‘Boots and shoes! Boots and shoes! Get your boots here! Last chance to buy your boots before the mountains.’
The shoemaker bellowed out the merits of his wares jovially from the shelter of his shop, while the pilgrims splashed through the mud of the main street. Uncharitably, the suspicion crossed Luc’s mind that the particularly deep and unwholesome mud right outside the shoemaker’s might not be a coincidence.
‘If the boots are half as strong as that man’s lungs, they’ll last all the way to Compostela.’ He glanced round at the pilgrims in the group and saw a few faces smile, among them Friar Laurent, their leader.
A coarse voice cut in. ‘That’s if we get through the mountains in the first place.’ The stonemason from Beauvais was as pessimistic as ever. ‘They say the snow’s the thickest it’s ever been over the pass. The bandits are murdering, robbing and raping everybody who dares to cross. Yes.’ He stared back belligerently at the raised eyebrows of the people around him. ‘They say the bandits up there are devil-worshippers, sodomites and perverts. Nobody’s safe!’
Luc groaned inwardly. He had heard it all before; in fact they all had. The stonemason appeared to do nothing but complain and drink red wine, which only made him complain all the more. Luc had only joined Friar Laurent’s group a few days earlier in an attempt to gain some extra cover when travelling through the busy city of Bordeaux, but Laurent and the others had had to put up with the moaning ever since leaving Vézelay almost a month before. The man was one of the most morose individuals that Luc had ever encountered and he had been wondering to himself just exactly what or who might have pushed the mason to undertake the pilgrimage. He certainly wasn’t enjoying it. That was quite clear.
The others weren’t so bad, though. Luc glanced to his left. The Friar was a jovial man who had welcomed him into the group with open arms. The fact that this might have been in view of his size and strength didn’t matter. He was now a member of the group and, as such, far less conspicuous than a man alone. Laurent caught his eye.
‘Are you worried about bandits, Luc?’
Luc gave him a wry smile in return. ‘I’m more worried by the height of those peaks. And the snow. I’ll take my chances with the murderers and perverts. They must be pretty cold if they’ve been up there all winter.’ Nevertheless, if the stonemason was right, they might have to fight their way over the Pyrenees and the others, Laurent included, were likely to be of little help. Luc squared his shoulders. This was something he would have to deal with if it happened. There was no point worrying unduly right now.
They had formed a nucleus of about a dozen pilgrims. There was the mason, the baker, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and a handful of nuns from a convent near Cluny. Along with them was an assortment of peasants from the Champagne area, who had pretty obviously been sent on this pilgrimage as a punishment for some collective misconduct. All in all, it was a pretty average collection of people.
‘How far is it from here to Compostela?’ The baker was still staring at the boots.
‘A long way.’ Brother monks who had already made the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela had briefed Laurent as best they could. ‘We’re not in Spain yet. First we’ve got to cross the Pyrenees. Once we’re in Spain, Santiago’s still way over in the far northwest. It’s going to take at least a month, maybe two. It all depends on the weather in the mountains.’
‘But, once we get over the Pyrenees, it’ll be flatter and warmer, surely?’ The baker’s wife wasn’t looking forward to the climb ahead.
‘I’m afraid not; at least not flatter. From what I’ve heard, there are mountain passes over there that are as high as the one we’re going over in the next few days’ The Friar glanced across at Luc, but he refused to respond. His contacts in Paris had briefed him very carefully on every single stage of the route and Luc had done his best to memorise everything. But there was no reason for him to give away that fact, so he stayed silent and shook his head.
They were aiming for the Somport pass, rather than taking the lower and more common route through the mountains above St-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Friar Laurent had chosen this route on the advice of his abbot and it suited Luc perfectly. As he looked up at the huge bulk of the mountains ahead, he had only one place on his mind: the mountain hospice of Santa Cristina, which lay in the high mountains close by the pass. That was where he had been ordered to go. Snow or no snow, bandits or no bandits, he knew he had to get there, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
A few hours later, it suddenly got a whole lot more difficult.
It was a chance conversation with an old man coming down the road towards them that set off warning bells in Luc’s head. Apparently there was a roadblock ahead and soldiers were searching every cart and carriage and checking the identity of everybody who came by. At the thought of danger , Luc immediately felt that same old clarity of mind that had always come to him before combat. It was as if his brain was pushing away all extraneous thoughts so as to be able to concentrate solely on the matter in hand. In spite of the circumstances, he felt a sense of satisfaction that his long period of enforced idleness hadn’t dulled his fighting instincts. He slowed down and let the group of pilgrims overtake him until he could slip, unobserved, into the stables at the rear of what looked like an abbey or priory. He squeezed into the shelter of a big pile of firewood against the courtyard wall and took stock, his mind turning over the possibility that word of his mission might already have got out.
As he was still considering his options, he heard horses hooves approaching up the road from the town, accompanied by the unmistakable creaking of carriage springs. He shrank back into hiding and watched the entrance to the courtyard. As the first riders appeared, he froze. They were soldiers. For a moment he wondered if they had come for him, but was relieved to see that their swords were sheathed. They were obviously not expecting trouble. They clattered to a halt just in front of him and let their mounts stretch down and drink from a water trough. Behind them came a carriage driven by more soldiers and followed by another four on horseback; far too many guards for any ordinary cargo, that much was clear. He studied the men and the vehicles closely, trying to work out what they contained, and if they posed any threat to him.
The curtained door of the carriage opened and the occupant stepped down. Luc shrank back even further into the shadows. The man was without doubt a cleric, and from the expensive cloth of his cloak, and the deference with which he was treated by the soldiers, Luc deduced that he was of high rank. He watched the priest disappear through the archway towards the main part of the monastery while the soldiers dismounted and clustered together on the stone benches over on the other side of the courtyard, enjoying the last of the late afternoon sunshine. They made no move to unsaddle their horses, so it looked clear that their visit was to be a short one. The carriage door hung open invitingly and Luc suddenly realised that he was being presented with a valuable opportunity to get up into the mountains more quickly than he had anticipated and time, he knew, was of the essence. The sooner he got up there, the sooner he could carry out his mission. Casting a cautious glance across at the soldiers, he emerged from the pile of wood and slipped across to the carriage.
He glanced in and was immediately heartened to see that it was empty. With another swift glance over his shoulder, he climbed in, trying to tread as lightly as possible. These carriages, set on massive springs, had a tendency to sway wildly at the slightest touch. Inside there were two bench seats facing each other, and above them, running across the back of the coach, a luggage shelf. It was this that attracted Luc’s attention.
Although it was only the width of the carriage, the deep shelf went back quite a long way above the heads of the passengers and, importantly, looked solid enough to take his not inconsiderable weight. Hastily, in case the priest were to return, he pulled himself up and found to his satisfaction that he could lie fairly comfortably with his knees bent. And he was sufficiently far back to be invisible to any but the most inquisitive of fellow travellers.
He settled down to wait, his heart beating faster, but his nerves well under control. In spite of the very real danger of discovery, it felt good to be active once more. But in fact it was only a matter of minutes before he heard footsteps and felt the carriage shake as a passenger climbed aboard. A voice, which sounded perilously close to him, shouted a command and they lurched into motion. Luc braced himself by wedging his feet and shoulders against the sides and hoped the priest would not decide to investigate the luggage rack. He closed his eyes and was beginning to drift into a sort of waking dream when he was shaken back to full consciousness by a voice.
‘How long do you think it’ll take to get there?’
The voice was so close that, for a moment, he was sure that he had been discovered, and that this was some form of mockery. He tensed, readying himself for action, although he was under no illusions: his cramped conditions made him near helpless. Before he could make any move, however, he was stopped in his tracks by the sound of another voice.
‘If we keep up this pace we should arrive at Santa Cristina before dawn. Let’s hope we can get some sleep, Your Grace. It’s not the best road in France, and I’m sorry to say that this is certainly not the best carriage in the land.’
Luc’s spirits lifted as he heard the name of their destination. As long as he remained undiscovered, this was a perfect solution to his problem. However, Your Grace could only mean one thing. He was travelling with a very senior cleric, maybe even an archbishop.
‘Do you think he’s still in the country, or has he made it across the frontier?’
Luc shrank back as far into the shadows as he could.
‘He’s still here, Your Grace. I’ve had the whole valley under surveillance since his sighting at Oloron. There’s no way he could have got past. My guess is that he’s gone to ground, in the hope that we drop our guard. Don’t forget who we’re dealing with here. This isn’t just anyone, this is Luc de Charny. He’s a veteran, an experienced warrior, with years of active service behind him. He’s successfully avoided capture now for the best part of seven years, so he knows what he’s doing. Believe me, he’s still around.’
Luc listened in awe. The speaker seemed to know a lot about him. How was it that down here they could be so well informed? Closer to the court and around Paris it was logical that there would be people who knew the full picture. But who would know about him down here?
‘I’ve been following him since he left Paris, and he’s no fool. All the way he’s been one step ahead of us mainly because he chose to take a highly unusual route. If he hadn’t been spotted in Bordeaux we might indeed have lost him.’
If the priest had travelled from Paris, it was logical that he was closely linked either to the king or the inquisitors. Either way, Luc knew he was in very hot water indeed. Unwittingly, he had stumbled into just about the most dangerous company he could ever have imagined. He had no doubt he could kill these two men without difficulty, but the remaining guards would be a different matter. A sharp dagger was no match for half a dozen broadswords. He settled down and forced himself to stay awake, even when he heard the snoring of at least one of his travelling companions. He couldn’t risk even the slightest noise.
For seemingly endless hours they continued along the winding road up the valley. In spite of the springs, the carriage lurched drunkenly on the potholes. More than once, he found himself in imminent danger of being thrown out of the luggage rack onto the laps of the men below. In the background, like a constant reminder of the precarious situation in which he now found himself, he could hear the hooves of the armed escort. From time to time, he heard them shouting to each other as they picked their way through the darkness.
Then the carriage began to lean heavily backwards. The driver’s whip cracked more regularly and the leather of the horses’ harness creaked as the pressure increased along with the gradient. The serious climb to the top had begun.