‘Gerard,’ said the man, Eusebius fainting into his arms.
‘Right Captain Gerard,’ I nodded. ‘I’ll tell him you were helpful.’
‘Very well, sir. But it’s only “Gerard”, not “captain”.’
‘I’m sure that’s just a matter of time,’ I beamed, ‘once Lord de Saye gets to hear of this. Now, off with you both to the infirmary. You know where it is? It’s that way. Go!’
I waited a moment or two more until the two of them were out of sight then rushed off in the opposite direction to my laboratorium. No doubt Lord de Saye would indeed hear of the incident in the graveyard, and that a physician in a monks’ habit had been the cause of it. It would take him but a moment to put two and two together and realise that I had been in the church while the assembly was in progress. And then I would have but very little time before more guards were dispatched this time looking for me. Poor Gerard. I wouldn’t have liked to be in his boots when he told him. But it couldn’t be helped.
When I got to the laboratorium I found Dominic waiting for me.
‘Master, there you are.’
I put up a warning hand. ‘Do not delay me, Dominic, I’m in a fearful hurry.’ I began filling a leather bag with things I thought I might need: Spare clothing, a water bottle, a few candle stubs - they’re always useful - a knife…
‘Master, someone has been here looking for you. A brother.’
I grimaced. ‘Already? What did he want?’ I began hunting for a scrap of linen to write on.
‘He didn’t say, master.’
One of Herbert’s lackeys, no doubt. I would have to be quick. ‘Dominic, I want you to do something for me. Do you know my brother’s shop in Heathenman’s Street?’
‘No master – I mean yes master.’
‘Go there and tell Joseph to meet me urgently at the market cross. Here’s a list of things I need him to bring.’ I handed him the scrap of linen. ‘He will understand and will not ask questions. Can you do that?’
‘Yes master. But where are you going?’
‘Better that you don’t know. That way you won’t need to lie when they ask you. Not that I know myself yet.’
‘Who are “they” master?’
I shook my head. ‘Never mind. Swear on the Holy Book if you have to that you know nothing of my whereabouts, that way they will know you are telling the truth for it will be so.’ I looked at Dominic’s wide open, trusting face. ‘Yes, they will see you are incapable of lying.’ I gave him my benediction. ‘Now go – quickly!’
*
I kept my hood up and my face covered while in the crowded marketplace. Fortunately with the weather worsening most people were doing the same thing so I didn’t look conspicuous. The place was crawling with soldiers but hopefully not yet looking for me. As I approached the market cross I could see the unmistakable figure of Joseph hovering nearby. Sometimes his magnificent frame was a handicap. He had his head covered, too, but even so he was not difficult to spot. Few men walk as straight or as tall as he and I cursed his Arab pedigree for being so long-limbed. When he saw me he made a gesture for me to follow him. He casually moved off and disappeared behind a stall and in a moment I caught up with him.
‘Joseph – thank you for coming.’
‘You did not give me much choice. Your boy told me you were leaving. He didn’t know where and I didn’t ask.’
‘Good, because I don’t know myself.’
From beneath his voluminous robes he produced a leather satchel. ‘This is what you asked for.’
I opened it and looked inside. There was food – enough for a few days – some twine and another bottle of water.
‘Thank you.’
He looked about. ‘My brother, it is not safe to remain here. We must separate, there are guards everywhere. I wish you God speed. Let us hope the next time we meet it will be in happier circumstances. May the Lord God give you wings and keep you safe.’
‘Amen to that,’ I said sincerely.
With that he hugged me to his breast and started to move away. But something was wrong. I sensed it. He turned and I saw it on his face, too. He started to say something but was cut short by a blow to the stomach as a guard descended upon him. Then I felt a hand grip my shoulder and I could not move. Two guards now had Joseph and another two had hold of me. We were trapped. There was no escape.
But then something amazing happened. In an instant the world utterly changed. One moment the air had been clear and fresh and the next it was white and choking and impossible to breathe. It took me a second to realise what had happened: From out of the sky a missile had descended and burst upon the ground next to us sending a plume of white powder up into the air covering everything. The explosion momentarily stunned the soldier who released his hold on me. It stunned Joseph too but he was quicker to react than the rest of us. I saw him swing his arm wide winding the soldier nearest him who buckled onto his knees. Then he managed to throw both arms around the soldier holding me and yelled a single word:
‘Run!’
I didn’t need telling twice. I ran. But which way? The choking powder obscured everything. But as the haze cleared I saw another figure gesturing furiously to me.
It was Onethumb.
Without hesitation I raced towards him - and then there were six of us all running in the same direction towards the Risby Gate: Me, followed by Onethumb, followed by the stall-holder whose sack of flour Onethumb had stolen, followed by three of the soldiers. Onethumb quickly overtook me and launched himself at the gatekeeper who had positioned himself ready to catch us. With a sickening crunch he knocked the man to the ground and we both leapt over him. A moment later we were out through the gate and running as fast as our legs could carry us.
Chapter 23
IN THE DEPTHS OF THE FOREST
We didn’t stop running until we had put a good half mile between us and the town. Only then did I glance over my shoulder and realised our pursuers were not with us. Panting and cursing, I halted and slumped exhausted to my knees.
‘I’m too old for this,’ I gasped rolling onto my back. ‘Leave me to die here by the roadside, it will be a mercy.’
Onethumb grinned down at me, his hands on his knees. He was panting too, I was pleased to see, despite being half my age.
I looked up at him. ‘I don’t know why you’re looking so pleased with yourself. You nearly choked me back there with your antics.’
He nodded enthusiastically, made an arc through the air with his good hand and mimicked the sound of the bag bursting as it hit the ground.
‘Yes, very good,’ I agreed. ‘Now anyone seeking us need only look for “the white monk”. Look at me. I’m covered head to foot in flour.’ I shook my head sending a cloud of the powdery stuff into the air. Onethumb grinned.
‘This is all a big adventure to you, isn’t it?’ I said irritably. ‘And where have you been these past days? I’ve been worried sick.’ He started to sign an explanation but I was too exhausted to follow. ‘Oh, never mind. You’re here now,’ and thank God for you, I could have added.
Onethumb peered back the way we had come and signed that he didn’t think anyone was following us.
I nodded with relief. ‘They must have stopped at the gate.’
I fished out the water bottle from the bag Joseph had given me and took a long draught before pouring some over my head to rid my hair of some of the flour. But Onethumb stopped me and shook his head.
‘You’re right,’ I said putting the stopper back in the bottle’s neck. ‘We can’t afford to waste it. I’m really not very good at this, am I?’
He nodded again even more enthusiastically and asked where we were going next. I had to admit I had no idea. It was a question I’d been asking myself. I’d been so concerned with simply getting out of Bury that I still hadn’t had time to consider what we were going to do next. And I hadn’t bargained on having Onethumb with me. I knew what he wanted us to do: Find Rosabel. Everything else to him was of secondary importance.
And I supposed I owed it to him to do just that - after all, I was the one who had put her in danger in the first place. But there was also the matter of the assembly in the abbey church. The king had to know about it and it was surely the duty of every loyal Englishman to tell him. But I also had a duty to Onethumb. The question was where my greatest duty lay: With my king or with my friend?
In the end there was no real choice. We didn’t know for certain that de Saye had Rosabel and the family much less where they were. De Saye might well have taken them north as he had threatened, but it could take us days to get to the north Norfolk coast only to find they were not there. They might even still be in Bury. We simply had no way of knowing. On the other hand we knew exactly which way the king had gone, towards London, and that there was a good chance we might catch him up – or at least catch the stragglers from his baggage train who could then hasten our message to the king. And then there was the other matter that still nagged at the back of my mind: That comment Mother Han’s about Rosabel going willingly with de Saye.
I was about to voice all these concerns to Onethumb when he put up his hand to silence me. I frowned questioningly but then I heard it too, the unmistakable sound of men’s voices. We quickly scrambled to the bend in the road and cautiously peered round. What I saw horrified me. Raoul de Gray had said that the roads leading from Bury were picketed with soldiers and I could see now that he was right. There were only three of them but sufficient to deter any would-be travellers, and certainly enough to overpower the two of us. Their presence might also explain why our pursuers hadn’t followed us out of the town. If they knew the soldiers were here we could confidently be expected to run into their arms. If we’d gone a few yards further on we would have done.
What are they doing here? Onethumb signed.
I had no answer for him, but every minute we remained here increased our chances of apprehension. We had to get off the road. And with every other road out of Bury as likely as this one to be blocked, there was only one place left to go.
*
The forest is a dangerous place at any time. In its bogs and gulleys a man could easily drown or fall and break a limb, or simply get lost just yards from safety. And there are some fearsome wild animals living in the greenwood - wild boar, feral dogs, even wolves, or so I’d heard. Then there are the wild human animals which are even more dangerous; desperate men already beyond the law who would think nothing of dispatching an unwary traveller for the sake of his boots. And of course there is also the non-human that are everywhere and nowhere, those malevolent spirits that delight in leading men to their destruction especially at night when the veil between the nether world and our own is thinnest and most penetrable. I shuddered at the thought.
But even if we managed to survive all these there is one other danger that is perhaps the most pernicious of all because it is invisible. I speak, of course, of the hated forestry laws. Common law as it is normally understood in the rest of England does not apply in the forest where life is organised for just one purpose: To ensure the king has good hunting. That means everything else is secondary to its protection. The laws had been around since time unrecorded but had increased drastically since the days of the Conqueror for whom the sport was an obsession. The penalties for killing game now ranged from fining to mutilation and even execution. It is like an iron hand lying upon the land encompassing everything and everyone. Crops cannot be tended or ditches dug or fences maintained if it disturbs the habitat of the deer even if human families starve in the process. A man cannot carry a weapon into the forest or own a dog large enough to worry the smallest doe. And forestry law does not simply apply to woodland or heath. It covers farms, villages, even entire towns. The trouble is that unless you know it is impossible to tell when you are within its jurisdiction and when you are not for there are no signs only a vast army of agents whose sole function is to catch transgressors and bring them before the magistrates. Most are ruthless. Many are corrupt.
Such, then, are the multifarious perils facing anyone foolish enough to wander into the forest. The prospect would be daunting for an army of young knights with all their wits and brawn to draw on. What chance an aging Benedictine monk and his one-handed, mute companion? We were about to find out.
Against all the odds we did manage to get through the first freezing night in our makeshift camp not daring to light a fire for fear of attracting attention. One good thing about having a dumb companion is that only one of us can talk in his sleep. Not that we did much talking despite my desire to quiz him about Mother Han and Rosabel. In the dark he was mute too for I could not see his gestures. All explanation would have to wait until daylight. So we bedded down as best we could in a small hollow as soon as darkness fell, which was earlier and more complete here beneath the thick greenwood canopy than outside. Needless to say I didn’t sleep a wink. I spent the night sitting upright with my hands clasped tightly in silent prayer and my knees drawn up close to my chest listening to the cacophony of noises around me. And let no-one say that the forest at night is not alive with monsters and monstrous happenings. I can tell you now with absolute certainty that under cover of darkness trees pull up their roots and walk, dogmen howl and hobgoblins tap you on the shoulder. Urrrgh!
In spite of my fears exhaustion did eventually overcome me and I must have drifted off because I awoke the next morning to daylight and the sound of birdsong and for the briefest moment I fancied I was a child again camping out with my father and Joseph. It took but a moment for the chill November damp of the forest floor to penetrate my robe and for me to realise it was not the sweet twittering of skylarks I could hear but the harsh bark of crows in the bare trees above my head, and then I remembered where I was.
As my groaning announced my re-emergence into the world I saw Onethumb’s infuriating grin as he handed me a hunk of bread and a cup of cold beer. His chirpiness was beginning to irritate me.
‘What time is it?’ I coughed, but I already knew the answer. My growling stomach told me it was long past prime, the third office of the day, after which we monks break our night’s fast. The day was dark and made all the more oppressive by the canopy of the forest pressing down upon us and blocking out the sun. How I longed for the ache of a misericord propping up my buttocks in the freezing choir stalls of the abbey church. The thought of it was bliss compared with this damp earthen forest floor. I chewed my bread thanking God with only moderate sincerity for His munificence and looked about me. Everything appeared the same as the previous night and yet different.
Where do you think we are? signed Onethumb.
I could see behind his brave face that really he was as nervous as I, neither of us wanting the other to know how the other felt. I did my best to exude confidence but in truth I wasn’t at all sure. At some stage I would have to designate a direction. My heart was for Rosabel but my head was still for the king. I could not put off the final decision for much longer but first had to find out where we were.
When I was a child my father sometimes took Joseph and me on short trips away from Ixworth Hall to show us the skills he learned in the Holy Land. He said it was a good manly pursuit and built character. To my surprise I found I had actually enjoyed it and even learnt a few lessons from his tutoring. And now at last I was able to put it to good use for I recalled that direction can be found from observing the position of the sun. Unfortunately Suffolk has less sun than does Damascus even in summer, and in November none at all. We needed something else.
‘Moss,’ I said having another moment of inspiration. ‘It grows on the north side of a tree. Find a tree with moss growing on it and that will be north.’
We quickly found a tree with moss growing on it, but it seemed to grow on every side, and on the next tree it grew not at all. We followed one mildewed bark after another getting more and more confused. It was slightly embarrassing because part of this woodland must border onto my mother’s estate. I felt sure I should recognise it. However, it was nearly forty years since I last
did this sort of thing.
‘Aha,’ I said after half an hour of wandering. ‘I do believe we are getting somewhere at last. Something about this place is familiar to me.’ I peered up into the canopy. ‘Yes, I have the distinct impression I’ve been here before.’
We have been here before, signed Onethumb, and pointed to some broken twigs where we had trodden earlier that morning. We had been going round in circles.
‘Perhaps we should pause a moment,’ I suggested, ‘to offer up a prayer to Saints Christopher, Julian and Raphael. Those three patron saints of travellers must help. And perhaps one extra to Saint Brendan the navigator for his guiding hand to point the way. It can’t do any harm.’
Onethumb reluctantly bowed his head while I muttered some hastily assembled words. And they worked! The saints smiled benignly upon us causing the clouds to part just enough to reveal through the trees the sun low in the southern sky. We had our miracle.
‘There!’ I beamed at him triumphantly. ‘It’s this way. Follow me,’ I said striding off with confidence - and immediately plunged twenty feet into a ravine.
It all happened so fast I didn’t have time to react. Once I’d stopped sliding, however, I saw that I had in fact fallen into a deep gulley at the foot of a circular mound of earth. Such mounds are scattered all over this part of Suffolk, nobody knows what they are for. Some say they are the footprints of Gog and Magog, the fabled leaders of an ancient race of giants who lived in these parts. Others claim they are the burial mounds of pagans and that there is treasure buried deep in the middle of them. Whatever the truth of it, this mound was exceptionally high and constructed from the earth which had been excavated, I would hazard, from the hole into which I had tumbled. The hole was certainly deep and filled with brambles which was why I hadn’t seen it till it was too late. It was also extremely steep. I’d managed to slide practically the entire length from top to bottom before finally coming to a halt, and the more I struggled to extricate myself the more entangled I became not helped by my sodden robe which was never meant for these sorts of surroundings. I looked up in desperation to see Onethumb peering over the rim a few yards above me, and thank God for him for I feared to die alone in this awful place.
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