Epic Historial Collection (326 page)

Merthin thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I wanted to be a squire and spend my life as a knight fighting for the king. I was heartbroken when they apprenticed me to a carpenter. However, in my case it worked out quite well.”

Davey was not pleased by this anecdote.

In the afternoon access to the inner bridge was closed off at the island end, and the gates of the city were opened. Teams of porters came out and picked up everything that had been left, and carried the supplies to their destinations in the city.

There was no message from Madge about the dye.

Merthin had a second visitor that day. Toward the end of the afternoon, as trading petered out, Canon Claude arrived.

Claude's friend and patron, Bishop Henri, was now installed as archbishop of Monmouth. However, his replacement as bishop of Kingsbridge had not been chosen. Claude wanted the position, and had been to London to see Sir Gregory Longfellow. He was on his way back to Monmouth, where he would continue to work as Henri's right-hand man for the moment.

“The king likes Philemon's line on taxation of the clergy,” he said over cold rabbit pie and a goblet of Merthin's best Gascon wine. “And the senior clergy liked the sermon against dissection and the plan to build a Lady chapel. On the other hand, Gregory dislikes Philemon—says he can't be trusted. The upshot is, the king has postponed a decision by ruling that the monks of Kingsbridge cannot hold an election while they are in exile at St.-John-in-the-Forest.”

Merthin said: “I assume the king sees little point in selecting a bishop while the plague rages and the city is closed.”

Claude nodded agreement. “I did achieve something, albeit small,” he went on. “There is a vacancy for an English ambassador to the pope. The appointee has to live in Avignon. I suggested Philemon. Gregory seemed intrigued by the idea. At least, he didn't rule it out.”

“Good!” The thought of Philemon being sent so far away lifted Merthin's spirits. He wished there were something he could do to weigh in on Claude's side; but he had already written to Gregory pledging the support of the guild, and that was the limit of his influence.

“One more piece of news—sad news, in fact,” Claude said. “On my way to London, I went to St.-John-in-the-Forest. Henri is still abbot, technically, and he sent me to reprimand Philemon for decamping without permission. Waste of time, really. Anyway, Philemon has adopted Caris's precautions, and would not let me in, but we talked through the door. So far, the monks have escaped the plague. But your old friend Brother Thomas has died of old age. I'm sorry.”

“God rest his soul,” Merthin said sadly. “He was very frail toward the end. His mind was going, too.”

“The move to St. John probably didn't help him.”

“Thomas encouraged me when I was a young builder.”

“Strange how God sometimes takes the good men from us and leaves the bad.”

Claude left early the next morning.

As Merthin was going through his daily routine, one of the carters came back from the city gate with a message. Madge Webber was on the battlements and wanted to talk to Merthin and Davey.

“Do you think she'll buy my madder?” Davey said as they walked across the inner bridge.

Merthin had no idea. “I hope so,” he said.

They stood side by side in front of the closed gate and looked up. Madge leaned over the wall and shouted down: “Where did this stuff come from?”

“I grew it,” Davey said.

“And who are you?”

“Davey from Wigleigh, son of Wulfric.”

“Oh—Gwenda's boy?”

“Yes, the younger one.”

“Well, I've tested your dye.”

“It works, doesn't it?” Davey said eagerly.

“It's very weak. Did you grind the roots whole?”

“Yes—what else would I have done?”

“You're supposed to remove the hulls before grinding.”

“I didn't know that.” Davey was crestfallen. “Is the powder no good?”

“As I said, it's weak. I can't pay the price of pure dye.”

Davey looked so dismayed that Merthin's heart went out to him.

Madge said: “How much have you got?”

“Nine more four-gallon sacks like the one you have,” Davey said despondently.

“I'll give you half the usual price—three shillings and sixpence a gallon. That's fourteen shillings a sack, so exactly seven pounds for ten sacks.”

Davey's face was a picture of delight. Merthin wished Caris were with him just to share it. “Seven pounds!” Davey repeated.

Thinking he was disappointed, Madge said: “I can't do better than that—the dye just isn't strong enough.”

But seven pounds was a fortune to Davey. It was several years' wages for a laborer, even at today's rates. He looked at Merthin. “I'm rich!” he said.

Merthin laughed and said: “Don't spend it all at once.”

The next day was Sunday. Merthin went to the morning service at the island's own little church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, patron saint of healers. Then he went home and got a stout oak spade from his gardener's hut. With the spade over his shoulder, he walked across the outer bridge, through the suburbs, and into his past.

He tried hard to remember the route he had taken through the forest thirty-four years ago with Caris, Ralph, and Gwenda. It seemed impossible. There were no pathways other than deer runs. Saplings had become mature trees, and mighty oaks had been felled by the king's woodcutters. Nevertheless, to his surprise there were still recognizable landmarks: a spring gurgling up out of the ground where he remembered the ten-year-old Caris kneeling to drink; a huge rock that she said looked as if it must have fallen from Heaven; a steep-sided little valley with a boggy bottom where she had got mud in her boots.

As he walked, his recollection of that day of childhood became more vivid. He remembered how the dog, Hop, had followed them, and Gwenda had followed her dog. He felt again the pleasure of having Caris understand his joke. His face reddened at the recollection of how incompetent he had been, in front of Caris, with the bow he had made—and how easily his younger brother had mastered the weapon.

Most of all, he remembered Caris as a girl. They had been preadolescent, but nevertheless he had been bewitched by her quick wits, her daring, and the effortless way she had assumed command of the little group. It was not love, but it was a kind of fascination that was not unlike love.

Remembrance distracted him from pathfinding, and he lost his bearings. He began to feel as if he was in completely unfamiliar territory—then, suddenly, he emerged into a clearing and knew he was in the right place. The bushes were more extensive; the trunk of the oak tree was even broader; and the clearing in between was gay with a scatter of summer flowers, as it had not been on that November day in 1327. But he was in no doubt: it was like a face he had not seen for years, changed but unmistakable.

A shorter and skinnier Merthin had crawled under that bush to hide from the big man crashing through the undergrowth. He remembered how the exhausted, panting Thomas had stood with his back to that oak tree and drawn his sword and dagger.

He saw in his imagination the events of that day played out again. Two men in yellow-and-green livery had caught up with Thomas and asked him for a letter. Thomas had distracted the men by telling them they were being observed by someone hiding in a bush. Merthin had felt sure he and the other children would be murdered—then Ralph, just ten years old, had killed one of the men-at-arms, showing the quick and deadly reflexes that had served him so well, years later, in the French wars. Thomas had dispatched the other man, though not before receiving the wound that had ended in his losing his left arm—despite, or perhaps because of, the treatment given him in the hospital at Kingsbridge Priory. Then Merthin had helped Thomas bury the letter.

Just here,
Thomas had said.
Right in front of the oak tree.

There was a secret in the letter, Merthin knew now; a secret so potent that high-ranking people were frightened of it. The secret had given Thomas protection, though he had nevertheless sought sanctuary in a monastery and spent his life there.

If you hear that I've died,
Thomas had said to the boy Merthin,
I'd like you to dig up this letter and give it to a priest.

Merthin the man hefted his spade and began to dig.

He was not sure whether this was what Thomas had intended. The buried letter was a precaution against Thomas's being killed by violence, not dying of natural causes at the age of fifty-eight. Would he still have wanted the letter dug up? Merthin did not know. He would decide what to do when he had read the letter. He was irresistibly curious about what was in it.

His memory of where he had buried the bag was not perfect, and with his first try he missed the spot. He got down about eighteen inches and realized his mistake: the hole had been only about a foot deep, he was sure. He tried again a few inches to the left.

This time he got it right.

A foot down, the spade struck something that was not earth. It was soft, but unyielding. He put the spade to one side and scrabbled with his fingers in the hole. He felt a piece of ancient, rotting leather. Gently, he dislodged the earth and lifted the object. It was the wallet Thomas had worn on his belt all those years ago.

He wiped his muddy hands on his tunic and opened it.

Inside was a bag made of oiled wool, still intact. He loosened the drawstring of the bag and reached in. He pulled out a sheet of parchment, rolled into a scroll and sealed with wax.

He handled it gently, but all the same the wax crumbled as soon as he touched it. With careful fingertips he unrolled the parchment. It was intact: it had survived thirty-four years in the earth remarkably well.

He saw immediately that it was not an official document but a personal letter. He could tell by the handwriting, which was the painstaking scrawl of an educated nobleman, rather than the practised script of a clerk.

He began to read. The salutation ran:

Merthin felt scared. This was a message from the old king to the new. The hand holding the document shook, and he looked up from it and scanned the greenery around him, as if there might be someone peering at him through the bushes.

Merthin frowned. This was not what he had expected.

So Thomas had not been the assassin, after all, but the savior of the king.

Merthin was amazed. The nation had thought Edward II to be dead. All Europe had been fooled.

But what had happened to him afterward?

Why had Thomas buried this letter instead of delivering it? Because he had feared for his own life, and had seen the letter as a powerful weapon in his defense. Once Queen Isabella had committed herself to the pretense of her husband's death, she had needed to deal with those few people who knew the truth. Merthin now recalled that while he was still an adolescent, the earl of Kent had been convicted of treason and beheaded for maintaining that Edward II was still alive.

Queen Isabella had sent men to kill Thomas, and they had caught up with him just outside Kingsbridge. But Thomas had disposed of them, with the help of the ten-year-old Ralph. Afterward, Thomas must have threatened to expose the whole deception—and he had proof, in the form of the old king's letter. That evening, as he lay in the hospital at Kingsbridge Priory, Thomas had negotiated with the queen, or more likely with Earl Roland and his sons as her agents. He had promised to keep the secret, on condition that he was accepted as a monk. He would feel safe in the monastery—and, in case the queen should be tempted to renege, he had said that the letter was in a safe place and would be revealed on his death. The queen therefore needed to keep him alive.