Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  ∗

  The fair had been set to run for a week. It was in the charter and it had done so for as long as anyone could remember. But as things turned out that year, the fair came to an abrupt halt on the afternoon of that same day. A messenger had arrived, mud-splattered and sweating nearly as much as his horse. He demanded to see the town’s elders and the bell tolled out, summoning them from every quarter of the town. Since most of them were in the middle of buying or selling at the time, they were not best pleased to be dragged to a meeting and the bell continued to toll for quite some time until the last of them had arrived, grumbling that this had better be important, or someone would be spending the rest of the fair in the town’s gaol. By this time everyone had heard the bell and they knew something was afoot. No one was under any illusion that it would be good news. Business gave way to gossip and speculation – had the Scots or the French or even the Turks invaded? Was the King coming on a royal visit, bringing with him his whole court and half his army, all to be fed at the town’s expense? ‘May God bless and keep His Majesty – far away from us.’ Or, more likely, had His Majesty imposed yet another tax? And what was there left to tax that he hadn’t taxed already?

  When the town’s dignitaries finally crowded on to the balcony, the chatter and laughter died in people’s throats. They looked grave and suddenly old. The crier had no need to ring his bell or even strain his voice. The news was delivered into shocked silence.

  Pestilence had broken out in Bristol. To save itself, Gloucester had closed its gates. No one would be allowed in or out. The villages all along the river were following Gloucester’s example. Whilst we had all been looking to the south, the pestilence had crept round on our western flank. It was spreading, spreading inland.

  Afterwards, no one expressed surprise that Bristol had fallen to the pestilence. It was a port and sooner or later an infected ship would be bound to call there. Besides, it was a ship from Bristol that had brought the infection to these shores, so it was a kind of justice that their own town should be infected. But what stunned them was Gloucester closing itself off. A mighty town like that, dependent on its trade, walling itself up alive. So fearful of the pestilence, the people were willing to ruin themselves, starve even, rather than risk it entering their gates. Whoever remained inside the walls would be trapped there as surely as if they were in a dungeon, for however long it took for the pestilence to burn itself out. And anyone from Gloucester who had the misfortune to find themselves away from home and family when the gates were locked would have to take their chances alone on the outside. Gloucester was miles up river from Bristol. If the people of Gloucester feared the pestilence could spread that far, that fast, then just how quickly was it spreading?

  Even before the town declared the fair was to be cut short, most of the travellers had already made up their minds to leave, to begin the big migration north and east. It was like watching a high wave forming out at sea. At first everyone had simply stood and looked, mesmerized, but now it started to roll towards them, they suddenly turned tail and ran for higher ground. Except that higher ground would not save them from this wave of destruction. There was no place that could; the only hope was to try to outrun it and pray that a miracle would happen and somehow it would be stopped before it swept them away.

  Getting out of the town that night wasn’t easy; the townspeople may have wanted us to leave and we to go, but there were only three gates out of the town. Merchants and peddlers had been arriving in a steady trickle for days before the fair, but now they were all trying to get out at once. Only a few who were desperate to get back to wives and families were taking roads leading south or west; the rest of us – wagons, carts, people, cattle, sheep, geese, pigs and horses – were squeezing and jostling through the one remaining gate. The roads, already waterlogged with all the rain, were becoming impassable as livestock and wagons churned up the mud, and every few yards the way was blocked by floundering carts and beasts.

  Fortunately, I knew my way around those parts and, once we were clear of the gate, I led Rodrigo and Jofre off on a side path that connected to a parallel road which bypassed the town and so we were able to escape from the crowd. The road descended through a gorge. It was ancient, and though wide enough for carts, was seldom used any more. It had been dry once, but since winters had grown wetter, its low level meant that it flooded often, so the only people who used it were those on foot or horseback. No carter or herdsman would be foolish enough to attempt it unless the weather had been dry for weeks.

  It had taken us so long to get out of the town that night was drawing in before we reached the road. We trudged along in silence, concentrating on keeping upright on the slippery track. Our clothes were soaked through and our boots were so heavy with mud, it felt as if we were wearing leg-irons. The rain drops beat down, drumming out their own psalms of contrition as if we were the condemned on the way to the gallows. We passed no one on the road and as darkness gathered around us, I hoped it would stay that way, for there are many kinds of traveller, human and worse, who stalk lonely roads after dark. And I had no desire to get acquainted with any of them.

  Then, rounding a bend, we saw a solitary wagon ahead of us. It was stuck deep in a water-filled rut, listing heavily to one side. I recognized both the wagon and its owner immediately. Zophiel, the great magician, was up to his calves in glutinous mud, trying to hoist the wagon upright with his shoulder and push it forward at the same time, but the mud sucked on the wheel, pulling it down. The horse had long since given up trying to pull the wagon forward. It stood between the shafts, head down in the rain, trying to reach a solitary clump of grass that still remained upright in the mud. With Zophiel at the back of the wagon, there was no one to lead it forward, and none of his curses or threats was having the slightest effect on the beast.

  Jofre’s miserable expression melted into a grin of delight when he recognized the figure floundering in the mud. ‘Serves him right,’ he muttered.

  Rodrigo, striding on ahead, didn’t hear him and was not meant to either. I guessed Jofre, wisely, hadn’t told Rodrigo about his wager with Zophiel.

  Jofre nudged me. ‘I say we lean on the wagon as we go by and push it down even further into the mud.’

  ‘And I say it’s better to help him. It puts him in our debt. You don’t want to rush revenge, my lad; it always tastes sweeter if it’s brewed slowly.’

  But before we could draw level with the wagon a young man suddenly emerged from the shadows on the track ahead of us. Despite his preoccupation with the wagon, Zophiel sensed the movement and whirled around, whipping out a long thin dagger and jabbing it towards the young man’s stomach. The man sprang back and held up his open hands in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘No, please, I mean you no harm. It’s my wife.’

  Hands still raised, he gestured with his chin towards the clump of trees from which he’d emerged. There was still just enough light to make out a woman sitting on the stump of a tree, her cloak wrapped tightly about her against the rain.

  ‘My wife,’ the young man began again. ‘She can’t walk any further tonight. She’s pregnant.’

  ‘So,’ growled Zophiel, ‘what are you telling me for? I didn’t father her child.’

  ‘I thought you might let her ride in your wagon. Not me, of course, I can walk. I don’t mind walking, I’m used to it, but Adela, she –’

  ‘Are you even more stupid than you appear? Does it look as if this wagon is going anywhere? Clear off.’

  Zophiel walked around the wagon to his horse and began pulling on the halter, using his whip freely in a vain effort to get the poor beast to move forward. The boy followed him, keeping a safe distance from the whip.

  ‘Please, she can’t spend the night in the open in this rain. I’ll help you lift the wheel out, if you’ll –’

  ‘You,’ Zophiel spat, ‘you couldn’t lift the skin off a roast chicken.’

  ‘But we could,’ Rodrigo said, stepping forward.

  The dagg
er was in Zophiel’s hand again and he backed nervously up against the solid side of the wagon, his eyes darting all around, trying to see if there were any more of us hiding in the shadows. Jofre giggled. He was enjoying every minute of this.

  Rodrigo gave his most courtly bow. ‘The minstrel Rodrigo at your service, signore. My pupil, Jofre, and our companion, a camelot.’

  Zophiel peered closely at us.

  ‘You!’ he said, as his gaze alighted on Jofre. He swiftly backed away, his dagger sweeping from side to side in front of him as if he were preparing to take us all on. ‘If you think you’re going to get the boy’s money back, you are mistaken, my friend. He was –’

  ‘Money?’ Rodrigo looked puzzled.

  Jofre was carefully studying his mud-caked boots.

  ‘The price to see the merchild,’ I explained quickly.

  Rodrigo nodded, apparently satisfied, then turned back to Zophiel and held his hands up in imitation of the young man. ‘Rest assured, signore, we have no intention of robbing you of your money. We were about to offer our help, one traveller to another, when this gentleman approached. But now he is here, between us we will soon get your wagon on the move.’

  Zophiel continued to eye us suspiciously. ‘And how much do you want for your help?’

  I answered for him. ‘These lads will shift the wagon, if you’ll agree to give a ride to this man’s wife.’ I looked around. Rain was streaming down our faces. We were so wet and muddy that we might have been dragged out of a river. ‘It’s my guess that we’re all in need of dry shelter tonight. There are no inns on this road, but I do know of a place that’ll keep out the rain, if it’s not already occupied.’

  Zophiel glanced over to where, in the semi-darkness, we could just make out the smudge of the woman still huddled on the tree stump. ‘If I put her on the wagon, it will weigh it down into the mud again. Besides,’ he added petulantly, ‘there’s no room, the wagon’s full.’

  ‘Then let her ride where you sit. She can’t weigh more than you. You walk and lead the horse. In the dark that would, in any case, be the safest course unless you want to end up overturned.’

  ‘And why should I walk when a woman rides? If her husband drags her on some fool journey on foot in her condition, he only has himself to blame.’

  The wind was getting up and lashing the rain against our faces, burning the skin already raw from wet and cold.

  ‘Come now, Zophiel,’ I said. ‘None of us would be on the road this night unless we were forced to be. Let’s not waste any more time. We’re all getting soaked to the skin and your wheels are settling deeper in the mud. It seems to me you have a simple choice: stay here all night in the rain with your wagon stuck fast and you prey to any cut-throat that comes along, or give the woman a ride and let us help you on your way. We’ll all walk alongside you and put our shoulders to the wheel each time the wagon gets stuck, which it surely will in this mud with or without the woman. What do you say? If we help one another this night, we may all find a dry bed before dawn.’

  4. Adela and Osmond

  And so it was that the six of us found ourselves spending a night together, huddled round a fire in a cave listening to the river roaring over the boulders of its bed and the rain plashing down on the leaves of the trees. The cave was broad but low and shallow, like a fool’s grin carved on the face of the rock. It was positioned about five or six feet up the cliff on the side of the gorge, but there were enough fallen boulders and ledges at the base to make it a comparatively easy climb even for me and the pregnant Adela. And it was unoccupied, as I hoped it would be, for even in daylight the cave was well concealed from the road behind a tangle of tall trees. In the dark it was impossible to see, unless you knew where to look for it, and it had even taken me a while to find it again.

  The walls of the cave were smooth with long horizontal ridges as if a giant potter had run his fingertips along wet clay, and the floor sloped down towards the mouth, so that it was dry inside all year round. Years ago, a herdsman or hermit had built a low wall of rough stone across part of the entrance and over time dry vegetation and twigs had accumulated behind it, which provided good kindling for our fire. We soon had a fine blaze started and, within the wall’s shelter, the fire burned true, with only the occasional plume of smoke billowing back into the cave.

  We’d each thrown what we had into the pot – beans, onions, herbs and a few strips of salted pork – to make a pottage. It was hot and filling and a deal better than you’d find in any of the inns in those parts. With our bellies full and limbs at last warming up, we were all beginning to relax.

  I set stones to heat on the edge of the fire. Hot stones wrapped in a bit of sacking make good comforters for the feet in the chill hours of the night. It was a trick I learned years ago and I guessed Adela would be glad of a little comfort later. Something told me that our pair of turtle doves were not accustomed to spending a night in a cave.

  They say like seeks like and if that is true, then these two were made for each other. They were both blond with wide Saxon faces and eyes as blue and bright as speedwell flowers. Osmond was a broad, stocky lad, well fleshed, with a smooth, clear complexion that many a girl would envy. Adela too had the big bones of her Saxon ancestry, but unlike Osmond she was thin, her cheeks stood out sharply as if she had lately gone hungry for many weeks and there were dark circles around her eyes. Some women suffer such sickness through their early months of pregnancy that they can scarcely keep a morsel down, but if that was the cause of her emaciation, she had plainly recovered from it, for there was little wrong with her appetite that night.

  She recovered a little after her meal and lay propped against some of the packs, resting, while Osmond fussed round her checking that she was warm enough, not tired, not in pain, not hungry, not thirsty, until even she laughingly begged him to rest. But that he could not do, and asked me again, though he had already done so a dozen times, if I thought there really were cut-throats or robbers living in this gorge.

  That question hung heavy in Zophiel’s mind also. We’d been forced to leave his wagon and horse at the base of the cliff and though we had covered the wagon well with branches and tethered his horse in the thick shrubbery where it could not be seen from the road, Zophiel would not rest until he had unloaded his boxes and stored them in the cave behind us. No one dared to enquire what the boxes contained; he was suspicious enough of us already, but whatever it was, it did not appear to be food, for although he contributed a generous quantity of dried beans to the pottage, he had to return to the wagon for them.

  Jofre lay in the dark at the back of the cave wrapped in his cloak. Rodrigo had urged him to come closer to the fire and share its warmth with the rest of us, but he had made the excuse that he wanted to sleep, although I sensed he was still very much awake. I suspected he was faking sleep in order to avoid Zophiel, but it isn’t easy to avoid someone when you’re sharing a small cave with them.

  Jofre had been as taut as a drawn bowstring ever since we’d pulled Zophiel’s wagon out of the mud. I knew he was dreading Zophiel raising the subject of the wager again. I was as anxious as he was to prevent that particular word slipping out, for if Rodrigo found out just how much of their hard-earned money his pupil had lost, he’d be furious, and who could blame him? But if he tore a strip off the lad in front of everyone, Jofre was likely to storm off into the night, and if he didn’t break his own neck in the dark, one of us would surely break ours if we had to go looking for him.

  Up to then, Zophiel had been too preoccupied with his boxes to concern himself with conversation, but now that everyone was settling in for the night, a diversion was called for, so I cast about for a subject that would lead us far away from wagers and magic tricks.

  ‘Adela, is this your first baby? I thought so, judging by the way your poor husband is clucking round. Make the most of it now, come the second one and he’ll be lying down with a headache while you do the fetching and carrying.’

  Adela, blushing, glanced
at Osmond, but said nothing.

  I tried again. ‘You’d best push it out early; his nerves won’t stand a long confinement. When’s it due?’

  ‘Around Christmas or a little before,’ she said shyly, glancing up at Osmond again.

  He rubbed her hand and grimaced.

  ‘That’s four months yet. If she can’t manage to walk now, what’s she going to be like come December?’ Zophiel said coldly, his gaze fixed on the darkness outside.

  Osmond leaped to his wife’s defence. ‘She can walk. It was the crowd of people all leaving the town so quickly, they were jostling her and she grew faint. She’s strong usually, aren’t you, Adela? And besides, we’ll have our own house somewhere long before her baby’s due.’

  Zophiel turned to look at Osmond. ‘So you’ll have your own house, will you, my young friend? You have property, do you? Money?’ He inclined his head in a mocking bow. ‘Do forgive me, my lord, I didn’t realize I was travelling in the company of nobility.’

  Osmond blushed furiously. ‘I’ll earn money.’

  ‘Doing what exactly?’ Osmond’s earnestness seemed to amuse Zophiel. He glanced over at their packs. ‘You’re travelling light. So what are you, my friend, a merchant, a jester, a thief perhaps?’

  Osmond’s fists clenched and Adela’s hand flew up to grab his shirt. He took a deep breath, evidently struggling to keep his reply civil.

  ‘I, sir, am a painter, an artist employed to paint the pictures of saints and martyrs on church walls. The Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Last Judgment, I can do them all.’

  Zophiel raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that so? I’ve never heard of a married man in such employ, surely it’s monks and lay brothers who undertake that holy task?’

  Adela was biting her lip. She seemed on the point of saying something, but Osmond answered first.

  ‘I paint those churches which are too far away from the abbeys and monasteries to be visited by the artists in holy orders. I paint the poor ones.’