Company of Liars

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Even if I were found innocent, even if that wretched girl could be made to confess her lies, I knew no one would believe in my miracles again, no one would come to me for healing. I would lose everything I had worked for, the money, the respect. All my efforts would have been for nothing, I would be back in the sewer that I had struggled so hard to escape from. After all I had done for God, I did not deserve that.

  ‘I could not sit there and wait for them to come for me. So I cast off my priest’s robes, packed what I could and by nightfall I was on the road.’

  There was a long silence when Zophiel finished his tale. He sat with his head once more in his hands as if trying to blot out the memory of that day. Sadness welled up inside me, not for the man crouching by the stone, but for the youth, long gone, who once had tried so hard, had so much faith.

  Finally the silence was broken by Adela. She stared at him incredulously. ‘You were a priest?’ she said, as if she had only just taken in what he had told her. ‘But how could you be? You’re a magician, a conjuror.’

  Zophiel raised his head and laughed bitterly. ‘You think they are different? When a conjuror performs, people see what they want to see. The conjuror holds up his cup, says his abracadabra, and behold, a white ball turns black; a toad becomes a dove; lead transforms into gold. When a priest holds up his cup and incants his Latin chant, the people say, behold, wine has become blood, bread is become flesh.’

  ‘That is blasphemy!’ Osmond sounded more shocked than I’d ever heard him. ‘Rodrigo is right, you are a hypocrite. You accused Cygnus of sacrilege when he suggested Adela could give birth in the chapel. And for you, a priest, to say –’

  ‘Do you know what blasphemy really is, Osmond? Blasphemy is a woman. That is the thing which is an abomination before God. They are the succubi that leech upon the soul of man. They tear down all he has built and bring him to nothing. They lead him from God into the snares of the devil, no man is safe from them, for even if he resists their seductions, they will find a way to bring him down. And one day you will discover that for yourself, Osmond. One day she will do to you what women always do to men; she will damn your soul.’

  Adela, covering her face with her hands, scrambled up and fled towards the wagon. Casting furious looks at Zophiel, Osmond ran after her.

  Cygnus rose to his feet, his face contorted in fury. ‘How dare you speak of women like that, especially Adela? She’s shown you nothing but kindness. Are you forgetting it was a woman who gave birth to you?’

  But Narigorm interrupted. ‘There’s no wolf in this story. You said this was a wolf story.’

  ‘Narigorm’s right,’ I said. ‘What has this tale to do with the wolf?’

  Zophiel drained the last dregs from the beaker of wine.

  ‘It has everything to do with the wolf. The wolf that has been following us is a human wolf, as you surmised, Camelot. I knew he had found me the night we heard him when we were in the cave. He’s been tracking me ever since.’

  ‘Because of the girl?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not the girl, she does not matter to anyone. If it had been the girl they would have sent the sheriff’s men after me. Out there somewhere watching us are not the sheriff’s men; it is the Bishop’s wolf. The wolves are the men the Church pay to recover what’s been taken from them. They pay them well, but only if they recover what is lost. They work alone, tracking their quarry for months, years sometimes, to recover some stolen relic or jewel. They work outside the law. There are too many precious items in churches and abbeys whose provenance would not stand up to close scrutiny in court. Which bishop or abbot can swear his relics and jewels were not once the property of someone else, someone who might in turn demand them back? The Church’s wolves do not arrest people and bring them to trial. The Church cannot risk that. The wolves have their own brand of justice and they are the judge, jury and executioner of it.’

  ‘But I don’t understand, you made no mention of theft. What did you steal?’

  ‘I stole nothing. I took only what was mine. I earned them. They were given to me in gratitude by those I had healed. It was the power in my hands that healed them, not the Church. They were mine to take.’

  I shook my head in disbelief. ‘You took the gifts that had been given to your church as thanks offerings?’

  ‘That small metal plate I felt in the unlocked box, the night I hid in the wagon. I’ve just realized what it was,’ Cygnus said suddenly. ‘It was a paten for holy bread, wasn’t it? No one would make a plate that small for anything else.’

  ‘That piece is of little value, but it is mine.’

  A look of comprehension was spreading across Cygnus’s face. ‘But if Jofre got curious and searched your boxes and he saw it, he would have realized that there was something odd about a magician travelling with an object that only those in holy orders should ever touch. That’s what he meant in the chantry when he threatened to sell the information of what was in your boxes. He wouldn’t have known who you were, but he knew no layman would have come by such an object honestly.’

  ‘So,’ said Rodrigo furiously, ‘I was right. You threatened to hand Cygnus over to the sheriff’s men, but you had no intention of doing this. You were a fugitive yourself. You could not risk standing up in court as witness against him. You tormented him with your threats because it amused you. And you accused Jofre of being a thief when you –’

  ‘They were mine to take,’ Zophiel repeated stubbornly, ignoring Rodrigo whose eyes were blazing with anger.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is if they knew you had taken them, why didn’t this wolf seize the items as soon as he found you?’

  ‘He didn’t know for certain I had taken them. You don’t think I simply walked out with them? I’m not that stupid. I was careful to make it appear that the church had been broken into. The church was surrounded by thieves and foreigners. They’d break in and steal anything just to get the price of a drink or a whore. It was easy to cast suspicion on others. The wolf had no proof, so he had to wait for a chance to look inside the wagon, or maybe he hoped I’d be foolish enough to try to sell one of the pieces.’

  ‘And we unwittingly protected you, because there was always one of us around,’ I said.

  ‘Until that day in the chantry, when this useless cripple left the door unbarred, the day a silver chalice was taken from my boxes.’

  ‘And that’s what you accused Jofre of stealing,’ I said.

  ‘The wolf took the chalice. It was a warning.’

  Rodrigo’s fists clenched in fury. ‘Then you knew Jofre had not stolen it.’

  I grabbed his arm, mindful of the knife in Zophiel’s hand.

  ‘I did not know that morning, I swear. I believed it was Jofre. I thought he had taken it and sold it in the town. I went there that morning to try to recover it, but I could discover no trace of it. Then I realized the wolf had taken it as a warning to me.’

  Rodrigo’s breathing was heavy and laboured. I could feel the tension in his body. I prayed he would be able to keep control of his temper, for neither Cygnus nor I would be able to stop him if he lost it.

  ‘And what happened to Jofre… was that also a warning?’ he asked, his voice cracking with choked-back tears.

  Zophiel didn’t answer.

  I shivered. The wind was picking up and flames from the fire twisted in the gusts. Rodrigo sat with his fists pressed against his mouth, as if he could not trust himself to speak.

  A thought struck me. ‘But if you know the wolf is human, why lay out the poisoned meat? A man wouldn’t fall for such a trick.’

  ‘He must be using dogs to track us under the cover of darkness. He can’t risk following us too closely in open country; we’d see him. If we can get rid of the dogs, we might lose him. Besides, if he thinks the meat has been dropped by mistake or stolen by the dogs, he might be tempted to share it with them. All those weeks out there, he can’t have found it any easier to find food than we have.’

  ‘You left mea
t poisoned with wolfsbane for a man!’ Cygnus cried. ‘Don’t you know how cruel and agonizing a death that is?’

  Zophiel’s face was contorted into a mask of fear and hatred. ‘Yes, of course I know. Agonizing but rapid, which is more mercy than the wolf has shown me.’

  In spite of all he’d done, I felt a sudden wave of pity for him. Even though I had no love for the man, I would not have wanted my worst enemy to torture himself like this.

  ‘Zophiel,’ I said as gently as I could, ‘it’s been over a month since the chalice was taken. Surely if he was hunting you, he would have made his move by now? What would be the sense in delaying? He would have had you arrested weeks ago if he had proof.’

  ‘Why are you all so stupid?’ Zophiel screamed. ‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? Don’t you understand? There will be no arrest. There will be no trial. They relish their work, these men. To them, murder is an art. They want you to know they are there watching and that they can take you any time they please. They enjoy tormenting the victims first. How can you fight a man when you can’t even see him? I look at faces in a crowd and I know any one of them could be him. I could brush past him on a crowded street and I wouldn’t even know it. He is out there, biding his time, waiting until there are no witnesses. Then he is going to kill me… he’s going to kill me and there is nothing I can do to stop him.’

  As if it had been listening to these words, a wolf’s howl suddenly rang out above the wind. Zophiel started so violently that the knife jerked from his trembling fingers and fell noiselessly on to the grass. He was still on his hands and knees, desperately groping around in the dark for it, when the second howl reverberated around the stones. He collapsed on to the ground, pressing his hands to his ears, and began to sob.

  22. Stains in the Snow

  We heard the singing long before we saw the procession. It was still dark and the stars shone brightly, but a faint pearly shimmer on the eastern horizon whispered that dawn was not far off. We were already awake. None of us had got much sleep with the thought of the Bishop’s wolf out there somewhere watching us. Although Zophiel had regained much of his customary composure once the howls of the wolf had died away, his revelations had left us all tossing and turning, unable to settle. Zophiel himself had paced the stone circle half the night, before weariness and wine finally caught up with him. Towards morning it had grown so cold that any pretence at sleep had become impossible. One by one, we had risen and crept close to the fire to sit in silence, warming our hands on beakers of a weak bone broth that had been simmering all night in the embers of the fire pit.

  The sound of the chanting reached us in snatches above the wind. At first I thought it was the wind itself, singing through the stones, but as it grew louder, more constant, I realized it was human voices. Zophiel and Rodrigo hurried across to Osmond who was still on watch and was peering across the dark heath in the direction of the forest.

  Then we saw distant dots of light bobbing and weaving in the darkness. We all stood grasping our knives and staves as the lights came slowly towards us and finally we made out a line of people carrying flaming torches that trailed streams of fire and smoke behind them like pennants in the wind. Osmond hurried Adela and the baby to the wagon and pushed them underneath it. Shoving a blanket towards her, he urged her to cover herself and keep still. He made Narigorm do the same.

  About twenty men and women were walking towards us in a long line. Despite the torches, they did not look or sound like a lynch mob. We stood nervously among the stones and waited, gripping our staves. Our fire was well banked down in the fire pit, and the stones were still in darkness, so they didn’t appear to notice us at first, but they must have caught sight of the wagon for the leader suddenly raised his arm and they all stopped.

  They stood watching us, as we stood watching them. We still had darkness on our side, for though they were well illuminated by the torches, we were concealed among the stones and they could have little idea of how many we numbered. Eventually they came to some sort of a decision and started forward again. The line was a little more ragged, but the singing grew louder and finally we could make out the words.

  ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.’

  As they drew level with the circle of stones, we saw their faces turn towards us, searching the darkness anxiously, but they didn’t enter the circle of stones. Instead they walked round them until they came to the line of fallen stones leading to the tall queen stone at the end. Still chanting, they processed up through the line of prostrate stones and there they paused to stick their torches in the ground. Then, as we stood in silence and watched, they began to strip off their clothes until each of them was naked.

  ‘Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’

  They stood facing the east, their arms hugged around themselves, shivering in the bitter wind. Their leader positioned himself directly in front of the queen stone. He was a small, frog-like man with no neck and a rotund, sagging body, but in contrast, his legs and arms were long and spindly. He jiggled up and down on the balls of his feet in an effort to keep himself warm, his pale flaccid buttocks wobbling in the torchlight. His followers were still singing, but the sound was muffled now by clenched jaws and chattering teeth.

  ‘Salve, regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve! Hail holy queen, mother of mercy, hail our life, our sweetness and our hope.’

  As the pale disc of sun edged up just over the horizon, the leader struck his fists down on to the ice in the bowl at the foot of the queen stone and stepped in. He ducked down quickly and scooped the freezing water over his head and shoulders three times, before hastily scrambling out. No sooner had he stepped out than the next stepped in, men and women, one after another, the first rays of the sun sparkling from the drops of water as they dashed them over their shivering bodies. Once the ordeal was over, each dressed as rapidly as numb fingers and wet bodies would allow. They didn’t dry themselves, but pulled their shirts and shifts over their goose-pimpled flesh and stuffed wet feet back into woollen hose. Through all the bathing and dressing, the round of Aves continued shakily, but unabated.

  It was only when the women laid little bunches of snow-drops around the base of the stone that I finally remembered it was Candlemas Day, the purification of the Virgin, but which virgin, I wondered, for despite their Aves this was hardly a Christian site. It was not like me not to keep track of the days, but this business of the wolf was depriving me of what few wits I had left.

  The leader came across to us and nodded gravely.

  ‘You will forgive us, brothers, for intruding on your camp, but we always bathe here at dawn on the quarter days. We didn’t expect to find anyone here. No one comes here as a rule but us.’ He sounded somewhat put out.

  ‘A penance to purify the soul?’ said Zophiel. ‘This is a heathen place to make such an act of contrition.’

  The man drew himself up to his full height, which had little effect since he was still over a head shorter than Zophiel.

  ‘Heathen?’ he said indignantly. ‘Did you not hear us singing to the Blessed Virgin? People have been coming up here for generations. The water which runs down that stone has healing powers. Why, cripples who could not walk a step have been carried here and put in that basin and they have walked back down that path on their own two feet.’

  Zophiel snorted. ‘We have a cripple among our company. Born without an arm. Do you think your water will grow him a new one?’

  ‘It’s easy to mock, my fine fellow, but you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face when you fall sick with the pestilence and we do not.’

  I stepped in quickly. ‘Forgive my friend, good sir, he didn’t sleep well last night. He is in a choleric humour.’

  ‘Then perhaps he should try the water,’ the man said acidly.

  ‘I’ll see that he doe
s. I take it you know these parts well? Tell me, the main track over there, does it continue through the forest for many miles?’

  The man considered this for a long time, before finally saying, ‘It does.’

  ‘Is there a crossroads or a road that forks off it?’

  He considered the matter again. ‘There is.’

  I tried not to get impatient, but trying to extract any information from this fellow was like trying to milk a flea. ‘How far along the forest road before you reach a fork?’

  ‘About a mile.’

  ‘Does this fork go anywhere?’

  ‘Same direction as this. Crosses the heath, but lower down.’

  ‘Forgive me, sir, but I meant, is it a dead end like this one or does it lead somewhere, to a village or town perhaps?’ I could see Osmond grinning behind the man’s back and I tried not to meet his eye.

  ‘Leads to the sea. Take you a couple of weeks or more to get there, mind.’ Then, taking a reckless plunge, he added, ‘But if you take that road you’ll not get to anywhere before nightfall and you’ll want to be somewhere before then.’ He glanced up at the sky. Heavy clouds were rolling in from the north. ‘Wind’s shifted. We’ll see some snow before long.’

  He turned to go, then stopped as a new thought struck him. ‘There’s a drovers’ hut near a pinfold along that heath track. You might make that, if the snow holds off long enough. It’ll be a bit of a roof over you. There’s a spring there to water the horse. But,’ he added, glowering once more at Zophiel, ‘it’s not a healing spring, so if you want to get rid of your friend’s choler, I’d give him a good bath here first if I were you.’

  With that he turned on his heel and stalked off, leading his band of shivering supplicants back down the track towards the forest road.

  ‘Well done, Zophiel,’ Osmond said, ‘You’ve certainly ensured we can’t look for lodgings with them. They’ll be waiting for us with pitchforks and burning brands once the news spreads.’ He turned to Rodrigo and me. ‘Do we make for the drovers’ hut? If it’s going to snow, we’ll need more shelter than these stones.’