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With me. The rest of you stay in the village! And pay for your victuals!’ He had chosen Gascons to stay with him so that the monks would not suspect their allegiance to England.
    Robbie, Keane and the Sire Roland also stayed with Thomas, then Genevieve and Bertille insisted on accompanying him too, though Hugh was taken under the care of Sam and the other archers. ‘Why not take the archers?’ Genevieve asked.
    ‘All I’m doing,’ Thomas said, ‘is asking the abbot some questions. I don’t want to frighten the man. We go, we ask and we leave.’
    ‘That’s what you said at Montpellier,’ Genevieve said tartly.
    ‘These are monks,’ Thomas said, ‘just monks. We question them and we leave again.’
    ‘With
la Malice
?’ Genevieve asked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Thomas said. ‘I don’t even know if
la Malice
exists.’ He kicked his heels to reach the gate before the sun vanished behind the western skyline. He cantered across a pasture where a herd of goats was being guarded by a small boy and a big dog who both watched the riders pass in silence. A fine stone bridge spanned the river beyond the pasture and, on the bridge’s far side, the road forked. The left-hand road led into the village, and the right to the monastery. Thomas could see that the monastery was half surrounded by a channel of the river that had been diverted to make a kind of wide moat, maybe so the monks could keep fish. He could also see two robed figures walking towards the open gate, and he spurred again. The two monks saw him coming and waited. ‘You’re here for the pilgrims?’ one of them called in greeting.
    Thomas opened his mouth to ask the man what he meant, then had the sense to nod instead. ‘We are,’ he said.
    ‘They arrived an hour ago. They’ll be glad of protection, they think the English are close.’
    ‘We didn’t see any English,’ Thomas said.
    ‘They’ll still be glad to see you,’ the monk said. ‘It’s a dangerous time to be on pilgrimage.’
    ‘All times are dangerous,’ Thomas said, and led his followers beneath the high arch. The sound of their hooves echoed from the stone walls as the bell’s tolling stopped. ‘Where are they?’ Thomas called back.
    ‘In the abbey!’ the monk shouted.
    ‘Someone’s waiting for us?’ Genevieve asked.
    ‘They’re not waiting for us,’ Thomas said.
    ‘Who?’ she asked urgently.
    ‘Just pilgrims.’
    ‘Send for the archers.’
    Thomas glanced at his three Gascons, at Robbie and the Sire Roland. ‘I think we’re safe from a band of pilgrims,’ he said drily.
    The horses filled the small space between the walls and the abbey church. Thomas swung down from the saddle and instinctively checked that his sword was running free in its scabbard. He heard the monastery gates crash shut, then the thump as the locking bar was dropped into place. It was almost dark now and the monastery’s buildings were black against a faintly luminous sky in which the first stars shone. A becketed torch burned between two stone houses that might have been dormitories, while two more blazed bright at the abbey steps. A cobbled street ran in front of the abbey and at its far end, where another gate through the monastery’s high wall was still open, Thomas could see a mass of saddled horses and four sumpter ponies being held by servants. He dismounted, turning towards the abbey steps where the torches’ sparks flickered and died by the open door through which Thomas could hear monks chanting, the sound slow and beautiful, deep and rhythmic, ebbing and flowing like the tides of the sea. He climbed the steps slowly, and gradually the interior of the building revealed itself, a glory of bright candles and painted stone and carved pillars and shining altars. So many candles! And the long nave was filled with black-cowled monks, chanting and genuflecting, and it struck Thomas that the sound was threatening now, as if the swelling tide was breaking into deep waves of menace. He could distinguish the words as he stepped into the light of the candles and he recognised them as coming from a psalm. ‘
Quoniam propter te mortificamur tota die
,’ the male voices chanted, drawing out the long syllables, ‘
aestimati sumus sicut oves occisionis.
’
    ‘What is it?’ Genevieve whispered.
    ‘For your sake we look on death all day,’ Thomas translated softly, ‘and we are judged as sheep to be slaughtered.’
    ‘I don’t like it,’ she said nervously.
    ‘I just need to