by Paul Doherty
‘She has travelled on,’ Brother Antony explained as they stood on the green after the Mass.
‘Why?’ Beatrice asked.
‘She wanted to let go. She broke free from her prison and is now allowed to travel on.’
‘And these shapes and shades? Will they always remain?’
Brother Antony shook his head. ‘As time goes by they will grow fainter, like echoes in a room, before disappearing altogether.’
‘And what about the others? Black Malkyn. That unfortunate at the crossroads.’
‘Slowly, surely their wills will edge towards a conclusion. So when they want to, their journey will begin.’
‘And me?’ Beatrice laughed. She glanced over her shoulder across the bailey. She wanted to make sure Ralph was well.
‘Only you can answer that, Beatrice Arrowner. What do you yourself want?’
Beatrice stared around. All the familiar sights were here, the tubs and buckets, the bench near the wall, its legs overgrown by weeds; the barbican, the road down to Maldon. Beatrice guiltily remembered her aunt and uncle.
‘I must go and see them,’ she said.
‘Why?’ Brother Antony asked.
‘I don’t know. But I realise I must leave them.’
‘And Ralph?’
‘I shall always love him. Whatever journey I make, I shall always wait for him.’
Brother Antony smiled. ‘And that is good, Beatrice. When Ralph begins his journey, the more you want him, the faster he will travel.’
‘And where will we travel to?’
‘You know that, Beatrice. To God, and God is eternal. The journey will be marvellous. Do you want to go, Beatrice?’
‘I want to say farewell.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘But why can’t I help?’
‘Since your death, Beatrice Arrowner, you have done great good.’
She stared, puzzled. The castle had disappeared. They were standing on the edge of a most beautiful valley. A brook gurgled, the sunlight danced, the air was thick with the fragrance of wild roses. Brother Antony touched her face. She was aware only of his eyes.
‘What do you mean, I did good?’
‘Elizabeth Lockyer,’ he replied. ‘The old begger man out on the heath. The comfort you gave Etheldreda at the crossroads. The poor Moon people, even Goodman Winthrop. As you will in life, so in death, Beatrice. Before you travel, you shall receive your reward.’
Beatrice stamped her foot. ‘Why can’t I help Ralph now? I can travel where I wish. I can listen to conversations. I can find the assassin.’
‘Could you, Beatrice? Could you really?’ Brother Antony smiled. ‘Can you enter someone else’s soul and discover their dark designs? Do you not remember the Gospels? Only God sees the things done in secret. That does not mean justice is frustrated, it will be done.’
‘Will it?’ Beatrice asked.
‘Oh yes. The Minstrel Man will know that justice is near. He has gone to Ravenscroft to collect his own.’ Brother Antony walked away and disappeared.
‘Beatrice! Beatrice!’ Crispin and Clothilde were before her, hands together, their angelic faces troubled and anxious. ‘Don’t you want to talk to us any more? Aren’t we friends?’
‘You are one and the same,’ Beatrice replied. ‘You do not wish me well.’
A strange whistling rent the air. The Minstrel Man was swaggering towards her, thumbs tucked in his belt. He moved slowly, like a cat ready to spring. His slightly slanted eyes were full of mockery. He stopped and sniffed the air like some hunting dog.
‘Don’t you smell it, Beatrice Arrowner? The iron tang of blood?’
‘Leave me alone.’ Beatrice stepped back. ‘In God’s name, leave me alone!’
Crispin and Clothilde separated. The Minstrel Man gave the most mocking bow.
‘Then be on your way, Beatrice Arrowner, though the day is not yet finished.’
Beatrice hastened out along the trackway. The hedges and grass loomed dark against the coppery light. Figures flitted across the path and, when she turned, she was sure those two great hounds of the Minstrel Man were loping silently behind her. Sometimes her concentration failed. Visions and phantasms sprang up before her: stretches of desert; freezing lakes of ice; trees alight with fire; a low sky with stars that were bright and close. Strange voices spoke, whispers of conversation. Jagged lightning cracked and flashed above Devil’s Spinney. Horsemen, with flapping banners and billowing cloaks, rode by her. Beatrice stopped. The trackway had ended; beneath her was a raging inferno.
‘I’m only young and weak,’ Beatrice prayed. ‘All I want is to see them just one more time.’
She looked again. The visions had disappeared and she was home. Aunt Catherine was baking bread. She had built up the fire to heat the ovens on either side and was now heaping the dough on spatulas of wood, ready to bake them. Uncle Robert was sitting at the table trying to mend a leather belt. Beatrice stood and relished the homely atmosphere. Uncle Robert mentioned her name. Aunt Catherine turned away, fighting back the tears. Uncle Robert got up, put his hand on his wife’s shoulder and gently kissed the back of her head.
‘I’ll stay with you,’ he said. ‘I’ll not go down to the Pot of Thyme tonight. Anyway, there’s trouble brewing. They should leave Ravenscroft alone.’
Beatrice went up to Aunt Catherine, put her arms round her neck and kissed her on both cheeks as if she was going to bed. She then did the same to Uncle Robert. Beatrice willed with all her might that they’d remember how she loved them, that she was grateful for what they had done, that she’d never forget. Aunt Catherine dropped the cloth she held and staggered slightly. Uncle Robert caught her and made her sit down on a stool at the head of the table.
‘What’s the matter, my heart?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you feel well?’
‘You know what I felt,’ her aunt replied quietly.
‘Beatrice?’
She nodded. ‘Oh, Robert, it was as if she was here, just for a few seconds. As if she had come back from the castle and was hurrying up to her chamber.’
Uncle Robert’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I felt the same.’
He glanced around but Beatrice was leaving, hastening down the high street towards the Pot of Thyme. One look in the long, shadow-filled garden which ran round the back of the tavern told her Uncle Robert was not being fanciful. The place was full of men and these were not local peasants. They had travelled far; they were dressed in weather-stained doublets with cowls and hoods pulled over their heads. Many of them were well armed with bows and arrows, swords, daggers, clubs, billhooks and hauberks. They carried a black banner tied to a pole. Beatrice recalled the stories from her former life. How the southern shires were full of secret armies, of landless peasants waiting to raise the black banner of revolt and storm the King’s s castles. An attack upon Ravenscroft must be imminent. But what could she do? How could she warn Ralph?
In a trice Beatrice was running out of Maldon, taking the trackway to Ravenscroft. She seemed to move as if in one of her dreams, her feet hardly touching the ground, carried forward by her own will and her deep anxiety for Ralph. The towers and turrets of Ravenscroft came into sight but the track was blocked by the Minstrel Man with his ghastly-looking sumpter pony and, on either side, Crispin and Clothilde standing so coyly. Beatrice tried to go round them but they moved with her, stopping her.
Why can’t I go through? thought Beatrice. I am a spirit.
She moved into the field but they moved too. Beatrice recalled Brother Antony’s words: ‘As in life so in death’. She walked purposefully towards them.
‘Out of my way!’ she commanded.
‘Why, Beatrice, we’ve only come to talk.’ The Minstrel Man seemed taller, darker, more threatening.
‘What are you going to do?’ Beatrice mocked. ‘Kill me?’
The Minstrel Man was staring at her. Now he had the face of a wolf. His eyes never left hers. She felt a blast of fiery heat which weakened her determination.
‘If you’d only stay awhile.’ Clothilde came towards her, hips swaying. ‘Ralph is in danger.’
‘I know that! Get out of my way!’
‘We can still help.’ Crispin spoke. ‘We can intervene.’
Clothilde picked up the refrain. ‘We can intervene and save him. We know the great danger which threatens Ravenscroft, both from within and without.’
Beatrice was certain that whatever these offered would be wrong. She was weary of their games and tricks.
‘Where are Robin and Isabella?’ she taunted. ‘Or have you tired of them?’
The Minstrel Man clicked his tongue in disapproval. Beatrice took a step forward. A hot wind sprang up like a sudden gale, pressing her back.
‘Beatrice Arrowner!’ Brother Antony was standing behind them. He held his hands out. ‘Do you want to come forward?’
‘I can’t.’ She kept her eyes on those of the Minstrel Man. ‘But I want to come.’
The Minstrel Man glanced over his shoulder. He snarled something at Brother Antony who replied in a tongue Beatrice couldn’t understand.
‘Let her go,’ Brother Antony ordered.
The air was full of dancing lights. The Minstrel Man made a gesture as if wafting away some irritating flies but Beatrice walked forward. She was through them and in her haste to reach the castle she even ignored Brother Antony.
Darkness had fallen but Ralph was not in his chamber. Beatrice was aware of only one thought. He must be in danger, she had to help. She went to Midnight Tower, the scene of Father Aylred’s Mass, but it was empty. She became confused: the Mass had taken place at night but when she’d been in Maldon, darkness hadn’t fallen. Was this strange world she lived in beginning to break up? Had time itself become disjointed, like numbers out of place? Beatrice walked to the Salt Tower and climbed up to the second floor. She stared in horror. The chamber was filling with men coming quietly through the window door. Two archers lay dead on the ground, their souls had already gone. Beatrice fled the tower, across the overgrown garden to where Ralph was sitting beneath a tree. She tried desperately to speak to him, to warn him of what was coming. She did not know whether it was her or mere chance but Ralph noticed a light in the tower. Beatrice watched the unfolding drama: the attackers sallying out, Ralph’s cry, the brave defence by the captain of the guard and the consequent slaughter. All the time Beatrice stayed close to Ralph as if, by her very presence, she could protect him from all hurt. She was aware of the screams of the dying, the silver discs, golden spheres, the wraiths and those ghostly soldiers, all gathering on the battleground to meet the souls of the fallen. But she had only one thought, the protection of Ralph. She was with him when he was taken to Adam and Marisa’s chamber and when he threw his quill down and began to sob. She tried to comfort him, to understand what had happened but she could not. She had to accept the truth of Brother Antony’s words. She could observe, she could react but she could not enter the heart and mind of even the man she loved so much.
The next morning Ralph dressed and went down to the hall to break his fast. Then he wrote a quick note and handed it to the captain of the guard drilling his men on the green outside the keep. The garrison were in good heart after their victory the previous night. The soldier looked puzzled but Ralph refused to answer his questions.
‘Just give that to Sir John. Beg him, and I mean beg him, to do exactly what I have asked.’
Ralph went up into Midnight Tower. Adam and Marisa were already preparing for the day’s work. Marisa was dressed; she said she intended to go into Maldon to see what was happening there.
‘Is that safe?’ Ralph asked. ‘I’d much prefer you to come with me.’
‘Where are you going?’ Adam, sitting on the edge of the bed, paused in pulling his boots on.
‘I want you to come to Devil’s Spinney with me. Brythnoth’s cross is there.’
Both Adam and Marisa looked at him as if he had lost his wits.
‘Are you sure?’ Adam finished pulling his boots on. ‘You didn’t receive a knock on the head last night?’
‘I know Brythnoth’s cross is in the spinney. I want you to help me find it.’ Ralph moved to the door. ‘Are you coming or aren’t you?’
‘We’re coming,’ they chorused.
Adam wrapped on his war belt, picked up a small arbalest from the corner. ‘Just in case some of our visitors from last night are hiding in the spinney, though I suspect they are now over the hills and miles away.’
Ralph tapped his own sword and dagger. ‘We’ll be safe enough. But don’t tell anyone where we are going.’
A short while later they crossed the heathland, Ralph striding ahead, Adam and Marisa following behind. They had fallen silent as if they couldn’t believe what Ralph had told them. They entered the spinney. Ralph paused and crouched near a corpse left lying in the gorse and brambles. The man was dressed in a brown leather jerkin, patched leggings. His boots and belt had been removed. A terrible gash to the side of his head had drenched his cold face in blood.
‘One of the attackers from last night,’ Ralph commented, getting to his feet. ‘Dead and gone, there’s little we can do for him. We’ll tell Sir John and his corpse can be buried with the rest in the common grave.’
He entered the trees, pushing through the gorse, startling the birds which rose in flurries and cries of annoyance at this early-morning intrusion. The sun had risen but it was weak and watery, hidden by the mist hanging like a ghostly curtain over the flat Essex countryside. Ralph paused in the small clearing.
‘Stay here,’ he told Adam and Marisa.
He strode to the oak trees and stopped before the fifth in line from his left. He walked round its huge trunk, staring carefully up, but could see no crack, crevice or hollow. The hard bark was unbroken and even. If it wasn’t this one, thought Ralph, it must be the fifth from his right.
‘Adam! Marisa!’ he called. ‘Come over here!’
The two walked across.
‘I believe Cerdic hid Brythnoth’s cross in one of these oak trees. Remember the riddle he told the Danes? That he had hidden it in an altar sacred to his god and theirs?’
‘The oak tree!’ exclaimed Adam. ‘Sacred to the ancient priests, while Christ died on the wood of the cross.’
Ralph clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Exactly. We must search the trunk of each of these oaks very carefully.’
‘Is this possible?’ queried Marisa.
‘Oak trees grow for centuries.’ Ralph replied. ‘These were probably here before Rome’s legions left.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s the only answer to the riddle I can come up with. If you think I’m a madcap or wish to return to Ravenscroft…’ He looked hard at Adam.
‘No, no.’ Adam smiled. ‘Let’s begin the search.’
Ralph waited until they were busy then walked across the clearing, straight to the fifth oak tree from his right. He stared up. On the side facing the glade there was nothing but on the other, just before the trunk branched out, he glimpsed a moss-covered hollow. He glanced over his shoulder. Adam and Marisa were busy searching. Ralph paused, whispered a short prayer then, using the knots and gnarls on the trunk, began to climb. After a while he managed to swing himself up above the hollow, ignoring the pain from the cut on his hand.
‘Have you found anything?’ Adam shouted.
‘No,’ Ralph lied. ‘I thought there was a hollow but it’s where a branch has been sawn off.’
He waited until his companions’ attention was once more on their search, then drew the dagger from his belt – he had left his sword on the ground. He scraped away the moss and found quite a large hollow. It was full of fungi. He cleared this away too and put his hand in. Twigs, crumbling remains of acorn, the remnants of a bird’s nest pricked his fingers and the hard wood scored his wrist. He leaned to his left, tightened his grip on the branch and dug his hand deeper. His fingers touched something cold and hard and what seemed to be bits of parchment or leather. He stretched in. Th
e wood scraped his wrist, his fingers were bruised but at last he gripped then pulled the object up.
The cross had been wrapped in a leather sack which had rotted, and its silver chain was broken and tarnished, but the cross itself winked and gleamed in the early morning light as if it had been placed there the previous day. It was pure gold, six inches across, nine inches long, marked and scraped, but still a gorgeously rich ornament. Ralph stared at the glowing jewel in the centre where the crosspieces met and marvelled at the strange symbols cut into the gold by some long dead craftsman.
‘Brythnoth’s cross!’ Ralph whispered.
It weighed heavy in his hands, pure gold at least one inch thick. Bits of the leather sack still clung to the cross. Ralph closed his eyes, unaware of Adam’s and Marisa’s chatter, the sounds of the spinney. He felt as if he was stretching across the centuries, meeting Cerdic the squire who had hidden it here so many years ago. Ralph could imagine the young man hastening from the battlefield, desperate to return, wondering where to hide the cross. Perhaps he had played here as a boy and knew about this hollow…?
‘Ralph! Ralph! What have you there?’
Adam and Marisa were beneath the oak tree staring up at him. Marisa had picked up his sword and tossed it away. Adam’s hand stretched up.
‘You’ve found the cross, haven’t you? You’ve found it! You knew where it was all the time. Pass it down!’ The greed flared in Adam’s eyes, his lips parted.
Ralph let the cross drop. Adam caught it and he and Marisa moved away. Ralph climbed down the tree and jumped to the ground. He picked up his sword then sat with his back to the tree.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ he said.
Adam and Marisa came and knelt before him. Ralph noticed how Marisa rested the arbalest against her knee.
‘It’s magnificent.’ Adam cradled it as if it was a child.
Ralph stretched out his hand. ‘Let me have another look, Adam.’
Adam passed it over. Ralph held up the cross up and both the gold and the jewel caught the light, shimmering and glittering as he turned and twisted it.