The Gallows Curse (29 page)

    You'd
best start in here. Straighten the covers, see the oil lamps are filled and
wicks trimmed ready. Then rake over the rushes on the floor and strew some
fresh herbs in them. Ma likes the place kept sweet. You'll find the lamp oil
and sacks of strewing herbs in the stores across the yard.'

    The
room, which last night had been filled with grunts of pleasure, this morning
was empty and silent save for the gentle snores of a couple lying at the far
end. They slept on, tangled in each other, naked except for a cloak which
barely covered the girl's buttocks as she lay with one leg thrown across her
client's groin.

    Unlike
the chamber where Elena had spent the night, this hall had low partitions
dividing the pallets from each other, not for privacy, for they were open at
one end to the narrow walkway between them, but to keep out the worst of the
winter draughts and prevent the more vigorous of the customers from
accidentally striking their neighbours or rolling on them as they flailed about
in the throes of passion.

    Luce
sank down on the nearest cot and curled up, yawning.

    'Best
make a start, Holly.'

    Elena
moved awkwardly in the overlarge kirtle which Luce had lent her and began to
smooth the covers in the first of the stalls. She was almost grateful for the
work, for it was an everyday task, something any woman might do in her own
croft. But this was not her own cottage, and as she bent she caught the strong,
salt-sweet smell of stains on the covers and the thick stench of sweat,
overlaid with musky perfumed oils. She recoiled, her hands trembling. Would a
stranger force her down among these smells, these stains, till her hair reeked
of them as Luce's did?

    Attempting
to calm herself, Elena looked around, trying to find something that did not
shriek at her of what went on in this room. Nailed to the wall near the door
she noticed a long board divided into squares in each of which there seemed to
be a painting of sorts. Curiosity drew her closer and for a moment she stared,
unable to comprehend what she was seeing, then, flushing scarlet, she turned
away. She heard Luce chuckling. The girl slithered off the bed and, putting her
arm around Elena's shoulder, turned her firmly round to face the board again.

    'That's
what's on offer, see.'

    Each
of the little squares depicted a crudely painted figure of two or sometimes
three people in various strange positions. Elena was not unacquainted with sex;
after all, she had grown up surrounded by all of nature's fecundity. Before she
could even put names to the beasts, she had seen cocks fluttering on the backs
of hens, rams tupping ewes, stallions covering mares and even other stallions.
She'd giggled at lads and lasses rolling together in the pasture. It had seemed
but a natural expression of life, the grunts and groans and squeals of its
daily renewal.

    In
the cottages or even the Great Hall, most of these human couplings were little
more than animal copulations, rapid, furtively hidden beneath blankets, the
noise suppressed for fear of disturbing children, parents or some
short-tempered bed-fellow. They required no thought or imagination beyond the
basic urge to relieve the burning of nature's honest lust. But as Elena was
about to discover, the human mind, if left unoccupied, can create such strange
fancies as have never entered the head of a cockerel or dog.

    Luce
nodded towards the board. 'We get many foreigners coming here, sailors,
merchants and the like. We don't always understand what they want, so they can
just point at that. Mind you, we have to use the board with some of the local
lads too. They only have to step in here for every word they ever learned since
they were weaned to vanish from their poor little heads and they start to
babble like babies.' She smiled fondly. 'One lad I had the other day, couldn't
even remember whether he was asking for a woman or a boy.'

    'A
boy?'

    Luce
waved a hand towards the wall. 'Boys work in the chamber next door. Some of the
men in here don't like to see a man with a boy, puts 'em off. Funny, that,' she
added, almost to herself, 'how what sends one man into ecstasy sends another to
vomit.'

    'I
thought those boys were the sons of the women.'

    Luce
snorted. 'They're somebody's sons all right. There's many a mother or father
has sold their sons to work in here. But they don't belong to us, though some
of the women in here are more mothers to them than their own have ever been.'

    Elena
closed her eyes as a sudden pain slashed through her head. What had become of
her own son? What had Gytha done with him? Was he really being cared for
somewhere safe, or had she sold him? Would he end up in a place like this? For
a moment she was almost glad she was here, as if that would be enough to
appease heaven and spare her son from such a place. She wanted to believe that
whatever happened to her meant it could not happen to him. But deep down she
knew that wasn't true. A woman and her child could easily be slaughtered
together — they often were — but she clung to the thought all the same:
I'm
doing this to protect him.

    Why
do mortals think that suffering is a coin with which they can buy justice or
salvation? We mandrakes learn wisdom from our fathers: life is a steal if you
are a talented thief, and if you are not, then you may suffer all you please
but it will buy you nothing but pain.

    Elena
could not prevent her face from screwing up into an expression of disgust as
she glanced once more at the pictures on the board. She looked at Luce, trying
to imagine which of these things she did.

    Luce saw
her expression and her face darkened. 'You needn't sneer at us. You're in here
too, aren't you?'

    'But
I couldn't do that!' Elena said.

    You'd
be surprised at what you can do when you have to, and if you bend a little,
kitten, you might even get to enjoy it.'

    Elena
felt her face burning, knowing that Luce had realized exactly what she was
thinking. But she still couldn't bring herself to imagine doing such things
with strangers. She couldn't and she wouldn't. She was married in all but name.
She wasn't like Luce. She would never be like Luce.

    But
she wouldn't have to be. Raffaele would come soon, maybe he'd even come today,
and take her somewhere safe. She wasn't staying here. She didn't live here, not
like the other girls. Today or tomorrow Raffaele would come for her.

    Trying
to avert her gaze from the mesmerizing pictures on the board, Elena threw
herself into the cleaning and tidying, trying hard to focus on smoothing,
straightening, tossing, turning, strewing, all those chores which back in
Gastmere she had impatiently prayed to have done and over, but to which she now
clung as fiercely as a beggar grasps his only coin.

    Luce
saw her fearful expression ease and smiled to herself. She had seen enough bubs
enter Ma's gates to know that all they needed was time. Let her get accustomed
to it gradually, she thought. So she did not tell Elena that these plain rooms,
these anonymous rooms, were just public rooms meant for the poorer classes: the
penniless journeymen and the pimple- faced virgin apprentices; the sailors and
peddlers who wanted ale, meat and a woman in that order; and the minor clerics
whose long hours spent freezing their bollocks off through dreary Latin
services gave rise to fantasies so ungodly that they dared not confess them to
any but a whore. But there were other rooms, secret rooms, of which, as yet,
Elena knew nothing, but she would learn. Oh yes, in time she would learn, as
all mortals must, that every soul has its own dark and hidden chambers.

    
Vervain
— an ancient magical herb, which the druids revere almost as much as mistletoe.
Christians say it was used to staunch Christ's wounds on the Cross and
therefore it is used to sprinkle holy water. It is said to avert evil, and stop
bleeding. Nevertheless, witches and warlocks use it often in their spells as a
love charm, and if a thief should make a cut on his hand and press the leaf to
it, he shall have the power to open locks.

    If a
mortal suffers from a tumour he should cut a vervain root in half and hang a
portion round his neck whilst the other is dried over a fire. As the root
withers in the heat, so shall the tumour wither away. But the mortal must make
certain to keep the withered root safe, for if an enemy or malicious spirit
wishes him harm, he may steal the root and drop it into water and as the root
swells again so shall the tumour.

    Mortals
believe that if they put vervain in the water they bathe in they shall have
knowledge of the future and obtain their heart's desire.

    But
know this, those who pluck the herb must do so only at certain phases of the
moon. They must recite charms and must leave honeycomb in the place where they
gathered it to make restitution for the violence done to the earth in taking
such a sacred herb. Payment must always be made for everything wrested from the
earth, for if it is not offered then it will be forcibly taken.

    The
Mandrake's Herbal

    Even
before Raffe had taken a pace into Ma's chamber, his head was reeling from the
soporific heat and the heavy scents of the musky oils Ma Margot rubbed into her
glossy black hair. Although the sun was blazing down outside, the shutters on
the window were, as always, tightly shut. The room was illuminated by thick
candles impaled on spikes on the wall. Beneath the spikes dripping wax grew up
on the floor and walls like layers of sallow fungus on a decaying tree,
becoming fatter and more twisted with each passing day.

    A
flagon of wine and two goblets were laid on the table along with trenchers of
cold meats, roasted fowl, cheese and figs. Raffe guessed that Ma Margot had
been warned of his coming even before he'd swung down from the saddle in her
stable yard. With a flick of her beringed fingers, Ma indicated the empty chair
and Raffe sank into it, facing her across the narrow table.

    Ma's
chair was higher than Raffe's, with a set of wooden steps in front so that the
tiny woman could climb up into it, though Raffe knew she always made a point of
being seated before Talbot showed him into her presence.

    In
truth
chair
was too humble a word for such a piece of furniture. Some
might have called it a throne, for its back and arms were carved to resemble
serpents, painted in yellow, black and with touches of gold. The protruding red
tongues of the vipers were hinged on wire threads and they flickered up and
down at the slightest movement of the chair's occupant. The eyes of the snakes
were inlaid with chips of emerald glass. At least Raffe supposed they must be
glass for surely not even Ma Margot could afford real emeralds. The green eyes
of the serpents glinted in the trembling candlelight, so that their gaze seemed
to be fastened upon the victim in the opposite chair, giving Raffe the uneasy
impression that at any time they might dart forward and strike.

    Ma
Margot pushed a flagon of wine towards him and Raffe poured the dark ruby
liquid into his goblet.

    'You've
come to see your little pigeon?'

    Raffe
started violently, spilling a few drops of the wine, and Ma Margot's lips
twitched in a smile.

    'Is
she ... in good health?' Raffe said, avoiding the question.

    Ma
shrugged. 'Had a touch of milk fever the first week, but she's over that now.
Strong girl, but then these field girls usually are. She works hard enough,
I'll give her that. No! Don't fret yourself,' Ma raised a stubby hand to
forestall the question he was about to ask, 'she's only been put to cleaning
and the like, no customers, not till we knew what you had planned for her.'