Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  While Rodrigo’s deft musician’s fingers stitched, I took the baby, washed him clean and swaddled him in the bands Pleasance had made ready. I blessed her for that and though it was doubtless blasphemy, I prayed that if the dead could do anything for the living, she would watch over Adela now. It was many years since I had swaddled a child. I held the sleeping infant up to my face, drinking in the sweet smell of his damp, dark hair, feeling the warm little fingers curl like rose petals round my rough finger, watching the tiny mouth purse in its sleep as if he was thinking great thoughts. It was as if I was holding my own baby sons again. I felt the weight of them, the shiver of joy when they were laid in my arms. Each so different, yet each burrowing into the warmth of my skin as if they knew I could keep them safe. I thought of my little sons and I wept for the first time in many years.

  Rodrigo touched me on the shoulder. ‘I have finished. It is the best I can do.’

  I thrust the infant into his arms and went to Adela. She lay white and still in Osmond’s arms. Her skin was cold and clammy to the touch. Blood still ran from between her thighs. I pressed a cloth between her legs, but it was quickly soaked through. I couldn’t think how to staunch the flow. Her life was running out between my fingers.

  Cygnus, touched me lightly on the shoulder. ‘Wait, there is something. My mother once…’

  And before I could ask him what he meant he had raced for the door to the bridge. It seemed like hours before he returned, but in reality it was probably only minutes, long minutes as I pressed the cloth hard against Adela until my fingers ached. Then he was back, a mound of bright green sphagnum moss dripping between his fingers. He wrung it out and thrust it towards me.

  ‘Pack this inside her. It will staunch the blood.’

  We packed. The clear water from the moss mingled with the blood on the flags. As fresh blood splashed into the puddle, oracular shapes formed and dissolved until at last the drops of blood ceased to fall. We pulled her legs together and tied Cygnus’s belt tightly around her thighs to keep them still. And swung her round until she lay flat on the sanctuary dais, pale and still as a marble effigy.

  Osmond was kneeling beside Adela. He had finally unpinned her veil and her flaxen hair clung to her forehead, damp with sweat. I saw now why she had refused to remove the veil before, not even to sleep. For beneath it, her hair had been savagely cropped.

  Osmond tenderly stroked the poor shorn locks. ‘She will be all right now, won’t she?’ he pleaded, his face as drawn as Adela’s.

  ‘Cygnus has gone to make her some hot mulled wine. I’ve told him to put some amaranthus in it to stop the bleeding. Pleasance had some of the powdered flowers in her pack. We’ll try to rouse her to drink a little of that and then let her sleep awhile. We’d best make her a bed here on the sanctuary platform; if we move her too soon the bleeding might start again. Let me sit with her. You go and admire your son, you’ve not yet held him. What will you call him?’

  But Osmond rose and staggered away from the dais without making any answer.

  All through that night, Rodrigo, Osmond and I took it in turns to sit with Adela, sponging her forehead and spooning broth and herbed wine into her a sip at a time. We warmed hot stones for her feet in the ash pan of the brazier and rubbed her hands to restore the warmth as the night grew colder. I squeezed and rubbed her full breasts, collecting the thick yellow milk in a bowl and feeding it to the infant drop by drop from the tip of my finger.

  I must have fallen asleep towards morning, for when I jerked awake I found myself sitting on the chapel floor beside Adela, my head in my arms resting on the dais. A pearly-pink light was ghosting through the window. Downstairs a mewling wail broke the silence, but as I tried to make my stiff legs stand, Adela woke and turned towards the sound. She was pale, but even in the dim dawn light I could see at once that the life had come back into her eyes. She struggled to get up to go to the child, but I pushed her gently down.

  ‘Wait, I’ll bring him to you.’

  When I bent to lay the child in her arms Adela smiled, touching his downy cheek with the tip of her finger. I crouched behind her, supporting her shoulders. I turned the infant in her arms and helped him to find her breast. He didn’t seem to understand at first, but I nudged her nipple against his soft pink lips until finally his mouth closed round it and he began to suck. She relaxed against me and for a few moments I too felt that unutterable joy as I looked down into the face of a suckling child again.

  I shifted slightly to ease the pain in my stiff back and heard the scrape of something metallic against the sanctuary stones. I reached down and picked up the small silver hand with its strange lettering, Pleasance’s amulet. I looked up at the Madonna with her outstretched mantle and wondered which of them had kept Adela and her child safe, the Christian Virgin or the ancient Jewish amulet. Did it matter which Adela had put her faith in? Perhaps Mary too had held a Jewish amulet when her son was born. All I knew for certain was that we had beaten the runes. The runes, the omens and the midwives had all lied. We were nine again and one had not been taken. Childermas was over and they were both alive.

  19. One Is Taken

  A tentative knock sounded on the door of the chantry.

  Rodrigo was on his feet in an instant, relief written all over his face. ‘There is Jofre at last.’

  Jofre hadn’t returned to the chantry the previous night. None of us, except Rodrigo, were concerned about his absence during the day. We knew that if he had any sense, he’d stay well away until Zophiel’s bruised balls were a little less tender. Zophiel himself had not returned until long after the curfew bell and when he did he was still in a foul temper.

  ‘Did you catch up with Jofre?’ I asked innocently.

  He glowered. ‘Like the vermin he is, he’s gone to ground. But he’ll have to show up here sooner or later. And when he does, I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.’

  But our concern over Adela that night had driven all other thoughts from our heads, so it was not until breakfast the next morning that we realized Jofre hadn’t returned at all. As soon as the bell for prime sounded from the town, Rodrigo set off to look for him. I knew what was on his mind. Had Jofre spent the night with Ralph, despite the warnings about Ralph’s father? The young take warnings as challenges and after Zophiel’s humiliation of him, Jofre might seek out Ralph as a matter of defiance. Rodrigo searched all the likely haunts, but there was no sign of Jofre. Even the serving girl at the Red Dragon hadn’t seen him. Finally he admitted defeat and came back to the chantry hoping to find Jofre waiting for him, but he was not.

  The knocking came again, but before Rodrigo could reach the door, Zophiel stretched out his hand to block his way.

  ‘Be warned, Rodrigo, this matter of the theft is not over. You’re the boy’s master, so I will give you time to get the truth out of him in any way you see fit, but my patience is limited. If you do not discover the truth, I will, and,’ he added still more coldly, ‘there’s still the matter of his assault on me. I expect you to punish him well for that, or, as his master, it’s you from whom I shall demand recompense.’

  The knocking sounded again, more urgently this time, and Rodrigo, pushing Zophiel’s arm aside, went to unbar the door. But it wasn’t Jofre who stood in the doorway, it was the serving girl from the Red Dragon. Her chest was heaving as if she had been running and despite the coldness of the day, her face was flushed and sweating.

  She plucked at Rodrigo’s sleeve. ‘Please… sir,’ she panted, ‘you must come. Your boy…’ she pointed with a shaking finger in the direction of the town. ‘They found him… little lads found him… on their way to the river.’

  ‘Is he hurt? Is he in trouble?’

  The girl looked away.

  Rodrigo caught her wrist and pulled her round. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Please, sir, I… I’m sorry, sir, but he’s dead.’

  Rodrigo stared at her without comprehension. ‘No, he is drunk. He knows I will be angry, so he is staying away until he is s
ober. But he will be back soon.’

  Pity creased the girl’s face. ‘Sir, he isn’t coming back. They found a body.’

  Rodrigo snatched his hand away. ‘You are mistaken. He drank too much and now he is sleeping. How could he be dead? I spoke to him yesterday. He was going hunting. He said he would be back before dark. And I said… the last thing I said…’

  Rodrigo collapsed against the wall, and slid down until he was crouching on the floor, his head in his hands.

  Osmond pulled the now tearful girl inside and closed the door behind her. He put his arm around her. ‘Tell us what happened.’

  ‘I don’t rightly know, sir. My two little nephews, just little lads they are, set off for the river, across the common land. Then they came running back into town saying they’d found a body in the bushes. Covered in blood it was. They said it had been…’ She closed her eyes and shook her head as if trying to shake the words loose. For a moment she stood, her mouth working convulsively, but no sounds coming out. Then she swallowed hard. ‘Some men went to look. The bailiff’s sent for the coroner.’

  ‘Have you seen the body?’ I asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then how do you know it’s Jofre?’ I asked gently.

  She glanced over at Rodrigo who raised his head, a look of hope in his eyes.

  ‘One of the men recognized him. Said it was the new lad who’d been hanging round with Ralph. They all know Ralph, sir.’

  ‘But they do not know Jofre,’ Rodrigo said. ‘It is some other boy.’

  ‘Where is the body?’ I asked.

  ‘Still where they found it. They can’t move it until the coroner gets here.’

  ‘Then I’ll go and see it,’ I said. ‘If it is him, the coroner will require someone who knew him to swear to his identity.’

  ‘But it is not Jofre.’ Rodrigo still crouched on the floor, like a cornered animal, trapped somewhere between hope and despair.

  ‘I’ll go with you, Camelot,’ Cygnus said.

  Rodrigo wiped his hand fiercely over his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I will go. He is my pupil, my responsibility. I will go.’

  It was easy to see where the body lay – a dozen or so men stood around it. A little way off two small ragged boys stood with a woman who might have been their mother. The town gate was closed, but that did not stop a gaggle of urchins taking it in turns to scramble up to peer out over the town fence in the hope of glimpsing something of what was happening below. There were more faces peering out of the upper windows of the houses nearest the fence.

  One of the men broke away from the knot as we approached, holding his arms out as if we were geese to be shooed away. The serving girl ran ahead a few paces and murmured to the man. He looked over at us, pursed his lips, then nodded reluctantly and beckoned us forward.

  ‘Bad business, bad business. Ella here reckons him to be one of your lads. He’s not a pretty sight, but you’d best come and look, the coroner will want a sworn identification for his records.’

  ‘You wait here, Rodrigo, I’ll go,’ I said.

  ‘No, I have to see. If it is him, I will only believe it if I see it with my own eyes.’

  At a nod from the bailiff the men parted and let us through. The body was lying some distance from the main track, concealed from view of both track and town by scrub and bracken. Someone had covered the body with an old cloth and the bailiff leaned down and twitched it back from the face. Jofre’s dark, glossy hair flopped back from his forehead, stirring in the breeze as if moved by a human breath. Under the olive skin, the face was blanched and the lips blue. I thought at first the face was covered in mud, but then I realized it was smears of dried blood which had run from several long deep scratches. There was a large purple bruise on the left cheek and temple. The eyes were open and staring, a look of abject terror on his face, and no wonder for there, on his neck, was a huge gaping wound, like an open mouth screaming. His throat had been torn out.

  Rodrigo gave an anguished cry and fell to his knees, his hands reaching out to Jofre’s hair as if he was trying to soothe him. The bailiff grabbed him.

  ‘Can’t let you touch the body,’ he said, pulling the cloth back over Jofre’s face. ‘Have to wait for the coroner.’

  It took three men to pull Rodrigo away, but suddenly the fight seemed to go out of him. He stumbled away into the scrub, fell to his knees and vomited. Then he sat, his arms wrapped over his head, rocking and sobbing in a tongue none of us could understand.

  The men turned away, embarrassed.

  The bailiff watched him for a few moments before saying unnecessarily, ‘It’s his lad then? Poor beggar. ’Course, it’s up to the coroner to decide, but I reckon it must have been a wolf. Watchman says he’s heard one howling these past few nights. I thought he was daft and said as much. There’s not been a wolf in these parts for years. But it looks like he might have been right after all.’

  He glanced up as the serving girl approached.

  ‘My sister wants to take her little lads home now. They’re cold and hungry. They’ve been hanging about for hours.’

  The bailiff shook his head. ‘You can go on home if you want to, Ella, but I’ve told your sister and now I’m telling you. They found the corpse, so the law says they have to stay here till the coroner’s questioned them.’

  So we waited. Some of the men also wanted to go, arguing that they were not witnesses, just the town’s representatives, but the bailiff was having none of it. So, grumbling, they lit a fire and sat round talking in low voices and drinking the generous quantities of ale brought out by Ella, courtesy of the town’s coffers. The little boys who were leaning silently against their mother cheered up when they were given a hunk of cheese and an onion apiece. Rodrigo sat by himself away from us all, staring at the ground. Cygnus went across and sat down near him. He didn’t try to engage him in conversation, but merely sat so that he would know he was not alone.

  The afternoon wore on. It was bitterly cold. A raw wind sprang up and the cloth over Jofre’s body billowed as if the body beneath was rising. A couple of the men went across and anchored it with stones. Above, in the sky, a pair of kites wheeled round in lazy circles looking for prey, their wings glinting rust red in the bright glacial sun. Finally, as the shadows began to lengthen, the town gates opened and a small man on an overlarge dun-coloured mare rode out, followed by a young lad who rode saddleless on a mule. From his pained expression the ride had been long and hard. The night watchman followed behind them on foot.

  The bailiff stumbled to his feet, his legs so stiff from the cold that he almost fell and hobbled across to the rider. Removing his leather cap, he bowed low, as though he was greeting royalty.

  ‘Body’s over here, coroner, sir.’

  The coroner tossed him his reins as if he was a stable lad. ‘Let’s get on with it then. I want to be finished before dark. No sense hanging about. Are you ready, Master Thomas?’ he bellowed at his clerk.

  The clerk, who was rubbing his aching backside, hastily donned a small writing board which hung suspended from a strap around his neck and scrabbled in the mule’s pack for parchment, quill and a flask of ink, getting more flustered by the minute.

  The coroner impatiently tapped the side of his boot with his riding whip. ‘Now, who found the corpse?’

  The bailiff thrust the reins of the coroner’s horse at one of the other men and pointed to the two lads who, now that strangers had arrived, were once again clinging to their mother’s skirts.

  ‘These two lads came across the body when they were taking a short cut to the river this morning, bit after ten or thereabouts.’

  ‘Did they raise the hue and cry?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ the bailiff said cautiously. ‘They told their mother.’

  ‘Anyone identify the corpse?’

  I glanced at Rodrigo, still sitting away in the scrub. He hadn’t even looked up when the coroner arrived.

  I stepped forward. ‘The body is that of Jofre, appr
entice musician.’

  ‘You’re the boy’s master?’

  ‘No, sir, I am a camelot. Jofre and his master are among a group of us who travel together for safety. His master’s over there, but he’s very distressed.’

  The coroner glanced over at Rodrigo. ‘I imagine so, all that time wasted training the boy, now he’ll have to start again with another, I suppose. Apprentices are more trouble than they’re worth, bone idle and ungrateful, the lot of them. So when did the boy go missing?’

  ‘Jofre left our lodgings yesterday morning. We are lodging outside the town. We believe he may have come into the town, but he didn’t return last night. One of our company gave birth last night. It was a long and difficult labour. It kept us all busy, so we didn’t start looking for him until first light.’

  He nodded. ‘Quite. So the boy was in the town all night.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but it wasn’t all night.’ The night watchman hovered nervously at the coroner’s elbow, twisting his hood in his hands. I had the impression that he’d been pushed forward, for he kept glancing behind him as he spoke. ‘The lad left the gates alone at curfew, sir. Locked the gate behind him myself. Likely he was attacked on the road on the way home. But it wasn’t in the town, sir, that it wasn’t.’

  ‘Good, that narrows the time down then. Let’s take a look at this apprentice of yours, shall we?’ He turned to the townsmen. ‘Gather round, everyone. As jurors the law requires that you view the corpse.’

  The men made a wide circle round the body, and Cygnus and I joined them. The bailiff dragged the corner of the cloth and this time uncovered the whole corpse. There was a gasp and several of the men including Cygnus turned away. The young clerk’s hand shook so violently that a great blot of ink fell across the parchment, obliterating several lines. Even the coroner hesitated for a moment, swaying on his heels, then he stepped forward and looked down.

  Jofre was lying sprawled naked on his back. His body was covered in blood, not only from the wound in his throat, but from what appeared to be dozens of jagged bites. But the worst thing, the thing that made even the night watchman gag, was that his genitals had been ripped away, leaving a raw and gaping wound.