Angels in the Architecture (3 page)

There was little exchanged between
Father and sons at any time, and a ride in the cart was when many simply gazed and felt the unusual but special gain of just sitting, with no effort and nothing to have to say or teach. There were waves to others passed by, every one of them known to each other; brief exchanges of economy or weather, fundamentals to existence, but directed with practised casualness, for a man or a boy should know what to say or keep himself quiet.

Gamel Warriner
’s cart rolled into Torksey, with others from along the way, all dusty and dozed, all with their hopes of some small wealth, or of procuring some pretty thing to appeal to a girl or a woman, all anticipating the sociality of the market and its affairs. Gamel rode slowly so the dust didn’t coil up around them all and their load. It would be a long enough journey without having skin and breath full of dry dirt.

The ancient town stood at the commercial centre of
the Warriners’ world and was a hub of the walled cathedral city of Lincoln, several miles away. People came by cart and on foot; by road from all around, with their vegetables and hides; and by canal boat with wool on the Foss Dyke from Lincoln. The canal was older than anyone knew and every family had stories to tell of it. Gamel Warriner heeded its integral role in the expanding market life of his small world. His sons thought little or nothing of either the dyke or the river Trent with which it connected, although Dem had once ridden a canal boat along the Foss to Lincoln with a kindly trader who’d bought some of the Warriners’ pelts, as an adventure for the boy. Alice had been troubled to find her husband come home that day having put their eldest child aboard a stranger’s boat, but a week later the boy was back, with a glow about him and many stories to tell. Such were the grand adventures of a Lincolnshire lad, rare but exotic, and there were few full-grown men had more than one or two such journeys in a life.

For Thomas
, the canal held a different mystery; it was an opiate of light, bouncing off the silky surface, glistening to his spirit.

Thomas, can you hear the message in the light on the water. Thomas. Try to see what it’s telling
you, Thomas. Can you feel it?

The cart rolled past the edges of the town
, and the boys recognised friends they waved to and strangers whose eyes they avoided. The unknown was feared or at least suspected, although it would be just a word or two made kindred of most strangers anyway. Travelling workmen and traders came through looking for a small sale or a day’s work. Most would try to stay in a town if they could, if someone would hire their labour or skill. They were generally poorer, hoping for enough to eat and to buy materials to sell more. Generally they would move on. Townsfolk and those around about, were friendly enough but poor themselves, and everyone understood that extra labour could only usually be afforded in prosperous times, and prosperous times came usually for all or no one. It would be rare a single peasant or trader stood out as more successful than others, and such an ambition would not be harboured at any rate.

The Warriners
’ cart rattled and bounced on. The town, such as it was, was no more than a single street along the canal, sitting in the elbow of the canal with the river Trent. As they approached the centre of the small town, where the market was held, Gamel Warriner could see a crowd gathered ahead. There was shouting and some shoving going on, and a group of craning necks and peering heads jostling to see a thing happening amid the grouping. Gamel thought he noticed a glance of fear upon one or two as he came alongside the hubbub. Some standing there turned to see who it was they might whisper to now.

‘Hamond,’ Gamel called out to a villager emerging from the crowd. ‘What’s
hapnin’ there?’

A big man as broad
as Gamel strode towards him; a few others were standing aside in deference to size and respect.

‘
Aye, Gamel, it be a good thing yer ’ere with yer cart.’ He turned away. ‘Bennet!’ Hamond Archer called to someone unseen behind a wall of villagers. ‘Bennet! Gamel has ’is cart here. We can load the poor creature on it and take ’er to Priory.’ The talkative crowd quietened as someone to be trusted was taking control of the situation.

‘Wha’ creature
, Amond? Wha’ ’n God’s name?’ Gamel still sat upon his cart seat, his sons waiting out the exchange as they knew it was nothing for them to interfere with men about some unclear business, although they were curious just the same.

‘It’s
a Swan, Gamel. Someone’s killed a Swan.’ Hammond was booming and final in his statement of a fact, behind which lay a deep reservation.

In one quick
movement, Gamel Warriner’s three oldest sons, hitherto less interested in the crowd and its goings-on, now jumped from the cart and began to push through the outer layer of hushed onlookers, some of whom were backing away, just as others were unable to move at all, transfixed by what they saw.

At the
centre, Bennet Williams, the town’s physician, knelt over an enormous mass of white feathers. Young Geoffrey Warriner had first seen the great birds on the Brayford Pool at the heart of the Lincoln market. For one so immune to the wonders of the world, the birds had seemed to him a wondrous sight, and he’d understood then the many tales from his childhood of magic white creatures that had saved a knight’s life, wrestled a dragon, and saved fair maidens hither and yon. The birds were called Mute Swans, for their call was so mild and the birds so gentle. Custom made all swans the property of the King. So admired were they that to kill one was not just a poaching offence but an offence also against Nature, certainly against the King and therefore treason as well, and in some people’s minds an offence even against God. The excitement of such a mystery had brought Gamel’s sons out of their reverie.

And now one of the magnificent creatures lay in the dust surrounded by hanging heads and solemn faces. Gree recalled the hugeness of the birds as they floated on
the Brayford Lake, but what he saw now, complete and up close, took his breath away. The dead bird was enormous, larger than a small calf; its wings collapsed and spread out in the dust, the width of them as long as his father’s cart. With the sight of it he felt as though his innards would wrench from his body. It was an unholy and frightening spectacle.

Geoffrey’s brothers broke through the crowd behind him.

‘Jesus, Lord,’ exclaimed Thurston.

‘Wha’
’appened? Is i’ dead?’ Denholm asked.

‘Arya sure it’s dead, M
r Williams?’

‘Aye
, boy, it’s dead all right. ‘S’neck’s broke. See?’

The boys saw the creature’s long,
once-elegant neck askew on the ground.

‘’Ow tho’?
’Ow’d its neck get broke?’

‘Dunno
, lad.’

‘It’d take a moighty strong arm to wrestle one a dem t’ground.’

A squawk came up from a fat old woman at the scene. ‘Someone’s killed it though,’ croaked the bent crone. ‘All the same. An’ there’ll be trouble now. Someone means ’arm to us. It’ll be trouble. An’ who’ll tell Thane? Who’ll pay ’is penance for ’im?’

Berta Draper
was one of the village’s oldest inhabitants and unofficial custodian of the laws of nature, the intentions of God and all superstition. Many tried to ignore her, although this was difficult, and despite intentions to the contrary, most were mindful of her voice.

‘You don’t know any o’that old woman
?’

‘Mark my words tho’
leech-man. It’ll bring trouble. Migh’ be Thane, migh’ be God, but ther’ll be ’n account t’ be had sum tarm. ‘N i’ won’t be far off neither.’ Berta stated all this as simple fact and without fear or threat in her voice, although her croaky rattle of a voice bade most listen and take heed, and indeed they did, as nodding worried faces attested.

‘’
Ere, Gree, Dem, ’elp us lift ’er ont’ ya’ Da’s wagon. Best we get’er to Priory. Le’ Father Taylor deal wi’ Thane.’

Geoffrey
and Denholm stared agog at Bennet Williams. Were they to touch the beast? Carry it forlorn and murdered? Momentarily this seemed a danger before they responded to Bennet’s command and shuffled anxiously about the dead bird.

‘Thurstan, ge’ baskets offa cart an’ make room for it.’ Gree instructed his younger brother
.

‘Wha’?’ Bewildered.

‘Baskets, ya’ rock head, go on!’

Thurstan jumped from his own daze and pushed back through the crowd. Gree
and Dem crouched around the great torso, sliding their hands across the soft, dusty earth and placing their big arms deftly beneath it.

‘Hellfire.’
Bennet Williams leapt to rescue the bird’s long neck and head as it slumped straight down.

The onlookers parted and the cort
ège limped its way to the Warriner cart. They made a grim procession as all eyes followed the bird’s slow progress. Gamel Warriner had remained at the seat of his cart and turned now to see the bird brought over. Thomas sat behind him and had noticed none of these events. Thurstan offloaded the last of the cart’s contents, and Bennet Williams climbed the rear of the cart with great deference to his part of the load, the boys manoeuvring the heap of white feathers carefully onboard, a surprisingly gentle grace to their expected roughness. The jostling and exchanges of the crowd had stopped now, folk feeling an onus of tragedy and prediction.

The boys stepped back from the cart.

‘You boys go on an’ get them baskets o’er market,’ Gamel instructed his sons, turning back around to his nag. ‘Me an’ Mr Williams’ll take this load up t’ Priory,’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Aye
,’ they said as one, still dazed, staring as the cart jerked forward and the odd band departed slowly from the still gawping crowd. The bird was clear to all, taking up the cart as it did, resting a little on a mute boy’s lap, who himself did not care to notice..

It was some moments before someone moved away from the group, signalling the same to the rest of the crowd.
Berta Draper remained where she’d been, hands on her broad hips, looking at the ground and moving her head around about. She bent down to touch something and then stood again, brushing the dust from her hands and her skirts, shaking her head. Some looked back at her, and their looks suggested that she frightened them still. It wouldn’t have surprised any of them to see her dance on the spot and mumble an incantation, but in this at least she disappointed. The boys turned sombrely to their collection of baskets and pots. Hamond Archer drafted a handful of nearby youth to help the Warriner boys convey their baskets the short distance to the market square, which they did with still great silence and a lack of assuredness as to what their response should be to this happening, not to mention the occasional glance back to Berta.

‘Stop look’n’ at
’er, ya’ thick ’eads. She don’ need no encouragin’ from likes a’ you boys,’ Hamond warned them, heading back apparently to have a word with the old woman.

‘Was an
’eavy beast weren’ i’?’

‘Aye.’

‘Were weak in i’s neck tho’.’

‘Only seemed tha’ way as t’wa
s dead. I seen them birds o’er Lincoln fight’n’ each other w’ them necks. They’s as strong as you can ’magine. Wid knock a gro’n man o’er lark a wee pup I reck’n. Would’n a’ bin a simple thing a’ kill a beast lark tha’.’

‘Maybe it’s got trapp
ed, y’knaw in one them traps lark porchers use?’

‘Nah, is naw hurt
i’s legs o’ feet. Woulda bin marks a’ trap. Naw, i’s had i’s neck broke, bu’ can’t see ’ow as any man could do tha’ though. Bird more likely woulda killed a’ man.’

‘Bu’ wa’s fer kill’n’ i’? Didn’ eat i’. Didn’ take skin or feather. Woi’d ya bovver then?’

‘Maybe i’s got startled by Thane’s men ‘n’ run orf. Oo knows.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe’s no’ man killed i’. Maybe’s some monster, or is devil’s work.’

‘Stop tha’
story-tellin’, y’ idjit. Is no such thing and you jus’ let’n’ tha’ old woman ge’ in yer ’ead, jus’ lark she wants. She’s a fool an’ is no reason t’ listen anythin’ she ’as t’ say. Is a man, or some animal we kno’, ’nother swan maybe. I says I saw ’em foightin’ each other a’ Lincoln. Maybe’s wha’ ’appened. Jus’ forge’ i’ now, we go’ work t’ be doin’. So ge’ on.’

It was a short distance to
the Priory, although to Gamel Warriner drawing his precious cargo slowly along, it seemed a while to get beyond the town and up the river road to the lord’s manor. They saw no one, since anyone who would be on the road was already in the village for the market, or they were in their fields working. There was a daily rhythm to peasants’ lives that would have caused Bennet and Gamel to wonder at the presence of any person on the road at this time had they seen any. Apart, of course, from the lord himself or his men, no one ever wanted to come across them if they could avoid it, most especially not as now as they were carrying a dead beast, property of the King, effectively therefore owned by the local Lord. Bennet and Gamel may be leading men among the peasants but to the lord or his men, they were the same human dross available for their pleasure, sport or waste as any other.

‘Wha’ ya’ thinkin’
then, Benne’? Who’d d’a thin’ lark this?’