Paris The Novel

Chapter Three




• 1261 •


It was spring in the year of Our Lord 1261, saintly King Louis IX was on the throne of France and day was dawning. The young woman rose from the mattress on the floor.

Martine could see a thin slit of light between the wooden shutters at the window. There was no sound from the yard below; but from across it came the noise of her uncle’s loud, rhythmical snores, like the rattle of a portcullis being raised at one of the city gates.

Still naked, she went to the shutters and pushed. They opened with a crack. Her uncle’s snores faltered, and she held her breath. Then the rattle resumed, thank God.

She had to be careful. She mustn’t get caught.

Martine looked back at the mattress. The young man lying there was asleep.

Until last year, Martine had been married to a rich merchant’s son. When her husband had caught a fever and died, she’d been left a widow at the age of twenty. Soon, no doubt, she’d marry again. But until then, she thought, she might as well enjoy herself—so long as nobody found out.

If she got caught, she supposed her uncle might give her a whipping and throw her out—she really didn’t know. But not only did she need the protection of his roof: if she wanted a rich new husband, she had to keep her reputation.

The young man on the mattress was poor. He was also vain. And he had a great deal to learn about making love. So why had she picked him up?

In fact it was he who’d approached her, ten days ago, in Notre Dame. After a century of building, the new cathedral was almost complete. But to beautify it further, the transept crossings near the center were being remodeled in the latest style, their walls turned into great curtains of stained glass, like those of the king’s new chapel. She’d been gazing up at the huge rose window in the north transept when he appeared, wearing a student’s gown and, like all the students, the crown of his head was shaved in a clerical tonsure.

“Isn’t it admirable?” he had remarked pleasantly, as though he’d known her all his life.

“Monsieur?” She’d given him a disapproving look. He was a good height, slim, dark-haired. Pale skin, without blemishes, a long, thin nose. Not bad looking at all. A year or two younger than she was, she thought.

“Forgive me. Roland de Cygne, at your service.” He bowed politely. “I mean that, like a beautiful woman, Notre Dame is growing even more lovely in her maturity.”

She felt she had to say something in return.

“And when she grows old, monsieur, what then?”

“Ah.” He paused. “I will tell you a secret about this lady. At the eastern end just now, I detected tiny cracks, a slight sagging in the walls, which tells me that one day this lady will need some discreet support. They will give her flying buttresses, as they call them.”

“You are an expert in the needs of women, monsieur?”

For just a second, she saw him tempted to boast. Then he thought better of it.

“I am only a student, madame,” he said modestly.

Martine had to admit that there was something quite seductive in this combination of flirtation and respectful formality. The young man certainly had an elegant way of talking. She was impressed.

It wouldn’t have impressed her uncle. “Talk,” he’d say contemptuously, “that’s all these cursed students do—when they’re not getting drunk and assaulting people. Most of them would be sentenced to a whipping,” he’d add, “if the king and the Church didn’t protect them.”

Since the university was run by the Church, a bunch of students who smashed up a tavern had only to answer to the Church court, which would probably let them off with a penance. It was hardly surprising if ordinary Parisians resented this privilege. And as for pious King Louis IX, while the holy relics he’d placed in his gorgeous new chapel had added sanctity to his capital and his dynasty, he knew that the real prestige of Paris came from its university. A century ago, the castrated Abelard might have had his faults, but nowadays he was remembered as the greatest philosopher of his age, and young scholars eagerly came from all over Europe to the university where he had taught.

“And where do you go after this?” he inquired.

“I go home, sir,” she said firmly. Cheeky monkey.

“Let me accompany you.” He bowed. “The streets are not always safe.”

Since it was broad daylight, and they were in the middle of the royal quarter, she had found it hard not to laugh.

“It won’t do you any good,” she told him.

They walked the short distance to the northern side of the island. A little farther downstream, a bridge led across to the Right Bank. As they crossed it, she had asked: “Your name begins with a ‘de.’ Does that mean you are noble?”

“It does. Beside our little castle was a lake with many swans, so that the place was called the Lac des Cygnes. Though my family also claim that it was the swanlike grace and strength of their ancestors that gave us the name. I am called Roland after my ancestor, the famous hero of the Song of Roland.”

“Oh.” The story had been popular for more than a century, but Martine had never thought of meeting a real Roland. She was impressed. “Yet you have come here as a humble student?”

“My older brother will inherit the estate. So I must study hard and hope to make a career in the Church.”

As they turned upstream again, he told her about the estate. It lay to the west, on the lower reaches of the graceful River Loire on its journey toward the Atlantic Ocean. He spoke of it with obvious affection, which pleased Martine. Soon, however, they were approaching a large area of wharfs and a marketplace known as the Grève.

The broad spaces of the Grève market on the Right Bank were always busy. Ships and barges carrying wines from Burgundy and grain from the eastern plains unloaded on the river bank. On the other side lay the old quarters of the weavers, with the glassmakers a block farther. Her uncle’s house lay on the rue du Temple that ran northward between them. Too many people in the market knew her. She didn’t want to start gossip. It was time to get rid of her aristocratic young companion.

“Good-bye, monsieur, and thank you,” she said politely.

“I’m studying tomorrow,” Roland remarked, “but the day after, I shall visit the Sainte-Chapelle at this hour. Perhaps,” he suggested pleasantly, “I shall see you there.”

“I doubt it, sir,” she said, and walked away.

But two days later, she’d gone there all the same.

It wasn’t long since the saintly King Louis had completed his sumptuous sanctuary for the holy relics. The upper chapel was reserved for the king himself, who had a private entrance from the royal palace next door. But lesser folk could worship in a humbler chapel below. And even this was beautiful. The cryptlike space shimmered by the light of countless candles. As Martine looked at the delicate columns of red and gold and observed how they branched out into the low, blue vaults, so richly spangled with golden fleurs-de-lys, she felt as if she had entered a magical orchard. By coming to meet Roland, she had already opened the way for an intimacy between them. In the glimmering candlelight, with the soft scent of incense in every nook and crevice, it seemed only natural that she should draw close to his side.

And in doing so and leaning, once or twice, close to his body, she noticed something else. Notwithstanding the incense, she could smell him: a faint, pleasant smell of the light sweat on his leather sandals, and something else—was it almonds perhaps, or nutmeg?—that came from his skin.

They had been there some minutes, quietly enjoying the beauty of the place, when a priest came past them, and to her surprise her young student had addressed him.

“I was wondering, mon Père, whether I might show this lady the chapel above.”

“The royal chapel is not open, young man,” the priest replied sharply. And that, she thought, was the end of it. But not at all.

“Forgive me, mon Père, my name is Roland de Cygne. My father is the lord de Cygne in the valley of the Loire. I am his second son and plan to take Holy Orders.”

The priest paused and looked at him carefully.

“I have heard of your family, monsieur,” he said quietly. “Please accompany me …” And minutes later, they were in the royal chapel. “We can stay only a moment,” the priest whispered.

The sunlight was coming in through the tall windows, filling the high, blue and gold spaces with celestial light. If the lower chapel had seemed like a magical wood, this was the hallway to heaven.

Her young student, who spoke so well and smelled so good, had the power to open the secret gardens of earthly delights and royal sanctuaries. That was the moment when she decided to try him as a lover. Besides, she’d never had an aristocrat before.



As she stared at him now, in the early morning light, he opened his eyes. They were tawny brown.

“It’s time to go,” she whispered.

“Not quite.”

“I mustn’t get caught.”

“Don’t make a sound, then.” He grinned.

“We’ll have to be quick,” she said, as she lay down beside him.

Afterward he told her that he must study the following night, but could come to her the night after that. She told him yes, then led him downstairs into the yard. Like most of the better merchant’s houses in Paris, her uncle’s house was tall. The front door gave directly onto the street, but behind the house there was a yard with a storehouse, above which she slept, and a gateway to the alley that ran along the back. Drawing the bolts to the gate softly back, she pushed him through, and quickly bolted the gate behind him. From the house, her uncle’s snores could still be heard.



As Roland de Cygne made his way along the alley, he felt pretty pleased with himself, and his conquest. Before this, he’d had only brief and fumbling encounters with farm girls and serving wenches, so Martine was a good start to what he hoped would be a fine career as a lover. Of course, she was only a young woman of the bourgeois, merchant class, but good practice. And he supposed that she in turn must be quite excited to have a boy of noble blood for a lover.

He thought he’d handled his first approach to her especially well. As for telling her that he was descended from the hero of the Song of Roland, that had been only a slight embroidery on the truth. As a child he’d asked why he was named Roland, and his father had explained: “When your grandfather went on crusade, he had a wonderful horse called Roland, after the hero of the tale. That horse went with him all the way to the Holy Land and back, and he deserves to be remembered. It’s a good name, too. I’d have given it to your brother, but the eldest in our family is always called Jean. So I gave it to you.”

“I’m named after a horse?”

“One of the noblest warhorses ever to go on crusade. What more do you want?”

Roland had understood. But he didn’t think he was going to get many girls by telling them he was named after a horse.

He cut through an alley back into the rue du Temple. The sky was brightening over the gabled houses. The city gates were open by now, but there was hardly anyone about. The sound of the dawn chorus was all around, bringing as it always did a little thrill to his heart. He sniffed the air. As usual in the city streets, he could smell urine, dung and woodsmoke; but the delicious smell of baking bread also wafted past him, and the sweet scent of a honeysuckle bush from somewhere nearby.

Roland hadn’t wanted to go to Paris. But his father had insisted: “There’s nothing for you here, my son,” he’d said. “But I think you have more brains than your brother, and that in Paris you could do great things for the honor of your family. Why, you might even surpass your grandfather.” That would be a fine thing indeed.

Roland’s grandfather had been favored by history. After the mighty Charlemagne had died, and his empire crumbled back into provinces and tribal territories built on the ruins of ancient Rome, the kings of the Franks were often masters of little more than the Paris region, known as the Île-de-France, while huge domains, ruled by rich and powerful feudal families, encircled them: Provence and Aquitaine in the south; Celtic Brittany on the northern Atlantic coast; Champagne to the east; and below it, the tribal lands of Burgundy.

And with Charlemagne gone, the terrible Viking Norsemen had begun their raids. On one shameful occasion, Paris had bought them off and sent them to ravage Burgundy—the Burgundians had never forgiven the Parisians for that. Even when, finally, the Norsemen had settled down in Normandy, their rulers were still restless. And when William of Normandy had conquered England in 1066, his family’s wealth and power had become greater than that of the French king in Paris.

But worst of all—more greedy, ruthless and frankly vicious—were the rulers of a smaller territory below Brittany, on the mouth of the River Loire: the counts of Anjou. Ambition had led the Plantagenets, as they were called, into marriage with the ruling families of Normandy and Aquitaine. Worse still, by outrageous dynastic luck they’d gotten their hands on the throne of England too.

“By your grandfather’s day,” Roland’s father had told him, “the Plantagenets had almost surrounded the Île-de-France and they were ready to squeeze.”

France had been saved by a remarkable man. King Philip Augustus of the Capet dynasty, the grandfather of the present king, had been brave and cunning. He’d gone on crusade with England’s Plantagenet king, Richard the Lionheart, but he never missed a chance to set one Plantagenet against another. And when the heroic Lionheart was succeeded by his unpopular brother John, the wily French monarch had soon managed to kick him out of Normandy and even Anjou. Indeed, after John’s own English barons rebelled against him, it had looked for a moment as if the French kings might get England as well.

And during all these years of strife, no one was more loyal to the French king than the lord de Cygne. He was only a poor knight. The warhorse Roland was his most valuable possession. But he had gone on crusade with Philip Augustus, and the king called him his friend. So although his small estate lay within Anjou, and the Plantagenets might take it away at any time, he stayed at the side of his king. And when Philip Augustus had triumphed, he was able to reward his modest friend with lands that more than doubled the family’s wealth.

But the de Cygnes had not prospered since then. Roland’s father had sold some of his lands. Perhaps his brother could marry an heiress. That would be good. But there was something else that Roland could do for his family. He could rise in the Church.

The universal Church was many things: a source of comfort and inspiration, of scholarship and dreams. For the crusading family of de Cygne, it now offered another life-giving support. There was money in the Church—a lot of it.

Those who rose in the Church enjoyed the revenues of its vast estates. A bishop was a powerful man, and lived like a prince. Great churchmen could provide money for their families, and help them in every way. The vow of celibacy didn’t appeal to Roland. But fortunately, despite their vows, many a bishop had left illegitimate children. The Church provided the educated class, and the great administrators of the crown. For a clever fellow, the Church was a way to fortune.

Roland was ready to do it. He wanted to be a success. Yet he still had one dream, a crusader’s dream, that he supposed could never be realized.

He looked up the street. A quarter mile away, between the narrow canyon of wood-beamed, gabled houses, he could see one of the gates in the city wall. Philip Augustus had built that mighty stone wall, enclosing both banks of the Seine in a huge oval. The gate was open. His way led in the opposite direction, but he couldn’t resist it. He walked toward the open gate.

As he passed through the gateway, the road continued straight ahead. On his left behind some orchards, he could see the Priory of Saint Martin in the Fields. There were a number of walled sanctuaries both inside and outside the city gates, containing important monasteries and convents. But the great enclave that had drawn him lay a short way ahead on his right. It was built like a fortress. Two castle towers rose fearsomely within. Its mighty doorways were barred, and bolted. Roland stood in the road and stared.

This was the Temple. A country in itself.

It was the Crusades that had created the Knights Templar. They began as security guards, bringing bullion safely across dangerous territories to the armies that needed it. Soon they were the guardians of huge deposits in many lands. From there, it was only a step to being bankers. As a religious order, they paid no taxes. By the reign of Philip Augustus, the Templars were one of the richest and most powerful organizations in Christendom. They answered only to the pope himself, and to God. And within the mighty Templars was a cadre of the most awesome warriors in the world: the Temple Knights.

The noble Knights of the Temple never surrendered. They were never ransomed. They fought, always, to the death they did not fear. To beat them, you had to kill them all.

To join them, you had to undergo an initiation so secret that no detail had ever leaked out. But once accepted, you were one of the innermost, sacred circle of the world of the crusades.

Roland had always dreamed of being a Temple Knight since he was a little boy. It was the only way he could imagine of equaling his crusading grandfather. He’d still dreamed of it before he came to Paris. But his father wouldn’t hear of it, for a good and simple reason.

Templars had no money. When the Temple Knights took their vows of poverty, they meant it. The order was rich beyond imagining; but its great men were poor. No use to the family of Roland de Cygne.

So now, as the spring morning light fell on the Temple towers, Roland gazed a little while and then turned away, back into the city. If the Temple had been his boyhood dream, he had to confess that life in the streets of Paris wasn’t so bad. He could enjoy Martine, for instance.

He thought of the day ahead, and smiled to himself. He liked Martine. But when he had told her he had to study the coming night, he had lied.



The sinking sun was throwing a huge red light over the rooftops, and the shadows in the streets were lengthening when Roland set out from his lodgings on the Left Bank. They lay just a hundred yards toward the setting sun from the Abbey of Sainte-Geneviève, on the broad top of the hill, where once the Roman Forum had stood. Ruined for centuries, its rubble smoothed over to a gentler slope, the Forum was covered with religious houses now. A Roman street down to the river remained, but had gained a new name: since pilgrims bound for Compostela passed this way, it was called the rue Saint-Jacques.

Roland started down it. There were students everywhere. Recently, as the university shifted from the area of Notre Dame to the Left Bank, the hillside was becoming covered with the small colleges where the students lived and worked. The college of the king’s chaplain, Robert de Sorbon, fifty yards away on his left, was the first; but many others were springing up.

He continued down the long slope, past the Abbot of Cluny’s palace, and the parish church of Saint-Séverin until, reaching the river, he prepared to cross the old bridge to the island, where the sunset’s rays were turning the western front of Notre Dame into a molten mass of red and gold.

Roland felt excited. He was going to see another woman.

His story that he must study tonight was easy for Martine to believe. The university students worked hard. For Roland, however, learning had come easily. Even before he came to Paris at the age of fifteen, a local priest had taught him to speak and read Latin thoroughly—for the university courses were almost all taught in Latin. He had completed the traditional trivium, of grammar, logic and rhetoric, Plato and Aristotle—a syllabus that dated back to Roman times—in less than the usual time, and moved swiftly on to the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. He did the work so fast that his fellow students called him Abelard. But Roland was no philosopher, and had no wish to be. He had a quick mind and a wonderful memory, that was all. Soon he’d complete the quadrivium and become a master. After that, he meant to study law.

So tonight he was free to make love to that girl he’d picked up in the rue Saint-Honoré.



He’d met her three days ago. One of the law professors at the university, a man he wished to cultivate, had asked him to take a letter to a priest on the Right Bank.

The great Cemetery of the Innocents lay just west of the city’s central line, only three hundred yards from the river, on the rue Saint-Denis. If one followed that street out through the city wall, it led northward for miles, all the way to the great Abbey of Saint-Denis, where the kings of France were buried. But the occupants of the Innocents were of a much humbler sort. Its ten-foot walls enclosed the mass graves of the poor. Beside those sad walls, however, there was a pleasant church, where Roland found the priest, a small elderly man with a scholarly face, who thanked him most gratefully for his trouble.

On the western side of the cemetery lay a much more cheerful place. The open area of Les Halles was the city’s biggest market. As he wasn’t in a hurry, Roland had wandered about there for a while, admiring the colorful stalls. He’d just been inspecting a booth selling fine Italian leather when, glancing toward a group of merchants talking together under an archway, he noticed that one of them was staring at him intently. He wasn’t large, but he stooped forward in a way that suggested a menacing energy. His face was partly covered by a short, straggly gray beard. He had a beak of a nose, which wasn’t quite straight. His eyes were hard. And they were looking at him as though he were a viper to be crushed.

It was Martine’s uncle. Roland knew what he looked like because, out of curiosity, he’d waited nearby one morning and watched him leave his house. So far as he knew, the merchant didn’t even know of his existence. But still the eyes glared at him.

Did the merchant recognize him? How much did he know? He moved slowly away, trying to take no notice of the dangerous stare. He went behind another stall from where he could observe the merchant unseen. The man’s piercing stare had been transferred to another part of the market now. As far as Roland could see, Martine’s uncle was looking at that in exactly the same way. He hoped so. But he’d left Les Halles all the same.

That’s when he’d gone into the tavern around the corner in the rue Saint-Honoré. The girl had been working in there. She wasn’t any relation of the innkeeper, just a servant girl. A bold girl, with a mass of thick black hair, and dark eyes to match, and large white teeth. He noticed one or two men try to flirt with her, and that she cut them off firmly. But from the moment their eyes met, he saw that she was interested in him. He’d stayed there quite a while. She’d told him she’d be free tonight. Her name was Louise.



Now, as the evening sun burnished the face of Notre Dame, Roland crossed cheerfully to the Île de la Cité. Before continuing over to the Right Bank, he paused for a moment. On the left, downstream, was a bridge supporting a dozen water mills, behind which lay quays where the boats unloaded salt and herring from the Normandy coast. Past that, the narrow western tip of the island divided the Seine’s waters, gleaming golden in the sunset. And a little farther downstream, where the stout wall of Philip Augustus reached the riverbank, a small, square, high-turreted fort called the Louvre, equipped with massive chains that could be drawn across the river, stood guardian to the sacred city, protecting her from the rough invaders who might want to ravish her.

Roland gazed westward at the warm sun, and smiled. It struck him as very convenient that Martine lived on the east side of the Right Bank, and Louise on the western side. With luck, he thought, he might be able to go from one to the other for some time.



Martine was quite excited the following night as she waited for her lover to arrive. She had some sweetmeats and a jug of wine on the small table in her room. She had gone to confession the day before, and as always after penance and absolution, she felt a tingling sense of freshness, as if the world had been made anew. Despite the young man’s faults, she even found herself trembling a little in anticipation.

She waited until darkness had fallen. Two of the servants slept in the attic of the main house, a third in the kitchen. The kitchen door was locked and bolted now, and the shutters closed. Her uncle would still be in his counting house, but that looked onto the street at the front.

She put on a dark cloak and slipped down to the yard. Trailing clouds covered the moon. She was almost invisible. She went to the gate that gave onto the alley and slipped the bolts.

Roland was waiting. He stepped swiftly into the yard. A moment later they were stealing up the winding stair to her room.

The candle gave a warm light. The room was snug. Roland seemed in a cheerful mood. Quite pleased with himself, in fact. He was delighted with the little meal she’d prepared.

“I went to confession yesterday,” she said with a smile, as she poured him more wine.

“Have you so many sins to confess?”

“Just you.”

“Ah. A mortal sin. Did you receive penance and absolution?”

“Yes.”

“And do you mean to sin again?”

“Perhaps. If you’re nice to me.” She looked at him curiously. “What about you? Do you go to confession?”

“Now and then.”

“Well, I should hope so, Roland,” she teased him gently. “Don’t forget you are tonsured. You are going to be a priest.”

“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “These sins of the flesh are not so important.”

“Is that what I am, then? A sin of the flesh?”

“According to theology.” He looked away for a moment, and then continued almost to himself: “A woman with a husband would be a greater sin. A widow is different. And it’s not as if I’d seduced a girl from a noble family.”

“It’s all right because I only come from a merchant family. A bourgeoise.”

“You know what I mean.”

Oh yes, she knew all right. He was noble, so he considered himself above the rest of humanity. This impoverished, inexperienced, cocky little aristocrat thought he could bed her because his ancestors had been friends of Charlemagne. And he expected her to accept it. Just like that. She had half a mind to throw him out.

But she didn’t. She was in the mood to make love. And having gone this far, she thought, she might as well get what she wanted. Two people could play the game of using someone.

He put down his wine, and grinned. She assumed he was about to make a move toward her. But then he paused.

“I didn’t tell you last time. But I saw your uncle in the market the other day. He stared at me as if he knew me. It was quite frightening. But then I realized it’s just the way he looks. You don’t think he knows about me, do you?”

“He has no idea. I promise you.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Now he was ready to make his move. He began kissing her. They rolled onto the straw mattress. Martine was only wearing a shift, but he was still dressed. Young Roland was aroused, and so was she. His hand moved between her legs. She gave a little gasp. Soon afterward, he was pulling down his hose, entering her.

“Take off your shirt,” she said, pulling at it. Like most people, Roland wore his shirt for a week or more, and it smelled of sweat and the street. But she liked that he washed more than other men she knew. Admittedly, dashing oneself with cold water from a bowl wasn’t much of a bath, but it was as good as it usually got in the Paris of the Crusades. “Ah,” she whispered, “that feels good.” She could smell his sweat, and that faint scent of almonds on his skin. He was getting more and more excited, thrusting rapidly. She arched her back. He pressed himself close.

And then she frowned. She smelled something else. She thought she must be mistaken. But no, there was no mistake. It was the smell of perfume, but not the kind that she might use. This was the sickly smell of the cheapest kind of perfume that the street girls used to try to hide the fact they hadn’t washed for a month.

There was only one way that Roland could have got that smell on his skin. She understood in a flash. That’s what he’d been up to last night. Her body went rigid.

He came. Early.

Martine did not move. For a moment, a great sense of hurt engulfed her, like a wave. But it quickly receded. She wasn’t in love with him. Then she felt rage. How dare he? She’d offered herself, and he’d run around the corner with some whore he’d picked up God knows where. Had he no respect for her at all? Did he have any idea how lucky he was? She wanted to scream. She wanted to strike him with something, hard and heavy. She wanted to make him suffer.

But still she lay quite still. He leaned over. She forced herself to smile. Then she put her head on his chest, and stroked it, closing her eyes as if she were drowsy. After a little time she felt his body relax. He was dozing. She pulled away and lay beside him, thinking.

She gave a small smile of satisfaction. Revenge was a dish best served cold. She was glad, now, that she had kept silent. He would suspect nothing. She closed her eyes.



It was dawn when she awoke. In the faint light from the shuttered window she could see that he was lying on his side, his head raised on one arm, watching her.

“At last,” he said. He reached across.

He kissed her neck and started to move down her body. She let him. It felt good. He wasn’t in a hurry, and nor was she.

“I’m a little sleepy,” she said. He was hard, and that was what she wanted, too. She let him enter. He was moving slowly and rhythmically, taking his time.

“You know,” she said softly, “about what you said last night.”

“You talk when you’re making love?”

“Sometimes. I mean about my uncle. You don’t have to worry. He has no idea.”

“Good.”

“I’d know at once if he did. He’d beat me.”

“Oh.”

“He wants me to make a good marriage. As for any man who slept with me … Aiee …”

“What?”

“He’d suffer the fate of Abelard.”

He stopped.

“You’re not serious.”

“You don’t know him.”

“He’d castrate me? Cut off my balls?”

“Oh, he’d have some roughnecks do it. He has the power.”

“But I’m a noble.”

“So was Abelard.” It was true that the great philosopher came from a minor noble family.

She felt him shrink inside her. She pulled him close.

“Don’t worry, mon amour, he has no idea,” she coaxed. But Roland’s manhood was in full retreat. “Don’t leave me now,” she whispered. “Finish what you came to do.”

He pulled away. He glanced at the sliver of light between the shutters.

“I’d better go,” he said.

“Will you come back tonight?” she asked.

“I have to study tonight,” he said.

“Tomorrow?”

“If I can.”



The day passed quietly, giving her time for further reflection. On the whole, she had to admit, it was probably just as well that things had worked out the way they had. She’d been a fool to run such risks. Her little interlude with Roland, such as it was, had made one thing very clear to her. She needed a man in her life again.

It was time to get married. She could probably get a rich husband. Her uncle would see to that. There were plenty of good men in Paris, so she might as well marry a rich one.

Roland had to go. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t punish him.

Could she have been wrong about the other girl? She didn’t think so. Every instinct told her she was right, but she wanted to be certain. By the afternoon she was forming another plan.

It was evening and the sun was sinking over the Seine when she made her way along to the bridge that led from the Left Bank to the Île de la Cité. Of course, it was possible that he had a girl on the Left Bank, but it would be harder for him to escape detection there. It was far more likely that the other girl was on the northern side of the river. She found a convenient spot on a street corner from which she could observe, and she waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. He came over the bridge with a jaunty step. So much for studying tonight. She pulled a shawl over her head and followed him at a distance. There were enough people about for her to follow him inconspicuously. Some were standing on the bridge to admire the sunset, and Roland did the same. After that, he continued over to the Right Bank, and went northward until he turned left into the rue Saint-Honoré. She continued to follow. She saw him go into a tavern. She hesitated. If she went in there, people would turn to look. He’d probably see her, and that would be embarrassing. On the other hand, she wanted to know what he was up to. She stood in the street, wondering what to do.

He obligingly saved her the trouble by coming out again. There was a girl beside him, with a mass of black hair, just the sort of cheap slut, thought Martine, that she’d imagined. She saw him put his arm around the girl, who reached up and pulled his head down to kiss him on the mouth. Martine quickly turned her head so as not to be seen, but they didn’t even glance in her direction.

For just a moment, she felt a cold shock that he’d betrayed her. But it was followed by a sense of satisfaction. She’d been right. Her senses and her instincts hadn’t let her down. It was time to complete her revenge.

That evening, finding a moment when the kitchen was empty, she stole in and removed a long kitchen knife that was seldom used. Then, while her uncle was in his counting house, she entered the empty parlor, where there was a large oak table, and spent several minutes stooped over it, apparently examining the grain of the wood.



The following morning after breakfast, her uncle went out to the Grève market. The cook and the two other servants were in the kitchen.

Martine stepped into the parlor. She knew exactly what she had to do. She knew it was going to be painful. But she’d worked it out carefully, tried everything out to make sure that it would work as planned. As she took a deep breath and prepared herself, her whole face was screwed up in anticipation of the pain. If it hadn’t been needed for her revenge, she couldn’t have gone through with it.

So now, involuntarily crossing herself, she took careful aim, twisted her head so that she shouldn’t break her nose, and let herself fall, hard, against the edge of the big oak table in the middle of the room.

She didn’t need to fake her howl of pain. The servants came running.

“I tripped,” she wailed. She saw drops of blood on the floor. She hadn’t meant to break the skin, and hoped it wouldn’t leave a scar. But the main thing was that already, she could feel a huge, throbbing pain around her left eye.

While the younger servant girl ran to fetch Martine’s uncle home from the market, the cook, a small, vigorous woman, took charge. The cut over the eye wasn’t bad. The cook bathed it, held a wad of cloth over it, and stanched the bleeding. Then she put grease on the cut and wrapped a bandage round Martine’s head. A cold compress helped the swelling.

“But you’re going to have a big, shiny black eye,” the cook informed her cheerfully.

By the time her uncle arrived at the house, Martine was quite composed, sitting in the kitchen and taking a little broth. Her face was swelling up nicely. Once he was satisfied that his niece was neither badly injured nor disfigured, her uncle returned to the market, and Martine told the servants that she was going to rest in her room and would come down again at midday.

Everything was going exactly according to plan.

She waited in her room for a while, until there was no one out in the yard. Then, slipping the long knife she’d stolen into her belt and concealing it under her gown, she slipped unseen out of the back gate into the alley that Roland had used for his nighttime visits.

She walked swiftly southward, skirted the Grève marketplace and made toward the river. As she had the evening before, she kept a shawl over her head to hide the bandage.

It was only a quarter mile to the bridge that crossed from the Right Bank to the Île de la Cité. Just before she reached it, ahead of her, she caught sight of the high roof of the Grand Châtelet, where the provost of Paris dispensed justice to the people. University students like Roland, who only had to answer to the Church courts, were exempt from the provost’s stern rule. Martine smiled to herself. She had a special kind of justice reserved for young Roland de Cygne.

She crossed to the island. Over the rooftops on her right rose the high vault of the Sainte-Chapelle, gray against the sky. The sacred relics concealed within might bring joy to the king, but the royal reliquary looked like a tall, cold barn to her that day. And the memory of her budding passion for the boy, when they’d gone in there together, was as dead as ashes. She crossed the Seine once more, by the narrow bridge to the Left Bank, and started up the long, straight slope of the rue Saint-Jacques.

She didn’t often come to the Left Bank. The Latin Quarter, some people were calling it these days, since it had started filling with scholars. She cursed as she almost stepped in a pile of steaming feces that someone must have tossed from an upper window. That’s right, she thought grimly: the scholars could talk Latin and preach in church, but life still came down, in the end, to the same old stink in the street.

She was nearing the top of the hill. She put her hand down and felt the handle of the long knife under her belt. Ahead of her was the gateway in the city wall through which the Compostela pilgrims passed. She knew Roland’s lodgings were somewhere here. A student came out of a doorway, and she was about to ask him if he knew Roland, when the young man himself appeared, from another house nearby. He saw her and stopped in surprise. She went quickly to his side.

“We must talk at once,” she said urgently. “Alone.”

He frowned, but led her a short way along the street and turned into a churchyard. It was quiet there. No one could see them.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “I was coming to you tonight.”

“You can’t,” she said. “Look.” And she pulled back her shawl.

He stared in surprise at the big red-and-black swelling on her face.

“My God. What happened?”

“My uncle. He beat me. He knows about us.” She watched him go pale. “I slipped out of the house to warn you.”

“How? He was asleep when I left yesterday. I heard him snoring.”

“The cook saw you. She told him.”

“He knows who I am?”

“Not yet. I wouldn’t tell him your name. But he has men out already making inquiries.”

He looked thoughtful.

“No one knows. Did the cook get a good look at me?”

“She gave him a description.”

“God be damned.”

“Oh Roland.” She looked pitiful. “He’ll beat me again until I tell him your name. I can’t hold out much longer.”

Roland looked away for a moment. Cursing his bad luck no doubt. She felt for the knife in her belt, but she didn’t draw it out yet. He turned back at her.

“You don’t really think …,” he started.

“Oh Roland,” she cried, “you’ve got to leave Paris. Leave at once.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t know him. Once he’s made up his mind … And he has the power.”

“He’d really have me castrated?” He stared at her in horror.

“Nothing will stop him. The king couldn’t stop him.”

He was squirming. She watched him. It was perfect.

“I can’t leave Paris,” he muttered. “I’ve nowhere to go.”

“We could run away together,” she said. “I have some money. We could run away to Normandy. Or England.”

“That won’t do,” he answered, staring at the ground. She knew he’d say that.

“You don’t want me,” she wailed. “I am lost.”

“No, no. I care for you,” he answered.

There was a long pause.

“He doesn’t mean to kill you,” she pointed out. “That’s something. They say that Abelard was a greater philosopher after it happened to him.”

It was clear from Roland’s face that philosophy wouldn’t console him.

“What can I do?” he cried.

It was time. She reached below her cloak and pulled out the knife. He shrank back.

“Here,” she said. “It’s for you.”

“For me?”

“If they come for you, use it. Don’t hesitate. You won’t have any time. They’ll mean business. But if you can kill them, or wound them, maybe it’ll stop him trying again. It’s your only hope.”

He took the knife. He weighed it in his hand, and pursed his lips. She saw him glance around.

And suddenly she thought she read his thoughts. The one thing she hadn’t allowed for. Could it be so? Was he wondering whether he should use the knife to kill her? To get her out of the way? Nobody had seen them. If she was dead, he could be thinking, her uncle would never discover his identity.

How could she have been so foolish? She’d brought the knife only to make her story seem more convincing. And she’d been so busy plotting her own revenge that she’d overlooked this weakness in the plan. She froze.

But then he shook his head and gave her back the knife.

“I have a weapon of my own,” he said. Though whether she had been wrong, or he had calculated the odds and decided against killing her, or his conscience had intervened, she would never know.

“I must go before I am missed,” she said. “But take care, my Roland. I fear we may never see each other again. May God protect you.” And pushing the knife back into her girdle, and covering her head with her shawl, she hurried out of the churchyard.

As she went back down the street toward the river, she wondered happily how many sleepless nights and nightmares he would suffer, and whether he would run away from Paris. And oh, the pleasure of watching the cocky little swine while he squirmed.

Revenge was sweet.



The rest of that day did not go well for Roland. He tried to go about his business. He attended a lecture. He went to his usual tavern, where he met some friends. He longed to share his troubles with them, but didn’t feel that he could. He bought bread, a little cured meat and some beans, and took them back to his lodgings.

The room where he lodged was up a creaking wooden staircase. The door had a bolt, and he wondered whether to add a second one. But he decided there was no point. A couple of determined men could break it down anyway. There was a heavy oak chest, however. He could drag it over to the door. If he laid his mattress beside the chest, he’d be sure to wake up instantly as soon as anyone tried to break in.

The window worried him. It was only ten feet above the street. But it was narrow and the shutters were stout. He might be able to defend it.

As for a weapon, he did have a dagger. He wished he had a sword, but a student couldn’t walk around the streets with that. The dagger was long and made to be used in battle. It had belonged to his grandfather. He tested the blade. It was sharp. Even if several men battered down the door, he ought to be able to kill one of them, maybe two.

He stayed indoors until evening, ate his food, set up his barricade and prepared for the dangerous night.

But he couldn’t sleep. Each creak he heard made him start. Around midnight something outside, a rat probably, disturbed a little pile of faggots, one of which fell with a soft click on the cobbles. In a flash, Roland was up, waiting beside the window, dagger in hand, not daring to signal his presence by opening the shutters but straining every nerve to hear if anyone was in the street, or coming up the stairs. He stayed there almost half an hour before lying down again, still listening.

And as he listened, thoughts chased through his head. Why had he gotten involved with Martine? If only he’d been chaste. If only he’d been a Temple Knight. And what should he do? Could he return home? How would he explain it to his father? His family would be furious. He was supposed to be helping them and he’d let them all down. He dreaded the thought of facing them almost as much as he dreaded mutilation.

The hours passed. He didn’t even doze. At dawn, he started violently again, as someone threw slops from a window down into the street. And by the time the city gates were opening, and people were moving about in the streets, he staggered down the stairs, hollow-eyed, to face the day.

He had to attend his first lecture early that morning. He didn’t want to go out unarmed. But a student couldn’t wander around with a weapon in his belt. How could he keep it under his hand unseen? After looking around his possessions he hit upon a solution. He had a roll of cheap parchments, mostly rabbit and squirrel, the kind that clerks and merchants used for transactions. Slipping the dagger through the middle, he found that he could carry it quite hidden, but pull it out with ease. Thus armed, he descended into the street to join his fellow students.

Everything seemed normal. He felt some comfort from being in a crowd, but he couldn’t help wondering—if he were suddenly attacked, would his fellow students protect him? From some angry townsman with a club, probably. From two or three armed men? Perhaps not. Even as he walked back in their company toward his lodgings after the lectures, he found himself glancing over his shoulder to see if he was being followed.

Another thought also occurred to him. Shouldn’t he try to protect his body in some way? Could he wear a leather vest, like a man-at-arms, under his clerical dress? Some of them had metal studs. If he could somehow attach the ends together between his legs, might that give him some protection, or would his assailants just slit it with a knife?

On the western side of the Latin Quarter, there was a gate in the city wall where the road led out to a church in the suburbs called Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Just inside this gate there was an armorer’s workshop. He’d never been in there, but he’d heard it was one of the best. In the afternoon, therefore, he paid the place a visit.

The little factory was certainly busy. It had forges like a blacksmith. He saw swords, helms, chain armor, all manner of implement and protective clothing for the fighting man. But while everything was designed to protect the head and arms, the torso and the legs, there was no individual item to protect a man between his legs. And I can hardly walk around in a suit of body armor, Roland thought.

He asked for the master armorer, and was pointed toward a short, brisk figure with a close-cropped graying beard, who listened carefully as he explained the protection that he wanted.

“Never been asked for that before,” the craftsman remarked. “Did you get caught with somebody’s wife?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I always say we can make anything. You want something like a chastity belt, only it would have to be bigger. Difficult to make that out of metal. I doubt you could sit down.” The armorer considered. “To be flexible, it would have to be like a short hose, chain armor over a leather backing, I should think. It’d be quite heavy, you know, and it’ll cost you.”

“You could do it?”

“Not for a month, at least, maybe longer. I’ve orders waiting from some of the greatest nobles in the land.” He looked up at the unhappy young man. “Can it wait that long?”

“Probably not.”

“Better hang on to yourself, then.” The craftsman grinned.

Roland departed sadly. He probably couldn’t afford such a thing, even if he could find anyone to make it.

It was almost a day and a half since he had slept, and he was starting to feel light-headed. He hardly knew what to do with himself. Returning to the rue Saint-Jacques, he turned down toward the river. Soon, on his left, he passed the Church of Saint-Séverin. And in the hope that the place might calm his spirits, he went in there to rest.

There was something very intimate about its strange, old, narrow vaults. Though rebuilt from time to time, the church had already been there for seven hundred years, since the days of the early Frankish kings. As he sat on a stone bench, his back to the wall and his eyes on the door, with his dagger concealed in the roll of parchment across his knees, young Roland reflected on his situation.

The facts were all too obvious. He had sinned, and God was punishing him. He deserved it. That much was clear as day. But what could he do? He must repent. He must beg forgiveness with all his heart, though whether it would be granted was another matter.

A terrible thought occurred to him. Could it be that God actually intended he should be castrated? Was God not only punishing him, but saving him from further temptation? Had God decided to ensure that his life was dedicated to religious service as a celibate priest or monk? Surely it could not be. Wasn’t it God’s will that he should overcome temptation, more or less, rather than have temptation removed from him? Abelard might have suffered that fate, but Abelard was a great scholar and philosopher. His own place in the world was far more modest. He wasn’t worthy of so much attention. Plenty of other men in Holy Orders had done the same as he had, and got away with it. If he dedicated his life to serving the Church, he told himself, that ought to be enough. If he truly repented, forgiveness would be granted.

So Roland tried to pray. He tried very hard indeed, for over an hour. And at the end of that time, he did feel a little calmer. At least he’d made a start, he thought. That was something. He got up, and cautiously went into the street.

If only he didn’t feel so tired. He must get sleep. But he didn’t want to sleep at his lodgings. He needed to find another place. Somewhere the men searching for him wouldn’t think of. Where could he go?

And then, it seemed to him, he had a good idea. What about the girl on the rue Saint-Honoré? What about Louise? Neither Martine nor her uncle knew about her.

Louise had a little room near the tavern. She’d surely let him sleep with her there. And to show that his repentance was sincere, he wouldn’t make love to her. That might work. He’d go to the tavern and ask her.

With this new, confused hope in his heart, he crossed over the river, and headed north.

There was only one thing that worried him. Once in bed with her, would he still be able to resist temptation? And would she let him? Still pondering this difficulty, he came to the rue Saint-Honoré and started to turn into it.

A hand closed on his elbow. He leaped in the air. His hand flew to the roll of parchment. He twisted, with a terrified face, toward his assailant.

“My dear young man. Did I startle you?”

It was the priest from the church by the Cemetery of the Innocents. The man to whom he’d delivered the letter the week before.

“Father!” he cried.

“I’m very sorry I made you jump,” said the elderly priest apologetically. “But I thought I recognized you. You came to my house the other day. Are you all right?” His mild blue eyes were peering at the younger man. “You look very pale.”

“Yes, mon Père, I am well.” Roland stared at the priest with a mixture of relief and embarrassment. “Thank you. Ah … The truth is that … I did not sleep well last night.”

“Why was that, my son?”

“Well, you see …” Roland searched his mind feverishly. “There was a fire in my lodgings. Just a small fire. It was put out. But my room is a terrible mess. Black dust everywhere …” He was babbling, but the elderly priest continued to look at him kindly.

“And where will you sleep tonight, my son?”

“Oh … Well … I was going to ask a friend …”

“Why don’t you sleep at my house? There is plenty of room.”

“Your house?”

“It would be a strange thing if the priest of the Saints Innocents did not help a scholar in need.”

And then it seemed to Roland that he understood. This was a gift from the Almighty. God had sent this priest to save him from temptation in his hour of need. He need not sleep with Louise. He would be safe.

“Thank you, mon Père,” he said. “I accept.”



The priest’s house lay almost beside the church. It wasn’t large, but it had a pleasant hall with a fireplace and a window, and an area partitioned by a heavy curtain, where a mattress could easily be laid for a guest. An elderly nun from a nearby convent came in each day to act as the priest’s housekeeper, and she quietly laid out a meal for them both. After he had eaten a rich stew, and a little cheese, and drunk a goblet of wine, Roland started to feel very much better.

The priest’s conversation was pleasant. He asked Roland about his family and his studies, and it was soon clear that he was an excellent scholar himself. He spoke about his parish, and its poor. And it was only toward the end of the meal that he gently inquired: “Are you in some sort of trouble, my son?”

Roland hesitated. How he would have liked to tell the kindly priest the truth. Should he make his confession and ask for his help? Could the priest perhaps arrange for his protection? The Church was powerful. He wanted to confess.

But he couldn’t do it.

“No, mon Père,” he lied.

The old man didn’t press him. But as the sun was falling he remarked that at the end of each day he went into his church to pray, and suggested that perhaps Roland would like to accompany him.

“I should,” said Roland fervently. And he went to pick up his roll of parchment, so that he’d have his dagger with him, just in case.

“There’s no need to bring that with you,” the old man said. “It will be quite safe here in the house.”

What could he do? Reluctantly he went out unarmed.

The Church of the Saints Innocents was silent. They were alone.

“Each time I pray here,” the priest remarked, “I like to remember that I am in the presence of all those poor Christian souls, the simple people of Paris without even a name by which to remember them, who lie in the cemetery beside us.” He smiled. “It makes our own troubles seem very small.”

Then he went to a small side altar, sank to his knees and silently began to pray.

Roland knelt beside him, and did his best to do the same. The old man’s presence was comforting. He felt a sense of peace. Surely, he thought, in this quiet sanctuary, he must be under God’s protection.

And yet … As the time passed, and the church remained silent, he could not help it if his ears were straining for any tiny sound. He wanted to turn his head to look around, to make sure that no shadowy figures were stealing toward them. But he did not dare, for fear of disturbing his companion’s prayers.

And then, to his shame, came other thoughts. What if the church door suddenly burst open now, and two or three armed men rushed in? He didn’t have his dagger, but the old priest was not heavy. Could he pick him up and use him as a shield? He was just contemplating this possibility when he heard the priest’s voice at his side.

“Let us say a Pater Noster, my son.”

Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur Nomen tuum … the eternal words of the Lord’s Prayer, murmured softly in the quiet church.

And when it was done, and they had returned to the priest’s house and bolted the door, Roland lay down on the bed prepared, with his roll of parchment beside him, and slept in peace.



The sun was already well up when he awoke. Breakfast was awaiting him on the table. The old priest had already gone out, but had left a message with his housekeeper that he would expect Roland to join him for supper again that evening, and to stay in his house that night.

As he made his way across the river to the Latin Quarter, Roland felt quite refreshed. Whatever the dangers that lurked, he thought, there must be some solution—some way, if he were truly repentant, that God would grant him protection. Perhaps, this evening, he would confess everything to the old priest and ask his advice.

He went up the rue Saint-Jacques. There were plenty of students about. He kept his eyes open, but saw no sign of danger.

He was fifty paces from his lodgings when a student came up to him.

“There’s a fellow looking for you,” he said.

Roland froze.

“A man? What sort of man?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him before.”

“Just one?” His heart was starting to beat violently. “Are you sure there weren’t several?”

“I saw only one,” the student said. And Roland was just wondering whether to make a run for it when the student waved to a poor-looking young fellow up the street and called out: “Here he is.”

Roland began to turn and run. But then he stopped.

No. He wouldn’t run. He couldn’t go on like this. There was only one young man, probably sent as a scout, to check out his whereabouts before the thugs were brought in. If I can just bring him down, he thought, and make him confess … take him to the authorities … It’d be hard for Martine’s uncle to attack me after that.

He reached into the roll of parchment, pulled out the dagger.

And with a shout of rage, he rushed at the stranger, hurling himself upon him. The young man went down. Roland stayed on top of him. He pressed the dagger blade to the fellow’s throat.

“Who sent you?” he cried. The young man’s eyes were wide with terror.

“The lord de Cygne,” he answered hoarsely. “Your father, sir.”

“My father?”

“I am Pierre, the miller’s son, from your village.”

Roland stared at him. It could be true. He realized that the young fellow’s face was vaguely familiar. He hadn’t seen him for a few years. He kept the dagger at his throat, in case.

“Why are you here?”

“Your brother. He has had an accident. He is dead. Your father wants you to return home at once. I have a letter for you from the priest.”

“My brother is dead?” That could mean only one thing. He’d have to take his place back at home as the future lord de Cygne.

“Yes, sir. I am sorry.”

And then, without thinking—for in truth he loved his brother—but in sheer relief at such an unexpected way out of his troubles, Roland spoke the words that, for the rest of his life, would cause his villagers behind his back to call him the Black de Cygne:

“Thank God!” he cried.



The letter from the priest explained the details. His brother had suffered a fall from his horse onto a gatepost, had punctured his lungs and died within the hour. The priest urged Roland to do his father’s bidding and return at once, since his presence was greatly needed.

He well knew, the priest wrote, what a sacrifice it would be to give up his studies at the university, and the religious life. And indeed, Roland thought, he might have felt some reluctance to leave Paris, had it not been for this trouble over Martine with the merchant. But, the priest went on, it was not for us to question providence. One must simply bow one’s head and do one’s duty. It was clearly a sign, the priest explained, that God had decided that Roland should serve Him in another calling.

Roland made the arrangements that very day. He told his teachers that his father required him urgently to go into Normandy, but that he hoped soon to return. He told his friends that he was secretly hoping to study in Italy, at the University of Bologna. To Martine, he sent no message at all. And having, he hoped, left enough confusion to throw her uncle off his track, he spent the night at the house of the kindly old priest and departed the next morning for his home in the valley of the Loire.

Since he made no inquiries, he never knew that, six months later, Martine was married to a merchant named Renard. But had he known, he would have been glad.