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you interfere he’ll slit your belly open.’
    ‘I was not …’ Brother Michael began, then fell silent rather than tell a lie, for he had been moved to intervene, or at least protest, but now he just watched as the man-at-arms slashed at the precious fabric, ripping the golden threads away from the scarlet, tearing the bodice down to the countess’s waist and finally pulling the embroidered merlin free and throwing it at the feet of his master. The countess, released from the second man’s grip, crouched and clutched the remnants of the dress to her breasts.
    ‘Villon!’ the count commanded. ‘Look at me!’
    The man held by
le Bâtard
’s two soldiers reluctantly looked up at his enemy. He was a young man, handsome as a hawk, and, till an hour before, he had been ruler of this place, lord of its lands and owner of its peasants, but now he was nothing. He was in mail, with a breastplate and leg plates, and a smear of blood in his dark hair showed that he had fought the besiegers, but now he was in their grasp and he was forced to watch as the fat count fumbled to drag up the skirt of his chain mail. No one in the hall moved or spoke, they just watched as the count wrenched leather and steel aside and then, with a smile on his face, pissed on the merlin torn from his wife’s dress. He had the bladder of an ox and the urine splashed for a long time. Somewhere in the castle a man screamed and the scream went on and on, until at last, blessedly, it stopped.
    The count finished at the same time, then held out a hand to his squire, who gave him a small knife with a wickedly curved blade. ‘See this, Villon?’ The count held the knife up so its blade caught the light. ‘Know what it is?’
    Villon, held by the two men-at-arms, said nothing.
    ‘It’s for you,’ the count said. ‘She,’ he pointed the knife at his wife, ‘will go back to Labrouillade, and so will you, but only after we’ve cut you.’
    The men in green and white livery grinned, anticipating the pain and pleasure to come. The knife, its blade rusted and its handle a worn sliver of wood, was a castrator’s knife, used to geld rams or calves or the small boys destined for the choirs of great churches. ‘Strip him,’ the count ordered his men.
    ‘Oh, God,’ Brother Michael murmured.
    ‘No stomach for it, brother?’ Sam asked.
    ‘He fought well,’ a new voice intervened, and the monk saw that
le Bâtard
had stepped to the edge of the dais. ‘He fought bravely and he deserves to die like a man.’
    Some of the count’s men put their hands on their sword hilts, but the bishop waved them down. ‘He has offended the laws of man and God,’ the bishop told
le Bâtard
, ‘and placed himself beyond the boundaries of chivalry.’
    ‘The quarrel is mine,’ the count snarled at
le Bâtard
, ‘not yours.’
    ‘He is my prisoner,’
le Bâtard
said.
    ‘When we hired you,’ the bishop said, ‘it was agreed that all prisoners would belong to the count and myself, regardless of who captured them. Do you deny that?’
    Le Bâtard
hesitated, but it was clear the bishop had spoken the truth. The tall, black-armoured man glanced about the room, but his men were far outnumbered by the forces of the bishop and count. ‘Then I appeal to you,’ he said to the bishop, ‘to let him go to his God like a man.’
    ‘He is a fornicator and sinner,’ the bishop said, ‘and so I give him to the count to do with as he wishes. And I would remind you that your fee is contingent on obeying all our reasonable commands.’
    ‘This is not reasonable,’
le Bâtard
insisted.
    ‘The command for you to step aside is reasonable,’ the bishop said, ‘and I give it to you.’
    The count’s men-at-arms thumped their shields on the floor to show their agreement, and
le Bâtard
, knowing himself outnumbered and out-argued, shrugged and stepped away. Brother Michael saw a man-at-arms take the castrating knife and, unable to bear what was about to happen, he pushed his