The Black and the White

by Alis Hawkins

  Hob also stands. ‘Tom didn’t tell anybody. I told him to keep what he saw between the two of us.’

  ‘Nobody told me,’ Stephen looks uncomfortably at me. ‘I’m easily roused — you woke me up with your coming and going.’

  I stare at him and understanding rises up like vomit. He slept by the fire last night instead of in the hut with me. He was afraid of what I might do.

  Hob folds himself down onto his stool again, leaving me standing, alone. ‘If I woke you up with my comings and goings,’ I tell Stephen, ‘then you know that on the night the parson died I walked on to the hearth and nowhere else! You must have heard me shouting? Hob talking to me?’

  He nods.

  ‘Well then! The demon can’t have taken me to the parsonage if you heard me on the hearth.’

  He doesn’t reply.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Look, Martin, I never said I thought you went anywhere. But I can’t say for sure because, that time, I didn’t wake up when you left, only when I heard you shouting and Hob calming you down.’

  I move back to my stool and sit down.

  ‘So what did everybody say?’ Hob wants to know.

  Stephen moves uncomfortably on the stool. ‘Most didn’t say much. There were a couple who wanted to know why the coroner said that he’d seen a man dragged out of a cesspit who looked the same.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said that if the air’s foul enough, a man’ll be smothered by it as surely as by a wadded blanket.’

  ‘He’s not saying there was foul air in the parson’s house?’ Tom wants to know.

  Stephen shakes his head. ‘No. Said he might’ve been smothered by other means.’

  A wadded blanket. A hand held over the nose and mouth. We’d all heard of deformed children smothered at birth like that, or a wounded man likely to die in agony. But a healthy, vigorous person?

  ‘Nobody wanted to argue with him,’ Stephen says, ‘he’s the coroner’s officer. But then John Longfellow spoke up.’

  ‘John Longfellow? Beatrice’s father?’

  Stephen nods at me without meeting my eye.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Said Thomas Hassell should’ve knelt and been blessed like everybody else, ’stead of asking questions like a man who disbelieved. If he’d asked her blessing, John Longfellow reckons, the parson wouldn’t’ve died.’

  Of course, no sooner had this seed been sown in the minds of the jury than there sprang up a desire to bring the proceedings to a close as quickly as possible. Nobody wanted to rouse the saint’s displeasure lest they, too, be found dead one morning.

  And so it was official.

  Thomas Hassell had died of a seizure.

  CHAPTER 20

  Two days later, with the mare newly shod and sprightly from plentiful food and rest, we leave Tredgham make our way south. The clouds that stretched from one skyline to the other when we woke have thinned now, and the grey of the sky is broken through, here and there, to blue.

  With the cart re-provisioned, we made our farewells yesterday. As a parting gift, the villagers gave us a pilgrim staff, though they seemed unsure which of us should receive it. It lies in the cart — I am leading the mare and do not need two hands encumbered and Hob is plying his bow, though whether from a desire to eat flesh after the Lenten restrictions of the hearth or to vent his continuing anger at the words the coroner’s officer spoke to us before he left Tredgham, I cannot tell.

  Master Abarrow came to the hearth yesterday morning. Sir Hugh Etienne, the coroner, had already departed with his secretary but Master Abarrow left his horse at the edge of the wood and came on foot to deliver a brief and pointed message before he followed them.

  ‘You’ll have heard that the jury found the parson died a natural death,’ he told Hob and me when he had separated us from Tom and Stephen. ‘That’s the jury’s verdict and it stands in the rolls. But I’m telling you this, there’s something I don’t like about Master Hassell’s death on the eve of his departure to Malmesbury. Something I don’t like at all. So I shall be keeping an ear out for the progress of your saint. I shall be listening for more miracles. And if miracles there are, all well and good. But if I hear of any more sudden deaths in her path, deaths which ought not to have happened, deaths not from the pestilence, then Sir Hugh and I shall be coming after you and we shall see how a second jury decides.’

  As the sun reaches midday, we stop at a ford over a tiny stream to let the mare drink and slake our own thirst. For some while, now, we have been travelling south on a road so well-kept that it must be a king’s highway. According to the directions we were given by the lordsman at Cricklade, we are to follow this road until we come to a village that stands on a river.

  Tomorrow, or the day after that, if his directions are to be believed, we should reach a town called Hungerford Regis and the road that will take us to our goal.

  ‘In two or three days we’ll be at Slievesdon,’ I say, wiping my wet hands on my tunic, ‘and we can give up these letters and earn our other ten shillings.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Hob says. ‘If that lanky lordsman’s to be trusted.’

  I have been trying to forget the harshness of the coroner’s words by imagining our welcome at Slievesdon as men worthy of a lord’s trust so Hob’s churlishness makes me snap.

  ‘Why wouldn’t we trust him? What possible reason have we got to doubt his word?’

  ‘What possible reason have we got to trust him? I know you were impressed by his servant and his rabbit cloak but all we know about him is that he’s good at getting what he wants. He bends and sways with the wind but he’ll always be standing at the end.’

  I remember the man’s forbearance in the face of Hob’s insolence, the loyalty which put his master’s needs above the inclination he surely had to teach Hob some manners.

  ‘He does what he needs to do to for his master.’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you! He says whatever he needs to, to get what he wants and then he can deny it later.’

  ‘You think he’d forswear himself?’

  Hob’s face says he thinks it as likely as worms in an arse-dragging dog.

  ‘What I think,’ he says, swaying out of the mare’s way as she stretches her neck to nip at him, ‘is this. We’ll go to Slievesdon — risking the pestilence and other people’s interference along the way — and we’ll ask for the bailiff and give this oh-so-important letter to him for his master. Then we’ll present him with the other letter — the one that’s supposed to guarantee our second ten shillings — and we’ll find that it says, “this is an impudent fellow who’s had ten shillings off me and means to have another ten. Take the ten shillings back, whip him and send him on his way”.’

  ‘Well that’s easily proved, one way or the other.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By reading the letter.’

  ‘You can read?’

  I nod. ‘The parson in my village taught me.’ No need to tell him just how much William Orford taught me.

  ‘Well, go on then. Fetch the damned thing.’

  I do not suggest he holds the mare’s head, I simply stop her and climb up on to the cart wheel to lift the canvas and open the press. As I take the folded sheets out of their bag, I see that our soldier took seriously Hob’s suggestion that the man who had been bailiff at his departure might, by now, be dead and buried. On the outside of one letter is the inscription, ‘For the private attention of Sir John de Loselei’, and, on the other, ‘For the attention of the present bailiff to Sir John de Loselei’.

  I put the letter addressed to Sir John back in the bag and hold the other in both hands. It is sealed with a shoeleather’s thickness of wax.

  As I stand there, hesitating, Hob reaches over, takes the letter from me and breaks the seal with a quick snap. I catch the merest curl of his lip as he hands it back to me. Coward, it says.

  The hand is large and surprisingly neat. And, to my relief, it is in English. I had been suddenly afraid that i
t might be in French. Latin I know, but not French.

  ‘To my friend and the bailiff of my master, Nicholas Alleyne,’ I read aloud, ‘or, if he is gone to his maker since my departure, to whomsoever has taken up his office, Richard Longe sends hearty greetings from Cricklade where you know the business I am sent to oversee.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ Hob cuts in. ‘We don’t know the business of that meeting he was supposed to have.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘How do we know? It might. Messengers have suffered for the message before now.’

  I hold up the letter. ‘Shall I carry on?’

  He waves a hand and I turn back to Richard Longe’s letter.

  ‘May it please you to know the fellow who carries this letter is Hob Cleve, a self-proclaimed freeborn man.’ I feel Hob stiffening at my side but continue reading. ‘I have paid him ten shillings, him and his companion, and have promised ten more for bringing the letter I am sending to my lord. If he has delivered Sir John’s letter with the seal unbroken, then he is worthy of his ten shillings. If I have read him aright, he will have broken the seal on this and found someone to tell him its contents before now.’

  I grin at the sharpness of Richard Longe’s perception as I carry on reading.

  ‘If you can persuade him to take up a tenancy on my lord’s manor, do so. For I believe he will be reeve within five years and the richest man in the village within ten.’

  I look up, expecting to see my own grin on Hob’s face. Instead, I find anger.

  ‘Thinks he knows my mind, does he?’

  ‘It’s not a slur, Hob. He says you’ll be rich.’

  He turns on me. ‘And I will be rich! Make no mistake, Martin Collyer — I’ll be a rich man in ten years’ time. But not in a village. I’m done with being a manor-boy. When the pestilence is finished with us, if there are still cities standing, that’s where I shall make my fortune.’ His fists are clenched and his face has a fighting flush. ‘And if this man —’ he plucks the letter from my hands — ‘thinks he can call me bondsman and runaway, then he’s —’

  I see what he intends and snatch the letter from him before he can tear it. Backing away, I put the letter inside my tunic. ‘He doesn’t! Where does he say that?’

  ‘Self-proclaimed freeborn man?’ Hob grinds the words out, his eyes as narrow as his mouth. ‘He’s as good as accusing me!’

  ‘He’s telling this Nicholas Alleyne what you told him, that’s all!’

  ‘But he didn’t need to say anything about me beyond my name! He’s telling the bailiff I may be taken and kept on the manor!’

  ‘Hob —’

  He raises a finger in warning. ‘We’re not going. Don’t think we are.’

  I learned long ago that speech only serves to provoke a man in such a mood. The time for argument will come when we stand at the crossroads that will take us to Sir John de Loselei’s manor. Hob can turn his back on ten shillings and his given word if he wants to but I will not. I must be blameless if I want the saint’s continued blessing.

  Why did I snatch the letter from him? I did it without thought, just plucked it from his fingers and back into my keeping. But, now I have it again, perhaps I should destroy it quietly. Because there is more to the letter than I read to Hob. More than I am able to read.

  After the dating-line, Richard Longe appended a final sentence in a language I do not recognise, but which I take to be French.

  Is it a private greeting between friends or instructions as to how Hob and I should be dealt with?

  For an hour and more after opening the letter, Hob does not speak and I become increasingly anxious. Finally, I cannot remain silent. Though the thought of parting from him, of being alone once more, dismays me, I must know what he is thinking. I must prepare myself if he is truly set on breaking his word to Richard Longe.

  ‘If I remember the instructions we were given,’ I glance at him warily over the mare’s neck, ‘we should reach Marlborough soon. And then we have to look for the village where we cross the river.’

  ‘Mildenhall,’ Hob says. ‘The village with the bridge is called Mildenhall.’

  I nod. ‘Then we follow the river to Hungerford Regis —’

  ‘And then take the road that leads south to Salisbury and on to Slievesdon. I know, Martin. I was the one who didn’t get the instructions muddled.’

  His eyes are fixed on the way ahead. Does his rhyming off the route mean that he has been thinking about it? Has he changed his mind?

  ‘What are you going to do once we get to Salster?’ he asks, suddenly. ‘After you’ve been to the shrine in the woods — when we’re in the city itself?’

  I shrug; my eyes are set on the shrine and I have thought no further. ‘I must restore the Maiden to her rightful place and beg her prayers for my father’s soul. Whatever comes after that is God’s providence.’

  ‘I’m going to be a rich man.’ He is matter-of-fact about it, this wealth a decided thing. ‘But I’ll need money to start with.’ He looks straight at me, his blue eyes clear and open. ‘Pounds. So far, I’ve got ten shillings.’

  ‘Five shillings. The other five is mine.’

  He turns away.

  Does he know how much money there is in my father’s bag? The first thing I did when we went back to the reeve’s barn yesterday was to check that it was still there and to look inside. There has been no chance to count it but it’s clear that there are several shillings’ worth of coins. Perhaps as much as a pound.

  ‘If we go to Slievesdon,’ I say, my heart beating faster at the prospect of his anger, ‘we’ll have ten each.’

  Hob does not reply.

  ‘How much do you need?’ I ask him.

  ‘I told you. Pounds. Two at least. More if I’m not going to live like a churl while I get started.’

  ‘You’re old to be an apprentice.’

  He looks over at me. ‘I’m not going to be an apprentice. I’ve told you, I’m done with masters and lords. I’m going to be my own master.’

  I stare at him. How does he expect to learn a trade if he is not prepared to apprentice himself? ‘How do you know how much money you need?’

  ‘Our manor had its share of runaways who got to a town and managed to stay there.’ He looks into the distance as if he is watching the scene played out: the flight by night, the reeve’s awareness — perhaps days later — that he is a man short, the questioning of friends and family, recompense exacted from the runaway’s kin.

  ‘One or two came back when they were rich enough.’ His mouth pulls into what should be a smile but misses the mark. ‘The old man must’ve been as sick as a scabby sheep when they rode into the village — his own bondsmen, his own property as they’d been — and he couldn’t touch them.’

  There is a bitter satisfaction in his voice that draws the question out of me.

  ‘Why do you hate him so much — the man who was your lord?’

  I wait for him to tell me to mind my own business. Instead, as if it were a thing of little importance, he says, ‘Because I was his heir’s son and he wouldn’t acknowledge me.’

  As we walk into the afternoon, I watch Hob. I watch him walk, I watch him shoot, I watch how he throws that long cloak of his over his shoulders and strides out as if he owns the ground he walks on. Everything about him — his long, straight limbs, his golden hair and beard, his clear blue eyes, those open, wide-flung gestures of his — everything backs up his claim to be a lord’s bastard.

  I cast one glance too many at him and he catches it.

  ‘What? Have I grown another head?’

  ‘Will you tell me?’ I ask. ‘About your father?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  By the time a bell rings out across the ploughland for the third of the little hours of afternoon we are walking through well-kept acres. Wheat sown in the autumn is already a thick green pelt on the lower slopes and, further up, I can see the tiny patches of dirty white that are grazing sheep.

  Ploughmen are o
ut and the sight of them raises my spirits. They are too far away to hail but they see us and one raises a hand.

  ‘Lay brothers,’ Hob says, his eyes on the men.

  I look about but there are no buildings to be seen. ‘Shall we find the house — see if they’ll give us shelter for the night?’

  Hob looks over the mare’s withers at me. ‘Hah! You’ve got soft, Martin, with all that sleeping in the collyers’ hut. You don’t want to go back to sleeping under the cart, do you?’

  I make no reply. It’s not the hut that I’ve become accustomed to but the company of our apprentices. Alone with Hob, I wonder how well I’ll sleep. But at least, now, I’ll be protected from the walking-demon. I took the mare’s worn shoes from Tredgham’s smith and, with begged nails, have fixed one to each corner of the cart. If the Devil’s promise to Saint Dunstan holds true, his minions cannot reach under the cart for me while horseshoes protect every corner.

  ‘No,’ Hob says, ‘I can do without the company of monks — especially a nosey abbot or prior wanting to know all about the saint and how we came by her.’ He glances over at me and I know he is thinking of the coroner’s parting words.

  As we make our way south, the hillside on our left steadily closes in on our side of the river, reducing the wide meadow to a thin strip of land beneath the slope. The path becomes ever more clagged with clay, rutted and filled with water and, once or twice, we are forced to put our shoulders to the back of the cart to shift the wheels out of a slough.

  Slowly, as we close the distance between us and Marlborough, the stream ribbons and vanishes in the murk of the marshy valley bottom and rooks flap back to their roost in a stand of trees on the slope above us.

  ‘We should stop, make camp,’ I say. ‘Soon we won’t be able to see where we’re going.’

  Hob turns towards me. ‘I don’t like the lie of the land here. We’re vulnerable from that hill behind.’

  ‘You think we might be attacked?’

  ‘I just think we should keep on until we’re past Marlborough.’

  I look back the way we have come. In the gloom, I can see nothing but the hills, huge against the darkening sky.