“Not now,” another responded, jerking his head at the two lepers. “She’s damaged!”
“Yeah!” Jack sneered, his breath reeking of alcohol as he surveyed her. “Go on, stay with your friends, wench.” And with that he shoved hard. She stumbled, weeping tears of rage, tripped on a stone and fell at Rodde’s feet. He shook his head in sympathy, but couldn’t take her hand in front of the crowd. It was forbidden for a leper to touch a healthy person. When she looked again, all the men were dispersing.
As she came to the end of her tale, Baldwin patted her hand. “What then?”
“I was going to walk back here with Edmund and Rodde, but Rodde said I ought to go straight home. He said it wasn’t good for me to come here any more, that I would be in danger, that the mob might attack me for lewd behavior, that they could burn me for heresy. He refused to let me help him, but sent me on my way.”
“That showed some good sense…and some stupidity,” Baldwin muttered. “What if you had been attacked again on the way home? He should have asked someone to escort you. Anyway, let us hope that this is an end to the violence. Mary, I am sorry. I will speak today to the smith and tell him plainly that if there’s any other disturbance, he will be in the jail before he can pick up a stone to throw. As it is, I’ll have him on a charge for slandering you and causing a riot. That should cost him several pretty pennies!”
“And what about poor Mary?” cried Ralph. “Go on, girl, tell the knight the rest. Tell him what happened when you arrived home!”
Mary’s gaze dropped to her hands once again, and she allowed her face to fall into them. She wasn’t weeping now, for she felt so exhausted with her crying that there was no energy left with which to fuel her grief. All she had was with her-there rolled up in her kerchief by the door. First she had lost her husband, but now she had lost everything else. It truly was too fabulous a disaster for her to fully comprehend.
“Sir, since last night, I have been trying to understand Jack and the others, and I had almost forgiven them, for any man might make a fool of himself after too much ale, but it is hard, so hard, after what they did…” Her eyes brimmed once more, and she had to sit quietly to bring herself under control. “Sir, my father wasn’t home when I arrived. He often visits the inn at night. I was sitting with my mother when he returned. He had been accosted in the street by this man Jack and others, and they had told him that I was no better than a slut. They said I wasn’t wanted in the town any more, and they would make me leave, and my family too.”
“They dared to do this?” Baldwin growled, glancing at the monk.
“They said they would burn my parents out of the house unless I left, with us all inside it; they said there was no place in Crediton for a woman who consorted with lepers.” She lifted her eyes to meet the knight’s. “So all I have is here. I have left my home so that my parents and brothers and sisters can live in peace. What else could I do?”
“Enough, Mary,” Baldwin said, and stood. His face was composed, but there was a tightness in his voice as he spoke. “This Jack will answer to me for what he has threatened. You need fear no more from him or from his friends. I will see to them-now!”
He swept from the room, pushing past Simon in his urgency, and it was not until he had reached the chapel’s main door that the hurrying monk managed to catch up with him. “Sir Baldwin? Please, wait one minute.”
“What, Brother Ralph?”
“Don’t go and persecute one man for his stupidity! Wait until you can consider his case more calmly. There’s no point in creating even more bad feeling in the town than already exists.”
“I think there is. If a young woman like Mary can be forced from her home with nowhere to go, there’s every need for these cretins to realize their fault!”
“I agree that she must be cared for, but don’t go rushing at them like a bull at a gate. For one thing, I have to ask myself whether it would be sensible for her to stay in the town after this.”
“Meaning?”
“All I mean is, she is so good a nurse, and so devoted to her new calling, that it might be better for her to leave the town anyway. If she remains here, she can only ever be a cause of strife. Wouldn’t it be preferable that she should go somewhere else where she would be appreciated? I think she would be ideally suited for a life of prayer.”
“You think she might go to a convent?”
“I think she might be happier there. She would be safe from further comment from the uneducated, safe from slanders and lies, and could dedicate her life to helping others in a hospital.”
“And the town would have its boil lanced.” Baldwin threw a wrathful glower eastward, back toward the columns of smoke over the hill. “And bigots would have succeeded in driving away a poor girl to no purpose.”
“Better that than a hothead should fire her house and burn her and all her family.”
“Better that one innocent should suffer than many?” Baldwin muttered, his lip curled, but he gave a short nod. “I despise your argument, Brother, but I find it compelling. Yet I will still visit the smith and make my views known. I’ll not have him poisoning this town. And I won’t have lepers beaten in the streets, either.” 19
A s the sun climbed higher, and cast its rays into his yard, John had to close his eyes against the glare. It was too painful, with his head throbbing and pulsing in time with his shattered leg.
After struggling for what felt like an age, he had finally got himself into some kind of shape. It had been hard, for to tie the old walking stick and besom handle to his leg, he had needed to bend, and each time he did so, a fresh wave of nausea washed over him. Each time he was forced to snap his eyes shut and keep absolutely still for a few minutes, until the sensation passed, and each time he must open his eyes and continue.
One bandage he had reserved for his head. Where the club had struck the right of his skull, there was a growing lump, and there was a smaller one on the opposite side as well. He had to give a twisted grin as he tightened the band round his forehead, thinking that at least the constriction hurt both sides of his skull equally; he wouldn’t be unbalanced when he tried to move.
He had found a staff, a good elm branch which he had been saving to axe into kindling, and gripped it hard. Gritting his teeth, he cautiously eased himself upward, the sweat breaking out at his forehead and chilling his back under his shirt. It was cool enough without his coat, and this moisture made him shudder as if he had the ague, but with set expression and firmly locked jaw, he set the staff to the ground and took a step.
The grating of smashed bone almost made him faint. His headache returned, thudding as hard as if a man was beating him again; his stomach roiled. The world swirled before his eyes, and he had to shut them, but then all his concentration could focus on the exquisite agony, and that was unendurable; he had to open them again.
Now his see-sawing vision steadied a little, and he could swallow heavily. Before he could lose his determination, he moved another step. This time he let out a shout of anguish as his foot caught on a stone and the feeling shot up his leg and into his heart. Eyes wide, he tottered, the breath sobbing in his throat.
And he took another step.
Baldwin set their pace back into town, and it was an angry canter. He had given Simon and Edgar no time to talk to him, but had climbed onto his steed and moved off as soon as they had come to the gate, and the others had needed to hurry to keep him in view.
The knight was no fool, and had no intention of intervening in the normal hurly-burly of Crediton’s life, but this was something different. The town was generally among the quietest in the kingdom, and he knew that other officials of the King looked upon him with a certain degree of jealousy for having not much to do; but if something like this wasn’t nipped in the bud quickly it could grow an evil fruit whose harvest would be death. It was a miracle that the two lepers hadn’t been killed the night before, and still more that the girl hadn’t received more than verbal abuse. If such behavior was permitted to go unchecked, it could only result in violent disturbance, and it was Baldwin’s duty to see to it that no such thing happened.
They rode fast along the street scattering the people, until they came to the hall where Godfrey had died, and here Baldwin slowed. He had a strange presentiment, and he turned his head to look at the hall. There were a few people in the garden, tending to the vegetables, and behind them he saw Putthe standing in the doorway, no longer wearing a bandage, but leaning against a doorpost as if he had a headache while in the broad daylight.
As Baldwin watched, he saw Putthe’s mistress appear. The servant moved aside respectfully, and the knight noticed his slow and careful movement. His head was clearly still giving him pain. Then Baldwin found his attention taken by the woman at Putthe’s side.
She stood happily, tugging on gloves while she kept her eye on the gardeners. In the bright sunlight her hair sparkled as if an ethereal fire was upon it. She noticed the knight and gave him a curt nod of her head, then spun around and stalked back inside.
“Looks like she’s on her way off for a ride, eh, Baldwin?” Simon said from his side.
