“Well met, fellow,” the youth said. “I thought I was the only person on the road. Will you tarry and break bread with me?”
He must have seen by Sean’s face that he was not keen to stop.
“I have ale,” the boy said, and that was enough for Sean.
They sat under the shade of a large tree. Sean shared some bread and cheese, and drank gratefully of the boy’s ale. The beer was thinner, less strong than he was accustomed to, but it was all the better—it would not cloud his head.
He told the boy the news from the north, but the lad scoffed at him.
“Oh, aye. The Boy King again, is it. According to my grandfather he has been coming every year for the past fifty.”
Sean thought of unrolling Mary Campbell from the rug, just to shake the boy out of his complacency, but his good sense got the better of him, and when the boy asked about the package, the lie about the dead serving girl passed easily from his lips.
The boy took the story without a question, merely muttering a silent prayer to himself at the mention of death, and when they parted, Sean’s heart had lifted somewhat and he felt more confident in his ability to pass through this area.
Nightfall found them between towns, and he managed to find a quiet spot by a river, making sure that they were alone before finally unrolling Mary from the blankets.
He had left her alone there all day, and there had been no sign of life the whole time. He told himself that she had shown no sign of needing food or water, but he still felt more like a jailer than a protector as he unwrapped her.
He had to check, twice, to make sure she was still breathing, and he had a bad moment when he was sure she had died on him, but then those eyes which so bewitched him snapped open, and she stared past him at the sky once more.
She still would not eat, not taking anything he offered, merely sitting in silence while he ate the last of the cheese and bread and finished the last of the wine. They were now out of food.
All that remained were some apples from the day before. Tomorrow he would have to purchase some rations, but he would think of that in the morning. For now, he had another night of watching and waiting ahead of him.
He had considered not stopping—walking through the night with the girl still rolled up on the pony was one way to ensure she did not wander, but fatigue told him that he needed a rest, and common sense told him that anyone travelling at night was bound to raise even more suspicion. He had little idea how far they had come, nor how far they had to go, but Menzies had reckoned on anything up to five days, so he had a deal of walking yet to do.
While he was eating, the sun had set fully and darkness had fallen over them. He dared not light a fire and, with cloud cover overhead, he could barely see the pale face of the girl although she was only a few feet away from him.
He unrolled the bedding, laid her down, and settled down to wait. A light drizzle started to fall, and he was soon damp through, the cold water running down his back under his waistcoat, but he sat still. He didn’t have long to wait.
She sat bolt upright, her head cocked to one side in a gesture he remembered from the night before. Then she tried to stand, but he laid his body over hers and pinned her to the ground with his weight. She struggled underneath him, and he felt the wound tear open at his shoulder, but she didn’t have the weight to push him off. A few minutes later she went limp, and the blank stare was back in her eyes. She mouthed some words, as if talking to someone, but there was no sound, and she was quiet once more. Sean stayed where he was, and in that way they lay together all night, him getting a fitful sleep, she staring skywards, the rain falling into her eyes and mingling with the tears that lay there.
Once more he dreamed. She ran from him, down dark corridors, always just ahead of him until the corridor opened out. Not into a chamber, no, but because this was a dream, it opened out into a large open area of rough ground. And still she ran from him.
She turned, and there was a laughing smile in her eyes. But there was no humour there, only a mocking leer.
“Run as hard as you can, my child,” she said, but it was a man’s voice that came from her. “But you will never catch her. She is mine, and she always will be.”
Sean woke with a start, a cold sweat running over his body. He slept no more that night.
The next day dawned cold, damp and misty. Sean repeated his actions of the day before, rolling the girl up in the bedding and settling her on the pony before setting out on the road once more. Within an hour they had passed through another small village, and Sean looked for any sign of a trader who would sell him some food, but the hour was too early and no one had yet stirred. He did see his first signpost, though, and it informed him that he was within five miles of Garstang. That in itself meant nothing to him, but if a town was big enough to merit a signpost, it would be big enough to have traders who could sell him some food.
A little over an hour later, he arrived at the outskirts of the town, and the foot traffic on the road increased considerably. Sean found himself walking close to the pony—as close to be almost touching it, but if anyone was intrigued by his presence, or the bundle on the back of the pony, no one spoke of it.
He found out why ten minutes later. It was market day in town, and people were coming in from far and wide, many with ponies, and many with strangely shaped bundles. He felt slightly less conspicuous as he approached the town centre in the middle of a small group of travellers, all grumbling about the state of the weather. If there had been any news of the Boy King’s return, it certainly hadn’t reached here yet—all the talk was of commerce, and how much trade could be expected that day.
The town was built around a market square, with coaching inns on either side, and the area between them was teeming with people setting up stall or laying out their wares on the ground. No one was paying attention to Sean.
The sights and sounds of the market overwhelmed him. Nothing in his life in Milecastle had prepared him for the riot of colours, noises and smells around him. Back at the wall, market day meant that the farmers brought their produce in to the town for selling and trade. And that was all.
But here there was trade of all kinds, in spices and cloth from far away lands, in wines and liquor, scent and perfumes that left a heady aroma in the air. There were weapons and armour, still shiny and clean, and fine leather jerkins, boots and belts.
And the people! Sean was beginning to realise how much his people were quelled by the presence of the wall. Here there was no such inhibition.
Gentlemen and ladies both wore fine clothing, and even the children were clean and fully covered. At every turn there as some new sight to see. But as well as new surprises, there was much that appalled him.
Wherever he went he was accosted by hawkers and beggars. Many had limbs missing, or their bodies were hideously disfigured. Dead cats and dogs lay in the gutters, and rats ran openly among the discarded rubbish at the sides of the market square. Women raised their skirts for passers-by, proving that they were clean by showing their private parts. Several of them made obscene gestures in Sean’s direction and laughed when he blushed and turned away.
But still there was much to amaze him. There were jugglers, knife throwers, fire-eaters, contortionists and strongmen. Sean was almost tempted by an offer to wrestle “The Moor” for a shilling as, although the man was huge, he looked slow and clumsy, but he couldn’t afford to leave the side of the pony.
He had been wandering for five minutes before he remembered that he was supposed to be looking for food. But during that short time the crowd had grown by such an extent that he was penned in on all sides by bodies.
Luckily for him the crowd around him was suddenly distracted by a loud shout from across the square.
“See the hog-faced lady,” the voice said.
“Watch her eat from her trough.”
“A farthing for anyone who will kiss her.”
The crowd moved away from around Sean. By standing in the stirrups to gain s
ome extra height, he could see over their heads.
They were crowded around a heavily built figure wearing a long, expensively cut, dress.
“All the way from Bavaria,” the caller shouted above the noise of the crowd. “See the hog- faced lady.”
The caller had been right—it did seem to have a pig’s face. But it was no lady. If Sean wasn’t mistaken, they were queuing up to kiss a shaved bear, one drugged enough to keep it docile, then dressed in a lady’s finery.
Sean had only ever seen one bear in his life, and that had been a poor wasted specimen that danced to fiddle music and didn’t have the spirit to try and break its chains. He half-hoped that this one had some of its wild nature left—it would be a fine thing to see this throng in the face of a fully awake bear.
The crowd had cleared around him as they crushed forward to see the “lady”. Now was as good a time as any to purchase the provisions he would need—he could see everything he could want laid out around him.
There were loaves of bread, as long as his arm and still steaming from the ovens, there was meat in such quantity that would feed a small army, and there were more varieties of fish than Sean knew existed in the world. People were shouting from all sides, clamouring for attention and their share of the trade. Sean could not see much point in it all—there seemed to be few people now around apart from other traders. Surely all they were doing was moving their goods around, shuffling their packages into new configurations, then going away convinced they’d had a good days trade? It was something he would never understand—but then old Menzies had told him years ago when he was but a boy that Sean wasn’t cut out for a life in trade.
The first stall holder, where he bought bread, hardly even looked at him, but the meat stall- holder he decided on proved to be much more garrulous—disastrously so.
“So, down for the market, are we?” the small fat man said. Sean grunted a response, hoping that would suffice, but the man wasn’t to be put off. “What are you selling, then? By the size of that bundle it looks like a good size carcass in there.”
The man moved close to the pony, and Sean had to be quick to cut him off. Although the man was small and rotund, he was surprisingly nimble on his feet.
“I’m not selling anything—just passing through. I didn’t even know that today was market day,” Sean said. He tried to get his body between the fat man and the bundle. But he wasn’t quick enough.
“Nonsense,” the butcher said. “Everyone is selling something. I’ll tell you what, if it’s venison, I’ll take it off your hands, no questions asked.” He dropped a slow wink and tapped the side of his nose. “What the Protector can’t see can’t hurt him.”
And at that he slapped hard on the bundle of bedding. Sean winced, but there was no noise from within.
“Nice firm flesh too by the look of things,” the trader said. “Come now, name your price.”
Sean pushed the fat man away from the body. In his haste to get the man away from the bundle he pushed slightly too hard, and the fat man staggered, almost losing his footing.
“I have told you: I have nothing for sale.”
He saw, too late, that he had made the man suspicious.
“Look,” he said, lowering his voice and pretending to bring the trader in on a secret. “I’ve got a body on the back of the pony—a young girl from Carlisle who died in childbirth. Her father in Sheffield is paying me to take her back for burial, but there was a bit of a scandal—no one could find the child’s father—so I’m doing this the quiet way. To avoid any unpleasantness.”
The stall-holder was suddenly full of bluster.
“If you don’t want to sell to me, then just say so. Don’t try and hoodwink me with a tall yarn. A body on the back of a pony like that—in the middle of the market—it’s preposterous.”
The man want back towards his stall, muttering under his breath, all bluster and blow, and it was all Sean could do to stop himself laughing. He was brought back to earth with a bump by a voice from behind him.
“What’s this about a body?”
Sean turned, and found himself faced with one of the largest men he had ever seen, and his heart sank when he saw the red tunic of a Warden of the Law. The man was bigger even than Constable Barnstable, and he towered over Sean by at least four inches. His booted feet looked capable of doing severe damage to a body, and his hands looked big enough to crush a person’s skull. He reminded Sean of one of the great brown bears that were sometimes seen on the north side of the wall, but this man looked even more formidable—there was an intelligence in his eyes that no bear could achieve.
“A body, sir? I heard no mention of any such thing.”
But by now the fat trader had turned back.
“Aye, he says he has a body in yon bundle, but I’m betting it’s a haunch of venison. Go on, ask him what he’s doing here.”
Sean shot the butcher a glance that would have cowed anyone less sure of himself. The butcher merely stared back, a thin smile rising at the corners of his mouth. Sean could almost see his thoughts—he was hoping yet to get a cheap haunch of venison.
“You know that poaching venison is illegal?” the big man asked Sean, and there was a sudden stillness about the man that Sean recognised. He saw a readiness for fight or flight that he had seen many times in his opponents on the training grounds. He decided it would not be wise to cross this man—he only hoped he had enough wit to get himself out of the situation.
“I promise you, sir, the trader is mistaken. I have no venison,” he said. He pulled at the pony’s reins, getting the animal’s attention away from some loose straw on the road. “I’ll be moving on now—I have a long way to travel.”
A hand reached out and pulled his shoulder. He almost cried out as his wound flared once more.
“I believe I had better have a look anyway,” the officer said, and pushed Sean to one side, heading for the bundle. Sean knew that once the thing was unrolled he had no chance of escape. He reached for his sword just as the officer put his hand inside the rolls of cloth.
He saw the look of surprise which crossed the officer’s face—the man hadn’t seen him as a threat until now. Sean thought he might have a chance if he took advantage of the situation quickly, But he had only got the top inch of his sword free from the scabbard when he caught a movement to his left as the fat trader swung something in the air, and he had time only to shift his head slightly sideways before it hit him from behind and sent him away into darkness.
He came to slowly. The room he was in was dim, and it took him some seconds to realise that the reason for the dimness was that night was falling. Through a small, barred, window he was able to watch the colour leeching from the sky—he had been out for the best part of the daylight hours.
He was in a cell, an eight-foot by eight-foot cube with an iron grating for a door. He was lying on a stone bench, cold leeching into his back. It took him long minutes before he was able to focus properly, and when he tried to sit up it felt like someone was drilling a hole in the back of his head.
He felt under his hair. He had a lump the size of a duck’s egg, but his hand came away dry— there was no blood. He tried to stand and the room swam around him, but he able to stagger as far as the door and grab hold of the cold iron bars.
“I need to speak to someone,” he shouted. “It’s important.”
At first there was no reply, but there was a noise from a room beyond as if someone was moving about, so Sean shouted again, louder this time.
“I need to speak to the Warden. Lives may depend on it.”
There was a grumbling from the room beyond, then the huge figure of the Warden filled the corridor beyond Sean’s bars.
“In Jesu’s name boy—you can even cause trouble in an empty room. At least it proves to me that you’re alive though—I’ve never seen anyone felled with a leg of lamb before and I wasn’t sure what to expect.”
“What time is it?” Sean asked, interrupting him.
“Du
sk. You’ve been here the best part of six hours. The doctor said you would wake up eventually, but I wasn’t so sure.”
“And the girl? What of the girl?” Sean asked, trying, but not succeeding, to keep the panic out of his voice.”
“Your wife, is she?” the big man asked. “Or someone else’s?” He made a lascivious gesture with a hand at his groin. “I might even have kept her rolled up in a blanket myself, just to keep other men away from her.”
Sean growled in growing frustration. The Warden took his time before replying, as if considering his words carefully.
“Oh, she’s well enough. No, that’s the wrong word. I have rarely seen anyone less well. But she’s not dead, put it that way.”
Sean let out a long low sigh.
“I told you I had no venison.”
“That you did, young sir. And fair vexed the butcher was as well. Although you damned near caused a riot in the market. When I unrolled that bundle, and she fell out onto the road, the crowd there wanted to hang you on the spot. And I might have let them, if that little fat butcher hadn’t noticed she was breathing. The doctor is with her now.”
Sean’s panic grew.
“You must watch her. She is ill, and at night she...she wanders if she is not secured.”
“Aye, we’ll watch her close enough. But we will be watching you closer.” The Warden scratched his massive belly. “Although I don’t see as we can charge you with anything at the moment—not until she sees fit to speak.”
“She won’t be speaking—she has not said a word these past three months.” Sean said.
He was aware he was in a tight spot. He had to find a way out of this cell. There was no telling what might happen to Mary Campbell when the doctor discovered she had been bitten.
“The doctor said that she seemed to have suffered some deep shock,” the Warden said. “But if it was three months ago, why has she got a new bruise on her face? Surely it cannot have anything to do with that shot wound in your shoulder? And that is a far north accent you have there, boy. There are strange stories coming down from those parts, and I’ll wager you have a strange one to tell of your own.”
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