Company of Liars

  The roads were full of people on the move, some travelling alone, their families dead or abandoned, some in groups making for the towns where there might be a hope of food or work. Some were mad with horror and grief; others were hardened to the point where they would cut a man’s throat for a handful of dry beans. And if they did, no one lifted a finger to stop them, for there were no courts left to try a man and no executioners to hang him. Sometimes I wondered if God too had died up there in His heaven, if heaven stood silent and boarded up, the angels left rotting on pavements of gold.

  Every village and town had its pits and, between them, smoking piles of leaves and rags. Once, on common land outside a village, I drew near a small knot of people silently watching at a distance as masked men swung the bodies of adults and children by arms and legs and tossed them into the mass grave. One child seemed to cry out and a mother in the group tried to run towards the pit, but others caught her and held her back.

  ‘Gas escaping from the body is all,’ one man muttered and the child was tossed in with the rest. ‘You think you see an arm move or a chest expand,’ he said, ‘but it’s only putrefaction. Doesn’t do to look at them. Just swing and throw.’ His voice was dead, without emotion, as if he described the harrowing of the fields.

  One of the women in the little group turned away and as she did so she glanced briefly in my direction. Then she stopped and stared.

  ‘I remember you.’

  She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. Me, with my scar, no one ever forgets me. I smiled faintly by way of acknowledgement and walked away, but she came hurrying after me.

  ‘Wait, you were with the two musicians who played at our village once, for the Cripples’ Wedding. Good-looking lads they were, especially the young one.’

  ‘And you wore a yellow kirtle.’

  She smiled. ‘Fancy you remembering that.’

  ‘There was a fight over you if I recall.’

  She grimaced. ‘Those two musician friends of yours, are they here?’ She glanced around hopefully.

  Tears welled up in my eye and, furious with myself, I dashed them away. I shook my head.

  She turned her face away. No one asks any more what has happened to those who have disappeared. I was grateful for that.

  ‘The wedding, did it keep the village safe?’

  She shrugged. ‘Is anywhere safe? But in any case I left soon after the wedding. Edward was the jealous type, used his fists too often, like his father. I’d seen what I was in for after we were wed. I ran off with another lad, but that didn’t last. I get by; there are still men who’ll pay for a good time, more so now when they think it might be their last chance.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the pit. ‘Reckon it’s best if you don’t have anyone you care about, then it can’t hurt you. Don’t have to be afraid of losing someone, if you’ve no one to lose.’ A shadow passed across her face. ‘I’m sorry about the musicians though,’ she added. ‘He was handsome, that boy.’

  I turned to go, then stopped and reached into my pack. ‘Wait. Take this. It’s valuable. It’s a relic of St Benedict. You can sell it. It’ll buy you food and shelter for a long time.’

  Once I would have told her it would keep her safe from the pestilence, but I knew that neither she nor I could believe that any more.

  She drew back her hands. ‘Why are you giving it to me?’

  ‘A penance for a crime I’ve committed.’

  ‘I can’t pray for you. I don’t pray for anything any more. What’s the point?’

  ‘That’s why I am giving it you. I don’t want to trade it for prayers. I am beyond prayers. I want you to have it because you remember.’

  ‘Thank you, master.’

  ‘Master,’ she called me. She was the last one to call me that.

  I had travelled as fast as I could, certain that I would arrive too late. But when I reached the gates of the manor I saw with relief that there were no boards on the windows, no cross on the door. Then I stopped, afraid to go in. I don’t know what I feared most, that I would see that look of loathing in their eyes that I had seen in Rodrigo’s or that they would not even know who I was. I waited outside the gates for hours. People passing in and out no doubt took me for a beggar, but then I heard a voice at my elbow. A face I didn’t recognize, yet I knew the eyes.

  ‘It is you. I’ve been watching you all day to be sure. My mother always said you’d come back.’

  ‘You know me?’

  ‘I’d not have done, but for your scar. You’ll not remember me. Cicely, Marion’s daughter. She was dairymaid in your day. She often talked of you, of that day when you got your scar. I was too young to remember that, but I remember the day you left.’

  ‘Marion… yes, I remember her. Is she well?’

  Cicely’s face clouded. ‘She died, years ago. You’ve been away a long time.’

  ‘And my sons?’

  She hesitated. ‘Nicholas is lord now.’

  ‘The youngest. Then Philip and Oliver are dead.’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘But Nicholas’ll be right pleased to see you. I’ve often heard him tell his children about you. Mind you, I dare say the tale has grown big enough over the years to wag itself, but then you’ll be able to set him right.’

  ‘I have grandchildren?’

  She beamed. ‘You have, and a great-grandchild too.’

  Those steps into the manor were the longest and hardest I’ve taken for years, harder even than the steps I trod in leaving it. I couldn’t believe that anyone I knew was still alive and I was more afraid to meet them than I would have been to see their ghosts. I knew ghosts. I’d travelled with them for a long time. I was no longer afraid of the dead, only of the living.

  Every time I closed my eyes I saw her face and heard her cries for help. What had Cygnus said? ‘No one who brings harm to a child can ever be forgiven.’ And I had murdered her. No, not murdered, Rodrigo was right, for what I had done had been far worse than that. I was the most despicable of all cowards, for I had persuaded others to kill for me. How could Rodrigo know the pain and self-loathing which comes from that? I thought of the little girl the cordwainer had killed. He had done it himself with his bare hands, stared her terror and pain straight in the face. Was that less cowardly than what I had done?

  But when I closed my eyes I would also remember the expression of triumph on Narigorm’s face as she forced Rodrigo to his knees in the pool of poison and then I was not sorry. Not sorry when I thought of Pleasance and Cygnus and Jofre and yes, even poor Zophiel. Narigorm is dead and Rodrigo, Adela, Osmond and Carwyn are alive. She cannot hurt them now. She cannot hurt any one any more with her game of truth. And I would do it again, if by killing I could keep those I love safe.

  The truth? Yes, I think it is time for that now, long past time. Narigorm discovered the truth about me that last night when she held St Uncumber’s beard to the wind. St Uncumber had to pray for her disfigurement; I was given mine.

  I was, as I think you have already guessed, a woman once, a long time ago, and now I am again. My maid dresses me in kirtle and wimple. My grandchildren call me grandam, but still I forget. I forget how to sit and how to stitch tapestries and how to do all those things which make us women. But they forgive me because I’m old, a curiosity with strange tales to tell that they like to hear, but do not quite believe. They even forgive my scar now for when you’re old you are sexless. Men’s beards fall out and women’s chins sprout hairs. Men grow plump dugs while women’s breasts shrink to flaps and the skin on your belly hangs so loose who can tell what it covers, when what it covers no longer stirs despite your daydreams. And when the worms strip our corpses to the bone, who can name the mistress or the master, the beauty or the beast? And I’ve been all those in my time. Daughter, wife, mother – those too. Now I learn I am a widow, but I might as well have been a widow then for all the husband he was.

  The crusades to the Holy Land were long over, but the Pope declared that fighting the Turks
was still a holy war, a sacred duty, a noble cause, and gave his blessing to looting, murdering and raping round half the world in search of stolen wealth and glory. I gave my husband three healthy sons. They slithered out as regularly as lambs from a ewe and my husband stayed long enough to be sure he had spawned an heir and a spare, then he was off, away for years fighting the Turks, leaving me to mind his lands at home, raise his children and protect his property. But we got by well enough without him. To tell the truth, none of us could remember what he had done when he was at home, so it hardly seemed to matter if he came back or not, until the Scots decided to pay us a visit.

  It was not an army, you understand, more a drunken rabble who’d scarcely been bothered to polish their weapons, not expecting any resistance with half the able-bodied men away. I heard the shouts of the men, the overturning furniture and smashing of pots. Then I heard the screams of my children crying out in fear. I knew the servants would simply scatter in terror without someone to urge them to resist. But I would not let them hurt my children, not as long as I had breath enough to stop them. I was sick with fear, but I heard my father’s voice ringing in my ears, ‘Better he come home on a shield than as a coward.’ So I put on a helmet and picked up a sword.

  Anger can give you the strength of a man. Fear can make you far stronger. I managed to get in half a dozen creditable strokes before the blow fell on me. The servants were shamed into staying to fight and, ill prepared for any kind of resistance, the Scots fled with the job only half done. I was wounded, yes, but not quite dead. A glancing blow, the servants told me later, else it would have hewn my skull in two. They said St Michael himself must have been watching over me. If he was, his attention wandered, for the wound was deep, cutting right down to the gleaming white bone beneath. It took my eye and split my nose. Not that I knew or cared at the time.

  For several weeks I lay in my husband’s bed, drifting in and out of a drugged sleep and raging fever. Finally the fever broke and I got up, shaky as a newborn lamb, but what else could I do? There was still a manor to run. My wound healed well enough in time, but it left a vivid purple scar. My nose was spread half across my cheek and I had one empty eye socket, but I was alive and we carried on much as we had before.

  My brave husband came back from fighting the Turks and brought me a robe of silk and a necklace of human teeth. He sat up night after night by his hearth telling tales of battle. Apparently the Turks are ten times more ferocious and fearless than the Scots. ‘Perhaps we should invite them here to drive the Scots back,’ I suggested, and he laughed, but he didn’t kiss me. That’s when I learned the truth about scars. A man with a battle-scar is a veteran, a hero, given an honoured place at the fire. Small boys gaze up fascinated, dreaming of winning such badges of courage. Maids caress his thighs with their buttocks as they bend over to mull his ale. Women cluck and cosset, and if in time the other men grow a little weary of that tale of honour, then they call for his cup to be filled again and again till he is fuddled and dozes quietly in the warmth of the embers.

  But a scarred woman is not encouraged to tell her story. Boys jeer and mothers cross themselves. Pregnant women will not come close for fear that if they look upon such a sight, the infant in their belly will be marked. You’ve heard the tales of Beauty and the Beast no doubt. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you’ve never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn’t happen, not even in fairytales. The truth is that the scarred woman’s husband buys her a good thick veil and enquires about nunneries for the good of her health. He spends his days with his falcons and his nights instructing pageboys in their duties. For if nothing else, the wars taught him how to be a diligent master to such pretty lads.

  So I handed my name to my niece, a flawless, whey-faced virgin. Told her she could use it how she pleased. My only regret was leaving my little sons. But I had seen them shudder as they looked at me and watched them stare at the floor when they were forced to speak with me, and I knew they were ashamed to own me as their mother. So I put on a man’s garb and set off to see where the road would take me. And there I found a use for my scar; it was the provenance of my relics and for this they paid me well.

  If I had told Rodrigo the truth about myself, would he have forgiven me? Would it have made a difference that I was a woman? Would he still have called me coward? Probably he’d have called me worse, for the world thinks that for a man to kill a child is cowardice, for a woman it is crime beyond punishment. But it matters to me what he thinks, for Narigorm was right. I loved Rodrigo. I still do. I think he was the only man I ever loved. Would he have loved me, if he’d known? No, I’d have seen him recoil in revulsion; he is a man after all and I am a scarred woman, an old woman. Better he should hate me for being a coward than loathe me for being what I am.

  Sometimes I take out the tear of Venice and hold it up to the light and remember those nights in the rain and the nights under the stars; the way the sunlight turned Xanthus’s coat to fire and firelight reflected in Jofre’s eyes as he sang and the way Rodrigo looked at him. I would have liked to have seen that city of light and the streets where Rodrigo played as a boy. I would have liked to have heard the music of the Jews as they danced at their weddings. But who knows if there are any Jews left in Venice now or even children to play in the streets?

  In any case I am glad my travelling days are over. Here I sit surrounded by my son and my grandchildren and great-grandchild in the warmth and comfort of a solid house. I sleep in a soft bed and sit in a comfortable chair. I only have to raise my little finger for maids to coming running with possets and mulled wine. I’m content to end my days here. What more could anyone ask?

  Cicely comes into the solar now. She drops a curtsy.

  ‘If you please, mistress, there’s a child at the door begs leave to speak with you.’

  ‘A child from the village?’ I smile. There’ve been a lot of those. Some sent by their mothers with a small gift to welcome me home, some just curious to see if my face is really as terrible as their brothers and sisters have whispered.

  ‘Oh no, mistress, she’s not from round here. I’ve never seen this one before and she’s not a child you’d be likely to forget if you had.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, though I am too warm and drowsy to care.

  ‘A strange-looking little thing she is, hair like my old mother’s before she died. White, I don’t mean blonde, white like skimmed milk and her skin’s so pale, it’s not natural, if you know what I mean. Still she can’t help that, can she? She’s such an innocent little smile, you can’t help but be drawn to her.’

  Suddenly, I am wide awake. An icy chill runs down my spine. The room seems to sway. It can’t be. It’s not possible.

  Cicely puts out her hand. ‘Are you ill, mistress? You’ve gone quite pale.’

  ‘You’re sure she asked for me?’

  ‘Oh yes, mistress, she was very particular. It’s you she wants. She seems to know all about you. Shall I let her in?’

  Historical Notes

  Eyewitness accounts differ as to exactly when the Black Death entered Britain; dates range from June 1348 to as late as the autumn of that year. Several towns and villages have claimed the unhappy title of being the site of the first outbreak, from Melcombe in Dorset, now part of Weymouth, to Southampton and Bristol. There probably was no single point of entry and a number of ships from the Channel Islands and Europe may have carried the plague to various ports in England within weeks of one another.

  Although we now refer to the terrible epidemic which devastated Europe in the Middle Ages as the Plague or the Black Death, in fact neither of these terms was used until centuries later. At the time it was known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or, in France, morte bleue, from the bruises on the skin resulting from subdural haemorrhaging. Contemporary accounts suggest that the plague did not just affect humans; sheep, cattle, horses and
pigs also died from it.

  We now believe that not one but three plagues raged across Europe in 1348 – Bubonic Plague, spread by rat fleas, characterized by buboes or swellings in groins and armpits, which brings about death in two to six days; Pneumonic Plague, attacking the lungs, which is spread through coughing and breathing; and Septicaemic Plague, where the bacteria enter the bloodstream, causing death within the day.

  It is now thought that many of the victims in Britain in the 1348/1349 outbreak died from the more infectious Pneumonic Plague, spreading directly from human to human, although later outbreaks may well have been Bubonic Plague.

  The 1348 plague was only the latest in a series of disasters to hit Britain. The period between 1290 and 1348 had seen a rapid and drastic climate change which was so noticeable that the Pope ordered special prayers to be said daily in every church. Eyewitness accounts claimed that 1348 was a particularly bad year, for it rained every day from Midsummer’s Day to Christmas Day. Climate change brought about crop failure, liver fluke in sheep and murrain in cattle, as well as causing widespread flooding which virtually wiped out the salt industry on the east coast. This, combined with a population explosion, meant that as many people died from starvation as from the plague itself.

  Many different causes for the plague were proposed by the Church and others, including divine punishment, bad air, imbalance of humours, overeating and vampires. At that time it was considered heresy by the Church not to acknowledge the existence of vampires and werewolves. Jews were also accused of causing the plague by poisoning the wells and were attacked and murdered right across Europe. Despite the Pope declaring that the Jews were not to blame for the pestilence and forbidding anyone to harm them, in Strasbourg on St Valentine’s Day 1349, two thousand Jews were offered the choice between forced baptism and death. Many, including babies and children, were burned alive on a wooden platform in the cemetery. Even in England, anti-Jewish hysteria was widespread, despite all Jews having been expelled from Britain in 1290.