The Book of the Lion (2 page)

As I ran I prayed. God sent an angel to Daniel in the lion's den, and I prayed He would send me swiftness over this dark ground.

In my ignorance of the ways of God and man I had faith that I could avenge my master's injury. I certainly believed that I could run like this forever, with the Virgin's help.

Hoofbeats grew closer. A night bird eased from the crook of an oak.

Wet clods of earth splashed on either side ahead, and the heat of the warhorse was upon me.

 

 

 

 

I dodged the steed.

But I had reached a field surface recently spread with clay-marl and lime. It was slippery, and I fell, skidding across the slick earth.

I was up at once, but the horseman rode me down, the chest of the charger striking me hard. I was slimed with white clay, and wriggled free of the hands that fought to take custody of me. They hauled me to a puddle, splashed me more or less clean. I noted well the manner of these king's men, careful that nothing happened to me, no bodily harm.

Far from being encouraged by this, I saw the care with my person for what it was: desire to enact their duty exactly, and bring me entire to their chief.

 

Blood reflected the candle flames. The severed hand glowed, white against the black head of the spike. I didn't look directly at it, but I saw it nonetheless, aware of it even when I looked at the dark stone wall. Heavy feet pressed me down into the cooling gore all over the wooden planks.

“Stretch out his arm,” said the leader. My arm was strong, and it took three men all their effort to force it out and press it flat on the use-worn planks.

I had often imagined myself in combat, or in pain, and wondered how I would conduct myself. I did no wonderful or brave thing. I stretched the fingers of my right hand, working them, aware that they were still attached to me. I clenched my teeth.

I prayed for courage.

And then the room fell silent.

A new voice ordered us to be still.

It was an authoritative accent of my own town. The voice demanded to know who broke the king's peace on such a night. It was all formula. Even I, as ignorant of law as a tomcat, knew that with the right answer, the proper phrase delivered, the sword could do its work.

The Exchequer's man explained in his even London voice that the moneyer had been found guilty by the king's assayer of coining debased pennies. The punishment for such a felony was fit and quick, and there was already a spike, right here, through the master criminal's hand.

“And this apprentice?” was the question, and I expected to hear a fast and easy answer.

I was pulled to my feet. Geoffrey, the Lord Sheriff of Nottingham, stepped to one side to avoid the puddle of gleaming black blood.

Without looking at me he said quietly, “Put him in chains.”

 

I was allowed to walk through the streets, up into the castle, with a guard at each side. I was permitted to remain on my feet down steps, and down further into a corridor of cold stone. A small oaken door was wrenched open with a squeal and I was wedged through the opening. These links were fresh forged, still bright with the hammer work that had shaped them.

My hands were connected to the wall with long, heavy chains, and my feet were bound into place on the floor, but these were sheriff's men manhandling me, not strangers from London, and they did their work without kicking or digging in an elbow, avoiding meeting my eye. I knew them by sight.

“Daylight comes in through the windows,” said one, Henry, fat and out of breath. These were capable men, but halt or old. Most of the fit fighters had long departed to join King Richard on his holy war. The Holy Father in Rome had decreed that all who fought to take Jerusalem from the heathen would obtain indulgences—forgiveness of sins. The foulest criminal could absolve himself of wrongdoing before Heaven by joining the army of God. I envied those war pilgrims. I knew that my master was a good man, but a criminal, and that the law would consider me guilty, too.

And so would Heaven.

“And we have a she-cat who kills most of the rats,” Henry was saying.

He gave my leg chain a shake of encouragement; the door creaked and slammed. A key took its time finding the slot and turning. I let my head rest against the stone. When I tried to huddle, the chains scraped along the mortared rock.

Although I could scratch the itch on my cheek, it was a laborious process, my arm weighed down with the heavy links that dragged, whispering, as I shifted them.

I had indulged in daydreams. I had visions of traveling to London once a year with my master, to sit at the Exchequer's table. Of fighting in a war against the heathen, side by side with knights. In these private glory-pageants I had imagined meeting King Richard, and serving him. Like every Christian, I longed to pray in Jerusalem. But I knew nothing of swords and lances. Worthier men than I went to fight for Our Lady.

Above all, I had dreamed of winning Elviva, who lived near the city wall. Her father was Peter de Holm, a merchant in sheep's wool, and a good friend of my master's. She had visited my master's house with her father many times, and as the two men drank Otto's Rhine wine Elviva and I shared our innermost questions about the wonders of the world, the way a witch could turn herself into a rabbit, and the power of nymphs to speak in human language. We spoke of what it would be like to meet an angel, whether he would be covered in dazzling light. Elviva leaned forward eagerly as she listened, and her green eyes brightened as she laughed. She dressed like any maiden merchant's daughter, in folds and hoods of the finest cloth, demurely, to keep the men who saw her from temptation, but her beauty was not well hidden.

Because we spoke of High Fairies and dwarves, her father thought my mind was full of lore and the simple Latin Otto had been teaching me, hoping that some day I could be, as he was, a man of worth. But Elviva and I were speaking of such things as a special language, a code safe to use. I told her that if I spied a troll I would catch him by the nose. I had begun to see myself returning from London some day with scarlet sleeves and a brocaded cap, asking to speak to her father.

Now I was where I justly belonged, before God. A pair of eyes glittered, vanished, and glittered again. The prison cat had not done her work at all well. A rat nosed the air, crept close, and peered at me. One of my first memories was of listening to my mother sing of cuckoos in Maytime while rats squeaked softly in the walls. “The old cat's been cheating her lord,” I said. “Letting the likes of you dance all night.”

The rat sat up, caught like a unicorn by my voice.

 

Daylight appeared in the high window slits, three gray stripes, and birds began their chirrup.

I stretched my arms and legs with great difficulty, the chains even heavier than before. For all the qualities of my master Otto—his welcoming smile, his gentle laugh, and his store of Frankish phrases—he had one sure defect.

He had cheated the king.

Otto had devised a way of blending Norse copper in with the silver during the smelting. “Scarcely a crime at all, Edmund,” he confided. Copper was a valuable metal, too, in its way, he assured me. I think he enjoyed the art of creating the alloy as much as any increase of his own wealth. Otto bought brown ingots of the stuff from merchants traveling down from York and Whitby, and the pennies made one-fifth of copper, four-fifths of the king's silver, were as pleasing to the touch, and made the same cheerful sound bounced off a tavern tabletop, as pure silver.

Or, almost the same. I could tell the difference in smell and even taste, and certainly this debased
argentum
was less rich to the touch. But Otto had explained that the miller paid little heed to the coin that kissed his palm.

So the Devil instructs us, his eager pupils. He teases us with evil hope. The gray slashes of daylight burned brighter. They crept slowly across the stony ceiling of my chamber. The light fell upon my hand as it rested on the floor, alive with the tiny, sporting bodies of fleas.

My master was guilty, and so, as his apprentice, was I. Not that I had ever been offered a choice, and not that I had enjoyed any profit, aside from an increase in the quality of the pullets we supped on, and the quality of the ale we drank. But had I ever cautioned my master, or warned him against the wrath of the king?

 

The door opened, and an old man brought in a plate of brown bread and sheep's cheese, and a cup of flat beer. The bread was delicious, and the beer gone in two swallows. When I asked what had become of Master Otto, whether he lived or died, the white head shook sadly.

I prayed to Saint Peter—who had been in chains himself—that I might stay as I was for weeks or months, if it be the will of Heaven.

 

The slashes of daylight fell all the way across my cell and began to fade to dim russet.

 

Footsteps echoed, and a key rattled.

“You've business with the sheriff,” said the deputy, and I recognized a kind of humor in the remark as the manacles were struck from my wrists. A man condemned to hang would be described as having business with the scaffold-builder. A man about to have his nose severed for thieving from the alms box would be said to have an appointment with a good sharp edge.

 

 

 

 

It was not quite sundown, but in this vast room it was already dark.

Candles were lit all around, a beautiful sight, with brass candlesticks, except just at the sheriff's elbow, where his wine cup awaited his touch. There a candlestick of gold—a short candlestick, but worth a knight's ransom—gave off a fine light. A whippet, a lean, white bitch, looked upon me with the mildest curiosity.

The castle was known as a place of wonders. The sheriff kept a fool, an exotic, silent creature, and the sheriff's wife was renowned as a beauty. It was said that Robin Hood himself once paid a visit within these walls.

“So here we see Edmund,” said the sheriff, running his finger along a roll of vellum. I was dressed in my tunic, a smock of soft brown wool stained with my master's blood. It was a cloth few sons of freedmen were wearing, this excellent burnet, but my feet were bare.

Once again I breathed a prayer. I remained as I was, but I had eyes.

I could see no sign of a fool, and no woman at all. The Exchequer's man sat beside the lord sheriff, and I tried to read his expression. The Exchequer's man was no longer armored but dressed in finery, rich indigo sleeves. I had never seen a ceiling so high, roof beams so far above.

“This is what he is called—
Edmund
, simply that, no hamlet, no father's name?” the Exchequer's man was asking.

“His father was Arthur, a freedman,” said the sheriff.

Where I found the courage to ask a question I cannot say, but the words were out before I could silence myself. “My Lord Sheriff,” I said, still kneeling. “My good master Otto—does he live?”

The sheriff met my gaze. He looked worn with thought. “It's a grievous injury,” he said, not unkindly. “The liver cannot keep the blood hot when so much is lost into the air.”

“He's dead,” said the Exchequer's man.

“I am at your mercy, Lord Sheriff. And at the mercy of our lord king.” I don't know how I managed to speak in such a knightly manner at such a moment, and my voice was little more than a whisper.

“The mercy of the king!” laughed the Exchequer's man. The sheriff rolled the parchment in his hand into a wand. “Mercy is exchanged,” he said, “for acts of penance.” What penance could I give, I wondered, that would earn even a single hour of mercy? The sheriff turned to listen to the whispered word of Hugh, his young deputy.

The sheriff lifted his eyebrows, reached for the silver cup at the table beside him—old silver, inset with carnelians, Flemish work—and took a sip. “You've never been on horseback, have you, Edmund?”

“Indeed, my lord, before my father and mother were taken ill with black spleen, as it pleased Heaven, I would ride to market with his wares.” My father had been a cooper, a laboring man, but one of high skill, expert at carving poplar barrel wood. My father had paid for my apprenticeship when I was twelve years old by working red-eyed and weary by firelight. I had never mounted a horse in my life.

Hugh spoke again, in a low voice, and hurried from the chamber.

The sheriff turned to the Exchequer's man, his face alight, and said, “I'll offer Edmund a chance to win the favor of our king and the mercy of his God.”

“But this is the son of an ignorant craftsman,” said the Exchequer's man. “I'll bet you a gold mark he's never been on so much as a cob horse.”

“Are you accusing Edmund of lying?” said the sheriff.

“My Lord Sheriff,” I rasped. “I've a good touch with beasts, and ease their fears.” This much was true—cur and hen alike enjoy my company.

Neither man spoke for a moment. “He has a crime to answer for, and I would hardly blame him for telling a lie,” said the Exchequer's man at last.

“But, good Alan, you see how well he could bear a sword,” said the sheriff. Even though the sheriff was uttering careful London-speech, he pronounced
swurd
like his fellow townsmen. “And an apprentice cannot be held accountable for his master's avarice.”

“Of course he can,” said Alan.

“But see how fit he is to battle. And what a waste it would be, before Heaven, to take such a sword arm away from God.”

Alan waved a hand, like a man worried by a gnat. “Besides,” he said, “if we strike off a hand he may well survive. If we send him to the Holy Land against Saladin and the pagan armies, he may well never see this town again. And nearly all the Crusading men have gone, weeks past. Who'll take this apprentice townsman and turn him into a squire?”