1356

Earl of Warwick was experienced, he had fought at Crécy, yet he was also wise enough to listen to advice. At this moment, though, he seemed too angry to be prudent, and his anger grew when he saw the red heart on Sculley’s grubby jupon. ‘Is that the crest of Douglas?’ he asked in a dangerous voice.
    ‘It is the most sacred heart of Christ,’ the cardinal answered before Sculley had a chance to speak. Not that Sculley had understood the question, which had been asked in French. The Scotsman had got to his feet and was now glowering at Warwick so fiercely that the cardinal, thinking the bone-hung Sculley might start a fight, pushed him back into the small crowd of monks who stood by the altar. ‘These men,’ Bessières gestured at the crossbowmen and men-at-arms wearing the livery of Labrouillade, ‘are serving the church. We are on a mission for His Holiness the Pope, and you,’ he raised a threatening finger to point at the earl, ‘are hindering our duties.’
    ‘I’m hindering goddamned nothing!’
    ‘Then leave this precinct and allow our devotions to continue,’ the cardinal demanded grandly.
    ‘Devotions?’ the earl asked, looking at Thomas.
    ‘Murder, my lord.’
    ‘Righteous execution!’ the cardinal thundered. His finger quivered as he pointed at Thomas. ‘This man is an excommunicate. He is hated by God, loathed by man and an enemy to Mother Church!’
    The earl looked at Thomas. ‘Are you?’ he asked, sounding thoroughly disgruntled.
    ‘He says so, my lord.’
    ‘A heretic!’ The cardinal, seeing an advantage, pressed it hard. ‘He is condemned! As is that whore, his wife, and that whore, an adulteress!’ He pointed at Bertille.
    The earl looked at Bertille, a sight that seemed to lift his evil mood. ‘You were going to kill these women too?’
    ‘The judgement of God is just, it is sure, it is merciful,’ the cardinal said.
    ‘Not while I’m standing here, it isn’t,’ the earl said belligerently. ‘Are the women under your protection?’ he asked Thomas.
    ‘Yes, my lord.’
    ‘Stand up, man,’ the earl said. Thomas was still kneeling. ‘And you’re English?’
    ‘Indeed, my lord.’
    ‘He is a sinner,’ the cardinal said, ‘and condemned by the church. He is outside man’s law, subject only to God’s.’
    ‘He’s English,’ the earl said forcefully, ‘and so am I. And the church does not kill! It hands men over to the civil power, and right now I am that power! I am the Earl of Warwick and I won’t kill an Englishman for the church’s benefit unless the Archbishop of Canterbury tells me to.’
    ‘But he is excommunicated!’
    The earl mocked that claim with laughter. ‘Two years ago,’ he said, ‘your goddamned priests excommunicated two cows, a caterpillar, and a toad, all in Warwick! You use excommunication like a mother uses a birch rod to correct her children. You can’t have him, he’s mine, he’s English.’
    ‘And right now,’ Sir Reginald Cobham added softly, and speaking in English, ‘we need every English archer we can find.’
    ‘So why are you here?’ the earl asked the cardinal and, after a deliberately insulting pause, added, ‘Your Eminence.’
    The cardinal grimaced with anger at being denied the revenge he sought, but controlled it. ‘His Holiness the Pope,’ he said, ‘sent us to beseech both your prince and the King of France to make peace. We travel under the protection of God, recognised as mediators by your king, by your prince and by your church.’
    ‘Peace?’ The earl spat the word. ‘Tell the usurper Jean to yield the throne of France to its rightful owner, Edward of England, then you’ll have your peace.’
    ‘The Holy Father believes there has been too much killing,’ the cardinal said piously.
    ‘And you were about to add to it,’ the earl rejoindered. ‘You’ll not make peace by killing women in an abbey church, so go! You’ll find the prince that way.’ He pointed north. ‘Who’s the abbot here?’
    ‘I am, sire.’ A tall, bald-headed man with a long grey beard stepped out of the apse’s shadows.
    ‘I need grain, I need beans, I need bread, I need wine, I need dried fish, I need anything men or horses can eat or drink.’
    ‘We have very little,’ the abbot said nervously.
    ‘Then we’ll take what little you’ve got,’ the earl said, then looked at the cardinal. ‘You’re still here, Your Eminence, and I told you to go. So go. This monastery is now in English hands.’
    ‘You