The Gallows Curse (37 page)

    The
old man nodded sympathetically. 'I can understand that. I couldn't be doing
with people mithering me night and day. Peaceful it is on the river with only
your own thoughts for company.'

    Raffe
slipped the coin into the tanned old hands. It was far more than the old man
could earn from eeling in a night and they both knew it. He took the coin
gratefully, thankful no doubt for an evening in by the fire, instead of
shivering his ancient bones out on the river.

    Raffe
pushed the end of the long pole down into the mud to steady himself as he
stepped into the flat-bottomed boat. It was long and narrow, too easy to
overturn if you weren't careful, but better for a man of his size than trying
to paddle a small, round coracle. The boat began to rock alarmingly as Raffe
tried to balance himself. It had been a while since he had used such a boat and
even then he had only ever taken it out with Gerard.

    The
eel man watched him shrewdly, then slid a short blunt paddle into the boat.
'This might serve you better. Easier to balance when you're sat down.'

    As
soon as he was out of sight of the old man's cottage, Raffe found a likely spot
and lowered a couple of stout lines into the water with a hank of tangled
sheep's wool on the end, baited with worms. He fastened the lines to the
willows growing at the water's edge. He'd had all day to think about how he
might manage this escapade without getting caught. The wars had taught him that
rash courage was no substitute for a careful plan. But fate does not always
cooperate with the plans of men.

    The
sun was already below the horizon when Raffe paddled around the back of the
islet in the centre of the river. The bank next to the water meadow was
deserted, save for a grey heron which lumbered heavily into the sky, disturbed
from its fishing. Raffe cursed himself for his foolishness in having given the
lad so much food. The boy had plainly thought it payment enough for delivering
the message and had not bothered to wait. But as Raffe's boat glided past a
willow that overhung the water, he saw the small skin coracle in the lee of it,
blending so perfectly into the mass of dark vegetation that Raffe would
certainly have missed it, had he not been looking for it.

    The
boy was curled up asleep inside, but awoke on the instant he heard the splash
of Raffe's paddle.

    "You
ready, boy?' The lad nodded, searching the boat for the extra food he'd been
promised and smiling broadly when he saw a covered basket lying in the bottom.

    'Lead
on then. I'll follow, but mind you keep me in sight. I'm not as nimble as you
are on the water.'

    The
boy set off into the gathering darkness. Raffe was right; the boy's coracle was
an extension of his body. He made no sound as his paddle licked in and out of
the water, and so swiftly did he move that he disappeared from sight almost at
once. Raffe paddled as fast as he could, nearly crashing into the little
coracle as he rounded the next bend, where the lad sat waiting for him.

    Wait,'
Raffe said. We'd best fasten the boats together, else you'll lose me or I'll
sink you.' There were several lengths of old rope lying in the bottom of the
eel man's punt, so he tied the coracle behind his boat and helped the boy
clamber into his own craft.

    'Now,
you lie flat in the bow and tell me where to turn.'

    The
boy did as he was told and after nearly an hour of paddling, he pointed towards
a gap in the vegetation which Raffe would never have spotted in the darkness.
With help from the lad who pulled and pushed against an overhanging birch tree,
Raffe managed to nose the clumsy craft into the gap and found himself paddling
into the thousand twisting waterways that ran through the marshes. Tall swathes
of reeds rustled and whispered above their heads, in other places wiry sedges
and bog myrtle formed little islands on the thick, soft mud. Raffe jumped as a
bittern hidden somewhere in the reeds let out its harsh, booming cry almost by
his ear. The boy giggled.

    Oily
black water snaked between dark mud banks, but only the boy could tell water
from land. The pungent stench of mud, stagnant water and rotting vegetation
lapped over Raffe's nostrils until he was drowning in the smell. One false
move, one false turn and they would be trapped in the sucking ooze. And all
around them in the darkness the marsh was whispering, shrieking and croaking as
if it knew an intruder had trespassed into its kingdom and it was determined to
sound the alarm.

    Each
man measures his own hour, so while it seemed to Raffe that it must already be
nearing dawn, to the boy it seemed no time at all when he turned to Raffe and
whispered for him to stop. A moon had at last risen into the sable sky, casting
just enough light for Raffe to see a stump of what might have been a mooring
post or a piece of bog oak sticking up from the mud. He looped the boat's rope
around it.

    The
boy leapt off into what looked to Raffe like just another patch of reeds. Raffe
wobbled down to the bow of the punt, painfully conscious of his great girth,
and prodded the ground with his stave. It was spongy, but the end of the stave
didn't sink into it. Raffe picked up the basket of food and gingerly stepped
off the boat, praying that the ground would hold his weight.

    Pushing
forward through the fronds, he discovered he was walking up a narrow little
path through the reed bed, on which stones and dried rushes had been laid to
raise the track above the marsh. He emerged on a slight rise, almost blundering
straight into a hut, which though not large occupied most of the clearing.

    The
boy's arm appeared, beckoning Raffe round to the side of the hut. There he found
an entrance screened by a leather curtain and pushed his way under it, ducking
as low as he could for there wasn't room for a man of his height to stand
upright under the reed thatch. A small fire burned in the pit in the centre of
the floor and the tiny hut was choked with smoke as it wandered about trying to
find its way out of the thatched roof. There was an oily, fishy stench too.
Raffe soon saw the cause. A seabird had been impaled on a wooden spike in the
ground and a wick made from stripped rushes was burning in its beak, the oil
for the flame being drawn from the bird's own body.

    A
shape rose up from behind the fog of smoke. 'Who is this?' a man's voice
shrieked in alarm. 'Have you betrayed me, boy?'

    'No,
Father.' The boy sounded hurt. 'He says Lady Anne's away from the manor, said
he'd help you instead.'

    'I
gave no such promise, lad,' Raffe protested. He stared at the figure in the
shadows, trying to see his face, but the man's hood was pulled far down over
his head.

    'I
came to find out what business you have with Lady Anne, for if your message had
reached the wrong man, it would have been to her ruin or worse. It's lucky for
you the boy found me before he ran straight into the arms of Lord Osborn. Did
the boy call you
Father?
Are you kin to the lad or a priest?'

    The
man hesitated. 'I don't know if I can trust you or not, but since you must have
already reasoned 1 am a fugitive, it puts me in no greater danger to tell you
that I am also a priest.'

    Raffe's
back was stiffening by the minute as he stooped almost double in the cramped
hut. He sat down cross-legged on the rush-covered floor and the priest warily
followed suit.

    'You
are trying to get to France?'

    The
priest nodded.

    'So
why come to Lady Anne?'

    'She's
a pious woman. I was told she has helped other men of God. Arranged for food
and money to be smuggled to them and passed on messages to those who could help
them. I thought she might know someone who could help me find a safe passage.'

    'He
has food,' the marsh-lad chimed in eagerly, pointing to the basket.

    'That
I have,' Raffe said, 'but let the priest eat his fill first; I warrant it's
been longer since his belly was filled than yours.'

    The
boy looked crestfallen, but he dutifully passed the basket to the priest and
was rewarded as the priest broke a pastry in two and handed half to the boy,
pausing only to gabble an exceedingly rapid grace in Latin before devouring the
other half of the pastry almost without pausing to breathe. Before he had even
swallowed the last bite, his hand was already reaching back into the basket.

    Raffe
was content to let the man eat while he considered what to do. He'd never
suspected that Lady Anne was playing such a dangerous game. Although he was
sure she was not meeting these priests herself, but simply passing on messages,
if any message should be intercepted or a man's loyalties turned by the promise
of a fat purse, then Anne was risking not only her freedom but her very life.
The giving of any kind of aid to an enemy of the king could be considered an
act of treason. Her sex and tide would not spare her, indeed the king would
count the crime worse in anyone of noble birth. Had Gerard known what his
mother did? He would have considered it good sport to take such risks himself,
but he'd never have allowed his mother to do so, and besides, he would have
confided in Raffe. More likely it was Anne's grief over her son dying unshriven
that had drawn her into this dangerous web.

    But
there was something more here, something about the desperation of this man that
didn't make sense.

    'Tell
me something, Father,' Raffe said.

    The
priest was thirstily gulping down the wine from the flagon he'd found in
Raffe's basket, but he reluctantly laid it aside and gave Raffe his attention.

    'Why
are you so eager to get to France? John has done no real violence to the simple
parish priests. He has imprisoned some who resisted him, but most have simply
taken off their habits and gone into hiding or sought shelter in the monasteries.'

    The
priest remained silent for a moment and Raffe knew he was weighing up how much
to confide in him.

    'I
have been in hiding up to now. But... I am no ordinary parish priest... I was
chaplain to the Bishop of Ely.'

    Raffe
whistled through his teeth. He could see now why the little man was nervous. It
had been the Bishop of Ely along with the Bishops of London and Worcester who,
on the instructions of the Pope, had laid the sentence of Interdict on England
when John had refused to consent to the appointment of Stephen Langton as
Archbishop of Canterbury. John would revel in an opportunity to take his
vengeance on any man in the bishop's circle that he could lay hands on. And a
chaplain would surely know if the bishop had any dark little secrets that John
could use against him to win his cause. This might be an insignificant little
man in the Church's eyes, but to the king he would be a prize catch. And John's
methods of encouraging reluctant men to talk were legendary in their exquisite
cruelty even for a son of Anjou.

    'So
why didn't you stay safely in hiding?' Raffe asked him.

    The
priest shivered. 'They arrested my housekeeper. She was with child and her
family could not afford the fine to get her released. She feared for her life
and her unborn babe, so she told John's men where I might be found.'

    Raffe
barely suppressed a smile. Doubtless the babe was of the priest's getting.
Everyone knew that a priest's housekeeper was in most cases the priest's
mistress too, which is why John had arrested as many of them as he could,
knowing that would make the priests smart even more than seizing their
possessions. Usually they were released, but not until a hefty fine had been
imposed to swell further John's denuded coffers. But in this case his men must
have discovered to their delight that they'd caught a swan instead of a sparrow
in their trap.

    The
priest leaned forward. 'Are you able to help me? I have money to pay for the
passage.'

    So
not all of the missing church silver had found its way into John's coffers,
Raffe thought. The priests had doubtless made sure they didn't flee
empty-handed.

    'I'll
need money in advance to pay the river boatman to take you to the ship and the
lads who can bring word of a ship.' Seeing the priest was about to argue, Raffe
added, 'A steward's wages don't stretch to all the palms that have to be
greased.'

    'How
do I know you won't just make off with it?' the priest said suspiciously.

    'You'll
have to trust someone, or cool your heels here till the Interdict is lifted,
which could be months or even years, for John's in no mood to surrender to the
Pope.'

    The
priest hesitated, then shrugged in a sullen gesture of acceptance. 'So does
that mean you'll help me?'

    Raffe
stroked his beardless chin and studied the man closely. 'Do you swear on the
Blood of Christ that what you've told me is the truth? That is the only reason
for your flight to France?'