A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  Morwen seized my good hand and thrust a slender stick into it. ‘Elder,’ she announced. ‘Ma uses it to summon spirits too.’ She guided my hand, scratching three circles in the sodden earth, a small one, then a larger one around it and the third around that. ‘You must offer the spirits something.’

  ‘Ow!’ I flinched as she tugged a few strands of hair from my scalp, and bound them rapidly around some worts. Even in the dark I could recognise one by its scent: rosemary. Mam had planted a bush of that near the door of our cottage, but it died the year she did.

  ‘This is what I used to fetch you,’ Morwen said happily. ‘Rosemary to bind us, yarrow to call you, and rowan to guard against wicked spirits that might harm you on the journey or might appear in your guise to trick me.’ She leaned over and dipped the sprigs in the black pool, sending ripples running outwards across its surface. She touched the dripping herbs to the east, south, west and north of each circle in turn, letting the water shower on to the earth, though if you asked me, it was so sodden, it scarcely needed that blessing.

  ‘See, that’s what you do, but all the time, as you do it, you must say the will worth, say it and want it more than anything else. See the person in your head walking towards you, like I saw you. And you came.’

  She sat back on the wet grass and, though I couldn’t see her expression, I could hear in her voice that her smile had faded. ‘Ma says only the eldest daughter has the gift, been that way since first our granddams had the keeping of Bryde’s well afore the black crows stole it from us. Ma was the eldest, and her ma too afore that. But I know Ryana can’t journey or speak to spirits. She fools Ma into thinking she can ’cause Ma is so sure it’s her that has the gift, not me. Ma won’t let me speak of it. She says there’s ways and secrets that can only be passed to the eldest, else the spirits will grow angry and take revenge. But you can feel them, hear them, like me. I knew it from the moment we both held that clootie. I can talk about these things to you. I can show you.’

  ‘But before I came for the blood charm, you didn’t know me to call me. It wasn’t your voice I heard in my dreams. Whose was it? Why did she bring me here?’

  Morwen didn’t answer. Frustration and disappointment fermented inside me. I’d been so sure.

  ‘I thought you’d know,’ I burst out. ‘When you said “Dertemora”. I thought that meant you knew. It was a sign.’

  ‘It’s just the old name for these moors,’ Morwen said. ‘Everyone calls it that . . . all the villagers. Only the blow-ins, like the black crows and the pedlars, call it summat different.’

  ‘The tinners call it Dartmoor.’

  ‘Aye, that’s it, but no one birthed in these parts would say it. It’s not respectful. ’Sides, Old Crockern, the spirit who guards these moors with his wisht hounds, he’d not know it by any name save Dertemora. How could any ask him to protect it, if they don’t know its rightful name? But . . .’ she shuffled closer to me ‘. . . this voice of yours, what did it say?’

  It was a night for whispering secrets so I told her what I had shared with no one. I sensed that she alone would not mock me or think I’d run mad. I told her about the river turning to blood, Todde and the hound’s-tongue, and how, since I was nine summers old, I’d heard a woman’s voice in my dreams. That day by the river I’d heard her again, but this time when I was awake. I told how I’d walked away from my village, my father, my life.

  She listened in silence.

  ‘Who is it that calls to me?’ I finished.

  For a long moment, she said nothing, then finally she murmured, ‘Maybe Ma could see her face in the smoke . . . Maybe she could show you.’

  I reached out to take her hand. ‘I reckon you’ve more skill in your fingers than Kendra and all your kin before her. I know the answer lies with you. You can show me. I know you can.’

  Chapter 23

  Prioress Johanne

  Even with the door to my chamber firmly closed, I could hear Sister Melisene shouting from the other side of the courtyard. ‘Now you stop that at once,’ Melisene bellowed, ‘or I’ll feed all the meat to the swine. They have better manners.’

  I flung open my door and immediately regretted doing so, for the cacophony emanating from the other side of the priory gate was worse than that of a mob of drunken revellers after a Christmas feast.

  ‘You heard the sister,’ Goodwife Meggy shouted, through the small grid in the huge door. ‘Kennel your tongues and stand quiet, else this gate stays shut.’

  She slammed the shutter and took a step back, murmuring something to Melisene and the servant with her, who were both balancing baskets on their hips. But the clamour outside, far from abating, was growing louder. There were even thumps on the stout wooden door, as if people were hammering on it with their staves. I dragged my cloak about my shoulders and hastened across the courtyard, trying to avoid the worst of the puddles. ‘What is happening out there?’

  The gatekeeper folded her meaty arms, glowering at me as if I was responsible for the disruption at her gate.

  ‘Tinners’ womenfolk and their brats, that’s what. They’ve the gall to come here begging for food. Claim there’s none to be had in the villages round about. Got more sense than to sell it to them, that’s why. Hid it where those thieving tinners won’t find it. They’ll need every bite they can find to fill the bellies of their own families, if this harvest is as bad as the last, which it looks fair set to be. Now those tinners have come here demanding alms, shoving our old folks and cripples to the back of the queue. It’s not right. You ought to send them packing, Sister Melisene.’

  The hosteller gnawed her lip. ‘I don’t like them elbowing the frail aside, but I can’t just turn them away. Some of those children are so thin they look as if their arms would snap if you touched them, and the mothers are nearly as gaunt. But last time I took the meats out to them, the stronger children and some of the mothers just snatched it straight from the basket before I had a chance to share it among them.’

  ‘Then it is up to us to see that it is distributed fairly,’ I said. ‘Fetch four more baskets and divide the food equally between the six. Meanwhile I will go out and speak to them.’

  ‘That rabble?’ Meggy said. ‘Don’t you turn your back on them else they’ll have the clothes ripped off it.’

  Behind me I caught the piteous cries of Sebastian through the casement of the infirmary. The noise must be carrying in to him as loudly as it had into my chamber. I had to fight the impulse to go to comfort him, but I had to trust one of the other sisters to do that. Better for him and the other patients that I dealt with this disturbance.

  If Brother Nicholas heard this . . . Sweat drenched my body, and I felt as if I was standing in front of the great fire in the kitchen instead of out in the courtyard in the damp, chill breeze. I took a deep breath. Thanks be to the Holy Virgin, our troublesome brother was one problem I did not have to deal with at this hour. Meggy had told me he had ridden out on his black rouncy early that morning. I had cursed the news then, worried about where he might have gone and what he might discover, but now I was relieved. After the plagues of frogs and flies, I did not need him accusing me of being unable to carry out the most basic of the Hospitallers’ duties – the dispensing of alms. If Nicholas sent word to Clerkenwell that we couldn’t even deal with a few beggars, they would have me removed before the ink on the report was dry. And the thought of what they might discover once I was no longer there made me shiver. I gave myself a little shake. This was foolishness. They would discover nothing, and I would not relinquish my duty as prioress until the day they laid me in my grave. All the more reason to ensure peace was restored at our gates before Nicholas returned.

  I tried to focus once more on the commotion outside, which, though it seemed impossible, was growing ever louder. I seized Meggy’s stave, then told her to open the wicket gate in the great door and bolt it behind me as soon as I had passed through. The gatekeeper regarded me dubiously, as if I was intending to walk out into a pack of raven
ing wolves. ‘They’re just women, children and crippled old men,’ I assured her.

  ‘Savages is what they are!’ But Meggy did as she was bade and opened the wicket gate, though barely wide enough for me to squeeze through, then slammed it shut again.

  For a moment, I found myself almost agreeing with Meggy, for a crowd surged towards me, jostling me so closely, I could barely breathe. I felt small hands burrowing under my cloak, stealthy as those of professional cut-purses.

  But almost at once a cry went up. ‘That’s not her. That’s not the one as brings us meats.’

  The rabble drew back a little, staring at me sullenly. I recognised a few faces, old women and a lame man who came regularly to mass. But as Meggy had predicted, a group of emaciated but belligerent women and children had pushed them roughly to the back and were keeping them there. Some of the children were pawing me again, stretching out filthy, spindly arms and crying out in the high-pitched wheedling voices that hardened beggars use to solicit alms.

  ‘You will all be given something. But I will not tolerate the scenes of yesterday.’ I seized one of the more persistent urchins by the wrist, dragging his hand from my skirt. ‘You, boy, sit over there. You, and you, join him. I said, “Sit!” Get right down on the grass. No one will have a bite until everyone is sitting, and if anyone gets up again before they have been given their meats, they will get nothing.’

  I sorted them into six groups. At first some of the boys remained standing defiantly, staring at me with mutinous eyes, some even jeering, but eventually their mothers pulled them to the ground, and finally those children who had come alone reluctantly followed. It took much heaving and groaning before some of the elderly women were able to lower themselves on to the sodden grass. I was sorry to force them to it and felt every twinge of the pain in those aching backs and swollen knees, but I could see no other way.

  When all were seated, I called to Sister Melisene and to the servants who had gathered at the window in the gate to watch, ordering them to bring out the baskets. As they passed out the food, several of the tinners’ women and children began to demand two, three, even four portions for ailing children and old folks back at their camp, but I shook my head firmly when the servants looked doubtfully at me.

  A boy sprang to his feet and ran towards an old woman. He snatched the bread and mutton bone from her hand as he passed, racing off down the slope with it, the old lady’s wails following hard on his heels. Three other children leaped up, and before any of us could stop them, they’d grabbed the food from those who had already received their share and run off. Seeing what was happening, the other villagers quickly hid their portions in their clothes or the sacks tied to their waists.

  When they were finally convinced that the baskets were empty and no more was forthcoming, the tinners’ families clumsily picked their way down the slope, plainly unused to walking over the boggy grass. We helped the old and infirm to their feet, and Melisene went to see what she could find in the kitchens for those who had been robbed of their alms.

  An elderly woman, who came often to mass, hobbled up to me. ‘You’ll not have any meats to give soon, Prioress, if those tinners aren’t stopped.’

  ‘Perhaps next time we will have to take the alms they need to a place nearer their camp so that the villagers are not pushed aside here.’

  The old woman shook her head till the wrinkled skin of her neck wobbled like a cock’s wattle. ‘You’ll not be needing to take it closer to them for they’re coming closer to you. Seen it with my own two eyes, I have. It’s you who’ll be begging for alms soon and you’ll not get any from them.’

  The rumble of hoofbeats distracted me before I could ask what she meant. Brother Nicholas was cantering up the rise on his black rouncy. Its coat was glistening with sweat, and wisps of pinkish white foam stained the corners of its mouth. He had ridden the horse hard. The villager was still talking as he reined in dangerously close beside us, forcing me to pull her out of his path.

  The old woman cocked her head, watching him slide from the saddle. ‘Take more than him to drive them off. Kendra’s curses have done no good. And if she can’t banish them, no one can.’

  ‘Drive who off?’ I demanded in, I confess, a somewhat irritated tone. I was preoccupied with wondering which properties my brother knight had been sniffing around this time. But it was Nicholas who answered me.

  ‘I rather think the goodwife is referring to the tinners. I found your cowherd trying to round up the cattle. It seems he was watering them at the stream when a gang of men and their dogs charged them, scattering the beasts in all directions. They claimed the cattle were trampling their bounding markers.’

  ‘Bounding?’

  Nicholas snorted, sounding not unlike his horse, which was pawing the ground and tossing its head, impatient to be taken to the stable. ‘When the tinners want to commandeer a new site, they mark the corners of their boundaries by cutting turves and flipping them over, then lay stones at the edges of their claim. All they have to do then, it seems, is to inform their so-called tinners’ court that they have placed their bounding markers, and provided another tinner hasn’t already laid claim to that spot, they’re free to start tearing up the land, digging for tin.’

  ‘But those are our grazing rights,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘Were!’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ve seen their tin works in the far valley. Once they start digging here, there won’t be a blade of grass left fit for grazing or water a beast could drink without poisoning itself.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ the old woman cried triumphantly. ‘They’ll be doing to you what they done to us. Tore off my door to use as firewood, they did, and their dogs killed my last hen, while they stood and laughed. You mark my words, they’ll be cooking their suppers on your threshold, if you don’t stop them, and it’ll be your cattle that they’ll be stewing in their pots.’

  Her rheumy eyes spotted Melisene returning with a small basket of food for those souls who’d been robbed, and she hobbled away to claim her share, though I did not recall seeing anyone snatch food from her hand. But perhaps I was mistaken.

  Nicholas took a tighter grip on his restless horse’s bridle, trying to hold the powerful beast in check. ‘I wouldn’t generally wager a dog’s turd on any prediction made by some old village crone, but I’d gamble my own rouncy that she’ll be proved right about this. Those tinners have the King’s law on their side and it’s the most badly worded statute that was ever drawn up since Nebuchadnezzar was crowned. Tinners could dig up this priory stone by stone, if they chose to claim there was tin beneath it. And claim it is all they need to do. According to stannary law, their law, no landowner may “vex or trouble them”, which means, in effect, whatever they want it to mean. If a farmer so much as waves his fist at them or sets a dog on them to try to stop them digging up his crops, they say he has troubled them and can have him fined or worse. There’s no court in this land that can curb their rights, unless King Edward chooses to change the law, and he won’t do that while they’re making the tin he needs for his wars, and lining his coffers with the tax they’re paying on every ingot. He doesn’t care who in his kingdom suffers, so long as he has enough money to lavish gifts on those pretty lads he has tumbling into his bed.’

  ‘That is dangerously close to treason, Brother Nicholas,’ I warned.

  His mouth curled in contempt. ‘So, now I am obliged to listen to a woman try to school me in my duty to the King. Perhaps, my sweet prioress, you’ll not be so quick to defend your sovereign when those tinners have taken your livestock, your water and your land, and you discover that our illustrious king is too busy fondling his friends to spare a moment to restrain these marauders. We will have to deal with this ourselves. The Lord Prior will not want to cause trouble, but Commander John at Buckland itches for a fight. He’ll not be so squeamish. I’ll send word to him. A few well-armed knights and sergeants-at-arms riding down on those tinners without warning will soon put them to flight
.’

  The tinners might be wolves, I thought, but Nicholas was a fox of the most cunning breed. Crying help to Buckland to come to the aid of defenceless women unable to protect themselves all alone on the moors – the brothers would love that. It would be just the excuse they needed to herd us safely into the fold of the cloister, leaving Brother Nicholas free to dig as deep as he pleased into the affairs of the priory. He would not be content with our removal. Nicholas was an ambitious man, itching for command. He wanted to discover something, anything, to earn the gratitude and respect of the Lord Prior. And when a man is so determined to expose evil, he can take even the miracles of a saint and present them as the work of the devil.

  I met his gaze levelly. ‘If a farmer’s raised fist can be counted a vexation to the tinners, Brother Nicholas, I can only imagine what offence they might take if a party of armed knights came charging down on unarmed men, not to mention their wives and children.’

  Nicholas laughed. ‘They’d have a tough time serving an appeal against us to bring us to their tinners’ court, much less imposing a fine. You must name a man to charge him. Hard to do that when he wears no coat of arms.’

  I tapped the white cross on my cloak. ‘A Knight of St John may not bear his own arms, but he does bear the arms of Christ, and God’s knights do not ride down famished women and children, who are the very ones we are all pledged to serve. I have seen those tinners’ families today with my own eyes. What they do, they do because they are desperate.’

  ‘As you will be if they are allowed to invade our order’s land unchecked. You women are too easily deceived by a tearful beggar’s brat. You do realise that their mothers pinch them to make them cry, don’t you? The tinners I saw in the valley were not hungry, they were greedy for wealth, and if their women and children go without food, it is because their fellow streamers would see them starve rather than share what they have. They’re a pack of dogs gone wild.’