The Tainted Relic (23 page)

It was already late, and he was looking forward to the end of the final service of the day so that he could go to his cot and sleep. Funny how, as a man grew older, he craved earlier nights. When he had been a lad, he had been keen to stay up most of the night and drink as much ale as he could, while also befriending attractive wenches; later he’d been more interested in staying up to pray to ask forgiveness for those nights of dissipation.

The days when he would stay up all night were long gone, and with them the guilt of a young novice. He was contented now, happy to look to his bed with gratitude that it was lonely. When he was younger, he would have been sad at the thought of the cold blankets and palliasse being empty when he went to them. In those days the only bearable bed was one in which young Mags or Sara was already waiting; now his bed was for sleeping, and my God, how delightful that was!

He could smile to himself at the thought. Mind, the chance of misbehaviour would be a pleasant thing. Even if he’d grown a paunch and didn’t need to worry so much about shaving his tonsure since most of his hair had disappeared, his brown eyes were still attractive to women; but he believed that they mostly saw him as a pleasant old soul, rather than a risk to their virginity. So be it. They were probably right.

Not old at some four-and-forty years, Joseph was that rare creature, a man who was entirely satisfied with his life. He knew his position in the world: he was a monk in the hospital of St John, with responsibility for the treatment of sick travellers. Normally this wasn’t a particularly arduous task, of course, but there was a steady trickle of people coming through the city asking for attention. Since the famine there had been fewer people passing through, but Joseph didn’t care. He had the garden to keep him busy. There was always something to do.

Whistling as he walked to the little lean-to shed beside the priory’s wall, he heard a call. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a man up at the gate with the porter, then more men behind him in the gateway, and he frowned a little. They were carrying something–a heavy sack or bundle. Or body.

Dropping his tools, he started to run to the gate.

Rob kept starting and staring at the door, but whenever it opened, there was never any sign of Andrew. ‘Where is he?’

‘Sit down and shut up. We’ve got the stuff to split up.’

Adam nodded. ‘Will’s right, Rob. If Andrew didn’t want to come and get his money, that’s his lookout.’

‘But where is he? He ought to be here.’

Will leaned back easily until his back was against the wall. He was a good-looking lad in a bold way. Only two and twenty, he had fine fair hair, somewhat lank, which constantly drooped over his grey eyes, concealing the fact that there was a slight cast in his left. He wore a cheap and faded grey fustian tunic and dull green hose, and he pulled at a loose thread at his knee as he gazed at Rob. ‘Look, he’s not here. We can either wait, or divvie it all up now. Right?’

Rob frowned. ‘I’ll take his share, then, and…’

‘Oh no,’ Will said smoothly. ‘I’ll keep his share safe. We’ll see what we do with it later. For now, we’ll just make four shares. Tell him to come to me later and we’ll work it out.’

Not for the first time, Rob wondered what he was doing with these two. There were other men he could have worked with, but no, Andrew had said that these two were safer for them.

‘There’s strength in numbers, Robbie, boy,’ he’d said. ‘We’re half the gang, and while we’re half, we’re safe. If I ever disappear, though, you look to yourself.’

And now Andrew wasn’t here. Rob had seen Will knock the cleric down, and it was as he was grabbing the bag from his shoulder that the madman appeared, howling and screaming at them, waving his sword wildly like a berserker. Rob had fled in the face of that lunatic, and he’d thought the others had too. But there was no sign of Andrew when he got back to the stable, and although he’d waited there for an age, there was still no Andrew when he came here to the alehouse for the sharing.

Will took his silence for agreement, and leaned forward over the rough table. The bag had a purse inside, and in it were a few coins, carefully counted into piles and passed about the table. There were some clothes, a shirt which Will claimed, a spoon which Adam took, and a little knife, which Will thought Andrew would like, and which he placed with the pile of coins ready for Andrew to collect. He glanced at Rob challengingly as he did so, but Rob didn’t care. His mind was on his brother, wondering where he was.

The fear was like a cold trickle of water running down his back at the thought that Andrew may not have survived. Sweet Jesus, don’t let him be hurt, Rob thought. The only man he knew and trusted in the world surely couldn’t have been taken from him.

‘Marge, bring us ale!’ Adam shouted to the woman at the bar. She brought jugs, ignoring the fact that the three were concealing their booty on the table. Will stared at her with empty eyes as she set drinking horns on the table, the blankness a threat. She met his look with contempt, curled her lip and returned to the bar.

‘What’s this?’ Will muttered as he reached into the bottom of the satchel, a frown darkening his brow.

Rob watched as he brought the thing out. It was a bag of purple material with a draw-string loosely tied. Will untied the string. Inside was a package wrapped in fine pigskin. When he unfolded the leather, he revealed a small box.

It was an attractive little casket of dark wood. There were intricate carvings over it, and metal glinted in the recesses. Yellow metal. Instinctively all three men leaned forward, their heads almost touching as Will pulled the lid open and stared inside.

There was a fine felt cloth, again in purple. And on it lay a glass vial, much marked and dirty. The glass was scratched and grey, as though ancient, with a greenish tinge. There were two pieces of parchment beside the vial. Will plucked them up and glanced at them for a moment, but he had no use for scribbles. He threw them on the floor irritably so that he could stare more closely at the vial. Picking it up, he pulled the stopper free, upending it into the palm of his hand.

A sliver of silvery-grey wood fell out. The three gazed at it, then at each other.

Adam was the first to break the silence. He picked it up and began to chuckle, his voice a hoarse rasp that was somehow shocking in the tavern. ‘A piece of turd! I like that!’

‘It’s not that,’ Will said, and he too was grinning. He took it and studied it. ‘I think it’s old wood.’

‘Throw it on the fire, then. The box should fetch a few pennies, though,’ Adam said, and reached for the casket.

‘No, we’ll leave it as it was,’ Will said, putting his hand on the box. He carefully inserted the piece off wood back in the vial and stoppered it, putting the vial back in the box and closing it.

Adam pulled a face. ‘Let me have a look at it.’

‘Leave it, Adam. There are other things to worry about. Look at Rob there, worried about his brother. You should be thinking more of his feelings.’

Rob glanced at Will, and saw a cynical, cold expression on his face, and was suddenly sure that he would have to protect himself against Will. Andrew had been right, as usual. Together they had been half the gang–now he was only one member of a larger band, and no longer held the balance of power.

There was something else, too. Will sat quietly, one hand upon the box. Adam’s hand was near the box. It was as though Will was challenging Adam to try to take it from him. Adam saw the expression in Will’s eye, too, and wasn’t sure he wanted to accept the challenge. He lowered his head with displeasure. ‘I want the thing.’

‘Then buy it,’ Will said. ‘You want it, you give me back all your coins from tonight, and then you can have it.’

‘When Andrew gets here, he’ll make you two give it to him anyway,’ Rob said.

Will didn’t look at him. ‘You think so? Perhaps it’s too late for that. I’ve taken a fancy to this box, and I will keep it.’

‘You aren’t the leader of our group yet,’ Adam snarled.

‘I think I am.’

Will, having spoken, drew the box towards him. Adam said sneeringly, ‘You take the thing, then. It’s nothing to me. But remember this, it’s not yours or anyone’s–it’s ours–and you don’t have the right to do anything with it.’

‘Then I’ll buy it from you,’ Will said easily. He took half his money and then hesitated. ‘No, we’re here to drink, and Andrew isn’t. We’ll sell this thing to him.’

He took Andrew’s money and divided it equally between them, then put the box in its wrappings on the table beside him. ‘If Andrew gets here, he can have it.’

‘No!’ Rob protested. ‘I’ll look after his stuff. Give it to me!’

‘What if he doesn’t come back, Rob?’ Will said easily.

Rob blurted, ‘He’ll be here soon!’

But even he did not believe it.

A woodsman found the body some little while later. Old Hob was out with his dog, and while crossing the common on the Exeter side of the ford, his dog ran off, then stopped dead in a clump of brambles, and growled, low and menacing.

This was no cattle dog, it was a good rache, a hunting dog that could chase its quarry by smell, and the woodsman knew better than to dispute its sense. He hurried after it, wondering whether there could be a deer hiding away there, hopeful that a good blow with his axe (without a witness) could result in food for some few days.

‘Sweet Jesus!’ he breathed when he saw the face staring at him from among the bushes. The face of a dead man, blue-grey in the twilight, with his throat cut from ear to ear.

Much later, Will belched and grabbed hold of the doorway as he left the alehouse. It was dark already, and the city was all but deserted, but there was a man being smothered by Moll the whore at the street’s corner as Will stood on the threshold and peered up and down the street.

Adam thought he was clever, but it was Will’s brain which was going to lead them now. It was obvious enough even to Rob that his precious brother wasn’t going to come back, and now it was up to Will to take over. He already had his plans, and it wouldn’t take him long to implement them.

He’d never asked for more. Rob was an old woman when it came to planning and choosing a target, but Adam was reliable enough. His only problem was, he tended to believe, touchingly, that he had a brain. He didn’t. As far as Will was concerned, Adam had less intelligence than a stook of wheat.

Take his reaction tonight. As soon as he had been faced down by Will, he went into a sulk, and it was only later that he recovered his equanimity, when he’d beaten several barrels of crap out of that poor sod at the bar. Who was it? Oh yes, Tad. ‘Tad the Bad’, they called him, because of his flatulence, but tonight he was ‘Tad the Trampled’. Yes, Will thought with a cheerful gurgle. Tad the Trampled. That was good. He’d been so thumped by the infuriated Adam that it was a miracle he was still able to whine and crawl away.

Will wouldn’t have done that. He had no argument with Tad. No, if Adam had insisted and tried to take the box, Will would finally have let him have it. But then, later, he’d have made sure that Adam never crossed him again. That was the trouble with a small band like theirs. It was impossible if there was a second man trying to get to the top. Will was the top man now, and he wasn’t going to let anyone, let alone a shite-for-brains moron like Adam, take his position.

Shame that Rob was so upset. It was his brother, but in God’s name, even brothers had to separate some time. And there was no shame in Andrew dying at the hand of a knight. That was plainly what Rob would think, that the man on the horse had ridden his brother down.

Will set his jaw. The trouble was, if the knight was about the city now, it would be possible for him to cause some problems. Who could have foretold that the bastard would hang back and reappear at the gallop only when the pathetic little cleric had already been taken care of? No one could have foretold that that would happen, but if Will had been in charge, he’d have set one man to keep an eye on the cleric, and left the other three watching and waiting to catch the knight, pull him from his horse, and kill him as well. Still, Andrew wouldn’t make that mistake again. Or any other, for that matter, the cretin.

He paused. The knight had been too far away to get a good look at any of them, hadn’t he? Could he have caught a clear view of their faces? Not Will’s, surely. Will had been over the other side of the clearing. He could have seen Rob, though, or maybe Adam. If he had, that was their problem, not his.

Most importantly, the box was nice and safe. Adam had tried to grab it, but Will had kept it. Later he would take it to a man he knew behind Exeter’s Fleshfold, above a small butcher’s shop, who would sometimes deal in little trinkets. Judging by the box, it must be valuable, although why a splinter of timber in a vial should be, Will didn’t know. He suspected it might be a relic, which was why he had pulled it out, in case it brought him luck, but there was no magical tingling in his fingertips as he handled it, no spark of excitement in his belly or fire in his bowels. It was just an old chip of wood. Probably sold to some gullible trader with more money than sense. Well, with any luck, Will could find another one with a purse bigger than his brains. He wondered fleetingly what the two pieces of parchment had been, but the idle thought was soon lost as he lurched down one alley, then turned into a narrower one.

This wasn’t his way home, but Moll lived down here, and he had some business with her. She’d been all over that man like a cheap tunic, and Will had a sudden urge to know who he was. There was something unpleasantly familiar about the man. When she came home, Will would be waiting for her.

It was late when the outlaw finally managed to sleep; the body in the alley haunted his thoughts, and as he settled himself he would see again that appalling face, the spilled guts, all that, and his sword befouled with gore and blood. Although he was used to bloodshed–Christ’s bones, he’d been a warrior for too long not to be accustomed to it–yet the murder made him feel tainted, as did his furious attack on the corpse.