Crossing To Paradise (8 page)

Gatty's Welsh cob, Syndod, needed fitting out with a new set of shoes, and she needed a poultice for the weeping sore on her girth. She needed grooming. And seasoned and hardy as she was, Gatty's own body needed repairs and remedies: for her constipation, fennel tea; and for her bleeding gums, the bitter smoke of aloe and myrrh heated over beechwood and sucked through a straw. What with time to marvel at the shining basilica, time to drowse and rise again as the monks and nuns sang the six offices (pilgrims were excused two o'clock Matins on the grounds that God required them to rest and recuperate), time to see the cross where Saint Bernard stood and preached the second great crusade, and time to hear how Coeur-de-Lion and Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, had both come to
pray at Vézelay, time to resume reading and singing lessons, while Emrys and Snout practiced their fighting skills, time to eat, time to sleep, Gatty had no time at all to talk to moon-pale Aenor during the next two days, and she wasn't altogether sorry about it.

The novice's shadow at the stable door; her thin arm pressing against Gatty's arm on their way into Vespers; her unblinking gaze across the refectory table: These moments left a stone in Gatty's heart. She didn't know what to do.

At the Easter feast, the nuns and pilgrims ended their long Lenten fast. First they ate cheese and eggs.

“Be wary how much you eat,” Lady Gwyneth counseled Gatty, Nest and Tilda. “Forty-six days! It's a long time since your stomachs welcomed such a feast.”

“Mine didn't last year,” Gatty said, and she pretended to throw up.

“Please, Gatty!” said Lady Gwyneth in a sharp voice, and she pursed her lips and frowned at her.

“And now hare!” said Sister Hilda. “Caught three weeks ago. Right here, in the cloister.”

“How do you preserve it?” Lady Gwyneth asked.

“I'll spare you that,” the stout one said.

“Go on, then!” Gatty urged her.

Sister Hilda gave a grim smile. “Scalp it. Dig out its brains. Then fill its brain-box with salt. Sew the skin back on again, and hang it by the ears.”

“Ugh!” cried Nest, clutching her throat.

“It's the only way to do it if you catch the beast during Lent,” Sister Hilda said.

“At Caldicot,” began Gatty, “where I used to live, there's an Easter Hare in the manor house.”

“What do you mean?” Sister Hilda asked.

“Not like this,” said Gatty. “No one never sees him. He lays a nest of eggs…”

“Hares don't lay eggs,” said Sister Hilda.

“What are you talking about?” Lady Gwyneth asked.

“And before that, we all go to Mass, and tell the story.”

“What story?” asked Aenor.

“The Easter story, of course,” Gatty replied. “The three Marys and the angel and the soldiers and the stone. Everyone in the manor house has a part. Arthur—you don't know him—he was a Roman soldier and on Easter morning he found out Jesus's body had disappeared!

“
What? Gone? Not a sign? Not a trace?
Where's the corpse that lay in this place?
…Er!…Um!…We'll be in disgrace.
”

Gatty frowned and clicked her tongue. “Er! Beast? Behest? No! I can't remember the rest.”

Gatty's face was shining. She was more at Caldicot than Vézelay. More living than reliving.

“I can see it,” said Aenor.

“I can and all!” Gatty cried joyfully.

On Easter afternoon, Gatty decided she must tell Lady Gwyneth about the conversation with the pale novice.

“So that's where you were,” Lady Gwyneth said. “I did look for you.”

“It's no good, it isn't,” Gatty said. “My heart says help her, help her, help her, but my head says we can't.”

“Your head's right,” Lady Gwyneth replied. “We can't always help other people, much as we'd like to. I can see the poor girl's very unhappy, but this is not our business. Not yours, not mine.”

“I think it's to do with Sister Hilda,” Gatty said.

“Meaning well, we might give terrible offense,” Lady Gwyneth said. “We might make bad things worse.”

“She thought…” Gatty began.

“What?”

Gatty shook her head. “Don't matter!”

“What, Gatty?”

“She thought I was your daughter.”

Lady Gwyneth looked startled. “Think of this, Gatty,” she said after a while. “What if I say yes? What if we do take this girl with us? Have you thought what Nakin and everyone will say?”

Gatty bit on her lower lip, and listened very carefully in case she could find out more about Lady Gwyneth's and Nakin's plan for her.

“We're facing enough difficulties as it is,” Lady Gwyneth went on. “Days when we go to bed hungry, or eat rotten food. Days when we're soaked. All the arguments. The delays…”

Gatty held her breath but Lady Gwyneth had no more to say. “It doesn't mean I was wrong to ask you,” she said slowly.

“You were right, Gatty,” replied Lady Gwyneth, “right to hear your heart and your head, right to ask me.”

After supper, Gatty meant to lead Aenor out in the darkness and the silence. To explain. To try to, at least. But the novice sadly shook her head. She mouthed two words.

“I understand.” That's what Gatty thought she said. Before she turned away, she gazed at Gatty. Her sepia eyes were brimming, and she stretched her mouth wide to stop herself from sobbing.

Gatty stared at her in consternation. Easter evening. Jesus risen. Everywhere, green blades rising. Gatty knew she would never lose sight of that girl's eyes for as long as she lived.

“I
can't explain it,” Gatty said.

“Try!” said Everard.

“When I listened to them monks hidden and singing behind that screen, it was like…well…overhearing voices in heaven.”

Everard smiled sweetly. “
In velamento clamabant Sancti tui alleluia, alleluia,
” he intoned.

“Like that!” cried Gatty. “What does it mean?”

“Hidden in the cloud, thy saints cry alleluia, alleluia.”

“We'll be hidden in the clouds when we climb the mountains,” Gatty observed.

“Who says so?”

“Nakin.”

Everard pursed his lips. “Saint Nakin Know-all,” he said in a bitter voice.

Gatty waved her right hand. “You and Nakin,” she said. “You're always across each other.”

Gatty and Everard were ambling along a valley at least two bowshots behind the other pilgrims. On either side of them, high hills reached for the sky, and bright, oyster clouds hovered over them.

“Look!” exclaimed Everard. “See them?”

Two horsemen came slithering down the slope to their left. They galloped towards Gatty and Everard and reined in, blocking the way. A man with a black beard. Small, with keen eyes set close together. A young woman with only one arm.

“English?” the girl demanded.

“What is it?” asked Everard.

Without letting go of her own, the girl grabbed Everard's reins.

“What do you want?” Gatty said in alarm.

“The doctor,” said the girl. “The doctor wants to see you.”

“What doctor?” asked Everard.

The man's eyes glittered like mica and when, for a moment, the girl's eyes met Gatty's, Gatty saw how fearful and how desperate they were.

The man reached inside his cloak and pulled out a knife with a blade as long and pointed as a heron's beak. Gatty felt the tip of a freezing finger slip up her spine, right up to the nape of her neck. She began to tremble.

Everard pointed up the valley. “They're our friends,” he piped.

“We'll look after them!” the girl said. “Nico will look after them.”

The man bared his teeth and touched the point of the blade to his tongue.

All instinct, Gatty filled her lungs and gave a violent scream.

At once the man's horse reared up. Gatty dug in her heels and Syndod sprang forward. She barged into the girl's horse.

Gatty's cry pierced the valley. Somehow, and only heaven knows how, it arrowed all the way across the waste acres to the other pilgrims. Five hundred paces at the least, wild and more desolate than a rabbit with a stoat at its neck.

Then Emrys and Snout wheeled round and came barreling back down the valley, shouting and waving their weapons. As soon as she heard them, the girl let go of Everard's reins; she and the bearded man galloped away over the scree, between huge boulders, up, away, and into the cover of the pinewoods.

“What did they want?” Emrys bellowed. “Who were they?”

“Are you all right?” asked Snout.

Gatty closed her eyes, and tried to steady her jerky breath. Then she nudged Syndod sideways so she could reach out to Everard. The two of them dropped their reins, turned in their saddles to face each other, and clasped hands; they inclined their heads until their foreheads met.

“What did they want?” Emrys asked again.

“To take us to the doctor,” Everard said.

“What doctor?”

“Did you see his knife?” said Everard.

“His eyes glittered,” Gatty said. “But the girl—she was terrified.”

“God saved us!” said Everard.

“No!” said Gatty. “You two, you saved us!”

“You know the rule,” Emrys said. “At least three in a group together.”

“I know,” said Gatty unhappily. “Lady Gwyneth will be angry.”

“Your scream!” exclaimed Snout. “I've never heard anything like it.”

“It didn't come from her throat,” Everard explained. “It came from her whole body.”

“I didn't think about it,” said Gatty. “I just did it.”

“Exactly,” said Everard.

Then the four of them slowly rode up the track towards their companions.

The April afternoon sobered from oyster to ash, ash to pewter. Well before the pilgrims had reached their destination, a tavern halfway between Bourg-en-Bresse and Chambery, the world had begun to blur.

That evening, the pilgrims learned more about the doctor and about his accomplices.

“He cut off the girl's arm,” the taverner told them. “Sawed it off.”

“To sell,” said the taverner's wife. “He sells body parts.”

“Revolting!” shrieked Nest.

Nakin put his right arm around Nest's shoulder.

“Don't!” cried Nest. “You keep your hands away from me.”

Lady Gwyneth's teeth began to chatter.

“There's a hospital here…” the taverner began.

“Where?” gasped Nest.

Gatty quickly looked round, as if the hospital were somehow hiding inside the tavern.

“…near Lyon,” the taverner went on, “and another over the mountains, in Italy. The doctor packs body parts in snow and ice to preserve them. Hands. Legs. Heads. There's always a good market for parts.”

“Why?” asked Gatty.

“To dissect,” said the taverner.

“What's that?”

“To cut up and examine.”

Now Lady Gwyneth trembled, and Nest comforted her.

Gatty knew better than to say anything. She would have preferred Lady Gwyneth's anger to her distress.

“Well,” said the taverner's wife. “That one-armed girl, she's lucky. When she came to her senses the doctor gave her a choice: to procure other…patients for him; or to lose another limb.”

Gatty shuddered.

“How do you know all this?” Austin asked in his deep voice.

The taverner shrugged. “Just from what we've heard,” he replied. “From putting pieces together, you might say.”

“First he robs travelers,” the taverner's wife told them. “Coins, ornaments, stones. Spices. Anything of value…”

“And then,” added the taverner, “he robs them of their own bodies.”

“The last group here lost a lad,” the taverner's wife said. “He was a squire and all.”

That evening, nothing really revived the pilgrims' spirits, not even the spicy sausage and bean dumplings and black ale with which the taverner and his wife plied them. Before they all lay down, Gatty and Everard hugged one another, and Lady Gwyneth praised Snout and Emrys.

“My cook!” she said. “My stableman! You two defended and protected us.”

And that night she, Gatty and Nest huddled together.

“Gatty,” Lady Gwyneth whispered. “You do understand why we made the rule that at least three of us should travel in a group together?”

Gatty pressed her forehead into Lady Gwyneth's right shoulder and nodded.

“Do you? Really?” Lady Gwyneth slowly shook her head. “One part of me…”

“My lady!” yelped Nest.

“What?”

“Don't talk about parts! Please!”

“…one part,” Lady Gwyneth continued, “was so angry with you and Everard for falling behind, but another was so upset. What will I do, I kept asking myself, what will I do if I lose you? I'd never, never forgive myself.”

Gatty burrowed into Lady Gwyneth's shoulder again to signify that she understood.

Lady Gwyneth sighed. “God has been merciful,” she said. “But unless we learn from this, we betray Him.”

Lying quiet, Gatty was conscious of the shape and weight and warmth of her own body. She scrunched up her toes, and one of them, the little one on her right foot, cracked. She tightened her kneecaps.

Before long, Lady Gwyneth gave a small sigh. Then her breathing lengthened, her right shoulder loosened, and Gatty knew she had fallen asleep.

Slowly Gatty eased away and placed her hands on her firm hips; then she laid them gently over her breasts. She bit her lower lip. In the darkness, she opened her eyes as wide as she could; then she screwed them up, tight as cockleshells.

“Gatty!” whispered Nest. “Are you awake?”

Gatty pretended to be asleep. She wanted to be alone with her own precious, growing body—each part of it.