The Leper's Return (23 page)

“I rather think she has too many certainties for my liking,” Baldwin pointed out acidly. “And what in the name of God has got into you, Wat my lad?”

For answer, the boy began to weep, and covered his face with his hands.

“God’s Blood!” muttered the knight. “I really believe this household has gone mad in the last day. Wat, calm yourself—and if you can’t, go out to the buttery and fill yourself with strong ale. Ah! Hugh—what the hell has been going on in here? What’s the matter with him?”

Hugh watched the lad shuffle out, and set his jaw. “It was her,” he said contemptuously. “She said the fire in her lady’s room wasn’t hot enough, and when Wat tried to make it burn better, he dropped an ember on her cloak and burned a hole. She clouted his ear for it.”

“He’ll have to learn to be more careful,” said Baldwin.

To Hugh he looked very pensive, and it wasn’t due to the murder, Hugh thought. Simon’s servant had known the knight for several years now, and Hugh had seen him investigating enough other crimes to know some of his moods, but he had never yet seen Baldwin in so irascible a temper.

No, the trouble was that Baldwin was so keen on this woman, Jeanne. It was as plain as a black sheep in a white flock that he wanted her. But he was terrified of the woman’s servant.

That was a position that Hugh could understand. As far as he was concerned, the bitch was mad. She had slapped Hugh’s mug from his hand at the inn, wasting over a pint of ale, just because she thought he’d had enough—as if she could tell. He’d only drunk two quarts, and that was nothing for him. Especially after a long ride like the one they’d had to get to Crediton. She’d come up, slapped his wrist and sent the lot flying. It had shocked him so much, he’d not been able to make any complaint, not even when she grabbed him by the nape of his tunic and hurled him out into the hall. Landing on the floor like that had been humiliating. And Hugh didn’t like being humiliated.

He also didn’t like people who disliked dogs. Hugh was a farmer’s son from the old moor hamlet of Drewsteignton, and had grown up on the open land around there, spending much of his time as a youth protecting the flocks. He knew dogs as well as any who spent their life with only a pair of sheepdogs as companions: he knew their strengths and their few weaknesses, and anybody who could want to condemn a dog to death for no reason was no friend to Hugh.

A moorman learns early on to value self-reliance. When a man lives out in the moors, he has to shift for himself. But a shepherd develops other skills: how to be devious, how to trap and destroy many wild things by stealth. Hugh stood grim and silent as Edgar walked in, holding Uther by the collar, watched as Baldwin laid a hand on his head and stared the dog full in the face contemplatively. Hugh’s expression darkened, and the room was quiet as they all waited expectantly.

“Baldwin, you can’t,” said Margaret quietly.

The knight held his mastiff’s head in both hands and stared into his eyes. “Uther, old friend, I don’t know what to do.”

“Sir, surely you should just lock him away in the stable or something,” said Edgar.

“What? You don’t want him put to the sword straight away?”

Edgar shifted from one foot to another, almost embarrassed. “It would be a great pity to kill the brute just because a maid doesn’t choose to like him. Poor old Chopsie isn’t vicious. I’d stake my life on it!”

“Chopsie?” asked Margaret.

“Don’t ask! Lock him up, then,” said Baldwin, and stood. “And now I am going to change out of these clothes. Excuse me, Margaret.”

He left the room without a backward glance, which looked to Hugh like a determined effort to appear blasé. But Hugh knew how much Baldwin’s dog meant to him, and at that moment his mind began to scheme and invent methods of avenging Uther.

William waited while the hoof was cleaned and rasped into shape, and while the new shoe was forged and fitted. Only when the new one was nailed in place, did he offer to buy the smith an ale.

It took more than William had expected. The smith appeared to have an insatiable thirst, and yet managed to remain upright. It was not long before William found himself having to pretend to drink in order to prevent himself getting too drunk to continue with his careful prompting.

His task was made the easier by the presence of a man, Arthur, whom William had noticed about the street but to whom he had never spoken. Arthur, he learned, was a fishmonger, and Arthur was possibly even more bigoted than Jack. For some reason, Arthur was convinced that the sole reason for his sales having fallen off was that lepers were allowed into the town.

“I mean, why should they be let in, eh? What good do they do? And all the time they’re leching after our wives and daughters.”

“They’re an offense in the sight of God,” William offered sanctimoniously.

“Of course they are. Just look at the way they go around whining and begging. If they really wanted to get better, they’d go to their chapel and pray—that’s what I’d do! I wouldn’t sit around whinging, demanding money from strangers all the time. No, I’d get off my arse and pray to God, that’s what I’d do.”

“But you hear stories about them,” said William, dropping his voice to a low whisper.

Arthur nodded emphatically. “That’s right. The bastards. They’re in league with heretics and Jews. They’ve all agreed to attack us, and take all our property.”

“And our women,” added Jack, taking another swig of ale. “And what then? That’s what I’d like to know. They’re all such dirty bastards. God knows what they’re doing to poor Mary Cordwainer. She’s going up there every day. Helping them, she says. Cleaning up and such. Who believes her? I don’t, I can tell you. No, they have her doing something else for them, that’s what I reckon,” he said, and made an emphatic gesture.

“You think so?” asked Arthur. “That’s disgusting, that is! I’ve known little Mary all my life, and I’d never have thought—”

“Well, she was going to get engaged to Edmund, wasn’t she? It’s no surprise she went up there at first, but to be still going there every day? No, she’s been perverted into their ways, that’s what’s happened. Poor girl.”

Jack stared angrily at his jug. William almost said something to prompt him on, but then decided against it. The smith had the look of a man who took time to come to his conclusions, but with the inevitability of molten metal slowly pouring from a clay vessel into a channel, once he had started on a theme, he would follow along the track until he came to a solution which satisfied him.

When William left the inn, tugging his thick green velvet cloak about him against the frosty air, he felt well pleased with himself.

In the leper camp, Ralph finished his work and leaned back on his stool, his eyes shut as he allowed them a moment’s rest before packing up for the night. Day had ended long ago, and he was writing with the help of a small candle, whose flame was almost unequal to the task of shedding a little light on his parchment. Yet he was grateful for the meager amount it gave. He knew that it was provided by the kindness of others who had no need to supply him with anything.

It was frustrating to write up his accounts in this way, late at night when he was already exhausted, but there was so much to do during the day. He had the small garden to help cultivate, the chapel to keep spotless, the services to hold in order to protect his little flock, and the never-ending round of helping the inmates to change their bandages and apply ointments.

Many of them were showing the onset of the more serious symptoms, and their pain was all too evident. It was a hard cross to bear for Ralph, but he had no idea what he could do, other than clean their sores, wrap up the worst of the weeping wounds, and try, by his own example, to show how they might each hope to gain entrance into Heaven.

Three were showing no signs of accepting their fate. It was a cause of constant worry to Ralph, for his most urgent and pressing duty was to ensure that they all reached that state of grace whereby they might die at peace with God and the world. Alleviation of their pain was, when all was said and done, only a short-term issue. Their souls were the important thing.

And of them, one was most pressing of all. The other two, Thomas Rodde and Edmund Quivil, had plenty of time to learn the error of their ways and come to thank God. No, the real problem lay with old Bernard.

His speech was difficult for the monk to understand, but Ralph had learned that his life had been full of hardship, for he had once been an important soldier in the service of the King, fighting away on the Welsh Marches, before he had caught this evil canker. Now the body that had been strong and vital, which had held its own in a hundred bloody campaigns, was falling apart, eaten away from within.

Bernard had been struggling against his fate for long enough now, and he was almost ready to surrender, but not easily, and not willingly. To Bernard, life itself was the sacred essential—he simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand Ralph’s insistence that he should give himself up to God with enthusiasm. The old warrior wanted to contest every step, as if taking part in a rearguard action. But his enemy was as implacable as himself, with greater resources and powers. As Bernard failed and gradually sank, Ralph was ever more aware of Death waiting at the side of the mattress.

If only Ralph could have persuaded him to confess his sins, he would have felt that he had achieved something, but the hunched, wretched figure refused. It had now come to pass that he permitted the cleric to dress his wounds, but made it clear that he preferred the company of Rodde and Quivil at his bedside. The three of them had some kind of compact in which they all accepted their status as outcast. It was as if their very difference from the society that shunned them was itself a badge to be worn with pride.

He found it profoundly hard to talk to them and explain how dangerous their actions were. If they wanted to enjoy any peace in the afterlife, they must reject their fixation with the secular world, and prepare for Heaven. Only the week before he had suggested it to Rodde. The stranger had laughed, with a quiet, distracted air. “Look at me, Brother. Look at these sores and wounds. Do you really think that me saying to God, ”I am sorry for whatever I might have done,“ will win me a place in Heaven? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to have done to offend Him!”

“My son, His will is not for us to understand,” Ralph had answered, but he knew he was fighting the wrong battle, for he didn’t believe it himself. He wanted to; he wanted to think that the passport to Heaven was the simple acceptance of guilt, but his logical, educated brain couldn’t quite adopt it as a principle. If God Himself had chosen to cause this disease, and had selected these men to make this cruel example, Ralph had a sneaking suspicion that it was not they who should be demanding forgiveness.

Even without the certainty of conviction, Ralph carried on: “Look at all the good people around here. They all pray for you, so that you may save yourself, for they all know that a single soul saved is an unending delight to God and the angels. They want you to admit your sins to God so you can be taken to Him. They are all willing you on, for your own good. They pray for you. Can’t you confess? It would make you a great deal more comfortable.”

“You think these people are all keen to see me saved?” At that, Rodde began to laugh. “I hope, Brother, that you manage to keep your naïvety. But don’t be too depressed when you’re let down, will you?”

Ralph bit the end of his quill at the memory. He stared into the distance with a wrinkled brow before throwing the feather down with a gesture of impatience. The sad, hurt and vulnerable expression on Rodde’s face had made him want to fall at his feet and pray for him on the spot. More than other lepers, Rodde seemed to feel the hideous reality of his doom. Ralph had noticed before the signs of education, the marks of a man brought up in a higher station, and he was given to reflect how much more terrible it must be for a man who had a bright future to accept God’s judgment in this way, rather than a dull serf who could only expect hard work and a short life. It made Ralph even more sympathetic.

And Rodde’s difference was what attracted others to him. It was his learning that made Bernard ask for him. The two would whisper together about strange lands and peoples that Ralph had never heard of. They were a curious pair, the old dying man on his mattress, the younger one kneeling, gripping his ever-present staff.

Edmund Quivil was similar, in that he too couldn’t believe that he would soon be gone. He too stood apart from the other lepers in the camp, and feeling himself a rebel, naturally attached himself to Rodde and Bernard. These three comprised the incorrigibles—the ones who would never conform. Except there were only the two now. Poor Bernard had died as night fell, and soon Ralph must go and prepare the body.

He sighed. Next, he knew, it would be Joseph’s turn.

There was some kind of commotion outside, and it was intruding on his thoughts. Muttering to himself, Ralph carefully snuffed the candle—such lights were too valuable to waste—and made his way to the door.

As soon as he opened it he realized it was more serious than he had thought. Torches burned, and by their light he saw little groups of lepers standing fearfully, staring toward the gate. As Ralph gaped, he saw Rodde stumble in, falling to his knees just inside the compound. What Ralph had taken to be some kind of sack, rolled from Rodde’s back, and grunted as it hit the ground. Only then did he recognize it as Edmund Quivil.

Running over, he knelt beside the two. Touching Rodde’s shoulder, he murmured softly, “Who did this to you, my son? Who would dare?”

The eyes opened, and Rodde gave a twisted grin. “Our friends the townspeople. You remember—the ones who pray for us, and will us to find peace with God. It was them, Ralph. They found us in the street, and chose to welcome us by throwing cobbles at us. They are good friends, Brother. No doubt they will pray for us at the next mass they attend.”

16

M
argaret entered the hall at her husband’s side, and as soon as she was through the door she peered at the main table, seeking Jeanne. There was no sign of her, and Margaret hesitated when she realized Jeanne had not yet come. She was half-tempted to go and fetch the guest of honor. Simon’s grip reminded her that she couldn’t. Not in front of all these people.