by C. R. Berry
But that looked like…
No, it couldn’t be.
The yellow-haired man said, “Then who – ?”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Tyrrell, or whoever he was, his voice much deeper and harsher than the yellow-haired man’s. “Just give me the book.”
The book? What book?
The yellow-haired man seemed equally puzzled. “What book?”
“Don’t play games with me, Your Grace. This arrow is pointed straight at your heart.”
Your Grace!
Purkis swallowed – it was like forcing down a rock.
He couldn’t believe it, yet he knew it to be true. The regal clothes. The golden head. The red complexion that had earned him the nickname ‘William Rufus’. For some reason he was using the tongue of the common people, but there could be no doubt. This Walter Tyrrell was threatening to shoot the king.
Purkis felt a tightening in his chest. Just ten minutes ago, he had silently wished the king dead. Could his treasonous thoughts have precipitated this?
“What amusement,” smirked the king. “A traitorous pretender accuses me of playing games.”
Tyrrell just glared down the shaft of his arrow. “Where is it?”
“Safe,” said the king, evidently knowing of this book all along. “Hidden. And if you think I’m ever going to tell you where, you may as well shoot me now.”
“Fine.”
Tyrrell pulled back his bowstring and released it with a twang. The arrow sliced through the air with a faint hiss and thudded into the king’s chest.
Purkis clamped his hand over his mouth to suppress a horrified gasp.
The king thumped into a shallow bed of bracken. Purkis moved in a little closer, ducked behind a large gorse bush and peeked over the top.
The king clung to life, fingers clenched around the arrow in his chest, blood spilling over his fist and onto the bracken. Then he wheezed his last, his head drooped to one side, and his gaze froze in death.
Purkis shuddered. A small twig snapped beneath his foot.
Tyrrell reacted, twisting in Purkis’s direction.
Damn, he’d heard it.
Purkis stooped low immediately, hopefully obscured by the bush.
No, no, no…
Did he see me?
Purkis could still see the king’s killer through gaps in the green, spiny branches and egg-yolk-yellow blooms.
Please, no.
Tyrrell walked forwards, heading in Purkis’s direction. As he did, he took out a new arrow.
Purkis stopped breathing, a knot lodged in his throat. He shut his eyes.
Tyrrell’s boots crunched over fallen leaves and twigs, drawing closer and louder.
A sharp sound split the air. Purkis’s eyes sprang open. Tyrrell had stopped. It was a bizarre sound – quite musical – and appeared to have saved Purkis from getting shot.
Tyrrell dug his hand inside his tunic, pulled something out.
Now that he was distracted, Purkis moved back to a safer, more distant position, angled so he could see what was going on through a gap in the trees.
Tyrrell was holding something. A flat, black, rectangular object. He tapped it with his finger. The music stopped. Tyrrell lifted the object to his ear.
What was he doing?
“Hello,” Tyrrell murmured.
Me? Is he talking to me?
“The king is dead. Did it work?”
There was a silence. A moment later, he continued, “Then I’ll continue searching for the book.” Another pause, then, “I’ll have to lie low for a while, change my identity. I think the king’s chief minister, Ranulf Flambard, might know –”
His sentence trailed off, unfinished.
There was a much longer silence, and it was almost as if he was listening to the object at his ear.
Was he mad? He certainly seemed it. He finally said, “Are you ordering me to make another jump?” After a pause, “When?”
A further long silence was followed by, “So shouldn’t I stick around here, find out if Ranulf Flambard was the one who…”
Another unfinished sentence.
What in the world was going on?
Tyrrell gave a sigh and muttered, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of it.”
Then he lowered the black object from his ear, tapped the front of it again, and slipped it back inside his tunic. There must’ve been some holder or small bag that was sewn into the lining.
As he withdrew his hand from the receptacle, something else came with it. Another strange object – small, cylindrical, white. He fumbled with it with both hands. There was a faint click. Purkis peered hard, saw an opening in the top of the object, and recognised that it was a kind of bottle or pot, and Tyrrell had just removed the lid.
Tyrrell used one hand to tip the bottle into the other and gently shake it. A tiny object the colour of blood – possibly a stone or jewel – rolled out into his palm.
He threw up his palm to his mouth, and the stone was gone, swallowed.
He replaced the lid on the bottle.
Purkis took a breath.
Now what?
His question was answered instantly, as a bright and soundless light – white, hot and painful – seared into his eyes, and made him jump back instinctively.
For a moment he saw nothing but white. He shook his head. The whiteness dissolved steadily to blurry browns and greens and, with a rub of the eyes, solidified to trees and vegetation.
Tyrrell was gone. He could not have walked or run away; Purkis would have heard his footsteps.
He had – impossibly – disappeared into thin air.
Witchcraft?
Purkis waited a minute or so, then stepped forwards through the trees and came upon the body of William Rufus, the king he’d wished dead and was now very much so.
He stared at the body. The king’s face was no longer its famous red, rather a spectral grey, since most of his blood had now leaked into the forest floor from the puncture in his chest.
He couldn’t just leave him there.
He returned to Samson, still happily grazing. He drew the horse and cart towards the body, unloaded the wood – which he would hopefully collect tomorrow – and lifted the body into the back of the cart. He resumed his journey to Canterton, where he lived, to tell Cecilia that he would be taking the body to Winchester, the capital. It was the least he could do.
Would he tell Cecilia – or anyone for that matter – what he had seen?
No, he decided.
He didn’t see anything.
Some things were best left alone.
2
May 29th 2019
Here stood the oak tree, on which an arrow shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag, glanced and struck King William the Second, surnamed Rufus, on the breast, of which he instantly died, on the second day of August, anno 1100.
King William the Second, surnamed Rufus being slain, as before related, was laid in a cart, belonging to one Purkis, and drawn from hence, to Winchester, and buried in the Cathedral Church of that city.
Standing reading the inscriptions on the Rufus Stone in the New Forest was Gregory Ferro, a married, bespectacled, bearded, fifty-four-year-old father of two and former history teacher who went grey before his time and, while not exactly fat, was fatter and unhealthier than his doctors wanted him to be.
Ferro was on his way to St Margaret’s Church in Highcliffe – a coastal town just south of the New Forest – for an important meeting. Since the events described on the stone were to be the topic of discussion, he had to pay a quick visit. The scene of the crime itself.
Ferro took in the surroundings. The Rufus Stone was next to a quiet country road in a pretty clearing dotted with lush trees, including a sprawling mature oak said to be the direct descendant of the original oak tree off which the fatal arrow supposedly ricocheted. Ferro had always struggled with that account. Glancing off a tree would surely dispel the force required to puncture a man in the chest. But the Rufus Stone, along wit
h most accounts of William II’s death, called the shooting an accident, and Ferro struggled with that too. To him it had always reeked of murder. As he listened to the brushing of the trees, Ferro imagined Walter Tyrrell firing his arrow deliberately at an unsuspecting king.
After a few minutes of quiet contemplation, Ferro returned to his clapped-out Rover Metro, for him the biggest hardship of quitting his job five months ago. One hundred pounds it cost him to buy and it surely wasn’t worth a penny more. If anything, less. It had a hundred and sixty thousand miles on the clock, made all kinds of concerning noises as it trundled along, had dozens of dents and scratches on the bodywork (already an unsightly yellow), the air vents were broken and it still had a tape deck and manual windows. The old rust-bucket was an unutterably poor substitute for the stunning, silver Suzuki Swift he’d had to trade in.
The car was parked nearby in a little car park for tourists visiting the Rufus Stone. It was a hot day and even though he’d only stopped at the stone for five minutes, the fraying car interior felt hot enough to roast something.
The broken air vents meant that Ferro had to open all the doors and wind down all the windows, which were stiff with age, then stand by the car and wait for the hot air to escape. As he wound down the passenger window, the crank broke and it jammed half-open.
Ferro sighed and exclaimed, “For pity’s sake.” A couple walking near to his car on their way to the stone glanced at him, thinking he was addressing them. “Don’t mind me, I drive a car from the Middle Ages,” he said, laughing briefly. They smiled awkwardly back.
Ferro lost patience and got in, sliding into a hot seat and scalding his palms on the steering wheel. The car juddered and coughed into life. The digital clock was also broken – naturally – so he tugged the silver pocket watch from his waistcoat and clicked it open, just to check. The last thing he wanted to do was keep Reverend Thomas waiting.
Closing the pocket watch, he stroked his thumb across the inscription on the front. He always did that – habit. I wonder what the weather will be like, it said. His mother’s last words before she died, when Ferro was thirteen. The watch was hers, and his grandmother’s before her. She’d given it to him when he started secondary school, but it had no engraving then. He had engraved it with her words shortly after her death, and had worn it ever since.
Ferro continued on to Highcliffe, humming along to Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, aka The Exorcist theme tune, crackling out of the car’s feeble speakers. It was the only cassette he could find to play in the tape deck, but he was surprised by how much he was enjoying it.
His mind wandered to his impending meeting. He was writing a book about William II, or ‘the one after William the Conqueror’, as he was probably better known. The king more famous for his death than his life. Ferro had been reaching out to local churches, monasteries and libraries for information, and two days ago Reverend Thomas at St Margaret’s Church got in touch. Apparently he had happened upon some enlightening new evidence pertaining to William II’s death and was about to hand it over to the British Library when he got Ferro’s email. Ferro wasn’t sure what to expect.
Ten minutes from Highcliffe, Ferro’s phone started buzzing against his leg. He had to burrow into his pocket to get it, not easy while driving but he managed. Beth calling. He thumbed the answer button and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hi, love.”
“You’re not driving, are you, Greg?” she said.
“It’s fine. There are no police around,” he replied.
“It’s not about not getting caught. The law’s there for the safety of others, and for you.”
“Yes, love, but I’ve been driving a long time. I’m safer than seventy per cent of the people on these roads.”
“Not the point.”
Alright, enough now. “Did you call for a reason?”
Beth sighed. “I wanted to know if you’re coming home for dinner. We’re having steak. Would be nice to see you.” That last sentence was both barbed and imploring. Ferro hadn’t been around much lately. But he’d always had a tendency to get swept up in his work. His passion was something she loved about him, or she used to.
“Probably not, my love,” Ferro said carefully. “I’m following up on an email I got from a church in Highcliffe. I’m heading there now.”
“Fine. I won’t wait up.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll go out this weekend, just the two of us. I promise.”
“With what money, Greg? You’ve been unemployed for five months now. We’re living on a shoestring.”
That wasn’t fair. “Self-employed, Beth. And a shoestring’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
“Self-employed people are supposed to make money.”
“And I will. As soon as I sell this book.”
“And until then, you’ll sponge off me.”
Ferro said nothing – what on earth could he say to that?
Beth took back her comment at once, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I suspect you did.”
“No. I didn’t. That wasn’t fair. You’ve looked after me when I’ve been between jobs before. I just… I think the thing is, I had it in my head that we’d spend more time together after you left teaching. You even said that yourself. And if anything, I think we’re seeing less of each other. You’re always in libraries and churches all over the place. At least when you were teaching, you came home every night. To be honest, a couple of times I’ve wondered if you’re having an affair.”
“Beth. Seriously.”
“I don’t really think that. But I do feel like we’re drifting apart.”
He really should’ve told her why he left teaching. She would’ve been more sympathetic, more understanding, but he was embarrassed. Embarrassed to tell his own wife and children. So he’d kept it from them for eight months – and counting.
It was because they looked up to him. He was the man of the house, the one who was supposed to protect everyone. But if they knew he couldn’t protect himself…
The truth was that after teaching history in secondary schools and colleges for thirty years with no real issues with any student, he’d had a nasty, violent encounter with a Year Ten boy, Dominic Flynn, who’d repeatedly punched and kicked him in the school corridor after Ferro gave him a ‘D’ on a mock exam.
Dominic Flynn was an extremely troubled, angry young man who lost his mother to cancer at a young age – Ferro could sympathise with that – and whose father had spiralled into alcoholism and depression. Ferro understood, and he forgave the boy. But the incident had destroyed his confidence as a teacher. He was on a knife-edge all the time.
He’d managed to avoid any facial injuries, which made it easier to hide the incident from Beth. These days they rarely had sex, so that wasn’t an issue. And although Ferro didn’t always wear pyjamas in bed, he made sure he did until the bruising was gone. Meanwhile he told her he was bored and restless and wanted to do something different.
Of course, losing his love for teaching didn’t mean he’d lost his love for history, hence the decision to start writing history books. And he’d dabbled in writing before. A couple of unpublished, unfinished novels here and there. It had been an on-off hobby for many years. Why not turn it into something more? Life was short and the pressures of teaching, as much as he used to love it and go with it, had put a good ten years on him. It was time to get a few back.
“I love you,” said Ferro tenderly, “and I promise we’ll go out this weekend and spend some proper time together. Okay?”
“Okay,” Beth murmured.
Ferro saw a sign for Highcliffe and turned left at a roundabout.
“I’ll see you later,” she continued. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you, love. See you later.”
Ferro arrived at St Margaret’s Church and parked in the small car park next to the building. He grabbed his phone and messenger bag from the passenger seat and jumped out, welcoming the cooler air and squawk of seagulls
that reminded him he was by the coast. The front passenger window was still half-open thanks to the broken crank, but if someone were to break in and steal the car, it wouldn’t have been the worst thing. He headed inside the church.
He dunked his fingers in the holy water inside the entrance door and crossed himself. He’d not been in this church before, so took a moment to appreciate his surroundings. Small and quaint, with parts – he’d read – tracing back to the reign of William the Conqueror, the church had a short nave with half a dozen mahogany pews down each side and a beautiful timber-beamed ceiling arching overhead. Light spilled into the church in a spectrum of warm colours from a large stained glass window behind the altar, which depicted Jesus and the Feeding of the Five Thousand.
There was no one here. Ferro checked his pocket watch – he was on time. He took a seat in a pew near the back of the church to wait. He closed his eyes and prayed.
“Mr Ferro?” a man said gently.
Ferro opened his eyes. A thin man in a black shirt and trousers with a clerical collar stood over him. He looked young, perhaps late twenties, early thirties, but his hair was already receding – poor chap.
“Yes,” replied Ferro, standing up to greet him.
“Hi, I’m Reverend Thomas. Welcome. Thank you for coming.”
They shook hands.
“Thank you. This is a beautiful little church.”
The reverend smiled. “Yes, it is. A lot of history too. More history, in fact, than we thought.”
“Yes, so I understand.”
“Come with me, please.”
Ferro followed Reverend Thomas into the vestry, a tiny room with a kitchenette, storage cabinets, a table and two chairs in the centre, and another door, probably leading to a toilet.
“Take a seat,” said the reverend. “Cup of tea? Coffee?”
“A peppermint tea, if you have one, please.”
Reverend Thomas prepared drinks and placed them on the table. Then he unlocked one of the storage cabinets and removed a clump of old-looking papers, loosely held together with frayed string, with a brown leather bookmark sticking out of the top. He handed them to Ferro.
