The Gallows Curse (6 page)

    Did
that bastard, Osborn, relive it night after night in his sleep? Raffe knew he
did not. Even when Lord Osborn had issued those orders which other men were
forced to carry out, he had given less thought to them than a boy snapping the
neck of a snared bird. He knew Gerard would have to carry out those commands.
Osborn was Gerard's liege lord and Gerard was bound by the oath of fealty to
serve him. To refuse to obey his command on the field of battle was
unthinkable. Any man who did as much would be branded a coward and a traitor.

    That
night, after it was all over, Raffe had watched Osborn with his younger
brother, Hugh, tossing down a flagon of sweet cypress wine, already planning
the next day's sport, and it was plain he had already forgotten the whole
incident. But then it is easy to forget if you only have to say the words and
don't have to look into terrified faces or hear the screams echoing again and
again through all the long dark nights.

    Raffe
grasped his friend's icy hand so tightly that he could feel the bones grate under
the skin. Gerard's eyelids briefly fluttered in protest against the pain.
Gerard's hand still wore his father's ring, a heavy gold band with an intricate
knot of gold filigree that held in place a single lustrous pearl. It was
Gerard's most precious possession. Still kneeling at his bedside, Raffe bent
his head and kissed the ring.

    'I
swear on your father's ring and by all the saints in heaven. I swear upon my
immortal soul, Gerard, I will not let you carry that evil to your grave. I will
not let it drag you down to hell.'

    Gerard
lifted his head and stared unblinkingly into Raffe's dark eyes as if he was
trying to impale Raffe upon that oath.

    Though
Raffe had never flinched from any man's gaze in his life, he shuddered,
suddenly terrified of the words which had fallen from his mouth.

    Gerard
drew in one last rasping breath which caught in his throat. Then Raffe felt his
hand fall limp. He didn't have to hold a feather to Gerard's lips to know that
his life was over.

    Raffe
looked down again at the corpse of his friend and master lying on the table. He
reached out a hand and smoothed the ruffled hair.

    'I
have kept my word, Gerard. You will go to your grave now as guiltless as if you
had been shrived by the Pope himself. I have done as I swore to do.'

    He
was turning away to fetch a cloth to cover the body when he felt his sleeve
grasped tightly. Anne was standing beside him, staring up at him, her bloodshot
eyes searching his.

    'What
have we done, Raffaele? What terrible burden have we forced that poor child,
Elena, to carry? I insist you tell me what my son did. I have a right to know.'

    Raffe
looked down at Anne. Her body seemed to have shrunk over the past few days,
shrivelled into itself as if it was withdrawing from the world. This woman
who'd fought to keep the manor intact for her son, who'd faced every new
disaster and threat with her eyes flashing defiance and a sword-sharp mind, had
not been able to stand against her son's death. How could he tell her now what
she demanded to know? It would destroy her. If she knew the truth of it, she
too would bear that burden to her grave. Knowledge of sin devours the soul as
voraciously as the sin itself. He couldn't bear to see her love and respect for
Gerard shaken for even an instant. She must go on believing that he was a good
and honourable man, as in truth he was and would now remain so for ever.

    Raffe
turned his face away and felt the grasp on his arm slacken. Anne had known him
long enough to realize that there were some things not even she could command.

    She
gently lifted her son's cold limp hand and slid the pearl ring from his finger.
She fumbled for Raffe's hand and before he realized what she was doing, she
pushed the gold band on to his finger.

    'No,
no, m'lady, I cannot . . .' Raffe protested, trying to pull it off.

    But
she folded his fingers around the ring. 'It belonged to Gerard's father and,
when he died, to Gerard, but he has no son to wear it in his memory. His
lineage dies with him. You have been more than a brother to Gerard. That makes
you my son. Take the ring. Wear it in memory of them both. They would want you
to have it.'

    Raffe
felt as if the gold ring had tightened on his finger, burning into it, like a
red-hot copper mask that is bolted on to the face of a traitor. Nothing,
nothing she could have done could have caused him more misery and guilt than
this and yet he knew it was being done innocently in love and gratitude.

    Lady
Anne softly caressed the cheek of her dead son, as if he was again an infant
sleeping in a cradle.

    'Tell
me this, Raffaele,' she whispered. 'Are you sure, are you absolutely sure that
the girl will be able to carry this sin without causing harm to herself and her
family?'

    'She
doesn't know what she carries,' Raffe answered dully. 'It will be no burden to
her. She is a virgin. Just as when, in the ordeal by fire, the hand of the
guiltless is unwrapped and is found to be unharmed, so the sin-eater cannot be
tainted by the sin, not if that person is pure.'

    'And
if Elena is not a virgin?' Lady Anne persisted.

    'She
is!' Raffe's assertion came out more vehemently than he intended. Lowering his
voice, he added, You heard her say so herself, m'lady. Besides, it was for the
soul of your son that we did this, your son and my friend. Is the life and soul
of a villein worth more to you than that?'

    Lady
Anne gazed down at her son's wasted face. As she looked up at Raffe once more,
he saw the same ferocity of passion in her own eyes as he had once seen in her
son's.

    'I
swear to you, Raffaele, there is nothing I would not give in this world or the
next, and nothing I would not do, to save my son from the fires of hell, even
to the damnation of my own soul.'

    He
thought of the copper-haired girl running away from him down the steps.
Although she didn't know it, Elena was bound to him now. No marriage blessing,
no consummation could tie them closer than this. Marriage was only until death;
together they would carry this sin to the grave and into the life beyond.

    
Mistletoe
— which some call
All-heal, Muslin-hush
or
Kiss and go.
It is
hung in houses all year round to bring peace and fertility, and to ward off
thunder and lightning, evil spirits, demons and the faerie folk. If it is hung
over the entrance to a house or above a hearth, a guest knows that his hosts
bear him no malice and he may enter with their pledge for his safety. If mortal
enemies find themselves under a tree which bears it, they can fight no more
that day.

    Mistletoe
is cut on Christmas Eve and hung on Christmas Day when the old sprig is burnt.
But if new sprigs are cut before Christmas Eve it brings ill fortune, and if it
is hung in the house before Christmas Day, a member of that household shall
surely die before the next Christmas. It may also be cut on the Eve of Samhain
or All Hallows, when a sprig is worn about the neck to keep the mortal safe from
witches. But to cut it then, the mortal must circle the oak three times and cut
the sprig with a new dagger, never before used.

    Some
call its twin berries the testicles of Uranus, which were severed and fell into
the sea, becoming the blood and white foam from which Aphrodite was born.
Thereafter men have kissed maids under the mistletoe, removing one berry for
each kiss they have stolen, till no berries remain and kissing must cease.

    But
beware: if a mistletoe-bearing oak tree is cut down, the family who owns the
land on which it stands will wither and die out, and their house shall fall and
crumble into ruins.

    The
Mandrake's Herbal

    The
tiny room is dark after the bright sunshine, and crowded with pots, baskets and
dyed linen strips hanging from the rafters. She can scarcely take a step
without tripping over a box or tangling her head in the cloth. Just a store
room, she thinks, no time to bother with it now. She turns, and is ducking
through the low doorway when she hears a cry, the thin, muffled wail of an
infant. It is coming from the far side of the room.

    She
impatiently tears down the cloth and kicks the boxes aside. She is looking for
a cradle, but there isn't one. The wail grows louder. The source is only inches
away, but still she can't see it, nothing but a stack of baskets covered with
cloths like those hanging all around. As she stares, one of the baskets
trembles. She rips back the cloth.

    The
baby is lying on a heap of rags inside the basket. Its face is scarlet and its
eyes are screwed up tightly as it bawls. The toothless red mouth opens wide as
if it would devour the whole world. Its tiny fists clench, beating the sides of
the basket in frustration that no one is answering its insistent summons. It is
ugly, a naked little rat. Now exposed to the light and cold of the room, its
screams redouble, violent, arrogant, demanding to be served.

    'Be
quiet,' she orders, but the baby takes no more notice of her than if she was a
fly on the midden heap. Her hand darts out and she grabs the threshing legs by
the ankles, jerking the infant upwards, so that it dangles upside down, but
even this does not make it stop screaming.

    'Shut
up! Shut
—'

    Elena
jerked awake. Hilda was propped up on one elbow beside her in the truckle bed,
shaking her hard.

    'Quiet!
Do you want to wake the mistress again?'

    
Elena could hear the irritation in her voice and small wonder —
three nights in a row she'd wakened Hilda by call
ing out in her sleep.
Elena glanced anxiously over at the great bed where Lady Anne now slept. It was
still dark. But by the glowing embers of the fire, she could just make out the
heavy drapes pulled round her mistress's bed. She heard the whimpering snores of
Lady Anne, solidly asleep. Elena crossed herself in a silent prayer of
gratitude.

    Hilda
turned over with a groan, yanking the covers from Elena and pulling them
tighter around herself. Elena didn't protest; her body was drenched in sweat,
despite the icy draught whistling across her from the shaft of the privy
chamber. She shrank as far away from Hilda as she could in the bed, trying
desperately not to fall asleep. She couldn't afford to wake her again.

    The
old widow had bitterly resented Elena from the beginning, grumbling to all,
except of course Lady Anne, that she 'didn't know what had possessed her
mistress to employ a field hand as a tiring maid. Next they'd be dressing up a
pig in robes and sitting it at the high table.'

    Ever
since that first morning, when she'd been compelled to show Elena her duties,
the sour-faced Hilda had watched her as keenly as a hunting hawk, waiting for
some fault that she could swoop down upon. Only that evening, as Elena had
undressed to her shift, she'd been aware of Hilda staring suspiciously at her
belly as if she knew what was concealed beneath the folds of linen.

    Elena
had fallen pregnant that very first night they'd made love. Indeed, it had been
the only night they had made love. Elena could have slipped away when Lady Anne
was resting in the afternoon and Hilda was snoring over her stitch-work, but
what was the use of that, for Athan had to work in the fields or coppices from
dawn to dusk, as he had done for the past ten years, ever since he was a little
lad of seven. And when he was free in the evenings, Elena was waiting on Lady
Anne and could only steal away from her chamber for long enough to fetch a dish
from the kitchen.