[Sir Richard Straccan 01] - The Bone-Pedlar

by Sylvian Hamilton

  ‘When they coming, master?’

  ‘A week, maybe less. Wait and watch, Sawney. Have fun.’

  The creature laughed and turned back to the bushes. ‘Fun,’ it gloated. ‘Us’ll do that, master.’

  De Brasy looked up at the sun and down at his shadow. Time enough to reach the town and have a bit of fun himself.

  Chapter 24

  The Cistercian monks of Saint Mary the Virgin at Altraham, shockingly hard up after floods drowned their flock of sheep and a storm threw down their barns, had decided to prod the conscience of the laity by putting the relics of their house in a wicker handcart and trundling them round the country to rouse sympathy and raise funds. A peep at Saint Joseph for a penny, or a halfpenny, or a fourthing, or—as they got hungrier—even a couple of eggs.

  It chanced that by the bridge at Hexford they met a similar turnout, the Austin canons from Saints Peter and Paul at Fimberly, a small priory in like straits and blessed with the same bright idea. They had the corpse of their Saint Osric, not a patch on Joseph, even if Fimberly had all, or almost all, of their saint while Altraham had only the skull and one hand of theirs, and a dubious leathery hairy object hotly defended as Saint Joseph’s scalp. The two parties approached the bridge from opposite ends, each leader waving his great cross and bawling to clear the road. Neither would retreat or give way. It was obvious, said the Cistercians, that Saint Joseph had precedence, a great saint whom all the world revered. A mere Saxon saintling, a petty local hermit of whom no one had ever heard, must take second place. Fair enough, retorted the Austin canons, if Joseph was genuine, but all the world knew Altraham’s saint—the dying bequest of a lecherous local lordling, who hoped thereby to get a leg-up into paradise—was a fake, just the skull and paw of an old monkey and a bit of dog skin. Remarks were also passed about the Cistercians going bare-arsed, all the world knowing, jeered the canons, that they wore no drawers under their habits!

  Matters proceeded a verbis ad verbera, and during the melee an enterprising bystander made off with Saint Joseph, what was left of him, and so poor Altraham lost its only treasure, and must now go home in disgrace.

  They sat at the roadside, bruised, torn, muddy and sullen, and didn’t even look up as two horsemen approached.

  ‘Brothers,’ said Straccan, ‘have you seen a fair-haired man riding a black horse pass this way? Perhaps with a little girl?’

  They had not, nor would they have noticed so despondent were they. But Brother Udemar still clutched his collecting box and, without hope, just out of habit, he rattled it under Straccan’s stallion’s nose. Zingiber shied violently and nearly unseated his rider.

  ‘What a bloody silly thing to do,’ said Bane. ‘I’ve a mind to stick that box up your arse!’

  Brother Udemar gave him a belligerent look but thought better of a retort. Zingiber curvetted and pranced a bit more but let himself be soothed, although showing the whites of his eyes to the monks.

  Straccan surveyed the row of tattered churchmen. ‘What happened to you?’

  They told him.

  ‘Well,’ said Straccan, ‘you’ve still got the cart.’

  What good was that? They had no bones to show!

  ‘Bones are bones,’ Straccan observed. He looked absently at the church and churchyard a short way from the bridge. ‘I doubt anyone could tell one old skull from another,’ he said.

  They followed his gaze. Possibility dawned. They looked shiftily at one another. Brother Stephen, the youngest, just out of the novitiate, stared blankly with one eye; the other was closed and blackening fast. The penny dropped. Scandalised, he shouted, ‘You mean, dig someone up?’ His brethren fell to hushing and shushing him, and one even clapped a hand over the boy’s mouth.

  ‘Is there a decent place to spend the night on this road?’ Bane asked. There was a Templars’ hostel, they told him eagerly, four leagues along, easily reached before dark.

  ‘We must be on our way,’ said Straccan. ‘Here …’ He leaned over and dropped a penny into Brother Udemar’s box. ‘God be with you, Brothers. I hope you find your lost bones.’

  Out of sight of the battered troop they began to laugh. Sir Miles and Larktwist reached Hexford bridge at dusk and decided to spend the night in the church porch. There was no alternative, Hexford being nothing but a huddle of mud hovels, a church and the priest’s house—a slightly larger hovel than the rest. There was a half full moon swimming between scudding clouds and frequent showers of stinging rain.

  Knocking at the priest’s door brought his frightened hearth-mate from her bed, wrapped in a ragged blanket. ‘Father Leonard’s away,’ she said. ‘You ain’t goin to lock me up again, are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cos Father’s paid the ransom, all but a bit, and he’ll pay that, honest!’

  ‘What ransom?’ Miles asked, puzzled.

  ‘What Father Len had to pay to get me back, when the king’s men took me away.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Miles. ‘That!’ He hid a smile. Annoyed by an upsurge of opposition from the clergy, all of them inconvenienced and many impoverished by the Interdict, King John had locked up their barns and storehouses, demanding payment before he would restore them. Far worse, he had ordered all their unofficial wives, mistresses, hearth-mates, bidie-ins, whatever, to be locked up until their partners bailed them out. Country-wide, from panic-stricken parish priests left to mind their own babies, wash their own drawers and tend their own cook-pots, and from arrogant bishops deprived of their nocturnal consolations, a great stream of silver poured into the welcoming royal coffers. After a brief separation from their masters, the ladies were returned home unhurt, many of them having quite enjoyed the enforced holiday from their bed-and-board obligations. The whole country was still giggling.

  ‘No,’ Miles reassured her. ‘It’s nothing to do with that. We just want to pass the night in the church porch.’

  ‘That’s all right. You can put your horses in the byre if you want; it’s out back.’

  They settled the horses and the brute in the priest’s byre, company for his scrawny cow, and made themselves as comfortable as they could among their packs in the porch. It was cold and the flagstones were damp and slimy with moss, but it was out of the wind. Larktwist mumbled as he rummaged in their packs for food.

  ‘Think yourself lucky, spy,’ said Miles. ‘You are sitting here a free man, out of the rain about to eat your dinner, instead of being head down in the turds back at Fenrick. Have a bit of pie.’ He cut and passed a slice.

  ‘Lucky, is it?’ Larktwist scowled, chewing and spitting. ‘Well, I’d as lief not be dead, but it’s no great good fortune to be sitting here eating bat-shit pie!’

  ‘Eh?’ Miles took a bite and spat it out. ‘The swindling old besom! It’s green with mould inside!’

  ‘Not the only thing that’s green,’ muttered Larktwist, hurling the rest of his portion out among the graves. ‘Here, I’ve got a pasty somewhere …’ He burrowed in his layers of clothing and produced a flattened object wrapped in dock leaves. He broke it in half and gave one piece to Miles. ‘This was baked this morning. I bought it hot from the oven. Remember? I suggested you might do the same but would you listen? It’s not enough for two, really, but better than nothing.’

  After eating their meagre supper they slept the sleep of the just. Miles was woken by a sharp poke in the ribs and Larktwist’s hand over his mouth to stop him crying out. He removed the hand, none too gently. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Something funny’s going on. Out there. Look!’

  In the graveyard among the hummocks and rampant weeds, knee-deep in mist, were figures moving about, bending, standing up again, making strange gestures. There was an occasional soft thud but otherwise silence. Owls hooted. Miles felt the short hairs at the back of his neck prickle as they rose.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

  ‘Dunno. Ghosts?’

  Miles crossed himself. ‘Lord, protect us!’ They pressed back into the deep blackness
of their shelter, watching. There were five figures, weird shapes in the moonlit mist, and their eerie silence was unnerving. ‘It might be witchcraft,’ Miles hissed. ‘Some evil rite. They must be stopped! The priest—’

  ‘The priest’s away,’ Larktwist reminded him.

  ‘Well, we must do something’

  ‘Keep our heads down?’ Larktwist suggested hopefully.

  Miles swallowed. An enemy, a siege, a battle, a melee, these he could cope with. The powers of evil were outside his experience. Then he had an idea. Very quietly, praying it wouldn’t screech, he eased the church door open and slipped inside. He found the holy water stoup, made a cup of his leather bonnet and scooped some water into it. Turning, he almost fell over Larktwist who had crept in behind him.

  ‘Get out of the bloody way,’ he snapped.

  ‘I was just making sure nothing happened to you. Besides, it’s safer in here. They wouldn’t dare come inside the church. Where you going? There’s no need to be brave, is there? Oh, Christ, I hate heroes.’

  Miles moved stealthily out into the porch again where he lit their hand-lantern, closing its sides to hide the flame and, half-crouching, he began to creep across the mounds and hollows towards the uncanny group. He was within a few feet of them when there was a loud crack and one hooded ghostly shape said, ‘Shit!’

  ‘What’s up?’

  The sodding shovel’s broken!’

  ‘Use your hands.’

  ‘You come here and use yours,’ said the first phantom furiously.

  ‘Why should I do all the bloody work?’

  Crossly, because his legs were still shaking, Miles stood up, spilling his capful of water. ‘Oi,’ he said. ‘What are you lot up to?’ The first ghost squealed and fell prostrate at his feet. The others grabbed hold of one another and stood, shaking and stammering.

  ‘W—what is it? Is it an angel? B—blessed Saint Joseph, is it you?’

  ‘No it’s not,’ snorted Miles. ‘What’s going on?’ He stepped forward, and just then the moonlight slanted into the shallow hole they’d been infilling, and on a knobbly sack lying among their feet.

  ‘Let’s have a look at you.’ He uncovered the lantern and held it up. Monks! White monks, probably. Their robes, drawn up and tucked into their belts as if they were reaping, were so stained and torn it was difficult to be sure. They had obviously had a hard time of it recently. He had never seen a bunch of monks so tattered and battered, to say nothing of shifty. They might as well carry a banner with up to no good blazoned on it. But it was not for him to interfere with what must be Church business, however peculiar it seemed. Still, curiosity prodded him.

  ‘What’s in the sack?’

  ‘What sack?’ Brother Paul looked round wildly for inspiration.

  ‘There. By your foot.’

  ‘Oh. That sack. They are the … the bones … the bones of holy Saint Joseph,’ babbled Brother Paul desperately. A small gasp came from the others who had stopped clutching one another and looked poised to run at any moment. ‘They were stolen from us,” Brother Paul continued. ‘We have recovered them.’

  ‘A likely story!’

  ‘I swear, Sir, we were set upon, here, on the very bridge itself, just yesterday. And abused! They called us a bunch of bare-arsed sheep-shaggers, may they rot in hell! And we were beaten. And robbed.’

  ‘Who robbed you?’

  They all spoke at once. ‘Misbegotten black canons! Those Austin buggers! Them with their beards!’ That at least had the genuine ring of indignant truth.

  ‘What?’ Larktwist had silently appeared at Miles’s side. ‘You were robbed by other monks?’

  ‘It isn’t funny,’ said Brother Paul angrily. ‘God and Saint Joseph will punish the ungodly!’

  ‘Is it true?’ Miles asked. ‘You swear it before God?’

  Another collective gasp, but Brother Paul—who would end his days, greatly revered, as Abbot Paul—was equal to it. ‘It’s perfectly true. They beat us; and we were robbed. I swear it before God!’

  ‘Oh well, if that’s your story and you’re sticking to it,’ said Miles resignedly, ‘you’d better be on your way before someone else decides to have a go at you.’

  ‘Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir.’ Three bags full, Sir, thought Brother Paul resentfully. He picked up the sack and slung it over his shoulder. It rattled. One of the others picked up a collecting box. Another slyly kicked the broken shovel out of sight under a bush.

  ‘Here.’ Miles rummaged in his pocket and dropped a halfpenny in the box. ‘Now, Brothers. Have you seen a man and his servant on this road? He rides a tall bay, the servant rides a grey.’

  ‘Yesterday. They passed us here just after the fight,’ said Brother Udemar helpfully.

  ‘He gave us a penny,’ said Brother Paul.

  ‘Well, a halfpenny’s all you’ll get from me and lucky at that, seeing you woke us up! Were they heading north?’

  ‘He asked if we knew a place to sleep. We told him there’s a Templars’ hostel, a pilgrim station, twelve miles on.’

  ‘Thank you, Brothers.’ And to Larktwist, ‘Get the horses.’ They spurred across the bridge and were soon out of sight.

  ‘Let’s get out of here quick,’ said Brother Paul.

  It was early afternoon when they sighted two riders on the road ahead. A bay horse and a grey. Miles gave a happy cheer and the riders halted, looking back as he spurred towards them.

  ‘Sir Richard Straccan?’

  ‘Yes. Who are you?’

  ‘I am Miles Hoby. My uncle bade me follow and find you. He said you might find me useful.’

  Straccan beamed. ‘Did he? Good old William! Thank you and welcome, Sir Miles.’

  Larktwist grinned sheepishly at Bane. ‘Hallo.’

  ‘What are you doing here? This chap’s some sort of spy,’ Bane said. ‘I came across him at Altarwell. Someone has paid him to follow us. What’s he doing with you, Sir?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Miles. ‘I can explain but it’s a bit of a story. Have you had your dinner yet? I’ve come a long way on an empty stomach, and if you’re willing, we can stop a bit, have something to eat and I’ll tell you all about our friend here.’

  Chapter 25

  A small boy sat on Janiva’s table, dirty, tear-streaked and scared. His mother, a tanned earth-coloured woman drab in muddy wadmal and clutching a basket of eggs, stood watching impassively. Janiva coaxed the boy to calm. When her cool fingers touched his brow his blue eyes flickered and closed.

  ‘Now, Peter,’ she said. ‘Open wide!

  He gaped obediently.

  ‘Put your tongue out as far as you can.’

  The pink tongue, startlingly clean as it emerged from the filthy little face, moved a little but not very much.

  ‘Lift it up for me, Peter. Stretch it as high as you can.’

  The boy was tongue-tied, and now she could see why: a taut membrane held the tongue captive. She unclasped her scissors from the chain at her belt and snipped quickly. There was a small spurt of blood which stopped at once, and the boy blinked and grinned.

  ‘There you are, Peter.’

  Janiva lifted him off the table and gave him a mug of water. ‘Go outside, rinse your mouth and spit.’

  ‘Well,’ said the boy’s mother, ‘if I’d knowed that’s all it was, I coulda done that.’

  ‘Of course you could, Madge. It’s just a matter of knowing what to do.’

  ‘Well, thanks. Thanks, Mistress. Them other little sods won’t tease im all the time now. Ere …’ She placed the basket of eggs on the table.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Janiva.

  After they left, she wiped away the muddy marks left on the table by her small patient and stroked her little cream cat, which dabbed at the ends of her braids with its tiny pink-padded paws. She set the kitten down near the fire, where it patted at the moving shadows of leaves outside the window, before settling down to serious washing in the middle of which it fell asleep. Janiva swept the hearth and mended the
fire before turning to a row of small pots on the table, their contents now cool enough for her to push in the rolled leather stoppers and tie a thin skin disc over each top. This done, she put them away in a cupboard and returned to the fire to stir the soup in its hanging kettle. A testing sniff prompted her to add some dried herbs and raise the kettle higher above the heat. Then she dipped water from the tub behind the door and poured it into her scrying bowl. She closed the door, setting its bar in place before seating herself at the table with the bowl between her hands.

  Since she had seen Gilla in the scrying bowl the barrier was broken; now she could call the child’s image to the bowl every day, praying for her safety and thanking God and his Blessed Mother that she still lived. But she had no idea where.

  She was familiar now with the isolated tower and its surrounding bare rocky hills. But it could be anywhere: England, Normandy, Brittany … And she knew the woman now, the witch. Knew her for the one who had glamoured Straccan; knew her by her taint, the first time her image appeared in the bowl. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and evenly for a few moments until her thoughts sank down into the quiet place where they could stand aside and let the pictures come. She saw the tower for a few seconds only, clouds above and the little lake beyond, and then, fast, fast, the images rose to the surface, one pushing through another. Gilla, asleep on a truckle bed in an otherwise empty small room, its cold curved stone walls red in the light that came through a high slit window. A group of ragged grimy children in a subdued huddle outside a closed iron gate. A gaunt young man, his clothes soiled and crumpled, kneeling in a chalked circle, his lips moving in prayer. Sun-bright blue sky. A hawk stooping to its prey, a flurry of feathers and the splash of the lark’s blood on the outstretched gloved hand of the rider below, the beautiful woman whom Janiva knew was holding Gilla captive.