By Sylvian Hamilton (9 page)

When
Bane did not come, Straccan flung back the door and went to find him.
'In the yard, Master,' said Cammo. And there, in the yard, was a
stranger, his string of laden dejected ponies straggling in through
the gate and around the inner courtyard. A pack-driver, talking to
Bane; Bane turning to Straccan, holding out a roll of parchment.

Straccan
unrolled it. A few lines of writing and a soft curl of hair, so fine
it fluffed up instantly and the wind took it, scattering bright hairs
in the mud.

She
is unhurt. You will find Saint Thomas his finger. Send it to the Jew
Eleazar, at Nottingham. When I know he has it, she will be returned
to you.

He
seized the pack-man's baggy jerkin and heaved him forward. 'Who gave
you this?'

'A
m-m-man at LL-Lincoln.'

'What
manner of man?'

'Oh,
a f-f-fine lor-lor-lord, on a f-fine b-b-black ha-ha-horse.'

Outside
the convent wall where the great old apple tree overhung the road,
Straccan searched the ground not knowing what he hoped to find. It
had rained since Gilla's abduction, but he found hoof marks in the
soft earth beside the road. Someone had dismounted, tied the horse to
a bush and waited. The marks of a man's feet were plain enough
beneath the wall. There he had stepped back to catch the child, and
there the footprints were deep, deep with the added weight as he
caught her.

A
clump of ancient holly grew about fifty yards along the road. Behind
that he found the hoof marks of two more horses, the dung of one and
something strange. A small circle of fieldstones had been made on the
ground; in it were some wet feathers, palely stained with rain-washed
blood, the blackened and half-burned skull of a bird and the remains
of charred twigs and leaves. He crumbled one of the leaves –some
herb, by its smell--valerian maybe, he thought. It seemed too much
of a coincidence to think that the stone ring was not associated with
Cilia's abductors. But what was it? They hadn't just been cooking a
meal there. Poking about in the holly, he came upon some rat-gnawed
remains which seemed to be the headless body of a small white hen. He
had no idea what to make of it.

They'd
been seen at Salterhill, ten miles from Holystone. A very beautiful
young man, said the giggling girl who remembered him vividly. 'Fair
as a prince in hauberk and leather bonnet.'

While
she eyed the questioners hopefully, her young brother butted in. 'He
had a helmet laced to his saddle bow and a little girl asleep in his
arms. There was an older man, wrapped in his cloak and two black men
with him, archers-- Ow!' Earning a cuff from his sister and a silver
penny from Straccan.

After
that they could find no trace.

'I'll
waste no more time like this,' said Straccan. 'Fair man or none, this
is to do with that Pluvis and his master, Gregory. Gregory sent word
that he'd not got his relic. I sent back that his man had paid for
it, taken it and gone, and it was no more business of mine. Now my
Gilla is stolen away and there's that message to find the relic and
send it to Nottingham. But we know that Pluvis is dead, at this place
called –what is it? Shawl. He was there, and the relic was with
him. We'll go there!'

Chapter
11

The
crossroads at the forest's edge near Shawl was a peaceful spot, birds
singing in the trees, bees droning in the clover, the view into the
gentle valley below bright and fair. In the centre of the crossroads
was an ancient weathered lichen-crusted grey stone. There Straccan
leaned, holding his bay's reins, and Bane sat forward in the saddle
of his scrawny grey. It looked to be some two miles or so to the
village and manor of Shawl below. A few threads of smoke stood
straight up above the thatched roofs. Distant small dots moved in the
field-strips, and to their right where the forest's edge curved down
the hill and most nearly approached the village about half a mile
from the outlying huts, two children followed a small herd of pigs
trotting purposefully to their foraging.

A
man had been torn apart here by wolves or perhaps demons. If they
hadn't known that, they'd have eaten their bread and cheese there,
but decided instead to ride into Shawl to break their fast. The
church or the manor, Straccan wondered, where to ask first? The
church was nearer; he'd tackle the priest.

But
Father Osric lay abed, solidly unconscious, snoring wetly, and by the
pot-house reek of his foetid hovel which leaned against the church
wall, he'd be less than conversational when he did wake. A few very
small children played in the spaces between the huts, but as soon as
horses were heard an old man, kipper-coloured, swathed in ragged
wadmal and limping cruelly on a bandaged foot, shot out from a
doorway and hauled and herded every infant inside. He planted himself
stick in hand, in his open door, glaring at them.

'Good
morning,' said Straccan. 'Is your lord in his house?'

'Sir's
away.' 'Where will I find the reeve?'

'Reeve's
at Sir's.' He jerked a thumb along the road to where the manor roof
could be seen over its surrounding trees.

Straccan
rode on but Bane dismounted and picked up his horse's right forefoot,
examining the shoe. 'Where's your smith?' he asked.

'Forge.
Down by river.' The thumb indicated the opposite direction. Bane
turned and led his grey that way, kicking aside a bunch of thin
yapping limping curs that sought to follow. 'The body, Sir? It was
horrible. I've never seen anything like it. I don't want to talk
about it; it brings it all back!'

'Torn
apart, I was told,' said Straccan implacably. 'But was it eaten?'

'Eaten?
I suppose so,' said the reeve. 'That's what wolves do, isn't it? A
foot was missing and, er, innards.'

'Were
there teeth marks? Were there bites, man?'

'For
God's sake, Sir, I didn't peer that closely at him! He was torn
apart; wild beasts do that, what else could do that?' 'For my part
I'd settle for wolves,' said Straccan, 'but there's talk of demons.'

'Demons?'
The reeve crossed himself several times rapidly. He looked pale and
sick, and sweat sprang out on his forehead and chin. 'Let's have no
talk of demons and such, Sir, please! I'll have no hope at all of
getting any work out of anyone if they think the forest is full of
demons!'

Straccan
stared at the wall hanging--shabby, stained, and rat-nibbled along
its bottom. It depicted lovers in a woodland glade. The woman had
golden hair in disarray under a red veil and reminded him quite
painfully of the vivid dreams that had continued to plague his nights
since he met the Lady Julitta; dreams that clogged his memory and
worried him by day. He rubbed his tired eyes.

'Tell
me what happened,' he said.

'No
one knows what happened,' whined the reeve. 'He went to bed and next
morning he was found up there!'

'Who
found him?'

'Forester.'

'What
did he do?'

'Came
and got me out of bed. I had a look, then I went to tell Sir Guy.'

'Got
him out of bed, did you?'

'Well,
no. Sir Guy sleeps heavy. No need to upset him. The man was dead.'

'So
when did you tell him?'

'After
he'd broke his fast.'

'Then
the body was lying up there for what, several hours, after you saw
it?'

Tor
a while, yes.'

'And
anyone might have searched its pockets.'

'No
one was about.'

'The
forester. What happened to him?'

'He
went back into the forest. King's man. I can't tell him to go, stay,
whatever.'

'And
when your lord had seen the body?'

'He
sent for Father Osric.'

'What
did he do?'

'Nothing.
Said it was too late to do anything. Puked in the bushes.'

Straccan
sighed. This didn't seem to be getting anywhere. But Pluvis and the
relic must lead to Gregory, and Gregory had Gilla. Thin as the thread
was, he must follow it. It was all he had. 'What then?'

'Sir
Guy went back home, sent men with a litter. They took the body into
the stable, put it in an empty stall. Sir Guy, Father Osric and me,
and Sir Roger--'

'Who's
he?'

'The
lord's son. He was to travel to the wedding with his father.' 'What
wedding?'

'It
was his wedding day, Sir Roger's! They wanted to be off before noon
to fetch the bride. They're all away now, visiting her manors. So
this nasty business was doubly unwelcome, coming then, with all to
do. Sir Guy was as angry as ever I've seen him! Sir Roger wasn't best
pleased either. They sent me to the inn to see the dead man's
servants. One of them was still asleep, the other was just up and out
back pissing in the cabbages. I asked him where his master was and he
said upstairs. I went up and looked in the room. There was his pack
beside his bolster and his cloak over the foot of the bed, and the
bed had been slept in, and he wasn't there. And he wouldn't've been,
would he, seeing he was dead.' Sir Guy had questioned the two
men-at-arms, the innkeeper, his wife, the scullion and the grubby
serving woman, and no one had seen or heard a thing. The man had gone
upstairs to bed, and then somehow out to his death.

'So
in the end, to save trouble and fuss, the lord and Father Osric
decided on wolves,' said the reeve. 'And he was buried over by the
hazel wood, away from the ditch where we're stowing everyone else.
You know, until they can have proper burial, when there's no more
Interdict.'

And
that should have been that, except that two days later the grave was
found open, empty, and the remains were once again at the crossroads.

'What?'
said Straccan, startled. He shivered slightly; it was damp and very
cold in the hall.

'They
dug him up,' said the reeve patiently. 'They dug him up, they carted
him back up there, and they dumped him by the stone, right where he'd
been in the first place.'

'Who
did?'

'Oh,
the villagers, the buggers. I don't know who, I don't know which
actual ones, but I know and they know and Sir Guy knows, and Father
Osric, we all know! They think it was demons killed him, so they
won't let him lie in earth anywhere at all.'

'What
did you do then?'

'Father
Osric tried to make them see reason. He preached to them out in the
churchyard and they listened like sheep, and then sexton took and
buried him again. And the very next morning, there he was, gone.'

'Back
at the crossroads?'

'Yes.
And none the sweeter.'

'Then
what?'

'Sir
Guy ordered a party to take what was left into the forest and bury it
somewhere. Father Osric said that wasn't right, but Sir Guy said he'd
had enough, and he didn't want to hear any more about it, ever'

The
smith was more than willing to give his waiting customer the creeps
while he dealt with the grey horse's shoe. With a dreadful relish, he
described the corpse, the mutiliations in detail, and speculated
righteously on the probable sinful causes of the stranger's ghastly
end.

'I
elped carry im down to the stable,' he said. 'All the bits. It was
orrible. I seen dead men a-plenty, but never such a mess as that.' 'I
suppose you have trouble with wolves every year, so near to the
forest,' said Bane.

'Wolves?
Well, now and then, if winter's ard. Then the lord sends is unters
out. Goes imself sometimes, if e feels like it. Five shillin fer a
wolf, you know, that's what the king pays! Five ole shillin! But that
wasn't wolves. I seen what they do. I seen what they leave of sheep,
and once when I was a boy they got an old woman. What they do ain't
the same. There's demons in the forest!' He looked hard at Bane to
see if he was convinced. Bane looked suitably concerned. He paid the
smith and went and sat on a bench outside the alehouse to wait for
Straccan.

Chapter
12

'Any
one of them could have taken the relic,' Straccan said, trying to
ignore the buzzing in his ears and the tiptoeing approaches of a
headache. 'The forester, the reeve, Father Osric, Sir Guy—but
not his son—Sir Roger apparently didn't even see the corpse.
The reeve seems unlikely, too squeamish by half, and the only thing
that bothered Sir Guy was that they would be late for the wedding.
Father Osric seems too much a drunken sot for any sort of enterprise.
Which leaves--'