'I know it. There have been many so in Tywardreath, and death has spread because of it.'
There was no doubt about the speaker who stood at the open door. It was Robbie, a taller, broader Robbie than the lad I knew, and his chin was bearded now like his brother's.
'Watch how you go upon the road, then,' answered William. 'The same poor demented wanderers might attempt to strike you down, thinking, because you ride, you have some magic property of health denied to them.'
'I'll ride with care, Sir William, have no fear. I would not leave you for the night except for Roger. Five days since I was home, and he's alone.'
'I know, I know. God keep you both, and watch over all of us this night.' He led his daughter up the stairs to the room above, and I followed Robbie to the kitchen quarters. Three servants sat there in dejected fashion, hugging the hearth, one with his eyes closed and his head resting against the wall. Robbie gave him William's message, and he echoed, 'God be with us' without opening his eyes. Robbie shut the door behind him and walked across the stable-court. His pony was tied to the stall inside the shed. He mounted and began riding slowly up the hill through the mizzling rain, passing the small cottages that formed part of the demesne, lining the muddied track. All the doors were fastened tight, and smoke came from the roofs of only two, the others seeming deserted. We reached the brow of the hill, and Robbie, instead of turning to the right on the road to the village, paused by the geld-house on the left, and, dismounting, tied his pony to the gate and walked up the path to the chapel alongside. He opened the door and entered, I following after. The chapel was small, hardly more than twenty feet in length and fifteen broad, with a single window facing east behind the altar. Robbie, making the sign of the Cross, knelt down before it, and bowed his head in prayer. There was an inscription in Latin beneath the window, which I read: 'Matilda Champernoune built this chapel in memory of her husband William Champernoune, who died in 1304.'
A stone before the chancel steps was inscribed with her own initials and the date of her death, which I could not decipher. A similar stone, to the left, bore the initials H.C. There were no stained glass windows, no effigies or tombs built against the walls: this was an oratory, a memorial chapel.
When Robbie rose from his knees and turned away, I saw another stone before the chancel steps. The lettering read I.C.; the date was 1335. As I followed Robbie out into the rain and down towards the village, I knew of only one name that would fit, and it was not Champernoune. Desolation was all about me, here by the geld- house and in the village too. No people on the green, no animals, no barking dogs. The doors of the small dwellings huddled close around the green were closed, like those on the demesne itself. A single goat, half-starved by its appearance, with ribs protruding from its lean body, was tethered by a chain near to the well, cropping the rough grass. We climbed the hill-track above the Priory, and looking down on to the enclosure I could see no sign of life from behind the walls. No smoke came from the monks quarters, nor from the chapter-house; the whole place seemed abandoned, and the ripening apples in the orchard had been left to cluster on the trees unplucked. And when we passed the plough-lands on the high ground I saw that the soil had not been turned, and some of the corn was not even harvested but lay rotting on the earth, as if some cyclone in the night had swept it down. As we came to the pasture-land on the lower slopes the Priory cattle, roaming loose, came lowing after us in desperation, as though in hope that Robbie, on his pony, might drive them home.
We crossed the ford with ease, for the tide was ebbing fast and the sands lay uncovered, flat and dirty brown under the rain. A thin wreath of smoke came from Julian Polpey's roof — he at least must have survived calamity — but Geoffrey Lampetho's dwelling in the valley looked as bare and deserted as those on the village green. This was not the world I knew, the world I had come to love and long for because of its magic quality of love and hate, its separation from a drab monotony; this was a place resembling, in its barren desolation, all the most hideous features of a twentieth-century landscape after disaster, suggesting a total abandonment of hope, the aftertaste of atomic doom. Robbie rode uphill above the ford, and passing through the copse of straggling trees came down to the wall encircling Kylmerth yard. No smoke curled up from the chimney. He flung himself from his pony, leaving it to wander loose towards the byre, and running across the yard he opened the door.
'Roger!' I heard him call, and 'Roger!' once again. The kitchen was empty, the turf no longer smouldered on the hearth. The remains of food lay untouched upon the trestle table, and as Robbie climbed the ladder to the sleeping-loft I saw a rat scurry across the floor and disappear. There can have been no one in the loft, for Robbie came down the ladder instantly, and opened the door beneath it which gave access to the byre, revealing at the same time a narrow passage ending in a store-room and a cellar. Slits in the thickness of the wall allowed streaks of light to penetrate the gloom, and this was the only source of air as well. There was little draught to cleanse the atmosphere of sweet mustiness pervading, due to the rotting apples laid in rows against the wall. An iron cauldron, unsteady on three legs, and rusted from disuse, stood in the far corners and beside it pitchers, jars, a three- pronged fork, a pair of bellows. This store-room was a strange choice for a sick man to make his bed. He must have dragged his pallet from the sleeping-loft and placed it here beside the slit in the wa11 and then, from increasing weakness or lack of will, lain through the days and nights until today. 'Roger…' whispered Robbie, 'Roger!'
Roger opened his eyes. I did not recognise him. His hair was white, his eyes sunk deep in his head, his features thin and drawn; and under the white furze that formed his beard the flesh was discoloured, bruised, with the same discoloured swellings behind his ears. He murmured something, 'water', I think it was, and Robbie rose from his side and ran into the kitchen, but I went on kneeling there beside him, staring down at the man I had last seen confident and strong. Robbie returned with a pitcher of water, and, putting his arms round his brother, helped him to drink. But after two mouthfuls Roger choked, and lay back again on his pallet, gasping.
'No remedy,' he said. 'The swelling's spread to my throat and blocked the wind-pipe. Moisten my lips only, that's comfort enough.'
'How long have you lain here?' asked Robbie.
'I cannot tell. Four days and nights, maybe. Not long after you went I knew it had me, and I brought my bed to the cellar so that you could sleep easy above when you returned. How is Sir William?'
'Recovered, thanks be to God, and young Katherine too. Elizabeth still escapes infection, and the servants. More than sixty died this week in Tywardreath. The Priory is closed, as you know, and the Prior and brethren gone to Minster.'
'No loss,' murmured Roger. 'We can do without them. Did you visit the chapel?'
'I did, and said the usual prayer.'
He moistened his brother's lips with water once again, and in rough but tender fashion tried to soften the swellings beneath his ears.
'I tell you, there's no remedy,' said Roger. 'This is the end. No parish priest to shrive me, no communal grave amongst the rest. Bury me at the cliff's edge, Robbie, where my bones will smell the sea.'
'I'll go to Polpey and fetch Bess,' said Robbie. 'She and I can nurse you through this together.'
'No,' said Roger, 'she has her own children to care for now, and Julian too. Hear my confession, Robbie. There's been something on my conscience now these thirteen years.'
He struggled to sit up but had not strength enough, and Robbie, the tears running down his cheeks, smoothed the matted hair out of his brother's eyes.
'If it concerns you and Lady Carminowe, I don't need to hear it, Roger,' he said. 'Bess and I knew you loved her, and love her still. So did we. There was no sin in that for any of us.'
'No sin in loving, but in murder, yes,' said Roger.
'Murder?'
Robbie, kneeling by his brother's side, stared down at him, bewildered, then shook his head. 'You're wandering, Roger,' he said softly. 'We all know how she died. She had been sick for weeks before she came here, and hid it from us; and then when they tried to carry her away by force she gave her promise she would follow in a week, and so they let her stay.'
'And would have gone, but I prevented it.'
'How did you prevent it? She died before the week had passed, here, in the room above, with Bess's arms about her, and yours too.'
'She died because I would not let her suffer pain,' said Roger. 'She died because, had she kept her bargain and travelled to Trelawn and thence into Devon, there would have been weeks of agony ahead, even months, agony that our own mother knew and endured when we were young. So I let her go from us in sleep, knowing nothing of what I had done, and you and Bess in the same ignorance.'
He put out his hand and felt for Robbie's, holding it tight. 'Did you never wonder, Robbie, when in the old days I stayed at the Priory late at night, or an occasion brought de Meral here to the cellar, what it was I did?'
