Chapter Thirty-Two
Huward stood in the cover of the trees and stared back at the destruction of all that he had loved and considered most important in the world. His mill had been his pride, his family had been his joy. Now the building was smoking like a charcoal-burner’s stack, thick coils of smoke seeping out of gaps in the thatch and from windows like poisonous grey snakes seeking the daylight.
He was still there when Sir Ralph galloped back to the burning building leaping from his horse and running towards the doorway. Other men appeared, but Huward paid them no attention. He was watching the knight, the man who had caused this destruction.
Sir Ralph shouted something; Huward couldn’t hear him over the din of the fire. It sounded almost as though the flames were mocking the knight and him together, laughing at them. Men went to Sir Ralph’s side, staring inside, but then Sir Ralph gave a loud cry and pointed. The others grabbed at him, but he slipped away, ducked beneath the flaming timber of the doorway, and was inside. As others scooped water from the river and threw it over the flames, in at the door, over the roof, everywhere, Huward saw one man turn and see him. It was the Bailiff.
Huward moved away. He had done enough. Now he had just one more task to fulfil before he could find peace.
Simon was in two minds whether to go and try to catch up with Huward, but there was someone trapped inside the mill, and he was sure that his duty lay in saving life rather than chasing after the miller. He pulled off his coat as he ran to the river, and threw himself in, making sure that the coat was well soaked. Running back, he draped the coat over his head and plunged inside the mill.
It was hard to see anything. The smoke from the damp thatch was as thick and viscous as oil. Simon stared about him, choking on the harsh fumes. Thinking he saw movement, he walked cautiously towards it, but when he reached the place, he realised it was the dancing flames on a burning timber. Gazing about him again, he saw something else, and was convinced it must be a man. He ran to the figure, and saw that it was Sir Ralph, dragging someone else. Simon took his arm and tried to help him, but then he found himself being overwhelmed by an increasing lassitude, and he couldn’t quite recall where the door was. He coughed, and then realised that the acrid stuff had risen up into his nose and was searing his nostrils.
A strong hand gripped his shoulder; it was Baldwin. His old friend tore the coat from Simon’s head and threw it away. Then he reached forward, picked up the body from Sir Ralph, placed it over his shoulder and pulled Simon out of that house of horror. Only when he was outside did Simon realise that he had kept hold of Sir Ralph and hauled him out too.
‘Thank–’ he began, and then submitted to a paroxysm of coughing and retching, feeling the cool grass and stones on his face as he sprawled, incapable of moving.
Huward marched through the woods. As he went, he tugged at his thin leather belt; it would serve his purpose. When he heard running steps, he paid them no heed, but then he saw who it was, and he stopped.
For his part, Mark didn’t realise who he had blundered into until he was a scant few feet from Huward, and then his face blanched and he stood like one petrified. He had no idea what to say. There was nothing he
could
say to the man who only yesterday had been demanding his execution for the murder of his daughter. He opened his mouth, but no words came. In preference he would have resorted to flight, but he couldn’t. He felt like his feet had taken root with the trees in the dark soil.
Huward broke the silence with a sob. ‘Dead. All dead!’
‘Who is?’ Mark stuttered. In truth, Huward looked as though he had died and gone to Hell. His face was scorched on the left cheek, his hair seared away, and his eyes were quite mad.
‘All. Gilda, Ben, Flora – all dead. All burned. I did it – I had to. Sir Ralph made me. He made me a fool and murderer. He used me and my wife, like he uses everyone. So I’ve stopped their pain and suffering. My poor Gilda! My poor Flora! Why do I still love them? How can I? They aren’t mine, they’re
his
!’
‘His?’ Mark watched as Huward slowly moved away, still muttering heedlessly about his family, and then Mark heard the shouts and saw the smoke. A chill in his heart, he crept towards the edge of the trees and peered out at the scene before him.
In front of the burning mill were some men sprawled on the grass. Mark could see that the Keeper was coughing and staring at the house, his beard singed on one side, while at his feet the Bailiff was being attended by his servant. Sir Ralph sat with his head resting on his hands and gazing at the mill with a kind of disbelieving horror, while at his side, Ben lay like one dead, his upper body covered in a blackened and filthy shirt, his hair all but gone, his hands terribly burned. While Mark watched, he saw Osbert emerging from the mill, a body over his back. Os lurched away from the building, depositing the figure on the ground, and then submitted to a racking cough. The body squirmed. It was Flora, and as her burned flesh touched the ground, she started to wail, long and mournfully. As the Keeper ordered men to her, she gave a sudden cough and, turning over, vomited over the grass. Piers was at her side and mopped at her face with a damp cloth from a bucket.
If he could, Mark would have gone to Flora immediately to pray and ease her pain, but he couldn’t. Any of the men there might kill him on sight. No, it was better that he should get away from here. Leave this place of murder and rapine, go to the Bishop’s palace and try to find some peace.
They had given up the battle – that much was obvious. The place was an inferno, and the odd bucket or two of water could do nothing to assuage the fearsome hunger of the flames. The fire must be left to burn itself out.
He walked back the way he had come, going quietly as a deer to avoid being heard, but there was no one around. Any men in the area would be at the mill, trying to save what they could. He could breathe more easily, secure in the knowledge that the disaster at the mill had distracted any thought of pursuit of him.
Carrying on, he upset a blackbird, which suddenly flew off, moving close to the ground and crying its warning as it went.
All at once, as the noise faded, Mark became aware that this was a very quiet part of the wood. There seemed to be no animals, no birdsong, no scuttling of mouse feet, nothing. It was disconcerting. Yet there was still the slow creak of boughs rubbing against each other in the wind, a languid, relaxing sound in the peace. He stood still a moment, enjoying the silence, and then a drip or two of rain pattered on his shoulder, except he noticed that it smelled like urine.
When he looked up to see where the drops came from, he saw the body of Huward, dangling from a high branch, his belt suspending him by the neck.
Baldwin had brought a wineskin with him when he left the castle, and now he sent a man to fetch it from his horse. He was weak and dizzy after the strain of trying to hold his breath as long as possible in that terrible place, and he was not as young as he had once been, so lifting and carrying even so slight a body as Ben’s had torn something in his back and strained his upper belly. As he moved his shoulders and tentatively flexed muscles, he had to give a wry grin. Once he would have been able to dart in, bring out the girl, then run back in and save another.
The man returned with the skin. Baldwin took a mouthful and swilled it around his teeth, swallowing gratefully before offering it to Simon. The Bailiff was kneeling now, groggy as a fighter who had been felled once too often, spitting the sour flavour of vomit from his mouth. Seeing the skin he took it greedily, gulping at it until Baldwin had to wrench it away.
While Simon groaned and smacked his lips, Baldwin went to the girl and Sir Ralph. Flora was alive – but only just. She looked as though she was sorry not to have been left in the house. Her eyes were open, but she was lying on her back and staring up at the darkening sky. She didn’t flinch even when a great roaring crash came from the mill as the machinery collapsed, bringing down the whole roof with it. Sparks gleamed and flew up as the smoke gushed, and then there was a great howl as flames sped to feed upon the fresh timbers. Now the heat was astonishing, with orange-red lighting the whole area, and flames leaping towards the heavens.
‘Will you not drink a little, maid?’ he asked. ‘A sip of wine might clear your mouth of the fumes.’
‘I’m not thirsty,’ she said.
It was true. Although the whole of her body felt burned, she was content to lie here on the damp grass, uncaring of what the future might bring. It didn’t matter. Her soul felt empty. All her family was gone. If her father was ever to return, she would be filled with fear, not love. There was no one, no one at all, who could fill the terrible void that had opened in her life tonight.
Hands lifted her and carried her gently to a horse. There she was placed into the arms of another man, who she soon realised was Sir Ralph, and the horse set off slowly for the castle.
In the past, Flora had always felt a sense of dread when she had passed beneath the gateway, but this time, there was nothing, except the gradual awakening of pain from the dreadful burns on her thighs and face.
And the awareness of the silent sobs of the knight who held her so softly and yet so well.
He was still there as night came on fully.
It took him an age to get the body down. He was unused to clambering up trees, but he must reach out along that branch and slash away at the leather, slowly sawing with his little blunt eating knife until at last there was a short ripping noise and the badly cured leather gave way.
Huward fell silently, and somehow Mark thought that was wrong. A man dropping so far, at least ten feet, should at least gasp or wail, but this body simply disappeared from view and landed on the grass and leaves. When Mark looked down, the bloated face and curiously bloodshot eyes met his accusingly.
It took some while to climb back down, and then Mark was startled to hear Surval’s voice.
‘Be gracious to him. He was a good man,’ the hermit said.
‘I never heard a bad word about him.’
‘No. I think that was what he feared most,’ Surval said contemplatively. ‘The idea that all the men he knew in the vill might begin to think of him as a figure of ridicule. He was a kind fellow, but proud, and the idea of losing any respect from the folk here was too appalling for him.’
‘He has killed them all, hasn’t he? He said something about Sir Ralph.’
Surval gave him a sombre look. ‘What would you have done?’ he said. ‘Huward learned that Sir Ralph fathered all the children: Ben, Flora and Mary were his, not Huward’s.’
‘He told you all this?’
‘And more.’
Mark nodded. He was setting out the body as neatly as he could, trying not to look into Huward’s eyes. Huward’s hands he crossed over his breast, and then those terrible eyes were closed. Mark bent his head and said a long prayer over the dead man, pleading for Jesus’s intervention, asking St Mary to protect Huward’s soul and give him her compassion. It seemed ironic to be pleading with her when the whole cycle of death and horror had started with her namesake’s murder.
Surval was uncompromising. ‘I liked him, but he committed suicide.’
‘He did so while he was temporarily mad. That wasn’t his fault. Just as,’ Mark added, rising to his feet, ‘the murder of his family wasn’t his fault either. That was down to Sir Ralph.’
Suddenly, as he stood gazing about him, the full horror of Surval’s words struck at him, and he uttered a faint gasp as he tottered on legs suddenly powerless to support him. He closed his eyes as the terrible truth was revealed.
‘Christ in Heaven!’
‘Boy? What is it?’ Surval demanded. He had crossed to Mark’s side and now he leaned on his staff and peered at the young man, but Mark was incapable of responding.
If it was true that Sir Ralph was the father of the children of Huward’s family, then Mark had been sleeping with his own sister! Half-sister, perhaps, but that was no defence. Worse – he had made her pregnant!
‘Oh God!’
‘You sound petrified, boy,’ Surval said quietly. ‘What is this – has something alarmed you?’
‘You know, don’t you?’ Mark croaked.
‘Perhaps.’ Surval lowered his head. ‘There is a family resemblance. But remember, vengeance is the Lord’s, not ours.’
Mark didn’t agree. Standing and staring down at the corpse, he was aware of a revulsion so complete, so all-enveloping, that it made him feel quite weak. Sir Ralph – he was the man responsible for all this misery.
Sir Ralph! He had condemned Mark to Hell, for unknowingly, Mark had committed the sin of incest, but his own ignorance was no excuse. All so that Sir Ralph could slake his carnal lusts with a woman other than his wife. Mark could comprehend a man’s desire for a woman, but to have cuckolded a man to this extent, leaving so many souls to perish, that was appalling! Sir Ralph had ruined so many by his thoughtless satisfaction of his desires.
Mark felt sick. He couldn’t meet Surval’s eyes. Instead he found his gaze passing down his body toward his own cods, staring at his groin with loathing. There, there was the root of all man’s sin, he felt. Sex. It had led Sir Ralph to Gilda and then he himself to Mary, poor, beautiful Mary. ‘Christ!’ At least she had died without knowing the depth of her sins. She didn’t have to live with her guilt as Mark would.
Even the sin of self-murder was better than this self-hatred. How could any man live with the weight of this crime burdening him?
‘What are you thinking, lad? That Sir Ralph is deserving of death? Leave him for the moment. Come with me to my home and I’ll give you a safe bed for the night. Tomorrow I can tell the Coroner about this man’s body. Meantime, you can escape. You don’t want to be found, do you?’