Epic Historial Collection (164 page)

Screwing up his courage, Merthin said: “Why?”

“Dig, and I'll tell you as much of it as I can.”

Merthin scratched a square on the ground and began to loosen the cold earth with the dagger, then scoop it up with his hands.

Thomas picked up the scroll and put it into the wool bag, then fastened the bag inside the wallet. “I was given this letter to deliver to the earl of Shiring,” he said. “But it contains a secret so dangerous that I realized the bearer was sure to be killed, to make certain he could never speak of it. So I needed to disappear. I decided I would take sanctuary in a monastery, become a monk. I've had enough of fighting, and I've a lot of sins to repent. As soon as I went missing, the people who gave me the letter started to search for me—and I was unlucky. I was spotted in a tavern in Bristol.”

“Why did the queen's men come after you?”

“She, too, would like to prevent the spread of this secret.”

When Merthin's hole was eighteen inches deep, Thomas said: “That will do.” He dropped the wallet inside.

Merthin shoveled the earth back into the hole on top of the wallet, and Thomas covered the freshly turned earth with leaves and twigs until it was indistinguishable from the ground around it.

“If you hear that I've died,” said Thomas, “I'd like you to dig up this letter and give it to a priest. Would you do that for me?”

“All right.”

“Until that happens, you must tell no one. While they know I've got the letter, but they don't know where it is, they'll be afraid to do anything. But if you tell the secret, two things will happen. First, they will kill me. Then they will kill you.”

Merthin was aghast. It seemed unfair that he should be in so much danger just because he helped a man by digging a hole.

“I'm sorry to scare you,” said Thomas. “But, then, it's not entirely my fault. After all, I didn't ask you to come here.”

“No.” Merthin wished with all his heart that he had obeyed his mother's orders and stayed out of the forest.

“I'm going to return to the road. Why don't you go back the way you came? I bet you'll find your friends waiting somewhere not far from here.”

Merthin turned to go.

“What's your name?” the knight called after him.

“Merthin, son of Sir Gerald.”

“Really?” Thomas said, as if he knew Father. “Well, not a word, even to him.”

Merthin nodded and left.

When he had gone fifty yards he vomited. After that he felt slightly better.

As Thomas had predicted, the others were waiting for him, right at the edge of the wood, near the timber yard. They crowded around him, touching him as if to make sure he was all right, looking relieved yet ashamed, as if they were guilty about having left him. They were all shaken, even Ralph. “That man,” he said. “The one I shot. Was he badly hurt?”

“He's dead,” Merthin said. He showed Ralph the arrow, still stained with blood.

“Did you pull it out of his eye?”

Merthin would have liked to say he had, but he decided to tell the truth. “The knight pulled it out.”

“What happened to the other man-at-arms?”

“The knight cut his throat. Then we hid the bodies in the bush.”

“And he just let you go?”

“Yes.” Merthin said nothing about the buried letter.

“We have to keep this secret,” Caris urged. “There will be terrible trouble if anyone finds out.”

Ralph said: “I'll never tell.”

“We should swear an oath,” Caris said.

They stood in a little ring. Caris stuck out her arm so that her hand was in the center of the circle. Merthin placed his hand over hers. Her skin was soft and warm. Ralph added his hand, then Gwenda did the same, and they swore by the blood of Jesus.

Then they walked back into the town.

Archery practice was over, and it was time for the midday meal. As they crossed the bridge, Merthin said to Ralph: “When I grow up, I want to be like that knight—always courteous, never frightened, deadly in a fight.”

“Me, too,” said Ralph. “Deadly.”

In the old city, Merthin felt an irrational sense of surprise that normal life was going on all around: the sound of babies crying, the smell of roasting meat, the sight of men drinking ale outside taverns.

Caris stopped outside a big house on the main street, just opposite the entrance to the priory precincts. She put an arm around Gwenda's shoulders and said: “My dog at home has had puppies. Do you want to see them?”

Gwenda still looked frightened and close to tears, but she nodded emphatically. “Yes, please.”

That was clever as well as kind, Merthin thought. The puppies would be a comfort to the little girl—and a distraction, too. When she returned to her family, she would talk about the puppies and be less likely to speak of going into the forest.

They said good-bye, and the girls went into the house. Merthin found himself wondering when he would see Caris again.

Then his other troubles came back to him. What was his father going to do about his debts? Merthin and Ralph turned into the cathedral close, Ralph still carrying the bow and the dead hare. The place was quiet.

The guesthouse was empty but for a few sick people. A nun said to them: “Your father is in the church, with the earl of Shiring.”

They went into the great cathedral. Their parents were in the vestibule. Mother was sitting at the foot of a pillar, on the outjutting corner where the round column met the square base. In the cold light that came through the tall windows, her face was still and serene, almost as if she were carved of the same gray stone as the pillar against which she leaned her head. Father stood beside her, his broad shoulders slumped in an attitude of resignation. Earl Roland faced them. He was older than Father, but with his black hair and vigorous manner he seemed more youthful. Prior Anthony stood beside the earl.

The two boys hung back at the door, but Mother beckoned them. “Come here,” she said. “Earl Roland has helped us come to an arrangement with Prior Anthony that solves all our problems.”

Father grunted, as if he was not as grateful as she for what the earl had done. “And the priory gets my lands,” he said. “There'll be nothing for you two to inherit.”

“We're going to live here, in Kingsbridge,” Mother went on brightly. “We'll be corrodiaries of the priory.”

Merthin said: “What's a corrodiary?”

“It means the monks will provide us with a house to live in and two meals a day, for the rest of our lives. Isn't that wonderful?”

Merthin could tell that she did not really think it was wonderful. She was pretending to be pleased. Father was clearly ashamed to have lost his lands. There was more than a hint of disgrace in this, Merthin realized.

Father addressed the earl. “What about my boys?”

Earl Roland turned and looked at them. “The big one looks promising,” he said. “Did you kill that hare, lad?”

“Yes, Lord,” Ralph said proudly. “Shot it with an arrow.”

“He can come to me as a squire in a few years' time,” the earl said briskly. “We'll teach him to be a knight.”

Father looked pleased.

Merthin felt bewildered. Big decisions were being made too quickly. He was outraged that his younger brother should be so favored while no mention was made of himself. “That's not fair!” he burst out. “I want to be a knight, too!”

His mother said: “No!”

“But I made the bow!”

Father gave a sigh of exasperation and looked disgusted.

“You made the bow, did you, little one?” the earl said, and his face showed disdain. “In that case, you shall be apprenticed to a carpenter.”

3

C
aris's home was a luxurious wood-frame building with stone floors and a stone chimney. There were three separate rooms on the ground floor: the hall with the big dining table, the small parlor where Papa could discuss business privately, and the kitchen at the back. When Caris and Gwenda walked in, the house was full of the mouthwatering smell of a ham boiling.

Caris led Gwenda through the hall and up the internal staircase.

“Where are the puppies?” said Gwenda.

“I want to see my mother first,” Caris replied. “She's ill.”

They went into the front bedroom, where Mama lay on the carved wooden bedstead. She was small and frail: Caris was already the same height. Mama looked paler than usual, and her hair was not yet dressed, so it stuck to her damp cheeks. “How are you feeling?” Caris said.

“A little weak, today.” The effort of speaking made Mama breathless.

Caris felt a familiar, painful jumble of anxiety and helplessness. Her mother had been ill for a year. It had started with pains in her joints. Soon she had ulcers inside her mouth and unaccountable bruises on her body. She had felt too weak to do anything. Last week she had caught a cold. Now she was running a fever and had trouble in catching her breath.

“Is there anything you need?” Caris asked.

“No, thank you.”

It was the usual answer, but Caris felt maddened by powerlessness each time she heard it. “Should I fetch Mother Cecilia?” The prioress of Kingsbridge was the only person able to bring Mama some comfort. She had an extract of poppies that she mixed with honey and warm wine that eased the pain for a while. Caris regarded Cecilia as better than an angel.

“No need, dear,” Mama said. “How was the All Hallows service?”

Caris noticed how pale her mother's lips were. “Scary,” she said.

Mama paused, resting, then said: “What have you been doing this morning?”

“Watching the archery.” Caris held her breath, frightened that Mama might guess her guilty secret, as she often did.

But Mama looked at Gwenda. “Who is your little friend?”

“Gwenda. I've brought her to see the puppies.”

“That's lovely.” Mama suddenly looked tired. She closed her eyes and turned her head aside.

The girls crept out quietly.

Gwenda was looking shocked. “What's wrong with her?”

“A wasting disease.” Caris hated to talk about it. Her mother's illness gave her the unnerving feeling that nothing was certain, anything could happen, there was no safety in the world. It was even more frightening than the fight they had witnessed in the forest. If she thought about what might happen, and the possibility that her mother might die, she suffered a panicky fluttering sensation in her chest that made her want to scream.

The middle bedroom was used in summer by the Italians, wool buyers from Florence and Prato who came to do business with Papa. Now it was empty. The puppies were in the back bedroom, which belonged to Caris and her sister, Alice. They were seven weeks old, ready to leave their mother, who was growing impatient with them. Gwenda gave a sigh of joy and immediately got down on the floor with them.

Caris picked up the smallest of the litter, a lively female, always going off on her own to explore the world. “This is the one I'm going to keep,” she said. “She's called Scrap.” Holding the little dog soothed her, and helped her forget about the things that troubled her.

The other four clambered all over Gwenda, sniffing her and chewing her dress. She picked up an ugly brown dog with a long muzzle and eyes set too close together. “I like this one,” she said. The puppy curled up in her lap.

Caris said: “Would you like to keep him?”

Tears came to Gwenda's eyes. “Could I?”

“We're allowed to give them away.”

“Really?”

“Papa doesn't want any more dogs. If you like him, you can have him.”

“Oh, yes,” Gwenda said in a whisper. “Yes, please.”

“What will you name him?”

“Something that reminds me of Hop. Perhaps I'll call him Skip.”

“That's a good name.” Skip had already gone to sleep in Gwenda's lap, Caris saw.

The two girls sat quietly with the dogs. Caris thought about the boys they had met, the little red-haired one with the golden brown eyes and his tall, handsome younger brother. What had made her take them into the forest? It was not the first time she had yielded to a stupid impulse. It tended to happen when someone in authority ordered her not to do something. Her aunt Petranilla was a great rule-maker. “Don't feed that cat, we'll never get rid of it. No ball games in the house. Stay away from that boy, his family are peasants.” Rules that constrained her behavior seemed to drive Caris crazy.

But she had never done something this foolish. She felt shaky when she thought of it. Two men had died. But what might have happened was worse. The four children might have been killed, too.

She wondered what the fight had been about, and why the men-at-arms had been chasing the knight. Obviously it was not a simple robbery. They had spoken about a letter. But Merthin had said no more about that. Probably he had learned nothing further. It was just another of the mysteries of adult life.