by S. D. Sykes
‘No. That’s not true,’ said Godfrey.
‘I saw them myself,’ I said. ‘Within the flames.’
He balled the fist of his left hand. ‘The dead were to be buried first,’ he growled. ‘Those were my explicit instructions.’
‘Well, they weren’t honoured.’
Godfrey rubbed a hand across his face. For a moment he looked so much older than his thirty-two years. He then quickly tugged at his reins and turned the horse away from us. ‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘We need to get back to Castle Eden. It’s not safe here.’
We trailed Godfrey’s horse through the fog for a mile or so in complete silence, following a track that was constantly rising. Not even Mother had the energy to complain. Eventually we came to a headland. It was here that the fog lifted and we were finally able to look up at our destination. A castle perched on a lonely cliff, standing out against a cold, white sky with gloomy defiance. Beyond this castle there was nothing but marsh, grey and flat as it seeped out into infinity.
It felt as if we had reached the very edge of the world.
Chapter Two
By 1361 we had not seen plague for a number of years – or perhaps we had just decided to forget about it, as a person ignores a sore foot when they are determined to dance. Now we were being punished for this slight however, for plague had reawoken to take another bite at the English.
When I first heard the rumours coming out from London, I decided to stay within the walls of my home in Somershill. It is a large fortified manor in the middle of my rural estate in Kent – somewhere that I could keep my family safe from contagion. Or so I hoped. But then, as the weeks went by, and new tales trickled out from the city, I began to change my mind. They were alarming stories, accounts of a changed disease. This time plague was killing the young in many more numbers than the old. Some were even calling it the Children’s Pestilence, as if this outbreak deserved a name of its own.
My son Hugh was only four years old, and soon I began to worry for his life. He was my only child, born to my first wife – my beloved Mary. She had died during his birth, and subsequently I had rejected Hugh – blaming him for Mary’s death, as if he had somehow been complicit in this deed. This stupidity had ended when I met Filomena in Venice, for she had helped me to shake away this destructive and selfish delusion, urging me to become a proper father to my motherless son. After this very poor beginning, I had come to love Hugh with all my heart, and now I would do anything to save his life.
And so, when we heard reports of plague within ten miles of Somershill, I knew that it was time to leave. But where were we to go? We could hardly retreat to the other de Lacy house, in the city of London, as this was at the very heart of the contagion. And then I remembered that my friend Godfrey, lord of the Eden estate to the south of Somershill, had once offered us refuge in his remote castle, should the Plague ever reach Kent. I had laughed privately when he made this invitation, never thinking that I might need to accept – but now I found myself writing to Godfrey, advising my friend that we would be arriving at his home by the middle of November. He wrote back immediately, with a list of foods we should bring and the advice that we should hurry to get there before he closed off his castle from the outside world. Once he had lowered the portcullis of Castle Eden against the Plague, he would not raise it again. Not for anybody.
Filomena and my mother had objected strongly to my choice of sanctuary at first, though neither of them had denied the need to flee Somershill. They didn’t care for Godfrey, nor like the sound of his lonely castle on the Isle of Eden, but they had no other suggestions. I convinced them both that Godfrey was better company than he first seemed, and though his home was isolated, it would afford very good protection from plague. I didn’t confess to them that I also found Godfrey a little difficult, and had my own misgivings about spending a whole winter in his company.
Our friendship had started in London two years previously, when we had been drawn to one another at a feast to celebrate Pentecost. I suppose we each recognised something in the other: a shyness in large groups, and a sense of being different, outsiders even. Godfrey had been interesting company on that evening, as we had spoken about astronomy and philosophy, even sharing some amusement at the pomposity and self-importance of our host. After this introduction, I had invited him to stay at Somershill on his return trip to the south coast, and this had become a regular arrangement thereafter. Whenever Godfrey was travelling to London, he stayed at Somershill for at least one night in order to break up his journey.
It was on these visits that I had discovered another side to my friend’s character. As well as being a congenial and educated man, Godfrey could also be suspicious, if not occasionally irrational. His religious convictions were becoming strong. Too strong. At times I feared that they were warping his sanity. He believed, with utter conviction, that the world was coming to an end – a belief that was only confirmed when rumours of the Plague surfaced. To his mind, plague was a punishment from God upon humanity, and most especially upon the church. It was a retribution for all the many corruptions and sins of the clergy.
He had become so obsessed with the notion that we were approaching the Day of Judgment, that many people had taken to avoiding his company. The fact that I still invited Godfrey to stay at my home and didn’t rudely contradict his views had led him to believe that I shared his fears. This was, perhaps, the only reason that he had extended an invitation to my family to join him at his remote hideaway. And so, in some ways it had turned out to be a friendship worth cultivating.
And yet . . .
And yet, as our cart trundled through the archway of Castle Eden on that first evening, I wondered if I had made the right decision after all? Godfrey’s welcome could hardly have been described as warm, and this castle was as bleak as the White Tower. I looked up at the high walls of the inner keep, and couldn’t help but shiver. This would be our home for the next few months – a quad of cobblestones, surrounded by a high curtain wall with a tower at each corner. There was nothing more. No outer keep or enclosed gardens. Just stone walls and sky.
Our pony had been released into the forest after our arrival, since the castle could not accommodate any more horses. As I watched the creature jauntily trot away into the distance, surprised to be given its freedom, I suddenly had the urge to run through the gate and join its escape. But then the portcullis was lowered for the last time behind us – its heavy chains clanking loudly as they turned on the wheel. It was too late to leave now. For better or worse, this was where we would remain for the whole winter, or until the Plague had cared to burn itself out.
Godfrey strode over to our party, as Sandro, Mother and Filomena huddled about me like penned sheep. ‘You need to get dry, Oswald,’ he said. ‘Go to your rooms, and we’ll move your cart to the stables.’ He then turned to look over his shoulder. ‘Now, where is my steward?’ he said. ‘I told Mistress Cross to be here when you arrived.’
‘Your steward is a woman?’ I asked, unable to hide my surprise, since such roles were always the preserve of a man.
He nodded awkwardly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’ll find that all the servants are women here. I’ve dismissed the men.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because they eat too much, Oswald. And we have limited stores of food.’ He looked around again for his steward. ‘Where is she?’ he said, now putting his hands to his mouth and bellowing her name about the inner ward. ‘Mistress Cross. You are required here. Please come immediately!’ This call went out three times before a woman eventually responded, bustling around the corner and then striding towards us as if we were a herd of pigs who had invaded her vegetable garden.
Alice Cross was as wide as she was tall, with a face of weathered freckles and large hands that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a wrestler. I ventured a smile, but was greeted by a look of indignation that bordered on hostility.
‘Come with me,’ she barked, demanding that we follow her to a door at th
e foot of one of the towers. She stopped here to count us, as if we might have doubled in number since beginning our short journey, and then, with a great puff of dissatisfaction, she opened this door onto a dark, winding stairwell that led up to the only rooms in this part of the castle.
As we trailed her skirts up the steps, we soon learnt that Alice Cross was justly named. She was cross that we had arrived so late in the day. She was cross at having to ascend these steep stairs on our behalf. She was cross that the door to our chamber was stiff, and she was most especially cross that Godfrey had allocated us the two best rooms in the castle. These interconnecting chambers, she haughtily informed us, were usually reserved for the King – kept perpetually ready for an unannounced arrival. By this point, despite my exhaustion, I could no longer tolerate the woman’s manner, so I pointed out that the King had never chosen to stay at Castle Eden to my knowledge, preferring Pevensey or even Sandwich to this remote fortress.
My observation only elicited another puff of disgust, before she then continued to issue us with a litany of rules, turning to address Filomena and my mother in particular. Perhaps she thought that the women would make better enforcers than the men, but she was wasting her time in this instance. I could tell that Filomena was struggling to understand the woman’s strong Kentish accent, and Mother wasn’t listening. The long journey, followed by the steep ascent of the staircase, had exhausted her, and she was resting on the nearest stool with her eyes closed.
The fact that Mother was sleeping did not deter Mistress Cross from continuing, however. Amongst her many instructions – far too many to possibly be remembered – we learnt the times for supper; where we should leave the dirty chamber pots and why we should not, under any circumstances, touch the precious glass in the windows of this room. At the end of this recitation she looked us over with a final disgruntled sigh and then left the room with a flourish of resentment. As the door closed, Filomena muttered something in Venetian under her breath.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, as if this wasn’t obvious.
She looked away. ‘I don’t like this place, Oswald.’
‘It’s just different to Somershill,’ I said, trying my best to sound cheerful. ‘That’s all. You’ll get used to it.’
I expected her to argue with me, but instead she took my hands in her own. ‘Please, Oswald,’ she said softly. ‘Let’s go back to Somershill. It’s not too late.’
‘I’m sorry, Filomena,’ I said, taken aback by this appeal. ‘It is too late. You know that. You saw those bones burning in the fire. We’re surrounded by plague. It’s not safe to leave this castle.’
‘But I don’t feel safe here. This place is . . .’ She dropped my hands from hers and then crossed her arms. ‘This castle is so cold,’ she said. ‘And there are bad spirits here. You must have felt the eyes upon us as we came in? Nobody is pleased to see us.’
I had, indeed, seen faces at the windows above the inner ward, as we followed Alice Cross across the cobblestones – but I had read their peeping as nothing more sinister than the usual nosiness. ‘The other guests are just interested in us,’ I said. ‘I’m sure everybody will be very friendly. There’s really nothing to be worried about.’
‘No, no, Oswald. Filomena is right,’ piped up Mother, from the other side of the room. ‘I’ve felt it too. There is a malignance here. A pervasion of evil.’
‘I thought you were asleep,’ I said, as Mother padded towards us with a slow and disturbing determination.
‘I shall be wearing this at all times,’ she said, pulling a large gold pendant from beneath her tunic. ‘It contains a fragment from the vestments of Saint Thomas a Becket. This bloodied cloth can protect us from anything.’
Filomena inspected Mother’s pendant with disdain and then felt within her embroidered tunic, pulling out her own coral rosary. ‘And I will ask the Virgin for protection,’ she said haughtily. ‘Mother Maria is more powerful than any saint.’
They displayed these trophies to one another, like two children arguing over the longest stick, or the brightest stone. ‘Please remember,’ I said. ‘You mustn’t go about the castle with such jewellery on show.’
‘Why not?’ they said, turning to me in unison.
‘You know Godfrey’s opinion of relics and rosaries.’
‘Well, he’s not here now,’ said Filomena. ‘And anyway, my rosary is not jewellery. These beads are holy.’
Mother folded her arms. ‘And so is my pendant, Oswald. It is a verified relic. Blessed by the Bishop of Bath himself.’
‘I’m just asking you not to flaunt them,’ I said. The two women exchanged a glance at this. ‘This is Godfrey’s castle,’ I continued. ‘So we must respect his wishes.’ I paused. ‘We were lucky to be invited.’
‘Well, I don’t feel lucky,’ said Filomena, turning away from me.
‘And neither do I,’ said Mother, mimicking Filomena’s stance. ‘This place is cold and miserable. And your wife is right. There is evil here.’
‘There is no safer place than this,’ I said, now concerned that the two of them were uniting against me for once. ‘In the months to come, you’ll be pleased to be in this castle. When plague is sweeping through the villages and towns of Kent, you’ll have a fire, a bed and enough food for many months. You’ll be alive, while others are dying.’
Mother shrugged at this, unimpressed by my impassioned speech. ‘You think this is a sanctuary, Oswald,’ she said. ‘But I cannot agree.’
‘It is a sanctuary,’ I insisted. ‘Plague will not breach these walls.’
She headed for a nearby chair and then let herself slip down into the seat, releasing a long sigh of pleasure as she took the weight from her feet. ‘That doesn’t matter, Oswald,’ she said, as she closed her eyes again. ‘There is death here already.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said, vexed by this foolish talk. How could my mother possibly have sensed the presence of death and evil? We had only just arrived. I threw off my cloak and changed into dry clothes, before we ate a supper of bread and hard cheese, and then crawled, with complete exhaustion, between the icy sheets of our beds.
But I did not sleep well that night. Instead, I fell into a fitful doze – my dreams invaded by the shadow of plague. I was an eighteen-year-old boy again, escaping from the monastery with an old monk – a priest named Brother Peter. I was lying on a dirty bed within a dirty hovel – somewhere that I had never been before. I didn’t know why or how I’d got there. I only knew that my body was drenched with the sweats of a fever, and that there were large, throbbing lumps in my armpits, neck and groin.
When I looked down at these buboes, I could see that each one of them was swollen to near bursting point with blackened blood. Pain gripped my body, but soon fear swamped even this emotion, as a figure loomed over me in the darkness, wielding a knife. It was Brother Peter. He wanted to help me, and yet I did not want his help. As he laid the cold metal blade against the lump in my armpit, I screamed for him to stop. I didn’t care when he told me this was my only chance. I didn’t care when he insisted that he must lance this bubo and release the corruption within. He was trying to save my life, and yet I struggled against him. Even though I was so close to death, I feared the pain of his barbaric surgery more than I desired his cure.
I woke as Brother Peter made that first incision, poking the tip of the knife into my skin. I sat up straight in a cold panic and for a few moments, I couldn’t remember where I was, until I recognised the room at Castle Eden. Hugh had crawled into the bed between Filomena and me, and was softly breathing. There was nothing to fear.
I kissed my son on the head and then fell back against the bolster, resting for a moment as I let my hand run over the bumpy scar in my left armpit. My breathing slowed and my eyes closed. I was alive.
Chapter Three
I was awoken the next morning by the sensation of something passing across my face. I instinctively jumped out of bed, ready to defend myself, when I realised that my assailant was not
hing more dangerous than a large crow, strutting along the ledge outside our window as it cast a beady eye inside the room. We regarded one another for a moment, before the crow tapped its curved, silvery beak at the window, as if it expected to be let in. I clapped my hands and tried to shoo it away, but the crow ignored me and continued to tap at the glass, until I banged on the inner side of the window myself. It then flapped its wings in some indignation before gliding down into the inner ward, where it landed on the shoulder of an elderly man dressed in the black habit of a Benedictine monk. When I saw that a number of people were standing with him – huddled in a group at one end of this courtyard to catch the thin shards of winter sun – I realised that we must have overslept.
I woke Filomena and Hugh, and then opened the connecting door to the other room in our apartment, where my mother had spent the night. My valet Sandro was curled up on a straw mattress in the corner, and only stirred when I tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped to his feet immediately, embarrassed that I had been required to wake him.
‘I’m sorry, Master Oswald,’ he said, rubbing his face and then pushing the curls from his eyes.
‘Don’t worry, Sandro,’ I said. ‘We’re all tired after yesterday. But it’s time to help my mother from bed.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ came Mother’s voice from the other side of the room. ‘I can still stand up on my own, you know.’
I gestured silently to Sandro, nodding for him to go over to her bedside anyway. ‘Very well, Mother,’ I said. ‘But please take care. The bedstead is high.’
She opened an eyelid and I was suddenly reminded of the slowworms that I used to catch in the monastery garden when I was a boy. A grey linen nightcap clung tightly to her scalp. Her face was pale and notched with lines, as if she were coated in a membrane of silvery scales. ‘Please send Filomena in to dress me,’ she said. ‘I won’t have that Venetian boy doing it.’