The Gallows Curse

by Karen Maitland

  'Take this lad to the kitchen, and tell cook she's to mull him some ale. My orders. And get someone to clean the lad up, gently mind. I'll be across myself presently.'

  The scullion laid a brotherly arm around the lad and led him off as quickly as he could, darting a scared glance over his shoulder at Hugh.

  'You reward a lazy little midden-brat like him, when you should be thrashing him,' Hugh thundered. 'No wonder you can't keep order in this manor.'

  Raffe's temper finally lunged out of his control. You are not master here and if you ever lay a hand on one of my charges again, I'll break every bone in it, one by one.'

  Hugh was white with anger, two high spots of colour blazing on his pale cheeks. 'Have a care, gelding, I'll see you brought to the whip yet, by God I will.'

  He stormed into the stable and, grabbing the reins of his horse from a boy, swung into the saddle and clattered across the yard and through the open gate, scattering terrified chickens and maids to the right and left of him.

  Raffe, now that his temper had cooled slightly, cursed himself silently. Hugh would be watching him like a vulture from now on. How the Devil was he going to get the priest past him? He felt for Gerard's pearl ring which hung from a leather thong beneath his shirt. Whatever the danger he must do it. If there was the slightest chance that the priest's anointing would bring peace to Gerard's soul, then he must try even if it cost him his own life.

  The serving maid waddled awkwardly across the courtyard at the back of the Adam and Eve Inn, trying not to let the contents of the slops bucket she was carrying splash on her skirts. She glanced up at the shuttered windows of the inn; the guests wouldn't stir for another hour or more, and even then they'd be lucky if they could crawl off their sleeping pallets, given the amount of ale and cider most had drunk last night. She thumbed her nose at the shutters behind which the innkeeper and his crabby wife still lay snoring. It was all very well for them, they could sleep on, but the old termagant would grumble all day if the chores weren't done by the time she deigned to wake.

  The maid went round the back of the wooden shack where the meals were cooked over the great fire and flung the contents of the bucket towards the midden, without bothering to look. She didn't need to; she'd been emptying slops here at least twice a day for the past five years. There was a screech, and a cat with a wet tail raced past her ankles, spitting its indignation.

  The sudden appearance of the cat made her glance down. For a moment she just stared at the ground without her mind being able to comprehend what her eyes saw. Then she began to scream and once she'd started, she couldn't stop. She carried on screaming until the innkeeper, naked save for a short shift which barely covered his scrawny thighs, came hurrying round the shack, closely followed by his wife who was armed with a heavy cudgel. Several of the guests trailed after them, grumbling at the disturbance.

  The maid, her hand trembling violently, pointed at the earth next to the midden heap. A man lay on his belly in the filth, his head twisted to the side. Flies swarmed over the dark blood congealed in his hair and crawled over his purple, grotesquely swollen face, settling in the deep black bruise that encircled his neck. Only the buzzing of the flies broke the stunned silence in that courtyard.

  Finally, the innkeeper shook himself, and seizing the maid by the shoulder, shouted at her to go and raise the hue and cry, and send someone to find the bailiff. She did not need any urging to run.

  It took a while for the bailiff to appear and by that time half the street had crowded into the courtyard to see what was afoot.

  The bailiff peered at the body from several angles, though he did not attempt to touch it.

  'Plain as a pig's ear what's happened,' he announced to the crowd. 'Someone's whacked him across the back of the head with something heavy, maybe while he was drunk and taking a piss. That would have floored him. Then they throttled him to make sure he was good and dead. He wouldn't have put up much of a fight, not if he was already half-dead from the crack on the head, none at all if he was out cold from the blow. Wouldn't have taken much strength to kill him. A boy could have done it, just as easily as any full-grown man ... or woman, come to that.' The bailiff stared pointedly at the cudgel in the innkeeper's wife's hand.

  'I'll have you know I'm not in the habit of murdering my customers,' she said indignantly. 'What profit would there be in that?'

  'One of yours, was he?' the bailiff said, as if that explained everything. 'There'll be no shortage of suspects then. Every rogue between here and Yarmouth passes through your doors. I wager it'll be a falling out among thieves.'

  The innkeeper's wife was about to retort to this wicked slander on her respectable establishment when something caught her eye.

  'What's that?'

  It was half concealed beneath the corpse's hand, but it stood out vividly against the dark muck and filth of the yard.

  With evident distaste, the bailiff crouched down and wriggled the object out from beneath the cold fingers. It was crushed and wilted, but it was still recognizable. It was a single white rose.

  As they stared at it, the buzzing in the air grew louder. It seemed that every fly in Norwich was swarming towards the corpse.

  The candles on the walls bled drop by drop on to the twisted mass of wax below. Ma Margot sat enthroned in her snake chair, a goblet of wine untouched on the table in front of her. She stared hard and long at Elena, her bulging yellow-green eyes unblinking in the candlelight. Elena felt sick and she longed to sink down into the chair in front of Ma's table, but she dared not do so without being invited. She grasped the back of it, trying to keep herself upright. Her stomach had been churning ever since Talbot had said Ma wanted to see her. Not another gentleman, not so soon, she couldn't.

  'Please, Ma, I can't! I can't—'

  'Wait till you're spoken to, girl,' Talbot growled. Elena jumped, not realizing that he was still standing behind her. But Ma continued to study her without making any attempt to speak.

  Elena's head was throbbing. Back at the manor she had once drunk too much cider at a harvest-home and remembered the same dizzy, nauseous misery the day after as she felt now. But she had scarcely drunk anything at all last night, just a mouthful or two of the wine when the man had insisted. Could there have been some herb or potion in it?

  Ma's fingers caressed the carved head of the serpent on her armrest. 'Where were you last night?'

  Elena gaped at her, wondering if she had heard the question aright.

  'With the gentleman . . . you dressed me, you and Luce.'

  'And after he left?' Ma's voice was low, but sharp as a dagger.

  'I was here, asleep.'

  'You're lying. Luce swears you were not in the women's chamber when she went to bed and she didn't retire until after the watch called midnight. Your gentleman had long gone by then. Talbot says you were not abed when he made his rounds when he returned. So I'll ask you again, my darling, where were you?'

  'I ... I was sleeping out on the turf seat in the courtyard. I couldn't bear to be inside after . . . what he did.'

  'Never mind what he did,' Ma snapped. 'It's what you did that matters.'

  She beckoned to Talbot, the heavy blood-red ruby on her finger flashing like a warning in the candlelight.

  Talbot lumbered round and stood beside Ma. His broken nose seemed even more twisted out of shape in the deep shadows cast by the candles.

  'Tell her,' Ma ordered.

  Talbot folded his thick, hairy arms, glowering at Elena. 'A corpse was found this morning in the courtyard of the Adam and Eve. Been murdered.'

  'You know who that man was?' Ma asked.

  Elena shook her head. They were both staring at her so intently that she found her cheeks burning with guilt even though she didn't understand why.

  'The man's name was Raoul. He was in the service of Lord Osborn,' Ma said.

  Elena's heart began to pound. 'Did he come to Norwich searching for me?'

  Ma and Talbot exchanged glances.

  'He
'd been asking questions in the taverns about a runaway girl with red hair,' Ma said. 'He wasn't very discreet about it. But last night it seems he was just searching for pleasure.'

  Elena's chest was so tight it hurt to breathe.

  'And it seems, by chance, you were his pleasure,' Ma Margot added with relish. 'He was the gentleman you entertained last night.'

  'But he never told me his name,' Elena said, horrified. 'I didn't know. I didn't who he was. He wore a mask, you know he did.'

  'Told you,' said Talbot, 'no one ever gives their real name here. Not customers, nor girls. Now you know why. If he'd heard your real name last night. . .'

  Elena clung to the edge of the table, her head reeling. She had been forced to pleasure one of Lord Osborn's men. Had Ma known who he was? But she couldn't have. Ma was trying to hide her, wasn't she?

  'And now Raoul's dead,' Ma said. 'So, what happened, my darling? Did you let your name slip? Were you scared he'd recognized you, or did he tell you he was one of Osborn's men? Is that why you followed him after he left here? Is that why you killed him — to stop him talking?'

  Elena's legs would hold her up no longer. She sank into the chair beside her, burying her head in her hands.

  'I didn't... I couldn't have! I dreamed of a murder, but I couldn't really have done it. It was only a dream, a warning . . . about the future. It wasn't real.'

  'What dream?' Ma asked sharply. When did you have it?'

  'Last night when I was asleep on the turf bench ... I dreamed I killed someone. I didn't mean to, but he was yelling and I had to stop him. But it was a dream, that's all. I've had them before. I dreamed of killing my baby — that's why I gave him away.'

  'So you tell us,' Ma said tardy. 'But there are plenty who believe you murdered your child in the flesh, else you'd not be with us now. And if you've killed once, it makes it easier to do it again. In this dream of yours, how did this man die?'

  'I ... he was . . . strangled.' Elena looked up in desperation. 'That wasn't how Raoul died, was it? Tell me! Please, tell me.'

  Talbot and Ma looked at each other again.

  'He was strangled all right. Living breath choked out of him,' Talbot told her with a grim satisfaction.

  Elena gave a shuddering moan. 'But it couldn't have been me. I don't remember doing it. I don't remember going out. I was asleep on the seat and when I woke again I was still there.'

  'But no one saw you there,' Ma reminded her. She reached behind her back in the snake chair and pulled something out, dropping it on to the table. It was the white linen shift Elena had worn last night, crumpled and stained with dried blood. Ma fingered the stains and raised her black brows quizzically.

  'But that's my blood,' Elena protested, '. . . from the thorns ... it isn't his. It can't be his.'

  'And the scarlet girdle you wore about your waist last night, my darling, where exactly is that? It wasn't found with the shift. Luce has looked all over for it, but it seems to have vanished.'

  'Handy thing to strangle a man with, a girdle,' Talbot said.

  Ma leaned forward, cocking her great head to one side. The candlelight flashed from the ruby-headed pins in her coiled black hair. 'I understand, my darling, murder is a terrible thing, a shock to a soul.'

  'Aye,' Talbot said grinning. 'A bastard of a shock to the poor sod who snuffs it.'

  Ma glared at him. 'They tell me that those who commit such dreadful deeds walk as if they are in a sleep, not knowing what they do, and after remember it as a distant dream. Fear can make us desperate, my darling. When you discovered that Raoul was Osborn's man, you panicked. I understand that.'

  She gave what might have been intended as a sympathetic smile, but to the terrified Elena she looked more like a wolf baring her sharp white teeth.

  'But you should have come to me or Talbot and told us what you feared. There's ways to sort such matters without leaving bodies all over the city to be found by prying eyes.'

  'But I didn't know who he was, I swear,' Elena said desperately.

  Ma ignored this. "You've put us all in grave danger.'

  'Dropped us right in the midden,' Talbot growled.

  'If Raoul told anyone where he was going last night, then —' Ma was interrupted by a loud and insistent tolling of the bell at the door.

  'By the sound of it they already know,' Talbot said.

  Ma's heavy black brows flexed in a frown. 'Talbot, answer the door. But delay them as long as you can before you bring them up here.'

  Talbot, despite his bow-legs, could cover the ground as fast as a charging bull when he had to, and he was out of the door and clattering down the stairs before Ma had managed to scramble down from her chair.

  'This way, my darling.'

  But Elena was frozen to the spot with incomprehension and fear. Ma seized her wrist and dragged her bodily towards the curtain hanging across the corner of the room from which Elena had seen her emerge that very first night. The corner was in darkness and Elena could see nothing behind the drape, but evidently Ma didn't need light to find what she wanted. She was feeling for something on the floor. Elena heard a trapdoor being lifted. Ma tugged her across to the hole.

  'Kneel on the edge and feel for the rungs of the ladder with your feet,' Ma instructed.

  Elena, shuddering with the memory of the prisoner hole beneath the manor, used all her strength to pull herself out of Ma's grasp. But Ma Margot was as strong as Talbot. Exasperated, she gave a sharp twist on Elena's arm to bring her to her senses.

  'It's down there or be arrested for murder. And just you think about this: if they were planning to hang you for killing a mere villein's babe, imagine what they will do to a base- born villein who murders a nobleman!'

  'But I didn't, Ma, I swear I didn't,' Elena sobbed.

  'You can swear all you like, but they'll no more believe you this time than they did last. Now, get down there and mind you keep as silent as the grave.'

  'At least give me light,' Elena begged. 'I can't even see the ladder.'

  'No time,' Ma hissed fiercely. 'Just seven rungs is all, then you'll be on solid ground. Hurry, I can hear Talbot climbing the stairs!'

  As soon as Elena's head was below the level of the trapdoor, Ma closed it, leaving Elena in total darkness. She stood on the ladder, too afraid to take another step down. But as she shifted her weight the wooden ladder rocked and creaked under her. Scared of it falling, Elena felt for the step below, then the step below that until, as Ma had promised, her feet touched solid ground.

  As she turned, her hand brushed something furry, and remembering the caged beasts, she stifled a cry of fear, shrinking back against the wooden ladder. But whatever it was didn't move. She tentatively reached out again and felt thick, silky fur, as soft as melting butter, but it was cold to the touch and she knew that there was no animal beneath the skin.

  As her eyes adjusted, she realized that the chamber was not entirely without light. Pricks of daylight were shining in through holes on the other side of the room. She saw dimly that she was standing in a wedge-shaped room, next to a sleeping platform covered with a heap of pelts over a thick mattress. Some of the furs were as pale as snow in moonlight, others dark as the night. She smoothed the skins with her fingers, marvelling at their sensual softness.

  Footsteps padded across the wooden boards above her head, followed by the scrape of chair legs and a hum of voices. But although she strained to hear, she could make out no words. Gazing fearfully towards the ceiling, her eyes caught sight of evil, distorted faces in the darkness glowering over at her. She cringed. Were they bats or demons? She held her breath, staring fixedly up at them, but they didn't move. Holding her arms protectively overhead, she crept a little closer, then saw what they were. Around the top of the chamber was carved a series of grimacing grotesques as you might see in a church. Human faces with pig snouts, women with pendulous breasts and tangled beards, men with faces twisted into a leper's leer, owls with human heads and men with the heads of dogs.

  Elena sank
down on to the bed, trying not to look at the mocking faces glaring at her. Above her she could still hear the murmur of voices. What was Ma saying to them? Would she hand her over to them? Cold sweat drenched her body. Raffe had warned her that if Ma couldn't earn a profit from her then she might be tempted to give her up for the bounty.

  She tried desperately to remember what had happened last night. She couldn't have killed that man. She'd wanted to, all the time she was in that chamber with him, every muscle and sinew in her body had been screaming out for his death. If she'd been able to get her hands free, if she'd had a knife or a staff or anything to defend herself, she would have lunged at him through sheer fear, of that much she was certain.