Kingmaker: Broken Faith (11 page)

‘Let them come,’ Barnaby advises. ‘Let them come. They will help you remember.’

And as the tears flow, Thomas feels a great stone of misery rising to fill his throat.

‘There was a woman,’ he says. But how he knows this he cannot say.

‘A woman,’ Barnaby presses. ‘Yes. Do you remember anything of her? At all?’

‘Oh, by Christ,’ Thomas sobs. ‘I don’t know. I can’t even— Yes. Yes. Or. Oh, by Christ. But. But who is she? Who is she? Is she this Margaret? This Margaret Cornford?’

And now Barnaby sits back, satisfied by something, relieved even, his hands on his knees. He takes a long breath, a sigh almost, and he seems to be playing a different part – older, wiser, sadder – and Thomas feels he has ceded him some power he did not know he had.

‘It is a long, confusing story,’ Barnaby tells him, settling into it, and his role, ‘and I am as yet unsure of all the details, or of the order in which to relate them, but to make sense of it I must begin with Lord Cornford, who was Margaret Cornford’s father, and who was killed in some scuffle, five or six years ago now. He had no issue save this girl, this Margaret, who was betrothed to a cousin, a man called Richard Fakenham. Does that name mean anything? No? They are a small family from the north of here?’

Barnaby gestures and Thomas shakes his head, though the name does perhaps set off a distant peal of recognition.

‘No? Well,’ Barnaby goes on, ‘when Lord Cornford was killed, our Giles Riven seized the castle. I don’t know by what right he did so, though no doubt deception and violence played their part, but at the time, Richard Fakenham – who might perhaps have been expected to take it by right of being betrothed to Margaret – was the Duke of York’s indentured man, and just then that Duke and all his retinue were outside the King’s grace, do you see? But Giles Riven was firmly with King Henry, who was then in the ascendant, so whatever the divers rights and wrongs of the matter, Fakenham was unable to unseat Riven, and the bastard was left to sink his roots into the estate.’

Barnaby wets his throat before going on.

‘Of course, that was before the great reversal,’ he continues, ‘before King Edward drove King Henry from the field at Towton, in the process of which, as I say, Giles Riven met his end, and so now, with him gone, Richard Fakenham is in the ascendant, is he not? The loyal Yorkist, there to receive his reward, through his betrothed wife, of an estate worth, when old Cornford had it and ran it properly, more than two hundred pounds a year.’

Thomas says nothing.

‘Yes,’ Barnaby says, ‘an enormous sum, a great fortune. So this newly minted Richard Fakenham and his wife Lady Margaret arrive – two summers past, it was now – with a retinue of borrowed soldiers and they took the castle, and all the lands, though in parlous state by now, as if by right. And if it had ended there, then that would have been its end. Obviously.’

‘But?’

‘But at around All Souls this last year, the reeve of the castle, a man named Eelby, who is a drunk and a thief actually, and who in quieter times might have long since expected to find himself dangling at the end of a rope, had a wife heavy with child. Now, as from cloth comes the moth, so from womankind comes wickedness, as it is written, and as you know, and it has always been, since Eve first corrupted Adam, but still – but what follows, I confess, shocked me. For it transpired that Lady Margaret, the childing woman’s mistress don’t forget, was herself barren, being married and still without child, and so, filled with such hatred and envy as is unique to her sex, she cut open the reeve’s wife to reveal the child within.’

The fire’s flames have matured, throwing out more heat than smoke, and the bell rings in its tower and Barnaby glances up, and Thomas knows instinctively what time it is and what the bell means, and part of him is pleased he does.

‘So there was an inquest,’ Barnaby continues, ‘as was right, just this last month, and ordinarily a man such as Fakenham would have packed the inquest’s jury with his own men, or he would have paid the coroner some sum, and fixed it that way, so that it was found that there was no felony, and that would have been that. But I have not told you the crucial thing about Richard Fakenham, have I?’

Thomas shakes his head. He supposes not.

‘The crucial thing about Richard Fakenham is that he is blind,’ Barnaby says. ‘Blind, not from birth, nor from cataracts nor any other disease, you understand, but from having had both orbs put out, some time during the recent wars.’

‘Do you suppose he ever encountered your Giles Riven and his giant?’ Thomas asks.

‘I have wondered that,’ Barnaby admits, ‘but whatever its cause, his blindness undid him, for unable to see, he was forced to leave it to his wife, this Margaret, to fix things, and she – well. She either did not know what to do, or she was unable to do it. She being, of course, a woman.’

‘So she was found guilty?’

Barnaby holds up a finger.

‘Not quite,’ he says. ‘It has not progressed that far, if it ever will, because, you see, when this Lady Margaret was brought here, under constraint, in a cart, with no maid or servant, it was discovered a most surprising thing. Can you guess? No? Well, it was discovered that she was not Lady Margaret at all, but another girl entirely, someone else altogether.’

‘Who?’

‘Well, this is it. The strangest thing! The Prioress recognised her as being a girl who was once in her flock. A girl who made herself apostate on the very same day as you! Do you see? She was the selfsame girl as you allowed on your stolen punt!’

And now Thomas feels his mind slant, like a table being tipped, and all his thoughts rush to one side. His heart lurches, thumps, and it is hard to breathe. He presses his eyes with the heels of his palms, and sees stars within the darkness, and when he takes them away his wrists are slick with tears again.

‘Ah! She means something to you now,’ Barnaby says.

‘Tell me about her,’ Thomas manages. ‘Who is she? Please. For the love of God.’

‘I cannot say,’ Barnaby tells him, ‘for I do not know.’

‘You must!’

‘But I don’t. There is a further, deeper mystery to her, you see. The Prioress knows who she is, her real identity, if you like, but is sworn to secrecy, and will tell me nothing. When I sent message to the Prior of All, to enquire as to the girl’s identity, instead of enlightenment, he sent a messenger by return to say he is coming to see the girl in person, for there are, he says, divers matters at stake. Can you imagine? Did you know that neither he, nor his predecessor, nor his predecessor’s predecessor, ever thought to seek us out here in our muddy little world since the third year of King Henry the Sixth’s reign? That was nearly forty years ago now! Before you or I were even thought of!’

‘Does she have a name?’

‘Katherine.’

My God, Thomas thinks, and he whispers her name. ‘Katherine.’

But now Barnaby leans forward, staring and intent, the line of his mouth short and hard.

‘Do you really remember nothing of her?’ he asks.

And Thomas tries to think, but after a while he has to shake his head.

‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘I cannot even remember what she looks like.’

‘Nor how she came to pass herself off as Lady Margaret Cornford?’

‘No,’ Thomas says. ‘I remember nothing. If I ever knew.’

And Barnaby sits back frustrated.

‘Well,’ he says. ‘Then that must remain a mystery until the Prior of All honours us with his presence. Then we will be allowed at the truth.’

‘Where is she?’ Thomas asks. ‘Where is she now?’

‘She is with the Prioress, well cared for.’

‘Can I see her?’ Thomas asks.

Barnaby laughs.

‘Of course not,’ he says. ‘She is in cloister.’

‘Please,’ Thomas begs again. ‘Please.’

He finds himself on his feet, looming over Barnaby who shrinks before him, but then as if on some unseen signal, the door opens with a clap and a man with a staff strides in and stands before Thomas. He is broad-chested, red-bearded, a head taller than Thomas, and the quarterstaff looks like a twig in his meaty hands. He looks at Thomas almost sadly; as if he might be a farmer about to reluctantly slaughter a favoured pig.

‘Please, Thomas,’ Barnaby says from behind him. ‘You know we cannot allow it.’

And Thomas subsides. He knows Barnaby is right.

‘So we must just be patient,’ Barnaby goes on. ‘And wait on the Prior of All, and then when he comes, all shall be known. All shall be revealed, and God willing, perhaps you shall see your Katherine once more.’

And now the bell rings in the church tower, summoning the lay brothers in for prayer from the fields and woods and riverbanks. It will soon be time for Vespers.

‘Will you join us to observe the hour, Brother Thomas?’

Thomas agrees to, because there is for the moment nothing else to do.

‘It will be good to have you back,’ Barnaby says. ‘We will find you a cassock, and Brother Blethyn will cut your hair.’

Thomas is half-standing and stops, confused.

‘No, Father Barnaby,’ he says. ‘I am – I cannot come back. I am no longer as I was. I feel as if I have – I have done things. I have seen things. I do not feel the same. I do not belong here. I cannot come back. I thought you knew?’

Barnaby hushes him.

‘All will be well,’ he smiles. ‘All will be well.’

Barnaby leads Thomas out of the almonry and over to the cloister where Thomas stands with the lay brothers and waits for Barnaby to vest himself and prepare to read the lessons. The brothers are all farmers with no land of their own. Rough men, unlettered, with chapped faces that are almost never inside under a protective roof or enclosed by cosseting walls, but out in the fields in all weather, and so they look on the observance of the hours as a time of rest, recuperation. He is familiar with them, or their sort, and comfortable in their presence.

But they are all looking at him now. He has removed his cap, but he has a full head of hair, and he wears his plated jack, with a knife at his belt, a heavy purse, blue woollen hose and polished brown leather riding boots turned down to the knee. The way they look at him reminds him of something, but he does not know what, and he sees their envy, and he feels a twinge of guilt, but it does not shift the sense of loss.

During the observance the words come back to him, but he knows he would not be able to say them on his own and they mean nothing to him, and afterwards, Barnaby summons him again. He walks with him along the cloister range to an iron-hooped door which he unlocks with a key as long as his forearm and while he does so, Thomas turns and looks out on to the garth, the small square of grass held bracketed by the cloister wings. He wonders if he can remember the fight Barnaby says took place, but he cannot. His gaze floats over the cloister walls, and he can hear the jackdaws clacking in their treetops and the geese chuckling in their meers, settling for the night in the world beyond, and he can remember nothing.

Barnaby swings open the door and fumbles with a lamp. When it is lit, Thomas recalls that the room is the sacristy, where they keep the altar silver, the transubstantiated hosts, and such coinage as they possess, but there is also the priory’s illuminated Bible, a book of hours made in Ghent and there, the smallest of the three, lying on top of the pile on a shelf made of stone, a bound book the size of a woman’s palm and as thick as a man’s thumb.

Barnaby picks it up and passes it to him.

‘Do you recognise it?’ he asks.

And Thomas does. It is his psalter, bound before it was ever finished. He opens it carefully. The early pages are filled with tiny, beautifully neat rows of perfectly exacted letters, each page begun with an initial lit with colours not seen in nature, or not at least by Thomas: rich reds, purples, the deepest blues, golds and even silvers. And folded within are scenes from the Bible – here is Christ being presented at the synagogue, here he is at the wedding feast in Cana – each design picked out with startling artistry. It is a marvel.

‘The time I must have spent on this,’ Thomas breathes. ‘But why is it bound? It is not finished. Look.’

Towards the back of the book he finds that in reverse of the normal practice, his former self had saturated the backgrounds to the pictures first, leaving the clothes and the faces of the foreground characters blank. On one page the pale ghost of Christ is betrayed by the pale ghost of Judas while the outline of St Peter looks on, expressionless, in a grey rocked garden bound with grapevines from which hang luscious blue fruits, so cleverly painted that you can see the powdery bloom against the gloss of their bulging flesh.

‘It was guilt, I think,’ Barnaby says. ‘The Prior regretted ceding to Giles Riven his demands – that he kill you – and when the ferryman told us about how his punt would sink, we presumed you drowned, and had gone ahead to heaven. We have prayed for your soul every week since then, do you know?’

Thomas smiles. He turns a few pages of the psalter.

‘You might yet finish it?’ Barnaby says. ‘You could unpick the stitches – like this – and resume your great work. It is good work, isn’t it? That glorifies God and Man?’

Thomas smiles again but feels the chill in the room and a shiver creeps over his skin.

‘No,’ he says. ‘That is not me now.’

‘But what about the Prior of All?’ Barnaby asks. ‘He will want to see you. He will want to know what has happened to his apostate Thomas Everingham.’

And now the slither of steel that had been present in Barnaby’s wheedling is revealed as a blade. Thomas feels himself becoming stonier still, and is about to say something when his eye is drawn to a worn leather bag that hangs from a peg behind Barnaby’s shoulder. He cannot stop himself reaching out.

It is something he recognises. Something he carried with him wherever he went, a comforting weight on his shoulder, something that fitted perfectly under his head when he slept, and now here it is. The pardoner’s ledger, in its worn and punctured and patched bag.

His hands are shaking and he cannot draw breath. He grabs the bag desperately, with a drowning grip, a madman’s grip, and wrenches it to him. He registers Barnaby saying something but it is as if he is in a gale with a wind blowing around him and Thomas can smell blood and hear the crash and slide of steel weapons and he can hear himself gasping for air. He feels great pain, his ribs being crushed, his back afire.