by Alys Clare
Judging by the heady mixture of bodily stenches in the small room, there wasn’t all that much purity here in the first place. It was stinking and foul, with all too apparent evidence of the animals that had the run of the place.
Presently Rollo came in and joined me beside the hearth. I turned to him and briefly met his eyes. ‘There’s no option,’ he breathed, so softly that nobody else could have heard.
Just then a huge blast of thunder crashed almost overhead, and simultaneously the world lit up in a vivid lightning flash. Reluctantly I had to agree that Rollo was right.
Soon after sunset, there was a pause in the onslaught. Rollo got up and peered outside, then turned and beckoned to me. ‘The rain has stopped, although I fear there’s more to come,’ he said. ‘Shall we go outside for some – er, to stretch our legs, my lady, while we have the chance?’
‘Yes,’ I said, scrambling up. I glanced at the monks. The senile one seemed to be asleep, and the boy was peeling onions. One more pungent smell to add to the mix. The thin-faced monk said nothing, merely staring at us out of cold eyes.
Rollo and I walked into the copse. As well as the path that led through to the stable, there were smaller tracks winding between the trees. We followed one, presently coming to a small, hurrying stream. In summer, or on any better day, it would have been a pretty spot.
I climbed down a shallow slope and stood on the bank. ‘Plenty of fresh water,’ I observed.
Rollo came to stand beside me. He’d obviously picked up my thought. He said, ‘Yes, and the stable is reasonably clean, with water for the horses and fresh straw. Maybe they’ve taken some cranky vow that insists they have to live in squalor because it’s good for the soul.’
I smiled. ‘Perhaps, or maybe they’ve just lost the will to—’
Just then I heard voices. A man’s and a woman’s. Rollo put his hand on my arm, but there was no need for him to warn me to keep silent.
Now we could hear hoofbeats. From where we stood, down beside the stream in its little valley, we would not be seen from the track through the trees. We knew from the sounds that the newcomers were heading for the stables. We waited.
‘The stables aren’t too bad,’ the man’s voice said. ‘There are two horses here already.’
‘Yes, that zealous-looking monk muttered something about having to stretch their food many ways,’ a woman replied. ‘Dear Lord above, Henry, I’m not looking forward to tonight.’
‘I know, and neither am I, but we cannot go on. Both of us are drenched, the horses are worn out and it’s almost dark. I do not believe the storm is yet over, and we dare not risk being caught out in the open when it resumes.’
The woman gave a deep, heartfelt sigh. ‘I know, and you are right.’ She said some more, but they were almost out of earshot now and I couldn’t make out the words.
Rollo and I waited. Quite a lot of time passed – the newcomers were surely tending to their horses – and then we heard them return on foot through the trees and back to the monastery. When we were certain they would neither hear nor see us, we climbed up the stream bank and stared after them. From what I could make out, they were around our own ages, and well dressed in fine travelling cloaks. Each carried a good-quality leather bag.
Rollo watched as they opened the door of the monks’ dwelling and went inside. He was frowning.
The guilty had to die.
The man who was going to ensure that the ultimate penalty was paid was very clear in his own mind. An eye always paid for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Lex talionis insisted upon that. And the Bible said that as a man is injured, so shall injury be done to him.
He had set out on his great task and he hadn’t deviated from it; not for a moment. This, he felt, was a tribute to his courage and his resolve, for the road had not been easy and more than once he had followed wrong trails and been misled into making mistakes.
He had been so very sure, that first time, that he’d allowed his fury to overcome him. Discovering his error had made him a little more cautious, but even so he had again been misdirected and the wrong man had died. He had been too eager; so impatient to strike the great blow that he hadn’t taken the time to make absolutely sure. He’d have probably killed the third one, too, if he hadn’t been disturbed.
Two dead, one attacked, and not one of them the man he sought.
But he didn’t allow himself to think about that.
If he did, if he permitted the luxury of remorse and sought to unburden his overloaded conscience, then he knew without even thinking about it that it would be the end. The end of his mission and the end, probably, of him.
So instead of lamenting where and how he had gone wrong, he used his errors as lessons. Building on what he had learned over the past few intense days and weeks, he drove himself on. And he knew that experience had greatly improved his ability: he was capable of achieving his purpose now, and nothing was going to stand in his way.
It had been such a long, lonely road.
He wasn’t yet at the end of it, but it wouldn’t be far now.
He had been watching the skies for a break in the cloud. There had been one around sunset but that had been too early, for there was still a little light. Then, as night came on, the rain had begun again.
Rain made his task more difficult, although not impossible. He had made a slightly amended plan for wet weather, and now, standing in the meagre shelter of the band of trees, he understood that he would have to use it. Very well, so be it.
He guessed that it was around midnight, although in the absence of any sight of the stars, he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t really matter.
He closed his eyes and began his prayers.
He always prayed before he went into action. It calmed the mind, and, far more importantly, it was a tribute to God. This is for You, it seemed to say. What I do is for Your greater glory.
He had evolved his own form of prayers. For quite a lot of his life he had lived with the deeply devout. There was some confusion in his mind – how could everyone be right, when they said different things were true? – but he always did his best to obey the rules and the laws.
He was in no doubt that what he was about to do was not only the right but the only thing to do.
His prayers completed, he moved forward, silent as a shadow, out from the trees and across the open ground to the monastery.
He crept right in under the deep overhang of the thatched roof. Out of the rain, he withdrew an item from under his cloak. He felt it anxiously with his free hand. It was dry; dry enough, anyway. He sent up his thanks.
From the pouch on his belt he took out a small piece of flint. He laid the object he’d been carefully keeping dry on the ground. It was a length of wood, as long as his outstretched arm and about as thick as his wrist. At one end, he had fastened a large bunch of loosely bound straw. Kneeling over it, repeatedly he scraped the point of his knife swiftly against the flint. Sparks appeared. He scraped harder, and now the sparks were flying off into the dry straw.
Before long, it caught.
Slowly, patiently, knowing he must not rush, he blew gently on the little glowing patches. Soon they grew into small flames. He blew some more, and now he had to pull away for already the heat was uncomfortable on his face.
He stood up, holding his flaming torch in his hand.
He looked up at the thatched roof stretching up above him. It was a pity it was so wet.
He went round the side of the building to the door. Quietly he opened it and edged inside. The fire had died down and gave out barely any light, so he held up his torch.
There was an old monk in the corner, huddled deep in his blankets like a burrowing animal. A lad in monk’s robes lay on a thin straw mattress close beside the old man. A third monk lay on his back on the bare earth floor, well away from the hearth.
The hearth and its meagre warmth, it appeared, was reserved for travellers begging shelter.
And there they were.
The man nodded in
satisfaction and allowed himself a smile.
Already the monk on the bare floor was stirring, his eyes fluttering open, a frown of perplexity on his thin face.
With no further hesitation the man thrust his flaming torch up into the underside of the thatch. Here within the building, it was dry. Then, even as the quiet crackle told him it had ignited, he went calmly around the small space, thrusting the flame into anything and everything that looked as if it would burn.
Then he went out, closed the door and fastened it firmly with the length of leather hanging beside the latch.
He stepped back. One pace, two; then, hurriedly, eight, nine, ten, a dozen, twenty.
For the fire had taken hold with terrifying swiftness, and anybody standing too close would suffer the same fate as those trapped within.
And they did suffer.
The man stood at his safe distance and breathed in the screams. They did not continue for very long.
‘The sight and the sounds of hell,’ the man said quietly. ‘So perish sinners; so must suffer all who break the laws of God and man.’ His face contorted in a moment of deep emotion. ‘Who betray,’ he spat out viciously.
After a time the roar of the fire began to abate, for it had used up most of the available fuel. The thatch had long gone, and the timbers that had held it up were almost burned through. As the man watched, the main one collapsed into the ruins of the monks’ dwelling.
He thought he might as well go.
For a moment he felt strangely flat. His mission had driven him on, riding him so hard that he’d willingly foregone food, sleep, comfort, companionship, to achieve his end. But now his task was done, and he felt almost bereft.
But then he remembered there was something else he had to do.
With a purpose once more – with something to live for – he turned and walked away. Soon he broke into a run. He was in a hurry now, for there was a long way to go.
EIGHT
Jack lay on his bed listening to the rain beating down. It was late, and he was exhausted. To take his mind off worrying about how much damage the water was probably doing to the little lean-to next door – temporarily without a roof, since earlier, on returning from his mission to the widow Picot’s house, Jack had taken a variety of heavy tools to it and pulled the whole ruined, rotten structure down – he did a mental overview of his body and listed every bit that hurt.
His wound, of course, gave the worst pain. He knew it was folly to have worked so hard today. Whilst he could clearly remember Lassair ordering him, in addition to his daily walking, to begin moving his upper torso as soon as he could, she’d said nothing about swinging a heavy axe into ancient roof beams. Yes, the wood had been half-rotten in places and hadn’t put up much resistance, but all the same, she wouldn’t even have allowed him to pick up the axe if she’d been there. Then, when he’d done with the axe, he’d got going with the pitchfork, dragging away a small mountain of stinking old reed thatch, and, after that, he’d broken apart an intransigent tangle of old rafters and supports with his pickaxe. Finally he’d fetched a broom, and all but made himself pass out with pain and fatigue as he swept the debris out of the derelict dwelling and down the alley to the midden.
By then it had been getting dark. Returning to the clean, neat interior of his own house, he’d been long past making himself anything to eat. He had washed the filth off his aching body in the trough outside, then gone in, taken a long draught of water and collapsed on his bed.
Where now, some time later, he lay documenting his hurts.
The long list was depressing. He told himself it had been worth the pain. For one thing, he’d proved to himself that he was still sufficiently strong to take on such a hard, heavy task. For another, he had the enormous satisfaction of knowing that the rotten, filthy roof was now gone, taking with it its foul stench and its assortment of vermin, their nests and their droppings. Even the continuing heavy rain could be seen as an advantage, he reflected, since it would be achieving for him, with no effort from himself, what he’d otherwise have to bring about with countless pails of water. In the morning, or when the rain eventually stopped, he’d return with his broom, sweep out the puddles and be left with a clean floor.
To take his mind off Lassair, and how she’d approve of how thoroughly he was preparing the ground for the new dwelling space, he began to think how he’d go about rebuilding the roof.
Quite soon, he was deeply asleep.
He woke stiff and sore. He got carefully out of bed, and, ravenously hungry after the previous day’s exertions and having gone to bed with no supper, prepared a huge breakfast. Then he went into the adjoining dwelling to see what a night’s rain had done.
As he had hoped, the beaten-earth floor looked as if the entire top layer had been washed away, which it probably had to judge by the earth-coloured little rivulets still trickling away into the alley outside. Decades of dirt and detritus had been washed away too; Jack saw with satisfaction that the floor now looked newly tamped down.
Glancing up into the sky, he could see that more rain would soon fall. It was no day to begin rebuilding the roof, for, apart from the unpleasantness of working in a room open to the elements when it was raining, it was also necessary for the interior to dry out. He’d be affixing beams and rafters to the existing wooden framework supporting the walls, and he couldn’t do so if everything was soaking wet.
So, back in his own house, he set aside his labouring clothes and put on a better tunic, hose, cloak and boots. Then he set out on his daily walk.
He avoided the castle. He was still uncertain of his precise status there: his men, and indeed most of the townspeople to whom he’d spoken, seemed to take it for granted that he’d be back in his post as soon as he was fully fit, and, in the meantime, was busy doing what he could for the forces of law and order. Jack was quite happy with that. It remained to be seen whether Sheriff Picot was too.
For now, Jack’s men knew where to find him, and he was aware, without anyone actually having to say so, that they’d come to him if they needed him. He was all but certain that he could make a similar approach to them, which was fortunate since he was formulating a plan which would require the assistance of at least one of them.
He strode on, increasing his speed until he was panting but not allowing his pace to slacken. Avoiding the market square – too many people around, and quite likely at least one of them would stop him and delay him by lengthily passing the time of day – he headed on towards his destination. And soon, out beyond St Bene’t’s Church, he was standing beneath the shelter of the trees that overhung the old wall and looking up at Gaspard Picot’s house.
Coming here had become a daily ritual. Jack wasn’t certain why he felt compelled to keep up his vigil, for he had only seen the dark-clad figure on one other occasion after he’d first spotted him, and, on the face of it, there was nothing suspicious about somebody standing looking up at a grand house. Possibly, he’d told himself, he was one of those who had been chucked out of their hovels and been forced to witness those same hovels smashed apart, utterly destroyed, so that Gaspard Picot’s ugly, flamboyant and self-aggrandizing edifice could be thrown up in their place. It was enough, Jack thought, to make anyone want to stand staring at the imposing house and wish evil to those within.
For, although he had no proof and nothing whatsoever to confirm that he was right, Jack was absolutely sure that the cloaked figure’s interest in the house of the late Gaspard Picot was far from benign.
As he stood there beneath the sweeping branches of the willow tree, concealed from view unless anyone looked really closely, Jack wondered at his certainty. He wouldn’t have said he was a man given to whimsy. Wouldn’t have said he believed in magic, or superstition, or the ability of evil to permeate the air in detectable form, as if it were a foul smell or a toxic emanation. Yet here he was, keeping watch on the house of a man who most people would have judged to have been his enemy, solely because he feared a mysterious, shadowy figure some
how meant harm to the house or its occupants.
Perhaps, he concluded with a faint smile, he’d been spending too much time with Lassair.
He moved over to the bench and sank down onto it. He was encouraged to find he felt less exhausted than he’d felt the last time he’d walked here. He was definitely making progress, and soon—
He could see the dark-cloaked figure. He was standing perhaps twenty or thirty paces away to his right, as still and almost as well concealed as Jack was. Jack narrowed his eyes, trying to make out details. As before, his attempts were foiled by the voluminous, enfolding cloak with its deep hood. But why shouldn’t a man wear a heavy cloak? he thought in frustrated irritation. It’s about to rain.
He was cross with himself for taking such trouble to watch someone who in all probability was doing no harm and had no intention of doing so, purely on a whim.
Nevertheless, he went on watching. And when the dark figure melted away – it seemed to Jack that melted away was exactly what happened, since one moment he was there and when Jack next looked, although only a few heartbeats had passed, he wasn’t – Jack knew what he was going to do.
He allowed sufficient time to pass for the cloaked figure to have got well away from the Picot residence. Then he set off for home. Before returning to his house, however, he called in at the tavern which he had always used as an unofficial meeting place for his group of especially loyal and trustworthy lawmen. It was on the quayside and the tavern keeper, whose name was Magnus, could be relied upon to pass on messages between Jack and his men. Jack ordered a mug of ale and a pie – his appetite seemed to be increasing with every day – and, when by the time he was ready to leave none of the men he sought had appeared, he asked Magnus to tell whoever he saw first out of Walter, Ginger, Fat Gerald, Luke or, at a pinch, even young Henry, that Jack wanted a word.
Then, nodding a farewell to Magnus and his pretty wife, Jack went home to wait. And – he had to admit it to himself – to have a much-needed rest.
