Kathryn Le Veque (27 page)

Years have passed, almost a decade, since I made a sound that the
vil
- lagers could hear. Now, all turn toward me. Even the
men loading the bodies on the cart heed me.

I make a motion. I will come with them, wherever they are taking
my son; I will go too.

Tom points at me and mumbles more of his cracked vision. “Let ’
im
come along!
Mear
here, he’ll
find the truth, I tell ye. The angels done foretold it.”

People look away from Tom, shaking their heads. Few believe that I
understood the debate of the morning and all the decisions that have been made.
No one believes that I can make the journey.

I stumble back to our tiny
cruck
house—
wattled
and daubed by Chris-
tian
and me. I bind my bosom firmly this time and I pack what little I have. After
the poor harvest this fall, there is no food for me to bring except one old
loaf of dark bread and some dried mutton. I put on the tarnished silver chain
that matches the one my son wore; and I search for but cannot find my ring. I
have had it for years, but it is not in its hiding place under the hearthstone
now. My heart plummets at this loss, but it is too late. I do not have time to
hunt for it further.

I seize also the sheepskins and furs that make up our bed, and a
small pot of soot, for my face in the night, and that is all.

When I return, Hob has ordered supplies from the meager stocks of
the village. He asks for sacrifice from families here to sustain the men on the
open road, and his appeal is met despite the larder houses that sit empty after
the terrible autumn and the poor fields that yielded nothing. Geoff piles up
wood and tinder; Benedict loads straw and fodder into the cart. Liam has
brought an axe, while
Salvius
sends Tom the miller to
retrieve the last remaining sack of flour from the mill.

The villagers are like the swallows I watched as a child at a
cliffside
near the sea—gathering, arguing, a swarm of
rising fervor filling them. I remember the flock of birds moving as a
mass—breaking, re-forming, ragged at the edges.

Finally, a few brave souls know that it is time to fly.

The men put their shoulders down and push against the cart. Every
person in the village wants to touch the wood of it, as one would touch a
baptized child. The outstretched hands seem to hold it back for a moment, and
then, with a loud heave and the crack of breaking hoarfrost, the wheels roll
forward. The shifting crowd gives a hollow cheer and surges in a mass.

It is a confusion of purposes. The cart is leaving the village,
but at the same time, it is as if the whole village is going with us. There are
dogs and small children underfoot, and mothers are wailing, their ululations
echo against the trees.

**

The small children of the village who trail the cart are beginning
to know that those dead are not coming back. The realization of their loss blanches
them white—grief giving their cheeks and chins a gray pallor, corpse-like in
this light.

Salvius
leaps again upon the farm cart, his handsome face distorted by
grief as he stands tall. His hair catches the dawn light, bright as wheat
chaff. “We will not stop until we see the king—until we claim his
protec
-
tion
and his justice. Our
children’s bodies will testify to the murder. We go to the king in London!”

“Aye,” agrees Hob. “We take the bodies to the king—we seek
justice, not vengeance!”

“What’s the
diff’rence
?” shouts Geoff,
and the crowd roars its approval.

There is one elation at the prospect of
traveling,
of going somewhere so far away it is almost mythical: London. The women pull
the children close, keeping them away from the cart and its dangerous journey.
Sev
-
eral
stand
up to Hob and
Salvius
and begin to badger their men
to come home. They question Hob and
Salvius
openly,
doubting this accusation against ghostly Jews in the forest, these
will-o’-the-wisp murderers. Hob and
Salvius
do not
deign to answer them.

For the spirit moves the men, just as it moves the
wing’d
creatures and rough beasts. I think of our first
parents—Adam and Eve—as they stag-
gered
away from
their paradise, thrust out of the garden by an avenging angel.

We are at the edge of the village commons now. After this point,
we cannot turn back. We must find out who did this.

I am already weary, yet as I struggle to catch up with the cart, I
know that I am really going because my son is going. I have no one else. My
whole life is contained in that tortured, blackened husk.
My
child.

Where else would I go, but with him?

CHAPTER 3

Stars steam away as a pale sun rises, hot coal dropped in a watery
sky. Light seeps across the forest as the reedy shrieks of wood fowl echo in
the trees.

The valley where our village of Duns rests is surrounded by
forested hills. The path from our village to the King’s Highway is no road at
all; it is a crooked line of mud rutted with cart tracks, a rough trough where
the dirty snow is stabbed through by the hooves of feral sheep. To the east,
that faint track leads up through the forest until it reaches, finally, the
open country and paths that lead to other places.

The flock of villagers around the cart thins now. At first, as we
approach the last house of the village, it appears Hob and
Salvius
might be heading for the open ground of the graveyard, but then the cart passes
that turning. Hob is taking us beyond the bounds of the known world, aiming for
the White Road, the King’s Highway.

Sophia, Benedict’s wife, calls out to us. “Without a noble
blessing, you lot take your lives in your hands!”

I know she is right. Peasants should have a tunic from a Lord of
the Land, to show his blessing on our travels. Except for Benedict and his
family, the others here do not have my knowledge of how the world works. I do
not know if half of them have ever set foot outside the forest around our
little vale.

These men have
set,
grim faces. They push
on despite the warning. They are the fathers of the missing, and this drives them
onward. And always, they look to Hob for direction.

Hob is sinewy and grizzled and humorless: sharp-eyed as a
blackbird and possessed of the false merriment of one as well. Veins make
ridges and valleys on his forehead and the backs of his leathery hands. Like
maps, the lines on his hands point to destinations unreached.

Hob urges us on. The others need a leader as they stumble forward,
nearly blind with grief. Near the front of our pack is stoic, brooding Geoff,
the carpenter. His eyes remain as dull and remote as ever, but his hands move
constantly now, touching the cart, his side, his hat. It is as if his hands are
puppets on a string, plucked by someone else’s mind. Beside him is that
layabout
Liam, his bright red hair all awry,
his
lips moving with silent words I cannot hear, curses or
prayers.

I am surprised to see both Liam and Geoff continue with us. Both
of them are poor and aimless in their ambitions. They have naught with them for
the journey, but—like the other men—they ignore their
wom
-
enfolk
and push forward.

The women like Sophia know the truth of adventures like the
chil
-
dren’s
crusades, when
people—young and old—wander from their
vil
-
lages
onto the open road, trusting in God’s providence,
often to their own perdition or ruin. So the women collect the old, the infirm
strag
-
glers
, the random
children, and the feebleminded. Those too weak to go should not be pulled into
the current of our passage, enticed down a path with no certain end.

One who does not need their help is Tom the miller, bullheaded and
massive, who seems to move the cart almost by himself. His arms are heavy with
muscle from the millwheel, his hands horned with calluses. Yet despite his
brawn, his mouth is still full of those empty blustering words, those
accusations. I think he talks so he won’t have to think.

The thinking is done for us by
Salvius
,
the blacksmith, the kindly one who gave me the wood to build my hut. He looks
back for me from time to time. He looks back perhaps also to find his
ward—young Cole, the orphan—who
Salvius
says he did
not see this morning.

Salvius
does what he can to encourage us, even as he looks up and down
the trail. Cole has not yet been found, even among the dead.

Benedict, who owned the burned weaving house, is trying to push
the cart, but at every step he is pulled backward by his wife. He shakes

Sophia off time and time again, and in the end, she simply
staggers after him, crying, no longer pulling at his coat.

I pass her slowly, my feet already wet and painful, weighted down
by my solitary bag of rags and oddments. At this point in the morning, as the
others fade away, Sophia is the only woman in the village still with the cart.
I wonder if she is afraid of going back to the village alone. She is known to
have Jewish blood—even though her family converted when she was a babe in arms.

As I pass, Sophia turns to me, her face wet and heavy with sorrow.

“
Ol
’
Mear
,
this is a pilgrimage for fools—you can’t go on this jour-
ney
.” She takes my arm gently. A few of the men nod
in agreement, and look away.

But I lift my hands, I make gestures as forceful and angry as I
can, trying to show them that I need to be with my son.

Still, she pulls me back toward the village. So I make a sound as
only the mute would make. This time, as loud as I can muster: a keening howl.
There is an argument, Sophia’s voice high and strident, the men shout-
ing
back. Hob comes to us, muttering blackly under his
breath. He sees my agonized face and makes the final decision. “Let ’
im
come. His only

family
lies
here dead, isn’t that enough for
ye?”


Salvius
and Benedict push the cart ahead while Hob is separating

Sophia from me, so
Salvius
misses when Geoff speaks up.
“Aye,
Salvius
is going too, even though young Cole is back in t’
village.”

When I am free, I push myself forward and I go to
Salvius
, I pluck at his sleeve, and
Salvius
follows me. I point at Geoff, and Geoff repeats what he said, and explains
further: “Sure, I saw Cole this morning, with water for the fire. He’s alive,
in the village, I tell you.”

Salvius
starts with surprise, and then he wraps his own cloak around my
shoulders for the road ahead, wordlessly thanking me. He takes his belongings
from the cart. He will go to find Cole.

“Take ’
er
with you too, won’t you?” says
Hob. He points at Sophia, who is marooned in the road, standing like a weeping
statue. Her beau-
tiful
black hair is caught by the
breeze and whips around her face. Her white skin seems paper-thin in this
light, and her eyelids flutter, as if she is caught in a terrible dream.

I think it is more than grief that keeps her here. Her incessant
need, her grasping desire, is to own or hold onto all that she can. She always
wants to hold the reins, to have what she cannot keep. But for the first time,
Benedict is pushing on without her, disappearing around the bend ahead, and she
does not know what reins to seize.

Gently,
Salvius
takes her hands and
turns her back toward the village. Sophia walks in a daze, but she will be safe
with
Salvius
escorting her. Her face shines with
tears as she stumbles backward, past us and down the road.

I see them go, and something quails in me, a cold thing turning
across my grave. I am worried about us traveling on the open road without
Salvius’s
sure confidence, his clear purpose, and his
lordly manner. He directs men as few others do. We may be lost without him.

Fog lifts in the valley, rising as mist through the bare-limbed
trees. Far below
lies
the
deeping
combe
with our village in the heart of it.

My whole world for nearly a decade has been contained in that
place— and now the village of Duns looks so small. I hold up my hand, form a
circle with my fingers. The distant village, wreathed in mist, seems a child’s
plaything that I can hold in my own hand.

A great fallen yew with nurslings jutting evergreen from its
broken body lies near our path. This is the very place at which I first saw the
vil
-
lage
ten years ago.
The line of trees here on the ridge is unchanged, as if I came here only
yesterday.

I waited in the quiet vale of Duns far too long. At first, it was
a refuge, where I could hide my tracks and recover my strength after the
vicious attack that drove me from my home and my books. Then I met Nell, and
she gave me sanctuary, and in that comfort of her friendship, I remained for
years.

Last spring, after Nell was killed, I knew the village was no
longer safe: my haven was gone. But I had only a few months to wait until
Christian was ten years of age, and then he could claim his birthright. One
winter more and then we would have left together.

But now my son is gone—alone, without me—where I cannot follow
until my ending comes in its turn.

Breathing deeply, I try to still my fear as I stare down at my wet
feet in rags trudging through the snow. I step onto the sunken, snowy track,
and I move beyond the fallen yew. Past
this point exists a world—a life— known to me years ago. Ahead of us on the
King’s Highway is a monas-
tery
, where lives a monk
who spent much of summer beside me as I held my babe. He scribbled constantly,
writing down the stories I told him. I wonder if he is still there.

Would any remember me now at that monastery on the road?
And what of Canterbury Abbey far away?
And
the Court?

Do any remember my name, after all my
years of silence and obscurity?

**

The cart rocks to a halt just before the crest of a long hill. The
heavy weight of the bodies has sunk the cart deep into a rut, and a wheel
sticks fast in slush and snow. Ice welds the cart hard to the hillside.

“Heave ho,” shouts Hob. “All as
one,
push
together.
Now!”


The first thrust from our shoulders doesn’t budge the cart. Not a
bit. Benedict glares at Geoff and me. “Come on, even you weak ones there,

you
push
too!” Geoff the
carpenter,
stares back at Benedict. He
still holds resentment toward the man whose house burned.

Hob puts his shoulder down. “Come now, men. Heave ho! Can’t you
move it?”

But Liam mocks him, making a half-born attempt at a joke. “Oh yes,
Hob—it’s me who’s holding it back.
If I’d just lift my
li’l
finger, you’d move, you would.”

There’s a faint whisper of chuckling, but that dies quickly. No
one dares laugh out loud at Hob. And these are our boys we carry.

Liam and Benedict push at the stuck cart. Hob and Tom lean their
bodies against the heavy wooden wheels.

I come to the cart and take hold. I peer
inside,
I shuffle through the straw, trying to find more answers. The chaos I see
slowly resolves into sense, like letters read in a forgotten language.

The bodies of our boys are thin and weak from the poor harvest
this fall: I can see their bones. Yet these boys are clad in heavy cloaks and
warm furs. They are wearing the
most lordly
clothes
possessed by their families, as if they wished to make themselves look better
than they are. These are the best garments of their meager homes.

The threads and fur are burned and tattered, so I know for truth
that they wore such clothing to their deaths. Even as I flinch from the sight,
that firm fork of logic seizes hard.
They were in a house, not on the road.
No
one had
planned a
journey, that
I knew of. So why
were these dead boys wear-
ing
furs and cloaks?

The cart does not move, despite our efforts; instead, one wheel
sinks deeper into the snow.

Hob bends down and digs with his hands. He barks hoarsely at us in
his commanding tone. “You lot, find
summat
to wedge
it out—branches, wood, straw—anything to get this wheel out.”

Reluctantly, I leave behind the puzzle of the boys’ clothing. We
step into the forest and spread out, trying to find spare wood.

Sound carries far here in the trees. Snow slides off a heavy oak
as some creature shuffles through the woods, and ancient branches snap. Out of
the corner of one eye, I see the flash of colored feathers. It is a
yellowhammer, black eyes flickering in a hedgerow, tiny breast plumped out in
golden livery, streaked with colors rich and brown. It was calling in its
winter song:

A little bit
of bread and no cheese—

A little bit
of bread and no cheese—

Moments later, the bracken flutters and the slight shadow of the
bird darts into the woods. Deep in the forest now, I hear a low voice that
wends back and forth, whispering in secret. It is one of our
party
.
I edge my way closer, stepping quietly so I can hear.