Divided Souls

by Toby Clements

Edmund Riven.

  It can only be him. Tall like his father, he stands three paces back from the crowd, always apart, unpopular, exiled, but always watching, observing, with a pad of white cloth pressed against his right cheek, his left thumb hooked over his belt at its buckle, and his body angled, perhaps to express resentment at being obliged to turn out and join this reception party. In the gloom it is not possible to see more.

  Thomas feels both burning hot and ice cold. He has seen Edmund Riven before, but only once that he can remember, and that glimpse had been fleeting, after the fall of Bamburgh, at a time he thought Katherine was dying, and so saving his wife was more important than killing a man, any man. By the time he knew Katherine would live, Edmund Riven had long gone, and though it was he who had first attacked Katherine, all those years ago in the snow in the fields below the priory at Haverhurst, and though Riven had killed a great number of Thomas’s friends since then, Thomas had never been afforded the chance to avenge them. And it is just the same now. He cannot kill the man here, now, surrounded by his own men, in the Earl of Warwick’s castle, and expect to live. So Riven, for the moment, will live too, and Thomas looks at him as a man to fear, as a man to be got around if Jack and Nettie and John Stump are to be brought out of their suffering and back into the world.

  When that is done, he tells himself, then he will deal with Edmund Riven.

  King Edward dismounts. Greetings are delivered, hats removed, knees bent, formalities observed, and when they are done King Edward asks after his lord of Warwick. The constable, Sir John Bellman, regrets that his lordship did not expect them to make such swift progress and remains in London, but he says he is expected soon. In the four days they have been riding King Edward has recovered some of his truculence, and he has steeled himself for a conversation with the Earl, so now, finding it denied him, he cannot help but curl his lip, and it is obvious from the humming and hawing that follows that Bellman and his men have some sympathy with this view.

  When they are done, Bellman leads them through the parted wings of the waiting company, past Edmund Riven, who steps back and seems to sneer, though it is hard to tell in the gloom with the cloth against his cheek, and they pass on over the drawbridge, through the gatehouse into the narrow confines of the courtyard beyond. Here the keep looms large above, its tall windows bright with candle- and firelight, and the outbuildings, solid against the surrounding curtain walls, are so numerous they leave only a narrow gravelled area in which to gather, unlike a normal bailey. There are dogs here, and a couple of boys wrestling with tied bales of hay, but the absence of the usual castle stench is instantly striking, and Thomas recalls Hastings’s mention of Warwick’s many, many latrines.

  To the right are covered steps up through a porter’s lodge leading to the great chambers of the keep, and ahead is a building that looks like a chapel. Thomas looks for evidence of a dungeon or an oubliette, or some terrible bloodstained chamber where Riven goes about his work, but there are so many possibilities in this lavishly accoutred castle that, if they are within, Jack and Nettie and John could be almost anywhere. They might even now be in some tower, looking out through a slip of a vent, able perhaps to see him, Thomas, standing there with King Edward. He listens for any cry, but there is so much scraping of feet and hooves and nervous laughter from the men that he is unlike to hear a thing.

  Servants are waiting to take their horses and their baggage, such as it is, and then the constable ushers King Edward into the keep. Thomas and Flood follow and as they walk up the steps, there is a racket behind as the bridge is drawn up and the outer gates boom shut, and the iron gate is dropped, and it is clear that they are now closed in, and not just for the night.

  Supper is capon, quail, half an ox. There is wine, warm wine, and ale. The bread is white. Afterwards, strange sugary shapes – of St George cutting off the dragon’s head, and of the castle itself – are laid before King Edward, who cannot resist them, and hippocras and then more wine and music. They eat in the great hall in the keep. It is the largest room beyond a cathedral nave that Thomas has stepped into, with a fire in the middle, black and white flagstones, bright tapestries on two walls, tall windows set in both others. Servants scurry to and from the kitchens and the diners sit on boards arranged around the walls. King Edward is on his dais with Sir John Something and a few of the other gentlemen, and two young women who don’t quite fit in. Flood is cross to be relegated with Thomas to the shadows.

  And Riven is there, too, at another table just down from the dais, the second highest table, with more well-dressed young men and women, who bend away from him while he sits silent, alone, vigilant. He is beyond the circle of human companionship, excluded from it, perhaps happily so, and he is utterly still, save for his gaze that flicks around the great hall, his focus sharpening on what catches his attention before relaxing its grip and moving on. He does not once look at Thomas, and after a while Thomas can stand it no more. For reasons he cannot explain, even to himself, he wants to catch the scent of that wound, to smell if all they say about it is true – that it curdles milk, brings on miscarriages, causes cats to bark.

  He asks the man next to him if he knows Riven, and the man betrays anxiety.

  ‘I know of him,’ he says, and he reaches for some meat and turns his shoulder.

  By the time supper is done, Riven is gone.

  Thomas and Flood are to share a chamber not in the keep with King Edward, but in one of the ranges of domestic buildings on the west wall, where the henxmen are usually put, but have been cleared away elsewhere while King Edward’s men are here. The room is on the third storey, is large, has a window that can be blocked with a piece of pine wood, a door that cannot be locked, and along the passageway there is one of the latrines Hastings talked of. The flagstones underfoot are gritty, though, and the stone of the walls, even in high summer, is cool enough to numb pain.

  Thomas goes to the window and stares out at the keep across the bailey. What he imagines he will see he does not know. Flood meanwhile stretches out on the bed and groans. His feet smell very strongly, but baths of scented water are promised for the morning and, besides, Thomas knows he smells too.

  They are woken in the morning by church bells in the town. A moment later a bandy-legged servant passes their door with a yoke from which hang a pair of steaming buckets, and calls them to follow him if they are desirous of a bath. Thomas follows him along the passage to a room in which a fire burns in a wall-set hearth and before it is a long tub that might have been made by an apprentice of the finest cooper in all England.

  Thomas asks if there is a dungeon in the castle.

  ‘A dungeon? Are you not happy with your quarters?’

  ‘It is not that,’ Thomas says.

  ‘Well, good,’ the man says, ‘because we have no such things here.’

  Thomas is surprised.

  ‘I thought . . . What of Sir Edmund Riven?’

  A quick intake of breath.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the servant admits. ‘We have him with us all right, but if what you’re after’s being locked up for the night and having your bones stretched or your skin flayed in the morning, then you’d best be joining the queue, for he is like a one-eyed cat, that one, dragging in half the wounded birds in the county and filling that tower of his with cripples and what have you. Makes the auditor mad, having to feed ’em all, too. Says some of ’em come to enjoy it: they start off grateful for a belly full of soup, as you might, then they come to expect it, then they demand it.’

  The servant pours the water into the wooden bath. Steam rises. It is scented with meadowsweet and wood smoke and there is some of that soap that is so precious that Isabella gave them some as a wedding gift, and Thomas takes off his long-worn clothes and puts a toe in. The shock of hot water on his foot is extraordinarily wonderful. He has not had a hot bath since he cannot remember, having always washed in barrels, in rivers, in ponds, always cool, sometimes cold. This – this is incredible.

  He slumps in, lies dow
n, and the water is up to his chest. The servant goes below for more water. Flood comes and wants to get in with him but there is no room in the tub, so he stands waiting, his body very white, long smooth slabs of muscle, unmarked by any scars, much bigger on the right-hand side. When Thomas is washed and steam drips from the ceiling and the walls, and there is a grey scum on the cooling water, he reluctantly gets out. The bandy-legged servant arrives with more water. He tips the first bathful out and it runs down a drain and vanishes gurgling through a hole. He fills up the bath with new water and Flood climbs in while Thomas dries himself on a linen towel.

  ‘Mother of God,’ Flood groans.

  He too has not had a warm bath for some time.

  ‘Which tower is Riven’s?’ Thomas asks the servant.

  ‘Southeast,’ he says. ‘So his victims may have a fine view of their last dawn.’

  ‘And do you know who is in the tower now?’ Thomas asks. ‘Some friends of mine were taken up. More than a month ago perhaps. A man with very dark hair, and his wife, who is with child, and a man with an arm like so.’ He demonstrates and the man sucks his teeth again.

  ‘I never see ’em come or go,’ he says, ‘since that is done through the east gate, but there was some talk of a one-armed man – Riven wanting to see if losing one arm’d make him fear losing the other more, like, or less.’

  Thomas does not understand exactly what is being said for a moment. Then he does. He stops drying himself.

  ‘He would cut it off?’

  ‘No, no. Just burn it a bit. That is what he does. They say the screaming is something shocking. Not that I’ve heard it meself, if I’m honest. I’ve put some clean braies and hose for you on the bed. Should fit.’

  Thomas is left to walk back to the chamber where there are two piles of folded linens and hose. Nothing is old or worn, everything is clean and – can it be scented with something? The pourpoint has the badge of the ragged staff embroidered on the breast. He puts on his braies, shirt, pourpoint, then ties his hose up, laces the codpiece. Flood comes in.

  ‘This is all right,’ he says.

  They hear Mass in the chapel set against the east wall. King Edward is not there – he hears it in a private chapel somewhere in the keep – but Riven is. He is dressed simply, as if for work, and again he stands a little apart from everyone with that cloth pressed to his face. Thomas weaves his way through the crowd to stand near enough so that he can finally smell it, and when he does – there – his innards rebel: it is rotten flesh, putrid eggs, dog faeces, all mixed together. It is like finding a month-old corpse bobbing to the surface of a tanner’s vat. His cheeks bulge, his gorge rises, and he stumbles away.

  Riven turns and Thomas cannot help but look back, straight into that single dark eye. For a moment it is as if it can see through him, straight into his soul, and Thomas wavers, but then its expression seems to change, and it is possible to read hurt in there, mixed with resignation and sorrow, as Riven turns away, back to the priest who is warbling his solemn way through the Eucharist.

  And then suddenly there is an enormous man in front of Thomas, stepping between him and Edmund Riven, and something inside Thomas almost gives way, something deep within. He does not know why, but it is caused by the sight of this man’s bare feet, even in church, and the fact that his hose are ripped and frayed, and he wears only a shirt and pourpoint, and he has a shaggy black beard and wild hair that springs from all around the stained arming cap tied under his chin. He provokes some reaction in Thomas that Thomas does not understand, some mixture of terror and hatred. The man gurns at him and mumbles something unintelligible and then presses him back with a huge hand that covers Thomas’s chest, and Thomas is propelled through the crowd, clutching at them as he staggers and only coming to a stop against Flood, who catches him, straightens him and gives him a searching look.

  But Thomas cannot stay in the church a moment longer. He has to get out into the air. He thrusts his way through the throng, out of the church doors, down the stairhead, through the keep and back out into the courtyard in which they gathered the night before.

  His head is spinning and his breath comes hard. What is wrong with him? Why did that man, that giant send him off so? He wanders around the keep, past the gatehouse, still shut yet guarded by perhaps ten men, and then he goes left, along the north wall past the auditor’s chambers, then left again, under his own chamber and there’s a bridge above him, linking the keep to the wall, and then on past the bakery where the smell is disorientating, and then he turns the next corner, and there it is: the southeast tower.

  Riven’s tower.

  18

  ‘It is good you know the way so well,’ Liz says.

  ‘You have no need to stay with us,’ Katherine tells her. ‘We will do well enough on our own.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Liz scoffs. ‘And anyway, I want to see what you’ll do next.’

  They are on foot, their backs turned on Marton Hall, walking north. Katherine has a staff, a russet travelling cloak, a bag of her few possessions, including the ledger, still wrapped like a corpse, and a little money left over from that which Isabella gave her to buy back the breviary. Rufus also has his cloak, and he carries the practice bow that John Brunt gave him (though he has lost the string) and he taps it on the ground as he goes, wearing away the horn nock – but that is the least of their problems. Liz has her cloak too, and her large clogs crump on the stones. They might almost be an ordinary party on their way to market, say, were it not for John Stump’s crossbow, which Liz carries crooked over her shoulder.

  Katherine hardly knows what it is that she will do next, but she is pleased Liz will stay with them. This last exile was as unplanned as it was sudden, and so here they are, walking back towards Gainsborough again, aiming to cross the river they came over only a few weeks or so before, and from there, back up north.

  ‘Will Father be there?’ Rufus asks.

  Katherine is loath to say no, but she must.

  ‘He will come and meet us. Catch us up maybe,’ she says. ‘In a day or two.’

  And Rufus seems reasonably content, and so they press on through the sunshine, though the two women exchange a look with one another, for they have already heard so many conflicting or impossible reports from passing traders, merchants and pilgrims that it is impossible to know how it stands in the south. One man told them there had been a battle after which the King had cut off the Earl of Warwick’s head, another that it had been the other way around. Some said Robin of Redesdale had been killed in this battle, others that it was his father, or brother, or son. Some said the Queen herself was dead, or in sanctuary, like the man who had bothered Isabella in the cathedral, while others that the Queen’s family had all been executed, while still others that King Edward had been abandoned by his men and had fallen into Earl Warwick’s hands and was in a dungeon in the Tower next to the old King.

  With each piece of news, and with each insight into what it might mean for ordinary folk, Liz becomes steadily more impatient.

  ‘Let ’em get on with it,’ she says, ‘without ’em bothering us.’

  And the effect of the gentles’ struggle is plain to see as they follow the road north. They pass men with stiffening wounds. There are stove-in faces, with hammers, Katherine supposes. Some have mangled hands carried as if their owners believe that with the right prayer the fingers will grow back. There are woman and children, too, returning home without their men, grey faces smudged with snot and tears, facing God alone knows what sort of future. She and Liz and Rufus take up with these sorts of groups, moving slowly, it is true, but securely, unbothered by the men who have been put beyond the King’s grace, and who are said to haunt the forests along the road’s lonelier stretches.

  ‘Funny how them that were right there know the least, isn’t it?’ Liz asks.

  It is true. No one really knows anything. They know of the fight that took place down south, and they know that an Earl of Pembroke was there, and that his We
lshmen were right fierce, and that in the fight many northerners were killed, and they can name many of the dead, none of whom are known to Katherine or Liz. One man with an arrow wound in his thigh tells them this Earl of Pembroke surrendered, only to have his head chopped off the next day, though no one can be sure why, since he was fighting for the cause of King Edward, who is anointed king, and so it cannot have been treason. And no one knows what has since happened to King Edward, but they are certain he was not there. No one tells of having seen anything of Lord Hastings, either, or any of his men with the head of a bull as a badge, save one – a boy who described a knight in armour that shone, whom he saw levelled. But that does not sound like Thomas, Katherine thinks.

  ‘Well,’ Liz supposes, ‘that is something.’

  They trudge on, weary and heartsore, through the endless forest towards York, and she thinks it seems to get longer each time she walks this road, and she wonders if they are lost. She thinks of Thomas, and where he might be. Liz is doing the same.

  ‘How will he know to find us?’ she asks.

  Katherine does not know. If he returns to Marton – as he said he would – then will Isabella’s sons even let him on to the land? Or will they just cut him down? Christ, she thinks, what they will do to him depends on whether Isabella wakes up. And if she wakes up able to see from the eye that Katherine has cut. It all depends on something Katherine has already done! She cannot change it now. She must wait to see. But worse is that she will not see, because she is now many miles from Isabella, and so will not know if she has been successful until she hears it from Thomas, or someone else.

  Oh dear God, why did she ever do it? Why did she just take it into her mind to cut Isabella, without telling her, and without mentioning her notion to anyone, so that it looked like a whim, something she decided to do on the spot? She looks at her hands now, one around her cloak, the other on the staff, as if they have somehow betrayed her, as if it is their fault she took it into her head to do such a stupid, stupid thing. She cannot even say she was not warned. Liz told her no good would come of it, and now she has left Isabella lying insensible, with one blind eye, and one cut eye, to be cared for by those two boys who are so keen to see her prised out of her home they will drop her into some sort of oubliette while they destroy what remains of Sir John’s estate.