Company of Liars (64 page)

The clouds opened before morning. An icy-cold rain beat down with a savage ferocity in the wind. I welcomed the stinging of my face and hands; it felt like a penance, a cleansing. I sat there in front of the cross accepting the rain's whipping, until the candle in the lantern died and the pale grey dawn drenched the marshes in light. Behind me, the others stirred. Adela, unable to rouse either Osmond or Rodrigo, had taken Carwyn in her arms and cried herself to sleep. Now they were awake, I would have to face them. I only prayed I could make them understand that I had done it to save them.

Adela sat inside the hermit's hut and Rodrigo and Osmond huddled at the doorway. Adela had clearly recounted the events of the night before, for as I approached Osmond leaped up and seized my arm. His brow furrowed with anxiety.

‘Who were they who came last night and where have they taken Narigorm?’

I thought about telling him I didn't know, inventing some tale of having dragged Adela away from Gunter to keep her from being hurt, even my hitting Rodrigo to keep him from harm. They would have believed me. They wanted to believe
that. They did not want the truth; as Rodrigo had said, who but a priest does? But I was too weary to create a lie for them, too tired to make it well again for them. I needed to confess. I had no strength left to do otherwise.

‘Villagers took Narigorm.’

Adela's eyes were red and swollen. ‘But why did you pull me off them? I could have stopped them. I tried –’

‘You were no match for four big men. There was nothing you could have done. It wasn't your fault.’

‘We'll have to go after them and rescue her,’ Osmond said. ‘Where's their village? I can't understand why I slept through all that commotion, Rodrigo too. Adela said she couldn't wake us.’

Rivulets of silver water began to trickle around the stones in the grass. I wondered if this rain would go on falling until the next Midsummer's Day.

‘I drugged you so you wouldn't wake. They would have hurt you if you'd fought them. They were determined to take her.’

All three of them stared at me, shock on every face.

Osmond rubbed his forehead. ‘But I don't understand. If you knew they were coming, why didn't you warn us? We could have hidden her. We could have beaten them if we'd been prepared. And anyway, how did you know they were going to come?’

I was exhausted, couldn't they see that? Why were they asking me these questions? What did it matter? They were safe now, didn't they understand that?

Rodrigo winced as he moved his back. ‘Why have they taken her, Camelot?’

‘They were afraid of her white hair. They thought if she combed it, it would stir up the white waves of a storm.’ I was sorry I'd hurt him. I must have hit him hard.

‘Then we must tell them we'll take her away from here,’ Osmond said quickly. ‘They needn't be –’

‘I think that is not the only reason,’ Rodrigo broke in. ‘You knew they were coming. Why did they take her, Camelot?’ he repeated. There was a cold anger in his eyes as if he already knew the answer.

I took a deep breath and met his gaze steadily. ‘You wouldn't believe the danger you were in from her, so I went to them. They were already afraid of her. It was easy to persuade them that she was dangerous. I believe she would have turned on them, once she'd finished with us, so that much of what I told them was not a lie. I convinced them they had to get rid of her.’

‘And what will they do with her?’

This time I couldn't meet his gaze. ‘They will… kill her. They have to. It's the only way to stop her.’

Adela clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

Osmond, already pale, was swaying as if he was about to be sick. ‘No, Camelot, you wouldn't do such a thing, a kind old man like you, to trick a group of villagers into murdering an innocent child. You couldn't.’

Rodrigo was on his feet. He came unsteadily towards me. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me and I almost wanted him to. If he had beaten me half to death, I would have welcomed the pain of it, the punishment of it. But instead he stared at me as if he didn't know who I was.

‘You have murdered a child and you did not even have the courage to kill her with your own hands.
Il sangue di Dio!
I have killed men, but at least I thrust in the knife myself, I did not get others to do it for me.’

He raised his fist as if he was going to punch me. I braced myself, but the blow didn't fall. He shook his head.

‘I cannot bring myself to touch you,’ he said in disgust. ‘You are a coward, Camelot, a filthy coward.’

He spat into my face. I did not wipe it away.

‘Go. Go now and get as far away from us as you can, for if I ever see your monstrous face again I shall kill you with my bare hands. And make no mistake; unlike you, I am man enough to do it.’

I picked up my pack and walked away without looking back. As I passed her, Xanthus pricked up her ears and gave a little whinny, but I could not trust myself even to pat her. I walked until I was far enough away from the camp for them not to hear and then I wept uncontrollably, like a child.

31. St Uncumber

I was finally going home, returning at last to the wild, lonely hills they call the Cheviots. There was no other place left for me to go, no other place on the face of the land where I could take refuge. I ached for it. I needed to touch it, to smell it, to bury myself deep in its earth. Only that instinct kept me walking, one step, then another and another. Like an animal hunted beyond exhaustion, even dying I would have crawled to reach my home.

But what is home? I had asked myself that question on the day it all began, a day that seemed like a lifetime ago. And I asked it again, tumbling it over and over in my mind as I trudged northwards. Is home the place where you were born? To the old that has become a foreign country. Is it the place where you lay your head each night? If that were so, then every ditch, barn and forest in the land I should name as home, for I've slept in most of them. Is it the place which has soaked up the blood of your ancestors? That's the home of the dead, not the living. Is home then the place that holds your loved ones? Not when the one you love is absent.

It has taken me months, years perhaps, to fathom the answer. Home is the place you return to when you have
finally lost your soul. Home is the place where life is born, not the place of your birth, but the place where you seek rebirth. When you no longer remember which tale of your own past is true and which is an invention, when you know that
you
are an invention, then is the time to seek out your home. Perhaps only when you have come to understand that, can you finally reach home.

I had travelled through a devastated landscape, skirting deserted villages and empty barns. Crops, beaten down into the mud, lay unharvested, rotting to the colour of the dirt from which they sprang. Pastures were eerily silent, sheep and cattle dead or wandered off to fend for themselves. No smoke rose from the hearths of houses. No hammer blows echoed from the blacksmith's forge.

Once, children's voices had shrieked through windows; now weeds scrambled out through the empty casements. Thatch slumped to the ground and doors swung back and forth in the wind with the hollow banging of a leper's clapper. The churches still stood proudly, but they were hollow and empty. The market crosses rose in silence and no hands touched them to swear or seal a bargain. Little children and feeble old men wandered among the silent cottages, waiting for someone to return for them, but no one ever came. Once, among the black-crossed houses, I saw a man hang himself. He had survived and that was too much for him to bear.

The roads were full of people on the move, some travelling alone, their families dead or abandoned, some in groups making for the towns where there might be a hope of food or work. Some were mad with horror and grief; others were hardened to the point where they would cut a man's throat for a handful of dry beans. And if they did, no one lifted a finger to stop them, for there were no courts left to try a man
and no executioners to hang him. Sometimes I wondered if God too had died up there in His heaven, if heaven stood silent and boarded up, the angels left rotting on pavements of gold.

Every village and town had its pits and, between them, smoking piles of leaves and rags. Once, on common land outside a village, I drew near a small knot of people silently watching at a distance as masked men swung the bodies of adults and children by arms and legs and tossed them into the mass grave. One child seemed to cry out and a mother in the group tried to run towards the pit, but others caught her and held her back.

‘Gas escaping from the body is all,’ one man muttered and the child was tossed in with the rest. ‘You think you see an arm move or a chest expand,’ he said, ‘but it's only putrefaction. Doesn't do to look at them. Just swing and throw.’ His voice was dead, without emotion, as if he described the harrowing of the fields.

One of the women in the little group turned away and as she did so she glanced briefly in my direction. Then she stopped and stared.

‘I remember you.’

She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place her. Me, with my scar, no one ever forgets me. I smiled faintly by way of acknowledgement and walked away, but she came hurrying after me.

‘Wait, you were with the two musicians who played at our village once, for the Cripples' Wedding. Good-looking lads they were, especially the young one.’

‘And you wore a yellow kirtle.’

She smiled. ‘Fancy you remembering that.’

‘There was a fight over you if I recall.’

She grimaced. ‘Those two musician friends of yours, are they here?’ She glanced around hopefully.

Tears welled up in my eye and, furious with myself, I dashed them away. I shook my head.

She turned her face away. No one asks any more what has happened to those who have disappeared. I was grateful for that.

‘The wedding, did it keep the village safe?’

She shrugged. ‘Is anywhere safe? But in any case I left soon after the wedding. Edward was the jealous type, used his fists too often, like his father. I'd seen what I was in for after we were wed. I ran off with another lad, but that didn't last. I get by; there are still men who'll pay for a good time, more so now when they think it might be their last chance.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the pit. ‘Reckon it's best if you don't have anyone you care about, then it can't hurt you. Don't have to be afraid of losing someone, if you've no one to lose.’ A shadow passed across her face. ‘I'm sorry about the musicians though,’ she added. ‘He was handsome, that boy.’

I turned to go, then stopped and reached into my pack. ‘Wait. Take this. It's valuable. It's a relic of St Benedict. You can sell it. It'll buy you food and shelter for a long time.’

Once I would have told her it would keep her safe from the pestilence, but I knew that neither she nor I could believe that any more.

She drew back her hands. ‘Why are you giving it to me?’

‘A penance for a crime I've committed.’

‘I can't pray for you. I don't pray for anything any more. What's the point?’

‘That's why I am giving it you. I don't want to trade it
for prayers. I am beyond prayers. I want you to have it because you remember.’

‘Thank you, master.’

‘Master,’ she called me. She was the last one to call me that.

I had travelled as fast as I could, certain that I would arrive too late. But when I reached the gates of the manor I saw with relief that there were no boards on the windows, no cross on the door. Then I stopped, afraid to go in. I don't know what I feared most, that I would see that look of loathing in their eyes that I had seen in Rodrigo's or that they would not even know who I was. I waited outside the gates for hours. People passing in and out no doubt took me for a beggar, but then I heard a voice at my elbow. A face I didn't recognize, yet I knew the eyes.

‘It is you. I've been watching you all day to be sure. My mother always said you'd come back.’

‘You know me?’

‘I'd not have done, but for your scar. You'll not remember me. Cicely, Marion's daughter. She was dairymaid in your day. She often talked of you, of that day when you got your scar. I was too young to remember that, but I remember the day you left.’

‘Marion… yes, I remember her. Is she well?’

Cicely's face clouded. ‘She died, years ago. You've been away a long time.’

‘And my sons?’

She hesitated. ‘Nicholas is lord now.’

‘The youngest. Then Philip and Oliver are dead.’

She pressed her lips together. ‘But Nicholas'll be right pleased to see you. I've often heard him tell his children about you. Mind you, I dare say the tale has grown big
enough over the years to wag itself, but then you'll be able to set him right.’

‘I have grandchildren?’

She beamed. ‘You have, and a great-grandchild too.’

Those steps into the manor were the longest and hardest I've taken for years, harder even than the steps I trod in leaving it. I couldn't believe that anyone I knew was still alive and I was more afraid to meet them than I would have been to see their ghosts. I knew ghosts. I'd travelled with them for a long time. I was no longer afraid of the dead, only of the living.