‘Well, my Edith,’ the blacksmith hastily explained. ‘Why was she killed? Why were these corpses drained of blood?’
‘Perhaps you should ask the Preacher?’ Rahere joked.
The assembled men and women laughed self-consciously.
‘And what about the boy?’ Scrivener Mapp pointed at Matthias. ‘I mean, when you go, sir?’
‘Oh, he’ll come with me.’
Matthias hid his surprise but he found it easy to do so. Over the last few weeks he’d grown more secretive: he had already decided that, if the clerk left, he would not stay, though where he would go was, until now, unresolved.
‘Will you stay long?’ Piers the ploughman asked.
His voice was anxious though he forced a smile. He and the other men were becoming increasingly concerned by this handsome, elegant clerk’s attraction for their women. Rahere leant his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers over the lower half of his face.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he declared. ‘I’ll stay until Samhain evening. Yes, to the Eve of the Feast of All Saints.’ He chuckled deep in his throat. ‘I promise you, it will be a Samhain that will be remembered for years!’
9
In the scriptorium of Tewkesbury Abbey, the Chronicler did not know how to describe the horrifying events which occurred at Sutton Courteny in the autumn of 1471. The old monk scratched the quill against his face. He had talked to his brothers. Baron Sanguis had arranged for the survivors to be brought into the abbey where he’d met them in the refectory. They were all white-faced, haggard-eyed. Some were uncertain, others too shocked. A few had lost their reason, wandering in their own black pit of madness. Those who could speak mentioned the meeting in the taproom on 14 September, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Rahere the clerk was there, laughing and courteous. He generously bought stoups of ale and goblets of wine for the villagers when they met to prepare for All-Hallows and the Feast of Samhain Eve.
Samhain was the night when the door between this world and the other was thrown open and the spirits of the dead were allowed to wander the world. The villagers agreed to a great feast being held at the Hungry Man tavern. Work on the land would pause. Cattle would be sheltered in preparation for winter. They would deck their houses with the branches of rowan and elder. Of course, they would also light bonfires around the village, as was ancient custom, to keep the evil spirits away. The villagers were relaxed and happy. The evils which had oppressed them since the death of the hermit seemed to have been lifted. True, Parson Osbert wandered his churchyard like a madcap, keening over poor Christina’s grave, but his boy seemed in good spirits, now looked after by Rahere the clerk. The villagers had grown accustomed to seeing him around the Hungry Man.
Matthias, however, kept his own counsel. His mind was confused. He still could not understand or accept his mother’s death, whilst his father had become a dishevelled, wild-eyed stranger, neglecting his duties, lost in mourning for his dead wife. Rahere, however, kept the boy busy. They’d go out into the woods where Matthias would show off his forest lore whilst Rahere introduced him to the secrets of the Chancery and filled his mind with vivid stories about the King’s gorgeous court. He even hinted that Matthias might become a clerk, attend the abbey school and, if he showed wit and sharp intelligence, enter the schools of Oxford and become a master of learning. Matthias nodded when he heard this. He felt oppressed by Sutton Courteny. The villagers were strangers and he did secretly worry what would happen to him if Rahere abruptly left.
Autumn made itself felt. Cold winds blew along the Severn, stripping the trees of their leaves: these were cold, hard, bleak days under an iron-grey sky. If the villagers thought their troubles were over, they were mistaken. Simon the reeve’s was the first tragic death. He was out ploughing in the great open fields, his boy walking behind him, scattering the marauding crows with his slingshot. Simon leant on the great plough and watched the iron hook rip open the dark brown soil. Simon liked this part of the year, when the earth opened to receive new seed. Yet, today, he felt uneasy. The trees which bordered the field had now lost their leaves in a violent wind storm a week before. They stood like sombre grey sentinels. The reeve was sure someone was watching him. Simon paused and scratched his head. He had drunk too deeply the night before but that was because he was worried. His young wife, Elizabeth, she with her black hair and warm, brown skin, merry eyes and kissing mouth, seemed a little too fond of the arrogant young clerk Rahere. Simon had heard whispers: how Elizabeth was absenting herself from the home for this reason or that, going hither and thither, with no real explanation or excuse.
‘I really should question her,’ he muttered to himself.
Elizabeth was his second wife, much younger than he, and Simon was cunning enough to realise that there was nothing more amusing to everyone than a man showing his cuckold’s horns. He grasped the handle of the plough and savagely whipped the ox. But, if it was true. .?
Behind him, the boy was whistling. Simon wished to be alone.
‘Go back to the house!’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘Go to Elizabeth and tell her to bring me some bread, cheese and a jug of ale. If she’s not there, find out where she is!’
The boy ceased his whistling. He could see his father was angry. Moreover, Simon was free with his fists when he lost his temper, so the boy loped across the furrow like a hare, quietly planning that he would take as long as he could. Simon returned to his ploughing. He could not bear the thought of Elizabeth playing the wanton with that young fop from London. Elizabeth was a merry bed companion: her legs wrapped round him, Simon enjoyed her smooth, slim body writhing beneath his, her face twisted into pleasure, her mouth urging him on. What if the clerk had experienced these pleasures?
The oxen suddenly stopped. Simon looked up. It was late in the afternoon and a mist was beginning to seep in through the trees. He brought his small whip down across the oxen’s rumps but the animals didn’t move. Simon sighed and undid the cords around his waist. Perhaps the great blade of the plough was stuck. He stepped between the plough and the oxen, crouching down to dig at the earth, then he heard the whistling. Simon remembered that tune. He’d heard it before, but where? The whistling grew clearer. The reeve remembered. It was the song the hermit had sung from the fire!
Simon stood up and looked over the heads of the oxen. A figure was moving towards him out of the mist, a man hooded and cowled. Simon blinked. He could not understand it. The figure was not walking but gliding, its feet not touching the ground. The figure drew closer. The oxen grew restless. Simon’s heart began to beat faster as the figure pulled back the cavernous cowl. Simon moaned in fear.
‘It can’t be!’ he whispered, making the sign of the cross against the evil one. The figure was the hermit, the man he had seen burnt to death! Now he was coming to greet him, eyes staring, mouth open in a fixed smile. Simon crouched down behind the oxen like a child, believing it was all a figment of his imagination. The oxen moved back. Simon gave a terrible scream which grew to a groan of strangled terror as the oxen then lurched forward. They dragged the plough out of the soil. Simon was knocked flat. He tried to roll but, in his panic, exposed his neck and the sharp iron blade cut deep into his throat. When Elizabeth and the boy arrived an hour later, they found the oxen still terrified. They’d moved backwards and forwards in terror and, in doing so, had turned Simon’s corpse into a bloody, mangled heap.
Three days later Joscelyn climbed up on to the roof of the Hungry Man tavern. He was angry. He could not believe that tiles, freshly laid the previous spring, had grown loose, allowing rainwater to seep into the garrets. Joscelyn was determined that he would not pay good silver for the tiler to make a second mistake: this time he would do it himself. He ignored his wife’s protests and climbed to the very top of the sloping roof. He edged along, looking for the loose tile. When he found it, he gave a shout of exclamation.
‘The bastard!’ he muttered.
The tiler had laid it wrongly and the slate had slipped, knocking others loose. Joscelyn stretched out, leaning precariously down. He heard a flutter of wings and looked up. A raven, black feathery wings extended, was gliding through the air towards him. Joscelyn raised his hand to fend off those cruel claws aiming straight for his face. He lost his balance, slid down the roof and fell from the tavern. He should have survived the fall but his head came down: it hit the sharp iron bar near the front door of his tavern where travellers scraped the mud off their boots. The iron sliced deep and Joscelyn died immediately.
