“Some of Richmond’s garrison is marching north,” Gunnar explained.
“North?” Thaddeus asked.
“Yes,” Gunnar replied. “Apparently, the friction between the Normans and the Scots has worsened. A force of Scots led by King Malcolm attacked Cumberland, pushing back the Norman forces. Count Stephen is sending men north to help William Rufus reclaim those lands.”
“What’s going on?” Brant asked, finally sitting up. He moved and stretched. Then he grumbled. “Damned hard floor.”
“Norman forces going north,” Gunnar replied.
“Why?” Brant asked.
Gunnar explained the conflict to Brant. The thane laughed.
“Northumbrian dogs, Scots and devil worshipping Normans,” he said with a chuckle, “all killing each other. God is truly good.”
“I would be wary of invoking God’s goodness in this,” Thaddeus said, standing and straightening his back a little. “I doubt our Lord is ever joyful when men kill one another.”
“These are heathens and sodomites. Pagans who hide their cultish ways behind a cross,” Brant said. “Bah! They are all bastards and whores, just like this one.”
The thane pointed a finger at Alden. The Mercian stepped forward, white-knuckled fists balled up, but Gunnar stopped him.
“Surely, the Lord I serve delights in heathens and pagans dying,” Brant said.
“Then we serve a different Lord,” Thaddeus said.
“Blasphemy!” Brant hissed and, for the first time in many days, he looked sincere about his accusation.
“As tragic as this may be,” Thaddeus said, staring at the thane as he spoke and ignoring the accusation, “it may actually provide an opportunity to get close to Count Stephen.”
“What are you doing?” Thaddeus asked through Alden as Hugh appeared from the other room and headed for the door.
“I need to work,” Hugh replied nonchalantly.
“You must rest,” Thaddeus said.
“That’s quite impossible, my lord,” Hugh said. “I am the only wax chandler in Richmond.”
“I see no candles or candle making instruments in here,” Thaddeus said.
“My shop is next door,” Hugh said. “Two families live above it, and I am blessed they work for me. That is probably why the Normans came last night and …”
Hugh stopped for a moment as his words caught in his throat, and Thaddeus could tell he choked back tears.
“We are not wealthy by any means, my lord,” Hugh continued, “but the Lord has blessed us with plenty. Most of the aristocrats buy their candles from me, as does the abbey. My children never go hungry. The chandler guild has been good to me, and the people living here, on Chandler Street, respect my family and me. But if I don’t work, the guild will give my business to someone else, and believe me there are plenty of tallow chandlers who would rather be working with beeswax.”
“Where does your wax come from?” Thaddeus asked.
“A beekeeper, just outside the city walls,” Hugh explained, “although his yield has been light this season. The Normans must’ve come looking for money, among other things. What they don’t know is, not only has business been slow, we feed all of these poor paupers outside our home. Any extra coin we have, especially recently, goes to those poor widows and children.”
They stayed in the home until dinner, their noontime meal, and Gunnar, ever fond of children, kept the three little ones occupied. Asaf spent most of the day praying with Hugh’s wife, Hilda. Brant couldn’t stand being around a chandler’s home, even after learning he was a successful businessman and, by no means, a poor Saxon, so he left, ignoring Thaddeus’ request for him not to. In fact, Brant was quite insistent on leaving and only with Jarvis; Thaddeus prayed they wouldn’t do anything stupid.
Thaddeus and Alden helped Hugh in his shop. Thaddeus had met many chandlers in his travels, but none took quite the care in their craft as Hugh. He had different molds he used, as well as dipping stations for different types of candles. Monks from the abbey came to his shop, as did several aristocratic women. Whenever they asked him what had happened to his forehead, the mean cut bandaged with a bit of cloth, he simply told them he was a clumsy fool and fell.
The two families living above his shop seemed happy, and Thaddeus could tell Hugh treated them well, and they were appreciative of the chandler’s employment.
“You’re a good man, Hugh Chandler,” Thaddeus said through Alden after he saw the man take a silver penny from one woman in exchange for a pair of candles, and then immediately give it to a widow and her little boy as they passed in front of his shop.
“I do what I can,” Hugh replied, “to help the people of Richmond and do the Lord’s work. There are men better than me out there.”
“I don’t know if there are,” Thaddeus suggested, and the candle maker nodded his appreciation.
Before dinner, Thaddeus excused himself from Hugh’s shop and visited Butcher Street, where he bought a portion of roasted beef, and then Brewer’s Lane, where he bought a cask of the best beer he could find. When he returned to Hugh’s home, he found the man had invited the other two families over for dinner as well, and their meals were a large ordeal.
“My lord,” Hilda said when she saw Thaddeus walking in with beef and beer, “you must tell me how much this cost you.”
“Not on my life,” Thaddeus said with a smile.
As they sat down, Anson, the couple’s oldest boy returned. Hilda was furious, interrogating her son of fourteen or fifteen and even slapping him across the face, although the stout boy looked like he could take more than a simple mother’s slap. He said little in regard to where he had been, but when he learned of what happened to his family the night before, he raged and vowed revenge on the Normans, exclaiming as they passed him in the street, he would knife them in the balls before cutting their throats.
“A man with a vengeful heart dies young,” Thaddeus said.
“It is because of them,” said Anson, a splitting image of his mother with broad shoulders and a cleft chin. When his parents weren’t listening, he told Thaddeus, “I go out at night and beg.”
“Why?” Thaddeus asked. “Your father seems successful enough.”
“The Normans take everything, and my father gives more and more,” Anson explained with tears in his eyes. “He can’t stand seeing a poor widow or a pauper boy walk by his shop and not help. And the Normans make it worse.”
“Rather than beg,” Thaddeus said, and as he stared at the boy, who looked like a good lad but had troubled eyes, added, “and steal, why not work with your father?”
“Steal?” Anson said, pretending to be offended.
“No one would fault you for such a thing,” Thaddeus said, “but stealing is a sin.”
“Is rape and murder a sin?” Anson asked.
“Truly,” Thaddeus replied, “but should we trade one sin for another. Be with your family, Anson, and don’t worry about revenge. Evil will get what it deserves eventually.”
Anson seemed to listen, but when Brant returned after dinner, wanting to take no part in feasting with a chandler and the families working with him, he heard of the boy’s anger.
“These Normans are dogs,” the thane said. “They are demons. The Devil’s minions. When we kill them, even if it means giving our own lives, we are doing the Lord’s work. To die while cutting off a Norman’s balls would mean immediate acceptance into heaven, my son.”
Thaddeus pulled the thane aside, Brant looking down with disgust when the Greek man grabbed his arm.
“You don’t truly believe what you told that boy, do you?” Thaddeus asked.
“Of course, I do,” the thane replied with a haughty smile of condescension.
“You would send a boy into the streets to die,” Thaddeus said, “just so he might kill—nay, murder—one Norman soldier? And you know that is all he would do. They would cut him down before he could blink.”
“A boy?” the thane laughed. “I killed my first man by
his age. And it is probably the best he can do, being not more than a Northumbrian whelp who has little hope of ever being more than a chandler like his father.”
“A successful, well-respected chandler,” Thaddeus said.
Brant waved Thaddeus off, and he didn’t say anything more.
Dusk settled on Richmond, and Thaddeus stepped into a street much less crowded with beggars than the day before. He put his nose to the air and sniffed. He could still sense the presence of evil in this place, but it seemed dulled. Even so, he wore his girdle and sheathed sword, comforted in the knowledge his steel was close at hand and not so worried a Norman soldier might see him. After all, the streets would be vacant save for the begging paupers.
“Does the air feel lighter to you?” Thaddeus asked, Asaf standing next to him.
“Yes, it does,” the priest replied.
“She is gone,” Thaddeus said.
“North, you think?” Asaf asked.
“I don’t know,” Thaddeus replied with a shrug. “Maybe I can find something out … ask around. You and Gunnar stay here, watch that fool of a thane and comfort this family.”
“As you wish,” Asaf replied.
It was seldom Asaf was so compliant and without any protest. He must have felt the weirdness in the air. That was the only word Thaddeus had for it. They had felt evil before—pure evil—especially in the Holy Land and the wild forests of Germania. But this felt different, even in the evident absence of the witch. Where could she have gone? And why?
Thaddeus walked through the streets of Richmond, making his way towards the castle when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Looking over his shoulder, he saw nothing but a few beggars walking about in the shadows. Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw two big eyes staring at him from the darkness of a building corner. He stopped.
“Why don’t you come out?” Thaddeus said in Latin. “I see you. Your sneakiness has done nothing for you.”
He was met with a deep, reverberating laugh as a man who rivaled Gunnar’s size stepped from the shadow. His skin was dark, a stark contrast to the whiteness of his eyes and teeth as he laughed. He was a Moor. Thaddeus could tell right away, from the man’s feathered turban, tight-fitting shaya, and his plumed trousers. A scimitar, one with an ornately decorated silver handle, hung from his hip.
Thaddeus smelled the witch’s stink on this man. Moors were followers of Islam and the teachings of Muhammad. As such, they were not Christian men, but that did not make them inherently evil. Despite the friction between the western church and the Moslem empires of the Holy Land, and despite the encroachment of Seljuk Turks on Byzantium, Thaddeus had met plenty of Muslims in his many travels who welcomed him and Asaf and Gunnar into their homes with open arms, traded with them, even educated them in their ways of doing arithmetic and writing. One such Muslim family even gave Thaddeus a highly treasured copy of their holy book, the Quran. What he did know was the Muslim people viewed witchcraft much the same way Christian people did—with abhorrence.
“Are you so eager to die?” the moor said in heavily accented Latin.
“Are you so eager to do the work of Al’Shaitan?” Thaddeus replied, using the Muslim word for the Devil. “I smell the witch’s stink on you.”
The moor laughed.
“You Christians think everything is so simple,” he said with a false smile, “and yet, you complicate everything. How foolish you are, as you kill one another simply because you disagree about which side of your bread you should add butter.”
“Are you Muslims so different,” Thaddeus replied. “I know of the civil wars within your supposed unified Caliphate.”
The smile on the moor’s face disappeared.
“You have two choices, infidel,” the moor said. “You can leave and live out your curse in service to your god somewhere else, or you can die.”
How did this man know of Thaddeus’s curse … or blessing?
“To die in service to Christ is the greatest blessing I could ever receive,” Thaddeus said, drawing his sword.
The moor laughed, drawing his scimitar and saying something in a language Thaddeus didn’t know. Five forms rose from the shadows of the street. They looked a far cry from men, although Thaddeus was certain that’s what they were. They looked broken, had missing teeth, and were emaciated with sunken eyes.
The first broken man approached Thaddeus, producing a knife from the rags that hung loosely off his shoulders. Thaddeus made short work of the man, cutting him down. As he did, he heard a hiss and a green mist escaped the gaping wound in the man’s chest. The other four broken ones moved with a speed their bodies should not have been able to support. One came at him with a quarterstaff. Thaddeus dodged his attack and lopped the man’s head off. Again, a ghostly vapor escaped the wound as the body crumpled to the ground.
The broken souls might have overcome a normal man or even a well-trained soldier, but Thaddeus was neither of those. He was something more. He made short work of the other men, each time releasing greenish, ghostly ether from their wounds. Then, the moor attacked. He was strong and fast, and Thaddeus knew his muscles, albeit well trained and naturally strong, had been supernaturally enhanced. He grunted as he blocked the moor’s attacks, and when he sliced his blade across the man’s leg, it produced a black ichor and seemed to do little to slow the man.
“You will die,” the moor said, “and you will find out your god has nothing for you. Al’Shaitan will dine on your bones for all eternity.”
He was face to face with Thaddeus who could smell the stink of evil on the moor’s breath. Thaddeus kicked out, pushing the moor away.
“You will die and immediately regret your decision as you find eternal fire waiting for you on the other side,” Thaddeus said through labored breaths. It had been many years since a man had tested him so in battle.
Eventually, Thaddeus managed to sweep the moor’s foot out from underneath him. The man fell back, hard, and the point of Thaddeus’ sword met the moor’s chest as he sat up. Thaddeus stabbed him twice more before slicing his blade along the inside of the moor’s thigh, his black blood seeping out quickly as Thaddeus had cut one of the man’s main arteries.
The moor grunted, trying to squeeze his leg and blood seeping through his fingers.
“Curse you,” the moor seethed.
“I feel cursed most days already,” Thaddeus said, putting a foot on the man’s chest and pushing him back down against the ground.
“You will burn in Jaheem,” the moor seethed.
“Maybe,” Thaddeus replied, understanding the Arabic word for hell. “But I know you will, for sure.”
“I will be met with riches and women,” the moor replied with a smile.
“You truly believe that?” Thaddeus asked. “You were supposed to kill me, and you failed. You think Al’Shaitan will meet failure with open arms?”
The moor seemed to think for a moment, and then his smile faded.
“No. You know he will not,” Thaddeus added. “You will be burned alive for all eternity; your flesh rejuvenated every day so you can once again experience the pain. Boiling water will never quench your thirst, and giant scorpions will sting you while the Zabaniyya torment you daily. Or maybe, as a hypocrite, you will find yourself in the lowest well of Jaheem where you will find Al’Shaitan and his demons gnawing on your bones forever.”
A look of fear crossed the moor’s face. He squeezed his leg hard and fought against Thaddeus’s foot.
“You are dead,” Thaddeus said. “You died the moment you sold your soul to the Devil and his witch. Where is she?”
The moor spat at him. Thaddeus drew a dagger from his belt and plunged it halfway into the moor’s shoulder as his knee replaced his foot on the man’s chest. The moor grunted and then let out a deep, groaning cry when Thaddeus twisted the blade.
“Where is the witch? I know she’s not here anymore,” Thaddeus said, pushing his face close to the moor’s despite the foul breath.
“I will
never tell you,” the moor replied.
“Ah, yes, the charms of a witch,” Thaddeus said with an insincere smile. He drove the dagger deep as he twisted more. “Did she open her legs to you? Is she the one who promised you all the riches hell has to offer? Did she say you were hers? How many men serve her? Do you think you are the first, the only man she has seduced?”
The moor grimaced and cried out as Thaddeus rotated the dagger. The moor let his head fall back, and he stopped fighting against Thaddeus.
“What hope is there then?” the moor asked.
“Do something good with your last moments,” Thaddeus said. “Exact revenge on that bitch and ask for forgiveness in your last moments. God is merciful.”
“Allah, I am sorry,” the moor muttered as he lost more blood and his consciousness clearly began to wane.
“Tell me,” Thaddeus said softly.
“She is in Winchester,” the moor replied, eyes closed and tears streaming down his cheeks. “She poses as a Flemish noblewoman. She plans to meet with William Rufus. She is not…”
Just as the moor opened to speak again, Thaddeus moved away. Blood poured from his mouth and, following the blood, black, hairy spiders crawled from his mouth and nose. Spiders crawled from his pant legs and sleeves as well, and Thaddeus could only imagine from where they came. Blood, firstly the black ichor and then thick, red blood, poured from his eyes and ears. The moor convulsed violently, and Thaddeus heard the sound of breaking bone. Within moments, black, hairy spiders covered his whole body.
Thaddeus stepped away and crossed himself.
“Christ Almighty,” Thaddeus whispered.
Thaddeus ran back to the chandler’s house, his heart beating faster than it had in a long while, and as he stood at the door, his hands shook. He willed them to be still and turned the handle.
“She’s in Winchester, meeting with William Rufus,” Thaddeus said before anyone could ask where he’d been. “We must leave now.”
Chapter 13
THADDEUS HAD TASKED Anson with going to Chesterfield, delivering a cryptic message about the witch’s transition to Bishop Wulfstan. He knew that the bishop, in all his wisdom about the world, knew about the movements of the witch, but Thaddeus just wanted to be sure.
To Kill a Witch Page 10