I returned the grin, knowing there was neither mockery nor pity in his words, for I guessed we’d both suffered under the scourge of those twins.
I had no fear of this test. I was certain that even if one among us had taken the stone, not even guilt would cause them to cry out. But it would at least ensure Narigorm could do no more harm.
Osmond spent a long time selecting exactly the right piece of charred wood from the fire and even longer drawing an eye on the grey-white stones of the ruined wall, taking as much care as if he was drawing the eye of God on a church wall. His face took on a faraway look and I sensed it had been so many moons since he’d had the joy of drawing anything that he couldn’t bear to stop. Pecker hunted for an iron horseshoe nail among his stolen treasures and a rock with which to hammer it in.
When Osmond was finally satisfied his honour as an artist had been upheld, he turned back to us, holding his hand out for the nail, but Pecker grasped it tightly.
‘You’re as likely to be the thief as any here.’ He jerked the nail towards Adela. ‘You get back there with your wife and all of you turn about.’
Adela clutched Osmond’s hand. She looked terrified and the awful thought struck me that perhaps Osmond was guilty and she knew it. I was afraid Adela was so tense and scared she’d cry out herself. I glanced at the others. Rodrigo’s expression gave nothing away, but Jofre too looked anxious and his hand kept straying to his eyes, as if he was trying to defend himself from a blow. Silence descended on the group. We listened, hearing only the wind in the branches and the drip, drip of water falling from twigs into the puddles below.
The ring of iron hitting stone shattered the silence, but at the same instant there was a sharp cry. We all turned. Dye was bending over, her hand pressed to the right side of her face, covering her eye. The nail and rock fell from Pecker’s hand with a clatter onto the stones. In one bound he was behind her, twisting her arm up her back and grabbing her around the throat with the other hand.
‘The brat said treachery,’ he growled. ‘I thought she was telling me what you’d done, but she was warning me what you would do.’
Dye was choking, scarlet in the face as his fingers tightened about her slender neck. She was struggling to speak, but no one could make out her words. All of us were too stunned to move. Pecker began pushing her away from the camp. Our little band gaped at one another.
‘We have to go after them,’ I urged. ‘He’ll kill her!’
My words surprised even me. Why should I care what became of an outlaw? But I’d seen the pain in Dye’s eyes when she’d spoken of her lost child and knew she was only what others had made her, as were we all.
‘It’s between them,’ Osmond said. He had his arm around Adela, holding her close and trying to stop her shaking. ‘They’re thieves, leave them to it. If they’re busy killing each other, it gives us a chance to get away from them, find the wagon and the others.’
‘You go,’ Rodrigo said. ‘Get Adela to the wagon. I will go after Dye. Camelot is right. She is a woman. She cannot fight him.’
‘From what I’ve seen,’ a voice said coldly, ‘that woman can fight better than most men and kill too. If he murders her, it will be nothing less than she deserves.’
Zophiel emerged from behind the wall, dirty and dishevelled, but he had managed to free himself from his bonds.
‘Where have you been hiding?’ Osmond demanded.
‘Not hiding,’ Zophiel spat. ‘Merely keeping out of sight until the opportunity presented itself to rescue you. Though why I should bother, I don’t know, since you could all have easily slipped away last night.’
‘If Adela had fallen in the dark—’
‘Ah yes, once again we must all risk our lives for that woman and her unborn brat. If you ask me, it would be as well for the child if it did die in the womb. At least then it would be spared the tender mercies of its half-witted parents.’
‘No one is asking you,’ Osmond said, taking a step towards him, scarlet with rage, but Adela, hanging on his arm, held him back.
A shriek of fear rang out somewhere beyond the camp.
‘Dye! You must help her, Osmond. You must,’ Adela begged.
Rodrigo lumbered off in the direction of the sound, Jofre sprinting after him. Osmond, still scowling, followed. I was hurrying after them when a flash of white made me glance down. I had forgotten about our little mouse, or should I say cat? Narigorm was squatting on the ground, bouncing two small sharp pebbles in her hand.
I followed the sounds of the running feet ahead. When I emerged through the trees, I found myself staring at the backs of Rodrigo, Jofre and Osmond. They had stopped a few yards away from Pecker, and I could see why. Pecker still had Dye in his grip, but they were standing on the very edge of the gullet. He was facing her, gripping her by the upper arms and bending her backwards over the stinking water where Holy Jack’s body still floated.
‘Tell me! Tell me!’ he yelled. ‘Where’s that fecking stone? If you don’t give it to me, I swear you’ll be joining your lover down there.’
Dye was wide-eyed with fear, but plainly afraid to struggle in case she slipped from his fingers and fell. ‘I didn’t take it! I told you, something flew at me, hit me in the face. That’s what made me cry out. I can still feel the mark. See!’
‘Yes, the mark of the nail!’ Pecker spat. ‘But I’m a fair man, not like those justices who marked me. I’m going to give you another chance to prove your innocence. I’m going to swim you. If you sink, I’ll believe you’re as innocent as the dew from the moon. Can’t be fairer than that, can I? Go on, jump in with your dead lover. Prove to me how innocent you really are.’
Suddenly, I understood what Narigorm had done.
‘Let her go, Pecker,’ I shouted. ‘She’s speaking the truth. Narigorm threw a stone at her as you drove the nail in, that’s why she cried out.’
Pecker briefly turned his head. ‘And why should the brat do that, old man? She told the truth about Dye last night, right enough. The woman’s a whore and a murderer. She stabbed her own husband while he slept, did you know that?’
He had relaxed his grip slightly on Dye, who managed to pull herself upright, though he was still holding her right on the edge of the pit.
‘I told you about that myself, you bastard. Told you he beat me, till I couldn’t take no more. I stabbed him when he’d fallen into a drunken stupor ’cause I knew he’d never let me go. He’d have killed me if I hadn’t.’
‘So you say,’ Pecker growled. ‘For all I know, he was some meek little worm that was stupid enough to trust you, same as I did, and poor old Jack there. I should have beaten you myself. Maybe then you’d have learned—’
He broke off, staring at something among the trees on the other side of the gullet, his eyes widening in fear. A man was walking towards us, out of the grey mist of rain, and that man was unmistakably Holy Jack.
Pecker stared at him and then down into the gullet. He lifted his hands as if he was warding off an avenging ghost. As he let go of Dye, she teetered backwards on the very edge of the pit. We stared at her, certain she was going to fall, but in one desperate effort she flung herself forward, knocking against Pecker as she sprawled face down on the grass. Pecker tried in vain to right himself, but his foot slipped over the edge of the gullet. The ground was too muddy for him to get a purchase and with a howl he plunged down into the pit. We heard the great splash. All three of us rushed forward, as Dye crawled on her hands and knees away from the edge and collapsed into the mud.
Pecker was shrieking for help and flailing wildly in the water. It was evident he couldn’t swim and even if he could have struck out for the side, nothing save a lizard could have crawled up those sheer rocks. Someone pushed me aside. It was Dye. She had snatched up a fallen branch. She flopped down on her belly and, lying flat on the ground, she thrust the branch down towards Pecker as far as she could reach.
‘Grab it, Pecker!’ she urged. ‘Reach for it! I’ll get you out. I won’t let you d
rown, I won’t!’
She was stretching as far down as she could, holding the unwieldy branch out with every grain of strength she had, but it was futile. Even if the branch had been twice as long, she could not have reached him, for he was so far below her.
Pecker splashed frantically, trying to bob upwards and grasp the branch, but each effort only sent him down under the filthy water. He’d rise again, choking, only to sink once more.
‘Hold on, Pecker,’ Dye begged. ‘Here, wait, I’ll take off my hose . . . tie them to the branch.’
She pulled the branch back and made to wrench off her boots, but I grabbed her.
‘It’s no use, Dye. You’ll never reach him that way, not without a long rope and—’
‘I’ll get one. I’ll be back, Pecker. Hold on. Hold on!’
She tore herself from my grip and raced off in the direction of the camp. I heard her crashing through the bushes.
Pecker’s strength was failing fast. He made a wild grab for the only solid thing he could feel, the corpse of what we’d thought was Holy Jack. As Pecker seized a handful of his rags, the body slowly rolled over in the water, and we saw the sightless eyes of Weasel staring up at us.
As Weasel’s body turned in the water, the peeling arm of the naked corpse beneath him drifted across Pecker’s face, the cold white fingers caressing him like a lover. Pecker gave a shriek of horror and, throwing both hands up to fight it off, he sank beneath the grey-green water. Weasel’s corpse, freed now from the bloated body beneath it, sank down on top of Pecker and both men vanished from our sight.
We left Dye sitting in the ruins, Holy Jack beside her, his arm about her shoulders. This time, they did not try to stop us leaving. Dye was staring fixedly into the flames of the fire. She’d shed not one tear and, in truth, I wouldn’t have expected any woman to weep over a man like Pecker, but I’d seen her frantic attempts to save him, and I knew in her own way she’d loved him.
Then again, perhaps she was right not to judge him as harshly as some might have done. He’d been shown no mercy by men, and they’d taught him to give none. I touched my own puckered scar. A blade only cuts the flesh, but words that wound the mind leave a far more twisted scar. I hoped that Holy Jack would be kinder to Dye, though I had little conviction such kindness would extend to any travellers unfortunate enough pass their way. I had the feeling that the water in the gullet might rise still further and not just because of the rain.
Jack was adamant Weasel had stolen the salamander stone. Afraid that Pecker might attempt to kill him while he slept, Jack had kept himself awake and he’d seen Weasel sneak back to the camp. Weasel had wrapped himself in Jack’s own cloak, doubtless to disguise himself in case anyone stirred, then crept across to Pecker’s bothy. If anyone could have removed a stone without waking a man, it was Weasel, and Jack was certain he’d done just that.
‘You don’t steal from your own, that’s the rules,’ Holy Jack said. ‘We made a bargain and Weasel broke it. “He who breaks the covenant shall be put to death.”’
Jack had followed Weasel as he slipped back into the forest and stabbed him. But when he searched Weasel’s body he could find no trace of the stone. He was certain Weasel must have dropped it when he was stabbed or as he ran from the camp. Jack had spent the rest of the night and morning hunting for it, finally returning to the gullet, thinking it might have fallen out as he’d carried the body to the pit. But he hadn’t given up hope. He was determined to keep searching until he found it.
I felt Zophiel’s eyes upon me as we led Xanthus limping back through the forest to where we’d hidden the wagon.
‘You see, Camelot,’ he said. ‘That is what hope does to you. Jack and that woman will spend the rest of their pathetic lives hunting for one stone among thousands, certain it will make their fortune. Sooner or later, one of the victims they attack will be carrying the Great Pestilence and they will die in agony, on their hands and knees, still searching for the cure. Hope, Camelot, is a floating corpse. Cling to it and it will pull you down to hell.’
I glanced at him.
‘Was there ever really a salamander stone?’ I asked.
He raised his eyebrows, an amused glint in his eyes. ‘Surely not even you believe that tale. Offer any man a way of cheating death and he will kill for it. That is one of the few certainties of life, my friend.’
But even as he spoke, I saw Zophiel’s hand stray to his leather scrip as if he was reassuring himself that something of great value still lay safe inside.
If you enjoyed this tale from the critically acclaimed Queen of the Dark Ages, read on for a preview of her new novel, THE VANISHING WITCH, published by Headline Review on 14th August 2014.
Prologue
A killing ointment made of arsenic, vitriol, baby’s fat, bat’s blood and hemlock may be spread on the latches, gates and doorposts of houses in the dark of night. Thus can death run swiftly through a town.
River Witham, Lincolnshire
‘Help me! I beg you, help me!’
The cry was muffled in the dense, freezing mist that swirled over the black river. As his punt edged upstream, Gunter caught the distant wail and dug his pole into the river bottom trying to hold his boat steady against the swift current. The shout seemed to have come from the bank somewhere ahead, but Gunter could barely see the flame of his lantern in the bow, much less who might be calling.
The cry came again. ‘In your mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ, help me!’
The mist distorted the sound so Gunter couldn’t be sure if it was coming from right or left. He struggled to hold the punt in the centre of the river and cursed himself. He should have hauled up somewhere for the night long before this, but it had taken four days to move the cargo downriver to Boston and return this far. He was desperate to reach home and reassure himself that his wife and children were safe.
Yesterday he’d seen the body of a boatman fished out of the river. The poor bastard had been beaten bloody, robbed and stabbed. Whoever had murdered him had not even left him the dignity of his breeches. And he wasn’t the first boatman in past weeks to be found floating face down with stab wounds in his back.
‘Is anyone there?’ the man called again, uncertainly this time, as if he feared he might be speaking to a ghost or water sprite.
Such a thought had also crossed Gunter’s mind. Two children had drowned not far from here and it was said their ghosts prowled the bank luring others to their deaths in the icy river.
‘What are you?’ Gunter yelled back. ‘Name yourself.’
‘A humble Friar of the Sack, a Brother of Penitence.’ The voice was deep and rasping, as if it had rusted over the years from lack of use. ‘The mist . . . I stumbled into the bog and almost drowned in the mud. I’m afraid to move, in case I sink into the mire or fall into the river.’
Now Gunter could make out dark shapes through the billows of mist, but the glimpses were so fleeting he couldn’t tell if they were men or trees. Every instinct told him to ignore the stranger and push on up the river. This was exactly the kind of trick the river-rats used to lure craft to the bank so that they could rob the boatmen. The man they’d found in the water had been a strapping lad, with two sound legs. Gunter had only one . . . His left leg had been severed at the knee and replaced by a wooden stump with a foot in the form of an upturned mushroom, not unlike the end of one of his own punt poles. Although he could walk as fast as any man, if it came to a fight, he could easily be knocked off balance.
But the stranger on the bank would not give up. ‘I beg you, in God’s mercy, help me. I’m wet and starving. I fear dawn will see me a frozen corpse if I stay out here all night.’
The rasping tone of the man’s voice made it sound more like a threat than a plea, but Gunter had been cold and hungry often enough in his life to know the misery those twin demons could inflict and the night was turning bitter. There’d be a hard frost come morning. He knew he’d never forgive himself if he left a man out here to die. ‘Call again, and kee
p calling till I can see you,’ he instructed.
He listened to the voice and propelled his punt towards the left bank, eventually drawing close enough to make out the shape of a hooded figure in a long robe standing close by the water’s edge. Gunter tightened his hold on the quant: with its metal foot, the long pole could be turned into a useful weapon if the man tried to seize the boat.
The friar’s breath hung white in the chill air, mingling with the icy vapour of the river. As soon as the prow of the punt came close, he bent as if he meant to grab it. But Gunter was ready for that. He whisked the quant over to the other side of the punt and pushed away from the bank, calculating that the man would not risk jumping in that robe.
‘By the blood of Christ, I swear I mean you no harm.’ But the man’s voice sounded even more menacing now that Gunter was close. The friar stretched out his right arm into the pool of light cast by the lantern. The folds of his sleeve hung down, thick and heavy with mud. Slowly, with the other hand, he peeled back the sodden sleeve to reveal an arm that ended at the wrist. ‘I am hardly a threat to any man.’
Gunter felt an instant flush of shame. He resented any man’s pity for his own missing limb and was offering none to the friar, but he despised himself for his distrust and cowardice. It couldn’t have been easy for the friar to pull himself free of the mire that had swallowed many an unwary traveller.
Gunter had always believed that priests and friars were weaklings who’d chosen the Church to avoid blistering their hands in honest toil and sweat. But this man was no minnow and he was plainly determined not to meet his Creator yet, for all that he was in Holy Orders.
Gunter brought the punt close to the bank, and held it steady in the current for the friar to climb in and settle himself on one of the cross planks. His coarse, shapeless robe clung wetly to his body, plastered with mud and slime. He sat shivering, his hood pulled so low over his head that Gunter could see nothing of his face.