tray. As well as the teapot and three mugs, she’d brought a plate piled with cured meats, sliced baguette and a steak pie cut into quarters.
‘I had a rummage in the fridge. You look as if you could use feeding up.’
Ellie gave decorum about five seconds, then descended on a piece of pie. ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.
‘My father was Scottish and my mother German, but both of them wanted to be French. This house was their way of achieving it.’ Annelise sat back in a deep armchair and curled her legs under her. ‘But you didn’t come here to admire my home.’
‘We wanted to talk about your research interests,’ said Doug.
‘You can say it — the Holy Grail. I know it’s a bit of a dirty word in academic circles.’ She settled back in her chair. ‘Actually, I’m rather glad to see you hesitate. So many of the people I come across are fanatical on the subject.’
Ellie spread thick butter on the bread and added a slice of ham.
‘In this field, there are two kinds of people: scholars, and crazies. I try to avoid the crazies, but you can’t be a scholar — a proper scholar — and not come up against them from time to time. They talk about the Knights Templar, tarot cards, the bloodline of Jesus, Freemasons, all that conspiratorial stuff. Sometimes you have to admire their ingenuity, but it’s still complete rubbish.’
‘We’re more interested in Chrétien de Troyes and his poetry.’
Annelise nodded, thoughtful. ‘I looked you up when you said you were coming, Dr Cullum. Your field is French poets and their classical models. You haven’t published anything on Chrétien.’
‘It’s a recent development.’
‘You said you had something to show me?’
Doug glanced at Ellie. Ellie pulled the leather tube out of the bag and unscrolled the parchment. She passed it to Annelise, together with Doug’s translation.
‘Where did you find this?’
‘A friend of the family found it in an attic,’ Doug said. ‘He knew I studied old manuscripts, so he gave it to me to look at.’
Annelise put on her glasses, which she wore on a red cord around her neck, and read over the manuscript. A glow came into her face.
‘You think this is Chrétien’s work?’
Doug nodded.
‘And you’re convinced it’s genuine?’
‘We wouldn’t have troubled you if we weren’t.’
‘The language seems right. The Champenois dialect, some of the vocabulary. It’s obviously Grail related. All those allusions: the bowl, the spear, the maiden. But that much you’ve surely seen yourselves. What did you think I could tell you?’
‘We think it’s some kind of riddle.’ Ellie rushed out the words, then blushed. ‘Now you must think we sound crazy.’
‘To misquote Henry Kissinger, just because you’re crazy, it doesn’t mean you’re not right.’
Annelise took off her glasses and rubbed them on her shawl. She squinted at the parchment.