Blood Moon

by Stephen Wheeler

  So engrossed was I with my memories that I hadn’t noticed that the voices in the room had stopped. There were two quick steps, the door to Prior Herbert’s office swung violently open and suddenly de Saye was standing in the doorway glowering in the half-light. Fortunately, I had managed to scamper away into the shadows just in time. He didn’t see me, but I saw him – older, greyer than I remembered. But if I had any lingering doubts about his identity they were dispelled by the reaction of my own body: I felt physically sick.

  De Saye glared along the dark landing but I remained absolutely still not daring to even breathe until he gave up and went back inside again closing the door behind him.

  Chapter 7

  THE HANGED MAN

  I managed to return to my cell although I have no recollection of how I got there. One moment I was teetering at the top of the prior’s stairs and the next I was collapsing onto my own cot.

  My mind was spinning with questions. Why was de Saye here? What did he want? Surely there was only once answer to that: To finish the job he’d started fifteen years ago. Geoffrey de Saye was no respecter of rank or position; certainly my tonsure would not protect me from his wrath. I know because he had once come within a whisper of slicing through my gullet and would have succeeded had one of my mother’s servants not been on hand to stop him. This time I had no such guardian angel to protect me. Indeed, the one person who I should have expected to shield me, whose duty it was to care for all among his flock, Prior Herbert, appeared to be in collusion with the man.

  I needed time to think - and more importantly, someone to think with.

  *

  Another of those rules of which Prior Herbert is so fond is that monks are not permitted to leave the abbey grounds after compline, the last office of the day. But the gatekeepers are used to my comings and goings at odd hours on some medical emergency or other and readily open up when I approach.

  ‘Someone fainted, have they?’ the man asked as he unbolted the wicket door to let me out.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘You don’t look too good yourself, brother. Seen a ghost, have you?’

  The town’s curfew bell was already tolling as I started up Abbeygate Street but I knew my way well enough to Joseph’s shop in the moonlight - the Blood Moonlight as I reminded myself with a shudder. But I didn’t get as far as Heathenman’s Street for coming down the hill towards me was Onethumb.

  Blessèd boy, I have never been so relieved to see him. He must have just finished his work for the day and was on his way home. Seeing me, his face lit up in greeting, but his smile soon faded as I explained my presence. He had reason to remember Geoffrey de Saye as well as I did from his own brush with the man during those terrible events of fifteen years ago and was shocked to hear that the old enemy was back in town again. But the street was not the place to discuss such matters especially with watchmen prowling, eager to fine those still out after the curfew bell. Taking my arm, Onethumb led me to an alehouse he knew would still be open, The Hanged Man as it was ominously called, and located in a thoroughly unsavoury part of town. Normally I would never think to frequent such a place but Onethumb enticed me with the promise of a warm fire and liquid refreshment, and frankly I was too weak to resist.

  Are you sure it was him? he signed once we’d got our drinks and found a bench.

  ‘Older, fatter, uglier - but yes, it was him all right.’

  But I thought he’d been banished?

  ‘He had been – he is banished. But with Justiciar Geoffrey and Abbot Samson both in their graves who is there left to enforce it? He’s somehow got loose from his shackles and it seems his anger has not mellowed. He’s back to send me to join all his other victims - in Hell. I know it - Oh!’ I groaned with my head in my hands.

  Onethumb looked sceptically at me. Are you certain that’s why he’s here?

  ‘What other reason could there be? De Saye has no connection with Suffolk. His family are from Essex – a Godless county if ever there was one!’

  But as Onethumb pointed out, fifteen years is a long time. If de Saye had truly wanted me dead, why wait till now to do it? He could have had me disposed of any time during those years without the need come in person to do it. Indeed, what better alibi could he have being confined to a manor two hundred miles away?

  It was my turn to sign as I demonstrated with my hands around an imaginary throat. ‘Maybe he just likes the idea of placing his own hands round my neck.’

  But would he risk further banishment - for the sake of a monk?

  ‘Not just any monk,’ I said peevishly. ‘You forget, our quarrel goes back many years and is enduring. These old family feuds, you know, they go on until the last man standing. An eye for eye, a tooth for tooth, a hand for hand - oh, I’m sorry,’ I grimaced awkwardly at Onethumb’s mizzened stump.

  But there are other things that might explain his presence here, he signed.

  ‘Like what?’ I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What have you heard? You’ve heard something, haven’t you? Tell me.’

  Mute of speech he may be, but there was nothing wrong with Onethumb’s ears. Working in Joseph’s shop, he picked up all sorts of titbits from customers and tradesmen – gossip, fact, opinion – most of it trivia but with the occasional nugget of interest. It is a common enough truth that men converse more freely in front of servants and shopkeepers than they ever would in front of their own wives, especially those for whom they have contempt - like a Jewish apothecary or his dumb assistant. Onethumb was very good at playing the fool when it suited him, smiling at their insults while soaking up their loose chatter. It was the way a dumb and crippled street-urchin learned to survive.

  Something is happening, he signed cautiously. Something important.

  I looked at him doubtfully. ‘In what way “important”?’

  He looked around the tavern surreptitiously as though wary of being overheard - although “overheard” was hardly the right term for it. Even so, his signing was restraint itself.

  It happened a few days ago, he signed, while Joseph was away visiting suppliers and Onethumb was alone in the shop. Two men came into the shop - Londoners he was sure for they spoke of the guilds of merchants who congregated up on the hill of that great city and how they were looking forward to getting back amongst them again. They had just been to Stamford in Lincolnshire on business but had left that town earlier than planned because of the troubles there. They were congratulating themselves on having had a lucky escape.

  ‘Troubles?’ I queried. ‘What troubles? I haven’t heard of this.’

  Apparently there had been some kind of important meeting in the town. The men didn’t say what it was about but while it was going on the town gates had been locked and guards were posted allowing no-one to enter or leave.

  ‘They told you this? These London merchants? They spoke so freely?’

  He shook his head. At first they spoke in low voices, but once they realised Onethumb was, as one of them put it, “nought but a Suffolk idiot” they became less guarded. They were full of speculation about what the meeting was about and were competing with each other to drop names of those they recognised.

  ‘Such as who?’

  Onethumb shrugged. Lord this and earl that - the names meant nothing to him. But their rank was noble, of that he was certain. It seemed the two men had managed to bribe their way out of the town - at considerable cost to their purses, Onethumb was pleased to say - and were making their way back to London by a circuitous route, which was how they came to be in Bury.

  I took a mouthful of my ale. The story didn’t amount to much in itself and if he’d mentioned anywhere other than Stamford I probably wouldn’t have taken any interest. But Stamford was a well-known meeting place situated conveniently half way up the old north road between London and York. Gatherings had taken place there since time immemorial - Harold Godwinson was said to have assembled his army there on his march north to defeat Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, and once agai
n on his way back south to lose to the Conqueror at Hastings. More importantly, it was just two days’ ride from Bury - a fact that prompted my next question:

  ‘These men of noble rank - was Geoffrey de Saye among them?’

  They hadn’t mentioned the name. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Geoffrey de Saye had been out of circulation for a long time - those London merchants might not have known of him. But if he was at this meeting in Stamford, and it was as clandestine as Onethumb suggested, that might explain why he arrived here unannounced like a thief in the night. I was rather hoping he had since it meant his presence here might have nothing to do with me after all and so Onethumb might well be right: I’m really not that important. But what it didn’t do, of course, was explain why de Saye was here at all - or the nature of Prior Herbert’s involvement with him.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’ I urged Onethumb. ‘Anything at all?’

  He shied impishly. Not really - except to say that while round the back of the shop filling the Londoners’ orders he had pissed in the bottles of perfume they had bought for their wives in payment for their insults and then charged them double for the privilege.

  ‘Oh, did you just? And what do you think that will do for my brother’s reputation, his cologne stinking of piss?’

  Onethumb grinned and shook his head. He didn’t think the Londoners would be back. They thought Bury a very dull place and couldn’t wait to leave. And I have to admit the thought of them getting back to London and unstopping the bottles of perfume for their wives to inhale the fragrance made me smile. I could just imagine their reaction.

  We were interrupted by a disturbance at the far end of the room. Someone was being thrown out by our host.

  ‘Oh good lord,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘No, don’t look. It’s Raoul de Gray. What’s he still doing here? I thought he’d gone.’

  It was Raoul all right. He was drunk again, and this time it wasn’t the arrival of his new baby he was celebrating. He had his arm around the neck of one of the whores and seemed to be trying to take her with him as he was being ejected. The girl clearly didn’t want to go with him and was protesting angrily, trying to free herself from his grasp while two other men attempted to help her. I had to remind myself that this was the nephew of His Grace the Bishop of Norwich and tutted to myself. Noble rank is evidently no guarantee of noble bearing - or maybe this behaviour was what passed for it these days. At any rate, one of the men punched Raoul in the stomach winding him and eliciting more whoops of laughter from other customers. But it did mean he released her long enough for the other two men to bundle him out through the door and into the night. But Raoul wasn’t to be deterred so easily. Barred from coming back inside again, he started shouting abuse from the street. The two men jeered and threatened him with the beadle if he didn’t go home which only made Raoul even more belligerent and he tried to get back inside the alehouse again. But he was no match for the two burly men who pushed him back every time he tried to get in. Most of what he was shouting was the incoherent nonsense of a drunkard, about a man’s rights and the fact that he had paid good coin to get them. This brought more jeering particularly from the girl he had been pawing who yelled abuse back at him. Doubtless it was the regular sort of banter that occurs in most alehouses on any night of the week, but I thought it was just desserts for the way he had treated his maid the previous day and I secretly applauded the girl’s spirit. This was one female he was not going to be able to bully.

  Entertaining though the exchange might be, a rowdy alehouse is no place for a monk and certainly not a senior obedientiary of the abbey. It wouldn’t do for me to be on the premises when the beadle arrived. So I signalled to Onethumb that it was time we were leaving and pushed my way out of the alehouse nearly knocking Raoul to the ground in the process. Fortunately he was too drunk to notice who it was shouldering him. He went down hard and didn’t look as though he was about to get up again too quickly. Frankly, I’d have been happy to leave him there, but ever a slave to my own scruples I could not leave the boy lying in the gutter where he might be robbed or beaten or worse. Certainly leaving him would not help the Lady Adelle and her child. So reluctantly, and with Onethumb’s assistance, we lifted him up and half carried, half dragged the boy down the hill to the jeers and cheers of the alehouse clientele.

  By the time we got to the abbey grounds Raoul was barely conscious. He’d either drunk an inordinate amount or - more likely - his young head was simply not used to strong ale. Either way the night porter would never allow us to bring him back inside in his condition, and heaven alone knew what Brother Gregor would have made of it, so we heaved him up over the wall as quietly as we could – no mean feat for a one-armed apothecary’s assistant and a feeble old monk – and hoped he didn’t break his neck on the way down the other side.

  Chapter 8

  A BODY IN THE MARKETPLACE

  Raoul didn’t break his neck, more’s the pity, but then I didn’t really think he would. I’ve seen enough drunks to know that they rarely hurt themselves in a fall, ale seemingly able to turn grown men into rag dolls that flop harmlessly onto the hardest surface. It was my back that felt broken for rag doll or not, Raoul was no light-weight and it took the combined strength of both Onethumb and me to get him over the abbey wall. I sent Onethumb home and hurried back inside the monastery grounds hoping no-one found Raoul before I got to him. I found him on the other side of the wall still among the bushes where he’d landed and had to summon Dominic to come and help me haul him back to my laboratorium where we left him to sleep off his excesses on the floor. It would have been impossible to return him to his own rooms without rousing the entire monastery, and I didn’t think the Lady Adelle would have thanked me for trying. I left Dominic to watch over him for the rest of the night while I took myself off to my cell where I collapsed exhausted onto my cot.

  *

  Next morning I went straight down to my laboratorium where I found Dominic fast asleep on the cot. Apart from a few scuff marks on the floor and a suspicious-looking puddle, there was no sign of Raoul.

  I kicked the side of the cot to waken the boy with a jolt. ‘I thought I asked you to keep an eye on our visitor?’ I castigated him fiercely.

  ‘I’m sorry, master. I must have dozed off for a minute.’

  ‘Hm,’ I frowned. ‘I take it since he isn’t here he must have survived the night. What time did he leave?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Dominic yawned rubbing his tonsured pate. ‘I rose to sing lauds at daybreak and he was still here then. By the time I returned he was gone.’

  ‘It doesn’t look as though you got any more sleep than I did.’

  Dominic shook his head. ‘I slept badly. He snored noisily and eructed odorously throughout the night.’

  ‘Eructed?’

  ‘Belched. He also vomited copiously.’ Dominic indicated some sour mess on the floor covered with a cloth.

  ‘I see. And did he also go on a murderous midnight rampage?’ I nodded to a dead cat that was lying on the bench.

  ‘Oh that. I found it among the bushes,’ said Dominic stroking the animal’s pelt. ‘Such a shame. I rather like cats. One of God’s gentler creatures, I always think.’

  You wouldn’t say that if you saw what they bring in from the garden, I thought. ‘What were you doing out among the bushes at midnight? I thought I’d asked you to stay with our guest.’

  ‘We are all slaves to our bodily functions, master. I was in need of micturition.’

  Micturition? Eructation? I’d forgotten Dominic came from an educated and aristocratic Norfolk family. Doubtless the whole lot of them spoke to each other in such esoteric terms.

  ‘Well, what I want you to do now is go over to the abbot’s lodge and make sure our guest got back safely.’

  ‘Yes master. Master?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who was our guest?’

  ‘Don’t you know? The Bishop of Norwich’s nephew. And let that be a
lesson to you to avoid having a bishop as a relative if you can possibly help it. Now off with you.’

  I pushed him out the door before the question I could see forming on his educated brow made it as far as his aristocratic tongue.

  While Dominic was gone I cleaned the place up a bit – I didn’t want patients slipping on puddles of sick while I was trying to treat them. There was a particularly pungent smell to Raoul’s vomit I noticed as I scooped up the mess into a bucket and placed it outside the door for the servants to dispose of. I presumed it was the particular mix of drinks that he had consumed at The Hanged Man the previous night. It must have been quite a cocktail to have had such a potent effect.

  Damn the boy! Why was he still here? I thought he and his family would have gone by now. At least my mother would be pleased they were still here though not by my hand. And frankly I had enough to worry about now with Geoffrey de Saye looming over everything. Assuming Onethumb was right about him and it wasn’t to torment me, why was he here? There had to be a reason. And what was the significance of his meeting with the prior? His secret meeting with the prior. Was it connected at all with the one in Stamford that Onethumb mentioned? And then there was this letter my mother wanted me to deliver to Hugh Northwold. What was that about? My eye lighted upon where I’d hidden it on the shelf above the preparation bench. I’d almost forgotten it was there. What message did it contain, I wondered? Something important to be sure, something that couldn’t be entrusted to a regular messenger to deliver. Well, there was only one way to find out. I jumped up and went resolutely over to the shelf where I had hidden the letter, and pulled it out.