Hill of Bones (25 page)

‘What the devil are you doing following me?’ William demanded, the staff still raised menacingly, for it occurred to him that this youth might yet be in the pay of Edgar.

‘M-Master, I came to join you . . . on your journey. I want to be your disciple.’

‘My disciple?’ William said incredulously, lowering his weapon.

The youth bounced to his feet, and brushed his ginger hair out of his eyes. ‘Yes, master. I saw how you cast out that demon and how you were saved from the wreck on the cross. I know you are a holy man. I believe in you. I have the faith, Master. Take me with you.’

‘But why creep up on me like that?’

‘I wasn’t creeping,’ Martin protested. ‘I couldn’t join you openly. Not till we were away from the village. My father would thrash me black and blue if he thought I was running off. You too, if he could, for taking me away.’

William, remembering the sexton’s blows in the church, knew the lad was probably not exaggerating.

‘How long before you’re missed?’ William asked. He had enough troubles already without some irate bull of a father lumbering after him as well.

‘He thinks I’ve gone out with one of the boats. He’ll not look for me till after he comes back from the alehouse tonight.’ Martin suddenly sank to his knees, his hands clasped and his eyes closed as if in prayer. ‘Bless me, Master; make me your disciple.’

He looked so solemn that William almost laughed, until he saw the lad was in earnest.

It was on the tip of his tongue to send the boy packing, but it occurred to William that a companion might be just what he needed. The lad was short but stocky, with a chest as broad as an ox and, judging by the way he’d dug those graves, he had the strength of a man twice his size. Martin would be another pair of eyes to keep watch, especially in the night, and if Edgar did attack, then it would be two against one. The lad would surely fight to the death to defend his master, if he really believed he was a prophet. Besides, disciples did all the cooking and tending to their master’s needs, didn’t they? It would be as good as having his own manservant again.

Solsbury Hill, August 1453

The horses’ flanks were soaked with sweat by the time they finally crested the steep slopes of the hill. Even the five young women who rode them were breathless with the effort of keeping their balance in the saddles on the steep incline. Their grooms, who had been forced to climb alongside the horses, almost dragging them upwards, were more exhausted than the beasts. Their faces were flushed to the colour of ripe plums and beads of perspiration burst out on their foreheads. The sun burned relentlessly down from a cloudless blue sky, baking the valleys below, but at least up on the flat table top of the hill there was the blessing of a breeze to ruffle the brown grass stalks and cool the air. With undisguised relief the grooms assisted their mistresses to dismount and led the palfreys away to a clump of gorse bushes where they might be safely tethered until they were wanted again.

It was several minutes before the falconer and his lad managed to reach the party. The tiny merlins were not heavy to lift on the wooden frame, but they had to be carried smoothly. Any sudden jerking and they would start to flap or even throw themselves from their perches, breaking feathers, legs or even wings. The falconer could not afford to slip or stumble.

For once, though, the merchants’ daughters were not impatiently demanding to begin their sport or stamping their pretty little shoes. They too were far too grateful for the breeze to make a fuss. Arm in arm, they strolled around on the flat top of the hill, listening to the trilling of a hundred larks as they flew for sheer joy up into the hot blue sky.

Ursula, the youngest of the five friends, caught the distant glint of the river, and breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the sweet air after the foul stench of Bath. It was hard to know if the city was more unpleasant in the winter or summer. In winter the streets were ankle-deep in the mud and filth from the blocked and overflowing ditches and sewers. In summer the pigs snuffled among the rotting waste from houses and butchers’ shops, thrown haphazardly into the streets where it was left to stink beneath writhing heaps of bone-white maggots.

Ursula had often begged to move out of the city at least for the summer months. As she repeatedly told her father, no one, by which she meant no marriageable nobleman, lived in Bath any more. Even the Bishop of Bath had sought a more comfortable abode in Wells. But as her doting but practical father told her, a good businessman keeps a constant eye on his livelihood, and since the wool and cloth trade was flourishing in Bath, he had no cause to move. And, he added, before she started turning her nose up at the stench of a good honest trade, she should remember that it was wool and cloth that put the food on her plate and the jewels in her hair.

‘Ursula, come and choose your bird,’ one of the girls sang out and Ursula sauntered across to join her friends as they clustered around the falconer.

The girls donned their leather gloves and collected their favourite birds, laying wagers amongst themselves as to which would be the first to bring down the quarry. Then they released them. As the merlins took flight, the larks rose, still singing, higher and higher into the sky. The little birds of prey winged up after them, until they were almost invisible in the glare of the sun. Then the tiny songbirds dropped as if they had been pierced by an arrow, slipping sideways at the last moment before they hit the ground, as their pursuers swooped down after them. The merlins were forced to twist and turn as they reversed their dive and climbed back up after the soaring larks again. It could take as much as half an hour for a merlin to kill a lark, and the girls gasped, laughed and held their breath as a kill seemed inevitable only for the lark to escape by a mere feather’s breadth.

They were but an hour into their sport when Ursula, turning to follow the progress of her bird, glimpsed a man scrambling up the last few feet of the rise and onto the flat top of the hill. Soon more heads appeared, then still more, until a small crowd stood rather breathlessly on the top of the hill, heaving their packs off their backs and bending over their staves as they tried to regain their breath.

One by one the young women turned their attention from the battle of the birds in the sky to stare at the newcomers who had so rudely interrupted their pleasure. The twenty or so people who stood gazing around the flattened hill were of mixed ages: some had grey hair, others were barely more than children. But it was plain from their patched and dung-coloured clothes, their worn shoes and filthy coarse-spun cloaks that they were not the kind of people who could afford to own falcons, much less enjoy the leisure time to fly them.

The grooms moved swiftly in front of their mistresses, knives at the ready, in case they should be required to defend the ladies from this pack of beggars and vagabonds, but the little band made no move to approach the women.

A man stepped a little apart from the crowd and all eyes turned expectantly to him. He flung himself down on his knees and the rest of the group followed suit. A clamour of voices rose into the hot sunshine, like some great cliff-side colony of nesting gulls, and with as little meaning in sound. Their arms were flung up to heaven, their eyes closed and their heads thrown back. They seemed to be praying with as much fervour as a man condemned to death might desperately beg clemency from a judge.

Finally their leader rose and turned to face the kneeling crowd.

‘Yes, yes, my chosen ones. This is the very place I saw in my vision. I know it! I can feel it! And now God has confirmed it!’

A chorus of, ‘Yes, it is here. Hallelujah! This is the place!’ burst out of many throats.

Ursula edged a little closer. Her groom put a warning arm out to try to stop her, but she was used to getting her own way and moved resolutely to a distance where she could hear more clearly. Her companions, with nervous giggles, followed her.

The leader of the band was a tall man, with high prominent cheekbones and a mass of thick black hair that hung in lank elflocks onto his shoulders. He was dressed simply in a grubby white robe that almost resembled that of a monk, save that his left shoulder and arm were bare and about his waist was a blue cord dyed to almost the same hue as the summer sky above him.

His voice rang out once more. ‘This is the place where the legions of darkness meet the army of light. This is the very hill where demons and angels wrestle for the future of the world. Abraham and Isaac, Moses, even our Lord Himself, were all led to the hill tops and there put to the test for the very salvation of the world. We have been led here to serve a great purpose in the divine plan, a purpose that He will make known to us. Here we shall set up camp and wait for the vision to be revealed to us.’

A great cheer went up from the crowd. Their leader turned away, firmly clasping his hands behind his back, and appeared to be contemplating the great sweep of the valley that lay below him. The crowd waited for a few minutes, but no more words came from him.

Finally one of their number, a broad squat youth with arms like an ape, jumped up and gesticulated wildly at them. ‘Well, you heard the prophet, make camp, quickly now.’

Everyone scrambled to their feet and, as if following a familiar routine, began their chores. Some started to dig fire pits, others gathered kindling or searched for herbs for the pot. With somewhat more reluctance, a few armed themselves with water-carriers and darted miserable glances at each other when they realised the only visible source of water was the distant river at the bottom of that very steep hill.

Seeing some of the men arming themselves with bows and arrows and with slingshots for hunting, the falconer rushed forward with his baited lure, whirling it about his head and whistling in a desperate attempt to bring the merlins down before this pack of lunatics started firing.

All the girls hurried back towards their horses, except Ursula, who did not move. She was still staring at the back of the white-robed figure who stood gazing out over the edge of the hill.

‘He’s calling you, is he?’ a voice murmured in her ear.

She jumped at finding the little ape-armed youth by her elbow. Up close, Ursula thought, he looked even more like a monkey. His arms were covered in a thick mat of red hair and, judging by the bush escaping from the top of his coarse shirt, she rather suspected his body might be equally hairy.

She flushed, taking a few steps back. ‘Calling me?’

‘I was the first disciple he called and I’ve been with him ever since. Not everyone who wants to come with him can. He knows who’s been chosen by God and only they can join him.’ He lifted his head with evident pride.

‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to join him. I should think those who haven’t been chosen are very much relieved.’ Ursula said it with every intention of wounding, but the ape-boy didn’t seem to take offence.

‘You might say that now, but wait till you see the miracles he performs.’

‘So he can do a few tricks, can he? I’ve seen conjurors at the fairs bring dead toads to life and make coins disappear.’

‘Ah,’ the lad said, ‘but have you seen them capture demons in front of your very eyes or pull a venomous worm from a man’s skull that was tormenting him with agonising pain. My master is a holy prophet. He was captured by a fierce band of murderous pirates that bound him hand and foot, and carried him off on their ship to sell as a slave. So he conjured a great storm that cracked the ship open on the rocks and every wicked man aboard perished, but though he was bound fast, he calmed the waves and floated ashore as safe as a babe in its cradle.’

Ursula snorted. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I swear, on the Holy Virgin’s crown, that I saw it with my own two eyes. Stood on the shore and watched it, I did. And so did the whole village, including the priest. There’s not a man, woman or child in Brean who doesn’t know him for a holy man and prophet. I tell you, he’s been sent to save us all.’

The young man’s blue eyes shone with such a radiance of belief that it seemed as if a candle was burning behind them. Ursula, for all that she was trying to sound unimpressed, felt her pulse quicken, as her eyes were drawn once more to the tall figure who had not moved so much as a muscle, despite all the bustle and noise behind him. The breeze tugged the folds of his robe and blew his long black hair out behind him so that suddenly he seemed the very image of a carving she had seen in a church, of Moses standing on top of the mountain holding the tablets of stone.

‘What is his name?’ she asked without taking her gaze from the figure.

The youth leaned closer to her as if he was imparting a great secret. ‘His holy name is Serkan. It means leader, a leader anointed in blood.’

It was dark now. William drew his cloak tighter about his shoulders, trying not to shiver. The sun had sucked the heat from the earth as it set, taking back the warmth it had lent it, and the breeze whipping up from the valley seemed to carry all the chill of the cold river in it. Stars, like tiny shards of ice, hung in the black sky and the blades of grass turned the colour of steel in the moonlight.

Martin had come running as soon as he’d seen the pinpoints of orange and yellow light winding their way up the valley towards the hill. But William had already seen them. That was why he’d chosen this place. It was like having his own castle. No walls to be sure, but no forest of trees or narrow alleys where someone could lie in wait. All these weeks he’d had no sign that Edgar had followed him from Brean, but somehow that only made him more nervous, as if Edgar were lying out there somewhere, gathering his strength, waiting until William relaxed his guard before he struck.

William felt a little safer up here, where he could see danger coming. But those lights were nothing to fear. Those torches did not belong to an angry mob. The procession was too slow and orderly. They were bringing the mad and sick with them, not sticks and swords. Those giggling girls and their servants had clearly wasted no time in spreading the word in Bath about his arrival.