“Very well. You will look none the worse in a day or two. Here, drink.” The deacon thrust forward an unspilled tankard.
“Now, listen to what I have to say. Yes, the Greek fire failed. Yes, ‘War-Wolf’ is destroyed. No, the Grail has not been found. But think: these deserters, these secret eaters of pork who have come to you. They are apostates and the children of apostates, traitors many times over. Would they have come to you if they had thought the Caliph of the Christ-rejecters were going to win? No. They fled in fear of his defeat. So, put them in the front rank of your army, remind them of the fate that comes to those who are captured having renounced the false prophet. But smite the Caliph as Samson smote the Philistines, strong in the Lord.”
The Emperor rubbed a blood-stained chin. “It sounds as if we are well outnumbered…”
“Smite them in the mountain passes, then. Take revenge for the dead Roland. What is it the minstrels sing in his song, in the Rolandslied?”
Surprisingly, the stolid Jopp replied. “They say, the Franks, Chrestiens unt dreit et paiens unt tort. ‘Christians are right and pagans are wrong.’ I heard it sung back in Leuven market. That’s what made me join up.”
” ‘Christians are right and pagans are wrong.’ That is all you need to know. But I will tell you another tale, to strengthen your faith. When the blessed Gregory, the Pope, sent his emissaries to England to bring my countrymen the holy gospel, they would not listen, just as they have turned heretic today. And Paulinus the Archbishop of that time, his heart failed him and he made ready to flee, to return to Rome in faintness of heart. But in his sleep the Apostle Peter, the first Pope, from whom all Popes take their power, he came to Paulinus in a dream and scourged him savagely with knotted cords, and told him to return to his post. And when the Archbishop woke the marks of the cords were still to be seen on his body where the holy Peter had flogged him. So Paulinus turned again, and conquered. Do you now likewise, Emperor! And as penance for your weakness, though I am not your confessor, I appoint you this: stand in the forefront, fight for the Holy Church.”
The Emperor rose to his feet, stood looking down. “And what of your penance, little man? For you have struck the Lord’s anointed.”
The deacon stared up at him. “I will find you the Grail, or die.”
A hand gripped his shoulder. “Find me the Grail, and I swear it. If I overthrow the infidels I will make you, not Archbishop, not Cardinal, but Pope. We have had too many Italian weaklings, who never pass the walls of Rome. We need a Gregory. A true descendant of Peter.”
“The Papacy is not vacant,” whispered Erkenbert, struck almost dumb by the immensity of the prospect suddenly revealed to him.
“That can be arranged,” said Bruno. “As it has been before.”
In the camp of the Caliph, the Successor of the Prophet, no such drama. As was the custom, the leaders of the divisions of the army came to make their reports at the hour of sunset, one by one entering the great pavilion, pitched hours before—its extent and the time needed for pitching it and striking it were a main reason for the army’s slow progress across the northern peninsula. They came to stand before the divan of the Caliph, between it and them the notorious leather carpet, the executioners standing to either side of it, scimitars drawn, the strangling bowstrings twisted round their waists. At the side of the Caliph, as always now, his favorite counselor, the young savant Mu’atiyah. The generals let their eyes pass over him without sign. His advice was wild, his opinions foolish. One day the Caliph would tire of him. They looked also without expression at the curtains behind the Caliph’s divan: by law and tradition the Caliph’s women might not appear in formal audience, yet they had long been allowed to watch and listen unseen. Some said that they too had found favor with the Caliph, were leading him further down his present path of folly. No-one was going to report it.