The Gallows Curse

  Elena wriggled her thin body closer against his chest and felt the same shiver of bubbles run up her spine as it always did when he held her. The muscles on his shoulders and arms were as strong as an ox's from his work in the fields, but she had never known anything except gentleness in his arms. Some girls might giggle about his coarse, sandy hair that constantly stuck up like the feathers of a hedge sparrow after a fight, and some might think that his nose was far too flat and squat to make him handsome, but Elena saw none of these imperfections. She wanted nothing more than the bairn she carried to be a miniature of Athan in every way.

  Athan had seen the sense in keeping the pregnancy quiet in the end, but even so he'd come close to blurting it out to the other lads more than once, and as soon as the twelve days of Christmas were upon them and Athan was doing the rounds of the village with all the other mummers, swilling down cider, mulled ale and wassail at every croft, Elena had no doubt that the secret would soon be out. Besides, how many more months could she keep her swelling belly concealed?

  She saw again the baby in her dream, the baby that would not keep quiet. Suddenly she shivered. She felt cold now, bitterly cold.

  Although it was late afternoon, patches of frost from the night before still rimmed the corners of the courtyard and the water on the horse trough was beginning to freeze over again. A young scullion ambled towards the bakehouse, dragging a basket of turfs behind him. He started violently as a voice roared out from a doorway.

  'Pick it up, you lazy little toe rag; don't drag it. If you rip the bottom out of that basket, I'll flay the skin off your arse to match it.'

  The terrified boy, trying to bow his head respectfully and at the same time hoist the basket on to his shoulder, only succeeded in tipping the basket over and spilling half the turfs on the ground. He cringed as Raffe lumbered towards him, but the towering man bent down and collected the turfs, then hoisted the basket on to the lad's shoulder before sending him off with a gentle cuff and an amused shake of his head.

  Aware of a movement behind him, Raffe turned to see Elena, muffled in a heavy travelling cloak against the cold, picking her way across the slippery cobbles.

  'Going far, Elena?' He glanced up at the pale sun that was already touching the tops of the trees. 'It'll be dark soon.'

  Her cheeks flushed scarlet in the cold air. There was something about that first look she gave him whenever he called out to her, the innocent upward flash of her blue eyes, the soft mouth half-opening to reply, her arms thrust forward like those of a child waiting to be embraced. He longed to keep that moment frozen for eternity. Then it was gone and the girl was stammering and staring at the ground as she always did, but it did not displease him. It was how a modest young girl should behave with a man old enough to be her father.

  'I have to run an errand.'

  'For Lady Anne? Surely one of the page boys could . . .'

  He stopped, seeing the anxious glance she darted up at the casement of the great chamber. No, Lady Anne had not sent her.

  'You're going to see your mother.'

  The girl hesitated, then nodded.

  Raffe smiled indulgently. For all the comfort the manor could offer them, at heart these village girls would sooner be hack in their squalid little cottages, living squashed together like hens in a basket bound for market. They missed their families and they were always running back to see them whenever they could sneak away.

  'Wait there,' he commanded, striding towards the kitchen. He returned carrying a string threaded with dried apricots, fragrant as rose petals. You can't go to see your mother empty- handed.'

  For the second time, she lifted her head and met his eyes, murmuring her thanks, but there was more than blushing gratitude in her eyes. What was it? Guilt? Fear?

  She lowered her head, but he caught and raised her chin, tilting back her face so that she was forced to look at him. His eyes were hard.

  'You swear to me, girl, it is your mother you go to see, you are not running to meet some man?'

  'No ... I swear I'm not . . . not a man.'

  He held her face for a few moments, then, satisfied, relaxed his grip, his fingers gliding gently over her throat as he let her go.

  'Don't stay long. Be sure and be back before dark — that track isn't safe for a young girl alone. Besides, you must return before Lady Anne starts calling for you. It doesn't do to anger her.'

  She nodded, and he watched her hurry through the wicket gate in the great door. Maybe he should have offered to go with her, just to see her safely there. He shook his head, reminding himself that she'd been roaming these tracks all her life. She knew how to take care of herself, more's the pity. He'd have given anything in this world to see those blue eyes pleading for his protection. He felt a familiar ache in his throat! He knew it was foolish to think about her in that way, it could only cause him pain, and yet however firmly he was determined to shut her out of his thoughts, he had only to see her for his resolve to vanish like a single drop of water falling into a roaring fire.

  Raffe was half-way up the stone staircase leading to the Great Hall when he heard the rumble on the track beyond the walls. It was not the rattle of a trundling ox-cart or an ambling flock of sheep, it was the sound of armed horsemen riding swiftly. That always signified trouble. There came the clatter of iron horseshoes on stone and the whinnying of horses being sharply reined in. Raffe was already bounding back down the steps when a thunderous hammering sounded at the huge wooden door. The manor's hounds all began barking and howling together.

  Walter, the gateman, alerted by the sound of the riders, had opened the small grill set into the iron-bossed door to enquire of their business, and whatever reply he received made him race to wrench the great doors open. He scarcely had time to get them wide enough before five mounted men trotted into the courtyard. Walter, bellowing for the stable lads, ran forward to take the reins which the leading rider tossed to him as he swung from the saddle.

  The horse pawed the ground nervously, rolling its eyes back. Raffe at once saw the cause of its restlessness. Something was tied behind the beast, being dragged along the ground. For a moment he thought it was a pair of poles with a bundle fastened between them, such as might be used to carry a bale of dried fish or hay. But as the beast shifted sideways, pulling the bundle over the ground, Raffe saw the smear of scarlet blood on the white frosted cobbles.

  It was not a bundle of stock-fish. It was a man, tied by his wrists to a long rope fastened to a horse's tail, or rather, what is left of a man after he has been dragged face-down over a frozen stony track. What few clothes the poor wretch had been wearing clung in shreds to his battered limbs. Every inch of visible skin had been grazed and ripped, till his flesh resembled a slab of fresh raw meat on a butcher's block.

  Old Walter stared down at the seemingly lifeless man, his toothless mouth gaping wide in horror, then he looked helplessly up at Raffe, silently asking what he should do. Raffe gestured to Walter to back away. Until they knew the men's business it was prudent not to interfere. Most likely the man was a wolf's head, an outlaw or a murderer, and had been captured by these men who were taking his body to a sheriff to claim the bounty. Whoever the man had been, he was beyond help now.

  The stranger who had dismounted first strolled towards the steps of the Great Hall, beating the dust of a long hard ride from his dark blue tabard. He came to a halt at the front of the steps and stood squarely, gazing up at Raffe. Raffe descended the last few steps with caution, his gaze, like any trained soldier's, assessing not the man's face but the position of his hands relative to the hilt of the sword slung about his waist. But the man's fingers were not creeping towards his blade, nor to the knife dangling from his belt. Instead, the stranger was pulling off his gold-trimmed leather gloves, slowly and casually, like a man standing at his own fireside.

  He was not as tall as Raffe — few men were — but what he lacked in height, he made up for in the broadness of his frame, strong square shoulders, and a bull's neck, thick an
d corded from years of wielding the massive weight of a sword and jousting lance. A razor-straight scar pulled at the side of his mouth, carving a fat white line through the clipped, grizzled beard, grown in a futile effort to hide it.

  The memory is slower than the eye, but Raffe felt a convulsion of loathing shudder through his frame even before his mind could put a name to the face before him. The man had gained weight since Raffe had last seen him, and lost what little hair had still clung to his pate, but there could be no forgetting the expression of mockery in those cold grey eyes, as pale as slug slime against the sun-ravaged skin.

  'Osborn of Roxham. My lord.'

  A bow or, at the very least, an incline of the head should have accompanied these words — it was only courtesy after all to any visitor of rank - but Raffe's back had locked rigid.

  'What brings you to our hall, m'lord? If you've come to call upon my master, I fear you are too late. Have you not heard —'

  'That Gerard is dead. Yes, indeed I have. God rest his soul. A useful man in a fight, so I recall.'

  Raffe's lack of deference, which might have enraged another man, seemed only to amuse Osborn. His beard twitched as if he was trying to conceal a smile beneath it. He turned as two younger men strolled across to join him.

  'Raffaele, you remember my little brother, Hugh. And Raoul here has newly joined my company.'

  Raffe's jaw clenched so hard that it was a miracle his teeth didn't shatter. He barely glanced at Raoul for his whole attention was fixed on Osborn's brother.

  Hugh curdy nodded his head at Raffe, somehow managing to invest the gesture with utter contempt. But Raffe's back remained obstinately rigid.

  Hugh was slightly built, a hand's length shorter than his brother, and clean-shaven. Unlike Osborn, he still boasted a full head of crow-black hair. There was no disputing that women, on the whole, found Hugh handsome. His features were altogether finer than his brother's, as if he had been painstakingly carved by a master craftsman. In contrast, Osborn's face appeared to have been roughly hewn by an incompetent apprentice. A man seeing them apart would not have noticed the family resemblance, but put them together and there was no mistaking the fraternal bond. For Hugh seemed to have made a study of his elder brother's mannerisms and wore them self-consciously like a little boy walking in hand-me- down shoes.

  Now the same barely suppressed smile hovered on Hugh's face. 'If it isn't the gelding, and now without a rider. We shall have to take steps to rectify that.'

  Raffe fought to keep his temper. He'd been made to learn early in life that bridling at insults from men of higher rank was not worth a bloody back or the humiliation that went with it.

  Osborn plucked at his beard. 'I hope you're not suggesting I should ride him, little brother. School him to the leading rein I will most certainly do, mount him never.'

  Both Hugh and Raoul laughed, but Osborn's lips merely dickered in a smile.

  Raffe had only ever heard Osborn laugh once, but the sound of that laughter had been seared into his soul, burning more fiercely than any executioner's branding-iron. He remembered every detail of that night at Acre. When he closed his eyes, he could still hear it, taste it, smell it.

  It had been a blistering day and the darkness had brought little relief from the heat which still shimmered up from the sun-baked rocks. The air was thick with the stench of rank goat's meat spit-roasted over fires of dried dung. The foot- soldiers sprawled on the ground with their mouths hanging open, trying to suck in enough air to breathe. They were too weary to stamp on the scavenging cockroaches, or brush away clouds of mosquitoes gorging on bodies slippery with sweat. Some had fallen asleep as they ate, pieces of flat bread still gripped in their hands.

  It was the silence that Raffe remembered most keenly. For once, there had been no buzzing of gossip or banter across the camp, no shouts of triumph or angry curses as men diced for spoils. Even the horses were too sapped by the heat to flick the insects away with a toss of their heads. The silver stars hung motionless as drowned herring in the black sea above his head.

  Raffe had been watching them through the open flap of the tent: Osborn, seated at a low table, Hugh leaning across him for a flagon of wine, Gerard facing them, making his report. Three thousand dead. Gerard was trying to hold himself upright in the chair; trying to stop his hands from shaking as they clenched around the stem of a goblet; trying not to vomit again, though he had retched so many times since his return to camp there was surely nothing left in his stomach. Illuminated from within by the flickering red torchlight, the tent glowed like the pit of hell in the darkness binding the shadows of the men in ropes of flame.

  Gerard was murmuring so quietly that Osborn and Hugh had to lean forward to hear him. A question, an answer, another question, another weary response. Raffe could not hear what was being said, but he didn't have to, he knew. He'd been there. The questioning continued, but then without warning Osborn laughed, a deep belly-rumble of mirth, slapping his hand on the flimsy table so hard that it almost collapsed beneath the blow. Gerard leapt to his feet, his hand darting to his knife. The blade flashed in the torchlight. Just as swiftly Osborn ducked, bringing his arm up to shield himself, but it was Hugh who had saved his brother's life, grabbing Gerard's wrist and twisting it until the knife clattered on to the table. For a moment none of the men moved. Gerard stared down in horror at the knife, unable to believe how close he had come to murder. Then, gabbling incoherent pleas for pardon, he staggered from the tent and ran out into the night.

  As if his exit had been a signal, the howling began as first one starving dog threw back its head, then another and another until the whole valley was echoing with the raw, wretched grief of them. It was as if every poor beast in the world was screaming out against what they had witnessed that day.

  Even now as he stood there on the steps of an English manor hundreds of miles from that place and thousands of hours from that night, Raffe realized for the first time that it was not the order which had been issued that he could not forgive, nor even what they had been forced to do, it was that single bellow of laughter. Raffe would never forgive Osborn for that.

  Osborn's leather gloves flicked hard across Raffe's chest. 'Come now, Master Raffaele, must I start breaking in my new mule so soon? Don't keep us standing here with our tongues lolling to our knees, show me to the Great Hall, and bring us wine, and quickly, but the good wine, mind.'

  Osborn already had his foot on the steps, when an anguished wail from old Walter, the gatekeeper, made him turn.

  'Sir! Sir! Please, m'lord, I know this man ...'

  All the horses had been led into the stables, except the one Osborn had ridden. A terrified-looking stable lad held the reins of the horse, trying to prevent the powerful beast from dragging the still-tethered body across the yard. Walter was kneeling on the ground, cradling the man's bloodied head. Walter had turned him over and the man was staring up into the pale pink sky, moaning and shivering uncontrollably.

  Raffe strode over to him.

  Walter lifted his head, his rheumy eyes moist with tears. 'It's one of the crofter's lads, from backend of Gastmere. He's hurt bad.'

  Raffe spun round to face Osborn. This is no outlaw. You've seized the wrong man. Any one in these parts will swear to that.'

  Osborn's eyes narrowed. You've known me long enough, Master Raffaele to know that I do not make mistakes. I caught this thief with a brace of rabbits from this manor's warren. He was poaching and he didn't even trouble to lie about it.'

  The tall, whip-thin man Osborn had referred to as Raoul waved a languid hand in the direction of the injured lad. 'Amazing stamina, these country-born villeins. Ran behind the horse for far longer than I'd have wagered any man could before he fell and had to be dragged. I warrant Hugh would have swapped him for one of his own hunting hounds, if the knave's nose had been as keen as his speed.'

  Raffe could contain his temper no longer. Ignoring Raoul, he thundered at Osborn, 'What gives you the right to punish a villein from this m
anor? If... if a man steals rabbits from a manor's warren, then that is no one's business but the lord of that manor's. And if he needs to be punished, then it is up to the lord of the manor or his steward to dispense justice.'

  Osborn and his brother, Hugh, glanced at each other, exchanging satisfied smiles.

  'Exactly so, Master Raffaele,' Osborn said quietly. 'But perhaps, in the pleasure of becoming reacquainted, I omitted to mention that King John has seen fit to give this manor into my care. I am the lord of this manor now. So I will be dispensing justice here from now on.'

  Every muscle in Raffe's body seemed to have been paralysed. Even his lungs had forgotten how to breathe.

  Triumph shone in Osborn's pale grey eyes. 'What, Master Raffaele, no obeisance for your new master? We will certainly have to work on those manners of yours.' He raised his voice loudly enough for the whole courtyard to hear. 'Cut that piece of dung loose, but let him lie in the yard all night as a warning to others. No one is to tend him.'