The Turn of Midnight

by Minette Walters

  ‘More likely the snow will turn to rain and cover the ground with ice,’ said Peter. ‘That’s what happened after grandfather died.’

  ‘Do you have a plan?’ Ian asked Thaddeus.

  Thaddeus nodded. ‘We know south lies beyond your father’s cairn.’ He placed the tip of his sword at the point that indicated the cairn and drew six lines radiating away from it. ‘Edmund is the same height as Gyles. If he takes one of the centre lines and counts off four hundred paces, and the rest of us angle away from him, the chances are good that the first ring of stones will lie somewhere between the six of us when he calls to us to stop. I’ll take the outermost line towards the west and work my way east. The rest of you stay put until I reach you.’

  The task was easier imagined than performed. Thaddeus insisted on looking beneath every tree for twenty paces on either side of the median in the lengthy gaps between the boys and, all too predictably, he found the stones in the last stretch to be searched. They were more obvious than he’d expected, a foot-wide ring of lightly coloured flints, placed on dark earth in the cleft between the twisting, muscular roots of an ash tree, and he blessed Gyles for his common sense. It was surely no accident that he’d chosen a spot which was protected from drifting leaves.

  ‘You should have let me work in from this side,’ said Ian, who had taken the outermost line to the east and had cursed freely about boredom and cold by the time he was allowed to move. ‘We’d have found it sooner if you had.’

  ‘Now that we know what we’re looking for, you can,’ said Thaddeus. He stood sideways to the tree, raised his left arm to point towards where he believed the wagon to be and squared his right to indicate due east. ‘Edmund, follow this line for five hundred paces, and the rest do as we did before. Don’t skimp on searching,’ he warned Ian. ‘We’ll none of us thank you if we have to return to your father’s cairn and start again.’

  Whether by chance or through Edmund’s accuracy in judging direction, the second and third rings were within thirty paces of where he halted. Thaddeus asked how he was managing to keep his line so true, and he said he didn’t know. He was simply choosing the most direct route through the trees to be sure of walking the measured distance.

  Olyver said his father would have done the same. ‘He told our mother the chest weighed a tonne . . . and he’d have cursed to Hell and back if he’d kept bumping into trees with a load like that on his shoulder.’

  A smile creased Thaddeus’s dark face. ‘He’ll have cursed anyway, trees or not. The chest is carpentered from three-inchthick oak and contains four hundred gold nobles. It required two men to lift it into the wagon.’

  ‘Four hundred?’ Peter echoed in amazement. ‘No wonder you’re so keen to retrieve it.’

  ‘And Gyles to hide it, since it was earned by the sweat of Develish serfs. We’ll spread out as before for the last five hundred paces. We’ve not come this far to go awry at the end.’ He turned to Ian. ‘We’re looking for a fallen tree. Your father pushed the coffer into a space beneath the trunk where it forms an arch with the torn-up roots. Seven months ago the tree was rotten to its core and it may have broken apart since, so be sure to search under every piece of sizeable deadwood you encounter.’

  As Ian dutifully turned every log, he listened for shouts of excitement from the other end of the line. When none came, he wondered what Thaddeus would do if they failed to find the gold. The woodland canopy was protecting them from the worst of the snow, but in parts, where tall, slender birches had taken the place of oak and ash, the flakes fell freely through the thinner branches and the ground beneath them was deeply carpeted. He began to fear that the mile-long walk to the manor house was already impassable. Joshua expressed similar worries when Ian released him to join the search, muttering that his dogs would die of exhaustion if Thaddeus expected them to breast drifts three feet high.

  By the time they reached Peter, he was jumping up and down and swinging his arms in a vain attempt to keep warm. ‘You’ve been bloody ages,’ he growled, motioning behind him. ‘There’s a fallen tree with its roots still attached about thirty paces back. It’s pretty much buried by snow but it’s worth a look. I’m thinking your father’s paces probably shortened as he grew tired.’

  Ian removed his bow, scabbard and arrows and propped their tips together to form a pyramid, denoting Peter’s spot so they could find it again. ‘I’ll wring your neck if you’re right,’ he snapped crossly. ‘We’d be halfway to the manor house by now if you’d left a marker and made the search yourself.’

  Nevertheless, he planted a hearty kiss on Peter’s cheek when a small amount of scrabbling through windblown leaves and a scattering of snow exposed a carved wooden chest with its padlock intact.

  Four miles to the east, Eleanor was watching the falling snow through the window of the steward’s office. In her arms, she cradled one of her cats as tenderly as a baby, planting kisses on its head and rubbing her cheek against its soft fur. As ever, the soft, rumbling purr that answered her honest love brought a sweet smile to her face.

  She had only the dimmest memories of the last time snow had fallen on Develish and she was entranced by its prettiness. The land was white as far as the eye could see and the unsightly remains of the burnt-out village were softened and cleansed. She drew Lady Anne’s attention to a group of men on the other side of the moat who were moving three abreast across the pastureland.

  ‘What are they doing?’ she asked.

  Lady Anne left her desk to stand beside her. ‘Tramping a path to the sheep.’ She pointed to where the flock was huddled against some wattle fencing. ‘Do you see how the snow is beginning to bank over them? We must move them now or they’ll be smothered.’

  ‘Why don’t they move themselves?’

  ‘They believe they’re safe. It’s their nature to stay together.’

  ‘Where will the men take them?’

  Lady Anne turned her towards where Gyles Startout, John Trueblood and James Buckler were enlarging the shelter My Lord of Bourne had used. ‘They’ve taken the timber from the serfs’ huts in the orchard to build a low-roofed barn.’

  ‘Where will the serfs sleep?’

  ‘In the house. No one can live outside while this cold spell endures.’

  With unexpected tenderness, Eleanor slipped her arm around Lady Anne’s waist. ‘You must be worried for Thaddeus,’ she said gently. ‘You told me he will have left Bourne a week ago but his journey home seems overly long.’

  ‘I expect his work in Bourne has delayed him.’

  ‘I hope that’s true, Mama. Robert is greatly worried for him. He says he and his companions could freeze to death if they’ve become trapped in the snow without a fire to warm them.’

  For once, Lady Anne believed Eleanor’s concern was sincere. Certainly, her soft embrace seemed kindly-meant. ‘Robert frets unnecessarily,’ she answered with a light laugh to disguise her own fears. ‘Thaddeus is more of a wolf . . . and they thrive in weather like this.’

  Nine

  EVIDENCE THAT THE GREAT HALL of Pedle Hinton had been destroyed by fire was seen in the soot-blackened walls and the charred rafters that had once supported a timber roof. The heavy oak doors of the entrance porch stood wide open, revealing a pristine covering of snow lying like a downy coverlet on the floor. Here and there, undulating folds suggested something buried, but Thaddeus ignored his companions’ superstitious mutterings about corpses as he walked through the porchway to look towards the southern end of the house which retained its roof.

  A set of stone steps in the farthest corner led to upper chambers which opened off a railed gallery, and two doors in the supporting wall below to lower ones. He looked for footprints in the snow but couldn’t see any. If people still lived here, they hadn’t left their quarters last night or this morning. He called out a greeting. ‘My Lord of Athelstan and five of his fighting men ask hospitality of My Lord of Pedle Hinton. We are free of the pestilence but need shelter from the blizzard. Does anyone hear me?’


  Perhaps it was only an echo of his own voice, but he had a strong sense that he’d been answered. He stood listening, his hand reaching for the sword that hung at his side. Ian and Olyver did the same, motioning to Joshua to send his dogs forward. At the rear, Edmund and Peter, who were carrying the chest of gold between them, lowered it to the ground and lifted their strung bows over their heads.

  ‘Try again,’ urged Joshua. ‘The pack will tell us soon enough if you get a response.’

  The dogs reacted even before the words had left Thaddeus’s mouth, racing for the stairs and bounding up them two at a time, giving vent to mournful howls as they paced the gallery and sniffed at doors. Joshua prepared to follow, but Thaddeus caught his arm. ‘Summon them back,’ he said. ‘Whoever’s up there must think the hounds of Hell have arrived.’

  Joshua gave a piercing whistle. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Try to coax our hosts into revealing themselves. If they’re from Pedle Hinton, they’re more entitled to be here than we are, and if they’re not—’ Thaddeus unsheathed his sword—‘we’ll have to agree temporary rights of tenure.’ He beckoned the other boys forward and motioned to the doors at the end of the hall beneath the gallery. ‘See if those rooms are occupied, but let the dogs enter first.’

  He trod quietly up the steps and looked along the landing. Four chambers opened off it but there was nothing to tell him whether one or all were occupied, since there were only paw prints in the dusting of snow on the floor. He moved softly to the first door and placed his ear to the planking, waiting through the sound of Joshua’s warnings outside a room below and the wrench of rusted hinges as Ian forced entry. In the hush that followed, he heard a child’s whimper and the whispered tones of women, urging silence.

  He walked on light feet to the other doors, listening outside each for several minutes. From downstairs, the intermittent conversation of the boys was clearly audible, yet there was no reaction to it inside these chambers. He positioned himself to the right of the first door and used his sword hilt to tap lightly against the wood. ‘I am My Lord of Athelstan, cousin to your near neighbour Lady Anne of Develish and related through marriage to Sir Richard, her deceased husband. Be assured that I and my men mean you no harm. If one amongst you remembers Sir Richard from his visits or knows anything of Develish, then ask me questions so that I may prove my truthfulness.’

  There was some whispering before the tremulous voice of an elderly man spoke. ‘Sir Richard was sick the last time he was here. Did he die of the pestilence?’

  ‘Yes. Three days after leaving Pedle Hinton. Lady Anne worried that he brought the pestilence to you, but Gyles Startout, who rode with him, told us you’d buried forty of your own in the week before they arrived.’

  ‘I know Gyles. Is he well?’

  ‘He is, as are all in Develish. Only Sir Richard and his Norman fighting men are gone. Gyles’s twin sons, Ian and Olyver, form part of my retinue. Two of the voices you hear downstairs are theirs.’ He paused to allow time for a reply, but none came. ‘How many are you? We will assist you if we can.’

  ‘We do well enough on our own, My Lord. Pay heed to your affairs and leave us to ours.’

  There was a whispered altercation before a woman spoke. ‘We are eighteen, sire. One elder, seven women and ten children. We have lived in this chamber since bandits fired the village and a malign wind carried burning thatch to the roof of the great hall. We thought the whole house would be razed, but God saw fit to leave us this part as shelter.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, sire, for we have lost count of the sun’s rising and setting. Three weeks and more, I think. We stay together for warmth but grow weaker as each day passes.’

  ‘When did the last of your neighbours die of the pestilence?’

  ‘Before Christmas, sire. We are all that is left, though we don’t know why God has spared us. We are much in need of assistance.’

  Briefly, Thaddeus closed his eyes. He knew full well what he would find when he opened the door, for he had seen starvation in the hollow faces of the peasants of Woodoak and Bourne. He reached for the latch. ‘Do I have your permission to enter, mistress? Lady Anne judges a person free of the pestilence after two weeks. Were she here, she would tell you it’s time to embrace life.’

  There was no understanding people like this, Ian thought, as he took an adult woman from Thaddeus’s arms and carried her down the steps to where Edmund had lit a fire in the largest of the ground-floor rooms. She had so little flesh on her bones that she weighed as lightly as a child and only the grime on her face gave her skin some colour. He placed her carefully on the floor, afraid of breaking her, and her eyes filled with tears as she thanked him. He smiled and spoke comforting words but, in truth, his mind rebelled against her stupidity. By what reasoning did anyone choose death from hunger when there were sheep aplenty in the fields beyond the house?

  He, Olyver and Thaddeus had caught and slaughtered two ram lambs within a hundred paces of the front door, and Joshua had found the means to cook them simply by putting his shoulder to the door of the kitchen. Little of the roof remained, but shelves around the walls were piled with iron cauldrons, pewter plates and earthenware tankards. A heavy oak table, miraculously unscathed, stood in the centre. Once swept of snow, Joshua used it to butcher the carcasses while Edmund and Peter, having looted every room of furniture to make fire, dug out a mighty stack of wood beside the kitchen’s outer door and brought the logs inside to dry.

  The first to be brought downstairs in Thaddeus’s strong arms had been a shrivelled greybeard who took deference as his due. He seated himself on a pile of rushes and gestured towards the floor each time Thaddeus, Ian or Olyver appeared with another wraithlike figure clasped against their chests, apparently believing that women and children must always sit beneath him. He was more alarmed than grateful to see his master’s furniture being broken up for firewood.

  ‘We’ll suffer for this,’ he warned the women as Ian fed the legs of a stool into the blaze to keep Joshua’s cauldron of diced mutton at a rolling simmer. ‘They compound theft with wilful destruction by what they do.’

  Olyver entered the room and placed a barely alive toddler in the lap of the woman Ian had carried. He was as impatient with these people’s foolishness as his twin. ‘Whose judgement do you fear?’ he asked the old man. ‘If God’s, you can escape sin by allowing me to return you to the upper chamber without food.’

  ‘The offences have been committed. You have made us party to your crimes whether we like it or not. Removing ourselves will make no difference.’

  Olyver gave an involuntary laugh. ‘You have a strange way of reasoning, sir. Do you think God doesn’t know who the true culprits are? Why should He punish the innocent when My Lord of Athelstan and his men are willing and able to take the blame upon themselves?’

  Thaddeus paused at the bottom of the stairs. Cradled in his arms was the last to be rescued, a woman of some thirty years with sunken eyes and transparent skin. It was she who had spoken to him through the door, and she who had insisted on the old man going first, using the opportunity of his absence to urge the women and children to pay heed only to My Lord of Athelstan. Together they listened to the exchange between the twins and the elder.

  ‘I am acquainted with your father,’ the old man told the youths severely. ‘He would not approve of your behaviour.’

  ‘You’re mistaken,’ answered Ian, kneeling to touch the cold, pale cheek of the toddler. ‘Gyles Startout would endure an eternity in Hell before he let a babe such as this die from lack of warmth and nourishment . . . as will his sons, if that is to be our punishment.’

  ‘Then accept God’s judgement when you appear before Him.’

  ‘We will do so gladly if this little one survives.’

  ‘He will not. His only salvation was freedom from sin. Ours also. Now God will punish us all for your misdeeds. Boils will break out on our necks and our bodies turn black—and you will be
ar our suffering on your conscience along with your other crimes.’

  A young maid began to weep.

  ‘You must take me in, sire,’ begged the woman in Thaddeus’s arms, plucking urgently at his sleeve. ‘They will crawl from the fire and eat nothing if he continues. He has a powerful hold over them.’

  ‘Yet you seem ready to defy him. Could you not have done so sooner?’

  ‘Not on my own, sire. He is my father.’

  Thaddeus needed no further explanation. In a social order created and governed by men, women learnt obedience early. ‘What is your name, mistress?’

  ‘Alice Bartram, sire.’

  ‘And your father’s?’

  ‘Harold Talbot, sire. He is persuaded God means us all to die. If you know differently and have the words to change his mind, I beg you to use them.’

  With a nod, Thaddeus carried her into the room and sat her amongst the women and children. He dropped to one knee in front of the old man. ‘Why do you deny yourself food and warmth, Master Talbot? Is the sin of self-killing not greater than the sin of theft?’

  ‘If God wants me to live, I will.’

  ‘He has saved you from the pestilence and placed these seventeen women and children in your charge. What more proof do you need that He wishes you to keep serving Him on earth?’

  ‘We serve Him best by following his commandments. To prolong our lives through theft and wanton destruction will invite punishment. We are judged by the manner of our living not by the span of our years.’

  Thaddeus was reminded of his stepfather, whose mind, once set, was impossible to change. ‘Then you have a fine advantage over the rest of us,’ he said lightly. ‘We could all wish a half-century of enjoyment before being asked to account for ourselves.’

  Harold’s eyes glittered angrily. ‘The older we are the harder we are tested,’ he snapped. ‘Innocents such as these—’ he gestured dismissively to the toddler—‘have places reserved for them in Heaven. Old men such as I have to earn our redemption through privation and suffering.’