Plague Land Read online

  Joan smiled at his words and curtsied to me mockingly. ‘What about them?’ She hesitated a second, ‘sire.’

  Her sarcasm provoked Gower to rush upon the woman and seize her roughly by the arm.

  ‘That’s enough, Gower,’ I said. ‘Let her go.’

  The dog growled but Joan only laughed. ‘That’s his problem. He can’t let me go. Can you, Hugh Gower? Always up here, he is.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said the man, his face now red and sweating. The dog was now tugging at the wool of his hose and would soon bite into the skin of his leg.

  ‘Most probably made this one for me,’ she said, patting a flat belly with her free arm.

  ‘You’re not with child!’

  ‘That’s what you say.’

  Gower dropped her arm. ‘She’s lying, sire.’

  She patted her belly again. ‘Hope he’s not as stupid as his father. Then again, I could do with a pig herder.’

  The men behind us sniggered and Gower turned to confront them with a thunderous face. Now afraid that this rancour could quickly escalate into hostility, I insisted that Joan call off her dog and then speak with me in private. She was reluctant, but seeing as there were six men at her door, one of them her lord, she had little choice but to admit me to her cottage.

  She left the dog outside, where the scabby creature maintained a steady growl by the door.

  I had seldom spent as much time amongst the poor as in those few weeks, and in truth it had shocked me to see how they lived. While the churches and monasteries were filled with grand windows and tapestries, it seemed most people in England lived in hovels not much finer than the stall of an animal. And with only a lantern hole at one end of a low ceiling, these structures quickly filled with smoke and smelt as strong as a charcoal kiln.

  Not that Joan’s home was dirty. In fact, compared to the Starvecrow cottage, the place was orderly and clean. But it is difficult to shine a floor of mud, or polish a wall of wattle. It is still a hovel.

  Bending my head to miss the low door lintel I saw her two sons were now sitting at a bench and shelling the peas they had just been picking. The windowless chamber was as dark as any of the other cottages I had been in recently, with an area screened to one end of the room by a hanging blanket. This, I assumed, was where Mistress Bath entertained her customers. As my eyes became accustomed to the light, I noticed a wooden stool in one corner that was laid with a mixture of offerings, from the petals of a dog rose through to the skulls of small animals. A crucifix sat alongside a dusty corn maiden.

  Joan saw my interest in the corn doll. ‘It’s just something my son made last harvest. It’s nothing but a toy.’

  I picked it up. ‘You should remove it, in case Father John comes here. He would denounce this as unholy.’

  She grinned. ‘Father John of Cornwall doesn’t come to visit. Whatever makes you think that?’ Her crude suggestions were beginning to grate upon my nerves.

  I passed her the doll. ‘What do you know about the Starvecrows?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘But you do know Alison was murdered? It seems Matilda as well.’

  ‘But you haven’t found Matilda’s body. So the girl could be fooling you.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Because she was to marry my father.’ Then she smiled deviously. ‘But perhaps she disappeared after the beating you threatened yesterday? Matilda’s a sensitive girl. Apt to run off when she’s upset.’

  ‘I didn’t touch her. She wouldn’t let go of my cape.’ Thankfully we were distracted from continuing the conversation by a muffled whine.

  ‘It’s just the dog,’ said Joan quickly, though the creature was separated from us by the door. She then shouted for the animal to be quiet, which only made it whimper for its mistress even more loudly. Inside the cottage, the boys suddenly broke into song. Their voices were low and melodic.

  ‘I ask them to sing when they’re shelling the peas,’ Joan told me. ‘If I hear a tune, I know that they’re not eating.’

  Since the boys were now singing so loudly, I raised my voice. ‘Why were you at Matilda’s cottage yesterday, when I called upon the girl?’ But evidently I was not loud enough.

  ‘What was that?’ she said, holding a hand to her ear.

  ‘I said, why were you—’ But it was hopeless, so I turned to the pea-shellers and shouted, ‘Will you please be quiet!’ And to my surprise they stopped immediately and suddenly I found myself wondering how I might reproduce this commanding tone of voice in the future.

  With silence established, I was now able to make myself heard. ‘Why did you call upon Matilda Starvecrow yesterday?’ I asked Joan.

  She shrugged. ‘That’s no great mystery. I wanted to stop her marrying my father.’

  ‘Why?’ She pursed her lips and looked away. ‘So you wouldn’t lose your right to his land, perhaps?’

  Now she laughed. ‘I see you’ve been talking to the village gossips.’

  ‘Are they right?’

  ‘No. They’re not!’ A ball of spit hit my cheek.

  ‘So why did you want to stop the marriage?’

  ‘Because Matilda is thirteen and he’s an old pig of sixty.’

  ‘That’s a cruel way to describe your own father,’ I said.

  ‘He’s a cruel man.’

  ‘Who would leave you disinherited?’

  Her grey cheeks flushed, and for the first time I saw some colour in her face. ‘My father would rather leave possession of his property to the village fool than me.’ And then the energy and spite left her. ‘I went to see the girl out of pity.’

  ‘Pity for her? Or for yourself?’

  ‘For her, of course. She’s of no mind to marry an old man.’ She paused and rubbed her eyes, but I could not be sure they were real tears she wiped from her face. ‘I offered to take her in,’ she told me. ‘They might call me a whore, but I’m nothing like the monsters in this parish, who would see such a wretched girl married to a toothless pig.’

  ‘And was Matilda interested in coming under your care?’

  Joan shrugged. ‘She was too disturbed to decide anything. I promised to return the next morning for her decision.’

  ‘And under this arrangement, what was to happen to her pigs and her land? You were to take care of them as well, I suppose?’

  ‘I gave it no thought,’ she said – but it felt like a lie. ‘My only concern was to stop my father taking one more girl before he leaves this earth. Is that so unbelievable?’ Her brow was puckered and now the tears seemed genuine. But I knew better than to be affected by a crying woman. It was a ploy Mother often used when cornered in an argument.

  ‘Did you return to the Starvecrow cottage this morning?’ I asked Joan.

  ‘No. I heard the place was found empty.’

  ‘Do you know where Matilda is?’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’

  ‘But you suspect she’s still alive?’

  She wiped her eye. ‘I hope so.’

  ‘So how would you explain the blood found about the cottage?’

  She straightened herself up and now regarded me crossly. ‘I’m not the constable. I wouldn’t try to explain it.’

  I took the ten beads from my belt pouch and held them out to her. ‘Do these belong to you? I found them under Matilda’s bed.’ She feigned disinterest, but I pushed my hand under her nose so that she was unable to ignore me.

  Joan grimaced at first, as if being asked to study the entrails of a chicken. But when she looked at the beads properly her face broke into a smile – and fleetingly she seemed handsome. Her teeth were straight and white. Her features were strong and symmetrical. Drawing me close, she whispered, ‘They are red coral, sire.’

  ‘What of it?’

  Her eyes now glinted with mischief. ‘If I owned such a necklace, sire, do you think I would be earning a living with my cunt?’

  ‘Do they belong to Matilda then?’ I asked, quickly returning the beads to th
eir pouch to alleviate my embarrassment. Joan merely raised an eyebrow at this foolish question. ‘So, do you know who they belong to?’ I asked.

  She folded her arms. ‘No. I don’t.’

  The boys continued their work silently, dropping the peas into a square wooden bowl and the empty shells into a wicker basket. A fly buzzed about my ear, and the dog was now pawing and scratching at the wooden planks of the door. And then, suddenly, the door flew open and the dog sped in and began lunging at the pea pods greedily with its long pink tongue. The boys kicked the dog away, whereupon it disappeared into the screened end of the room and began to growl.

  ‘What’s behind the blanket?’ I asked Joan.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What’s the dog growling at then?’

  ‘Just an elderly man of the parish,’ she answered. ‘He’s unwell so I’ve taken him in to restore his health.’

  ‘Which old man?’

  ‘You wouldn’t know him, sire. He’s a traveller.’ She seemed nervous for the first time in this interview.

  I saw her hand was trembling. ‘Pull back the blanket,’ I told her.

  ‘That’s not a good idea. He’s sleeping.’

  ‘But I’d like to meet him.’

  ‘He’s just an old peddler, sire. You wouldn’t find him agreeable. He can hardly speak.’

  ‘Pull it back, Mistress Bath.’

  ‘I will not!’

  I went to do it myself, but when she stood in my way I called for the assistance of Gower and Wycombe. As the men burst into the cottage, Joan’s two sons tried to obstruct them – but the two skinny boys were no match for burly farmhands and were soon despatched to the floor alongside the crumpled blanket.

  An old man was revealed in the alcove, bound tightly with dirty ropes and a gag about his mouth. He wriggled urgently like a worm in the beak of a blackbird, and when Gower released his gag, the man coughed until he was nearly sick.

  Gower looked to me in disbelief. ‘It’s Old Ralph. Her own father.’

  I leant over the old man, trying to hear his words – but he only panted a sequence of garbled noises. I turned to Joan. ‘Were you trying to kill this man, Mistress Bath?’

  ‘I would happily see him rot and die.’ Her words were hot and vengeful.

  ‘Is this what happened to the Starvecrow sisters?’ I asked.

  She spat at me. ‘No!’

  ‘Did they meet this same fate at your hands?’

  Now she screamed and lunged forward, scratching me across the face – her nails scoring my skin and drawing blood. I backed away, but as she made a second attack the men pulled her from me and threw her roughly to the floor alongside the boys.

  I wiped the blood from my face. ‘Take them to the gaol house.’

  Joan’s sons may not have been the physical match for Gower and the other men in a fight, but they were faster and more agile. They dodged their pursuers easily, making their escape from the cottage with the scrawny dog loping along behind them.

  ‘Run, boys!’ their mother shouted. ‘Run!’

  Gower ordered her to be quiet, though she continued to scream after her sons until Gower went to kick her.

  I pulled him back. ‘Stop this, Gower. Now!’

  He shrank away from me, seemingly disappointed he was not allowed to assault Joan with my blessing. ‘Sire?’

  ‘Just take the woman into custody,’ I told him. ‘She’s charged with murder.’

  Chapter Six

  I may be a lord, but I do not hold land from the king himself and I cannot attend parliament. My family has but one manor, held from the king’s tenant-in-chief, Earl Stephen. In return for the possession of this land we must provide service to the crown, sending men to fight the king’s wars.

  In the spring of 1350, however, I had received an unexpected letter from the earl, suggesting he would commute this obligation to a money payment. He even had the cheek to imply he would be doing me a favour with this new arrangement. But how was I to obtain more funds? The estate was struggling already.

  I had yet to reply to this letter – though it constantly nagged at me like the sharp edge of a broken tooth.

  I could not leave Old Ralph in his daughter’s remote cottage, so I instructed the men to find a village woman to care for him. I would speak to the man when he had recovered. But such was his fever, it seemed more likely that Old Ralph would die before that opportunity could arise.

  With the men attending to Old Ralph, I was grateful for the opportunity to ride alone back to Somershill that evening. But as I made my way along the purlieu land at the edge of the forest, I was suddenly forced to take shelter under an oak tree that had escaped felling – to avoid a hail storm that now bombarded the hills with its icy missiles. As the hail hammered down upon the leaf canopy overhead, I took Matilda’s beads from my pocket and studied them more closely. If only they could whisper to me and tell me how to find the girl’s body. For I knew she was dead. There had been too much blood under her bed to suggest otherwise.

  Once, at the abbey, I had assisted an inexperienced brother with the amputation of a man’s leg – as Brother Peter had been too drunk to attend to the patient. The man, an Italian merchant, had been an important customer for abbey fleeces, so the abbot was insistent we keep him alive – particularly as he was known to drive a poor bargain. But the Italian had suffered from a swollen vein, which had ruptured only to become infected – and then his whole leg threatened to succumb.

  We cut the bone below the knee, but his blood surged relentlessly despite the tourniquet we had applied. It seemed we had not tied the binding tightly enough for, despite our best efforts, the poor man soon lost consciousness and died. My lasting memory from the incident was the small amount of blood loss needed to cause death. It had been less in quantity on that occasion than I had found pooled under Matilda’s bed.

  The hail eventually stopped, but was replaced with rain. Cold, autumnal rain – even though we were still in June. Water blew into my face and soaked my woollen cloak and I regretted not wearing the sleeved cape that my father used in bad weather. I had cast it aside, though it was waterproofed in tallow, because it smelt as unpleasant as a frying pan.

  When the rain finally abated, I moved off – but Tempest held back his ears and slugged along the path as dolefully as a bear in chains. The weather did not agree with his constitution and he might even have thrown me from his back, had this not involved a modicum of effort. Every few steps he turned his head to check I was still in the saddle. There was something in the curve of his glassy eyeball that suggested he did not like what he could see.

  And then, suddenly, the rain gave way to a fan of sunlight that pierced through the clouds to form a rainbow in the crook of the path. Childishly delighted by this sight, I dug my heels into Tempest’s flanks and chased after its colourful arch, only for the vision to disappear as effortlessly as it had formed. Once galloping, Tempest was not minded to stop, and we carried on at speed until my grip on the horse’s slippery flanks failed, and I fell into a swathe of bracken.

  The landing was soft, my bones were not broken, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. After all the misery of this year it was a release to be joyful, if only for a few moments. But I wasn’t the only person to have found this spectacle amusing. Drawing myself up onto my elbows I realised a girl was watching me from behind a tree. She held my horse by his reins, while he nuzzled her hand as tamely as a pet lamb.

  ‘Are you injured, sire?’ Her face was beautiful. Her eyes dark brown and her skin the colour of honey – not in the least like the pale-skinned maids my mother had picked for both my brothers to marry.

  ‘I slipped from my horse’s back,’ I said unnecessarily, as no doubt she had seen the whole episode. ‘But I’m not harmed.’ I made an attempt to jump up from the bracken athletically to impress her, but only slipped back and landed on my elbow. She disguised a snigger and tiptoed forward to offer me her hand, which I reluctantly declined in the spirit of chivalry. Instead
I stumbled inelegantly to my feet.

  As she passed me Tempest’s reins, I couldn’t help but notice the shape of her body beneath her loose tunic. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked her.

  She caught me looking at the sway of her breasts and quickly covered her chest with her arms. ‘Mirabel.’

  ‘Mirabel. A creature of wondrous beauty.’ I don’t know how such foolish words slipped out. Mirabel looked at her feet. ‘Sorry. I didn’t want to embarrass you,’ I said. ‘I was simply translating your name from its Latin origin Mirabilis. It means—’

  ‘Thank you, sire. I don’t know any Latin.’

  ‘Would you like to learn? I could teach you some basic words.’

  ‘I can’t read.’

  An uncomfortable silence followed my awkward suggestion.

  ‘Your horse seems a little lame in his front leg, sire,’ she said, to change the subject.

  ‘Tempest just pretends to be lame. It’s because he doesn’t like me very much.’

  Her smile returned a little. ‘Pick him some dandelion and meadowsweet. Then he’ll like you.’

  ‘I’ll try that. Thank you.’ She curtsied to me and then slipped away towards the trees.

  ‘Where do you live, Mirabel?’ I called after her.

  ‘In Somershill, sire.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  But she had disappeared.

  Distracted by my daydreams, I didn’t see Brother Peter until passing Tempest back to Piers in front of the stable. Peter was digging by the wall – a defence that had once run in a square about the old castle. Now its crumbling stone only remained along the north border – the other three sides having been demolished and used for building the new house. Before I was sent to the monastery I used to climb along this high crenellated wall and throw apples into the moat on the other side. In those days the moat had still been full of water – but now it was clogged with willow and bulrushes. No longer a line of defence, it had become a drain for the house – full of effluent, animal bones, and rotting kitchen waste.

  I watched Peter drive a spade into the earth. The ground was soft from the recent rain. He pulled at a clump of thistles and threw their clod of roots to one side.