Pillars of Light

by Jane Johnson

  At Winchelsea, we were rehearsing a new scene outside the church late one afternoon when we heard a scream and a girl came running towards us with her dress in tatters. She was spattered with blood, a knife in her hand.

  “They raped me!” she cried. “I was only defending myself!”

  Hammer stepped towards her, palms out. “It’s all right—”

  She swung wildly, ripping his sleeve.

  “Fuck me,” breathed Hammer, stepping smartly of out her path.

  The Moor touched Mary on the arm and said something quietly. Mary nodded, then stepped towards the girl. “Come with me!” She beckoned her towards the church. “Quickly! Sanctuary—you can claim sanctuary.”

  The girl had a plain, broad face and a plain, broad body; it was her hair that was her beauty. Luxuriant and dark, it fell to her waist, and the dying sun lit red fires in its curls. She grimaced, then fled up the steps and into the church.

  At the door, Mary turned back to address us all. “You haven’t seen her. You tell them you’ve seen her, I’ll personally rip your balls off.” Framed by the Norman archway, she was more fearsome than any gargoyle. Nobody said a word. She whirled inside with the girl. The door slammed shut.

  Running footsteps, a man came huffing into view—barrel-chested, richly dressed and flashing gold, but blood stained his tunic. My heart stopped. It was Geoffrey de Glanvill, brother to the King’s Eye. I remembered him in the Lady Chapel, with his red butcher’s face and air of command, the way he broke my nose with his ring, how he held me like a rat as the fit came on me; how angry he was in court when I escaped my punishment. As inconspicuously as I could, I stepped behind the Moor. The air felt charged with danger.

  “Hoi, you! Where is the bitch? That little harlot stabbed my cousin in the neck!” De Glanvill addressed Savaric, whose face transformed in an instant from shocked to inexpressive, the large, heavy-lidded eyes wide and glib.

  “I do not know what ‘harlot’ you mean, sir,” Savaric answered. He looked lowborn in his fustian robe, so it was no surprise that the noble did not recognize him. “We have seen no one, save the sexton half an hour past, and I swear he had no tits.”

  De Glanvill looked disbelieving. “But she ran in this direction, from between the pauper dwellings there!” He gestured to where a row of low almshouses fronted the green. “You must have seen her.”

  Savaric shrugged, insolent.

  The man’s face darkened. “Who are you, sir?” he demanded. “I shall be making my report to my brother, Chief Justiciar of all England.”

  The churchman gazed back blandly. “You may report my name as Savaric de Bohun, erstwhile archdeacon of Canterbury, whom your brother took great pleasure in removing from office.”

  De Glanvill took a step backwards. Then he sneered. “I should not be surprised to see you in such reduced circumstances, my lord. Gamblers never thrive.” He turned curtly on his heel and marched back the way he came.

  I was surprised to see the Moor fall into step with him. “Bring my apothecary bag, Will,” he called over his shoulder.

  In perplexed silence we watched him go. Then Savaric beckoned to me and together we walked up the steps to the church. Inside it was dark and musty, the candles unlit. There was a smell of stale incense, dead mice and that greasy, animal smell that hung around long after the last mass when tallow candles were used rather than beeswax. For a moment I stood in the grip of an unwanted memory.

  I had been just a lad, cleaning the floor of the chapel at the Priory of St. Michael on my hands and knees. It was early morning and I was barely awake, yawning so hard my jaw cracked, still in a dream of pulling up a string of mackerel, breathing in the sharp, salty air, feeling the rough line between my fingers, watching the flash and spin of silver in the green water as the fish were drawn to the surface.

  Then suddenly a hand had gripped the back of my neck. “You’re just a little savage, hardly more than an animal. Can’t even speak the king’s English, let alone make confession. Eh? So you won’t be telling anyone about this, will you?” Another hand lifted the back of my robe. “Do you believe in God, then, boy? No? Well, believe in this.”

  I struck out at my attacker, but he hit me with the censer. Incense spilled, surrounding me with the scent of roses. It was the first time I’d suffered a falling fit.

  Savaric’s voice brought me back to the present. “Over there.”

  Mary crouched by the high altar with her arm around the fugitive. The girl’s eyes were black holes in the mask of her face.

  Savaric took a step towards her and she scrambled to her feet. The knife caught a ray of red light falling through a window high up in the nave. He sat down on the nearest pew. “It’s all right,” he said softly. “He’s gone. We told him we hadn’t seen you.”

  The girl subsided as if her knees had given way, and suddenly you could see there wasn’t much fight left in her, just bravado.

  “Tell us what happened,” Savaric continued. “No more harm will come to you.”

  Her name was Rosamund and she was the fuller’s daughter, promised to a boy from a farm outside Rye.

  “Not that I want to marry at all,” she said. “Babies and housework and doing a man’s bidding—I’ve had enough of all that.”

  Her tale was familiar: two drunken lords, thinking they had the right to take what they pleased; one held her down while the other raped her, but when they changed over they did not count on her quick reaction. She grabbed her rapist’s belt-knife and stuck it in his neck. “Right to the hilt,” she said fiercely, miming the stab. “He wasn’t expecting that.”

  Good girl, I thought. I wished I’d had a knife, back at the priory.

  “Is he dead?” she asked. “I hope so, even if I hang for it.”

  “You won’t hang,” Savaric told her. “I offer you my protection.”

  “You can travel with us,” Mary offered. “As one of the troupe.”

  It was difficult to put an age to the girl: maybe sixteen or seventeen. She was sturdily built, not fat, but muscular—a girl used to manual work.

  “That’ll have to go,” I said, pointing to her sumptuous hair. “And you’ll have to dress as a boy, play a man’s part on stage.”

  She tilted her square chin at me, then handed me her knife. “Men are the lucky ones in this world. I’ll be happy to trade my hair for a man’s freedom.”

  9

  The Moor and Will returned a while later, Will’s eyes as round as wheels.

  “The Moor saved him! De Glanvill’s cousin. Honestly, if you’d seen all the blood, you’d never have believed it possible. He was as pale as a fish belly, looked dead as dead.”

  “Neck wounds can be nasty,” the Moor admitted. “The man will survive, at least till we’re well away, though I doubt he’ll speak again.” His gaze travelled to the newest member of our troupe. “You must be Ezra, from Gosport, son of a fisherman. Family boat gone to the bottom, lad has to make a living as best he can. Your mother’s name is Mary, and your dear drowned father was Joe. Can you remember all that?”

  Rosamund, who from that moment forth was called Ezra, nodded solemnly.

  We travelled on to Rye, leaving the people of Winchelsea uncrossed. The town of Rye was the victualling point for vessels along this stretch of the south coast and one of the royal cinque ports. Here we were to roll out our more sophisticated repertoire, one that preyed on men’s consciences rather than on their baser instincts. “Rich men always have a great many sins lying heavy on their souls,” Savaric said with feeling. “They will be anxious about what will happen to them after they die and keen for an easy promise of Paradise.”

  But before we could get started a royal herald jumped up onto the stage and announced that King Henry was dead, three days ago, God rest his soul.

  A mass was said for his soul in the magnificent St. Mary the Virgin, which stood on a rise overlooking the marshes and the River Rother. It was an impressive piece of architecture, and the bishop walked around it with me and
the Moor after everyone had gone.

  “It’s in the French style,” the bishop said. “But it’s so … earthy.” He shook his head. “Not what I want for Wells, not at all. I have dreamt …” He turned to the Moor, his eyes alight with a burning enthusiasm, and the pair of them walked apart, exchanging dreams of poetry in stone.

  I took myself down into the town and took an ale or two in the Mermaid. The tavern was packed with drinkers, all raising a tankard to the dead king and wishing the new one well.

  “I know a man who met Prince Richard,” one said, and a group formed around him.

  “What’s he like?”

  “A fine-looking man—tall, red-haired and pale-eyed, and very fair of face, with a true kingly air to him.”

  None of this was surprising. No one was likely to say the new king looked like a hobgoblin, even if he did. The speaker related that Richard was a great warrior, won all the tourneys, could compose poetry and sing to a lute. I yawned: such a paragon.

  Behind me, another man said quietly, “They say the king’s corpse bled from the nose when Richard paid his respects.”

  His neighbour asked, “You mean he caused his father’s death?”

  I pressed my way through the crowd towards the door, intent on pissing away some of the ale in order to make room for more. Out in the alley, I almost fell over a man slumped over, weeping copiously.

  I touched the poor chap on the shoulder. “You all right?”

  A great moon face turned up to me. It was Savaric.

  “He was my friend.”

  His shoulders heaved violently, then he reached up and clutched my arm, opened his mouth to speak and out came a great billow of fermented honey, which told me all I needed to know.

  “Come on,” I said, trying to haul him up. “Let’s walk down to the sea, get some fresh air. You’ll catch some awful contagion sitting here.”

  The Moor glided around the corner at that moment, a shadow among shadows. I was grateful to see him.

  “Help me get him up on his feet.”

  Savaric wasn’t a small man, and dead drunk he was a dead weight. We heaved him upright, the churchman swaying unsteadily, fumes of mead wafting off him.

  On a rise of shingle overlooking the sea we sat down in a row and stared silently out at the black waves and the trembling silver line of the moon’s path upon it.

  “I loved Henry,” Savaric choked out at last. “He was a great man. Headstrong and rash sometimes, but his anger came like a thunderstorm—noisy and furious but passing quickly. We would have been friends again, had I just had the time to pay him back what I owed him.” His great lugubrious eyes gazed out over the dark waters. “He was a lion, with his tawny hair and that big, bold, open face. None of us could keep up with him, he had such energy. I took his money … and now I’ll never have the chance …” His hands fell and flexed. “I am damned, damned forever. If I cannot make restitution for my sins with he whom I wronged, then I must find another way of buying my way into Heaven.”

  The Moor waited for the spasm to pass, then put an arm around Savaric’s shoulder. “They say his son is much like him, this Richard.”

  Savaric turned to him. “They do say that, don’t they?” A pause. “I will do my utmost to raise funds for his holy war. And in doing so, perhaps I can save my soul.”

  He hauled himself to his feet, and at once the Moor stood to steady him. Savaric waved him away. “Leave me be. Where is my cousin? I must talk to him right away!” And he lurched off into the gloom.

  “I will see you to the path, at least,” the Moor said. “We do not want you falling into the marsh.”

  I sat there freezing on the chilly shingle, wishing I still had the fur the monks had shaved off. Such a bright moon: it was like an eye, the eye of God, beaming down on me. What did it see? An unworthy soul, a half-wild thing pretending to be a civilized man? A man who loved another? Unnatural, absurd.

  Shingle crunching underfoot.

  I turned so fast I cricked my neck. The Moor was looking down at me, his gaze more penetrating even than the silver eye above. Then he folded his long legs and we sat there in the darkness. I could feel a tension between us that had never been there before and I was suddenly tongue-tied. All the hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and my mouth burned as it remembered another time we were alone together in the night, when he had pushed me out of Saint Edith’s chapel all those months ago. I wished I could take him by the arm now, brotherly, casual. Say, “So, that kiss you gave me in Wilton. Tell me, what was that about, eh?” But of course I couldn’t. And so I sat rooted like some big, dumb plant, its leaves trembling at every touch of breeze, waiting desperately for the sun to shine on it again.

  At last he turned to me. For one terrifying, delicious moment I thought maybe he would kiss me again. But all he said was, “I think we shall soon be heading for foreign climes.”

  A minute later he stretched and rose, pulled me to my feet, and together we walked in silence back to the abbey.

  The next day, fervour was in the air. There was to be a new king: the first prince in Europe to take the cross. There was money to be made, and Richard’s favour to be won.

  Bishop Reginald held forth in ringing tones, reminding the crowd of the terrors that await the sinful soul when it descends into Hell, of the demons with their pincers and tridents, of the flames that burn to the bone but never devour, of the howls of the tormented and their never-ending trials. Beside me, Savaric groaned and hung his head.

  “You are a blessed generation!” Reginald cried. “You are blessed to be alive in this year of jubilee. This chance will not come again. To you who are merchants, men quick to recognize and seize a bargain, let me point out the advantages of this offer. Do not miss out on this great opportunity to buy your way into the Kingdom of Heaven. Take up the cross and vow to fight for the Holy Land and you will be rewarded with indulgence for all your sins. I, Reginald of Bath, second in the intercessionary line after only the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, will take your confession and ensure that God hears your vow. Sign for the cross today and all will be forgiven. The cost is so small, the reward so great—the firm promise of entrance to Paradise forever and ever, amen.”

  There was a sob behind us, and Savaric pushed past us to fall on his knees before his cousin.

  “Take me for the cross!” he cried. “God knows, my sins are great. I was close to the king, foremost among his nobles, but I transgressed. Oh, how I transgressed! I drank and swore and I gambled. Oh, how I gambled! As God is my witness, I loved the dice better than my Bible. I carried my favourite pair with me at all times …”

  He held up his great gold chain and the crowd fell hushed and attentive. Then he clicked open the great ruby bauble on the end of it and from this tipped a pair of dice into his palm and held them up to the crowd.

  “I have won and lost fortunes with these two mites of wood.” He paused, considering. “Mainly lost.” He bowed his head, turned the dice over in his palm, then cast them far out into the crowd. “I abjure my wicked ways!” he cried, “and I hereby take the cross.”

  I stared at the Moor, who seemed transfixed. “We never rehearsed this,” I said uncertainly.

  Bishop Reginald looked confused, but he gave his cousin the Bible to kiss, signed him with the cross and handed him his token.

  Savaric held it aloft. “For King Henry, God rest his soul! And for Richard, who has vowed to retake Jerusalem, I pledge my allegiance to the cause, and that of all my associates, who will accompany me!” And then he turned to survey us, his “associates.”

  “Is he still drunk?” I asked.

  There was no answer. If the Moor was ever shocked by anything, he masked it so well you would never know. But now a vein pulsed on his forehead and his face looked full of blood.

  “Come along, my friends!” Savaric exhorted us. “Fall on your knees beside me.”

  Astonishingly, it was Rosamund, or should I say Ezra, who was the first to answer his call. Having just p
layed the role of a Saracen, she came galloping past us all onto the dais in blackface to lay her wooden sword at his feet and cry out, in as manly a voice as she could manage, “I take the cross!”

  The crowd cheered—there was something about her youth and passion that moved them.

  The twins, Hammer and Saw, followed with a shrug. “What else is there to do once the tour is over?” Saw asked. Like Savaric, they waved their wooden crosses, the crosses they had so roughly carved sitting on the back of the wagon.

  “Ah, fook,” said Quickfinger, looking forlorn. Then he pushed past me and knelt at Bishop Reginald’s feet.

  Will gazed at Mary with a plea in his eyes. She looked away. I saw him set his jaw, and then he too mounted the dais, which left only the Moor and me.

  “They can’t hold you to it, can they, the vow?” I asked. I thought of all the criminals we sprang from gaol in Salisbury. I was willing to bet none of them was planning on taking ship for Terra Sancta.

  “It’s your immortal soul,” the Moor said. He put his hands on my shoulders and regarded me steadily. “This is where our ways must part, John.”

  I stared at him. “What? No! I don’t want to go to war. I want to go … wherever you are going.”

  “You cannot come where I am going, John. You’re not ready for that. Stay with the troupe—they need you, especially Ezra. She’s not as tough as she thinks she is. Look after her.” He touched me lightly on the cheek. “We will meet again.”

  Then he turned and walked away with all the dignity of a prince, leaving me exposed and alone, my knees trembling like the fool I was.

  What could I do? I should have run after him in full sight of the crowd, should have caught him by the arm and demanded to accompany him, told him I loved him and cared about nothing else. But instead I stood silent, in desperate confusion, wailing inwardly, once more an abandoned child. The scent of roses bloomed all around me but there were no doors to Heaven opening before me.