In a Dark Wood (6 page)

Baldwin was dressed like a man ready to ride, a blue tunic, a red riding cape, a cap in his hands. A torch sizzled on the wall, and Baldwin paced to warm himself. “I am indeed curious,” he said, his brass spurs tinkling as he paced. “Although I hope the method is a quick one.”

“We don't know. It could be quick, or it could be slow,” said Geoffrey, looking round for Nottingham, the executioner.

A step whispered in the corridor, and a figure's breath steamed in the torchlight. A soft voice offered courteous greetings, and a lean face came towards them, shadows spreading across it like black fingers. “This should be a very interesting procedure,” said Nottingham.

“Quick, I hope,” said Baldwin.

“Ah.” Regret. Sadness, even. “It may not be so quick.”

Baldwin gathered his cape. “Then let's begin.”

“The newness of the method is its prime advantage,” said Nottingham, his voice so soft it was barely audible. He led the way as they stepped from hissing torchlight to darkness to torchlight, and then their steps echoed down spiral stairs. “The prisoner will not know what to expect.”

“That is usually a disadvantage,” said Baldwin.

“Anticipation is everything,” offered Geoffrey.

“Usually,” said Nottingham. “But this prisoner is very stubborn.”

He used the word
thro
for “stubborn,” a word that Baldwin might not understand, so Geoffrey said, “Stiborn,” a word so often applied to farm animals. “Like a beast, and as stupid.”

“Yes,” said Nottingham. “If he anticipates the agony, he will harden himself against it. Of course, hardening against agony is a waste of time. We know that. They don't.”

An executioner was always named after the city in which he worked. Nottingham had another name, given to him by his father, but because he inherited the position from his father, no one ever called him anything else. He did the city's bidding, he acted on its behalf, and whenever he lifted an axe or built a gallows, he acted as the city, a man who gave the city arms, legs, and a rope.

A dark cloak whispered, the color of water under a drawbridge, black tinged with green. Manacles rattled. A slack face, with dark eyes, like the eyes of a mouse. The dark cloak the prisoner wore made him blend with the darkness. His face and hands floated like bread on water.

A hiss of cloth, and the cloak pooled on the floor. The naked prisoner was pale as tallow, his pubic hair black, a pinch of night. He did not struggle against the black leather gloves of the guards, but his eyes searched the floor. He was trying to find the place in himself that would feel no pain, like a man searching for a forgotten word.

Nottingham tested the straps, then knelt beside the prisoner. He whispered into his ear the words that implored him to divulge his secrets to the mercy of the king.

“There is no treasure,” said the prisoner.

Nottingham rose slowly. A torch behind them made a long, slow sigh, like a sleeping dog. Nottingham ran a forefinger along the white flesh of the prisoner's thigh.

Geoffrey nodded his permission to proceed. Any treasure found buried would be returned to its rightful owner, if such an owner could be found. But most of it would slip into the king's purse. Geoffrey wanted the entry in his books: “tresoure founden.”

A gate clanked, and a rope snaked into the light, followed by two horns. The rope slumped to the floor for a moment as four legs struggled to stand on the cold stone. The prisoner closed his eyes as a knife no longer than a finger, and graceful, like a feather, made a slice in the sole of his foot.

The rope was wrestled into a hard knot, and the goat's snout pressed against the blood. The goat shivered with the effort of pulling away and failing. Then a sound like a dog lapping milk.

The goat lapped the cut on the prisoner's foot.

“The king holds forth his hand to you, his beloved son,” whispered Nottingham.

The prisoner grimaced.

“He begs you to tell what you have hidden from his sight, so that you may obtain mercy.”

The prisoner whipped his head back and forth, with a flash of teeth.

“He waits in sorrow for the words of one of his children.”

Baldwin ran his fingers through his hair and crossed his arms. The steady lapping of the goat was like dripping water, ceaseless and strangely comforting, like rain.

A cry. Scalding. Geoffrey stepped back and covered his ears. Such noises could damage the ears, he believed. It was best to preserve the senses. Deafness was a blight.

Baldwin said something, and Geoffrey uncovered his ears. Baldwin spoke again, but still Geoffrey could not hear. “Very impressive!” shouted Baldwin.

As always, weeping. Howls. Words that made no sense. The lapping of the goat inaudible now, the gray tongue working deep into the sole.

Baldwin nodded. Geoffrey knew that the king would hear good reports from this city and was thankful. Mary had been merciful, and he had been spared total humiliation.

The straps squeaked at the prisoner's wrists. Nottingham knelt beside him, whispering. Then screams again, enough to make Geoffrey blink and gesture the suggestion that they go upstairs. Baldwin shrugged and followed Geoffrey, looking back again at the white body, which glistened now with sweat.

The mind was nothing. Thoughts were illusions, knowledge so much smoke over a courtyard. The body was all that mattered. The court of the Kingdom of God was a part of Christ's body, the head, the arms, and legs, and nails, joined to Him. And so a man's soul was joined to his body, and to reach the soul, the body had to be shoveled aside, like so much earth, by fasting, by self-imposed discomfort, or, in this case, by the lawful ministrations of the king's servants.

A smile, a courteous expression of thanks, and Baldwin and his red-caped retinue clip-clopped across the drawbridge. Geoffrey stood, hand on hilt, as if his hand had found comfort in the knowledge that he could butcher a man on the spot, and then, as soon as Baldwin was out of sight, Geoffrey hurried to the prison.

“Stop it!” shouted Geoffrey.

Nottingham's lean face gaped upwards.

“That's enough!”

The goat's tongue lapped air, and then the beast was dragged kicking into the darkness.

“There is no treasure,” said Geoffrey.

“Can we be sure?” whispered Nottingham.

Executioners enjoyed a special status. They were shunned, ignored, loathed even, and yet they, too, were agents of the king. They could even question the sheriff, and the sheriff had to suffer their impertinence. There was treasure somewhere. Geoffrey was certain of it.

“Yes. We can be certain that there is no treasure. This wretch would have told us by now.”

Nottingham's face turned into the torchlight, stiff with an expression so much like contempt that Geoffrey looked away. “I'll have this man returned to his cell,” said Nottingham.

“Do so.”

“I will interrupt the interrogation and have him taken to his cell.”

“Yes.”

“He will be hanged tomorrow, and we will never know where the treasure is.”

“That is correct,” said Geoffrey.

“Very well, sire,” whispered Nottingham, as he stepped into the darkness like a figure dissolving.

9

“Sir Roger is here,” said Hugh.

“Good. Ask him in.”

“He did not want to come,” said Hugh, bringing a second chair to the meeting table.

Geoffrey did not want to see him, either. The lean face of Nottingham and the white nakedness of the prisoner had made him feel something he had not felt before, and he wanted to sit on the sill of the window and watch men come and go.

The thoughtful stride of the doctor across the courtyard told him that Lady Eleanor had yet another headache or perhaps one of those strange weaknesses in her legs. The doctor wore blood-red, slashed with blue, and the lining was shiny taffeta. His boy accompanied him, carrying a large black basket, drugs, roots, powders, and leeches, as Geoffrey knew from his own brushes with illness.

“He was so busy with his studies that he said he had no time for any business but God's.”

“Sir Roger said that?”

“According to Henry.”

“That doesn't sound at all like Sir Roger. He's been keeping to himself lately, but he's always been a good man at meat and drink. Filled with stories from the East.”

A kitchen wench leaned a huge black tub against a wall, went back inside, and came out with a large brush.

Sir Roger found his way to the chair but remained standing.

“I hate to trouble you in your studies, Sir Roger, but I need a man with experience in handling the attack.”

Sir Roger did not speak for a long time. The air was touched, for a moment, with the spice of horse manure. “The attack on what?”

“Miscreants.”

Sir Roger turned away, shaking his head. He folded his age-knobby hands and said, “I'll do no more damage to my immortal soul than I have done.”

Geoffrey waited for more, but when he heard only the chime of the smith's hammer across the courtyard, he said, “Your soul must be the most precious gem in the kingdom.”

“Black as tar. I have been studying.”

Studying was a well-known form of mortification, like fasting, but more difficult.

“When angels appear to mortal men, it is in the guise of youthful eunuchs,” Sir Roger continued. “Beautiful youths, brighter than the sun.”

Geoffrey covered his eyes with his hands.

“They are clad in divine garments. Gold and white silk, and their hips and knees shine like green grass and citron.” The old knight groaned as he sat. “I have a Saracen arrowpoint in my thighbone. A black tooth in my timber.”

Geoffrey turned to the window. A cartload of wood creaked across the stones below, pulled by two oxen that looked out upon the bustle of the castle with eyes that understood and forgave.

“Exactly so do the sins of my youth anchor themselves, black and rusting, in my soul. When we die, we pass twenty-one tollhouses, each manned with a demon smeared with feces and speaking fire. Each represents a sin: slander, envy, falsehood, wrath, pride, inane speech, usury and deceit, despondency coupled with vanity, avarice—”

“This is grievous …” Geoffrey began.

“—drunkenness, evil memories, sorcery, gluttony, homosexuality, adultery, murder, theft, fornication, and hardness of heart. I have left some out. Slander, envy, falsehood, wrath—”

“Please stay seated, Sir Roger. A terrible list. But, and I am an ignorant man, it seems that a further sin is to think too much on sin.”

“Yes, that, too!” howled Sir Roger.

“I depend on you for good advice, Roger.”

“Then I will tell you of the Seven Deadliest.”

Geoffrey put his hand on Sir Roger's shoulder. He released him at once, appalled. The man had wasted. The burly Sir Roger, who had sworn that when knife was in meat and drink in horn he was the best man under the sky, was gone. This skeleton remained.

“Pride,” said Sir Roger. “Lechery.” Was there a special emphasis in his voice? “Envy. Anger. Avarice. Gluttony. Ah, gluttony.” Regret, or nostalgia? “Sloth.”

“A terrible list,” said Geoffrey.

“A terrible list.” Agreement so vehement it was like sarcasm. “How will any of us reach Heaven?”

“Heaven!” said Geoffrey, exasperated.

“God's retinue …” began Sir Roger.

“Sir Roger,” said Geoffrey, speaking fast, before the old man's mind clouded further, “I need to catch a highwayman who hides in the forest. My men are inexperienced, and I can't race them like a brace of hounds through the woods. Even if I did, they'd fail.”

“You think me mad, like that woman by the churchyard.”

Geoffrey pulled his sword belt back into place. “May I speak bluntly?”

“You think I should be sealed into a stone tower just like that madwoman, that shrieking hag.”

“Some people think her half a saint.”

“You think I am like her. I can't sleep. I wake and think: I have wasted my life.”

The very phrase appalled Geoffrey. He had never imagined such a thought. How could a life be wasted? He did not want to listen to Sir Roger suddenly and found himself listening to the distant clatter of the smith's hammer, thankful for such a common, simple noise.

“We catch what we want by letting it come to us,” said Sir Roger.

The memory of the boar spear made Geoffrey frown and rub his hands together. “How am I supposed to lure this man here?”

“What does he like?”

“I don't know anything about him.”

“If he wanted to lure you, what would he use?”

If a man wanted to lure Geoffrey into the forest, he would use women.

“Whatever you do,” said Sir Roger, “do not play his game. Play your own.”

The concept of the game was very important. Every courtly man understood the importance of the contest as a test of wits and courage and as proof that life itself was a serious game, human souls to the winner.

Sir Roger had been stout. He had killed dozens. He had been to Jerusalem and had despised weakness wherever he discovered it. Even now he seemed strong, but it was a much different strength. Again, Geoffrey laid a hand on Sir Roger's shoulder. “You shouldn't keep to yourself. You should grace these halls with your presence.”

“What is that strange man who says nothing?”

“Ah,” said Geoffrey.

“I thought, at first, that he was a relative, a brother of your wife's, who has become weak-headed and whom you have taken in.”

“No, he is a Fool.”

The old man formed the word
Fool
with his lips.

“It is a fashion in Paris. And—and other places. He amuses people.”

“He pretends to be separate from human relations, like a ghost.”

“Apparently,” said Geoffrey.

“Why does he do this?”

“It's his duty.”