Plague Land (36 page)

He regarded me curiously. ‘No, sire. I slaughtered him myself.’

‘Then what’s making such a noise?’

‘The dog-headed beast. It calls through the neck of the bull.’

‘What?’

‘We’ve sewn it inside, sire.’

I felt nauseated. ‘Whilst still living?’

He nodded. ‘We hoped to hear it beg for forgiveness as it burns. But it only screams and screeches like a devil.’

I grabbed the fool. ‘Put the fire out. Now!’

‘But sire? The sacrifice of our best bull will cleanse the demon of sin.’

‘Who told you this?’

‘The priest.’

These words might once have paralysed me, but no longer. ‘Fetch water,’ I shouted to those about me. Nobody moved. Instead they stared at the blaze – transfixed by this spectacle of burning flesh. The ragged boy launched his faggot of fat into the fire, boasting that he was helping to cook the sinner’s heart.

I shook him by the coarse wool of his tunic. ‘Water!’ I said. ‘I command it!’ The boy backed away from me and disappeared into the crowd, only to return sheepishly with a bucket of dirty water. And then, after watching me stamp upon the flames, some others began to bring water from the dew pond. At first it was but one or two of them, but soon their numbers grew and suddenly the group became as frenzied about extinguishing the fire as they had been about fanning it.

When the heat had died down to a steam, we dragged the sweating hulk of the bull over the embers of the fire to let it cool upon the muddy grass. As we threw yet more water over its rump, their faces drew in about me, both sickened and thrilled as I cut through the stitches in the beast’s belly to release its doomed stuffing. It was a trussed and writhing thing that rolled out in front of us – bound as tightly as a smoked sausage.

As I loosened the ropes, the blackened form shuddered and coughed, before gasping for one last mouthful of air. Then, as Death claimed his prize, I held the wilting body in my arms and looked about me at these persecutors. I wanted them to see what they had done. But they could only recoil and avert their eyes in shame.

And what shame.

For the creature I cradled was neither a dog-headed beast, nor a devil that required to be purged of sin. It was a boy. Leofwin. His face distorted – not by a misfortune of nature, but by terror and pain.

I ran into the trees and wept, and when my tears were finally exhausted, I let my body shake and convulse until it settled to a weak tremble. And then I returned to the remains of the fire, afraid the boy’s body would be further despoiled in my absence.

Now I found a new crowd gathered – with John of Cornwall at its core. Kneeling before Leofwin’s limp and lifeless body, Cornwall feigned the seizures of an exorcist in the midst of an incantation. Struggling to his feet, he then turned to the crowd with his hands raised, as if he were Christ himself.

My fury was now complete. Snatching the pig herder’s staff from Gower, I thrust the crowd aside and leapt forward to strike Cornwall soundly across his back. ‘Get away from him. There is no devil here but you!’

Cornwall tried to protect himself by pulling his cloak about his head – but fine velvet would not save him from my rage. He called for the others to help, but they flinched away, afraid to be the next recipient of the wooden staff across their guilty bodies.

A madness came upon me. I will admit it. Cornwall was a liar, a rapist, and a murderer. He deserved to die. I struck him about the head until I found that I enjoyed hurting him. The crack of wood against his skull satisfied me. His calls of pain pleased me. The blood that surged from his mouth thrilled me. I felt elated, free of censure and restraint. I wanted him to die. I wanted to kill him myself.

I would have killed him.

And then I felt a gentle hand upon my arm. It was Mirabel. ‘Please stop this, sire,’ she said. ‘Don’t kill this man.’ I stopped to look at her beautiful face. For a moment it tempered my fury, but the madness urged me to finish the job. I went to strike Cornwall again, but she now grasped my arm tightly. ‘Don’t commit a mortal sin. Not for his sake.’ She touched my cheek. ‘Please, Oswald.’

She had said my name. She had touched my face. I lowered the staff. The lust to kill Cornwall had suddenly left me. I was exhausted. I would let him live.

Long enough to answer for his crimes in court.

As Cornwall was dragged away to the gaol house, I chose two large boys from the crowd and told them to carry Leofwin’s body to the churchyard and then to prepare a grave.

They shifted about, uncomfortably. ‘But it was a devil, sire,’ muttered the shorter of the two. ‘We can’t bury it in sacred ground.’

I went to explain my request, but stopped. ‘Just do it,’ I told him. The boy hesitated, but I would not suffer such questioning any longer. I was their lord, and they would obey me. ‘Do it!’ I said. ‘Or be thrown in the gaol house yourself.’

The air was still thick with the smell of smoke as I turned to leave. Then a figure came running towards the church. It was Mother. When she finally reached me, her voice was breathless and eager. ‘Where’s the fire, Oswald?’

‘You’re too late.’

‘The burning is over?’

‘Yes.’

She emitted a squeal and would have stamped her foot, had not half the village been watching her. ‘Damnation!’

I had expected to find Joan Bath in the gaol house, but discovered only Cornwall – groaning in a corner of the cell with the lining of his cape held to his bleeding mouth. I was told Joan had been dumped outside her own home by the earl’s men and told to stay away from the burning under threat of death.

I rode directly to Joan’s remote cottage, where her two sons sat on the doorstep with their skinny dog. When they saw me, they ran inside to alert their mother, who soon appeared on the threshold – her face still swollen with tears. ‘What do you want?’ she said.

‘May I speak to you about Leofwin?’ I asked softly.

She wiped her eyes. ‘How do you know his name?’

I dismounted my horse. ‘I can explain. If you will let me in?’ I looked at her sons with their hostile, grubby faces. The whole family seemed impervious to kindness. ‘I’m not here to trick you.’

She hesitated again.

‘Please.’

She sighed. ‘As you like.’

I followed her inside. As last time, the cottage was dark and the ceilings were low, but the air smelt of sage and lavender without the usual fog of bonfire that inhabited these cramped and airless homes. The bedding was hanging over a low beam to air, and the floor was covered with fresh rushes. I sat on the single bench and insisted she join me, her body still shuddering to suppress her sobs.

‘Why were you pleading to save Leofwin’s life?’ I asked her. ‘Nobody else tried to help him.’

She took a deep breath and held her hands together. Her two sons were peeping around the doorpost, so I shooed them away.

‘He was a boy. Not a beast.’

‘I know.’

Her laugh was hollow. ‘So, why didn’t you stop them?’ She sneered, ‘My lord.’

‘I was too late.’ She looked away from me. ‘He’s to be buried in the churchyard. I’ve made sure of that.’

She didn’t thank me for this gesture. ‘How did you know his name?’ she asked me again. ‘Did your priest tell you?’

‘Brother Peter?’

She gritted her teeth. ‘Yes, Brother Peter. The betrayer.’ She was now shaking as furiously as a lid on a boiling pan. ‘I told him of the boy in confession. He pretended to be my friend. Praying for my sins. Said I reminded him of somebody. Some poor woman he had failed.’

‘Which poor woman?’

‘I don’t know!’ I took her hand and slowly she quietened. ‘But he was no good Samaritan. He betrayed me.’ Then she wiped a glistening tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Though I never told him where to find the boy.’

Her face was drained of its strength, and for the first time she looked old. The boys were peeping around the corner of the door again, and this time she waved them away. ‘Go and feed the chickens!’ she said. ‘And see there is water in the pig’s trough.’

Her hand was cold and limp. ‘Leofwin saved my life,’ I told her. ‘He rescued me from wolves and took me to his cave.’

She pulled her hand away. ‘So it was you.
You
told them how to find him.’

‘No.’

‘Is that how you repaid his kindness?’

‘No! I would never have done that.’

‘So how did they know where to look?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said honestly. ‘I really don’t.’

She buried her face in her hands. ‘I’ve spent my whole life keeping him hidden away. To stop his persecution. And they found him anyway.’ She sobbed loudly. ‘And then they burnt him like a pig. My boy.’

‘Your boy?’

‘Yes. He was my son. What of it?’ She had become angry again. Spittle foamed at her mouth. ‘And his father was my father.’

I heaved a heavy sigh. So this was the sin Brother Peter spoke of. I offered Joan my hand once more, but instead she fell against my chest, her shoulders shaking. And then I held her in my arms until the force of her tears had subsided and only sorrow was left.

‘Our sin was punished,’ she whispered. ‘Our son was cursed with the face of a beast.’

‘But it wasn’t your sin, Mistress Bath. You were just a girl.’

She shook her head. ‘I had to hide Leofwin from the village. They would have called him a demon, but he was a sweet boy. A good boy. He should not have borne the punishment for my sins.’ Her warm tears now flowed again into the wool of my tunic. ‘My father wanted to kill the boy. His own son. So I hid him in the forest.’ She let out a long sob. ‘He was a sweet boy. A good boy. I only came back to the village when he was old enough. We needed money. But I took him food every week.’ Her faltering sentences were now muffled. ‘I never left him hungry.’

‘I saw that.’

‘He loved me. But now he has been stolen away. Murdered by priests. Burnt like a pig.’

She looked at the door, where the two boys had made their third, wary appearance. ‘Get back outside, you little bastards. Go on!’ she cried when they hesitated. ‘This is none of your business.’

She turned to me and whispered again. ‘I can never love them as I did Leofwin. But nobody would understand that. They would only see the boy as a gargoyle. A monster.’

I continued to hold her and offer soothing words, but my attempts at sympathy were inept and childish. In the end I rolled out her straw mattress upon the floor and bade her rest. She curled up into a ball and sobbed from her core.

Leaving the cottage, I passed the two boys, who were still sitting on the front step. They looked at me distrustfully.

‘What’s the matter with Mother?’ the taller boy asked. He had such a dirty face, but his tunic was clean and his hair was combed.

‘Be kind to her,’ I told him. ‘Stew some peas. Make her some supper.’

He shrugged at me in the way young boys will, so I caught him by the wrist. ‘Are you listening to me? Your mother needs your help and understanding.’

He shook beneath my grip. ‘I’m sorry, sire,’ he bleated, so I released him – but not until I had stared a while into his pale and terrified eyes. ‘Just be of assistance to your mother. Be quiet and undemanding.’ He nodded to me, and the two of them scampered into the house before I could say another word.

Chapter Twenty

I knew where to find Brother Peter. He would be drunk. But not in the cellar, his usual drinking hole. That secular square of damp would not assist his prayers to Heaven. He needed a holy place. A silent, sacred place, where he could speak directly to his God.

The door to the chapel was unlocked. The candles were lit at the altar, and Peter lay prostrate on the floor before the Virgin. Her lifeless eyes regarded him blankly, while her polished pink hands held the doll-like Christ child. Peter did not acknowledge my arrival. His eyes were shut.

‘How could you have done it?’ I asked him. ‘You sewed a boy inside an ox and burnt him.’ His eyes remained closed and he ignored me, continuing to mutter the words of his prayers as if his life depended upon it.