Heretic by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

ruined castle had come a persistent story that the defeated Vexilles had once held the fabled treasures of the Cathars in their keeping, and that one of those treasures was the Holy Grail itself. And the reason, of course, that Father Roubert had made no mention of the new stories was because he wanted to find the Grail before anyone else discovered it. Well, the Count would forgive him that. He looked across the wide room. “So the Cardinal Archbishop believes the Grail will be found among those things?” He gestured at his books and papers.
    “Louis Bessières,” the friar said, “is a greedy man, a violent man and an ambitious man. He will turn the earth upside down to find the Grail.”
    The Count understood then. Understood the pattern of his life. “There was a story, wasn’t there,” he mused aloud, “that the keeper of the Grail would be cursed until he gave the cup back to God?”
    “Stories,” Father Roubert sneered.
    “And if the Grail is here, father, even if it is hidden, then I am its keeper.”
    “If,” the Dominican sneered again.
    “And so God cursed me,” the Count said in wonderment, “because all unknowingly I hold his treasure and have not valued it.” He shook his head. “He has withheld a son from me because I have withheld his son’s cup from him.” He shot a surprisingly harsh look at the young friar. “Does it exist, father?”
    Father Roubert hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. “It is possible.”
    “Then we had best give the monk permission to search,” the Count said, “but we must also make sure that we find what he is looking for before he does. You will go through the muniments, Father Roubert, and only pass on to Brother Jerome those records that do not mention treasures or relics or grails. You understand?”
    “I will seek the permission of my regent to perform that duty,” Father Roubert responded stiffly.
    “You will seek nothing but the Grail!” The Count slapped the arm of his chair. “You will start now, Roubert, and you will not stop till you have read every parchment on those shelves. Or would you rather I evicted your mother, your brothers and sisters from their houses?”
    Father Roubert was a proud man and he bridled, but he was not a foolish man and so, after a pause, he bowed. “I will search the documents, my lord,” he said humbly.
    “Starting now,” the Count insisted.
    “Indeed, my lord,” Father Roubert said, and sighed because he would not see the girl burn.
    “And I will help you,” the Count said enthusiastically. Because no Cardinal Archbishop would take from Berat the holiest treasure on earth or in heaven. The Count would find it first.
     
    T HE D OMINICAN FRIAR ARRIVED at Castillon d’Arbizon in the autumn dusk, just as the watchman was shutting the western gate. A fire had been kindled in a big brazier that stood inside the gate’s arch to warm the town’s watchmen on what promised to be the first chill night of the waning year. Bats were flickering above the town’s half-repaired walls and about the tower of the high castle which crowned Castillon d’Arbizon’s steep hill.
    “God be with you, father,” one of the watchmen said as he paused to let the tall friar through the gate, but the watchman spoke in Occitan, his native tongue, and the friar did not speak that language and so he just smiled vaguely and sketched a sign of the cross before he hitched up his black skirts and toiled up the town’s main street towards the castle. Girls, their day’s work finished, were strolling the lanes and some of them giggled, for the friar was a fine-looking man despite a very slight limp. He had ragged black hair, a strong face and dark eyes. A whore called to him from a tavern doorway and prompted a cackle of laughter from men drinking at a table set in the street. A butcher sluiced his shopfront with a wooden pail of water so that dilute blood swilled down the gutter past the friar while above him, from a top-floor window