New Blood From Old Bones (2 page)

Then, on the twenty-first day of September each year, at the ringing of the great bell, the reliquary would be lifted down from its glittering shrine. It would be held high by the monks and borne in solemn procession behind the cross, with plainchant, censers, banners and candles, and with the prior and sub-prior wearing their most magnificent priestly copes.

The procession would pass first through every part of the church except the nave, and then out round the cloister, before returning through the great west door. Having passed slowly through the nave, they would halt before the rood screen before re-entering the choir to begin High Mass. And the pilgrims who had squeezed into the crowded nave would press forward, open-mouthed with awe, craning through candlelight and clouds of incense to see for themselves whether the miracle had indeed recurred, and the dry bones of the saint were once again bedewed with blood.

Will Ackland reined in his horse. They had crested Bartholomew's Hills, a downland sheep pasture a mile to the south of Castleacre, and the shallow valley of the Nar was spread before them.

He pointed out to Ned Pye the great stone tower, clamouring with the sound of bells, that rose from the valley floor. The top of the tower, rearing high above the trees that marked the course of the river, was shaped to a massive red-tiled point in the style of France, where the Cluniac order had originated.

‘There's the priory church of Castleacre. The town lies above and to the east of it, beyond the trees, and the castle to the east of that.'

‘I see no castle,' said Ned, disappointed.

‘You will when we reach the river. You'll find it much smaller than the priory,' Will warned, but his servant seemed disinclined to believe it.

They rode on, to the place where pilgrims from other parts of England joined the Peddars'Way before continuing to Castleacre or Walsingham. At the crossroads stood a gibbet as a warning to thieves and would-be murderers. Its upright post leaned forward, habituated to a dangling weight on the extended arm, though the thing that swayed there now was light enough, nothing but rags and bones abandoned even by carrion crows. All the travellers skirted it, and crossed themselves as they did so.

Those who were going to Castleacre for St Matthew's feast now filled the road. Some solitary pilgrims strode along in seasoned walking boots, with staves in their hands and scallop shell badges in their hats to signify that they had made the great pilgrimage to the Spanish shrine of St James at Compostella. Of the others, some went penitently barefoot for at least the last mile. Those who sought healing leaned for support on their friends, or were carried on litters. But most of the pilgrims rode in cheerful company, including a group of nuns perched on muleback with their priest and their steward in attendance.

Some distance behind the nuns, but gaining on them, an archdeacon came cantering on a fine horse, accompanied by his chaplain and clerks. Servants rode before him to clear the way, but people were glad enough to move when they recognised his stern face, and the black gown, silver cross and close-fitting black cap that marked his office.

None wanted to offend him, for the archdeacon travelled the diocese to enquire into the state of each parish church, and the conduct of both clergy and people. Those who offended against church law would be summoned to attend the archdeacon's court, which had power to excommunicate them for heresy, and to fine or imprison for other offences. The church's law touched every part of life, and those who kept well within the common law might still fear being reported to the archdeacon. As a Castleacre blacksmith had once complained to Will, with so many ways to offend – speaking ill of the priest, absence from the church, disturbance within it, failure to pay tithe, bastardy, adultery, fornication – any red-blooded parishioner was hard put to keep out of trouble.

But many travellers were coming to Castleacre with little but profit on their minds. Mingling with the pilgrims were country people laden with extra supplies of vegetables and fruit, butter and cheese. Pedlars and chapmen came from afar with trinkets and pins and bobbins and ribbons, bringing a wealth of news both true and false. Strolling bands of players came to provide entertainment, as did minstrel troupes, and a man with a performing ape, and another leading a dancing bear. And mingling with the crowds, heedless of the stocks in the market place and the gibbet on Bartholomew's Hills, there were sure to be vagabonds, beggars and thieves.

Progress was slow as the crowds moved down the long slope towards the ford, where the Peddars'Way crossed the river to the south of the town. Just before the ford, the road rose over a bank topped by an oak tree. From this bank, as Will remembered from his boyhood, there was a good view of the town and the castle, held in the shallow embrace of the river as it flowed below them and on past the priory to the port of Bishop's Lynn.

Will drew his horse to one side, under the branches of the oak from which he and his schoolfellows had used to spy on travellers coming to the town. Then, as now, those on horseback splashed through the water and those on foot crossed by the upstream stepping stones. The scene was entirely familiar – and yet different, as all homecoming travellers discover when they notice an empty skyline where trees once stood, or find a view blocked by a growing thicket, or see a new roof where there was none before.

The river, though, was just as he remembered it. He breathed pleasurably deep as he watched the weed waving in the clear, fast-flowing chalk stream and smelled the peppery freshness of watercress. He and his friends had often spied on the servant girls who came down from the town to wash linen, and sometimes themselves, at the stepping stones. It was in the deep pool above the stones that he had learned to swim. And further downriver, near the priory, he had once spent an idle afternoon in competition with some of the monks, seeing who would be first to tickle a trout.

Will turned his head as Ned Pye rode up the bank to join him. ‘There is the whole of Castleacre,' he announced, with a grand gesture that swept from the riverside priory, itself the size of a small town, up across rising fields to the town proper, overtopped by the tower of the parish church, and so to the walls of his ancestral home. But he spoke with a twitch of amusement, for his servant had always been over-impressed by the knowledge that the Acklands lived in a castle.

Ned's face lengthened with dismay.

‘
That
is your castle? But it's ruined!'

‘Destroyed two hundred and fifty years ago,' said Will. He laughed at his servant's gloom. ‘Why do we need a fortress? We have no enemies to fight, nor noble friends to impress.'

He looked with some affection at the remaining stone walls that had once surrounded a castle keep, built on the far side of the valley in the time of the Norman kings to control the crossing of the Nar. The outer walls had been breached in the barons'wars, and had crumbled thereafter from age and disuse. In the reign of King Henry VII the old keep had been used by the Acklands as a quarry, when they had built themselves a dwelling house within the outer walls.

‘One of my ancestors sided with a baron who was defeated,' Will explained. ‘All his lands, except for the remains of the castle, were seized by the victor and given to the priory. Our family still farmed the land – as my brother Gilbert has done since our father's death – but we are merely impoverished gentlemen, and tenants of the priory.'

Ned Pye shook his head, bemused, as he tried to adjust his ambitions to his master's situation. ‘Then – in truth – your family can provide you with nothing?'

‘Nothing at all. No money, no land, no property,' said Will. ‘I've told you before – I am a penniless younger brother, as you have cause to know from the quality of your horse.'

Ned nodded ruefully. ‘I never believed the fountains flowing with wine, nor yet the dancing girls and the roasted swan. But I was sure a castle could provide me with a better mount than this …'

‘Even if it could, I would never give you a good horse,' said his master. ‘Your hands are too hard.'

‘Not too hard to tend your wounds until I got you to the French priory!'

‘True. And I shall never forget it, with you to remind me so often. Well, you have leave to drink at my expense at an alehouse in the town while we're here – so long as you're sober enough to bring my boots and shaving water every morning.'

‘Ha!' snorted Ned Pye. ‘I knew there would be a catch in your offer.' He looked with disparagement towards the thatched roofs and gables that climbed higgledy-piggledy up the slope of the valley from the ford and clustered round the parish church. ‘By the Mass,' he said, ‘I never saw such a poor little town as yours. When can we go back to London?'

‘In a week's time. I must return for my final year of studies before I qualify as a barrister,' said Will. ‘While I'm here, making the acquaintance of my daughter, you must occupy yourself – but without disgracing my family, if you please. You‘ll find entertainment enough in the town during St Matthew's feast.'

Will guided his horse down the bank to join the crowds approaching the ford. Ned Pye followed, grumbling. ‘Entertainment?' Will heard him scoff. ‘Two poxy jesters and a moth-eaten old bear …'

The bear was indeed a poor creature, shambling along some yards ahead of them with its toes turned in. It was docile enough, but muzzled with iron and no doubt clipped about the claws. The thick-set bearward held it on a heavy chain attached to a stake, while his boy followed carrying their pack, and the drum and pipe to which the wretched creature would be made to perform a shuffling dance.

But the water of the river seemed to revive the bear. It stopped to drink deep, then raised its great head and sniffed the air. Suddenly, regardless of people, horses and mules in the way, it plunged downstream, jerking the bearward off his feet though he still hung on to its chain.

There was a great commotion, a shouting and a splashing as folk stumbled out of the animal's path. Nuns scattered like mounted magpies. The archdeacon's fine horse reared, nearly unseating him. The bearward's boy waded after his floundering master, drumming to call the creature to order.

The bear, however, was intent upon reaching a barrier formed halfway across the river by a fallen bough. Debris had built up against the bough, formed of branches and weed and oddments dropped by travellers as they crossed the ford. The largest of these oddments looked like a ragged bundle of cloth, partially floating in the water and rocking a little as the bear splashed towards it.

By this time the bearward had regained his feet, though up to his haunches in the river. Cursing and belabouring the animal with his stake, he began to haul it away as it attempted to snout through its muzzle at the waterlogged bundle. The boy joined him, waist-deep, and together they heaved on its chain.

The crowds, including Will and his servant, had perforce to move on, pushed across the ford by those following behind. Besides, all were weary after their travels and intent upon reaching the end of their journey.

But Will Ackland's curiosity had been roused. He made a point of watching as his horse splashed past, and saw the man and the boy dragging the reluctant bear out of the water. And he noticed that as they regained dry ground, the bearward glanced back fearfully at the half-submerged bundle of rags and crossed himself.

The gaze of every wayfarer, after crossing the ford, was drawn to the great grey bulk of the priory. With its splendid bell-resounding church – bigger by far than the parish church up on the ridge – and all the other stone buildings that rose above the high walls that encircled its precinct, it dominated the shallow valley.

Its domination was almost complete, for the priory owned most of the land hereabouts and land elsewhere besides. Like every other religious house it offered hospitality to travellers as well as to pilgrims. But its gatehouse stood on the north side of the outer wall and everyone bound for the priory had first to journey up through the town, to the great profit of the people of Castleacre.

Travellers of high rank, clerics, and nuns on pilgrimage, would all ride without pause to the priory where they could be sure of good food and drink and comfortable beds in the guest houses. Poor pilgrims and wayfarers would also go straight to the priory, where they would be sheltered overnight and given food at the almonry. But for those with money in their pockets, the town itself was the immediate goal.

Over three centuries, as the fame of Castleacre priory had grown, alehouse keepers and tradesmen had moved their premises further and further down towards the ford to capture incoming customers. Seeing the town so near, and scenting food in the smoke from its fires, weary travellers had always hurried eagerly into its embrace. And the street called Southgate had never disappointed them, for shoes could be mended here, horses could be shod, hot pottage and meat pasties could be eaten and – above all – thirsts could be quenched.

‘By the Mass,' croaked Ned Pye hopefully above the noise, as he and his master edged through the crowds in the narrow street, their horses delicately avoiding the outstretched legs of the drinkers who filled the benches outside every alehouse, ‘I‘m as dry as a gammon of bacon hung on a chimney …'

Will Ackland ignored him, for he was intent on stopping the first honest Castleacre man he saw and sending him, with a groat for his trouble, to give a message to the parish constable. Then he rode on, with Ned croaking indignantly behind him. Presently the street widened to form the sloping market place, just below the church, where an inn at the sign of the Woolpack provided refreshment and beds for dealers in the cloth trade. From there, Will turned east along Castlegate. Ahead of them, at the end of this street, stood what was left of the Acklands'castle.

It looked more imposing from the town than it did from the river. The old Normans had built it well, and though the outer walls were now in some places no higher than a house, they were set on the edge of a great earthwork that rose out of a wide, scrub-grown ditch. Castlegate street ran directly to the edge of the ditch, which was crossed by a stone bridge. On the far side of the bridge was a high gatehouse, set in the outer wall.