I lied. My target was Steventon, the manor in Berkshire once owned by Sir Hugh Calveley, my father’s murderer. Calveley was dead, and I had no idea how much, if any, of the great fortune he amassed in his many campaigns still remained at Steventon. He had left no heirs, only a Spanish wife who despised her husband and returned to her homeland while he was still alive.
The lie was necessary, and had the required effect. Long Hugh and John Burnham were born thieves.
“Done,” they said.
7.
It was easy enough to persuade Stafford to let me go on another raid, though he expressed concern at how few men I wished to take.
“Hugh and Burnham are worth any ten of my lord Arundel’s verderers,” I said with forced confidence.
I pretended we were going to hunt the deer in the earl’s parks, where the outlaws had enjoyed so much success in the past. My heart thumped in fear that he might see through the deception. Stafford liked to think he was a shrewd judge of men, though he never saw through my bluff exterior.
Stafford pondered awhile, frowning and stroking his pointed chin while I broke into a light sweat. “Very well,” he said at last, “you know your business, John Page, more than any other man in my service. Come back with a brace of plump deer for our supper.”
He solemnly muttered a blessing over me, made the sign of the cross, and shook my hand. His grip was like a wet fish, soft and oily, and made me want to wash.
We rode out on a raw autumn morning, with a strange heaviness in the air. I had no intention of returning, and so twisted in the saddle to take one final look at the stockade.
Stafford stood at the gate. I can still picture his thin, slightly stooped figure, one slender arm raised in a gesture of farewell. Smoke from the roof of the long-house curled lazily into the sky, and I could heard faint laughter and singing from inside.
That was the last time I saw him. He was never hanged, to the best of my knowledge, or burned at the stake. Many years after our brief association, I heard he was still haunting the forests of Sussex, leading the verderers a merry dance and waiting in confident expectation for the End of Days. He may be waiting still.
I vaguely knew the route to Steventon from maps of England held among my mother’s papers at Kingshook. According to the Ballad of the Black Oak, one of the ballads sung by the troubadours of his life and death, Thomas Page was never buried, but left to hang in an iron cage until his bones fell to earth:
“The half-hanged man dwells not in Heaven,
His soul burns in the darkest deep,
In life he was fiercer than a lion,
A wolf among the sheep,
Alas! His shield was broke, his hauberk undone,
By one who sought him far and long.
Sir Hugh Calveley, the red dog of France,
Conqueror of many a foe,
Took his quarry by the slightest chance,
And slew him at the Black Oak,
The flesh of the wolf was left to rot,
No Christian grave for his bones,
He haunts there still, dishonoured and forgot,
His soul condemned to walk alone.”
I wanted to see my father’s bones, and look for his few possessions. Calveley would doubtless have taken his sword and ring, as well as the mysterious packet of letters Page carried with him. I thought they might be gathering dust in some coffer.
Long Hugh and Burnham knew little of my history, and I told them nothing of my true intentions as we rode north-west, following the King’s highway beyond the borders of the Weald, into the pleasant green hill country I knew so well.
It was a dry autumn, and we made good speed along the roads. Once we had to dodge into the woods to avoid a troop of men-at-arms. Their steel bascinets and brigandines gleamed in the sun as they jogged along, perhaps towards the coast and a ship to take them to Normandy.
Otherwise we were unimpeded, and within two days had crossed into Berkshire. My memory of the route was at fault, so to avoid getting hopelessly lost we stopped a group of pilgrims and asked them the way to Steventon.
They were a motley band, as pilgrims usually are, tradesmen and labourers and widows and others, all united in their desire to reach the tomb of the holy blessed martyr at Canterbury. Few were armed, and they trembled with fear at the sight of us, grizzled and dirty from the forest as we were, and bristling with weapons.
“Steventon lies to the east, noble sir,” said their leader, “follow the road past Farnborough, and you should reach the manor by noon.”
“My thanks,” I said courteously, “who holds it now, since the death of Sir Hugh Calveley?”
He didn’t know, but one of his company, a hollow-cheeked clerk who looked in equal need of salvation and a good meal, piped up.
“The manor and rectory of Steventon, along with the advowson of the vicarage,” he trilled, “were sold to Calveley by the abbey of Bec. Upon his death, leaving no heir, they were conveyed to the Bishop of Salisbury, who in turn conveyed them to His late Majesty King Richard the Second, who in turn conveyed them to the abbot and convent of Westminster.”
I thanked the pilgrims and hurried on, before Long Hugh and Burnham could start casting greedy eyes at their purses. They needed little encouragement, those two, and I didn’t want to get into a brawl on the highway.
The road led past a hamlet before we came to the larger village of Steventon, where we stopped at the inn to refresh our horses and sink a few cups of ale.
The innkeeper didn’t look happy at our presence, and slapped down a jug of ale and a platter of bread and bacon at our table without a word. I nudged Long Hugh with my foot when he reached for his knife, and smiled at our host.
“Tell me, friend,” I asked, “do you know the Ballad of the Black Oak?”
He sniffed, wiped his greasy hands on his stained apron, and narrowed his eyes at me. “I know it,” he conceded, “and I know the oak as well. It lies not half a mile from here, a lone tree on the bare hillside.”
I thought a small bribe might loosen his tongue. Fortunately, I had managed to retrieve part of the money I lost to the outlaws. Stafford shared the stolen silver among his followers, who promptly lost it to me in games of dice.
I took a shilling from my purse and laid it flat on the table. “Could you take us there?” I asked innocently.
“What for?” he demanded, his eyes wide as they stared at the coin. “It’s a bad place. A man was murdered at the oak, as the ballad says. His spirit lingers on the hillside. Some have heard him weep at night.”
“I know all that,” I replied. “The dead man’s name was Thomas Page. I am his son.”
He crossed himself. “And you want to dig up his bones, is that it?” he exclaimed with a strange kind of fierceness, “take my advice, young man, and go home. The dead should be left to rest.”
“Rest?” I said. “You just told me his soul haunts the place where he was murdered.”
I produced another coin and laid it next to the first. “Two silver shillings,” I added, “all yours, if you take us to the tree.”
“Not I,” he stammered after a moment’s hesitation, “fifty shillings wouldn’t get me to the Black Oak. But I know one who might take you there. His name’s Wat. He’s a charcoal burner. Spends much of his time in the forest. Darkness, and evil spirits that stalk the land at night, hold no fears for him.”
I spread my hands. “He sounds a fine man. I look forward to meeting him. Soon.”
The innkeeper nervously fiddled with the hem of his apron. “There’s something else you should know. Wat saw your father die. He was in the woods, up near the hill, when Calveley and his rogues did Page in. Saw them cut his throat and hang up his body in that accursed cage. Some time later, Wat went back to the spot with a couple of lads from the village.”
“Why did he go back?” I asked.
The other man looked sadly at me. “Why, sir, to cut the poor wretch down, and then to bury him.”
8.
Wat turned out to be a sturdy old peasant, wrinkled and nut-brown from a lifetime spent in the open. The innkeeper sent a boy to fetch him from his hut in the woods, and we met him on the outskirts of the village, where the road started to narrow and wind up into the hills.
He looked me over without much interest when I introduced myself, and stuck out his gnarled hand, indelibly stained with the dust of his grubby trade.
“The boy said you had money,” he snapped in a hoarse, cracked voice, “two shillings, maybe more.”
I dug out the coins and dropped them in his hand. He closed his fingers and gave a brief nod.
“I’ll take you to the oak,” he said, “and show you where we buried your father. We’ll need shovels.”
Long Hugh shifted impatiently. “I’m weary of all this talk of ghosts and hanged men,” he said, “where’s this treasure you promised us, Page?”
“Patience,” I said soothingly, “after we’ve finished at the tree, we’ll move on to Steventon manor. Lots of plunder there. Enough to set you up for life. Plenty of drink and whores. You can both kill yourselves with pleasure.”
He and Burnham grinned at the sound of that, and their good humour lasted as we toiled up into the forested hill country.
Wat led us in silence. There was a certain quiet dignity about him, and he moved through the woods with surprising speed and grace for his age. I struggled to keep up with his rangy, long-legged stride, and even my companions, both seasoned foresters, were tired and dripping with sweat when we came to a little clearing.
The clearing lay at the end of a track that was almost vertical in places, and threatened to go on forever. Wat led me to the edge of the trees, while Long Hugh and Burnham unloaded the shovels. We had borrowed the tools from the innkeeper, as well as a tough little pony to carry them, at the cost of another two shillings.
“There,” grunted the charcoal burner with a nod at the clearing, “over there lies your father.”
I saw a giant, long-dead oak tree, its leafless branches spread like monstrous talons. The oak had been a king of the forest, once, before the sap ran dry and life faded from its raddled grey flesh, leaving a dead shell.
My jaw tightened when I spotted a length of chain dangling from one of the lower branches. The chain was stiff with rust, and ended in a curved hook. I needed no telling what it had been used for.
“Where is the cage?” I demanded.
“God knows,” Wat replied with a shrug, “me and my mates left it on the hook after we buried your father’s body. Someone else might have been up here since and taken it. Good iron is always useful.”
I took a deep breath and stepped into the clearing. “Where did you put my father to rest?” I asked.
He pointed at the grass at the foot of the tree. “Just there. Under the cage.”
“Could you not have taken him down to the churchyard in the village, and buried him like a Christian?”
Wat shook his grey head. “No, sir. Old Calveley was lord of Steventon, and would not have allowed it. All I could do was say a prayer when we were done.”
“I’m no priest,” he added with fear in his eyes as he glanced about the clearing, “hence your father’s spirit still haunts these woods.”
My companions were hard men, but looked pale as we carried our shovels to the tree.
Wat and his friends had buried my father deep. “To stop wolves digging up his remains,” the old man explained as we hacked away at the soil.
It was growing dark by the time we found the earthly remains of Thomas Page. The hole we excavated was almost the height of Long Hugh, and he gave a shout when the edge of his shovel cracked against something hard.
We cast our tools aside and grubbed in the dirt, clawing at it with our bare hands. More bones gradually became visible, wrapped in the mildewed scraps of a woollen grey shroud.
Wat knelt and carefully peeled back the shroud to expose some greenish ribs. “We had no coffin,” he muttered, “just an old cloak to wrap him in.”
Overwhelmed with sadness and pity, I knelt beside my father’s skull and stared into the empty eyes.
“What an end,” I murmured, “to die here, in the wilderness, after he had known the glory of the world. Set upon by cowards and murderers, with none to help him.”
I stared at my companions. “This man once led the Company of Wolves, and marched proudly under the banners of England, Castile and León. He deserved better.”
The others said nothing. I traced my finger over the curve of the skull, and noticed a tiny fracture on the back. Doubtless the result of a blow on the head, taken in combat.
I pondered his death. None of the ballads explained the reason for Page’s feud with Hugh Calveley. The cause had died with them, leaving only a gruesome narrative. Many more years passed before I learned the root of it.
Wat started to clear away the dirt over the finger-bones of my father’s right hand. “It’s still here,” he said excitedly, “the others wanted to sell it, but I wouldn’t let them. Wasn’t right, pillaging the dead.”
He ripped something from one of the skeletal fingers and held it out to me. My heart skipped when I saw the object resting on his grimy palm: a silver ring decorated with a perfectly round black crystal.
I took the ring and held it up to the light. The crystal was inscribed with the image of a white raven, wings outspread.
“The Raven of Toledo,” I breathed.
The Raven of Toledo was the nickname for my father’s lover, a Spanish noblewoman of Badajoz. Her real name was Eleanor Menezes de Alonchel, and I knew of her from the ballads, in which the Wolf and the Raven fought and marched together for many years until they met their grisly demise at the hands of the Red Bull, alias Sir Hugh Calveley.
Unusually for a former routier, Calveley had not stripped my father’s body of valuables after murdering him. Perhaps some grim sense of romance compelled him to leave the ring on Page’s body.
I brushed away the spots of dirt and slipped it onto my finger. A perfect fit.
My eyes were moist. I irritably blinked the tears away, knowing it was fatal to show weakness before the likes of Long Hugh and John Burnham.
“Some treasure,” grunted Burnham, “one poxy ring. You promised us more than this, Page.”
Long Hugh fingered the hilt of his broad knife. “Aye,” he said, “that you did. I didn’t leave the Weald just to dig up some dusty old bones.”
I faced them down. It sounds absurd, but I felt like a different man with Thomas Page’s ring on my finger, as though part of his warlike soul dwelled inside the crystal.
“You’ll get your plunder,” I snarled at them in an aggressive tone I had never used before, “we’ll go to Steventon, as I promised, and strip it to the bone.”
“Remember one thing,” I added forcefully, “I’m in charge. You do as I say, when I say it. Understand?”
Neither of them challenged my bluff. Long Hugh could have twisted my neck in one of his big hands, but wouldn’t even meet my eye. They were cravens, fit for nothing save poaching and highway robbery.
Wat looked pensive. He had overheard us talking of the intended raid on Steventon. If we let him go, he might warn the High Sheriff or his officers before we attacked the place.
Had I been twenty years older, I would have cut the charcoal burner’s throat without hesitation. I was still young then, and inclined to mercy.
“Here,” I said, offering Wat the last of the silver from my purse, “take this. Let it buy your silence.”
He snatched the money, gave us one last furtive look, and hobbled off into the trees. I noticed Burnham reach for one of the red-fletched arrows in his quiver.
“Don’t,” I growled, laying a hand on my sword.
“You’re a fool,” he muttered, “that old man will get us all hanged.”
He said no more, and worked with Long Hugh in meek silence as we filled in the grave. I had abandoned the notion of giving my father a proper Christian burial. We lacked the time and th
e means to move his remains, and perhaps six feet of English earth was as good as a churchyard. At least I had his ring, which may have served to calm his restless spirit.
When all was done, and the Half-Hanged Man covered over again, we gladly quit that dreadful place.
I have never been back.
9.
Calveley’s manor house at Steventon was old, perhaps as old as Kingshook, but with new red tiles on the roof and fresh plaster on the walls. My mother’s house was a barn by comparison. The same wars that made Calveley rich had condemned her to live in penury, loaded down with debts she could not repay.
I first saw the place from the shelter of a little wood, where we halted to spy out the land. The house was built in a typical L-shape, with no outer wall, and surrounded by a deer park. There was good arable land in the distance, all brownfield at this time of year, and a few scattered farmsteads in the distance.
“Pity the poor monks,” sneered Long Hugh, “forced to dwell in such a place. Look at those deer cropping the grass. I’ll wager the impoverished servants of Christ dine on venison pasties every night, washed down with a quart of French wine.”
Burnham nodded in agreement. “Fat as butter,” he said, “eating and drinking of the best, while preaching the virtues of temperance to the poor.”
He spat on the ground, and lovingly stroked the fletches of his arrows. “You ever seen a monk dance, Hugh? You will after I’ve put a few of these in their lardy backsides.”
“There won’t be any monks in Steventon,” I said, “the abbey of Westminster will have a steward in place, to run the manor and ensure it turns a profit.”
They were a murderous pair, and looked sorely disappointed at being denied the opportunity to shoot a few monks.
“Look,” I said, pointing at the house, “there is no gate or high wall to stop us. The steward and his servants shouldn’t be a threat. This will be easy as stretching a rabbit’s neck.”
The Wolf Cub Page 6