by Max Gilbert
Murder had never bothered de Brasy.
Nor did his master's devotion to sorcery, for he had no belief in it. He thought the Arab a cunning trickster, a parasite feeding off the master's gullibility. Like the beast he was, de Brasy had a highly-developed sense of danger. One way or another, he was certain Lord Rainard was heading for disaster, and when he fell, like a great tree he would drag lesser trees, his servants, with him. It was not an easy decision. He had worried over it for months, considering and rejecting one plan after another. Responding to that warning nudge of danger's knuckle, he knew the time was ripe for a career move. He had money hidden, not enough to content him but he knew where there were gold coins a plenty, so much that a few handsful would not be missed. And by the time he was, he would be far away.
In the branches above, the thrush was still pouring out its torrent of joy. A little bone whistle hung from de Brasy's belt. He put it to his lips and blew a shrill piercing call that stunned the thrush into resentful silence. He listened. Nothing. Dismounting, he looped the reins over a deadfall and sat down with his back against a big ash tree to wait awhile. Presently he blew once more, just as the thrush was getting into its stride again. This time an identical note came back from among the trees to his left, and soon a figure appeared between the brambles, silent as a shadow. It walked upright on two legs and had a whistle like de Brasy's hanging round its neck, but that was all there was to show it was human. Clad in wolfskins, all features hidden by a massive filthy beard and matted thatch of hair, it stood and stared sullenly at de Brasy. The breeze, blowing towards the seated man, carried the odour of old blood and decay.
'Well, Sawney? I see you're still this side of Hell,' said de Brasy.
'How long for, I wonder.'
The creature growled like a dog, deep in its chest.
'Does it never worry you? Hell? Eternal torment? No, I don't suppose it does.' De Brasy stood up and leaned gracefully against the tree. 'I've got another job for you. Or would you rather I gave it to someone else?'
The creature grinned showing big brown teeth, and shambled forward shaking its head. 'Na, na, master.' It seemed quite shocking to hear words emerge, recognisably human. As shocking as if a bear or a dog had spoken like a Christian. 'Sawney'll do it, good old Sawney. What'll you give us?'
'Meat,' said de Brasy. 'Venison. Mutton. Man. I know which you prefer.'
The brute chuckled. 'Aye,' it said with dreadful relish. 'Meat! Man! Aye. What's to do, master?'
'Same as you always do. Travellers are corning, Sawney. Two men. One on a big bay horse, the other on a grey. Take em, kill em, eat em if you want, horses and all.' He slipped the reins back over his horse's head and swung up into the saddle. 'Enough to feed your disgusting tribe for a week. Two sheep and a fat doe, as well; they'll be here for you afterwards. But I want the men's heads. Understand? Recognisable. Not gnawed! So I know you got the right ones. And anything they may be carrying--except money, you can have that. Anything else--jewellery, lucky charms, letters, swords, knives –I want those. Anything, understand? Put the heads and everything else in a sack and hang it in this tree. I'll come and get it.'
'When they coming, master?'
'A week, maybe less. Wait and watch, Sawney. Have fun.'
The creature laughed and turned back to the bushes. Tun,' it gloated. 'Us'll do that, master.'
De Brasy looked up at the sun and down at his shadow. Time enough to reach the town and have a bit of fun himself.
Chapter 24
The Cistercian monks of Saint Mary the Virgin at Altraham, shockingly hard up after floods drowned their flock of sheep and a storm threw down their barns, had decided to prod the conscience of the laity by putting the relics of their house in a wicker handcart and trundling them round the country to rouse sympathy and raise funds. A peep at Saint Joseph for a penny, or a halfpenny, or a fourthing, or –as they got hungrier –even a couple of eggs.
It chanced that by the bridge at Hexford they met a similar turnout, the Austin canons from Saints Peter and Paul at Fimberly, a small priory in like straits and blessed with the same bright idea. They had the corpse of their Saint Osric, not a patch on Joseph, even if Fimberly had all, or almost all, of their saint while Altraham had only the skull and one hand of theirs, and a dubious leathery hairy object hotly defended as Saint Joseph's scalp. The two parties approached the bridge from opposite ends, each leader waving his great cross and bawling to clear the road. Neither would retreat or give way. It was obvious, said the Cistercians, that Saint Joseph had precedence, a great saint whom all the world revered. A mere Saxon saintling, a petty local hermit of whom no one had ever heard, must take second place. Fair enough, retorted the Austin canons, if Joseph was genuine, but all the world knew Altraham's saint –the dying bequest of a lecherous local lordling, who hoped thereby to get a leg-up into paradise –was a fake, just the skull and paw of an old monkey and a bit of dog skin. Remarks were also passed about the Cistercians going bare-arsed, all the world knowing, jeered the canons, that they wore no drawers under their habits!
Matters proceeded a. verbis ad verbera, and during the melee an enterprising bystander made off with Saint Joseph, what was left of him, and so poor Altraham lost its only treasure, and must now go home in disgrace.
They sat at the roadside, bruised, torn, muddy and sullen, and didn't even look up as two horsemen approached.
'Brothers,' said Straccan, 'have you seen a fair-haired man riding a black horse pass this way? Perhaps with a little girl?'
They had not, nor would they have noticed so despondent were they. But Brother Udemar still clutched his collecting box and, without hope, just out of habit, he rattled it under Straccan's stallion's nose. Zingiber shied violently and nearly unseated his rider.
'What a bloody silly thing to do,' said Bane. 'I've a mind to stick that box up your arse!'
Brother Udemar gave him a belligerent look but thought better of a retort. Zingiber curvetted and pranced a bit more but let himself be soothed, although showing the whites of his eyes to the monks.
Straccan surveyed the row of tattered churchmen. 'What happened to you?'
They told him.
'Well,' said Straccan, 'you've still got the cart.'
What good was that? They had no bones to show!
'Bones are bones,' Straccan observed. He looked absently at the church and churchyard a short way from the bridge. 'I doubt anyone could tell one old skull from another,' he said.
They followed his gaze. Possibility dawned. They looked shiftily at one another. Brother Stephen, the youngest, just out of the novitiate, stared blankly with one eye; the other was closed and blackening fast. The penny dropped. Scandalised, he shouted, 'You mean, dig someone up?' His brethren fell to hushing and shushing him, and one even clapped a hand over the boy's mouth.
'Is there a decent place to spend the night on this road?' Bane asked. There was a Templars' hostel, they told him eagerly, four leagues along, easily reached before dark.
'We must be on our way,' said Straccan. 'Here ...' He leaned over and dropped a penny into Brother Udemar's box. 'God be with you, Brothers. I hope you find your lost bones.'
Out of sight of the battered troop they began to laugh. Sir Miles and Larktwist reached Hexford bridge at dusk and decided to spend the night in the church porch. There was no alternative, Hexford being nothing but a huddle of mud hovels, a church and the priest's house –a slightly larger hovel than the rest. There was a half full moon swimming between scudding clouds and frequent showers of stinging rain.
Knocking at the priest's door brought his frightened hearth-mate from her bed, wrapped in a ragged blanket. 'Father Leonard's away,' she said. 'You ain't goin to lock me up again, are you?'
'What?'
'Cos Father's paid the ransom, all but a bit, and he'll pay that, honest!'
'What ransom?' Miles asked, puzzled.
'What Father Len had to pay to get me back, when the king's men took me away.'
'Oh,' said
Miles. 'That!' He hid a smile. Annoyed by an upsurge of opposition from the clergy, all of them inconvenienced and many impoverished by the Interdict, King John had locked up their barns and storehouses, demanding payment before he would restore them. Far worse, he had ordered all their unofficial wives, mistresses, hearth-mates, bidie-ins, whatever, to be locked up until their partners bailed them out. Country-wide, from panic-stricken parish priests left to mind their own babies, wash their own drawers and tend their own cook-pots, and from arrogant bishops deprived of their nocturnal consolations, a great stream of silver poured into the welcoming royal coffers. After a brief separation from their masters, the ladies were returned home unhurt, many of them having quite enjoyed the enforced holiday from their bed-and-board obligations. The whole country was still giggling.
'No,' Miles reassured her. 'It's nothing to do with that. We just want to pass the night in the church porch.'
'That's all right. You can put your horses in the byre if you want; it's out back.'
They settled the horses and the brute in the priest's byre, company for his scrawny cow, and made themselves as comfortable as they could among their packs in the porch. It was cold and the flagstones were damp and slimy with moss, but it was out of the wind. Larktwist mumbled as he rummaged in their packs for food.
'Think yourself lucky, spy,' said Miles. 'You are sitting here a free man, out of the rain about to eat your dinner, instead of being head down in the turds back at Fenrick. Have a bit of pie.' He cut and passed a slice.
'Lucky, is it?' Larktwist scowled, chewing and spitting. 'Well, I'd as lief not be dead, but it's no great good fortune to be sitting here eating bat-shit pie!'
'Eh?' Miles took a bite and spat it out. 'The swindling old besom! It's green with mould inside!'
'Not the only thing that's green,' muttered Larktwist, hurling the rest of his portion out among the graves. 'Here, I've got a pasty somewhere ...' He burrowed in his layers of clothing and produced a flattened object wrapped in dock leaves. He broke it in half and gave one piece to Miles. 'This was baked this morning. I bought it hot from the oven. Remember? I suggested you might do the same but would you listen? It's not enough for two, really, but better than nothing.'
After eating their meagre supper they slept the sleep of the just. Miles was woken by a sharp poke in the ribs and Larktwist's hand over his mouth to stop him crying out. He removed the hand, none too gently. 'What's the matter?'
'Something funny's going on. Out there. Look!'
In the graveyard among the hummocks and rampant weeds, knee-deep in mist, were figures moving about, bending, standing up again, making strange gestures. There was an occasional soft thud but otherwise silence. Owls hooted. Miles felt the short hairs at the back of his neck prickle as they rose.
'What is it?' he whispered.
'Dunno. Ghosts?'
Miles crossed himself. 'Lord, protect us!' They pressed back into the deep blackness of their shelter, watching. There were five figures, weird shapes in the moonlit mist, and their eerie silence was unnerving. 'It might be witchcraft,' Miles hissed. 'Some evil rite. They must be stopped! The priest--'
'The priest's away,' Larktwist reminded him.
'Well, we must do something'
'Keep our heads down?' Larktwist suggested hopefully.
Miles swallowed. An enemy, a siege, a battle, a melee, these he could cope with. The powers of evil were outside his experience. Then he had an idea. Very quietly, praying it wouldn't screech, he eased the church door open and slipped inside. He found the holy water stoup, made a cup of his leather bonnet and scooped some water into it. Turning, he almost fell over Larktwist who had crept in behind him.
'Get out of the bloody way,' he snapped.
'I was just making sure nothing happened to you. Besides, it's safer in here. They wouldn't dare come inside the church. Where you going? There's no need to be brave, is there? Oh, Christ, I hate heroes.'
Miles moved stealthily out into the porch again where he lit their hand-lantern, closing its sides to hide the flame and, half-crouching, he began to creep across the mounds and hollows towards the uncanny group. He was within a few feet of them when there was a loud crack and one hooded ghostly shape said, 'Shit!'
'What's up?'
The sodding shovel's broken!'
'Use your hands.'
'You come here and use yours,' said the first phantom furiously.
'Why should I do all the bloody work?'
Crossly, because his legs were still shaking, Miles stood up, spilling his capful of water. 'Oi,' he said. 'What are you lot up to?' The first ghost squealed and fell prostrate at his feet. The others grabbed hold of one another and stood, shaking and stammering.
'W-what is it? Is it an angel? B-blessed Saint Joseph, is it you?'
'No it's not,' snorted Miles. 'What's going on?' He stepped forward, and just then the moonlight slanted into the shallow hole they'd been infilling, and on a knobbly sack lying among their feet.
'Let's have a look at you.' He uncovered the lantern and held it up. Monks! White monks, probably. Their robes, drawn up and tucked into their belts as if they were reaping, were so stained and torn it was difficult to be sure. They had obviously had a hard time of it recently. He had never seen a bunch of monks so tattered and battered, to say nothing of shifty. They might as well carry a banner with up to no good blazoned on it. But it was not for him to interfere with what must be Church business, however peculiar it seemed. Still, curiosity prodded him.
'What's in the sack?'
'What sack?' Brother Paul looked round wildly for inspiration.
'There. By your foot.'
'Oh. That sack. They are the ... the bones ... the bones of holy Saint Joseph,' babbled Brother Paul desperately. A small gasp came from the others who had stopped clutching one another and looked poised to run at any moment. 'They were stolen from us," Brother Paul continued. 'We have recovered them.'
'A likely story!'
'I swear, Sir, we were set upon, here, on the very bridge itself, just yesterday. And abused! They called us a bunch of bare-arsed sheep-shaggers, may they rot in hell! And we were beaten. And robbed.'
'Who robbed you?'
They all spoke at once. 'Misbegotten black canons! Those Austin buggers! Them with their beards!' That at least had the genuine ring of indignant truth.
'What?' Larktwist had silently appeared at Miles's side. 'You were robbed by other monks?'
'It isn't funny,' said Brother Paul angrily. 'God and Saint Joseph will punish the ungodly!'
'Is it true?' Miles asked. 'You swear it before God?'
Another collective gasp, but Brother Paul –who would end his days, greatly revered, as Abbot Paul –was equal to it. 'It's perfectly true. They beat us; and we were robbed. I swear it before God!'
'Oh well, if that's your story and you're sticking to it,' said Miles resignedly, 'you'd better be on your way before someone else decides to have a go at you.'
'Yes, Sir, thank you, Sir.' Three bags full, Sir, thought Brother Paul resentfully. He picked up the sack and slung it over his shoulder. It rattled. One of the others picked up a collecting box. Another slyly kicked the broken shovel out of sight under a bush.
'Here.' Miles rummaged in his pocket and dropped a halfpenny in the box. 'Now, Brothers. Have you seen a man and his servant on this road? He rides a tall bay, the servant rides a grey.'
'Yesterday. They passed us here just after the fight,' said Brother Udemar helpfully.
'He gave us a penny,' said Brother Paul.
'Well, a halfpenny's all you'll get from me and lucky at that, seeing you woke us up! Were they heading north?'