[Sir Richard Straccan 02] - Pendragon Banner

by Sylvian Hamilton

  A cock crowed, followed instantly by others from all directions, and a dog set up a steady, relentless, deep mw-mw-mmng. Shutters squeaked open. Someone flung slops, splashing Zingiber’s hind legs; the horse snorted steamily.

  ‘Easy,’ said Straccan softly.

  From the mouth of an alley someone called, ‘Sir!’ It was Larktwist, still in his beggarly guise, towing another ragbag behind him.

  ‘I hoped we’d catch you, sir, before you left.’ He pulled the ragged bundle forward. ‘This here’s Arietta. The abbot’s told her to talk to you.’

  Arietta was stick-thin with big brown eyes and sunken cheeks. Her feet were bare and she wore two gowns, the stuff of each filling the holes in the other. Twenty years old, she looked fifty.

  ‘Is there a cook-shop open?’ Straccan asked.

  ‘Ma Dumpling’s always open, round the corner.’ Larktwist led the way, keeping a firm hold on the woman’s stick-like wrist.

  Ma Dumpling, who had almost forgotten her real name, was a vastly fat woman perpetually presiding over a seething cauldron of soup and dumplings. She did a brisk trade from dawn ’til curfew and kept four daughters and a husband as fat as herself on the proceeds.

  There was a bench for customers who chose to eat on the premises — many brought their bowls to be filled and bore them carefully away — and despite the early hour the pot was already simmering, the dumplings floating in a greyish glossy mass on top.

  Arietta stared painfully at the pot until Larktwist pushed her gently down on the seat. Ma Dumpling, enormous breasts surging above a bulging belly, ladled soup and dumplings into a bowl and Straccan put it in Arietta’s hands.

  And for yourselves, sirs?’ Ma Dumpling asked, beaming, ladle at the ready.

  Seeing Havloc’s hungry look Straccan felt a twinge of conscience. He’d barely been civil to the poor sod since Wace arrived, blaming him, however unfairly, for his predicament. Come to think of it, he’d had no breakfast himself.

  ‘Oh, all right. Two more.’ Catching Wace’s hopeful eye he added, ‘If you want some you can buy your own.’ Wace shrugged and handed over a coin.

  It was surprisingly good. When Arietta’s bowl was empty she licked it clean like a dog.

  ‘Tell em what you told the abbot, girl,’ said Larktwist. ‘There’s naught to fear.’

  Her eyes skated from Straccan to the others and back to Straccan. ‘You put my man in prison.’

  ‘Your man?’

  ‘She’s Pity Me’s woman,’ explained Larktwist.

  ‘E done nothin,’ she said. In the steamy little room her nose began to run and she wiped it on her sleeves. Patches of colour flared and blotched her cheeks.

  ‘He’s a witness,’ Havloc said. ‘He saw the men who robbed me.’

  ‘E ain’t done nothin,’ she whined. ‘Men die in prison. What’ll become of me?’

  ‘Your husband won’t die,’ Straccan said. ‘He’ll be fed, I promise, and when the justices have heard him they’ll let him go.’

  ‘I’ll starve!’ Her filthy hands twisted together desperately.

  ‘No,’ said Straccan. You’ll be fed too.’ He looked at Ma Dumpling, wreathed in savoury steam, dropping fresh dough-balls into the cauldron. ‘If you come here every day until your husband is let out, you will eat. I’ll pay. That’s if you’ve got something useful to tell me.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Until Pity Me’s released. And you can have another bowlful now and some bread.’

  Arietta waited until she’d got it, just in case, before she said any more. ‘Them fellers you’re lookin for: the monk were took out of the Teme with is throat cut. Laid out in a cart by the castle gate, e were, but no one put a name to im.’

  ‘What about the other man?’ Havloc asked.

  ‘Baldy little runt in a coat of patches. The monk called im Tom. I seen em together a couple times.’

  ‘Did he kill the monk?’

  Her gaze slid uneasily over everyone in the steamy room. ‘Dunno. Could ave. Run off, dint e?’

  ‘Do you know where he went?’

  ‘Where they all go. The greenwood. Can I ave some more?’

  Straccan beckoned Ma Dumpling and turned to Wace. ‘Wait here. You too, Havloc. Cigony must hear this. I’ll not be long.’ It was a frail shoot of hope that would probably die a-borning but must be cherished, for until the missing cup was found he was saddled with Havloc, who didn’t want to be here any more than he did.

  Arietta hardly noticed him leave. She held out her hands for the refilled bowl, wondering how long they’d keep her provider in prison. At least a month, with any luck.

  The land steamed under the hot sun and plagues of stinging flies hatched out of the mud, swooping, whining shrilly, upon men and beasts alike, so that the miry roads were filled with travellers afoot and ahorse who from a distance appeared to have gone mad, waving their arms and slapping at invisible tormentors. Many folk who had been kept in Ludlow by the floods left there that morning: pilgrims, merchants and clerks, couriers and soldiers, monks and nuns. Among them was the leper Gamier. The monks of the Maudleys — the lepers’ refuge of Saint Mary Magdalene — besought him to remain with them, and when he would not outfitted him with new clothes and footwear and provisions for his journey. Best of all they had provided a guide: a leper like himself but young and still sturdy, a sinewy Welshman called Illtud, who knew the way to the Hidden Valley and carried a quarterstaff, hoping for nothing better than an opportunity to use it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Richildis’ son was baptised Hugues, her father’s name, and Shawl sulked because he’d not been named Guy and because Benet Finacre, whom they called ‘Old Vinegar’, baptised him and not Father Osric. The manor’s people had been in bad fettle ever since Lady Richildis forbade them to have anything to do with Janiva. Nevertheless they welcomed their young lord’s baby son and worried about his digestion, his colic, his vomiting, his stools, his night-crying and his eczema every bit as much as his mother did.

  This was their old lord’s grandson and, if God spared him, their future lord. It looked as if He might, for although the child was small and born too soon, after the first two anxious days he began to suck strongly. His mother being feverish by then a wet nurse was installed, and once again two babies lay in the old cradle, boys this time, one noble, pale and fretful, the other lowborn, ruddy with health and placid as a dormouse.

  When the wet nurse burst into the steward’s house before dawn, capless, barefoot and in her smock, and woke Robert and his wife from sleep with a wild story of witchcraft and murder, they thought she’d lost her wits.

  ‘Keep her quiet, can’t you?’ Robert sat on the edge of the bed pulling his rumpled shirt and his breeches on, tying the flap of his codpiece while Bretta jabbered her nonsense. ‘What’s the silly bitch doing here? She oughter be up in the chamber with the babbies. Lady Richildis’ll have her guts for garters if she wakes and finds her gone!’

  Sybilla scowled at him over the silly bitch’s head, holding the girl and patting her back comfortingly while Bretta wept and stuttered.

  ‘Fore God, girl, what you on about? Who’s been murdered? Jesus, Bretta, get hold of yourself! There, that’s better. Now slowly, what’s amiss?’

  ‘Old Vinegar says Mistress Janiva m-murdered Dame Alienor and the old lord too, by sorcery, and tried to kill the lady and the b-babby!’

  ‘Balls,’ said the steward, dunking his face in a bowl of water and towelling it with his shirt.

  ‘He’s sent two of them Shaxoe b-bullies to f-fetch her to hall. Can’t you do nothin, steward? She bin good to me, Mistress Janiva has.’

  ‘Go and see what’s happening,’ Sybilla said, handing her husband his belt and jerkin. ‘I’ll be along as soon as I get my clothes on.’

  Word had got about already, and by the time Sybilla had hurried into her gown and coif and arrived panting, a dozen or more horrified villagers were gathered in the hall. Benet Finacre stood beside Sir Roger’s empty seat
at the high board, and below the dais was Janiva, wearing only her shift, with her wrists bound together behind her back and one of the men from Shaxoe slouching at her side.

  It was still dark in the hall. A couple of new-lit torches flared and sputtered in wall-cressets at the back of the dais, and the board was lit by a row of candles weeping wax all along its length. The candles cringed in a sudden draught as one of Richildis’ women twitched aside the curtain at the back of the dais to let her mistress through. Yawning, Richildis sat in her husband’s chair. Her protuberant blue eyes fixed, coldly, upon Janiva.

  ‘I told that slut to stay out of my house.’

  ‘You did, my lady,’ said Finacre, ‘but she must be brought before you to be charged.’

  ‘Charged? With what?’

  ‘Sorcery, my lady, and murder.’

  The onlookers gasped and began to mutter among themselves.

  ‘Silence!’ cried Finacre. In the hush the thin wailing of the baby drifted down from the chamber above. Finacre turned to Richildis.

  ‘God guided you in your dislike of her. She poisoned your husband’s father, the lord of this place, who had done her no harm, and Dame Alienor, that good soul.’ Despite his order the muttering continued and he raised his voice to be heard. ‘She is a witch, a bedmate of Satan,’ he said loudly. ‘In malice she also sought to kill you, my lady, and your child, and when, because of your own virtue and with Our Lady’s protection, you did not succumb, she wrought spells to cause your fever and dry up your milk.’

  From the bosom of his tunic he drew something wrapped in a rag and threw it down on the board.

  ‘There’s proof.’

  Richildis reached and picked it up. The rag fell away. Something dark, dry and shrivelled, something that seemed to have arms and legs and perhaps a head, like a small mummified monkey, rolled onto the board. ‘Ugh,’ she said, disgusted. ‘There are nails in it.’

  ‘Indeed there are. Note where they’re placed, here, and here.’ He touched himself lighdy on breast and belly. ‘I found it in her house, with other filthy devilish things. Bring her up here!’

  Janiva was shoved roughly up the steps to stand across the board from the lady. In the brighter light her face showed bruised and swollen, and a gout of blood had dried below her lip where it had been cut against her teeth by a blow.

  ‘Loose her hands,’ the chaplain said, and to Janiva, ‘pick it up.’

  ‘It’s a mandrake,’ she said. ‘A root that grows in the fields, that’s all. It’s used to ease pain. Any herbalist will tell you.’ She turned it over in her hands. ‘Who struck these nails through it?’

  ‘It can also be used to kill,’ said Finacre, addressing the growing crowd below. ‘This manikin-root is wholly a thing of the devil! Does it not scream when pulled from the ground? A scream so fearful that any hearing it will drop dead! The witch who gathers it must stop her ears with clay from a new grave mixed with the fat of an unbaptised baby.’

  There was a collective gasp of horror and disgust from the listeners. Richildis crossed herself and clutched the little reliquary which she wore round her neck.

  ‘There were other things too,’ Finacre said. ‘Nasty powders and potions, made from weeds and toadstools. Charms of ill. Charms to rouse men’s lust, to steal husbands from their wives’ beds…’ The murmuring in the hall grew louder. ‘Charms to cause sickness and blind honest folks’ eyes to her wickedness. I threw them on the fire. They gave off the reek of Hell.’

  Richildis whimpered and drew back, crossing herself again, her mouth a dark O of fright. Gasps and cries came from the watchers. Those from Shaxoe crossed themselves and horned their fingers towards Janiva to ward off evil. Someone hissed, ‘Witch,’ and someone else shouted, ‘Murderess!’

  ‘Witch she is, beyond doubt,’ Finacre cried. ‘And she knows me for her enemy! Yestereven in the form of a hare she sprang up under my foot to try and bring me down, but I called upon Christ and Saint Anthony and she fled those holy names. I followed her to her house.’

  ‘My lady,’Janiva appealed to Richildis. ‘None of this is true. He is lying!’

  ‘This is no lie,’ the chaplain shouted, shaking the mandrake. ‘With this, my lady, she tried to kill your child in the very womb! See!’ He drew out a long nail from what might be thought the manikin’s belly. Richildis gave a long moan as if it had been drawn from her own flesh. ‘When that failed, in spite and jealousy she sought to dry your milk.’ He displayed the other two nails.

  Several women screamed. Richildis scrambled from her chair and backed to the curtained wall, her women supporting her on either side. Finacre thrust the mandrake at Janiva who tore it from his hand, flung it down and spat in his face. With all his strength he struck her, knocking her from the dais. Her head hit the stone floor hard and she lay still.

  ‘Take her away,’ he snarled. ‘Lock her up!’

  There was uproar in the hall.

  Later that morning Lady Richildis took her son, with his wet nurse and her baby, home to Shaxoe, which pleased Shawl’s people until they learned that she had left Benet Finacre in charge, with Sir Roger’s seal and four of her Shaxoe men to see his orders carried out.

  ‘There’s worse trouble coming, I know it, you know it. Rob, must you go now?’ Sybilla was cutting bread and cheese for her husband to take on his journey. The steward had an errand for Father Finacre and would be away for a few days. He fidgeted as his wife straightened his jerkin, tucked the food into his satchel and spat on her finger to wipe a smut from his chin. ‘Hurry back, Rob. There’s no tellin what Old Vinegar’ll do.’

  He knew it, but what could he do? The chaplain had the seal, there was no arguing with that, and no sooner had Lady Richildis’ cortege disappeared from view than Old Vinegar had demanded the manor’s document chest and begun prying into all Shawl’s business. After a while he sent for the steward and asked what service Janiva rendered to the manor and Robert, surprised, said none for she was free.

  Finacre, deep in a litter of parchment rolls, raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Was she born free?’

  ‘No. Her mother was made free for fostering Sir Roger when Mistress Janiva was a baby.’

  Finacre drummed his fingers on the table. ‘So there should be a document proving her freedom.’

  The steward hesitated. ‘I suppose so. It was all before my time.’

  ‘Very well. Go about your business.’

  The chaplain was pleased with his day’s work. The witch was trapped — and she was a witch, of course she was, how else could she visit him in dreams, filthy dreams intended to pollute him? Night after night ever since he first saw her she had troubled his sleep with images of lust and promises of pleasures unspeakable. And she was powerful! Even in God’s own daylight she tormented him with loathsome desires, and although the hair shirt he wore to subdue his sinful flesh added to his physical misery, it failed altogether to stifle his obscene longings.

  She was clever. The foolish people here thought much of her for easing the ailments she doubtless brought upon them in the first place. Thus had she won their trust. They must be made to see her as he did, to loathe and fear her. The mandrake had frightened them, he had done well there. The nails were a touch all his own.

  The Devil must be fought with whatever weapons came to hand.

  In the evening he sent for Robert again, saying there was nothing in the records to prove the freedom of the woman Audrey, widow of Adam, and her sequelae. When and where, and with what witnesses, he asked, had the grant been made?

  Robert had no idea. Seventeen years ago he’d only been a child himself. ‘Lord Roger’ll know, of course, and he’ll surely come as soon as he can leave the king. Come to think of it,’ he said, his glum face brightening, ‘Father Osric would’ve been a witness.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Finacre, pursing his lips thoughtfully. ‘I shall speak to him, of course. Nevertheless there is no document.’

  ‘But sir, everyone knows she’s free!’

  ‘Was
her father free?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There you are then. The child of an unfree father is unfree; that’s the law. In the absence of any document or any living witness to a grant of freedom I must rule that the woman Janiva is unfree, the property of the manor like all other cattle.’ The small skin roll granting Audrey’s freedom and that of her new-born daughter was safely in the inner pocket of his robe and destined for the brazier in his chamber. ‘As for the charges of murder and the attempted murder by sorcery of Lady Richildis and the child, if she won’t confess she will be put to the ordeal.’

  Robert stared, open-mouthed. ‘Ordeal? There ain’t been ordeals here in years!’

  ‘If she is innocent,’ Finacre said, ‘fire will not hurt her. Or do you doubt God’s justice?’

  ‘No, sir, not me, no, never!’

  Robert hadn’t meant to tell his wife but she’d got it out of him anyway and now she followed him out to the stable and watched as he mounted.

  ‘Somebody’s got to do something,’ she said.

  ‘There’s bugger all I can do about it,’ the steward said. ‘Old Vinegar’s got the seal. He’s the law here. He can do anything. Chop off hands, feet, ears, put out eyes for disobedience, like the bad old days.’ He was trembling. ‘You want that to happen here? If she’s innocent she’ll take no harm from the ordeal; that’s what he said.’

  ‘Ordeal, Jesus! What are things coming to? Rob, don’t you know what happens? They’ll heat a great heavy bar of iron until it’s white hot and make her carry it!’

  ‘Only for three paces,’ the steward said. Seeing his wife’s expression he added hastily, ‘If she’s innocent God won’t let it hurt her!’

  ‘Don’t be a fool! This is wicked'. God’s my life, Rob, you don’t believe all this shit about Janiva, do you?’