Angels in the Architecture (17 page)

That said, their long discussions had tired him.

Lord, you are cruel with this heat to an old man in these thick robes.

Alone
now, Hugh fell back into a large wooden chair, resting his head forward on one hand.

A
argh! Forgive me.

Hugh rose again quickly, aiming to resume his earlier ponderous walk about the gardens a little before leaving. He hoped also to locate some gentle zephyr thereabouts, although the latter
seemed unlikely and he wasn’t sure if the heat was more unbearable inside or out. He would leave today, stopping at Torksey to hear of the parish from its priest and from the King’s Thane, both of whom complained interminably. He knew the scene of the crumbled cathedral would wrench at him, and he would put his sight of it off another day if he could. The rebuilding would be years and the principal focus of his Bishopric, he knew now, but he would not leave aside the progression and maturation of Christ’s followers and their cultivation. But he
would
escape to find some communion with God whence he could and now was an opportunity for that, however brief.

His steady companion merged into step behind him as he came out again into the hot day. Hugh smiled. He’d thought to give the bird some name but none had come to him that seemed right.
This creature assumes responsibility for some part of me – my safety and comfort perhaps – why does it? How is it that I have attracted this follower? It follows no other, and it
always
follows me. I do nothing for it. And I talk to it in a language it knows not.

‘Aha!’
he said gently to the great bird. ‘I have it. You are an Angel come to watch over me. For if not, I shall do some terrible thing perhaps. But that is vainglorious and sacrilegious. I would not deserve such of the Lord’s favour. Well, what shall you do, my friend, while I am not here? Perhaps you will join your brothers and sisters at the lake beneath our poor cathedral. And I will certainly be pleased to see you, although I’m not sure, I’m afraid to say, that I should be able to tell you apart from them upon that great lake. There are so many so you will have to come closer or give me a wink if it is you. Can you do that do you think?’

Man and bird contemplated each other again. Hugh smiled and turned into his walk, noting the bird stepping in behind him yet again, and
feeling a great comfort from it, whatever it was that this strange spectacle meant.

Gamel Warriner
’s day had not gone well. Caution and thrift were the new drivers of commerce, and he had sold but a few vegetables at the market that day, and received only the smallest weight of grain for his wife’s kneading hands. One solace, such as it was, was that it need feed fewer mouths, but this didn’t sit so comfortably either.

Alard had come with him
to Torksey today; and as usual Thomas. Alard was boastful that he had the eldest’s responsibility now until his father cuffed him for the annoyance the boy’s pride gave him.

Thomas did not notice any of these changes in his day or in his life, and he sat at the back of his father’s cart now, legs dangling, grinning and gawping at people moving about the dusty square in front of him. He saw light was dancing all around him and he was enjoying its show. Most of those about were quite used to the strange
little Warriner boy and most paid him no mind at all. Some older men and women, perhaps who’d seen others like Thomas in their time, would smile and make some comment or other to Thomas or to his father about him, generally not expecting much by way of reply from either. The boy never disturbed anyone and his parents were well respected and good people. And some even found some good humour in his odd laughter and funny ways, although they were careful how they’d express such in front of the boy’s father.

As did others about them, so also
did Gamel and his elder son load their baskets and pelts back onto their cart. Not many about spoke and the usual hubbub of market day seemed remote not for the first time in recent days. There was not much by way of profit to be had by any man lately, and most were as Gamel, with just a few of the necessities they were used to, to take home again, little to show for a day of work. It was not good for a man’s soul any more than it was for his pocket, nor indeed his pride. It would upset the mood of all for a longer time yet, and the upset created no different an outcome in that regard from a poor harvest or a flood or a plague, which is to say that things went backward for most folk. This was a time when things were either the same or they were worse. Rarely if ever were they better and any such idiotic concept as progress was yet to be invented hundreds of years hence and would have been laughed at hereabouts.

Gamel spoke gruffly to his son as they loaded their cart
, partly to keep the boy’s head from swelling at his new status, but more from shortness of temper from the wasted day. Young Alard was not the only son kicked or boxed by a taciturn father this day. And the heat made the new hardships more acute still.

Gamel
lifted Thomas aside with barely an effort, reaching past him to stow the last of their goods into the cart. Gamel had a great strength anyway but Thomas was so light as to almost warrant being tied down to the cart in even a small wind; he was easily moved about, content to be wherever he was put. He had his face raised to the sun, eyes closed and smiling, and Gamel was momentarily indignant at what would have been idleness in any other, but he quickly swallowed the thought, at once checking his temper, as he did often with the boy, and even on occasion the boy’s mother.

Even though there was not much of the usual flurry about, there was
still a stir of sorts, at once quite quiet, but pressing in on the minds and temperaments of those amid it. It carried a nervousness with it and the villagers’ wariness of it caused them all to pack up a little quicker than usual.

Gamel lifted a final basket to the cart next
to Thomas and as he did so the boy, with some power, lurched towards him suddenly propelled by some force from behind. Gamel was quick and caught the boy, toppling the basket and its contents in the back of the cart. Thereupon, the wailing of a half gutted pig, or the howling of some partly slaughtered cattle, rang at his ear, and he turned around about, the boy in his arms, expecting some wounded beast had escaped and was now about to hurdle his cart..

Although he could see no such
thing, Gamel was all senses, spinning about and then back, confused, and for a moment unable to translate what he was hearing and seeing and sensing into any reality. Thomas was flailing in his arms like a wild dog, threatening to fall to the ground, and then suddenly it was his son’s spasms made him realise that the horrendous sound beating at his ears was coming from the boy. Gamel had heard little or no sound ever from the strange child and this keening now unsettled him so as he had no thought for a moment of what to do and just stood with the boy half upright and thrashing about in his arms.

Villagers all around had halted their activities at the extraordinary sound, looking about likewise to see whence the sound came, and then to notice the large man they all knew so well stood helplessly with the idiot boy. Except now this small creature was very different from the harmless one they were used to, and the noise coming from him frightened them. Until now the boy was a defenceless innocent; in an instant he had become
another unknown set to disturb their tenuous hold on anything solid in the world. What had got into the child? Was it suddenly mad? Was this a secret Gamel Warriner had kept from them? Perhaps they ought to think differently of this man they knew. They were already edgy from too many omens in recent days and the thought that this was some new devil thing was in more than a few minds.

Gamel understood none of this yet though, and with another second his alarm spiked. When he was almost beyond knowing what to do, a warm wetness seeped through his fingers, clasped as they were about the boy, and the sensation drew him back into himself and into his two strong legs on the ground, and he brought his focus to his own child in his arms and found enough composure to understand. He
lowered Thomas to the dusty Earth, not quite letting him go. Long lines of blood percolated over Gamel’s clothes and arms and into the hard clay ground. He was stilled momentarily, his arms beneath his son in the dust, finally making sense of all his brain was telling him as he knelt over the boy and stared at his wide open mouth and frightened eyes.

As Thomas
’s bellowing persisted, Alard stood dumbly by frightened by the sound coming from his brother, and now the sight of blood along with it. The warm earth raised such a forge of heat that it grabbed at them all. And it stunk. And the stink pasted their clothes to their skin, and the thick air relayed their fears even quicker among them.

Gamel yelled into the general milieu. ‘Someone ge’
Bennet, Bennet Williams – go on, won’t ya. Someone go!’

There was a slow stirring, and a few youths stepped slowly out of the crowd, and then ran, to find the physician. For the most part, both the bystanders and the actors in the small drama they observed were held in some paralysing clutch, a vacuum where nothing seemed to exist about them, all eyes
and Energy and focus hurtling in ultimately to the wounded boy’s larynx and the sound coming from it.

Thomas’s noise eased a little
and Gamel found some instinct from somewhere to pull the boy to him and cradle him, with intense unease, and the wailing abated a little more. Gamel saw the whiteness of the boy’s face and prayed the life not to go from him, and perplexed himself further with these actions on his own part, not to mention that he’d never felt any softness for the lad before. All about knew this was a man had lost a lot the last few days. Gamel looked up from his son and stared fiercely around him at the faces of people he knew.

‘Who did this?’ Gamel yelled into the surrounds, sounding a wounded animal himself now
.

‘Who did this?’ he bellowed louder.

And people nearby appeared to back away from the sound of accusation, although in truth they could not move.

Returning his face to his son
, he saw a bloodstained rock in the dusty clay at the rear of his cart, of such a size no child could have thrown it any distance or with any force. The mystery and shock this new offence brought was beyond the reach of his understanding. He could bring no judgement to it at all, save again an instinct to get his sons a way gone. Gamel stared at the spent missile near him, feeling anew the warmth of his son’s blood stuck already to his fingers.

It could not be clarified in that moment – at least not with ease – as to
what Thomas himself felt. He did not know he screamed; he had forgotten that a moment earlier he gazed at the bright sun, all radiant. He could not even be said to know himself that he was alive and living.

An Angel
somewhere wept. And another focused a rain of golden Light that he bid find its way into the child’s own Energy.

When a moment
later Bennet Williams came running, he apprised the scene quickly. Gamel lifted himself and Thomas to the rear of the cart and bade Bennet take them at least away from the street where so many eyes held expressions he could not begin to speculate upon. He felt such an ill will towards some stranger of a sudden, and was not so frightened about what he knew he could do if he found out who that stranger be, but he knew his attention was best kept to his sons for now.

Bennet took control of the wagon and its lead,
as Alard clambered up next to him, and they drove the curious panoply away from the assembled listeners and spectators. The crowd moved silently from their path and Gamel saw they dispersed quite quickly as they left that spot, no doubt to hurry away and tell their version of events to others. He studied them a few moments for some sign of a crime but no such thing showed itself to him, and he was pleased when the cart moved from their sight.

They bumped slowly through a few turns and along some
pot-holed tracks till they arrived at the physician’s own home. The two men lowered the boy and Bennet drew the patient and his father into his house, Alard behind them. He quickly brewed a draught that calmed Thomas further and then brought materials that cleaned the wound, less severe than the deluge of blood had suggested. The two men and the two boys stayed quiet in the small room, hot and stuffy as it was from the inevitable fire, set at a low flame, despite the heat of the day.

Bennet’s wife took the father’s and son’s tunics from them and did her best with the splatters of blood on their clothes, setting
them to dry over a stone wall in the sun. She didn’t add any talk to the silence and neither man had yet explained the cause of the boy’s accident. She could see their uncertainty though and kept her tongue in her head for now.

After a while
, the boys and the men had all calmed more. The men agreed a story for Alice, and held Alard to it, that it was no missile that had harmed Thomas but some accident where he’d fallen. They knew the woman had concerns enough for her children and their safety at the moment without such news that one, her precious one, was now a target of thugs.

‘Did yi’ see what
happened, Gamel?’

‘No’ a
thing, Bennet. The boy suddenly flung ’imself a’ me. Ah din’ even hear i’ with ’im makin’ tha’ din t’ star’ with. An’ then all tha’ blood. Ah saw a rock on ground, but ne’er seen ’oo threw i’.’