Devil's Acre (22 page)

Chapter
25

CONFESSION

We
set off out the priory gates at a cracking pace, but instead of turning right through the town which would have been the most direct route we took the path leading straight ahead. It was a track that was little more than a path to the fields full of potholes and really quite unsuitable for wheels. I wondered for a moment if Samson had made a mistake, but then I remembered his promise to the townsfolk.

‘Do you think anyone will notice father?’

‘Notice what?’

‘That we are deliberately going the long way round in order to confuse the monster. I presume that is what you’re doing.
’

‘Oh - yes.’

‘Not that anyone is likely to see us. I doubt if this track gets used very much at this time of the year.’

I glanced over my shoulder at our two silent passengers bouncing around on the back boards. At least they couldn’t complain about the ride. I, on the other hand, was having to hold on to the seat with both hands to prevent myself being thrown out. It did seem a little excessive. After one particularly violent jolt I felt I had to say something.

‘Is it really necessary to keep up this pace, father?’

‘I want to put as much distance between us and the town as I can while we can.’

‘At this speed we’ll be lucky to arrive at all. Remember the wisdom of Aesop.’

The fable of the tortoise and the hare
is what I meant. Samson seemed to get the point and slowed down a little, much to my relief, and no doubt to Clytemnestra’s too. We seemed to do a complete circuit of the town and were passing now beneath the walls of the castle shrouded at this hour in mist and I looked up at its pennants flying from the turrets. That was one place I was not sorry to be leaving behind.

‘It’s been quite a week,’ I reflected. ‘What was meant to be a brief sojourn of a couple of days has turned into quite an adventure. Who would have thought so much could have happened in so short a space of time? Three deaths.
..’

‘
Three?’

‘Ralf, Jane
- and Esme,’ I reminded him.

Samson
snorted. ‘Damn puppy!’

‘Damned to us perhaps but not to young Nicholas. A simple pleasure for a simple mind.
I told you, didn’t I, what those boys made him do to her?’ I shook my head. ‘Disgraceful. Personally I suspect Richard of being behind the whole business.’

‘Be careful how you slander the nobility, Walter. They have a way of getting their ow
n back.’

‘Fortunately there’s no-one out here to hear me - unless Lord William has his spies secretly hidden under the wagon.’ I made show of peering over the side. ‘Not all the Warennes are so rum. There’s the lady Adela. Quite a different fish from the rest of them.’

He looked at me. ‘What do you know of the lady Adela?’

I hesitated. ‘Well, I suppose I may as well tell you, it can’t do any harm now. I know she’s Richard’s mother - Maynus told me as much and she all but confirmed it herself. And,’ I added
sotto voce
, ‘the identity of the father. It seems our liege lord has been indulging his usual weaknesses. But as to the other lad - Maynus seemed remarkably ignorant on that score. Or so he says. Between you and me I think he knows more than he’s telling.’

I looked at Samson but he appeared to be concentrating on the road ahead.

‘Mind you, if I had a son like Nick I don’t suppose I’d want to own up to the fact either. Who’d want to marry into a family that might produce another like him? His father would almost certainly disown him. But that still leaves the question of who the mother is. Not Adela - the boys’ ages are too close together. One of the other sisters perhaps?’

Still no response.

I shook my head. ‘No, any child born to Maud or Isabel they’d almost certainly eat.’

‘You know Walter,’ he said without taking his eyes from the road. ‘Sometimes you talk an awful lot of rot.’

‘You’re probably right,’ I sighed. The snow had stopped but it was still cold and I huddled down against the rising mist.

We continued thus through the morning lost in the silence of our own thoughts until eventually we got back onto the Swaffham road and firmer ground again. It was a relief to get off the side roads and away from all the potholes. Samson had certainly been as good as his word criss-crossing so many country lanes. If Ralf really was a Revenant he would have little chance of finding his way back to the priory. I wasn’t sure I would either.

At last
we reached the top of the hill and were able to look down upon the snow-covered rooftops of Swaffham. We seemed to have got here remarkably quickly.

‘Are we stopping to refresh the mule, father?’ I asked him eyeing Tomelinus’s parcel.

‘No. We press on.’

It seemed
Tom’s parcel would have to wait a while longer. We skirted the market where I had bought food for Esme. That all seemed like an age ago and we were soon out the other side. Villages that I remembered from our trip up came and went as we quickly passed through without stopping. We were making good progress certainly compared with the journey down. Anyone would think we were in a hurry to get away from the place.

By now we had been travelling for four solid hours and I for one was frozen to the marrow and very hungry. The sleet was blinding me it must also be blinding Samson.

‘Father, your hands are turning blue. I think we should stop soon if only for the sake of the mule.’ He didn’t reply but continued doggedly on. ‘We are making good time. I am sure we will be in Thetford by dusk as you intend.’ I glanced over my shoulder: ‘Perhaps we should ask our guests what they think.’

That seemed to
get through to him at last. He pulled off the road a few yards. ‘Very well, a brief stop. I’ll light a fire.’

I nodded with some relief. I was beginning to think I would have to
continue all the way to Thetford without stopping.

By the time I returned from relieving myself Samson had
built the fire into a raging inferno so much so I was beginning to fear for the safety of the wagon. I started to move it a little further away.

‘Leave it,’ said Samson.

‘But father, it is in danger of catching fire.’

‘
It won’t.  Now sit. Eat. Here’s a bowl of pottage.’ He held it out for me.

I shrugged and sat down on a log.
The air was still, not a bird to be heard, nor wind rustling the trees. It felt like one of those cathartic moments when something momentous was about to happen.

‘Father, may I ask you something? You
can refuse to answer if you wish, but it is the question that has been troubling me since we first set out on this journey. Now that we are alone...’

‘You want to know the truth about Ralf.’

I was taken aback. ‘Well yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’

‘
The answer’s yes.’

‘
What?’

‘
Yes, I killed him. That’s what you want to know isn’t it?’

Needless to say
, my jaw metaphorically hit the snow-covered ground. ‘You
admit
it?’

‘
I do.’

For the moment I couldn’t speak.
I continued eating but I was scarcely conscious of what I was putting in my mouth. I was concentrating on how I was going to respond. This wasn’t the confessional and I wasn’t his chaplain. He couldn’t rely on my silence. Indeed, I had a duty to speak out. What stunned me even more than the admission itself was the casual way he told me. The one question that had been on my mind all week so easily answered. If it was this easy why had it taken so long to tell me?

Despite the roaring fire I
shivered. There would have to be consequences of course once we returned to Bury. The sheriff would have to be told as would all of my brother monks. Bishop John de Gray of Norwich perhaps, Bishop Eustace of Ely, possibly Archbishop Hubert Walter and even the king himself. Was he even still the Abbot of Saint Edmundsbury? There were so many questions cascading through my head but they all distilled down to one word:

‘Why?’

He took a moment before he answered, possibly gathering his thoughts together. ‘As you know there is a history between Ralf and me.’

I nodded. ‘To the time you were both together in Tottington?’
I was trying to remember the conversation Ralf and I had had at the nunnery en route to the priesthouse. ‘An argument, Ralf said. He’d had an argument with someone. Am I right in thinking that someone was you?’

‘What did he say about it?’

‘Simply that the matter had to be settled by combat - a duel, he said. He didn’t go into details but said he would tell me more the following morning. Except by then he was already dead.’

Samson frowned. ‘It was so long ago
, it hardly matters now. Suffice it to say there was indeed a battle which he won but he reneged on the agreement we had between us.’

‘
That’s right,’ I nodded. ‘He said that he pledged his wealth to the abbey if he succeeded but then broke his word. He also said that he blamed Saint Edmund for his blindness.’

Samson waved a dismissive hand. ‘He blamed himself
for that, his own greed - and rightly so.’

‘And because of
that you took his life?’ I asked, incredulous. ‘Now, forty years after the event?’

‘Would you prefer I
had done it sooner?’

I shook my head. ‘I still can’t believe it.’

He looked irritated. ‘Believe it for it is the truth.’

I did not know what to say.
‘The countess asked me - no, she
commanded
me - to trust you. She told me to lay aside my suspicions and obey the abbot without argument.’

He looked at me inten
sely, more intensely than I could remember he had ever done before. ‘And will you?’

I returned the abbot’s gaze. His face
was more familiar to me than my own yet he was a stranger to me.

‘After what you just told me,
father, I’m not sure that I can.’

Chapter 26

RE
AWAKENING

‘
I
envy you, Master.’

‘
You
Gilbert, envy
me
?’

‘Yes master. You are on the verge of a great adventure, probably the greatest adventure of all.’

‘Ah, you think I am about to meet my Maker.’

‘But is it not a wonderful thought? To see God in heaven and to meet old friends again?’

‘Not all of them may wish to meet me again. And as for God, he may send me to the other place - which, come to think of it, is probably where most of my friends already are, teehee.’

‘You should not jest about these things, master. Death is a serious matter. You should be reconciling yourself to God. You may not have much time left.’

‘Don’t be too confident my young friend. I could yet live as long as your namesake Gilbert of Sempringham. He was a hundred-and-six when he died. You, on the other hand, could trip over your own feet this very night and break your neck.’

‘Neither case is very likely, is it master?’

‘All I say, Gilbert, is be careful where you place your feet - and into whose pond you dip your toe.’

‘Does he suspect you?’

‘I’m not sure. Sometimes I think he does but other times it is like the ramblings of a diseased mind. He is rotting from the inside.’

‘Harsh words. Tell me Gerard, why do you hate him so?’

‘
For the same reason you do, my lord.’

‘I don’t hate him. In my case it is simply politics
. But you have a visceral loathing for the man. Why is that?’

‘It is his liberality that offends. He does not condemn that which any religious should condemn. His so-called brother - that
atheist
. Such people should not be permitted to breathe God’s air yet he refuses to condemn him. And not just his brother. Murderers, perverts, prostitutes - he would make room for them all. As though the sin itself were not bad enough, the toleration of it is worse. It is better that he be removed from the world and his opinions with him.’

‘I see. Well, it looks as though you may get your wish quite soon.’

*

Did I believe Samson’s confession?
Had he truly arranged this trip for the sole purpose of disposing of an old enemy? Certainly killing Ralf made more sense than his original explanation of coming to hear the earl’s dying confession - that I never really believed. Frankly, I couldn’t believe this new explanation either. But assuming for one moment that it was true and murder was indeed his real purpose, why take me along, a potentially hostile witness? It made no sense. I had contributed nothing to this journey, my presence was entirely superfluous. He could easily have undertaken it alone and I would have been no more aware of what had transpired than had Jocelin and the others. And it wasn’t as though he had taken me into his confidence. Quite the opposite. He had spent the entire week deceiving, denying and confusing in order to throw me off the scent. And now just when success was within sight he decides to confess. It was madness.

And what of the others - the countess, the earl, Mother Odell, Father Absalom, Maynus
? Were they all in on the conspiracy? Was this then a collective confession? It is often said that confession is good for the soul - Pope Innocent was particularly keen on the idea. Maybe that was the answer to my question. He simply buckled under the weight of his conscience unable to sustain the pretence any longer. If so he chose a mighty odd moment to do it. Well, there was nothing to be done out here on the open road miles from anywhere. We had no choice but to continue as we were until we got to our destination. I could only pray that once we reached Bury things might look a little simpler.

So absorbed had I been with my
thoughts that I had quite forgotten about Tomelinus’s lunch parcel and now the fire had gone out and it was too late to open it. The day was fast disappearing and we needed to be on our way if we were to get to Thetford by nightfall. We quickly packed up our camp and got back onto the wagon. As I did so one final irony struck me: having disposed of the living Ralf, Samson seemed unable to be rid of his corpse. Like a child who puts its hand in a bowl of sweetmeats the evidence of his crime kept sticking to his fingers. If this was how God chose to punish him it was surely just reward.

By now the mist had thickened to the point where it was difficult to see the trees lining the road and we were forced to slow to the pace of walking man. Suddenly Samson brought the wagon to a complete halt.

‘There’s someone up ahead.’

I peered through the fog. Sure enough there was a dark ethereal shape on the road that appeared to be waving at us. What was it, man or spirit?

‘What does he want?’ I whispered to Samson.

‘How should I know?’ he whispered back.

We waited. The figure started to come towards us.
Gradually it hardened in form and features and to my relief it was a living man - or so it appeared. In one hand he held a sack and in the other the hand of a small child.

The man took off his cap and held it before him. ‘Good day sir
s.’

‘Good day to you,’ replied Samson. ‘Can we be of assistance?’

The man took a long hard look at the wagon then returned his gaze to Samson. ‘Would you by chance be the abbot of Bury?’

I gasped. ‘How the devil...?’

‘We were told to watch for two monks on a cart.’

‘We?’

‘My village is close by, sir. The sheriff’s men came this morning.’

‘The sheriff?’
I turned to Samson in alarm. ‘Father?’

Samson
waved me silent. ‘Did the sheriff’s men say what they wanted?’

‘No sir. But they seemed mighty anxious to find you.’

‘Father, do you think -?’ I looked over my shoulder at Ralf’s body. It could only be that they had finally worked out the truth about how the old priest died and were coming to arrest Samson - and possibly me too.

The abbot rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘
That’s a heavy sack you have there. What’s in it I wonder?’

‘Breakfast for the little one,’ he said nodding to the child. ‘We have eight more like him at home.’

Samson nodded. ‘Then we must make sure they don’t go hungry.’

‘If you please, sir.’

Samson indicated the road behind him. ‘The track we passed a few yards back. Where does it lead?’

‘Down to the river. But it is a walking path.’

‘Will it take a cart?’

‘With care.’

‘Even so, in this snow...?’

‘There are many creatures in the forest,’ said the man. ‘They criss-cross each other’s paths all the time. It is easy to get confused.’

‘Especially if you walk over it when we are gone,’ Samson nodded. He reached behind, picked up a blanket from the back and placed it around the child’s shoulders. Then he put his hand on the child’s head and muttered a blessing before turning the wagon around to head back the way we came.

‘
Wait!’ I said and quickly fished in my belt-pouch for the purse the Lady Adela had given to me. ‘Here,’ I said handing it to the man. He hesitated for a moment, but he took it.

‘God bless you both,’ said the man. ‘And God bless Saint Edmund.’

‘Can we trust him?’ I said watching the man recede into the mist. ‘You know what he had in his bag. He was a poacher.’

‘And
therefore no friend of the sheriff. We struck a bargain, did you not notice? His silence for ours.’

‘He could be sending us to our deaths. That would
ensure our silence.’

But it was already too late. We were plunging down a side track that was even narrower and more dangerous than the ones in
Acre and led to heaven-knew-where, and the saints in their compassion may not be able to protect us.

We lurched and bounced so much in our descent that I was convinced this time the wagon would break apart. Only by some miracle did we manage to reach the bottom in one piece. But instead of following the course of the stream as I expected Samson started whipping poor Clytemnestra again to make her run up the slope the other side. Fortunately the creature had more sense and stubbornly refused to go any further no matter how hard Samson tried to make her.

I looked about us. The river was stony and there was no corresponding exit up the far slope. The only way in or out was the path we came down. Still he would not give up and urged Clytemnestra on.

‘Father this is insane. We must get back to the road.’

‘No, we must keep on, we
must
.’

He started whipping poor Clytemnestra
again but she steadfastly refused to budge. In any case it was pointless now. I tapped Samson on the arm and pointed above us. A posse of five riders had appeared at the top of the slope and were already descending towards us.

In panic Samson stood up in his seat
, reached forward and thumped poor Clytemnestra hard with his fist. All to no avail. One rider was already at the bottom of the slope and blocking our path while another took hold of Clytemnestra’s head.

‘Leave her!’ yelled Samson still standing and whipped the man with his switch. ‘I am the Abbot of Bury and I order you to desist!’

To his credit the man did not try to stop the blows but merely defended his head with his hand. But now a third rider, a captain judging by his uniform, rode over and snatched the whip from Samson’s hand.

In his anger Samson turned on me: ‘You see now what you have done? If we had left last night as I had wanted we could be in Bury by now! Why can you never do as I ask?’ He collapsed heavily onto the seat, tears of frustration running down his cheeks.

What
I could see was what I should have seen before that Samson was utterly exhausted. I was forgetting his great age. The last week had drained him physically and emotionally. He could no longer cope. It was up to me now to take command:

I stood up in my seat.
‘How dare you lay hand on the lord abbot?’ I shouted at the man. ‘I’ll see to it that you’re flogged for this. The Sheriff of Norfolk has no jurisdiction here.’

‘Our orders do not come from the sheriff, Brother Walter
,’ said the man levelly. ‘They come from Lord William. Now please, we have a job to do. Don’t make trouble. Sergeant!’ He signalled to one of his men who spurred his horse to the back of the wagon, dismounted and threw back the tarpaulin. He poked Ralf’s and Jane’s corpses roughly with a finger.

‘Here!’ I yelled at him. ‘
Show some respect!’

But he ignored me.
‘It’s them, sir,’ he called to the captain.

The captain nodded back.
‘I’m sorry father but you are to come with us,’ he said to Samson. ‘You must understand that -’

He stopped.

Understand what?

I looked up.
The captain seemed different. His eyes had widened to discs and he was staring past me towards the back of the wagon. Instinctively I turned round to see what he was looking at and saw the sergeant staring back at us, his eyes even wider than the captain’s. At first I couldn’t see what was wrong with the man - but then I did. Somehow Ralf’s left hand had worked loose from the shroud and was resting lightly on the soldier’s hand. I shuddered with revulsion. The sergeant started to whimper as Ralf’s fingers began crawling up his arm like a giant five-legged spider. The poor man seemed paralysed quite unable to move. In fascinated horror we watched as Ralf’s hand crept slowly up the man’s arm towards his neck. Then to my astonishment Ralf sat bolt upright in the wagon and turned towards the soldier. I gasped - we all gasped. It was enough. The man snatched back his hand and ran off screaming through the icy waters of the stream.

But
that wasn’t the worst of it for now from out of the mist appeared first one then another and finally a whole legion of ghouls stumbling, tumbling, arms outstretched, groping their way towards us and moaning as they came. And suddenly all was panic as troopers fled stumbling in every direction, their horses scrambling up the snow-covered slopes to get away as fast as they could with the ghouls shambling after them.