The foremost company of children were moving along a sunken lane, the sides of which were thick with yellow-flowering gorse, the floor of which was deeply rutted and heavy with a choking grey dust. Now the sun was swinging away towards the west, throwing the lane into shadow, and the thickly-massed children were silent with fatigue, when suddenly, from above them, came a burst of drunken laughter and mocking shouts, and down from a clump of thick-leaved bushes rode three horsemen, their shaggy horses stumbling and snorting and kicking up the turf with great hooves.
The oxen stopped dead, trembling with the shock of fear at the scent of warhorses, and Stephen stood up in the wagon to halt the children who followed closely in his tracks.
The three riders reined in their chargers, roaring drunkenly with a great show of white teeth and black beards. They were all burnt a dark brown by the sun and wore tattered tabards over rusty mail or soiled habergeons. Their harness was cracked and broken, their scabbards so worn that the hacked blades of their heavy swords were exposed, here and there. Each tabard bore a cross, embroidered in silk so faded that its original red had become an almost indistinguishable pale pink. One of them wore a blood-stained bandage about his head; another’s arm hung in a sling. All of them carried heavy canvas sacks before them on the saddle.
In the silence that followed their surprise appearance, Stephen raised his right hand gravely and said, ‘I give you greetings, crusaders! We who make our way towards the Holy Land salute you who have fought there on behalf of the True Cross. Greetings and blessings upon you!’
The foremost of the three riders laughed aloud at Stephen’s words and, kicking his horse forward, rode until he stood level with the boy prophet. As he approached, Geoffrey could smell that the man had been drinking heavily, and drew his sister towards the tail of the wagon, out of reach of the horse’s great hooves.
‘Who, in Hell’s name, are you, you snivelling puppet, to give blessings to such as us?’ asked the rider, a white froth of foam sprinkling his lips. ‘Who are you, boy? Answer me, you half-starved rat!’
Stephen of Cloyes looked back at the rider, his light eyes suddenly wide with the shock of this greeting. Then he lowered his hand and said calmly, ‘I am such as you may never be, horseman. For I am of God’s army, while you, it seems, are of the devil’s, despite the sacred livery you wear.’
Even as Stephen spoke these words, the man gave a deep roar of fury, and sweeping out his sword struck the lad with the flat of the blade beside the temple. Stephen gave a groan and staggered sideways, falling into the dust, under the belly of the nearside ox. The piper leapt down and dragged the boy clear, and even as he did so, Geoffrey, furious at this cowardly attack, snatched a heavy banner of the Oriflamme from a boy who stood nearby and sprang forward.
‘Dieu et Beauregard!’ he yelled, in the war cry of his family, and swinging the banner he struck the horseman with all his force across the sword arm.
The man yelled with pain, his sword falling to the ground. Then, with a drunken cry, he plunged spurs deep into his horse’s sides, intending to trample down the lad who had so defied him. But the horse, startled by the sudden prick of spurs, excited by the conflict which he sensed about him, reared without warning, his hooves high in the air.
With a cry of fright, the horseman lost his balance and fell backwards to the ground. The great horse plunged again, his hooves striking down on the tumbled rider.
Then, with a whinney of fear, the warhorse swung about and plunged up the far slope, breaking down bushes and scattering clods of turf as it went.
Geoffrey dropped the banner and knelt beside the fallen man. He lay quite still, his face growing white beneath his tan. His head lolled strangely sideways now.
One of the remaining riders spoke from where he sat, grimly. ‘It is too late now to weep,’ he said. ‘You have killed the man. Can you not see, his neck is broken! That much you have done for him, with your holy banner!’
Alys was kneeling beside her brother now, holding his shaking hand, ‘It was not your fault, brother,’ she said. ‘This man was the attacker. I would have done the same, if I had had the courage.’
Then, to Geoffrey’s astonishment, the two riders set their horses at the far slope, up which the other charger had gone, and though their faces were full of anger, they made no attempt to avenge their fallen comrade.
Geoffrey’s eyes swept round as he wondered why these men of war should depart so meekly. The answer was immediately plain to him—the length of the sunken lane, every boy stood on guard, waiting to attack the horsemen should they lift a finger against Geoffrey. Some carried cudgels, some knives, some swords.
Even the piper, smiling wickedly, leaned across the back of one of the oxen, a short bow in his hand, the arrow drawn back to the head.
Then suddenly a great cry arose, ‘Geoffrey de Beauregard is our war-leader! Stephen and Geoffrey! Stephen and Geoffrey!’
Stephen smiled wanly down at the lad and said, ‘I thank you, friend, for doing what you did. As for this man’s death, it was an Act of God. God took him in his drunkenness and in the blasphemy of his act against me! I, the chosen one of the Lord!’
But for Geoffrey there was no rejoicing. He went alone into a wood and prayed, on his knees, for forgiveness, while down below Stephen said a perfunctory prayer over the dead body before the others placed it in a grave they had dug by the roadside.
And that night, Geoffrey found it hard to sleep because of his blood-guilt, even though all the others seemed to regard him as a hero and spoke to him with respect. At last he wandered far down the river, trying to tire himself under the peaceful stars. But his mind was too over-wrought, even so, to let him sleep. So bemused was he, indeed, that when he returned, he could pay little heed to what his sister waited to tell him. Now her message seemed of small importance because of the awful thing that had happened.
‘Brother,’ she was saying in a low whisper, ‘I have made a discovery . . . when I went out to look for you, I stumbled upon the piper. He thought that he was alone, secret, but I saw what he was looking at. . . . He has the chalice from the church! I saw him slip it into a small sack. . . .’
Wearily, Geoffrey turned away from her and said, ‘Oh did he? Then he must have stolen it. That is his guilt, not ours, sister. We cannot set ourselves up as his judge, not after what I have done.’
He said no more about the matter, but lay down on his back, his hands beneath his head, staring up at the stars.
And Alys, waking before the dawn, saw that his eyes were still open, as though the weight of his guilt were too heavy to let him sleep.
She reached across and touched his arm. ‘Brother,’ she said, ‘you do wrong to torment yourself over that man’s death. How were you to know that his horse would rear, and that he would be so drunken as not to keep his seat in the saddle? Indeed, how were you to know that the fall would kill him? Many men fall from horses every day, but few of them die.’
Geoffrey sat up in the dawn light and looked down at her, his face serious and pale.
‘Sister,’ he said, ‘I am not so easily consoled; the fact remains that I struck the man and caused his death. No words can wash away that guilt.’
He stood up then and said, almost as though he was thinking the words he spoke rather than saying them, ‘When I set forth on this journey, I did so because life at Beauregard had grown irksome to me; I hated being penned in like a sheep. Also, I hated the thought that our father should bring another woman to the castle to take the place of our dear mother. And sometimes, as we have walked along the dusty road, tired and hungry, I have thought that I was a fool to leave a good home on such a wild goose chase as this. I have thought that if the going became too hard, we could always leave Stephen of Cloyes and return home, to ask father’s pardon, and to live once more in comfort.’ He paused a while, then said, ‘But now there is no going back, until God has taken the guilt from my shoulders. Rightly or wrongly, the good priest of Lyons will have the officers out, searching for me and the stolen chalice. And rightly or wrongly, the relatives of the man I caused to die will want justice. From now, I must go on, to the Holy Land, to make my pilgrimage, to fight for the Holy Sepulchre. Only when that has been done can I return to France, to face whatever charge men wish to bring against me.’
Alys rose and put her arm about him. ‘But, brother,’ she said, ‘all this guilt is in your own mind, not in the minds of others. Our father would see that justice was done to you, if we returned to Beauregard. Surely you know that?’
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘It is easy for you to say that, Alys,’ he said. ‘But I am the one who stands at the centre of this trouble, and my heart tells me that I must make an act of expiation.’
The girl gave a sigh of exasperation and would have said more, to try to persuade her brother, but just then Stephen awoke and rubbed his tired eyes.
‘Geoffrey of Beauregard,’ he called, in his thick peasant’s voice, ‘stand at my right hand from now on. You are my friend and protector, my guide and my disciple. Come, Geoffrey, and break your fast with me, for soon we must take the road again.’
And Geoffrey took the hand of Alys and led her towards the wagon. ‘Where I go, my sister goes, Stephen,’ he said. The boy prophet nodded his head gravely, and with a gesture of the hand indicated that they should both sit beside him in the straw.
‘Aye, that is understood, dear friend,’ he said. ‘She, too, must be at my right hand when we enter the Holy City.’