by Alis Hawkins
As we follow the line of the wall, I peer over at the sprouting vines. It seems to me that God cannot have abandoned us utterly if the plants in the ground continue to grow and our beasts still thrive. He has not decreed a laying waste to all life as He did in the flood.
Hob turns to me. ‘Don’t suppose there’ll be enough monks left to harvest those vines, come autumn. I reckon the abbeys are in for a thin time of it.’
‘You think so?’
‘It’s not hard to see.’ He raises an eyebrow at my questioning look. ‘Who becomes a monk? Men with no land or prospects. Same with lay brothers — they’re only there to put food in their bellies. Now there’s going to be so much land wanting tenants that anybody who wants it can have it.’
‘Not everybody’ll be able to afford to buy their way in.’
‘They won’t have to! Lords aren’t stupid. Or, if they are, their bailiffs’re paid not to be. Entry fees are all well and good when there’s more men after land than there’s land to go round. But the bailiffs are going to have to think again, now. Now, they’re going to be begging men to take on land just to get it worked and keep their lords provisioned.’
He looks around at my silence.
‘I’m telling you, Martin — the lords aren’t going to have it all their own way anymore. Not by any manner of means.’
When we find the road to Salster, it is level and well-kept. Despite the lack of recent traffic, little grass has grown up and the stones are well-bedded.
After walking for so long in the shadow of a scarp that was fit for little but pasturage, it feels strange to be walking through good, cultivated acres. Not that half of it has been tilled or sown as it should be by now. Land that ought to be scattered with crow-scaring boys lies fallow, still raggedly stubbled from last autumn’s harvest and sprouting early weeds, their new leaves bright amongst the shorn dun stalks. Sheep are still folded here and pretty miserable they look, too — head-down and scrawny. We see more than one dead lamb, crows and magpies perched on the small carcasses, cawing self-satisfied defiance.
‘The ewes have no milk,’ Hob says. ‘Not surprising — look what they’re pastured on.’
The feasting birds’ calls turn my stomach and I am glad when they are so far behind us that we can neither see nor hear them.
It has been weeks since we slept in the open. All along the Downs, in village after village, we have been lodged in barns and byres in return for the saint’s blessings; and, in each, I slept under the cart, doubly safe beneath a roof and the horseshoes’ protection. Still, we fall easily enough into our old routine. I put water in the cooking pot so the beans can soak before the fire is lit and Hob takes the cord to go for firewood.
Before he sets off, he stands, watching me work. ‘Are you still fretting about what that priest said? About not knowing the saint?’
I shrug. He has been observing me more closely than I knew.
‘Don’t worry, Martin! We’ve made her known across half of England, why shouldn’t we do the same in Salster?’
As I watch him go, I turn his words over. He is right, we have made Saint Cynryth known across half the country; is it my task to do the same again in Salster?
I call to mind my Tredgham vision: the saint in shining white, standing in front of a well-side shrine, an army of folk kneeling before her.
All this time, I have thought it was a vision given to sustain me, to show me that it was right to share the saint’s story amongst those we met on our pilgrimage. But perhaps there is more. Perhaps the vision also shows me what I must do when we reach the woods outside Salster.
Dusk is draining away to night. On one side of the fire, I sit stirring pottage; on the other, Hob is braiding silk. Each drawn away from the other by our own thoughts, we have not exchanged a word since Hob returned with the firewood. So, when he speaks, his voice startles me and my hand jerks the spoon against the side of the pot.
‘You know, Martin, if nobody in the city knows our saint — if it turns out that the priest was right and there is no shrine — what we must do is establish her in one of the Salster churches.’ He works away, not looking up. ‘We’ll have no shortage of takers. When the city’s priests hear we’ve got a saint who’s done miracles before our own eyes they’ll beat a path to our door.’
Has this been his plan all along? To use the saint as his best route to riches? He wants no master, is not prepared to learn a trade, how else is he going to make his fortune?
I keep my eyes on the contents of the pot as I speak. ‘If there’s no shrine in the woods, then I’ll establish one.’ I swallow, keep my gaze on the bubbling pottage. ‘But not in the city. Not in a church.’ I keep my voice level. ‘Her shrine must be in the woods.’
Over the rim of the pot, I see Hob’s hands stop their braiding. I feel him looking at me.
‘In the woods?’
‘Yes.’ The spoon trembles in my fingers as I stir.
‘That’s all very well, Martin. But it’s not just a wood we’re talking about, is it? Not just an arse-end manor’s worth of standards and coppice. The parson called it a forest. I can’t see foresters welcoming a shrine. Not unless they get a cut of the profits.’
‘Then I’ll put it on the edge. It’ll be easier for people to find, there.’
‘It’d be a damn sight easier still if it was in the middle of Salster!’
The pottage is getting too thick. I add water with an unsteady hand.
‘How would people find your shrine?’ he wants to know. ‘Have you thought of that?’
No. I have not thought of such practicalities. I am still clinging to the belief that we will find Saint Cynryth’s shrine in the woods, just as it was in the peddler’s story. Hob is the one who schemes and plans. But I do not say that.
‘If there is no shrine remaining, my task will be to build it.’
‘Your task.’
I do not respond. I have learned the danger of that edge to his voice.
‘When did building this woodland shrine become your task?’
I look up at him. The braid has fallen from his thigh as he leaned towards me. I shrug.
‘No, come on, tell me! You said you wanted to give her to the keeper of the shrine, in return for prayers and masses for your father. You never said you were going to build a shrine if there wasn’t one there already. When did you decide that?’
I can feel him staring at me but I cannot meet his eye. ‘I had a vision.’
‘When? Today?’
‘No. While we were in Tredgham. But I didn’t understand what it meant until today.’
A bat flits overhead, flipping away from us, disturbed by the smoke rising from the fire.
‘How d’you know this vision was from the saint? How d’you know the demon didn’t put it in your head?’
It is on the tip of my tongue to say that the demon only comes to me at night but, as soon as I feel the words forming, I know them to be untrue. The demon has whispered in my ear, night and day, since I woke up in the hut. Since Saint Cynryth healed me.
‘Think about it,’ Hob says. ‘Where would the Devil rather see a miracle-working saint — in the city, where pilgrims flock to see Dernstan’s bones, or at the edge of the forest, out of sight, out of mind?’
His knife is in the ground at his feet — stuck there after cutting the silks to the right length. As he waits for me to answer, he tugs it free and wipes the blade clean, drawing it slowly between his thumb and forefinger.
‘It wasn’t the demon. The vision was from the saint.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How did you know it was the saint telling you about the horseshoe? That it was a miracle when the mare cast it on the ford?’
He shrugs. ‘She was there, in my dream.’
‘And she was there in my vision!’
‘In a shrine in the woods?’
‘Yes. And an army of people was kneeling before her.’
He nods slowly, his eyes on me. ‘A powerful vision.’<
br />
‘Yes.’
‘Powerful enough to deceive you, Martin.’
The first watch is mine. Terrified of falling asleep while Hob is not awake to watch for the demon, I am braiding silk as Hob has taught me but the movement of my fingers cannot still my racing thoughts.
I try to put Hob’s words about the demon out of my mind. He is wrong. I would know if my thoughts were being twisted. The Maiden will protect me. She has always protected me.
Hob lies on the pallet on the other side of the fire. He looks only partly like the waking Hob. Without the darting watchfulness of those blue eyes, without his tall swagger and his charming smile, he is just another runaway.
Is everybody so reduced in sleep? Is that why the demon finds it so easy to take my limbs and turn them to his own ends?
I rise and tread softly over to the cart. Taking the Maiden from her place, I bring her back to the fireside and stand her before me.
Despite my best efforts, she is suffering. Her cloak and gown, once snow-bright, are dulled now and the white of her head-covering is worn thin from the touch of endless palms. I meet her outstretched hand with my own and find it greasy from heads and fingers. Still, I am loath to rub the dirt away lest flesh-coloured pigment come with it.
Though the memory that returned to me at Scaff’s lodging has shown me the truth of her disappearance from the shrine, still it seems to me that her coming to my father while I lay dying was a sign. She did not keep him from swift and sudden plague-death but I know, in my heart, that she stands between him and the gates of Hell, guarding his soul until I can pray at her shrine, have masses said to speed him from Purgatory.
I lay my hands on her shoulders and look into her speedwell eyes. I would pray to her, ask her for another, clearer, truer vision of what my task in Salster is to be once my father’s soul is safe. But I dare not close my eyes lest I fall asleep.
It occurs to me not to wake Hob but to stay on watch all night. Then, tomorrow, I could sleep in the bed of the cart. But no. We will go nowhere if I sleep during the day, for the mare will not walk for Hob.
I will see out my watch and sleep while Hob does his. I must trust him to keep me safe.
‘Martin! Wake up! Wake up!’
My father is calling me. It must be my watch.
There is a heavy blow to my chest, another to my head. ‘Martin!’ But they are blows dealt in a dream and I feel no pain.
I feel a great thud as if I have been thrown to the ground and the pain suddenly bursts into life. I cry out.
‘Martin — are you awake now?’
‘Yes.’ The pain in my shoulder tears away the last shreds of sleep.
‘Is it you, Martin? Really you?’
Hob’s face is pale in the darkness above me. There is a grinding at my right shoulder. His knee.
‘It’s me.’ My head is thick, my tongue too big for my mouth. ‘Get off me!’
‘Not until I know he’s gone.’
I struggle for breath. ‘Who?’
‘The demon!’
I blink.
‘Say the Paternoster,’ Hob demands.
‘What?’
‘Say it. Then I’ll know it’s you speaking not the demon.’
‘Can’t breathe.’
He lifts himself an inch off my chest. The pain in my shoulder doubles.
I cry out and he sits on my chest once more. ‘Say it.’
‘Pater noster qui es in caelis,’ I gasp.
‘Good enough.’
He gets off me and stands up. I pant; my chest hurts. I close my eyes, then open them again. The left one does not open properly. I put my hand to my face. Painful. Swollen.
I try to sit up. My head whirls and I let myself fall back again. ‘What happened?’
‘You came at me with your knife. I’d fallen asleep and the first thing I knew was you knocking me backwards off the stool.’
He lowers himself into a crouch next to me. I turn and see him putting a hand to his left ear. When he brings it away, it’s dark in the dying firelight. Blood.
He wipes it on the grass.
I force myself to sit up. My face throbs and I put my hand to the swelling.
‘I think my knee did that,’ Hob says. ‘As we went over together. That’s when you did this.’ He motions towards his bloodied ear. ‘I had to take your knife off you before you did worse.’
I feel sick. I lean forward and rest my forehead on my knees.
I hear Hob move away. Good. No more talking for a minute.
There is the scrape of the lid coming off the butt. Then something being dipped in.
When Hob comes back he puts a wet cloth to my eye. I pull back but he holds the cloth out to me. ‘Keep it on your eye. It won’t swell so much.’
I put the dripping cloth carefully to my eye. It stings like a slap and cold water runs down my face and neck.
Hob stands up and takes a log of soft, dead wood to the fire. Breaking it into three over his knee, he prods the embers into life and lays the pieces on, one by one. It is so dry and rotten that it catches almost immediately and, in the new, yellow flames, I see something pale lying on the ground a few yards away.
‘What’s that?’
Hob follows my gaze and rises from his fireside crouch.
‘It’s a sheet,’ he says as I go after him. He squats down next to it and picks something up. He looks at it in the firelight but says nothing.
‘What have you got there?’
He does not look at me but keeps his eyes on whatever is in his fingers, turning it this way and that.
‘Hob?’
‘It’s a needle. A threaded needle.’
He puts it back on the sheet; the thread is dark against the linen.
‘What’s it doing there?’
Hob looks at me, then down at the spread-out sheet, its folds forming shadowy lines in the light from the fire.
‘I think,’ he says, carefully, ‘that, after you’d killed me, you were going to sew me into my shroud.’
My stomach heaves and I turn aside. But the bitterness of bile and curdled pottage cannot blot out his words.
CHAPTER 30
We are on our way before sunrise. The mare snorts complaints into the grey silence and her shoes strike visible sparks from the stones in the road but there are no other sights or sounds in the still mistiness of not-quite-day.
Neither of us speaks. It is possible that we might reach Salster today and I am determined that no tardiness shall delay us.
Can I walk all day? I have to. I cannot spend another night at the mercy of the demon. But I am far from certain that I have the strength to walk from before sunrise to after sunset. I feel as I did when I woke, alive and healed, in our forest hut — shaky in my limbs and befuddled in my mind.
Only one thing is certain. I must get the saint to her place in the woods.
According to the Rochester priest, Burdynge Forest is to the north-west of Salster. ‘You’ll skirt around the edge of it as you follow the road into the city,’ he told us.
But I am determined not to skirt the edge of the forest but to go right into it. If the Maiden’s shrine is there, she will guide me to it. And, if it has crumbled to dust since the time of the Seven Kingdoms, she will show me where to re-establish it. Now, more than ever on my pilgrimage, I must put all my faith in her. If the demon sees so much as a chink of doubt, he will slip in and misdirect me.
‘Lady protect me, guide me.’ I say the words behind my teeth, not wanting Hob to hear me.
He does not trust me anymore.
As the light of day broadens out the land about us becomes clear. Lowish hills to our left, more imposing slopes away to our right. The chanciness of yesterday’s weather is gone and today is blue and spring-green. Perfect travelling weather. The saint’s hand is over me, she has heard my pleas.
Hob sees a church tower on the edge of a hamlet.
‘I think we should find the parson there,’ he says, nodding in the direction of the chu
rch ‘ask him to drive this demon out of you.’
He stops but the mare and I press on. ‘No. If we keep going we’ll be there by nightfall.’
‘What about the demon?’
‘He’ll leave me when I’ve brought the saint home.’
Hob stands, planted, but I keep walking, my eyes fixed on the road ahead. I have to keep looking forwards, for if I catch a glimpse of the canvas, its colour reminds me of the sheet on the ground. I see the needle and the thread that trailed from it, dark as his own blood, as Hob held it aloft. And I see another needle, the one that lay beneath my father’s dead fingers.
No! He died of the plague. Quickly and without marks, like the folk at Dode.
But after last night, however much I repeat the words silently to myself, I only half-believe them.
I keep drifting into something like sleep as I walk. My legs take me along but I feel as if I am floating above the ground, as if my boots barely touch the hard stones of the road. My poor boots. Their soles are more hole than hide now; two days ago I cut the feet from a pair of old hose to patch them and protect me from the road.
Again and again, my head nods, my chin hits my chest, my legs wobble and then, somehow, I am upright again. How long did I sleep before Hob punched me awake? An hour? I slept less than half the night at Scaff’s. My body craves sleep as a drowning man craves air.
And Hob sees it. ‘Martin, we need to stop. You’re dead on your feet.’
‘Later. When we eat.’
That wary look is back on his face and he does not argue. Mastery has a sweet taste but I cannot waste time savouring it, I must use all my will to stay awake and keep moving forward.
Noon. A town lies ahead of us, straddling the road.
Hob wants to stop and buy food. ‘If we’re going to walk all the way to Salster today, I’m eating a pie or two now,’ he says.
The thought of food makes water run into my mouth. I swallow and my empty belly growls; last night’s supper ended up in the grass.
