“I certainly can’t imagine anyone getting the better of Vespasian that easily.”
“A big gang of ruffians, and he’d be outnumbered ten to one. Even Vespasian can’t fight ten men at once.”
“Then he’d be dead,” I said. “Besides, he’s still wearing his ring.”
“And he came back with a horse. So perhaps he robbed someone else who tried to fight back.”
So we shifted again into a sort of routine and the weather warmed, the birds nested and in spite of Vespasian’s caution, no one came looking for us at all. He ripped off the remainder of the bandage one evening. The scar across his shoulder was red and raised with a puckered edge. Tilda’s sewing had been sadly erratic but the wound was closed and healing. “Does it still hurt?” I asked him once.
“Hurt?” He raised both eyebrows. “I hadn’t thought about it. I imagine it does. But I do not consider pain a priority.”
“Well, it’s healing.” I looked at him carefully, wondering if he’d be angry if I pushed my advantage. No one asked questions of Vespasian, but he had been gentle with me lately. Unlikely as it seemed, I even suspected him of gratitude. So I sniffed, increasingly embarrassed, and said, “Who did it? I mean, who was it? Who tried to cut your arm off?”
He stared at me for several minutes before answering. Then he said, “Nobody.”
It was a pointless answer and I was disappointed. “Someone did. You didn’t fall on your own sword.”
“No one tried to cut my arm off.” He didn’t seem cross. I saw he was amused again. He was suppressing a smile.
“Then what? Who?”
“He is no body now, because he is dead. I killed him,” said Vespasian. “And that is enough of your curiosity.”
Chapter Thirteen
With no access to either markets or shops, so nothing to steal and no one to steal from, we lived an oddly adapted and makeshift life in our grand house. We could not buy candles. They had always been expensive and considered a luxury, so always better stolen than bought, although I wasn’t sorry when the last stunted end of smelly mutton grease spluttered away and its dirty smoke burned up into the rafters. Vespasian’s tinder box was the only one we had, so we made torches of rushes bound in thread from the nettles and lit from the fire. They had to be kept far from the beds and low enough so the flames would not catch in the thatches, but they gave a good light and a clean smell though the smoke was thick and made us cough. We still had two tallow lamps with reed pith wicks which we had to keep renewing, but we started to conserve these, and kept them for special needs. We no longer had oats to make porridge and ate just one meal a day in the late morning. In the evening’s firelight we sat amongst the dried threshes and told stories. Osbert was a great story teller. He made up tales of the crusades and King Richard, the mighty Coeur de Leon, who killed all the Saracens and was now in Paradise with the saints, escaping purgatory because of his exceptional virtue and valour. Osbert’s own father, he said, had ridden away on the crusades, but had never returned. Osbert had heard he’d been drowned at sea before reaching the Holy Land, and if this was true then no doubt he now languished in purgatory, waiting until his sins were finally forgiven before joining his beloved king. We argued over this detail for an hour. If crusading automatically extinguished sin and sent the crusader to an immediate paradise as our holy father the Pope had announced, then did death on the road still count? Or not?
“Purgatory,” said Vespasian softly from his high chair in the shadows, “is a dubious invention of the church.”
“Well, that means God has to have it now,” said Stephen, “if the church says so. The Pope makes the rules.”
“I shall come back and inform you, one way or the other, when the time comes,” murmured Vespasian.
“Hush,” begged Tilda. “Don’t talk of ghosts.”
Stephen loved ghost stories. He told tales of the little church yard where his sister had been buried before he ran away from his home in Lincoln. “On Hallowe’en,” whispered Stephen, “they crawl up from their graves, all misty and dark, hands reaching out of the damp earth, with red eyes like bats.”
Vespasian had almost said something after one Hallowe’en story, sitting forward as if about to speak. But then he had sighed, and leaned back again, closing his eyes as if tired. Then, mindful of the dark magic and Isabel’s death, Tilda would not let Stephen tell stories of Hallowe’en either.
Richard told the stories she had liked once, of chivalry and tournament, of Havelock the Dane and knights who rescued the poor and oppressed. Even Hugh told a story once, of a hare winning a race, then ending up in the cooking pot.
But Vespasian told the best stories of all. He told us about King Richard taken hostage and rescued by his troubadour and about King John’s vicious ineptitude, of war in France, cruelty in Constantinople, of intrigue, jealousy and revolution. He described strange lands in Italy where the houses were built on water and the people sodden with corruption, though he called them beautiful and their blasphemies all glittering like jewels in the distant sun. He spoke of the dangers of being sold into slavery in the east and the dark skinned Arab traders. We knew markets, he said, where we sold vegetables and fish and horseshoes and earthenware piss pots. In the east, the markets sold shimmering silk and naked slaves. He explained libraries of ancient books as if they were more precious than gold, and teachers of mathematics and science more important than any king. He also described palaces and castles and the habits of princelings, barons and their adulterous wives, and sometimes his tales were vulgar and bordered on sardonic obscenity. But then he would glance towards my rapt, upturned expression and he would smile and shake his head and moderate his language, changing the story altogether.
As if in shame, he would switch to the only Christian tale I ever heard him tell, Perlesvaus and the grail, a story he had sometimes told us, with prevarications, by the fireside in London. “Of course,” he would interrupt himself, “the symbolism of the grail is misappropriated by the church from a tradition far older and closer to the purity of the spirit.” None of us understood this at all, but we adored his every soft hypnotic word and would nod as if we fervently agreed.
If the boys talked bright eyed of the crusades, then Vespasian would frown and say that they fostered only fanaticism where great cruelty on both sides had annihilated all previous beauty and progress. He called the crusades a glut of barbarity, simply in order to gain some holy advantage for oneself through causing suffering to others, an abomination in the name of someone who preached loving one’s neighbour as oneself. Since I suspected that Vespasian was clearly as capable of cruelty as any crusader, I would lower my head and stare at my shoes. Then, suddenly changing the mood, he would make everyone laugh with absurd tales of comic embarrassment, nobility humiliated and pride ruined, and so to bed with dreams all fired and delicious, to keep us warm and the night terrors away.
I wondered how he knew such things or if it was all invention. But he had come back to us the last time not only wounded, but in rich new clothes of expensive cloth and fur, with a heavy cloak lined in sable which now he used as a bedcover. His new belt buckle was gold and studded with pearls. I had wanted to examine it but he had put it away in the chest by his bed. His cotte, now heavily mended, was black velvet and embroidered in two panels. The hose had been fine silk. He no longer wore those clothes and I had packed them away in bay leaves and dry parchment. He wore the threadbare suit of before and he was our Vespasian again. But I wondered.
One thing he kept with him. Vespasian had rarely worn his sword unless riding to war, carrying only two daggers, one beaten iron and bone handled, the other fine steel with a heavy silver cross on the hilt. Now always ready, he kept the long two handed sword close within its carved scabbard and he rarely let it from his sight. Seeing it often, I was fascinated by the hilt and haft, carved with two crowned serpents entwined around a central pillar.
But the difference which Tilda found most wondrous, and which interested me also,
was another. Vespasian still demanded absolute obedience but his general attitude had softened almost into friendship. Where he had previously been an utterly autocratic master, now he laughed occasionally, his orders often resembled guidance, his demands became advice.
Encouraged by the mellowed change, Hugh asked three times if he could practise with Vespasian’s sword. With the rural life, carrying water and tree chopping, Hugh had developed what had always been thick set strength. Although not as tall, his muscles were now as pronounced as Vespasian’s and his chest was barrelled. “Teach me the skills, and I can protect us all,” he said.
Vespasian’s slow smile was still rarely benign. “I am not yet in need of your protection, child,” he said. He would not lend Hugh his sword. “I want it neither notched nor broken. When you’ve mastered your own dagger, I’ll consider some more meticulous education.” He turned his back, but his voice remained mocking. “Hopefully it will be some time before my dotage precludes me from defending myself. Should I need you to stand guard over my infirmity at any time, I shall let you know.”
I had rarely seen Hugh blush, but he did then, right to the roots of his tousled brown curls.
It was some days later, wildly encouraged by Stephen, that Hugh decided to try for himself. Vespasian was asleep. We thought he was drunk. For the first time since the shoulder wound, he had gone to walk alone under the trees and when he had returned several hours later, had sat in the drowsy sunshine under the oak by the barn, drinking in silence. Tilda knew when he had drunk too much. She recognised all his expressions and knew what it meant when the black eyes glazed and the usual intensity of his focus blunted.
He lounged under the dancing shade of the tree, his head back against its trunk and all his long length stretched out on the ground, his hands limp crossed on his chest. None of us dared approach him then and we waited quiet as mice until he shut his eyes and his breathing became very deep and steady.
“Go on, do it now,” whispered Stephen, peering out from the kitchen window. “He’ll never know.”
“You are horribly irresponsible,” Tilda told him. “It’s all very well being adventurous but poor Hugh will end up getting his hand chopped off for his pains.”
“Oh well, if he’s scared -” said Stephen, which left Hugh no choice at all.
In total silence, Hugh tiptoed barefoot over to Vespasian’s sleeping body. He leaned out and touched the tip of the sword hilt where it lay unbuckled. Immediately he was lying squirming on the ground, squealing, his face puce, and his arm bent over in an impossible grip. Vespasian’s reaction had been instantaneous. No drunken sleep ever held him sufficiently to dull his senses and Hugh was lucky not to have his wrist broken. Vespasian did not release him, but looked down at him in mild irritation, his dagger blade raised in one hand, Hugh’s twisted arm in the other. “Now that,” said Vespasian, “was a very bad idea.”
“I apologise, forgive me,” gulped Hugh, which was difficult since the pain was obviously considerable. “But please sir, will you let me go?”
Vespasian gazed at him for a moment longer and then released him abruptly. “You have interrupted my sleep,” he said.
We all made sure not to do so again.
Hugh’s wrist was an interesting purple for some days and badly swollen but Vespasian took him out hunting several times after that and began some basic lessons in archery. His own wound seemed not to trouble him anymore and he could cast an arrow again.
With daily hunting, we ate more meat than we had ever done but I missed the roots and occasional fruit. I wondered if we could somehow find seed and roots and start a kitchen garden. I asked Vespasian. I’m not sure why Tilda let me ask because she didn’t actually expect any positive response, but Vespasian thought for a moment and then nodded. “I’ll think of something.”
A few days later he told Walter and Osbert they could go into market. Spring was easing into early summer and the showers needed for sowing were mostly passed. Strong winds blustered though our thatches still and blew the nestlings from their trees but Vespasian said there was still time to plant for a late crop. “Go to the East Cheap and buy exactly what I tell you,” he said. “No stealing. That cannot be risked anymore.”
We were excited, as if we had been offered some amazing treat. “I’m the oldest,” said Hugh. “You should send me. I want to go.”
“And I’m next oldest,” said Gerald. “Why send Walter and Osbert?”
“You will do exactly as I tell you,” said Vespasian, with the quiet menace we recognised. His voice was as soft as always but I saw the glint in his eye that no one would challenge.
Tilda and I knew why he had chosen Walter and Osbert. Hugh was too stupid and might say or do something to risk our secrets. Gerald he would not allow anywhere far from him. Stephen would insist on adventure and try to steal. Richard might too, and anyway was conspicuous with his bright red hair. Me he kept always close. I missed London’s bustle but Tilda would never have dared argue with Vespasian.
Then after that, there were several visits to the market and soon we had more chickens and a cockerel with gorgeous feathers and a vile temper, which crowed all day from a perch on the stable door. The horse hated it and would neigh in fury and kick at his straw.
We had barley and meal flour and Tilda baked bread which tasted good though fell flat and tended to end up burned at the crust and soggy in the middle because the oven wasn’t right. We grew cabbages, turnips, peas, leeks and beans. I planted apple seeds and hoped for a sapling to mother, watering my seedling twig with water stolen from the kitchen bucket when Hugh wasn’t looking. Being the strongest he collected the water from the stream more often than the rest of us. He hated to see his work wasted. Sometimes we had a little ale or wine. Ale was for breakfast, wine for the evening but we drank more water than anything else now for the dangers of dysentery did not affect us here and the stream water was wonderfully pure and fresh. I tried a mug of English wine which Vespasian unexpectedly offered me but it was sweet and fruity and I didn’t like it.
When Osbert walked a young goat and her kid all the way up from London, we were wildly enthusiastic. There was a butter churn and a cheese press in the kitchen and Tilda knew how to use them. Stephen milked the goat each morning and we drank milk thick with creamy bubbles and still warm. It was the best breakfast I have ever had and Stephen grew very fond of the goat and called her Cecily.
I wondered when the money would run out, but somehow Vespasian always seemed to have more. This puzzled me, but no one questioned it. Osbert and Walter went to market like the rich did, with fat purses they knew well how to protect from any thieves.
We were not permitted too many visits to the great East Cheap, therefore alternating with the West Cheap, or some of the smaller weeklies or the regular market in Bishopsgate. The West Cheap was the richest market in England and welcomed not only London’s goldsmiths but workers in fine metals from other lands and grand merchants from Italy, Flanders and France. I yearned to explore there again, but Vespasian would not let me leave the forest. I didn’t complain. We lived increasingly well. I had a new stola of very white linen and an over tunic of deep cherry pink. It had not been made to fit me properly since I could not go for measuring but it gave form to Tilda’s burgeoning slimness and brightened her brown eyes.
It was Richard chose the cloth and had it made, for his sister, he told the seamstress. Vespasian now let him go to market once a month because he had begged so consistently, and finally had asked permission to buy something for me. Tilda was gloriously honoured. She had never owned a new gown before.
“Are we rich?” Tilda asked Richard.
“Don’t ask me. Ask Vespasian.”
“A lot of good that would do.”
“Well, he just keeps giving us money.”
“I suppose that counts as rich.”
I wondered whether this new wealth was directly connected to Vespasian’s injury. He was, after all, only a thief. His wound could easily have come
while robbing some travelling baron, and if so, the attack must have been successful in spite of his injury. I wondered whether his absence had never had anything to do with Isabel after all, and nothing to do with black magic either. We were all thieves. Vespasian had, for once, come back with a fatter purse than we had ever been able to steal before. I thought of this until it filled my thoughts and made my beautiful new clothes seem a little dirtier and less exciting. I packed them away with Vespasian’s velvet and jewelled belt and went on wearing my faded lavender.
Money was heavy and took up an inordinate amount of space. A pound value was a pound in weight and all made of silver pennies. There was no sack of it in the chest with the clothes. I did not know where Vespasian kept his new wealth. I did not know anything. I began to feel a strange lassitude, a dissatisfaction creeping in like fog from the hills on a sunny day. My days sullened into doubts.
Then one day in late June, Richard did not return from market.
Chapter Fourteen
I had been away so long that coming back to Molly was grindingly hard. For the first floundering moments I was lost in cloud. I heard voices like ships passing in fog over a flat sea. I was breathing heavily, trying to centre my consciousness. Then I heard it, the scream, rising from the calm between the opening mist like a beaching whale. It was thin and shrill and echoed in an agony I had never experienced myself.
I blinked, terrified, still unsure as to my world and time. Bertie was sitting on my bed, holding my hand.
“Thank God, old girl, you’re back.”
“Have I been away?” I knew I had, but how could he have known? I was surprised to find my voice so quickly.
“You’ve been ill. So ill.” He had lost weight and I wondered if he’d been ill himself.
“But this isn’t hospital. Bless you Bertie, but I feel fine. Honestly I do.”
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