The Gallows Curse

  They were the only two people awake in the world, one tiny ship of frosted light floating through an empty black ocean. A faint breeze rippled through the branches of birch and willow and through the long-dead reeds in the ditch, making them sing like soft waves breaking on sand. From a great way off came the yelping scream of a vixen. Elena shivered and pressed tighter into him.

  Looking down at the top of that small head hidden beneath her hood, Raffe knew the overwhelming desire of a father or a lover to protect something so small and innocent. But he was neither of these things to her and she wasn't innocent. He had not forced himself on her as other men in his position would have done. He had kept her pure and unsullied, though it had taken every grain of self-control he possessed when she was there under the same roof constantly, clay and night. He had not touched her, but she had soiled herself anyway. Though he told himself he had been ridiculous to imagine she'd never take a man to her bed, all the same he felt like a child who'd been carefully saving a sweetmeat to savour, only to have it snatched from his hand and gobbled up by another.

  'When?' he demanded so furiously that Elena jumped violently, almost slipping again.

  Raffe steadied her and tried to control his voice, 'When did you get with child?'

  'I . . . don't know.'

  'Don't lie to me! You were a virgin when you came to Lady Anne's service, you told her so yourself. So it must have been after you started working in the manor that you started slipping off to the barn. How long did you wait — days, weeks? And was it just this Athan or did you have a stable of sweating field hands?'

  He'd made her confess the name to Lady Anne, but it almost choked him to utter it.

  She stopped and stared earnestly up at him, a look of astonishment on her face as if she couldn't believe anyone would accuse her of such a thing. 'It was just Athan ... I've never been with anyone else and I never will, not even . . . not even if Athan said he didn't want me any more. I love him more than anything else in my life. I'm glad his son is in my belly, no matter what you or Hilda or Lady Anne think. I want this bairn! I want it, do you hear, because it's his baby!'

  She turned her head away, but Raffe could hear the tears in her voice, and he knew they were tears of indignation and fury, not remorse. They walked on in silence.

  Elena struggled to keep pace with Master Raffaele, but she refused to beg him to slow down. She was so exhausted after the night's events that she couldn't even decide if she was devastated or relieved to be leaving the manor. She would be with Athan every day now, lying in his arms every night as she had longed to do. There was no question of returning to her mother's cottage. Now that she was carrying his bairn, she was, in the eyes of the villagers at least, Athan's wife, and a wife always moved into her husband's home to care for him and his kin. Her stomach lurched as she realized that meant she would be at the beck and call of Athan's mother, Joan, who made that sour-faced Hilda seem as kindly as a fairy godmother by comparison. But now that she was carrying Joan's grandson, surely the woman would soften towards her?

  Elena glanced up at Master Raffaele. His face was turned away from her, staring ahead down the darkened road. There was no mistaking his anger, it pulsated from him, and yet she didn't understand why he was so furious with her. Unable to comprehend it, she tried to convince herself that his foul mood had nothing to do with her. As Lady Anne had said, with Lord Osborn taking over the manor, they had far more to worry about than the fate of a village girl.

  She had been so anxious about Athan and then being caught by Hilda that the whole incident in Lady Anne's bedchamber earlier that evening had simply vanished from her head. But now she realized, with a little guilt, that perhaps she should have told Lady Anne what she'd heard. She had understood little of what had been said, except one thing whoever the men in that chamber were, they were helping the king's enemies.

  The villagers in Gastmere mocked their lords and rulers unmercifully behind their backs. They found ways to creep around the law when they could. They might hide a piglet or two, or a few chickens to avoid paying the tithes, or spirit away the odd fleece at shearing time before it reached the manor's barn. It was fair sport to hoodwink your masters provided you didn't get caught. But treason, that went far beyond a game. Treason meant torture and certain death in this world, and an eternal damnation in the next, for even Christ would never forgive the blasphemy of the subject who rebelled against God's own anointed king.

  And to Elena such harsh punishment seemed only just, for though she had no idea what the cause of the quarrel was between England and France, like every man, woman and child in England, she'd heard the rumours that the hated French were threatening to invade and, if they succeeded, would rampage through the countryside burning the villages, raping the women and slaughtering the children. Any Englishman who helped the French must be as wicked as they were.

  Elena glanced up at Raffaele's stony profile and swallowed hard.

  'Master Raffaele,' she whispered.

  He didn't give any indication he had heard her. She raised her voice a little.

  'I heard two men talking in Lady's Anne's chamber this evening. She wasn't there and I'd gone to fetch ... I thought the room would be empty. I heard men's voices coming from inside. I didn't mean to listen.'

  Raffe turned to look at her, frowning. 'In Lady Anne's chamber? Were they trying to steal from her? You should have called me at once if there were strangers in the manor.'

  'No,' Elena said hastily. 'They weren't thieves. At least, I don't think they were; they were just talking. But... it was about a ship, a French ship . . . coming here bringing men.'

  Master Raffaele abruptly stopped and whirled to face her. 'Are you sure? Tell me everything. Tell me exactly what you heard.'

  Elena told him all she could recall of the conversation she had heard. She knew her account was garbled and he had to prompt her many times to get the whole story, but she could remember all the names they had mentioned. She had always been good at that.

  Finally, Raffaele asked, 'These men, would you recognize them?'

  Elena shook her head. 'I could only hear their voices. But they didn't talk like Gastmere men. I think maybe ... they came with Lord Osborn.'

  'And you are sure they didn't know they were being overheard?'

  Despite the bitter cold, Elena felt her cheeks grow hot. 'I don't know ... I bumped into the door afore I ran off. They must have heard the thump, because one of them opened the door and called after me. But I didn't dare to turn round to see who he was.'

  Raffaele grabbed her shoulders, almost lifting her off her feet. His face was creased with alarm. 'Are you saying that these men saw you?'

  Elena flinched, trying to pull away from him. 'He couldn't have seen my face, but he might have seen my back. Will he ... do you think they'll come after me?'

  The thought had not occurred to her before. She glanced fearfully back up the road towards the manor. When the man had not pursued her out into the courtyard, she assumed that he had thought her not worth bothering with. But now, when she saw the fear on Master Raffaele's face, she realized that what she had overheard could put her in grave danger.

  Raffaele relaxed his grip on her shoulders and awkwardly tried to pat her arm as if she was a child. 'They didn't see your face, that's good, but it is as well you left tonight. Sooner or later they would have run into you if you'd stayed in the manor, and if they'd recognized your kirtle or your ...' He briefly touched her red curls.

  Elena was shivering and not just from the biting cold.

  'Come now,' Raffaele said in a more gentle tone than he had used all evening, 'I must get you inside before you freeze to death.'

  Raffe did not trust himself to speak again until they reached the door of Athan's cottage. The village of Gastmere was silent, even the dogs were too deeply asleep or too cold to bother to bark at the footsteps crunching on the frozen mud. Here and there a few thin slivers of light from rush candles slid out between the shutters or cracks in th
e doors, but most had long been extinguished.

  Elena hesitated before the door. 'Will you come in for a warm, Master Raffaele, afore you go?'

  He backed away, bringing his hand up across his face as if to shield himself. It was more than he could bear to see that virile young man take Elena in his arms, to glimpse the bed where tonight they might. . .

  'Elena, remember, I am still your friend. If you need help, if you need anything, come to me.'

  The words blurted out of his mouth before he could stop them. He strode rapidly away, not even turning round to watch her enter the house.

  His head was throbbing as if he had been repeatedly punched. He couldn't separate the hundred different thoughts that were darting through his brain - Osborn, the baby and now the French. If Elena was correct, then at least one, if not two, of the men who even now lay sleeping in the manor was a traitor to the throne of England, helping to smuggle spies into the country and laying the ground for Philip's invading army.

  There were many in England who had reason to hate John, and would see a French king on the throne just to spite him, especially if it led to their advancement. God knows, Raffe had no love for John. But to betray England, Gerard's homeland, to an invading army, that was treachery he couldn't stomach.

  Besides, no servants in the manor would have the wit or passion to plot against the throne, so one of the men at least must be from Osborn's retinue, for how else would he have got inside the manor and known the bedchamber was empty?

  Elena said that they had talked of fighting in the Holy Land. Raffe tried to cast his mind back. Who in Osborn's retinue now had been with him in the Holy Land?

  He and Gerard had not travelled there with Osborn, though Gerard's father had sailed with him, together with the bulk of King Richard's army. By the time Raffe and Gerard had caught up with them, the siege of Acre was already well under way. The Christian army had surrounded the walled city, trying to free it from the Saracens. Saladin, the great Saracen leader, was camped beyond the Christians, attacking them as they attacked the city, and trying to lift the siege.

  Richard's army were hurling rocks at the ramparts from great siege catapults and slings. The defenders were throwing down lime and fire-filled pots on to the Christian army. You couldn't even recognize a man from his chevron or emblem, for everything was covered with a thick, choking dust. It was chaos; half the time you couldn't see the man fighting next to you for the smoke and sand blowing in the wind. Any one of the men riding now with Osborn could have been with him in that hell that was the Holy Land.

  Besides, even if Raffe could identify the man, what could he do without proof? All he had was the word of a villein, and if the traitor, whoever he was, discovered that Elena had overheard him, he would find her and kill her without a moment's hesitation. No, there was only one thing to be done, he had to catch the traitor in the act of meeting these Frenchmen — that way he could bear witness himself and Elena need never be mentioned. There was just one man who might be persuaded to help him in this. He owed his life to Raffe, and Talbot was a man who did not forget a debt, especially one owed in blood.

  But there was nothing that could be done tonight. Raffe tried to push the problem from his mind. The ship was not due until Spring. They would have to be patient and watch. In the meantime Elena was safe, that was the only thing that mattered. If the traitor was searching for her, it would be among the servants, not in the village, and if Raffe waited, as wait he must, then as time passed, the man would come to believe that whoever the girl was outside the door, she had heard nothing and was no threat to him.

  As the icy air tore painfully at his lungs, Raffe realized that he had been striding away from the village at a furious pace. He stopped to catch his breath. The marsh pool at the edge of the track was frozen over. Frosted brown bulrushes bowed in permanent obeisance, their heads caught fast in the pond. The torch flames glittered in the ice. He caught sight of his reflection as he peered down, the sagging flesh around his jowls, the grotesque body. He had rotted from youth to old age without even fleetingly enjoying the body of a man in his prime, and his flesh would only become frailer and more repulsive as the days hurtled by.

  Even at this moment, that fragile, flame-haired girl lay in the arms of a strapping young lad with all his life before him, a man who could give her the gift of a child. Life as a freed woman, money, even love itself, nothing that Raffe could have offered Elena was more than a stinking heap of dung, compared to one thing he could never give her — a child of her own. His own mother had once told him that was what every woman wanted more than anything else. She said, every woman longs to hold her infant in her arms and cannot feel complete without one. But when the next baby comes along, when her first-born is too big to be carried, what does a mother feel for her child then?

  Somehow he had never really blamed his father for what they did to him. His father had paid the money. How much he never knew, but it wasn't a small sum, as his mother constantly reminded him when she told him how grateful he should be for the sacrifices they had made for him. His father had laboured night and day on the farm and at his pots, but he had done it without complaining. It was an investment not just for the boy, but for the whole family, that much Raffe understood. All their futures were pinned on Raffe, and he had betrayed their hopes. But his father alone had been the only one not to fling those words in his face, though Raffe could see them written in his eyes each time he looked at his useless son.

  Men are forced to see their sons suffer much. Their boys are sent to mortify their flesh in cold cloisters of the monasteries, or to suffer the rope's lash on ships that lurch from danger to peril and back again. Young lads are killed in battle or plunge from cathedral towers, their mason's chisels still grasped tightly in their hands. Men and boys, fathers and sons, suffer and die side by side, but are not mothers supposed to plead and beg and try in every way to soften those blows?

  His mother hadn't. She'd taken him to his executioner herself when he was just eight years old. He remembered as if it was yesterday the searing heat of that afternoon and twin puff balls of dust around his ankles as he scuffed his bare feet in the white grit of the path, dragging on his mother's hand, reluctant to be pulled away from a game of football with his friends. His mother tried to hurry him through the drowsy village, putting her finger to her lips as he whined to know where they were going. Flies crawled in the sweat on his upper lip. He was thirsty from playing football and the long hot walk. He remembered that vividly, a raging thirst, and when he saw the cold bath, that had been his first thought. He simply wanted to put his head down and drink the water.

  They'd given him something to drink in the end, but it was not water. It was bitter, but he'd gulped it down so fast that he swallowed it before he had tasted it and it was too late to spit it out. His mother had been forced to help him undress, though she had not done so for years. He'd been mortified by that. She scolded him sharply as he fumbled with the strings of his breeches, slapping his hands away and undoing the knots herself, grumbling that he was keeping the good gentleman waiting. But he couldn't hurry, because his hands seemed to be floating away from the rest of his body, as if they had turned into butterflies. He staggered sideways. The floor was tipping. An earthquake! He must run outside. That's what his father had always drilled him to do, but he found he couldn't make his legs move and no one else seemed to feel the room spinning.

  He couldn't remember if his mother had stayed to watch what the man did to him, but he relived it a thousand times in his head. Someone had picked him up and dumped him into the icy water. His teeth chattered in the sudden shock. Too late he'd seen the knife, felt the searing pain in his groin as it cut him. Fingers probed into him through the bleeding cuts, then the unimaginable fire of something being ripped out of his insides, once . . . then twice.

  There had been others in the room, he was dimly aware of that even through his terror. But he knew for certain that his mother was not there when he woke up in the dar
k and found himself alone in an unfamiliar bed with his legs stretched wide apart, tied to the bed so that he couldn't move them. His wrists had also been tied so that he couldn't touch himself, couldn't feel with his fingers what they had done to him, what they'd taken from him, how they had mutilated him. He lay there alone in the darkness in the worst pain he had ever known in his short life, screaming and sobbing, not even able to wipe the snot from his own nose. And somehow, that seemed like the greatest betrayal of them all, that his mother had not been there to comfort him and soothe away his tears. Would Elena walk away from her crying child? Was that what all mothers did in the end?

  The moon hung below the ice in the small bog pool, swelling up even as he stared down at her, as if she would burst open and thousands of baby stars would come tumbling out and wriggle away like tiny silver fishes into the black waters. Was Athan wriggling his way into Elena even now in the darkness, his sweat running over her pale skin, his hands on her breasts, making her giggle, making her moan and beg? Her lace floated in front of him. He could see her naked body thrusting up towards Athan.

  In a fury Raffe raised the torch and smashed it down on the moon in the water. The ice splintered and stinking muddy water splashed up his legs and on to his face. The flames were doused and he shivered in the cold hard silver of the starlight.