I dismounted by the front door and handed the horse over to a groom. Margery helped me off with my boots and we tip-toed through the house, me in my stockinged feet, she leading me by the hand.

Our guest was asleep in a chair. At first I didn’t recognise him. He’d shaved the beard and was wearing a full bottomed, auburn-tinted wig. His big round spectacles had slipped halfway down his nose.

It was the hands that gave him away. They were spread in repose across the folio that rested on his knees, but they still looked soldierly. I recognised the pattern of scarring.

"Bors!" I exclaimed. "What’s he doing here?"

The old man stirred and came to. "I wasn’t sleeping," he said. "Just resting my eyes. Your southern daylight is quite unnecessarily bright. How do you do, Purchas?"

"Better for seeing you." I knelt on the floor beside him and took his hands in mine and kissed them both.

He disengaged the right hand and rested it for a moment on my head, as if in blessing. "Nice place you have here," he said. "And it seems I’ve arrived just in time for some sort of a party. Margery said we’d do a little tour of the estate once you returned. Are you up for it?"

"I’ll put my boots back on."

We strolled out onto the parterre. "You can see most of our land from here," said Margery. "Vines over there. Dairy cattle in the valley."

"And some sort of Carthaginian sea port in the middle distance."

"That’s the setting for the fete," I explained. "Inspired by Claude Lorrain. The theme of it is the Embarkation for Cythera."

"Charming," he said. "I’m glad I arrived in time."

"You’ll be guest of honour," I said.

We strolled out into the formal garden. He paused to take a rose between his fingers, held it close to his eyes and turned it this way and that. "Greenfly," he murmured. "You need to take precautions. I’ll write you out a recipe afterwards."

"What brings you here?" I asked.

"I’m between lives." he said. "I thought I’d take a little tour before I settle into my next one. Use the opportunity to visit friends. You know I haven't been out of England in over sixty years."

"That’s not like you." I corrected myself. "Not like the old you, anyway."

"No, I was a restless soul, wasn’t I?"

"Are you getting back your taste for travel?"

"Europe’s changed." He sniffed the air. "More borders, bigger armies, nastier wars. In the old days you could cross from one end of Christendom to the other and nobody tried to stop you moving around. No one stepped out in front of your horse and said, ‘Hey this is my kingdom you can’t come in here!’ Borders were porous and always changing. You rarely knew where one man’s country ended and the next began. You’d ride up to a castle and ask where you were and they’d say Styria or Bohemia or the Comtat and they’d give you a nice meal and send you on your way rejoicing. These days you have to carry papers. And what’s worse, you’re obliged to show them every few miles to some cheapjack with a gun. I can’t say I like it."

"You know there’s more than a party in the offing here?" said Margery.

He raised his eyebrows.

I looked at Margery. She looked at me. Neither of us wanted to give him the news.

"Emilia was here," she said at last. "Camped out on the far side of Mont Ventoux." She pointed. "That great white mountain, over there. She had a little army of Switzers with her. We found her out before she could find us. There was a confrontation. Which I think we won. But our friend Gabriele was killed. Shot in the back. Purchas could easily have been killed as well."

Bors leaned against the stone balustrade that separated the garden on its raised platform from the meadows below. "I’m sorry about Gabriele. I didn’t like him much, but I respected him. What was he doing down here?"

"He was tracking Emilia."

"Ah yes. Typically brave and typically rash." He rubbed his nose. "I was afraid of something like this. I knew Emilia would eventually come looking for you. Is she still in the area?"

"We don’t know," I said. "She disappeared after the battle."

"Her daughter is here," said Margery. "The Polkinghorne girl. Artemesia. She ran away from her mother."

"Here in the house?"

"You’ll meet her at dinner."

"Then I suppose we must consider ourselves under siege. You should cancel the Fete."

"Too late," I said. "Invitations were sent out long ago. Some of the guests will already be on the road. They’re coming, not only from the Comtat, but from all over the South of France."

"I’ve had this feeling before," he said. "You ride up to a castle. All the flags are flying. The drawbridge is down, the portcullis is up. You ride on in, full of confidence, thinking about your lunch, then the portcullis falls behind you with a mighty clang and you notice that the gate ahead of you is shut as well."

"What happens next?" asked Margery.

"There is a pause- just so you can fully acquaint yourself with the beauty of the situation- and then the air is filled with crossbow bolts and boiling oil. It’s called a murder hole."

"But you escaped."

"I was an Immortal. I’m not any more. None of us are. I don’t suppose you possess the Antidote?"

"A single dose." I reached into my jacket, removed the shagreen box and placed it on the table.

"Well I never," he said. "I’ve never seen the stuff before. May I?"

"Of course. It won’t hurt you." I undid the clasp and carefully raised the lid.

He lifted the dagger out. "You know, it amuses me that we choose to call it by such an inoffensive name; The Antidote- as if it were a medicine."

"Perhaps it is," I ventured.

He smiled. "I’ve thought that too. But, no, we mustn’t take refuge in cheap philosophy. This thing is an evil. You know what my instinct is? My instinct is to take it outside into the yard and drop a heavy paving stone on top of it."

I put out my hand. "You mustn’t…"

"Don’t worry. I know."

"There is in fact a little more where that came from. I gave a dose to Louis Klipper. He’s working on the formula."

Bors replaced the dagger in its box. "Where do you keep this?"

"I’ve been carrying it about with me."

"Best keep it somewhere safe. It could mean the difference between victory and defeat."

"How about here ?" asked Margery. She took the box from the table and carried it over to the fireplace, then, having brushed the ash from the flagstones in front of the hearth,  inserted the blade of her scissors under one of the stones and lifted it, disclosing a hole about a foot deep.

"I didn’t know that was there," I said.

"Of course not. One has to have a few secrets. It’s where I keep the housekeeping money. What do you think?"

"Very nice," said Bors. He rose stiffly from his chair and walked across to see exactly what she was doing.

She put the box in the hole, replaced the stone, then took a handful of ash from the grate and scattered it all over.

"So that’s where all the money goes," I said, reproachfully.

"And now I’m going to have to find another hiding place," said Margery.

Bors sat down again, stretched out his legs and straightened his shoulders. "You’ve probably worked it out by now. I’m not simply here on holiday."

"Sort of," I said.

"Two months ago a couple of emissaries from the Brotherhood came knocking at my presbytery door. I pretended, as I always did, to be completely senile. But then I saw they were desperate."

"This was after Melchisidech was murdered?" I asked.

"They’d come from the Rhineland, yes. And it wasn’t just Melchisidech who was killed. Have you heard the story?"

We shook our heads.

"There was a peace conference. Supposedly. Most of the Brotherhood were there. Emilia was invited. They were going to offer her generous terms. I don’t know quite how she pulled it off, but she managed to kill them all. The result is I’m the most senior member of our order left standing. I didn’t want to get involved, but I didn’t see how I could avoid it." He spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. "So here I am."

"Alone," I asked. "To face Emilia?"

"Not entirely. I have Herne with me."

I kooked foolishly round the room, as if expecting him to bounce from hiding.

"No, he's not here. Of course he wanted to come and visit, but I persuaded him to stay in Carpentras. I didn’t want you thinking this was anything more than a social call and I couldn’t trust him to keep him to keep his mouth shut. Yes, I know, I know." He shook his head. "And now I’ve blabbed it all myself."

"You knew Emilia was in the Comtat?"

"I knew she would be coming here. I hoped she might still be on her way. If that had been the case I would have spent a single night here, not saying anything, then I’d have moved East to meet her. White Knight to Red Queen. Check."

"You have the Antidote?"

He smiled. "Apparently I do now. One dose you say? But that’s all it takes."

"You’d kill her?"

He took off his spectacles and began to polish them vigorously on his shirt cuff. "I think someone has to. I don’t know what St Francis would have done in similar circumstances, but he was a soldier once and I think he would have accepted that we lack alternatives. " He put the spectacles away in a pocket. "Who else do you have living in this enclave."

"Immortals, you mean?"

"Yes, Immortals, of course."

Margery and I went through the list.

"I recognise two soldiers in that lot. Pertinax and Farquahar. I need to speak to them."

"They live in Avignon."

"Then that’s where I must go."

"Should I come with you?" I asked.

"No, I need you to stay here and make the property secure. Identify every point of entry and fortify it."

"You’re expecting an attack?"
 

"I’m trying to think as Emilia would think. This fete of yours must be almost irresistible to her. All the Immortals in Southern France gathered together in one place: how could she possibly keep away? . The only reason she wouldn’t attack is because she hasn’t had time to gather an army. What I’m hoping is she’ll risk it anyway, either alone or with a seriously under-powered force. She won’t be expecting me to be here. With luck she’ll be the one who ends up in the murder hole."

We walked back to the house. Bors was introduced to Arty. She made him a very low curtsey.

"No need for that," he said, helping her up. The daughter of Francis polkinghorne has no reason to bow to me.

"I know your reputation, sir."

"Me? I’m just an old country clergyman."

"My mother doesn’t think so. She calls you ‘the Great Enemy’. She was afraid of Purchas and Gabriele, but she was even more afraid of you, sir."

"And with good reason," I said. "Having Bors here makes all the difference."

"Don’t overpraise me. The fact is," He turned to Arty. "I do have a bit of military experience, going back a few years."

"Going back a thousand years," I corrected him. "The truth is Bors was one of King Arthur’s knights. He was a crusader, he fought at Tewkesbury..."

"Water under the bridge," he said, waving his hand dismissively.

"But aren’t you, in fact, the head of our order?" she asked shyly.

"Oh dear. Well, I suppose I may be." He scratched under his wig. "But it hasn’t been ratified yet. Acting head would be more like it."

"You mean," I said. "When you say that you’re the most senior member left alive…"

"That makes me the new chief. Yes, it does. In an executive capacity. And only for the time being. There will have to be an election once things return to normal." He reached for his neck and produced a ring on a stout golden chain . "I don’t wear it on my finger. I don’t feel entitled. Besides, it’s an ugly thing."

The ring was massive and set with a seal-stone of purple amethyst. He displayed it on his open palm for an instant then, as we bent for a closer look, closed his fist round it and tucked it back behind his cravat. "Anyway," he concluded. "We have a challenger out there, don’t we? Until her claims are dealt with, everything else is a formality." He glanced at the wall clock. "And now I really need to go rally my troops."

His horse was brought round to the front of the house. He mounted and set off for Avignon.