Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  I rose, half fearful he was going to strike Cygnus in his panic. ‘Whether we show a light or not makes no difference now, Zophiel. Whatever is out there knows we are here and I am beginning to believe it has always known where we are.’

  20. Alchemy

  The following morning none of us could bring ourselves to broach the question which hung unspoken between us. Where was Jofre to be buried? It was not a decision we could delay. We dared not risk another night in the chantry. If the pestilence had reached the town and people started to flee, they would come this way, people who might already be carrying the sickness. But Rodrigo was adamant that Jofre should not be buried in unconsecrated ground. At first he wanted to carry him with us to the next church, but we persuaded him that questions were bound to be asked if we turned up with a mutilated corpse. One glance at the body and the next parish would hardly be more willing to let him lie with them than the townspeople had been.

  ‘Bury him here,’ Cygnus suggested. ‘Though the chapel isn’t yet consecrated, it’s bound to be one day and in the meantime, there is the painting of the Vir…’ He trailed off awkwardly.

  ‘And where exactly do you plan to bury the body?’ Zophiel snapped. ‘If the chapel was built on solid ground you might dig up the floor, but dig here and you’ll fall straight through to the river. Do you propose simply to leave a body lying about in the chapel?’

  Osmond, who had been pacing the floor, stopped and pointed upwards. ‘Under the altar. It must be hollow, a solid block that size would be too great a weight for the vaulting below. It’s a ready-made tomb. If we can prise a panel loose, or even the top, we can put him in there. We can replace the panel and I’ll paint over it.’

  Rodrigo pressed his hand in gratitude. ‘You are a good man, Osmond.’

  Osmond flushed with embarrassment. ‘Rodrigo, I never meant to drive Jofre away. It was just the shock when Zophiel said… I never realized, you see. If I hadn’t stopped him coming fowling, then he would never have gone into town. He might still be alive… What they did, it was… he didn’t deserve that.’

  Rodrigo squeezed Osmond’s shoulder. ‘You must not blame yourself. You did not do this to him.’

  Osmond, uncharacteristically, flung his arms round Rodrigo and hugged him. ‘I’m so sorry, Rodrigo, I know he was like a son to you.’

  Rodrigo returned the embrace, then thrust him away, tears shining in his eyes. ‘Come, show me the altar, perhaps together we can move the top.’

  Zophiel, for once, had the grace to wait until we could hear them moving about upstairs before he spoke.

  ‘They’re wasting their time. Osmond seems to have forgotten we’ve no lead coffin to seal the body in. He can paint the altar as much as he likes, but it won’t stop the stench that will linger for months, years even. When they come to finish the chantry and smell it, they’ll open the altar up. It won’t take long for people round here to work out who it is. Then the corpse will be tossed in the river, or dismembered and scattered. Rodrigo would do better to bury the body in an unmarked grave in the woods. If they can’t find it, they can’t dig it up again.’

  ‘But they won’t dare throw the bones away if they think it’s a monk who’s interred there,’ said Cygnus, looking at me.

  ‘And why, pray, should they think that?’ Zophiel asked coldly. He had obviously still not forgiven Cygnus for failing to put out the candles.

  ‘Camelot has some monks’ robes in his pack. Remember, Camelot, the ones you bartered for at the monastery? Cloth stays whole long after the body begins to decay. All they’ll see will be the monk’s habit.’

  ‘You are determined to make a mockery of God in everything, Cygnus, but be warned, God is not mocked.’ Zophiel, a look of disgust on his face, swept up the stairs and disappeared.

  The baby, woken by Zophiel’s raised voice, began to cry.

  Cygnus came over and knelt beside me as I rummaged in my pack for the habits. He glanced over at Adela who was occupied with the child, then whispered, ‘Has it occurred to you, Camelot, that Zophiel was also missing around the time Jofre was killed? He didn’t return until well after the curfew. He must have walked back along the same track. Surely he would have seen or heard something, unless he was the one who –’

  ‘Don’t say it. I know what you’re thinking. Just pray that thought does not cross Rodrigo’s mind. If Rodrigo accuses Zophiel, then I fear for the lives of both of them.’

  We interred Jofre’s body in the altar. Osmond carved a large wooden cross, such as monks wear, to place in his hands. Jofre seemed to belong in monk’s robes. Perhaps that is where he would have come eventually or should have gone, among the pure clear voices that sing of a higher love than the love of women. We closed his eyes, and now that the rigor had worn off, the look of terror had melted from his face. The cowl over his head and the high-necked robes concealed his wounds so that he looked at the last like a sleeping child.

  Rodrigo knelt and gently kissed the cold blue lips, smoothing the downy cheek with his hand as if he tucked his own son into his crib. He did not cry. He had gone beyond that into a grief too deep for tears. And I thought of Jofre’s mother. Jofre had died without ever knowing if she had survived. Did she live without knowing her son was dead? It is hard to bury your own children. It breaks your heart in a way no other death can ever do, for you are burying part of yourself in that grave. Rodrigo had wanted to take Jofre home to her. It was too late now. Why do we always leave it too late?

  The top of the altar grated, a mournful, hollow sound, as we slid it back into position. I looked up to see Narigorm standing in the doorway to the stairs. She was holding something that gleamed in her hand. As I turned to her, she held it up in the stream of watery sunshine that glinted through the chantry window. I saw again the blue and purple rippled with golden flecks, the glass tear that held the light of Venice.

  Rodrigo saw it at the same time I did. He took it from her, cradling it in his palm.

  Finally Cygnus said gently, ‘Shall we open the lid again and put it in his hand?’

  Rodrigo hesitated, then he shook his head. ‘It was made for the living so that they could remember what was lost. The dead cannot remember. One day I will give it to Adela’s son, for he was born in the same hour that Jofre was murdered.’ He turned back to stare at the altar. ‘But not yet, there is something I must do before I can part with this.’

  The words rang in my head like the pestilence bell. Born in the same hour that Jofre was murdered. The words had been in my head all along, but I had refused to let them take form. I turned to look at Narigorm still standing in the doorway, her eyes fixed on the sanctuary dais where the child had been born and Jofre lay dead. In the gloom of the doorway I couldn’t see her expression, but I could sense her satisfaction. The blackness of the deep stairwell behind her swelled up around her as if its very darkness was her shadow. If one is added, one must be taken away. The runes had not lied after all.

  Even when there is no desperate cacophony of bells echoing from the village, even when there is no thick yellow pall of sulphurous smoke, you learn to recognize the warning signs. The mills, standing like watchtowers, are silent, their sails still and locked, no rumble of the grinding stones or procession of chattering women passing to and fro with their family’s flour. The watermills are also silent, no splashing of paddles, no rasping of stone upon stone, no shouts of men. And when you hear the silence, you come to hope that it is only because there is no more grain left to grind.

  More chilling are the mills which are not silent, where sails spin out of control and you can feel the vibration of the grinding stones under your feet. The ghost mills, where the stones grind and grind, but no flour trickles out. Where sails and paddles batter themselves to splinters, because there is no one left to stop them. You see sheep lying dead in the field and dogs rotting in the ditches. And then you turn, turn away quickly and take the next road, any road that will take you away from the village, for you know they have something worse than hun
ger in their midst.

  More and more of the towns and villages were falling to the pestilence. It came without warning. At dawn people would be about their business with no hint of sickness among them; by sunset a dozen would be lying dead and then it would run through the streets like fire. There was no telling who it would strike; fit young men would fall as quickly as ailing old women, without pattern or reason. So we began to fear even to enter a healthy village, in case it struck while we were there. And there was no point risking death for food, because no one had any left to sell. Most of the villagers were hungry themselves and any fortunate enough still to have food kept it hidden for themselves, and who could blame them?

  And so we kept travelling east. We turned and twisted like eels funnelled towards the trap, but still we found ourselves facing the rising sun. Each time I tried to turn us towards the north, our way was barred by bridges washed away, roads made impassable by fallen trees, tracks blocked by villagers for fear of the pestilence. These obstacles were to be expected, natural, and yet a nagging disquiet was beginning to take root inside me, as if there was something, some force I could not name, compelling us towards the east. Why had Narigorm whispered those words, ‘We’re going east, you’ll see.’ Was she simply saying what the runes predicted or was she more than just the messenger?

  The others hardly seemed to notice the direction we were travelling in, for if our days were haunted by the fear of stumbling into the pestilence, our nights were haunted by something that was beginning to hold a greater terror. The wolf was still with us.

  Those first two nights after we left the chantry we heard nothing and I began to believe that the bailiff had done his job and had the beast hunted down. Then on the third night we heard it again, just as before, and this time none of us could pretend it was not the same animal. As we travelled on, so it followed, the howl never nearer, but never further away. It didn’t call every night, and in a way that was worse, for we lay awake rigid in the darkness, listening for the sound. Sometimes when we did not hear it for several days, we told ourselves it had gone and then without warning the howl would split the night again.

  We never saw so much as a glimpse of it, not a shape on a hilltop in the moonlight, not a pair of yellow eyes shining in the forest, not a paw mark in the mud and not even the remains of a kill. But each time I heard that howl in the darkness, I thought of the savage bites on Jofre’s body, the gaping hole in his throat and the look of terror on his face and I shuddered.

  It had taken us some time to reach the healer’s cottage. The road which ran up into the low, long hills was only used by farm carts. It was wide enough for the wagon, but full of potholes and sharp rocks, and we had to travel even more slowly than usual so as not to risk breaking a wheel shaft or laming Xanthus.

  The cottage lay on a rise at the far end of a narrow, steep-sided gully, close to a waterfall that tumbled over rocks before crashing down into a deep, fern-fringed pool. A boulder-filled river ran the length of the gully and curved around the base of the hillock to run parallel with the road. There was no track leading from the road up to the cottage, only a narrow path worn between huge rocks by those who had trodden the way over the years. There was no sign of its owner either, except for a trickle of smoke meandering out of the hole in the roof into the frosty morning air. But a hearth fire was a good sign; at least the householder was well enough to make one.

  Osmond helped Adela down from the wagon. Her face was pale and tired. The infant lay in a woven basket in her arms, staring listlessly up at her. He screwed up his face as if he wanted to cry, but no sound emerged. Adela shivered. Ever since we brought home Jofre’s body, a chill had settled into her. No matter how close to the fire she sat, or how many blankets were heaped upon her, she couldn’t get warm, as if the cold had pierced her bones like a wolf’s bite. It had been over a month since the birth, but her strength was not returning and she was making herself worse by worrying about her son. The baby, though he had fed well at first, was now getting weaker by the day, his eyes sinking into hollows and his flesh melting away.

  Adela’s growing anxiety for her son had turned to fear when, one evening as we made camp, Narigorm suddenly cried out, ‘Look, it’s the omen of death,’ and pointed to a white dove circling above the wagon where the baby lay sleeping. Adela had snatched the infant from the wagon and Osmond had driven the dove away, but the damage was done. Adela was convinced that the sign was meant for her child, and I became increasingly haunted by the fear that if she continued to torment herself, we would be burying two more of our company before the month was out.

  We needed a skilled healer. We didn’t dare go into the towns in search of an apothecary or a doctor, even if any remained alive, and though I knew enough about herbs to treat common ailments, I did not know how to cure this. Pleasance would have known and we felt her loss more keenly than ever. She had stood in the shadows, quiet and unassuming, tending a blister there or a belly ache here. We had taken her for granted until she was no longer there, like an ancient tree you don’t truly see until it is felled, and then only from the empty space in the sky do you suddenly grasp its stature.

  We enquired of those we passed on the road for someone skilled in herbs, but most, like us, were far from home. They shook their heads and trudged on. Finally, a goose-girl we passed on the road told us of this cottage.

  ‘Everyone in these parts goes to her,’ she said. Then, as she shooed her hissing flock onwards, she turned and called after us, ‘She’s a sharp tongue, that one. Mind you don’t get on the wrong side of her or she’ll send you away with a flea in your ear.’

  Her words rang in my ears as we stood looking up at the cottage. There was no sense in taking Adela up there if the woman wouldn’t help her.

  ‘You all wait here,’ I said. ‘I’ll go up alone. An old man by himself won’t be any threat to her.’

  The cottage was small, round and windowless, built into the side of the gully and made of boulders and rocks, with a thatch of reeds. A leather curtain served as a door. A few hens scratched among the herbs in the sloping garden which was bordered by a blackthorn hedge. An old rowan tree grew close by the cottage door. Its bright red berries had long gone, but fruit of some kind hung from its branches, pale brown, like parchment, some no bigger than a thumb, others as large as a man’s fist, but I couldn’t make out what they were.

  When I reached the wicker gate I stopped, intending to call out so as not to startle the woman, but before I could do so a voice rang out from inside the cottage.

  ‘Come in. I don’t bite.’ The leather curtain at the door was pulled aside and a woman stepped out. She was tall and willowy with long iron-grey hair which she wore braided in two plaits like a young girl. ‘Heard your wagon coming along the track. Sound carries up here. Not many use that track, even fewer since this pestilence came upon us.’

  ‘We don’t have the pestilence,’ I said hastily.

  ‘I know. If you had, I’d smell it. So are you coming in?’

  I opened the gate and took a few steps up the path. A couple of hens bustled away, indignant at having their scratting disturbed. The woman’s face turned in the direction of the sound and I saw that her green eyes were covered in a milky-white film.

  ‘You’ve come for my help,’ she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  I gestured in the direction of the wagon, then stopped, feeling foolish. Though I have one blind eye, I still rely on my one good eye instead of my other senses. The voices of the rest of the company drifted up the gully as they made camp.

  ‘We’ve a young woman travelling with us. She gave birth to a boy a few weeks ago, but her milk is drying up and the baby is weakening.’

  ‘There are many reasons why a woman’s milk stops before it should. But before I can tell which herbs will help her, I’ll need to feel the breasts, see if they are empty or swollen, cold or hot. Bring her here. I don’t go down to the track. In the meantime, I’ll give you something to help the child. Come.�
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  Without waiting for me she disappeared inside the cottage. I followed her, but my footsteps faltered as I drew near the rowan tree and saw what was hanging from the branches. Dozens of dried foetuses dangled in the breeze – lambs’, calves’ and human babies’. Some were so tiny it was impossible to tell if they were human or animal; others were perfectly formed infants, but no bigger than a man’s hand. The dried bodies rattled softly as they struck one another in the breeze.

  As if she could see what I was staring at, the woman spoke from inside the darkness of the hut. ‘These past years, more and more women have miscarried. Cattle and sheep are losing their offspring too. Evil spirits enter the womb and the woman becomes pregnant, but these offspring are born before their time. If their bodies are buried, the spirits are set free to enter the womb over and over again, preventing the woman from carrying a human child.’

  She emerged holding a wooden bowl full of thick white liquid and continued to speak without pause. ‘The rowan tree traps the evil spirits and binds them so they cannot re-enter the womb. Rowan wood is powerful against curses and evil spirits, even stronger when it is living.’ She thrust the bowl towards me. ‘Feed the baby as much of this as you can, a little at a time but often.’

  I sniffed it.

  She heard me and laughed. ‘It’s only eggs, shells and all, dissolved in spirit of angelica and beaten with a little honey. It will nourish the baby. The stronger he grows, the harder he will suck and it will help the milk come. Now, mistress, go and send the mother to me and I’ll see what can be done for her.’

  ‘Master,’ I corrected her. ‘But thank you, I will send her.’

  She frowned. ‘Master? But I would have sworn…’

  She reached out a hand to touch my face, but I jerked away and hurried off before she could say more, leaving her standing by her rowan tree among the dead babies.

  Later, Osmond helped Adela up the boulder-strewn path and stood outside the cottage while the woman examined her. They returned to the camp with bunches of herbs which the healer assured her would stimulate the flow of milk. Adela, though still exhausted, looked happier than she had done for days. But Osmond was not reassured. The healer had warned him that herbs alone would not help Adela for long. Unless she took more nourishment to build up her strength after the birth, the milk would dry up completely. She needed more than a diet of scrawny wild birds and herbs. She needed red meat and red wine for her blood, if she was to produce good milk for the child. But the healer knew of no one who had any meat or wine left for sale.