by Noah Gordon
“Come back,” Barber said. “Let us bind it up for you. We shan’t cause you further harm.”
But the man was already edging around the wagon and in a moment had scurried off.
“So much bleeding will be noticed. If there are reeve’s men in the town they’ll take him, and he may well lead them to us. We must leave here quickly,” Barber said.
They fled as they had when they had feared the death of patients, not stopping until they were certain they weren’t pursued.
Rob made a fire and sat by it, still dressed as the Old Man and too tired to change, eating cold turnip from yesterday’s meal.
“There were two of us,” Barber said in disgust. “We could have rid ourselves of him.”
“He needed a lesson.”
Barber faced him. “Listen to me,” he said. “You’ve become a risk.”
Rob bridled at the injustice, for he had acted to protect Barber. He felt new anger bubbling in him, and old resentment. “You’ve never risked anything on me. You no longer provide our money—I do. I earn more for you than that thief could have gathered with his pinching fingers.”
“A risk and a liability,” Barber said tiredly, and turned away.
They reached the northernmost leg of their route and stopped in border hamlets where the residents didn’t rightly know whether they were English or Scots. When he and Barber were playing before an audience they joshed and worked in apparent harmony, but when they weren’t on the bank they settled into a cold silence. If they attempted conversation it soon became a quarrel.
The day was past when Barber dared raise a hand to him, but when he was drunk he still had a filthy and abusive tongue that knew no caution.
On a night in Lancaster, camped next to a pond from which moonpainted mist rose like pale smoke, they were plagued by an army of small flylike insects and took refuge in drink.
“Always were a great clumsy lout. Young Sir Dunghill.”
Rob sighed.
“I took an orphaned arsehole … molded him … would be less than nought without me.”
One day soon he would begin to practice barber-surgery on his own, Rob decided; he’d been a long time coming to the conclusion that his path must separate from Barber’s.
He had found a merchant with a store of sour wine and had bought in quantity; now he tried to drink the abrasive voice silent. But it went on.
“… ham-handed and slow of wit. How I did labor to teach him to juggle!”
Soon Rob crawled into the wagon to refill his goblet but was followed by the terrible voice.
“Fetch me a bloody stoup.”
Fetch it for your miserable self, he was about to answer.
Instead, taken by an irresistible notion, he crept to where the flagons of Special Batch were kept.
He took one and held it to his eyes until he saw the scratch marks that identified what it was. Then he crawled from the wagon, unstoppered the clay bottle, and handed it to the fat man.
Wicked, he thought fearfully. Yet no more wicked than Barber’s giving Special Batch to so many through the years.
He watched in fascination as Barber took the flagon, tilted his head back, opened his mouth, and lifted the drink to his lips.
There was yet time to redeem himself. He almost heard his voice calling upon Barber to wait. He would say the bottle had a broken lip and easily replace it with an unmarked bottle of metheglin.
But he kept his silence.
The neck of the bottle entered Barber’s mouth.
Swallow it, Rob urged cruelly.
The fleshy neck worked as Barber drank. Then, throwing away the empty flask, he fell back into sleep.
Why did he feel no glee? Through a long and sleepless night he thought on it.
When Barber was sober he could be two men, one of them kindly and with a merry heart, the other a baser person who didn’t hesitate to dispense the Special Batch. When he was drunk there was no question, the baser man emerged.
Rob saw with sudden clarity, like a spear of light across a dark sky, that he was transforming himself into the baser Barber. He shivered, and a desolation crept over him as he moved closer to the fire.
Next morning he rose with first light and found the discarded marked bottle and hid it in the woods. Then he restored the fire and by the time Barber stirred, a lavish breakfast awaited him.
“I haven’t been a proper man,” Rob said when Barber had eaten. He hesitated and then forced himself to go on. “I ask your pardon and absolution.”
Barber nodded, astonished into silence.
They harnessed Horse and rode without speaking through half the morning, and at times Rob was aware of the other man’s thoughtful eyes on him.
“I have long dwelt on it,” Barber said at last. “Next season you must go out as barber-surgeon without me.”
Feeling guilty because only the day before he had reached the same conclusion, Rob protested. “It’s the damned drink. The stuff transforms each of us cruelly. We must abjure it and we’ll get on as before.”
Barber appeared moved but shook his head. “It’s partly the drink, and partly it is that you’re a young hart needing to try his antlers and I’m an old stag. Further, for a stag I am exceedingly huge and breathless,” he said drily. “It takes all my strength for me simply to climb the bank, and each day it’s more difficult for me to get through the entertainment. I would happily remain in Exmouth forever, to enjoy the soft summer and tend a salad garden, to say nothing of the pleasures I’ll gain from my kitchen. While you are gone I can put up a plentiful store of the physick. Too, I’ll pay for maintenance of wagon and Horse as heretofore. You shall keep for yourself the proceed from every patient whom you treat, as well as from every fifth bottle of physick sold the first year and every fourth bottle sold each year thereafter.”
“Every third bottle the first year,” Rob said automatically. “And every second bottle thereafter.”
“That’s excessive for a youth of nineteen years,” Barber said severely. His eyes gleamed. “Let us dwell on it together,” he said, “for we are reasonable men.”
In the end they agreed on the income from every fourth bottle over the first year, and on every third bottle in years following. The agreement would run for a period of five years, after which they would take stock of it.
Barber was jubilant and Rob couldn’t believe his good fortune, for his earnings would be remarkable for one his age. They traveled southward through Northumbria in the highest of spirits and with a renewal of good feeling and comradeship. In Leeds, after their work they spent several hours at marketing; Barber bought prodigiously and declared that he must make a dinner suitable to celebrate their new arrangement.
They left Leeds along a track that rode low beside the River Aire, through mile on mile of ancient trees towering high above green thickets and twisted groves and heathy glades. They camped early among alder beds and willows where the river widened, and for hours he helped Barber create a great meat pie. In it Barber placed the minced and mingled meat of the leg of a roe deer and a loin of veal, a plump capon and a pair of doves, six boiled eggs and half a pound of fat, covering all with a crust that was thick and flaky and oozing oil.
They ate it at great length, and nothing would suit Barber but to begin drinking metheglin when the pie raised his thirst. Remembering his recent vow, Rob drank water and watched as Barber’s face reddened and his eyes grew surly.
Presently Barber demanded that Rob carry two boxes of flasks out of the wagon and set them close to him, that he might help himself at will. Rob did so and watched uneasily while Barber drank. Soon Barber began to mutter untowardly about the terms of their agreement, but before things could go thwartly he sank into a sodden sleep.
In the morning, which was bright and sunny and filled with the song of birds, Barber was pale and querulous. He didn’t appear to recall his overweening behavior of the previous evening.
“Let’s go after trouts,” he said. “I could do well with a breakfas
t of crisp fish and the Aire appears to be likely water.” But when he rose from his bed he complained of an ague in his left shoulder. “I’ll load the wagon,” he decided, “for labor often works to grease an aching joint.”
He carried one of the boxes of metheglin back to the wagon, then returned and picked up the other. He was halfway to the wagon when he dropped the box with a thump and a clatter. A puzzled look crept into his face.
He put his hand to his chest and grimaced. Rob saw that pain was making him hunch his shoulders. “Robert,” he said politely. It was the first time Rob had heard Barber pronounce his formal name.
He took one step toward Rob, thrusting out both his hands.
But before Rob could reach him he stopped breathing. Like a great tree—no, like an avalanche, like the death of a mountain—Barber toppled and fell, crashing to the earth.
18
REQUIESCAT
“I did not know him.”
“He was my friend.”
“Nor ever have I seen you,” the priest said dourly.
“You see me now.” Rob had unloaded their belongings from the wagon and hidden them behind a copse of willows, in order to make room for Barber’s body. He had driven six hours to reach the small village of Aire’s Cross, with its ancient church. Now this mean-eyed cleric asked suspicious and surly questions, as if Barber had pretended to die, solely for his inconvenience.
The priest sniffed in open disapproval when his inquiry revealed what Barber had been in life. “Physician, surgeon, or barber—all of these flout the obvious truth that only the Trinity and the saints have true power to heal.”
Rob was burdened with strong emotions and not disposed to listen to such sounds. Enough, he snarled silently. He was conscious of the weapons on his belt but it was as though Barber counseled him to forbear. He spoke softly and pleasingly to the priest and made a sizable contribution to the church.
Finally the priest sniffed. “Archbishop Wulfstan has forbidden priests to entice away another priest’s parishioner with his tithes and dues.”
“He wasn’t another priest’s parishioner,” Rob said. In the end burial in sacred ground was arranged.
It was fortunate he had taken a full purse with him. The matter couldn’t be delayed, for already there was the smell of death. The joiner in the village was shocked when he saw how large a box he must construct. The hole had to be correspondingly generous, and Rob dug it himself in a corner of the churchyard.
Rob had thought Aire’s Cross was so named because it marked a ford on the River Aire, but the priest said the hamlet was called after a great rood of polished oak within the church. Before the altar at the foot of this enormous cross was placed Barber’s rosemary-strewn coffin. By chance the day was Feast of St. Callistus and the Church of the Rood was well attended. When the Kyrie Eleison was said, the little sanctuary was almost filled.
“Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy,” they chanted.
There were only two small windows. Incense fought with the stink, but some air came through the walls of split trees and the thatched roof, causing the rush lights to flicker in their sockets. Six tall tapers struggled against the gloom in a circle around the casket. A white pall covered all but Barber’s face. Rob had closed his eyes and he looked asleep, or perhaps very drunk.
“He was father to you?” an old woman whispered. Rob hesitated, then it seemed easiest to nod. She sighed and touched his arm.
He had paid for a Mass of Requiem in which the people participated with touching solemnity, and he saw with satisfaction that Barber wouldn’t have been better attended had he belonged to a guild, nor more respectfully prayed away if his pall had been the purple of royalty.
When the Mass was done and the people departed, Rob approached the altar. He knelt four times and signed the cross upon his breast as he had been taught by Mam so long ago, bowing himself separately to God, His Son, Our Lady, and finally to the Apostles and all holy souls.
The priest went about the church and thriftily extinguished the rush lights, and then left him mourning by the bier.
Rob departed neither to eat nor to drink but remained kneeling, seemingly suspended between dancing candlelight and the heavy blackness.
Time passed without his knowledge.
He was startled when loud bells chimed the hour of matins, and he rose to lurch down the aisle on benumbed legs.
“Make your reverence,” the priest said coldly, and he did so.
Outside, he walked down the road. Under a tree he passed water, then returned and washed hands and face from the bucket by the door while within the church the priest completed Midnight Office.
Some time after the priest went away for the second time the tapers burned down, leaving Rob alone in darkness with Barber.
Now he allowed himself to think of how the man had saved him when he was a boy in London. He remembered Barber when he was gentle and when he was not; his tender pleasure at preparing and sharing food, and his selfishness; his patience in instruction, and his cruelty; his raunchiness, and his sober advice; his laughter, and his rages; his warm spirit, and his drunkenness.
What had passed between them wasn’t love, Rob knew. Yet it had been something that substituted for love sufficiently that, as first light grayed the waxen face, Rob J. wept bitterly, and not entirely for Henry Croft.
Barber was buried after lauds. The priest didn’t spend overly long at the graveside. “You may fill it in,” he told Rob. As the stone and gravel rattled onto the lid, Rob heard him mutter in Latin, something about the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection.
Rob did what he would have done for family. Remembering his lost graves, he paid the priest to order a stone and specified how it was to be marked.
Henry Croft.
Barber-surgeon.
Died Jul 11 in the yr A.D. 1030.
“Mayhap Requiescat in Pace, or some such?” the priest said.
The only epitaph true to Barber that came to him was Carpe Diem, “Enjoy the Day.” Yet, somehow …
And then he smiled.
The priest was annoyed when he heard the selection. But the formidable young stranger was paying for the stone and insisted, so the cleric carefully wrote it down.
Fumum vendidi. “I sold smoke.”
Watching this cold-eyed priest putting away his profit with a satisfied mien, Rob realized that it wouldn’t be remarkable if no stone were raised to a dead barber-surgeon. With no one in Aire’s Cross to care.
“I shall be back one day soon to see that all is to my satisfaction.”
A veil came over the priest’s eyes. “Go with God,” he said shortly, and went back into the church.
Weary to the bone and hungry, Rob drove Horse to where he had left their things in the willow copse.
Nothing had been disturbed. When he had loaded it all back into the wagon, he sat in the grass and ate. What remained of the meat pie was spoiled, but he chewed and swallowed a stale loaf Barber had baked four days before.
It occurred to him that he was the heir. It was his horse and his wagon. He had inherited the instruments and techniques, the ratty fur blankets, the juggling balls and the magic tricks, the dazzle and the smoke, the decisions about where to go tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
The first thing he did was remove the flasks of Special Batch and throw them against a rock, smashing them one by one.
He would sell Barber’s weapons; his own were better. But he hung the Saxon horn around his neck.
He clambered onto the front seat of the wagon and sat there, solemn and erect, as though it were a throne.
Perhaps, he thought, he would look around and get himself a boy.
19
A WOMAN IN THE ROAD
He traveled on as they always had done, “taking a promenade through the innocent world,” Barber would have said. For the first days he couldn’t force himself to unpack the wagon or give an entertainment. In Lincoln he bought himself a hot meal at the public house but he did no cooking
, mostly feeding on bread and cheese made by others. He didn’t drink at all. Evenings, he sat by his campfire and was assailed by a terrible loneliness.
He was waiting for something to happen. But nothing did, and after a bit he came to understand that he would have to live his life.
In Stafford he decided to return to work. Horse picked up her ears and pranced as he banged the drum and announced their presence in the town square.
It was as though he had always worked alone. The people who gathered didn’t know there should have been an older man who signaled when to start and stop the juggling and who told the best stories. They gathered about and listened and laughed, watched enthralled as he drew likenesses, bought his doctored liquor, and waited in line to seek treatment behind the screen. When Rob took their hands he discovered the gift was back. A burly blacksmith who looked as though he could lift the world had something in him that was consuming his life, and he wouldn’t last long. A thin girl whose wan appearance might have suggested illness had a reservoir of strength and vitality that filled Rob with joy when he felt it. Perhaps, as Barber had declared, the gift had been stifled by alcohol and liberated by abstinence. Whatever the reason for its return, he found himself astir with excitement and eager to be linked to the next pair of hands.
Leaving Stafford that afternoon, he stopped at a farm to buy bacon and saw the barn mouser with a litter of kittens. “Take your pick of the lot,” the farmer told him hopefully. “I’ll have to drown most of them, for they all consume food.”
Rob played with them, dangling a piece of rope in front of their noses, and they were each winsome save for one disdainful little white cat that remained haughty and scornful.
“Do you not wish to come with me, eh?” The kitten was composed and looked to be the goodliest, but when he tried to hold her she scratched him on the hand.
Strangely, it made him all the more determined to take her. He whispered to her soothingly, and it was a triumph when he was able to pick her up and smooth her fur with his fingers.
“This one will do,” he said, and thanked the farmer.
