The Crowfield Curse (7 page)

That was in two days' time.

“Do you know who they are? Or why they're coming here?” William asked. Peter probably knew more about what was happening in the abbey than anybody else. The monks barely noticed him and spoke freely in front of him. William had discovered that if you asked the right question, Peter generally had the answer.

“A Master Jacobus Bone and his manservant,” he said. “Sir Robert of Weforde sent word to Prior Ardo at Martinmas to ask if Master Bone could come and stay here.”

William cut up bread and cheese for their supper while he thought about this. He remembered the day Sir Robert's messenger had come to the abbey to speak to the prior, because he had been told to see to the man's horse, though until now he had no idea what business had been discussed that day. Sir Robert's ancestor, Ranulf de Tovei, had been Crowfield's original patron. He had given the first monks the land to build the abbey on, and a generous gift of money, so Prior Ardo could hardly refuse Sir Robert's request.

“But
why
does this Master Bone want to come here?” William asked, puzzled. “Surely Weforde Manor can offer more in the way of comfort and good food? Why doesn't Master Bone just stay there?”

Peter shrugged and made a face. “I don't know, Will.”

William ladled the last of the pottage into two bowls and put them on the table with the bread and cheese. He and Peter pulled up stools and sat down to eat.

“Master Bone has been Sir Robert's guest at Weforde these past three weeks,” Peter went on. “I heard Prior Ardo say he wishes Master Bone would stay there, but he also said the abbey needs the money Master Bone has promised in return for his bed and board.”

William turned his attention to his supper. No doubt Master Bone had his reasons for wanting to come here, but William could not begin to imagine what they might be.

After supper, Peter went off to his bed in the lay brothers' dormitory, which in reality was just a small chamber that had once been a storeroom, next door to the cellarium. Years ago, when there had been more lay brothers at Crowfield, their dormitory had occupied the long first-floor room that was now the abbot's chamber. Peter had a bed and a chair and a tiny slit of window overlooking the yard and the pigpen. It was not much but to William it seemed like the wealth of kings.

William unrolled his mattress and blankets and laid them on the floor near the hearth in the kitchen. The
couvre-feu
guarding the glowing embers of the fire held in the heat, so the kitchen was cold. With a sigh, he lay down and pulled the blankets up to his ears. He should have been in his own bed, at home in Iwele mill, listening to the mumble of water in the millrace. Instead he was huddled up and shivering on the floor of an abbey, a kitchen boy with no home or family or future.

The world does not make much sense sometimes
, William thought sleepily. There was Master Bone, paying good money to come and live at Crowfield, when William, if he'd had any money, would have paid to leave it.

C
HAPTER
EIGHT

 

 

S
hortly after noon the following day, a cart rumbled up to the abbey gatehouse. Brother Stephen hurried out from the byre to see who was there.

William was passing a few idle moments by the pigpen, scratching the ears of Mary Magdalene, the abbey's elderly sow. Brother Stephen had managed to resist all attempts by his fellow monks over the years to turn the pig into joints of meat and boiled puddings. Instead, he bought two piglets from Weforde market every spring, to be fattened up and then slaughtered in the autumn. Prior Ardo only tolerated Mary Magdalene's continued survival because Brother Stephen made sure she did not eat too many of the scraps needed to fatten up the other pigs.

William turned to watch as Brother Stephen opened the gate, and the cart, pulled by two horses, rumbled into the yard.

“I were towd to bring this lot here,” the carter called out. “Sir Robert of Weforde towd me hisself, this lot to go to Crowfield. For Master Bone. He's stayin' at the manor and will follow along tomorrow, so Sir Robert says.”

“Take the cart over there,” Brother Stephen said, pointing to the west range and the outer door of the guest chambers. He turned to William. “Go and fetch the door key, boy. Fetch both, cloister and yard. Quickly now.”

William nodded and ran off to find Prior Ardo and his hoop of keys. He found him in the cloister, looking out across the empty herb garden. His thin face was folded into tired lines of dejection and there was a faraway look in his eyes. William stood beside him for a few moments, but the prior did not seem to notice him.

“A cart has just arrived,” William said loudly, “bringing Master Bone's possessions.”

The prior blinked a couple of times, then glanced down at William with a frown. “No need to shout, boy, I'm not deaf.”

William reddened. “Brother Stephen sent me to fetch the keys to the guest chambers,” he mumbled.

The prior's frown deepened. “And there's no need to whisper, either.” He took two keys from the iron hoop hanging from his belt and handed them to William. “Make sure you give them back to me when you're finished with them.”

The prior turned and walked away, his black habit flapping around his bony ankles and the soles of his boots rasping on the stone paving. He bowed his head to pass under the archway leading to the stairs up to the abbot's rooms.

William knew from Brother Snail that Abbot Simon was edging closer to death by the day. William had watched him mix ever-stronger potions to try to ease the abbot's pain, but the monk admitted he could do nothing to help the dying man now. It was no wonder Prior Ardo looked more grim-faced than usual.

William unlocked the cloister door of the guest chamber and hurried across to the yard door. It took a few moments to turn the large iron key in the lock, but at last he managed it and lifted the latch. Brother Stephen and the carter were waiting in the yard, stamping their feet on the icy cobbles and rubbing their hands together to try to warm them.

“Gi's a hand with the unloading, boy,” the carter said. He glanced at the monk. “Tha's all right, in't it?”

Brother Stephen nodded. “Very well, but be as quick as you can. The boy has enough work of his own to do.” He left them to it and went back to the byre.

William helped the carter take Master Bone's possessions from the back of the cart and carry them through to the guest chambers.

Amongst the boxes, chests, and rolled-up wall hangings, there were four musical instruments, each one inside a leather or cloth bag. There was a lute, a recorder, and two flutes, one of silver and one of finely carved dark red wood.

William took the lute from its bag and gazed at it in wonder. He had seen the shawms, lutes, and hurdy-gurdies of the village mummers and waits in Iwele, but they were plain and ordinary next to this wonderful instrument. The golden grain of the wood glowed in the light coming through the open doorway. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He plucked the strings, one at a time. The pure sound shivered on the cold air and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. In that moment, he knew he wanted, more than anything he had ever wanted in his whole life, to be able to make music. He wanted to play a lute like this one.

William sighed and returned the instrument to its bag. That was never going to happen. He was an orphan without a penny to his name. Lutes and the music they made were not part of
his
world.

Carefully, William laid the lute on the table, out of harm's way. He hurried out to the yard to help the carter drag the posts and frame of a huge bedstead down from the back of the cart, and carry them indoors.

The bed was decorated with carvings of fantastic animals, the like of which William had never even imagined before. He traced the outline of a horse with a single horn growing from the middle of its forehead, and he smiled. How strange! And below it was a winged creature with a long tail and curved claws, its body twisting around one of the posts. Peering closer, William realized there were flames coming from the creature's open mouth.

“Stop idling, boy, and take t'other end of this 'fore me back breaks,” the carter called.

William looked around and saw the carter struggling with a huge oak chest, which was balanced on the edge of the cart and in danger of sliding forward and crushing him. William hurried over to help, and between them they lowered it onto the cobbles.

“Ee, that were a bugger,” the carter gasped, wiping the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He sat on the chest for a few moments to catch his breath.

“Don' s'pose there'd be any chance of some beer and summat to eat?” the carter asked hopefully.

“Ask him,” William said, nodding toward Brother Martin, who had just emerged from the kitchen and was standing in the yard nearby, watching them, hands on hips, lips drawn back in a snarl, and a distinctly unfriendly glitter in his single eye.

“Mebbe later,” the carter said hurriedly. He got to his feet and grabbed a basket from the cart.

William eyed Brother Martin warily. The monk pointed at him and yelled, “You slackin' again, soldier? I'll have ye strung up by the heels and skinned . . .”

“I told him to help the carter,” Brother Stephen called, walking across the yard toward them, wiping his hands on a wisp of straw. Fresh manure steamed on the pile beside the byre, and bits of straw and manure clung to the monk's boots. “Peter can help with the vegetables today.”

Brother Martin did not take his eyes off William, but he did not argue. Cursing under his breath, he turned and stumped back into the kitchen.

“Master Bone certainly has a great many possessions,” Brother Stephen said in mild surprise as he looked through the doorway. “Are those musical instruments in those bags?”

“Yes,” William said with a smile.

The monk frowned. “Prior Ardo won't tolerate music being played for
pleasure
.” He managed to make the last word sound like a cardinal sin.

William turned away and his mouth hardened into a straight line. It was one more thing he did not understand about the monks, this dislike of music other than their own sung masses and psalms. It was as if the sight and sound of people dancing and singing for the sheer joy of it was offensive to God. He thought of Master Bone's lute and wondered how anyone, be it monk, man, or God himself, could possibly be offended by any sound that wonderful instrument might make.

“But I am sure Master Bone will respect the sanctity of the abbey while he is with us,” the monk added, “and keep his silence.”

Brother Stephen set off in the direction of the goat-pen. William watched him go and felt a flicker of anger. He hoped Master Bone would play his lute whenever he chose and send its golden notes dancing through the dark and silent rooms of the abbey.

In the largest chest, there were coverlets of velvet in dark blue and crimson. William opened another chest and found sheets of fine linen.

“Master Bone must be very rich indeed,” William said, picking up a goose-down pillow and holding it against his face. Sleeping on bedding like this would be like floating on a cloud.

The carter merely grunted. He did not seem in the least bit impressed by the finery around him.

There were other boxes and baskets tied up with rope, whose contents William could only guess at.

How could one man own so much? And why did some people have goose-down pillows and lutes, while others had nothing apart from their name and the clothes on their backs?

By mid-afternoon, the cart was unloaded and Master Bone's bed pieced together. The carter did not waste his breath asking Brother Martin for something to eat and drink before he set off back to Weforde. He merely commented to William, as he glanced at the kitchen door, “Miserable bugger, ain't he?”

William locked up the guest chamber and went to look for Prior Ardo, to return the keys. As he searched the abbey for the prior, all he could think of was the lute. He remembered something his brother Hugh had said, just before he had gone to London: “If you want something badly enough, Will, you'll find a way to get it. Might take a while, but you shouldn't stop trying, not until your last breath.” Hugh had been talking about making his fortune in a distant town, but his words applied just as well to William's newfound desire to make music.