‘Why are you telling me this now? Why have you broken your promise?’
‘Because you were making such a fool of yourself with your boasting and lording it over the others. Better you heard it from me than from someone who didn’t know the full story.’
Will sat with his head in his hands. All his great dreams had come clattering down around him yet still he persisted.
‘One day I will find them,’ he said, quietly, ‘and I will pay them back for all they have done to me. ‘I will hurt them as they have hurt me. I will kill them if necessary. I will, I will kill every one of them.’
He stood up, glared furiously at Abel, and shouted, ‘Don’t expect me to do a minute’s more work on this house. I’m finished with it and with you. I’ll find work elsewhere and I will get my revenge.’
He flung out of the house, slamming the door behind him. As he ran down the track he almost knocked Ezekial over, never even seeing him as he tore along, not knowing or caring where he was headed.
Ezekial approached the door of the cottage and knocked before opening the door.
‘Hello,’ he called, and bent to enter under the low lintel. Abel was sitting on the bed, elbows on his knees, shaking his head. He didn’t notice Ezekial until he was standing right in front of him.
‘I take it you told him,’ said Ezekial. Abel nodded and sat up. Looking Ezekial in the eye, he said,
‘He didn’t like it. I knew he wouldn’t. I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve made things worse. He’s sworn revenge on everyone involved.’
‘How can he? He doesn’t know exactly where he came from, does he?’
‘No, but I wouldn’t put it past him to find out eventually. He’s bad through and through, just like his father. Someone’s going to get hurt, I can feel it in my bones and it could all be my fault. Why didn’t I tell him years ago?’
‘He would still have been angry,’ said Ezekial, reasonably. ‘At least he knows the truth now, whether he likes it or not. Where has he gone?’
‘Away. He said he’s finished with me and this house. He is eaten up by anger and hatred. I don’t know where he’ll go, and do you know, I don’t really care anymore.’ He rubbed his big hands over his head as if he was trying to calm his mind. ‘I’m going to finish this house then I’m going to go far away from here, somewhere where I’m not known, maybe somewhere I’ve never been before, and try to put all this behind me. It’s been over twenty years of my life I’ve spent on him, but he’s not having any more of me, no more, ever.’
‘Maybe that’s for the best,’ said Ezekial, laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Why not come back with me and eat with us tonight?’
‘I’m not very good company,’ warned Abel, ‘but I’ll come.’
***
Will went where he always went when he wanted to be alone, his hideaway by the Mere. Buried deep in the undergrowth it was a place of shelter, if rather cold on a December day. He crawled inside and flung himself down on the thick bed of bracken and heather he had built up over the months. He had woven more branches above and covered them with sods so that only the heaviest rain penetrated. There was a moth-eaten blanket he had stolen from one of the better cottages, a cracked cup and a jug for water or mead when he could get it. Today it was full of the latter, taken from the ale house when the landlord had turned his back and he drank it down angrily. Furious thoughts of revenge and punishment raced through his mind, who he would find and what he would do to them. Plan after plan came to him but there was always a big problem: he had no idea where to start looking. Feeding on his thoughts he drained the jug and curled up under the blanket to try to make some sort of plan but the mead on an empty stomach soon sent him to sleep in a drunken haze.
The news of Will’s departure soon spread but nobody showed any sympathy for him and most agreed they would do perfectly well without his laziness and bad work.
‘Let’s hope that’s the last we ever see of him,’ said Alfric as they began their day’s work.
‘I feel sorry for Abel,’ said Ben, but most of the others felt Abel should have spoken out long ago. Nobody knew exactly what had passed between the two in the cottage but it was bad enough to send Will scurrying off into the dark.
‘Perhaps he’ll drown himself in the Mere and that’ll be the end of him,’ grunted another.
Whatever happened to Will, the Christmas feast was fast approaching and there was much discussion about what would happen this year. Last year Lord Hesketh had sent hampers of food for the men and they recalled the goose, the minced meat pies, the sweet cakes and the ale. On the eve of Christmas many of them went to the nearest church for a midnight mass, returning for a few hours’ sleep before the festivities began. It was a rest day from work and there was the anticipated feast. Liliath and Hester and the few other women in the village had been busy for days making pies and pastries, bringing out fruits and nuts they had gathered in the autumn. A goose had been killed, some of the men had been fishing and there was meat and game to be cooked. There was plenty for everyone, and washed down with copious amounts of ale and mead there was soon a merry atmosphere with all problems forgotten for the day.
Several people exchanged small gifts they had made, a new wooden spoon for Hester, a little casket for Liliath, a new jerkin for Jehan, and a new leather apron for Jacob to use in the forge. The girls had made little leather purses for their friends which they could tie to their belts and Cuthbert had his little Tudor rose carving for Jennet. It was after the feast that he contrived to catch her alone when she had gone to fetch more of the sugar cakes from the larder that he caught her in the passage way and presented her with it. She was entranced with it, the best gift she had ever received and immediately went to show it to everyone. It was passed from hand to hand until it reached Abel who had been sitting quietly at the side watching the gathering. He took it in his big hands and looked at it closely, turning it round and round.
‘Exquisite!’ he declared at last. When he looked up at Cuthbert, there were tears in his eyes. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’ he said, quietly. ‘I got you wrong. I have never seen the like of this in all my life.’ He turned it about then looked Cuthbert in the face. ‘Do you think you could make a bigger one?’
‘A bigger one? What for?’
‘Would it make a roof boss for the Great Hall? Lord Hesketh wanted family crests but what could be better than the crest of the Royal house? It would appeal to his pride, don’t you think? How about it?’
Cuthbert beamed.
‘Aye, that it would. I’ll take some measurements tomorrow.’
‘Do you mean that my little rose is going to adorn the house of a great lord?’ asked Jennet, who had been listening to the conversation.
‘Aye, I do lass,’ said Abel. ‘The Rufford rose for a Rufford lass, and for a great house too. How about that then?’
The festivities continued around them with music and dancing, clowning and laughter. For the day all problems were forgotten, all disputes set aside. Tomorrow the work would begin again, if a little later for some people who over indulged in the bounty of the season.
***
There were several sore heads and green faces next morning but Abel expected everyone to be ready to work from dawn to dusk on these short winter days. He was feeling a strange sort of freedom as he walked to the house. With Will gone he had no need to worry about him, no secret to hide. He was out of his life for good, he hoped.
As he neared the building he could see that something was not right. Doors were open that had been closed, neat piles of wood, ready for use, were scattered about and, when he entered the Great Hall, the wooden scaffolding they had erected to work on the new decorations in the roof, had been pulled down. A few panes of glass in the windows had been broken and there was a mess of mud everywhere, daubed on the walls and the newly completed furniture. He stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the damage. As he was joined by the rest of the men they all stood and looked at the mess.
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br /> ‘Who would do this?’ asked one.
‘Do you need to ask?’ shouted Alfric. ‘Who would want to do this, destroy our work, set us back days?’
‘Will.’ They all agreed it was just the sort of spiteful act he would do.
‘Well, it proves one thing,’ said Cuthbert, picking up a fallen stool. ‘He’s still around somewhere.’
‘Unless this was his parting gift,’ suggested Ben.
‘Wherever he is, it’s going to take us the best part of today to clear up the mess,’ sighed Abel, checking round the building to make sure there was no major damage. ‘We’d better check in the rest of the building.’
The men split up, some going to the east wing and looking in all the many rooms there, and some entering the west wing and going into every room there. They eventually congregated in the Great Hall again.
‘Well?’ asked Abel.
‘He’s been in the scullery and pulled all the washing troughs away from the wall,’ reported Ben. ‘He’s also gouged great holes in the main table in the kitchen. Can’t see anything else anywhere.’
‘What about the west wing?’ asked Abel.
‘There are muddy footprints throughout so he’s obviously walked into every single room,’ said Cuthbert. ‘Doors are open and a few of the window shutters but the only damage I can find is this.’ He held up the Green Man carving he had made for the solar. It was in two pieces, neatly chopped with an axe or a chisel. ‘Broken the wall fixing too.’
‘Nothing that can’t be mended,’ sighed Abel. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
He split the men into groups and gave each a specific job to do. It wasn’t what he had planned for the day but it had to be done. He just hoped that this was a parting gift and that Will had now gone and wasn’t going to stay somewhere near and return another night. The same thought occurred to Cuthbert and he voiced it when everyone came together as the light was fading.
‘Should we have someone keeping watch through the night,’ asked Harry. ‘I don’t mind doing one night.’
‘We should be in pairs,’ said Alfred. ‘We could cover more areas that way.’
‘I agree,’ said Abel. ‘We can lock or barricade some doors to prevent entry but not all. Let’s do that whilst we can still see.’
‘I’ll stay with Harry,’ volunteered Ben.
‘Right. Keep moving around and don’t make any noise, so he won’t know you’re there. If you see anything, one of you rouse the rest of us and we’ll surround the place. He has got to be stopped.’ Abel sighed deeply. Just when he’d thought Will was out of his life he had to come back and do this.
Unseen by any of them, Will was watching from fairly close by. He had seen the activity going on all day as his former workmates had spent the day clearing up the mess he had created whilst they were celebrating the Christmas Feast. He laughed to himself. There was plenty more disruption he had planned for the coming weeks but he would do nothing for a while, let them think he had gone.
For nearly three weeks nothing happened and they were beginning to think that the first wrecking spree had been a final farewell from Will. Nothing had been seen of him despite their patrols each night. During the day the two men who had kept watch, slept whilst the rest continued the work. All repairs were made and the new work in the roof of the Great Hall was going well. All the additional decoration meant plenty of work for all the skilled men, whether erecting ever more scaffolding, carving the pieces necessary or installing them at great height. Even Abel had to admit that the new designs did add to the splendour of the Hall. Decorative diamond shapes were created in each of the large panels with central decoration in the form of great lozenge shaped pieces with elongated rounded corners. They looked as though they should revolve for some reason but they were purely decorative. Along the top of the walls, above the windows each small panel was decorated with a decorative arched design, not unlike the fancy arches Cuthbert had seen at Whalley Abbey. They had been his idea and once he had drawn it out on paper, other carvers were busy cutting the pieces to fit.
The new designs for the roof bosses were being worked on in the woodshed. Using the designs suggested by Lord Hesketh, four were being created. Some of his ideas had been too complex to reproduce in wood and would be reserved for use elsewhere, possibly painted instead of carved. Cuthbert was busy producing an enlarged Tudor rose from a large lump of oak he had selected from the store. It was no easier doing it in a larger version than it had been in miniature but he was a perfectionist and would not be satisfied until it was to his standard.
Abel was concentrating on creating the screen. He had chosen a small group of men and they were creating the various panels which would come together to make the whole. Ezekial had found him two tree trunks of bog oak of almost the same length and diameter which would form the two supporting sides and be joined by crosspieces holding the panels in place. Such was the size that they would only be able to see it complete after it was erected inside the hall. As they worked new ideas presented themselves to him. To compliment Cuthbert’s Tudor rose he suggested that a head of the king and queen could adorn each side, in the centre at the top of the main panels. This was agreed and the work to carve them began. They had to work quickly before the wood dried out and became too hard to carve.
All this activity at least kept the men warm through the bitterly cold days of January. A cold east wind created an icy surface on the Mere and froze the muddy roads as hard as iron. Ezekial was pleased as he didn’t waste time digging mud-locked wagons out of the deep ruts. Jehan and Jacob were busy in the forge creating heavier chains for the same wagons. The heavy horses strained to pull their loads, their breath steaming in the frosty air. Anybody going to the forge to leave orders or collect completed work tended to linger in the warmth until chased out by Jacob. The days were so short and the nights so long that the time seemed to go slowly and everyone looked forward to spring bringing warmth and longer hours of daylight to work by.
Will had moved away from Rufford for a while finding a very accommodating widow woman in the next village. She at least provided a warm bed and a roof over his head and he couldn’t help smiling when he thought of those keeping a vigil at the hall for him. He had returned one night and seen two of his former colleagues huddle in a doorway before walking off round the building and he guessed they were looking out for him. Let them freeze outside in vain whilst his widow kept a very warm bed for him and filled his belly with good warming food. His time would come.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The last week in January proved particularly trying for everyone. Not only was the temperature close to freezing day and night but there was a cold mist overlaying everything. Clothes felt cold and damp within minutes of going outside, it was impossible to see more than a few yards. On some days it was so thick they couldn’t even see the roof of the building, so low-lying was the mist. People emerged from the gloom when only a few yards away and anyone straying from a well-worn track easily became lost. Burning torches barely penetrated more than a few yards and at night it was even more difficult to move about. Ezekial was unable to cut trees down when he couldn’t even see their tops and concentrated on bringing in wood he had left to season in the woods.
‘I’ll be glad when this mist lifts,’ grumbled Abel one day as he tripped over a tree root on the path to the woodshed.
‘There is still plenty of work to keep us warm,’ said Cuthbert, holding the door open for him. ‘In here at least we can see what we are doing. How are the panels for the screen looking?’
‘Good,’ said Abel. ‘Alfric is particularly good at that sort of work and he doesn’t mind repeating the same design several times. He has even reversed the design for one of them. Ezekial has found me some particularly thick logs to carve the supports from. They are going to have to be quite substantial to keep the whole thing upright.’
‘Are these the side supports?’ asked Cuthbert, looking at two whole tree trunks laid side by side across trestles.
‘Yes, I want them to match so we are doing both at once to the same measurements. There is a lot of work to do yet on just these, measurements have to be accurate for the pegs and holes or the whole thing won’t fit together properly.’ He walked over to the bench where Cuthbert’s work lay, the rose for the roof boss. Already he could see the design emerging from the wood and even at this stage it was a thing of beauty. Next to it Ben was working on another of the crests for the roof. Abel felt pleased with how it was all proceeding. There was still the shadow of Will in the background though.
‘Still no sight of Will?’ he asked.
‘No, though it is difficult to see anything in this mist. We aren’t even sure if he is still anywhere near. There was a rumour he had been seen in a village to the south, but the man who saw him couldn’t be sure. We won’t stop being vigilant though.’
Abel nodded in agreement and went over to the Great Hall to see how work was progressing there. It was only slightly warmer in here than outside but it was a hive of activity. Wooden scaffolding had been re-erected down the centre of the hall ready to install the roof bosses. The carvings at the tops of the walls were almost complete and the decorative pieces in the sloping parts of the roof were finished. Abel stood, hands on hips and looked at the wall at the western end. The two doorways into the west wing were complete but he wasn’t satisfied with the wall as a whole. For the principal end of the room, where the family would sit for their meals at the table running along its length, it was very plain. Tapestries had been mentioned for hanging on the side walls but he couldn’t recall any being allotted to this one and it was a huge expanse. Light would flood in from the side through the compass window and there was a large window opposite, but it needed something to make it special. He scratched his chin in thought and let his eyes drift upwards into the gable end. On the other side of the wall was the west wing, the family wing so this was an internal wall. How could it be made more important, more prominent? He thought about other houses he had designed. Was there something he could use here to make it different? An idea began to form in his head and he stepped backwards to get a better view, backing into one of the scaffolding supports.
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