Mother Hilde’s breath made little misty puffs of fog in the cold air of the room as she spoke.
“Brother Gregory,” she panted (for the stairs were steep), “Margaret has sent me to warn you of a dreadful plot against you.”
Brother Gregory’s austere nod of greeting changed to a look of faint surprise. “A plot?” he said, eyebrows raised. “By whom?”
“By the sons of Roger Kendall, who hold a grudge against you. They have intercepted your note and plan to attack you when you come at the appointed hour. She says they have planned to ‘treat you like Abelard,’ whatever that means.”
“How on earth can Master Kendall allow such a thing? Or is he in on it?” asked a somewhat more alarmed Brother Gregory.
“You didn’t know? Master Kendall is dead this fortnight.”
Gregory was taken aback. That’s quite dreadful, he thought. Even if he was too much of a freethinker, he was a good old fellow—better than some old men I could name—I will have to pray for him.
Mother Hilde went on, and explained how they had taken over the house, and held Margaret and her daughters as bait to entice him back.
“What in heaven’s name for?” Brother Gregory asked.
“They think you have a copy of a will more favorable to their interests. Someone told them that Margaret gave you papers, and they think that it’s a hidden will, and that you forged the present one.”
Brother Gregory was deeply annoyed. First, his meditation had been broken, and it was clear he wouldn’t be able to get back to it for some time. Second, he didn’t like to think of Margaret manhandled by such repulsive characters. Third, it is very insulting when baseborn people threaten the son of an old family—even a second son—with such a disgusting form of attack. And, finally, there was the worst thing of all. There was only one possible thing to do about it, the last thing on earth he wanted ever to do. Brother Gregory’s face grew grim, and the muscles in his jaw twitched. Then he paced fiercely about the room, thinking to himself and hitting his right fist into his open left palm. At last he stopped abruptly and said, with the deepest of sighs, “We’ll have to see father.”
“Father who?” asked Hilde.
“Father. My father,” said Brother Gregory, “and it won’t be easy. He’s already clouted me on the head once. I may go deaf if he does it again.”
“Oh, my goodness, yes, that’s quite a bruise,” agreed Hilde.
“We have three days,” said Brother Gregory. “That’s enough time to go and come back if I don’t walk. Has Brother Malachi still got the mule?”
“How do you know about Brother Malachi?” Mother Hilde bristled defensively.
“I know a lot—more than is good for me,” responded Brother Gregory morosely.
“Then you should know the mule is old and slow,” said Mother Hilde, with a sharp look at him. Brother Gregory thought it over. He looked dejectedly at his hands.
“Then I’ll have to hire a decent horse. You wouldn’t happen to have any money about you, would you?”
“Not here,” said Mother Hilde, “but if you come back with me, I have some.”
Brother Gregory took his little bundle and added his crucifix to it, following Hilde out the door. Lion jumped at his feet joyfully.
“I still don’t think it’s proper for a dog to look the same at both ends,” grumbled Gregory as they descended the stairs together.
They walked along icy streets, making their way about the mounds of muddy snow that in places nearly barred their way, to an alley that Gregory had written much about but had never seen. Ducking to enter the low door of the house, Brother Gregory smelled a familiar smell—the smell of an alchemical laboratory.
“Home already?” a voice called from the back, and the short, somewhat stout figure of Brother Malachi emerged from the low door at the back of the main room. “I’ve been thinking a bit of something to break our fast might be very welcome—oh! Good Lord, what are you doing here, Gilbert?”
“I might ask the same of you, Theophilus of Rotterdam,” answered Brother Gregory quietly.
“Just getting along, just getting along. What are you here for?”
“Actually, I’m borrowing money to hire a horse,” responded Brother Gregory.
“Borrowing from women? You’ve sunk low, Gilbert. By the way, do you still write? Or are you teaching again?”
“I am engaged in Contemplation these days,” sniffed Brother Gregory.
“Always the snob, aren’t you?” observed Brother Malachi cheerfully. “Well, I don’t mind—we’ve had good times together—at least, until I had to leave town under a cloud. I heard they made quite a show when they burned your book—blood all over the pavement and thousands cheering, and all that sort of thing. Now, I myself prefer a healthful vacation when I’m still in a condition to enjoy it. It was your own fault, Gilbert, for trying to stick around to defend yourself. You never could take good advice.”
Brother Gregory’s brows knitted together and his face looked like a storm cloud.
“Brother Gregory has urgent business elsewhere, Malachi, dear, and we must not delay him.” Mother Hilde was always cool in emergencies and kept to the point of things.
“Skipping town? Is somebody after you? It’s just like the old days in Paris. Light feet and light hands, as I always say—never hold on to anything too long or stay in one place.”
Brother Gregory smiled. Theophilus had always been a funny fellow. There was that time when he’d written that jingle about the rector, for example. You just couldn’t stay angry at him long.
“Have you found the Philosopher’s Stone yet?” he asked.
“I’m very, very close this time,” Brother Malachi confided, “but I’ve been delayed by other business.”
“Such as fraudulent indulgences, plague cures, and the like? I should have known all along it was you. There’s no other rogue so learned or learned man so roguish.”
“That balances nicely, Gilbert. You still have talent. But I gather you’re Brother Gregory now. It must go along with the Contemplation and the funny outfit. Have you been at it long?”
“Long enough.” Brother Gregory clamped his mouth into a line.
“Had a revelation yet?”
“I am currently in a state of sublime thought that cannot be described,” answered Brother Gregory with annoyance.
“Hmph. That’s not what I’ve heard. You’ve been hanging around Margaret’s place. Sleeping with her, I suppose. She is a pretty girl, and her husband was old—marriage of convenience, you know. Got her out of a barrel of trouble.”
“I was not sleeping with Margaret,” said Brother Gregory indignantly.
“Well, what were you doing over there all the time?”
“If you must know, I was taking down her memoirs from dictation,” said Brother Gregory, with a look of prim disapproval. He disliked vulgarity, and he was beginning to remember how much Theophilus had irritated him before.
“You what?” Brother Malachi howled and slapped his leg. He rolled back and forth, red in the face from laughing. “Gilbert, I always did think you were impossible, but this excuse simply doesn’t make it! Women don’t write memoirs—oh, all right, have it your way.” He had caught sight of Brother Gregory’s glowering face.
“Memoirs, ha! No wonder you have to leave town in a hurry. Let me know how it comes out.”
“You say his name is Theophilus?” asked Mother Hilde curiously.
“Well, it was when I knew him in Paris—but who’s to say? Maybe he’s got another too.”
As Mother Hilde counted out the money, Gregory caught sight of the troubled look on her face. He wanted to take her hand to reassure her, but he never took women’s hands. So he looked at her and said, “Don’t worry. It will all work out, and we’ll get Margaret away from them”—and he turned and hurried out the door and down the alley as swiftly as possible, so she would not see the look on his face.
The horse he had hired was an ambling pad that had seen better
days, but it was fresh and had a good long stride that covered distance. It was not long before Brother Gregory had left Aldersgate, traversed the noisy alleys of Smithfield, and was in the open countryside, on the great Roman road that ran to the north. Without stopping for rest Gregory made it home in a little over a day. Dead tired, he approached his father’s tumbledown old manor house only to be met on the road by the old man himself. He was trying out a new horse, a groom riding just behind him. He pulled the horse into a short trot, the dancing piaffe that looks especially good when one is riding through town in full armor, and then he rode all the way around Brother Gregory, looking him up and down where he sat silent on the ambler waiting to address his father. Brother Gregory’s father’s tawny, fur-lined cloak rippled about him; his gloved hands were the size of hams. The destrier’s heavily muscled black neck glistened in a shining arch; his pie-plate-sized feet thudded on the frosty ground; his harness jingled in the silence. The horse was a monster—eighteen hands at least—and Brother Gregory’s father sat on him as straight as a sword blade, his white hair and beard blowing about his head, while he looked down on Brother Gregory from a good foot’s difference in height.
“What in the HELL is that you’re sitting on?” the old man roared.
“It’s a hired horse, father,” said Brother Gregory wearily.
“A HIRED HORSE? Where did you hire it from? A junk shop?”
“Father, I have to see you about something.”
“Crawling back, I suppose,” barked the old man. “I always knew you had no spine.”
Brother Gregory’s father had no problems with God. He knew that God was exactly like himself, only a bit bigger and, of course, seigneur of a somewhat larger piece of real estate. He liked church services, naturally. They were exactly the sort of thing that he would order up for himself, if he were God, and things got dull. And they were dull now. He was between campaigns and talking to the imbecile God had given him for a second son—one of God’s few mistakes.
“Father, I’m not crawling.” Brother Gregory felt impatient.
“No, you’re riding—riding a hired horse that looks as if it were made out of pieces of something else. I suppose it’s an improvement to worming your way along in the dust on your belly, which is doubtless the way you made it out here last time.”
They were headed back to the house, now, through the little village of thatched-roof huts and up the long dirt avenue to the decayed front gate. The groom rode discreetly behind them, but he found it hard not to look amused. They made as unlikely a pair as might be imagined: Brother Gregory in his old, matted sheepskin, his knobby legs far too long for the little, seedy swayback he sat on, and old Sir Hubert de Vilers, grandly booted, spurred, and cloaked, and mounted on the tallest, best-looking stud horse to be seen for twenty miles around. Only in posture were they alike: father and son each sat a horse with the straight-backed, arrogant grace of an emperor.
“And both equally stiff-necked too,” chuckled the groom to himself, bracing for the fireworks that inevitably occurred whenever the two met.
As they rode, Brother Gregory was filling his father in on the details, not without certain acid interruptions from the old man.
“Haw, haw, HAW, haw! You say they’re lying in wait for you?”
At least he’s laughing, thought Brother Gregory.
“It’s been dull here, Gilbert; at last you’ve brought me some fun! Maybe you’ve got something under that long dress besides a belly button after all. Did you know your brother Hugo’s still home? I think I’ll take him, the squires, and a half-dozen grooms. It will be a great joke.” Then he laughed his outrageous, braying laugh again.
Brother Gregory hung his head. Father was always impossible. Even when he was mellow, he was perfectly awful. Maybe he should have just left town for the monastery, and not come back to get laughed at again. Why, oh, why, had he done this to himself? Oh, well, it was done, and there was no getting out of it now. Anyway, he had to save Margaret.
Brother Gregory dozed fitfully on a bench in the great hall, while his father gave orders. Dogs were quarreling over a bone hidden in the stinking rushes. Gregory’s father believed you didn’t need to change them—just put new ones on top of the old, until they got too deep to walk in. He had simple ideas of what made a proper hall: plenty of deer antlers on the wall, and maybe some out-of-date battle-axes, a few ancestral pennons, a large fire at the center, and an endless supply of ale. That made a house a home, in his eyes. Anyway, he didn’t bother himself with household things. That would have been for women, if there were any women around, but there weren’t. The old man had been a widower ever since Brother Gregory’s mother had died of what he considered to be an excess of religion. He still had unpleasant memories of her great brown tear-filled eyes rolled upward at him as she embraced his feet and begged him to return to God. She had doubtless got that fever from her habit of praying at all hours in the unheated chapel, weeping and prostrating herself on the icy stone floor. At least she had left him one proper son as an heir, as well as the idiot and a number of dead creatures, before she at last departed for that heaven she so ardently had sought. Hugo didn’t have a wife either yet. He had been too busy to bother, although it was high time. Then there was Brother Gregory, but he was hopeless. Whenever the old man thought about it, he would growl to himself, “Only two arrows in my quiver,” and think about clouting his wretched second son again.
“Wake up, WAKE UP, you son of sloth!” Brother Gregory’s father had shoved him off the bench and onto the floor, or rather, into it. Brother Gregory got up and brushed himself off, blinking. What an awful nightmare; for a moment he thought he saw his father’s big white beard and bushy eyebrows above him, the blue eyes glaring evilly. Then he realized with a start that it wasn’t a dream after all. What on earth had he come home again for? Oh, yes, to get help for Margaret. He set his jaw and looked at his father.
“It’s all set, you can’t just sleep all day—we’re going,” his father growled at him. Hugo and the others stood around him and watched while he got ready. His part wasn’t going to be that large. After all, one can’t trust simpleton sons to get anything right. Brother Gregory was going to be the bait.
The groom held fresh horses at the foot of the stair. The hired horse was resting up and would be sent back another day. The company took the trip back at a good pace, trot and walk, and when they walked, Brother Gregory dozed across the saddle bar like a sack of wheat, for this was his second day without sleep. For once his father didn’t even make fun of him. He was too busy discussing his plans with the others.
AT THE HOUR APPOINTED for Brother Gregory’s last meeting with Margaret, the house on Thames Street looked quite the same as ever. A mist that had risen from the river was blowing in little wisps down the street. A man delivering fuel bundled onto a donkey’s back could be seen several doors down, as the heavily armed party rode down the street, muffled against the cold. Next door at Master Wengrave’s a little apprentice boy dashed out to deliver a message, saw them, and scurried off the opposite way. It was hard to imagine that anything at all was going on within Kendall’s once gay house that now stood quiet, with that strange, somewhat forlorn look that a place has when the master has died.
But inside, the house was abuzz with malicious activity. The two brothers, still clad in full mourning, lounged in the downstairs room by the garden, cheerfully discussing with their hired thugs the precise methods they would use to make Brother Gregory reveal the hiding place of the true will. Margaret was sitting on the great ironbound chest that concealed her memoirs, bound and gagged, so that she might be witness to the ambush and punishment of her supposed lover.
“I say, geld him first, then while he’s squealing, beat him until he talks,” said Lionel, as he lolled on the window seat, paring his fingernails with the big knife he was carrying.
“He might be too distracted to talk if you do it that way: I say, first bind him and beat him, then do the rest after he’s tal
ked,” said Thomas, in a reasonable tone.
“Hang him upside down from the door frame,” suggested one of the thugs. “That way we can all see it better.”
“Aha! I hear a knocking at the door,” exclaimed Lionel delightedly. His smile was wide when Brother Gregory was announced. He hid beside the door, waiting to strike the disabling blow from behind as Brother Gregory entered the room.
Brother Gregory paused in the door frame a moment. His cowl was drawn up over his head and shaded his face—a face drawn and pale with lack of sleep, and deeply shadowed with purple beneath the eyes. He stepped over the threshold, and as the blow from Lionel’s cudgel came crashing across his back, he staggered, fell to one knee, and whirled to meet his attacker, drawing his knife. Thomas’s dagger slashed into his back at the same time that Lionel’s sideswiping blow to Gregory’s head glanced off with a clang! The dagger hit but did not enter. The deep slash it made across Brother Gregory’s back revealed why: beneath his clothes a shirt of chain mail glittered through the cut. In the struggle his cowl fell back, showing the light helmet that it had concealed. Now two of the toughs were on him, pinning him to the floor, and Lionel, who could never control his impatience, had moved in to strike the death blow.
That was as far as it got, for in an instant there was a hideous swishing sound, as Gregory’s father stepped over the threshold and beheaded Lionel with a single stroke of his great two-handed sword. The head bounced onto the floor and rolled away into a corner, while the neck arteries spurted gore all over the room and onto the carpet. Before the torso had ceased writhing, the room was filled with armed men, wreaking havoc. The toughs were cut down as they tried to flee.
“I say, father, do you want to keep this one?” Hugo’s cheerful voice sounded in the charnel house. His foot was on Thomas’s throat. Thomas was making gagging noises that sounded like a plea for mercy. “We could geld him and throw him out, just like he was planning to do to Gilbert.”
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