by Cleo Cordell
‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ one of them muttered.
‘What about the ransom? Someone will pay well to get her back,’ another man said.
‘Aye. The lass will bring in a pretty price. Edwin you lead us now. Gille and Barny would want that. What say you?’
‘I say, fuck the ransom,’ said Edwin. ‘She’s done for Barny. That’s more’n enough for me.’ So saying he unsheathed the skinning knife which hung at his waist. With swift economy of movement he slipped the blade in between Garnetta’s ribs and angled it upwards to pierce her heart. Then, just to make certain, he forced her head upwards so that her throat was stretched taut and drew the blade in a wide sweep from ear to ear.
A torrent of blood frothed over his hand. Garnetta collapsed with hardly a sigh. ‘Fashion some bunches of twigs into flambeaux, then kick some earth onto the embers,’ he said flatly. ‘We leave at once. This place is cursed.’
‘Should we not give our brethren a Christian burial?’ someone asked.
‘Nay, leave the bodies for the crows,’ Edwin said, his eyes flickering around the undergrowth. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He imagined that the shadows were moving towards him. ‘You bury them if you feel the need. I’ll not stay a minute longer in the witch’s company.’
Stripping the weapons from Gille and Barnabas, Edwin stuck them into his pack. Without a backward glance, he strode towards Garnetta’s discarded cloak. It was a fine garment. Edwin hated wastage. Settling it around his shoulders he fastened the clasp. He would find a priest when they next paused in a village and have him say a prayer to St Ninian – patron of those who performed the work of cleansing evil spirits.
Crossing themselves and muttering prayers for protection, the band of soldiers began picking their way through the trees.
Hidden deep within the tangle of undergrowth, Clem watched them go. He shivered with pain and reaction, having watched all that transpired. His teeth chattered so much that he was forced to clamp them down onto a fold of his dirty tunic, lest the noise attract the soldiers’ attention.
He did not dare let out his breath until the last glimmer of flame faded in the distance, then he hunched over and began to rock back and forth, moaning softly in his distress. Tears made tracks down his grubby cheeks. His burnt leg and notched ear throbbed unmercifully. The deep scratches from wild briars bled into his clothes, but he did not dare move. He remained in his cramped position for the rest of the long night, his fitful sleep haunted by visions of the brave woman who had rescued him and who now lay dead next to the blood-soaked soldiers.
CHAPTER NINE
Garnetta opened her eyes and lay still, listening to the rasping sound of her own breath. The leaf mould where she lay was sticky with her blood. Beside her were sprawled the bodies of Gille and Barnabas, their faces twisted into expressions of the purest agony.
She tried to swallow and felt a soreness and obstruction in her throat. Even to move her head slightly was an agony. There was a terrible pain in her chest. Every time she drew breath, the soreness pierced her through. Raising her hand she felt the thick seam of raw scar tissue around her throat. In parts the skin had not knitted together and she could push her fingers under the wet flap of the cut. Her hand ought to have come away stained with blood, but the wound had been staunched.
Gingerly she slid her hand over her breast. Her fingers found the open leaves of flesh where the knife had entered. Like the wound on her neck, it was not bleeding. This was impossible. Edwin had killed her. She remembered the appalling sensation of the knife sliding into her flesh, burning an icy trail through her lungs, entering her heart. Something had given way inside her then. Black wings seemed to beat against her ears. She had been barely conscious when he cut her throat.
Either injury was a mortal wound. And yet she was breathing. It was unnatural. But unnatural or no, it appeared that she had survived. Every muscle, every nerve seethed with agony. She moved her hand further down over her ribs, and felt the rough edge of a bone protruding through the skin. Exquisite pain lanced through her as she pressed on the piece of bone, but it slipped inside her readily. She felt a sickening lurch as the bone realigned itself.
She snatched her hand away, revolted by her own flesh. ‘Blessed Mary, mother of Christ, how can this be?’ she whimpered.
After a moment she recovered enough to feel over the rest of her body. There did not seem to be a single area of her body that was not bruised and swollen. Edwin’s words echoed in her head, In God’s name what are you? and her own reply, I don’t know. And God help her, truly she did not. What had Karolan done to her? No one could cheat death. She had seen each of those she loved die. They had been spared nothing. She had been powerless to help them. Yet, here she was, broken and suffering, but alive. Perhaps she had been dead since the pestilence raged through her. Now she was a husk, animated only by Karolan’s foul magic.
She moved slowly, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her thoughts were clouded by the pain in her body. It sapped her will, making it difficult to concentrate. She stopped trying, centring all her efforts on moving. She had to get away, find someone who would help her. Someone who was close to God. A priest would know about evil spirits. She longed to be shriven, to be comforted in the bosom of the Church.
Gradually, stopping to take deep breaths when the pain was too much, she managed to get up onto her hands and knees and crawl over to her ruined shift. She propped herself against the fallen tree, overcome by weakness. For almost an hour she sat motionless, staring into space, thinking over all that had happened. The dead men mocked her with their silence. She averted her eyes from the terrible wounds at their groins. Somehow she had killed those men. Part of her was glad that the soldiers were dead. They had been wicked men, murderers, thieves, deserving of their fate, but God’s commandments were clear. Thou shalt not kill. She had done so, indirectly perhaps, but she was culpable none the less.
The sin of it weighed heavily upon her. Her lips moved in the words of a Miserere. But the words of the prayer offered scant comfort. After a time she felt strong enough to pull the torn and muddied shift over her head. Biting her lip against the pain, she struggled to her feet. It was no use to stay where she was. She must walk until she came to a cart track and follow that to the nearest village. Hunched over, her hand pressed against her sore ribs, she started forward.
From the corner of her eye she thought she detected a movement. It was nothing tangible, more a disturbance in the air. There it was again, a sort of silvery whirlpool that blinked out of her vision if she looked at it directly. She had seen something like that before, but where? Then she remembered. It had been in the tower. She had woken from a deep sleep and lain looking through partly closed lashes at Karolan. For a moment only she allowed herself to think of him, her beautiful lover, her saviour. And her betrayer. She pushed away the emotions that thinking of Karolan stirred up.
The movements in the air changed. It seemed as if there was a pleating, an infolding. This is how it might look if the wind were visible, she thought. Those strange eddies and striations had been visible in the air above Karolan’s shoulder. He had told her that this was a trick, something he was practising to entertain her. Now she knew that he had lied. He had conjured no gimcrackery to delight the eye, but something far more sinister. It is his familiar. The unclean spirit I read about in the ledger. He has sent it after me. Whatever the thing was, it was following her. She heard its voice, twittering and whispering in the overhead branches of a tree. Anyone else might have mistaken the sound for birdsong, but she knew better. Her preternatural senses told her that this was something entirely new, something of which she had no previous experience. There was a glimmer of soft light in the branches, a suggestion of a long shadowy form.
‘What are you?’ she called out, her damaged voice rusty-sounding. ‘Are you a demon, a foul beast from the pit of hell? You tricked me once, but you won’t do so again. Show yourself. What are you afraid of? Answer me!’
The only answer was a burst of trilling laughter. The tone of it chilled her blood. In that sound was a welter of experience. It was ageless, all-knowing – capricious and cruel – but there was something deeply sensual about it too. She sensed that the creature wanted her. Its fascination had an odour like licorice and almonds – a smell at once enticing and sickening. A wave of warm air swept over her and she felt soft tendrils brush against her face. Oh, God, surely they were fingertips that caressed her skin as if seeking to absorb the map of her features.
There was breath against her skin, hot and perfumed with spice. The trail of sensation moved down her chest. Her nipples rose in instant response, throbbing and burning, peaking under the ruined shift. The thing’s scent was stronger, beguiling her senses. Her mouth watered. A whisper tickled her ear. ‘Beautiful you are,’ said a husky voice. ‘Ah, lovely to me is your agony. Pleasure – much pleasure, we shall share.’
For a second longer she was consumed by the tactile quality of the spirit’s presence. Tenderness radiated from it. She felt cherished, loved, desired. Against her better judgement she felt herself responding. Then, without warning, it was gone. Garnetta staggered and almost fell. The sense of loss was urgent within her. The forest seemed more silent than ever with the thing’s passing. Only the breeze rustled the leaves. Come back. I do not want to be alone. Help me.
Now she knew that her wits had fled. Karolan’s familiar would be devil-spawn, an ugly thing. She pictured a creature with a shiny black carapace, sharp, pointed teeth. Surely it crept on four legs and tore at its food with scythe-like claws. It could not be this sensuous being of light and shadow which promised fleshly delights. In her distress she was hearing and seeing things which could not exist. But even that was an illusion. She was living proof of the impossible. Nothing made sense any more. The only reality was the springiness of the forest floor beneath her feet and the pain radiating through her body with the clarity of plainsong. Then she thought she heard an echo of the spirit’s laughter, far away.
‘Leave me alone, can’t you,’ she called out, stumbling onwards, her voice breaking on a sob. ‘Whatever you are, demon or dark angel, get away from me. Stop tormenting me. Have you not done enough? And damn you Karolan! Damn your black soul to Hell! I wish I had never set eyes on you!’
Clem rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he stood looking down at the bodies of the soldiers. They had died horribly and in agony. He was glad. He had seen them violate the woman and felt sick at his powerlessness to help her. At first he was at a loss to understand why they had been stricken with a blight to their privy parts. Then he had the answer. It was a miracle. The woman had come from a convent, he had heard the soldiers say as much. The Lord looked after his own. It was fitting that the soldiers had been stricken by the wrath of God and the Holy Virgin.
He pushed at one of the corpses with his bare foot. This was the man who had notched his ear, the Norman. That other was Barny. But where was the woman? Looking around with a practised eye he saw the tracks leading through the trees. There was the trail made by the soldiers and, going in the opposite direction, he could detect the fainter marks made by the woman.
Clem scratched at his head, catching a louse and squashing it between his broken fingernails. He had felt sure that the woman was dead. True he had not seen every detail of what had been done to her – it was dark amidst the trees with only the firelight for illumination – but Edwin had stabbed her twice, he was certain of that.
Well he was right glad that she still lived. She must be injured and in need of help. Clem decided to follow her. There might be a reward for helping her. His injured leg, bound up now beneath a poultice of chewed grass, did not slow him down overmuch, but it was a while before he caught up with her. Even before he caught sight of her, he heard her call out and held back, fearful that the soldiers had come back. When he heard no other voices, he approached warily through the trees. Eyes widening as he took in her appearance, Clem hid himself behind a thicket of brambles. He knew himself to be a simple lad, never having had the benefit of a priest to teach him his letters, but even he could see that something was terribly wrong. How was it possible that the woman was on her feet? She looked like the painting of St Julitta which had been hung at the back of the mummers’ wagon when it passed through his village. St Julitta had been stretched on a rack, beaten, then her sides were ripped apart with hooks. Clem had wept for the poor martyred saint, impressed by her terrible wounds.
This woman’s body was almost as torn and bloody. The ragged shift did nothing to conceal the marks of the knife. There was a livid wound at her throat, a deep cut under one rib. Almost the entire surface of her pale skin was disfigured with purple bruises and swellings. By the way she favoured her side, he thought that she had some broken bones. Any one of her wounds would have been enough to set a soldier on his back for a sennight. As he watched she began crying out, speaking to someone he could not see. Clem looked all around, but there was no one in sight. Standing still the woman raised her face to the sky. She closed her eyes. A look of rapture came over her face. Clem’s eyes almost popped out as she lifted her hands and rubbed her palms against her breasts.
Cold shivers ran up his back as he heard her calling out. A woman should not curse like that. It was indecent. Surely a nun would not caress herself so wantonly. He crossed himself, muttering a prayer for protection. It was clear that the woman was possessed. But whether she was saint or demon, he could not tell. Filled with awe he followed her, keeping out of sight. As she stumbled and limped through the trees, the woman cocked her head as if listening to the voice of an invisible companion. Now and then she muttered something in a voice too low for Clem to hear. Doggedly he kept abreast of her, making sure that she did not detect his presence.
The sun was high overhead before the woman came upon a trackway. She did not set foot upon the dusty rutted surface, but hid herself in the long grass and brambles at the edge of the road. Clem settled himself down at a safe distance. He was tired and his feet ached. More than anything he wanted a drink of water. It was a marvel that the woman had made such steady progress. Despite her weakened state she had not faltered or stopped to rest. He remembered her unusual strength while fighting the soldiers and crossed himself again, just for good measure.
The shadows were beginning to lengthen before Clem heard hoof beats and the crunching roll of cartwheels in the distance. In his home village, half a day’s journey away in the opposite direction, the men would be coming home from working their strip fields. Clem’s stomach growled, reminding him that he ought to be eating the main meal of the day. His mother would be serving up a dinner of boiled leeks, bread, and ale. His mouth watered as he thought longingly of the food and of his brothers and sisters who would be quick to eat his share between them. He tightened the belt at his waist, resigned to a few more hours without food. When he returned to the village at last, he would have a few coins to show for his absence and a story to tell time and again when the cold weather kept them all inside the family croft. He grinned, showing strong yellow teeth. Many times he had been beaten for his laziness. ‘Thee were born yawnin’,’ his father often said. ‘Thee mun not be idle, lad. Devil maketh work for them that are.’ Well, this time it was not Clem’s fault that he was late back from market. This time his father would have to eat his words.
The cart trundled into view, preceded by two monks riding mules. Set up high in the drover’s seat was a monk robed in the white habit of Holy Penitence. Clem recognized the man’s heavy features, sunk within the folds of a cowl. Brother Amos, the kitchener from the monastery, was a frequent visitor to the markets and farms in his quest for the best food for the abbot’s table. The kitchener wore a self-satisfied expression, as well he might, thought Clem. The main body of the cart was stacked high with barrels and covered over with a cloth of tarred canvas. By the smell wafting out, it was plain that the kitchener was replenishing his store of fish.
Clem’s first thought had been t
o step into the road and wave the little cavalcade to a halt, but seeing the kitchener aloft, he hesitated. Brother Amos was not known for his good temper, and when returning to the monastery fully laden, was likely to brush aside any obstacle in his path. The two mules passed Clem by, then the cart’s wheels rolled past, clattering and rumbling against the stones. A flap of the tarpaulin had pulled loose and was blowing open in the breeze. Clem saw the woman come out of the trees and lope after the cart. She was hunched over and grimacing with pain, but moving fast. He watched in amazement as she hoisted herself up and rolled inside the back, pulling the cloth to cover herself.
It had taken only seconds. Neither the kitchener nor the other monks had noticed anything amiss. Clem was impressed by the woman’s resourcefulness. By the time anyone discovered her presence she would be inside Holy Penitence and decisions about her fate would be in the hands of the abbot. He decided that he too would go to Holy Penitence, but there was no need to hurry now. Although the skills of the infirmarer there, a certain Brother Stephanis, were of some repute, Clem thought that it would be some time before the woman was brought back to full health. He would make his way to the monastery in a day or two. By that time, from what he had already seen of her, the woman ought to be creating quite a stir.
He gave a sigh of contentment. His burned leg was throbbing fitfully, but the pain of it was bearable. His injured ear hurt him more. He would be marked for ever – a thief’s mark when he was no thief. After all that he had suffered, reaction finally set in. He gave way to exhaustion. The sun was warm on his back and his eyelids felt heavy. Nestling down into the sweet scented grass, he pillowed his head on his bent arm and fell asleep.
Brother Stephanis de Mayne was preparing his own medicaments. Helping him in the still-house was young Thomas Wyatte, a layman of fifteen years, who had been his assistant for the past few months.