Heretic - Grail Quest 03 by Bernard Cornwell

Author:Bernard Cornwell
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-01-29T20:37:49+00:00

Joscelyn was the Count of Berat.

He kept remembering that, and each remembrance gave him a surge of pure joy. Count of Berat! Lord of money.

Villesisle and his companion had returned from Astarac with news that the old man had died in his sleep. Before we even reached the monastery,” Villesisle told Joscelyn in front of Robbie and Sir Guillaume, though later, in private, he confessed that things had not gone quite so well and that blood had been shed.

You’re a fool,” Joscelyn snarled. What did I tell you?”

To stifle him.”

So you drench the damn room with his blood instead?”

We didn’t have a choice,” Villesisle claimed sullenly. One of his men-at-arms was there and tried to fight. But what does it matter? The old man’s dead, isn’t he?”

He was dead. Dead and rotting, and that was what really mattered. The fourteenth Count of Berat was on his way to heaven or to hell and so the county of Berat with its castles, fiefs, towns, serfs, farmlands and hoarded coin all belonged to Joscelyn. Joscelyn possessed a new authority when he met with Robbie and Sir Guillaume. Before, when he had been wondering whether or not his uncle would ransom him, he had done his best to be courteous for his future depended on the goodwill of his captors, but now, though he was not rude to them, he was aloof and that was fitting for they were mere adventurers and he was one of the richest nobles of southern France. My ransom,” he declared flatly, is twenty thousand florins.”

Forty. Sir Guillaume insisted immediately.

He’s my prisoner!” Robbie turned on Sir Guillaume.

So?” Sir Guillaume bridled. You’ll settle for twenty when he’s worth forty?”

I’ll settle for twenty,” Robbie said and it was, in truth, a fortune, a ransom worthy of a royal duke. In English money it would be close to three thousand pounds, sufficient to set a man up in luxury for life.

And three thousand florins more,” Joscelyn offered, for the captured horses and my men-at-arms.”

Agreed,” Robbie said before Sir Guillaume could object.

Sir Guillaume was disgusted at Robbie’s ready acceptance. The

Norman knew the twenty thousand florins was a fine ransom,

more than he had ever dared hope for as he had watched the few

horsemen approach the ford and the waiting ambush, but even

so he believed that Robbie had acquiesced far too quickly. It usually

took months to negotiate a ransom, months of haggling, of messengers carrying offer and counter-offer and rejection and threat, yet

Joscelyn and Robbie had settled the whole thing in moments. So now,” Sir Guillaume said, watching Joscelyn, you stay here until the money arrives.”

Then I shall stay here for ever,” Joscelyn said calmly. I have to enter into my inheritance,” he explained, before the money will be released.”

So I just let you go?” Sir Guillaume asked scornfully.

I’ll go with him,” Robbie said.

Sir Guillaume looked at the Scotsman, then back to Joscelyn, and he saw allies. It must have been Robbie, Sir Guillaume thought, who had taken down Joscelyn’s reversed shield, a gesture the Norman had noticed, but decided to ignore.

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