by Alis Hawkins
If it was on the outside of the cloak I could believe it had come from Hob’s nose when he was beaten in the barn at Tredgham but it is on the inside, protected from spatters. The blood must have got there when the cloak was folded up, folded inside out.
An image of Edgar’s dead face springs into my mind: the crust of blood around his nose, the dry trickle into his beard. Is this Edgar’s blood, proof that Hob made sure he never woke up? Though it is no more than I have long suspected, it is a shock to see actual evidence that Hob is a murderer.
A murderer? Is he? Edgar was going to die anyway. He couldn’t even to swallow the water you trickled between his lips.
Such is the condition of my soul that I cannot tell whether the words come from my angel or the demon.
I straighten up and fling the cloak wide over the canvas in the sunshine. As soon as I put my fingers to the hem, I can feel the coins. Moving the fingers of both hands around the hem, testing as I go, I feel the pennies butting so close against one another in the thickness of the material that, here and there they overlap. How many has Hob sewn in? I do a quick calculation. If the hem is six feet long there could be ten shillings’ worth weighing the cloak down. Ten shillings; enough to buy my wheels.
I look across the churchyard to where Hob is standing. He is watching me.
Geoffrey Wheeler and I are halfway across the glebelands when Hob catches up with us.
‘Where are you going in such a hurry?’ He falls into step at my side and I glance across at him. The horseshoe staff is bare of braids now.
‘To Master Wheeler’s workshop.’
Hob grabs my arm, tries to draw me aside. ‘I’ve told you,’ he says, his voice low, ‘we can’t afford it.’
I stop and turn to face him, pitching my own voice so that it will carry to the wheelwright’s ears. ‘I think you know we can.’
Hob glances over the mare’s neck, then turns so that his back is to Geoffrey Wheeler. ‘Even with the money I’ve hidden, we still can’t afford it — not if we’re going to make our way in Salster.’
I scarcely hear the second half of what he says. ‘You don’t deny hiding it?’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ His voice is a hiss. ‘After what happened at Slievesdon? One of us had to make sure it didn’t happen again.’
I drop my voice. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d hidden it?’
He looks me in the eye. ‘Martin, you’re an honest man. Lying doesn’t come easily to you. If some cut-throat bastard had put a sword to your neck and said, “is this all the money you’ve got?” he’d’ve seen in your face that it wasn’t. Easier for you not to know.’
‘Well, now I do know. And that money is getting us new wheels.’
‘Half of it, you mean. Only half that money is yours.’
The warning in his voice enrages me. I turn on him, shoving him back. Taken by surprise he falls on his arse and suddenly I am standing over him.
‘If you want to divide that money now,’ I tell him, ‘then we part here. The cart needs mending and that’s what I’m going to do.’ He tries to rise but I put a foot on his chest. ‘How much do you think people would have believed in the saint if we’d turned up on foot, with me carrying her on my back, or you pushing her in a handcart? Eh?’
Hob takes my boot and makes to pull me over. I yank it out of his grasp and he rolls to his feet.
‘And if we do part company here? What’ll you do without my bow to protect you?’
His tone makes me want to smash my fist into his face, wipe off that sneer.
‘I could get somebody to travel with me and the saint in half an hour if I needed to! I’d have no shortage of takers.’
‘Even though the pestilence is coming?’
‘Because the pestilence is coming! What better protection than a pilgrimage?’
‘Keeping away from it.’
His words fall between us with the weight of a dropped stone and sit there, waiting for one of us to stumble over them and carry on.
But the heat of the argument has left me. I turn away. ‘I’m going to get new wheels for the cart. You can come, or not, as you please.’
Geoffrey Wheeler examines spokes and felloes, axle and shoes.
‘Whoever made these wheels was no friend to you. The elm for the hubs wasn’t seasoned properly — it’s shrunk so your spokes are loose. That’s what all your creaks and cracks have been about. Then there’s the felloes — they’ve taken a right battering, nails or no nails.’
‘We know the wheels’re worn,’ Hob snaps. ‘Any fool can see that. What we want to know is how long they’ll last?’
The wheeler takes a long look at Hob. ‘If any craftsman tells you he knows how long another man’s work’ll last then he’s a liar or a fool. But I’ll tell you one thing — only prayer and luck are holding these wheels together.’
‘How much,’ I ask, ‘for two new wheels?’
‘It’s not just wheels you need, your axle’s almost gone too.’
Hob folds his arms. ‘How much? And how long?’
‘Well, you’re fortunate,’ Wheeler tells him. ‘I’ve got a pair of wheels that will suit.’
‘Never mind our fortune.’ Hob is sour. ‘How much?’
‘Two pounds,’ the wheelwright says, folding his arms across his chest. ‘For wheels and axle.’
‘Two pounds? We’re not talking about a whole new cart and a horse to go with it!’
‘Six shillings is more what I was thinking of,’ I said, remembering what my father had paid the wheelwright who made our cart and dropping the price to a bargaining position.
‘Maybe before,’ Wheeler says. ‘But I could be dead next week and who’s going to provide for my family then? ’Sides which, from what I hear, you’ll be lucky to find a craftsman alive from here to Salster that’s got all he needs to ply his trade.’ He looks from me to Hob. ‘If you want new wheels, you’ll be wise to have them now.’
Hob turns to me and shrugs. ‘No point debating it. He’s made our decision easy. We haven’t got two pounds. We’ll have to take our chances.’
I ignore Hob and pay attention to Geoffrey Wheeler. I can see he has a proposal to make.
‘You mentioned six shillings?’ he says.
I nod.
‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do.’ He unfolds his arms and puts a hand on one of our failing wheels. ‘Give me your six shillings and that staff with the horseshoe on it and you can have your wheels.’
I wait for Hob’s response. Over these last weeks, I believe he has come to feel that carrying the staff makes him my equal in the eyes of the saint. Whilst her statue belongs to me, the Maiden revealed the miracle of the cast shoe to Hob.
He stares at Wheeler. ‘This staff — this shoe — is a reminder to me and Martin that the saint does miracles when we need them.’ He lets the wheelwright take this in. ‘So I’m thinking — why shouldn’t she do a miracle with these wheels and stop them falling apart before we reach Salster? Why shouldn’t I trust her and tell you where you can put your wheels and your new axle?’
Wheeler shrugs. ‘If you want my opinion, it’s a miracle they’ve not fallen apart already. By rights, either one of those wheels could’ve failed weeks ago.’ He hooks his thumbs in his belt. ‘You don’t want to test your saint too far.’
‘No. And I don’t want to displease her by selling a relic of one of her miracles!’
Wheeler’s eyes follow the staff as Hob lifts it slightly off the ground.
‘What if you don’t sell it?’
Hob’s eyes narrow. ‘What?’
‘Let’s say we forget about the six shillings. Then let’s say that, out of the goodness of my heart, I give you a new pair of wheels. And you — out of gratitude — give me the staff.’
‘I thought you needed money to leave to your family in case you died?’
‘But I shan’t die, shall I? With the staff, I shall have the saint protecting me.’
What Hob says next is so unexpected that Geoffrey W
heeler must see my astonishment.
‘Martin and I will have to think about it. We’ll take the mare on to the common for an hour or two and then we’ll be back.’
‘Well?’ I ask, once the mare is grazing and we are sitting in the shade of the cart.
‘Well what?’
‘What are we going to do about the staff?’
He looks at me as if I have grown another nose. ‘You don’t think I’m going to let him have it?’
‘Then why’re we sitting here? Why aren’t we in his workshop haggling the price down?’
‘Because I’m not going to pay him either.’
A cloud crosses the sun bringing up gooseflesh on my arms. ‘We’ve got to have new wheels.’
I might as well not have spoken. ‘Listen. The wheelwright doesn’t expect me to let him have the staff. And if I did, he’d know it was worthless — why would I exchange such a powerful item for two cart wheels and an axle?’
He plainly wants me to wheedle his plan out of him but I am not going to give him the satisfaction. I turn my back on him and lie down in the sun.
I wake to the sound of voices. My face is hot and my mouth dry as I sit up and look about me. Hob is standing a little way off with a group of villagers.
‘I told him I needed to think about it,’ I hear him say, ‘but I couldn’t part with the staff. It’s too precious.’
I stand up and my head spins. I need a drink of water.
As I go around to the back of the cart and the butt, Hob’s words become clearer, louder.
‘— even they’re precious.’ He tosses a glance over his shoulder. Does he see me? ‘They keep off the demons who’d like to do the saint harm in the dark hours. Everything to do with the saint and our pilgrimage is precious. She can use anything to her purposes.’
He’s talking about the other horseshoes attached to the corners of the cart.
I dip a mug into the butt but I have barely started drinking when I hear a shout coming from somewhere away to my left, in the direction of the track we followed to the village this morning. Something about the shout makes me turn towards it. Behind me, I hear voices coming closer; Hob and the crowd of folk around him have heard the shout, too.
‘It’s Oswald,’ a voice says, ‘from over Little Wrothcliffe — Alan and Tom Lyche’s cousin. What’s he want?’
‘Hey, Oswald!’ another shouts. ‘What’s to do?’
All of a sudden, a lark goes up — startled by us, perhaps — and I follow its urgent flight. Soon, it is lost to my eyes and all I can see is the cloud-chased blue of the April sky. But still I can hear it. I listen to the song, loud and high in the sky. Obstinately, I listen to it as the words of Oswald the Lyches’ cousin batter at my ears and I try to push away the weight of sorrow and dread that is filling my chest.
But I cannot. As the lark trills its love song with its little handful of strength, I hear the words every soul in England dreads.
‘The pestilence is come.’
CHAPTER 27
Oswald stands a couple of dozen yards downwind of us and tells the story in a voice more suited to calling cattle home. It seems that Dode, a morning’s walk from here, fell victim to the pestilence a week or so ago. ‘Every living soul there is dead,’ Oswald tells the crowd.
Hob and I look at each other in perplexity. ‘All dead — everybody — in a week?’ I shake my head.
‘It must have been there longer, friend,’ Hob calls. ‘We’ve seen the pestilence in our own villages — it moves slowly from house to house.’
‘Not in Dode. Men went into the fields in the morning hale and healthy, came home at midday hot and feverish and were dead by sunset.’
Again we look at each other. That does not sound like the pestilence we know — neither the carbuncles nor the coughing blood.
‘Did they cough blood?’ Hob calls.
‘Some did. Some didn’t. Those who lasted longest did.’
‘Did they have patches on their skin? Black patches?’
‘Some. Not all. Some hadn’t a mark on ’em. But when they had skin-patches they were reddish, not black.’
Not a mark on them. Like my father. Is this how he died — hale and well when he packed our cart and left Lysington, dead by sunset? But I have not time to ponder the question for Oswald is telling his tale.
‘The last to die was a child,’ he calls. ‘The story comes from her. No more than seven years old she was and she saw the whole village die. Went to the church when she couldn’t find a house with a soul in to give her comfort. That’s where our parson found her, dying.’
‘Are any sick in your village?’ one of the villagers around us calls out.
‘Not yet. But Dode is our nearest neighbour. And the parson gave the rites to the dying child. Nobody better come near.’
‘And you?’
‘Me and mine are bolting our doors as soon as I get back. Tell my cousins in Sibbertswell, will you? That’s what I came for.’
By the time I bring the mare back to the cart, most of the Sibbertswell villagers have gone to spread the news. Hob and I look at each other. The pestilence’s coming puts thoughts of all else aside.
‘What should we do?’
He shrugs, half an eye on the remaining villagers. ‘They’ve had the saint’s blessings,’ he says, for my ears only. ‘There’s nothing else for us to do — now she either answers their prayers or she doesn’t.’
I try to fill my mind with the vision of saint Cynryth’s army beneath her banner, walking through the woods to her shrine. People healed, people saved.
‘You think we should just go?’ I ask.
‘Don’t you?’
‘No. If the pestilence is so close it may be in front of us, too. The wheeler’s right — if we don’t get new wheels here, we may never get them.’
I say no more, leaving him to think as I back the mare between the shafts. When she is ready to pull, I look up but, there, instead of Hob, I see the tall, lean figure of the wheelwright. He is panting.
‘Is it true? Is the pestilence coming?’ Despite the handful of his fellow-villagers who are standing there, he addresses the question to us.
‘We don’t know any more than you,’ I say. ‘A fellow called Oswald brought the news.’
‘So it’s true — it’s killed Dode — everybody?’
‘So he says.’
‘And you?’ He leans over, hands resting on his thighs. ‘Are you just going to leave us now?’
‘You’ve had the saint’s blessing,’ I hear myself echoing Hob’s words. ‘There’s nothing more we can give you.’
‘You can give us the staff.’
Hob speaks for the first time. ‘No. The thrown horseshoe was a miracle for us and for Tredgham. Not for you.’
Wheeler straightens up. ‘Then keep the horseshoe and leave us the staff! It’ll have power of its own from the horseshoe being fastened to it for so long. Leave us one of the other horseshoes off the cart.’
Hob fastens his eyes on to Wheeler. ‘You’ll give us our wheels in exchange?’
For the space of half a dozen thudding heartbeats, the wheelwright does not respond. He just stands, his face hiding his thoughts. But I know the dread he feels. The Death is coming. Now it has come to it, he will give anything he has to save himself and his family.
‘You’ll have to stay in the village a day or two,’ he says, finally. ‘I’ve got the wheels but I need to find you a new axle.’
The deal Hob has struck with Wheeler is already known to half the village by the time we walk up the street to his workshop.
People rush towards us, holding out purses full of money.
‘I’ll give you five shillings for one of those other horseshoes.’
‘I’ll give you six and a cheese.’
‘I’ll give you ten!’
I recognise some individuals from the churchyard; one or two are wearing white braids. But their previous keenness to buy tokens seems a poor, weak thing in comparison to the desperate
way in which they try to press money on Hob now.
‘The pestilence is coming, you must leave us some protection!’
‘You’ve got the saint, you don’t need the horseshoes as well!’
‘Please!’
‘Please!’
Hob’s eyes flit from one to another. For the first time, he appears unsure of what to do.
‘How can I sell the horseshoes to the highest bidder?’ he asks. ‘Are the richest of you the most virtuous?’
There is an outcry both for and against this proposition. But, before Hob can say anything more, Wilfred appears. ‘We’re calling everybody to the church,’ he tells his parishioners. ‘With the pestilence so close, we must decide what’s to be done.’
Hob and I watch them go.
The village meeting, feeling the absence of its lord who fled north long ago, is guided to a decision by the reeve and the parson.
‘The parson told everybody as how you wouldn’t sell the miracle-horseshoe,’ Geoffrey’s wife, Edith, tells us. ‘Said that we were having the staff and one of the other shoes off your cart instead —’ She looks at us then, and at her husband, making sure that this is the agreement we have reached, that we have not gone back on it in the meantime. ‘So then he said, “That means there are two horseshoes left that the mare was wearing at the time of the miracle.” He said he knew that people’d offered money for them, but it wasn’t right that they should go to those who can afford to pay.’
I picture the outcry that broke out at those words. What was the point of working hard and saving if your family was not going to benefit from it? Everybody might as well be idle.
But the parson and the reeve, together, prevailed.
‘Every family,’ Edith tells us, ‘is to pay so many pennies for each acre of their holding, so nobody owns the shoes and everybody does.’
‘And who’ll keep ’em?’ her husband asks.
‘They’ll be in church where everybody can go.’
Now that he will have the same access as the rest of the village to the horseshoes, I half-expect Geoffrey Wheeler to go back on his agreement, but it seems he feels he is getting the better bargain.