The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic Read Online Free PDF Page A

Father Ralph said, 'evil.' He moaned and shook his head.
    'Who is he?' Thomas insisted.
    'Calix mens, inebrians.' Father Ralph said in a voice scarce above a whisper. Thomas knew it was a line from a psalm and meant 'my cup makes me drunk' and he reckoned his father's mind was slipping as his soul hovered close to his body's end.
    'Tell me who your father was!' Thomas demanded. Tell me who I am, he wanted to say. Tell me who you are, Father. But Father Ralph's eyes were closed though he still gripped Thomas's hand hard. 'Father?' Thomas asked. The smoke dipped in the church and sifted out through the window Thomas had broken to make his escape. 'Father?'
    But his father never spoke again. He died, and Thomas, who had fought against him all his life, wept like a child. At times he had been ashamed of his father, but in that smoky Easter morning he learned that he loved him. Most priests disowned their children, but Father Ralph had never hidden Thomas. He had let the world think what it wanted and he had freely confessed to being a man as well as a priest and if he sinned in loving his housekeeper then it was a sweet sin that he never denied even if he did say acts of contrition for it and feared that in the life hereafter he would be punished for it.
    Thomas pulled his father away from the altar. He did not want the body to be burned when the roof collapsed. The silver chalice that Thomas had accidentally crushed was under the dead man's blood-soaked robe and Thomas pocketed it before dragging the corpse out into the graveyard. He lay his father beside the body of the man in the red and green coat and Thomas crouched there, weeping, knowing that he had failed in his first Easter vigil. The devil had stolen the Sacraments and St George's lance was gone and Hookton was dead.
    At midday Sir Giles Marriott came to the village with a score of men armed with bows and billhooks. Sir Giles himself wore mail and carried a sword, but there was no enemy left to fight and Thomas was the only person left in the village.
    'Three yellow hawks on a blue field,' Thomas told Sir Giles.
    'Thomas?' Sir Giles asked, puzzled. He was the lord of the manor and an old man now, though in his time he had carried a lance against both the Scots and the French. He had been a good friend to Thomas's father, but he did not understand Thomas, whom he reckoned had grown wild as a wolf.
    'Three yellow hawks on a blue field,' Thomas said vengefully, 'are the arms of the man who did this.' Were they the arms of his cousin? He did not know. There were so many questions left by his father.
    'I don't know whose badge that is,' Sir Giles said, 'but I shall pray by God's bowels he screams in hell for this work.'
    There was nothing to be done until the fires had burned themselves out, and only then could the bodies be dragged from the ashes. The burned dead had been blackened and grotesquely shrunk by the heat so that even the tallest men looked like children. The dead villagers were taken to the graveyard for a proper burial, but the bodies of the four crossbowmen were dragged down to the beach and there stripped naked.
    'Did you do this?' Sir Giles asked Thomas.
    'Yes, sir.'
    'Then I thank you.'
    'My first dead Frenchmen,' Thomas said angrily.
    'No,' Sir Giles said, and he lifted one of the men's tunics to show Thomas the badge of a green chalice embroidered on its sleeve. 'They're from Genoa,' Sir Giles said. 'The French hire them as crossbowmen. I've killed a few in my time, but there are always more where they come from. You know what the badge is?'
    'A cup?'
    Sir Giles shook his head. 'The Holy Grail. They reckon they have it in their cathedral. I'm told it's a great green thing, carved from an emerald and brought back from the crusades. I should like to see it one day.'
    'Then I shall bring it to you,' Thomas said bitterly, 'just as I shall bring back our lance.'
    Sir Giles stared to sea. The raiders' boats were long gone and there was nothing out there but the