Question: Do you not spread the pestilence by poisoning the wells and the foods?
Answer: I do not, sir. I do not know why the pestilence persists in dogging my steps so closely.
Question: It always follows you?
Answer: Yes. Wherever I go, it appears two or three days behind me.
Question: Do I hear you right? Are you now threatening us, here gathered?
Answer: No, sir. I am not. I wish you the best of health. But I cannot speak for the pox, which has a will of its own.
The attorney asks me to account for my past movements. So I tell him truthfully –
I was a novice in the monastery at Whye until the Black Death killed all my brother monks.
I stayed at Coppetts Pond in the woods until the pestilence came and killed my companion.
I took myself to the inn at Ravenstone until the Great Mortality struck there too, killing half the village.
I moved on to Franken Champney, but the pestilence followed me there.
I am gladdened to see Simon Mostly called as witness. He is a friend. He knows me well and can attest to my good character.
But, having sworn on the Bible, to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, may God Almighty strike him down if he lies, he declares that he has seen myself and the said pig, in the cell opposite, converse in our intrigue. He declares we turned our backs on the company, and whispered to avoid being overheard, and sometimes spoke the Latin to avoid being understood. Nonetheless, he heard us talk clearly of the poisoning of waters, and the fouling of wells.
Further, he says that I, not the pig, was the leading actor in this complot.
He says he knows me from before, and that I carry skulls as demonic ornaments, and wherever I go the pestilence shortly follows, and that I am spreading death as an agent of Lucifer himself.
He testifies that I am a heretic and preach for sin and the Devil. He claims I said that Lucifer was as great as God, for there could not be one without the other. For there could be no high without low, light without dark, good without evil.
Further, Simon says that I am always speaking out against my betters. He tells the court that I said the lord of the manor was like a leech or scavenger, for he sucks the blood of the sick, harvests what he never grew, and steals the labour of others, as if it is his own.
Tears well, to trickle down Simon’s cheeks as he points to me as Devil Incarnate. He crosses himself. He weeps. He sniffs. He snuffles. He rubs his tearful, bloodshot eyes. He begs the court and the Church for their protection, to save him from the malice of my vengeance.
I can see clearly from the scowls and stares of the jury, and the unblinking, unkind look of the judge, that the trial is not proceeding to my advantage.
XX. Poxed
It is a harsh truth to learn you must burn. But we all must die. In the fullness of our tenure on flesh, before our lease on life is run. And the secret is to die well. Confessed. Penitent. Absolved. Embracing the bigger, better, eternal life to come.
For we all must pay a price. None of us is innocent, however we plead. We are all guilty – imperfect, fallen fledglings who must be helped to penitence and to rise again.
If I am given the choice to burn briefly on a bonfire in Franken Champney, or for all eternity in the Pits of Hell, I know which I will choose. Besides, Brother Falco once told me, there’s a knack to being burned alive. If you can only swallow your tongue, you pass away from a dearth of breath before the flames can ever reach you. Which spares much pain.
That is the beauty and indestructibility of truth. It is why we should never spurn any single grain of knowledge on the beach of wisdom. You may learn something. And it lies like a seed, dormant in your mind for twenty years. Until you find its use.
All the same, I addressed myself to the Almighty. I prayed that He might find a use for me in His Divine plan. And that plan had me alive, not dead.
I reminded Him I was young, with the hope of a long span ahead. I said I would pledge my life to His service. And give myself, like Saint Odo, to the harvesting of knowledge and the service of the sick. All that afternoon we heard the distant screams and squeals of the pig.
You could hear that they were beating him and using spikes, screws and other metallic persuasions.
And when he was returned to the gaol at dusk, we saw he had been horribly used, terribly man-handled. They had torn the shirt from him, and all along his back were deep, weeping ridges where he had been struck by some long hard rod. He was gone lame in his rear legs, dragging his hind end, belly to the ground. He was bleeding from his nose and ears.
In the cell he lay panting on his side, eyes half-open but glazed, unseeing.
I could see what had passed. They had tried to make him talk. They had tried to force him to recognise the court. They had sought to drive any demons out. But, despite their blows and threats and contraptions, it was all in vain.
Man or pig, it was a terrible, ugly way to treat a member of Creation.
Martin, the warder, comes to the bars of my cage to talk to me.
‘They will burn you in the morning,’ he says. ‘You. And the pig too.’
‘I know,’ I say, ‘can you call a priest? I must confess. I need absolution before I go beyond.’
He purses his lips. He considers. ‘If you have any valuables hidden, you should show me now. For you surely cannot take them with you. And it would be a shame to have then burn.’
‘I have nothing,’ I say.
For, in truth, all I have left to give back to the world are some words of warning to the sinful, besides the Abbot’s ring and a single gold coin, lodged up my arse.
‘Because if you paid me,’ Martin slurs, ‘I could get you a priest. Some food too. And I could give you a draught before they take you.’
‘A draught?’
‘Hemlock and opium poppy in spirit. So you would not feel any pain.’
I see the bubbles of sweat on his forehead. I smell his rotten, sulphur breath. I see the acorn swelling in his neck.
‘Are you well, Brother Martin?’ I ask.
‘I am dizzy,’ he says. And he sways away, then back, as if addled by ale.
‘I am a surgeon,’ I say, ‘I think I know what ails you. It’s clear to see.’
‘What is that?’
‘I must examine you,’ I say, ‘to be sure. You must place your hand between the bars.’
I press my fingers to his wrist. He is burning hot. His heart is racing. It is a stallion at full gallop.
‘You must sit here by the bars, and lean towards me,’ I say. ‘I must reach under your arms.’
‘Yes?’ he says. ‘What can you feel?’
‘One lump … two lumps … three lumps …’ I say. ‘And a black rash on your chest.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘It’s not good.’
‘Is there a name for it?’ he asks.
‘There is,’ I say. ‘I know several.’
‘Tell me.’
‘The Curse, the Pox, the Pestilence, the Great Mortality, the Blue Death …’
‘Will I live?’ he moans.
‘It is not unknown,’ I console, ‘but it’s very rare.’
‘I cannot stand,’ he sighs. ‘My head is on fire. My legs have melted.’
He is slumped on the floor, against the bottom bars of my cell, pushing down with his hands on the flag-stones, trying to raise himself up.
‘You must rest first,’ I say, ‘to regain some strength.’
On the right side of his belt, nearest to me, he has a bone-handled knife in its leather sheath. On the further side, on a large brass ring, hang the four keys to the four separate cells.
I know. Nothing in God’s Kingdom happens by chance. The Lord does not play dice. Either He wills it to happen, or He gives us the mind to choose.
So, I fall to my knees. I pray.
My Saviour has reached down to protect me again.
I thank Him for my imminent freedom, for my escape from burning, for the
beauty of the world, for the friendship and love I had received, for the breeze through the willows on a summer day, for the taste of honey, for the touch of Cecilia, for everything, for all.
I pray for the soul of the pig. All in all, he is a good pig. He is an open and friendly character, and carries himself well. I pray he be absolved of his sins. I pray for Simon Mostly, too, that he find some way to shed his mountain of guilt, to repent and be saved. Then I scrabble on all fours and reach through the bars to unhook the keys from the warder’s belt.
‘Don’t …’ he groans. ‘Leave it …’ He waves weakly with his hand, like a drunk trying to swat a fly.
‘Will you stop me, then?’ I ask. But he doesn’t raise his arm to me, for he no longer has the strength.
Simon Mostly watches me turn the key in the lock and swing open the creaking, rusted gate. He rushes forward, rattling the bars of his own cell. ‘Release me too,’ he says. ‘My friend.’
‘If I release you, friend,’ I say, ‘it will be unkind. They’ll think you and I are plotters together, in league with the pig. You will not be safe from their wrath.’ And so, with sadness, and to protect him, I turn my back.
But I open Lumpy John’s cell. For he has hobbled to the bars, tugging at them, in his eagerness to be free. And I watch him stumble out silently, without a word or a backward look.
‘Wait,’ I call.
‘Yes, my friend?’ He turns. I expected to hear some guttural grunt or groan. But to my surprise he has a calm, resonant voice of beauty and clarity.
‘I will kiss you, if I may.’ And so I do, on the nubbly, corky bark of his cheek.
Then I steal a lick too. For good measure. And feel the better for it, though he is dry and salty with the hard, ridged texture of an oak trunk.
‘Bless you, Brother,’ he says, wiping the moisture from his cheek with the inside of his wrist.
And then he is gone, melted into the dark. God knows where.
I find courage.
Men may want me dead. But God decides to keep me alive.
I am hunted and must hide. Now I am a fugitive, outside the law. I need to be away from this place where people know my face. Anywhere else will do.
Away from here, I am anyone and no one, now. For nobody knows me. There is no one left to tether me to my past, or to call me by my name.
I can choose myself a title, and devise myself a history.
This time, I’ll travel south.
I cannot out-run the plague. I know that now. Instead I will go where it has been already, where it has sated its terrible appetite, and eaten its fill.
I will hide where it has looked already.
Then I can see the chance for repair and renewal. Not watch the plague strike all over again.
XXI. The World Is Broke Apart
Everywhere the pestilence has broken things apart, churning the whole into shattered shards, and strewing the wreckage in its wake.
The old order is lost. Custom is torn apart. So many are dead. Everyone’s lost someone close. We are all mourning now.
They used to bury folk one by one, with a head-stone, until the pox. Now they bury them by the dozens, in unmarked pits.
But what man digs under, the beasts dig up. So you come across a careless scatter of once-human parts and pieces – a leg here, a rib-cage there, a gnawed skull, a length of bowel – by the side of the road, in a ditch, by the river-bank.
So many broken hearts. So many villages lie empty, abandoned.
When it blows from the south, there is a putrid, rotten smell in the air.
Doors swing to and fro in the wind. Shutters hang off their hinges. Roofs have tumbled in. Fences are broken. Bridges are collapsed. Roads are rutted and pot-holed.
Crops lie unharvested, flattened, mushy, musty, blackened, rotting in the fields.
Farm animals are gone feral. They do not answer to a human call. They flee from our sight. They wander where they will.
Dogs are gone wild and hunt in packs. They sense your mood. They can smell weakness. Carry a stick. Take care not to show them fear. You’d best consider them wolves.
Strangers pass by on the other side. You both look away. You stay silent.
So many emptied beds.
Most of the clergy lost, for they caught the plague, attending the dying.
And half the doctors are gone, too. Dead from keeping the company of the pox. Or else they fled.
Now kindness is discarded. It is a weak, broken utensil. It has no use in these hard times.
Faith is scoffed at. When the plague took the priests and babes, the holy, the best and the innocent – while the bad were saved – then belief was become the pastime of fools.
Authority is shamed. The King cannot command the plague. The clergy cannot explain it. The doctors cannot cure it. Arms cannot repel its attack.
The law is lost. Robbery is rife. Thieves and thugs go unpunished. Rogues rule the roads.
I walk all night, through the day into the following darkness.
I seek out the deep of the wood. I will be out of reach and recognition from my tormentors. I want distance and isolation. And I will know when I have found it.
I will be alone. I will hide my head. I will consider my choices. I will pray. I lament the errors of my ways.
As I trudge on, I take time to remember it all. I count back. I tally my unconfessed, unrepented, undischarged venial sins – lust, gluttony, greed, simony, sloth, wrath, envy, pride.
And then there are the grave matters, mortal sins, committed in full knowledge of their awfulness, with deliberation and consent.
I did not mention them before. For I cannot detain you with every last thing I did. But they are serious things, and better not shown naked in plain sight.
Yes, all that and –
In The Great Unhappened, Odo wrote of the far future time of the Buttoned People, when every soul’s worth would be weighed not at Final Judgement, but every hour of every day.
For under the skin of every baby at birth was placed a small magic button. And it would send silent, invisible messages, quick as thought, all around to those boxes called Button-Readers. And these Readers were all-knowing. For the buttons were all-telling. They would tell who the person was, who their parents had been, what age they were, what illnesses they had, if they were educated, if they should be allowed to enter this place or another, if they had a licence to be intimate with others, what wrongs they had done in their life, small and major, and the state of their four humours, and the taints of their bodily fluids, and the flow of their bloods, and the foods they should eat, if they were allowed to wear an ermine collar, if they had a special title like Serf, Lord, Sir, Cow-Maid or Chancellor, whether they should curtsy to a duchess, or a bishop should bow to them, and the rewards they deserved, or the punishments they should suffer, everything being placed in the balance.
For, all around in the air, flew tiny machines called Fly-Eyes and Gnat-Ears and Bee-Noses, which could see and hear and smell all that happened around them, even in the dark. So they knew if a person had missed church on a Sunday, or slept with a neighbour’s spouse, or spoken ill of a land-owner, or poached a deer, or passed wind, or partaken of some forbidden herb, or spoken a heresy, or worse.
And by their sins and goodness, and their rank at birth, people were allowed the wealth to buy what they needed, besides feathers for their hats, fur trim for their jerkins, and gold twine for their hose.
Now no coins changed hands. For money was no more. And instead there was only the tally of their goodness and their sins, and their worth as well-born or peasant.
I felt myself safer in the woods, where I could slink behind the trunk of a tree, drop behind a bush, melt into the shadows, where I might hear any approaching foot from the crunch of fallen leaves and the snap of broken twigs.
Perhaps I went feral.
The first week I did not build a fire, for fear of drawing attention to myself.
Each night I would find myself some fresh dip o
r hollow, lay branches over and cover them with ferns or foliage, then sleep beneath.
I lived like an animal. I grunted to myself. I sniffed the air to scent strangers or some distant fire. I crouched on all fours, and lapped water from puddles. I caught small beasts and chewed them raw, blood-warm, fur and all, crunching their bones, with the squirts of their juices bursting in my mouth.
I harvested the edible plants I could find – lovage, wild garlic, nettles, dandelion, wood-sorrel, chicory, harebell, red clover, creeping Charlie, elderberry. I gathered fungi and mushrooms too. The spotted redcap and the wizard’s puffball which played tingling, teasing, scented games with my sight, gave sounds to the touch, and awarded an angelic halo to every blade of grass, and made the tree branches melt into the sky. It made the trunks breathe as they changed colour, while the ground shimmered and rippled like water, as the squirrels tumbled somersaults, and the crows sang ‘Agnus Dei’, while the Earth spun like a top, till I passed out dizzied.
One sober supper-time, I paused in mid-bite. For I saw a strange sight reflected back to me in the dead rabbit’s glistening eye. It was the image of a man, curved across the slick, amber, shiny eye-ball. But I did not recognise myself at first. I twisted the rabbit carcass to view my other cheek in its other eye. Then I drew this mirror closer.
I was gone. The person I was had left. Someone had replaced me.
The boy I used to be had fled my face, and never said goodbye.
I had a thick stubble on my cheeks and chin. I looked older, with a coarser skin and worry-lines to my eyes. My hair was a thick golden thatch. My lips were swollen plump. My eyes of duck-egg blue were evasive and inquisitive. Their view was shrewd and calculating. But I would not flatter them to call them kind.
Perhaps I was handsome, but it is not in my nature to be vain.
Time slows when you are alone in the forest, waiting for night to fall, and then for dawn, and then for dusk, and then for the same, all over again. Your mind strains to busy itself. You find solace in slow, unusual, solitary pastimes.
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