Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  I could see the agony of choice written across Zophiel’s face. He desperately wanted to turn towards the coast and any chance of a ship, but between him and a port lay the ravaging monster that was the pestilence. For the first time since we met, I pitied the man, for whatever was driving him was merciless.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Zophiel, you must see it would be madness to turn west from here. If you go west now you will be walking straight into it. We have to keep as far from the coasts as we can until we are further north. Then you can turn west with some chance of finding a port still open.’

  Zophiel studied me carefully before he spoke. ‘Do you really believe that you can outstrip it?’

  ‘At least if we travel north we will be walking away from it, not running to meet it. If we can just keep clear of the places it has struck for a few more weeks until the winter freeze sets in, then the pestilence will die out and you can go to any port you please.’

  Adela clutched at my arm. ‘It will die out when the frosts come, won’t it?’

  I tried to sound convincing. ‘Fevers always rage in the heat and foul air of summer, but come the winter frosts, they all die away.’

  Zophiel gave a hollow laugh. ‘I have to admire your optimism, Camelot, but there is just one trifling point you seem to have overlooked. There has been no summer’s heat this year. There has, in fact, been no summer and still the pestilence rages.’

  Adela shook her head. ‘But everyone says it’s the rain itself that spawns this pestilence, just as it spawns the biting flies and the midges.’ Her youthful eyes shone with conviction. ‘The frost kills pernicious flies and stinging creatures; I know it will stop this.’

  ‘Just as you knew it would only rain for forty days and forty nights, Adela. Perhaps you have a rhyme for this as well? Do share it with us.’

  Adela flinched and Osmond, slipping his arm around her, led her away from us, glowering over his shoulder at Zophiel, though I noticed that he didn’t rise to his wife’s defence. But I, for one, was glad to let Zophiel have his little triumph. It was a small price to pay if we had succeeded in persuading him to come with us.

  We fell into our accustomed places beside the wagon and trudged on, leaving the last of the cottages behind until we were once more among the trees. Then, as we rounded the corner of the road, I saw two figures standing at the crossroads. My stomach lurched. There was no mistaking the unnatural whiteness of that hair. Narigorm and Pleasance were patiently waiting by the side of the road, as if they were expecting us.

  Adela’s face brightened a little as she saw the child and she waved eagerly to her. ‘Look, Osmond, that’s the little girl I told you about. Didn’t I say she was a little poppet? Have you ever seen a child who looked so angelic?’

  Osmond smiled and Rodrigo beamed fondly, like an indulgent uncle, as we drew closer to the waiting figures.

  Only Zophiel seemed to find the sight of Narigorm as unwelcome as I did. ‘As if we didn’t have enough liabilities already.’ He stared pointedly at Jofre who flushed a dull red. ‘Now I suppose I’m expected to allow that freakish little brat to ride on my wagon as well. What next, a performing bear?’

  Adela suddenly turned back to me, an awestruck look on face. ‘Camelot, don’t you remember, she said that we’d have to leave today and that she’d travel with us. She really does have the gift.’

  But before I could answer, Xanthus suddenly jerked up her head and shied. Her nostrils flared, her eyes rolled back and she reared up, trying, in her panic, to pull the wagon off the road. It took the combined strength of both Zophiel and Rodrigo to hold her head and bring her to a stop.

  Zophiel glanced apprehensively into the trees. ‘She smells danger, a wild boar perhaps or fresh blood. Horses hate the smell of blood. Get the brat on the wagon quickly if you must bring her. I’ve no wish to loiter here any longer than I have to.’

  So in the end there was no debate. There was nothing I could do. Narigorm and Pleasance had joined our company and no one had time to think about it, for Xanthus continued to be agitated for the rest of that day and Zophiel could not calm her. She fought us all the way along the road as though whatever she had sensed was keeping pace with us. Perhaps she did smell death on the air that day, but the stench of death did not come from the forest.

  8. Swan-boy

  The storyteller leaned forward. ‘In the morning, the servants found the baby’s cradle empty and the queen asleep in her bed with blood smeared on her lips. But when the king begged her to explain what had happened to his infant son, his wife remained silent and not one word would she utter, not even to defend her innocence.’

  There was a sizeable crowd gathered around the storyteller: children squatting on the ground in front of him and adults leaning against the wall of the church, their baskets and bales at their feet, buying and selling halted until the tale was finished. Even the glances of the town whores were drawn the storyteller’s way though he was not a well-built young man. His boots were old and worn through, his clothes brown and threadbare, indistinguishable from the garb of those who crowded round to listen to him, except, that is, for the purple cloak fastened crossways over his shoulder covering his shirt and left arm.

  You don’t often see purple, not at a market. Generally only the nobility wear it, for only the nobility can afford to, and you don’t get many of them coming to the back of beyond to buy a scrawny goose or a second-hand butter churn. But this was no royal cloak, not silk nor satin and not lined with fur nor trimmed with gold thread. It was, like his breeches, worn and stained, made of coarse, homespun wool, oily and thick enough to keep off all but the heaviest rain. A serviceable cloak for a life on the road, made by a doting mother’s hand no doubt. But what on earth had possessed the good woman to waste money on purple dye for it? Did she think her son a king-in-waiting? There’s many a mother fondly believes that, just as there’s many a son believes their mother is a virgin, but not even Mary was besotted enough to dress her carpenter’s brat in purple.

  ‘And so the queen was condemned to death by fire, but even when the sentence was pronounced still she would not speak, not one word would she utter, not even to save her life. And all through the days and nights that she sat in her cell she continued to spin and sew the nettles to make the six shirts.’

  The children shuffled nearer on their bottoms, eyes wide. The adults too leaned in closer. Death by fire. That was something they all knew about, even those who hadn’t seen it, hadn’t smelt the stench that hangs round a town for days, hadn’t heard the screams that echo night after night through your dreams; even those who had not witnessed a burning had heard tell of it and shuddered. They knew the queen would not keep silent when the flames touched her, not even a saint is that strong. They held their breath.

  ‘Seven full years had passed since the queen made the vow to release her enchanted brothers and turn them from swans into men again. And true to her vow, not one word had passed her lips in all that time; not a single sound had escaped her. The queen continued to work night and day sewing the shirts. Until, on the morning of her execution, all the nettle shirts were completed, all that is except for the shirt for the youngest brother which still wanted the left sleeve.’

  He seemed too young to be a storyteller, an occupation usually reserved for those with at least a full beard. But he was holding the crowd better than many an older man. He wasn’t handsome, his face too narrow and angular, nose too long, chin too small, as if his features had all grown at different rates. Plumped out with age and softened with a beard, in time they might come together into some sort of order, but that scarcely mattered for what held the crowd was not his face but his eyes. They were dark, almost black, so that it was impossible to distinguish the pupil from the iris. His gaze brushed across the faces of the listeners from infants to crones, holding each person in turn for a fraction of a second, and their eyes followed his without a backward glance.

  ‘The queen was led out to the place of execution. She was bound by t
he waist to the stake and the six nettle shirts were thrust into her arms to be burned with her. The faggots of wood were piled up around her bare feet and the executioner lit the flaming torch. The priest stepped forward to urge her to confess the murder of her baby, so that her soul, at least, might be saved from the fires everlasting, but not one word would she utter, not even to save her own soul. Weeping with grief, for he still loved her dearly, the king had no option but to give the sign. The executioner raised the flaming torch and thrust it into the faggots at her feet.’

  The storyteller raised his right arm high as if he held a torch in it and suddenly thrust his fist towards the knot of children at his feet. They gasped and jumped, delighted by terror. He lifted his hand again, pointing at the sky.

  ‘But in that moment there was the sound of singing wings in the sky overhead. Six white swans flew out of the dawn towards the queen.’

  The audience looked up to where he pointed, as if they expected to see the swans flying towards them.

  ‘As the swans glided down they beat out the fire with the force of their broad white wings. And as they alighted the queen threw the nettle shirts over them and at once their feathers fell away and each swan was transformed into a man again. All were restored to their human form, all, that is, except the youngest brother, for his shirt still wanted the left sleeve. And when he regained his human form, his left arm remained as the wing of a swan.’

  At that the storyteller threw back his purple cloak and there was a gasp from the crowd so deep that for an instant everyone seemed in two minds whether to turn and run or push towards him. From under the cloak the storyteller withdrew his left arm, except that it wasn’t an arm, it was the pure white wing of a swan.

  The wing unfolded, stretched, as if it had been held bound for a long time, then rose and fell in a steady beat. The air hummed with its power and the breeze lifted the children’s hair and made them blink. Then the wing folded itself against his body and lay at rest, tucked back inside the cloak.

  The adults shook themselves slightly, as if they knew they were dreaming, for they couldn’t possibly have seen what they thought they’d seen. The storyteller resumed his tale as if nothing had happened.

  ‘As soon as the spell was broken and her brothers had regained their human form the queen was able to speak. She told the king how the witch, his wicked stepmother, had enchanted her brothers –’

  ‘Is it real?’ a small boy blurted out, unable to contain himself any longer.

  The storyteller’s wing unfolded and gave a single beat before furling itself again inside the cloak. The children shrieked in a mixture of wonder and horror.

  ‘Were you really turned into a swan?’

  ‘How else could I have a swan’s wing in place of an arm?’

  ‘But couldn’t the king make the witch give you back your arm?’

  ‘Once a spell is broken, what is left of it can never be undone, especially if the witch who cast the spell is dead. And she was dead. She was burnt to ashes in the fire she meant for the queen and her ashes blew away on the wind and were scattered over the four corners of the earth.’

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘The king and queen had six sons and six daughters and ruled their kingdom with justice and mercy. As for the swan-brothers, they lived in the palace and became great knights, riding out to do battle for the king and queen. They went to distant lands on brave quests to slay dragons and rescue maidens and they found beautiful princesses to marry and they all lived happily ever after.’

  The coins fell thick and fast; even though people didn’t have much to spare, the crowd appreciated someone who put effort into the telling. The children crowded up close to the storyteller, daring one another to touch that wing to see if it was truly alive, but one by one their parents grabbed them and hurried their protesting offspring away.

  ‘Come on now, girl, enough stories, there’s work to be done before dark.’

  ‘Back to the cart now, boy, your father’ll be needing a hand with the loading.’

  ‘Let the storyteller rest now, his throat must be parched.’

  But nobody offered the storyteller a drink to ease his throat. It was not his throat that concerned them.

  Storytellers are always suspect. They are exotic strangers, swallows who stay only for the heady days of sunshine. Where they go after that is a mystery. They’re welcomed for the tales that will be told again through dark winter evenings. They have an honoured place by the fire, but like any guest who knows his welcome depends on not outstaying it, they are expected to move on quickly. They don’t belong. You wouldn’t want your daughter to marry one, in case your grandchildren turned out as fey as the creatures they tell stories about. Could you really trust someone who is in the habit of conversing with sorcerers or who freely utters the names of those who must not be named?

  And this particular storyteller was more suspect than most. You don’t want to go mixing with someone who admits they’ve been enchanted by a witch; the curse might be catching. It could break out again at any time, especially when it’s not been fully lifted. And besides, as the priests would say, each after his own kind, that’s the rule. No half-breeds. No animal-men. If it died, what would you do with it, bury it like a Christian or hang it up like game? A swan-boy, what kind of a creature is that? Not one you’d want your children to mix with, that’s for certain. You could read the distrust in their faces as they hurried their children away.

  The storyteller gathered up his coins with one hand and deftly slid them into his purse, pulling the leather drawstring tight with sharp white teeth.

  ‘Did you marry a beautiful princess?’

  He looked round, startled. One little girl had sneaked back and was shyly tugging at his cloak. A small, scruffy dog leaned against her bare leg. The storyteller reached down and stroked the dog’s ears and it looked up at him with eyes as big and brown as the little girl’s. Then he crouched down so that he could look directly into her earnest little face and smiled.

  ‘Princesses don’t marry knights who only have one arm. What use would a one-armed knight be? He couldn’t defend her honour or champion her cause. He couldn’t slay dragons for her. A swan-boy can’t hold a sword and shield or pull a bow. No, no, little one, the swan-boy lived on in the palace for a while and everyone was kind to him, the queen especially, for she felt guilty that she had not been able to finish the shirt. There were servants to cut up his meat for him, and servants to dress him and servants to wash him. He wanted for nothing, except a purpose. Finally, when he could no longer bear the kindness of the servants or the sadness he saw in the queen’s eyes each time she looked at him, he set off to seek his fortune, like all princes must.’

  ‘If I was a princess, I’d marry you.’

  ‘Thank you, little one. But one day you’ll find a handsome prince who will take you to live in a castle with golden turrets and dress you in rainbows and give you the moon to play ball with and the stars to spangle your hair.’

  The child giggled. ‘You can’t play ball with the moon.’

  ‘You can do anything, princess, if you want it enough. Now you’d best run along or your mother will start fretting for you and it would never do to make your mother worry.’

  ‘Mam’s always worried. She worries about everything.’

  ‘They always do, princess.’ The storyteller turned her round and sent her off with a pat on her rump and she skipped away as blithely as only a princess can, the little dog following faithfully at her heels.

  A snide wind whipped rain against our faces and hands. Those who had stalls with covered roofs were braving it outside in the open, blowing on numb, rag-covered fingers to try to get the feeling back into them. A few braziers had been lit, but they spluttered and spat, coughing out a thick phlegm of smoke but no heat. The market square in Northampton, and every road leading to it, were ankle-deep in stinking mud. They’d thrown down armfuls of rushes, straw and bracken to try to make passable walkways, but it wa
s a losing battle. As fast as they threw it down, it was trampled into the mud, which swallowed it up as if it had no bottom.

  There’d been a hanging earlier in the day. Two poor devils strung up for sheep-stealing, thrashed as they slowly choked to death on the end of a rope in front of a jeering crowd. The corpses would hang in the market place until close of business as a warning to others. Now a fine mist of rain washed them, dripping from their swollen purple faces as the ropes creaked in the wind. They say rain blesses a corpse. They’d need a blessing in death, for they’d found little mercy in life.

  Osmond came to stand near me. From the hook on his staff dangled a tangle of wooden dolls and carved knights mounted on horseback. He’d been working long into the night on the toys whenever we stopped to make camp. He tried as hard as any man could to provide for Adela and in all the time we’d been on the road, I’d never seen him idle. He rubbed his hands and spread them over the smoking brazier to catch the little warmth which rose from it. I’d never noticed it before, but the last joint of his little finger was missing. It was not a great price to pay for such a skill, however. I’d known many a woodcarver lose more than one finger before they mastered the craft.

  He glanced up at the hanging corpses before turning rapidly away, crossing himself and shaking his head. ‘Hanging’s a cruel death, Camelot. I can understand a man coming to the noose for committing murder in a passion; that’s only too easy. But what kind of man would risk hanging for a sheep?’

  ‘If your wife or children were starving, you might be driven to it. A parent will risk anything to save their child, even death. It’s a passion that grips you from the moment you hold your first child in your arms and it never goes away. You’ll feel it when you hold your own baby.’

  ‘Will I?’ He turned to me, his face strained with anxiety. ‘What if I hold my child and I don’t feel anything? What if I can’t love it or, worse than that, what if I can’t even stand to be near it?’