The Prince and the Pilgrim (19 page)

“Yes, Father?”

“Except for insisting that the man should be confessed and shriven before he died,” said the duke.

“It was Chlodovald who insisted?”

“Yes.”

“Ah.” It was more a sigh than a sound. Then she looked up. “Well, let’s hope it’s over, and the man was telling the truth. If he was really acting for himself, and wasn’t sent by Lothar or the other uncles –”

“We can take it as true. He made that part of his confession openly.”

She sighed again, this time with relief. “So they don’t know where Chlodovald is. Thank God for that! It’s really over, he’s safe, and we’ll soon be home … I wonder how he’ll settle there, poor boy, after what’s happened? Has Jeshua told you about it?”

“As much as he knows. He was with the queen’s household when the boys were sent for by Childebert and Lothar, to be made ready, they said, for the coronation. The next they knew was when one of Lothar’s creatures, a man called Arcadius, came to tell the queen that the boys had been seized, separated from their tutors and their own servants, and locked up separately until they would renounce their claim to their father’s lands.”

“How did Chlodovald escape?”

“He’d already been smuggled away into hiding. His tutor suspected what might happen, and he and another servant hustled the child away. They didn’t dare take him back to Queen Clotilda, but the servant went to tell her, and she sent Jeshua to bring him south to the
Merwing
, and see him safely into my care. They came a roundabout way, but they met with no trouble, and the tutor has ridden back to tell her the child is safe.”

“So she’ll soon know that he’s with you, and on his way to Britain?”

“Yes. And she begged me to see him established there in some house of religion. It appears – this was from Jeshua – that she has always had hopes that the youngest of the boys would turn to the holy life, and now this does seem to be his only choice.”

“If he agrees.”

“Indeed. He may well be filled with thoughts of bloody revenge. That would be normal, for a Merwing. Until we’ve had a chance to talk with him, we can’t tell. But it does look as if a monastery would be the best place for him in the meantime.”

“St Martin’s?”

“Why not? It’s not far from Castle Rose, and I shall soon be there myself. We can lodge there on the way home, and I’ll talk to Abbot Theodore. Ah, look, there, away on the horizon, that could be Nantes. And there is Jeshua, going below to wake the prince and bid him to eat with us. We shall have to be careful with him, Alice. God alone knows what grief and fear that child has suffered.”

“He’s very young,” said Alice, practically, “and probably very hungry. So no doubt God will see us through.”

No one was in the main cabin but the servants. They finished laying the meal, then, at the duke’s bidding, withdrew. As the door closed behind
them
the inner door opened, and Chlodovald came in, with Father Anselm behind him.

It was like seeing Theudovald again, a fair boy, slightly built but whippy and quick-moving, with the same proud carriage. There were the wide-set blue eyes and jutting nose that would, in adulthood, be aquiline, but the mouth showed a sweeter line than the elder boy’s, and this child – understandably enough – displayed nothing of his brother’s mischievous self-assurance.

He had washed and tidied himself as best he could, but still wore the travel-stained shirt and tunic which were presumably the only clothes that had been salvaged for him in his flight. Though the day was warm, he kept the dark cloak still hugged about him, with the hood pulled close.

The priest stooped to whisper something, then with a bow to the duke, left the cabin. The boy still hesitated in the doorway.

Alice, smiling, lifted the cover from one of the dishes. “Be welcome, Prince, to your own table. I’m glad you slept so late. I hope you’re recovered now, and hungry? Won’t you come and eat with us?”

The duke, moving to one side, indicated the high-backed chair at the table’s end, but at that the boy shook his head. He came quickly forward and, with an abrupt gesture, pushed the hood of his cloak back.

The gesture was both dramatic and startling. His hair had been cut short. The long tresses, symbol of Merwing royalty, had gone; the hair hung straight, thick and short, roughly cut just to cover
the
ears. The presumptive King of Orleans had, by his own act, abdicated.

He said nothing, but stood straight as a spear, his head high, with an air of defiance, of aggression almost, that must be the nearest a Merwing prince could ever get to betraying insecurity. As Alice and her father sought for the right thing – anything – to say, the boy’s hand went up in the gesture Alice remembered his brother using, the sweep of the hand to push back the heavy mane of hair. It met the rough crop and slid down over the bare neck at the back.

“It feels so strange,” he said uncertainly. “Cold.”

“Dear boy,” said the duke gently, “I think you have done well this day. Later you shall talk with us, but now be welcome, rest and eat.”

Alice merely smiled again, and began to serve the food. When the duke once more would have ushered the boy into the master chair, the latter shook his head, and pulled out a stool. “I am a prince no longer, my lord. That place is for you.”

He was certainly very hungry, and over an excellent meal the constraints slackened. Neither the duke nor Alice would have mentioned the tragic doings in Paris, but Chlodovald, perhaps in reaction to the recent time of fear, seemed eager to talk.

“Jeshua told me what happened. My uncles knew that the people loved my grandmother, and they needed her support, or the pretence of it, if
they
were to seize our lands. Of course they knew she would never give it willingly, so they sent that rat, that – that
thing
of my uncle’s – Arcadius of Clermont, to trick her or force her into it. But perhaps you know this already?”

“No matter. Go on.”

He set down the capon leg he had been gnawing, and wiped his fingers. “He came early in the morning. My grandmother had been at vigil all the day before, and through the night, praying for my father’s soul, and she had not yet broken her fast. That was the time he chose to force his way into her presence to tell her that my brothers were prisoners, and in danger of death unless they renounced their claim to my father’s lands. He showed her a dagger and a pair of shears, and told her it was the only choice. He shouted at her. At my grandmother! And no one dared lay a hand to him. His men were at the gate, and besides, she didn’t know where my brothers were being held.”

He reached for his goblet and drank, then pushed his platter aside. Neither Alice nor the duke spoke, but waited for the boy to finish his story.

Though the duke had heard it already from Jeshua, the tale came more movingly, told in that childish voice, with details perhaps gleaned from some other servant who had been present. They heard how the old queen, exhausted by her vigil, terrified for the boys, and furiously angry at her sons’ treachery, had reacted violently and with instinctive arrogance. “I would sooner see them dead than with their hair cut short! They are of Clovis’s blood! They are kings!” Beside herself,
she
had almost screamed her answer, but when, minutes later, after a brief but passionate burst of weeping, she would have called the words back, Arcadius was already beyond her gates, heading at full speed for his master’s court.

Chlodovald told it almost without emotion, like someone still numb from the shock of disaster.

“But we did hear, when we lay one night on the road – I forget the name of the place, but the monks were kind – that my brothers had been carried to St Peter’s church in Paris, and my grandmother saw them buried there with all the honours that were due to them, and the people wept and hung the streets with mourning.”

“But how was this possible?” Alice was startled into speaking. “Surely your uncles –”

“After it was done they ran away.” Chlodovald sounded indifferent. “They were afraid. They will quarrel now, and kill one another. It is with God.”

“Perhaps, since the people love your grandmother, and mourn for your brothers, they’ll want you to go back?”

“No. My grandmother will go into the convent now. She planned it long ago. And I –” a lift of the shorn head – “I need never be king.”

“‘Need’?” That was the duke.

Chlodovald met his eyes with a sort of defiance. “I cut my hair myself. I would have you know that. And I did not cut it from fear.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, Prince Chlodovald. I’ve assumed that you’re set on entering God’s service. As I am myself. My daughter and I were speaking of this earlier. There’s plenty of time, before we reach Britain, to make plans for
the
future. We’ll see you safe there, and later, when you are grown to manhood, you will know what decisions to make.”

“I shall come back home,” said Chlodovald. He spoke with a total lack of emphasis that somehow made the words more final than a vow.

“Home? To the Frankish kingdoms?” exclaimed Alice. “To Orleans?”

“To Orleans, I think not. But to my own land, yes. Not as a king, no, but I shall return. I have something that I must bring back to my own country.”

“What is that?”

“If you will excuse me?” He slipped from his stool and went quickly into the inner cabin. In a moment he came back carrying a box.

He threw a quick glance at the door. “They will not come in?”

“Not until I bid them,” said the duke.

“Then I will show you. My grandmother entrusted it to me, and she bade me keep it safely and one day bring it home.”

He set the box on the table, pushing the used dishes out of the way, and opened the lid. The box appeared to be full of floss silk, blond and shining.

“Your hair?” said Alice, wonderingly. The long-haired kings held this symbol so very sacred? As sacred and precious as a real crown?

But Chlodovald pulled the soft stuff aside to show what was packed in it. A goblet, more golden than the gold hair, with gems glittering crimson and green and primrose yellow in the handles. A beautiful thing, certainly very
precious
, but seemingly more than that. As he unveiled the thing from the enwrapping silk, the boy crossed himself, then turned, eyes shining, to Alice and the duke.

“It’s the Grail!” he said, reverently. “The True Cup! The Grail itself!”

“At least,” said Ansirus to his daughter, as they stood on deck while the
Merwing
picked her way into the crowded harbour of Nantes, “he has told no one else about it. Not even Jeshua. So we stand a reasonable chance of getting it – and him – safely landed at Glannaventa and across Rheged to St Martin’s.”

“But Father, it can’t be the Grail! You know it can’t!”

“I know. I suppose I have seen as many ‘true cups’ as any man, being traded to and fro in Jerusalem. But it’s still a treasure. A treasure that will have a most practical use.”

“What use?”

“The boy has been forced to leave his kingdom – renounce it – with nothing but the clothes he stands in. Now, even without my sponsorship, the monks of St Martin’s would accept him from pure charity, but if he brings with him something of such a price – for it’s both rare and ancient, you may be sure of that – why then, he brings his payment with him.”