by Hilary Green
I cannot ask for your forgiveness. I have committed the sin of Cain and for that I must be cast out from the home you have given me. Do not look for me. I shall be far away by morning. Please believe me that I shall never forget your kindness to me and I shall always be grateful and, if you can find it in your hearts, pray for me – though I doubt whether any prayers can help one so damned as I am. Farewell, and God bless you.
He propped the tablet against the coffer, blew out the candle and made his way softly down the stairs. The return climb up the tree was easier and soon he was making his way through the dark streets back to the inn where Leofric and the rest were sleeping.
'I take it you can ride a horse?'
The inn yard was full of men and animals and echoed to the sound of trampling hooves. As well as horses, there was a string of sumpter mules, loaded with the tents and equipment required by fighting men on the move. The seven men he had met the previous night had been joined by others, so that two dozen of them were busy tightening girths and strapping on saddle bags. Several of them were mounted already and Ranulph, looking at them, decided that it could not be that difficult.
'Oh yes,' he said.
'Good. Take the bay gelding over there.'
Ranulph looked across the yard. Which one was a bay gelding? He saw a rangy, brown animal with a black mane and tail and guessed that it must be the one Leofric meant. He hooked his arms through the straps of his satchel and made for it. As he went up to it, the horse laid back its ears and shifted restlessly. Behind him he heard someone snigger, quickly hushed. So, he concluded, this was some kind of test. He had watched the other men mount, swinging themselves easily into the saddle. He was fit and supple. It should not be a problem. He untied the halter which anchored the horse to the stable wall and lifted his left foot into the stirrup. So far, so good. But as he put his weight on the stirrup, the saddle slipped sideways and he fell backwards into the mud. This time the laughter came from more than one throat. He pushed the saddle back to its proper position and fumbled with the unfamiliar buckles which held the girth. As he pulled it tight he heard the horse's teeth meet with a snap within an inch of his shoulder. Swearing under his breath he made another attempt to mount. He got his foot into the stirrup but as he tried to lift himself the horse swung its hind quarters away from him, so that he had to hop after it. He grabbed the back of the saddle and, as he did so, the horse backed and placed one hoof firmly on his right foot. With one leg suspended in mid air and the other anchored to the ground by the weight of the horse he found himself helpless, and now everyone was laughing.
He was rescued by Leofric, grinning broadly. 'Not had much practise with horses, I should guess.'
'No, not a lot,' he admitted.
Leofric swore at the horse and shoved its rear with his shoulder, freeing Ranulph's foot. Then he grabbed the reins with one hand and Ranulph's belt with the other. 'On three – one, two, three …' and Ranulph found himself half lifted, half pushed into the saddle. He had hardly had time to gather up the reins before Leofric had vaulted onto his own mount and, at his signal, the whole cavalcade moved off.
It was one of the toughest and most frustrating days Ranulph had ever experienced. The company had several spare horses, but it was obvious why he had been given this one. No one else wanted to ride it. While the rest set off at a smart walk, his animal plodded along reluctantly and, as soon as they left the city, took every opportunity to grab a mouthful of grass from the side of the road. Ranulph dragged at the reins and thumped its sides with his heels, but he had no spurs and the horse took no more notice than it did of the flies that settled on its neck. As the time passed, he got left further and further behind, until Leofric noticed what was happening. He swung his horse about and cantered back.
'Come on, lad! There's no time for hanging about.' And so saying he gave the horse a cut with his whip that made it leap forward with a jolt that almost unseated Ranulph. Then it put its head down, dragging the reins through his fingers, and set off at a gallop to join the rest. It was only by clinging to the raised pommel at the front of the saddle that he avoided falling off.
At midday, the company stopped for a meal of bread and cheese, washed down with watered wine, and Ranulph lowered himself painfully to the ground. Leofric wandered over, chewing a hunk of bread.
'I thought you said you could ride.'
'I – I didn't think it could be so difficult.'
'Ever been on a horse before?'
'No.'
Leofric choked on his mouthful. 'By Christ! I suppose it serves me right for taking on a boy with salt water in his veins instead of blood! Well, you are just going to have to learn to keep up.' He looked at Ranulph and his face broke into one of his sudden grins. 'Take that hang dog look off your face. I'll sort you out. At least you haven't fallen off – yet.'
When the meal was finished he came back carrying a spare rein which he fastened to the horse's bit. Then he pushed Ranulph into the saddle, mounted his own horse and took hold of the loose rein. Ranulph realised miserably that he was going to suffer the humiliation of being led like a child.
There were advantages to the arrangement. He no longer had to struggle to make his horse keep up, and from time to time Leofric issued gruff instructions about basic horsemanship.
'Sit up straight! Get your legs back underneath you. You're not lounging in an armchair. … Lower your hands. You're jabbing him in the mouth every time he steps forward. Let your hands move with his movement.'
'What is he called?' Ranulph asked.
Leofric gave him a wry grin. 'Hob.'
'Hob? As in Old Hob, the devil?'
'That's about right, don't you think?'
As he responded to Leofric's injunctions, he felt the horse relax and stop fighting him; but that did not put an end to his own discomfort. Before the end of the day all he could think about was the pain in his back and the cramps in his legs. He longed for the time when he could dismount, but with that came the terrible thought that he would have to do it all again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Worse was to come, when Leofric ordered a change of pace and the whole company set forward at a steady trot, with Ranulph clinging to the pommel and bouncing painfully with every stride.
As the sun set they rode into the encampment outside the walls of Ghent, where the rest of the mercenary army was assembling. Ranulph almost fell out of the saddle, but soon found himself under orders to assist with various chores. He helped set up tents, fetched water for the horses, gathered wood for the fire. When at last the evening meal was served he was almost too tired to eat, and when he crawled onto his straw-filled palliasse in the tent he shared with five others he slept instantly.
The days that followed were harder than anything he had yet endured. He had thought the misery of sea-sickness was the worst thing that anyone could suffer, but at least that had not lasted more than a day or two. He soon came to the conclusion that he would rather weather the worst storm at sea than climb into the saddle again. He cut himself a hazel wand to use as a whip and Hob eventually seemed to accept that he was the master, but he still tried to bite him every time he went to saddle him up. By the end of a week, as the army headed south, his fingers were blistered from gripping the reins and his hose were worn into holes by friction with the saddle and his thighs were rubbed raw.
At first, he was so tired that all thought was banished, but as the days passed and he began to develop new muscles, memory returned to plague him. He lay awake, now, listening to the snores of the other men and thinking of Piet and Mariella and the terrible way he had repaid their kindness. He wondered if he should have stayed, to face whatever punishment the law required; but he knew that it would almost certainly have meant his death and told himself that that would only have compounded the anguish of his adopted family. Sometimes he thought of Beatrix and that one kiss, which had led to such a devastating conclusion, but that thought was more disturbing than any and he banished it as soon as it came to him.
/> A day came when the army encamped outside another town. For reasons unknown to him, they were to remain here for a few days, so he took the opportunity to do some shopping. He had seen that most of the men wore tall boots that reached above the knee to protect their legs, and he had been warned that soon they would be crossing the mountains and he would need a better cloak and a pair of gloves. He still had the money he had collected from his coffer and he used a good part of it to purchase these necessities. With new, sturdier hose under the boots, he could now ride with less discomfort.
He was beginning to understand the structure of the mercenary army, of which Leofric's company formed a part. The overall commander was a Fleming, by the name of Achiel Vermoulen, but it was made up of a number of semi-independent bands, like Leofric's, from different parts of Europe. There were crossbowmen from Aquitaine and lancers from Bavaria, but the greatest number were English. He was getting to know most of Leofric's men now. There was Everwin, the oldest, a taciturn man with the scars of old battles seaming his face and arms; Gladweine, the company joker, with an apparently inexhaustible repertoire of obscene and hilarious stories; Selwyn, the minstrel, who sang equally scurrilous ditties in a voice of amazing purity; and Hildred, Everwin's son and the nearest to Ranulph in age. Finally there was Paega, the cook, one-eyed, with a hideous scar running from temple to chin, thin and dry as a stick and given to black moods.
He was realising with growing disquiet that he was not seen by the rest of the band as a fellow warrior, but as a useful extra hand, whose job it was the fetch and carry for the others. As on the first evening, he watered the horses, fetched firewood, loaded and unloaded the mules. More irritatingly, he was at Paega's beck and call, and the cook seemed to relish having someone to order about. After recent months, when he had been accepted as Piet's trusted second-in-command, with the respect of the rest of the crew, it was galling to find himself at the bottom of the heap again. As the days passed he cudgelled his brain for some way to persuade Leofric and the others that he was worthy of being regarded as an equal – or at least as someone capable of playing his part if it came to a fight. The main problem was that he had no weapon. The men around him all carried either a sword or a battle axe, with a shield slung on their backs or hooked to their saddles. Many also carried a bow and a quiver of arrows. He knew that his small resources would not run to buying a sword, let alone the rest of the equipment carried by the other mercenaries, and he did not know how many of them afforded it. His only option seemed to be to endure his present lowly status and hope for an opportunity to improve it in the weeks to come.
As the days passed he began to regret, more and more bitterly, the events that had driven him away from Piet and the Waverider. One evening, taking three of the horses to drink in the nearby river, he felt himself engulfed by a torrent of despair. He sat down on a rock by the edge of the stream and put his head in his hands. It was the nearest he had come to weeping in all the long days since his fight with Dirk.
A hand touched his shoulder and he started up. Hildred was standing beside him. 'It's all right,' he said. 'I haven't come to chide you. Are you sick?'
'No! No, just waiting for the horses to finish drinking. I'll take them back now.'
'No hurry. My nag hasn't had his fill yet.' He seated himself on the rock. 'Relax. You deserve a rest.' Ranulph sat down again and Hildred went on, 'Don't let Paega bully you. He has no rights over you.'
Ranulph shrugged. 'I want to make myself useful.'
'You do that, all right! Leofric's being tough on you, I know. But it won't last. Once he sees you are able to pull your weight he'll let up.'
'I don't see how I'm ever going to prove that,' Ranulph said gloomily.
'Your chance will come. Trust me. I've been there myself.'
'You?'
'I was younger than you when my father brought me from Northumbria. I know what it's like being at everyone's beck and call.'
'How … how did you make it stop?'
Hildred laughed briefly. 'I grew up, I suppose.' They were silent for a moment, then he went on, 'You were at sea before you joined us, weren't you? Tell me about it. Where did you sail?'
Ranulph described the journey of the Waverider to Bordeaux, then London and back to Bruges and Hildred questioned him eagerly about what he had seen of England under the Conqueror. Then he said, 'Well, rather you than me! The storm that nearly finished us off last time we tried to invade was enough to put me off going to sea. Were you ever in a bad storm?'
So Ranulph found himself describing the storm that had almost wrecked the Waverider, and his own part in it.
'You're telling me that you brought the ship safely into port, with the captain lying unconscious?'
'Yes ….' then hastily added, 'by the Grace of God.'
'Well! And we all thought, from what you said, that your job was just clerking.'
'It was, to begin with but …'
'But?'
'I suppose I grew up.'
Hildred laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. 'Come on. Let's get these animals back to the camp before the rest have guzzled all Paega's delicious stew.'
Ranulph was not aware that Hildred related his story to the others, but it seemed that from that day on he was treated with a little less contempt than before.
Soon after that he had his first sight of real mountains. He had thought the Welsh hills, blue in the distance as seen from the monastery in Chester, were mountains but nothing had prepared him for the landscape he was travelling through now. Seeing the snow-covered peaks, dyed rose pink in the light of the rising sun, he thought at first they were clouds. Then he wondered for a crazy moment if the heavens had opened and he was being vouchsafed a vision of another, ineffably beautiful world.
Seeing him gaping, Leofric said, ' Those are the Alps, lad. And to get to Rome we have to cross them.'
'We have to go up there?' Ranulph asked.
Leofric chuckled. 'Not over the top. No one has ever been to the top of those mountains. It would be death to try. There's a pass, a road that goes between the peaks. That will be hard enough, God knows, with the worst of the winter almost upon us.'
It was true. It had been early October when he joined the mercenaries. Now it was December and the days were short and cold.
Ranulph said, 'I wanted to ask you about that. I thought the fighting season ended with winter, like the sailing season. Why are we in a hurry to get to Rome?'
'The fighting season may finish, as far as real battles are concerned,' Leofric agreed. 'But sieges don't stop. All that happens is that some of the besieging forces get fed up and go home. That's why the Emperor is desperate for reinforcements. Come on. Enough talking. We need to get moving.'
They skirted a great lake, with the sharp teeth of the mountain peaks always ahead of them. Then they turned south and began to climb. The horses laboured and the mules became increasingly recalcitrant. Soon they left the pastoral vegetation of the valley and were among dark pine trees, where the only sound was the breathing of the horses and the clop of their hooves on the cobbles.
Noticing what was under their feet, Ranulph urged his mount forward to catch up with Hildred. 'This is a paved road. Who made it?'
'Who knows?' Hildred replied. 'They call it the Via Francigena. Pilgrims have used it for centuries to travel from France and England to Rome. Some say the Romans made it, so their armies could march into France.'
They camped that night just above the tree level, huddling together in the tents against the cold. When they woke, it was snowing. Vermeulen decided the order of march each day. Always he led, with his own company; but the other bands took turns to act as rearguard. That day, it was the turn of Leofric and his men. They set off, plodding in the tracks of the horses and mules ahead of them, but the snow fell ever more heavily and soon it began to cover the hoofprints almost as soon as they were made and, looking back, Ranulph saw that their own tracks had been obliterated. He was more thankful than ever for the warm cloak a
nd the long boots. Then, around midday, they crested a ridge and found themselves in the teeth of a blizzard. It was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead and the mules stopped dead and refused to move. A short distance further on the road dipped and a rocky crag gave promise of some shelter and, following Leofric's orders, they dragged and drove the beasts down to it. They drew up the horses in a rough circle and clustered together in the middle, using them as a windbreak. Ranulph hugged his frozen hands in his armpits and pressed his face against his horse's neck, drawing what warmth he could. He could hear some of the men murmuring prayers but soon that too ceased. They could only endure, until God in His mercy stilled the storm.
A creeping numbness that was almost like sleep overcame him and he lost all sense of time, but at last he heard Leofric say, 'It's stopped snowing! Praise God!'
He lifted his head and saw that the captain was right. All round him men eased cramped limbs and shook the snow from the shoulders of their cloaks. It was very quiet. It took him a moment to realise that the wind had dropped, too.
Leofric said, 'Come on! We must get moving. If we are lucky we might catch up with the others before dark.'
They pulled the unwilling mules away from the shelter and prepared to mount their horses. Ranulph heard someone exclaim in consternation and, looking ahead, he saw why. The track they had been following was now almost invisible under a thick layer of snow. Only a faint depression hinted at where it ran.