The Gallows Curse (41 page)

    As
her eyes adjusted, she realized that the chamber was not entirely without
light. Pricks of daylight were shining in through holes on the other side of
the room. She saw dimly that she was standing in a wedge-shaped room, next to a
sleeping platform covered with a heap of pelts over a thick mattress. Some of
the furs were as pale as snow in moonlight, others dark as the night. She
smoothed the skins with her fingers, marvelling at their sensual softness.

    Footsteps
padded across the wooden boards above her head, followed by the scrape of chair
legs and a hum of voices. But although she strained to hear, she could make out
no words. Gazing fearfully towards the ceiling, her eyes caught sight of evil,
distorted faces in the darkness glowering over at her. She cringed. Were they
bats or demons? She held her breath, staring fixedly up at them, but they
didn't move. Holding her arms protectively overhead, she crept a little closer,
then saw what they were. Around the top of the chamber was carved a series of
grimacing grotesques as you might see in a church. Human faces with pig snouts,
women with pendulous breasts and tangled beards, men with faces twisted into a
leper's leer, owls with human heads and men with the heads of dogs.

    Elena
sank down on to the bed, trying not to look at the mocking faces glaring at
her. Above her she could still hear the murmur of voices. What was Ma saying to
them? Would she hand her over to them? Cold sweat drenched her body. Raffe had
warned her that if Ma couldn't earn a profit from her then she might be tempted
to give her up for the bounty.

    She
tried desperately to remember what had happened last night. She couldn't have
killed that man. She'd wanted to, all the time she was in that chamber with
him, every muscle and sinew in her body had been screaming out for his death.
If she'd been able to get her hands free, if she'd had a knife or a staff or
anything to defend herself, she would have lunged at him through sheer fear, of
that much she was certain.

    But
she didn't even know where this Adam and Eve was, and even if she'd found it by
following him, how could she have got there and back without remembering
anything? And yet she could vividly remember standing behind him, feeling the
panic as he yelled out, his hands groping for hers as she twisted tighter and
tighter. She could remember feeling his dead weight sagging from her arms as he
swung forward. All of that she could picture with painful clarity, as if his
body was lying right here beside her in Ma's chamber.

    The
image had been as clear as when she saw herself murdering her own child. But
she hadn't done that, had she? She pressed her hands to her eyes. She wasn't
sure of anything any more. One thing was certain, Raoul was dead. The man who
had raped her was dead. If she could kill him and not remember how she got
there, then maybe Joan had been right all along and she really had murdered her
baby. Perhaps she had only imagined she'd given him to Gytha. She didn't know
what was real and what was the dream any more.

    Footsteps
echoed again on the floor above, and she shrank into the corner of the bed, but
the trapdoor didn't open. Then she heard voices as if they were next to her.
She slid over the furs and tiptoed to the opposite wall.

    One
of the carvings in the corner was set lower than the others, placed just above
Elena's head. It was like a mask. But it was turned around, facing into the
wall, so the hollow back was open to the room. A dim, pale light was streaming
into the chamber through the pupils of its eyes and open mouth. There was a
wooden shutter to one side of the mask, and a set of steps in front of it, like
the ones Ma used to get into her chair. Elena stood on the bottom of the steps
and pushed her face inside the stone mask. She could see right through the eyes
into the room beyond and realized she was looking into the guest hall where
Talbot had taken her that first night.

    Three
men were swigging the last gulp from beakers of ale, and one by one handing
them to Talbot, wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands in
appreciation.

    'You'll
keep your ear to the ground and let us know if you hear any gossip that might
give us a lead.'

    'Aye,
you'll be the first to know, if I hear aught,' Talbot answered. 'What do you
reckon this Raoul was doing at the Adam and Eve? Not the place for a
gentleman.'

    The
leader shrugged. 'Maybe your girls were just a dish of dainties to him and it
whetted his appetite for stronger meats. He fancied sinking his teeth into the
juicy fat haunch of a street whore.'

    One
of the other men clapped his leader on the back. 'If you think these girls are
dainty, you ain't had fat Alice here sit on your face. I warrant her haunches
are meat enough for any man.'

    All
four men laughed.

    'Besides,'
the man continued, 'a noble like that would take a whore to his lodgings. He
was no pimple-faced apprentice who had to have a girl against a wall for fear
of his master.'

    The
leader nodded. 'There's something in that, but it's my guessing we'll not know
till we find his killer. God's blood, I wish it had been anyone but a man in
Lord Osborn's retinue. Any other man and we could have simply hanged the first
knave we came across and called it justice. That would have been the end of the
matter. But Osborn's already blaming us for not finding that runaway serf and
felon. Any murderer we catch he'll want to put to the hot irons himself to be
sure. Osborn will see me put out of my post for this, unless I bring him
someone's head on a pike.'

    Talbot
eased the men towards the door. 'I'll keep an ear open, never you fear, though
if I were you, I'd be asking around the moneylenders or the dog-pits. From what
I hear, this Raoul liked a wager on the fighting dogs and the cocks too, but
some men don't take kindly to a man who can't or won't settle what he owes.' He
tapped the side of his nose.

    The
men nodded seriously to one another, as if Talbot had just given them the
information they were looking for, and hurried away.

    'Thank
the star your mother birthed you under that Talbot's a good liar,' a voice said
quietly behind Elena. She wheeled round to see Ma at her side.

    Ma
drew her away from the mask and pushed her down to sit on the bed. She stood
squarely in front of Elena, her arms folded across her pendulous breasts.

    'I
hope you're grateful, my darling. Talbot's just saved your neck. If they start
asking questions among the cock-fighting men they'll be sent round in such
circles that by the time they're finished, their heads'll be stuck so far up
their own arses, they'll be eating their dinner twice over. But it's far from
over for you, my darling. They know Raoul came here. If they don't find someone
to pay for his murder, sooner or later one of them'll want to talk to the girl
who pleasured him and you'd better pray it isn't Osborn asking the questions.'

    'But
I didn't kill him, Ma,' Elena repeated woodenly, though she didn't really
believe it herself any more.

    The
tiny woman looked at her and shrugged. 'You think that's going to make a flea's
shit of difference?'

    She
grasped Elena by the shoulders. Elena cringed as Ma's fingers dug as hard as
iron fetters into her flesh.

    'Now,
you listen to me, my darling. If you want us to go on protecting you, you'd
better see to it that you do exactly what I say. Next time you entertain, put
your back into it and look like you are enjoying it. Give your customer all he
asks for and more. Men don't have any imagination, but we do. We show them what
they can't even dream of, and for that they're willing to sell their own
mothers. In the meantime, if you still believe in such things, you'd best get
to your knees and pray that no one comes forward who saw you near the Adam and
Eve last night.'

    
Cuckoo
pint
— which some call
Devil's prick, Bloody fingers, Angels and devils,
Wake robin, Wild arum
and
Jack in the green.
This is the plant we
most loathe for its presumption. Unlike the mandrake that grows at the foot of
the gallows, this weed claims to have sprung up at the foot of the Holy Cross,
no less. Its dark leaves, so mortals claim, were spotted with red by the very
Blood of Christ, whilst we may claim only the honest semen of dishonest men.

    Further
more, mortals declare it a certain remedy for poison. They say also that it
brings down a woman's menses so that she might conceive even when she is past
her child- bearing years and is a powerful love potion. And there is many a
foolish mortal youth who before a feast or merry dance sings out,
I place
you in my shoe, let all fair maids be drawn to you.

    Be
not deceived, this Devil's prick is but a feeble shadow of what a mandrake can
do.

    The
Mandrake's Herbal

    Raffe
pulled Talbot into the shelter of some willows on the bank of the river.

    'I
don't have much time, I must get back before I'm missed.' Raffe glanced over
his shoulder in the direction of the manor. 'Hugh was supposed to be at court
with his brother, but he left him on the road and returned here, some excuse
about a fever, though I've never seen a man more fit and hale in my life.'

    'Devil
take him!' Talbot spat into the water. 'That queers things, 'cause I've come to
tell you there's a ship in Yarmouth due to sail day after tomorrow, so you need
to move your package downriver tonight. Can you do it with Hugh on the prowl?'

    'I'll
do it,' Raffe said grimly. 'Sooner the man's gone, the safer for all of us.'

    Raffe
was thinking of Lady Anne, but he had not mentioned her part in this to Talbot.
Talbot loathed and despised every nobleman and woman simply by virtue of their
birth and there was no point handing him information he might delight in
selling.

    A
little way downstream, a boatman sat hunched in his craft, chewing a strip of
dried eel and whittling away at a small piece of wood. From time to time he
glanced over at the two men, but he knew it was safest not to be seen showing
any interest in any business in which Talbot had a hand.

    Talbot
grunted. 'The boatmen'll be waiting near the jetty by the Fisher's Inn around
the midnight hour. They'll take him down river to Yarmouth. Give the men this
token. Otherwise they're liable to cut his throat. No one trusts any man, these
days. See you get him to the inn tonight otherwise the ship'll sail without
him. And with John's men keeping watch on every port, it could be weeks or months
afore we find another captain willing to risk his neck.'

    'He'll
be there,' Raffe said. He turned to go, but Talbot grabbed his sleeve.

    'Hold
hard, there's something else. You know a man name of Raoul?'

    'He's
one of Osborn's men.' Raffe frowned. 'But now I think of it, I don't recall
seeing him in the manor these past few days. I'm sure he didn't ride off with
Osborn to court though. Why do you ask? What do you know of him?'

    'I
know he's dead, that's what, murdered. His body was found in the yard of the
Adam and Eve Inn.'

    'In
Norwich? But what was he doing there?'

    'Asking
questions about that lass of yours. He seemed to think she was in the city.'

    Raffe
felt the blood drain from his face. He grasped Talbot's shoulder urgently. 'Did
he find out where she was?'

    'Now,
that's hard to tell, but one thing's for certain, she found out where he was.
It was your lass who murdered him.'