Kingmaker: Winter Pilgrims

by Toby Clements

  Thomas uses the pole as a rudder, guiding them towards a small hamlet dominated by a church tower, but as they approach a handful of boys leave off throwing stones at a cockerel and start trying to hit them in their sinking boat. By now they are standing up to their ankles in water and the boat is slipping away under them. There is nothing for it though: Thomas leans on the pole and the boat slews towards the river’s western bank. Just as its bows dip under the water for the last time, it noses into a broad stand of reeds and Thomas jumps out to drop up to his thighs in the icy water. He holds the boat still for the sister, but by now she can hardly move. She inches across the prow and half falls into the brown water. Thomas hurries around, his clogs lost in the mud. He takes her arm, hesitating at first to touch her, but when she shows no sign of resistance, he helps her out of the boat and up the bank. He goes back for the pollaxe, just as the boat is tugged backwards by the current.

  At the top of the bank he twists the water from the skirts of his cassock and looks around. There is nothing: only a broad stretch of reeds and mudflats. In the distance, a wood. Is there smoke in the air beyond? A village perhaps.

  ‘We’ll have to walk,’ he says, gesturing downriver. ‘We will surely come to something that way. We can ask the way to Canterbury from there.’

  The sister looks doubtful. He sees she has wounds on her wrists and ankles. She has lost a clog too, and they both know they will never be able to walk far.

  ‘We could say we are travelling on monastic business.’

  ‘Together?’

  Thomas frowns. She is right. They ought to part. He looks away upriver. A single swan comes towards them. He watches it for a moment. Then another appears from the rushes and joins the first and together they sail past and on out of sight. Thomas recalls words that he has written on parchment.

  ‘“Two are better than one,”’ he says, ‘“because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow.”’

  ‘“But woe to him that is alone when he falls,”’ the sister continues, ‘“for he has not another to help him up.”’

  He looks at the sister properly for the first time. She is sharp and fierce-looking, all angles.

  ‘Ecclesiastes,’ she says. ‘I don’t know the verse.’

  He manages a smile.

  ‘Nor me,’ he says. ‘But we should walk together, at least for a little while.’

  She nods. He picks up the pollaxe and swings it over his shoulder. It is a good thing to have. It feels curiously natural in his hands, and now that the blood has been washed from it, he can see it is finely worked, with the tracings of an ornate pattern etched in its blades. No wonder the giant wanted it back. It must be worth something.

  ‘We can always sell it,’ he says.

  They set out, following the river along its bank, the cold so raw it makes his bones ache, his feet throb. The sister’s teeth are chattering. As they walk he goes through every stroke and strike of the fight with Riven and he tries to imagine it in a way that does not end in the Dean’s death. He cannot. He finds his hands are gripping the axe so hard his head is hurting.

  What would he give now to have Riven at his feet?

  After a while a single flake of snow appears, drifting on a swirl, then another, and another, until they start down like feathers in a chicken coop.

  They see the tumbledown cottage at the same time and increase their pace, both hoping to find something within. When they get there the sister hangs back while Thomas puts his head into the gloomy interior. He imagines bread on the table, a bowl of pottage, a leather mug of ale and – praise Jesu! – a fire. Instead it smells of cold ash and there is something dead in one corner.

  ‘Anything?’

  He shakes his head. The sister wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve and shrugs. He looks at her again. What is it that troubles him about her? He remembers her words. ‘Where was God when he was about to put out your eyes?’ He shakes his head. Tries to clear the thought. Where was God? What did that mean? That He was elsewhere? Not there?

  As if she knows he is thinking about her, she turns and looks at him. He finds neither can hold the other’s gaze. And they trudge on for a few more paces; they are approaching the wood when she stops and holds out a thin hand. Thomas is about to say something when she puts a finger across her mouth and draws it up and down. It is a sign common to all religious communities that eat in silence but still need to communicate among themselves: be quiet now. She raises her hands quickly in the air and touches the side of her nose with her right index finger: Smoke. Smell. She can smell smoke.

  Thomas is not sure, but perhaps there is a fleeting scent above that of the snow and his own body. They move in silence along the path’s edges until they pass under the leafless canopy of elm branches. Here the tang of smoke is stronger, sweet and definite.

  And now in the darkness there is a hesitant glow. A little way off the path, in a glade. A fire. Thomas signals the sign for fire. Two hands, palms out, then rubbed together. The sister nods. Even in the dark he realises she’s seen it long before he has. They slide through the trees, the soft cloth of fallen leaves muffling their steps. Through the trees is a circle of cautious light thrown by a small fire. A horse or mule stands whickering in the darkness beyond, its eyes occasionally reflecting the flames. Above the fire is a tripod from which hangs a small cooking pot. Intermingled with the smell of wood smoke, Thomas tastes fish.

  His stomach churns.

  He has not eaten since the Dean brought him bread and beer that morning. He begins to breathe a little faster, and can hear the sister do the same.

  Where is the owner though?

  They crouch in the darkness behind a fallen tree. The sister is very close now. He can feel her knee against his, and her breath on his cheek. He can hear his heart beating, perhaps hers too.

  ‘Stand up.’

  It is a man’s voice, and the order comes from the darkness behind. They slowly stand and turn their backs to the flames to face the darkness. Thomas can see no one.

  ‘Step back into the light,’ the voice comes again. ‘But I warn you, I have a bolt pointed at your head, Monk, and if you do not drop that axe, I will pin you to the tree.’

  Thomas drops the axe. There is a moment of silence.

  ‘Who are you?’ the stranger asks.

  Thomas swallows.

  ‘Sir,’ he begins, ‘we are two ecclesiastics. We mean no harm. We are travelling. Travelling on monastic business.’

  ‘On monastic business?’

  The voice is softer already, as if the first command has been bluster, and now a note of incredulousness creeps in.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Thomas says. ‘We are of the Order of St Gilbert of Sempringham.’

  There is another pause.

  ‘And how come you to be travelling with one another? A canon and a sister of that order?’

  Thomas looks at the sister in the dark. He can think of nothing to say.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It is a long story, sir,’ the sister says.

  ‘I would hear it.’

  ‘May we beg your charity before we explain ourselves?’ the sister asks. ‘We have not eaten and we are frozen to our marrow.’

  There is another pause.

  A tall man in a padded coat with a cavernous hood appears in the fringes of the fire’s light. He has a crossbow in his hands, but even in the dark Thomas can see it has neither string nor quarrel. The man is as frightened of them as they are of him. More so, if anything.

  The man bends to pick up the pollaxe and it is clear that he is no longer young.

  ‘So who are you to be travelling abroad?’ he asks, straightening up, inspecting the weapon. ‘With no shoes and in one another’s company?’

  ‘I am Thomas Everingham,’ Thomas says. He still cannot see the man’s face. ‘I am a canon of the Order of Gilbert. My cloister is at Haverhurst.’

  He gestures into the dark, imagining the priory to be that w
ay.

  ‘And you, Sister?’

  ‘I am Sister Katherine,’ she says. ‘Of that same priory.’

  It is the first time Thomas has heard her name. He turns to her. She has a hard face, and in the firelight her eyes are quick and suspicious. She glances at him, and again he looks away.

  ‘And you’re hungry, you say?’ the man asks.

  ‘Famished, sir.’

  ‘Fabas indulcet fames.’ He laughs quietly, and he sets aside the crossbow in the shadow of the tree. ‘Hunger makes everything taste good. My pot is small and my provisions few, but what I have you are welcome to share. In return for your tale.’

  His voice is quick and learned, like the Prior’s or one of those visiting clerics. He puts the axe by the crossbow and he passes Thomas some hawthorn sticks.

  ‘Feed them in slowly, Brother Thomas, won’t you?’ he says. ‘So as not to kill the fire. It is wet enough in these parts to drown a Jew.’

  He has on short boots that bunch around his skinny shanks and, despite the crossbow, Thomas can see he is no soldier. He rummages in the shadow of the tree and brings out a leather bag from which he takes a flask and a canvas packet. He passes Thomas a small piece of bread. Thomas breaks it and hands half to Katherine. Their fingers touch in the dark and a curious jolt goes up his arm. He pulls back his arm, noticing that she does the same. While they chew, the man opens another bag and brings out a blanket and a coat.

  ‘Here,’ he says. ‘It makes me cold just looking at you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, with all my heart,’ Thomas tells him, still chewing, passing the blanket on to Katherine and pulling on the coat himself. It is heavy and padded, the finest thing that Thomas had ever worn, with buttons, a belt and a lambswool collar. A rich man, then.

  ‘You did not tell us your name, sir?’

  This is from Katherine. She has wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and though she is leaning into the warmth of the fire her eyes remain deep in shadow.

  ‘I am Robert Daud, of Lincoln,’ the man says, and then after a hesitation: ‘A quaestor.’

  There is a moment’s silence.

  ‘A pardoner?’ Katherine asks.

  ‘As was,’ he answers with an emphasis Thomas does not understand.

  ‘But why are you sheltering in these woods, sir?’ he asks, finally swallowing his bread. ‘When you might be happier at an inn, or staying with an abbot in a monastery?’

  The pardoner looks from one to the other for a moment before replying. It is as if he is coming to a decision. Any number of answers might now come from his lips, none of them the truth, but at length he says:

  ‘I have scrofula. The King’s Evil.’

  Both Thomas and Katherine stop chewing. The mule stamps in the dark. The pardoner sighs, puts down his own piece of bread, and then reaches up to tug his hood from his crown. The light of the fire falls on his face. Roiling down his neck, from ear to collar bone, is a whorl of clustered growths, the largest the size of a ripe damson.

  ‘You see?’ he says, pulling his hood back up, casting his face into shade again. ‘So it is that I avoid the company of men. Last night I approached a village to the west of here, to buy some ale. The alewife mistook these for buboes.’

  He crosses himself, as if this might ward off the plague.

  ‘She raised the hue and cry and I was lucky to escape with my life, let alone with my mule and baggage. The men must have been away hunting, or at the wars perhaps, for it was only boys who came after me, throwing stones mostly, though one of them had his bow. In the end I thanked St Sebastian that I looked to have the plague, for at least they were too frightened to approach.’

  ‘Though you have that weapon,’ Katherine says.

  ‘Yes,’ the pardoner laughs. ‘It is antique, and quite useless. I bought it from a man who claimed it belonged to Joan, the French witch. Can you imagine?’

  The pot begins to steam. The pardoner leans forward and crumbles pieces of dried fish with long fingers and drops them in.

  ‘How do you know your affliction is not the plague?’ Katherine asks. She seems unwilling to let the matter drop.

  ‘If it were the plague, I would be long dead,’ the pardoner says. ‘These signs have been with me a year or more now, growing steadily larger, like old friends, or a family.’

  ‘Do they hurt?’ Katherine asks.

  The pardoner shakes his head.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘They are cold though. To the touch, I mean. Though that is no strange thing this winter.’

  ‘We will pray for you, sir,’ Thomas offers, and Katherine murmurs something vague.

  ‘Thank you,’ the pardoner says. ‘Thank you both. With your prayers and God’s blessing I shall find a cure, in France.’

  ‘In France?’

  Thomas can hardly believe it. All he knows of France is that it is where his father was killed, and that it is a land so badly ravaged that when the alarum bells ring, even the stock animals know where they must gather to shelter from the English. Men and women threw themselves in the river rather than be caught. It does not seem the sort of place one might find a cure for anything, other than life itself.

  ‘It is where I am bound,’ the pardoner explains. ‘First across the Narrow Sea to Calais and then south to Chinon, to the court of King Charles, to seek the cure of his touch.’

  He speaks quickly, as if unwilling to dwell on the details of his journey, or the cure. Thomas is thirsty now, and pleased when from the shadows the pardoner opens the flask and pours more ale.

  ‘But what is your story?’ he asks, changing the subject. ‘What brings you from your cloister? That is the tale I wish to hear.’

  ‘We were set upon,’ Thomas began with his eye on the cup, ‘set upon by men belonging to a man named Giles Riven.’

  ‘Sir Giles Riven?’ The pardoner stops pouring the ale and sits forward, his face lit by the fire.

  ‘You know of him?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘There is no one north of Stamford who has not heard of Giles Riven. I heard he took the castle at Cornford after old Lord Cornford was killed at Ludford Bridge this last year, claiming it on some slight connection. It is also said that he killed Cornford himself, putting a dagger through his eye, and that now he means to marry his son to the dead man’s daughter.’

  Thomas closes his eyes and sees Riven, smiling, holding out the dead sister’s beads.

  ‘We know nothing of this,’ Katherine says. ‘We have been in cloister for these past years.’

  The pardoner nods, and finishes pouring the ale.

  ‘How long have you been in orders?’ he asks, passing the cup to Thomas.

  ‘Eight years,’ Thomas replies, before draining the cup and handing it back. ‘Since I was twelve.’

  The pardoner nods.

  ‘And you, Sister?’ he asks, pouring more ale.

  There is a momentary pause before she replies.

  ‘Since being a child,’ she says. Thomas and the pardoner look up.

  ‘You were taken in as an oblate?’ the pardoner asks.

  Katherine is hesitant.

  ‘I was,’ she agrees.

  ‘I thought they had abandoned that practice?’

  Katherine opens her mouth to say something and then shuts it again. She does not seem to know.

  ‘And how many Eastertides have you seen in the priory?’ the pardoner presses.

  She shrugs.

  ‘Ten?’ she supposes, and then looks desperate. ‘Fifteen?’

  That would make her about twenty, Thomas thinks. About his age. There is a silence, disturbed only by the hissing of a damp log on the fire, the susurrus of the river through the trees.

  ‘Do you receive news of your family?’ the pardoner asks. Thomas passes her the mug of ale. Their fingers do not touch this time and he sees she is careful to wipe the mug’s rim with her sleeve before she frowns, then shakes her head, and drinks. Thomas is about to ask a question of his own but the pardoner catches his eye. Enquire no further, he see
ms to be saying, and he changes the subject.

  ‘How came Riven to attack you?’ he asks.

  Thomas explains. The pardoner grunts.

  ‘These are unquiet and scrambled times,’ he says, adjusting the fire to make the branches burn more strongly, taking courage from their company. ‘Everywhere men are taking what they may, with no consideration of God, or the laws of the Holy Church.’

  ‘Why?’ Thomas asks. ‘Why is it so?’

  The pardoner sighs.

  ‘I am a humble pardoner,’ he says. ‘And I know nothing of this first hand. But I talk to people. I listen to what they say.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And most agree that the fault of it lies with the King,’ he says.

  ‘The King?’

  ‘Yes. It seems strange to be talking about the King in a wood at night with strangers, doesn’t it? But yes. The King. Henry, the sixth of that name, of the house of Lancaster.’

  ‘And what has he done to bring this on the country?’

  ‘They say that he’s a simple man, without crook or craft, you know. Not like his father. Not like Henry the Fifth. D’you remember him? No. Before your time, of course. He was a proper king, that one. Beat the French time and time again.’

  The pardoner stares into the flames. He grows wistful.

  ‘What happened to him?’ Katherine asks.

  ‘Hmmm? Oh. Died too soon. They all do, the good ones.’

  There is a long silence. The pardoner continues gazing into the fire. Men became like that with flames, Thomas thinks. Behind them the mule shifts.

  ‘So the son is nothing like the father?’ Katherine prompts.

  The pardoner collects himself.

  ‘That is right,’ he says. ‘He has fits. Seizures. When he goes limp, and cannot recognise anybody, not even his own son. And some say this is an affliction sent down from God.’

  In the silence he stirs the pot with a stick.

  ‘But what has he done to deserve such a thing?’ Katherine asks.

  The pardoner takes the mug from Katherine and fills it again.

  ‘The fault lies with his grandfather,’ he says, ‘also called Henry. Henry the Fourth. They say he usurped the throne from King Richard who had had it before him, and then had him murdered. They say that the troubles tormenting the realm now spring from that crime, and that for however long the House of Lancaster keeps the throne, this land will see only war.’