Blood Moon (6 page)

Chapter
6

AN OLD ENEMY
RETURNS

Strictly
speaking Eusebius wasn’t my responsibility at all except in the general sense that the health of everyone within our walls was the concern of the abbey physician. But he did have a physical problem which required my attention and to this end I had a quiet word with Brother Nigel, the fraterer, to see if the boy might benefit from a diet richer than we monks are normally used to, just until he built up his strength a little. Nigel was sympathetic to my request but asked me to clear it first with the prior since the dietary regime was another one of those areas covered by Herbert’s precious rules. I’d had a feeling he might say that. I agreed to try but frankly after the fiasco in the chapterhouse any suggestion coming from me would probably get short-shrift from Prior Herbert. I therefore decided to put off approaching him for a day or so to allow muddied waters to settle and hurt pride to heal. When I did see him I would need all my powers of charm and delicacy to plead the boy’s case and no doubt Herbert would enjoy every squirming, wriggling moment of it before refusing - doubtless with much heart-felt sorrow and regret.

In the meantime I got on with my regular rounds of sewing wounds, setting bones, easing bowels and letting blood. I saw no more of the de Gray family who I imagined if they hadn’t already left the district soon would, although I was surprised that baby Alix hadn’t been baptized in the abbey church before leaving. Being one of the blessed sacraments, baptism is essential if a child is to be protected from everlasting damnation should the worst happen and it did not survive its first few months of life. The latest thinking on the subject is that the souls of those infants who die without being baptized do not go to Purgatory like everyone else since they have had no opportunity yet in their brief lives to have committed
personal sin. But they are guilty along with the rest of us of
original
sin – that offence against God perpetrated by Adam and Eve and which devolves upon everyone simply by dint of being human. It is thought, therefore, that their souls go instead to somewhere called
limbus infantium
- or Limbo of the Infants - a place at the edge of Hell where they suffer no physical torment but are denied seeing the face of God, which is punishment in itself. This state is similar to, though distinct from,
limbus partum -
or Limbo of the Patriarchs - which is reserved for those Old Testament Fathers like Noah and Moses who lived before the advent of Christ but who nevertheless died in special friendship with God.
Limbus partum
is a place milder than Purgatory for their souls to repose until Christ comes to redeem them. Dead infants, on the other hand, can avoid Limbo altogether by the expediency of being baptized while still alive. Given this simple precaution I was surprised that the de Grays had not taken advantage of it.

All
this I would have liked to discuss with Prior Herbert given the opportunity, but unusually he seemed tied-up with abbey business and was out of circulation. Though not an entirely regrettable state of affairs in itself, his inaccessibility was becoming something of an inconvenience. I did try once or twice to get in to see him but each time I failed either because he was too busy or was not in his office when I called. After my third failed attempt I began to wonder if this unavailability wasn’t deliberate and frankly I had better things to do than keep trudging back and forth to his house on a fool’s errand. I also thought when I did eventually manage to pin him down that I’d take the opportunity to smooth ruffled feathers over the Lady Adelle incident – or at least to put my side of it. It did the abbey no good to have its pastor and its physician at loggerheads with each other especially at a time when there was already enough bad feeling within the community over the election of the new abbot. As things turned out, it was a thought I rather wish I’d never had.

The prior’s house is a fine-looking two-storey building set well away from the main abbey complex within its own walled garden on the sleepy banks of the River Lark. Compared with the common dormitory, or even the few individual cells such as my own, it is a luxurious dwelling but not one begrudged of the second highest office-holder in the abbey. He rightly needs space to accommodate his large household of servants and clerks as well as suitable surroundings in which to entertain important guests. Or so he maintains.

Herbert’s office is on the upper floor of this
rather grand pile and is guarded by his faithful secretary, Jephthet, a clerk in minor orders who sits at the foot of the stairs screening his master from unwanted visitors. Like all petty officials Jephthet likes to exercise what little power he has to its limit. I could not but again reflect on the contrast with Abbot Samson whose door had always been open, literally as well as metaphorically, to anybody who wished to see him - once you made it up the staircase that led to his study, of course.

On my approach Jephthet had a sudden coughing
fit, loud enough certainly to be heard in the room above.

‘Ah, Jephthet – good man,’ I greeted him amiably. ‘Your master is in I take it?’ and started to go round his desk.

A skeletal hand shot out barring my way. ‘You have an appointment, master?’

‘Yes – well, no actually. Do I need one?’

‘The prior is a very busy man.’

‘Oh, my business is not great
. A minute or two of his time is all I crave.’

Jephthet smiled as I imagine Aesop’s fox smiled when it first spied the grapes. ‘I can give you a minute…’ he ran an ink-stained finger down a list on his desk ‘…a week on Tuesday - in the fore-noon.’

I smiled back at him. ‘Perhaps I’ll come back when he’s less busy.’

‘Please do,’ smiled the fox.

I started to leave but turned back. ‘By the way, that’s a nasty cough you have there, Jephthet. I do hope it doesn’t turn into anything sinister.’

I did try to get to see Herbert on several more occasions but each time Jephthet had a different reason for not allowing me to pass. The man is a Cerberus guarding the gates of the Underworld, and like that multi-headed monster his eyes and ears are everywhere. I don’t believe he possesses a bladder for I have yet to go to the prior’s house and not find him sitting hunched over his desk scratching away at some scroll or other.

Subterfuge was called for. The next time Jephthet refused me access to his master I intended to accidentally upset his ink horn over his precious scrolls and in the confusion mount the stairs before he had a chance to stop me. I was quite looking forward to executing my plan which I had timed for late one evening when I was sure Herbert would be at home. However, I was to be disappointed for when I entered the hallowed sanctuary of the entrance hall I saw that for the first time ever since I had been coming to the house Jephthet’s desk was empty. Indeed, so neatly arranged and tidied was it that I decided he must have been dismissed for the night – as I later discovered to be the case.

The hallway was in darkness but there was the faintest glimmer of light coming from the next level and I began to climb the stairs. As I got to the top I could hear subdued voices coming from the other side of Herbert’s office door - it seemed Herbert already had a guest. My immediate reaction was a mixture of relief that the unpleasant confrontation could be put off for another night, and irritation that I had been frustrated yet again. I was about to turn and go when I heard something that made me halt. Until that moment the only voice I’d heard coming through the door was that of the prior - a distinctive nasal whine. But when his companion replied the sound of the voice sent an involuntary shiver down my spine. I was unable to distinguish individual words but the timbre and inflexion were unmistakable. It had been many years since I’d heard that voice and yet I knew it better than I knew my own.

What I did next was something I have never done before in my life: I went down on one knee and peeped through the keyhole. It was dark inside the room and it took me a moment to focus on the occupants, but when I did I nearly fell backwards in shock. It was him all right: Geoffrey de Saye, the man who had once tried to murder me.

It was coronation year, 1199. King John had come to Bury to give thanks at the shrine of Saint Edmund for his accession to the throne. But the visit had coincided with the murder of a fourteen-year-old child – the son of a local fuller. The child’s body had borne all the signs of ritual murder for which the Jews were blamed, and one Jew in particular. The accused man was eventually exonerated but not before his own life had been forfeit and his family destroyed. It subsequently transpired that the real murderer had been Geoffrey de Saye and for reasons nothing to do with religious sacrifice but everything to do with money and corruption. As the investigating officer at the time, I had been responsible for exposing de Saye in revenge for which he tried to murder me too in Thetford Forest. But unbeknown to me, my life had been in double jeopardy because of an older connection between our two families about which I knew nothing. As I subsequently discovered, my own father had killed de Saye’s uncle - the infamous Geoffrey de Mandeville, so-called
Scourge of the Fens
- thereby ending a reign of terror by that had blighted the lives of the people of East Anglia for two years. All this happened years before I was born, even before de Saye was born, but as a consequence he had harboured a grudge against my family. And when he learned that I was the one responsible for exposing him as a murderer his vengeance knew no bounds. That time his attempt to kill me failed, but would he fail again?

Geoffrey de Saye and I are both a decade and a half older now - I am fifty and he must surely be sixty. But even in the dim candlelight of the office there was no mistaking the man. And yet how could it be? As a result of his murderous activities all those years ago he had been exiled to the Welsh Marches
for life
- or so I had thought. It had always aggrieved me that he had never been brought to trial, but his was a powerful family. His nephew was the then Justiciar of England, Earl Geoffrey Fitz Peter, and such people never fully answer for their crimes. Exile was the best we could hope for. It had been one of the conditions exacted by Abbot Samson for not prosecuting de Saye that he was never to be allowed to roam free again but be confined to his nephew’s manor in distant Shropshire. But both Earl Geoffrey and Abbot Samson were now dead and with them had gone the last two guarantors of de Saye’s banishment. Now he was back and there was no-one to prevent de Saye finishing the job he’d started all those years ago – and this time, it seemed, with Prior Herbert’s blessing.

So engrossed was I with my memories that I hadn’t noticed that the voices in the room had stopped. There were two quick steps, the door to Prior Herbert’s office swung violently open and suddenly de Saye was standing in the doorway glowering in the half-light. Fortunately, I had managed to scamper away into the shadows just in time. He didn’t see me, but I saw him – older, greyer than I remembered. But if I had any lingering doubts about his identity they were dispelled by the reaction of my own body: I felt physically sick.

De Saye glared along the dark landing but I remained absolutely still not daring to even breathe until he gave up and went back inside again closing the door
behind him.

Chapter
7

THE HANGED
MAN

I
managed to return to my cell although I have no recollection of how I got there. One moment I was teetering at the top of the prior’s stairs and the next I was collapsing onto my own cot.

My mind was spinning with questions. Why was de Saye here? What did he want? Surely there was only once answer to that: To finish the job he’d started fifteen years ago. Geoffrey de Saye was no respecter of rank or position; certainly my tonsure would not protect me from his wrath. I know because he had once come within a whisper of slicing through my gullet and would have succeeded had one of my mother’s servants not been on hand to stop him. This time I had no such guardian angel to protect me. Indeed, the one person who I should have expected to shield me, whose duty it was to care for all among his flock, Prior Herbert, appeared to be in collusion with the man.

I needed time to think - and more importantly, someone to think with.

*

Another of those rules of which Prior Herbert is so fond is that monks are not permitted to leave the abbey grounds after compline, the last office of the day. But the gate-keepers are used to my comings and goings at odd hours on some medical emergency or other and readily open up when I approach.

‘Someone fainted, have they?’ the man asked as he unbolted the wicket door to let me out.

‘Something like that.’

‘You don’t look too good yourself, brother. Seen a ghost, have you?’

The town’s curfew bell was already tolling as I started up
Abbeygate Street but I knew my way well enough to Joseph’s shop in the moonlight - the
Blood
Moon-light as I reminded myself with a shudder. But I didn’t get as far as Heathenman’s Street for coming down the hill towards me was Onethumb.

Blessèd boy, I have never been so relieved to see him. He must have just finished his work for the day and was on his way home. Seeing me, his face lit up in greeting, but his smile soon faded as I explained my presence. He had reason to remember Geoffrey de Saye as well as I did from his own brush with the man during those terrible events of fifteen years ago and was shocked to hear that the old enemy was back in town again. But the street was not the place to discuss such matters especially with watchmen prowling, eager to fine those still out after the curfew bell. Taking my arm,
Onethumb led me to an ale-house he knew would still be open, The Hanged Man as it was ominously called, and located in a thoroughly unsavoury part of town. Normally I would never think to frequent such a place but Onethumb enticed me with the promise of a warm fire and liquid refreshment, and frankly I was too weak to resist.

Are you sure it was him?
he signed once we’d got our drinks and found a bench.

‘Older, fatter,
uglier - but yes, it was him all right.’

But I thought he’d been banished?

‘He had been – he
is
banished. But with Justiciar Geoffrey and Abbot Samson both in their graves who is there left to enforce it? He’s somehow got loose from his shackles and it seems his anger has not mellowed. He’s back to send me to join all his other victims - in Hell. I know it - Oh!’ I groaned with my head in my hands.

Onethumb looked sceptically at me.
Are you certain that’s why he’s here?

‘What other reason could there be? De Saye has no connection with
Suffolk. His family are from Essex – a Godless county if ever there was one!’

But as Onethumb pointed out,
fifteen years is a long time. If de Saye had truly wanted me dead, why wait till now to do it? He could have had me disposed of any time during those years without the need come in person to do it. Indeed, what better alibi could he have being confined to a manor two hundred miles away?

It was my turn to sign as I demonstrated with my hands
around an imaginary throat. ‘Maybe he just likes the idea of placing his own hands round my neck.’

But w
ould he risk further banishment -
for the sake of a monk?

‘Not just
any
monk,’ I said peevishly. ‘You forget, our quarrel goes back many years and is enduring. These old family feuds, you know, they go on until the last man standing. An eye for eye, a tooth for tooth, a hand for hand - oh, I’m sorry,’ I grimaced awkwardly at Onethumb’s mizzened stump.

But there are other things that might explain his presence here
, he signed.

‘Like what?’ I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What have you heard? You’ve heard something, haven’t you? Tell me.’

Mute of speech he may be, but there was nothing wrong with Onethumb’s ears. Working in Joseph’s shop, he picked up all sorts of titbits from customers and tradesmen – gossip, fact, opinion – most of it trivia but with the occasional nugget of interest. It is a common enough truth that men converse more freely in front of servants and shopkeepers than they ever would in front of their own wives, especially those for whom they have contempt - like a Jewish apothecary or his dumb assistant. Onethumb was very good at playing the fool when it suited him, smiling at their insults while soaking up their loose chatter. It was the way a dumb and crippled street-urchin learned to survive.

Something is happening
, he signed cautiously.
Something important
.

I looked at him doubtfully. ‘In what way “important”?’

He looked around the tavern surreptitiously as though wary of being overheard - although “overheard” was hardly the right term for it. Even so, his signing was restraint itself.

It happened a few days ago, he signed, while Joseph was away visiting suppliers and Onethumb was alone in the shop. Two men came into the shop - Londoners he was sure for they spoke of the guilds of merchants who congregated up on the hill of that great city and how they were looking forward to getting back amongst them again. They had just been to
Stamford in Lincolnshire on business but had left that town earlier than planned because of the troubles there. They were congratulating themselves on having had a lucky escape.

‘Troubles?’ I queried. ‘What troubles? I haven’t heard of this.’

Apparently there had been some kind of important meeting in the town. The men didn’t say what it was about but while it was going on the town gates had been locked and guards were posted allowing no-one to enter or leave.

‘They told you this? These
London merchants? They spoke so freely?’

He shook his head. At first they spoke in low voices, but once they realised Onethumb was, as one of them put it, “nought but a
Suffolk idiot” they became less guarded. They were full of speculation about what the meeting was about and were competing with each other to drop names of those they recognised.

‘Such as who?’

Onethumb shrugged. Lord this and earl that - the names meant nothing to him. But their rank was noble, of that he was certain. It seemed the two men had managed to bribe their way out of the town - at considerable cost to their purses, Onethumb was pleased to say - and were making their way back to London by a circuitous route, which was how they came to be in Bury.

I took a mouthful of my ale. The story didn’t amount to much in itself and if he’d mentioned anywhere other than
Stamford I probably wouldn’t have taken any interest. But Stamford was a well-known meeting place situated conveniently half way up the old north road between London and York. Gatherings had taken place there since time immemorial - Harold Godwinson was said to have assembled his army there on his march north to defeat Harald Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, and once again on his way back south to lose to the Conqueror at Hastings. More importantly, it was just two days’ ride from Bury - a fact that prompted my next question:

‘These men of noble rank - was Geoffrey de Saye among them?’

They hadn’t mentioned the name. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Geoffrey de Saye had been out of circulation for a long time - those London merchants might not have known of him. But if he was at this meeting in Stamford, and it was as clandestine as Onethumb suggested, that might explain why he arrived here unannounced like a thief in the night. I was rather hoping he had since it meant his presence here might have nothing to do with me after all and so Onethumb might well be right: I’m really not that important. But what it didn’t do, of course, was explain why de Saye was here at all - or the nature of Prior Herbert’s involvement with him.

‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’ I urged Onethumb. ‘Anything at all?’

He shied impishly. Not really - except to say that while round the back of the shop filling the Londoners’ orders he had pissed in the bottles of perfume they had bought for their wives in payment for their insults and then charged them double for the privilege.

‘Oh, did you just? And what do you think that will do for my brother’s reputation, his cologne stinking of piss?’

Onethumb grinned and shook his head. He didn’t think the Londoners would be back. They thought Bury a very dull place and couldn’t wait to leave. And I have to admit the thought of them getting back to London and unstopping the bottles of perfume for their wives to inhale the fragrance made me smile. I could just imagine their reaction.

We were interrupted by a disturbance at the far end of the room. Someone was being thrown out by our host.

‘Oh good lord,’ I muttered under my breath. ‘No, don’t look. It’s Raoul de Gray. What’s he still doing here? I thought he’d gone.’

It was Raoul all right. He was drunk again, and this time it wasn’t the arrival of his new baby he was celebrating. He had his arm around the neck of one of the whores and seemed to be trying to take her with him as he was being ejected. The girl clearly didn’t want to go
with him and was protesting angrily, trying to free herself from his grasp while two other men attempted to help her. I had to remind myself that this was the nephew of His Grace the Bishop of Norwich and tutted to myself. Noble rank is evidently no guarantee of noble bearing - or maybe this behaviour was what passed for it these days. At any rate, one of the men punched Raoul in the stomach winding him and eliciting more whoops of laughter from other customers. But it did mean he released her long enough for the other two men to bundle him out through the door and into the night. But Raoul wasn’t to be deterred so easily. Barred from coming back inside again, he started shouting abuse from the street. The two men jeered and threatened him with the beadle if he didn’t go home which only made Raoul even more belligerent and he tried to get back inside the ale-house again. But he was no match for the two burly men who pushed him back every time he tried to get in. Most of what he was shouting was the incoherent nonsense of a drunkard, about a man’s rights and the fact that he had paid good coin to get them. This brought more jeering particularly from the girl he had been pawing who yelled abuse back at him. Doubtless it was the regular sort of banter that occurs in most alehouses on any night of the week, but I thought it was just desserts for the way he had treated his maid the previous day and I secretly applauded the girl’s spirit. This was one female he was not going to be able to bully.

Entertaining though the exchange might be, a rowdy ale-house is no place for a monk and certainly not a senior obedientiary of the abbey. It wouldn’t do
for me to be on the premises when the beadle arrived. So I signalled to Onethumb that it was time we were leaving and pushed my way out of the ale-house nearly knocking Raoul to the ground in the process. Fortunately he was too drunk to notice who it was shouldering him. He went down hard and didn’t look as though he was about to get up again too quickly. Frankly, I’d have been happy to leave him there, but ever a slave to my own scruples I could not leave the boy lying in the gutter where he might be robbed or beaten or worse. Certainly leaving him would not help the Lady Adelle and her child. So reluctantly, and with Onethumb’s assistance, we lifted him up and half carried, half dragged the boy down the hill to the jeers and cheers of the ale-house clientele.

By the time we got to the abbey grounds Raoul was barely conscious. He’d either drunk an inordinate amount or - more likely - his young head was simply not used to strong ale. Either way the night porter would never allow us to bring him back inside in his condition, and heaven alone knew what Brother Gregor would have made of it, so we heaved him up over the wall as quietly as we could – no mean feat for a one-armed apothecary’s assistant and a feeble old monk – and hoped he didn’t break his neck on the way down the other side.