The Outcasts of Time

by Ian Mortimer

  I set my sack down by a rock, shivering and sweating, and slowly take off my cloak, my tunic and belt. Wearing only my shirt, I draw my knife.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks William.

  ‘Bleeding myself . . .’

  I pull up the left sleeve of my shirt, lift my arm and smell my own stale sweat. There is the angry swelling. But it is not all black like the huge swelling around the neck of the dead man in Honyton. My swelling is yellowish, surrounded by black patches and angry blood-filled blotches. It looks like a fungus growing on me. I hate it – but I hesitate to cut it. It is only a symptom. Instead I push my right sleeve up and, taking my knife in my left hand, aim the point at the inner side of my lower right arm. It is easy to see the place: the scars of old bloodlettings show. The pain I feel as I slice is sharp, chillingly so, but it feels healthy. The blood is not flowing from me but from the disease. I have stabbed it behind its armour. I feel light-headed and relieved. When I have let out enough, I raise my arm and twist my shirt sleeve, using the tightened linen to staunch the flow. I feel faint, as often happens when letting blood, and steady myself on a low rock.

  ‘You should have been a surgeon,’ says William.

  ‘Cutting stone is easier.’ I stand up straight and find I am still a little dizzy. I retch again but my stomach is empty. I pick up my tunic, and struggle to pull it over my head. After several attempts, I manage it, fasten my belt and draw on my cloak. It feels so much heavier.

  ‘We’ll be going now,’ I say, swaying on my feet, looking up at the darkening sky.

  ‘Bleed me too,’ William commands.

  For a moment there is silence, broken only by the evening birdsong. I see blood marks in his neck and the part of his cheek not covered by his beard. I shake my head. ‘I’ve never yet bled anyone else. Only myself, I know where to make the—’

  ‘John, what happened yesterday happened – there’s no pushing back the sun. But I’ve still faith in you. You were moved by God. Do to me what you did just now to yourself.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

  William lets his travelling cloak slip from his shoulders and, with difficulty, pulls his overtunic over his head. I am shivering as I watch him roll up his shirt sleeve. He holds his arm out.

  ‘I cannot see the mark.’

  ‘In Christ’s name, John, make the cut, where you think best.’

  I slice into his skin. The red blood seeps swiftly to the surface and runs down his arm. ‘Let it flow,’ I say, wiping the freezing sweat from my brow. When enough has run out, I lift his arm. ‘Hold it there,’ I say, and I staunch the bleeding in the same way I did my own. ‘Bend over, let the good blood reach your head.’

  William does as I instruct, and breathes heavily.

  ‘I feel that my life has started to pass before my eyes,’ he says.

  ‘Tell me when you see your greatest happiness.’

  ‘That was my first time with Christine of Luwedon.’

  ‘Your first time with her?’

  ‘Her husband often went hunting.’

  When William has recovered, we walk on up the hill, moving slowly through the trees. It is much darker under their boughs, even though they are leafless. It takes hours. We stumble into ruts. I twist my right ankle. Many times I step into a puddle, and feel the cold water seeping through my boot. Occasionally, the rising moon shines through a break in the clouds and casts a silver gleam across the interlocking branches above us, giving the impression of walking beneath the intricate ribcage of the wood.

  It is dark when William gasps, ‘Enough.’

  I reach out and find him lying on the path. I put my arm under his. ‘Get to your feet, William. If you stay here, you will be dead by morning.’

  ‘I can go no further. My legs’ll not do it. I am so dizzy, I do not know which way is up. And there’s no feeling left in my fingers. You may as well tell me to carry a horse.’

  I try to pull him up. But he is too heavy.

  ‘Come on, where’s the lion of old? Imagine there’s a beautiful woman up on the moor, just as God made her.’

  ‘The most beautiful woman I ever saw,’ he says, ‘was in a lane in London. She was very young, and with her father. I stood and watched her pass, and then I saw her enter a church, as if I was in a trance.’

  ‘Then imagine she is up on the moor waiting for you. And her father is nowhere near.’

  ‘No. She was unmarried.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that? You are unmarried yourself.’

  ‘Married women make better lovers. They know what they want.’

  ‘Then she’s married. And her husband is hunting.’

  ‘No. It’s over. There is no desire left in my body.’

  ‘William, I’ll not let you stop here. It must be less than a mile to the open moor.’

  ‘I feel like I’m . . .’ He coughs and spits, and coughs again.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, William!’ I shout. ‘Please! I cannot walk away and leave you. But nor can I lay myself down and wait for death. That we’ve got this far is due to there being two of us. The lonely corpses we’ve seen on the road had no one to help them. We’ll not have a Christian burial, I know that, but just to lie down here to die . . .’ I wipe the sweat from my face. ‘If we accept this, our father and mother in Heaven will be ashamed of us. So, for them, if not for me, get up.’

  I reach out for him again, and put my hand under his arm. He grabs my sleeve, and makes to rise, and this time he struggles to his feet. He puts his weight on me, breathing heavily. The swelling under my left arm hurts all the more as I am carrying my travelling sack over that shoulder. William, I realise, is no longer carrying his. The smell of the cold earth rises to our nostrils. Above us the wind is picking up; it whistles in the leafless branches, which rattle against each other in the dark.

  Eventually we walk out on to the bare moor. Here the wind is gusting across the grass, gorse, dead bracken and heather. It howls in our ears and freezes our faces and makes us even more unsteady on our feet. Looking up, the swift-moving clouds allow brief glimpses of the moon. I see the faint line of the horizon. We stumble across tussocks, rocks and gullies up to the first ridge and then descend through wet patches of bog that suck and soak our already sodden boots. Gradually we come down the side of Scorhill.

  I scratch my torn hosen against a gorse bush yet again. In places the clouds are thinner, passing swiftly across the face of the moon. And then a darker, larger cloud blocks out the light altogether.

  William puts his arm around my shoulder. ‘Be quiet.’

  I listen. When the gust of the wind dies down, I can hear the sound of water tumbling through rocks.

  We come to the stream and walk along the bank. As the wind buffets my ears I think I can hear sounds of lamenting voices coming across the moor. I remember the keening in Exeter. I am so tired, and every step through this wet marshy ground is an effort. There are shapes of dark colour in the night, and brighter patterns too, as if I had pressed my fingers against my eyelids. I see orange and blue squares in the sky, and, at one point, a lake of red water.

  We cannot find the circle.

  ‘Let’s return to the woods,’ says William. I can barely hear him over the sound of the wind. ‘We’ll shelter under the trees.’

  I am too weary to answer. My whole body is burdened with pain. I do not care where we lie down. But after stumbling in the darkness for some distance, William stops. He takes my hand and places it on cold, wet granite, at chest height. The clouds part again and I see the ghostly shapes of two dozen standing stones, in a wide circle. A little way outside the perimeter, slightly higher up the hill, is another stone, fallen now, which reflects a little sparkle of moonlight.

  We have arrived.

  William walks into the middle of the circle. I stumble forward to join him. A cloud covers the moon again. We are once more in total darkness, listening to the wind howling around us.

  ‘What no
w?’ William asks.

  ‘We should pray.’

  I get down on my knees and press my forehead to the ground, shielding my chilled face from the wind.

  ‘What’s that light in the rock over there?’ asks William.

  ‘A reflection of the moon.’

  ‘It can’t be. The clouds are covering the moon.’

  I look up. The same light is still there, as if it were a star set in the rock.

  I hear a lamenting voice from far across the moor as the wind buffets my ears. William starts to say the Lord’s Prayer. This is a fear-filled place. Yet what lies beyond those stones, out there in the windswept darkness, is more troubling still. And it is from out there that the woman’s voice is coming, no longer lamenting but singing, very slowly.

  Merry it is while summer lasts with birds’ song,

  but now draws near the winter’s blast and weather strong.

  Ei! Alas!

  This night is long.

  And I, most unjustly wronged, sorrow and mourn fast.

  A moment passes, with only the wind to be heard.

  ‘That was our mother’s voice,’ says William.

  ‘Maybe her spirit can help us.’

  ‘Is that why we are here? To seek her guidance?’

  ‘You are here because you do not wish to die,’ says the voice that I heard at the cathedral.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ says William.

  The voice continues. ‘What you ask I cannot give. It is not for me to grant any soul a longer life. After this night, you have but six days more to live. Nothing can alter that. But as you surely trusted me by coming here, John of Wrayment, so I will trust you. You will see what no living man has seen.’

  ‘In Christ’s name,’ asks William, ‘who is that?’

  ‘The choice is yours, John,’ says the voice. ‘You may stay here and return to your house, and spend the last six days with your wife and children. Or you may put yourself in my hands now. I will wipe the scars from your face and the swellings from your body. I will extinguish your fever. I will let you live your last six days in the distance of the future. Ninety-nine years shall pass before you will return to live the first of your remaining days. Another ninety-nine years will pass before the second. Five hundred and ninety-five years will pass before your sixth and final day, when I will come for you.’

  Time suddenly seems an unnecessary thing. A whole lifetime is like a single rosebud on a bush. I see many lives blossoming, and their petals unfurling and falling. And it doesn’t matter how fast they come and go, whether suddenly or slowly. All that matters is that they are there.

  ‘I’ll remain here,’ says William. ‘I do not fear my fate. I will die here, where I belong.’

  ‘Six days,’ I say, unable to think of anything but Catherine and my sons. ‘Six days and if I return home I will take this disease with me.’ Slowly I get to my feet, still shivering. ‘Goodbye, William,’ I say, reaching out and touching him. I kneel down and embrace him. I hold him tight, not just as a brother but as the last friend I will ever know. I feel sick with sorrow as well as the plague. The tears running down my cheeks are cold in the wind.

  ‘Ah, by the Lord’s balls and breeches, I cannot do it,’ says William. ‘I’ll not be parted from you. I’ll go with you, John.’

  I let go of him. The wind dies down. There is starlight above us, just two or three clouds visible in the night sky.

  ‘Where’s the moon?’ I ask.

  ‘It must have set.’

  ‘So suddenly?’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  I rub my hands along my sleeves. ‘My clothes are drenched and my feet are cold but I no longer feel feverish.’

  ‘So, what just happened?’

  ‘There was a voice. It called me by name.’

  ‘Do you think that we are still—’

  ‘Suffering the disease? I don’t know.’

  There is a long pause.

  ‘Do you think that was truly our mother’s voice, the singing?’ William asks.

  ‘It sounded like her.’

  ‘Perhaps her spirit came to save us.’

  ‘Or to lure us in. The voice that spoke to us sounded like my own.’

  ‘That’s strange,’ replies William. ‘I thought it sounded like mine.’

  ‘Let us go.’

  I find my travelling sack still propped against the stone where I left it, and we return the way we came.

  At Easton we turn off the road and walk up through the lane to Cranbrook, and creep into one of Simon’s barns at the mill. Before I go to sleep on the hay, I think back to the voice at the stones. I feel no sense of ease about what happened there. I know I am more in need of redemption than ever. But what form that redemption might take, I do not know. Nor do I know what will happen if I fail to find it. My last thought as I lie there in the darkness is a very simple question.

  What do I really know about Hell?

  Chapter Three

  With the first light that creeps through the corners of the barn roof, I know that something is wrong. From boyhood I have known the rotten section in the great beam that spans the building. I only need to think of this place and I see the cobwebs that hang down thickly from it, sprinkled with wood dust from the decaying part. My father said that, although it looks as though it is going to collapse, the oak in the middle of the beam is still as hard as rock, and that it’ll be another fifty years before it needs replacement. But even in this light I can see that a wholly new beam now supports the roof.

  I shake William awake. He stops snoring, opens his eyes and looks up.

  ‘Where, between the Scots and the Devil, are we?’

  ‘In the barn at Cranbrook.’

  ‘It has changed.’

  We hear the bark of a dog outside. There is a voice too, which I do not recognise. It is certainly not our brother. ‘What is it, you drabbity beast? What’s pritched ’ee and made ’ee so fussocky? ’Tis in the barn, is it?’

  A moment later the door swings wide open and light floods in. A stout man with receding grey hair stands there. He is wearing long breeches around his legs and a thigh-length jerkin across his upper body. It is secured over his chest with wooden fasteners that pierce the cloth and hold the two sides of the garment together. On his head he is not wearing a hood but a hat like a cap, except looser. His belt is thick leather, with his eating knife tucked in one side.

  ‘In the name of the Lord,’ he exclaims, ‘what pilgarlics have we here?’

  I look him up and down – but he is looking at us as if we are the ones who are strangely dressed. My boots are worn. My grey hosen are ripped – you can see the hair and skin of my legs in half a dozen places. The bottom of my brown tunic is torn. My russet cloak is covered in mud. William’s clothes look equally torn and muddy. The folded hood he usually wears with such panache has collapsed with dampness. He has lost his silver chain. Only his belt buckle and garnet ring separate him from those who have nothing of value to their name.

  ‘We are the brothers of Simon of Cranbrook,’ I explain. ‘Our late father was Simon the miller, and our mother, Mary, was the daughter of William the miller, who ran the mill here before him.’

  ‘You’re no kin of ours,’ the man replies. ‘I’m Simon the miller, and my father was Simon before us. And I take no delight in vagrants lodging themselves in my barn.’

  ‘We should thank this good man for his hospitality and leave him in peace,’ says William, climbing down from the pile of hay. ‘Simon the miller is dead. Long live Simon the miller.’ He bows to the man, who has just noticed his gold ring and silver belt buckle. ‘We thank you, good miller, for giving us shelter. My name is William Beard, and this is my brother, John of Wrayment. If there is any favour we can offer you by way of exchange for your service, let it be known to us and it shall be performed.’

  William bows again and walks out of the barn. I nod to the miller, and follow him.

  Outside it is a crisp, cold morning. We keep walking. The mil
lpond to our right is covered with ice and the grass ahead of us is frosted. The puddles in the path are also frozen. There is a mild breeze and birdsong as fulsome as ever. But all the land beyond the millpond, which once was open, with no fences or walls but arranged for the crops to grow in furlongs, is now streaked with walls, ditches, wooden fences and gates. The hills seem to have been divided up into small enclosed fields.

  ‘Where are we?’ I say.

  ‘Do you not remember? The voice told us.’

  ‘You believe that ninety-nine years have passed?’

  William looks around again. ‘Do you have another explanation? This is what Cranbrook looks like ninety-nine years after the seventeenth of December in the twenty-second year of the reign of King Edward the Third, may God have mercy on his soul.’

  May God have mercy . . . I am surpised to hear William refer to good King Edward as dead. But I suppose he must be, if we have shifted ninety-nine years ahead of our own time.

  ‘I wonder what year we are in now,’ I say.

  William shrugs. ‘Depends who is king.’

  ‘Even Edward of Woodstock will be dead by now.’

  William points ahead to some low walls, partially obscured by bracken. ‘What happened here?’

  ‘You know what happened,’ I reply. ‘The plague. You were there.’

  We come to a rough square of rubble stone walls no more than four feet high. This used to be Butterdon. Ivy has partly covered the ruins; a beech tree has grown through a corner. Dead leaves, brown bracken and fallen branches now inhabit the house. It smells like the earthiness that you notice in a wood after overnight rain.

  ‘Ilbert and Richard lived here,’ says William.