But there was a problem. The one person who could not know about the plan was the boy himself. In this Nicholas’s trusting and open nature was his greatest enemy for I doubt he could have kept the secret, certainly not from his clever cousin Richard who was only too happy to see an end of his embarrassing cousin. I am sure Nick would have betrayed his rescuers in an instant if he thought he could have prevented a single moment of little Esme’s agony. Come to think of it, that was probably Richard’s purpose in torturing the animal, to get Nicholas to expose the plot. So Nick had to be saved in spite of himself and without knowing what was happening to him. Mine was a small but crucial part in the drama for what use would it be getting the boy safely out of Acre only for him to die on the open road? Even in that I nearly failed.
The plan was for Nicholas to be drugged and smuggled out of the town under the very nose of his uncle while he was preoccupied with making ready for war. The tricky part was finding a body that no-one would think to challenge, and here luck was on the conspirators’ side. I doubt if the invention of the Revenant was part of the original plan but it played well into the plotters’ hands. Everyone was glad to see the back of it, Lord William himself speeding it on its way. But substituting one body for another meant the first had to disappear and that was the greatest confidence trick of all for there never was another body. Oh it was Ralf I saw in the cellars of the convent all right, but I was never allowed to examine him too closely - Sister Benjamin made sure of that. Somewhere between showing me the body and loading it onto Clytemnestra’s back the switch was made. For Benjamin the deception was no great matter for anything Samson asked of her she would have done without question: in her eyes he was God’s appointed and could do no wrong. But it had troubled little Monica-Jerome. Like all the other nuns she had been sworn to secrecy and it was only when Mother Odell died that she felt released from her oath. That was what she came to tell me in the infirmary. Odell died in the convent infirmary last Christmas Eve aged ninety.
Other things are explained, too. Why, for instance, Samson was so reluctant to give Ralf the last rites. Because there was no body to receive them. Pretending to bury a fake corpse was one thing; debasing the holy sacraments by offering them to a dummy was quite another. He couldn’t bring himself to do it and would not permit me to either. For that’s what it was we carried to Acre: a dummy made of moss and peat sewn up in a shroud specially designed for the purpose by Sister Angelina - the same pile of moss and peat that Tomelinus accidentally tripped over in the wayside chapel. That, incidentally, was what was in the parcel Tom had given to me. Not my lunch but a sample of the moss from the chapel. He had already worked it out and wanted me to open it up on the open road and come to the same conclusion. With all Samson’s revelations I’d forgotten all about it and only rediscovered it when I got back to Bury. The dummy also explains why Samson did not fear the Revenant. After all, if no-one died there could be no living dead and therefore no monster to fear.
The great tragedy in all this was what happened to Jane. She died truly believing it was Ralf’s body we carried from Thetford to Acre and was buried in the priory cemetery. It was something for which the conspirators, and Samson in particular, must bear responsibility. I later challenged him over this but he was less contrite about it than I thought he should be. He insisted that she was merely Ralf’s housekeeper since no priest could truly be married. And keeping her in ignorance had been agreed as necessary by all the conspirators including Ralf himself. Jane’s death was never anticipated.
However there is one other, darker aspect of this part of the affair that I hesitate to articulate too clearly. You may remember that before we began our journey Samson made out his Will. When nine years later he died and this Will came to be read it provided for a priest to say prayers for the easement of Jane’s soul. Now why would he have done that before we even began our journey if he did not know Jane would not survive it?
All of which explains the what but not the why. Why was so much energy expended and so many disparate souls enlisted to protect one imbecilic boy? This is the conundrum to which I apply myself in these pages. It cannot simply be because of the resentment of his boorish uncle. There had to be more to it than that. I am sure the answer lies somewhere here among my notes. It is the final knot yet to be untangled.
*
The shock of seeing Ralf’s corpse come back to life on the back of the wagon was only slightly less than the discovery of its true identity. And yet seeing Nicholas lying there half conscious in the muck of the river bank somehow made sense. I felt a great wave of relief like coming up for air from the depths of a murky pool. There were many questions to which I wanted answers but for the moment I was content to keep my own council.
I gathered from the hurried consultations between Samson and his cousin John that there was a problem. I’d already worked out for myself that the original plan had been for Nicholas to remain unconscious until he reached Thetford but because of the delay in leaving Acre the boy had woken up earlier than expected. For this I was roundly and repeatedly blamed although, as I kept pointing out, only by Nicholas’s miraculous resurrection had they avoided capture. If he had remained unconscious the soldiers would have returned him to Acre and Samson into the hands of Lord William. And had the plotters seen fit to take me into their confidence I might have been more cooperative and better prepared to help when the moment came.
On this last point at least Samson seemed contrite. ‘We didn’t think it was fair to ask you.’
‘What you mean is you couldn’t be sure I would agree.’
‘Would you have done?’
‘I might.’
He shook his head. ‘Might is not good enough.’
But this was not the time for recriminations. With the likelihood of Lord William’s men returning at any moment the need now was to leave the riverbank as quickly as possible. The revised plan was for John and his sons to whisk the boy away by fast horse while Samson and I followed more slowly with the wagon and Jane’s body. She would undoubtedly slow us down, but we couldn’t simply abandon her. The risk of capture was the penance Samson was prepared to take.
The problem as ever was in persuading Nick to play along. As soon as he regained consciousness and realised what was happening to him he steadfastly refused to cooperate. If it had been anyone else it might have been possible to reason with him, but he was frightened and confused among strangers and wouldn’t listen to anybody. And despite his youth he was strong so force was out of the question.
It was then that Samson played his masterstroke. Anticipating that something like this might happen he had prepared a back-up plan. I had already noticed a seventh rider hanging about in the background and now, dismounting and removing her hood, the Lady Adela revealed herself. As soon as Nick saw her he threw his arms around her neck and sobbed. And those approaches she made to me suddenly made sense. When she’d asked me to look after “her boy” it wasn’t Richard she’d meant but Nicholas. Now her job was to reassure the boy and persuade him to ride with her to Thetford. It took some persuading but she managed it. Just before they rode off she turned one last time in her saddle, smiled and mouthed “Thank you” to me.
All that remained now was for Samson and me to follow with the wagon as quickly as Clytemnestra could be persuaded to drag us fully expecting Lord William’s men to catch us before we got half way to Thetford. By some miracle and against the odds we made it. Rumbling across the little wooden bridge, our relief to be back on honest Suffolk soil again was palpable.
That didn’t ensure our safety, of course. Lord William was not the sort of man to let the small matter of a county border frustrate his ambitions. But even he hesitated to invade a house of God, especially one as well-prepared as Mother Odell had made Saint George’s in our absence. She had not been idle while we were in Acre and there are few things more formidable than a group of Benedictine nuns determined to defend themselves. Lord William did lay siege to the convent gate but only fo
r a day. Adela had anticipated her brother’s pursuit and diverted to a secret destination further out in the countryside. Once he realised the boy wasn’t inside there was little point in his continuing. He also could not afford to squander resources in men and time that were needed by King John. Besides, Samson’s abduction of the boy really achieved what Lord William had wanted by other means: Nicholas’s disappearance. And disappear he did. No-one saw or heard from the boy again.
And this is the point in the story where my knowledge begins to falter for Samson and Odell chose to exclude me from the rest of their plan. I like to think that they did this for my own safety sake for what I didn’t know I couldn’t divulge, but I suspect the real reason is that they had no further need of me. I had fulfilled my part. The boy had survived. My services were no longer required.
However, there was one question I thought I might be able to answer myself and that is what happened to Ralf, for if he wasn’t in the parcel we took to Acre then where had he been all this time? The answer had to be that he never left the nunnery. So while Samson and Odell were scheming together in the prioress’s solar, I stole over to the priesthouse to investigate.
The house was in darkness. But then being blind, of course, he had no need of candles. So I waited, and sure enough after a few minutes I heard the gate creak open and the familiar tap-tap of Ralf’s stick upon the gravel path. As he drew level with me he paused, cocked his head and smiled.
‘Brother Walter. I was wondering if I might see you again.’
‘Good evening, father,’ I said stepping out. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t come?’
‘No, I knew you would. Shall we walk?’
On the short walk to the prioress’s lodge he confirmed more or less everything that I had already deduced, including his reason for helping with the plot. It was as part penance for what he had done all those years before - his sin of pride.
‘So, do you feel you have paid your dues now to God and Saint Edmund? Or perhaps you think you may even have added to the tally?’
He frowned. ‘What happened to Jane was indeed a tragedy.’
I snorted. ‘A little more than that, surely father? She was your wife, wasn’t she?’
He thought for a moment. ‘Jane was a good and faithful servant, and although her passing is a matter of great personal sorrow to me, servant was all she was.’
‘She didn’t see it that way.’
‘No, but she was in error. Anything she might have said to you to the contrary will be in her head only.’
‘Oh, well that’s all right then. After all, she was only a servant, whereas Nicholas was…what was he exactly?’
Ralf frowned painfully. To give him his due he did look in genuine remorse. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, brother, but accept from me there are weightier matters at stake which transcend even the tragic death of one servant.’
‘Well I hope you’re right, father, for I should not like to have your conscience if you are wrong. No doubt God will take all this into account when he comes to judge.’
‘God knows what was in my heart. I leave it in his hands.’
We walked the remainder of the path in silence.
‘What will you do now you no longer have Jane to take care of you?’ I asked when we got to the lodge.
He had stopped directly in front of the prioress’s gate, no doubt knowing the exact number of steps.
‘I dare say I’ll manage. Brother, in a perfect world our plan would have gone exactly as we had hoped. Alas it was not to be. What we did, we did for the best of motives. To have done nothing would have been worse. I can only hope that in time the bitterness I hear in your voice will fade and you will find it in your heart to understand - and perhaps even forgive.’
In any event there was no more time to pursue the matter for the next morning immediately after prime we said our farewells to the Sisters of Saint George and took to the road for the last time thankful at last to be heading for Bury and home. It was a calm and clear day with the first promise of spring. We rode in silence and only when we were beyond the cross at Barnham Moor did we finally begin to talk. It was Samson who initiated it:
‘Walter, I owe you an apology.’
‘Really father? What makes you say that?’
‘Oh don’t be difficult, Walter. Can’t you see I’m trying to make amends?’
‘Amends for what? For keeping me in the dark as to the true purpose of our journey, perhaps? For letting me believe Ralf was dead? For not taking me into your confidence when to do so might have made things entirely easier?’
He frowned. ‘I’ve explained all that. I couldn’t tell you the truth before for fear you might not agree. There was too much at stake. Deception wasn’t pleasant but necessary. Besides,’ he sniffed, ‘the others insisted.’
‘By “others” I take it you mean the countess.’
‘The countess, yes. You have to understand, she didn’t know you then. She only had my recommendation to go on. She had to satisfy herself that you were the right man for the job. And she was. I don’t know what it was you said to her in the falconry but she was mightily impressed I can tell you, mightily impressed.’
‘Yes, it’s all right father, you can stop now. There’s no squire to resurrect anymore. You can stop flattering me.’
‘No truly. What you did no other man could have done. Why else do you think I chose you to come with me?’
‘It would have been easier if you’d simply told me the truth. Goodness me, you knew what I felt about the boy being squired. I kept trying to point out his unsuitability but each time my protest was dismissed. You, the countess, Maynus - all of you. I was beginning to think I was the only person who could see it.’
‘Yes, that was cruel of us. But we had to play devil’s advocate. We had to be sure when the time came that you would be on Nicholas’s side.’
‘So it was a test?’
‘If you like. A test that you passed admirably, as I always knew you would.’
‘I sense a “but” coming.’
He grimaced. ‘The countess wanted more. It was after all her flesh and blood we were toying with.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I see. But none of this answers the bigger question.’
‘Which is?’
‘Ralf. Not only did you manufacture his death but when I confronted you about it you told me you had killed him. Why did you do that?’
‘That was naughty of me.’
‘Father you lied.’
He squirmed. ‘Not lied exactly. You kept pestering me for answers. You’ve no idea how close I came to telling you the truth. All right, you wanted answers, I gave you one. I was being metaphysical. And in a sense I did kill Ralf. It was necessary to make it appear so in order to make the plan work.’
‘That wasn’t your only deception.’
He sighed. ‘Go on. I’m on the rack. You may as well turn the wheel another notch.’
‘Ralf told me you and he had a battle - a duel he said.’
‘Did he now? Well that’s his word for it. There was a duel, but a duel of the mind not daggers at dawn - good Lord, what do you take me for? It was an intellectual disputation, not a physical one.’
‘And the nature of this disputation?’
‘The same one you and I debated upon. Ralf was always an argumentative cuss. That time I took the same position as you. He demonstrated to me my error just as I did to you. Only Ralf was no horseman. There was an accident and he was blinded.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s all there was to it.’
‘He told me it was Saint Edmund who blinded him. He said he had a debt to repay.’
‘That was his conscience. All I can tell you is that when Mother Odell approached him and explained what we were trying to do he was only too happy to help. There now. You know it all. Is that it? Am I dismissed?’
‘Not quite. You intimated that you and the countess were friends in your youth - more than friends in fact. Did you in fact have a special affection for her back then?
’
‘You’ve met her. What do you think?’
‘I think you were in love with her. I think that’s the hold she had over you. I think you’re still in love with her.’
His eyes glazed a little. ‘Even now she’s an amazing woman. Of course I was love with her. How could any man not be?’
‘I knew it!’
He shook his head. ‘But I loved God more.’
And there he left it. A short while later I heard him snoring in his saddle despite his protuberances. Fortunately Clytemnestra knew her own way home.
And now I must sleep too. Like Samson I have thought too hard and too long about this matter. I have done my best to resolve the puzzle but I have to admit I have failed. I know now I won’t ever know the truth about the boy Nicholas. And it cannot matter to me anymore for I have a higher conundrum that I am about to face, one in which the vicissitudes of earthly life can hardly matter. But I have assimilated all the facts I can and secreted a copy to Monica-Jerome’s safe-keeping to do as she sees fit. It is for others now to make of them what they will.
Perhaps I have underestimated my opponents. Gerard, I know, is not all he pretends - oh yes, I know his name. I deliberately got it wrong in order to annoy him. An angry man is a careless man. He was too keen to become my carer, too attentive to my needs. Someone is behind him, some shadowy figure I have not been able to identify. I could almost believe it might be my old adversary Geoffrey de Saye except that he died a dozen years ago. Even his revenge cannot reach beyond the grave - unless like Ralf he too has become one of the undead. They are all among the undead now, in my mind at least - Samson, the countess, earl Hamelin, Maynus, Jocelin. And in the great scheme of things what does it really matter? Maybe the world is better with a mystery or two left unsolved. I will just lie here for a while with my eyes closed. Gerard will find me in the morning and think me dead. But I won’t be. I’ll still be here listening and thinking - teeheehee!
Devil's Acre Page 22
