1356 (Special Edition). Bernard Cornwell

spoke to Robbie. The Frenchman held out his hand to help steady Robbie. ‘You have a holy destiny,’ he said.

      ‘Tournament!’ a second voice snarled.

      Robbie, still dazed, saw his uncle, the Lord of Douglas, standing in the smoke of the burning tower. ‘Tournament?’ Robbie asked.

      ‘The king is going back to Paris and he wants a tournament! A tournament! The English are pissing all over his land and he wants to play games!’

      ‘I don’t understand,’ Robbie muttered.

      ‘Wasn’t there someone who played the lute while his city burned?’

      ‘Nero,’ Robbie said, ‘I think.’

      ‘We’re to play at tournaments while the English piss all over France. No, not piss, while they drop great stinking turds all over King Jean’s precious land, and does he give a rat’s fart for that? He wants a tournament! So get your horse, pack up, be ready to leave. Tournament! I should have stayed in Scotland!’

      Robbie looked around for Roland. He was not sure why, except that he admired the young Frenchman and if anyone could explain God’s reason for inflicting this defeat then surely it was Roland, but Roland was deep in conversation with a man who wore a livery unfamiliar to Robbie. The man’s jupon displayed a rearing green horse on a white field, and Robbie had seen no other men in King Jean’s army wearing that badge. The man spoke softly and earnestly to Roland, who appeared to ask a few questions before shaking the stranger’s hand, and when Roland turned towards Robbie his face was suffused with happiness. The rest of the king’s army might be dejected because the hopes of France were now a burning mass of timber in a wet field, but Roland de Verrec fairly glowed with joy. ‘I have been given a quest,’ he told Robbie, ‘a quest!’

      ‘There’s going to be a tournament in Paris,’ Robbie said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be needed there.’

      ‘No,’ Roland said. ‘A maiden is in trouble! She has been snatched from her lawful husband, carried off by a villain, and I am charged with her rescue.’

      Robbie just gaped at the virgin knight. Roland had said those words with utmost seriousness, as if he believed he truly was a knight in one of the romances that the troubadours sang.

      ‘You will be paid generously, sire,’ the knight in the green and white jupon said.

      ‘The honour of the quest is payment enough,’ Roland de Verrec said, but added hastily, ‘Though if your master the count should offer some small token of thanks then I will, of course, be grateful.’ He bowed to Robbie. ‘We shall meet again,’ he said, ‘and do not forget what I said. You have been saved for a great purpose. You are blessed. And so am I! A quest!’

      The Lord of Douglas watched Roland de Verrec walk away. ‘Is he really a virgin?’ he asked in disbelief.

      ‘He swears so,’ Robbie said.

      ‘No wonder his right arm is so bloody strong,’ the Lord of Douglas said, ‘but he must be mad as a sack of bloody stoats.’ He spat.

      Roland de Verrec had a quest, and Robbie was jealous.

      PART TWO

       Montpellier