The Outcasts of Time

by Ian Mortimer

  ‘I heard six days, William. Clearly. You must have heard wrongly.’

  ‘John, do you not understand? There were two voices, one in each of our heads. Your voice spoke differently from mine.’

  ‘Keep going,’ comes a voice from behind.

  ‘Brother, I know this is the end. But I know too that there is something good in it. I must die now because you must go on. Not just for the sake of your own soul – for mine too. I know I am a sinner. I’ve fornicated with many women, and to tell you the truth, I find it a struggle to be sorry. Lying with the ugliest of them was still a pleasure. How then can I truly repent? I’ll be saying so only in order to obtain my selfish desire, as Master Ley said. So I need you to go on and do that great act for which you’ve been preserved . . .’

  ‘No, William.’

  ‘When you see Saint Peter, seated at the right hand of God, you can say to him that you had a brother once, and he was not all good, but nor was he all bad. And call as witness good King Edward, and tell him that, although William Beard had many faults, they were all faults of love. He never abandoned a woman that had blessed him with her affection, and he was never a traitor to his king, nor to his country, nor his family.’

  It is difficult shuffling through the snow in the dimming light. We have only made half the distance to the old fort.

  ‘You understand me, John? Only through you can my soul be redeemed.’ He stops again, to regain his breath. He looks back to our house, and pauses for a moment. He looks down and rests his stick against his side and fumbles with his hands. I cannot see what he is doing but then he passes something to me.

  I take it and look at it. It is his garnet and gold ring.

  ‘No, William, I cannot accept this.’

  ‘And who else will I give it to?’

  I put the ring on my finger and then we start again on the slow, painful struggle up the hill to the old fort.

  I can see the ramparts now. At one point I slip on the snow-covered grass, and William falls with me, crying out in pain. The guards shout at us, and I lift him to his feet, and start once more to help him.

  ‘You asked me why I ran,’ William says. ‘It was because I knew that I was going to die today. And it was a good thing to know. For this way I could make something of my death. Maybe you too will be able to do the same thing for someone else, when your time comes.’

  ‘I cannot understand this world,’ I reply. ‘In our time, we struggled to get by and life was hard but we lived well. We worked long days and had straightforward pleasures. But now, so many things are easier – yet what does the world do? It revels in causing suffering and killing.’

  We reach the top of the hill and pass between the white mounds where the gate once stood. Before us, the whole of the moor appears: miles and miles of undulating white hills. Over to one side of the fort I can see a man fixing a noose around a bough of a lone oak tree, testing its strength. A horse has been brought forward, and waits there.

  William falls silent, looking at the last red gleams of the sunset in the clouds above the moor. After a while he says, ‘You were right. The wilderness is God’s Creation unchanged. But it is not God with whom you must now deal. It is not God who stops men from going to Heaven. God welcomes all those who escape the clutches of the Devil, and it is the Devil with whom you must parley next. Go with God, John, my brother. Go with God.’

  Then he turns to me, and I feel his arm around my shoulder squeeze me tight in an embrace, and he rests his head against mine for a moment.

  Then the men come for him, and take him away from me. They take him to the tree. Another guard gestures for me to follow.

  William cries out with pain as they drag his bad leg over the horse’s back. The noose is placed over his head and fastened around his neck. The horse is steadied, and then one of the men beckons me. I step forward, hardly knowing what I am doing, and take the reins of the horse.

  ‘Forgive me, brother,’ I say, looking up at him. He has raised his eyes to Heaven and does not look down. My voice is so thick with emotion I do not know that he has heard me. So I say again, in a louder voice, ‘Forgive me, William, blessed and best of all brothers. My heart goes with you, always. We’ll be brothers until the end of time.’ And closing my eyes, I lead the horse forward, saying the words of the benediction we learned as children, ‘Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen.’

  After I stop speaking all I can hear are the horse’s hooves crunching on the snow.

  A man takes the reins from me. I stare at the white moor.

  I hear a voice, that of the man who relieved me of the reins. ‘You may break his neck if you wish.’

  I turn.

  ‘Clutch his body and let yourself fall suddenly. He’ll die more easily.’

  I look at William’s twisting body. I walk over and place my arms around his jolting waist. I shudder at the thought that my next move will end my brother’s life. But his body is struggling to leave this world, like a fly caught in a web. I jump, letting my full weight fall with his body. I hear a muffled snap, and see his neck suddenly much elongated, distorted with our combined weight. I put a foot to the ground and slip, and fall, and lie there, staring at the muddied snow.

  I see all the tears that have ever fallen frozen beneath me, stretching away, across the moor. That is us. We are living on the frozen tears of our ancestors.

  I look up to see William turning slowly, his eyes staring towards Heaven. He is no longer out of time. He is no longer of this world.

  ‘Go, now,’ commands one of the soldiers. ‘We will take his corpse down the hill to the churchyard in the morning.’

  I get to my feet, and start walking slowly across the fort. I descend the far side of the hill, climbing over snow-covered hedgerows. I am soaked. I am so tired. After an hour, it is dark. I no longer know where I am. I yearn to lie down, and I resent my body’s weakness. I start to hate my feebleness of mind too. When I fall in the snow, and lie there, I despise myself. I should die of cold, and be eaten by foxes and wild pigs.

  But I have not yet fulfilled my promise to William. Get up! Get up, John. You have no right to lie here longer, nor to resent yourself. To hate yourself is to squander the privilege of being alive.

  I struggle back to my feet and stumble on through the darkness, lurching from hedgerow to hedgerow. After two hours I come to a river and wade into its cold water, hoping I will be swept away. It is deep, and the blackness covers me, so that I cannot breathe. I struggle to the surface, just as I did this morning, and emerge into darkness and feel a rock. I gasp for air, and the grief washes over me like another river, for when I struggled out of the snow this morning I called for William and he was there. Now I know he is gone forever.

  I have lost everything – all I have now of my own time is my old boots and his ring.

  I climb out of the water and, shivering, climb up a hill through some woods. The cold is painful – I cannot rest. So I walk on, and on. After what seems like an age I find a lane, and some time after that I hear a lowing sound, and it seems gentle. Hands outstretched, I feel a wall, then a wooden door and the bolt. I enter the warm darkness of a byre, and sink down on the straw, listening to the cows breathing and chewing in the darkness, gratefully letting the river of sleep wash me away.

  Chapter Six

  I am woken by the sound of the barn door opening. An arc of light cuts across my eyes. I look around. Half a dozen cows are eating from a manger, and a bushy-eyebrowed farmer is staring at me. He is wearing a round straw hat and a sleeveless jerkin over his shirt, and brown breeches that start high above his waist and end at the tops of his muddy leather boots.

  ‘What are you doing in my barn?’

  I get to my feet and walk slowly towards the door. I pause, blinking in the light. I feel dizzy. The view spins around me and, unsteady on my feet, I slump to my knees. I reach out and put a hand on the wall.

  ‘Forgive me,’ I say.

  ‘Where’ve you com
e from?’

  ‘Moreton.’

  ‘You’re dressed in mighty strange clothes. Even for Moreton.’

  ‘They’re from my grandfather.’

  ‘You’re hungry?’

  I nod.

  ‘I’ll not turn away a starving man reduced to wearing his grandaddy’s clothes. Go on inside the house and ask the wench for some breakfast. You’ll find her in the kitchen.’

  I nod my thanks, get to my feet and take a step to the barn door. I see thatched farm buildings, fields and trees. Although sunny, it has clearly been raining recently as the barnyard is a quagmire of mud. ‘Where is this place?’

  ‘This here’s Halstow, in Dunsford parish.’

  I look at the house, sunken into the landscape. Even the chimney stack looks old.

  ‘Through the front door, turn left. She’s called Kitty,’ says the farmer. ‘Go on, she won’t bite you. Long as you don’t lay a finger on her.’

  I go to the house: the door is open. Inside is a flagstone-floored passage and a doorway that leads through to a whitewashed kitchen. It is light and airy; the large windows are filled with many small rectangular panes of glass. There is a fire on the hearth burning gently, smoke twisting its way up the chimney. A young woman in a long apron and a bonnet of thin white fabric is busy kneading dough. A wisp of dark hair is loose on one side of her face. I can almost hear William commenting on her pretty features. Thinking about him overwhelms me for a moment, and I cannot say anything.

  She looks up at me. ‘And who might you be?’

  ‘John – from Moreton.’

  ‘Well, I’m none the wiser for that. What do you want?’

  ‘Your master said that I might ask you for some breakfast.’

  ‘That’s a crooked tongue in your mouth. Are you sure you’re from Moreton?’

  ‘I’ve been travelling for many years.’

  She resumes working. ‘He’s a soft-hearted one, is that George Hodges. Always letting strangers sup and stay or break their fast. Next thing, he’ll be having a bell put in so that any passing ragrowsterer can call to be waited on. So, what’ll you be wanting? Bread and butter with sage? Or bread fried in dripping?’

  ‘I will be more than content with a little bread and butter. Thank you.’

  ‘Sit yourself down over there by the window. I’ll be seeing to your breakfast just as soon as I get these loaves in the oven.’

  I sit where she directs me, and look around the room. On a shelf above a large table against the far wall there are four copper pans of various sizes with long handles. A wooden salting tub is to my right. To my left there are working surfaces with milk dishes, dripping pans and pots piled on them. Flitches of bacon and strings of onions hang from a rail below the ceiling. In the fireplace is a spit, several gridirons and two brass kettles. A tall wooden piece of furniture – a sort of chest on legs with four open shelves above, displaying metal platters – is on the far left-hand side of the room. Near it is a tall machine in a wooden case. There is a clicking sound coming from it.

  My gaze returns to the young woman. I watch the movement of her breasts as she leans over, kneading the dough. William would not have been able to take his eyes off her. She goes over to the fireplace, picks up a metal implement, and then steps around the hearth to open the wooden door to the oven. She places her loaves on a griddle inside and closes the door quickly, sealing it with clay from a wooden pail, kept beneath.

  ‘Now,’ she says, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Bread and butter.’

  As she takes a loaf and a knife and starts to cut a couple of thick slices, someone rings a small bell. She pays it no attention. After four or five rings I realise it is the wood-cased machine, ringing by itself, like the clock in Chagford. It chimes eight times in all, the last dying away slowly. Then it continues with its slow clicking noise.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say, ‘does every house around here have one of those in its kitchen?’

  ‘Aw, he’s a one, isn’t he? Most men would’ve placed a thing like that in the parlour for all the gentlefolk to see. But not old George. “We country folk live in the kitchen,” he says, “so that’s where I’ll be putting my clock.”’

  She hands me two slices of bread, spread thickly with butter, on a smooth metal platter. The bread is made with wheat – far from the husk-flecked brown rye loaves we used to eat.

  ‘Well, are you going to take it or what?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t got all day. It’s eight o’clock already, and I’ve yet to collect the eggs, and clean Mister Hodges’ daughters’ room.’

  I take the platter from her. ‘I’m sorry for my slowness.’

  ‘It’s just Mister Hodges’ other maid, Polly, left to be married three weeks ago,’ she says, ‘so the housework’s all down to me now.’ And with that she marches out of the kitchen, leaving me to gaze at this world of copper pots, white bread and light.

  I eat the bread and butter very slowly.

  When I finish, I sit listening to the click, click, click of the clock.

  What now? There is nothing for me out on the moor. Nor here, in this comfortable house. It is poor people that need me, and whom I need.

  Still I do not move from the seat. Only when the clock strikes its little bell once more do I get up. I walk over to it. I see a circle of engraved marks, which must be numbers. I see a ‘I’, a ‘II’ and a ‘III’ in succession. I follow the remaining numbers, noting the ‘v’ mark for a five. I see an ‘x’ as two ‘v’s, one on top of the other.

  My curiosity shifts to the window, which is of a type I have not seen before. The glass is contained in two wooden frames, both painted white. These frames each have six rectangular panes and are held in a larger, outer frame. When one frame is pushed up and the other down, as they are now, a single catch holds them in place and thus secures the whole aperture. I cannot help but think that it would be easy for someone wanting to break into this house to smash one of the small panes and undo that catch. Is there really so little crime in this country now that farmers do not need to guard against housebreakers and thieves?

  Through the window I watch a pair of birds flying over the barn. Sheep graze in the small square fields beyond. A sprig of ivy just outside flutters in the breeze.

  Still Kitty has not returned. And so I walk back across the kitchen and make my departure without saying goodbye. Outside, I see Farmer Hodges walking from an outhouse with a spade over his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Mister Hodges,’ I call to him. He raises a finger to his hat in acknowledgement and disappears behind a linney.

  I head east, towards Exeter. The lanes here have hedgerows covered in weeds, thorns and brambles. I suspect they are the remnants of the earth banks that folk created in our day – a ditch four feet wide and four feet deep, with a bank of the same dimensions. But the ditches have largely been left to silt up and fall in on themselves, so they are grass-filled dints in the ground, running alongside the lanes. The road itself between these shallow ditches has a familiar trampled strip of grass down the middle, where horses pulling carts add their manure. The edges are rutted with wheels, which crush the few weeds or grasses that try to grow there.

  I recognise the twists in the lane at the next turning: from here it is just over two miles into Exeter. Occasionally I catch sight of some of the people of this time, which must be the year seventeen forty-four. Most of them are riding horses, or driving small carts. They wear front-fastening long tunics of green, blue, grey and red. The men wear black hats and white shirts, and their shoes have buckles. The women have long dresses with big skirts, and coats that cover their bodies from neck to foot. Their hats sit perched atop their strangely coiffured hair. Many wear long, elegant gloves. But a country lass who passes me hurriedly on foot, carrying a pail of fresh milk in each hand, looks very different. She is wearing a straw hat, like Farmer Hodges’ one, and her shirt sleeves are rolled up, exposing her naked arms beyond the elbow. Her light-brown skirt is very high, with a belt not far below her breasts. A lad of perhaps fifteen ru
nning after her shouts out the word ‘Charity’, which seems to be her name, for she looks around and waits for him. I study his clothes too: a short blue jacket and brown breeches which extend to the knee, with grey hosen below that. Yet again, my clothes are obviously out of date.

  About two hours after leaving the farm I arrive at the top of Dunsford Hill and look down on Exeter. There, before me, stands the old cathedral: two crenellated defenders of my time and my art. One of the two great towers has lost its low spire but otherwise the old building seems unchanged. The city around it, however, has spread out considerably. It used to be defined by its high surrounding walls. Now those walls have disappeared behind taller buildings. There are fewer gardens. There are too many houses in the suburbs to be able to see the bridge, let alone the river. It seems as if the whole city has risen within the walls like a loaf of bread, and spilled out.

  I walk down the hill and pass beneath the eaves of thatched houses with tall chimneys and glazed windows. Everybody looks at me. I smile nervously at some of them. No one smiles back. Some are haughty. One man strides by with no more than the briefest glance in my direction. He looks less than thirty but he has silver-white hair in tight curls falling down either side of his head. He carries no sword – indeed, no one seems to be wearing a sword – but he wields a long, very straight stick, with a golden head on it, swinging its tip out in front of him and striking the ground with it.

  When I come to the end of the street and see the bridge, I experience a snatch of joyful recognition: it is the same old bridge across the Exe that I used to take in my day, with the church of Saint Edmund at the far end. Houses have been built along its length. Clothes left hanging out to dry from the upper windows above detract from its grandeur; the stonework looks as though it is crumbling into the river. Nevertheless, it has lasted. There are still piles of rubbish on the marshy riverbank where I saw the rats nearly four hundred years ago. On the far side of the bridge I turn left down Frog Lane and see old timber-framed buildings – but even the oldest of them now have glass in their windows. There is a strong smell of woodsmoke in the air. At the end of the street there are gardens through which a wide leat runs. The waters slosh and swirl through it. I look up and see the sandstone city wall on the hill above me. I am glad I have returned; my only regret is that I am alone.