This is not much of a hunt at all. The boys know where the wren takes shelter and they made sure that it couldn’t fly away with the dawn, for unlike the village boys, they can’t follow it as it hops over a wall or flies up into the trees. This is the best they can do.
‘Bring the bier,’ Felix orders.
Regulus, in deference to his name, has been accorded the honour of carrying the bier. It is a wheel the boys have fashioned out of plaits of straw, festooned with strips of rag, for there are no ribbons to be found in the abbey with which to decorate it. The wheel is impaled on the tip of a long willow pole. Regulus, with Peter’s help, lowers the end of the unwieldy pole to the ground.
Felix reverently scoops the tiny creature up in both hands, though he could easily have held it in one. He ties it to the edge of the straw wheel, with a strip of rag bound about one tiny leg so that it dangles upside down, its wings outstretched as if it tries to fly even in death. The other leg, broken, hangs limp against its feathers. The needle-sharp beak is open. The eyes gaze sightlessly into the dazzling sun.
On Felix’s orders, Regulus walks carefully up the path, holding the slender pole as high as he can. The boys follow in solemn procession. The wren is so light that Regulus keeps fearing it has dropped off and the other boys fall over him as he stops to squint up. Felix tells him to walk straight, else they’ll batter his head with their sticks.
In the abbey there are no neighbours to beg treats from. The White Canons will not give them nuts or coins. Beggars and widows will come to the abbey today, but they will crowd about the alms-window, demanding their own treats, as is their due on the feast of St Stephen. But the boys are not permitted to go near that gate. Instead Felix guides his little band to the kitchens and hammers on the door. The boys begin to sing, their voices ragged, their teeth chattering.
The wren, the wren, King of the Birds,
On St Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.
Though he is little, his honour is great,
Come out, come out and give us a treat.
The door opens and one of the lay brothers waddles out. He is clad only in a sleeveless tunic and short breeches, for the kitchen is always steaming hot. He shivers in the sudden chill. He thrusts out a wooden platter on which are a few pieces of payn ragoun – pine nuts, mixed with ginger and breadcrumbs, covered with boiled honey. It is a rare treat indeed. The boys tug the hard sticky morsels from the platter and cram them into their mouths, each trying to grab the largest piece before his fellows.
Regulus, forced to hold the tall willow pole with both hands to balance it, watches in dismay as the pieces vanish before him, like snowflakes in a fire. He is on the verge of flinging aside the pole and grabbing a piece, but the lay brother, eager to be back in his warm kitchen, pulls the last piece from the trencher and rams it halfway into Regulus’s mouth, then firmly shuts the door. The sweetmeat is too big to chew and Regulus is afraid to bite down in case the end falls to the ground and is trampled. He tries to suck the sticky mass and breathe at the same time, which is not easy, so that by the time Felix and the boys have led him back to the vegetable patch, he is scarlet in the face and almost suffocating.
They bury the little wren in the bare earth close to the irrigation stream, which flows in under the high wall. Felix plays priest, solemnly reciting what bits of the Latin burial service he can remember. He tears up a tuft of grass and dips it in the icy stream, flinging sparkling jewels of water on the tiny grave, as if it is holy water from a branch of hyssop.
Regulus, relieved of his burden, chews his honeyed pine nuts slowly, trying to make the heavenly sweetness last for ever. Their mouths and fingers sticky, the boys cast off their straw hats and cloaks and race away to play. There are no lessons today, and they mean to make the most of every hour of freedom outside, until their toes are numb and fingers so stiff and swollen they ache with cold.
At night, as he shivers beneath the blanket trying to get warm, Regulus thinks about his namesake lying out there in the frozen earth like his brothers. Maybe the bird is not dead after all, but merely trapped, as it was inside the stones beneath the cross. The wren lives down in dark holes. Perhaps now they have put it back in a hole it will wake up.
The boys enjoy only one glorious day of liberty, before they are again imprisoned by their studies. The long hours spent in the gloomy dorter poring over copy tablets seem to shuffle by twice as slowly as they ever did before. But finally they are released for their hour of play. Regulus hurries back to the vegetable garden. It is deserted for there is no work to be done at this season.
He crouches down and scrapes away with his fingers at the frozen earth. He must free the little bird. He must get the heavy soil off its soft feathers. But he cannot find it. He digs deeper with a twig. But the wood keeps snapping. He finds a stone and hacks the ground with it. Nothing! He digs in another place, another, until there are tiny grave-pits all over the bare earth, but the wren is not there.
A rapid chittering makes him glance up. A tiny brown bird darts across the bare earth into the shelter of a blackcurrant bush. Regulus’s heart thuds in his chest. The wren has woken up. It has crept out of the ground while they slept and it’s free. In relief and excitement, Regulus scrambles up, eager to fetch the others to come and look. But he stops himself. What if they kill the bird all over again? He sees the sticks thumping down, hears the boys roar and shriek as the tiny creature falls. He will not tell them that it lives, that it escaped them. That will be his treasured secret.
He covers the little pits, pushing the earth back with numb fingers, so that they cannot see the bird has escaped. He hugs the secret to himself as he walks back to where the boys are chasing the ball. He is relieved, elated.
The earth makes creatures well again. When you are sick you are put to bed, and when you are very sick, you are put into the earth to make you well. That’s why his brothers were put into the earth. And soon they will climb out again, just like the wren. He has seen pictures on the church wall of men and women clambering out of their graves, because the earth has made them better.
He starts to run joyfully towards the ball. Then something catches his eye. He stops, staring at what lies entangled in the gnarled roots of a tree. He edges across and peers down, gazing at a bedraggled heap of brown feathers. The tiny broken body has no head, only a gory stump of a neck, but tied about one tiny fragile leg is a narrow scrap of rag.
Chapter 19
To a black raven am I akin
Such be the wages of all sin
In deepest dust I lie alone
The hardest thing in the world to do is simply to wait. I knew that Tantine and her little vixens might return to cut my throat just as soon as they thought the drugged wine had rendered me senseless, or that the watchmen might, even now, be on their way to seize me if I had mistaken the purpose of that knife, but either way, I dared not make a move in daylight.
I’d already decided there was only one way out of that loft-room and indeed out of the town, but I would have to wait until the cover of darkness to try it and in the meantime I had to stay alert for the slightest creak that might mean someone was mounting the stairs.
Even an hour spent in a woman’s gown convinced me that if I was to move with any speed it wasn’t going to be in skirts. But I didn’t want to risk changing back into my own clothes, for by now the whole countryside probably had a description of them. I rummaged in the second chest and found an assortment of less than savoury garments, but I forced myself to pull on a short tunic and breeches that stank of onion, which, trust me, was the least offensive odour of the many fragrances on offer. I bundled up the woman’s gown I’d stolen together with my own clothes and another spare tunic from the chest. I was learning that being able to change my appearance could prove useful.
I set to work with my knife, trying to hack a hole in the underside of the thatch. I selected a point in the far corner, where the roof was low and where I hoped it wouldn’t immediately be seen by anyone lo
oking up from the courtyard below. Thatch looks flimsy, but, believe me, it’s not. It had been packed down tight and the straw was scythe-sharp. In no time I was sweating like a spit-boy and my fingertips were raw and bleeding.
By the time I had finished it was growing dark and the tavern was filling with drinkers. Shouts of laughter and raucous voices rose up from beneath me. I knew I couldn’t leave it much longer. I was convinced by now that Tantine and her imps had not sent for the Watch for they would have been here long ago, which could mean only that they intended to slaughter me, take the silver flask and claim the reward for my body. Philippe would certainly not trouble to enquire closely into the manner of my death.
A gale of chatter wafted out as the back door of the tavern opened below me. My stomach contracted. Was this it? Were they coming? I tiptoed to the slit window and peered out, listening hard for any creaking on the stairs. Aline was crossing the courtyard, dangling two wine flagons in her hands. She vanished inside the far hut, and a few minutes later she emerged with the weight of the full flagons balanced on each hip. So that was where it was stored.
All the time I’d been stabbing away at the thatch, I’d been puzzling over that wine. It was far too good for a place like this. I doubted they’d had a customer in a dozen years who could pay what it was really worth. Neither did I imagine for one moment that Tantine could afford to buy the wine at its true value from the merchants who supplied it, not even for the purpose of drugging fools like me. It had to have been stolen, which meant they weren’t bringing it in through the town gates.
As soon as the door to the tavern below me closed, I crossed to the hole and, using the knife hilt to break the last crust of the thatch, pushed my bundle out ahead of me and wriggled out behind it, trying not to yelp at the pain in my ribs as I dragged myself over the edge of the hole. I lay flat on the sloping roof, reaching down through the hole to cling to the beam below and praying the section of thatch on which I was pressing my full weight wouldn’t simply slide off onto the ground.
I shivered in the cold breeze. The night was cloudy and dark. Here and there, trickles of oily yellow light spilled from beneath ill-fitting shutters and the open doorways of the buildings that crowded either side of the tavern. The cries of bawling babies and yelling mothers intermingled with the shouts of men and barking dogs. I glanced up at the town wall, just in time to see a guard shuffling along it. I buried my face in the mouldy straw until he’d passed by.
It was too far to drop to the ground and, desperate though I was, I couldn’t steel myself to face a heavy fall on top of my bruises. My only hope was to try to lower myself onto the rickety staircase. I slung my bundle over my shoulder and inched forward. But as soon as I pulled myself up into a crawling position I found I had nothing to cling to but handfuls of thatch. Solid it might have seemed from underneath but, on top, the straws pulled out as easily as hair from a mangy dog. As I slid inexorably downwards I finally understood why people say you should never grasp at straws. I managed to twist myself sideways and landed with a crash on the top of the wooden stairs. The pain as I hit my already bruised side sent white lights bursting in front of my eyes, but it would have been very much worse had the bundle of clothes not softened my fall.
I curled into a ball, lying as still as I could, sure that the sound would bring people running, but the door below me remained shut. Evidently the noise of the revellers in the tavern and the banging and shouting from the houses round about had masked it. I’d decided that my best chance of crossing the courtyard unobserved would be immediately after the girls had fetched fresh supplies of wine. Then they would be occupied inside the tavern at least long enough to empty their flagons. So I waited.
I lay in the darkness at the top of the steps until I was so cold and numb I wasn’t sure I could walk even if I wanted to. Finally, just when I was convinced they were never coming out, the door opened and yellow light rolled across the stones of the courtyard. I heard footsteps tripping across the yard, and a muffled curse as the girl slipped on some piece of filth. I rolled up as tightly as I could and pulled the bundle over my head, praying that if she glanced up as she walked back to the door she would see nothing that looked human in the darkness. Presently, I heard her returning across the yard. Her footsteps suddenly stopped and I braced myself for her shriek to warn that I was escaping.
But instead a man’s voice called out below me, ‘Barbot, where are you, my lovely? I’m dying for a kiss.’
‘Best send for the priest then, ’cause I’ll not be saving you.’
Her footsteps started again, and the light was sucked back in as the door closed behind her.
This was it. I had no idea how long it would be before she or Aline re-emerged, but I could delay no longer. As quietly as I could I clambered down the stairs and hastened across the yard to the hut I’d seen the girls enter. The door was unlocked and I slipped inside. A single horned lantern hung from the centre of the room to provide enough light for them to refill the flagons. A keg rested on its side, raised on a rough wooden cradle. Three more kegs stood against one wall. A broken bench, coils of rope, fowling nets, brooms, hammers and other assorted tools lay in jumbled heaps against the other walls.
I went immediately to the far wall of the hut that I knew lay hard against the town wall. I pressed and tapped the length of it, but there was no sign of a door or an opening. I was almost sick with dismay, for I’d been so sure that that was the way they were bringing in the stolen wine. I was suddenly aware of the sound of my own footsteps and glanced down. In a miserable little hut like this, I’d have expected the floor to be nothing more than beaten earth. But it wasn’t. It was flagged. Under the wall, Barbot had said, not over it and not through it.
I dropped to my knees, running my hands over the cold stones trying to find a ring or some means of lifting a trap door. But I could feel nothing. A wooden mallet lay on top of one of the barrels, which was probably used to broach the sealed casks. I began to tap my way across the floor, until I heard it, the hollow echo beneath one of the flags. I ran my fingers around the edge, trying to find a finger-hold.
I was so engrossed that the footsteps outside had almost reached the hut before my mind registered the sound. With only a whisker of time to spare, I flattened myself behind the door as Barbot wandered in. She set her flagons on the floor and, pulling the wooden bung from the barrel, let the wine stream into one. She was so close that, even behind the door, I could smell the cooking fat on her hair and the rosemary she’d sewn into her gown to make some lover return to her.
But, to my horror, the door she’d thrown open began to swing closed under its own weight. As soon as she turned to leave she would see me standing there. I was still holding the wooden mallet. I raised it. I swear, I meant only to protect myself, threaten her into silence if I had to, but she must have sensed the movement behind her. Still crouching on the floor, she half turned her head. The mallet smashed into her temple even as she was opening her mouth to scream. Her eyes opened wide in shock. She crumpled onto the floor and lay still, the blood-red wine trickling over her neck.
I kicked the door closed and stepped over the prone body, not daring to look at her to see if she was alive or dead. I was trembling with the fear and horror of what I’d done. I began to gag and had to force myself not to vomit. I knew it would be only minutes before she was missed and someone, probably that drunken oaf who’d called for her earlier, would come looking.
Frantically, I searched though the jumble of nets and tools until I found myself grasping an iron mattock on a long wooden handle. I shoved the sharp end of the iron under one side of the hollow flagstone to prise it upwards. It was heavy, but I was able to lift it high enough to grasp the edge and pull it, grating, across the floor. Underneath, just as I’d hoped, was a dark hole. Cold, damp air rolled up as if from a well. I snatched the lantern from its hook and dangled it down inside. But I could see little except puddles of water glistening on the earth floor below me. I had no idea if this
was simply a cellar or was indeed a way out.
Still gripping the lantern, I flung the mattock back onto the pile of nets and tools and eased myself over the edge of the hole, wincing as the sharp edge grated over my rib-cage.
‘Barbot! Where are you, girl? There’s customers want serving. If you’ve fallen asleep in there again, I swear I’ll swing for you this time, God’s blood, I will.’
I heard footsteps coming towards the hut. I dared not hesitate. I dropped into the mud. Then reaching up, I dragged the flagstone back over the hole. It fell into place just as the door of the hut was flung open.
Chapter 20
Wherever there have been crudities and excrements they have been purged and destroyed by being suffused with its water and the body has been led back to clarity and perfection.
The great bell tolls – one, twice . . . The dozing boys stir fitfully. Some jerk awake and lie in the icy darkness counting silently – three, four . . . knock at the door. But there will be no knock, no warning, if he comes.
Little Peter curls himself into a ball and prays. Prays – as do they all – that if the door opens tonight and Father John comes padding softly along the row of boys, the canon will not stop at the foot of his pallet. Peter silently begs for it not to be his shoulder that Father John shakes, not be him who is led out through that door. Not tonight, please. Take Felix, or Regulus or Mighel. Take anyone else, but not me! But what chance do a boy’s stammered prayers stand against the army of Latin invocations from the white-robed priests? The Blessed Virgin will never hear his feeble plea above such a mighty surge.