by S. D. Sykes
We progressed up the woodland path towards the spring, and then gathered about the entrance to the well – waiting for Clemence and de Caburn to descend the stone steps, take the first cup and then invite the other women of the estate to join them in drinking the miraculous waters. They were gone only a few moments before we heard a high-pitched scream, followed by the sight of Clemence bursting from the cave, accompanied by her new husband and Mother.
‘What’s the matter?’ I grabbed Mother’s arm, but for once the woman was speechless.
I pushed through and ran down the steps towards the well, but found nothing immediately terrifying. I wondered whether Clemence had been spooked by her own reflection, as I had been at my last visit, so I leant over the large basin and looked into the water, but saw only my own face. It was the same as last time – my own blond hair and pale blue eyes looked back at me.
But then something caught my eye, for my likeness was not the only inhabitant of this water. There was something else lurking beneath the surface. I looked closer. But it was not a smooth stone, nor even a pilgrim’s ampulla. It was a globe of blackened flesh, surrounded by a halo of floating golden hair.
My heart thumped, but this time I did not back against the wall. Instead I took a few deep breaths before putting my arm into the trough and trying to lift the head out by its hair. The hair was fine and slippery and difficult to grasp, and when I did pull it from the water, it came away in a mat, leaving the rest of her skull behind.
I felt sick.
Now I could hear Mother shouting for me at the top of the steps, so I called for her to stay where she was. I then plunged my hands into the water a second time, and now scooped out the whole of the head. Large maggots had burrowed into the slit across her neck and wriggled in my hands.
I quickly wrapped the head in my cloak and turned to find Gilbert’s face behind me. His face was as grey as the walls of the cave.
‘It’s Matilda, isn’t it?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘At least we can bury the girl now.’
Leaving the well we found Mother and a noisy crowd had gathered at the top of the stairs. Cornwall pushed his way through their shocked faces. ‘So, the beast has attacked again.’
I ignored the statement and told the villagers to step back and let me pass. But instead they pressed forward.
‘Sire. Is it true you have the head of Matilda Starvecrow?’ Cornwall asked me, pointing at the small package that I cradled in my arms.
‘Yes, it is. Now let me through.’ Nobody moved.
‘This is a bad omen,’ said Mother. ‘Clemence’s marriage is cursed.’
‘Be quiet,’ I said, hoping Clemence had not heard her own mother’s words. Thankfully my sister was slumped under a tree a few yards away, whilst being fanned by Ada. De Caburn and his friends were gathered not far from her and seemed to have found the whole incident amusing. The battle-scarred man caught my eye and waved.
‘It’s not a curse,’ I said quickly. ‘Matilda’s head was left here by her murderer.’
‘The head wasn’t in the well this morning,’ said Gilbert. ‘When I put flowers on the shrine.’
‘Has anybody else been up here since?’ I said, looking about me.
Most shook their heads, but a boy found his tongue. ‘We’ve all been at the church, sire. Except for Old Ralph.’
‘And his daughter,’ said a woman, with breasts the size of whole cheeses.
‘Old Ralph has advanced gangrene in his arm,’ I told them, ‘and Joan Bath is locked in the village gaol. Neither of them could have put Matilda’s head here.’
‘Then you agree this is the work of the dog heads?’ said Cornwall, keen to re-establish his place at the centre of this drama.
I was sorely tempted to reply to this statement, but remembered my promise to Brother Peter. Instead I held my hands up to address the crowd. ‘You should all proceed to the wedding feast.’ There was a slight movement at the mention of food, but nobody seemed eager to leave apart from the Peverils. I soon saw their fine clothes disappearing through the trees.
‘We must bury this head immediately,’ said Cornwall. ‘Though not in the churchyard.’
‘Why not?’
Cornwall crossed himself solemnly. ‘Because we do not have her whole body.’
‘I don’t see why that should–’
‘Lord Somershill and I know where the rest is,’ Gilbert suddenly announced. ‘We found it yesterday.’ I glared at my servant and rolled my eyes to show him my displeasure at making this revelation.
Cornwall turned to look at me. He was momentarily confused rather than accusatory.
‘Is this true, Oswald?’ said Mother.
I sighed. ‘Yes. It is. We found a headless body buried in the forest.’ A wave of dismay ran through the crowd. ‘We believed it was the corpse of Matilda. Unfortunately we now have the head to prove it.’
Mother went to say something, but Cornwall spoke over her. A vein throbbed at his temple. ‘Then the girl should have been buried yesterday, sire. Why did you not summon me?’
I hesitated, knowing any response would be greeted with scorn – so was grateful when Gilbert stepped in to answer Cornwall’s question. He must have felt guilty for previously blurting out our secret. ‘Lord Somershill asked me to fetch you, Father John. But it was late last night and I decided not to rouse you.’
‘Why ever not?’ Cornwall turned on my servant.
‘You had the wedding mass to say today, Father. I thought the burial of a headless corpse might upset your humours.’
Cornwall glowered. ‘It is not for you to decide such matters. I am perfectly capable of conducting a funeral and a wedding within a day.’
I quickly intervened. ‘Gilbert behaved correctly, Father. Such news would have disrupted my sister’s wedding.’
Cornwall sucked his teeth and then I would say he almost smiled. ‘Instead it has been disrupted by a head in a holy well.’
The crowd broke up slowly after I had sent Gilbert and two other men to exhume the other part of Matilda’s body. Avoiding any further confrontation with Cornwall, I quickly took Matilda’s head to the gaol house for Joan Bath to look upon. I had hoped such a grisly sight might shock the woman into some form of confession, or even to reveal her accomplices. But she simply repeated her denials, before crouching in the corner of the cell with her hands over her face.
Leaving Matilda’s head at the gaol house, I belatedly made my way back to the great hall at Somershill for the wedding celebration, but was met by a glum scene. The bride and groom had already left for Versey Castle. The Peverils had also departed in haste, believing Matilda to have been killed by the Plague. And the tile had once again fallen from the roof so that the roasting pig was being doused in rainwater.
Mother sat alone on the dais, gnawing at a bone. Behind her, in a dark corner, sat Humbert, holding a square of my sister’s embroidery to his cheek and looking as bereft as an orphan at his parents’ grave.
Mother waved a rib at me. ‘Have some pork, Oswald. It’s rather fatty, but it shouldn’t affect your phlegm. As long as you eat some onions afterward.’
I dipped a pewter cup into a barrel of ale, picked off a piece of bone and sat next to Mother, attempting to ignore the way she was dislodging pig meat from her teeth with a strand of her own hair.
‘Well, I’m glad that’s over,’ she said.
‘So am I.’
‘But the wedding went well, don’t you think, Oswald?’
I choked on the rib. ‘Apart from finding the head of a murdered girl.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, that. There were two men murdered at my wedding feast. And my cousin lost an eye.’
‘In that case, Mother, Clemence’s wedding was a great success.’
Having finished with the wedding feast, I made my way back to the gaol house with the intention of examining both parts of Matilda’s corpse before she was buried – to ensure, if nothing else, that we were making a correct match betwee
n her head and body. But on reaching my destination, I was met by the shamefaced gaoler Henry Smith, who informed me that Matilda was now being buried. Demanding to know on whose authority he had released the corpse, Henry admitted that it was Cornwall’s.
By the time I reached the churchyard of St Giles, Matilda was already beneath the soil, lying alongside her sister Alison. Onlookers gathered about her grave, shedding their false tears – the very same people who would have seen this pitiful girl married to Old Ralph. A man four times her age.
Old Ralph himself had somehow staggered to the burial, although those about him were giving him and his arm a wide berth. It was little surprise to see he was near death and that his herbal ointment had failed to cure the gangrene.
I interrupted Cornwall in the middle of his prayers. ‘I did not give you permission to bury Matilda.’
Cornwall kept his eyes shut and continued his words.
‘I wished to study her body. And you’ve ruined that possibility.’
The mourners caught their breath at my words. What fools! Dead bodies were routinely examined at the monastery. I was not intending to despoil or dissect her in any way. But since my last comments were clearly offensive to some present, I had the sense to add, ‘I simply wanted to collect more information concerning her death.’
Cornwall opened an eye. ‘We all know who is responsible. No further information is needed.’
‘It was my daughter, Joan Bath,’ shouted Old Ralph from the back of the crowd. ‘It was her that did it. Hang the whore!’ He looked about for the others to endorse his condemnation, but they only edged further away from the man and his appalling stink. ‘Hang the whore!’ he repeated nonetheless.
‘Joan couldn’t have killed this one, could she, Ralph?’ said Woodcock, a peasant farmer with skin the colour of a cobnut. ‘She’s been in the gaol house since the beginning of June.’
‘Joan Bath is still under suspicion,’ I quickly told them. ‘Given the decay in her body, Matilda was murdered at least three weeks ago. Before Mistress Bath was taken into custody.’
‘Then who put her head in the well this morning, sire?’ said Woodcock.
I hesitated. It was a good question. ‘She must have had an accomplice.’
‘But why would they have cut the girl’s head off?’
I did not appreciate being cross-questioned by a farmhand, so I told him sternly that I was investigating all possibilities. But the subsequent expression across his face did not portray any confidence in my powers of detection.
‘Matilda’s body was freshly wounded,’ said Cornwall. ‘Her neck was still bloodied.’ His conclusions were met with nods and amens from the crowd.
I crossed my arms. ‘And you’re an expert on bodily decay and fatal wounds, are you, Cornwall? Perhaps you’re a physician, or a barber surgeon?’
‘I’m guided by the Lord, sire. I pray for answers, and they’re given to me.’
‘How expedient. Does the Lord agree with everything you propose to Him?’
He glared. ‘I am merely the tool of the Almighty. I am His obedient servant and His mouthpiece.’
At this nonsense I nearly demanded they exhume Matilda’s body a second time. But I stopped myself – not because of my promise to Brother Peter, rather because I could not have gleaned any more information from the cadaver since I did not possess the skills required for such an examination. And I would not have demanded Matilda’s dead body be kept above ground until Peter returned, since we had no idea when that might be.
But perhaps more than that, it just felt cruel to disturb Matilda again. Her fragile body had finally been laid to rest, and should remain so.
Then, just as I turned to leave, another commotion unfurled. Following his exertions in attending the burial, Old Ralph had collapsed and was barely breathing. I’ve heard it said that country life is uneventful, but in my experience the opposite is true. A woman slapped Old Ralph about the face as I tried to rouse him with some oil of Hartshorn. But even its pungent, piss-like aroma would not wake the man, since the poison in his arm must have spread to his heart.
With Old Ralph so near to death, I demanded Cornwall administer the last rites, as the gutless fraud was already backing away from the dying man like a child from a harvest spider. With so many witnesses, Cornwall was obliged to cooperate, although he kept his distance from the stench of Ralph’s gangrenous limb.
Minutes later, the old man died. Since we were already in the graveyard I gave the order to bury Old Ralph immediately. Cornwall suggested we lay his body with the Starvecrow sisters, as the ground about their grave was freshly dug. But here, at last, was something I could do for Matilda and Alison. I ordered Old Ralph to be buried at the other side of the graveyard.
He would not lie with them.
Not while I was their lord.
Chapter Fourteen
I left at first light while Ada was sweeping the rushes from the hall and Gilbert was feeding the chickens. Gilbert nodded his head to me, but did not bother to ask where his lord was going at such an early hour of the morning. And I wouldn’t have answered him if he had.
This was a journey I should have undertaken two weeks earlier. Instead, I had allowed cowardice to stand in my path and cloak my inaction with his soft robe of excuses. Two girls lay dead in the churchyard. They were my half-sisters. I was certain of that. But I could no longer be certain their murderer was locked in the gaol house.
The sky was grey and low and reflected its cold dullness onto the millpond as I made my way towards the forest. A few souls were working their own strips of land, hunched over fields like snipe birds wading through the reeds. They paid no attention to me, as I was on foot and cut no particular sight – only stopping to tie a bootlace or to take a drink from my leather bottle. A bottle I had made sure to fill with ale.
Once in the forest I followed Gilbert’s instructions to head south-west and not to deviate. I had described the ridge of stone to my servant and asked him if he knew such a place. Gilbert had nodded, but did not ask why I wanted to go there. I think he was nervous of becoming caught up in my affairs again. And what would I have told him, if he had asked? That I was searching for a boy who lived in a cave. A boy who could tell me where to find creatures with the heads of dogs.
The forest was quiet and dark – absorbing my footsteps into its verdant world. Sometimes I caught sight of the spotted rump of a fallow deer, as the secretive animals glided silently through the oak and willow. The shrill call of the yellowhammer pierced the air. Squirrels leapt from branch to branch in the high canopy – chattering and hissing at my presence.
But I kept walking. Just one foot in front of another. Finding paths through the trees and undergrowth, always maintaining the south-westerly direction Gilbert had advised me to keep. Every so often I would stop to look up at the sky to locate the position of the sun. Once, when the canopy was too dense, I climbed an oak tree, only to find the clouds were still low and white. But I kept going. Determined to reach my destination.
When I finally came upon the outcrop of rock, fear took hold of me. Not the fear of meeting Leofwin again, nor even the fear of the shadowy creatures with the heads of dogs. I was afraid, instead, that Brother Peter had been right. That the episode I remembered so clearly had indeed been a dream. An illusion caused by a fever. When I looked about me, however, I knew for certain that I had been here before. The ledge along the rock face was familiar, as was the call of the eagles – their cries unnatural and sinister. I walked slowly and cautiously, for if these birds saw me, they would announce my arrival by diving at my head from their high eyries.
I positioned myself below the ridge near the entrance to the cave. It was exactly as I recalled, though at first it seemed to be just a gap in the stone – as dark and uninviting as any cave might appear. It did not appear inhabited and it now struck me that I would have to venture inside this gloomy-looking hole to reassure myself that Leofwin had ever existed. Then, thankfully, a thin trail of smoke spirall
ed out from the cave and before I could get to my feet, Leofwin appeared from the entrance. As he stepped out onto the stone ledge, the light caught the ridged bone of his forehead.
I stifled a gasp. The boy’s face was still astonishing.
But I didn’t call out his name – deciding instead to watch him for a while. To see him come and go from this cave, when he thought nobody was looking. He let the sun warm his skin for a few moments, then disappeared inside and reappeared almost immediately with a hessian sack. This sack looked heavy and bulky, and its underside was stained in red. I now felt uneasy.
Leofwin threw the sack over his shoulder then climbed down the rocks towards me with the ease of a wild cat, and suddenly I crouched down behind my tree, fearing he had discovered my hiding place. He passed within yards of me, but did not turn to look. Flies followed him, landing on the liquid that had seeped through the loosely woven hessian and now formed a dripping trail of red behind him.
I knew then, for certain, what the sack held. Something that was dead.
With my heart in my mouth, I followed Leofwin through the forest, but made sure to keep my distance – although, every so often, he would turn on his heels, as if he sensed somebody was behind him. When at last he seemed to relax, I heard him whistle the same nursery rhyme as before. His thin legs were as bandy as a baby’s, but his stride was as upright and confident as a knight’s – whereas I now felt full of foreboding. Had I been wrong to befriend this boy? Had my pity for him coloured an obvious truth?
After a while we came upon a familiar place – the clearing where the plague pit lay beneath the shade of the beech tree. Vomit rose in my throat as I once again caught the stench of this place.