“WE ARE GOING there?” whispered Galfrid, as they stood apart from the knot of men.
“Yes,” said Gisburne. “Immediately. I must see it.”
“I would’ve thought you’d seen enough.”
“Not nearly enough. Not until it makes sense. Monreale, Galfrid...”
“But taking John towards his enemy – where we know him to have been...”
“He had the chance to kill him before and did not do it.”
“But we both know how this game is meant to end,” said Galfrid, his tone grave. “Judgement Day. What if he decides that is to be today, and we deliver his prey right into his hands?”
“Then it is our job to stop him.”
“Stop him how?”
Gisburne did not have an answer. A party of two dozen elite warriors had failed to stop him. He had smashed his way into two castles, and breached the defences of another without detection. “I must see it,” he insisted. “No matter what. But I have an idea. A place he might be safe.”
Galfrid hesitated, as if he had wanted to say more but decided against it. He nodded.
Gisburne turned. “We’re leaving,” he announced to John.
“But Mare’s shoe...” said John with a frown.
“Will have to wait,” said Gisburne. Then he turned to Galfrid. “All right?”
Galfrid shrugged. “If it flies off, it’ll be your head it cracks, not mine.”
Gisburne crouched to the level of the squire and lifted his chin with his finger. “Boy – what you saw last night... Would you willingly submit yourself to it again?”
The boy shook his head.
“But do you yet have faith in God, and believe the world a good and just place?”
A tear coursed down the boy’s cheek. “Yes...”
Gisburne stood. “Then hang up your sword and join the clergy,” he said, and strode to his horse.
“So where is it?” said Galfrid, ushering John before him. “This safe place?”
“You’ll see,” said Gisburne.
XVI
Burgh St Peter
17 May, 1193
GALFRID GAZED UP into the vast, soaring nave in a state of awe, his crumpled hat clutched in both hands. He had always loved such places – loved them since the age of ten, when his uncle had taken him into the great cathedral church at Ely. But over the years, he had also experienced a growing need for them. They had become places of healing.
He had witnessed many things in his life. Terrible things. The worst that men and women could do to each other. He did not doubt he would witness many more – some before this month was out. Yet when he looked upon such marvels as this, he had faith. Faith in his fellow men. Because if they could achieve this, he reasoned, they could achieve anything – and not all the cruelty and hatred in the world could wipe that out. Had Gisburne been watching the humbled figure there in the abbey church, he might well have declared it the only time he had seen him actually looking like a servant.
THEY HAD MADE Burgh St Peter by mid morning. Mare’s shoe had held – how, Galfrid had no idea, but wasn’t about to question it – and the road was straight and the going firm. The land had also begun to take on uniquely East Anglian qualities – flatter than a still ocean, empty as a summer sky, but with a quality of bleak melancholy that made it seem somehow... unfinished. Abandoned. Devoid not only of shape, but of purpose. It was a quality that stirred deep unease in most who subjected themselves to it – if one could believe in God here, it seemed to them, then one was indeed a true believer. But to Galfrid, it was like heading home.
The small town was dominated by the great abbey, and the abbey by its church. This was one of the wealthiest monasteries in all England, and over the past seven decades had dedicated itself to converting that wealth into stone. Beyond the thick surrounding walls and stout gatehouse – visible as they approached the abbey precincts – the roof and steeple had pushed ever higher into the endless fenland sky for the greater glory of God.
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 c
eiling. 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.
Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand Page 14