The Black and the White

by Alis Hawkins

  With every cat-soft footfall, I become more convinced that Scaff is there, that I can hear his breathing, that — at any moment — his ham of a fist will fall on my shoulder and pull me back.

  The air stirs — a draft sneaking in from outside, or Scaff coming towards me?

  I begin to move more quickly. The door cannot be many feet away.

  There is a thud, loud in the darkness. A pain that makes me cry out. I have walked into a bench. I reach down and grasp my shin, trying to rub the pain away.

  Now he will know I am here, for certain. Now he will come for me.

  The pain throbs along my shinbone as I listen to the dark air. I know there is somebody there, can feel a presence.

  Hobbling, crouching with my hands in front of me like a child shooing chicks, I stumble in the direction of the door. As I reach it, my desperation is such that I cannot stop myself flinging the bar up and yanking at the latch, all attempts at silence overcome by the fear of what is behind me. The rain has stopped but the wind is swirling around the yard. Before I have gone more than a few paces, the dog, Growler, is at my side, nosing me. I put a hand out to him and stumble in the direction of the midden. I stand and empty my bursting bladder with my head turned back over my shoulder lest I have been followed out into the yard. But I can hear nothing save the thumping of my heart and the sound of my piss streaming into horseshit and straw.

  Was Scaff there, sitting at a table, waiting for me or Hob to run for it? Is he standing in the doorway now?

  The fear of finding my way back through the benches and tables to the lodging-room, the fear of being caught by Scaff, almost lures me into staying here, in the yard, till daybreak. I could crawl under the canvas with Watkyn —

  No. I must not sleep. I must not put myself at the demon’s mercy again. I must not sleep until we can get away from here, find a village and another set of horseshoes and nail them on to the cart. It is plain that I cannot keep myself awake through one night, let alone however many there may be until we reach Salster. I must arm myself against the demon. The nearer we get to Saint Cynryth’s shrine in the woods, the greater the danger. For neither the demon nor his master will be content to see me put the Maiden in her rightful place. My fear — my greatest fear — is that the devil will use me to destroy the saint, that his demon will grip my knife with my own fingers and cut off her reaching hand; that he will take her up in my arms and set her on the coals of the fire.

  Perhaps I should stay in the yard. The cold and the need to walk about will keep me awake.

  No. I cannot stay out here while Scaff and the saint are inside. I must keep her safe.

  The thought brings an icy shiver of memory. I must keep her safe. I catch at the memory, pulling it back, like the last, vivid moments of a dream, before it can fade away. Dark. Night. In our hut on the charcoal hearth. On my knees by the bed my father died in. Must keep her safe.

  Not so much with my mind’s eye as my mind’s touch, I recall the heavy solidity of the saint, wrapped and safe in my arms. I feel the awkwardness of pushing her, further, further under the roundwood-framed bed. A blanket-parcel, invisible, tucked against the dry turf of the wall. Out of sight. Safe.

  The shiver comes again. But this time there is no memory, just an icy certainty. There was no miracle of re-appearance. Saint Cynryth did not come to our wellside shrine from her own in Salster. Did not hide herself in the press to appear to me when most I needed her.

  It was me. All me.

  Sleeping, I hid her. I took her image from the well and hid her before Richard came. And again, all unknowing, my limbs moved without my waking will, I put her in the press. Safe.

  But was it the saint herself who had guided me, deep in slumber, or the demon who lives within me?

  Must keep her safe.

  She is leaning, now, unprotected, against the wall by my pallet. Scaff could slip in, take her.

  Quickly, I move back to the doorway. The clouded moonlight spills no further than a pace or two into the ale-room and, despite standing to one side and craning my neck around the door-jamb, I can see neither figure nor movement.

  Closing the door with as little noise as I am able, I make my way — crouched and reaching out to avoid a second injury — back to the right-hand wall and, after a few heartbeats’ searching, the lodging room door. It is open, just as I left it. I stand on the threshold, listening for sounds within. Nothing. No feet shuffling, no breath drawn ready to attack me as I go through.

  Careful not to rattle it, I pull the door gently to me, thankful for silent leather hinges. When it is firmly closed again, I let the latch settle quietly into its socket and turn around.

  I cock my head into the darkness and strain my ears. If Hob is still sleeping soundly, I will hear his slack-mouthed breathing.

  I hold my breath and listen for his. Nothing. Only the squeak of bats as they flit in and out beneath the eaves outside the shutters.

  Is he awake, breathing lightly, silently, listening for me?

  Hob must not know that the demon has made me walk again. After last night’s setback, he needs the saint, more than ever, to make money for him. If he knew that my night-walking might put all his plans at risk I fear what he might do.

  Slowly, I move forward and feel for the edge of a pallet. I tug softly. It moves easily towards me, empty. Mine, then.

  I lower myself down only to leap up again with a cry that I cannot contain.

  I have been stabbed!

  I roll off the pallet, hitting my head on the floor and crying out again.

  Frantically I reach around my ribs to where I felt the point go in. No blood. My fingers search but I fail to find even a slit in the cloth.

  Cautiously, stretching my ears backwards for any sign that I have woken Hob, I reach out in front of me. My fingertips brush against smooth coolness and I stroke my hand along the length of the familiar form, from cloak to head-covering. It was the saint’s reaching hand that stuck so painfully into my ribs.

  I sit back on my haunches.

  What is the saint doing on my bed?

  Even as I ask that question, another pushes itself into my mind. Why has Hob not woken up? Despite my crying out and tumbling from bed and clawing at my tunic for a wound, he has not stirred.

  I still my breathing and listen. The silence is as deep as the darkness.

  On my knees, I shuffle to the edge of Hob’s pallet and lean down, close to where his head will be. Breath stilled, I listen.

  Nothing.

  Hob is not there. There is a gap in the dark air where he should be lying. I put a hand to the pallet. Nothing but straw-stuffed sackcloth.

  I pull up the pallet and feel about on the floor beneath. The staff is still there, where Hob put it.

  Why has Hob left it here? And where has he gone?

  CHAPTER 28

  I wake to Mistress Scaff’s voice.

  ‘Wake up! Wake up! You’ve got to go! There’s pestilence in the house!’

  Hob is already halfway across the room. ‘Who’s sick?’

  ‘Not sick. Dead. Scaff is dead.’

  I stand, muzz-headed. How did I fall asleep? The last thing I recall is lying on my pallet, the saint in my arms, my heart thudding as I wondered where Hob was, whether he would be back.

  ‘Dead — where?’ Hob asks.

  Mistress Scaff points. Hob moves and I follow him into the main room.

  Scaff is slumped over a table.

  I rub my eyes, clear the thickness of deep sleep from my throat. ‘Did he have a fever last night?’ He was sweaty, I remember, but I thought that was the fire and the ale.

  ‘Don’t know. He never came to bed.’

  And she was glad of it, no doubt, and never came to see what was keeping him.

  ‘He needs to be buried as soon as may be,’ I tell her. ‘Before anybody else can catch it from him.’

  ‘What’ll the parson say? He hasn’t had the rites.’

  Of course. Scaff is the first. They have no experienc
e of the pestilence here. Until now, Scaff’s wife has had no reason to understand that a single priest cannot be in six places at once, that many will die without the comfort of the last eucharist. That lesson is learned swift and hard when the pestilence strikes.

  ‘Dispensation’s been made,’ I tell her, feeling how strange the word seems on my tongue now, where, three months ago, the language of the church was as everyday as the language of the charcoal hearth. ‘The Pope’s decreed that God will know his own, whether or not they’re shriven, whether or not they’re buried in consecrated ground.’

  She gapes at me, almost more shocked by this news than by her husband’s death.

  ‘But they’ll bury him in the churchyard?’

  Scaff is lucky — as the first, his body will find no shortage of space in the parish yard. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but you must fetch the priest now.’

  The door closes behind her and Hob turns to me. ‘Think this is how it was at Dode? Well in the evening, dead by morning?’

  ‘Must be. But why didn’t he go to bed, lie down? He must’ve felt himself sickening.’ I cross the room which was full of such obstacles last night, and stand over Scaff. He stinks of piss. His bladder emptied itself as he died.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ Hob wants to know.

  ‘Just looking.’

  ‘What for?’

  I do not know. For, if this is the same sickness that took my father and the villagers at Dode, there will be nothing to see.

  The priest stands in the doorway, fingering the beads at his belt. ‘Should we call for the coroner? Is it certain it’s the pestilence?’ His fretful eyes do not leave Scaff’s slumped body. ‘Have you looked for the marks of the pestilence on him — the black patches, the lumps?’

  ‘He’ll not have the pustules,’ Hob says. ‘He was well last night — no fever, no pains. There’s been no time for them to come up and corrupt.’

  The parson narrows his eyes at him. ‘You’re quite the expert.’ His beads continue to run through his fingers, as if he thinks that will count as prayer and keep the pestilence at bay.

  ‘Knowledge hard earned,’ Hob says. ‘Half my village died of it.’

  The priest takes a cautious step over the threshold, holding his clean robes clear of the matted rushes. ‘You’re the one everybody’s talking about, then — the one who was healed by this saint?’

  ‘No.’ Hob jerks his head in my direction. ‘That’s Martin.’

  The cleric’s eyes turn to me. ‘You’ll have no fear of infection then?’

  I know what lies behind his words. ‘I’ll lay him out if that’s what you want.’

  ‘No!’ the widow protests. ‘That’s not right!’

  The parson takes her arm with a soft white hand. ‘Would you rather put yourself at risk? Leave Watkyn orphaned?’

  She gives no answer; but neither does she pull away.

  ‘Perhaps it would be as well to do it together?’ I suggest. ‘If the parson and I lift him on to the table, then you, mistress, can go for water to wash him with and a sheet for shrouding.’ Neither of them moves. ‘We should get him into the ground as quick as may be.’

  ‘It’s true then — the stench of the dead infects the living?’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. Nobody does. But I do know that those who nurse the sick, who lay them out, most often take the sickness themselves.’

  He bites at his lip and lets go of the widow’s arm. ‘Do as he says, Mistress.’

  Getting Scaff on to the table is one thing — his corpse is fat and heavy but not unmanageable — but getting his clothes off is another. Though his limbs are not setting into stiffness yet, it’s hard to lift his arms and peel his shirt off. Hob stands in the corner, refusing to come any closer and the sweating parson and I are forced to do the job ourselves. Beneath his shirt, Scaff’s flesh is covered in such a thickness of hair that it is difficult, in some places, to see the dead white flesh beneath. He looks more bear than man and I feel a brief pity for him — it must have been nigh on impossible to keep this pelt louse-free.

  ‘Is this what the flesh of the plague-dead usually looks like?’ the parson wants to know.

  I think of my mother, stripped and washed; Scaff’s body shows none of the purplish-black marks that were scattered over her chest and upper arms, nor is he thin as she became during the three days she sweated and vomited and coughed blood. Scaff’s body does not look diseased — it looks like the corpse of a well-fed, idle man who has just upped and died.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘But Dode’s folk died more quickly than anybody I’ve heard of and some of them had no plague marks. Perhaps it has become more deadly now.’

  ‘And yet, also more merciful,’ the parson replies, ‘so that people do not suffer long in agony.’

  Hob sneers. ‘I thought the agony was supposed to mean you’d suffer less time in Purgatory. That’s what our priest said. Useless article that he was.’

  The parson is suddenly halfway across the room. ‘You’ll not speak ill of God’s anointed!’

  I watch Hob over Scaff’s body. He moves not a muscle to defend himself, just stares at the priest who stops short.

  ‘I’ll speak ill of whoever I please,’ he says, evenly. ‘And I’ll tell you this as well — if God anointed our parson for a virtuous man then he’s a very poor judge of character.’

  The priest stands stranded in the middle of the room, at a loss in the face of Hob’s contempt.

  ‘If you come and lift his hips,’ I suggest, ‘we can get his hose and braies off.’

  What does it say about Hob that the priest turns away from him and back to a plague-dead corpse with something like relief?

  Mistress Scaff arrives with a ewer and basin while we are removing her husband’s hose. Beneath, his braies are wet and sticking to him and neither the priest nor I are eager to touch them.

  ‘Oh, let me!’ Exasperated, his widow elbows us out of the way and yanks the undergarments down his legs. I stare at his overhanging belly — could he even see his cock any more or did he have to piss by feel?

  The widow has started her washing with his face and head. Abruptly, she looks up at me. ‘Did he get in a fight after I left you last night?’

  ‘No, mistress.’ Not wanting to shame her in front of the parson, I forbear to point out that she belaboured him about the head herself.

  ‘Well, his lips are bruised and broken inside,’ she says. ‘Look.’

  She pulls Scaff’s fleshy lower lip down and I can see that the skin inside has been broken, as if he has bitten at it.

  ‘Perhaps he bit at them in his agony,’ the priest suggests, coming cautiously closer. He puts out a hand and then pulls it back. ‘What are those bruises —’ he points — ‘on the forehead, there?’

  ‘There was a disagreement between us,’ she tells him, flatly. ‘And a give and take of blows.’

  I see the parson giving her a sharp look but my eye is drawn back to Scaff’s lips. Bruised and cut on the inside, as if something mashed them against his teeth. But on the outside, they are bluish. Just like Thomas Hassell’s lips.

  Where was Hob when I went out into the yard last night? Was his the presence that I felt with me in the darkness of the aleroom? Was he making sure that Scaff would not take the staff and his eighteen shillings from him?

  I look at the dead man’s nose but it is not bent, just bulbous and dark red, as it was last night.

  The parson looks from me to Hob. ‘Did you see this exchange of blows?’

  ‘The whole room saw it,’ the widow tells him. ‘You know we was never shy of our disagreements, Master John.’

  ‘They weren’t hard enough blows to make him senseless,’ I say in her defence.

  The priest nods and seems satisfied.

  ‘I can manage now,’ Mistress Scaff wrings out her cloth. ‘If you just wait until I have him washed, then we can lay him on his shroud and wrap him.’

  Later, with the dead man ready and waiting for the funeral cart, I
fetch the basket and collect embers from the kitchen fire. Out in the yard, I see Hob coming through the back door.

  ‘Scaff’ll be buried by sunset — they’re digging the grave now.’ He comes to stand at my side as I flip up the canvas at the back of the cart. ‘We should go.’

  ‘Before other people start dying?’ Despite all the fine words he employs in the service of selling braids, Hob clearly does not trust the Maiden to protect him.

  ‘More to the point, before people notice that nobody else is dying.’

  I start knotting the ties. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me Scaff died of the pestilence?’

  I glance up. ‘What else would he have died of?’

  He shrugs. ‘Your demon took you walking again last night.’

  His words, or rather the meaning I detect in them, causes something to slice into my belly, cold and sharp. ‘Only in the lodging-room. When I went out, I was awake — I needed to piss.’

  He leans against the cart, shakes his head unhappily. ‘No, Martin. You went out twice. The first time you scrabbled around with the saint — I could hear you with her — then you went out into the aleroom. You were out for a few minutes then you came in and shut the door behind you.’ He rubs his chin with the side of his hand, his eyes on me. ‘A few minutes later you went out again — quietly.’

  ‘What about you?’ Filled, as I am, with a cold, sweating panic, I have not forgotten Hob’s empty bed. ‘You were out last night as well.’ My fingers shake on the rope loop. ‘When I came back in, you weren’t there.’

  He moves his head slowly from side to side. ‘No, Martin. You’re mistaken. I didn’t get up all night.’

  ‘What? After all that ale?’

  He pushes himself away from the cart. ‘You know me. Bladder like a bull.’ He stops, then seems to come to a decision. ‘Right, while you finish here and sort the mare out, I’m going to see where we can buy more silk.’ He moves towards the alleyway and the street.