The Gallows Curse (31 page)

    'Do
you have a name?' she asked him gently.

    For a
few moments the boy stared right through her, as though she was the ghost of
the garden. Then he opened his hand and studied it as if the answer might be
written there.

    'F .
. . in . . . ch,' he said, striking the palm of his hand with the other one on
each syllable, as if the name had been beaten into him, sound by sound.

    'Finch,
like the bird, that's a good name.' Elena smiled encouragingly. 'Have you been
here a long time, Finch?'

    His
face was expressionless. The question of time seemed incomprehensible to him.

    She'd
never noticed the child before, but perhaps he kept himself hidden away. She
wondered how old he was — seven, eight? It was hard to tell, he was very small,
but his fingers were long and thin, almost like a youth's hands. What would her
own son look like when he was this age? Softly she began to sing as if she
still held her own bairn in her arms.

Lavender's green, diddle diddle, Lavender's blue

You must love me, diddle diddle, 'cause I love you.

    She
felt a slight pressure on her leg and, glancing down, saw that the child was
tentatively leaning his head against her. As if he was indeed a little bird
that might take flight at the slightest movement, Elena sat quite still and
continued to sing.

Call up your maids, diddle diddle, set them to work

Some to make hay, diddle diddle, some to the rock.

    Finch
snuggled closer, pressing his face against her legs.

Let the birds sing, diddle diddle, let the lambs play,

We shall be safe, diddle diddle, deep in the hay.

    She
stopped singing and for a while the two of them sat quite still, Elena on the
seat of thyme, little Finch on the ground, both sunk deep in their own
thoughts, not hearing the shouts of the children playing or the bees humming among
the roses.

    Elena
shivered as a white cloud drifted across the sun, casting the garden into
shade.

    'You
want to see a secret?' Finch suddenly asked, sitting up.

    'Of
course,' Elena said, smiling at him indulgently. 'Is it a treasure you have?'

    She
knew from her own childhood that all children have secret treasures — a blown
thrush's egg, a river-polished pebble that shines like a ruby, a sharp black
dragon's tooth — all carefully hidden from adult eyes.

    Finch
shook his head. "Tisn't my secret. Come, I'll show you. But you mustn't
tell.' He took her hand in his own warm little paw and made to drag her.

    'There
you are, kitten. I've been looking everywhere for you, I have.'

    At
once the little hand withdrew from hers as Elena wheeled round to see Luce
sauntering towards her across the garden. She looked down to say something to
Finch, but the boy had vanished.

    'Ma
sent me to say you've got a visitor, someone you'll be right glad to see.'

    A
bubble of joy shot up through Elena and her face broke into a beaming smile.
'Athan, is it Athan? Where is he?'

    Raffe
paced impatiently about the small chamber and finally settled himself awkwardly
in a high-backed wooden chair. The room was sparsely furnished. A broad bed
occupied one corner, mercifully for this meeting concealed behind heavy but
somewhat threadbare drapes. A long, low bench was positioned in another corner
and in the third was a tall wooden frame with leather straps hanging from it.
Raffe eyed it with disgust. He could guess what implements lay hidden behind
the hangings around the bed, but he'd seen too many men's backs laid open to
the bone with the lash to find flogging a pleasurable game.

    He
gazed hopelessly around the room. On that day he'd chosen Elena from the circle
of threshing girls to eat that little piece of bread and salt, how could he
have foreseen that it would lead her here? If Raffe had chosen a different girl
from the circle, would the outcome have been the same? Ever since he was a
child, he had wondered whether you could ever really choose, or if something
had already chosen you.

    When
Raffe was just six years old, his father's scythe had hit a stone hidden among
the grass. That was all. That was all it took to change the whole course of
Raffe's life, just an ordinary lump of stone in the wrong place. The scythe
blade bounced off the stone and cut deep into his father's leg. The wound had
festered and Raffe's mother was terrified that her husband would die.

    A
neighbour swore that St Gregory would surely save the poor man, if Raffe's
mother would only seek his help. So his mother decided to make a pilgrimage to
the abbey which housed a finger bone of the saint and offer the necklace of
amber she'd been given on her wedding day, to secure the saint's aid. Raffe,
she insisted, must go too, to pray for his father's life.

    Raffe
and his mother had set off before the sun had even risen above the hills. They
arrived at the abbey church in the cool of the evening, just as the service of
Vespers was beginning, and climbed the great white steps to join the throng of
worshippers in the public part of the church. As Raffe entered that great
building his thirst and belly-rumbling hunger vanished. His mouth fell open and
he stood rooted to the spot in the doorway, unable to tear his gaze from the
spectacle before him.

    The
tiny village church at home, where he sang in the little choir, was painted
with scenes of brightly coloured angels and saints wandering through familiar
fields and hovering over cottages exactly like his own. But here the towering
walls and pillars were emblazoned with scenes of heaven and hell, of Creation
and the Last Judgment. Angelic faces peered down at him from the great dome,
and God Himself surveyed the whole church from his golden throne, his dark
almond eyes staring directly into Raffe's own.

    Raffe
was too busy staring around him to notice the choir singing the psalms, until
they began to sing the Magnificat. He had never heard such voices before in his
own village choir, so much sweeter, higher and resonant than any boy's.
Ignoring his mother as she frantically hissed at him to come back, Raffe pushed
through the standing congregation until he was at the front. Still he could see
nothing because of the carved screen. So he stooped down and crawled forward,
edging around it until he could stare up at the beings making the sound.

    He
saw monks and novices kneeling in prayer, but this unearthly music was not
coming from those plain creatures. He twisted his head around and then he saw
them standing together. Some of them were mere youths, the others were men who
might have been as old as his father, but they were smooth-cheeked, without a
trace of beard. And the notes that were pouring from them sent shivers of awe
and delight running up and down Raffe's spine.

    He
crouched there in the shadows, listening. Finally, when the service was ended
and the monks had gone, the small group of beardless singers, laughing and
chattering, began to amble out through a narrow door of their own. Raffe gaped
up at them, shaking his head like a dog with sore ears, for he couldn't believe
that girls' voices were coming from men's bodies.

    As
Raffe watched the girl-men saunter from the church, the last one turned and
seemed to be staring right at the dark corner where Raffe was hidden, and then
he smiled and winked. Only a demon could have the power to see him in his
hiding place. Terrified, little Raffe scrambled to his feet and fled down the
church yelling for his mother, not caring that the few people remaining all
turned to stare as he tore past them.

    His
mother was deep in conversation with one of the priests, and she turned in
horror and shame at her son's sacrilege in such a holy place.

    The
priest stared down, frowning. 'Is this the boy?'

    'Yes,
Father, but I swear he is usually so well behaved. He's never before . . .'

    But
the priest silenced her with a wave of his hand. He grasped Raffe's chin,
turning his face towards the candlelight. Whatever he saw in it seemed to
satisfy him. He ran his fingers over Raffe's throat and down his chest, back,
belly and groin. The priest pressed him hard between his legs. Raffe squirmed
and tried to wriggle away, but his mother held him firmly.

    Finally
the priest straightened up. 'Promising, definitely promising,' he said to
Raffe's mother, who beamed back at him.

    The
priest looked down at Raffe once more. 'Now, boy, kneel and make your prayers
for your father's recovery to health. See you pray in earnest, for God knows if
you are not paying attention and praying with all your might. Little boys who displease
God go straight to hell; you know that, don't you? But St Gregory will listen
to the prayers of children if they are pure and without sin.'

    Raffe's
mother pushed him down on to his knees, before a mass of tiny burning candles.
The heat from them was so fierce that Raffe felt as if his own face would melt
like the wax which ran down from them.

    'You
heard, son, pray hard for your father. He is depending on you.'

    
If
they are pure and without sin.
The whole weight of his father's sickness seemed
to be crushing down on Raffe's tiny shoulders. All his guilty sins began
dancing round him in the candlelight, tiny imps of flame, mocking and jeering.
The stolen peaches; the lie about working when he was really climbing trees;
the torn shirt he'd tried to hide; the countless nights he'd sworn he'd said
his prayers when he hadn't. As he knelt there, each and every one of those
wickednesses was leaping around him, rolling their eyes and thumbing their
noses at him.

    Little
Raffe was certain that when they reached home the next day, his father would be
dead. His mother's precious amber necklace that even now dangled beneath the
saint's reliquary would have been sacrificed in vain. St Gregory had refused to
listen because Raffe had sinned. God would kill his father to punish him. His
mother would sob. His family would starve and all of it, all the misery in the
whole world, would be his fault.

    But
his father did not die. In fact, he made a full recovery and little Raffe
almost cried in his relief that his sinful state would not, after all, be
revealed to the whole village.

    He
thought he had escaped God's punishment, but he hadn't. Two years later, the
whole family retraced their steps to the abbey church. And it wasn't until that
day when they handed Raffe over to the priest that he learned that, just like
his mother's amber necklace, he had been part of her deal with God: her son for
her husband's life. Only then was he told how mortal men could conjure those
soaring angelic voices. And only on that morning, standing there in the abbey,
did he finally realize why it was they had mutilated him.

    The
door was flung open and Elena burst through it in a flood of sunlight. Her
copper hair gleamed in the light and there was such an expression of eagerness
and joy on her face that Raffe almost started up and ran towards her. But as
she caught sight of him, she stumbled backwards, the light instantly snuffed
out in her eyes. After the briefest of moments, she tried to smile, but he knew
it was courtesy, nothing more. That smile hurt him more deeply than he could
ever acknowledge.

    She
looked much better than the last time he'd seen her when he'd thrust her wet
and bedraggled into the boat. As well as cleaner, she was if anything a little
plumper, as well she might be, for the food Ma provided for the girls was far
more rich and plentiful than the diet of coarse bread, beans and herbs Elena
was used to. The fear and misery which had been etched into her face the night
he had rescued her had faded so that now once again she looked much younger
than her sixteen years.

    Her
red hair, instead of hanging in braids, was rolled and pinned at the nape of
her neck, though like the other girls in the stew, she wore no net or veil to
cover it. Her dress was different too. Gone was the plain, drab homespun
kirtle; instead she wore a faded but finely woven green kirtle falling to
mid-calf and revealing the white hem of the linen smock beneath. The low,
V-shaped neckline was tightly fastened with a cheap pewter pin. Where had she
got that from? Not from Ma, that was certain. If Ma Margot had her way, that
pin would be unfastened and the swelling of her breasts tantalizingly
displayed, like fruit on a monger's stall.

    Who
had Elena been expecting to find waiting for her in the chamber? Who had that
look of delight been for? His question was answered the moment she began
speaking.