by Alis Hawkins
‘I shan’t have to leave my own hearth to be within reach of my horseshoe,’ he tells us. ‘It’ll be here, with me and my own, behind closed doors.’
His words bring unwelcome memories of the tight-fastened shutters and doors that came to Lysington with the pestilence. Never before had people stopped up their houses to keep their neighbours out; but, with the first death, brother began to shun sister and aunt to turn away niece for fear of what might come indoors with them.
Two days later, we leave Sibbertswell, richer by two tight new wheels and twenty-five shillings. Not to mention a set of worn horseshoes which we have hammered into place on each of the four corners of the cart to keep the Devil and his demons away.
‘You won’t miss your way,’ a villager tells us when we ask how we will find the Medway crossing. ‘By the time you need to leave the track for the road down into Snodland you can see the town away on your right. Barring accidents, you’ll be there before dusk.’
‘And there’s a bridge there?’ Hob asks.
‘Not a bridge — a ford, a causeway. Hard, flat rocks that cross the river. With the little rain we’ve had this last fortnight or so, you should find it easily passable. But do it in daylight — you don’t want to miss your way.’
Looking back at Sibbertswell as we climb the slope to the trackway, I shiver. The clouds that came in overnight have brought a chill breeze with them, yesterday’s shirt-and-hose weather is gone and Hob and I are back in our tunics again.
But it is not only the chill air that is raising gooseflesh; I am worried about what we will find on the London road. These last weeks, going from village to village and seeing in every one a green, unturned churchyard, I have become accustomed to the mixture of dread and hope felt by people whom the pestilence has yet to touch. Arriving with the promise of the saint’s blessing and with the news that we have seen no death for weeks, it had begun to feel as if we were travelling through another England, one that had escaped judgement. But Dode’s fate is a reminder of what we will find on the Rochester side of the river.
As the afternoon wears on, clouds gather until they cover the sky from horizon to horizon. Evening will come early.
‘There’ll be no crossing the river before tomorrow,’ I tell Hob.
He makes no reply but I see the set of his jaw. He does not want to be held up.
Daylight is already dwindling to dusk when we see the thatch of Snodland’s houses below us, and, beyond their huddle and scatter, the river. The mare puts her muzzle up into the gusting breeze. She can smell rain.
As I turn her head down the road that will take us to the crossing, I see magpies land twenty yards or so away. They stare at us and I urge the mare on to be past them. But Hob stops me. ‘Wait.’
I think he must have seen the birds too, that he means to chase them off, but he turns to the cart instead. As he unties the canvas, I count the magpies. I cannot help myself.
Six. Six for hell. What will we find in Snodland? Something that wishes us ill.
Hob pulls out the pilgrim-staff that was given to us at Tredgham and hands it to me. Its thumb-hold has been cut off the top and the end newly notched. When did he do that?
He retrieves the miracle horseshoe from the press and motions for me to give him the staff back. I watch as he fits horseshoe to notch, tapping the bottom of the staff smartly on the ground so the shoe beds more securely in. Once, twice, three times he strikes it, then he tweaks at the shoe to see whether it is secure. Three more taps on the ground. Six taps. Six magpies. Whatever he has planned, it can bring us no good.
Before I can ask him what he is doing, Hob leans the staff against the cart, lays hold of one of the worn horseshoes we nailed on at Sibbertswell, then twists and pulls it free.
He holds it up to me. ‘Shall we leave it here or take it with us?’ Clearly taking the look on my face for amazement at his strength, he explains. ‘Left it loose, didn’t I?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Miracle still stands, doesn’t it? This —’ he lifts the staff off the ground — ‘is still the shoe she threw on the ford?’
‘Yes, but what about that one — why have you taken it off?’
‘What horse wears five shoes?’
I do not ask him what he means for I find I do not want to know. When he has tied the canvas down once more, he grasps the staff as if it is a symbol of office and he a man of importance. ‘Right, on we go.’
The news is good; the pestilence has not reached Snodland. At an open alehouse door we ask about lodgings.
‘There’s a bed for you here if you’re not looking for luxury,’ the alewife tells us. ‘And we’ve stabling for your mare.’ An alehouse trying to be an inn, then. Maybe this close to Salster pilgrims are happy to find any kind of bed. The poorer-off, anyway.
‘What about the cart?’ I ask.
‘For threepence, the boy here’ll sit in the yard with it all night and raise a cry if anybody comes near.’
Hob looks the boy over; he is no more than eight or nine years old. ‘How do we know he won’t thieve from the cart himself?’
‘Because he’s my son and I say so.’
Unabashed, Hob grins. ‘Good enough.’
She turns to the child. ‘Better go and ask the butcher if we can have his dog for the night.’ As he runs off, she turns her attention to us. ‘The dog’s a good ’un. My lad’ll most likely fall asleep halfway through the night but I swear that dog sleeps with one eye at a time.’
‘Will the boy be safe with it?’ Hob sounds nervous. I remember his fear of the dogs that snarled and lunged at dead Agnes and her husband.
‘My Watkyn’s the only boy in Snodland that doesn’t torment the poor beast. Dog loves him for it. He’ll lie down and play dead for my Wat.’
‘As long as he doesn’t lie down and play dead if robbers come by, he can do what he likes.’ Hob follows the woman inside while I unharness the mare and stand, watching her eat the hay and horsebread that comes with the price of stabling. I know I should follow Hob but I am loath to move. For all the places I have seen since leaving the forest, I have never yet paid money for my bed and board. I do not know what’s expected. Do you just eat what is put in front of you, or can you ask for something else? Will a bed be provided or should I take in the pallet? Will there be a piss-pot where we sleep or will we have to stumble over anybody else who shares the room to get into the yard?
Troublesome as these questions are, there is a matter that weighs upon me more. The lintels of the inn — both front and back — are bare; no horseshoes to keep the Devil out and, once asleep, I will be at the mercy of the demon who makes me walk.
I am still standing there when Watkyn walks into the yard with a huge dog at his side. The brute stands as tall as the boy’s chest and, catching sight of me, sets up a bark that would cause any robber to shit his braies. Watkyn puts a hand on its head. ‘Quiet.’
The dog turns its muzzle to look at him and the boy nods.
‘Does it have a name?’ I ask.
Watkyn turns to me readily, used to strangers. ‘The butcher just calls him “dog”.’
‘But you’ve got a name for him?’
Watkyn smiles and I see the gaps where his milk teeth have not yet been replaced. He is younger than I thought. ‘I call him Growler.’
‘Good name.’
He scratches the brute’s head. ‘Wish I was the butcher’s apprentice. Then I could sleep with Growler in the shop.’
‘You’ll make more money selling beer and stabling horses. And you won’t smell of blood all the time.’
‘I don’t care about smelling of blood. And I don’t want to be like him.’
‘Him?’
His eyes meet mine then slide away again. ‘Scaff. Him my mother’s married to.’
I lean against the cart’s wheel and fold my arms. ‘You don’t like him?’
The boy shrugs. I see his point; who knows what I might repeat? ‘What’ve you got in your cart?’
/> ‘Food. Clothes. Some tools.’ I grin at him. ‘And a saint.’
In a moment, he turns from wary would-be butcher to round-eyed child. ‘You can’t have a saint in a cart!’
‘Who says?’
‘Saints live in church.’
‘What about processions?’
He looks at me as if he suspects me of trying to catch him out. ‘No procession today, is there? Easter’s past.’
‘It is. But I still have a saint in my cart.’ I untie the canvas and lift out the blanket-wrapped figure of the Maiden. ‘Want to see her?’
He nods, curls bouncing over his brow.
I unwrap the saint and Watkyn comes a step closer. As he sees her reaching towards him, he stretches his hand out and the two hands — one wooden, one flesh — touch, fingertip to fingertip. The boy stares at the Maiden, his eyes almost as blue as hers.
‘She’s called Saint Cynryth,’ I tell him.
He frowns, his eyes still on the saint.
‘I’d never heard the name, either, when I was your age. She’s from a long time ago.’
Now he looks at me.
‘Shall I tell you her story?’
His eyes move towards the door to the alehouse.
‘It’s all right,’ I tell him, ‘you’re getting paid to watch the cart. So make sure you watch carefully while I tell you the saint’s story.’
He fetches a bucket for me to sit on while he perches on a chopping block. Though the stools in the cart would be more comfortable, I have no wish to belittle his hospitable act and I thank him sincerely for his kindness.
‘Cynryth,’ I begin, ‘was the daughter of Halstan — a king of the south.’
I am almost at the end of my tale when a man appears in the yard.
‘What d’you think you’re doing sitting there like the King of England?’
I stand, ready to account for my presence in the yard, but the man’s eyes do not move as I rise and I realise that he is staring past me at Watkyn. This must be Scaff.
‘The boy’s working for me. This is my cart — he’s watching it for me.’
‘Looks to me like he’s sitting wasting your time and his.’
Unaccustomed to townsfolk, I am at a loss as to how to treat him. His speech is coarse, made worse by the language hereabouts which, in his mouth, has a leering quality which I did not notice in his wife’s. If he was a village man, Scaff’s clothes would suggest he was somebody of the middling sort, my equal: his boots are sound but not expensive, the shirt which hangs out over his huge belly — he has no tunic on — is of decent quality but old, as are his hose. His manner however, is churlish and since, tonight at least, my money will be keeping the roof over his head, I feel I have the right to speak as I like.
‘If I want to pay him to waste his time, then that’s my business, isn’t it?’
His eyes narrow in his fleshy face. ‘How much are you paying him?’
‘What his mother asked.’ I have learned some quickness from Hob.
‘Which is?’
‘What would you’ve asked?’
‘Sixpence.’
‘Then I’d have laughed in your face.’
The man makes to step around me to the boy but I stand in his way. ‘I meant no harm. I was telling him the story of the saint whose shrine we’re going to.’
‘Pilgrimage? Haven’t you heard of the pestilence where you come from? If it catches you it’ll kill you. You and the rest of your half-witted family.’
I am close enough to punch him in his fat gut, to bring my knee up into his winded face and smash his nose, to kick him in the balls. And I want to. I want to sink my fists into his fat flesh and hurt him. For my mother, for little Eleanor, for Master William. Even for my father and Adam. They are all dead while this bullying fool stands before me, alive.
‘It did catch me. It caught me and half my village. But they’re all dead and I’m alive. Thanks to the saint.’
He may be a bully but Scaff is no fool. The news we bring of the pestilence in Dode would be enough to draw the crowds by itself but, since we have the saint and tales of her miracles too, he flings his doors wide and doubles his prices.
Soon, the benches are spilling men off their ends and Hob is into his third telling of the miracles at Tredgham. I would just as soon be out in the yard with Watkyn and the dog but, since we sat down to eat, there has been a steady press of men wanting to know our news.
Scaff, meanwhile, is drawing men to the table where he has a game of dice going. It seems he is determined to have as much of their money as he can separate them from before barring his doors to the pestilence.
‘Come on,’ he says, ‘if we’re all to die within a week — if, indeed, we may be dead tomorrow — let’s have some sport while we can!’
Later, when there are no new ears wanting to hear from us, we sit and drink our ale, quiet for a few minutes. Hob points with his chin to the dicing table. ‘Watch Scaff,’ he murmurs. ‘He’s always ahead of the others. He makes sure to lose a little here and there, but he’s always ahead.’
‘So?’
‘He’s cheating.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Nobody wins that often unless they’re palming loaded dice. Besides —’ his eyes are on Scaff’s companions — ‘those others are so drunk they hardly know what they’re doing themselves, let alone what he’s doing.’
I am not interested in the gamblers. Let them look to their own pockets. I stand up. ‘I’m going outside for a piss.’
A pile of horseshit and straw stands next to the stables so I piss in that. With only one, poorly-lit lantern over the back door, the yard is dark but I spot Watkyn lying on top of the cart, the canvas beneath him, two blankets over him.
I walk over and tug on one of the canvas-ties. Straight away the boy sits bolt upright. ‘Who’s there? Growler!’
The dog, who has been ignoring me, ambles over. By now, the boy has recognised me. ‘D’you like my idea of sleeping up here? It means nobody can come and pick me up and put me in a sack.’
I look at him, sitting on the flat top of the press. I could lift him up with one hand. And put him in a sack if I wanted to. But the dog would be a different matter. He knows me, saw me talking to the child earlier on. I suspect he would be less forgiving of anybody else who came near.
‘It’s a good idea. But you’ll get wet if it rains.’ And there is rain coming. I can feel it in the air. ‘Why don’t you lie underneath the canvas? There’s a wool-stuffed pallet under there.’
He jumps up, full of enthusiasm for this comfortable idea, but then sags back down again. ‘I might not hear them coming, then.’
I see he does not want to be thought a baby, inadequate to the task he has been set.
‘Ah,’ I say, ‘but just think — if anybody tries to lift the canvas to steal my goods, they’ll get the shock of their life when they see you!’
He jumps up again. ‘They might think I’m a ghost!’
He scrambles down to untie the canvas at the back and looks over his shoulder at me. ‘You won’t tie the canvas down again will you? Not while I’m inside?’
‘No.’ I reach down to scratch the head of Growler, who has moved to the boy’s side. ‘Your friend here’d probably rip my throat out if I tried.’
Back inside, Hob is standing near the dicing table, in conversation with two men. One hand keeps the horseshoe staff protectively against his collarbone.
‘Why should I sell it to you?’ I hear him ask. ‘I’ve already turned down more money for it than you’ve seen in a month of Sundays.’
‘How much did these others offer you? Whatever it was, we’ll double it!’
‘Don’t flatter yourselves, friends, you aren’t that rich!’
‘How much was it then?’
There is a look of anger on Hob’s face now and, if I did not know that he had designs on their money I would swear it was real. ‘What’s it to you?’ he snaps. ‘I’ve told you, the horseshoe’s our relic �
� Martin’s and mine — and I’m not selling it!’
‘How are we supposed to protect ourselves then? Why’re you telling us about your saint if you keep all her relics to yourself?’
‘You can receive her blessing. Ask for her protection.’
It’s my voice that has spoken.
‘What, here?’
‘She blessed people on the charcoal hearth at Tredgham — that’s where the miracle of Beatrice’s hand happened.’
The place suddenly falls quiet. Men glance sidelong at each other but say nothing.
I move towards the bench where I left the saint, wrapped and safe but, as I make to pass him, Hob puts a forestalling hand on my arm.
‘The cart’ll be safe, don’t worry.’
‘I’m not going to —’
‘Watkyn and the dog are there,’ he continues as if I have not spoken, ‘the other horseshoes’ll be safe.’
‘What other horseshoes?’
Hob turns to the man who asked the question. ‘A horse wears four shoes, my friend. This —’ all eyes turn to the staff as he raises it — ‘is only the one she threw.’
I follow Hob out into the yard just as a thunderous barking is set up.
Hob backs off so hastily he almost falls on his arse.
‘Down Growler!’ I call. ‘Good dog.’
The canvas is thrown back and Watkyn’s head appears. I wave at him. ‘It’s all right, Watkyn. It’s me.’ Before the boy can say anything, I face Hob. ‘You’re not selling those horseshoes, Hob.’
‘Oh, Martin, don’t be such a girl! We can get some others tomorrow and nail them on — we’re staying inside tonight —’
‘I’m not talking about the demon.’
Hob ducks his head. ‘What then?’
I keep my voice low so that Watkyn will not hear.
‘You can’t sell them as relics — they’re not the ones the mare was wearing.’
He stares at me. ‘So? They’ve been on the cart that’s carrying her.’
‘For a day!’
He shrugs as the sound of small feet landing on the ground is followed by an anxious question from Watkyn. ‘You’re not going already are you? It’s not dawn yet.’
