Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  One morning, after such a night, we all woke stiff, wet and cold, groaning as we stirred ourselves to break camp and move out. Jofre, as penance, had been told to remove the hobble from Xanthus and harness her to the wagon. It was a job he hated at the best of times and Xanthus was being more refractory than usual that morning. She had discovered an unusually juicy patch of grass, and having found such a feast she was not going to give it up without a fight. She continued to nibble rapidly at the grass as Jofre crept up and quietly caught her halter. She didn’t try to resist and, flushed with success, Jofre foolishly turned his back as he led her to the wagon. That was the moment Xanthus had been waiting for; she suddenly jerked her head, sending him sprawling face down, and followed it up with a swift and painful nip to his calf, before calmly resuming her meal as if he was of no more significance than a troublesome fly. It was such a deft move that even the normally sympathetic Adela couldn’t help laughing, but Jofre didn’t see the funny side of it. He was writhing around on the grass massaging his leg, moaning that he probably wouldn’t be able to walk for the rest of the day.

  In the end it took the combined efforts of Zophiel, Rodrigo, Osmond and a good switch to get Xanthus as far as the wagon, and then they had to try to back her between the shafts. Dragged away from her meal, Xanthus was in no mood to cooperate. Free from the hobble and now able to buck, rear and kick as well as bite, she soon had the three of them sweating despite the coldness of the morning. As Zophiel paused to wipe his face, he suddenly held up his hand for silence. We all stopped. The sound of distant hooves and voices carried from the track just beyond the trees. Rodrigo put his hand on Jofre’s shoulder.

  ‘Go and look, ragazzo. But stay hidden,’ he whispered.

  Jofre, his injury forgotten, darted off. None of us moved. A group of riders on this remote track might mean trouble. Best not draw attention to ourselves till we could be sure what nature of men were out there.

  Jofre was back in no time at all. ‘Soldiers,’ he whispered. ‘Five of them. Travelling light, no packhorses.’

  ‘From which direction?’ Zophiel asked.

  ‘The same as we’ve come from.’

  Zophiel glanced over to where Cygnus crouched still tethered to the tree. ‘So they are on the trail of our little game bird.’ He smiled maliciously. ‘It seems your time is up, my friend.’

  ‘No,’ Adela whispered hoarsely. She waddled over to Cygnus as if she intended to hide him behind her skirts. ‘You can’t hand him over. I won’t let you.’

  ‘And how are you going to stop me? A single shout will be enough to attract their attention,’ Zophiel said, but he took care to keep his voice as low as hers.

  The hooves came closer, a steady trot, men with a purpose. Were they really searching for Cygnus? We had our staves and knives; we could have put up a fight. But even if it was only one soldier, if he was acting for the King’s peace, only a man with nothing left to lose would dare to put up any kind of resistance. Spending a lifetime as an outlaw on the run with a price on your head and every man’s hand against you is not something to be undertaken lightly.

  The others were all standing motionless, hardly daring to breathe. Cygnus crouched on the ground, a look of abject fear on his face. He began desperately pulling at the rope which tied him to the tree, but Zophiel had done his work too well. The beat of the hooves grew closer until they seemed to be right at the place where we had driven the wagon off the track and into the trees. Would they see the tracks and, if they did, would they stop to investigate? All eyes were fastened upon Zophiel, waiting. All he had to do was call out now and it would be over. Adela’s hands were grasped tight in front of her, her lips moving silently as if she was praying, but whether to God or Zophiel I could not say.

  The hoofbeats passed us, moving away. They had not seen the tracks. But still we waited. If we could hear them, they could hear us. Zophiel could still call out to them. He took a step forward. Osmond made as if to stop him, but Rodrigo held him back. Rodrigo knew, as did we all, that any attempt at restraint would only make Zophiel shout out, and it would be enough to bring the soldiers back, so we stood immobilized, listening as the sounds of the hooves died away to nothing. The rain pattered down and the wind whistled through the bare branches of the trees and above that – silence.

  Zophiel turned to survey us, apparently deriving great amusement from our frozen attitudes. ‘An interesting diversion. Now, if you have all rested sufficiently, shall we attempt once more to get this recalcitrant beast between the shafts?’

  As he broke the silence, everyone seemed to remember they had been holding their breath and let it out in a great collective sigh. Adela turned to Zophiel and opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but I caught her eye and shook my head. Sometimes, of men like Zophiel, it is better not to ask why and just be thankful. Perhaps I had misjudged him and there was a vein of compassion buried deep inside him after all.

  No one spoke as we set about the tasks of clearing our camp. Ropes were tightened, the ashes from the long-dead fire scattered, and Xanthus, having made her point, graciously allowed herself to be harnessed to the wagon.

  Finally, when we were all ready to depart, Zophiel strolled across to the tree where Cygnus was still tethered. Cygnus smiled weakly up at him, still white-faced.

  ‘Th… thank you,’ he stammered.

  ‘Of course, we could simply leave you here for the soldiers to find on their return. That would save us all a lot of trouble. With luck you might starve to death and save the good citizens of England the expense of hanging you.’

  ‘But I thought –’ said Cygnus, his voice trembling.

  ‘You thought because I didn’t call out to the soldiers that I’ve changed my mind about handing you in,’ Zophiel laughed. ‘Oh no, my young friend, I’ve no intention of handing you over to soldiers unless I am forced to it. On a road like this without witnesses they’d doubtless claim they’d captured you themselves and, as our wise friend Rodrigo reminded me, they might arrest us too on the grounds that we were sheltering you. Why take one prisoner when you can just as easily take nine and earn yourself extra favours with your officers? No, I intend to hand you to a bailiff in person and in front of as many witnesses as I can find so that there shall be no mistake.’

  Cygnus, still shaking, was once more led to the back of the wagon and the others turned away, busying themselves with their packs, unwilling to meet his eyes.

  ‘Narigorm, come quickly, we’re ready to go,’ Pleasance called out, heaving her pack on to the wagon. Narigorm, crouching a little way off, had her head bent over the ground and did not appear to have heard.

  ‘I’ll fetch her,’ I said. ‘You finish stowing your pack.’

  Narigorm was squatting on the roots of a tree, playing with her runes. They were scattered across a patch of cleared earth in which she had drawn three concentric circles. She looked up as she sensed me approaching and scooped up the runes, rubbing out the circles with her hands as she did so, but not before I saw something else lying in them – a long white feather and a small seashell, which the fishermen call a mermaid’s fan. She quickly gathered these up as well and stuffed them in her pouch along with the runes, before standing up.

  ‘Narigorm, were you –?’

  ‘Camelot! Narigorm! Come on. We’re moving out,’ Adela called from her perch on the front of the wagon.

  Narigorm darted forward and I followed more slowly, glancing back at the half-obliterated circles in the earth. Had Narigorm been playing with her runes when the soldiers were passing? Could she have… ? No, Zophiel was not acting under compulsion. His decision not to attract the soldiers’ attention was conscious and, I had to admit, logical. But all the same, I couldn’t help wondering if Narigorm had any other little keepsakes in that bag of hers.

  11. All Souls’ Night

  We were to spend another wet and cold night camping among the trees, but on the day after, things began to look up. Trees gave way to cultivated land once more
and we passed several lay brothers working the field strips, wading calf-deep through the sticky mud and looking as miserable as if they were performing a bare-foot pilgrimage of penance. Pools of water had collected along the furrows. There would be no harrowing until it had drained away, and since the rain was still falling, there seemed little chance of that before Christmas.

  But it was evident we were now on monastery land, and where there is a monastery, there is a pilgrims’ hall with dry beds, food, fire and company to while away the long winter evenings. We all began to brighten at the prospect and picked up our feet to get there the sooner. Even Xanthus seemed to have caught our excitement and quickened her pace without being urged to.

  Then as we rounded a corner Rodrigo suddenly called for us to stop. He caught up with Zophiel and pulled the horse’s head, turning horse and wagon into the shelter of a little coppice.

  We all peered anxiously around – more soldiers? But Rodrigo beckoned us close.

  ‘What are we to do with him?’ Rodrigo asked, gesturing at the mud-splattered storyteller slumped against the back of the wagon. ‘If we take him into the monastery tied to the wagon, they will know at once he is a wanted man.’

  ‘So?’ said Zophiel. ‘He is.’

  ‘But we are a week’s journey now from the town. What if they have not heard of the crime?’

  ‘Rodrigo is right,’ Adela said eagerly. ‘If news hasn’t spread this far, then we could take Cygnus in with us as a companion and a free man. After all, you all said we were only keeping him bound to protect ourselves in case he was being pursued.’

  Zophiel shook his head. ‘You are forgetting the soldiers. They must have passed this way and they will certainly have made enquiries for him at the monastery.’

  ‘Maybe they were on other business,’ Rodrigo said.

  ‘And maybe they were not. Do you propose to wager our freedom on guessing the mission of a soldier? Now we know where Jofre learned his recklessness. Gamble if you must, Rodrigo, but with coins, not our liberty.’

  Rodrigo’s eyes blazed and he took a step forward.

  I broke in quickly. ‘There’s only one way to find out. You all remain here and I’ll go in alone as a single traveller and make discreet enquiries about the soldiers, find out if there has been any news from the town. If they know nothing at the monastery, then you can enter with Cygnus, provided he keeps that wing well hidden and that cloak concealed, for its colour is too distinctive. Jofre or Osmond could lend him a shirt with two sleeves and a cote-hardie. With his wing bound tightly to his body underneath, it will look as if the boy has lost an arm. There’s nothing remarkable about a lad with a missing limb seeking alms in a monastery. No one will remember him.’

  ‘And if they have heard about the murder?’ Zophiel asked.

  ‘Then we must wait here until dark and try to slip past the monastery at night. There’ll be too many about during the day for us to pass by unnoticed.’

  ‘Are you seriously suggesting I should give up a warm bed and a hot meal to protect that creature?’ said Zophiel.

  ‘No, Zophiel, I know you better than that, but you might forego the warm bed for the fugitive’s bounty. If Cygnus is forced to it, he might choose to seek sanctuary in the monastery church and then your prize will have escaped you.’

  Zophiel snorted. ‘Abjure the realm, be an exile for the rest of his life, that’s if he made it to a port without being killed. I hardly think our little bird has the stomach to stand knee-deep in water for weeks on end, begging for a boat to take him. No ship’s captain would take a man who can neither work his passage nor buy it, unless they took him to sell as a freak to a wealthy man who can afford to collect strange animals for his cages.’

  ‘He might prefer even that slim chance of life to the certainty of death. Men will cling to the faintest shadow of a hope to escape death.’

  Monasteries are hives of news and gossip. The lives of the monks and lay brothers are as monotonous as the liturgy, so they must glean what excitement they can from the travellers who pass through their doors. I’ve yet to meet a monk who’s reluctant to stop for a gossip and I soon learned all I needed.

  The soldiers had indeed stopped at the monastery, but not to search for the fugitive storyteller. One of the soldier’s mounts had cast a shoe and the monastery blacksmith was summoned to fit a new one, while the soldiers seized the opportunity to demand ale and meat before riding on. The news they brought was from London and it was the worst. Two hundred a day were dying in that city from the pestilence alone. The churchyards could no longer contain them. Mass graves had been dug in the poorest quarters of the city. The old monk shuddered and crossed himself, his voice dropping to a low whisper as if he feared the evil of his own words. ‘The ground, they say, is not consecrated; imagine that, those poor souls.’

  ‘To whom do the soldiers carry this terrible news?’ I was curious. It seemed unlikely that they had been sent out simply to spread alarm in the country at large.

  The old monk looked up in surprise. ‘It was not that news they were charged to carry. One of the soldiers told me what was afoot in London, but only because I asked him. I have kin there, you see, my brother and his family. Nieces and nephews, perhaps by now, even great-nieces and nephews, God save them. I know we should renounce all thoughts of kin when we enter the order, but still, one cannot help…’ He spread his hands wide in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘And the soldiers?’ I prompted.

  ‘Ah yes, the soldiers, they go to summon one of the King’s noble lords. A Knight of the Garter has fallen to the pestilence and must be replaced, for the King must have twenty-four Garter Knights to attend him at Windsor – he insists on it for the Christmas feasting.’

  ‘The King is going ahead with the Christmas revels, despite the news from London?’

  ‘Windsor is not London. The court continues as usual and the King will have his new round table and his knights of chivalry.’

  ‘Perhaps he thinks the Garter Knights will protect him from the pestilence as well as give him victory in France.’

  The old monk peered at me as if he wasn’t sure if I was mocking him. ‘The knights are sworn to St George; he will protect them from the arrows that fly from heaven as well as those which fly from the King’s enemies.’

  ‘But you said one had already fallen?’

  The old monk wagged his finger at me. ‘Even the King, God save him, cannot read men’s hearts. It may be that the knight was not worthy or he betrayed his oath. This pestilence is God’s scourge by which he cleanses his temple of licentiousness and lust. We must all pray to be spared, pray to the holy and blessed St Benedict to have mercy. You have not forgotten it is All Souls’ Eve. There will be special services tonight for those in purgatory. You will join us, brother, will you not? If those poor Londoners are to be laid to rest in unconsecrated ground, their souls will need all our prayers.’

  If the soldiers had no interest in the fugitive, neither did the handful of other travellers who were spending the night in the guest hall. The talk was of rain, flooding, pestilence and their own personal hardships, which brought them back to the rain again. So, after we had ensured that Cygnus’s wing was bound tightly beneath his clothes, and with a warning not to play the storyteller in case someone’s memory was jogged, Cygnus and the rest of our company came wet, cold and hungry into the hall.

  With few in the guest hall, we had our pick of the beds. At least in a monastery you can be reasonably certain that the beds will be clean and not lousy. The ale was good too, though the meal was meagre – thick soup and a small portion of bread; no meat, of course, for it was fast day. The wind had got up and the rain was lashing against the thick walls, so most of the company were content to spend the afternoon dozing around the great fire in the pilgrims’ hall.

  As Adela settled herself with her sewing, she and Osmond exchanged a conspiratorial smile and nod, which sent Osmond rummaging in his pack. He straightened up, holding something behind his back, and
beckoned to Narigorm. With a flourish, he triumphantly produced a wooden doll and held it out to the child. It had a daintily carved wooden nose and ears, painted eyes, a smiling mouth, rosy cheeks and brown sheep’s wool for hair. Even the limbs were jointed and moved. It was a pretty little thing.

  ‘Adela thought you must get rather lonely, because you don’t have any children to play with, so I’ve made you your very own baby to nurse.’

  Adela beamed. ‘And I have some scraps of cloth, so you can come and sit by me and I’ll show you how to make a cap for your baby’s head to keep her warm, just like I’m making for mine.’

  Narigorm, her hands firmly clasped behind her back, stared blankly at them both.

  ‘She’s yours, little one, take her,’ Adela said encouragingly. ‘You can rock her and dress her and pretend she’s a real baby. It’ll be good practice for you for when my baby’s born, because you’re going to help me look after my baby, aren’t you?’

  Narigorm finally took the doll and examined it carefully, running her fingers across the doll’s eyes and pressing them hard against its painted mouth. Then she looked up again at Adela. ‘I will practise for your baby. I’ll take care of them both, you’ll see.’

  Adela and Osmond smiled at each other like fond parents, well pleased with the success of their gift. But Narigorm wasn’t smiling.

  Cygnus and Zophiel had slipped out separately immediately after the meal and when I awoke from the first comfortable nap I’d had in weeks, I found they had still not returned and Jofre had left as well. Still, he was young and full of energy; he’d doubtless gone off to find more amusing company, if that is possible in a monastery, but Cygnus’s absence was more worrying. Had he decided to seek sanctuary after all? Surely not; Zophiel was right, no one would take that way out unless they were cornered. Besides, I’d not heard the sanctuary bell ringing. More likely he’d decided to slip out and run for it while Zophiel was not around to stop him. I wouldn’t blame the lad if he had.