[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter (7 page)

I reached the end of the Woodspring road and the junction with the main pack-horse track almost before I realised it, my mind busy with the events of the day since leaving Ulnoth's dwelling that same morning. And, upon that thought, I found myself once again drawing abreast of the boulder house. On impulse, I stooped and went inside, calling out, 'Ulnoth!'

For a few seconds, standing there blinking in the gloom, I could not see him, and had just decided that he must have gone to attend to his snares when a slight shuffling noise sounded from the furthest corner.

'Ulnoth!' I repeated.

He crawled forward. 'Chapman,' he said with such a note of relief in his voice that I immediately grew suspicious.

'Who did you think it was? Have you had another visitor?'
 

He shook his head a little too vigorously. 'No. No. Ulnoth frightened.'

'Why? If no one's been here, who or what is there to be scared of? Have you seen something from your doorway?'

'No, no! Nothing.'

I suspected him of lying. Clearly something or someone had upset him, but however hard I probed, he refused to say any more. I did what I could to calm him, settling him in the farthest recess of the house, in the embrasure cut into the bank, and gave him some water. When he stopped trembling I offered, 'I'll stay with you if you wish. Spend the night here.'

But he did not want this, giving me a shove which almost caused me to lose my balance. For the second time I realised that he was stronger than he looked.

'Go. You go,' he muttered.

'Very well, I shall. I must be on my way at once if I'm to reach Cederwell Manor before dark.'

Suddenly, he started to moan, rocking backwards and forwards and muttering to himself, 'Death. Death. Death.'
 

'What about death?' I demanded. And then, when he did not answer, 'Whose death, Ulnoth? What are you trying to tell me?'

But not another word could I prise from him however long and patiently I tried. At last, when he turned his back to me, hunching in on himself, I realised that I could ill afford to waste more time. I squeezed his thin shoulder and gently called his name, but still getting no response I left.

Straightening to my full height outside the entrance I paused for a moment, wondering if I ought to return and press him further as to his meaning; but, several flakes of snow settling just at that moment amid the folds of my cloak, I decided that I must go forward without more delay. Ulnoth had made it plain that he did not want my company.

By the end of what I calculated to be another hour, and when I judged that Cederwell Manor must soon be coming into view, it was snowing with a gentle persistence that might not in itself have boded ill, but for a freshening wind blowing in from the sea. Every moment the smell of salt and fish grew stronger, and I knew that I must be very close by now to the Severn estuary. The land on the left-hand side of the track, which had originally fallen steeply away, was levelling out with each succeeding furlong of ground I covered, while on my right, the cliffs now soared above me. This was partly due to the fact that the track, which followed the high ground all the way from Bristol, was descending towards the shore.

Thick brakes of scrub had begun to replace the wind-bitten trees.

Then, in front of me, I saw the outhouses and barn of the manor, above which rose the chimneys of the house itself, nestling back against the face of the towering cliff behind it.

Turning my head I noted, some hundred yards or so to the left and standing well clear of the homestead, a round tower, three, or maybe four, storeys high.

And on the path ahead of me walked a solitary figure who, although his back was towards me, was immediately recognisable.

Chapter Five

I lengthened my stride.

'God be with you, Brother Simeon,' I called. 'I think we are bound for the same destination.'

The friar slowed to a halt and turned to face me. For a moment puzzlement deepened the lines between his brows.

'We've met somewhere before,' he said, then the frown cleared. 'Bristol. That was it. You and your mother were at the High Cross. Afterwards, she provided me with an excellent meal.'

'My mother-in-law,' I corrected. I had by now caught up with him and we continued to walk together. 'You've been summoned to Cederwell Manor.'

His head came round sharply. 'And how do you know that?'

'Four days ago, quite by chance, I met two men who were searching for you on the orders of their mistress, Lady Cederwell. She had urgent need of you, they said. A miller and his wife, who'd kindly let me eat with them, directed them south, to Woodspring Priory.'

Simeon nodded. His steps were beginning to flag and he leaned heavily on his staff as though he could barely keep himself upright. He looked even frailer than he had done in Bristol, his face gaunter, his body thinner, his black Dominican robe and cloak more travel-stained and tattered.

Only his eyes burned with the same fanatical zeal, the driving force which gave him the will-power to carry on with his mission.

'I have indeed come from that direction. The men you speak of did not find me until I was nearing my destination, and I told them that first I had to fulfil my promise to Abbot Hunt of Saint Augustine's Abbey in Bristol, to preach to the prior and his canons.' He added darkly, 'It seems that morals have grown lax amongst the brothers, and it needed someone to warn them afresh of the terrors of hellfire and eternal damnation; of the peril to their immortal souls if they continued with their sinful ways; to remind them that, under secular law, such malpractices would condemn them to the fire.'

'But what of Lady Cederwell?' I prompted.

'I said that I would be with her as soon as possible. As you say, her need of me seemed to be so great that one of her messengers offered to take me up and carry me to Cederwell there and then. But, "God's work will not be hurried," I told him. "It must proceed at His pace and in His good time. I shall come to your mistress on my own two feet when He wills that I shall do so, but not before, even if it means that Lady Cederwell must wait a week or so." However, with the Almighty's help, my words had such a powerful effect upon the monks of Woodspring that I was able to leave them after only three days, and I set out before first light this morning in the certain knowledge that Father Prior would have no more trouble with them. I have been walking steadily ever since, stopping for neither meat nor drink.'

In that case, I reflected, it was small wonder that he appeared to be in the last stages of exhaustion, for he had now been nearly eight hours on the road without food or rest. He must have passed Lynom Hall only a short while before I quit it, and for most of the way been less than a half-mile ahead of me. I could have caught up with him sooner had he tired more quickly or had I not stopped to speak to Ulnoth. I was sorry, for even his company would have been a welcome relief from the tedium of a winter journey, when there were so few fellow travellers to be met with.

I offered him my arm, saying, 'We can at least walk the last half-furlong together.'

But he spurned my proffered support.

'God will provide all the strength I need, Chapman. When that fails me, I shall know the time has come to prepare for death.'

His words made me remember Ulnoth.

'Do you recall passing a boulder house, some mile and a half back, just after you turned westwards from the Woodspring track?'

Friar Simeon shook his head. 'I look neither to left nor right when I am walking, but keep my eyes fixed on the road ahead, towards that place where God has called me next. Why do you ask? What significance does this boulder house have? Is there a lost soul there who is in need of my ministrations?'

'No, no!' I exclaimed hastily as the friar paused, ready to retrace his steps if necessary.

As we descended the last few yards to Cederwell Manor, I explained as well as I could my connection with Ulnoth and what he had said to me during our second brief meeting this afternoon. But Friar Simeon made nothing of it, merely hunching his thin shoulders.

'We are all of us concerned with thoughts of death, Chapman. Or we ought to be if we are wise. For the one thing we can be sure of from the cradle onwards is that we shall die, and we must see to it that we are always in a state of spiritual grace, ready to meet our Maker.'

Threading our way between two or three of the outbuildings, we found ourselves at last in full view of Cederwell Manor. This was of somewhat curious construction, with what I later discovered to be the great hall and, behind it, the servants' quarters, built at an angle to the entrance passage and kitchens. The barn stood opposite the main porch on the other side of a wide courtyard and a fish pond, and beyond that the land stretched, empty and desolate, towards the estuary. Only a few feet of ground separated the back of the house from the lee of the cliff which rose, steep and barren, behind it. A strange, remote spot, even, I guessed, in summer; a place in which there was plenty of time to brood on real or imagined wrongs and ills.

A little earlier it had stopped snowing, but suddenly it began again, more heavily than before, falling in sudden flurries from an iron-grey sky. The wind, too, had strengthened so that the air was a mass of dancing, whirling flakes, biting and stinging every exposed part of the body until the skin burned under their touch. Hurriedly I led the way round to the back of the house where, against the angled wall, a flight of stone steps led up to a narrow, slate-tiled gallery and two doors which opened into the second storey.

But it was the ground-floor room, whose shutters opened on to the cliff face and now stood wide in order to let out the steam and smells of cooking, which focused my attention. I rapped on one of the shutters as I passed the window, entering the door alongside and finding myself in the main passage which ran the whole length of the house. An archway immediately to my left led into the kitchen.

At first glance this seemed to be full of women, all arguing vehemently with one another. A stout body, whose shiny red face and greasy apron proclaimed her to be the cook, was standing, arms akimbo, confronting a younger, slenderer woman dressed in an unadorned grey woollen gown and a plain linen hood, yet whose general demeanour suggested that she was not one of the servants. As I made my appearance, the latter stamped a foot in frustration.

'When my sister-in-law is absent, you should take your orders from me,' she cried. 'I am next in command!'
 

'You! You're a nobody!' the cook retorted indignantly. 'A nothing! You're here on sufferance, through the master's bounty! I'm not obliged to do anything you tell me! Isn't that so, Mistress Talke?'

Thus appealed to, a third woman, probably as old as the cook but taller and of a sparer build, wearing a large bunch of household keys at her waist, raised her own voice to make herself heard above the others'.

'You're both wrong. I am the housekeeper and I am in charge when my lady is not here.' Her handsome, sallow-skinned features creased into an expression of contempt. 'And at every other time,' she added; a remark which her companions, now united against her, were too angry to heed.

'No one's in charge in my kitchen except me!' proclaimed the cook, picking up and brandishing a spoon.

The younger woman exclaimed, 'You're not family, Phillipa Talke, much as we know you'd like to be!'
 

'And what does that mean, my fine madam?' the housekeeper demanded, rounding on her furiously. Without however waiting for a reply, she continued, 'Martha Grindcobb is right. You have no place here but as a dependant of my lady. It would be as well if you remembered that.' The younger woman let out a high-pitched scream and thumped the kitchen table, making all the pots and pans standing on it rattle.

'My husband is my lady's brother! Perhaps it would also be as well if you remembered that!'

I felt Brother Simeon, who had followed me into the kitchen and was now pressed close against my shoulder, flinch at the sudden crescendo of noise. The next moment he pushed me aside and, striding forward, quelled the cacophony with a single word.

'Silence!'

He had not raised his voice, but his naturally penetrating tone commanded their immediate attention. All three women turned slowly in his direction, their quarrel momentarily forgotten, in mutual astonishment. The housekeeper's mouth flew open to demand an explanation of this intrusion, but when she saw the friar's habit and tonsured head her protestation faltered. The younger woman, however, she whom I understood to be the sister-by-marriage of Lady Cederwell, was not so reticent.

'And who might you be, Brother?'

'I am Friar Simeon,' he announced majestically, drawing himself up to his impressive height, the blue eyes flashing with the promise of hellfire and brimstone for anyone who was foolhardy enough to challenge his authority. 'I have been sent for by Lady Cederwell. Where is she?'

The housekeeper, recovering her nerve a little, said, 'My lady's in her private chapel in the tower, fasting and praying, where she has been since daybreak.' Her glance went past the friar to me. 'Who is this you've brought with you?' I took my pack from my back, dropping it on to the kitchen table, and spoke cheerfully in an attempt to lighten the general atmosphere.