Company of Liars (18 page)

You might think that with all those weeks and months of rain, England would have drowned weeks before. In Noah's day it took just forty days to wipe the face of the earth clean. And in my lifetime, which though long does not yet match the nine hundred and fifty years of Noah's life, I've seen rivers burst their banks and villages swept away after just a few hours of violent rains on to dry land. But the rain which had fallen since Midsummer's Day was neither violent nor sudden; it was steady and continuous as if the sky was a cracked bowl that was slowly leaking, dripping its contents down on to the earth below. And the earth soaked the water up, like a thick trencher of bread soaks up the juices of the meat. Rivers were swollen and dangerously fast, ditches full, water meadows turned to shallow lakes, but still it rained and still the land continued to absorb it. There comes a point, though, when even a trencher of stale bread can soak up no more. The land had taken all it could.

There was no way of knowing if the water was still rising, but we could not afford to take the chance. We couldn't risk making camp beside those flood waters. Late though it was, there was nothing for it but to turn and make our way slowly and achingly back up the hill again. Our way north was now well and truly barred. Our only hope was to slip sideways and try to work our way round by higher ground, or trust that the flood waters would eventually recede, but as long as it continued to rain there seemed little hope of that happening. Even if it did, the road and any bridges that
crossed the rivers would be washed away, making it impossible to move the wagon by that route.

‘East or west, Camelot?’

We stood at the crossroads. Rodrigo, Jofre and Osmond all favoured west, for whereas the road east appeared level and straight for as far as we could see, the road west climbed still higher and they were in favour of any direction that took them up away from the valleys. Adela shyly backed her husband.

But Zophiel, much to my surprise, wanted to go east. ‘The news in Northampton was that the pestilence has only reached as far as London on the east side and we are well to the north of that. Towns may have closed on the west, but they'll still be open to the east.’

Osmond eyed him suspiciously. ‘By towns, do you mean ports? You're not still hoping to find a ship, are you? Is that why you want to drag us all east? What is this business you have in Ireland anyway? The Irish won't have any more money than the English to waste on mermaids, not if they're cursed with this same rain.’

‘Do you have the faintest understanding of what the pestilence is, Osmond? It is a sentence of death, and not a merciful one. Do you want to watch your wife screaming in agony as she dies? Because that is what will happen if we go west.’

Adela covered her face in her hands. I glanced at Jofre. He was trembling and looked as if he was about to be sick. I knew he was thinking of his mother.

Osmond took an angry pace towards Zophiel, but I pushed between them and held up my hands.

‘Zophiel may lack tact, but what he says about the pestilence is right; we stand more chance of outstripping it on
the eastern side. And besides, the flood waters were flowing west. We'll walk straight into them again if we take the track west. I'm forced to agree with Zophiel, east is safest course on both counts, just until we can find another road north to the shrines at York and Knaresborough. Pleasance, what do you say?’

By way of an answer, Pleasance pointed at Narigorm who crouched on her haunches in the centre of the crossroads. Three runes lay in front of her. Her hand hovered briefly above them, then she scooped them up and thrust them back into her pouch.

‘We go east,’ she said simply, as if she was a queen ordering her troops to march.

‘Do you hear that, Adela?’ Zophiel said. ‘The runes direct us east.’

Though Zophiel had hitherto dismissed Narigorm's readings, like my relics, as nothing more than chicanery to fleece the gullible of their money, he was not above using them to support his argument when they worked in his favour.

‘And I think we can take it that Pleasance will go wherever her little mistress commands. So since there are eight of us, we are evenly split. Therefore we –’

‘There are nine,’ Narigorm cut in, her tone as matter of fact as before. ‘We are complete. There are nine, so now we go east.’

Zophiel looked slightly taken aback by this interruption, then laughed. ‘I take it the child counts Xanthus as one of us. Well, why not, since she has to pull us whichever way we go.’ He let go of the horse's head and taking a step back, gave her a mocking bow. ‘Xanthus, you shall decide. Which way?’

The horse, as if she understood what was being asked of
her, stepped sideways and began to turn the wagon on to the eastern path.

‘You don't know what you're gabbing about, you great lummox.’ The old man scowled at his son and shuffled closer to the fire, crouching on the edge of the low wooden stool.

Old Walter and his son Abel had been welcoming enough, sharing their hearth with us, glad of the food that we offered them in exchange. Theirs was a simple cottage, but warm and dry, with a thin wattle partition dividing the family's living quarters from the warm, steaming bodies of their cattle who shared the dwelling. A ladder led to a platform up in the rafters where the hay was stored and the women and children had once slept. The old man's wife was long dead and his daughters were married and gone to their husbands' families, so son and father were all that remained and, like a long-married couple, they got along by bickering. It was an old and comforting habit, and even the presence of strangers did not change it.

‘Vampires aren't spreading the pestilence,’ Old Walter continued. ‘For vampires to go around biting everyone, there'd have to be as many vampires as there are midges and if there were swarms of bloody great vampires flying round the towns and villages, someone would have seen them by now. It's not vampires, it's Jews, everyone knows that. They're in league with the Saracens, the Jews, always have been. The Lionheart said as much when he was king. They want to murder us all. They're poisoning the wells. You get a whole street of people fall sick on one night, stands to reason it's got to be the water from their well that poisoned them.’

Abel glared back at him. He wore the same habitual frown
as his father. ‘Well, that just proves you're talking out of your arse as usual, you old pisspot, because there aren't any Jews in England. Not been for nigh on sixty years since the King's grandfather banished them. I bet you've never even seen a Jew, you old fool.’

Zophiel's drawl broke in on the argument. ‘Actually, your father may well have seen a Jew or two in his time.’

‘There, see, I told you.’ The old man triumphantly slapped his thigh. ‘He's been around, haven't you, sir? He knows a thing or two.’

Abel flushed, furious at being contradicted. ‘Aye, well, he may have seen Jews in France or some such place, but you've not been further than our field strips in your life. If you've seen them, they must've been lurking in the ditch along with the boggarts and goblins you always reckon you've seen on your way home from the ale house.’

Zophiel smiled his cold, humourless smile. ‘The ditches and gutters are certainly where they deserve to be, but I'm afraid they are far too cunning for that. King Edward, though he did well to banish them, made a grave mistake by not killing the vermin outright. A dead Jew is visible, but I fear a living one is not, and they have a way of wriggling in among the God-fearing Christians, like mice in a tithe barn, and breeding there until the time comes for them to strike. They didn't all flee England; some chose to convert and stay. But their conversions were false, for how can a Christ-killer who's damned before birth ever become a true Christian? They practised their religion in secret, spitting on the host and making a mockery of the sacraments.’

The young man was still anxious to defend himself. ‘That's as may be, but so what if a few did remain? Those who are still alive must be older than this old fool and he's so old he can't even piss straight, never mind brew a deadly
poison and put it down a well without anyone seeing. There's no proof they've poisoned anybody.’

Zophiel looked triumphant. ‘Ah, but there is, my young friend; many a Jew in France has been brought to trial and found guilty of causing the pestilence by poisoning the wells. They've freely admitted their guilt under torture and –’

‘The Archbishop of Canterbury would claim his own mother was a black cockerel and he was in league with the devil if the question was put to him under torture, as would we all,’ I said.

But Zophiel continued as if I had not spoken. ‘And have been justly executed for their heinous crimes. So, if the pestilence is proved to be their doing in France, how can the same malady have a different cause in England? No, the cause is plain enough, but here it will be harder to root them out and bring them to the bonfires. We must all be vigilant and on our guard for any who might be hiding amongst us.’

Adela, looking thoroughly alarmed, shrank against Osmond and buried her face in his shoulder. The gesture pleased him, for it seemed to signal that the quarrel of the night before was finally forgotten. He seized the opportunity to show her he was on her side.

‘As usual, Zophiel, you've succeeded in upsetting Adela. When will you learn to keep your malicious thoughts to yourself?’

Zophiel looked anything but repentant. ‘I merely point out the facts. If you have married a woman whose mind is so weak that she has to be constantly shielded from reality, that's your problem, but you really cannot expect the rest of us to tiptoe around her pretending that the clouds are made of cream, in case we upset her. Or is she afraid that someone might take her for a Jew?’

At that, even old Walter looked startled. ‘She's no Jew.
Jews have got dark hair and hooked noses. I've seen them in the paintings on the church walls. Shifty-looking creatures they are, you'd spot them a mile off. She's a lovely lass, look at her, fair as our Lord himself.’

Adela smiled wanly at him as he leaned towards her, giving her a big lecherous wink, but she was still visibly trembling and Osmond, as usual, seemed torn between comforting her and wanting to punch Zophiel.

I tried to put an end to the bickering. ‘Pleasance, have you some of that poppy syrup that you gave Adela before, the potion that helps her to sleep?’

But Pleasance didn't appear to have heard me. She was staring wide-eyed at Zophiel, looking as terrified as Adela. I heaved myself up and on the pretext of handing Pleasance her pack, drew her away from the fire.

‘Take no notice, Pleasance. There are neither Jews nor vampires lurking here. People are frightened. They can't fight a miasma, so they create an enemy to fight. It makes them feel less helpless. Though in Zophiel's case, I don't think he believes a word of it; he just says it because he enjoys an argument. Why don't you find Adela that poppy syrup, see if we can't calm her down a bit before Osmond takes it into his head to start a fist-fight with Zophiel?’

Pleasance gave a weak smile and bent over her pack, but her hands were trembling as she struggled to undo the leather fastenings. She pushed the pack away and fled to the door.

‘I left the syrup in the wagon,’ she mumbled, and ran out of the door without even pausing to shut it behind her.

Narigorm stared after her, a curious expression on her face, as if she had just remembered something. Then she folded her arms and began rocking on her bottom, like a small child hugging a great secret.

‘Born in a barn, was she?’ Abel grumbled, getting up to close the door, but before he reached it we heard a scream outside the cottage. Snatching up a stout staff, Abel bounded through the door, followed closely by Rodrigo and more slowly by Osmond who had first to prise Adela's hand from his arm.

There was the sound of a scuffle and a cry of, ‘Oh, no, you don't, my lad.’ Then Abel and Rodrigo returned, dragging a struggling figure between them, immobilized by a cloak which had been wound tightly over his head and arms. Osmond followed hard on their heels, his arm supporting Pleasance, who was clearly shaken. Abel slammed the door and swung the heavy brace across it before turning to face the figure under the cloak, still firmly in the grip of Rodrigo.

‘Now, my lad, let's be having a look at you.’ He stepped forward to pull the cloak away, but I knew who it was before the face was unmasked. There was no mistaking the purple of that cloak.

10. Cygnus

‘So we've caught a murderer,’ Zophiel said triumphantly. ‘You'll hang, boy, or worse, when the sheriff gets hold of you, and he will, make no mistake about that, for there'll be a price on your head which will come in very handy for us all in these hard times.’

‘If anyone's going to claim the bounty for him, it'll be me and him.’ Abel indicated Rodrigo with a jerk of his head. ‘We're the ones who caught him. You sat on your arse by the fire, too scared to come outside in case there was any real fighting.’ Abel had not forgiven Zophiel for contradicting him.

‘I'm no murderer,’ the swan-boy interrupted desperately. ‘I never touched that child. I never laid eyes on her again after I spoke to her in the market place.’