Company of Liars (15 page)

The children shuffled nearer on their bottoms, eyes wide. The adults too leaned in closer. Death by fire. That was something they all knew about, even those who hadn't seen it, hadn't smelt the stench that hangs round a town for days, hadn't heard the screams that echo night after night through your dreams; even those who had not witnessed a burning had heard tell of it and shuddered. They knew the queen would not keep silent when the flames touched her, not even a saint is that strong. They held their breath.

‘Seven full years had passed since the queen made the vow to release her enchanted brothers and turn them from swans into men again. And true to her vow, not one word had passed her lips in all that time; not a single sound had escaped her. The queen continued to work night and day sewing the shirts. Until, on the morning of her execution, all the nettle shirts were completed, all that is except for the
shirt for the youngest brother which still wanted the left sleeve.’

He seemed too young to be a storyteller, an occupation usually reserved for those with at least a full beard. But he was holding the crowd better than many an older man. He wasn't handsome, his face too narrow and angular, nose too long, chin too small, as if his features had all grown at different rates. Plumped out with age and softened with a beard, in time they might come together into some sort of order, but that scarcely mattered for what held the crowd was not his face but his eyes. They were dark, almost black, so that it was impossible to distinguish the pupil from the iris. His gaze brushed across the faces of the listeners from infants to crones, holding each person in turn for a fraction of a second, and their eyes followed his without a backward glance.

‘The queen was led out to the place of execution. She was bound by the waist to the stake and the six nettle shirts were thrust into her arms to be burned with her. The faggots of wood were piled up around her bare feet and the executioner lit the flaming torch. The priest stepped forward to urge her to confess the murder of her baby, so that her soul, at least, might be saved from the fires everlasting, but not one word would she utter, not even to save her own soul. Weeping with grief, for he still loved her dearly, the king had no option but to give the sign. The executioner raised the flaming torch and thrust it into the faggots at her feet.’

The storyteller raised his right arm high as if he held a torch in it and suddenly thrust his fist towards the knot of children at his feet. They gasped and jumped, delighted by terror. He lifted his hand again, pointing at the sky.

‘But in that moment there was the sound of singing wings
in the sky overhead. Six white swans flew out of the dawn towards the queen.’

The audience looked up to where he pointed, as if they expected to see the swans flying towards them.

‘As the swans glided down they beat out the fire with the force of their broad white wings. And as they alighted the queen threw the nettle shirts over them and at once their feathers fell away and each swan was transformed into a man again. All were restored to their human form, all, that is, except the youngest brother, for his shirt still wanted the left sleeve. And when he regained his human form, his left arm remained as the wing of a swan.’

At that the storyteller threw back his purple cloak and there was a gasp from the crowd so deep that for an instant everyone seemed in two minds whether to turn and run or push towards him. From under the cloak the storyteller withdrew his left arm, except that it wasn't an arm, it was the pure white wing of a swan.

The wing unfolded, stretched, as if it had been held bound for a long time, then rose and fell in a steady beat. The air hummed with its power and the breeze lifted the children's hair and made them blink. Then the wing folded itself against his body and lay at rest, tucked back inside the cloak.

The adults shook themselves slightly, as if they knew they were dreaming, for they couldn't possibly have seen what they thought they'd seen. The storyteller resumed his tale as if nothing had happened.

‘As soon as the spell was broken and her brothers had regained their human form the queen was able to speak. She told the king how the witch, his wicked stepmother, had enchanted her brothers –’

‘Is it real?’ a small boy blurted out, unable to contain himself any longer.

The storyteller's wing unfolded and gave a single beat before furling itself again inside the cloak. The children shrieked in a mixture of wonder and horror.

‘Were you really turned into a swan?’

‘How else could I have a swan's wing in place of an arm?’

‘But couldn't the king make the witch give you back your arm?’

‘Once a spell is broken, what is left of it can never be undone, especially if the witch who cast the spell is dead. And she was dead. She was burnt to ashes in the fire she meant for the queen and her ashes blew away on the wind and were scattered over the four corners of the earth.’

‘And what happened then?’

‘The king and queen had six sons and six daughters and ruled their kingdom with justice and mercy. As for the swan-brothers, they lived in the palace and became great knights, riding out to do battle for the king and queen. They went to distant lands on brave quests to slay dragons and rescue maidens and they found beautiful princesses to marry and they all lived happily ever after.’

The coins fell thick and fast; even though people didn't have much to spare, the crowd appreciated someone who put effort into the telling. The children crowded up close to the storyteller, daring one another to touch that wing to see if it was truly alive, but one by one their parents grabbed them and hurried their protesting offspring away.

‘Come on now, girl, enough stories, there's work to be done before dark.’

‘Back to the cart now, boy, your father'll be needing a hand with the loading.’

‘Let the storyteller rest now, his throat must be parched.’

But nobody offered the storyteller a drink to ease his throat. It was not his throat that concerned them.

Storytellers are always suspect. They are exotic strangers, swallows who stay only for the heady days of sunshine. Where they go after that is a mystery. They're welcomed for the tales that will be told again through dark winter evenings. They have an honoured place by the fire, but like any guest who knows his welcome depends on not outstaying it, they are expected to move on quickly. They don't belong. You wouldn't want your daughter to marry one, in case your grandchildren turned out as fey as the creatures they tell stories about. Could you really trust someone who is in the habit of conversing with sorcerers or who freely utters the names of those who must not be named?

And this particular storyteller was more suspect than most. You don't want to go mixing with someone who admits they've been enchanted by a witch; the curse might be catching. It could break out again at any time, especially when it's not been fully lifted. And besides, as the priests would say, each after his own kind, that's the rule. No half-breeds. No animal-men. If it died, what would you do with it, bury it like a Christian or hang it up like game? A swan-boy, what kind of a creature is that? Not one you'd want your children to mix with, that's for certain. You could read the distrust in their faces as they hurried their children away.

The storyteller gathered up his coins with one hand and deftly slid them into his purse, pulling the leather drawstring tight with sharp white teeth.

‘Did you marry a beautiful princess?’

He looked round, startled. One little girl had sneaked back and was shyly tugging at his cloak. A small, scruffy dog leaned against her bare leg. The storyteller reached down and stroked the dog's ears and it looked up at him with eyes as big and brown as the little girl's. Then he crouched down
so that he could look directly into her earnest little face and smiled.

‘Princesses don't marry knights who only have one arm. What use would a one-armed knight be? He couldn't defend her honour or champion her cause. He couldn't slay dragons for her. A swan-boy can't hold a sword and shield or pull a bow. No, no, little one, the swan-boy lived on in the palace for a while and everyone was kind to him, the queen especially, for she felt guilty that she had not been able to finish the shirt. There were servants to cut up his meat for him, and servants to dress him and servants to wash him. He wanted for nothing, except a purpose. Finally, when he could no longer bear the kindness of the servants or the sadness he saw in the queen's eyes each time she looked at him, he set off to seek his fortune, like all princes must.’

‘If I was a princess, I'd marry you.’

‘Thank you, little one. But one day you'll find a handsome prince who will take you to live in a castle with golden turrets and dress you in rainbows and give you the moon to play ball with and the stars to spangle your hair.’

The child giggled. ‘You can't play ball with the moon.’

‘You can do anything, princess, if you want it enough. Now you'd best run along or your mother will start fretting for you and it would never do to make your mother worry.’

‘Mam's always worried. She worries about everything.’

‘They always do, princess.’ The storyteller turned her round and sent her off with a pat on her rump and she skipped away as blithely as only a princess can, the little dog following faithfully at her heels.

A snide wind whipped rain against our faces and hands. Those who had stalls with covered roofs were braving it outside in the open, blowing on numb, rag-covered fingers to try to get the feeling back into them. A few braziers had
been lit, but they spluttered and spat, coughing out a thick phlegm of smoke but no heat. The market square in Northampton, and every road leading to it, were ankle-deep in stinking mud. They'd thrown down armfuls of rushes, straw and bracken to try to make passable walkways, but it was a losing battle. As fast as they threw it down, it was trampled into the mud, which swallowed it up as if it had no bottom.

There'd been a hanging earlier in the day. Two poor devils strung up for sheep-stealing, thrashed as they slowly choked to death on the end of a rope in front of a jeering crowd. The corpses would hang in the market place until close of business as a warning to others. Now a fine mist of rain washed them, dripping from their swollen purple faces as the ropes creaked in the wind. They say rain blesses a corpse. They'd need a blessing in death, for they'd found little mercy in life.

Osmond came to stand near me. From the hook on his staff dangled a tangle of wooden dolls and carved knights mounted on horseback. He'd been working long into the night on the toys whenever we stopped to make camp. He tried as hard as any man could to provide for Adela and in all the time we'd been on the road, I'd never seen him idle. He rubbed his hands and spread them over the smoking brazier to catch the little warmth which rose from it. I'd never noticed it before, but the last joint of his little finger was missing. It was not a great price to pay for such a skill, however. I'd known many a woodcarver lose more than one finger before they mastered the craft.

He glanced up at the hanging corpses before turning rapidly away, crossing himself and shaking his head. ‘Hanging's a cruel death, Camelot. I can understand a man coming to the noose for committing murder in a passion; that's only
too easy. But what kind of man would risk hanging for a sheep?’

‘If your wife or children were starving, you might be driven to it. A parent will risk anything to save their child, even death. It's a passion that grips you from the moment you hold your first child in your arms and it never goes away. You'll feel it when you hold your own baby.’

‘Will I?’ He turned to me, his face strained with anxiety. ‘What if I hold my child and I don't feel anything? What if I can't love it or, worse than that, what if I can't even stand to be near it?’

I was startled by the panic in his voice. ‘But you love Adela. Why should you not love your child?’

He chewed agitatedly at his thumbnail before answering, ‘If the child is born cursed like that cripple at the wedding…’

‘Come now,’ I said soothingly. ‘Why should your child be cursed? And besides, in the end, whatever he is like, you'll love him, because he is your child. You'll see more and more of Adela in your baby's face with every passing day. If you love him for no other reason, you will love him for that.’

He shivered in the rain, drawing his cloak tighter around him. ‘That's what I am most afraid of, Camelot. I am afraid of what I shall see in its face.’

‘Osmond?’ I laid my hand on his arm.

He gave a wan smile. ‘Take no notice, Camelot. I'm just worried for Adela, the birth, everything. I'll feel better when we reach York and we have a roof over our heads.’ He took a deep breath and glanced up at the corpses again. ‘And standing here, chewing the cud, won't get us to York. I must sell some of these toys, otherwise I'll have to start sheep-stealing myself soon, if I don't make some money.’

He was right. Despite the weather, all of us were desperately trying to earn what little money we could. This was the first market we had found open since we left North Marston nearly two weeks ago, and God alone knew if we would find another. We needed to buy food. Travelling cold and wet is bad enough, but no one can travel long when they are hungry. An aching belly drives you to work more smartly than any master's curses. So believe me, we were all working hard that day.

‘This book, master? You're obviously a man of great education and discernment for this is no ordinary book, as you can see. It once belonged to a Jew. Very rare. Impossible to come by since the Jews were driven out. People would pay a fortune to get their hands on a Jewish book. With this book and the right words you can make a clay golem and bring it to life. Think of it, master, a giant with the strength of fifty men to do your bidding and crush your enemies.

‘Does it work? Does it work, he asks me? Tell me this, would the King have banished the Jews from England if they had not had such dangerous powers? I tell you, it was only because he seized all their possessions first that he was able to do it at all. If they'd still had their books, there'd not have been a Christian soul left alive in this realm.