By Sylvian Hamilton (11 page)

'How
did Tostig come into it?' Straccan asked.

'He
was patrolling. He came on them as they were dumping the bits at the
crossroads. They told him the story. He agreed to keep his trap shut,
for a consideration.'

'The
money belt.'

'Right.
And the relic was in it as well.'

Straccan
was silent. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and
outside the soft patterings of a sudden squall. He drew a deep
breath, pushing away with great effort the ugly remains of last
night's dreaming.

'They've
got away with it, too,' he said, groping for the solidity of here and
now. 'No one will ever talk and no single man is a murderer: they
didn't kill him, the animals did. God's Mother! If anyone guessed*.
All the men of the village would hang, the manor would be fined out
of existence, the beasts forfeit that brought about a man's death.
Sir Guy would have a sticky time of it too, when the Justices got
hold of him. The whole thing is his responsibility, ignorant or not.
So no one will ever let this cat out of the bag!'

Bane
agreed. 'Tostig won't, because he pinched the money belt. And the
lord doesn't want to know: all he wanted was to sweep the whole
affair under the mat and get on with the wedding. The village will
hold together as solid as rock. And as far as the manor records show,
one village infant was drowned in the river and one stranger, passing
through, was killed by wolves.'

'What
about Pluvis's men?'

'Sir
Guy let em go. They asked the quickest way to Altarwell.'

'Where's
the relic?'

'Tostig
did think it was a fake. Well, it doesn't look like much, does it, in
that cheap little case? He gave it to Mistress Janiva, thought she
might have some use for it.'

'Who
is she?'

'I
think she's some sort of wisewoman,' Bane said. The fact obviously
disconcerted him; he looked and sounded astonished.

'She
lives here alone?' Straccan was no less surprised.

'She's
looked after,' Bane said. 'Someone from the village comes morning and
evening to see what she needs. They think a lot of her. She looks
after them when they're sick. And Tostig, he comes by every day,
brings her rabbits and wood, and stuff. He thinks the world of her.
No--' seeing Straccan's questioning eyebrow--'nothing like that! He's
got a woman of his own in the next village. But a year or so back, he
got in the way of a boar you saw the hole in his face? He says he was
near dead when his woman fetched Mistress Janiva. She healed him.'

'God
healed him,' said the woman coming in just then. 'I nursed him.'

Bane
jumped up and bowed. Straccan said, 'As you have nursed me. I thank
you, Mistress. How can I repay you?'

'I
need no payment, Sir. You'll be abed today, and still weak on the
morrow. But perhaps while you remain here you may do me some service,
if you will.'

'Gladly.'

He
was staring. He had expected her to be old. She was less than twenty.
Her face was oval, lightly tanned, slightly freckled, the skin very
clear and smooth as an egg. Reddish-brown hair in two plaits wound
with green wool. Brown deer-lashed eyes, neat eyebrows. Tall, and
under the baggy grey wadmal gown, slim and long-legged. Her tanned
hands, marked with many little scratches, were clean and cool on his
forehead. Her presence somehow was as refreshing as spring water. 'No
more fever,' she said. 'Did you sleep well?'

'I
was sore beset with evil dreams.'

'Fever
brings bad dreams,' she said, 'but that has passed. Are you hungry?'

Straccan
discovered he was famished and made short work of bread and rabbit
stew. When he had finished, Janiva pulled a stool to his bedside and
sat down. 'Your man has told me about the relic you seek,' she said.
"Tostig gave it to me but if it is yours, I must restore it to
you. Yet any man could say it belonged to him. Can you prove your
claim?'

Straccan
smiled. 'As it happens, I can. In my saddlebag, you'll find a
parchment. A bill of sale from the Archbishop of Canterbury.'

While
she looked for it, he said to Bane, 'No use you hanging about here
too. I'll be on my feet tomorrow, on my horse the day after. You go
ahead to Altarwell and nose around until I come. See if you can spot
that bastard and his black horse, or get some news of him and my
Gilla. I hope to God she was with him, and not--'

He
swallowed the ugly thought. 'See if you can learn anything of
Gregory.. I'll find you. What's today?'

'Tuesday.'

'You'll
get there some time Thursday. I'll be there Saturday.'

Chapter
14

Janiva
stirred the water with her fingertips. She signed the cross over it,
breathed on its surface and looked. An observant watcher would have
seen her sudden pallor when the pictures came. They always came fast
upon each other, a new one rising through the old –scattering
it –taking its place; clear, small, intensely bright. Often she
saw strangers and strange places, but when she had a purpose, seeking
a certain face or place, she always saw what she sought. She had seen
the pictures since she was a child. Her mother made her swear never
to tell anyone, and said her mother, too, had known this power
–curse or blessing.

The
moon had waxed and waned and waxed again since she first had seen the
traveller, this man, the sick knight, in her bowl. She had seen him
several times, so that when Tostig and the man Bane brought him to
her door she recognised him at once, although most of the pictures
had shown him younger. She had seen him riding a great war stallion,
in gashed and bloody chain mail, swinging a mace. She had seen him
kneeling among a great press of other kneeling men, on the floor of a
church or crypt lit by a thousand candles and lamps; one lamp,
hanging from the vaulted ceiling on long chains, was close to the
traveller, who raised his head from prayer and stared at it with
tears in his eyes. She had seen him thin and ragged, scrambling along
the deck of a small boat, all blurred and gone in an instant.

Now
he was here in her house, and when she dipped water from the stream
and looked into the bowl she saw him sleeping there, safe, with her
own familiar things all about him. But as she watched, some dark foul
shadow rose and covered him, sank and lay alongside him, over him. He
struggled but his eyes were closed. There was no strength in him. The
evil shadow lay thickly upon him, its edges expanded to fill her room
and she felt a cold gripping nausea as a vile reek rose from the bowl
of water. The stench was in her nostrils, in her throat, choking her.
She felt it in her mind, clogging her thoughts with half-seen visions
that started fair but ended foul in blood and torment.

Jerking
her head back from the bowl she crossed herself and flung the water
on to the ground. An evil taste lingered in her mouth. She blew her
nose hard and spat, drank clean water from the stream and splashed it
on her face. The sweat on her body stuck the gown to her skin, and
turned chill.

This
strangling slime had a name. This clarty reek had a name. It was ...
it was ...

She
had never met this evil before, but something within her, older than
Janiva herself, knew it, knew it for the enemy, knew it as a thing to
be vanquished and destroyed.

It
had a name. It was a succubus.

From
the sick episode by the stream, Janiva plunged into the village's May
Day celebrations with a fierce hunger for normality and fun. The
greensward beside the church was packed with Shawl's own villagers,
and people from neighbouring settlements. A maypole was set up,
topped with a green bush and twined with flowers and leaves already
wilting in the heat of the fine day. Stalls hemmed the green selling
food and drink, secondhand clothes and shoes, pots and pans, knives
and spoons, tawdry trinkets and patchily-dyed coarse ribbons. Sir Guy
had sent three sheep to be roasted, and these, turning on their
spits, scented the air with mutton grease, promising well for
growling bellies later on. Sir Guy and Lady Alienor were in the
church talking with Father Osric, who was hoping for a money gift to
pay for new shutters. The winter blasts through the window-holes were
crippling; the old boards were rotten and would never stand another
winter. Sir Guy's little group of family, friends and servants stood
in the churchyard waiting for him, talking and laughing, an
occasional high-spirited shriek of mirth from one of the women
shrilling over all.

A
relic-pedlar-cum-quack-doctor had set up shop against the churchyard
wall beside the gate, offering unguents to heal the bone-ache,
powders to sprinkle into husbands' ale to increase potency and
potions to cure everything else. He also offered salt from the pillar
that was Lot's quondam wife, fingernail clippings from Saint Peter
and some of the clay from which God had made Adam. A small crowd
stood staring, unimpressed and ready to jeer. 'Put er in yer
stewpot,' shouted one, of Lot's wife. The pedlar glared, but just
then the lord and lady came out of the church; he redoubled his
enthusiasm but the fine folk jostled by laughing and chattering, and
took no notice.

The
locals, who took great interest in such matters, noticed that Sir Guy
wore his old red hat but had a new blue cloak with fur trimmings.
Lady Alienor was wearing her second-best blue gown but with a new
girdle. There were little bells on the girdle's ends, which chimed
and tinkled as she walked. Shawl folk grinned, nudging one another,
and pointed to make sure no one missed this novelty. Pog's wife, who
was selling ale, poured a brimming beaker for Sir Guy who downed it
in three heroic gulps then rocked back on his heels looking
surprised---Pog's wife's brew was particularly potent this year. Sir
Guy braced himself and beamed in all directions before plunging on.
Miller gave him a sausage, Blacksmith's wife gave him a pickled
onion. Tanner's little girl, scowling ferociously, thrust a bunch of
drooping flowers into the lady's hands. Lady Alienor patted the
child's cheek kindly, looked with resignation at her bouquet, and
yawned, longing to go home and get her shoes off. Her husband had
bought them for her in York; they were too narrow but she didn't want
to disappoint him by admitting it. Her face brightened when she
caught sight of Janiva, and she sent a servant to fetch her.

'God
save you, My Lady,' said Janiva. 'I thought you were still away,
following the bridal pair.'

'We
got back last night,' said Alienor. 'My lord would have us back for
May Day! Thinks nothing can happen without him. Let's sit down in the
shade for a little while. My feet are killing me!'

'How
is Sir Roger?' Janiva asked. 'And how do you like your
daughter-in-law?'

'The
boy does well,' his mother said, 'and the girl will do, though he'd
sooner have had you, as well you know.'

'Ah,
but I am dowerless.' Janiva laughed. 'A poor match for a knight!
Besides, I think of Roger as my brother. There is no blood bond, I
know, but nothing can make me think of him in any other way. And
truly, Lady, I don't want to marry! Not just Roger, I don't want to
marry at all! You know how I feel.'

'It's
against nature.' Lady Alienor sniffed. 'I don't hold with female
education! It overheats the brain.' She looked round quickly to see
if her husband was near. He wasn't, his red hat showed at a safe
distance over the heads of the mud-coloured crowd, like an exotic
poppy. She slipped her shoes off and tenderly massaged her toes.
'Look, there's a blister already! And I haven't had them on any time
at all. You always were an ungovernable creature, Janiva, and my lord
indulges you sinfully, letting you be taught to read and write. But
he'd find a good match for you, if you'd let him.'

'Sir
Guy has always been like a father to me; and you, My Lady, kindness
itself. But I'm a free woman. I have my bovate of land, my house and
the allowance my lord settled on me when Mother died. There's no one
to bid me or forbid me. Not many women can say as much.'

Alienor
looked hard at her, then patted her hand. 'Wilful,' she said. 'Not
that there isn't some sense in what you say, and your mother was no
fool; I liked her. But for her milk and her care, my son would have
died a baby. Now, God willing, he'll be fathering his own sons. That
plump little fig he's married should have no trouble feeding them
–breasts like bolsters!' She wrestled her shoes on again,
grimacing, and held out her hands for a servant to pull her up. 'I
must catch up with my lord,' she said, 'before he eats anything else.
He'll be groaning and farting all night! God be with you, Janiva.'

'And
you, My Lady.'