Guy of Gisburne- The Omnibus

by Toby Venables

  Abbot Benedict, so Galfrid had been told, was now old and frail, but still a force to be reckoned with. And everywhere that power was evident – in stone, and in the expressions of the monks who admitted them. Gisburne had given them little explanation of his purpose, and insisted on presenting his guest personally to the Abbot and no other. They had not liked that. Gisburne had at no point invoked the name of the Prince, and none had recognised him, but Abbot Benedict certainly would. In fact, Gisburne was relying on it.

  The monks had been stern, but efficient. Word was sent, and was swiftly received. Such discipline did not come about of it own accord. But Benedict – once prior of Canterbury and a friend and admirer of Thomas Becket – clearly knew better than to rest on his laurels. Henry II had granted him the abbacy of Burgh St Peter in 1177 – perhaps one of the many ways he sought to make amends for Becket’s death.

  What Benedict had done since was build. Once within the abbey, the true scale of the new works became clear. On every side, heaped banks of stone rose to steep-pitched roofs, their new tiles gleaming in the sun. At their heart the huge, cloistered courtyard was flanked on three sides by the Abbot’s lodging, refectory and chapter house. But the fourth, northern side of the cloister was formed by the thing that commanded Galfrid’s attention. It had dominated the sky for the past half mile at least – the great abbey church itself.

  The Abbot’s lodging rose an entire level higher than the innermost roofs of the cloister – but the nave of the church towered even over that, heaping roof upon roof, row upon row of pilasters and arched windows. Over the crossing, the central tower thrust upward to a steeple of dizzying height, while from the corners of the tower, transepts and conical spires pierced the sky – a forest of slender fingers pointing to God. Galfrid had gazed upon it all in rapt amazement.

  “Abbot Benedict is a powerful man,” Gisburne had muttered in his ear, as they stood waiting for John to finish relieving himself in the necessarium. “He assisted at Richard’s coronation, and is keeper of the great seal.”

  Galfrid’s eyes returned to earth. “Is that in our favour...?” he said with a frown, considering how little love was lost between King and Prince.

  “He will take this duty more seriously than anyone in the land,” said Gisburne, then added: “And he can call upon more than sixty knights.”

  Galfrid knew the true cornerstone of Gisburne’s plan was that no one – not even the monks who had greeted them – would know of John’s presence here. Since the murder of Becket, it was not to be assumed that the sanctuary of the church guaranteed safety. Given the nature of previous attacks, he was not even certain how many knights it would take to deter the Red Hand. But sixty sounded a fair contingency.

  Then John had reappeared, and Gisburne had immediately ushered him into the abbey precincts, accompanied by two rather wary young monks. Both had the bearing of soldiers, and perhaps were set to this task for that very reason.

  Galfrid, meanwhile, had been left to explore the great church, allowing himself a private grin of immense proportions.

  AND SO HE stood, mouth agape, his neck already aching from the looking, glorying in the paradox this place inspired – being at once bounded and contained, yet feeling himself in infinite space.

  Behind him, from outside the west front – as yet, barely begun – he could hear the creak of the great windlass merging with the cries of the masons as stones and timbers were hauled into place. Above him, on teetering, groaning scaffolding of terrifying height, men worked upon the wooden ceiling, creeping like spiders about the vaulted web of stonework.

  A fine rain of sawdust fell, the particles turning to golden specks as they drifted through the shafts of sunlight piercing the tall windows. Not far from where he stood, an officious looking monk was sweeping the flagstones with a birch broom, as oblivious to wonders that surrounded him as he was to his own absurdity, the look on his face seeming to express irritation at his never-ending task.

  Galfrid gazed up at the new wooden ceiling. The air still smelled of fresh timber. He took a deep breath, gave another sigh of satisfaction, and began to hum quietly to himself. Te Sanctum Dominum.

  A bony finger jabbed his shoulder blade. “You there!”

  Galfrid turned to find the thin-faced monk glaring at him, broom still in hand. “No humming in the abbey church!”

  Galfrid stared at the man with a frown, momentarily lost for words. “It’s a Te Sanctum Dominum,” he said eventually, as if this were explanation enough – which to Galfrid, it was.

  “I know what it is,” snapped the monk. Then he gave a pinched, humourless smile – perhaps intended as some kind of conciliatory gesture. “Not in the church, if you please.”

  Galfrid frowned deeper, struggling to grasp the man’s reasoning. “But it’s what you sing in here...”

  “You may sing what you like outside,” said the monk, gesturing irritably. “Pro fanum.”

  Galfrid opened his mouth to protest once again, thought better of it, then nodded slowly and shrugged. The monk, victorious, flared his nostrils and stalked off.

  Galfrid turned his gaze back to the church’s great arches and vaulted ceiling. But it was no good. The spell had been broken. One of the most magnificent and inspirational structures on the face of the earth had been robbed of its magic by a single, self-important idiot – reality and all its woes ushered back in on the end of his broom.

  With a heavy sigh, the swish swish of the monk’s pointless sweeping echoing about him, Galfrid headed for the door. He paused for one long, last look before he exited – and, as he did so, let rip at the top of his lungs with a couple of verses of The Ballad of the Bibulous Monk and his Ass.

  XVII

  Clairmont Castle

  17 May, 1193

  GISBURNE SQUATTED ON his haunches, staring at the huge footprints pressed into the black fen soil. Cast into deep shadow by the evening sun, they made his own seem like a child’s, sunk so far into the ripe-smelling mud they looked to have had the weight of an ox behind them. “A giant made of iron...” muttered Galfrid.

  “You’re sure they’re his?” said Gisburne.

  De Mortville’s steward nodded, and looked away. He was pale, his features haggard. Though he tried to cover it, his hands were shaking. From the look of him, he had not slept since the attack. “They don’t belong to anyone here, that’s for certain,” he said.

  It was sheer chance that these few footprints had been preserved. All others had been obliterated by the frenzied activity since that terrible night. Within the castle, however, signs of his coming were still evident – and all too familiar. The same dark gore staining the ground. The same fierce burning upon the gate. The same sticky residue accompanying it.

  There had been the same garbled, incredulous descriptions, too. Most were agreed that it was in the shape of a man – but emphasised shape, as if certain the resemblance was only superficial. Several spoke of the clank of metal, and of scales. Descriptions of the head or face – if a face it was – varied most wildly of all. They spoke of spikes, fins, jagged teeth and dead eyes. One man – a cook – made the startling claim that he knew the attacker. When pressed for details, a sweat had broken out on his brow, and he had – with utmost reluctance – whispered the name “Beelzebub.” He would not speak more on that subject, and Gisburne had not further pressed the point.

  There were some new details. One of these was the hammer. This, Gisburne now knew, was the weapon with which the Red Hand had wrought such catastrophic damage upon his victims. Perhaps not surprisingly, the flames that leapt from the beast’s left hand had diverted the attention of witnesses from it – until now. Gisburne, who had seen its terrible, seemingly impossible effects, finally understood them. But he had never seen anyone use such a large, blunt weapon in battle. It was impractical – far too heavy for prolonged use. In fact, the only individual he had ever heard was capable of wielding such a weapon was a god.

  A giant. A dragon. A demon. A pagan Norse god...
Gisburne fought to banish thoughts of them all from his mind, staring hard at the gigantic footprints, telling himself this man – whoever he was – was as real, and solid, and fallible as he was. He breathed air and drank water, and blood ran in his veins. And he could be stopped, and killed – if only he could determine how.

  First, he had to find him – and he had the knack of disappearing like a phantom. According to the steward, after the attack – which, Gisburne calculated, can only have lasted moments – the stunned men had mustered and pursued the fleeing creature, but had soon lost it in darkness and fog. At least one of the squires had fled at that point. They had been dispatched again the following morning, but had found nothing more than wagon tracks and the trail of a fox. All the time he had been telling Gisburne this, he had shaken his head, and cursed his inability to act during those fleeting, terrible moments.

  “When it was upon him... I had a sword in my hand. If I had only struck...”

  “...you’d be dead like the others,” said Gisburne. “And no use to anyone.” Gisburne did not blame him. What other action could there have been that had not been taken? None could have anticipated such a horror, and he had seen tougher men stunned into impotence by lesser shocks. “Not everyone is born to fight,” he said. “And swords are not the only tools that need wielding. You serve your master well. You are keeping his house and his memory alive.” The steward nodded, but looked disconsolate.

  What he had done that morning, as the sun had risen on the now lordless castle, was spot the footprints. They were pressed into the mud where the bridge to the castle gate met the far bank of the moat. He then had the presence of mind to surround them with a row of logs from the pile in the yard, so they would be preserved. Even he was not sure exactly why he had done that. He said it somehow had seemed important to him to prove it had not been a ghost, but something of flesh and blood. Gisburne assured him that what he had done was of utmost importance – a thing that all others, thus far, had overlooked.

  “You tried to follow these?” said Gisburne. “Back to where they came from?”

  The steward nodded. “It’s hopeless,” he said. “A hundred yards along, the road becomes gritty. Sir Hugh had it made so to keep it in good order.”

  Gisburne sighed. “So... three... three and a half footprints are what we have.”

  Galfrid squatted down, raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to one side. “My old uncle was a master when it came to tracking. There was no animal or bird that he could not identify from the prints it made. Not only that – he could tell its age, its size. Whether it was moving swiftly or slowly. Whether it was injured, or healthy. Even whether it carried prey in its mouth. People thought him a wizard. But really, it was just looking.”

  “So, what would your old uncle see in this footprint?” Gisburne raised a finger. “Only what we know, remember... Only what we see.”

  Galfrid pulled off his hat and rubbed his palm across his head, as if coaxing his brain into action. “It is large, therefore its owner is likely large.”

  “We have eyewitness accounts to confirm that.”

  “It is deep. Exceptionally so – twice as deep as your own, and you are no small or slight man – so we can say he is of very great weight. Even if we account for his height, he must either be excessively fat...”

  “Which we know he is not...”

  “Or he carries a great weight with him.”

  Gisburne nodded. “And what makes a man heavy, yet adds little to his bulk?”

  Galfrid looked up. “Armour.”

  “Thick armour,” said Gisburne. “Enough to stop crossbow bolts.”

  “Metal plates. Dragon scales. That clank as he moves...”

  “A giant made of iron,” said Gisburne.

  “But he was running. The toes dig deeper than the rest. To carry such weight – to run with it, and to drag a man of Wendenal’s stature...”

  “...would require a big man, of prodigious strength. Capable also of wielding a great hammer.”

  “So, we are certain it is a man, then?” said Galfrid. “What of the dragon’s head?”

  “A great helm. Made to resemble a beast. To terrify and confuse his victims.”

  Galfrid’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said only what we know?”

  “Well, we know it’s not a dragon, don’t we?” said Gisburne. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, as if only then remembering that a third person stood with them, he looked up at the steward. “Don’t we...?”

  The steward gave a heavy sigh that seemed to shake his whole frame, then drew himself up again as if in defiance of the feeling that was threatening to engulf him. “It matters little to me what you choose to call it. Only how it can be stopped.”

  Gisburne nodded – even felt himself smiling at the steward’s words. “Once again, Master Steward, a wise assessment.” He stood. “If one were making armour in order to make oneself invulnerable, a great helm would inevitably be part of it. Such a thing could easily be fashioned to resemble a beast by one with the necessary skills.” Galfrid nodded sagely. Gisburne turned again to the steward. “Your master’s corpse...” he began. At the image those few words conjured, he saw the man shudder.

  “He is laid out in the chapel,” said the Steward.

  “I would like to see it.”

  The Steward’s expression grew more pained. “If you must.”

  DESPITE THE STEWARD’S persistence in referring to it as he – a habit hard to break after years of service – what they stood over upon the stone altar of the still chapel was no longer a man. Quite how it had been manhandled in here, Gisburne could not imagine. It was a thing of stark contrasts. For the most part, despite a few cuts and abrasions consistent with a struggle, the body was intact – that of a man who had suffered no more than a minor altercation. A fight outside a tavern. A fall from a horse.

  There were four exceptions to this state. Each of them, Gisburne now recognised, was the mark of the Red Hand. The first was the right leg, which had suffered the attentions of fire. The burning extended little higher than the knee, but below that part had burned with a flame so fierce that the shin was eaten to blackened bone. The second was the head – or what was left of it. Its thick, rank smell filled the air. This, Gisburne supposed, must have been lifted upon a shovel or some other implement as the body itself was carried. He imagined them placing the gory, flattened mass here with a mixture of repulsion and reverence, bits of straw and of gravel still mixed with it from the courtyard, the shovel scraping on the stone as it was withdrawn. This part was no longer recognisable as human. At least, not at first. Though still attached to the body via a battered web of flesh and a few meagre sinews, taken on its own might have been anything – a trampled animal, the waste of a butcher’s shop. Then, one noticed human teeth, and – still intact, now fixed in a permanent stare – a single eyeball. Gisburne felt his gorge rise at the sight of it.

  The third was the right hand – or, rather, the lack of it – hacked off by the attacker, and, according to the Steward, never found.

  But it was the fourth thing – by far the least of them – that captured Gisburne’s attention most fully. Upon the chest – passing directly though the breastbone – was a neat hole, barely bigger than that made by a carpenter’s awl. Thick blood was caked around it, staining de Mortville’s deep blue velvet tunicella black. The puncture might have been made by a bodkin arrow or a slender misericorde, but Gisburne knew it was the result of neither.

  “That is where the scrap of cloth was nailed?” he said, extending his finger towards it.

  The Steward nodded, appearing as if he wished nothing more fervently than to be able to look away, but was unable to do so.

  “And the cloth itself?” said Gisburne. “What of that?”

  “Removed,” said the Steward. “Discarded. Before I could prevent it.” It was clear he regretted the loss, and in observing Gisburne’s methods, he was coming to regret it all the more.

  “Discarded wher
e?”

  “I suppose...” The steward shrugged. “Tossed into the midden.”

  “Show me where that is,” said Gisburne.

  MINUTES LATER, GISBURNE was knee-deep in muck – a slimy, layered chronicle of the castle’s waste, about which thrummed a thick cloud of black flies. Beneath the surface, some of the matter was now so rotted it had turned to a kind of black soil, which smelled almost like fresh hay. But what lay above it – the addition of more recent weeks, warmed up by today’s sun – was not so sweet.

  Gisburne had tied a cloth doused in vinegar about his face and now, a look of intense concentration in his eyes, poked about the heap with one of Conan’s discarded sticks, turning over gnawed bones, rotting vegetables, mussel shells and things now unidentifiable.

  This heap was thoughtfully positioned beneath the northern tower of the eastern wall – downwind of the castle – but even upwind of it, Galfrid caught its pungent reek.

  “What is he doing?” said the steward. It was less a question, more an expression of disbelief. He knew well enough what Gisburne was seeking – but he had never seen a knight lower himself to such a task.

  “There’s nothing he likes better than wading through other people’s filth,” said Galfrid, deadpan.

  The steward stared at him for a moment, then back at the absurd sight of Gisburne, prodding and poking at rubbish with his dog-gnawed stick. Fascinating as this sight was, Galfrid’s attention had wandered to the near featureless horizon. The light was failing. Night fell quickly here. Another half hour, and they’d be in pitch darkness.

  A cry of triumph made him turn. In the next moment, Gisburne was wading back towards them, cloth pulled from his face, hand held aloft in a gesture of victory, as if he had recovered Escalibor from the waters of the enchanted lake.

  It was no sword but a triangular, bloody scrap of weathered oilcloth. He extended his hand to his squire. On it, written in charcoal, Galfrid could clearly make out the figures: xxxix. And piercing the fabric was a small spike of iron.