The Bleeding Land

by Giles Kristian

  ‘Let us be away from here,’ Sir Francis said and Emmanuel nodded, leading Bess through the press behind Sir Francis and Lady Mary. But Mun stayed a little longer, watching in horror as a group of young men began to kick George Green’s head – the eyes still staring – through the snow, cheering and roaring with the thrill of it. In no time there must have been a hundred people running this way and that across Hilldale’s uneven ground, kicking their grisly ball about to keep warm.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘I HEAR THERE are those who even accuse the king himself of being a Catholic. It is madness.’ Sir Francis thrust the poker into the fire, jabbing at the fuel. The wood crackled and spat, expelling a spray of bright, angry sparks.

  ‘Because his wife is one?’ Mun said, tying one corner of a huge tapestry to a rail that he and Bess had moved into the room and set before the parlour door. The bitter draughts that swept through Shear House’s entrance hall had slender fingers that eked into every downstairs room despite closed doors, and Lady Mary hoped the old wall tapestry would keep the worst out, enabling them to keep at least the parlour warm. ‘By that token, Father, you love the plays,’ Mun added, smiling at his mother who smiled back, for Sir Francis was happier in a stable than the theatre, whilst his wife could quote Shakespeare and Massinger and loved nothing more than a skilfully wrought plot.

  ‘There’s more to it than that,’ Sir Francis said. ‘The King has refused Parliament’s petition to hang another seven priests and this gives them all the fuel they need to make such accusations.’ He stood straight and put a palm on the small of his back, wincing at some deep ache exacerbated by the harsh winter. ‘But Charles is not the fool they all take him to be. He knows that once we start to define our nation this way . . . by persecuting its people . . . we walk a very dark and dangerous path.’

  Their mother gestured for Bess to lift her side of the great tapestry higher. Woven to show a golden hind and golden birds of all sizes half concealed amid a forest of green fronds, the tapestry was at least a hundred years old and faded. When she judged it straight, Lady Mary nodded. ‘Parliament has grown too big for its boots,’ she said, the tone accusing.

  But Sir Francis did not argue. ‘Parliament’s holy crusade is getting out of hand,’ he admitted. ‘But mine is only one voice.’ He shook his head. ‘There are those who think as I do, but we cannot be heard amongst all that crowing.’

  ‘Do you think it could lead to war, Father?’ Mun asked. ‘There is talk that it may.’ Bess turned to look at her father, her blue eyes wide as he shook his head, carefully leaning the poker back against the side of the fireplace.

  ‘It will not come to that,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the roaring flames. ‘Englishmen will not fight Englishmen. The very thought is too monstrous. No, Edmund, I cannot think such a thing will happen in this kingdom. These are dangerous days but it is a vast leap from words to war.’

  Mun nodded, not sure if what he felt was relief. Or disappointment.

  ‘Come, let us have no more talk of Parliament and the King,’ Lady Mary said, clicking her fingers at Bess, who seemed lost in her own thoughts. ‘This house has suffered a dearth of joy for too long. Higher, Bess!’ she said. ‘Or Mun will tie it crooked and your father will never let us hear the end of it.’ Mun began to tie the other corner to the rail as the others stood back to examine their work.

  ‘It will, I think, keep out the worst of the chill, but I hope we don’t have visitors,’ Lady Mary said disapprovingly, opening the parlour door and calling for Isaac to bring her a paring knife. ‘This tapestry was old-fashioned when Queen Elizabeth was on the throne, God rest her soul.’

  Bess half smiled and it warmed Mun’s heart to see his sister shake off, if only for a moment, the weight of recent events. He knew that Minister Green’s execution had troubled her deeply. Since that bleak day on Gallows Ledge Bess had not been herself, which was perhaps more noticeable because she had always been the mainstay of the family, her familiar good humour bracing them all against whatever ill winds blew through Shear House. Now she was sombre and not even Emmanuel, the man she would marry, knew how to cheer her. It did not help that she had taken the minister’s boy, Jacob, under her wing, for she had wicked the boy’s grief into her own being, and though he despised himself for it Mun sometimes wished Martha and Jacob would leave Shear House and take their troubles with them. So that Bess would smile again. So that Tom might forget the girl and so that his anger might no longer taint the very air gusting through their home. But these were selfish thoughts and the better part of him knew that Martha and Jacob needed them, not just for their everyday succour but for the protection the Rivers family could give them from the gangs that might prey on the children of a condemned Catholic and, some said, spy.

  ‘Where is Tom?’ he asked, realizing he had not yet seen his brother that day.

  ‘Martha keeps to her room and will not see him,’ Lady Mary said, taking the small knife that Isaac offered. ‘He and Jacob rode out this morning. Isaac says that Lathom has a bear.’

  ‘Truthfully, Isaac?’ Mun said. ‘They haven’t had a bear for a year. Maybe longer.’

  ‘Aye, Master Edmund,’ the servant said, eyes glinting beneath his thatch of silver hair. ‘It’s a big ’un too, from what I’ve heard.’

  ‘We haven’t had a decent beast hereabouts for five years,’ Sir Francis said. He fluttered long fingers. ‘Some poor, threadbare creatures that were older than this tapestry, but nothing like we used to see at Kenilworth back in the old days. You remember the last one they set the dogs on?’ he asked Mun. ‘You were only a boy but I took you to see it. What a sham that was. I’d seen hens with more teeth.’ Mun smiled at the memory. The poor beast had had only three claws and no one had bet against the dogs, which had made the whole thing a farce. He had seen proper, dangerous bears in Paris Garden at Southwark, but not in Parbold or Lathom.

  ‘Tom has taken the boy to see it,’ Lady Mary said, cutting a loose thread from the tapestry and shaking her head because she’d noticed another. ‘It’ll do them both good.’

  ‘The poor beast,’ Bess said. ‘I cannot think why people find such sport in baiting a chained animal.’

  ‘They find sport in worse cruelties than that, sister,’ Mun said, thinking of the hanging.

  ‘Aye, they do,’ Sir Francis agreed. ‘Besides, your mother is right.’ Lady Mary raised an eyebrow at that rare admission. ‘The ride out will be good for them. A man can outstrip his troubles on a good horse. Let them have some fun before the reformers put an end to every amusement.’ He held a hand before the flames, now and then making a fist as the heat sank into flesh and bone.

  ‘Why don’t you join them?’ Lady Mary asked, turning to Mun.

  ‘Because,’ Sir Francis said, nodding towards the tapestry that was swaying slightly in the breeze, ‘Edmund knows as well as I do that that hanging is not even close to being straight.’

  The bear was a monster. All tooth and claw and fury. Not even its owner dared get close enough to shorten the length of chain that leashed it by the neck to the post set in the middle of Lathom green. As a result, the beast could shamble fifteen feet in all directions and this terrified the crowd. Men, women and children yelled and shrieked. Dogs barked frenziedly and any horses whose owners had been foolish enough to ride too close whinnied and dragged their hooves through the mud agitatedly, for even if they could not see the beast they could smell it.

  ‘The dogs don’t look too keen either,’ Tom said, feeling a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. They were mastiffs. Big, coarse-haired, ugly and eager, they snarled and barked madly, whipped into hysteria by the presence of their great, hulking enemy. Jacob stood to Tom’s left and slightly behind, his mouth open and eyes wide as half crowns. Clearly the lad had never seen anything like this. Neither had many of the spectators, from the looks of them. An excited knot of men were crowding the bear-baiter’s assistant, desperately trying to place wagers even though the fight was under way. Others,
their wagers made, stood gripped by the spectacle, women with their hands to their mouths and men all grimace and snarl in bestial imitation of the dogs.

  ‘See how afraid they all are,’ Tom said, taking a grim satisfaction from how even chained the bear struck fear into the gathering. ‘But you’re not frightened are you, Jacob?’ he said. ‘Not a big strong lad like you.’ In truth there was more meat on a mutton leg than on Jacob Green.

  ‘No, Master Rivers,’ the lad said, shaking his head, fists balled at his sides. Tom felt the boy tense up and bravely edge forward, but he started violently when the bear roared and Tom realized he was trembling. Maybe I did the first time, Tom thought.

  ‘But there are so many dogs,’ Jacob said. Two of the mastiffs lay wounded, one bleeding from a tear to its throat, the other lying all twisted and panting, its back broken. Yet there were still five dogs besieging the bear, lips hitched back from yellow teeth, spittle flying from snapping jaws.

  ‘Go on, arse-biter!’ a man yelled at one of the dogs, throwing his own clawed hand towards the bear. And a mastiff leapt, sinking its teeth into the beast’s right shoulder, and hung there, its legs kicking the air. The crowd cheered and the bear reared, roaring, and turned towards its attacker, and another dog saw its chance and sprang forward, clamping its jaws onto the creature’s left hind leg.

  ‘It must be seven feet tall,’ Tom said, ‘biggest I’ve seen,’ as the bear reached its full height before slamming its forelegs back down. But somehow the dogs held on and so the bear shook itself furiously and the mastiff attached to its shoulder was thrashed wildly about, its body twisting and writhing as its teeth gripped its enemy’s flesh. Then the bear reared again and this time the mastiff’s jaws gave out and it was flung through the air and landed in a gnarled twist, its spine snapped. The crowd moaned. Down came an enormous paw, the claws like meat hooks raking the other dog’s flank, ripping the flesh open to reveal the gleaming ribs and a gouge of raw, bloody meat. The bear snorted and panted, its pink eyes leering at the creatures that lusted to hurt it, then it lumbered towards the crowd, which shuffled back in terror as the chain clinked taut.

  ‘See how clever he is,’ Tom said. ‘He knows where his real enemies are.’

  ‘Go on, you bastard curs!’ a man yelled at the remaining dogs. ‘Go on now!’

  ‘Have ’im, boys!’ another screamed, and the crowd indulged their blood-lust with shrieks and flailing arms as one of the dogs bravely went for the bear’s face, biting into its maw and letting its own heavy bones and muscles weigh down the bear’s head so that its fellows could attack the bear’s legs and back.

  The bear shrugged and shook, whipping its head from side to side until the broad-skulled mastiff let go in a spray of bright blood, ripping the bear’s muzzle and cheek. In pain-filled fury the bear shook its head again, its torn, ragged flesh flinging blood which splattered the crowd, sending them even wilder with excitement. One woman dragged a hand across her mouth, stared in horror at the dark blood smeared across her knuckles, then fainted. No one caught her. Then the bear swiped, quick as a striking snake, and the blow snapped the mastiff’s neck like kindling and the bear roared its triumph as the last two dogs backed off, growling but afraid.

  ‘It has won!’ Jacob exclaimed, clearly in awe of the creature.

  But Tom shook his head. ‘They will not let it win,’ he said, as a man burst from the parting crowd, dragged through the mud by four hulking mastiffs. ‘Not in the end.’ The new dogs strained and choked themselves on the ends of their leashes, desperate for the fight. It was in their blood. It was what they had been born for. Tom sensed Jacob’s shoulders slump and knew how the boy felt.

  ‘My sister went to Baston House,’ Jacob said.

  Tom felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. He was silent for a few long moments.

  ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘Before they killed Father,’ Jacob said. ‘I followed her.’

  ‘Why would she go to Baston House?’ Tom asked, never taking his eyes off the fight. And why would she have kept it from him? His mind was reeling, sifting his memories for clues as to why Martha would have gone alone to the house of Lord Denton. That bastard.

  Jacob shrugged his shoulders. ‘She does not know that I know,’ he said.

  One of the dogs squealed, a chunk of flesh ripped from its skull, so that its right ear hung by a slender scrap spraying bright crimson as it shook its head and stubbornly attacked again. Tom turned to Jacob now and grabbed the boy’s shoulders, turning him from the growling, bristling chaos of Lathom green.

  ‘When, Jacob? When did your sister go to Baston House?’ Tom was sickened by the thought of it.

  ‘Plough Monday. Four days before they killed Father,’ Jacob said. There was another yelp from a dog and the crowd moaned. ‘You, Master Edmund and Sir Francis were out riding. So I followed Martha.’ The boy looked more frightened now than he had been by the bear or the dogs. ‘I think Lord Denton hurt her,’ he said, his eyes welling with tears. And those words were like a blade in Tom’s guts.

  ‘Why would he?’ he asked, shaking his head, wanting rid of even the idea of Martha being anywhere near William, Lord Denton. ‘Why do you say this? What did you see? Do not lie to me, Jacob. They had your father killed and I hate them for it, but do not lie to me about this.’

  ‘But I’m not lying!’ Jacob said, cuffing snot from his nose with a raw, chapped hand. ‘I swear, Master Tom. I’m not lying!’

  ‘You saw? You saw Lord Denton hurt Martha?’

  Jacob looked down at his shoes which were covered in mud, the laces slimy as earthworms, and Tom realized his fingers were digging into the boy’s shoulders, so he lifted his hands, spreading the fingers.

  ‘You spied through the window, didn’t you?’ Jacob’s brows arched above big green eyes that settled on Tom’s own, and for the first time Tom realized how much the boy looked like Martha. Then Jacob’s lips turned down and trembled as the first tears rolled down his freckled cheeks.

  ‘What did you see, Jacob?’ Jacob shook his head and Tom grabbed his shoulders again. ‘Damn you, Jacob! What did you see?’

  ‘I won’t tell, Master Tom,’ he sobbed. ‘I won’t!’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘No, Master Tom! You can beat me if you want to, but I won’t speak of it. I’ll never speak of it.’

  Tom cursed under his breath, then let go the boy’s shoulders and hugged him into his chest, ruffling his copper-coloured hair. ‘It’s all right, Jacob,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t hurt you.’ But inside Tom a fire raged. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, then gently pushed Jacob away and tried to smile at the boy. ‘Come. Let us leave before they get their way,’ he said, nodding at the mob. ‘Before the dogs tear that proud creature apart.’

  ‘Are we going back to Shear House?’ Jacob asked, dragging a hand across his eyes, suddenly ashamed of his tears.

  Tom glanced back at the fight. Injured dogs were whining piteously but ignored by the crowd. There were puddles of blood in the mud of the churned green. ‘You will ride to Shear House,’ he said, then turned and strode off to fetch the horses.

  ‘What about you, Master Tom?’ Jacob said, hurrying after.

  Tom unclamped his jaw and felt the hot fury surge up from his chest into his throat. ‘Ride to Shear House, Jacob,’ he said. ‘And say nothing to your sister.’

  He rode hard, his anger like a whip that lashed Achilles, for the beast had always sensed Tom’s mood and responded in kind. He was a fine horse, like his brother Hector black as pitch and foaled by an English mare which Sir Francis had bred with a proud Arabian stallion, and there were few creatures on God’s earth that could outrun him. But the line between spirit and ill-temper in a horse was as thin as a switch and Sir Francis, who knew horses better than he knew just about anything else, had once said there were few men, maybe none other than Tom, who could ride Achilles. And now together those two raced across the countryside, rider and steed moving as one, eating up the groun
d, flinging rain-soaked clods of earth in their wake.

  It was late afternoon and Tom felt, as much as saw, dark clouds beginning to hood the earth from the north. It was getting colder again, the tawny light of impending snow tinting the air and filling his nose with a sharp, heavy scent. Achilles’s hooves thumped in a breakneck rhythm, vapour trailing from his nostrils as he snorted with the effort of impelling flesh, blood and bone along ancient trackways and muddy lanes. Sleet began to dash down haphazardly, like grain tossed onto ploughed earth, and Tom’s cheeks and nose prickled as the air turned frigid.

  After two miles he wrenched on the reins and spurred Achilles up a muddy bank, leaving the track in favour of a more direct route through tall oak woods. Old crusts of brittle snow lay in rows between the trunks and in dirty rings around their bases, but the last week’s rain had washed away the rest, so that horse and rider were confident in their ability to avoid exposed roots and low branches. They sped onwards, Tom trusting Achilles to weave his own way through the woods, only vaguely guiding with a press of a knee or a tug of the reins, until eventually they broke from the oaks. Into a slanting wall of sleet that half blinded them. But they did not slow. If anything, Achilles picked up the pace now that his stride was no longer impeded by trees, and Tom bent lower, almost flat against the stallion’s neck, slitted wind-lashed eyes peering through the sleet at the open fields before them.

  ‘Heya!’ he yelled through a grimace, his hair flying madly behind him as the stallion galloped on, the beast sweating now despite the cold. On past bristling hedgerows and black copses of elm, and sheep standing still as rocks, and glistening pools of standing water, and now and then a deer that glared at man and horse, seemingly paralysed, muscles tensed and ready to bolt. On across a darkening landscape, as the sleet turned to snow and the moon, just visible through the grey veil of cloud and near full but for a sliver missing from its right, silvered a halo of sky.