The Gallows Curse

by Karen Maitland

'Go on, get you to bed. There's still a few hours left before daylight. In the meantime, I suppose it's me and Talbot'll have to think how to get out of this mess.'

  Elena, clutching the sheepskin around her, limped out of the chamber. The garden was deserted now, all the lanterns extinguished. In the sleeping chamber, no one stirred as she softly opened the door and slipped under her own covers. She lay awake in the darkness. Every inch of her ached and burned. She longed desperately for sleep, but it wouldn't come.

  She hated Hugh. She loathed him more than she had ever known possible. A white-hot fire raged through her. If it hadn't been for him, Finch would not have wanted to run. And now, now he knew about her too. He hadn't made the connection yet, of that she was sure, but he'd go on thinking about her red hair, and why she'd tried to disguise it. He'd realize who she was in the end. And unless he really did believe he'd killed her tonight, as soon as he discovered the truth, he would return.

  And where was poor little Finch now? Ma said she and Talbot would sort the mess. Did that mean they would go looking for him? She had to know if the boy had got away safely. She had to know what would happen to him. Suppose Ma was right and she had sent Finch to his death. She couldn't bear to believe that. He must be safe, he must!

  Almost without thinking, she slid her hand under her - pallet and felt for the little hard bundle. She unwrapped it, her fingers tracing the outline of the withered limbs, the head, the body. She spat on her finger.

  That foul animal had forced her mouth open, held her jaws apart with the hilt of his knife, as he pushed himself between her lips. She almost vomited again as the scalding memory welled up inside her. When he'd finished she'd retched until there was nothing left in her stomach. That's why he'd hit her, cracking her head against the wooden bed. She could still taste him and taste her own blood where the dagger hilt had dug into her mouth. She smeared her bloodstained spittle on the mandrake and wrapped the little body again, pushing it back beneath the pallet, then she curled herself up in a little ball and tried to dream of Finch.

  Hugh leaned over the wall of the bridge, gazing down into the river below. A pale dawn light was just creeping along the edge of the sky and gilding the filthy water below with flecks of gold. The faint glow of a dying lantern revealed the outline of two watchmen hunched against some hurdles at the far end of the bridge. Bishop's Bridge formed one of the entrances to Norwich by day, but at night the bridge was closed and supposedly guarded. Not this night though, for these two watchmen were snoring like pigs in mud. Hugh was torn between a desire to kick them awake or curl up beside them and sleep. His body felt drained, as if every drop of blood had been sucked from it, but his mind was racing.

  He felt for the band of fur beneath his shirt, and smiled. That cunning woman had bestowed her gift on the right man. He was going to obtain everything he desired and deserved. And unlike his brother, he knew how to use power.

  It had been so easy to find this runaway of Osborn's. She'd practically crawled into his lap as if she'd been drawn to him. Not that it was the first time a girl had done that. Some women just couldn't help playing with fire; they wanted to be burned. It would be rather annoying if she was dead. He would have enjoyed watching what Osborn would do to her. But he'd call back to the stew later and find out if she lived. If she did, he could find some place in town to keep her safely locked up until he was ready to return to Gastmere. Either way he had no intention of leaving Norwich yet. He had pressing business of his own to pursue.

  It had been a blow to learn that fool Raoul had come to Norwich on Osborn's bidding to find the girl. He'd been so sure that Raoul had come here because he'd found out something about the traitor, something that Hugh could use to his advantage. Hugh was still convinced that Raffaele was involved in this treachery somewhere and he was determined to find some proof of it, even if it was only for the pleasure of watching the gelding begging for mercy at the hands of the torturers. But if Hugh could catch Raffaele along with the other men who were helping the French, he'd have something to offer John. He'd not make the same mistake as Osborn, waiting on empty promises of future lands. He'd insist on having his reward now — their heads for a wealthy estate. It was a fair bargain.

  The prize had almost been within his grasp before when he'd learned about the Santa Katarina from the marsh-man he'd caught stealing. But even after a thorough beating the man had told him little except that the ship was smuggling Frenchmen, and the wretch couldn't or wouldn't tell him the names of those who were helping the French. Try as he might, Hugh had been unable to find out any more.

  So in the end he had to settle for sending an anonymous warning to the garrison. That way, he thought, he could take the credit if the French were captured, but not look a fool if the tale proved to be false. He'd expected the garrison to station John's soldiers on land and seize the Frenchmen when they came ashore. He'd even gone to the bay to watch events unfold, certain that whoever was helping the French would be waiting to meet the ship and he could lead the soldiers to them.

  But John's men had ruined everything in their bungled attempt to take the ship itself. With the boat in flames there was nothing even to prove the French had ever been aboard. And for all he knew, the snivelling little thief had invented the tale just to try to save his skin. The whole business had proved worthless to Hugh, but now, if he could discover who had murdered that idiot Raoul, it might yet lead him to the nest of traitors, the perfect gift for a king.

  Finding this runaway girl seemed like an omen. Surely, as the cunning woman had prophesied, his star was in its ascendancy? He would find the traitors where that fool Raoul had failed. He would earn the king's gratitude and the lands he wanted. Why not all of his brother's lands too, wouldn't that be the crowning glory? Yes, Hugh rather thought he would insist on that little detail into the bargain.

  God's bones, but he was weary. That wretched girl had taken it out of him, and Ma had been plying him with far too much strong wine all that time he'd been waiting for the boy. Now the drink was catching up with him and his head was muzzy and heavy. He leaned more heavily on the wall of the bridge, resting his head on his hands, trying to summon the energy to stagger back to the inn where he was staying.

  Hugh was just about to pull himself upright when a movement on the river bank below caught his eye. A tiny, fair-haired boy was darting along the narrow track. Hugh would not have given him a second glance had the boy not been crouching low and peering fearfully at the boats moored along the river, trying to slip past them unnoticed. There was something familiar about the child. Hugh squinted down at the little figure.

  'Finch, is that you, boy? I've been looking for you. Don't think you can get away from me.'

  Finch jerked and spun round to see the man he most feared in all the world standing on the bridge above him. The child was paralysed with horror. He was shaking so violently that he couldn't seem to walk, much less run. He began to whimper helplessly. But even as he stood there staring up, he saw a terrible spasm of shock and agony burst across Hugh's face. He saw Hugh's hands gripping the top of the wall as he arched backwards with a groan. Then the man fell, his head crashing against the stone wall as he crumpled on to his knees. The terrified child didn't wait to see more; he turned and ran as if all the cats of hell were at his heels.

  Hugh lay in a spreading pool of his own blood. The first stab wound in his back had killed him, so he never felt the knife slashing at him again and again just to make certain he could never wake in this world. Some might say that was a pity, for he deserved to feel every one of those cuts. His attacker certainly thought so.

  The watchmen who found him, when they finally woke as the bright dawn light disturbed their infant slumbers, stared in horror at the corpse and shuddered to think how close they had come to having their own throats cut. For surely only a madman could have done this. They briefly contemplated trying to heave the body off the bridge in the hopes that he would be found further down river and nowhere near where they were supposed
to be keeping watch. But one glance at the boatmen cooking their breakfasts on the little crafts below convinced them that not even the most dull-witted river man could fail to notice a blood-soaked corpse hurtling down past their ears and falling with a great splash into the water. The watchmen stared miserably at each other. There was nothing for it but to raise the hue and cry, and pray for a miracle to save them from the punishment that would surely follow. They didn't need the powers of a mandrake to tell them this was not going to be a good day.

  A grinning demon with the face of a pig and the ears of a bat swung upside down, peering down at Elena. Something furry rubbed itself against her cheek and as she fought to move her head, a wolf with bared teeth lunged out at her. She screamed, trying to raise her arms to shield her face, but they were as heavy as marble and she couldn't move them. She heard a slow, heavy tread somewhere behind her and then two bulging frog's eyes blinked slowly at her. A long red tongue flicked out, and from a very long way off she heard the boom of a voice, but she couldn't make out the words. She thrashed wildly, trying to wriggle away, but she couldn't move. She seemed to be caught in a web.

  The frog spoke again. 'Lie still, my darling. It's for your own good. You were raving when Talbot brought you home.'

  Slowly, as if a mist was dissolving in her mind, Elena began to recognize fragments of where she was. She was lying on a bed of furs. She had been here before in the room of the grotesques. It was Ma Margot's chamber, the one with the spy mask to see out into the entrance hall. She had no idea if it was day or night, for the room was windowless, and only the light from a single candle flickered across the carved monsters that peered down at her. She tried to sit up, and only then did she realize why she couldn't move her arms. She was bound wrist and ankles by soft leather straps to the corners of the bed.

  Something loomed towards her out of the fog in her head.

  'Brought me home,' she repeated. Her words sounded slurred. Her tongue was swollen and dry.

  Home, Ma had said home, but this wasn't her home. Where was home? She felt as if she was a crazy old woman wandering the streets, knowing the place had to be found, but not knowing where to look. Ma pulled up a low stool. An image flashed into Elena's head of a milkmaid seated beside cows, except that surely the maid hadn't sat on a stool mounted on the back of a carved kneeling angel.

  Ma slowly pulled the jewelled pins from her hair and laid them one at a time on the fur-covered bed. Elena shrank back as far as her bonds would allow, trying to twist away, but

  Ma took no notice. Freed from its pins, Ma's hair uncoiled by itself in a thick rope slithering down over her shoulders, to curl itself up again in her lap. It was as black as polished jet. From a tiny silver flask that hung at her waist, Ma tipped a few drops of a musky-smelling oil into her palm and smoothed it down the length of her hair. She pulled out a comb, fashioned from an ancient yellowed bone.

  'You know what this is?' Ma didn't wait for an answer. 'It's the comb they used to anoint the ancient kings and queens of this land when they were crowned. Always remember that gold and silver are but as worthless as bird grit, unless you have the power to control others.'

  She began to comb the oil through her thick hair, fanning it out like great black wings on either side of her head. Only then did Elena notice that the centre of her scalp was completely bald, as if she had been tonsured.

  Without any change in tone, Ma said, 'Talbot found you near the church of St Helen. It's lucky for you that he discovered you before the sheriff started the search. Only minutes before, mind, for the soldiers were already rushing down that road towards the bridge as he was carrying you home.'

  Ma began to twist her hair, round and round, tighter and tighter.

  'They say he died instantly, a stab in the back between the ribs right up into the heart. It was well aimed, my darling'

  Who . . . who died?'

  The oily gleaming hair was tightly coiled up on top of Ma's head once more. She began to pierce it with her pins, slowly, one at a time, with a practised hand that required no mirror to guide it.

  'Hugh, my darling, but you know that. It was your hand guided the knife.'

  Elena started up but the leather straps pulled her back. 'No, no, I didn't, I swear. I couldn't have . . .'

  'You wanted him dead,' Ma said calmly.

  'But I couldn't have done it. How could I have got outside?'

  'But you were outside. Talbot found you. And the gate in the cellar was open.'

  'But I didn't open it. It was too heavy. I could only raise it a little way when Finch . . .'

  She stopped, seeing the hard, cold smile spread across Ma's face. 'So you lied. You did help Finch escape and now you want me to believe that you didn't murder Hugh.'

  'All right... I did help Finch. But I couldn't raise the gate enough to loop the rope around the bar. If I'd been able to, I would have gone with him. I wouldn't have stayed here for one single hour longer than I had to. Maybe I would have starved out there, like you say Finch will. But I wouldn't have cared, anything ... anything would have been better than being a filthy common whore!'

  Ma's hand moved so fast that Elena only caught the blaze of the jewel on the pin as it flashed before her eyes. The pin stabbed right through her ear lobe, fastening her to the bed. She squealed in pain, struggling desperately against her bonds.

  Ma regarded her with interest, as a small boy might watch a beetle he has impaled on a thorn.

  'A priest once told me, my darling — yes, I've entertained many priests in my time — that in the days of the ancient Israelites, if a slave was offered his freedom but wanted to stay a slave, his ear was pierced as a sign. No girl in this stew is a whore, my darling, unless she chooses to be one. Every woman here sells what talents she has, and that makes her an artist, a merchant of goods. She does no more or less than a scribe, a musician, or a trader in holy relics. Only a woman who lets a man take her because she is afraid of him, or of making her own way in the world, makes herself a slave and a whore. More whores have graced the noble marriage beds of Europe than ever worked in brothels.'

  Elena was whimpering with pain, but with her hands bound she could not pull the pin out. Ma picked up the last pin from the bed and ran the sharp point lightly across Elena's face. Elena screwed up her eyes, sick with dread, but she couldn't even turn her head away for the pin ripped at her earlobe.

  'So you went out last night,' Ma said softly. 'What do you remember? Tell me.'

  'I had ... a dream, but that's all it was, a dream.'

  'Ah yes, another dream, my darling. And in this dream you killed Hugh.'

  'No, no,' Elena protested. 'In my dream a man was dead. But I don't know who it was ... his face, it was ... I was holding a knife, but I didn't stab him. You have to believe me.'

  'I told you, my darling, the first night you came here, that I don't have to believe anything. And the undeniable fact is Hugh is dead. You wanted him dead. You were found outside in the streets. You remember seeing him dead and you remember holding the knife.'

  'But I couldn't have got out, Ma. I couldn't lift the gate. It's too heavy.' Elena was almost sobbing. Her ear was burning, and her head throbbing. She remembered nothing clearly enough to make sense of it.

  Ma reached over and slowly pulled the pin from Elena's ear. Elena gritted her teeth against the pain, feeling the warm trickle of blood run down her skin and pool wetly behind her neck.

  Ma wiped the scarlet blood from the pin on her gown and slid it back into the coils of her black hair.

  'I knew a woman once. Beasts pulling a wagon were spooked and broke into a gallop, the wagon toppled over and fell on her little son, pinning him by his legs. He was screaming, and before any of the neighbours could reach him, his mother had got hold of the wagon and lifted it off her son. Not even a man could do that by himself.

  'Fear and hate can lend a woman strength greater even than a blacksmith. You had a reason enough to hate. I saw it in your face the night he finished with Finch and
again when he took you. I'd not condemn any woman for taking a knife to a man who deserves it. In fact I'd admire her spirit. But this is serious, my darling. Osborn will turn this town upside down looking for his brother's killer. Too many men saw Hugh at the brothel just hours before. There will be some who'll be too ashamed to admit where they were and so will keep silent, but others will not care if it be known where they went, especially if a heavy purse is dangled in front of their eyes.

  'Talbot and I can talk our way out of this, but we can't have Osborn questioning you. One of my whores, already a fugitive from justice, has killed two noblemen. If they ever discover you killed them, they'll accuse Talbot and me of luring them here, maybe even paying you to do it. We'll all hang together and I've no desire to get my neck stretched. I can't risk you being caught and questioned. You'll have to stay down here, hidden. The girls already believe you've run off, and will say so if asked, but you'll have to remain here and stay quiet. Talbot's fetched your things.'

  She nodded to the corner where Elena could dimly make out her small bundle.

  Elena nodded. 'I swear I'll stay hidden. But please, don't make me stay like this. Please untie me and I promise I won't make a sound or try to get out.'