Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  But I had an appointment of my own to keep. I stepped outside. The day, never bright under the thick grey rain clouds, was darkening as evening hurried on. I wrapped my cloak tightly around me against the wind and rain and hurried across the courtyard towards the stables. A cobbled slope led down from the courtyard into a long underground chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. One side was divided by wooden partitions into stalls for the horses, with wooden platforms above for the grooms to sleep on. Oats, hay and straw were stacked on raised platforms on the other side, though there seemed to be precious little of any, considering winter had barely begun. If the winter turned icy as well as wet, animals would starve as well as people, for there were not enough stores for either. Perhaps it was the living we should be praying for, not the dead. At least the dead had no more need of food.

  That afternoon there were only a few horses tethered in the stalls, tugging contentedly at their fodder, blissfully unaware of what the future might hold, but otherwise the stables appeared deserted. At the far end was a huge store chamber stacked with barrels and kegs. The only light filtered down from two grated holes in the floor above, but there was enough for me to see the man I sought there.

  The lay brother who worked in the laundry had exceeded my expectations. At best I had hoped for a couple of worn-out monks? habits, maybe three at the most, but he had managed to bring half a dozen. They were patched, threadbare and stained, just what I was looking for. The longer the robe appears to have been worn the more valuable it is, and as for stains, if there’s blood on it or what appears to be blood, so much the better. It was best not to enquire whether the monks’ old habits had really been discarded or if some would simply be marked ‘missing’ in the laundry lists, but the lay brother would doubtless ensure that one way or another he would not be called to account for them. He seemed well content with his half of the bargain – a few coins and half a dozen bottles of St John Shorne’s water. It was as well I’d stocked up in North Marston.

  He slipped out of the stables by his own staircase while I ambled back past the lines of stalls, feeling thoroughly content with the day: a good deal struck, a belly full of hot food and the prospect of a warm and comfortable night’s sleep to come. Things were looking up for once.

  ‘Camelot?’

  I jumped as a figure emerged from the shadows behind one of the tethered horses. Such frights are not good at my time of life. I leaned against the partition, heart thumping a little.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,’ Cygnus said, grinning sheepishly like a child that has been caught out in a prank.

  ‘I wondered where you’d got to, Cygnus.’

  ‘I thought I’d best keep out of the way of the other travellers, just in case one of them should happen…’ He trailed off, looking miserable. ‘Anyway, I thought I may as well make myself useful. You’ve fed me for a week and I’ve done nothing to earn my keep. Poor old Xanthus needed a good wash down. Get the mud off her coat. Horses take a chill if their coats are matted; they can’t keep warm. Hooves rot too if you don’t clean them.’

  As if to confirm this Xanthus gave a low whinny and nudged Cygnus gently. He smiled and resumed wiping her down.

  ‘Didn’t Zophiel see to his horse when he stabled her?’

  ‘He fed her, but he was in a hurry to get back to his cart. Said he needed to check if the boxes had shifted. But never mind Zophiel,’ he added impatiently. ‘What were you and that lay brother up to, Camelot? Are you hoping to sell those old monks’ habits to the poor? They won’t fetch much, hardly worth the trouble of carrying them, I should think.’

  ‘Not to the poor, Cygnus, to the rich. Anyone poor enough to need to dress in these rags would not have the money to buy them.’

  ‘But the rich wouldn’t be seen dead in such old things.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, my lad, the rich would only be seen dead in them.’

  He shook his head in bewilderment.

  ‘The rich with guilty consciences buy monks’ robes to be buried in, then when the devil comes to carry their souls to hell for all their wickedness, he passes over them for he sees not a rich sinner, but a poor, pious monk. If the monk who wore it was holy enough, then the odour of sanctity will be in his robes and may shorten the sinner’s time in purgatory or even open the doors of heaven itself. Smell these.’ I thrust a particularly rank robe under Cygnus’s long nose.

  He recoiled at the stench.

  I laughed. ‘The angels will smell the holiness on this one long before he ascends the ladder and will fling wide the gates. They’ll not want to stop and question him too long, for they’ll be too busy drawing him water for a bath.’

  ‘Do they think the angels and the devil can be so easily fooled by such tricks?’

  ‘If a man can be fooled himself he takes everyone else for a fool too, even the devil himself. And if it comforts their last hours and their grieving families, who are we to grudge them that? Every man, rich or poor, needs hope in his last hours and every widow needs solace in her grief.’

  ‘But surely that’s why they pay for chantry prayers and masses, so they can shorten their days in purgatory by prayer.’

  ‘Ah, but that is not enough to reassure them. The rich have learned to mistrust their fellow men. In their experience loyalty can only be secured by two things: money and fear. When a rich man is dead he can no longer command by fear, and what if the money runs out or those paid to pray grow negligent? Better to wear your salvation than depend on others for it.’ I thrust the last of the robes into my pack.

  ‘I still can’t believe the rich will buy these rags.’

  I chuckled. ‘You’ll see in time, my lad, that’s if you stay with us, of course.’

  Anxiety returned to his face. ‘Narigorm said that Zophiel won’t hand me over to the bailiff,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘Did he tell her so?’

  He frowned as if trying to remember her words. ‘I don’t think she said as much, but he must have done. She seemed so certain.’

  The image of the runes, the feather and the seashell flashed across my mind. Was she reading the future or was she trying to create it?

  Cygnus bit his lip, peering anxiously at me, trying to find some kind of reassurance in my face. ‘Why? Don’t you think she’s right?’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Then, seeing the flash of fear again in his face, I added hastily, ‘I doubt anyone is looking for you any more. The message would have reached here by now if they were. People have more pressing concerns. With things being what they are, they won’t have the men to spare to go scouring the countryside looking for a fugitive.’

  It was better that he should believe that than worry himself to death. If they did arrest him, there would be time enough for him to worry about his fate then.

  I grasped his arm. ‘Don’t be tempted to run from here, lad. You can’t return to your old profession, at least not until you know for certain they’re no longer looking for you, and life is hard out there for anyone on the road just now. You’d end up begging for a living and that’s no living at all. At least, with us, you’ll eat when we eat, and who knows, if you make yourself useful enough with that horse, Zophiel might see you’re more use to him as a groom than a bounty.’

  Cygnus nodded. ‘I won’t run, Camelot. I meant it when I said I wouldn’t endanger Adela or little Narigorm. I don’t believe that anyone who brings harm to a child can ever be forgiven; that’s why I could never have done such a dreadful thing to that little girl. If I had a child, I would wrap her so tightly she would never know a moment’s pain or fear.’ Tears shone in his eyes, and he fiercely brushed them away.

  I remembered that passion only too well. When I first held my baby son and saw the blueness of the sky concentrated in those big eyes, his soft little mouth open in wonderment, his fragile little fingers curling tightly around mine, trusting that I could protect him from anything in the world, I knew I would give my life to defend my son from harm. I could never hav
e foreseen how that promise would be put to the test, but I meant it then and I have not for a single day of my life regretted keeping it. Cygnus didn’t weep for a lost child, though, he wept for the child he knew he would never have. It’s not just princesses who refuse to marry swan-boys.

  He suddenly blurted out, ‘Zophiel was right when he said, “What use is one wing?” That was my mother’s grief. I saw it every day in her eyes, that look of pity and guilt when she watched me, like the way you might look at an animal that you have maimed without meaning to. I think she’d hoped that I would be born with two wings or with two hands. I don’t think she would have minded which it was, but I was born neither bird nor man. She had faith, you see, but not enough for two wings, not enough to believe that a wing would grow in place of a good right hand. That’s why I left in the end.’

  ‘Like the swan-brother in the story?’ I asked gently.

  ‘That part of the swan-prince is true. I left because I couldn’t bear to see the guilt in her eyes, because I was the cause. And I left because I didn’t want to be cared for, like a crippled bird.’

  ‘We leave as much to get away from where we are, as to find something we seek.’

  ‘You too?’ He glanced up at my empty eye socket.

  ‘Believe me,’ I said, ‘I know what it is to be looked at with pity. I had my reasons to leave. I know why you left, but I’m curious about what you seek.’

  ‘My other wing, of course. Do you think I want to go through life with one arm and one wing?’

  ‘Maybe not, but why not an arm in place of the wing? If you had two arms you would be wholly a man.’

  ‘You think two arms make you a man?’

  ‘Do two wings make you a bird?’

  He smiled sadly. ‘With two wings you can fly.’

  All Souls’ Night is a time when all good Christian folk are either safely abed with the covers pulled tightly over their heads or piously in church sheltering under the saints and their prayers. For they say that it is the night when, between sunset and sunrise, the gates of purgatory are flung open, the dead creep forth as toads or cats, owls or bats to torment those who have forgotten or neglected them.

  On All Souls’ Night, when I was a child, people used to leave garlands, food and ale on the graves of their relatives to convince them that they were not neglected. But the dead were not fooled by one day’s show of remembrance; they came anyway, creeping into houses, scratching at walls, rattling at shutters. We children curled up together in our beds, pretending to one another that we feared nothing, but quaking under our covers as we listened to every creak and groan, every screech and howl of that long night, thankful for the comfort of the warm and living bodies of our siblings pressed tightly beside us. But adults must face their ghosts and we, like the rest of the travellers in the monastery guest hall, braved the cold night to join the monks in their prayers for their dead and ours, and for the dead who belonged to no one.

  ‘Convertere, anima mea, in requiem tuam… Turn, O my soul, into thy rest…’

  Beside me, Rodrigo sighed and crossed himself, mouthing the words with the monks, settling into the old familiar service as a dog settles down by a warm fire. Cygnus, his long sharp nose prominently silhouetted in the candlelight, stared fixedly at the floor, as if he feared to meet the eyes of either the living or the dead. Adela, her arm around Narigorm’s shoulder, gazed down at her then up at Osmond, as if they were already a family. Would they take Narigorm in, when they finally found a place to settle, I wondered. They both seemed fond of the child, and already treated her as a niece if not a daughter, but would that change when their own baby was born? I suspected Narigorm would not take kindly to being displaced in their affections.

  In front of us, Zophiel, his back rigid, stared straight ahead. It was hard to know if he prayed or not. And if he prayed for the dead, whom did he name? A wife? A child? I had never asked if he had such in his life. It was hard to imagine him being civil to any woman long enough to ask her to wed him, but perhaps in his youth he had been a different man, a kind and gentle man, with romance in his soul. And maybe it was a faithless wife who had soured him against her kind. Or maybe not. I don’t think any man could change that much. Thinking of women, I realized that Pleasance was nowhere to be seen in the church. I was surprised by her absence; I would have taken her to be a devout woman. Jofre’s absence, on the other hand, was no surprise.

  The church was unusually dark that night, to remind those present of the darkness of the grave that awaits us all. An open empty coffin had been set upon the bier and placed before the rood screen, a candle at each corner, ready and waiting for the next corpse. And there would be one, if not today, then tomorrow. Death is the only certainty in life, it reminded us.

  Every inch of the church walls and pillars had been painted with scenes from the Bible and the lives of the saints. By day the reds and blues, greens and gold of the paintings glowed more vibrant than a newly stitched tapestry. But the candles for this service had been carefully placed to illuminate, not the gold of the saints’ haloes or the full round breasts of the Virgin, but the red flames which leaped between the teeth of the mouth of hell, where sinners held up their arms, beseeching in vain for mercy, while the two-faced demons prodded them down. Prayers were too late for those condemned to hell, but not for those in purgatory. As the walls taught us, they might yet be released.

  Beneath the painting there were offerings left by the faithful – jewelled necklaces, pins, brooches and rings, silver crucifixes and jars containing costly spices – bargains struck between the faithful and the Church, goods to barter for the prayers of St Odilo who had insisted that all the Cluny monks should devote one day a year to pray for the dead in purgatory in addition to their regular prayers for the departed.

  The monks in procession halted before the painting. In the gloom of the church, they were faceless under their deep hoods.

  ‘Quia eripuit animam meam de morte… For he has delivered my soul from death…’

  Would God deliver the monks? Would he spare the monasteries? If the rumours were true, he had not spared the priests. But if pestilence also crept into the monasteries, who would be left to pray for the dead? And what of those who lay unshriven and unnamed in mass graves – would they ever be released from purgatory, if there was no one left to name them?

  The monks filed out of the church, two by two, fat candles in their hands shielded by caps of horn against the wind which burst into the church as soon as the great door was opened. We followed in a solemn procession, like mourners after a coffin. The service was not yet over; there were the corpses of the monks buried in the orchard graveyard to be blessed and sprinkled with holy water.

  Outside it was cold and dark. The rain had eased, but the wind had strengthened to make up for it. It tore at our clothes and bent the branches of the yews until they moaned like those souls in purgatory. We stood in a huddle under the bare branches of the fruit trees, trying to shelter behind one another from the biting wet wind, as the monks processed from grave to grave, stopping to flick water from the hyssop on each one. But little of the holy water reached the mounds for it was snatched away by the wind as soon as it was flung.

  ‘Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam… Direct, O Lord, my God, my way in your sight…’

  A high-pitched giggle suddenly erupted from the far side of the graveyard. The monks faltered in their chanting and turned in the direction of the sound. We all strained our ears to listen, but could hear nothing except for the groaning trees and the howling wind. The monks resumed their chanting, but then another shriek rang out. There was no ignoring this.

  The prior stepped forward, raising his candle, and called out in a voice that was none too steady, ‘Who’s there? Come out and show yourselves, whoever you are.’

  But the candle flame did not penetrate more than a few feet into the darkness.

  ‘Come out, I say. I command you in the name of…’

  But he got no furt
her for three dark figures rose up out of the ground and lurched forward.

  Several people in the crowd screamed and tried to scramble over the wall of the graveyard. Even the monks backed away, crossing themselves, but the prior was made of sterner stuff. He stood his ground and, thrusting his crucifix out before him, gabbled, ‘Libera nos a malo. Deliver us from evil,’ over and over again as the figures stumbled towards him.

  Then, as the candlelight caught them, we saw what the creatures were; they were human and very much alive. Two of them I did not recognize, but I could tell from their garb that one was a young novice, the other a slightly older lay brother. There was no mistaking the third; it was Jofre. And he, like his two companions, was as drunk as a lord. He let go of his new friends and, stumbling to the nearest grave, raised his flagon. He made an exaggerated bow.

  ‘Here, Broth… Brother Bones, you don’t want water, do you? Had… had quite enough of that already. Have some wine, my good man.’ He dribbled some wine on to the grave. ‘That’ll put hairs on your chest, no, wait… you don’t have a chest,’ he giggled. ‘And here’s some for all your little w… worms and maggots.’

  He tipped the remains of his flagon on to the grave. Then he swayed sideways, tripped over the mound and fell straight into the arms of the prior, on whose portly chest he vomited, copiously.

  12. Retribution

  We were fortunate that they did not put us out of their gates that night, though it was not mercy which spared us a night on the road, but the determination of the prior and novice master to keep Jofre within their walls long enough to discover every detail of the outrage. It was plain that they would get no sense out of any of the three lads until they had sobered up and only a night’s sleep would bring about that transformation.