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bringing us their gold. For God’s sake, Thomas, does the bloody thing exist? Did your father have it?”
    “I don’t know, my lord,” Thomas said.
    “Much bloody use you are,” the Earl grumbled.
    John Buckingham looked at his notes. “You have a cousin, Guy Vexille?”
    “Yes,” Thomas said.
    “And he seeks the Grail?”
    “By seeking me,” Thomas said. “And I don’t know where it is.”
    “But he was searching for the Grail before he knew you existed,” the young priest pointed out, “which suggests to me that he possesses some knowledge denied to us. I would advise, my Lord, that we seek this Guy Vexille.”
    “We’d be two dogs chasing each other’s tails,” Thomas put in sourly.
    The Earl waved Thomas to silence. The priest looked back at his notes. “And, opaque though these writings are,” he said disapprovingly, “there is one thread of light. They seem to confirm that the Grail was at Astarac. That it was hidden there.”
    “And taken away again!” Thomas protested.
    “If you lose something valuable,” Buckingham said patiently, “where do you begin your search? At the place where it was last seen. Where is Astarac?”
    “Gascony,” Thomas said, “in the fief of Berat.”
    “Ah!” the Earl said, but then was silent.
    “And have you been to Astarac?” Buckingham asked. He might have been young, but he had an authority that came from more than his job with the King’s Exchequer.
    “No.”
    “Then I suggest you go,” the priest said, “and see what you can learn. And if you make enough noise in your searching then your cousin may well come looking for you, and you can find him and discover what he knows.” He smiled, as if to suggest that he had solved the problem.
    There was silence except that one of the Earl’s hunting dogs scratched itself in a corner of the room and on the quays a sailor let loose a stream of profanities that might have brought a blush to the devil’s face. “I can’t capture Guy by myself,” Thomas protested, “and Berat offers no allegiance to our King.”
    “Officially,” Buckingham said, “Berat offers allegiance to the Count of Toulouse, which today means the King of France. The Count of Berat is definitely an enemy.”
    “No truce is signed yet,” the Earl offered hesitantly.
    “And won’t be for days, I suspect,” Buckingham agreed.
    The Earl looked at Thomas. “And you want archers?”
    “I’d like Will Skeat’s men, sire.”
    “And no doubt they’d serve you,” the Earl said, “but you can’t lead men-at-arms, Thomas.” He meant that Thomas, not nobly born and still young, might have the authority to command archers, but men-at-arms, who considered themselves of higher rank, would resent his leadership. Will Skeat, worse born than Thomas, had managed it, but Will had been much older and far more experienced.
    “I can lead men-at-arms,” one of the two men by the wall announced.
    Thomas introduced the two. The one who had spoken was an older man, scarred, one eye missing, hard as mail. His name was Sir Guillaume d’Evecque, Lord of Evecque, and he had once held a fief in Normandy until his own King turned against him and now he was a landless warrior and Thomas’s friend. The other, younger man was also a friend. He was a Scot, Robbie Douglas, taken prisoner at Durham the year before. “Christ’s bones,” the Earl said when he knew Robbie’s circumstances, “but you must have raised your ransom by now?”
    “I raised it, my lord,” Robbie admitted, “and lost it.”
    “Lost it!”
    Robbie stared at the floor, so Thomas explained in one curt word. “Dice.”
    The Earl looked disgusted, then turned again to Sir Guillaume. “I have heard of you,” he said, and it was a compliment, “and know you can lead men-at-arms, but whom do you serve?”
    “No man, my lord.”
    “Then you cannot lead my men-at-arms,” the Earl said pointedly, and waited.
    Sir Guillaume hesitated. He was a proud man, thirty-five years