irritable, jumpy — but at the same time detached from my feelings. I had expected, now that I was back at Westbury, to be able to rest easily for a few months. But, to my deep frustration, I found I could not.
I have noticed that after battle or combat I have often felt a similar sensation — the sleeplessness, in particular, and the awful, blood-tinged dreams — but previously these feelings had gradually faded over several weeks, and I had regained my normal buoyant mood. Not this time. I was haunted by my experiences in France, by the deaths of Hanno and Owain, and by my own near escape from the yawning grave. Back at Westbury, I began to drink a little more each night, in an attempt to help me sleep, just another cup or two to begin with, and then whole flagons of good red wine — and another full one set by my bed, too.
It was to no avail.
It is true that after drinking deeply of the good wine that Baldwin purchased from the Aquitanian merchants, I would sometimes fall into a short sleep, but I would almost always awake past midnight, mouth dry as old leather, head beating and with a sour belly — unable to sleep again until dawn found me exhausted, sweaty and irritable.
I behaved badly in those months at Westbury, often snapping angrily at Tuck, Marie-Anne, Thomas, or even at my beloved Goody. I found myself bristling with rage and snarling at the slightest thing: a dropped cup or a door left open, a dog barking in the night. And I drank more and more wine to try to calm my nerves. Looking back on that time it is a wonder that my friends bore my company at all: I would not have been surprised if they had all decamped for Robin’s castle of Kirkton in Yorkshire and closed the gates in my face. When we all meet again in Heaven, as I am sure we will, I shall apologize to them and try to make amends. I could not explain it then: I did not understand it myself. I had faced danger and death many times before that episode in Paris. I was young, just turned twenty years, and my chest had healed to a thick pink scar — my wind was not good but it was slowly improving. But I could not shake the demons of memory that haunted my days and particularly my nights. And, although I knew I was playing the boor, I could not fathom why. I still do not fully understand it.
But if my rude and angry behaviour were not enough, there were other dark forces at work to sour the air at Westbury that spring and summer. On the third or fourth day after my arrival, Tuck took me aside and explained why he and Marie-Anne had decided to move in with Goody and abandon Kirkton to Robin’s army of servants.
‘It is Nur, I am afraid,’ Tuck told me as we strolled through the long apple orchard, admiring the delicate blossoms that adorned the trees. ‘She has taken up residence in the old, deep woods over towards Alfreton, and she appears to be gathering followers to her; a sad crew made up of the mad and infirm, the dispossessed and rejected — all women, young and old.’
‘Has she bothered Goody in any way?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid Nur has been making something of a nuisance of herself in these parts recently. She sometimes visits Westbury by night, usually at full moon, and leaves dead, mutilated animals in strange contorted attitudes — baby shrews, rats, foxes, even cats, hanged or crucified — and blood-daubed messages outside the walls. The villagers are all terrified of her and whisper that she is a witch and servant of Satan — and I am certain that, while she is surely mortal, it truly is the Devil who drives her wicked actions!’
‘Has she hurt Goody?’ I repeated, a little shortly.
‘No-ooo, she has not,’ said Tuck slowly, his red face wrinkling with thought. ‘Goody says she is not frightened by that sort of nonsense — and has threatened to give Nur another thrashing if she ever encounters her again. But it must be wearing on her soul — having an enemy so close, and someone so filled with malice. Goody would not be human if she did not find that unsettling.’
I felt a pang of guilt then. For Nur was a monster of my own making; it was my failure, my inability to love her after she had been mutilated, that had turned her towards evil. And I was certain that she meant to do Goody harm, if ever she could.
‘Do not fret, Alan,’ said Tuck. ‘We have a dozen good men-at-arms at Westbury, and I have cleansed the hall and the courtyard buildings with holy water; we are safe from Nur’s evil — I only tell you so you will understand if Goody seems rather tense.’
I spoke to Goody about the threat from Nur, and she seemed to me to be quite calm: ‘I feel a kind of pity for Nur, rather than anything stronger,’ she said. ‘You loved her once but no longer, and she cannot let that go. I can understand that. It must be eating her up inside to know that, only a few miles away, I have you all to myself!’ She gave me her lovely smile, and brushed my cheek with her lips.
‘If you wish, I could raise a troop of men and we could scour those Alfreton woods, flush her out and drive her away,’ I said. ‘It would not be such a difficult task and perhaps we would be doing a kindness in expelling her from the area. If she were not close by, perhaps she would forget all about us and move ahead with her own life.’
‘No,’ said Goody, ‘let the poor woman be. She has already been exiled from her home once — in Outremer. We can survive a few dead rats every full moon — perhaps she will grow bored with this dark game and find some other way to fill the emptiness of her life.’
And so I did nothing. And, in fact, at the next full moon there were no executed animal corpses strewn around Westbury, no foul messages scrawled in blood for all to see. And the next moon after that, too. I began to think that Nur had given up her attempt to scare us, and that she had perhaps gone away, or died of some fever, or just expired of plain starvation. I allowed myself to feel a little easier.
The months passed at Westbury, and the harvest was gathered in by the villeins and franklins of the village, under the efficient rule of Baldwin, my steward: it was a bountiful year, with soft rain to make the crops grow in April and May and then strong sunshine to ripen the ears all through June and July. On the first day of August, at the feast of Lammas, when the tenants were duty bound to pay their rents, I took some pale satisfaction at seeing the grain barns being filled to the rafters with the produce of Westbury, and after Mass in the village church, in which a loaf made from that year’s harvest was consecrated by the priest, an owlish little man called Arnold, and given out with the wine at the Blessed Sacrament, I feasted my tenants with a roasted pig, two ewes, six dozen capons, innumerable puddings, and many barrels of fresh ale.
My squire Thomas spent hours by the ale barrels with the dozen or so Westbury men-at-arms, and became quite drunk, and not long after dusk, when a great bonfire was being lit, and the dancing was about to begin, Goody had to help him off to bed. The boy, I noticed, had changed in recent months: his voice had changed from the shrill treble of the year before and become deeper, though it still cracked and jumped from a high to a low register when he was excited. And he had grown too. He would never be a tall man, but he had added six inches to his stature since our time in Paris, and he undoubtedly would be a man before long.
A drum began to throb, and the wailing of a pipe pierced the twilight. When my tipsy squire had been put to bed — even in drink he was a grave and sensible youth, not given to giggling, singing, loud extravagant words or violence — Goody came and sat beside me. We shared a plate of roast pork with fresh wheat bread, and a large flagon of wine, and watched the villagers join hands in a circle and begin the intricate steps of the traditional Lammas dances. The night was warm and well lit by the bonfire that cast flickering light and shadow upon the circling dancers. It was a homely, peaceful scene, the red firelight, the wheeling dancers, a broad table, laden with good food: and yet there was something troubling my beloved, and I knew what it was. It had been a year and four months since we had become betrothed, and the celebration of our bountiful harvest had bent her thoughts towards her own fecundity.
‘Hal’s daughter Sally is with child, or so they tell me,’ my lovely girl said, as if she were merely making idle conversation. But even then I knew her better than that. I merely grunted through a mouthful of half-chewed pork and waited for her next sortie.
Sparks crackled and leapt from the bonfire, the music skirled through the darkness and the drums thumped on. We watched the ring of dancers break apart and reform as the spokes of a wheel, their left hands joined in the centre, their faces flushed and smiling.
‘And Aggie the Miller’s wife has just had twins — two beautiful boys.’
‘What happy news,’ I said, in a carefully neutral tone.
The circle had formed again, but now a young man and a girl were dancing together, nimbly, in the centre of the ring. The love between the young couple was almost visible, and they moved like one creature, arms linked, toes pointed in perfect symmetry, eyes fixed on the other’s face.
‘And little Daisy Johnson is to be married next week,’ she said. ‘To William the Thatcher, of all people — he must be thirty years old if he’s a day! Twice her age!’
‘He’s a good man, a skilled craftsman, and a kind one. She will be well provided for in William’s house-’
