The Gallows Curse Page 4

  Raffe turned back to the open chest. He pulled at the corpse, bending low so that he could heave the body over his broad shoulder, then staggered across the room and deposited him on the wooden table, carefully easing the head down on to the boards so that it did not thump on the wood. He crossed the arms over the body, and slid a large crucifix between the waxen fingers. Now that rigor had worn off, the face looked at peace, as if a terrible burden had been lifted from him. Their plan had surely worked; here was proof of it.

  It had been more than a week since Sir Gerard had fallen ill of a fever. For days he had been racked with vomiting and the flux. He'd writhed in agony from the violent pains in his gut and his belly was so distended that it seemed the skin would burst open like rotten fruit if anyone so much as touched it. It was as if a demon had crawled inside him and was tearing his entrails apart from within.

  For days Lady Anne had sat by his bedside, not daring to move, for the physician had warned her that her son could be taken from her at any hour. The worst of it was Gerard had known he was dying. Each time he was roused from his delirium he had grasped his mother's arm, begging for them to bring a priest. 'I must have . . . absolution ... I must. . . confess.'

  Raffe had turned away, slamming his fist against the stone wall in frustration. How far off was the nearest priest — four days, a week? Men had been sent in every direction to find one. But the servants who returned all told the same story. Church after church was boarded up and locked, the priests banished or fled before they could be seized by the king's men.

  God's teeth, why hadn't Gerard died on the battlefield along with the thousands of others whose bones were even now bleaching under the burning desert sun? Priests were not needed there. The Pope had sworn that anyone who died fighting under the Holy Cross would die with all his sins absolved. Yet even so, every man in that army had prayed each dawn that they would still be alive to see the sunset over

  Acre, and at every sunset they begged their God that they might live to see another dawn. Be careful what you pray for, Gerard had once told him. It was a lesson they both should have heeded.

  Gerard had vomited, blood pouring from his mouth, the twisting muscles of his stomach screaming in protest. He lay back on the bed, shivering and sweating with the effort. 'There's ... no priest coming, is there?' he gasped, gritting his teeth as the pain welled up again. 'Raffe . . . you can't let me die in my sin. We swore to each other . . .'

  Anne clasped her son's hand to her face, her tears wetting his skin. 'My son, there's no man more honourable than you. No man who has ever made his mother more proud of her son. You've lived a pure life, fought in the Holy Wars. Those few venial sins you may have committed since must surely be outweighed by that. I promise you that I will pray day and night for your soul, and when the Interdict is lifted, which it must be soon, then we will have Masses said for —'

  Gerard seized her wrist. 'Prayers will not be enough . . . I have to confess ... we did a terrible thing... Raffe knows ... I cannot die with it upon me. I shall be carried straight to hell.' His eyes rolled back in his head as if he no longer had control over any part of his body.

  Raffe lumbered across to his friend's side. Clumsily he knelt beside him, seizing his other hand.

  'Open your eyes, man! You can't sleep yet.' He shook Gerard, trying to force him to stay in this world, as you would pummel a drunk to keep him awake. Raffe wanted to scream at him — If you die there will be only me to carry it. You can't leave me alone with this. But although the words were written in his eyes, he dared not utter them aloud.

  It was like holding on to the hand of a man who was hanging over the side of a cliff. Raffe could feel the life slipping away, as if the dangling man's fingers were sliding inexorably out of his grasp. This was his dearest friend, the man who had rescued him from the abject shame and misery of a mutilated life, the master who had raised him to companion and steward. They had protected each other in battle so often that they had long since forgotten who was in whose debt. And that night, a night that for ever haunted both of them, had bound them together with chains forged from a horror that was stronger than any affinity of family blood.

  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.

  Quarter Day of the Waxing Moon,

  December 1210

  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 Fetch

  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 calling 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.

  So the fragments of precious time she and Athan had been able to spend together had been snatched in barns and byres or in the dark corners behind the manor. They clung to each other, drinking in the smell of each other's skins and the heat of their bodies, alternating fierce kisses with whispered conversations. But all the time they were constantly on the alert for the sound of approaching feet and the ribald taunts of the other servants that would follow if they were discovered alone together.

  When they did meet, they spoke mostly of the baby. To hear Athan talk you'd think no man had ever accomplished such a miracle before. It was all Elena could do to stop him crowing his prowess to everyone in the village.

  'It's only been four months. Wait just a few more weeks,' Elena had begged him, 'till we've a bit more put by.'

  The tiring maid she replaced had been sent packing the moment Lady Anne discovered she was with child. Elena had no illusions abo
ut being kept on once the news got out and she had no wish to return to the fields in her condition, not in the winter freeze.

  'Besides, there's your mam to think of,' Elena had reminded him.

  Athan had flushed to the roots of his sandy hair. 'She's always wanted a grand-bairn . . . She'll be happy as a fishmonger's cat when it's born,' he added, though it sounded more like a desperate prayer than a certain belief.

  'Aye, she'll want the bairn all right,' Elena said, 'but not with me as its mam.'

  The whole village knew that Joan regarded any woman under the age of seventy who so much as looked at her son as a wicked temptress hell-bent on snatching her boy's affections from her, and any girl who did succeed in ensnaring him would earn Joan's undying enmity.

  Athan grimaced. 'I know Mam's tongue is a mite on the sharp side, but she doesn't mean it, and when she sees you with our bairn in your arms ...' He trailed off — even he couldn't finish that lie. 'Anyway, who cares what Mam wants?' He pulled Elena close to him. 'I want you, that's all that matters.'