Pilgrims

by Matthew Kneale

  So she’d been with that big party of Saxons. Had they chucked her out? I wouldn’t blame them. Now she was telling her friend who wasn’t there about someone who had insulted her and cut her dress – so that was why it looked so strange – and who’d done something horrible to her boots. They were a bad crowd by the sounds of them and I was gladder than ever I’d kept well away. Next she was griping about a monk who’d been cruel to her when she’d been in bed with a hurt foot. I hadn’t noticed any monks’ habits, but then I’d only seen them for an instant. And now she was moaning about some fellow who was forever plaguing her with his penis, and who I hoped wasn’t the monk. Then we climbed over a ridge and I saw high mountains up ahead, some with snow. It was empty country here and we’d hardly passed through a village all day, but God was with me and as the light began to fade towards dusk we came to a place with a dozen or so houses and a tiny pilgrim hospital. That’s for you, Saxon madwoman, I thought, taking her to the door, and she seemed content enough. Leaving her there I walked to a farm a little further on, where they were kind enough to give me bread and bean stew and some straw to sleep on in their barn.

  I made sure to get up early the next morning and soon after first light I was all set to go. But when I walked out of the barn who should I find, sitting on a rock and giving me a demoniac smile, but the madwoman. How she’d found me I didn’t know. I walked by her without a word, though I could hear her walking just behind me. A little later I heard her start weeping and wailing. I’m not heartless and, fearing I’d hurt her feelings, I stopped and turned but she wasn’t looking at me but up at the sky. Later I heard a great roar that made me jump, thinking a bear was at me, but no, this was her too. That’s enough, I thought. No more of this dame. I stopped and sat down on a tree stump, waiting for her to go on, but she found a big flat stone and waited too, merrily babbling to her friend who wasn’t there, thanking him for showing her something that somebody called Supper or Sipper hadn’t seen as clearly as she had. I’ll outwait you, I thought. You’ll have to go on in the end. But I’d forgotten about her Saxon friends. Hearing their voices behind us, I jumped and of course she followed just like before.

  Perhaps she’s part of my penance, I thought, given to me by God? She seemed like a penance, certainly. As there was no getting rid of her I decided I might as well let her walk with me for a day or two. At the village where we stopped that night I was too tired to find different places for us both to sleep so we both stayed in the same barn, and as we lay down I heard her gabbling again to her friend. ‘D’you think Hungary will try to ravage me in the night? No, I don’t think so either.’ That made me chuckle. Don’t you worry, you shit-stinking Saxon madwoman, I thought. You’ll have no trouble from me.

  Over the day or two somehow I grew almost used to her. Better a mad Saxon than a sane one, I thought. And she wasn’t all bad. She had a talent for begging, no denying, and she’d give one look at a fellow on the road and know just how to squeeze him. If he seemed kindly she’d ask in a sweet gentle voice if he could spare something for a poor pilgrim on her way to Rome, and seeing the state of her, with her strange ruined dress and her wild hair, he’d often give her a French farthing or two. If they seemed harder she’d burst into demoniac sobbing to break their will. If they looked anxious she’d creep up and roar at them so they jumped, and they’d give her something to make her go away. When she did well she’d usually give me a coin or two, saying, ‘Here you are, Hungary.’

  And with time she reeked less. Her boots were the heart of the stink and whenever we came upon a stream or a pond she’d wash them out so they’d squelch on the road, which seemed to help. Madwoman or no, I decided I might as well see her over the Great Saint Bernard pass which we’d come to before long. For that matter it would do me no harm to have a little company up there as everyone said it was a perilous and desolate spot. I could see it would be, as with each mile we walked the mountains grew higher on the horizon, till they made Snowdon look like a little midget. Yet when I asked a priest along the way in Latin, he said that these were the Juras and that they were nothing compared to the Alps that were hid behind them, and were where we’d cross the Great Saint Bernard.

  Then the Juras were right above us and we were climbing and climbing. At least the madwoman was too out of breath to gabble. By then I’d realized from her words that she wasn’t talking to a friend but to Jesus. So she was a holy madwoman. There were more than a few of those in this world. It seemed like the climb would never end but when we finally reached the top I swear it felt like I could see half the world. To the left was a lake and straight ahead was another, larger one, which must be Geneva. Behind it were the Alps, looking sharp as dogs’ teeth. They had plenty of snow. I just hoped there wouldn’t be too much on the Great Saint Bernard.

  By nightfall and with tired feet we were at Lake Geneva and the next morning we took a rowboat to the far shore, which saved us a good few miles of walking, so we were told. Just before dark we reached the small town of Villeneuve at the far end and then our work truly began. Up we clambered beside the River Rhone and my pack had never felt so heavy on my shoulders. We spent the night at a little place called Saint Morris and the next day each mile seemed steeper than the last. Worse was to come. After Martigny the path went not along the valley like before, but straight up the side, weaving back and forth, and it was a rough way, with sharp stones that dug into my boots and scree that slipped and slithered beneath my feet. How I wished I might have some soft Cymraeg grass under my toes. It was cold too and misty with a steady rain falling through the white, so drops dripped from my hands, and off my hat onto my face to run down my nose. All in all I was more than happy when we reached the next town, of Orsieres. And we had good news there. In the hospital where we spent the night there were two merchants from Florence who told me, in Latin, that they’d come down from the Great Saint Bernard pass just that morning and that there was next to no snow up there. We were lucky, they said, as this was unusual so late in the year. They knew a little English so I left it to them to tell my madwoman.

  From Orsieres most people took two days to climb up to the pass, the friars told us, though it could be done in one. I was all for getting it over with before any snow came down, and when I had the Florentines tell this to the madwoman she gave her accord most readily. So, first thing the next morning we set out through the mist. We soon left the last trees behind us and the slopes were bleak and empty. As for the path, this started well enough but after an hour or two it brought us to a couple of empty shepherds’ huts and after then it seemed so narrow and slight that I couldn’t see how anyone would get a cart up here, as even a mule would struggle. I tugged at the madwoman’s arm to stop her but she just laughed.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Hungary,’ she said. ‘It’s going up so it must be right,’ and on she dashed. Now I wished I hadn’t told her I spoke no English. My growling stomach told me that it was past noon when I finally saw the horizon falling lower before us, so I knew we were almost at the top. The madwoman had seen it too. ‘Here we are, here’s the pass,’ she cried. Sure enough the land flattened out ahead but there was no pass and no great hospital. We’d reached a ridge with a small patch of grassland and all around were little pellets of goat shit. We must’ve been following their track. Clearly we’d taken the wrong way out from Orsieres. The madwoman saw it at the same moment I did. ‘Why did you take us up here?’ she said, which wasn’t right at all seeing as it wasn’t my doing but hers, then I saw she was looking up at the sky, so it wasn’t me she was scolding but Jesus. It wasn’t him, you demoniac old fool, I thought, it was you. I pointed back down the way we’d come and she gave a nod.

  The trouble was that though the path had seemed clear enough on the way up, it was anything but clear going down. It didn’t help that the mist was thicker than ever. We scrambled over rocks and I soon had no idea which way we were going except that it was down. The light was fading and the mist was so bad that I could hardly see my own feet. I took
a step and felt a softness in the ground beneath my toes which made me stop still, and through a slight thinning of the white I glimpsed the slope falling away to nothing. I reached out to stop the madwoman from dropping over. She was as shocked as I was and so we both sat down. If only this cursed fog would lift, I thought, but if anything it seemed to be growing worse, if such a thing were possible. So we sat side by side. I was shivering and shivering, and that was when the thought came to me, is this little spot where I’m to spend my last hours on this earth? Is this God’s reward for betraying my land and my lord? Is he going to take me this night and give me to Satan as my punishment? Will I never pray to good Saint Peter, or go to the pope’s court like I promised? Most of all I thought, will I never see my dear Myfanwy again, or my three little ones?

  The madwoman was shivering as bad as I was and she pushed up beside me for warmth. I got out the food that I had, she got out hers and it wasn’t much, just a little bread and cheese and a couple of apples. I’d thought I wouldn’t need much as that evening I’d be enjoying a good hot dinner at the hospital on the Saint Bernard. We ate it down and as darkness fell we lay side by side, using every scrap of cloth and even our packs to cover ourselves, though I was still shivering and quaking on the cold wet ground. That was when the anger that had been swelling inside me for hours finally found its way out. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have gone up that idiot track,’ I said in Saxon, my voice quaking from the cold. ‘But you wouldn’t stop, would you? You had to go on.’ I heard her gasp. ‘You speak English? You spoke it all this time?’ ‘So I do,’ I answered her, with no apology. ‘I’m not Hungarian but Welsh. I didn’t say so because it didn’t please me to spend my hours talking to a demoniac old woman of a nation that’s ruined my own. And if you’re curious, I’ll tell you now that, thanks to your own foolishness, I don’t think either of us will live to see the dawn.’

  She went silent. She’ll be angry now, I thought. She’ll start weeping and roaring. I quite wanted her to, to know she was anguished as she should be, but no, to my surprise she didn’t seem troubled at all. ‘We won’t die here,’ she said, like there was not one ounce of doubt in her mind. ‘Jesus promised me he’d give me a wonderful gift in Rome, you see, which means he has to get me there, and he’ll get you there too, I promise.’ It was strange because even though she was a ragged madwoman who babbled to Jesus for hours, hearing her say it did make me feel better. Though in truth I couldn’t see it. The fog was as bad as ever and I could feel the wet of it on my face. I was so tired. ‘So why don’t you like speaking English?’ she asked with chattering teeth. ‘What do you care?’ I answered. ‘Let me sleep.’ But she wouldn’t let me be. ‘Come on, tell me,’ she said. And so, though I hadn’t meant to, and it was all I could do to make my mouth speak the words, I started telling her my story, about how I’d worked as a scribe to Dafydd ap Gruffudd and had betrayed him to the Saxons. And that was strange too, because even though I knew I was about to die, somehow saying it all made me feel better than I had for a good while. I’d never actually told it all to anybody till then, not even to Myfanwy or Prior Hywel.

  ‘What’s that up there?’ said the madwoman. ‘It looks like the moon.’ So it was, a little white smear in the mist. I’d felt a slight breeze, though I’d thought nothing of it except that it made me colder even than before. I watched in wonder as the fog began to lift around us, blown away by the wind. The moon was almost full and by its light I could soon make out snow-covered peaks on the far side of the valley, looking pale and ghostly. ‘Come on,’ said the madwoman. ‘Let’s go before it comes down again.’ It was hard to find the strength to get up but I managed, and I saw the drop I’d almost fallen over was only a steeper part of the slope and not a cliff at all.

  Even then it wasn’t easy. The moonlight was too faint to light the land well and I’d often trip or scrape my shins and knees but there was hope now and walking warmed me a little. After an hour or so we found a track and followed it till we came upon a shepherd’s hut, and though there was nobody there, it was dry and there was straw to lie on and even some sheepskins to use as blankets. The madwoman, whose name was Matilda she told me, reached into her pack and pulled out two sausages. ‘I took them from the friars’ larder when they weren’t looking,’ she said, with no shame. ‘Jesus said I should.’ And though she’d kept them hidden from me I didn’t care but was just glad to have something to eat. So, shivering side by side, we lived to see the dawn, and a glorious dawn it was too, with the rising sun colouring the snowy peaks a beautiful pink.

  Now I could see the Great Saint Bernard pass, high to the south of us, and the path we should have taken down below. We hadn’t gone as wrong as I’d feared. We had to clamber across country for a couple of hours but then we found the road and up we went, slow as snails, as it wove back and forth, ever steeper. Till finally, as the day was turning to dusk, I felt the way growing gentler under my feet and the horizon fell lower before us so I knew we were almost at the top. Sure enough, a moment later I saw a good-sized building up ahead that had to be the hospital. We both let out a cry of joy and then trudged our aching feet over the last yards and hammered at the door. A friar ushered us into the hall, which had a fine, welcoming fire burning. And there, sitting at two long tables close by it, was the party of Saxons.

  How glad I was that I’d kept clear of them before. We’d hardly got inside the hall when one of them jeered, ‘Look who it is? The fellow who insulted our ladies. And with Matilda, too.’ Now they all turned to see. I would have answered but Matilda was faster. ‘He won’t talk to you,’ she said, quite spitting out the words. ‘He’s a proud Welshman who doesn’t like to speak to Saxons and why should he?’ I couldn’t think that would help and nor did it. ‘A dirty Welshman?’ the same one answered, giving me a smirk. ‘Watch out for your horses, Dame Lucy, as he’ll have them all, mark my words. They’re thieves, every last one of them.’ I’d never thought I’d be glad to hear Matilda howl but I was then. Raising her arms in the air and looking like some wild-haired demon she silenced him with a scream. ‘He’s ten times more righteous than you are, Sir John, who goes round punching abbots. He’s a good, brave, noble-hearted man and a clerk of the church, too.’

  They went quiet then, having not a word to say. The two of us sat down on the other side of the hall, as far from them as we could. Then the friars brought us soup and bread and stew, and simple though it was I swear I’ve never known food to taste so good. Matilda told me I should take all my things into my bed that night, as there was no telling what foul things they might do. ‘Take your boots,’ she said. ‘Especially your boots.’ That was the moment when, remembering her howl at the Saxons, I made up my mind. ‘I’ll keep you company to Rome if you like, Matilda,’ I said. She smiled. ‘I’d like that, Iorwerth. I’m fearful of robbers and ravagers, you see.’ And so we were agreed.

  Though my bones still ached from the climb, we got up early the next morning so we could set out before the others. That was a strange thing, though. The first dawn light was just coming up, it was bitterly cold and I thought we were the only ones out there but then I heard angry shouting. It sounded like it was coming from behind the hospital, near the latrine. Curious now, we both went to look. Peering round the corner of the building I saw a woman, whom I knew as one of the Saxons, and who was disputing with two men. I’d seen them the evening before, sitting by themselves in the corner of the dining hall. The three of them were too lost in their squabbling to notice us. Though I couldn’t hear well enough to understand clearly what they were saying, it seemed like the two men were accusing the woman of something. The strangest thing, though, was the language they were speaking. Mostly they spoke French but sometimes they broke into Saxon and then they’d throw in words that were in no tongue I knew.

  ‘That’s Mary,’ Matilda whispered. ‘D’you think we should say something?’ I was in no mood to get myself caught up in their trouble. ‘Let’s leave them be and go on our way,’ I said. Then, just as I was about
to turn away, I glimpsed, only for a moment, something moving at the far end of the building. It looked like a face pulling back out of sight around the corner. It seemed we hadn’t been the only ones watching.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tom son of Tom

  If an oak starts from an acorn and a chicken starts from an egg then all my new troubles hatched from that big blundering hulk. This was the same morning when Dame Matilda stormed off because somebody had laid turdies in her boots. Most of them were happy to be rid of her and her weeping and howling and preaching at us all, though I thought it a shame too, as she wasn’t so bad for all her anoyful ways. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her when she marched out with her dripping, stinking boots and her snatched bread, trying not to cry. Warin said it wasn’t any of us who’d done it but two Dutchmen he’d seen creeping about in the night and who’d left early. ‘I’d have told her if she’d only given me the chance,’ he said. Which might’ve been right, I supposed, though it did seem strange that such a foul thing would be done by strangers who she’d hardly howled at even once.

  We all left the hospital and were walking through the town of Besantion and like usual I was rattling my bowl at everyone who walked by, as like usual I was down to my last few coins. Though I might have had even fewer, as if there was one good thing about being back in my rags it was that I did better begging. Anyway, we came to a narrow way and that was where we struck the hulk. He was loading a sack onto his donkey’s back and being a big jobbard of a fellow he all but blocked the road. I tried to step round him but I swear it seemed like he shoved into me on purpose. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he didn’t like pilgrims. Some folk didn’t and said we were just living off them with our begging to be at ease and do no work. My bowl flew out from my hand and clattered onto the ground and when I picked it up, along with all the pebbles I kept in it to give it more noise, I saw it had a crack. It was small enough. Never mind, Sammo, I thought, as that won’t do much harm. It’ll still see me to Rome and probably all the way back home too.