29 - The Oath (8 page)

For one error, she would be cursed for all time; she was quite sure of it. Her fingers would not work the beads; her hands gripped the cross, but she felt no sensation of ease from the holy symbol. With a stifled cry, she threw the cross and rosary aside and fell sobbing to the bed. She hadn’t wanted those men to kill Little Harry, but it mattered not a whit; she knew her guilt. She had come to appreciate the full depth of her crime, and now there was nothing she could do about it. She was lost – perhaps forever.

‘I wouldn’t have done it if I could have helped it,’ she whispered, and the sobs began again.

She tried to beg for forgiveness, but He made no sign that He could hear her. At last, in desperation, she grabbed at the rosary beads again, but in her snatching them up, she did not notice that there was a knot formed. As her anxious fingers pulled the beads apart, there was a sudden give, and it seemed to her that time stopped.

The beads sprang from the cord that had bound them, and flew into the air, forming graceful arcs as they rose, only to tumble back to the ground, bouncing and rolling hither and thither.

‘God save me!’ she screamed in horror, her eyes rising to the ceiling as though Christ was there already, staring down at her with an immensity of sadness on his face.

Approaching Bristol

‘Shouldn’t have been so keen to insult the bastard,’ Robert Vyke muttered to himself as he opened his eyes. Some day, he told himself ruefully, he’d learn to think before opening his mouth. Not many men would accept advice on how to treat their beasts, any more than they would on their pewter, their weapons, or their wives.

The blow to his head had left him dizzy, and he hunched his shoulders in an attempt to keep warm. as he lurched painfully up the roadway.

The path ahead was muddy and badly rutted, and for all that the rain had dwindled to no more than a thin drizzle, Robert Vyke was soaked to the skin. A trickle of water ran down from his hair and followed the line of his spine to his waist.

From the light in the sky, he guessed that he had lain like a dead man for quite some time. He must get away before dark, but for now there was nothing in his mind but the need to sit and rest a little more.

Idly, he glanced at the puddle into which he had slipped. From here it looked like a shallow pool, but from his fall he knew it sank at least eighteen inches. Kneeling carefully on his good knee, he tentatively felt around the hole, testing with his fingers until he found a jagged piece of metal, which he hauled out. It was a dagger. The blade, bent almost around to the hilt, explained the injury, and he stared at it in disgust. Someone must have dropped it, and a horse probably stood on it, to make the blade form this impossible shape. It was odd that no one had seen it, for it must have been lying here on the road before being trampled by hooves and kicked into the puddle. As he wiped at the hilt, Robert saw with a sudden thrill that it was richly carved and inlaid with at least two rubies. He whistled softly. He had never touched such valuable stones before in his life! Those rubies would fetch a good few shillings, and Susan and he would be able to buy a pig – maybe a few sheep, too, as well as a new pony.

Without his bill, which Otho had taken, he had no protection, and perhaps this dagger would help him. Not that it would be much use in its present state. Better by far to rely on his old dagger . . . and then he realised that the horse-driver had stolen it. At his waist there was nothing but an empty sheath.

‘Bastard son of a diseased whore,’ he muttered from gritted teeth.

Well, that made his decision easier. He had to bend this dagger straight if he wanted a weapon of some kind. With that in mind, he set his good foot on it, wincing as his injured shin twisted, but the metal didn’t budge; his whole weight wouldn’t move it. Behind him was a hedge, and there were surely stones at the base to maintain its shape. Robert hobbled over to it, trying to find a gap between the rocks, but there were none; the vegetation was too thick. Pushing his way through further, he finally found a good gap, and here he managed to set the blade into a niche. By throwing his body’s weight against it, he succeeded by degrees in setting the blade almost true.

Looking down the length of the metal, he was satisfied. Pushing it into his old sheath, he found that it fitted very loosely, but at least it should be safe there.

His next problem was the matter of a staff. To walk without one in his present state was impossible. There were no decent lengths he could take from this hedge, for the boughs were all thick, and those that weren’t, were too short to be of any use. However, at the far side of the hedge was a small wood. The trees loomed overhead.

With some effort, Robert pushed himself through a thinner part of the hedge. It appeared to have been used before, for the way was already partly hacked, he noticed. Once in the wood, he was about to search for a six-foot staff, when he became aware of a strong odour in the air. To a countryman there was something familiar about that smell; like the stink of a fox, it was instantly repugnant. He realised it was rotting meat.

A gust hit him. The smell was everywhere. Keeping hold of the branch he had found, wincing with pain, he had to swallow hard to stop from throwing up. Then his eyes were drawn upwards, and he felt his breath catch.

It was like a blow in the belly, that sight. The head was that of a man with wild, dark hair, and it lay resting in the fork of a tree a scant two feet away. The eyes were heavily-lidded as though stupefied, the mouth just a little open, the lips blue and, beneath the chin was the raw meat where his throat had been hacked apart.

And Robert fell back, cursing, before his body at last convulsed, and his vomit spattered on the grass. Rising, he dare not look at that hideous spectacle, but pushed sobbing through the hedge once more, out into the clear, wholesome road.

Then something clubbed him below his ear, and he fell, senseless once more, to the muddy ground.

Bristol Castle

In the castle’s hall, Sir Stephen Siward the Coroner stood warming his hands by the fire. His clerk and he had been holding an inquest into the death of a boy knocked down by a cart in the street. The matter was simple, the accidental death sad, but commonplace. But now, as the clerk carefully bound the rolls ready to be installed in the chest where they must await the arrival of the Justices, Sir Stephen found his mind returning to that other inquest.

He remembered it so well that it almost felt as if it were only yesterday afternoon that he had been called to the Capon house, to stand there watching, his heart in his throat, as those awful, mutilated bodies were dragged out and laid in a row.

The Capon inquest must have been completed legally, for his clerk, who was a stickler for the correct words and due process, did not criticise. The bodies were rolled over and over, naked, while the jury watched in grim silence, but their self-possession began to fracture at the sight of the last two. The men of the jury were roused to rage at the sight of Petronilla’s slaughtered body, and that of her baby, his head crushed and bloody.

Cecily was a hopeless witness. She could hardly speak: she muttered, stared at the ground, and closed her eyes completely when asked to look at the corpses. It was all quite frustrating, for Sir Stephen needed a clear declaration of the attack. Still, she had managed, finally, to make the necessary statements, and she had been convincing enough for the Squire and his men to be arrested.

Of course, it was natural that she should be in a state of shock. The poor young woman had lived with the family since Petronilla’s childhood. A long, long time.

After Petronilla’s marriage to Squire William, the latter had fallen out with his father-in-law, the burgess Arthur Capon. Sir Stephen himself wouldn’t have stood against the Squire in one of his rages: the man was known for his ferocity, and his impotent fury over his wife’s infidelity and flight must have been all-consuming.

The jury had no need of lengthy deliberations, but simply agreed that the assassins must have been Squire William with a gang of his men. Any man would want revenge in these circumstances, especially since his woman had run away with her confessor.

Everyone knew the background to the attack, and although Cecily had agreed that she had seen Squire William, it was not necessary for her to give lengthy evidence about his part in the attack. That was quite a relief to all concerned. The Squire and his men were arrested soon after.

Afterwards, Cecily had not wanted to see Sir Stephen for a long time. Well, that was all to the good, Sir Stephen thought. He had no wish to become attached to her permanently. It was hardly appropriate for a knight to be seen too often in the company of a serving-maid.

Third Thursday after the Feast of St Michael
¹³

Marshfield

The sudden darkness brought on the terror again, and he stirred and sat up, thinking that he was in danger, but there was nothing here. Only a hideous pain in his leg, and Robert groaned to himself when he recalled the horrible wound.

Opening his eyes, he saw that he was lying on a comfortable bed with a rope base over which a palliasse of straw had been laid; at the foot of it stood a large chest. It was the sort of thing in which a man would keep his spare belongings, and Robert eyed it with curiosity. Made of pale, gleaming wood, with a pair of heavy bands which appeared to pass over the lid to padlocks at the front, it was a temptation to try to open it and peer inside, but something stopped him. There was an aura of evil in the chamber: something that emanated from within the chest.

Then, despite himself, his hand moved over the chest’s lid, his questing fingers stroking the blued steel of the bands, reaching down to the padlocks . . . and his heart pounded as he felt the hasp of the first lock give under his fingers. His hand went to the other lock – and suddenly the lid was flung open, throwing Robert onto his back. He screamed, and saw before him that head once more – the narrowed eyes, the blue lips – floating towards him. Robert flailed at it with his arms, but the thing drifted effortlessly past, moving ever nearer, and there was the smell of the grave about it. And then it was right in front of him, coming closer and closer until it seemed about to touch his lips . . .

‘Christ’s bones!’
he screamed aloud, and this time it was enough to shake him properly awake, and he was sitting up, mouth gaping, panting, the sweat pooling on his breast. He looked around wildly, and found himself in a bright, warm chamber, lying on a good bed, and there were firm hands on his shoulders gently pressing him back.

‘You are safe here, my son. Do not fear. Lie back. Be still, be easy.’

Robert stared about him. The room was sparsely furnished. One stool sat near a small, low table, and the only decoration on the walls was a stoup set at the door, and a simple cross of dark wood on a wall nearby. The floor was made of packed earth, and the fire, which burned with a steady, heartwarming hiss, lay on a hearth of clay in the middle of the room. Over it a pot bubbled, giving off a wonderful smell of rosemary and bacon.

‘Where am I?’

‘In my house. I am Paul, the priest for this little vill, and you have been here since your discovery beside the road.’

‘My discovery . . . What does that . . .?’

‘You were found there,’ the priest said. He was a slim man, but wiry, with a tonsure that left the majority of his skull bald. Bright blue eyes held his own, and Robert was comforted by the sympathy in them. ‘You were bleeding badly from that gash in your shin. It’s a matter of good fortune that you lost no more blood, my friend, for had you done so, I doubt that you would have survived. As it is, the wound appears to have all but healed.’

‘Healed? How long have I been here?’

‘We can talk about that in the morning. For now, you should rest. Have some broth, settle back, and forget these horrible dreams.’

‘I’ve had them before?’

‘You have returned to the same dream many times, I think, my friend. It is most sad to see you thrashing in your fear. Do not worry, though. We shall soon have you well and free of these mares.’

Robert nodded and allowed the priest to ease him back against the wall, watching while Father Paul busy himself with wooden bowl and spoon.

But Robert did not see the priest. All he saw with his mind’s eye was that decomposing head floating towards him again.

Bristol

The city of Bristol was still the second city of the kingdom, no matter what anyone might say, and Sir Laurence Ashby, the Constable of Bristol Castle, was convinced that his adopted home eclipsed London in many ways. It was better served with access to the sea, it was more pleasant on the nostrils and eye, being much cleaner than the capital, and from his point of view, as a warrior, it was infinitely more secure. Not only were there walls encircling the whole town but the river also formed a strong barrier to the south, while the fields to the north were notable for their bogs and marshes.

There was a good, strong wall about the castle, too, which was one of the most imposing in the land. Raised on a hill, its square keep reared up over the city it was intended to protect, while the curtain walls concealed a mass of smaller buildings: sheds, smiths’ forges, stables, and a vast number of storage chambers. Usually the castle was manned by only a small contingent, but now the realm was on a war footing, matters had radically changed, and Sir Laurence was glad that his calls for the garrison to be enlarged had been heeded.