[Sir Richard Straccan 03] - The Gleemaiden Read online

  He stared at the dregs in his cup. There was another thing — the guilty knowledge that this was all his fault, that the loss of Janiva and the suffering she had undergone was because of him. Two summers ago in Wales he’d challenged Lord William de Breos (whom the Welsh, who knew him best, named ‘the Butcher’) to battle on holy ground, violating Sanctuary. He made no excuse. He’d known full well what he did and how grave the sin; his intention was to kill, and the fact that things hadn’t turned out that way made no difference. Afterwards he’d sought absolution, but his confessor held the matter too serious to pardon without consulting his bishop — an everyday, if costly, business, if it had not been for the Interdict.

  For four years England had lain under the Pope’s ban — its people cut off from the benefits and graces of Holy Church: no Mass, no sacraments, no bells, no burials in holy ground — all because King John refused to accept as Archbishop of Canterbury a man whom the Pope was determined to force upon him. Caught between papal displeasure and the king’s wrath, every bishop in England save one had fled into exile, and until the Interdict was lifted — which looked like being never — there were no bishops to consult. Until there were, Straccan must carry his burden of sin unabsolved, and he and all those dear to him would be the worse for it.

  That was the trouble with sin, he thought morosely. It wasn’t just the guilty who paid the price.

  He touched the paternoster beads he wore under his collar, but felt no comfort, just desolation. Was this it, then? Time to give up and go home? Time to stop this fruitless waste of love and life and spirit. He had failed. It wasn’t fair to his daughter or his people, and it was time he came to his senses. He would go to York, leave word for Bane to follow, go home, and take up his abandoned life. The joyless prospect stretched ahead, every bit as unappealing as his present situation.

  God's precious blood, he swore to himself. What was he doing, sitting staring into a common clay cup as though he might find his answer there? Go to bed, fool! He banged the cup down on the board, startling the pot boy from his puppy-like doze in the warm ashes. What was the alternative? Was he to search the kingdom for the rest of his life until he grew gaunt with age, white-haired like some old madman from the tales of King Arthur’s court, cursed to wear out his life on a hopeless quest?

  Yes, if I have to!

  It was late; the pilgrims were snoring, and as Straccan started to get up, yawning and ready for bed, the sleepy pot boy jumped up too.

  ‘More ale, me lord?’

  He lifted the jug, but Straccan turned his empty cup upside down to show he wanted no more… and stood like an image, staring, unbelieving, at the bottom of the cup, at the mark scratched in the clay.

  Hauled from his warm bed and his wife’s embrace, the innkeeper struggled futilely in Straccan’s grip.

  ‘Put me down, you mad sod! Let go! Oh, it’s you, me lord — what’s up?’

  Straccan dragged the wriggling man to the dim light of a rush lantern hooked up beside the door, and shoved the little cup under his nose.

  ‘Look, there! What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a cup.’

  ‘Not that! That! See? What is it?’

  The man squinted at the cup’s base. ‘What, you mean the potter’s mark?’

  Chapter Three

  Tobias the potter, staying at his sister’s house in Richmond, was enjoying a lie-in — well, he had sod all else to do — when the stranger knight arrived on his enormous horse, with his enormous sword and his questions. Roused untimely from his pallet and shown one of his own cups, Tobias owned that yes, that was his mark, he scratched it on all his wares for luck; and yes, he knew the place the stranger wanted, it was his home, Pouncey. No, the stranger would never find it, it was a hidden place, Pouncey; and no, he didn’t want to turn out in the cold. Look at the sky! It could still snow.

  ‘I winter here, master. I don’t go home till April.’

  ‘I’ll pay.’

  Behind the knight’s back Tobias saw his sister grimacing and nodding frantically at him, urging him with gestures to grab this heaven-sent opportunity. It had been a bad season. The shed outside where Nan normally kept her goats was stacked high with unsold pots and cups, as well as housing his donkey and cart, which meant the goats had to share the bedchamber. Nan had no objection on hygiene grounds, but the animals ate the straw pallets. Also Tobias’s cart needed a new wheel, and the donkey was eating its head off, with fodder at a shocking price.

  ”Ow much?’

  ‘How far is it?’

  ‘To Pouncey? Forty mile.’

  ‘A shilling a day.’

  That was riches, but the potter was on to a good thing here and well aware of it.

  ‘I’d like to help you, master, really I would, but I can’t just leave all my stock here. S’pose it come to harm, then where’d I be?’

  ‘I’ll buy it,’ said Straccan.

  ‘What, all of it?’

  ‘Yes, but only if you come now.'

  ‘I ain’t had me breakfast yet!’

  ‘I’ll hire a horse for you. Break your fast, and be ready when I get back.’

  * * *

  Three days later Straccan was staring up at the double-branched slash in the face of the great shelved cliff rampart known as Pouncey Edge. He’d never dreamed it could be so big. The cliff rose in three steps — the lower two well wooded — and was watered by narrow falls that cascaded from step to step to the river below. The upright stave of the vein of exposed quartz, silvery white against the grey-black granite, must measure full forty feet from top to bottom. The Edge seemed to scrape the clouds, and the granite bastion ran five miles from east to west. Gazing, awed, Straccan wondered how anything so vast could remain such a secret.

  Tobias, who’d never ridden a horse before and reckoned distances by donkey, pouched his three shillings with a sense of disappointment. He’d been hoping for at least four, maybe even five, and didn’t consider three adequate compensation for his sore backside. If he never saw another bloody horse it would be too soon. When he’d shown Straccan the well- camouflaged beginning of the cliff path, he headed home, where his wife relieved him of the three shillings and set him to mucking out the pig. He wished he’d stayed in Richmond. Goats weren’t as sticky as pigs.

  The narrow path led upwards through stunted pines, an easy climb at first, but it got harder. Straccan, who spent most of his time on horseback, found it hard going, and by the time he emerged from the dwarfish forest that clothed the lower part of the cliff on to a rock ledge some forty feet wide, he was sadly out of breath.

  It was bitterly cold and getting dark. There was a stone wall enclosing a winter-gnawed garden, and at the other end of the ledge a small stone house, built right against the cliff face. His throat was tight, and his heart thumping so hard it shook his body.

  Twelve strides on shaking legs took him to the door, and as he raised his hand to knock, it was opened.

  It wasn’t Janiva. He stared at the tiny crone, shawled in a wolf pelt, regarding him with brilliant blue eyes that seemed far too large for her wrinkled-apple face. She smiled.

  ‘You’ve come a long way, lad.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought… You’re not… She isn’t here.’

  ‘No, she ain’t, if you mean Janiva. You’ll be that knight of hers. Better come in, I suppose. It ain’t much, but better than freezin’.’

  He stepped inside, dismay and hope warring within him. ‘Where is she? Please, my lady —’

  ‘Osyth’s my name, lad. Sit down and eat.’

  There was a table and two benches. He sat down. There was a fire in a natural rock cleft which formed the back wall of this strange house, and a mouth-watering savoury smell rose from the pot hanging over the flames. Against the walls were two narrow box-beds heaped with quilts. There was food on the board — a honeycomb in a dish, a pile of little flat loaves, a round of cheese — but what made his heart leap almost into his throat was the jug on the table holding sprigs of bright-be
rried holly and trailing tendrils of ivy. Just so had he seen holly and ivy decorating Janiva’s table at Shawl! She was here!

  ‘Lady Osyth—’

  ‘Later, lad, later.’ She took a red clay bowl from the hearth and dipped it in the cauldron, setting before Straccan a stew fragrant with herbs, lavish with chicken, and glittering with little golden globules of rich fat.

  ‘That’ll warm your blood,’ the crone said. ‘Eat your fill, there’s plenty more.’

  ‘Where’s Janiva?’ Straccan asked. ‘I know she’s here.’

  ‘She was here.’

  The shock of disappointment lanced through him like a spear of ice. He jumped up, knocking the bench over backwards. Suddenly aware that he was cold through and through, cold to the bone, he stammered, ‘W-where’s she gone?’

  ‘She was called to… well, to help some folk with their trouble. And if I tell you where, you’ll go after her, and that won’t help what she has to do. Leave her be to do what she must.’

  ‘What trouble?’

  ‘Morthwork, lad. You know what that is?’

  He knew what it was all right. Sorcery, necromancy, the magic of ill! Fear for Janiva jetted acid into his empty belly, but before he could say anything more Osyth’s tiny, wrinkled hand touched his, and instantly a spreading warmth coursed through his body. He looked down into her face. He’d never seen such eyes, so blue, so deep, so calm. He had no wish to look away. Under their tranquil gaze his fear, shock, disappointment and the iron-hard stiffness of the long journey drained out of him, leaving a wonderfully comfortable lassitude and sense of well-being. He had a job remembering what he’d been going to say, but with an effort, managed it.

  ‘Is she in danger?’ But the notion of danger seemed unreal, like a dream fading into forgetfulness.

  ‘She’s strong, she’ll manage,’ said Osyth. ‘Understand, she wants to do this. Sit now, and eat before it gets cold.’

  Obediently he sat, and the old woman sat opposite him, her elbows on the board and her chin resting on her clasped hands. Still the fathomless eyes held his.

  ‘What d’you expect of her, I wonder?’ the old woman said. He heard her clearly, and yet he hadn’t seen her lips move, had he? ‘Wife and lover, bed-mate, mother of your sons, is that what she would go to at that place of yours? What’s it called, Stirrup? Funny name.’

  ‘It was the rent,’ Straccan found himself explaining. ‘Back in King Edward’s time the rent was a gilded stirrup, every Lady Day.’ He felt a mild surprise at the inconsequential matter of their talk, but was far too warm and easy in his body to be concerned about it.

  ‘Fancy,’ said Osyth, refilling his bowl. ‘Just one stirrup? Well, I s’pose your old king would have had a pair for himself after the first two years. Why don’t you dunk some o’ that bread in it, lad; it’ll stick to your ribs better. What about your daughter, eh? What’s she thinkin’ o’ this?’

  ‘Gilla? She loves Janiva,’ he heard himself saying. ‘We want her to come home.’

  ‘Been watchin’ this place, your Gilla, ain’t she? I’ve felt her. But it’s shielded. She could see the rune, o’ course, that’s older’n me and stronger by far — I can’t shield that — but she couldn’t see Janiva, or me. What took you so long gettin’ here?’

  He told her something of the past year, the towns and villages, the false hopes, the false trails, the cold settling-in of despair. Odd — there was the taste of honey in his mouth, although he hadn’t been aware of eating it, and he saw with surprise that his bowl and the platters on the table were empty, except for crumbs. He reached out a finger and touched the blood-red berries in the jug.

  ‘Janiva put these here.’ And only now did he realise: holly berries still red in March?

  ‘Listen to me, lad. Janiva needs more than a man in her bed, more than house an’ childer and to be called “my lady”. She’s come into her power since you saw her last. She ain’t the same. She has work to do, and if your love’ll be holdin’ her back, holdin’ her down, then best you go back the way you come, now. Get on that big ginger horse and forget this place. Forget it, and go home.’

  ‘No,’ Straccan said. ‘It’s not like that at all. She’s a free woman. She’ll be no less free when she’s my wife.’

  ‘If that’s true, you’ll have to let her go sometimes. When she looks at you and says, “This I must do,” are you man enough to trust her?’

  He was drowning in a blue lake, and it was, as he’d once been told, a painless death. He was aware of someone clasping his hand, but he didn’t want to be pulled out, he was quite happy where he was. A hand touched his forehead.

  ‘Wake up, lad,’ said Osyth. ‘Fire and food’ve made you sleepy. It was a good idea o’ yours, the garden. She’ll like that. You’ll do, I reckon.’

  Straccan felt strangely light-headed, as though his thoughts had been picked out, scoured, and put back. He must have fallen asleep! He hadn’t realised just how tired he was. Had he been talking about the garden in his sleep? ‘How did you—’ he began.

  ‘Best you sleep here tonight,’ the old woman said, brushing crumbs into the fire. ‘Go home tomorrow.’

  ‘But Janiva—’

  ‘You been looking a long time. Let be, now. See to your own affairs. When she’s ready, she’ll let you know.’

  ‘What d’you mean? How?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you. But she will.’ She stooped and picked up a large jug from the floor. ‘Make yourself useful, lad. The spring’s at the end of the garth; fill this for me, will you?’

  He took the jug and went outside. It was getting dark. Wait a minute. He turned, looked back at the door, puzzling. What just happened? Time passed strangely in that little house. He’d been in there with the old anchoress for an hour at least, he must have been; he’d eaten a good meal and was warm all through, and yet the sky was no darker, and the shadows that lay across the garth were still in the same place as when Osyth first opened the door.

  * * *

  Countess Judith reached the northern outskirts of London — how it had spread since she was last there! — on Saint Alphege’s day in the forenoon, and rested at the priory of Saint John the Baptist while her chamberlain rode ahead through the city and over the new bridge, the wonder of the world, to warn her brother of her imminent arrival.

  ‘Did you see him? What did he say?’ she demanded when the man returned. Her gimlet stare bored into his skull.

  ‘His Grace waits eagerly to bid you welcome, my lady,’ her chamberlain replied, wooden-faced. What His Grace had actually said, with the look of a man whose blood has just run cold, was, ‘My sister? Coming here? Now? Merde!' But the chamberlain was a diplomat at heart.

  And indeed, when the countess and her retinue reached Southwark and Winchester House, the bishop’s welcome left nothing to be desired. Her servants would have to sleep huddled together in the straw in the great hall along with the lesser beings who made up the bishop’s household, but the guest quarters hastily prepared for the countess were fit for a queen; and queens, indeed, had stayed there. There was even a bathtub in the bedchamber, a novelty which confirmed Judith’s worst suspicions: London was a sink of iniquity and decadence. She would have to keep a strict eye on her servants, lest they become corrupted.

  * * *

  Straccan met Bane in York on Saint Longinus’ day, and they rode home together. Straccan spoke little, deep in his thoughts, and Bane knew when to keep quiet. They reached Stirrup on the eve of Saint Alcmund.

  Gilla met him at the gate. Straccan hadn’t seen her since the autumn; she was taller, and the slight, girlish body was rounding into the delicious curves of young womanhood. Her likeness to her dead mother took his breath away.

  She wasn’t surprised that he had come back without Janiva. ‘I saw you coming,’ she said, ‘in the candle flame. Just you and Bane. But Janiva’s all right, I know she is, and she will come, when she’s ready.’

  So Osyth had said, and now Gilla; and he must believe it.

/>   The weeks Straccan had been away had seen plenty of activity at Stirrup. His steward reported all well: last summer’s hay crop had been disappointing, spoiled by rain, but the cattle and sheep had grazed the new growth, the latter-math, and done well on it. The wool clip had been better than expected. Wheat and barley had recovered after the rains, and there’d been a decent harvest. They’d not need to buy any grain, and with wheat at three shillings a bushel and barley at two, that was a blessing, especially as they’d had to pay a high price for salt that winter, for with not enough hay, more beasts had been killed and salted than they’d hoped.

  Stirrup was a well-nigh self-sufficient estate, manor house, farmland, woodland and village; the workers all free, no villeins or bondmen. As free men they could of course bear arms. Indeed it was their duty to learn the rudiments of fighting in case the king should ever need to call on them, and Odo, the captain of the manor’s small force of archers, an ex-soldier who hated to see good material go to waste, had trained men and boys in the use of pike and bow, as well as a useful bit of decidedly dirty unarmed combat, in case any fool should be taken unawares without even his knife to hand.

  The manor house was an unconventional building on the same plan as the Roman villa that had once stood there. Stables, tack room, mews, storerooms, office, hall and chapel were arranged in a square enclosing a central yard, with the kitchen a separate building in the yard, next to the well. The main gate was guarded by a modern watchtower, and an old cracked bell gave warning of any approach.

  It was an odd household, too, gathered by Straccan from many places and situations. His steward, Cammo, had been a prisoner chained on the bench beside him in a Saracen galley, years before. He had married Adeliza, Straccan’s housekeeper. The clerk, Peter Martel, who looked after Straccan’s business affairs in his absence, had served his father. Hawkan Bane had been locked in a pillory when Straccan first saw him, which might be thought an unlikely recommendation for a servant; but Bane had become more friend than servant and had been Straccan’s companion in many unorthodox adventures.