‘What are you doing?’ says Ines.

  Niklaus doesn’t look at her. ‘I can’t leave them,’ he says. ‘They’re my children, too — all of them.’

  ‘But you’ll die.’

  ‘I can’t leave them,’ he says again.

  He takes a step forward and vanishes into the whirling white and grey and black.

  Ines makes a noise that could be a scream or a sob, it is all scared and angry and hurt all in one. She looks down at me, and then after Niklaus. I close my eyes. She will stay with me. Even though I am not the alpha fish, Ines won’t leave me here alone.

  When I open my eyes she is gone.

  I start to cry. Everyone has left me. Everyone. I am not a silvery fish. I am just a blind wriggling worm like the boys in Machery. I remember the boy with his purple fingers, and the prayers we said for him. Niklaus said that he would have a fast journey to the side of Our Lord. If I died right now, would I go straight to the Holy Land? Off this mountain? Could it really be that easy?

  I close my eyes and I am a silvery fish again, swimming in the clearest of streams. The sun shines through the water onto my scales, warming me up and making flashes of blue and silver and gold in the water.

  I’m not cold any more. My hands and feet don’t ache, and I’m not stiff. I swish my tail back and forth and dive down to the bottom of the stream, where bright green weeds wrap themselves around me like a blanket, soft and warm. Then I wriggle up out of them and the weeds slide off my body, and I leave them behind as I push up, up, up through the water.

  There is no ice in this stream. There is no snow. Only warmth and sunshine and ... and something else.

  There is something moving in the water ahead of me. Disappearing out of sight. Flashing silver tails.

  It is Stephan and Niklaus and the other children.

  You cannot be the alpha fish when there is only one of you. When there is only one, you become the first and the last.

  I don’t want to be last. I don’t want to be left behind.

  I don’t want to be alone.

  There is a snuffle, and something warm presses against me. It’s Fox-boy. I am not alone. I cry harder, and Fox-boy snuffles and twitches.

  ‘Gabby,’ he says. ‘Gabby. Fambly.’

  I think about Stephan and his secret smile. I think of Our Lord and his sad eyes and thin ribs. I think about the Saracen with their horns and smoke and fire.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ I tell Fox-boy. ‘If we stay here alone, we will die.’

  I know if we go out into the storm we will probably die too. But at least we will die trying to rescue Our Lord. We will die following Stephan, who is our king and can do magic.

  seventeen

  For the first few seconds, the snow and ice make everything hurt with the most terrible pain. The places on my head and back where Eustache beat me with the Oriflamme hurt so much that I think I faint, because Fox-boy is pulling at me to make me stand up, and I didn’t know I’d fallen down. I can’t see anything, and I don’t know if I am following Stephan or not because everything is white, white, white.

  I know that with every step we could walk off a cliff and fall and die. But I keep walking forward. The hurt and the freezing is soon replaced with nothing. I can’t feel my face or my feet or my hands. We just walk and walk, one step after the other. The storm screams terrible things at us, and spits ice.

  We keep walking.

  I don’t know if we’ve been walking for hours, or only for moments. Maybe we have crossed the mountains. Maybe we have only taken a few steps from our burrow. But through the white I see red.

  A flash of red. It is so new after the endless whirl of white and black. Red means only one thing. Red means life, even if it is an ended life.

  I walk towards it, and then stop so suddenly that Fox-boy bumps into me and we nearly fall.

  It’s so hard to see, but I’m at the very edge of a cliff. The ground drops away suddenly, and there’s just down, down, down, with no bottom. The red is down there, but not all the way down. Just a little bit. The snow spins around it in spirals like water in a fast river, and suddenly, I can understand what the storm has been screaming at me. It’s screaming gloria, gloria.

  I lie on my stomach and peer over the edge.

  It’s the Oriflamme. It’s caught on a narrow ledge in the snow by the red and gold fabric. The wooden staff is hanging out over the drop, and I think it will fall any moment now.

  Nearby, on a lower ledge, is Eustache, clinging to the side of the cliff, his toes balanced on the thinnest of shelves. His face is cut, a stripe of red to match the Oriflamme. He sees me, and starts to cry.

  I think how, so recently, it was me crying and bleeding, and him looking down at me.

  ‘Gabriel,’ he says, and it is the first time he has ever said my name. ‘Help me, please. I slipped and the snow is so heavy. Nobody noticed. Nobody heard me. They just walked on.’

  The Oriflamme trembles, and I think, this is it, it will fall. But it holds.

  ‘Give me your hand,’ says Eustache. ‘Pull me up.’

  I swallow. I think I could reach down there, but I might slip on the snow, and then we would both die.

  I turn to Fox-boy, but he is lying on the snow on his side, jerking and twitching, his eyes all white and white coming from his mouth. He can’t help me.

  ‘Gabriel!’ Eustache is yelling now. ‘Don’t be such a stupid coward. Don’t you realise who I am?’

  I think of how he beat me and spat at me and kicked dirt in my face. I remember how he took the Oriflamme and he took Stephan and whispered things in his ear and made him change. I remember the burning on my cheek when I met the noble in Briis-sous-Forges.

  ‘He’ll never take you back if you let me die,’ says Eustache. ‘You’ll be tainted. Stephan will know.’

  The Oriflamme slips and starts to fall, and without thinking, I reach down and snatch it. Eustache thinks I am reaching for him, and holds out his hand. I pull the Oriflamme up and Eustache’s feet slip on the ledge and he scrabbles at the wall, but it is all ice and he loses his handhold and he falls.

  My numb fingers curl around the wooden shaft of the Oriflamme, and I climb to my feet.

  eighteen

  We walk on, Fox-boy and I.

  I do not think about Eustache. About what I did. Fox-boy was too busy twitching and shaking, and I don’t know if he saw. By the time his eyes went back to brown and his mouth stopped leaking white foam, Eustache was gone and I was holding the Oriflamme. Maybe he thinks it was magic.

  And maybe it was. The Oriflamme makes me feel warm again, deep inside, even though the rest of me is cold. It has come back to me. Maybe it is what Our Lord wanted. Maybe it was a small miracle of my very own.

  I don’t know where the rest of the army is. I don’t know where Stephan is. They might not even be alive.

  But Fox-boy and I are going on, down the mountain. The Oriflamme must be magic, because after a while it stops snowing and the wind stops howling. Fox-boy and I carve out a hollow in the snow, and roll ourselves up in the Oriflamme and sleep for a while.

  It is becoming difficult to tell whether I am awake or asleep. Everything seems sort of fuzzy, and I am tired after only a few steps. It gets harder to hold the Oriflamme up. My arms start to tremble and I have to lean it backwards across my shoulder.

  I can’t remember when I stopped feeling hungry.

  The sun is blinding-bright on the snow and our crunching footsteps seem so loud it is like they are crunching inside my head.

  Fox-boy walks a few steps in front of me. I think it must be time for a rest. We are sleeping a lot lately. But before I can say anything, Fox-boy cries out and scrambles forward. Has he found Stephan and the army?

  I leap after him, and then I see it.

  It is a tree. A twisted, old, bent-over tree that makes me think of the quince tree back at St Denis. But it is the first tree we have seen in days — weeks even. I wrap my arms around its rough trunk and think of Ines, planting herbs in the abbey garden. I think of the smell of earth and sunshine, the sound of bees, the taste of bread.

  And I cry and cry and cry.

  Fox-boy cries too, a howling, barking cry.

  There are more trees, and then bushes, and then our first glimpse of greenish-brown as the snow thins. Fox- boy and I try eating some of the leaves on the trees and bushes, but they make us sick.

  When we come across a protected hollow and see a hut, I think I must be dreaming.

  It is not a very sturdy hut — one of the walls is leaning out on an angle, and it looks like a good storm could push the whole thing over. But there are four walls and a roof and, best of all, smoke rising from a hole in the corner.

  I knock on the door and wait. Fox-boy runs around in excited little circles.

  I hear the jangling of a bell. Then a voice comes from inside that sounds like branches snapping.

  ‘Impuro!’ It says. ‘Impuro!’

  I don’t know what this means, but I am cold and want to sit by the fire. So I knock again.

  The door to the little hut opens, and a man appears.

  Or is it a monster?

  He is short and twisted, like the trees around his hut.

  He wears a sackcloth robe and carries a bell which he thrusts, clanging towards us. His skin is all wrinkled and lumpy, and I cannot tell how old he is. It has been so long since I saw another person apart from Fox-boy, and even longer since I saw a grown-up person. The hand that holds the bell is smooth and shiny, with only three fingers on it. His other hand has no fingers at all.

  ‘Impuro!’ he says again in his dry-sticks voice. ‘Impuro!’

  ‘We just want to warm up by your fire,’ I say. ‘We’ve been lost in the mountains.’

  The man stops ringing the bell and stares at me for a moment with milky eyes that are rimmed with red. I notice he has no eyelashes. Then he notices the Oriflamme in my hand, and makes the holy sign.

  The inside of the hut is dark, and doesn’t smell very nice. But it is warm, and Fox-boy immediately makes for the smoky little fire, curls up and falls asleep.

  The old man busies himself with a pot that hangs over the fire, and soon hands me a bowl of hot broth. He doesn’t seem to miss his fingers.

  ‘Slowly,’ he says, in my tongue. He speaks it as if he has not done so for many years.

  I sip some of the broth, and it feels strange in my mouth. I’m not sure I remember what to do with it. But I swallow and soon the most delicious warmth spreads through my body.

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask the dry-sticks man. ‘What are you doing here all alone?’

  ‘I’m dead,’ says the man. ‘A ghost.’

  I look at the bowl in my hands. It is hard and solid and warm and real. This man gave me this bowl.

  ‘You don’t seem like a ghost,’ I say.

  He shrugs. ‘I am,’ he says. ‘When I became a leper, I died. I stood in my own grave while a priest threw dirt on me and read in Latin. Sis mortuus mondo, vivens iterum Deo. Dead to the world, reborn to God.’

  I have heard people talk about lepers. They have a disease that is very deadly. I wonder if I shall catch it from drinking the leper’s broth.

  He sees the look on my face and his laugh is like flames crackling wood.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘The holy symbol of St Denis will protect you.’ He jerks his head at the Oriflamme, which is resting by the door.

  ‘How do you know it’s from St Denis?’ I ask.

  ‘I know lots of things,’ says the dry-sticks man. He looks a bit sad when he says this, which I think is strange. If I knew lots of things I’m sure I’d be happy because there wouldn’t be so many questions.

  I want to ask him all my questions. I want to ask him about Stephan and Our Lord and the Holy Land and Niklaus and whether the children who died on the mountain really were black inside. But I don’t know which question to ask first, so instead I ask if he knows anything about silvery fish.

  He smiles, and I see gums and black teeth.

  ‘Fish,’ he says. ‘Fish. The symbol of life. Of Our Lord. Of everything.’

  I feel empty. That was me. The symbol of everything. The alpha fish. But not anymore.

  The dry-sticks man leans forward. ‘It was once believed that pagan gods were born from the mouths of fishes.’

  I wonder if he is being a heretic, and I’m glad that no one else is here to tell him to stop.

  ‘In the east, people believe that dead souls live inside fish. Women wishing to birth a child eat fish in the hope that the dead soul will flow into her and spark new life.’

  I imagine a silvery fish swimming into a woman’s mouth and making a child grow inside her. I think of the wet, slippery brothers and sisters my Maman birthed, and I shiver.

  ‘Why are you so interested in fish?’ asks the dry-sticks man.

  I tell him about Stephan and how he said I was the alpha fish. Then I tell him about the children’s army and the Oriflamme and Eustache and the heretics who were killed in the village and about the mountain and the storm. I don’t tell him about Eustache falling. The words don’t come out.

  ‘You want to fight the Saracen?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know if I can,’ I tell him. ‘But I want to save Our Lord and the Holy Land.’

  ‘But what if Our Lord doesn’t want to be saved?’ the man murmurs, almost to himself.

  ‘Of course he does! Why wouldn’t he?’

  The man stares at the fire for a moment, frowning. ‘I’m not sure we are the right ones to do the saving. Sometimes I think we are just as bad as the Saracen.’

  ‘The Saracen are monsters!’

  ‘As are all men. Our soldiers have not just killed the Saracen in this war. They have killed Judeans and pagans and heretics and Waldensians and Hussites. Many innocent lives have been lost under the guise of fighting the Saracen.’

  I am not sure what to say. Is he telling the truth?

  The dry-sticks man looks up from the fire and nods at me. ‘But perhaps you are right,’ he says. ‘Perhaps our grown hands are so dirty with blood that it is only the tiny clean hands of children that can finally end this war.’

  I look down at my hands. They are not so clean.

  ‘Perhaps it is not the fishers of men who are to save us,’ the man continues, ‘but the fish itself. The alpha fish.’

  ‘Except I don’t think I am, any more,’ I tell him. ‘I lost the army. I let Stephan leave without me. I can’t be the alpha fish without him.’

  The dry-sticks man thinks about this. I listen to the rattling of his breathing and think he must be very wise, to have so many thoughts.

  ‘You say you are the alpha fish,’ he says at last.

  ‘I thought I was,’ I reply.

  ‘And that you were the first to bear the Oriflamme.’ ‘Yes.’

  The dry-sticks man looks at the Oriflamme by the door, and then stares into the fire.

  ‘And the Oriflamme came back to you.’

  ‘I found it. In the snow.’

  He nods. ‘You were destined to carry it.’

  I breathe in. Destined. The Oriflamme is mine. It was right for me to rescue it instead of Eustache.

  ‘But what if I can’t find Stephan and the army?’

  I ask.

  ‘You will,’ he replies.

  ‘How do you know?’

  The dry-sticks man rubs at his face with his fingerless hand. ‘Where is Stephan headed?’

  ‘To the ocean. It’s going to dry up so we can walk across.’

  ‘And how is he going to do that?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know. He knows secret magic.’

  The dry-sticks man smiles. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘He needs something. A talisman.’

  ‘The Oriflamme?’

  ‘Yes. But not just the Oriflamme. You say you are the alpha fish.’

  ‘Yes.’ I am starting to tremble. ‘Where do you find fish?’

  I swallow. ‘In water.’

  ‘What kind of water?’

  I think about what Stephan told us. About where we were going. ‘The— the ocean?’

  ‘Yes.’ The dry-sticks man reaches out and his three fingers curl around my hand. ‘Yes. You are his talisman. You are the alpha fish.’

  And I know what I have to do.

  nineteen

  It is not difficult to find the army. As Fox-boy and I walk out of the leper’s valley and climb the next crest, we see the world spread out below us.

  Below are hills that turn into flat ground. There is rough, hairy green everywhere, but below I can see patchwork squares of farms and fields. And there, at the bottom of the mountain, is the army. I can barely make them out, but there is smoke coming from fires, and some tiny brown dots that move about.

  Fox-boy does a little dance around in a circle. But I am still a bit frightened of what will happen when I return. Will they guess about Eustache? Will Stephan look inside me and know what I did?

  I touch the red fabric of the Oriflamme for comfort, and remember what the dry-sticks man said. I am the alpha fish. I am his talisman.

  We scramble down the mountain, chewing on strips of cured meat that the dry-sticks man gave us. Fox-boy tries to catch a rabbit, but he is not fast enough. I wish we had a bow and arrow, though I don’t know if I could work one.

  By the time we reach the camp where I saw the army, they have moved on. But it is not difficult to follow them now. They leave wide trails through the thick green forest, broken branches and trampled undergrowth.

  We find them the next morning. The forest is very close here, so nobody sees me at first. I look through branches and I feel cold and a bit sick.

  There are not many children left. I think there is maybe the same amount we had when we left St Denis. Maybe less. But that is counting all of the grey army as well. I see Luc, looking thin and sad and small, like a little boy. There is no David. Alard is here, too, but I can’t see any of the other nobles. Did they all die?

  I can hear a strange noise. A screaming, angry noise.

  I creep forward, and see Stephan’s orange and gold robes. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and tears fill my eyes and I think I might fall over with relief. He is safe. I want to run forward and throw myself to the ground and touch his ankles. But then I notice that the screaming, angry noise is coming from him. I move closer. Fox-boy seems nervous being around so many people after us being alone for what feels like such a long time, although I think it is only a few days. He walks very close to me, his shoulder pressed against mine.

 

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