And what of the others - the countess, the earl, Mother Odell, Father Absalom, Maynus? Were they all in on the conspiracy? Was this then a collective confession? It is often said that confession is good for the soul - Pope Innocent was particularly keen on the idea. Maybe that was the answer to my question. He simply buckled under the weight of his conscience unable to sustain the pretence any longer. If so he chose a mighty odd moment to do it. Well, there was nothing to be done out here on the open road miles from anywhere. We had no choice but to continue as we were until we got to our destination. I could only pray that once we reached Bury things might look a little simpler.
So absorbed had I been with my thoughts that I had quite forgotten about Tomelinus’s lunch parcel and now the fire had gone out and it was too late to open it. The day was fast disappearing and we needed to be on our way if we were to get to Thetford by nightfall. We quickly packed up our camp and got back onto the wagon. As I did so one final irony struck me: having disposed of the living Ralf, Samson seemed unable to be rid of his corpse. Like a child who puts its hand in a bowl of sweetmeats the evidence of his crime kept sticking to his fingers. If this was how God chose to punish him it was surely just reward.
By now the mist had thickened to the point where it was difficult to see the trees lining the road and we were forced to slow to the pace of walking man. Suddenly Samson brought the wagon to a complete halt.
‘There’s someone up ahead.’
I peered through the fog. Sure enough there was a dark ethereal shape on the road that appeared to be waving at us. What was it, man or spirit?
‘What does he want?’ I whispered to Samson.
‘How should I know?’ he whispered back.
We waited. The figure started to come towards us. Gradually it hardened in form and features and to my relief it was a living man - or so it appeared. In one hand he held a sack and in the other the hand of a small child.
The man took off his cap and held it before him. ‘Good day sirs.’
‘Good day to you,’ replied Samson. ‘Can we be of assistance?’
The man took a long hard look at the wagon then returned his gaze to Samson. ‘Would you by chance be the abbot of Bury?’
I gasped. ‘How the devil…?’
‘We were told to watch for two monks on a cart.’
‘We?’
‘My village is close by, sir. The sheriff’s men came this morning.’
‘The sheriff?’ I turned to Samson in alarm. ‘Father?’
Samson waved me silent. ‘Did the sheriff’s men say what they wanted?’
‘No sir. But they seemed mighty anxious to find you.’
‘Father, do you think -?’ I looked over my shoulder at Ralf’s body. It could only be that they had finally worked out the truth about how the old priest died and were coming to arrest Samson - and possibly me too.
The abbot rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘That’s a heavy sack you have there. What’s in it I wonder?’
‘Breakfast for the little one,’ he said nodding to the child. ‘We have eight more like him at home.’
Samson nodded. ‘Then we must make sure they don’t go hungry.’
‘If you please, sir.’
Samson indicated the road behind him. ‘The track we passed a few yards back. Where does it lead?’
‘Down to the river. But it is a walking path.’
‘Will it take a cart?’
‘With care.’
‘Even so, in this snow…?’
‘There are many creatures in the forest,’ said the man. ‘They criss-cross each other’s paths all the time. It is easy to get confused.’
‘Especially if you walk over it when we are gone,’ Samson nodded. He reached behind, picked up a blanket from the back and placed it around the child’s shoulders. Then he put his hand on the child’s head and muttered a blessing before turning the wagon around to head back the way we came.
‘Wait!’ I said and quickly fished in my belt-pouch for the purse the Lady Adela had given to me. ‘Here,’ I said handing it to the man. He hesitated for a moment, but he took it.
‘God bless you both,’ said the man. ‘And God bless Saint Edmund.’
‘Can we trust him?’ I said watching the man recede into the mist. ‘You know what he had in his bag. He was a poacher.’
‘And therefore no friend of the sheriff. We struck a bargain, did you not notice? His silence for ours.’
‘He could be sending us to our deaths. That would ensure our silence.’
But it was already too late. We were plunging down a side track that was even narrower and more dangerous than the ones in Acre and led to heaven-knew-where, and the saints in their compassion may not be able to protect us.
We lurched and bounced so much in our descent that I was convinced this time the wagon would break apart. Only by some miracle did we manage to reach the bottom in one piece. But instead of following the course of the stream as I expected Samson started whipping poor Clytemnestra again to make her run up the slope the other side. Fortunately the creature had more sense and stubbornly refused to go any further no matter how hard Samson tried to make her.
I looked about us. The river was stony and there was no corresponding exit up the far slope. The only way in or out was the path we came down. Still he would not give up and urged Clytemnestra on.
‘Father this is insane. We must get back to the road.’
‘No, we must keep on, we must.’
He started whipping poor Clytemnestra again but she steadfastly refused to budge. In any case it was pointless now. I tapped Samson on the arm and pointed above us. A posse of five riders had appeared at the top of the slope and were already descending towards us.
In panic Samson stood up in his seat, reached forward and thumped poor Clytemnestra hard with his fist. All to no avail. One rider was already at the bottom of the slope and blocking our path while another took hold of Clytemnestra’s head.
‘Leave her!’ yelled Samson still standing and whipped the man with his switch. ‘I am the Abbot of Bury and I order you to desist!’
To his credit the man did not try to stop the blows but merely defended his head with his hand. But now a third rider, a captain judging by his uniform, rode over and snatched the whip from Samson’s hand.
In his anger Samson turned on me: ‘You see now what you have done? If we had left last night as I had wanted we could be in Bury by now! Why can you never do as I ask?’ He collapsed heavily onto the seat, tears of frustration running down his cheeks.
What I could see was what I should have seen before that Samson was utterly exhausted. I was forgetting his great age. The last week had drained him physically and emotionally. He could no longer cope. It was up to me now to take command:
I stood up in my seat. ‘How dare you lay hand on the lord abbot?’ I shouted at the man. ‘I’ll see to it that you’re flogged for this. The Sheriff of Norfolk has no jurisdiction here.’
‘Our orders do not come from the sheriff, Brother Walter,’ said the man levelly. ‘They come from Lord William. Now please, we have a job to do. Don’t make trouble. Sergeant!’ He signalled to one of his men who spurred his horse to the back of the wagon, dismounted and threw back the tarpaulin. He poked Ralf’s and Jane’s corpses roughly with a finger.
‘Here!’ I yelled at him. ‘Show some respect!’
But he ignored me. ‘It’s them, sir,’ he called to the captain.
The captain nodded back. ‘I’m sorry father but you are to come with us,’ he said to Samson. ‘You must understand that -’
He stopped.
Understand what?
I looked up. The captain seemed different. His eyes had widened to discs and he was staring past me towards the back of the wagon. Instinctively I turned round to see what he was looking at and saw the sergeant staring back at us, his eyes even wider than the captain’s. At first I couldn’t see what was wrong with the man - but then I did. Somehow Ralf’s left hand had worked l
oose from the shroud and was resting lightly on the soldier’s hand. I shuddered with revulsion. The sergeant started to whimper as Ralf’s fingers began crawling up his arm like a giant five-legged spider. The poor man seemed paralysed quite unable to move. In fascinated horror we watched as Ralf’s hand crept slowly up the man’s arm towards his neck. Then to my astonishment Ralf sat bolt upright in the wagon and turned towards the soldier. I gasped - we all gasped. It was enough. The man snatched back his hand and ran off screaming through the icy waters of the stream.
But that wasn’t the worst of it for now from out of the mist appeared first one then another and finally a whole legion of ghouls stumbling, tumbling, arms outstretched, groping their way towards us and moaning as they came. And suddenly all was panic as troopers fled stumbling in every direction, their horses scrambling up the snow-covered slopes to get away as fast as they could with the ghouls shambling after them.
And then…
Laughter. The ghouls were laughing. They chirruped and cavorted like monkeys mocking the soldiers in their flight and came back grinning and guffawing. It took me a moment but I recognized them, all five of them - or was it six?
‘You’re late!’ barked Samson seeming to have recovered his former strength.
Cousin John frowned. ‘With respect, father, we were expecting you last night, and on a different road. The boys have been searching since dawn. We were about to give up. It was only by good fortune we came across a poacher and his son who put us right.’
‘Blame Walter for that,’ growled Samson glaring at me. ‘If we had left when I wanted to -’ He flapped a dismissive hand. ‘Never mind that now. We’ve a more urgent problem. He’s woken up.’
The boys exchanged glances. ‘Woken up? How?’
‘The drug that Italian doctor gave him wasn’t strong enough. Although, it should have been,’ he said glaring again at me.
I raised a tentative finger. ‘Erm, who’s woken up?’
‘He must be half frozen by now,’ said Samson, ignoring me. ‘Two of you build a fire. Walter, you help me get him off the wagon.’
‘Get who off the wagon?’
‘Come on, come on, look lively now. We’ve very little time. Once those soldiers realise their foolishness they’ll be back.’
‘Father!’ I said grabbing his arm. ‘Who have we got?’
He looked at me as though I were a simpleton. ‘Why Nicholas of course.’
Once we had removed the shroud we lay the boy as close to the fire as we dare. Samson was right: he was icy cold to the touch. And he was a very unhealthy-looking colour.
I placed my cheek near his mouth. ‘I don’t think he’s breathing.’
‘Then make him breathe!’ snapped Samson. ‘You’re a doctor for God’s sake!’
A doctor, yes, not a magician. I was used to treating patients in the quiet of the abbey infirmary or at worse lying on their beds at home; certainly not out on an icy river bank with a freezing mist closing in and the light fading fast. I tried to think.
‘What’s he taken?’
‘Something the earl’s doctor gave him to knock him out.’
‘It’s slowed his breathing as well as his consciousness. You don’t know what it was, I suppose?’
No of course they didn’t. It could be any one of a dozen possibilities. Not that it would matter even if I knew for I still needed my laboratorium and my medical texts to identify an antidote - assuming one even existed. And even then I’d have to find the appropriate plant, process it and turn it into a form to be taken by mouth. It was a hopeless task.
‘Look! He’s turning blue,’ whistled John Gaptooth through his teeth.
We looked closer. Nicholas was indeed changing colour. I had seen it before on men hanged or drowned. Never on somebody still alive. Samson was wringing his hands as we watched Nick’s lips and gills slowly turn blacker and blacker and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it.
‘For the love of God Walter do something,’ he growled. ‘Why else are you here?’
Why else am I here? I looked at him with horror. ‘That’s what this has all been about, isn’t it? This is what the countess meant. This is my test. To bring Nick back from the dead.’
Samson frowned. ‘Of course it is. What did you think? Now do your job. Save the boy.’
I was suddenly angry. Save the boy. It wasn’t as though I didn’t want to. But how?
I knelt beside Nick and put my ear to his mouth but I could hear nothing. Not even a gurgling sound. It was hopeless. They had miscalculated. Nick didn’t need a doctor, he needed was a priest.
I shook my head. ‘It’s no good. We’re too late.’
‘But we can’t be!’
‘Father,’ I said gently, ‘we must face it. Nicholas has gone from this life. What we must do is our duty to facilitate his passage into the next. I have oil in my kit and we have prayer. That is what we can give him now.’
Samson’s face folded. ‘No! I won’t have it! Not after all we’ve been through!’
He grabbed the boy and pulled him to his chest and as he did so Nick let out a long rasping sigh.
Samson’s eyes widened. ‘Look! He breathes!’
I shook my head. ‘No, it is only the body’s final collapse. It happens with the dead.’
‘He breathes I tell you!’
‘No, I don’t think - ’
I stopped. The boy’s left eye flickered slightly. It was the thinnest of movements but definitely there. I shoved Samson roughly aside and grabbed the boy’s shoulders. I looked into his face, those little slanting eyes, that great bulbous nose, those huge fleshy lips. What do you want me to do Nick? What must I do? Tell me!
He gurgled.
Instinctively I shook him. His head fell back and he gasped again this time a great gulping suck of air, then another, and another.
‘You’ve done it!’ yelled Samson. ‘I knew it! It’s a miracle! God be thanked!’
‘No, not a miracle,’ I said. ‘His tongue.’
‘What?’
I should have remembered. Of course I’d noticed it the first time I saw the boy that his tongue was too big for his mouth. It was why he slobbered so much and had to keep his mouth open to breathe. His tongue was so big it was blocking his throat. By dropping his head back it unblocked again. It was as simple as that. I put my hand on his forehead and pushed it away from me flexing his neck to keep the throat clear. I put my ear to his chest. Yes, the heart was beating and growing stronger with each pulse. His face too was slowly returning to pink. Then at last the boy coughed and moaned.
‘You did it!’ yelled Samson. ‘Walter you did it! I knew you would! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!’ and he thumped me hard on my back.
‘Father please! Lest I drop him.’
Nicholas’s eye opened and swam blearily about. His face crumpled. He started to cry like a baby - and God be praised, the boy slobbered all over me and all over Samson. And what a sight we must have made the three of us: The abbot of Bury, Baron of the Liberty of Saint Edmund, confidante of kings and popes, kneeling in the snow and slush of a river bank with his arms around me, himself, and this strange, gasping boy as we wept and rocked and wept again.
Chapter 27
EXPLANATIONS
Now you know as much about the affair as I do. It was a trick from the very beginning, a construct of smoke and mirrors, painted scenery and false floors. Initially when I realised this I was angry for no-one likes to be taken for a fool. But once I understood that the purpose was a noble one - to save the life of one imperfect child - my anger subsided somewhat, although who among us can judge who is perfect and who is not since we are all made in God’s image?
Like most complex stories the essence of this one is really quite simple but first we have to go back to that business in the hall at Acre Castle. The boy Nicholas was about to be squired to a knight, a position his uncle, Lord William, fully expected him not to survive. Why? Because William resented the boy’s antecedence. That fact alo
ne might not have done for the lad; after all he wasn’t the only bastard in this family. William’s own father the earl Hamelin, and Nicholas’s cousin Richard, were both fathered out of wedlock by kings. No son born of such a union could become king himself, of course, but he might become an earl or an archbishop - like Archbishop Geoffrey, he of the muddied tonsure. Richard was eventually ennobled as Baron Chilham in the county of Kent and lived a fruitful life. Had Nicholas been born with all his wits he too might have won hearts and prospered, but it was the boy’s ill luck not only to be born on the wrong side of the blanket but also an idiot, and that his uncle could not forgive. He wanted rid of the boy and the simplest way was to have him heroically killed in one of King John’s futile wars against King Philip of France.
Fortunately the boy was not entirely without supporters, in particular his grandparents, the earl and the countess. While Hamelin lived William could do nothing against the boy but as soon as he inherited his father’s coronet he would be free to do as he liked. I believe the old earl clung to life just long enough to ensure Nicholas was safe and then gave himself into God’s receiving arms. As for the countess: formidable woman though she was, she was still a woman and unable to resist the demands of her son. Given the choice any knight would follow a strong man rather than a weak woman. At any rate, she didn’t think she could take the risk.
And so a plot was hatched. It was a daring plan that must have taken months if not years to arrange. Unfortunately by the time it was ready to be enacted the earl was too ill to take command himself and so the countess turned for help to an old friend, Samson of Tottington. He in turn drew on his own family and friends along the way to assist him. Together they would spirit the boy away to a place of safety out of Lord William’s reach. But time was not on their side. With war looming in France and Nicholas about to come of age it would have to be now or never.
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