The Plague Charmer

by Karen Maitland

  Just before I came in sight of the manor, I left the road and took cover in a grove of trees where I could keep watch on the main gate. Dawn was breaking, pink and silver across the bay. The first frost of the year had come early and even the fallen leaves were rimmed with white hoar that sparkled in the first rays of light. A honking made me glance up. A skein of wild geese flew, like an arrow head, over the cliffs from the sea. I hoped that was a good omen.

  An ox cart rattled past me, piled high with hay. The manor’s horses must surely be in dire need of that. It came to a stop outside the huge oak gates while the driver called out impatiently for the gatekeeper to open up. I’d never get a better chance than that. I ran forward as fast as my bow legs would scuttle. Staying hidden from the driver was easy for a short-arse like me. Climbing into the wagon was not. But a length of rope swung down from the side and I could swarm up a rope quicker than most longshanks can a ladder. Even so, I’d barely managed to cover myself with hay before the wagon began to roll forward. I say hay, but after the drought there was nothing sweet-smelling or soft about it. By the feel of it, it was mostly rank weeds and thistles – a great many thistles! Master Wallace was a bigger fool than I if he’d parted with more than a farthing for that load. My teeth rattled as the wheels shuddered over the cobbles. As the wagon came to a halt, I risked peering out. It was dark, and I realised we must be inside the huge barn where all the manor’s crops were stored.

  ‘You get atop, lad, fork it down,’ someone called from the other side of the wagon. ‘Jan, you make sure it’s stacked loose so it don’t overheat. His lordship wants only the best for his horses, especially today.’

  His lordship? Was Sir Nigel come? I cursed myself and him. That would make it ten times harder to get Christina away, and I certainly couldn’t risk him seeing me. I heard the scrape of metal on stone as someone dragged a pitchfork towards the wagon. I didn’t fancy those sharp tines stabbing into my arse. The wagon stood close to the barn wall. It was the best cover I was going to get. I wriggled over the side and jumped, landing on the cobbles with a jolt that nearly forced my backbone through my skull. I scrambled under the wagon, just as the boy climbed up the other side.

  The only light coming into the immense barn was through the open doors at the far end and the interior was so gloomy that you could have hidden a dozen dwarfs beneath the wagon without anyone noticing. But getting out of the barn was another matter. Any other man could have kept to the shadows and wagered on not being recognised but, with my shape and height, I hardly blended in with the burly farmhands.

  I was still trying to work out my best route when the sound of a hunting horn, the clatter of hoofs and barking of hounds sent every man and boy running towards the courtyard. I hurried behind them and managed to slip out through the great doors while their attention was fixed on the commotion at the gate. Keeping close to the walls, I made for the stillroom, praying they would not yet have found a new Rosa to replace Janiveer, or if they had, she wouldn’t have heard of the banished dwarf.

  I was in luck. The room was empty, and since there was no fire burning, it seemed likely that no one was working there. I dragged a stool over to the casement and clambered up to peer out, searching for the stable lad who’d brought Christina to me last time.

  Half a dozen men were dismounting their horses in the yard as grooms steadied their beasts and hounds milled around excitedly. I searched for the broad shoulders of Sir Nigel or any of his men I might recognise, but the party was already making for the inner courtyard. They vanished before I had time to get a clear look at any of them.

  I clambered down and opened the door a crack, trying to spot the lad I could trust, but all the boys were scurrying around, unsaddling the great horses, which reared and tossed their heads in the melee. Then, to my horror, I saw the stout figure of a woman in a scarlet-and-white gown gliding across the courtyard like a ship in full sail. I’d only encountered her a couple of times when I was in Sir Nigel’s employ, but Lady Pavia was a woman once seen, never forgotten, and she was heading straight for the stillroom. I stared wildly about, searching for a hiding place, then squeezed behind two barrels in the corner. I pulled a sack across the gap over my head. The room was unlit and the fire out. I hoped the shadows would be enough to conceal me, provided she didn’t search too thoroughly for whatever she had come for.

  The door opened and closed. Footsteps crossed the floor. They stopped. I could hear her heavy breathing and hoped she couldn’t hear mine.

  ‘Please show yourself, Gaubert. It is most disconcerting to find myself addressing a table.’

  For a moment I thought she must be talking to someone else – it was so long since anyone had called me Gaubert.

  ‘I asked some of the more trustworthy boys to keep watch for your return. Ever since one of the stable lads let slip that you had been here asking for Lady Christina, I guessed you’d be back.’

  So the little brat had tattled after all. If I got out of here alive, I’d make sure the cook knew all about the weasel in that basket. But there was little point in remaining hidden now. I squeezed round the side of the barrel and made a perfunctory bow. Lady Pavia nodded and seated herself on a stool, which completely vanished beneath her ample rump so she seemed to be perched in mid-air.

  She regarded me with a mixture of pity and puzzlement. ‘I confess I do not know what Christina ever saw in you, but as my late husband, Hubert, used to say, Affection blinds sight as surely as it deafens reason. That may indeed be so, but I have decided to believe that what passed between you and the girl was nothing more than a game you both invented in a moment of idleness to vex her elders and your masters. You would do well to believe that too, Gaubert.’

  I opened my mouth to reply, but she held up a hand to silence me.

  ‘You should know that Sir Randel is here, and this very morning Father Cuthbert will baptise his baby son before he takes his wife and child to London.’

  ‘No, he can’t!’ I blurted out, before I could stop myself. ‘Oswin is not—’

  ‘If a man stands before a priest and declares he is the father of his wife’s child, then he is the father. That child will bear his name and inherit his lands and titles.’

  ‘But the birth,’ I protested. ‘It was only six months after her wedding night. And she knows for certain Oswin cannot be his son. She swore to me he was drunk the night he came to her bed—’

  ‘And fortunately so drunk he is still unable to remember what he did. The child was born early, and as I explained to him, such things happen, especially when the girl is young and her hips are slender. I did not see any need to tell him just how early his son came into this world. I may have given the impression that Christina has only recently been delivered. Men, particularly new husbands who have spent the best part of their lives on the battlefields, can be excessively ignorant about such domestic matters. They could no more tell the age of an infant than they could stitch a rose. That’s why they can so easily be fooled by bloody sheets.

  ‘Sir Randel is not a man to start discussing his wife’s confinement with serving maids, but just to be sure, I have persuaded him to start out with Christina on his journey today. The Lady Aliena will say nothing once she knows that Randel has publicly declared the child to be his. The only other person who knows the truth of the matter is Eda, and she is banished from here.’

  ‘And on her way to tell all to Sir Nigel,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t stop her.’

  Lady Pavia smiled sadly at me, as if she was talking to a backward child. ‘Neither Sir Nigel nor Randel will choose to believe her. No one in this land will. They would laugh at the very idea that a beautiful young bride could ever cuckold a handsome, noble, wealthy husband with a dwarf who doesn’t even own the clothes on his crooked back. They would no more believe Christina would desire you in preference to Randel than that the Virgin Mary had lain with an ape. And you should both be on your knees giving thanks for that. Christina is Randel’s wife and he has returned to claim his famil
y.’

  ‘But she doesn’t love him,’ I said desperately. ‘She is terrified of him. He will make her life wretched.’

  Lady Pavia sighed. ‘If that were a bar to marriage, every noblewoman in England would be in a nunnery. Christina will learn how to please him, once she sets her mind to it. She must. As my husband Hubert always said, Marry for love and love will flee. Marry for money and love will follow. And if it does not, at least she and the child will be alive, and the boy will have a chance to grow up and make his own future.’

  ‘So I should stand aside and hear my son call another man father?’

  ‘You will never hear your son utter that word or any other, Gaubert. You will not set eyes on them again.’ Lady Pavia rose and took a pace towards me, gripping my shoulder. The stones in her many rings dug painfully into my flesh.

  ‘By some miracle the baby was born straight and as well formed as any natural man. As he grows, will a boy like that want to look down at a hunchback fool for a father, or up at a noble knight? What will he want his father to teach him – how to grimace and prance to make other men laugh, or how to win their admiration for his prowess in the saddle and his skill with a sword? Be grateful that your son will live to call any man father.’

  Something in my expression must have told her I was not at all grateful, for she snorted in exasperation. ‘Are you really such a fool as to believe that Sir Randel would simply shrug his shoulders if his wife ran off? You think him cruel? Can you imagine the depths of cruelty he would be capable of if a woman – his own wife – humiliated him in such a fashion? You may not care if he takes your life, Gaubert, but what of hers and the boy’s? Randel will hunt them down if it takes the rest of his life. He is a powerful and wealthy man. He could pay an army of informants. Wherever you hid Christina and the child, he would discover that place. And when he found them, we both know he would see that they suffered all the torments of Hell to assuage his wounded pride. You should spend the rest of your life praying he never has cause to suspect. The only way you can protect them now, Gaubert, is to walk away.’

  Fake dwarf I may have been, but I knew then that I was all too real a fool. How could I have thought for one moment that I could steal Christina from the manor? It was only fear that had made her beg me to take her away, not love, never that.

  Did she ever gaze down at Oswin and see what I might have been? Was there the tiniest trace in his unmoulded face that reminded her of something she’d glimpsed beneath the gargoyle mask of mine? Or did she see only his long straight back, tiny mouth, rounded skull and feel nothing but relief? I knew at that moment that of all the names others had thrust upon me in my life, father is one that I could never own. I was grateful for the darkness of the stillroom, for I could not bear Lady Pavia to see the tears that stung my eyes. Even a fake dwarf has his pride.

  ‘I will not . . .’ I cleared my throat ‘. . . trouble the Lady Christina again.’

  ‘That would be wise for both your sakes,’ Lady Pavia said. ‘Then let this be an end to it. Come, I will escort you to the gate myself, in case the steward should see you. He will not impede you if I am there.’

  I opened the door for her and followed her out into the icy morning air, taking care to keep her great bulk between me and the manor hall. A few of the servants gazed at us curiously, but most were too busy staggering from kitchens to hall, stables to barns, laden with sacks, kegs or great platters of food to notice who was passing in the throng. We had almost reached the gate when a voice rang out.

  ‘A dwarf! Lady Pavia, you are a jewel. Just what we need to bring my son luck and good fortune on this day.’

  Randel was bearing down on us, slapping his leather gloves against his thigh. He was tall and muscular, his face more tanned than when I’d last seen him, his beard and hair gold-streaked by the sun. It suited him, though his thin, hooked nose and close-set eyes still reminded me of a hawk. He evidently did not remember me. Hardly surprising. He’d have taken more notice of the features of a hound or horse than any servant, and I wasn’t as well groomed or well fed as when I’d been in Sir Nigel’s livery.

  ‘Wherever did you find the creature, Lady Pavia?’ He stared down at my filthy rags. ‘He’ll need a wash, though, and something more fitting to wear.’

  Lady Pavia pulled me away from him. ‘He’s just a beggar. I was about to send him on his way.’

  ‘But he’s more than ugly enough to bless the christening. Frighten the devil himself away with that face.’ Randel prodded me in the chest. ‘Dance, can you, dwarf? Tell a few riddles?’

  My jaw clenched.

  ‘Come on, dwarf, show me what you can do or is it the whip you need to make you skip?’

  I minced a few steps like an old whore, plying her trade. ‘I am a father’s child, a mother’s child, but no man’s son. Who am I, m’lord?’ I asked sullenly.

  ‘A daughter, fool. That one’s as old as the ark. If your wits are so blunt, it’s plain to see why you’re in no man’s service. No matter, it’s your crooked back that’ll bring us luck, not your tongue.’

  Randel gazed around the courtyard and caught the eye of a passing kitchen maid. He beckoned her over. ‘You, girl, take this creature and see what you can do to make him smell sweeter and dress him in some clean clothes. Doesn’t matter what, so long as he doesn’t give my guests fleas and lice. Then bring him to stand outside the chapel.’

  He cuffed me across the head with his leather gauntlets. ‘Play your part well, dwarf, and you’ll get a belly full of good meats before you go on your way, and maybe a coin or two, if you please my wife.’

  The girl led me to the back of the kitchens where she bade me strip and brought me a pail of cold water, soap and a horse brush she had borrowed from one of the stable lads. Shivering on the cobbles, I scrubbed my skin with the hard bristles till it was raw, not from any desire to be clean, but to scrub away the burning humiliation and misery. I crouched there naked until the girl returned, bringing oil perfumed with lavender and rosemary to rake through my hair and beard to kill any lice. Rosemary for remembrance. Then she watched with mocking amusement as I pulled on the assortment of clothes she’d found for me. Green-and-red hose, a yellow tunic that was so long it dragged on the ground like a woman’s gown, and a man’s hooded half-cloak, which trailed behind me so that I looked like an old crone on her way to market.

  She stood back, hands on hips, giggling at the effect. ‘That’ll bring a smile to the Lady Christina’s lips. Summat needs to. Her face has been as frozen as a wooden poppet’s ever since her husband arrived. If I was wedded to a man like that, I’d be grinning from now to the feast of St Stephen.’

  ‘Does she know I’ll be in the chapel?’ I asked.

  ‘Outside it,’ the maid corrected. ‘They’d not allow a goblin like you inside a holy place.’ She laughed again. ‘No, orders are the Lady Christina is not to be told. It’s to be a surprise for her.’

  The maid, wrinkling her nose, picked up my rags between thumb and forefinger. ‘These can go on the gatekeeper’s fire.’

  I snatched them back. ‘I’ll be wearing them again as soon as I leave.’

  Even if I froze to death, I would not return to Porlock Weir dressed in that mocking garb.

  The pealing of a small bell sent several doves flying up from the courtyard. The maid grabbed my shoulder. ‘Hurry, that means the child has been named. They’ll be coming out soon.’

  She dragged me towards the tiny chapel and pushed me forward so that I stood near the door. One of the stable lads was hauling vigorously on the bell rope outside, no doubt in the hope that he’d be favoured with a coin for his effort.

  The door opened, and Lady Pavia squeezed out. She was evidently searching for me. She bent low and murmured, ‘Act your part well, Gaubert. Remember your promise.’

  She drew aside as Sir Nigel’s three wards and their elderly chaperon ambled out. Catching sight of me, the girls broke into peals of laughter. ‘Come quick, Christina, look! It’s a little bearded
lady.’

  One shoved the other aside. ‘No, muttonhead, it’s a dwarf. Does it bite?’ She jabbed her finger near my mouth.

  I pretended to snap at her hand and barked. She squealed in delight.

  Then Christina was standing in the doorway. I’d vowed I would not look at her, but I couldn’t help myself. She was dressed in a russet gown, the colour of autumn leaves, trimmed with brown fur, and over it wore a thick fur-lined cloak of forest green. Her hair was braided in two thick plaits down the sides of her face, looped up at the jaw-line and covered with a gossamer-fine veil, held in place by a narrow gold coronet. For the first time, she looked like what she was – a nobleman’s wife. She gave a tiny gasp as she caught sight of me, staggering slightly, and pushing her hand against the door frame to steady herself. For only a fleeting moment our eyes met, but it was long enough for me to see the terror in hers.

  Randel, my son cradled in his arms, emerged to stand beside his wife. ‘There, my beloved, see the surprise Lady Pavia has found for us, a real dwarf to bring our son good fortune.’

  He pushed past her for she seemed frozen to the spot. ‘Turn around, dwarf, let my son touch your crooked back for luck.’

  Staring at the ground, I did as I was bade and felt Randel bending over me as he pressed Oswin’s tiny fingers against me. The child whimpered. It was only a baby’s touch, so why did his little hand burn me as if it was a red-hot brand?

  ‘You too, Christina,’ Randel ordered. ‘As the child’s mother you must rub the dwarf for luck. There’s no need to be afraid. I know he revolts you, for he’s a hideous fellow, but he won’t bite, will you, dwarf? Come along, do it to please me. You wouldn’t want to lose your good fortune, would you?’