‘I was…’ he started, gesturing at the heap. Then he coughed with a sound like stones being churned in a bucket, bent double with the hacking. ‘I have it,’ he gasped, when the spasm had passed. ‘The pestilence. I will be dead soon, so it can hardly matter if I am starving or not. Still.’ He coughed again. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Haleswell,’ she replied. ‘I mean to speak to the sheriff. I will remind him of his obligations. They must help us.’
‘You will never see him. They have sealed themselves off from the world.’
She raised her chin. ‘Then I will die at their door if that is all I can do, but at the very least they will see me. They will close their eyes to our plight no longer.’
He considered this for a moment. ‘May I join you? I might just as well die there than here, and it would be nice to have the company of a friend for a while.’
Hester hesitated. It had not occurred to her that she might not have to do this alone. The black fury abated somewhat and she moved to embrace him. ‘You can keep me safe on the road,’ she smiled into his shoulder.
‘I shall be glad if I can keep on my feet.’
Nor had it occurred to Hester that there would be others remaining in Clegeham who wished to accompany her, but as she and Janot walked past the untended fields and cottages, their surviving inhabitants appeared, curious. To those who asked, Hester told them just what she’d told Janot. Some were scornful, and turned back to tend their dying, but quite a few joined her on the road northward. Many had armed themselves with farm tools and muttered darkly about taking what was rightfully theirs. By the time she passed the mill at the northern end of Clegeham she had nearly thirty souls at her heels. Many were sick and had to be helped by their neighbours, so that it took them most of the morning to cover the single mile through woodland to Haleswell. Several didn’t make it, but sat down by the roadside to rest and simply never got up again. After the stench and smoke of their home, the woods were full of birdsong and sunlight, and bluebells carpeted the ground in a violet haze, but for all that it was perilous now. Not just for the fear of simple violence, but because if their neighbours had closed their doors to them, breaking that oldest and most powerful of customs, then this was now an alien country and their journey a more dangerous pilgrimage than anything Father Cuthbert had attempted.
They heard the hounds first: a great baying which sounded like a hunt echoing through the trees.
Then around a turn in the road, they saw the clearing where a large stone like a horse’s trough had been placed, and an anxious, shuffling group on the other side. The men of Haleswell were also armed with farm tools, though here and there metal glinted from blades set on longer poles. They were scarved with rags tied across their mouths and noses, either as protection against the pestilence or to hide their shame, and every so often one of them would lift his mask to drink from a leather bottle which was being passed around. Dogs strained at the leashes in their hands, and one or two were mastiffs which must have come from Sir Roger’s own kennels. Hunting dogs. It was a disquieting combination: dogs and ale and a large mob of fearful men.
‘Come no further!’ one of them cried. ‘You may not enter!’
‘We are from Clegeham!’ Hester called in reply. ‘Of the manor of Sir Roger de Lindesay. We have come to see him, to beseech his help. Our village is dying. Please, do not deny us this!’
There was laughter amongst the mob, and one stepped forward. He was better dressed than the rest, in a blue tunic and a wide leather belt, and carried a heavy bailiff’s staff. Though she could not see his face, hard eyes glinted at her above his mask.
‘Who is this girl?’ he sneered, and with a shock she recognised the voice of Bailiff Naissh. ‘Are the men of Clegeham brought so low that they must have women and children to speak for them?’
Hester walked right up to the stone, and into its hollow she threw several of her father’s tally sticks. ‘My father was Richard Attlowe, reeve of our village, accountable to Sir Roger’s sheriff,’ she said. ‘As are you, John Naissh. He managed the manor’s lands and collected its rents, and never was fault found with his reckoning. My father, who you drank with not but a fourteen-night ago. You drank ale brewed by my mother at her own hearth and poured by my own hands! How can you do this, now? How can you? We have given all that is owed to our lord, uncomplaining, year in, year out. Our fealty and our faith are beyond question. And now we ask for his help.’
Naissh’s voice was cold in reply. ‘You bring death to our home. What shall we give you, then? The lives of our own wives and children?’
‘I had hoped simply for some water, at least.’ One of Naissh’s mob tittered at that, though she had not meant it in jest, and the bailiff shot him a venomous look.
‘You are insolent, girl,’ he growled, turning back to her. ‘Take your rabble and leave now.’
The black fury began to rise in her again; it had subsided during their walk along the road but not left her entirely. ‘No, I will not,’ she said to him, her voice low and cold like a stone at the bottom of a well. ‘I have lost my brothers and watched both my mother and my father go to a godless death. Insolent is only one of many things I am. I ask only for water, from St Sebastian’s Well. Surely you would not begrudge us that which was blessed for the good of all?’
Naissh approached the other side of the stone, so that she was well within reach of his bailiff’s staff. He raised it, and for a moment she was sure that he was going to strike her, but instead he put the end of it to her chest and shoved so that she stumbled backwards. There were angry murmurs from her people.
‘There is nothing for you here!’ the bailiff shouted, to her and the rest. ‘Not a single crumb of bread nor a single drop of water! Any man, woman or child who sets foot over the Haleswell parish boundary – whether they have the pestilence or not – will be met with swift and certain punishment!’ From within his tunic he pulled a roll of parchment which he brandished aloft in one fist. ‘It is so set out in this warrant, agreed by a jury of freemen in the court baron, ratified and sealed by Sir Roger de Lindesay, and enforced by these his bailiffs.’
‘It seems to me that fear makes for poor law-making,’ she replied, seething. ‘So it is murder then? You will turn to brigandry?’
‘Not brigandry. The defence of our homes and livelihoods is right and just, and we are acting in due accord with the laws of man and God.’
It might have ended there, but the blackness raged so violently within Hester that she let it flood her, filling her eyes and taking over her voice. ‘Why then damn your warrant!’ she screamed. ‘And your jury! And the sheriff and all your pox-ridden mob of little bailiff bully boys, and that whoreson Sir Roger himself! Damn your God! The Devil take all of you!’
There was a gasp from one of the bailiff’s men, who let slip the hold on his dog’s leash. Its snarl was like a shout of glee as it bounded across the clearing and leapt on the nearest Clegeham man, a serf named Jacob. He fell back, screaming, the dog fastened to his arm, while the men on either side hacked at the animal with sickles and its owner gave a howl of outrage and dashed to its rescue, followed by his mates.
The uneasy peace of the clearing disintegrated into a maelstrom of screaming and barking, with the already weak villagers of Clegeham falling under the scythe blades and cudgels of their neighbours. Over and above the noise Naissh’s voice rang out: ‘They are Satan’s imps! Kill them all! For the sake of your families let none live!’ Blood splashed the tree trunks and dripped from the leaves like rain. With neighbour attacking neighbour it was hard to make sense of the chaos, but Hester thought she saw behind it all, standing still and silent beneath the trees, a tall figure veiled in grey. It did nothing but watch, and it held a broom in its hands just like her mother’s. Then Naissh’s staff slammed into the side of her head and the world went away in a bright blur. She was dimly aware of falling, and when she hit the ground he struck her again, this time in the ribs, and something there caved in with a deep crunc
h like someone stepping on ice. She couldn’t breathe, nor could she move as he stood above her and raised the end of his staff above her face and screamed, ‘Die! Just die, will you?’
All she could do was glare up at him with her eyes full of glittering black hatred, and as the final blow came down said to him the only thing that had ever seemed to make any difference:
‘No. I will not.’
* * *
And the rats came.
They poured out from the undergrowth by the score, the hundred, the thousand, in a seething tide of grey bodies that flooded across the clearing and around the legs of those who fought there. The dogs went berserk, abandoning their human prey in favour of a more ancient enemy, snapping and worrying and flinging furry corpses in all directions. The swarm ignored the villagers of Clegeham – what few were still standing – with their main mass concentrating on the body of Hester Attlowe, boiling over and burying her completely. When the combined efforts of dogs and men finally succeeded in driving them off, there was no sign of her whatsoever – not a scrap of hair or clothing, or so much as a drop of blood on the ground where she’d fallen.
Profoundly unnerved, the men of Haleswell carried the bodies into the woods far to one side of the road and buried them in a pit, then vowed amongst themselves to forget everything about it.
They continued to patrol the boundary of their parish as the course of the Black Death ebbed and flowed over the next two years, and even though there were some unpleasant confrontations nothing came close to the scale of that massacre. It was never spoken of – except in the silence of haunted glances passed between those who had been there.
When some places die they leave monuments of their passing by which they are remembered: green mounds in the grass, broken stumps of pillars, or pieces of wall. Others, like their inhabitants, disappear utterly, as if they had never existed. All word of Clegeham was erased from the manor’s records, and the village itself died. Woodland crept back to reclaim the fields; birds stole the roof thatch for their nests; wind and rain did the rest. Travellers on the Stratford Road crossed themselves and hurried past the overgrown ruins which could be glimpsed between the trees. As the years passed and Haleswell prospered and expanded, farmers clearing the ground for new pastures to the south found the derelict remains and took the last of the useful timber for their barns, while the crumbling old mill and the church were demolished stone by stone for walling. The bones of Clegeham were subsumed into Haleswell, and vanished.
22
REVELATION
‘SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO THE PEOPLE OF Haleswell committed a terrible crime, and our village has been cursed ever since,’ said the reverend. She stood by the large picture window in Stone Cottage’s living room, looking out at the parish stone in the garden. It was late afternoon and the light was dimming. Nash and Esme Barlow flanked her, sitting in armchairs while the Feenans sat in a tight, protective knot on the sofa. Toby’s hand was heavily bandaged; he’d been given three stitches, a tetanus booster and a week’s prescription of amoxicillin to guard against infection.
‘Historical records are sketchy so we don’t know the exact circumstances,’ Rev. Dobson continued, ‘only that one of the victims was a girl named Hester Attlowe whose undying rage causes Her to haunt the outskirts of the ancient parish boundary. In a sense the why is academic – what She wants is very simple: vengeance on the leaders of Haleswell. Which is to say you, me, and every other member of the Trust.’
‘But we haven’t done anything!’ protested Toby.
Nash gave a hollow laugh.
‘She doesn’t care,’ said Joyce. ‘It’s not what we’ve done or not done that matters to Her, it’s who we are. We represent everything She despises, so we must be punished.’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘You say that like it means something,’ Nash muttered.
‘Shh,’ said Trish, stroking Toby’s hair. ‘Let her finish.’ She turned back to Dobson. ‘You say the records are sketchy. So how do you know any of this?’
‘Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was a surge of interest in occult phenomena – clairvoyance, mediumship, reincarnation – anything esoteric was tremendously fashionable. Secret societies and churches like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn attracted respectable intellectuals like Yeats and less respectable ones like Aleister Crowley. Even Arthur Conan Doyle was fooled by two girls who had faked photographs of fairies at the bottom of their garden. Séances became very popular, and most were debunked as fakes, but since the Trustees knew that they were the targets of a malicious entity that was very real, it made sense to try to contact that spirit to find out what it wanted, maybe even to placate it or come to an accommodation. It was a terrible, tragic mistake.
‘What happened was recorded by a clerk of the Trust, who was committed to an asylum shortly afterwards. The medium, a man by the name of Joseph Beely, was imprisoned and later hanged for the murders of the six Trustees who were in the room at the time. Since the séance had been conducted in secret they had only the clerk’s testimony about who was there, because what Hester did to them – using Beely’s body and only the furniture in the room – made it impossible to identify specific individuals.’
‘But how did that work if She wasn’t invited in through the barrier or anything?’ asked Toby.
‘But that’s exactly what the séance was,’ explained the reverend. ‘An invitation.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Trish.
‘Since then there has been no further attempt to make contact with Hester. It’s simply too dangerous. She will exploit any gap in our defences, however small, and over the centuries She has become very good at finding them.’
‘When you say defences…’ said Toby.
‘At the beginning it didn’t take the village leaders very long to realise what was happening, so they stuck to the model they had learned during the Black Death and maintained a vigorous policing of the parish boundary – except instead of doing it with a mob of armed men, they accomplished it with prayer, establishing a perimeter of boundary stones and blessing them each year at the Feast of the Ascension so that the power of the Lord would keep Her out. And it worked. It’s been working for centuries, evolving into the Beating of the Bounds on Rogation Sunday. There have been mercifully few instances in the past where She has been able to slip through the village’s guard, but whenever it happens She doesn’t stop until She has killed those whom She holds accountable. On May seventeenth, 1941, the day before Rogation Sunday, a major German air raid hit many areas of the city and fire caused a building to partially collapse, burying one of the parish stones and preventing it from being blessed. On the following Monday, every member of the Trust was found hacked to death – some in their homes, some in air raid shelters surrounded by other people who had seen and heard nothing.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ said Toby. ‘If She wiped out the whole Trust back then, who took over after them?’
‘Deputies,’ said Dobson. ‘Temporary administrators appointed by the council, the War Office, the diocese…’ she shrugged. ‘Bureaucracy will always find a way to fill a vacuum. That wasn’t the first time it happened, either. Of course by the time those poor people discovered what they’d let themselves in for it was too late. For most, the Beating of the Bounds is little more than a quaint folk tradition, an event on the tourist calendar, but for us it is quite literally a matter of life and death.’
‘Right!’ said Peter, getting to his feet and clapping his hands together decisively. ‘I think we’ve heard just about enough of this bullshit, thank you very much. I’d like you three nutjobs to leave my house now.’
Nash glanced at Esme and looked at his watch. ‘Two minutes fifty-seven seconds. You owe me a fiver.’
She grimaced.
‘Peter—’ Trish started.
‘No! Have you been listening to this? It’s absolute bullshit! Not even original bullshit, either! Get out, the lot of you, now!’ He approached the
reverend, hands clenched into fists, and Nash got up to meet him.
‘Not going to happen,’ he said. His voice was very quiet, very low.
‘Get out of my fucking house before I call the police!’ Peter shouted, and Trish could suddenly see how terrified he was. Something was happening to his family that he couldn’t understand and was powerless to stop.
‘But it’s not your house,’ replied Nash. ‘It belongs to the Trust; has done for decades, will do long after you’re gone. Specifically, it belongs to that Trustee there,’ and he pointed at Trish. ‘We’ll go if she asks us. Not you.’
‘Peter,’ said Esme, ‘please, you need to calm down. Your wife and son are owed an explanation for what’s happened to them, even if you don’t believe it.’
Trish moved over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder, and he jumped at her touch. His muscles were taut and trembling, as if he was being electrocuted. ‘Peter, please. You’re scaring Toby.’
‘I’m scaring…?’ He stared at her, incredulous. ‘All right, then,’ he announced. He turned on his heel and strode into the kitchen, through it and into the utility room, where Trish heard the jingling of the back door keys.
‘What are you doing?’ she called, running after him. By the time she caught up he had the back door open and was disappearing outside.
‘I’m going to talk to this non-existent dead girl myself!’ he shouted.
‘No! Peter, don’t!’
Toby came after her. ‘Dad, no!’
But by then he was standing by the parish stone and yelling into the gathering gloom at the end of the garden. ‘Come on, then! If you’re even fucking there! Hester, is it? What kind of stupid name is that for a ghost? You don’t scare me, dead girl, and you know why? Because you don’t fucking exist.’
The Plague Stones Page 16