alley where he had seen the woman in gray. Something about it made him pause and frown.
It gaped like the maw of an evil creature, long and noisome as a dragon’s gullet. But like prey beguiled by a tempting bait, he found himself lingering. The alley was a twisting black tunnel, in which sound was altered and the senses dulled. Here lived the poorer people of the town: those who could not afford the cosseted lifestyle of the merchants and priests farther out from the center. The tradesmen had their own rooms over or behind their shops, the smiths and carpenters above their workshops, but here, in the reeking corridor between tightly packed houses, were the families of the others who made the town what it was: tanners and curers; weavers and dyers; cooks and servants for the merchants’ houses-all lived thrown together in as few short feet as possible for warmth and defense. The smell of unwashed bodies, urine, rotting flesh and vegetation from the sewer mingled with that of roasting meat and stews to form a stench which assaulted his nostrils and made him curl his lip in revulsion.
Then he froze, peering intently. There had been a scuffle and muted cry. It was not the swift skitter of a frightened rat, but a kind of shuffling and slithering. Nervously wetting his lips, he stepped in to the alley.
In the dead interior, the sound of his footsteps changed. Rather than the solid, confident ringing of his boots on the cobbles near the market, now his feet sloshed and slapped in the puddles left by people emptying bowls and bedpans. At this time of night those who lived in the alley were all in their beds, and Simon could see nobody. All he was aware of was the light above, where the moon and stars stood out with precise clarity in the deep blue-black sky, compared with the grayness of the buildings on either side.
The steps approached. He could see no one clearly yet, huddled as he was in the doorway, uncomfortable where the drips from the washing overhead had spattered against him until they formed a rivulet down his back. Now in the doorway, at least he was away from that irritation.
There was a slowness in the footsteps which annoyed him. He almost wanted to shout at the man, tell him to come along faster and stop tormenting him. His nerves were already drawn as tight as the hemp of a hangman’s noose when the body was hanging. This slow, methodical sound was increasing his tension, as if he was listening not with his ears alone but with his entire body. The noise slammed into his chest and belly like blows.
And then he had passed. The hidden watcher let his breath out in relief. Soon he could escape, run away to the town and lose himself, while this fool stumbled onward along the alley.
But the unearthly wailing stopped him. It began as a low moan, a cry of indescribable suffering, which rose in gusts only to fall again, then rising and falling with increasing regularity, until it formed a steady cadence, now rising to a shriek, now falling to a disbelieving shuddering of horror.
Simon stopped dead in his tracks. The noise had put an end even to the quiet sounds in the alley, and the whole area was still, as if the very buildings were listening to the misery in the voice with hushed sympathy.
Then his legs propelled him forward. His hand snatched at his sword and tugged it loose, then swept it out as he pounded up to a slight bend in the path, feeling the blood rush in his head, his belly hollow with sudden fear, his scalp itching with icy foreboding.
The corner came, and then he was past it, and nobody had sprung out to attack him. Carrying on, the wail rose to a shriek-but now was behind him. He skidded to a halt, turned, pelted back, and saw the thin, darker hole: another alley leading from this one. He would have seen it in daylight, but in the darkness, it was all but invisible. Stopping his rush by pushing a hand out before him to cushion his speed against a wall, he caught his breath, then ducked inside.
It was a mean little dead-end. At the far side was a building with a fitful light showing between the cracked and broken shutters, and it was by this meager illumination that he confronted the bleak tragedy.
She was huddled, as if even in death she was trying to take up as little space as possible, and keen to conform to the laws that required the poor and widowed to be unseen and out of the way. At first Simon thought she was simply kneeling and searching for a lost oddment, her arms on the ground, head resting gently between them. But then he saw that her pillow was the feces flung from the upper rooms.
Her child stood beside her, a grubby cherub with spiky hair where the dirt had given it the consistency of wood. His grimy face was all mouth, bawling in his fierce grief, and Simon felt as if his heart would break at the sight of his absolute loss.
He held out his hand, his own face cracking under the massive weight of the little boy’s grief, and he called out something-he would never recall what exactly-and saw the boy turn to him.
And then he saw the little face break in renewed terror. He saw the boy’s mouth widen and heard the dreadful, baying howl.
And then the blow struck, and he fell headlong, clutching vainly at consciousness like a drowning man reaching for a rope lying just out of reach, as the waves of black oblivion rushed forward to engulf him.
14
R oger de Grosse was not the happiest man in Crediton that night. His errand to the merchant out to the west of the town had been dull, requiring him to confirm deliveries of wine and spices to the cathedral. It meant that he had to spend five hours closeted with the merchant’s steward while he checked off all the items on the list given him by the Bishop and cross-checked them with the steward’s copy; then he had to walk round the chests and barrels, sampling at random some of the wine casks, opening the chests and investigating their contents-all of which were immediately closed and marked with gobbets of wax carrying the Bishop’s seal to prevent tampering.
Five hours in the chilly storeroom without an offer of ale or food had worn away the young man’s normal good humor. He had expected to be back at Peter Clifford’s hall long before now, while there was still the chance of spiced ale and warm food, but he had to accept that all he would be likely to find was stale bread and cold meat.
Only four months before, he would have been astonished at having been given such a task, for to be the son of Sir Arnold de Grosse was to be used to issuing orders and expecting others to leap to obey. It was demeaning to be told to go somewhere and count up barrels like an ordinary steward, but he knew the reason why. Walter Stapledon had explained at the outset that he was to be given many of the more onerous and tedious jobs, not because Stapledon disliked him, but because the Bishop had to be convinced that this new rector would be capable of humility and dedication. The Bishop, ever an astute man, wanted to make sure that young Grosse would be prepared to serve his parishioners, and his method was to test Roger’s commitment; giving him the menial jobs which others tried to avoid.
The logic was simple. Roger had the chance of being given a good living; and once he was installed, removing him would be difficult, not least because his father was an important patron to Stapledon, sponsoring many services and building works. It would have been easy for Stapledon to have accepted Grosse’s son and ignored the pleas of the parishioners, if only for the money. But he was a cautious man, and he took seriously his responsibilities to the souls even in the more far-flung parts of his diocese, and he was unhappy that such a young man should be installed. Stapledon wanted to test him and make sure he was fit for the position his father wanted to buy for him.
Stubbing his toe on a misplaced cobblestone and twisting his ankle, Roger gritted his teeth against the rising temptation to curse, his face a grimace of pain as he hopped, holding the offended appendage in one hand. “Cooah!” he sighed at last as the first shock and pain receded a little, and he felt able to limp to a wall and lean against it, trying to guess how much further he had to go.
He could accept Stapledon’s thinking, but for now performing like a cheap servant was hard to accept. It would be different if it was regular service, if he had become the squire to a great master, serving his apprenticeship before he could earn the golden spurs and sword belt of knighthood, but all he could work toward now was the small church selected for him by Stapledon in Callington, and he was unsure he wanted it.
Setting his foot down, he wondered again about his father’s plan for him. He was the youngest of the brothers, and it was only natural that his father should try to acquire a reasonable living for him-why else would a man invest so heavily in patronage if there was no reward in the end? And Sir Arnold expected his reward to be a post for any of his male children who were not to inherit, so that they might have somewhere to live. It was essential, when the eldest would take the whole of the estates, the home and the wealth accumulated over the years, to find something for the other sons, if there were any surviving.
