by Vicki Grove
Thaddeus made no comment that might have stopped her blasphemy, so she went on.
“All those fine priests, hired to give those poor lepers a gruesome mass so’s they could be abandoned to a horrid and lonely fate. And those churchmen burning Jim’s only thing he loved in the world, his willowed toft! And there was such . . . well, such a haughty look on Vicar Pecksley’s face as the bailiff pressed Jim’s hands to the corpse of that murdered man yesterday! I was close enough to see it quite clear, Thaddeus, and I believe the vicar took prideful pleasure in the whole thing!”
Thaddeus said nothing, but out the corner of her eye Rhiannon saw him look at her.
“Rhia?” he whispered after a moment. “Are you certain that you saw exactly what you’ve just described? Exactly, in every detail?”
She stopped her angry pacing to look down at where he crouched. “I saw a haughty look upon the vicar’s face. I’m sure of it.”
“Not that.” Thaddeus slowly came to a stand, his eyes glistening. “I mean, are you certain that you saw—”
“Rhiannon?” Mam called. “Thaddeus, are you in there? It’s time we started!”
“Just so, Mam!” Rhia called. A dizzy wave of guilt went through her head to toe, for what if Mam had heard what she’d been saying about their vicar?
But her mother and Reeve Clap merely stood looking puzzled and sun-blinded in the back doorway. Granna walked up behind them, bringing Daisy along.
Rhia hurried back to them, and Thaddeus came along behind her.
Over her shoulder and against her will, she glanced up at the Devil Dogs. She could have sworn they stared back at her with glowing eyes.
Chapter 10
They took Sal back to her own cottage, then carried Ona and Primrose to the stone circle and buried them together in a pretty spot newly covered with wildflowers. As they said prayers over their grave, Rhia saw quick movements from the corners of her eyes and knew that they six weren’t alone. Those brought to this place by the earl’s false charity were watching from some distance, surely afraid to reveal themselves.
When all turned to trudge with respectful step back up the slope, Mam stayed behind. At first not one of their party noticed her absence, as all eyes were downcast and all thoughts subdued. But then they heard her voice behind them as she called toward the deeper woods, gently but firmly demanding, “Who are you?”
Rhia and the others stopped in their tracks and looked back in surprise. Even Reeve Clap had gone on along, figuring Mam was just behind him on the single-file path.
But there she stood, still inside the stone circle, her dark green cloak billowing in the breeze. “Don’t be afraid,” she said a bit more loudly, walking down even deeper into the woods. “Whoever you are, come out so that we may meet you and see to your needs.”
Rhia should have known Mam would sense the presence of these new folk. She was ever sensitive to the weak and disabled, though they be hidden in a vast crowd. This forest, known so well to her, would be far easier for her intuition to penetrate.
“Now see, and this is exactly what I might have thunk,” Granna muttered, planting her hands upon her hips. “Almund, when you stated that a ship had arrived what held cargo for us up here upon the bluff, I figured there might be some choice in our accepting the cargo or no. But I should’ve known there’d be no choice a’tall when it came down to it, as there’d be no stopping my Aigy when suffering was involved. And that’s what cargo always turns out to be when pointed toward us. Never a load of beet sugar nor pipe fill nor rawhide for the mending of our frayed shoes! No, not ever some nice surprise, I’m saying, but always someone or t’other carrying us up more suffering.”
Daisy jerked on Granna’s skirt. “What about me?” she demanded sternly. “Did I not come up to you as carried cargo, and do you call me suffering?”
Rhia ducked her head, biting her lips. Daisy would be one to give Granna back as good as Granna could give, that was becoming certain.
“Well,” Granna allowed, taking Daisy’s hand and swinging her small arm. “There’s some cargo does bring a nice surprise with it, that’s true enough. I’m corrected.”
Meanwhile, Mam walked steadily deeper down the slope. As always happened when she walked beneath the canopy of oaks, the birds from all directions fluttered down to form a colorful train behind her. That sight was always amazing, but nothing new.
There was a new thing happening, though. Certain of the forest animals were now revealing themselves, as though they’d understood her call to come forth. Two red deer and a badger had emerged from their hidey-holes, as well as a family of raccoons.
And deeper in the trees Rhia saw something that took her breath away. A horse, it was! A white horse dappled with silvery gray had come now from the shadows, pulled into the sun by Mam’s gentle voice. Rhiannon tugged at Thaddeus’s sleeve and pointed, and together they watched with held breath, hoping for its closer approach. But as if sensing their too-eager inspection, the handsome horse threw back its head and pawed the ground, then turned to canter into the dense wood, beyond their sight.
Meanwhile, the people Rhia’d seen on the beach had shuffled from behind their tree cover, stopping in a loose semicircle some few paces in front of Mam. They clicked and clacked with little sticks upon small bowls they held.
“Have a care, Aigneis!” Thaddeus called down the slope. “ ’Tis not a good idea to approach them close. They’re alerting you with their clapper bowls that they carry dire contagion.”
“Save yer breath,” Granna advised him, shaking her head. “Aigy will not leave a creature in distress. There’s but one thing you can count on, and that’s it.”
But Mam surprised them all by turning and meekly coming back up the slope. At first they thought Thaddeus had prevailed upon her thinking, but she moved right past as though he and the others were invisible, giving fast instructions over her shoulder as she hastened along.
“I’ll need my biggest basket to take what bread we have down to them! Rhia, you’ll first gather more honey from the hives, then find what butter might be still in the cooling shed. Mother, you can please pour watered ale into the carrying pouch, and you two men can gather what extra blankets we have and get fires lit in the three spare cottages we’ve got, now that Jim’s in town and Daisy’s living with us. They’ve a starved look, but may need medicinals beyond that, so I’ll have to replenish my—”
“Aigneis?”
Reeve Clap’s steady voice finally got through to her. She turned back around to face him, though she’d an entranced look upon her face, a look which Granna and Rhia well knew. Her whole spirit was now with those below as surely as if she were bewitched.
“Yes, Almund?”
“You must have a care for what the churchman has just told you, Aigy,” Almund said, gently taking her arms. “There’s contagion among those people. We need to plan how to best fend. You’d not have Rhia and Daisy endangered.”
Mam blinked hard, blinked again, then took in a breath and shuddered. “Of course not,” she whispered, bringing her hands to her face.
“I will straightaway take bread and drink down where they can find it easily,” Thaddeus quickly assured her. “Food’s surely their immediate need, as God has given them fair weather, at least for the time being.”
Mam nodded at his offer, and Rhiannon wondered at the power of the reeve to break through Mam’s strong-willed nature in a way she and Granna were never able to.
As for the small community of lepers, they remained in clear sight at a far distance, all standing as quietly as they’d stood on the beach, as though they truly were walking dead.
Rhia squinted, looking past them in hopes of glimpsing the steed one more time. But he was truly gone, surely returned to the manor stables where he must have belonged.
Rhiannon would have liked to help Thaddeus carry bread and drink to the forest folk, but Mam had other plans.
“This morning has passed all pell-mell!” she exclaimed when they were back at th
e cottage. “Almund, if you will, please retrieve our benches from Ona’s cottage. Mother, if it please you, stoke the fire. Sal must soon have her gruel, and the Man Who Sleeps must be fed as well. We’re late with all that! I need to prepare our own meal as soon as the fire’s going good, so it’s your job seeing to the invalids, Rhia.”
Rhia sighed, but did not argue, as Mam appeared so harried.
She went to feed Sal first and made a slow job of it, as usual putting off the Man Who Sleeps for as long as she could.
“We’ve now buried the two we watched over last night, Sal,” she confided as she spooned gruel into Sal’s mouth. Sally had missed her breakfast, and opened her mouth wide as a baby bird will do. “Oh, and the churchman who came up the trail with us last night is very interested in the paintings upon the walls within the hermit’s chapel. You know, those hideous dogs above the window slits.”
Sally smiled wide, smacking her lips and rocking to and fro upon the rushes.
“It’s a beautiful day, Sally, and I think I’ll take you to sit upon the stoop.” Rhia put aside the empty bowl, then stood and circled Sally’s waist from behind with her own arms, thus pulling Sally upright. She held her by the hand and led her from the dim cot so that they stood together upon the warm stoop, under the bright and friendly sun.
Rhia sat down, hoping Sal would copy and let her own legs collapse. When she didn’t, Rhia stood again and walked behind her, using her knees to push Sal’s knees forward so’s Sally went to her bottom, eased down by Rhia’s hands under her arms.
Rhia sat again and smiled at Sally, and Sally smiled back. She was so beautiful, so shiny in the sun.
“Three fish!” said Sally. “I’ll have three of those fish!”
“Know what, Sal? I so wish I’d kept better watch on Jim yesterday. I know not what I might have done to keep him from what happened. Still, I spent an hour in selfish dillydallying with my mates when I was expected to be in charge at all times.”
Rhiannon sighed, filled with remorse for her constant selfishness. “To say it true, Sally, I often mean to do worthy things I end up not doing. Such as paring Granna’s toenails, for instance. Mam does it, but I should assume the job. I just canna bring myself to the act, as Granna’s large toes grow nails that much resemble horses’ hooves.”
Or going cheerfully over to the Man Who Sleeps and giving his hands and face a good bathing. Mam did that at least once a day. But when she was left to take care of him, like now, at the most she’d just hasten into his cot, shove a bit of gruel into his mouth without checking if it went down, wet his lips with a drink, and jump back out.
“Sal,” she confided, “I’d like to be more kindly to the bestilled pirate in the cot next door to yours, but he just plain gives me the willies, worse than Granna’s toenails do! Life all bestilled is a thing I ne’er can handle easily.”
Still, she determined to make a better effort, starting this moment.
“Good Sally, fair as spring.” She gave Sal’s shoulders a farewell squeeze. “You sit out here awhile. When you grow cold, I’ll take you inside.”
Rhia then stood, all business, and walked right briskly to the pirate’s cot. Knock knock, quick. But there was no answer, of course, he being so limp, so she pushed open the door, then blocked it from closing with her heel. She’d balance on one leg to have it open for as long as it took to put the bucket of gruel upon the floor and to spoon his portion into the bowl she’d brought tucked into her waist sash. The door would slam closed when she walked on in, but any moments with it open seemed an advantage.
She decided a good start in being more kindly to the pirate would be to talk to him, just as she talked to Sal. It might some calm her nerves, to boot.
She straightened her shoulders and walked to the raised wood plank that served as his sleep pallet.
“Here’s your gruel,” she stated, prying at his lips with the wooden spoon. She felt a drip of cold sweat roll down her forehead as she pried harder, bent on making a space between his teeth large enough to let some portion of gruel slip through. At last, she had a spoonful down, and then a second spoonful, and then a third. Pleased with herself, she tried for a fourth, and was frightened nearly witless when the pirate’s fine white teeth suddenly clamped closed right upon Mam’s spoon!
“Let go!” she railed. “Cease your biting! You should be right ashamed!”
Rhia was beside herself. If he bit it clean in half, they would be down to two spoons, whereas she was sure Mam would scrimp to save up Mam coin to buy a fourth from the wood turner in town, now that they had Daisy!
“You must desist!” she cried, thunking the top of his head with her knuckles, hard, as she’d seen Granna do with young rowdies. It worked. The pirate’s jaw came open. The spoon, though its maple wood bore the marks of his teeth, was whole and usable still.
She was too rattled to do naught more but pour some water into the pirate’s mouth, and she didn’t care a whit whether he opened his fine teeth to swallow it good or whether it dribbled right down into the pointed beard that covered his chin. Enough was enough!
She grabbed up bucket, bowl, and spoon and, trembling, headed swift out the door without so much as a small look back.
Their group of six picnicked that day, it being good weather for it, and whilst they ate on the grassy lawn nearby the chapel, they got down to discussion of the problems at hand. Almund Clap led their talk. As he’d been chosen reeve of Lord Claredemont’s manor by agreement of his peers and the lord himself, he was in on meetings with groups from peasants to merchants to artisans. He was a good one to organize the thoughts of others, as he had a naturally organized way of thinking himself.
“We’d best consider first the plight of our friend Jim Gatt,” the good reeve began. “We all know he’s in the town gaol, under custody of the bailiff. Most here saw how blood flowed from the dead man when Jim touched his wounds, which is the ordeal customarily prescribed by the church for rooting out a murder suspect. Jim will now stand civil trial in the manor court. Unless, of course, he confesses to the crime.”
“He won’t confess!” Daisy objected hotly. “Jim’s nice! He didn’t do it!”
Mam sighed. “You state what we all truly feel, Daisy, but there’s need to prove his innocence, which is not an easy thing once the ordeal has firmly pointed to his guilt.”
“And therein may lie a catch,” the young monk murmured mysteriously.
The others looked at him. “Well, what catch?” Granna demanded brusquely.
Thaddeus blushed, then leaned forward and cleared his throat. “Well, here it is, then. This morning, Rhiannon made mention of your bailiff pressing Jim’s hands to the corpse. And that made me remember how our good abbot at Glastonbury once gave a talk in our chapter house about certain ancient murder tests that could be much . . . much manipulated. Almund just stated that the laying of hands is customarily used by the church in murder ordeals here. Well, our abbot talked of this very kind of thing being used broadly in Wessex a generation or two ago, but he went on to say that in modern days the laying of hands upon a corpse is thought in many shires to be . . .”
When he hesitated, searching for the right word, Granna jumped in, some insulted. “Lamewit thinking, as you’d expect from frontier bumpkins such as we?”
Thaddeus protested, even more flustered. “No, no! I beg pardon, as that’s not what I was going to say at all! It’s not used in many shires because, well, again I hesitate to say this clear, as to do so will sound like I’m questioning the integrity of your vicar.”
They all looked at one another. Though Mam wouldn’t have it spoken out loud, nobody up here was thrilled with Vicar Pecksley, and they knew no one below who admired him much, either. He ministered from sourness, and held his congregation to the straight and narrow by preaching hellfire, never neighborly love. As for integrity, they’d not ordinarily judge him lacking, but if what the young monk was about to say proved incriminating, they’d not rush outraged to the sour vicar’s defense, e
ither.
“All right then.” Thaddeus took a breath. “With your leave, I’ll just say it out plain. It was told us novices by our good abbot that sometimes, back when this particular ordeal was much used here in Wessex, an unscrupulous vicar would pick a likely scapegoat, and would then instruct the bailiff to press his own hands over the scapegoat’s hands on a very specific place upon the corpse. And when that place was pressured just so, with the brunt of the bailiff’s hand, the large vessel leading direct from the heart would spout, sending blood right out the corpse’s wounds. It can be made to appear that the bailiff is merely guiding the hands of the scapegoat, not pressuring them nor putting them on a specific spot. It can look natural, or so said our good abbot.”
No one spoke, but all were thinking plenty.
Finally, Mam asked softly, “But . . . why?”
Rhia’s heart was racing. “Why pick Jim? He would be the perfect scapegoat, Mam! If you’d seen how they treated him down in Woethersly. It was just horrible! He was not one whit welcome to come live among them again, so what a sure way to be rid of him!”
“But . . . I meant, why would they need a scapegoat?” Mam asked, again softly. “What would it profit them to find a murderer in this case? Many murders go unsolved.”
“She’s exactly right,” Thaddeus rushed to say. “Our abbot told us that usually there was some known murderer being hidden and given protection by such scapegoating, elsewise it was too complicated to attempt. It does seem a right lot of trouble, and a risk to the reputations of both vicar and bailiff. They could get rid of Jim in a thousand easier ways, him being landless and without kin. They could trump up some excuse to order him out of town, or they could break his head in some dark alley, or engage some oxcart to run him down and crush his other leg.” He noticed Daisy staring and covered his mouth with three fingers. “Again, I beg pardon,” he said meekly. “I’ve got too wound up in my talk, as I’ve been running this through my head for hours.”
