The Turn of Midnight

by Minette Walters

  ‘I am in God’s hands.’

  ‘As am I.’

  ‘Not so. You condemn yourself by your actions.’

  A smile flickered across the boy’s face as he rested his sword point on the old man’s ermine collar. ‘Yet you are nothing without these trappings. Even the lowest slave would mock if you stood naked before him and claimed to be one of God’s chosen.’ He leant forward to part the cloak with his left hand, revealing a loose-fitting gold-embroidered gown. ‘You are fashioned as other men. You bleed as readily. What is it that sets you apart except your robes?’

  Bourne’s pale eyes glittered angrily. ‘I carry the King’s warrant and am here on his business. If his armies find me dead when the danger has passed, they will search out every living person within twenty miles of this place and put them to the question with hot irons. You will have their agony on your conscience as your entrails are torn from you, and your limbs broken on the wheel.’

  Was he speaking the truth? Ian wondered, trying to recall if My Lord had made mention of riding for the King when he’d come to Develish. The idea made him nervous. What if he and Olyver had been wrong about Thaddeus? What if Thaddeus knew Bourne was a King’s man and had fled to save himself? He couldn’t deny he was a thief. They were all thieves. Murderers, too, if the men Ian and Olyver were killing bore their orders from the King.

  A smile played across My Lord’s thin lips as he pushed Ian’s blade aside with the edge of a gnarled finger. ‘Your hand shakes with terror. You understand now how great your offence is in daring to challenge one so far above you.’

  It was true. Ian could feel his courage deserting him. Whatever determination had carried him this far seemed suddenly gone, and he sought desperately for what to do next. His brain, worn out by a sleepless night and the constant battering of the weather, had no answers. His only thought was that if he left My Lord alive, he and Olyver would forfeit their lives for certain; and if he killed him, they might not.

  Would he have gone through with it? He didn’t know. His heart cringed at the thought of slaughtering an unarmed man, for it would make him a murderer indeed. Yet what choice did he have? A rush of weary tears rose in his eyes when Thaddeus’s voice spoke from outside.

  ‘It is I who challenges you, My Lord. The offences you have committed against the innocent people of Dorset will not go unpunished.’

  A huge fist reached past Ian, grasping the collar around the old man’s neck and pulling him bodily past the boy before flinging him to the ground. No words were exchanged as Thaddeus cut the bonds and stakes from his wrists and ankles and used them to bind his prisoner’s hands. His concern was for Ian. ‘Are you all right, my friend?’

  ‘I think so,’ said the boy, jumping from the wagon. Over Thaddeus’s shoulder, he saw Olyver emerge from the trees and begin running towards them. ‘What about you?’ There wasn’t an inch of Thaddeus’s body that didn’t carry lash marks, bruises or scratches. ‘We saw the soldier kicking you.’ He stared in fascination at the blood-stained sword in Thaddeus’s hand.

  ‘It’s nothing to fret about. There are more brambles than trees in this vile forest. Does the cut on your face trouble you?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Thaddeus stabbed his sword into the soft turf to keep it upright before bending to unfasten the jewelled clasp at the neck of My Lord’s cloak and pulling the garment off him. ‘This will give me some warmth at least. He’s a scrawny little brute but there’s width in the material.’

  ‘Where are your own clothes?’

  ‘Stolen by this thief and his men. I’ll have them back as soon as I strip the corpses.’

  Olyver arrived as he wrapped the cloak around himself, repositioning the clasp some six inches lower to allow for his broader shoulders and neck. ‘I’ll not forget this day or the debt of gratitude I owe you,’ he promised them.

  ‘We’re not safe yet,’ Olyver said urgently. ‘By my count there are still four in the trees. They’ll not fire on us while we have My Lord of Bourne prisoner, but I see no way to escape with our lives unless we take him with us.’

  Thaddeus retrieved his sword and rested the tip against the old man’s cheek, watching the rain wash gore and mud from the blade onto the grey skin. Both twins recoiled at the look of hatred in Thaddeus’s eyes. ‘You give him hope of rescue,’ he said. ‘Only these two wretches still live.’ He nodded to the men who’d been screaming.

  ‘I’m not sure every man I hit is dead,’ confessed Olyver.

  ‘Nor I,’ said Ian. ‘They fell but they may only be injured.’

  Thaddeus looked around the clearing. ‘How did you make your way here? Did you ride?’ They nodded. ‘Where did you leave your horses?’

  ‘In the same place we found Killer. Half a mile inside the wood.’

  A brief smile lifted Thaddeus’s lips. ‘Is he injured? He fought harder than I to avoid capture.’

  Ian, as keen to depart as Olyver, assured Thaddeus that Killer was frightened but unharmed and begged him to make haste. ‘We found the rope and traces you brought from Develish so there’s nothing to keep us here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go while we can.’

  Olyver nodded. ‘Our luck won’t last. We’ll not explain this easily if travellers come along the highway.’

  Thaddeus shook his head. ‘I’ve a score to settle with My Lord of Bourne. Fetch our horses and all the harness you can find and bring them to the edge of the woodland, then stay out of sight until you hear my call. What I choose to do here is no concern of yours.’

  Ian flicked a nervous glance at the old man. ‘He said he’s on the King’s business. It will cause trouble if he dies.’

  ‘Only for him,’ answered Thaddeus before sending them on their way with a warning to concentrate on their own tasks and ignore his. ‘Guard your consciences well,’ he said, ‘and let me guard mine. You’ve done nothing this day to earn God’s judgement. To kill a man in battle is not a crime.’

  His words were meant for My Lord as much as for Ian and Olyver, and he took grim humour from the fear in Bourne’s face. Judging by the way the old wretch cowered on the ground, he expected death within seconds.

  Five miles north, in the steward’s office at Develish, Lady Anne was writing in a ledger by candlelight. The rain was incessant, causing Devil’s Brook and the moat around the manor house to overtop their banks. She recorded that the fathers of Thaddeus’s young companions were building sheep pens and a shelter on the pastureland outside the enclosure while the rest of her people, consumed with anxiety, were gathered in the great hall. The news that Thaddeus had visited during the night to report that he and his companions had found plentiful supplies of food had been a cause for rejoicing until rumours began that he’d said this unnatural darkness was the beginning of the Black Death.

  Gyles Startout, the only person to speak with Thaddeus, did his best to calm the fears, but his eleven-year-old nephew Robert proved more successful. Lady Anne paused in her writing to listen to his treble voice win laughter from the crowd by regaling them with a disrespectful tale of how his uncle’s elderly eyes had mistaken a horse on a halter for a crowd of bandits. He embroidered the story wickedly, but few doubted he spoke the truth when he said Thaddeus had come only for collars and rope to pull a wagon of grain from Athelhelm to Develish.

  Lady Anne had many reasons to bless the boy’s levelheadedness, not least his matter-of-fact observation to Gyles that Eleanor should be released from her prison when the rain began in earnest. There wasn’t a serf’s hut inside the enclosure which was strong enough to survive a storm, as they were built as temporary shelters when news of the pestilence first reached Develish, and the decision was made to bring everyone inside the house. With two hundred crammed into limited space, the serfs had had to sleep in serried rows on the floor of the great hall, and none had argued against Eleanor being placed in Lady Anne’s charge. Better the vicious girl be confined to a chamber than allowed to wreak her madness amongst the crowd.

  Robert had willingly
accepted Milady’s request to move amongst the rows and relay her order that no one was to enter her room while Eleanor remained inside it. She asked him how much he’d heard of what Thaddeus had said from his position beside the buttress, and when he answered ‘everything’, she begged him to keep the words to himself. Talk of the land being wasted and Death sweeping all before it would do nothing to alleviate fear, she explained, and there would be no peace anywhere if all began jumping at shadows because they believed rats and fleas caused the sickness.

  But what if Thaddeus was right? Robert had asked. Shouldn’t Develish heed his warnings if he’d ridden so far to give them? For answer, Lady Anne had urged him to have faith in the moat.

  Water prevented rats from crossing to the enclosure as assuredly as it prevented strangers. Had it not kept them safe so far?

  As the laughter in the hall died away, she bent again to the ledger. This was a public record which she planned to leave for others to find. In the early days she had written it only as a history of her people in the hope their names would live after them if all perished from the pestilence, but now it had become a story of survival. She dipped her quill in the ink and inscribed Thaddeus’s ideas on how the pestilence was spread, adding two paragraphs of her own at the end.

  If we have proved anything in Develish, it is surely that isolation is effective against the sickness. In this we have been helped by the moat. Only Gyles Startout has crossed since we burnt the bridge and cut ourselves off from the world beyond our boundaries. I instructed him to wait fourteen days on the other side to prove himself well before allowing him entry, and when the time came for his return, Thaddeus insisted he swim the water naked to prove to our people that he was free of boils and blackened blood. But I wonder if the discarding of his clothes wasn’t as important as his two-week exclusion. Fleas prefer the warmth of garments to the sudden cold of bare skin.

  More and more, I wonder if Thaddeus has found the answer to how a healthy man might carry the sickness upon him. Yet it’s a strange irony that the person we should thank for our continued protection is the man I married. Sir Richard’s desire to be admired by visitors persuaded him to order our people to forgo work on their strips in order to spend a season digging the moat and, while many were weakened by the exercise, it may be that they will owe their lives to his conceit.

  A stir in the air told her the door had opened and she sensed who her visitor was without having to raise her head. Only one man in Develish felt entitled to intrude upon her without invitation or good reason. At times, she wondered if he thought his persistence in seeking her out would soften her heart towards him. If so, he was wrong. ‘You have need of me, Master de Courtesmain?’

  The Frenchman bent his neck in exaggerated deference. ‘My apologies, milady. I was unaware of your presence here. I assumed you were with Lady Eleanor. She was much in need of your care when John Trueblood passed her to your charge during the night.’

  ‘At least she was able to change into dry clothes. Not all are so fortunate. The men who guarded the walls and now build sheep pens on the other side of the moat have been wet to their skins for hours.’

  Annoyed that she wouldn’t look at him, Hugh de Courtesmain gave a mild admonishment. ‘Peasants are better able to withstand discomfort than a nobleman’s daughter, milady.’

  Lady Anne laid aside her quill and raised her eyes. ‘You’ve taught me something I didn’t know, Master de Courtesmain,’ she said dryly. ‘I was clearly in error to think Isabella felt pain when Lady Eleanor plunged the bodkin into her breast. By what virtue do serfs feel discomfort less than Sir Richard’s daughter? Enlighten me. Do they have thicker skin?’

  Hugh de Courtesmain cursed himself for yet again giving this woman cause to mock him. To speak with her was to walk on eggshells. He had been trained to answer to hardened lords who knew the place of serfs, not to credulous widows who treated them as equals. ‘I misspoke, milady. I should have said they are more accustomed to discomfort than Lady Eleanor.’

  She nodded. ‘On that we can agree. But being accustomed to hardship doesn’t make it any more bearable. If you believe otherwise, cross the moat on the raft and assist our men in building sheep pens.’

  ‘I’m not tutored in the art of building, milady.’

  She smiled slightly. ‘Nor I, sir, but I believe I could hold a post steady if required.’ She studied him for a moment. ‘For an educated man, you are slow to understand that the world is changing, Master de Courtesmain. There will be little call for stewards if the pestilence robs all England of its peasant class. The ability to build and to grow food will far outweigh an ability to read when shelter is needed and mouths want feeding.’

  Hugh assumed she was signalling her intent to demote him now that she knew Thurkell was safe, and he eyed her bitterly. It wasn’t his fault that her husband had chosen him for steward, nor that he had misjudged who held the power in Develish. ‘I deserve better, milady. Had you granted me the same confidence you grant Thurkell, I could have served you better. I have tried these many weeks to prove my loyalty to you. Is it because I’m a Norman that you refuse to trust me?’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s because your mind is closed, Master de Courtesmain. You interpret everything I say in terms of yourself instead of looking for the wider meaning. I sought only to advise you to learn skills while you have the chance. A man of many talents will find more opportunities to succeed when the pestilence passes than one who has few.’

  ‘Perhaps I don’t share your view of the future, milady. Should I be criticised for that? God gave me the talent of intelligence and I believe it will serve me well whatever lies ahead.’

  Lady Anne held his gaze for a moment before bending to her work again. ‘I hope you’re right, sir. God could surely not have been so mischievous as to give the same talent to bonded men . . . or, worse, bastard slaves and women.’

  Four

  The drovers’ route above Athelhelm

  WHEN THE SERF FROM DEVELISH showed no immediate desire to kill him, My Lord of Bourne struggled to a sitting position and rested his back against a wagon wheel. His brindled lapdog crept from beneath the wagon to lick his face and, as the creature nestled on his lap and the rain drenched them both, he studied Thaddeus fearfully from beneath hooded lids.

  The man wasn’t human, he thought. Nothing affected him. Not pain, not cold, not lack of sleep. Only a creature of the Devil could take the beatings this serf had done and still find the strength to tear himself free of the earth to smite fighting men. Even his great height singled him out as unnatural. Not a word had passed his lips, yet by some magic he had conjured identical twins to his side. It was rare for such siblings to survive a year when no bonded woman had the milk to sustain two demanding infants. But this Develish pair had grown almost to adulthood. How so, unless through heathen practices and black arts?

  Bourne felt no emotion when Thaddeus dispatched the dying by cutting their throats, but he watched in alarm as every corpse was stripped of its garments. The intention was clear: to leave the unclothed bodies above ground for scavengers to devour. If the bones were found, there would be nothing to show what manner of men had died, who they were or which lord they’d served. A shiver ran through him as he recalled the words of the boy who had entered his wagon.

  You are nothing without these trappings. Even the lowest slave would mock if you stood naked before him and claimed to be one of God’s chosen.

  Thaddeus grew more fearsome as he re-dressed himself in the clothes that had been taken from him. All were stained with blood, even the boots, but none so badly as the fur-trimmed coat that carried the captain’s gore. To Bourne’s troubled imagination, the giant had the look of a warrior who wore Death with indifference. If he had a conscience at all, it would not be troubled by the murder of a frail, unarmed noble.

  Thaddeus dropped Bourne’s cloak into his lap before tossing all the other garments into the wagon. He followed them with the Develish horse collars he’d been wearing a
cross his shoulders when he was captured, and the soldiers’ swords, bows and arrows. As a final act of desecration, he dragged the dead deep into the woodland on either side of the drovers’ lane before returning with the livery and weapons of the last four men he’d killed and those of the grizzled fighting man who had died by Ian’s hand.

  Persuaded his time had come, My Lord found his tongue. ‘Will you treat me with the same contempt?’ he asked in French.

  Thaddeus paused to look at him. ‘You have my contempt now,’ he replied in the same language. ‘What more do you fear?’

  ‘That you’ll leave me unburied.’

  ‘What difference will a handful of earth make? You’ll become food for worms whether you’re above ground or below it.’

  ‘Only the Devil would say such a thing. Is that what you are?’

  A faint smile twitched at Thaddeus’s mouth. ‘Believe it, My Lord. Believe your crimes have found you out and Satan has come to claim you.’ He watched the old man’s tongue flicker nervously across his lips. ‘You don’t seem to share your companions’ faith in the relic you wear around your neck. Why not? You persuaded your men it would protect them from everything, even the pestilence.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Your captain told me of it each time he pulled out his cock. He believed a splinter of wood from the Holy Cross could ward off witchcraft and demons. He must have died wondering why you’d lied to him.’

  ‘Your mockery proves you’re of the Devil.’

  ‘Only Develish,’ answered Thaddeus. ‘The spelling is not the same.’ He gestured along the sunken lane. ‘Is this a drovers’ route? Did it bring you here from Holcombe?’ When he received no response, he set off to where the soldiers’ horses were tethered at the side of the road.