B00B9BL6TI EBOK

by C. B. Hanley

  She nodded her thanks. ‘Perhaps we should lay them out.’

  ‘Very well. Although I don’t think this one –’ he kicked Gervase, scornfully – ‘is worthy to lie with the others.’

  Alys looked down at the man she thought she had known, who had been her neighbour since she was a little girl. As she surveyed the twisted face she felt anger rising within her. Until now it had been masked by the fear and tiredness, but it was hardening into revenge and she was surprised at her own vindictiveness. ‘I would throw him out into the street.’

  He nodded his appreciation and heaved the body on to his shoulder. He carried it out of the front door, barely hanging on its last hinge, and disappeared out of sight down the hill for a moment. She heard a thump and then he returned. ‘He lies in the gutter, where he belongs.’ He took hold of the door and shut it with care, wedging it in place and barring it with the remains of a broken chair. ‘That will hold it for now, until something better can be found. Now, to work.’

  Together they laid the bodies of Aldred and the other knight next to Nick, and straightened the limbs. She couldn’t work out how she felt about Aldred. She’d always disliked him, and even feared him a little, but he had died trying to save her, which surely made him a hero? Maybe one day things would be clearer, but just now she concentrated on trying to block out the sight of the huge wound which had left his head half hanging from his body.

  The knight asked what had happened and she explained it as best she could, although she couldn’t account for Edwin’s almost miraculous timing. Once the bodies were laid decently, the knight made as if to cover them with some of the bloodstained cloth which littered the floor, but she put out her hand to stop him, thinking that they deserved better. He watched while she dragged out two unmolested bales of fabric, and cut a piece of fine serge for Aldred and one of the precious twilled silk for the knight, which she draped reverently round him. He looked at her in gratitude and knelt to pray.

  After a few moments he arose, wincing as he did so, and she realised that she had failed in a duty. ‘You’re wounded!’

  He shook his head. ‘No, just the stiffness setting in after such a day.’ He looked down at himself and flexed his hands and fingers. ‘I’m weary, no more. But perhaps you might have some water in which I could wash?’

  She took him through to the kitchen and poured water into a basin, watching it turn red as he washed his face, head and hands. He looked ruefully at his armour and surcoat. ‘I’d better leave these on for now – I might need them as I go back through town.’ He saw the expression on her face. ‘Yes, I must go back, and I must take Edwin with me. But fear not, I’ll put some of my men to patrolling your street, so you should see no more trouble.’

  She allowed herself to sink on to one of the stools, but jumped up again as she heard a strange noise from the yard, and something bumping against the kitchen door. After the events of the last day and night she was ready to fly into a panic, looked desperately around her, but the knight put up his hand to calm her. ‘It’s only my horse. I’m afraid I put him in your yard so as not to leave him on the street, and he has doubtless eaten your vegetables or trodden them into the ground.’

  She brushed aside a consideration which might under normal circumstances have been serious. Right now she had other worries. ‘But sir, how can we ever thank you? How can we repay you? After all you’ve done for us …’

  He looked steadily at her. ‘Thanks are appreciated, but not needed. Seeing you and your family alive is all I need. But perhaps you would say a prayer for the soul of my friend. I will send men to come and collect him later. And in the meantime, perhaps you would go and wake Edwin for me – I wouldn’t like to go upstairs myself for fear of frightening your children.’

  She nodded and moved towards the stairs, but he forestalled her to finish speaking. ‘And don’t worry. I’ve heard him speak of you, and I know he’ll come back to you before we have to leave the city.’

  Edwin was dazed as he followed Sir Gilbert through the bloody remains of the city. Everywhere he looked there was more devastation – contorted bodies in the streets, blood in the gutters, wreckage strewn from the doorway of every house. Edwin put one foot in front of the other over and over again, the sound of weeping in his ears. But more than this, over and above and through it all, was the pounding thought that he had killed a man. He had deliberately stabbed another living person with a weapon, and that person was now dead. No matter that he was a murderer, a traitor – he now lay dead because he, Edwin, had killed him. How would the Lord ever forgive him for that?

  ‘You could have done nothing else.’

  The voice broke through into the emptiness of his mind. Had he been speaking aloud? Or did Sir Gilbert have some sense which told him what he was thinking about? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

  The voice came again. ‘If you hadn’t done it, you would be dead now. And Alys, and probably the children as well. You had to.’

  Edwin said nothing, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. If I keep looking at my boots, I won’t have to see the evil around me; I won’t have to see the bodies of people who are dead, dead like the man I killed.

  He felt his shoulders being grasped, was forced to stop walking. ‘Do you hear me? Did you want her to be murdered? You saved her, and in doing so you killed a man. It happens often. Him or her; him or you. These are the choices we have to make.’

  Edwin looked up at him, numb. ‘If those are the choices, I don’t think I want to be here. I don’t want to do this. I want to go home.’ He walked on, stepping round the body of a man who was surrounded by a weeping woman and several children. The sound of hooves started again as they continued, and the knight drew level with him.

  ‘So, tell me how you knew. Alys told me about her father and what happened today in their home, but she didn’t know why you had arrived in such a timely fashion.’

  Edwin tried to get his tired mind to function. Why had he been there? What had happened? He had helped open the gate, and then … ‘It was several things, but mainly it was the wounded man at the castle.’

  Sir Gilbert looked at him enquiringly, and Edwin forced the words out, telling him in a hoarse voice of his encounter with the injured Stephen. ‘It was something he said which set me on to the right track. He was talking about dying, and saying that he would recognise his brother when he saw him.’ He looked up and realised that he was making no sense. ‘What I mean is, Alys had told me all about what happened, and it was not until that moment that something leaped out at me. When she was returning from her father’s funeral, they were in danger of being attacked by a party of French, but as soon as they saw the neighbours with them, the French backed away. Why would they do that? They can have felt in no danger from one man and his mother, but they left them alone. They must have recognised them as the people who were working for them, and left them in peace. And when her brother’s body was dumped at the door – who would know who he was and where he lived except for someone who knew the family well? And the night when her father and brother both went missing – it seemed clear that there must have been two people following them. Otherwise the boy would have got away and got home while the assailant was striking his father down. No, the two of them must have followed both of them and then split up as their prey went separate ways. I would guess that the boy was too quick for the woman to follow, so Gervase probably did that while his mother followed Alys’s father and knocked him down. She didn’t do it overly well for he survived, long enough to pass his message on to Alys.’

  ‘And thank the Lord he did, and that she passed it to you, for who knows what might have happened had he not. And here are plenty of others who will be grateful to you as well.’

  Edwin looked around him and realised they had reached the minster yard, where the nobles of the regent’s party were gathered, together with men who looked to be their prisoners. John Marshal hailed Sir Gilbert by waving his arm and hurried over. He spoke even m
ore quickly than usual. ‘Where have you been all day? My lord the regent has already left with the papal legate to go and inform his Grace the king about our great victory – he didn’t even stop for anything to eat, so keen was he. I swear that today has taken twenty years off him. The regent, that is, not the legate. Well, obviously. He is … but wait, weren’t you away after Reginald le Croc when I last saw you? Did you find him?’

  Sir Gilbert merely looked at him. John Marshal seemed to understand straight away.

  ‘My condolences. I know you were brothers in arms and you will feel his loss.’

  Sir Gilbert bowed his head, and Edwin felt a deep chasm of sadness opening up within himself which he didn’t think would ever close.

  John Marshal was continuing. ‘But I must tell my lord of Chester, who leads us now my uncle is gone. It’s already rumoured that he will be named Earl of Lincoln for his day’s work.’ He strode off towards the knot of men vying for the earl’s attention.

  Edwin and his companion stood in silence for a while. There seemed little to say. Edwin stared at the cathedral, his eye wandering over the ornate west front without really noticing. Some of Sir Gilbert’s men, obviously relieved to see him, arrived to take his horse. They also brought over a knight whom Edwin did not recognise, and who carried no sword.

  After a while the Earl of Chester stood to address the assembled throng of nobles and others. Raising his hands for silence he spoke in a commanding tone. ‘My friends, by the grace of God we have today won a great battle. By our deeds we have struck a great blow against the ambitions of the French pretender, and the Lord was with us. I charge you all to return to your lands with your prisoners, and there to keep them in close custody until you should learn the king’s pleasure regarding them.’ There was a murmur at this, but Edwin didn’t understand why. He listened as the earl continued. ‘The taking of so many prisoners is surely a sign of God’s countenance being turned towards us today. Our foes lost only the Count of Perche, and I can tell you that despite all today’s combat, we have lost but one man, the knight Reginald le Croc. Let us give thanks for our victory.’

  Edwin couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. One man? He himself had just walked through a city littered with bodies, both combatants and civilians. How could this be? The earl had got it wrong. But then he looked around him, saw the nobles with their self-satisfied smiles, their rich prisoners, their baggage horses loaded with gold, silver, jewels, clothes, all stolen from the innocent people of the town, and he understood. They hadn’t got it wrong; they just didn’t care. Anyone who wasn’t one of them simply didn’t count. All the brave souls who had died defending their city, their homes and their families counted for naught as far as these men were concerned. He felt queasy. He backed away from the congregation, turned and fled until he found himself a quiet corner in the lee of one of the cathedral buttresses, where he fell to his knees and was sick, retching until long after his stomach was empty. Afterwards he staggered away, collapsed again, put his hands on the wall, and sobbed until he thought his heart would break.

  After a while he felt hands upon him, lifting him with care to his feet. He looked up into the gaunt face of Master Michael. The hollows under the eyes looked even darker than they had before, but the expression was one of sympathy.

  ‘Come. Come away from my wall before you damage it, and sit over here.’

  Edwin let himself be shepherded, half carried. He thought again of all that had happened, and realised something which should have been blindingly obvious all along. ‘You were helping to move the masonry, weren’t you?’

  Master Michael nodded. ‘They wouldn’t have got far without me. You can’t just pick up large stones and move them, especially if you want to do it quietly. You end up making too much noise, or worse, causing a rockfall which can crush you or make moving everything else too difficult.’

  ‘But William suspected you to be on the side of the French.’

  Master Michael sighed. ‘It is always difficult to be a stranger in a town, although I have been here some fifteen years now. But yes, in my youth I worked in France, on some of the great cathedrals there, so I was always going to have people look askance at me here, especially when Frenchmen invaded. But they didn’t understand my motives.’

  ‘Your cathedral.’

  ‘Yes. This is the love of my life, it is my life. I couldn’t stand by while it was in danger – and it would have been in danger if the siege had continued. Nobody would want to work here; my skilled masons would leave in search of better work and food elsewhere; and once they had gone, people would start stealing the stone, and the whole project would be forgotten.’

  ‘So why not just help the French? If they’d taken the castle then the siege would have stopped.’

  Master Michael shook his head. ‘You still don’t understand me. There are two main reasons why: firstly, the French were on the verge of taking my stone to use in their damned siege engines, and I couldn’t side with anyone who would perpetrate such sacrilege. This stone has been cut, shaped and blessed to be used in the house of God, not for killing and maiming.’

  ‘And the second reason?’

  ‘This – this is my home. I have worked in many places, and Lincoln is the place where I feel that I belong. I love every stone and building in it – if not all the people – and I couldn’t see it in the hands of enemies. So I banded together with other men: Alan, Aldred, Nicholas and his son, and a few of my local masons. Also initially with William, although he was so distrustful of me that it was difficult to work together as he was convinced I must be some kind of spy. We knew that the key to salvation might well be the western gate: the castle wouldn’t save us on its own, there would need to be outside aid, but they couldn’t help if they couldn’t get into the city. And the western gate is so close to the castle that the French didn’t often patrol there. So we cleared away the rubble while trying to make it look as though it was still blocked.’

  He paused, his skeletal face sombre. ‘Unfortunately, though, we didn’t succeed in making those inside the castle aware of what was going on. We tried three times, as Alan, Nicholas and Nick tried to get there, but then we realised it was just too dangerous. Even after what happened to them, Aldred wanted to try again, but he couldn’t get close enough.’

  ‘Someone was trying to stop you.’

  Master Michael sighed. ‘Yes. And I still don’t know who, but if I find out then I will see justice done.’

  ‘Justice – if you can call it that – has already been partly done.’ Edwin filled in the details of what he knew, striving not to think too much about how Gervase had died, lest he be sick again. He tried to concentrate on what might have happened to Mistress Guildersleeve, determined that he wouldn’t be party to another murderer escaping justice, not after what had happened at Conisbrough.

  Master Michael nodded slowly. ‘This all makes sense – a wonder I didn’t see it before. I was desperate to know if Nicholas had lived long enough to pass any message on, or if he could say whether he had told the French any secrets, but I couldn’t find out. Of course he would tell his daughter if he was on his deathbed, but I just didn’t think of her being the link – she’s only a girl, after all.’

  Edwin said nothing, thoughts of Alys playing through his mind. But the master mason was continuing.

  ‘As soon as I met you, I knew you were the key. Appearing out of nowhere like that? Nobody in control of their wits would come to Lincoln at a time like this. You are, if I may say so, not a very good spy.’

  Edwin wasn’t sure whether to take that as an insult or not. He had never wanted to be a spy, but he had managed to work out what was going on, after all. He opened his mouth, but was forestalled.

  ‘Ha, I thought that would wake you up a bit. Look, we’ve succeeded in our task. The town has been rescued, and yes, there have been losses and looting, but the city still stands, and can be rebuilt. William is still alive – I’ve seen him – so we still have a mayor who loves the c
ity, and we’ll be safe under the protection of the king and of Dame Nicola. Nicholas spoke often of her with affection: I think they might have known each other when they were younger. That’s part of the reason he was so desperate to help. But for me, it was my cathedral. People come and go and change their minds, but stone is eternal.’

  Edwin shook his head to try and clear it. How could Master Michael think that the buildings were as important as the people? All that death …

  ‘But listen, I have a proposal for you. I was only speaking half in jest a few moments ago – you will never be a good spy, as your heart isn’t in it. But I saw you in the market the other day when the Peters were trying to catch you out, and I have never seen anyone reckon so fast. Why don’t you stay here and work for me? You have an innate mathematical skill, and with a bit of teaching about types of stone and how much is needed for different parts of the cathedral, you would make an excellent marshal of my works. Things will be more peaceful here from now on, I promise you.’

  Edwin’s heart beat faster. To stay here in Lincoln. Near to … and to have a job which involved no war or bloodshed. A real chance to be part of something big, something glorious …

  But then he remembered. His life wasn’t his own to dispose of as he saw fit. He had spent his whole life in the service of the earl in one way or another, and he couldn’t imagine himself asking to be released from that service. Still less could he imagine the earl agreeing, certainly not now that he had proven himself ‘useful’. He held his arms out in a gesture of helplessness, then slumped back with a huge sigh.

  ‘You can’t know how much that means to me, Master Michael, but regretfully I will have to turn your offer down.’ The mason nodded, as if he had expected such an answer, and Edwin stood and turned to go. As he began walking he spoke over his shoulder. ‘But just one more thing – thank you for pulling Gervase off me the other night. I think you probably saved my life.’