The Gallows Curse (54 page)

    'Does
Hugh know Raoul came here too?'

    'According
to Talbot's informants at the Adam and Eve, Raoul didn't know of this place
until he arrived in Norwich, so he won't have told anyone in the manor where he
was going, and Talbot saw to it that the bailiff made no report of it to the
sheriff.'

    Raffe
frowned. He sensed Ma knew something, something she had no intention of telling
him. That night Hugh had almost caught the priest anointing Gerard's body, Hugh
had claimed to have been waiting for Raoul to return from Norwich. Raffe had
been so preoccupied that he hadn't even considered why Hugh was so anxiously
waiting until now. If Hugh feared that Raoul had discovered his treachery, or
was about to do so, might he not have sent someone to follow Raoul and silence
him? Had he been waiting in fact not for Raoul's return, but for news that the
deed was done? And now Hugh had come here. Ma had said it was for pleasure, but
what if he had realized that Elena had overheard his plotting in the manor?
Having got rid of Raoul, he would certainly not hesitate to murder her too to
keep his secret.

    Raffe
moistened his dry lips with his tongue. 'I must move Elena to a safer place. If
Hugh has been here once, he is very likely to return, and even with her dyed
hair, he will surely remember her eventually.'

    Ma's
brows arched for the second time that evening. 'And if she's caught and tells
them where she's been hiding and where she met Raoul? I don't think so, my
darling. I want her here where I can make quite sure she doesn't get the chance
to open her mouth. Besides, she's hardly paid for her keep and my trouble. And
think of all the effort we've put into protecting her.'

    'You
can trust her not to talk, I swear, and I will pay what is owed for her keep,'

    Ma's
lips curled in a humourless smile. 'Anyone can be made to talk. And unless
you've suddenly come into a fortune, my darling, I rather fancy you'll find
that paying me and whoever you next ask to shelter the girl will leave you with
a debt you cannot possible repay. And not everyone is as patient as I am when
they are asked to wait for their money. Tongues grow slack when bellies are
empty, and the price on the girl's head as a double murderer will weigh heavier
than a crown. There are those unscrupulous rogues who could find themselves
sorely tempted, Master Raffe, and we wouldn't want to put temptation in their
way, now, would we?'

    Raffe
was about to open his mouth to reply when Ma stopped him with a wave of her
hand.

    'Before
you make up your mind, let's ask my angel, shall we?'

    She
reached for a small wooden box on the table. Ma's tastes usually ran to objects
that were jewelled and elaborately carved, but this box was plain save for the
carving of a single eye framed by a triangle in the centre. The eye had been
inlaid with ivory, with a glistening pupil of blackest jet.

    Ma
gently slipped the hood from the sparrowhawk's head, and the bird shook out its
feathers, staring around the room, its bright yellow eyes searching for
something. With the bird's hooked beak inches from his face, and his finger
still smarting, Raffe could not help but slide his chair back a little, and Ma
laughed.

    'She'll
not harm you, unless you touch her.'

    Ma
flicked open the box and pulled out a handful of strips of parchment which she
fanned out in her hand. Then she spread the other hand, the heavy rings
flashing in front of the bird.

    'Tell
me, Master Raffe, what can all men feel, but none can hold? What is so strong
it can destroy a forest with a single blow and yet is small enough to creep
through the smallest chink?'

    'The
wind, of course,' Raffe said more sharply than he meant to, because he couldn't
anticipate what she was going to do. 'Every child knows that riddle.'

    'But
how easily we forget what we learned as children, my darling. As you say, it is
the wind, and it is the wind which carries this bird to the heavens. Every word
men utter of truth and lies, knowledge and ignorance is borne on the wind, but
only a creature of the wind may catch them.'

    She
held out the fan of strips towards the bird. Rapidly it leaned forward and
pulled one, two, three strips from her hand and dropped them on the table as if
it was plucking feathers from its prey. Ma laid the strips in a neat row, then
reached for something in the shadows. It was a tiny wicker cage. She opened the
door wide.

    If
the skylark had only stayed in its cage, it would have been safe, it would have
lived. Whether the foolish creature didn't see the sparrowhawk, or whether it
just made a wild, brave dash for freedom, thinking, if indeed it thought at
all, that soaring upwards would save it, who can tell? But the skylark didn't
even reach the topmost beam in the room. Raffe felt the hawk's wingtip brush
his face as it shot past him and heard it land with a thud on the floor, the
tiny bird dead between its claws.

    Ma
didn't even turn her head to look, but stared instead at the symbols on the
three strips of parchment the bird had pulled from her hand.

    'The
wind carries treachery, Master Raffaele. But whether you are the betrayer or
the betrayed, you alone know.'

    Raffe
rose, flinging the chair back. He strode from the room and thundered down the
stairs. He didn't know what he had hoped to achieve in that chamber or what he
had thought he would learn. He had meant to tell Ma not to admit Hugh again,
but he knew that even had he begged her on bended knee she would do precisely
what it pleased her to do. How much did Ma know about the message from France?
Was that demonstration with the bird meant as a threat not to remove Elena or a
warning of something else?

    Without
even thinking what he was doing, he hurried across the courtyard to the room
where the boys entertained. It was deserted, as he expected it to be, since the
noon bell had not yet sounded from the churches in the city.

    He
made his way to the back of the room and found the low doorway. He peered at
it, looking for a latch, but the thick boards were smooth. It had been five
years or more since he'd last forced himself to come here. How had Ma opened
the door then? Surely there had been a latch? He tried to visualize Ma standing
in front of him at this door. She'd stood on tiptoe, reaching up for something.
He remembered that. Was it a hidden key?

    Raffe
groped back and forth along the door until he felt a small hole. It came back
to him now. She'd used a knife. He withdrew his own knife from his belt and
slid the point inside until it hit metal. Wriggling the blade, he managed to
slide it under the metal bar and felt the latch rise on the other side. He
pushed the door and it swung open.

    It
was as well that he'd had to bend double and almost crawl through the doorway,
otherwise he would have surely cracked his head open on the stone archway on
the other side, but once under it, he could just about stand upright at the top
of the stairs. The stench of animal piss, rotting meat and dampness hit him
with the force of a siege engine, making his eyes sting and water. Surely it
hadn't been this foul before? He groped his way down, sliding his hand along
the dripping walls until, half-way down, he reached the torch burning on the
wall and removed it from the bracket.

    As he
passed each cage, the animals snarled or growled, some shrinking back from the
blazing torch, others hurling themselves at the bars, their sharp teeth
glistening in the flames. How many times had they beaten themselves on those bars
over the long days and nights that stretched together to form interminable
years? And yet they had still not learned that the iron would not yield. Was it
impotent rage or unshakeable hope that made them do it, Raffe wondered, or
perhaps making humans flinch just amused them.

    He
threaded his way past the animals, keeping to the middle of the passageway so
as not to brush against any of the cages. He knew what such beasts were capable
of. Behind him he could hear the rasp of hot, fetid breath and the click of
sharp claws on iron as the beasts restlessly prowled up and down in their
straw. The heavy animal odours of fur and dung filled his nostrils and burned
the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, wondering just how long it would
take a man to get used to these smells and sounds and know it for his home.

    Opening
his eyes again, Raffe edged forward until the light from the torch fell on the
last cage. Its occupant was awake, sitting up, no doubt roused by the
disturbance of the beasts and the flames moving towards him. He stared at
Raffe, blinking in the sudden light. His expression revealed no recognition,
only curiosity. He lifted his arm, brushing the wild hair back from his eyes
with his stump, and tilted his face up. He shuffled forward on his knees,
dragging the twisted remains of his legs behind him, holding out his mutilated
arms as if he was begging, though Raffe noticed he didn't extend them through
the bars, as if afraid that someone might hurt him. The bars were as much his
protection as his cage.

    Raffe
crouched down until he was on a level with the man.

    'You
know me?' he asked Softly.

    The
man blinked his startlingly blue eyes, holding out his arms again, this time
more insistently, but with no sign of recognition in his face. Raffe cursed
himself that he hadn't brought food. Then he remembered the leather bottle he
always carried at his waist. He felt for it. He'd drunk most of the contents on
the journey here, but there was a little wine left. He took out the wooden
stopper and held the mouth of the bottle through the bars. For a while the man
in the cage simply stared at it as if he had forgotten what the object was.

    'Drink,'
Raffe urged.

    Slowly
the man shuffled forward again, finally putting his lips to the bottle. Raffe
tilted it and the liquid ran down, making the man choke and cough, but when
Raffe tried to ease the flow, he grasped it with both stumps, pulling it
towards him and sucking and sucking until finally convinced there was not a
drop more left inside, then he it let go.

    Raffe
squatted down on the damp flags of the cellar opposite the cage. For a long
time the two men stared at each other.

    'Do
you remember me?' Raffe asked again, searching for the merest flicker of
recognition, but the man's face was expressionless. He offered nothing.

    A man
had looked at him like that once before, when he was just a boy. Raffe could
remember it even now, his father standing there framed in the great doorway of
the abbey church, the sun burning so fiercely behind him that the hills were
bleached white in the light. Raffe had looked back as the priest led him away
down the long aisle of the church. His father was just standing there
motionless, his broad hat in his hand, his face tanned to the colour of the soil,
but there had been no expression at all in his eyes. Nothing. He'd watched his
son being led away, as unmoved as the ancient olive trees on their farm.
Relieved, maybe, that he need not work so hard now; proud, perhaps, of what his
son would achieve? Who knows, Raffe certainly didn't, for his father had never
seen the need for words.

    Raffe
turned his face away from the man in the cage, kneeling on the cold flags.

    'Talbot
told me that this is not my country. So why should I care who sits on the throne
of England? John is not my king. I owe him nothing. I am betraying nothing. All
that matters, all any man can be expected to do, is to protect the ones he
loves. I have to save them.'

    Raffe
stood up and began to pace back and forward, as restless as the caged beasts.

    'Anne
and Elena, they are both part of Gerard. As long as Elena still carries what he
did in her soul, there is hope for Gerard in the next life. But I don't know
how to protect them. I don't know what to do. If I take Elena from here, I
might be taking her to her death. In here she is safe. She is alive.'

    He
turned to face the man in the cage whose blue eyes stared out at him fixedly
from the grime-blackened face.

    'I
had to make that choice once before, and I need to know if I was wrong, if I
made the wrong choice. This may be the last time I can come to you. What I did,
what I am about to do, I do only for love. You cannot ask any man to harm what
he has given his very soul to protect.'

    Raffe
gripped the bars of the cage, shaking them violently, as if he could wrest an
answer from the man who crouched in the straw.

    'You
have to forgive me. You have to give me absolution. There is no one else left
who
can ...
speak to me, damn you, just speak! Just one word, one sign
even, that's all I ask, just one!'

    But
the man in the cage didn't move. The torchlight flickered as twin flames in the
great black pupils of his eyes, but he didn't take his gaze from Raffe's face.
All around him the animals prowled restlessly up and down, their paws rustling
through the straw, their claws clicking against the iron bars, and somewhere in
the far distance came the hollow dripping of water, like a giant heartbeat,
falling ceaselessly down into the gaping black hole in the floor.