The Crowfield Curse (18 page)

“Are you hungry, William?” Dame Alys asked.

William nodded, trying not to look too eager.

“Sit at the table. You can have a bowl of pottage while your hob and mine talk.”

William looked uncertainly toward the door. “What about Shadlok?”

“The fay can wait for you. It might do him some good to learn a little patience.”

William grinned and pulled the stool up to the table. He wouldn't argue with that.

The pottage was every bit as good as it smelled. It was well seasoned with herbs and thick with chunks of smoked pork.
This must be what it's like to die and go to
heaven
, William thought, slowly chewing a piece of meat and letting the rich, smoky taste fill his mouth.

Dame Alys put a piece of freshly baked white wheat bread on the table by his bowl. She gave another piece to the hob, who was watching her hopefully from the bottom rung of the loft ladder.

A small head poked through the opening in the loft floor and two large eyes glittered red in the light from the fire. William watched as a thin creature, not unlike Brother Walter, but with longer, redder fur, climbed slowly down the ladder. Its face was as wrinkled as last year's apples. Its body was hunched and bent and its tail was just a stump. The Old Red Man was aptly named.

The two hobs greeted each other like the long-lost friends they were, chittering and whistling excitedly in a curious language all their own. William wondered if Dame Alys understood what they were saying. He would not have been surprised if she did.

William dipped a crust of bread into the pottage and put it into his mouth. It was the best meal he had eaten since he had left Iwele.

“Why are you searching for the angel's grave?” Dame Alys asked, sitting down across the table from him.

William choked on the bread and it was a few minutes before he could talk again. “You know about the angel?”

The woman nodded. “Of course I do. What do you want with it?”

William was reluctant to say more than he had to. He was not sure if he could trust Dame Alys.

“Ah!” A look of understanding came into her eyes. “Of course, it's not
you
; it's the fay who is looking for the grave.” Her mouth hardened. “I knew someone had been asking questions in the village. It was him. Why is he so desperate to find it, William?”

William shifted uncomfortably under the woman's unblinking gaze. “I think . . . I think he wants to use its bones in a healing spell. For his master, Jacobus Bone.”

To his astonishment, Dame Alys started to laugh. Her mouth widened amongst a maze of wrinkles and her body shook. Her laugh was like the harsh grate of rusty iron hinges and her eyes were bright with malice. She spread her thin fingers on the table and rocked back and forth on her stool. William stared at her uneasily, wondering what was so funny.

“You live in a world of fools, of monks and fays. You should choose your friends with more care, boy. They will lead you a merry dance to the gates of hell.”

William put his spoon down. His appetite had deserted him. What was the woman talking about?

William pushed his chair back and got to his feet. “Thank you for the food, but I think we should be going.” His voice sounded strange to his own ears.

“As you like,” Dame Alys said with a shrug. She left the table and crossed to the door, where she stood with her hand on the latch.

William brushed the crumbs from the front of his jacket. The movement dislodged the piece of parchment from his cuff. He caught it as it fell, and the four-leafed clover slipped out onto his palm. His hand tingled as if he had brushed against a nettle. Around him the room seemed to darken and he saw, for a brief moment, a figure in the shadows beside the cupboard. It was wrapped in a tattered gray cloak and wore a mummer's mask in the shape of a long-beaked bird — a heron, perhaps.

William gasped and his fist clenched, crushing the clover leaf to dust. The figure disappeared. The room became lighter and everything was as it had been before.

“Did you see it?” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “Over there, in the corner?”

Dame Alys was watching him. Her eyes, one blue, one brown, were wide and bright. He could see the white line around her tightly closed lips. She did not answer him. She opened the door and stood aside to let him leave.

William stared into the corner beside the cupboard. He had the uneasy feeling that the bird-headed figure was still there, though he could not see anything.

“What was it?” he asked.

“I didn't see anything,” she said stiffly, her stare unblinking.

“There was someone over there, wearing a mask,” William insisted, but Dame Alys did not let him finish.

“The firelight plays tricks with the shadows,” she said softly. “You saw nothing.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it again. He knew he would be wasting his breath. The hob hurried over to him and together they left the house. The door closed behind them.

“Did you see it? The figure in the bird mask?” William asked, glancing down at the hob.

The hob nodded. His eyes were wide and full of fear. “It was a bad thing, a shadow-thing,” he whispered.

“What was it? Do you know?”

The hob hesitated. He looked nervously over his shoulder at the shuttered window of the hut as if worried that he would be overheard. “I saw something like it, a long time ago, in the grove of oaks by the Hunter's Tree. Back in the time before strangers from over the sea came to the forest and built the straight stone track, people would make offerings to the spirit there, a shadow-thing with a bird's head.”

“A holy grove?” William said, puzzled. “Where?”

The hob shook his head. “It is gone, cut down and burned. I thought the shadow-thing had gone, too, but now I am not so sure.”

With a last glance back at the hut, William walked to the gate. The hob hurried ahead of him, clearly anxious to be away from whatever it was they had seen.

Shadlok was waiting for them in the lane, arms folded and pacing back and forth impatiently. Fionn was perched on a fence post nearby, watching the fay beadily.

“Well?” Shadlok said sharply. He did not look pleased at having been made to wait so long. “What did you find out?” He peered more closely at William's face. “What happened in there?”

“We saw something,” William said. Quickly, he told Shadlok about the bird-headed figure.

Shadlok said nothing for a few moments but there was a thoughtful look in his eyes. “The bird head was a mask, you say?”

William nodded. “I think so.”

The fay said something softly in a language William did not understand. It sounded like a name, but William could not be sure. The white crow rose into the air with a loud caw and a sudden clap of its wings that made William jump. It flapped up to sit on the roof of Dame Alys's hut, where it continued to call angrily, as if at any moment it might swoop down and attack them.

“What's the matter with him?” William said.

Shadlok smiled grimly. “The bird has secrets to guard. It does not want us here.”

William wondered what Shadlok had said that had sent it into such a rage.

“So what was it,” William asked, “the thing in the hut?”

“Something you would be wise to stay as far away from as you can,” Shadlok said with a finality that made William think twice about questioning him any further.

The fay looked down at the hob. “What did you find out from the Red Man?” he asked.

“He said the brother men carried the nangel along the track toward
this
village,” the hob said, keeping a wary eye on the white crow.

“What else did he tell you?”

“That the king cut off his tail.” The hob made a slicing movement with his paw. “Chop, tail gone.”

Shadlok's eyes narrowed. “I meant, about the angel.”

The hob bristled with indignation. “A hob's tail is his greatest pride.”

Shadlok stared at the hob in silence.

“That was all he said,” the hob added with a lift of one shoulder, looking away.

“Hobs,” Shadlok said with biting contempt. “I should have known we would be wasting our time.”

William hid a smile. With a quick flick of his hand, Shadlok made the hob disappear again. For one worried moment, William wondered if the fay had done something more sinister, but a paw grabbed the leg of his hose and he felt the hob climb up onto his shoulders.

William was in a thoughtful mood as they walked back to the village. He was puzzled and unsettled by the figure he had glimpsed in the hut. It was not a creature of flesh and blood, so what was it? And what was it doing in Dame Alys's house?

Dame Alys's appearance as an old woman who made salves and caudles was deceptive. William had the feeling that she was dangerous; she knew too much and saw too much. It might be prudent to keep away from her from now on.

C
HAPTER
NINETEEN

 

 

S
hadlok walked on ahead of William and the hob. He was not in a good mood and William decided that keeping some distance between them was probably for the best, so he slowed down and soon fell a little way behind.

Ralph Saddler walked over to his gate when he saw William coming along the village street.

“Wasn't Dame Alys able to help you then, lad?” he called. “Needed some herbs, didn't you?”

“No, she didn't have any to spare,” William lied, shaking his head. The movement unsettled the hob, who grabbed William's ears to steady himself. William grunted in surprise, but quickly turned it into a cough. Ralph peered at him curiously.

“You all right, young Will?”

“Yes, fine,” William muttered, feeling his cheeks redden. The hob's grip on his ears tightened as he tried to settle more securely on William's shoulders.

“Sorry,” the hob murmured, his breath tickling William's ear.

William coughed again, louder this time, hoping Ralph had not heard the hob. He started to edge away from the saddler, not wanting to stop and talk. Shadlok was already partway across the West Field and showed no signs of slowing down to wait for him.

Ralph leaned on the gate, his large hands resting on the wooden bar. He nodded toward Shadlok. “He's a strange 'un, isn't he? What do you make of him?”

“I barely know him. He only came to Crowfield a couple of days ago.” William took another step away from the gate.

“You've seen that master of his? The leper?” Ralph asked. He seemed set for a long gossip. William tried to hide his impatience and merely nodded. He liked Ralph, but the saddler could talk the back legs off an ox. That was all right if it was market day and you were just standing around, but William did not have time for this today. He did not want to walk back through Foxwist with just the hob for company, and he was not at all sure Shadlok would wait for him.

“Can't imagine why anyone would choose to serve a leper,” Ralph went on, shaking his head, “unless they were very holy and good, or the leper had a hold over them in some way.”

William could think of several words to describe Shadlok, but
holy
and
good
were not amongst them.

The hob seemed to share William's anxiety to hurry after Shadlok. He started to fidget and squeezed William's ears between his thin little fingers. William jerked his head sideways, almost dislodging the hob.

Ralph cast another curious glance at him. “You're sure you're all right, lad? You seem a mite fidgety today.”

“Lice,” William said quickly, scratching his head. The hob joined in, his fingers poking and scratching at William's scalp. William scratched more vigorously, and managed to prod the hob in the stomach in an attempt to make him sit still.

“Well, you'll have to run if you want to catch up with your friend,” Ralph said, straightening up. “I'll see you next market day.”

William nodded and hurried along the track at an awkward jog. The hob bounced up and down on his shoulders, his paws holding tightly to William's hair.

“What did you think you were
doing
?” William hissed angrily. “Another few moments and Ralph Saddler would have thought I was possessed, jigging around like that.”

“What is
pessest
?” the hob asked breathlessly. He seemed to be quite enjoying the bumpy ride, though the grip of his bony haunches was causing considerable discomfort to Will's shoulders.

“It's when a demon lives inside you and takes over your body and thoughts, and makes you do strange things.”

“Like squirrels,” the hob said.

“Squirrels?” William said, baffled. “How is being possessed like squirrels?”

“They do strange things,” the hob said darkly. “They take over your burrow and your food store. They are pessest.”

William grinned. Demon squirrels in Foxwist? After the last few days, he was ready to believe almost anything was possible.

Up ahead, Shadlok had reached the slope in the track leading up into the forest. William was relieved to see him stop and turn to look back. Even at that distance, he could sense the fay's impatience as he waited for William and the hob to catch up with him.

As he trudged along the track, William went over in his mind what little they knew about the night the angel had died. It would have taken two, perhaps three hours to carry a body from the Sheep Brook ford to Weforde in the snow. The monks could have buried the angel anywhere along the track's length. Short of digging up the entire wood, there was no way of knowing where the grave was.

William thought hard. He was missing something here. If the monks had put clues to the site of the grave, then it meant the grave could be found by anyone who could figure out what the clues meant. A hazelnut and an acorn. What would make those two particular trees stand out from countless others in the wood?

“Did the Red Man remember anything else at all?” William asked the hob at last.

“He heard one of the brother men say he knew a safe place to bury the body. He said the stories would keep people away so nobody would ever find it.”

“The stories?” William said, puzzled. “What stories?”

“I asked him that but he did not know.”

Come on, think!
William told himself. A place people told stories about, of the kind that would make them shun it. An oak and a hazel.

A light suddenly seemed to shine in William's mind. Of course! Excitement burned through him and his heart began to beat hard and fast. “I know where the grave is!”

“You do?” the hob sounded surprised. “Where?”

“The one place they knew nobody would willingly go near. The Whistling Hollow. The oak in the picture is the Boundary Oak, and the hazel, I'm fairly sure, is the hazel tree growing beside the pool.”

He was certain he was right. There was nowhere else in Foxwist Wood it could be.

“That is a bad place,” the hob said fearfully.

“You know it?”

“All the woodland creatures do. We stay away from it. A bad,
bad
place.”

William felt a shudder go through the hob's body.

“Do you know what haunts the Hollow?” William asked.

“Something old . . .” The hob's voice faded to a whisper. He huddled close to William's head and his breath was warm on William's cheek. “It watches the woods from the place by the pool and sometimes it walks the woodland paths on winter nights.”

William shivered. He did not like the sound of that. “Have you ever seen it?”

“I hide when it is walking. All woodlanders do; we stay hidden until it has gone.”

William thought of Brother Gabriel's warning, that the devil hunted for unwary souls in Foxwist. Was the spirit in the Hollow the devil? Or was it something else, and the monks simply called it the devil because they had no other name for it?

“Are you going to tell Shadlok that you know where the angel is?” the hob asked.

“He will have to tell me why he wants to find the grave first.”

“Nangel bone magic,” the hob said softly. “Grindy, grindy.”