A Wicked Deed (29 page)

‘I am sure I will,’ said Bartholomew, amused. He stood and stretched. ‘I should leave. It will be dark soon.’

‘You have your servant with you,’ said Grosnold, gesturing to Cynric. ‘He looks like a fellow who knows how to look after himself. Anyway, outlaws will not bother themselves with a physician who is slow with his horoscopes, especially one who is as impoverished as you appear to be.’

Bartholomew was almost out of the door before he realised that he had not attempted to discover what Grosnold had been discussing with Unwin in the bailey, or whether Eltisley really had seen them together in the churchyard before Unwin’s death.

‘I must tell you how much I admire your armour,’ he said as they stood together in the doorway, hoping to appeal to the man’s vanity and start a conversation. ‘It is very splendid.’

‘Modelled after that of the Prince of Wales,’ said Grosnold proudly. ‘He always wears black. I can give you the name of the smith who made it, if you are interested.’

‘I am no fighting man,’ said Bartholomew, wondering what his colleagues would say if he arrived at high table in Michaelhouse wearing a suit of metal. ‘Your destrier is a handsome animal, too.’ Bartholomew actually had no idea whether the stocky beast was a handsome animal or not: he was an abysmal judge of what did or what did not constitute a good horse.

‘He is,’ agreed Grosnold, pleased. ‘He served me well at Crécy. I fought at the side of the young Prince of Wales, you know. Now, there is a fine soldier!’

‘Really?’ said Bartholomew. He began to run out of things to say, since military chit-chat had never been a particular strength of his – especially considering that, in view of his lie about how he had come to own his manor, most of Grosnold’s was probably more wishful thinking than reality. ‘It must take a long time to train a horse like that.’

‘It takes time and patience to train any horse,’ said Grosnold. ‘But you are right: I did take extra care with old Satan.’

‘When you galloped it across Grundisburgh’s green the other day,’ said Bartholomew, choosing his words carefully, ‘were you not afraid that someone might do something to damage it – like lie in its way? I understand those things are expensive.’

‘Good destriers are very expensive. Satan cost me more than you will earn in your lifetime, by the look of you. But I like to give him his head now and then. I raced him right down the banks of the Lark until I reached the Old Road.’

‘Did you go back to Grundisburgh after that?’ asked Bartholomew, knowing it was unsubtle, but not knowing how else to ask.

‘No,’ said Grosnold suspiciously. ‘I did not go back. Why do you ask? Do you imagine you saw the talking to that priest, Unwin, or something?’

‘Of course not,’ said Bartholomew, wholly confused. He could not decide whether Grosnold was a complete buffoon and had just confessed that he had indeed returned to Grundisburgh and spoken to Unwin, or whether his words were a simple, truthful denial, and that he had mentioned Unwin because he knew Unwin’s death was the reason why Bartholomew was asking.

He smiled at the knight in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. ‘I just asked because I thought a fine animal like yours might need more exercise than a mere trot to the Old Road.’

‘Did you?’ asked Grosnold, harshly. ‘Well, after I left Grundisburgh I came home. I sat by the hearth all night with Ned, cleaning my nails. Look.’

Because of the drizzle and the lateness of the day, most of the men Bartholomew had seen earlier were in the outbuildings, with the doors and shutters closed against the evening chill. White smoke from cooking fires seeped from thatched roofs and through windows that had been poorly blocked Bartholomew could glimpse men inside sitting in the flickering yellow of flames. A range of smells drifted out – stews of peas and beans, baked bread and boiling meat, all mingled with the acrid, comforting aroma of burning wood. At Grosnold’s shout, shutters and doors were eased open as the curious inhabitants came to see what was happening.

‘I did not pay you,’ Grosnold hollered, waving his purse in the air. ‘Here is gold for your troubles. I am pleased with that horoscope. I might have you come back and do me another.’

Not, thought Bartholomew, if it could be avoided. Ned ran across the muddy yard, brandishing the coin aloft like a talisman until he reached Bartholomew and handed it over.

‘I never met a physician who forgot his money before,’ he said with a disbelieving grin. ‘Master Stoate would not.’

‘It will be dark before we are back,’ said Cynric, glancing up at the sky. ‘I did not realise it was so late, or I would have hurried you.’

‘We must have taken the wrong turning at that sheep pen, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew, peering ahead through the trees. ‘There is Barchester in front of us. We are on the road that runs through it, rather than the one that passes around the outside.’

‘I suppose it does not matter,’ said Cynric, eyeing the hamlet nervously. ‘They both lead to Grundisburgh, after all.’

‘Is that a light?’ asked Bartholomew, straining his eyes in the gloom. ‘It looks as if someone has lit a lamp in one of the houses.’

‘Let’s find the other path,’ said Cynric abruptly, hauling his horse’s head round. ‘I want to see no ghostly gatherings in haunted hovels, thank you very much.’

He had spurred his pony back the way they had come before Bartholomew could suggest that the light probably belonged to a traveller, using one of the houses as shelter for the night. With a sigh, realising that the detour would mean they would be out in the foul weather for longer than ever, he was about to follow Cynric when something launched itself at him with a tremendous screech that hurt his ears and turned the blood in his veins to ice.

For a moment all he could hear was the sound of his horse’s hooves thundering back toward Otley. He looked around him wildly, trying to see his attacker in the darkness. The next assault came from behind. With another deathly howl, he was knocked forward so that he fell on his face. Mud splattered into his eyes, nose and mouth, so that he could not see or breathe. He struggled furiously, trying to free himself from the suffocating weight that pressed him into a soupy puddle.

He succeeded in raising his head, and took a great gasp of air before it was forced down again. Hot breath gusted on to the back of his neck, and his ears were full of roars and grunts. He reached backward, trying to pull whatever it was off him. His fingers encountered something soggy and covered in wiry hair. Another howl split the air, and he twisted sideways, partly dislodging the thing from his back.

The air around him was rank with the stench of animal. He could smell wet fur and warm, carnivorous breath. He squirmed and kicked with all his might, clawing at the ground in his desperation to escape. There was a rumbling growl that seemed to vibrate the very ground on which he lay, ending in a series of guttural grunts. He struggled more frantically when another snarl ended with the drip of hot saliva on his cheek. Revolted, he turned his face away.

And then, suddenly, it was gone. He rolled on to his back and sat up, coughing and wiping the mud from his eyes with his sleeve. The village was deserted. The light in the house had been doused, and the squat black shapes of the huts stood immovable, like stones in the darkness. Rain pattered gently in the trees, all but drowned out by the sound of his rasping breathing and the thump of his heart.

‘Did you see it?’ came Cynric’s terrified voice at his ear. Bartholomew started backward at the sound of something so close, and tried to scramble to his feet. Cynric helped him.

‘No,’ said Bartholomew shakily. ‘Whatever it was attacked me from behind. I saw nothing other than a shadow. What was it? A wolf?’

But Cynric was not of a mind to stand chatting in the forlorn village. ‘Come on, boy,’ he said, his voice uncharacteristically unsteady as he hauled on Bartholomew’s arm. ‘It might come back at any minute. The horses have fled, so we will have to run. Can you manage?’

The notion of a second encounter with the smelly beast was enough to spur Bartholomew into action, and even his trembling legs could not prevent him from racing away from Barchester as fast as he could. Without waiting to see if Cynric followed, he took to his heels, tearing blindly past trees and scrub, through the river and across fields, and only stopping when he failed to see a ditch and went flying head over heels into someone’s lovingly tended barley. Cynric was right behind him.

‘That should be far enough,’ the Welshman panted, doubling over to rest his hands on his knees as he fought to catch his breath. ‘Did the beast bite you?’

Bartholomew shook his head, looking around him wildly in anticipation of another attack. ‘It just sat on me and drooled. Did you see it? It felt like a bull with a wolfs breath!’

‘It was the white dog,’ said Cynric, swallowing hard. ‘I saw it. It was a big white dog.’

‘It was certainly big,’ gasped Bartholomew, drawing his knees up to his chest to ease the burning stitch in his side. ‘Can you see it now? Has it followed us?’

‘Maybe someone set it on us,’ said Bartholomew more practically. ‘Someone who knew we would be travelling that way.’

‘Spirits have a way of knowing such things,’ muttered Cynric, crossing himself vigorously. He hesitated, continuing in a low whisper. ‘Will I die now that I have set eyes on it? Unwin did, and so did those two villagers – die suicide and the woman who died of childbirth fever.’

‘That was no ghost, Cynric,’ said Bartholomew with a shudder. ‘It slathered all over me. Spirits do not slather. Nor do they stink.’

‘They do so!’ said Cynric, with absolute conviction. ‘My mother always smelled almonds before my grandfather’s spirit appeared to her, and the next morning the floor was always wet where he had stood.’

There was little Bartholomew could think of to say in answer to that. ‘Where are we?’ he asked eventually. ‘I am completely lost.’

‘So am I,’ admitted Cynric, something Bartholomew had never before known to happen, suggesting that their encounter with the white dog had unnerved Cynric more than the physician had appreciated. ‘It does not matter anyway,’ the book-bearer added gloomily, ‘since I am soon to lie in my grave next to Unwin.’

‘But it was horrible, lad,’ said Cynric, his dark eyes wide with fear. ‘It was huge – bigger than any earthly dog I have ever seen; more like a pony, with a thick white coat to protect it from the fires of hell. When I saw it crouching over you and making all those dreadful noises, I thought it was trying to suck the soul from your body!’

‘Did you see anyone with it? I am sure it was human hands that pulled me from my saddle – the dog came later.’

Again Cynric crossed himself vigorously in the darkness. ‘No, thank the good Lord! All I saw was the beast. I fired an arrow at it, and it fled back to its lair in that ghostly village.’

‘Well, there you are, then,’ said Bartholomew reasonably. ‘A spectre would not run away from an arrow. It was a real dog and someone owns it.’

‘Then why did you run away?’ demanded Cynric. ‘It was a fiend from hell and you know it.’

With hindsight, Bartholomew was rather ashamed of the blind panic that had prompted him to rush away from the village as fast as his legs could carry him, but the fact was that an earthly hound drooling in his ears was just as frightening as a spectral one would have been.

‘We can walk back to Otley and see which of those villagers has a white dog,’ he said, deftly side-stepping Cynric’s question.

‘No!’ exclaimed Cynric with a look of abject horror. ‘I never want to set eyes on the likes of that thing again. Although I will not have long to see anything now. I can feel it in my bones.’

‘It was just an ordinary dog,’ said Bartholomew, becoming exasperated in his battle against Cynric’s superstition. ‘Nothing is going to happen to you.’

‘No?’ said Cynric warily. ‘Then perhaps you should explain that to
them.’