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too.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘They search for something,’ he said.
    ‘They searched! They dug up the new graves even, but they found nothing. The English went to Avignon.’
    ‘You know that?’
    ‘That’s what they said. That they would follow Father Calade to Avignon.’ She crossed herself again. ‘What would a priest from Avignon want here? Why would the English come to Mouthoumet?’
    ‘Because of this,’ Fra Ferdinand said, showing her the old blade.
    ‘If that’s all they want,’ she said scornfully, ‘then give it to them!’
    The Count of Mouthoumet, fearing that the rampaging English would plunder the graves of Carcassonne, had begged the friar to rescue
la Malice
. Fra Ferdinand suspected that the old man really wanted to touch the blade himself, to see this miraculous thing that his ancestors had protected, a relic of such power that possession of it might take a man’s soul directly to heaven, and such was the old man’s desperate pleading that Fra Ferdinand had agreed. He had rescued
la Malice
, but his fellow friars were preaching that the sword was the key to paradise, and all across Christendom men were lusting after the blade. Why would they preach that? He suspected that he was to blame himself. After the count had told him the legend of
la Malice
, the friar had dutifully walked to Avignon and recounted the story to the master general of his order and the master general, a good man, had smiled, then said that
a thousand such tales were told each year and that none had
ever held the truth. ‘Do you remember ten years ago?’ the master general had asked, ‘when the pestilence came? And how all Christendom believed the Grail had been seen? And before that, what was it? Ah, the lance of Saint George! And that was a nonsense too, but I thank you, brother, for telling me.’ He had sent Fra Ferdinand away with a blessing, but maybe the master general had told others of the relic? And now, thanks to the Black Friars, the rumour had infested all Europe. ‘“He who must rule us will find it, and he shall be blessed,’’’ the friar said.
    ‘What does that mean?’ the old woman asked.
    ‘It means that some men go mad in search of God,’ Fra Ferdinand explained, ‘it means that every man who wants power seeks a sign from God.’
    The old woman frowned, not understanding, but she believed Fra Ferdinand was strange anyway. ‘The world is mad,’ she said, picking on that one word. ‘They say the English devils have burned half of France! Where is the king?’
    ‘When the English come,’ Fra Ferdinand said, ‘or anyone else, tell them I have gone to the south.’
    ‘You’re leaving?’
    ‘It’s not safe for me here. Perhaps I will return when the madness is over, but for now I am going to the high hills by Spain. I shall hide there.’
    ‘To Spain! They have devils there!’
    ‘I shall go to the hills,’ Fra Ferdinand reassured her, ‘close to the angels,’ and next morning he walked southwards and only when he was well out of sight of the village and sure that no one watched him did he turn north. He had a long journey to make and a treasure to protect.
    He would return
la Malice
to her rightful owner. He would go to Poitou.
     
    A small man, dark-faced and scowling, with a paint-spattered shock of black hair, was perched on a high trestle and using a brush to touch brown pigment onto an arched ceiling. He said something in a language Thomas did not understand.
    ‘You speak French?’ Thomas asked.
    ‘We all have to speak French here,’ the painter said, changing to that language, which he spoke with an execrable accent, ‘of course we damned well speak French. Have you come to give me advice?’
    ‘On what?’
    ‘On the fresco, of course, you damned fool. You don’t like the colour of the clouds? The Virgin’s thighs are too big? The angels’ heads are too small? That’s what they told me yesterday,’ he pointed his paintbrush across the ceiling to where flying angels played trumpets in the Virgin’s honour, ‘their heads are too small, they said, but where were they looking from? From up one of my ladders! From the floor they look perfect. Of course they’re perfect. I painted them. I painted the Virgin’s toes too,’ he dabbed the brush angrily at the ceiling, ‘and the goddamned Dominicans told me that was heresy. Heresy! To show the Virgin’s toes? Sweet holy Christ, I painted her with naked tits in Siena, but no one threatened to burn me there.’ He