A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  ‘He’ll be no use to Gleedy if he can’t work, will he?’

  The two men hesitated, glancing at Gleedy, but he was already serving his next customer. Reluctantly they let Todde go. Men and women averted their eyes and began talking loudly again, determined to pretend nothing had happened. But the tinner who’d saved him laid a firm hand on Todde’s shoulder.

  ‘Like your woman says, let it go. Be grateful he left you with enough coin to buy a bite. Seven days is a long time to go begging for scraps from neighbours when you’ve naught in your pot, and he’s been known to do that and far worse to men that cross him once too often.’

  Chapter 16

  Hospitallers’ Priory of St Mary

  Brother Nicholas lifted his gaze from the accounts ledger as the candle flame snuffed itself out, leaving only a wisp of smoke. He rubbed his dry, smarting eyes, surprised to discover it was already dark inside the chamber. He’d been working by the light of a candle all afternoon: little daylight found its way over the high wall and in through the tiny casement, still less when the day was as leaden and grey as this. It must be later than he’d realised.

  He’d been chasing the capricious figures from one parchment roll to another, but it was like trying to catch a shape-shifter by the tail. He was sure the accounts were not correct but, like the procurator at Clerkenwell, he could not pin down exactly where they were wrong. Money was missing, he was almost certain of that, but if it was, then from where? How was it disappearing, and into whose purse? The sisters were not spending it on living in luxury, if the food being served was any measure of that. So how far had the corruption spread? Were they all conspiring in this theft, if indeed that was what it proved to be, or was it just that crafty old hag Sister Clarice? She’d certainly been extremely anxious that he should not examine the books.

  The prioress had told him that Clarice had managed her husband’s warehouses before she joined the order. And she had certainly gained the skills of bookkeeping, Nicholas had to admit. In fact one might say she had learned the art rather too well. Just what other lessons had she learned from some of the less scrupulous merchants and sea-captains? But he would uncover the truth. He refused to be made to look a fool by some withered old vecke, who should be spending her dotage sitting silently in a cloister, sewing altar cloths or whatever it was that nuns did.

  The door of the priory’s small guest chamber was flung open and slammed shut with equal vigour, sending a violent blast of glacial wind whirling around the room. The draught snatched up the parchment Nicholas had earlier laid to dry on the table and sent it spinning to the floor. But he was too busy trying to keep the quills from being blown into the embers of the fire to notice where his letter had landed, until he heard the ominous crunch of parchment and glanced down to see it crushed beneath Alban’s muddy boot.

  ‘You frog-witted ox! I know you’re used to living in a stable, but haven’t you at least learned how to enter a room without wrecking it?’

  ‘Why did you toss it on the floor if you didn’t want it walked on?’

  Ignoring Nicholas’s splutter of curses and insults, he lumbered over to his narrow bed and flopped down on the thin straw mattress so heavily it was a marvel that the wooden legs beneath didn’t splinter or the cords snap.

  Nicholas retrieved the parchment and examined it with dismay and fury. Wetted by the sodden footprint, black ink was dribbling down the page. Every word the loutish boot had stamped on was obliterated. ‘Look!’ he spat. ‘It’s taken me half the afternoon to write this and it is not even fit for an arse-wipe now.’ He crumpled it and hurled it savagely into the fire. He instantly regretted it and tried to pluck it out, but it was already burning, turning his carefully crafted sentences to smoke and ashes. He cursed again. He could at least have used the fragments that were not smeared to jog his memory. God alone knew when Hob’s wagon would return from Buckland, but when it did, Nicholas wanted to be sure his reports were ready to be dispatched immediately with the carter.

  Alban lay on the narrow bed, watching him indifferently. ‘You’re in a sour temper. Fleas biting your arse, are they? It’s me that should be grousing. While you’ve been sitting warm by a fire, scratching away like some fusty old monk, I’ve been up to my oxters in freezing water, trying to clean a cartload of mud off your rouncy, then pluck the burrs and thorns from his belly and legs. Where have you been riding that poor horse?’

  ‘You’ll be up to your armpits in cold water again, this time head first, if I find so much as a mote of dirt on that beast. I was out at dawn, freezing my cods off in a gale, riding these blasted moorlands and trying to prise some sense out of toothless old gammers and their drooling offspring, all of whom do nothing but grunt and stare at you till you start to wonder if you shouldn’t be talking to their hogs instead.’

  Alban gave a sly grin. ‘And there was me thinking we’re pledged to be the serfs and servants of the blessed poor, whom we should treat as if they were our lords and masters.’

  ‘If you want to serve the poor, you’ll find them out there grubbing around in the mud and rain, believing they’ll make their fortune by digging for tin in other people’s dung heaps. It’s not the poor I’ve been chasing for days, but those who feign poverty, those who think they can fool me by hiding their cattle or concealing their kegs in caves. Everywhere I go it’s the same story.’

  He twisted his hands into the mockery of a fawning man. ‘“God’s chollers, sir, you’ve come all this way and got yourself fair drownded on the road, and all for nothing, seeing as how I’ve already paid the holy sisters. Can’t ask me to pay the rent twice, now can you, sir?”

  ‘They think that by paying those harpies half what is due to our order, they can cheat us out of the rest. And that’s when I can find my way to their wretched little farms and watermills. Ask anyone round here for directions and they either pretend they can’t understand you, or deliberately send you in the opposite direction. And if they can lead you into a mire or through an icy stream on the way, they’ll do it and think it rare sport.’

  He punched the lumpy straw mattress on his own bed as if it was a man’s face. ‘But they’ll rue the day they tried to deceive me, as will that wily old embezzler Sister Clarice. There is more mischief to be uncovered here than a few missing rents. I can smell the stench of it. That boy they claim to be blind, for one. Sister Melisene was certain he sent a spirit to torment and murder the old priest. But the prioress maintains the boy is dumb and can’t be examined. She’s deliberately keeping him from me.’

  Alban grunted. ‘You want to be careful if you go chasing after little boys. There’s some might start saying you have a fancy for them. I keep my ears cocked in the taverns and marketplaces. There’s talk that the knights of the white cross are no better than the knights of the red, buggers to a man.’

  In two strides Nicholas was at the bed. He grabbed the front of Alban’s shirt, hauling the groom up till his face was inches from Nicholas’s own. ‘I’m no sodomite and no Templar.’

  ‘Hold hard!’ Alban protested, trying to wrench himself out of Nicholas’s fists. ‘I don’t take kindly to those insults any more than you do. The last man I heard say as much, I knocked straight through a wall. I’m just telling you what’s rumoured.’

  ‘I know full well what’s rumoured!’ Nicholas bellowed, thrusting Alban back hard on to his bed. ‘Ever since the Templars confessed to kissing each other’s arses and pissing on the cross, half of Christendom has been whispering that the Knights of St John indulge in the same foul practices.’ His fists were clenched so hard that his knuckles had turned white. All the honour, all the glory so hard won throughout the centuries by noble men who had pledged their lives and souls for Christendom, all that gave meaning and purpose to his own life had been turned to dust and dung in the eyes of men and God because of what the Templars had done. They had soiled the very title ‘knight’ and all it stood for.

  He slumped back on to his bed. ‘Those fools in France didn’t act swiftly en
ough. They burned the Templars they caught, but they let half of them slip through their fingers and escape to foul our nest in England, and our king won’t supply enough men to hunt them down. Says his coffers are bare and we all know why – he’s been stuffing the pockets of his own little catamites. Even when they do arrest the Templars hiding here, they’re not put to the rack properly, because thanks to King Edward’s lily liver, there’s no one in England competent enough to do it without killing them before they’ve uttered a word. They have to smoke out every last one of the Templars and burn them for the filthy vermin they are. Until they do, we will all be tainted.’

  ‘Aye, but till that happens, you want to be careful not to set tongues wagging here ’cause women will use anything they can against a man if it serves them. More cunning than a skulk of vixens, they are.’

  ‘They can try any trick they dream up,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I swear that before I’m done I’ll uncover every festering sore that the prioress is trying to hide from me and she will pay dearly for them all.’

  Chapter 17

  Sorrel

  As soon as I plodded up to Eva’s fire I could see that something was amiss. Usually by this time she’d be threading her way between the men and children, collecting the bowls that had been scraped clean and hovering impatiently over those who were trying to make the pottage last by savouring every mouthful. But that evening she was crouching on a rock beside the fire, hunched over the flames as if she couldn’t soak up enough warmth, caged inside her own thoughts.

  On most nights the menfolk, though always weary, brightened as the hot food slid into their bellies, cheered by the knowledge that a few precious hours of sleep lay between them and another round of muscle-tearing work. They’d pick through the bones of the day, teasing each other, bickering or grumbling, and when there was nothing left to chew over, they’d dice, or play a few rounds of ‘cross and pile’, flipping a coin and betting on which side up it would land. The tinners gambled on anything and everything, even how far they could spit or piss. I reckoned they were in as much debt to each other as to Gleedy.

  But Eva’s mood had settled over the men, like a winter’s fog lingering over a pool. She didn’t glance up as, one by one, the tinners dropped their wooden bowls in a heap next to her and, with a wary glance, ambled off back to their own huts. As the last vanished, I slid on to a stone close to the fire and held out my hand to catch its warmth, rubbing the heat, like an unguent, over my aching knees. From below came the sounds of families settling in for the night: the babbling of voices, children yelling, iron pots clanging, and the rasp of whetstones as men sharpened tools ready for the coming day. A shower of scarlet sparks rose, like a flock of birds, into the darkening, smoke-filled sky as someone tossed another peat on to the embers of their fire. Still Eva didn’t stir. Even in the orange-red glow of her own fire she looked pale, her eyes sunk into dark hollows.

  ‘You sick?’ I asked softly.

  Her head jerked up, as if she hadn’t realised I was there. By way of answer, she struggled up and bent to collect the bowls the tinners had discarded. I scrambled to my feet and went to help her, taking a pile from her hand. She stooped again to gather up the rest, but as she reached out, a cry escaped her and she remained doubled over, clutching her belly. I dropped the bowls I was holding and guided her back to the rock. It was only as I tried to ease her down that I saw the dark stain on the grey granite, glistening in the firelight. The back of her skirt was soaked with blood. She stared vacantly, as if she couldn’t remember what she was doing.

  I laid a hand on her arm to try to get her attention. ‘Your moon time come? You want me to find you some rags?’

  She frowned, and for a moment I thought she would shrug and say nothing as she usually did. But even from that brief touch, I’d felt the cold clamminess of her skin. She was shivering too. She glanced around her, as if to make quite sure there was no other within hearing.

  ‘I was with child. But three days ago he . . .’ Her mouth worked silently as if she could not drag the words out from the mire of her thoughts. She gave a deep sigh. ‘I fell. Soon after, the bleeding started. The babe swam away on the red tide. It was no bigger than a pea pod. But the blood won’t stop. It grows worse.’

  I stared at her helplessly. Cobwebs and puffballs wouldn’t work on bleeding like this, even if I knew where to find them on these sodden moors. I’d never seen anyone staunch this kind of flow. I was the last of my mam’s children, and no other women in our village would have wanted me near them when they were birthing their babes. Neighbours, who knew they were with child, would cover their eyes as I passed and shrink back between the cottages, for fear my shadow would touch them and their unborn babe would be maimed in the womb.

  ‘Is there a woman in the camp who helps with childbirth? They might have the knowledge . . .’ I began.

  ‘Any woman who had such skills wouldn’t need to dig in the mud for stones,’ Eva said. She winced, pressing her clenched fists into her belly, as she braced herself against the pain. ‘But before you came, there was a woman here living with one of the tinners. She’d been born on the moor. Her man . . . he made enemies. One night, he was found with a knife wound. Threatened they’d do worse to him next time. Pair of them wanted to leave that night, but the gash kept bleeding each time he moved.’

  Eva paused, her breath coming in short shallow pants. I could see it was costing her dear to speak so much, but I knew she’d not be telling me unless the tale was important.

  ‘The woman . . . daren’t leave her man, afeared they might do him more injury while he lay helpless. But she told me there was a blood charmer, lived out on the moors. She begged me to take a clootie to her, get her to charm it. I did as she bade me, fetched it back and she bound it round the wound. I’d not have believed it, but . . . the bleeding stopped.’

  Eva drew her knife from her belt, and cut a strip of cloth from her skirt. Struggling to her feet, she soaked it in the bloody patch on the rock. Then she thrust the wet rag into my hand. ‘You’ll take it? Take it to the blood charmer. There’s none else who’d do me such a kindness here.’

  Chapter 18

  Morwen

  Ma wiped her fingers round the inside of the bowl and sucked them to be sure she hadn’t missed a drop of the rabbit stew. Ryana scraped the burned fragments from the bottom of the cooking pot, nibbling them with her long yellow teeth. We’d managed to make the rabbit stretch among the four of us for two days, adding more herbs, stale breadcrumbs and water each time we heated it, till even the remembrance of flavour had been boiled out of the bare bones. The rabbit had been payment from one of the villagers – he’d wanted to know where to find his horse – and had likely been poached from one of the warrens, but Ma never asked where her payments came from.

  The clouds had been lying low all day on the moor, wrapping our cottage in a wet grey mist, like a soiled bandage. In the shippon, on the other side of the wicker partition, the three goats had settled down to sleep as if they thought it was already nightfall.

  ‘Have to go foraging tomorrow, the lot of ye,’ Ma said. ‘And I mean proper foraging, Tae. Don’t think you can disappear all day and saunter back with nothing to show for it but a bunch of thyme, else you’ll not be getting a share of anything in the pot.’

  Ryana glanced sullenly at Taegan, muttering low so Ma wouldn’t hear, ‘She knows where to get fed and it’s not from our pot.’

  Ryana and I both suspected that Daveth and his brother stole food for our sister from their own ma, but Taegan never brought it home to share after her nights in the byre with them.

  There was a clatter as the goats suddenly scrambled to their feet.

  Ma raised her head. ‘Someone’s coming.’

  ‘It’ll be old Meggy back with summat she’s lifted from the boy,’ Ryana said, looking interested for once.

  Meggy had come to our cottage just the day before. It was plain to see the old woman was in a fair twitter, which I could tell pleased Ma. She’d
not refuse to help Meggy, especially if it meant thwarting the black crows – besides, she couldn’t afford to turn away any chance of payment – but she’d not forgiven her, and if we could give her a fright, Ma reckoned that was no more than Meggy deserved.

  ‘Birds tell me they’ve closed Bryde’s Well,’ Ma had announced, as soon as Meggy had seated herself on the stool.

  The villager who had brought Ma the rabbit had told her that.

  Meggy had nodded. ‘I burned the charm and said the words like you told me, Kendra.’

  ‘Never fails if it’s done right,’ Ma had told her.

  ‘But you didn’t warn me what that charm would do,’ Meggy had protested indignantly. ‘Made my skin crawl when I saw it. Frogs, thousands of them, swarming all over the floor and walls. Water was so thick with them it looked like a mess of pease pottage. That kept the boy from the well, right enough, kept them all from it. But for how long Kendra?’

  Ma had ignored the question. ‘Yer fetch me anything from the boy?’

  Meggy had shaken her head. ‘They’ve got him in the infirmary. Don’t even let him out in the yard by himself to piss, case he bumps into summat and hurts himself.’

  ‘You could give him something,’ I’d said. ‘That’d be a reason to get close.’

  Ma had glared at me and Ryana had cackled with laughter. ‘What’s she to give him, Mazy-wen, a slap?’

  But Meggy wasn’t laughing. ‘Maybe I could . . . a toy or some such.’

  ‘Have a care, Meggy,’ Ma had cautioned. ‘If it’s summat of yours, he’ll use it against ye.’

  Meggy had looked more affrighted when she’d left than when she’d arrived, and Ma had had a good chuckle over that. All the same, she’d meant the warning to be heeded. Ma never ignored what the spirits had shown in her smoke. She might not admit it, but deep down I could tell she was as worried as Meggy was about what trouble the boy might bring to the moors.