Plague Land (43 page)

‘And how do you imagine I killed such a man as Lord Versey? He saved the king’s son from the French at Cressy. He’s a giant, and I’m nothing but a withered old man.’

‘You shot him with your metal weapon.’

Peter drew back. ‘I told you. The black powder was exhausted. I had no more.’

‘You lied. You had enough for a second attack.’

He pointed at me. ‘The weapon hasn’t left your father’s library.’

‘Yes it has. I even helped you lift it into the cart with Clemence myself. When you left for the convent. Except I thought your heavy chest was filled with brandy.’

‘Stop this, Oswald.’ His voice was suddenly small and defeated.

‘You cut away the skin on de Caburn’s face and hands to remove the sooty residue from the blast. But you could not remove the scent on his body, could you? The scent of burning.’

‘Please, Oswald.’

‘You then draped his naked and mutilated body over the shrine of the Virgin. To make his death appear demonic. Everything had worked out, just as you planned. Except for one thing. A turn you had not predicted. Something you had not foreseen.’ He held his hand out to me, but I ignored it. ‘You never supposed I would be arrested for your crimes, did you? So you panicked. And in your haste, you led them to Leofwin, an innocent boy.’

He spoke into the cowl of his habit. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘No. I don’t!’

He looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. ‘Everything was dangerous for you here, Oswald. You must see that. At every corner there was a mischief maker or rogue waiting to defy you or even take your place.’ A waft of brandy fumes hit my nostrils as he attempted to embrace me. ‘I had to stop them. Why can’t you see that?’ When I dodged his grip, he slunk back to the bench and put his head in his hands. ‘Why can’t you be grateful that I saved you?’

I stood over him. ‘So you admit to murdering the Starvecrow sisters and Walter de Caburn?’

He took a deep breath and nodded.

‘I want to hear you say it.’

He whispered, ‘You know I did.’

‘And you caused Leofwin to be murdered?’

Peter wiped his mouth clear of spittle. ‘Yes.’

The fire under the pan had died down and the onions now floated at the surface like dead fish in a poisoned pool. The cat crept out of the shadows and lay on the flagstones near to the embers, stretching out her claws, seeming to have forgotten her kicking.

In the distance we could hear Piers singing another tune from the back porch, this song no more cheering than the last.
Bones in the black pit, can’t sow barley in the fields.

Peter held his hands together and stared into the orange glow of the flames. ‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t know.’ It was the truth. I had planned no further than exacting a confession.

‘I should have told you before, Oswald.’ His words seemingly directed towards the fire. ‘You would have forgiven me.’

‘I doubt it.’

He wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘I presume you’ve asked yourself why I committed these sins?’ He turned and studied my face for a few moments. ‘No. I see my motive has eluded you.’

‘You had a warped notion of protecting me,’ I said quickly.

He watched me a while longer, his eyes scanning my face. ‘But you don’t know why, do you? I can see that. I thought perhaps you might have guessed?’

‘Guessed what?’

He sighed. ‘Then there is something I should explain to you.’

I tried to laugh. ‘More lies and excuses, Brother? No thank you. Keep them to yourself.’

He took my arm and I was unable to shake him off. ‘You asked me about the secret the Starvecrow sisters kept. Do you want to know what it was? Or will you send me to the gallows with it?’

I should have told Brother Peter to keep the lid upon his Pandora’s jar.

But I have been granted curiosity by the gods.

And regretfully I asked to look inside.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Great Mortality has not only shaped the land, it has shaped me. Since last summer I have cut down hedges to farm sheep and abandoned my fields of barley. My rivers have broken their banks to find new courses, and my chestnuts grow un-coppiced into a forest. But all of this could be restored. If I had the men.

However, no army could restore me to the boy I was.

When the Pestilence first crept over from the east, I hid in a monastery, until its small hand knocked at the door to be let in. Then I left for my estate, along with my priest, hoping its silent footsteps would not follow us. As we travelled we eschewed all others and thought only of ourselves. We were both men of God, but we passed the homes of the dying and refused to administer last rites. We rolled past corpses and did not bury them. We beat away a child who clung to our cart for his own dear life. Without another soul to turn to, we abandoned this boy to a village inhabited only by the dead.

We did all this. I did all this. Even though I had nearly died myself.

And when we reached safety, we could not speak of these sins. The Plague was to blame. It had warped us into something we were not. It had disfigured and corrupted us.

But we had not been dirtied by the Pestilence. The very opposite was true. It was the lye soap exposing us for what we really were – our morality no thicker than the paint on the face of a wooden effigy. Easy to rub off. Quick to reveal the coarse grain beneath.

Now the Pestilence sleeps and the world is left only with the strong, the lucky, or the selfish. Which of those am I?

Perhaps I am all three.

Peter motioned for me to sit next to him on the bench, but I remained standing – not wanting to be drawn into his intimacy. When I refused, he took another glug from his flask, licking the last drops of liquor from about his mouth. ‘I’ll begin with your birth, Oswald.’

‘Why? I don’t see how that’s relevant?’

He ignored my objection and once again reached out to me. But I would not be his friend, no matter how many times he held out a hand. ‘You were born in May 1332,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Your mother nearly died in labour.’

‘This is no secret.’

His voice tightened. ‘Please just listen.’

‘No. Don’t you think I’ve heard this enough times, Brother?’ He went to interrupt me a second time, but I held up my hand and impersonated Mother’s breathless manner of speaking. ‘I was confined to my bed for many months after you were born, Oswald. Not sure if I would live or die. Thanks to you, my undercarriage now droops between my legs like the udder of an aged dairy cow, and my breasts swing like a pair of long woollen socks drying in the wind.’ I reverted to my own voice. ‘So I say to you again, Brother. This is no secret.’

‘I’m not talking about my lady. I speak of your real mother. A woman called Adeline Starvecrow.’

‘What?’

He stoked up the embers and rekindled the flames beneath the pan of onions. ‘She was a girl of seventeen. A spinner. Married to a ploughman called William.’

I wanted to laugh. ‘My father wasn’t a ploughman!’

Now he looked me in the eye. ‘No, Oswald. Your father was a priest.’

I was dumbstruck.

Peter turned back to the fire and pulled up the hood of his habit – the steam of the pan now shrouding him like a pall. His profile was as slack as the old nag’s in the water meadow, the peak of his hood bearing down upon his thin and ugly head.

I stood up in some consternation and walked to the door. ‘My name is Oswald de Lacy, son of Henry de Lacy.’ I pulled up the latch. ‘Get out of here.’

But Peter did not move. ‘Close the door, Oswald.’

‘Get out! You’re not my father. How dare you even suggest such a disgusting idea?’

Still he would not move, so I left the door and grabbed at the wool of his habit to pull him from the bench. But Peter was a sinewy man – still strong enough to shake me off. When I rushed at him a second time he was able to push me against the sweating stone of the wall and clamp his hand about my neck. ‘I’ve committed mortal sins and shall burn in the fires of Hell, Oswald. What do you say to that?’

I struggled to speak. ‘I don’t care.’

The hand tightened. ‘You think I would turn my back on eternal life so easily? For the son of a greedy nobleman? A boy I taught Latin and Geometry?’

‘Let go of me, Brother. You’re hurting.’

He relaxed his hand a little, but not enough for me to escape his grip. ‘I love God, Oswald. You know that. So ask yourself why?’ I felt his breath, hot upon my face. ‘Why would I offend Him in such terms? Who could I love more than God?’

‘I don’t know,’ I stammered. My throat was bruised.

‘Only one person, Oswald. My own son. You!’ His face was red. His eyes were bulging. ‘So do not accuse me of lying.’

He allowed me to escape – but only as far as a dark corner, where I crouched between a broomstick and a sooty shovel.

‘Will you let me explain?’ he asked. I didn’t answer, so he took a step forward and leant over me. ‘Don’t you want to know the truth?’

‘No!’

He groaned in frustration and then returned to the bench, flopping down upon its lath of oak. The room continued to fill with steam as the onions bubbled away in the pan. Peter closed his eyes and seemed to be praying, so I considered creeping out towards the door, until he began to speak again. ‘I came to Somershill often in those days. To copy your father’s manuscripts.’

‘I said I didn’t want to know.’

‘I don’t care.’

I shuffled further into the corner.

‘Sometimes I took confession at St Giles. It’s where I met Adeline. Your mother. I loved her instantly. But it was a sin.’ His voice was suddenly anxious and faltering, and as he spoke the cat jumped upon his lap. She coiled herself into a circle of black fur on his knees and purred as steadily as a priest saying mass.

Peter stroked her back and spoke more evenly, as if the cat had calmed his nerves. ‘When Adeline told me she was with child, I panicked. I found her a simpleton to marry. A man who was pleased to take such a beautiful girl as his wife.’ He sighed. ‘A man who wouldn’t ask too many questions.’

‘As long as he shared her with you?’

Peter shook his head. ‘No, Oswald. We didn’t repeat our sin. William accepted you as his son, and you were christened Thomas Starvecrow.’

Thomas Starvecrow
. It was the name of a horse thief or a common bondsman.

I laughed derisively. ‘And I suppose this simpleton also accepted Alison and Matilda as his daughters? Though
their
father was Henry de Lacy.’

‘As I said. He didn’t ask questions.’

I snorted. ‘A sensible man. Since his wife was a whore.’

Peter screwed up his face. ‘Adeline was poor, you arrogant little fool!’

‘But—’

‘You know nothing of these people’s lives. What they must do to survive.’

I pulled my tunic about my neck and tried to hide my face.

Peter lowered his voice. ‘The de Lacys had a child within days of your birth. A boy. Farmed out to Adeline as his wet nurse.’

‘Where’s this boy now?’

‘He died as a baby.’

I groaned. ‘This story improves with each disclosure. No doubt you will now tell me Adeline starved him to death?’

‘Of course not. The boy was a sickly infant. The type often born to an older mother. Adeline did nothing to harm him.’

‘So why did he die?’

‘His mouth wouldn’t latch as his tongue seemed too short to suck. He faded with each successive day.’

‘Whereas, no doubt, I grew quickly at my mother’s breast?’

Peter waved his hand at me. ‘It’s the truth, Oswald. As the de Lacy boy became weaker, Adeline became afraid she would be blamed for his poor health. Women can hang for such crimes.’

‘So she put her own boy in his place?’