The Gallows Curse

by Karen Maitland

  'I won't, I won't,' Elena screamed at her, her voice muffled beneath the wood. 'If you want to enjoy yourself, you do this. But I won't play. I won't do what he asks. I'll fight him. As soon as he lets me go I'll rip his face off.'

  Ma nodded to Luce. You'd best go see if the gentleman is ready and then get back and mind the gate. Talbot's attending to some business and he'll not be back till late.'

  As soon as Luce had closed the door behind her, Ma took a step forward, her hands on her hips, and looked up at Elena.

  'Now you listen to me, my darling. I've seen it all; tears and pleas don't move me. If you don't please this gentleman, then you'll find yourself in the common hall pleasuring the sailors and the shit-shovellers, most of them drunk and stinking of the midden. Half a dozen of them a day, and you'll soon learn to swallow your pride and that won't be all you'll swallow. But you can beg and plead as much as you like; the gentlemen enjoy that. It quickens their blood. But I warn you, the more you beg, the more he'll be spurred on to do.'

  Ma looked sharply at the door, hearing the sound of a man's footsteps striding towards the door. With a final warning gesture, she slipped through the connecting door that led to the dressing room. Even as that door closed, the main door to the chamber burst open. A tall cloaked figure stood squarely in the open doorway, framed by the darkness of the passage outside. Elena bit back a scream, for in the guttering candlelight his face was not the face of a man, but the mask of a demon.

  'You want me to come with you?' the eel man asked Raffe. 'I can show you where the best fishing spots are. But I'll not be telling you where my eel traps are laid, that's a secret I'll share only on my deathbed.'

  His face creased in a weather-beaten, toothless grin and he tapped the side of his nose, from which a large chunk was missing.

  He loved to tell in gory detail, as old men do, how it was that one day, many years ago, a giant eel had fastened on the end of his nose and bitten it clean off. He was so old that no one could remember if that was the truth or not, but as the years went by the monstrous eel grew so long and fat in the telling that each new generation of children marvelled that the beast had only eaten his nose, and not devoured the whole man.

  'I want to go off fishing by myself. Get away for the night from Osborn and the noise of the manor,' Raffe explained.

  The old man nodded sympathetically. 'I can understand that. I couldn't be doing with people mithering me night and day. Peaceful it is on the river with only your own thoughts for company.'

  Raffe slipped the coin into the tanned old hands. It was far more than the old man could earn from eeling in a night and they both knew it. He took the coin gratefully, thankful no doubt for an evening in by the fire, instead of shivering his ancient bones out on the river.

  Raffe pushed the end of the long pole down into the mud to steady himself as he stepped into the flat-bottomed boat. It was long and narrow, too easy to overturn if you weren't careful, but better for a man of his size than trying to paddle a small, round coracle. The boat began to rock alarmingly as Raffe tried to balance himself. It had been a while since he had used such a boat and even then he had only ever taken it out with Gerard.

  The eel man watched him shrewdly, then slid a short blunt paddle into the boat. 'This might serve you better. Easier to balance when you're sat down.'

  As soon as he was out of sight of the old man's cottage, Raffe found a likely spot and lowered a couple of stout lines into the water with a hank of tangled sheep's wool on the end, baited with worms. He fastened the lines to the willows growing at the water's edge. He'd had all day to think about how he might manage this escapade without getting caught. The wars had taught him that rash courage was no substitute for a careful plan. But fate does not always cooperate with the plans of men.

  The sun was already below the horizon when Raffe paddled around the back of the islet in the centre of the river. The bank next to the water meadow was deserted, save for a grey heron which lumbered heavily into the sky, disturbed from its fishing. Raffe cursed himself for his foolishness in having given the lad so much food. The boy had plainly thought it payment enough for delivering the message and had not bothered to wait. But as Raffe's boat glided past a willow that overhung the water, he saw the small skin coracle in the lee of it, blending so perfectly into the mass of dark vegetation that Raffe would certainly have missed it, had he not been looking for it.

  The boy was curled up asleep inside, but awoke on the instant he heard the splash of Raffe's paddle.

  "You ready, boy?' The lad nodded, searching the boat for the extra food he'd been promised and smiling broadly when he saw a covered basket lying in the bottom.

  'Lead on then. I'll follow, but mind you keep me in sight. I'm not as nimble as you are on the water.'

  The boy set off into the gathering darkness. Raffe was right; the boy's coracle was an extension of his body. He made no sound as his paddle licked in and out of the water, and so swiftly did he move that he disappeared from sight almost at once. Raffe paddled as fast as he could, nearly crashing into the little coracle as he rounded the next bend, where the lad sat waiting for him.

  Wait,' Raffe said. We'd best fasten the boats together, else you'll lose me or I'll sink you.' There were several lengths of old rope lying in the bottom of the eel man's punt, so he tied the coracle behind his boat and helped the boy clamber into his own craft.

  'Now, you lie flat in the bow and tell me where to turn.'

  The boy did as he was told and after nearly an hour of paddling, he pointed towards a gap in the vegetation which Raffe would never have spotted in the darkness. With help from the lad who pulled and pushed against an overhanging birch tree, Raffe managed to nose the clumsy craft into the gap and found himself paddling into the thousand twisting waterways that ran through the marshes. Tall swathes of reeds rustled and whispered above their heads, in other places wiry sedges and bog myrtle formed little islands on the thick, soft mud. Raffe jumped as a bittern hidden somewhere in the reeds let out its harsh, booming cry almost by his ear. The boy giggled.

  Oily black water snaked between dark mud banks, but only the boy could tell water from land. The pungent stench of mud, stagnant water and rotting vegetation lapped over Raffe's nostrils until he was drowning in the smell. One false move, one false turn and they would be trapped in the sucking ooze. And all around them in the darkness the marsh was whispering, shrieking and croaking as if it knew an intruder had trespassed into its kingdom and it was determined to sound the alarm.

  Each man measures his own hour, so while it seemed to Raffe that it must already be nearing dawn, to the boy it seemed no time at all when he turned to Raffe and whispered for him to stop. A moon had at last risen into the sable sky, casting just enough light for Raffe to see a stump of what might have been a mooring post or a piece of bog oak sticking up from the mud. He looped the boat's rope around it.

  The boy leapt off into what looked to Raffe like just another patch of reeds. Raffe wobbled down to the bow of the punt, painfully conscious of his great girth, and prodded the ground with his stave. It was spongy, but the end of the stave didn't sink into it. Raffe picked up the basket of food and gingerly stepped off the boat, praying that the ground would hold his weight.

  Pushing forward through the fronds, he discovered he was walking up a narrow little path through the reed bed, on which stones and dried rushes had been laid to raise the track above the marsh. He emerged on a slight rise, almost blundering straight into a hut, which though not large occupied most of the clearing.

  The boy's arm appeared, beckoning Raffe round to the side of the hut. There he found an entrance screened by a leather curtain and pushed his way under it, ducking as low as he could for there wasn't room for a man of his height to stand upright under the reed thatch. A small fire burned in the pit in the centre of the floor and the tiny hut was choked with smoke as it wandered about trying to find its way out of the thatched roof. There was an oily, fishy stench too. Raffe soon saw the cause
. A seabird had been impaled on a wooden spike in the ground and a wick made from stripped rushes was burning in its beak, the oil for the flame being drawn from the bird's own body.

  A shape rose up from behind the fog of smoke. 'Who is this?' a man's voice shrieked in alarm. 'Have you betrayed me, boy?'

  'No, Father.' The boy sounded hurt. 'He says Lady Anne's away from the manor, said he'd help you instead.'

  'I gave no such promise, lad,' Raffe protested. He stared at the figure in the shadows, trying to see his face, but the man's hood was pulled far down over his head.

  'I came to find out what business you have with Lady Anne, for if your message had reached the wrong man, it would have been to her ruin or worse. It's lucky for you the boy found me before he ran straight into the arms of Lord Osborn. Did the boy call you Father? Are you kin to the lad or a priest?'

  The man hesitated. 'I don't know if I can trust you or not, but since you must have already reasoned 1 am a fugitive, it puts me in no greater danger to tell you that I am also a priest.'

  Raffe's back was stiffening by the minute as he stooped almost double in the cramped hut. He sat down cross-legged on the rush-covered floor and the priest warily followed suit.

  'You are trying to get to France?'

  The priest nodded.

  'So why come to Lady Anne?'

  'She's a pious woman. I was told she has helped other men of God. Arranged for food and money to be smuggled to them and passed on messages to those who could help them. I thought she might know someone who could help me find a safe passage.'

  'He has food,' the marsh-lad chimed in eagerly, pointing to the basket.

  'That I have,' Raffe said, 'but let the priest eat his fill first; I warrant it's been longer since his belly was filled than yours.'

  The boy looked crestfallen, but he dutifully passed the basket to the priest and was rewarded as the priest broke a pastry in two and handed half to the boy, pausing only to gabble an exceedingly rapid grace in Latin before devouring the other half of the pastry almost without pausing to breathe. Before he had even swallowed the last bite, his hand was already reaching back into the basket.

  Raffe was content to let the man eat while he considered what to do. He'd never suspected that Lady Anne was playing such a dangerous game. Although he was sure she was not meeting these priests herself, but simply passing on messages, if any message should be intercepted or a man's loyalties turned by the promise of a fat purse, then Anne was risking not only her freedom but her very life. The giving of any kind of aid to an enemy of the king could be considered an act of treason. Her sex and tide would not spare her, indeed the king would count the crime worse in anyone of noble birth. Had Gerard known what his mother did? He would have considered it good sport to take such risks himself, but he'd never have allowed his mother to do so, and besides, he would have confided in Raffe. More likely it was Anne's grief over her son dying unshriven that had drawn her into this dangerous web.

  But there was something more here, something about the desperation of this man that didn't make sense.

  'Tell me something, Father,' Raffe said.

  The priest was thirstily gulping down the wine from the flagon he'd found in Raffe's basket, but he reluctantly laid it aside and gave Raffe his attention.

  'Why are you so eager to get to France? John has done no real violence to the simple parish priests. He has imprisoned some who resisted him, but most have simply taken off their habits and gone into hiding or sought shelter in the monasteries.'

  The priest remained silent for a moment and Raffe knew he was weighing up how much to confide in him.

  'I have been in hiding up to now. But... I am no ordinary parish priest... I was chaplain to the Bishop of Ely.'

  Raffe whistled through his teeth. He could see now why the little man was nervous. It had been the Bishop of Ely along with the Bishops of London and Worcester who, on the instructions of the Pope, had laid the sentence of Interdict on England when John had refused to consent to the appointment of Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury. John would revel in an opportunity to take his vengeance on any man in the bishop's circle that he could lay hands on. And a chaplain would surely know if the bishop had any dark little secrets that John could use against him to win his cause. This might be an insignificant little man in the Church's eyes, but to the king he would be a prize catch. And John's methods of encouraging reluctant men to talk were legendary in their exquisite cruelty even for a son of Anjou.

  'So why didn't you stay safely in hiding?' Raffe asked him.

  The priest shivered. 'They arrested my housekeeper. She was with child and her family could not afford the fine to get her released. She feared for her life and her unborn babe, so she told John's men where I might be found.'

  Raffe barely suppressed a smile. Doubtless the babe was of the priest's getting. Everyone knew that a priest's housekeeper was in most cases the priest's mistress too, which is why John had arrested as many of them as he could, knowing that would make the priests smart even more than seizing their possessions. Usually they were released, but not until a hefty fine had been imposed to swell further John's denuded coffers. But in this case his men must have discovered to their delight that they'd caught a swan instead of a sparrow in their trap.

  The priest leaned forward. 'Are you able to help me? I have money to pay for the passage.'

  So not all of the missing church silver had found its way into John's coffers, Raffe thought. The priests had doubtless made sure they didn't flee empty-handed.

  'I'll need money in advance to pay the river boatman to take you to the ship and the lads who can bring word of a ship.' Seeing the priest was about to argue, Raffe added, 'A steward's wages don't stretch to all the palms that have to be greased.'

  'How do I know you won't just make off with it?' the priest said suspiciously.

  'You'll have to trust someone, or cool your heels here till the Interdict is lifted, which could be months or even years, for John's in no mood to surrender to the Pope.'

  The priest hesitated, then shrugged in a sullen gesture of acceptance. 'So does that mean you'll help me?'

  Raffe stroked his beardless chin and studied the man closely. 'Do you swear on the Blood of Christ that what you've told me is the truth? That is the only reason for your flight to France?'

  The priest crossed himself. 'By the blessed Blood and Body of our Lord, I swear it. What other reason could I have?'

  Raffe snorted. 'To aid England's enemies?'

  'Never, on my life!' the priest said indignantly. 'I am a priest, not a traitor.'

  'There're many who have been both,' Raffe said. 'But I will help you get away. No, not so fast, wait.' He held up his hand to forestall the man's thanks. 'There is something you must do for me first.'

  'I cannot say a secret Mass, I have no host or any —'

  'A good, brave man, Lady Anne's son, Gerard, lies unburied at the manor. He died without rites for no priest could be found in these parts who would come to his deathbed. Before you leave for France you will come and bless his resting place and anoint him.'

  'But if he died in sin,' the priest protested, 'I cannot anoint him. The Church does not allow —'

  'I said he died unshriven, but not in sin.'

  The priest waved his hand impatiently, indicating that they were one and the same. You may rest assured I will pray for him, and if you can get me safely to France I will say Masses daily for his soul in recompense to you for your services. Shall we agree three months of Masses for a safe passage?'

  He squealed in alarm as Raffe suddenly reached across and grabbed the front of his tunic. 'You will come to the manor and give him unction, or I promise you will never set foot on French soil.'

  The priest tried to prise Raffe's great fist from his clothes, but without success.

  'Don't be a fool, my son, it's far too dangerous. You said yourself that Lord Osborn almost caught the boy — what if he should catch me? I can't simply walk into a bust
ling manor with a hundred pairs of eyes watching me. Besides, God will hear my prayers for Gerard's soul just as well in France as over his coffin.'

  'But I cannot,' Raffe retorted. He let the man go, and the priest shuffled as far back in the tiny hut as he could get.

  'Now,' Raffe said firmly, 'I will go and make arrangements for your passage to France. When all is ready I'll send word to the boy to bring you to the manor after dark. When you've done your duty by Gerard, you'll be taken to the boat. If you don't come to the manor when I send for you, the boat will depart without you. You have a choice, Father: freedom and safety, or starving out here on the marshes until I get tired of waiting and tell the king's men where to find you.'

  'You would betray me?' The priest's eyes widened in alarm.

  'I would not betray a priest, but if you will not act as a priest should, if your miserable little skin is worth more to you than another man's immortal soul, then you have abandoned your vows and you are no priest.'