Heretic. Bernard Cornwell

her bonds and, when the crowd protested, he raised his voice. ‘Tell your bishop that I have freed the heretic.’ He put the knife back in its sheath and put his right arm around Genevieve’s thin shoulders and faced the crowd again. ‘Tell your bishop that she is under the protection of the Earl of Northampton. And if your bishop wishes to know who has done this thing, then give him the same name that you provide to the Count of Berat. Thomas of Hookton.’

      ‘Hook ton,’ Lorret repeated, stumbling over the unfamiliar name.

      ‘Hookton,’ Thomas corrected him, ‘and tell him that by the grace of God Thomas of Hookton is ruler of Castillon d’Arbizon.’

      ‘You? Ruler here?’ Lorret asked indignantly.

      ‘And as you have seen,’ Thomas said, ‘I have assumed the powers of life and death. And that, Lorret, includes your life.’ He turned away and led Genevieve back into the courtyard. The gates banged shut.

      And Castillon d’Arbizon, for lack of any other excitement, went back to work.

      For two days Genevieve did not speak or eat. She stayed close to Thomas, watching him, and when he spoke to her she just shook her head. Sometimes she cried silently. She made no noise when she wept, not even a sob, she just looked despairing as the tears ran down her face.

      Robbie tried to talk with her, but she shrank from him. Indeed she shuddered if he came too close and Robbie became offended. ‘A bloody goddamned heretic bitch,’ he cursed her in his Scottish accent and Genevieve, though she did not speak English, knew what he was saying and she just stared at Thomas with her big eyes.

      ‘She’s frightened,’ Thomas said.

      ‘Of me?’ Robbie asked indignantly, and the indignation seemed justified for Robbie Douglas was a frank-faced, snub-nosed young man with a friendly disposition.

      ‘She was tortured,’ Thomas explained. ‘Can’t you imagine what that does to a person?’ He involuntarily looked at the knuckles of his hands, still malformed from the screw-press that had cracked the bones. He had thought once he would never draw a bow again, but Robbie, his friend, had persevered with him. ‘She’ll recover,’ he added to Robbie.

      ‘I’m just trying to be friendly,’ Robbie protested. Thomas gazed at his friend and Robbie had the grace to blush. ‘But the bishop will send another warrant,’ Robbie went on. Thomas had burned the first, which had been discovered in the castellan’s iron-bound chest along with the rest of the castle’s papers. Most of those parchments were tax rolls, pay records, lists of stores, lists of men, the small change of everyday life. There had been some coins too, the tax yield, the first plunder of Thomas’s command. ‘What will you do?’ Robbie persisted. ‘When the bishop sends another warrant?’