The Plague Charmer

by Karen Maitland

  The villagers stare at one another, as if for a moment they really believe that one death will save them. They want to believe it, they are desperate to believe it, and they are willing one another to step forward and say, Take me, take mine. But no one does, and in their hearts they know no one will.

  ‘If no one offers themselves,’ Janiveer says, ‘then ask the gods. Draw lots. Let their mark fall on whoever they will choose. Let the gods decide who among you will die.’

  Hope shatters into fury. The villagers are on their feet, shouting and screaming. Their faces contort into grotesques in the flickering light of the Hell-red flames. Men push forward, bellowing their rage. Mothers clutch their children, dragging them back to hide them in the darkness as if they are afraid their neighbours might snatch a precious baby from their arms and toss his little body into the sacrificial fire. Old men and women shrink away for fear that someone will decide their life is over and they can be offered up. Suddenly the villagers’ hands are full of filth and stones, though, come morning, no one will remember who bent to snatch up the first.

  But Janiveer does not move, does not flinch. She watches and waits. Her steady gaze chills the villagers. Their arms feel like lead, their fingers grow numb around the stones. One by one the raised arms fall.

  Cador pushes to the front. ‘You have your answer,’ he growls. ‘There’s no one’ll pay your price. There’s other villages might, but not here, not in Porlock Weir. We take care of our own. Even if any was willing, I’d not let them do it. I swore on the holy book that I’d do all in my power to see that no harm comes to any man, woman, child or beast in this village, not while I’m bailiff. I mean to keep that oath till death takes me.’

  He turns his head towards the crowd. His face is glistening with sweat in the firelight, though the night breeze is cold. ‘Get you to your beds and forget this nonsense. There is nothing to fear. The pestilence’ll not come here, that I swear.’

  ‘What of her?’ Bald John bellows.

  ‘I reckon we should fling her off the cliff back into the sea,’ old Abel says. ‘No good ever came from taking back what the sea has claimed.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Meryn says, brandishing one of his crutches. ‘If you catch a fish that’s poison, throw it back.’

  But though the villagers squawk and snarl their desire to do just that, no one moves. Cador, as bailiff, must be the first to lay hands on her. Janiveer fixes her gaze on him, challenging, warning. He hesitates, transfixed by the twin flames of the reflected fire dancing in those two great eyes. Then, as if she has reached out and pushed him, he stumbles a pace backwards, turning his face away.

  ‘No call for that,’ he says tersely. ‘Sir Nigel would not take kindly to us killing a woman without proper trial. He’s not a man to show mercy if the king’s law’s been broken. And I’ve no mind to find myself swinging on the gallows.’

  The grumbling breaks out again, muttering about cowards and men who are too afraid to stand up and act.

  Cador, plainly stung, rounds on Janiveer. ‘But as bailiff I’m ordering you to leave this village. I want you gone afore the sun is clear over the horizon and don’t set foot here again, else I’ll put you in irons and drag you all the way to the manor court myself.’

  The woman from the sea wonders what crime he would conjure up against her. Maybe sorcery, an old favourite. But she does not ask. It would not be wise to put the word in their mouths, much less the thought in their minds.

  ‘Since you ask it, I will go,’ she says. ‘You can shut me out. You can shut out all the signs and the rumours, even the truth. But you cannot shut out death. A single life is all I ask, and before this year has ended you will be begging me to take it.’

  Chapter 8

  Porlock Manor

  Poor men suffer lice, rich men suffer guests.

  Medieval Proverb

  Lady Pavia stood under the archway that led into the great hall. She positioned herself as gracefully as a woman of her ample proportions could without splitting the seams of her tightly fitted scarlet bodice. She raised her hand, laying it elegantly on the carved wood, the better to display the white tippet of her sleeve, which was so long it brushed the rushes on the floor. Behind her back, the maidservants, unfamiliar with the latest court fashions, goggled at those extravagant sleeves and rolled their eyes. It was as plain as a prick on a rutting goat that she never had to empty a pisspot or baste a roast goose. The male servants tried to squeeze past her without treading on the hem of her trailing skirts, balancing ewers of wine and great platters of rabbit, hare and every wild bird, from a heron to a lark, that could be snared, netted, caught with lime or brought down by the falconer’s art.

  Lady Pavia blithely ignored the chaos she was causing behind her. She was a widow twice over, but though she was rapidly approaching her sixty-third year she had no intention of quietly retreating to a nunnery or ending her days in some draughty corner of one of her sons’ houses under the rule of their pinch-faced wives. She fully intended to catch another husband and install herself as the unequalled mistress of her own household. Her eyes, though they could no longer comfortably read the words in her psalter, still had the keenness of a kestrel when it came to spotting prey. But she could see at a glance there was no quarry worth pursuing in this hall.

  In spite of the quantities and richness of the dishes being borne in, the only people seated at the high table on the dais were Lady Margery, an elderly aunt of Sir Nigel and chaperon to his three giggling young wards, and a solitary man sitting at the other end of the table. Lady Pavia studied him. Probably in his thirties and comely enough to be worth the chase but, alas, the candlelight revealed the gleam of his freshly shaved tonsure. She sniffed her disappointment.

  The high table was laid with a fresh white cloth, and strewn with cowslips, primroses and wild apple blossom. The silver and pewter gleamed under the candlelight and the lavers had been filled with rosewater. If Sir Nigel had chosen to descend on this one of his many manors, without warning, he would have found everything to his satisfaction, but Lady Pavia knew that His Holiness the Pope was more likely to pay a visit to this remote corner of England than her cousin and his retinue.

  She would not be here herself, so far from the hunting grounds for eligible men, had Sir Nigel not been so insistent. ‘No safer corner of the realm,’ he had told her. ‘The Great Mortality will never blow so far from London.’

  She knew that other members of his wide family circle would have been grateful, not even to say highly flattered, that such a busy man, whose presence the Black Prince constantly demanded, should have given the safety of a dowager cousin so much as a fleeting thought. But Lady Pavia had not buried two husbands and raised five sons without learning that if a powerful man concerns himself with the welfare of a mere woman he must be using her as a shield for his own rump. Her cousin had sent her here for some purpose but, as yet, not even she could discern quite what that might be.

  As her gaze ranged about the hall, it alighted on the wizened figure of Eda edging along the wall towards the table occupied by the higher-ranking servants. The woman’s furtive movements always irritated her and normally she would have ignored her, but she was reminded she had intended to have words with her. As Eda looked up, Lady Pavia beckoned with a plump finger, like an executioner inviting the condemned to climb up on to the scaffold.

  The elderly maid shuffled across and bent her stiff knees in obeisance far more deeply than was wise for a woman of her age, wincing as she rose.

  Lady Pavia barely waited for her to recover her balance. ‘I have this afternoon visited your young mistress, in spite of the most arduous climb up those stairs. It is little wonder she is weary and melancholic, confined to that miserable, dark little chamber. She is a girl, not a bat. Young women need companionship. They must be occupied, else they start imagining all kinds of foolishness. You will have her moved at once to the solar where she may keep company with Sir Nigel’s wards. I grant they are younger than her and inclined
to childish prattle, but that will divert her admirably. And those chattering jays may learn to follow Christina’s example and keep silent in the presence of their elders. With luck a little of her melancholy will rub off on them, which would indeed be a blessing to us all.’

  Eda, though keeping her gaze respectfully lowered, spoke with a firmness that equalled Lady Pavia’s. ‘The physician prescribed complete rest and quiet. He said she was to be kept away from any excitement and to be given draughts of rhubarb, columbine and parsley, morning and evening. My mistress charged me to follow his instructions faithfully.’

  ‘Faddle.’ Lady Pavia waved her hand dismissively, her long tippet snaking out like a whip with the movement of her arm. ‘A day’s hunting will do more to cure any girl than an apothecary’s draught or barber’s bloodletting. You will move her tomorrow.’ She peered suspiciously at Eda. ‘Unless, of course, there is another reason for the girl being kept in confinement.’

  Eda bowed the knee again, as submissively as any well-trained servant, and shuffled away, but not before Lady Pavia had seen a flash of alarm in those hooded eyes. So, the arrow had found its mark, she thought, with satisfaction.

  When Lady Pavia had bracingly assured Christina that her new bridegroom was certain to return soon from France and that his attentions would bring the roses back to her cheeks, she had been startled to see fear in the girl’s face. It was only fleeting and Christina had recovered herself well, saying how much she was looking forward to Randel’s return, but her words had not deceived Lady Pavia. Was the girl being recalcitrant over the brilliant match that her mother and Sir Nigel had arranged for her? Was that why she’d been sent to this remote manor, to bring her to obedience or, more worryingly, keep her from eloping with another swain?

  But perhaps the fear she had shown was simple anxiety about the marriage bed – that was only natural and proper. But keeping her isolated with only an old spinster maid to confide in was hardly likely to allay her fears. Lady Pavia grimly recalled her own nursemaid, who had terrified her by recounting the dreadful fates that awaited innocent girls. Some men, the nursemaid had told her, were hung like stallions, their members so long that when they pierced their new brides the girls burst open, as if they’d been impaled on a spear, and those who survived their husband’s animal demands had borne such huge children that they could not give birth to them and their babies had had to be cut out of their bellies in front of their very eyes.

  No, indeed, it would not do to leave Christina to the tender mercy of that old crone and her tales. If the girl needed to be taught how to embrace the joys and trials of marriage, then Lady Pavia considered it her duty to do just that.

  She was jerked from her thoughts by a discreet cough at her elbow. ‘If you will allow me to escort you, my lady.’

  She found herself gazing up into the brown eyes of one of those men whose age was hard to determine. He was by no means a stripling, but not yet running to middle-age portliness. His face was tanned, but his small neat beard and dark hair showed only a trace of grey. His clothes would have passed as fashionable enough for the king’s court. His sleeves were buttoned down to his knuckles and the closely fitting blue gypon was padded over the upper chest, giving him the appearance of a puffed-up pigeon. But Lady Pavia observed that the panels of silver embroidery which decorated the front were frayed and worn as if they had been unpicked from a much older garment and sewn on this new one. Was that a sign of the man’s thrift or of his empty coffers?

  He straightened from a deep bow and impudently extended his arm, palm downwards so that she might place her own hand upon it. The blood-red stone set into his gold thumb-ring was the size of a blackbird’s egg but, she noticed, cracked. She did not take the proffered arm.

  ‘And who is it wishes to squire me?’

  He lowered his arm and inclined his head. ‘Your pardon, my lady. In my eagerness to escort such a rare beauty, I neglected to introduce myself. Sir Harry Gilmore.’ He bowed again.

  Lady Pavia granted him the ghost of a smile and this time when he offered his arm she permitted her hand to rest lightly over his. But she was not flattered. Fine words, like fine nets, are cast to snare a goose, and she was not pleased to be taken for a fool. All the same, she was prepared to overlook the insult for the moment. Men who had been at the king’s court soon acquired the habit of making pretty, empty speeches.

  Lady Pavia’s soft leather shoes sank into the deep spongy mat of old rushes on the floor. Dried bracken and herbs had been strewn on top of the mouldy and compacted layers beneath, but they had done little to sweeten the stench of rotting food or the dog and cat dung that the mice and insects feasted on below. It was a wonder the smaller page boys hadn’t vanished beneath it. When she had been mistress of her husbands’ halls, she had always insisted that the whole stinking mess be cleared out completely once a year and burned, just to keep the fleas and lice in check. She would see to it that Master Wallace did the same, just as soon as the new bracken and reeds had grown long enough to be gathered in any quantity.

  Sir Harry seated her between himself and the cleric, whose name she learned was Father Cuthbert. The three young wards chattered and laughed at the far end of the table, oblivious to Lady Pavia’s frowns. The elderly aunt did nothing to reprove them, too busy marking the progress of each and every servant in case she should miss the arrival of some new dish she had not tasted.

  As if he were the host, instead of merely another guest, Sir Harry sliced into the breast of a fat rabbit with his own sword-sharp knife and placed the tender flesh on Lady Pavia’s trencher of bread, before wrenching off the rabbit’s leg and sinking his teeth into it with all the relish of a man devouring his first meat after the Lenten fast.

  Introductions had scarcely been made when Father Cuthbert leaned towards her, as if he was expecting to hear her confession. ‘Master Wallace tells me you were lately in London, Lady Pavia. I have heard disturbing rumours that the Great Mortality has returned and is ravaging the city. Can it be—’

  Sir Harry rapped the handle of his knife on the table. ‘Now, Father, let us have no talk of that. The royal physician who attends both the Black Prince and Sir Nigel insists that if a man dwells on thoughts of the Great Mortality he will bring upon himself the very sickness that he dreads. It is the foul poison in the air that mixes with the blood and destroys the heart.’

  ‘Are you quite sure you have understood this learned physician?’ Lady Pavia said tartly, slightly piqued that Sir Harry was addressing the priest across her. ‘First you tell us it is thinking about the Great Mortality that causes it, then that the cause is poison in the air. Though I don’t blame you for being confused. My own physician’s explanations are so long and tortuous they are better than any of the sleeping draughts he prescribes.’

  Father Cuthbert laughed so heartily that even the chattering girls glanced up. Lady Pavia was under no illusion that her wit was the cause of his merriment, rather it was the dull flush that had spread across Sir Harry’s countenance.

  ‘I trust my poor explanation will not send you to sleep, Lady Pavia,’ Sir Harry said frostily. ‘The foul poison, as I explained, is in the air, so we must breathe only odours that are pleasant. Likewise, if a man looks upon a pestilent corpse that same poison shall enter his body through his eye, and if he thinks on it, the poison will enter his brain. The royal physician was most insistent that we must think only pleasant thoughts, smell good odours, and look upon gold, jewels and all things lovely. It is for this very reason the king has taken his family to the safety of Beaulieu Abbey, where he will see and smell nothing that might allow poison to enter his eyes or nostrils.’

  ‘And is that why you are here, Sir Harry, to look upon pleasant things?’ Lady Pavia stared pointedly at the three young girls. Though none of them was yet ripe enough for marriage, she was aware that many men find the bud far more irresistible than the flower in full bloom. Was this why Sir Nigel had sent her here, to guard the virtue of his valuable investments? Clearly
the old aunt was not equal to the task. ‘I warn you, Sir Harry, my cousin has already promised these chicks to wealthy and powerful men. He will not tolerate them being plucked of their feathers before they are safely delivered. And Sir Nigel is not a merciful man, as his enemies at Crécy and Poitiers would testify, if they still had tongues.’

  This time it was Sir Harry who laughed, though somewhat shakily. He lifted her hand and slowly sucked a smear of thick blood sauce from her finger, all the while gazing into her face as if he was entranced. ‘When a man sees a swan gliding upon a lake, he does not notice the chattering sparrows in the bush.’

  The look of disgust that spread across the priest’s face almost matched Lady Pavia’s own revulsion, but she was too well schooled to betray it, though she firmly extricated her hand. ‘Swans may look innocent, Sir Harry, but they have been known to break a man’s arm if he intrudes upon their nests.’

  ‘Then I shall take the greatest care not to ruffle one by so much as a single feather while I am hunting in these parts, Lady Pavia. I am told there is good hunting to be had here. Do you enjoy the chase, Father Cuthbert?’

  The priest bit into a roasted songbird wrapped in bacon, crunching noisily on the bones. He delicately dabbed at his mouth with a white linen napkin, before replying.

  ‘I am most partial to the sport. I often ride out with the steward, though there have been wretchedly few birds to be had recently because of this drought. Why, on the feast of St Francis last year we brought down so many swans, herons and ducks that we were obliged to send a boy running back to the manor to fetch two more horses to carry them.’ Warming to his favourite subject, Father Cuthbert had lost his scowl. ‘But this year, there is scarcely a bittern or hare to be found, much less—’

  ‘But what of the noble beasts – the stag and boar?’ Sir Harry interrupted. ‘These forests must be teeming with such quarry.’