Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  She was hanging by a length of rope to which a leather noose had been tied. As the body rocked back and forth in the wind, the wet rope made a mewling sound, like a newborn infant, as it rubbed against the branch of the tree. As we stared aghast, there was a sudden gust of wind and the body twisted round as if to greet us. Her eyes were wide open and seemed to be staring straight at us. The apprentice boy behind me gave a high-pitched yelp and fled.

  Osmond was the first to pull himself together. He climbed up the tree and, legs astride the branch, inched forward until he could reach far enough to saw at the rope with his knife. He worked carefully; there was no point in hurrying for we could see from the angle of the head that her neck was broken. Rodrigo and Hugh caught the body as it dropped and eased it down on to the fallen leaves. Her sightless eyes stared up at us. I passed my hand over them to try to close them, but the rigor of death was already beginning to set in and her face was stiff. She had been dead for some hours.

  The leather thong had bitten deep into her neck. As Rodrigo cut it loose and pulled it away, her pierced amber wolfstone slid into view. It had been hidden by her hair. It was only then that I realized the noose had been fashioned from her own necklace.

  ‘She was fortunate,’ Rodrigo said. ‘The wolfstone, it jerked against her neck and broke it. She died instantly. That is a blessing. I have seen men die by hanging and it is an agonizingly slow death.’

  ‘But to break the neck in that manner means she was not hauled up by the rope. She must have been pushed off from something high,’ I said.

  Osmond crouched down beside the body. ‘Like a horse? If the soldiers set her on a horse, then pulled it away?’

  Rodrigo shook his head. ‘That would not break her neck, not if she swung back at an angle. It has to be a sharp drop downwards.’ He looked up at the high branch. ‘If she jumped from that branch, that would have done it.’

  ‘You think she killed herself then?’ I asked.

  Hugh, at my elbow, took a deep breath and crossed himself. ‘God’s blood, don’t say that. Better she was murdered than that she took her own life.’

  ‘They could have broken her neck and then hanged her,’ Osmond said.

  ‘I hardly think so.’ I jumped as I heard Zophiel’s unmistakable drawl behind me. ‘Why go to the trouble of hanging her if she was already dead? It’s plain the woman killed herself. She was the sort of hysterical female who would be given to such fits of melancholia.’

  Rodrigo rose and glared at Zophiel. ‘Where have you been hiding all night? Do you know anything of this?’

  ‘I really don’t see that I have to account to you for my whereabouts, Rodrigo. I’m not your pupil. But since you ask, I was not, as you put it, hiding, I was in the wagon guarding our provisions. Someone had to, with those louts rampaging through the camp.’

  ‘It is a pity you did not stay and meet the pardoner, Zophiel. You would have got on well.’

  Hugh looked from one to the other, evidently puzzled by the antagonism between them. ‘Maybe whoever did it hanged her to make it look like suicide, instead of murder.’

  ‘The journeyman makes a good point.’ Zophiel raised his voice slightly. ‘Has anyone thought to enquire where our young friend Cygnus spent the night?’

  We looked at one another.

  Osmond said hesitatingly, ‘He’s right. It could be…’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t dispute that a man who has used only one arm for his whole life has the strength and dexterity to break a woman’s neck. There are many ways that might be accomplished. But to hang a dead body from a tree at that height, that requires two hands. The rope end was not tied off at ground level, which means someone would have had to climb that tree to haul her up, just as you had to climb it to cut her down. And how would he lift a dead body up? The rope did not reach from the branch to ground.’

  ‘But if the body was lying on a horse under the tree,’ Osmond said, ‘that might lift it high enough. Xanthus will stand like a lamb for Cygnus.’

  Hugh shook his head. ‘From what I’ve seen of him that Cygnus is a soft lad. I doubt he’s got it in him to wring a chicken’s neck. If she was murdered it is more likely it was by a passing stranger. Could have been one of the charcoal burners in the forest. They’re a strange lot, living by themselves for months at a time. No womenfolk with them, most of them. They say even the pigs are nervous of them and it’s not for fear of being made into bacon.’

  ‘Or,’ Rodrigo said quietly, ‘she may simply have taken her own life.’

  Hugh looked down at the bedraggled figure at his feet. ‘Aye, well, that too,’ he said soberly. ‘By rights we ought to raise the hue and cry and send for the coroner. It is up to him to decide how she died, but… look, we’ve had enough trouble here. If the pardoner is brought in to testify, it’s us that’ll get the blame whatever. He’s got it in for us. And I’ve the lads to think about. With their master gone and their families more than likely dead, I’m all that stands between them and starvation. We’re the only ones who know about the woman. I’m guessing she’s no relatives to come looking for her, so…’ He trailed off, a pleading expression on his face.

  ‘You mean bury her quietly here and not report it,’ I said.

  ‘God’s blood, not here!’ he said quickly. ‘Her ghost would never give us a moment’s peace. She’s died violently, by her own hand or by someone else’s; either way, her spirit would revenge itself on any in the forest. She’ll not rest till we’re all in the grave with her. You’ll have to take her with you. Bury her well away from here where she can do no harm and then you can travel on till you’ve left her ghost far behind.’

  We left the glassworks before noon. Although Hugh waved us off and wished us well, it was with a profound look of relief on his face. The wagon now bore an extra bundle. We had wrapped the body up where it lay in the forest, in case we should meet anyone as we carried it back to the glassworks. Hugh had fetched us some old sheepskins to tie round the body to disguise her shape, so that to the casual observer it might look like a bundle of skins. At least it was winter, so there were no flies to be attracted to the corpse. It was the first time I was grateful for the cold wind and rain, though it was not cold enough to keep the body for long.

  When we brought the body back, Hugh and Rodrigo carried it straight to the wagon while Osmond and I went to look for Adela and Narigorm. We found Cygnus sitting with his good arm around Adela, comforting her. Osmond ran forward and dragged him away from Adela, demanding to know where he had been last night.

  Cygnus’s explanation was as plausible as Zophiel’s. He had fled as soon as the soldiers had charged into the clearing, without even waiting to see whose colours they bore, naturally assuming they had come for him. He ran as deep into the forest as he could, finally crawling into a dense thicket of bushes where he had lain all night. Having fled in the dark without paying any heed to direction or landmarks, it had taken him some time to find his way back to the workshop in daylight. In fact he said he would still be wandering around had he not heard one of the apprentices yelling Pleasance’s name.

  Although Cygnus knew by now that Pleasance had been found hanging, he told his story guilelessly without any sign that he thought he was under suspicion. Osmond continued to eye Cygnus with distrust, but even he had to admit Cygnus’s story was no less credible than Zophiel’s.

  Adela was distraught. Though Pleasance spoke little, the two of them often spent time together preparing meals, with Adela chattering away enough for both of them, and Adela had come to regard her almost as a favourite aunt, the only woman she had for company.

  The manner of her death shocked Adela deeply. ‘But she was the kindest and gentlest of people. She’d never have harmed anyone. Who could have done such a wicked thing to someone like her?’

  But none of us had the answer to that.

  I was worried that once the news had sunk in, Adela’s shock and sadness would give way to fear. Her baby was due in three weeks, and she had pinned al
l her hopes on Pleasance to deliver her child safely. Childbirth was a dangerous time for both mother and child, but Adela had convinced herself that as long as Pleasance was there neither she nor the child could come to any harm. Only if we were able to get shelter at an inn, or nunnery, was there any chance of finding another experienced woman to help her through her labours, and with the pestilence now on three sides of us the chances of finding a roof over our heads, never mind a midwife, seemed slim indeed.

  We kept our promise to Hugh and walked for two, maybe three hours before we buried Pleasance. In the end it was fear of having to spend the night camping near her grave that determined the place, for we needed enough daylight to dig and then move on some distance before night fell. It was not easy to find a spot. The forest floor seems soft, but dig a few inches and you soon run into a thick tangle of tree roots. Finally, we glimpsed a place off to the left of the tracks where several old trees had fallen in a past storm and lay uprooted and rotting, already half-covered by ferns, bone-white fungi and pillows of dark green moss.

  We scraped away beside one of the fallen tree trunks with hands, sticks and the one spade which Zophiel had for digging the wagon out of ruts. The sweet, rich smell of leaf mould clung to our skin and mud streaked our faces before we’d dug anything deep enough to be called a grave. When we finally called a halt we had a long, shallow hole partly tucked under the curve of the trunk.

  ‘That won’t be deep enough to stop animals digging up the body,’ Zophiel said. ‘Cover her with rocks and cover them with earth and leaves, so the grave can’t be seen.’

  We slid her into the hole. There was a soft thud as Rodrigo heaved the first rock on to the body.

  At the sound, Adela moaned, ‘No, don’t, please,’ and sank to the ground, clutching at her belly. Osmond led her back to the wagon while we continued to cover the body with rocks and stones. I wondered if we were really doing it to keep the scavengers from mauling the corpse or if, like Hugh, we too feared her ghost and wanted to fasten it in its grave.

  The ground looked dug over, darker than the surroundings, but it was on the far side of the trunk, hidden from the track. In a day or so the soil and leaves would weather to look no different from the rest. Come spring the grave would have settled and there would be nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the forest floor.

  There was nothing more to be done, but it seemed indecent simply to walk away. I glanced over to where Narigorm stood impassively staring down. She had not shed one tear for her nurse and protector. Even though Zophiel was not what you’d call grief-stricken, he at least seemed perturbed by the events. Narigorm, betraying neither shock nor grief, had watched the burial with curiosity as if she was watching ants strip the flesh from the body of a squashed frog. As if she felt me watching her, she raised her eyes and stared into mine. Her words from last night echoed in my head as if she was speaking them aloud, but her lips were not moving. And so Morrigan begins it.

  It was Jofre who broke the spell. He stepped forward and stuck a cross into the mound, which he had fashioned from two bound sticks. Zophiel immediately wrenched the cross out of the ground again and tossed it into the undergrowth.

  ‘Idiot boy, what is the point of us trying to disguise her grave if you’re going to draw attention to it?’

  Jofre flushed. ‘But there’s no priest to bury her, we said no words, we can’t just bury her like a dog.’

  ‘Why not? If she killed herself, no priest would bury her. She’s fortunate to have a grave. You’ve passed enough corpses lying where they fell to know that.’ Zophiel picked up the spade. ‘Now, unless you want to spend the night with the corpse, I suggest we move on. There is barely an hour or two of daylight left.’

  He strode away. The rest of us muttered furtive little prayers over the grave, crossing ourselves rapidly before we too turned away. Jofre was the last to leave. When he thought he was unobserved, he quickly retrieved the handmade cross and laid it flat on top of the grave. I said nothing; like him, I too wanted to do something for Pleasance.

  As we trudged on along the track, I dropped back behind the wagon with Rodrigo. I pulled on his arm, signalling him to slow down until the others were out of earshot.

  ‘Tell me honestly, Rodrigo. Do you think it was murder? For if it was, I can’t see a stranger’s hand in this. Pleasance wouldn’t have gone so far into the forest at night except with someone she knew and trusted, especially with soldiers about.’

  Rodrigo stared ahead at the backs of Cygnus and Jofre despondently dragging their feet through the mud. ‘Maybe she went to find Cygnus to tell him it was safe to come back.’

  ‘It would have been a fool’s errand in the dark if she’d no idea where to look. And I still cannot fathom how Cygnus could have hanged her. Anyway, what reason would he have to murder her, unless…’ I thought of what Hugh had said about the charcoal burners. Was it possible that Cygnus had tried to rape her as perhaps he had already raped and murdered a little girl? I’d be more willing to believe that of Zophiel than Cygnus.

  Rodrigo shook his head. ‘He did not do it. I know in my heart it was her own hand that tied the noose and her own feet that jumped.’

  ‘But why would she hang herself, Rodrigo? There are enough poor souls dying who would give all they owned to stay alive, even if it was for just another day. What cause did she have?’

  He turned and studied me for a moment. ‘You do not know, Camelot?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You remember that night we spent with Walter and his son? Zophiel talked about burning Jews because they were to blame for the pestilence. He said how in England there were Jews still hidden among the Christians. Then last night when the soldiers came for Michelotto, again the question of the Jews. And you saw what the pardoner did to him and what he threatened? Torture and burning?’

  ‘You think Pleasance was distressed about what they would do to Michelotto?’

  ‘For him, yes, of course. But she was also distressed, as you put it, about what they would do to her if anyone discovered her secret. Pleasance was a Jewess, Camelot. Did you not realize?’

  I suddenly remembered the look on Pleasance’s face that night in Walter’s cottage, the way she trembled. And I had stupidly thought she was afraid of Jews.

  ‘Are you sure? Did she tell you that?’

  He pressed his lips in a grimace. ‘In a way she did. That night in the old widow’s inn when she told the story of how she had been midwife to a wolf, you remember?’

  I nodded.

  ‘She said that the cave to which she was taken was full of demons, except that she did not use the word demon, she called them “sheidim”. It is a word I have never heard used in this land, but I heard it often where I grew up. In Venice there was a quarter where the Jews lived. There were some fine gold- and silversmiths among them. Glassblowers too, before, as Michelotto said, they were sent to Murano, though that was before I was born.’ He wiped the rain out of his eyes.

  ‘Jews were tolerated because they brought wealth to the city from the traders who came to buy from them and the taxes they paid, for they were taxed twice as much as the Christians. Besides, whenever the priests wanted a silver casket for their relics or a fine gold chalice for their church, who else could they call upon who had the skill to make anything as fine as the Jews? They mostly kept to their own quarter, for the Christians would have little to do with them, but I was drawn to them by their music from the day I could walk.’

  Now that we were on the subject of music, his face lit up as it did whenever he picked up his lute.

  ‘The Jews are fine musicians. You should hear them play for their weddings.’ Rodrigo sighed as if he longed to hear it again. ‘The music would begin so softly and slowly, played by just one man, each note so pure and clear like the drops of water dripping from a leaf, and gradually the other musicians would join in and the drops would turn to a trickle and the trickle to a waterfall which crashed about your ears and made your feet dance as if they we
re bewitched. Some said that is exactly what their music did, bewitch you, and that the Jews intended it so. They wanted to make you dance until you dropped dead from exhaustion for if you died while you danced, unshriven and unheeding, your ghost would be compelled to dance for eternity among the tombs and in the wastelands and you would never find rest. Priests said it was their way of stealing Christian souls.

  ‘One priest in a nearby church was so convinced of it he would order the church bells rung to drown out the devilish music whenever it was played. He told Christians to hurry past their high walls with their fingers stuffed in their ears, but I did not. When I was a small boy I was forever wandering there in the hope of hearing that music. After a while they got used to me standing in the doorways, listening, and would beckon me in, even showing me how to play a few notes. That is where I first learned to play. My parents were frightened when they discovered where I went, for everyone knows the stories of how Jews are said to kill little boys and use their blood to make their Passover bread. The stories are nonsense, of course, for anyone who knows about the Jewish ways knows that they abhor blood and even soak their meat for hours to remove all drops of it lest they sin by consuming it. But my parents believed the tales and forbade me to go near them, but their music drew me back, whatever my parents threatened.’ He smiled fondly at the distant memory. ‘Perhaps the priest was right after all and I was bewitched.’

  He paused as our way was blocked by a particularly wide puddle, mud and leaves still swirling in it from the wagon wheels that had rolled through it. We stepped off the track and threaded our way through the trees to avoid it. When we rejoined the track again, Rodrigo took up his tale.

  ‘When I was older and trying to earn every penny I could to buy my own lute, the Jews paid me well to be a Shabbes goy for them.’