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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: Moments of History
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
"Powder smoke and the stench of brimstone waft off the pages." - QUARTERDECK MAGAZINE 1261. Oxford, England. An envoy returns from the land of the Tartars to meet with an English scholar and share a deadly secret. The two men vow that the knowledge of gunpowder must die with them as the consequences are otherwise too fatal to contemplate. 1290. After his quiet life is shattered by tragedy, blacksmith Jared begins a pilgrimage from England to the Holy Land. The adventure that follows sees Jared join a holy crusade and encounter men from distant Cathay who harbour the secret of huo yao. So begins one man's obsession with the powder of death and a king's resolution to change the very nature of warfare . . .
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THE POWDER OF DEATH
JULIAN STOCKWIN
In memory of my father Austin E. Stockwin Officer of the Royal Regiment of Artillery
And alsua wondyr for to se … Crakys war, off wer That thai befor herd neuir er– The Bruce, Booke XIX
(And also wondrous for to see Crakys of war, off Wear They’d never heard before)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Contents
CHAPTER 1
Oxford, England Yuletide, AD 1261, the forty-sixth year of the reign of King Henry III
The low fire sputtered, its warmth contracting even further in the gloom of the sparsely furnished room. The friar working by a single candle at his high desk looked up in vexation at the sounds of unrestrained revelry floating across the river. He could do nothing – creation at the nib of the pen was won only as the mind soared free of the dross of worldly existence and the common folk could not be expected to realise that their merrymaking was clawing it back to earth.
Roger Bacon’s writings had brought him respect and repute from across Christendom as well as criticism and dangerous enemies. His questing intellect had taken him down strange paths, leading him to the unshakeable belief that the mind of God could be revealed in his works of nature rather than the opinions of man. As a university schoolman he taught that the pursuit of philosophical knowledge was the high road to understanding; his sturdy principle, to accept only that which had been amply demonstrated before proceeding further.
A protracted burst of jollity cut through his thoughts again.
Outside, a virginal carpet of snow lay over all, softening the outlines of town squalor. In charity he’d sent his serving boy away to join the merriment, but not before a stern homily on the temptations of the flesh. He was alone, in the upper floor of his eyrie with a dying fire for company.
Drawing his homespun robe closer Bacon got up to attend to the embers, so much poorer than the crackling splendour of the yule log on the opposite bank. The last mummers had finished their show and with Gog and Magog justly slain they were claiming their due in raucous style, careless shrieks of women mingling with jovial roars and laughter. He hesitated – was this not a thing of exemplary wonder, that as a portion of brightness and life against the blackness and unknowns of an evil world, it stood for God’s grace infilling the impure darkness of one’s soul? Perhaps.
He poked at the fire and was rewarded with a momentary blaze. He added a small log then went back to his desk.
But as he lifted his quill there was a sudden knocking at the door below.
There was no one else now in this little building straddling the roadway over a bridge. Who could it be? He had no fear of robbers for the Franciscan mendicant order abjured wealth and display, but his books and instruments were worth far more to him than tawdry adornments.
Should he answer the door? The sound had been too robust for a drunken well-wisher and seemed to indicate that this was a visitor who knew he was in.
He took the candle, descended the stairs and stood at the closed door.
‘Who is there?’ he called.
There was no reply. The peephole showed only a vague shape against the white luminosity of the snow.
He slid the bar up and the door creaked loudly as he opened it to reveal the figure of a large man in a cloak with a curiously pointed hood hiding his face.
‘What is your business, my son?’
‘Then you do not know me, holy brother.’
Bacon recognised the deep voice. ‘Why, by God’s sweet passion – it’s Brother William!’
The hood was flung back and there was his friend, the high-placed Flemish Franciscan, William of Rubruck.
‘Do I see you well, dear Roger?’
‘You do! Yes, upon my soul, and the better for seeing you! Do come in, this cold would perish even the warmest heart.’
He closed the door as Rubruck shook the snow off and declared mysteriously, ‘Which compared to where I’ve been fated to go is the merest breath of chill.’
‘Oh? Well, you shall tell me of it – but only after I offer you a fine posset.’ He found a pan in the deserted buttery along with milk, ale and nutmeg and they mounted the stairs to his study.
While Bacon busied himself heating the milk his visitor took off his cloak – dark and fur-lined, it was well worn and oddly fashioned with its pointed hood all one with it.
‘It’s been too long, my sage and worthy friend. Let me see, the last time – was it not Paris and the ever-rational Peter Peregrinus, or was it—?’
‘Dear Brother, tonight I’ve come to you alone, to tell of my journeying.’
Something in his voice told Bacon that this was to be no mere recounting of a tale and his interest quickened. The travels of a wise man were always to be valued as a source of true knowledge of the world but he suspected there was more to it than that.
‘I’m to be honoured, William. Please go on.’
Rubruck stared at the fire for long moments before he began. ‘Know that His Grace King Louis of France has been much troubled by the grievous losses among the holy Crusaders at the hands of the Saracens and thought to take measures as would remedy this. In the year twenty-seven of his reign he dispatched an envoy to the very court of the chief of the Mongols beseeching an alliance against the Mohammedan.’
‘Yes?’
‘Brother Roger, I was the one who led this mission.’
‘Ah. So you must travel into Asia, past Constantinople to the very lands of the Tartars.’
‘An immense journey, years in the making.’ With a distant look he went on, ‘To the capital of the Great Khan Möngke, which is Karakorum, on the far side of the world. Across a vastness unimaginable, a grass desert without end – all summer, a bitter winter and the great heat again for leagues beyond counting.’
‘Then you were granted sights of amazing wonder, which you know I’m with child to hear!’
‘In good time I shall write at length of these, but for now you must be content with—’
‘The monsters who inhabit the boreal realm, the sciapods of one foot – the anthropophagi feasting on human flesh. I’ve given little credence to such tales but …?’
‘None did I see, neither they nor the kingdom of Prester John, my curious friend. Yet I stood at the mount of the Ark of Noah and the Iron Gate of Alexander the Macedonian, but never a great city, for they are a restless people and think not to plant a village, still less a town.’
‘May it be said that the Tartar in his home and hearth is nonetheless tutored, gentle in his manners?’
‘They ceaselessly travel in a horde, eat millet and meat all but raw for lack of fuel, consuming the fermented milk of mares, to which they add blood. They live in transportable houses of felt, which they call “yurts”, and their manners are … singular – they drink pot liquor and think nothing of doing their filthiness while talking together. And to revere their parents, they consume their dead flesh and drink from their very skull – in truth, a benighted folk.’
‘I weep for your travails, dear William.’
‘Do not, I pray you Brother, for is it not written in Ecclesiasticus, “He shall go through the land of foreign peoples, and shall try the good and evil in all things.” A deep saying and one I held close to my heart as I progressed through these odious lands.’
‘Then I must ask it – were you received at the court of the captain of the Tartars?’
‘Which is the Khagan Möngke, who was most obliging. Be aware, Brother, that this is the chief of the peoples who have spread across the face of the earth like no other, whose word may set a host of ten thousand times ten thousand horsemen against any who challenge his will.’
Bacon blinked in wonder. ‘This capital will therefore be rich and splendid beyond all conceiving.’
‘Excepting stone turtles past counting and a wondrous tree crafted of lustrous silver I found it not much out of the ordinary.’
‘Yet you did enter in upon the palace of the chief of the Mongols.’
Rubruck paused a moment in reflection, then answered, ‘I did so, Brother.’
‘And your mission – may it be said to have succeeded?’
‘I laid before him a letter from King Louis, translated by my man Homo Dei. His answer – that if such a one together with His Holiness the Pope should travel to do homage to himself, he promises good welcome. Naught else.’
‘There can be no reasoning with those who are blind to the wider world, I’m persuaded. Yet you will have a higher work – the bringing of the knowledge of Christ’s mercy to this horde!’
‘As you say. But they are a strange and perturbing race of men. They worship Tengri, the sky god, and are never without their sorceries and idolatries. Superstition rules their lives – even the Great Khan does not eat until the soothsayers read the charred bones of sheep.’
‘No heathen is entirely lost to God’s grace.’
‘You will be astonished to learn that I discovered Christians already in attendance at his court.’
‘How can this be?’
‘They are none but Nestorians with their vile heresies. Together with a species of shameless idol-worshippers and a coven of sly Saracens. It passed that Khagan Möngke professed himself curious at the claims of the different faiths and set us all to debating their merits with each other together before him.’
‘Aha! A foolish pagan priest it is who wrangles with the Master of Rhetoric!’
‘Would that it were so. My interpreter was a contemptible creature who I doubt gave true meaning to my words, and besides which I was constrained to ally with the Nestorians against the infidels.’
He sighed. ‘The result you may conjecture when I tell you that on taking my leave I perceived my precious gold cross of St Francis, which I had guarded so jealously over such vast a distance to present to him, was there on a wall – but side by side with every other abomination of heathen effigy.’
‘A dolorous conclusion to a journey of spirit and hardship,’ Bacon murmured in sympathy.
Rubruck looked up with a suddenly sombre expression. ‘As you must guess, my tale of far wandering is not the reason for my presence.’
‘You wish to discuss a great matter that troubles you.’
‘Just so, learned one.’
‘Then say on, dear Brother.’
Rubruck rose and went to the window, opening the shutters and peering out cautiously.
‘There is no one below us?’
‘None. The knaves have deserted me for their merrymaking.’
‘That is good. For what I am about to divulge is for your ears alone, my good Brother.’
‘Do sit and share with me your perplexity then, William,’ Bacon said.
‘It is no simple concern, you must believe. It touches on the future of Christendom itself.’
He paused as if collecting his thoughts. ‘In Karakorum oft-times the Great Khan was occupied by the affairs of state, leaving we envoys in idleness. You will know me as incurably desirous of knowledge, to promiscuously enquire and learn, and I could not abide that condition. Thus it was that I sought permission to make visit to the privy districts of his capital.’
‘You must have seen—’
‘It is one revelation alone that astonished and daunted me, my dear friend. One that shook my understanding of the workings of God in nature, the boundary of magic and sorcery – to feel the very trespass of the Devil on our world!’
Chilled by his words, Bacon tensed.
‘For what I am about to do, I ask forgiveness, for there is no other way to bring to you the sensations I felt as I first beheld this that I now share with you.’
He rose and went to the window again, and satisfied of their privacy, closed the shutters. Feeling around in his leather pouch he drew out a small object, which he inspected, then went to the candle and offered one end to the flame. It sputtered and fell to a red glow. He threw it to the floor and moved away quickly.
Astonished at his behaviour, Bacon could only watch from his chair.
A livid flash and clap of thunder stunned his senses and the room filled with acrid smoke and the fearful stink of brimstone.
Terrified, Bacon gripped his chair and stared into the gloom with a pounding heart, expecting to be confronted with the diabolical form of Beelzebub himself arising from the nether regions – but he saw only the silent figure of his friend through the slowly dissipating smoke.
‘Wh-what is this you’re conjuring before me, Brother Rubruck?’ he croaked, crossing himself.
‘No deviltry, Roger, I swear to you.’ He bent to pick up some ashy fragments and placed them in Bacon’s uncomprehending hands.
‘The work of man.’
‘Then how …?’
Rubruck turned over a plate on the serving table. ‘See here, Brother, the essence of the phenomenon.’
He brought out another pouch and carefully shook a small pile of grains as grey as his friar’s habit on the back of the plate, and leant back to allow Bacon to see.
‘Now I bring fire.’
Bacon recoiled fearfully as a lighted taper touched one edge, but it only flared and spat merrily without violence.
‘Yet if I …’ Rubruck poured a similar sized amount but this time led a small trail out to one side. He placed a cup over the plate, brought the flame to it and stood back.
There was an instant’s fizz and a sharp pop. The cup flew into the air then fell to the ground to smash in pieces.
‘At the touch of fire the substance grows angry, and if confined in its rage, it calls upon all the powers of a demon to free itself.’
‘This is marvellous in my sight,’ Bacon said shakily. ‘A deep mystery beyond imagining. Yet you say it’s the work of man … How is it that …?’
‘In his capital, the Great Khan maintains quarters for foreigners, artisans and craftsmen from far parts of his empire engaged in works to add splendour and lustre to his realm. Those of the Cathayans he particularly indulges, furnishing them with all they ask, for they are adepts in the greatest mystery of them all.’
‘This … this terrible dust.’
‘That they call huo yao. They make it from unspeakable ingredients by a long process that ends with what you see before you. Roger, hear me – I’ve seen them call forth torrid leaps of flame as from a dragon’s mouth, to send messengers on wings of fire to soar across the heavens and as you’ve seen, to bring thunder and lightning down to earth at their bidding, a hideous and miraculous sight.’
‘A terrible experience, William.’
‘Only because I felt it my duty to make investigation, as a scholar and philosopher must.’
‘Just so.’
‘And now to my dilemma, dear friend.’
‘I hear you with respect and admiration, Brother.’
‘I thank you, and know also that you are the one out of all Christendom that I can think to bring my troubled mind.’
Bacon murmured a respectful acknowledgement.
‘So far as I can know it, the people of Cathay delight only in its ardent properties in spectacle and display, the capacity to affright and awe.’
‘This is understandable.’
‘Since that day I’ve struggled with my conscience before God. For want of curiosity in my companions, I, of all in my party, have been made witness to these terrors and portents. And only I, for whatever divine purpose, have been vouchsafed the secret of this infidel magic.’
Bacon caught his breath. ‘You learnt of the spells to bring it into mortal existence?’
‘I questioned many artisans severally, all of whom gave the same answers. Yes, Brother, I have the secret.’
‘Then …’
‘My dilemma is plain – do I reveal it or no? In the Europe of this dark century of war and hatred, when armies perpetually contend on the battlefield in slaughter and cruelty, how can I be sure that this dangerous knowledge will not be perverted to produce instruments of war more terrible by far than any seen to this day? There are many who would conceive it to be a mortal sin, I believe.’
Bacon leant forward, intensity in his voice. ‘I, too, would regard it so, Brother. The secret must remain locked in your breast all your mortal days – it must never escape into this wicked world!’
‘As I at first concluded. Yet … yet as a philosopher and devoted to the arts of learning I’m sorely distracted by the observation that should I be called to my rest this hour, there will be none in this kingdom to know of its existence, to perhaps pursue its properties unobserved and discover its vitality and significance. Brother Roger, I beg you will allow me to share this dread knowledge with you as a natural philosopher and relieve me of this heinous burden.’
Into the stillness came from the outside the same dull roar of revelry, but within the austere scholar’s study the fading reek of sulphur was a token of the frightful things that had passed.
‘Very well, Brother Rubruck, I shall accede to your request. But only on the condition that we do kneel and swear together the most sacred oath that this secret shall remain inviolate between us, never to be divulged to the profane and ignorant of this world.’
‘I am content at that.’
CHAPTER 2
The village of Hurnwych Green, Warwickshire, England Hocktide eve. AD 1287, the fifteenth year of the reign of King Edward I
The rain had eased off but still threatened as Perkyn Slewfoot trudged along the well-worn path towards the tithe-barn by the manor house. It was cold and bitter this early in the morning and being a lowly villein he wore just a coarse grey wool jerkin, loose leggings and the old felt hat he’d inherited from his father. His toes showed through his shoes, which were soon caked in mud.
He scratched absent-mindedly; the fleas had been merciless during the night.
Perkyn quickened his pace. He knew the reeve was waiting for him, the hard-faced Hubert Subsey, whose job it was to exact every working hour from those who owed service to their lord of the manor, Sir Robert le Warde.
Sometimes it was two or three days a week he must labour thus under the ancient and inviolable covenant between noble and bound: in return for service in his fields the lord would graciously extend his protection over him.
One morning two winters ago, still in his bed, Perkyn’s father had turned his face to the wall in silent despair and died. His eldest son had gone to be a mercenary and hadn’t been heard of again and his daughter had been hastily married off at fourteen.
It had left only Perkyn to look after his careworn mother in their humble wattle-and-daub home.
He’d always known he’d never marry for he’d been born with a gnarled ankle that had earned him the name ‘Slewfoot’. No girl would look upon such a poor risk as a provider but he didn’t pine, for was this not God’s way of caring for his mother?
Perkyn just got along with life. With no allowances in their pitiless world for half-work he’d learnt the hard way how to keep up with the others – a hand to the plough; the hoe and harrow; and at harvest time, the sickle.
But provided he laboured on the lord’s stipulated days, including the extra boon-work, he was free to work for himself. He had several strips planted in barley and peas. There were three geese fattening nicely and a goat for milk, but he’d had to sell the pig after the wet and bleak winter just endured.
The reeve shouted at the line of serfs bringing the straw baskets of seed. Perkyn filled his pouch then went off with his friend Godswein, the man’s gap-toothed smile always cheering.
They set to with their dibbers, each to a strip and within hailing distance. A jab down and twist in the freshly turned soil, a single bean dropped in and on to the next in a time-worn rhythm. The strips were a chain wide and a furlong in length; it was hours before they completed their task, their backs burning with fatigue.
The two sat companionably together on the turfed edge of the field and took out their bread and cheese, trimmed with onions. Godswein shared a costrel of ale with Perkyn.
‘God’s teeth! On your feet, you fool-born oafs!’ The reeve’s snarl cut through their rest.
‘And we’ve done it all, the lord’s sowing, Master Subsey!’ Godswein said nervously. If the reeve had a mind to, they could be brought before the bailiff and fined for default of their obligation to service.
‘That’s as well, you low-arsed pair o’ drabble-tails. I wants to see you behind a plough this afternoon. Sir Robert needs his winter wheat in the ground afore May Day.’
They hurriedly finished their repast as two scraggy beasts were brought up, the plough with a sadly blunted iron share and coulter.
As they faced up to the strip the first drops of rain spattered down and with it a gusty, spiteful blow.
The oxen were baulky, wanting their byre, the soil sticky and resisting, but in the driving rain they pushed forward, Perkyn at the plough, Godswein with the ox-goad, both silent in the shared misery of hard labour in the shuddering wet and cold.
It was some consolation that for this crop furrows were shallower, but it was heavy going, endless hours of flogging both man and beast until their portion was complete.
Perkyn bid Godswein farewell and tramped home to blessed surcease.
His mother set aside the bundle of rushes she was working on. They would later be dipped into the rancid sheep fat simmering at the hearth in the centre of the room to supply their only light after dark.
‘Set you down, m’ son!’ she fussed as she tended to the other pot on the fire.
Waves of weariness came over Perkyn but the suffocating damp, smoky smell, with its overtones of ancient living and animals, was token of home, with all its memories and solace. His mother had been out rush-cutting and the beaten earth floor was covered with fresh grasses sprinkled with sprays of herbs and wild buds and from the upper beams hung three new cheeses.
‘Take off your togs then, my sweeting.’ She found his old smock. Obediently he stripped off his soaked clothing, which she threw over the wattle partition to the animals’ end of the house. She went to the window, a slat with a hide hinge at the top and took down the stick that held it open. This trapped the smoke from the fire but helped keep away the flies as well as retaining a cosy warmth.
He felt a twinge of guilt – his mother was worn out; bent and shrivelled with age, she showed all of her thirty-some winters and found moving about difficult.
‘Have you done with the lord’s portion?’
‘Aye, I have, Ma.’
But now he had to find the strength to drive the plough again for a freeman in return for the use of the same for himself later. It was hard to take, so much of his strength going into others’ land, but this was the life the good Lord had decreed for him, just as he’d given others the grace to rise above it all. It was no use fretting about what could not be, and didn’t Father Bertrand make much of accepting one’s lot on earth?
She brought him his supper bowl. It was watery pease pottage with a few limp vegetables floating on top. He supped it quickly, the gnawing hunger pangs barely touched.
‘I wish and all that I had some meat to give you,’ she said wistfully. ‘Perhaps when I sell my cheeses – they’re very tasty, even should I say it myself.’
‘Yes, Ma,’ he said mechanically. There’d been no takers for the last, why should it be different now?
The night was drawing in so there was nothing for it but to turn in to his leaves and straw bed by the goat. His foot hurt and it would be another day of work on the morrow.
As he finished the last of his black bread there were voices outside.
‘Perkyn? You sleeping?’ It was Godswein. ‘Wilkie Bate says if you’d fancy a sup of ale …’
CHAPTER 3
‘This’s right kind in you, Wilkie,’ Perkyn said greeting the jolly man whose income from five strips and a goodly number of sheep had enabled him to build a large, three-bay wattle-and-daub house near the river.
The fire crackled and spat in cheerful unruliness and Jankin and Reginald Fivepot with leather jacks and drinking horns a-fill with ale roared a welcome. No less than three tallow candles touched them with gold.
Bate’s wife brought in another stout flagon of ale and set it on the trestle table.
‘Ah. This’n is for you, Perkyn. You’re looking poorly – here’s a drink as will set you up, lad.’
‘Why, thank you, Wilkie,’ he said.
The others paused as he lifted the black leather tankard and drank deeply. It tasted foul and made him retch but he downed it to the end.
There was something in the murky bottom of the vessel. Apprehensively he fetched it out – it was a bloated mouse carcase.
The room erupted in mirth and Perkyn looked around uncertainly, then a broad smile spread and he joined in the merriment.
At the noise, Bate’s wife came back and saw what had happened. She scolded her husband and brought Perkyn a fresh drink and a morsel of cake to take away the taste.
An ungenerous soul would have noticed the small ale was no longer quite fresh, but no one was about to complain and it went down quickly.
‘A rare drop,’ acknowledged Reginald, wiping his mouth.
His good-natured red face creased in merriment. ‘As I’ve brought a splash o’ something else, which I returns the friendliness of our Wilkie!’
He reached beneath the table and pulled up a wicker-clad pottery jar. ‘Get your cups, goodwife, this is your metheglin – bold rose-hip metheglin, to warm your hearts on a night like this!’
It was a rare treat. A Welsh potation of fermented honey, it was considerably stronger than ale.
‘It’s Hocktide eve, friends. Don’t let’s waste this!’
Perkyn felt its crude potency take hold and his cares began to fall away.
Tomorrow was a feast day and all were released from service on the lord’s demesne. He was free to work on his own small plot of land, which sadly needed attention – or not! The fine feeling spread and when the dice came out for a game of Hazard he was glowing in the company of his friends.
‘Your good mother in humour, Perkyn?’ Jankin asked, feeling in his ragged brown hood for his flute.
‘Aye, but since we had to sell our pig we’ve had barely a bite o’ meat and she’s getting mortal frail.’
Wilkie snorted. ‘A fine thing it is when a good woman must pray for a morsel so.’
‘Aye!’ Jankin mumbled. ‘Agin nature, it is.’
‘God rot it, but I’ve a notion to do something about it!’ Reginald blustered.
‘Oh? And what’s that?’
‘Why, over yonder there’s enough meat to fill us each a pot for a month!’
‘Are you saying you’re going … a-poaching?’
‘Well, I …’
The swagger fell away quickly at the reality of the words. To enter the woods of the lord’s demesne and take a deer was against the dread Laws of the Forest. It would be a dire offence against the callous Baron Everard D’Amory.
His ancestral home Castle Ravenstock loured down on the village from the face of an escarpment several miles away, monstrous and dominating. Within it were lords and ladies, men-at-arms, chambers of torture and a great hall for feasting of unimaginable splendour. The unreachable pinnacle of this earthly world, beings whose existence and movements were inscrutable and not for their knowing.
There was no crossing of their lives. The manor under its lord Sir Robert le Warde directed the affairs of Hurnwych: from rent collections to common grazing rights to the manorial courts. Village met authority in the form of the bailiff in the great hall of the manor, or more often the foul-mouthed reeve, Hubert Subsey.
More metheglin restored the mood but there were thoughtful looks about the table.
‘One stag o’ size that never would be missed …’
‘I once saw a haunch of venison. Christ’s wounds, it was big!’
‘She’d bless you for ever, just for the taste of a collop or two of meat.’
Godswein broke in. ‘Enough o’ this talk, it’s making me famished to hear it. There’s nobody going to take a deer – you down it, there’s no way to get it back here! Besides which, someone sees you, the Verderer hears about it and is going after you with a rope.’
‘Ah! There is a way!’ Wilkie sat back with a superior smile.
‘How?’
He leant forward, his face serious. ‘It’ll take all of us, no hanging back.’ Seeing he had their attention he continued. ‘The trick is, we want to get it out quick, and as well, that no one notices, right?’
‘Yes, Wilkie.’
‘So here it is. We’ve got our rights of pannage and firewood. Anyone sees us with a bag stuffed full, it’s our usual load. But it’s not – it’s a nice fat joint of venison each!’
‘So we—’
‘Yes! As soon as we drop the beast we sets to on the spot and all together we butchers it quick smart. Won’t take long and no one will see us carry any deer out of the woods. Right?’
This far into the evening it was sounding altogether very possible.
‘Who’s our best shot?’
They all turned to Perkyn.
‘Oh, you mean …’
‘You’re youngest, and I’ve seen you plant an arrow in a magpie at thirty paces.’
‘But I’ve never—’
‘You take him, we’ll cut him up. Besides, your arrow – you get first choice!’
Perkyn grinned broadly. They trusted him – his friends. He couldn’t let them down. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Stout fellow.’
‘When’s it to be?’
‘What better time than when all right-minded foresters have their feet under a table and their beaks in an ale – Hocktide!’
‘Tomorrow morning! Why not?’
CHAPTER 4
Where the river wound through, the woods were dense with thickets and undergrowth on one side. Coppicing and level country had thinned out the other side to more open woodland, rich grazing for deer.
Wilkie was certain what had to be done. ‘They go in groups. We sit young Perkyn behind a handy bush downwind from ’em and drive a likely beast past him. He lets fly and we all get to work right there. Easy!’
But it wasn’t. With no staghounds and bleary-eyed in the early-morning light they looked about in vain for the herd. And on foot how were they going to cover the distance?
By a fluke they stumbled on a covey that rose from where they’d chosen to lay up during the night. In a frightened body they fled along the edge of the woods where they would pass on either side of the bush where Perkyn was waiting with his bow.
With a rush of anxiety he raised and sighted, desperate to do well. The deer came on in a frantic, close-packed throng but he had the wit to settle on one only and loosed his arrow. As they raced past he saw it, the arrow plain in its shoulder, blood streaking bright as it ran.
The rest disappeared into the brush followed by his wounded target, now stumbling. In a fever of excitement he crashed after it, hearing Wilkie and the others coming up behind. They passed him quickly, for with his withered ankle he could only limp along, but he caught up just as Wilkie put the knife to the creature’s throat.
They began hacking and cleaving in a frenzy of fear and exhilaration. A haunch was drawn clear and stuffed into a bag, Wilkie had the head detached and threw it into the low undergrowth. A saddle portion came away. They were going to do it!
Then, out of the morning like a trump of judgement, came the sound of a horn. Another much closer replied.
‘The foresters! They’re on to us – run!’
They dropped everything and fled. Heart in his mouth Perkyn went after them, desperate to reach the edge of the woodland, off the baron’s land.
He saw his friends get there one by one and make off across the common to the anonymity of the village, but sobbing with the realisation, he knew that with his ankle he couldn’t move any faster.
With yards to go he heard the thunder of hoofs and in despair found his escape cut off as a horse wheeled in front of him and crashed to a stop. Its dark-featured rider, in forest green and Norman helmet with the arms of the puissant Baron D’Amory on his chest, looked down in evil triumph.
CHAPTER 5
The stone was cold and damp and the cell stank of fear and vomit. Nearly witless with terror Perkyn trembled uncontrollably.
He’d been bound and taken on horseback in front of everyone to the castle, the great edifice that had dominated the village from time out of mind, a feared and mysterious presence.
He’d been dragged into its maw. The reality was terrifying: colossal stone walls towering high, with men-at-arms, traders, brightly costumed servants and serving maids mingling in a constant babel of noise and so many great doors that crashed shut with a finality behind him.
A hard-faced official questioned him, seated at a table strewn with objects – he had no idea what they were. The man spoke in thick-accented English and made asides to others in a foreign language he couldn’t understand.
They’d demanded he name his accomplices but he’d stoutly refused.
He was stood roughly against a wall and beaten then asked again. Through the pain he vowed that he would not condemn his friends.
Finally he was taken away and thrown into the cell.
Outside a moon-faced turnkey in stained leather tunic sat on a stool, bored.
‘Wh-what’s going to happen to me?’ Perkyn ventured through the peephole of the door.
‘Shurrup!’ ordered the man absently.
‘Please! I’m frightened.’
‘What you done, then?’
‘We took a deer.’
‘Oh, so it’s poaching, is it? Well, they takes you up before the bailiff and you answers for it. If His Nobbs has had a good dinner he’ll just cut off your hands, else you’ll swing on the end of a rope. Any more fool questions?’
In a stew of fear Perkyn shrank back hopelessly.
Some time later he heard voices. The lock rattled and the turnkey stood impassive in the doorway.
‘On your feet, m’ little rascal. You’ve done bad by having a go at the baron’s game – he’s making a big noise that he wants a trial quick smart, make an example, and the bailiff don’t disagree.’
Two men-at-arms entered and seized Perkyn.
The Great Hall of Castle Ravenstock was vast and gloomy – and to one who’d only known the village, terrifying.
Seated on an imposing chair on a dais at the far end was a richly dressed man who could only be the baron. To one side was a table with officials and clerks and on the other a small pen where Perkyn was led.
The hall fell to a stillness and a hard-featured man at the table stood and glanced at the baron, who nodded irritably.
The man rang a bell and droned on from a book in Norman French, then looked up and rapped a command.
A forester in green marched up to the table.
‘Upon your evidence the prisoner Perkyn, yclept Slewfoot, stands accused of the taking of a deer, contrary to the Forest Law. Is this then the man?’
‘It is, My Lord.’
The cold eyes turned to Perkyn. ‘Do you dispute this?’
What could he say? He’d been seen running from the carcase and had been caught on the baron’s land.
‘Christ’s bones, you ill-faced lackwit. You did it, didn’t you?’ roared the baron.
In a small, shaking voice Perkyn answered miserably, ‘Yes, My Lord.’
The bailiff intoned importantly, ‘In confessing to your misdeed you have been—’
‘Get on with it, my man! You know what to do.’
The bailiff drew himself up. ‘Therefore I find you guilty. The felony having no mitigating circumstances requires I pass sentence on you to suffer the full rigour of the law. You shall hang.’
For a moment Perkyn couldn’t believe it – then with a roaring in his ears the full force of the words hit him. He was going to die.
Back at the cell the turnkey shook his head as he pushed him in. ‘Told you, didn’t I? No good to come of taking down one o’ Baron Hooknose’s very own.’
They came for him in the late afternoon.
Stumbling and uncertain he was led out into the daylight, his hands bound and his knees weak and trembling.
Would it hurt? He felt tears pricking – he was leaving the only world he knew, harsh and unforgiving as it was, and it would condemn his mother to … to …
Outside the castle walls was the gallows, a simple raised platform. Stark above it a rope hung down.
A crowd was gathering. Chattering, laughing, staring, they were held back as he was brought near.
Perkyn was prodded up the short ladder to where the hangman waited with heavy patience. Next to him stood Father Bertrand, his long face pale and worried.
At the top Perkyn was rotated to face the crowd. His shaking was now uncontrollable; he was holding on to reason by a thread.
A herald stepped forward.
‘As Perkyn of Hurnwych did foully trespass upon the good grace of our liege lord, Baron Everard D’Amory, in that he did slay a hart contrary to the dread Law of the Forest, he is adjudged worthy of death, for which this is your warrant.’
The sea of faces before him held no meaning any more – the world had contracted to his tiny space in it and the sudden shock of the rough and hairy touch of the rope as it was draped over his neck.
Father Bertrand came up to stand before him, mumbling interminably from a book he held. He made the sign of the cross then withdrew.
Taking up the slack of the rope the hangman muttered, ‘Ready, friend?’
In the last split second between life and death Perkyn shut his eyes while his soul screamed soundlessly in agony – and then as if from far, far away came a voice. ‘Hold!’
Perkyn opened his eyes: Baron D’Amory was on the drawbridge, mounted atop his horse with one hand raised.
No one moved. He spurred forward and came to a halt beside the gallows. He glanced once at Perkyn, a cold, despising look, then addressed the crowd, few of whom had ever set eyes on their liege lord. Several bowed down; others stood gape-mouthed.
‘One of my deer was slain. This varlet did not act alone!’ His gaze swept the throng, grim and ruthless.
‘By the custom of frankpledge you are all and every one accountable for the actions of the villains you harbour. You have not yielded up their persons, therefore this mewling youth is paying the full price for all.’
He drew a deep breath and bellowed, ‘I will have justice!’
Apart from the stirring of wind there was absolute stillness.
‘Yet in mercy, I give to you a choosing. I will respite this hanging … if I get my just recompense. A fine levied upon all Hurnwych Green in the sum of one pound weight of silver!’
An astonished murmur went about the crowd. The life of a villein for a stiff amercement on themselves?
Then the cynical reason for it broke in. The baron was making a show of mercy, a calculated ploy to lessen the harshness of his act. If they were softhearted enough to pay, he’d have his silver. If not, he’d then feel free to take his revenge on the lad.
‘So what will it be? Who will be the first to pledge their coin?’
Perkyn felt a piteous hope but it died quickly. These were freemen and would care nothing about a worthless bondman, not one of themselves.
‘Very well! Let the—’
‘I do so pledge, My Lord!’
‘Who says this?’
‘I, My Lord. Jared the blacksmith. Five groats!’
The kindly smith who always had a good word for the lowly serfs and peasants as they brought their work to him at his forge over the river. Whose skills were legendary, attracting a partner and apprentice even in such a small village. But why …? Perkyn’s heart thumped.
‘Come along, Hurnwych!’ the blacksmith called loudly. ‘I’ve laid out my piece. What say we all give and throw off that rope around his neck!’
There was a stirring and a shout rang out. ‘Will the butcher – twelve silver pennies!’
A reedy voice carried over the babble. ‘Old Yarwell, franklin. Ten groats!’
‘Sweyn Blacktooth, baker. Four groats.’
More pledges came – then more.
Jared held up his hand. ‘Enough! One pound o’ silver, My Lord. As shall be delivered up before sundown. We beg now for the life of yon Perkyn Slewfoot.’
The jaw hardened but the baron wheeled his horse around and snapped, ‘Let him go!’
The rope was thrown off Perkyn’s neck and with a sawing at his wrists his hand bindings fell away.
‘Well, go on then, m’ little lamb,’ the hangman grunted peevishly. ‘You’re free, aren’t you?’
Hardly aware of the noise and clamour around him he had eyes only for one: Jared the blacksmith who had given him back his life!
‘Sire, Master Jared – how can I thank you?’ he babbled, his hands writhing. ‘I can’t repay, but I – I’ll do anything for you, anything! Just tell me, I’ll do it! Anything!’
‘Calm yourself, Perkyn. Isn’t it you with an old mother on her own to look after? She’ll be worried where you’ve been – best you get off home and set her heart at rest.’
In floods of tears Perkyn hobbled off, leaving Jared in the centre of a throng of villagers.
‘It was a rare good turn you did today,’ declared one. ‘Why did you do it?’
He gave a twisted smile. ‘As I loathe to see the castle every time have its way with we common folk.’
CHAPTER 6
May Day eve
Jared reached into the blazing forge with his tongs. In a practised whirl he extracted the long billet of iron and placed it on the anvil. He hammered at it with strong, decisive pounding, sending outwards a flying spray of sparks, listening for when his hits returned the hard ring of cooling metal.
His father had taught him everything he knew. The family forge had prospered in the village, producing everything from door latches to ploughshares, and took in work from miles around. He had lost him to an ague some two years previously but a partner, Osbert, had been found, a steady older man now outside shaping a clay mould.
‘Give us a good wind, younker!’ Jared told the young apprentice at the bellows and plunged his work back into the heart of the fire. He watched the incandescence pulsate to white heat and drew out his iron again. It was hard but rewarding work, bringing a creation of value for man out of the implacable inertness of rock-torn iron, and he revelled in the sheer physicality of forcing his will upon it.
The ghost of what would be lay within the glowing mass and he directed his blows to bring the crude billet ever closer to its outline. Already he’d drawn out the workpiece to length and now was concentrating on producing a sweet curve and at the same time a descending edge. This was going to be a scythe with the blade a full five feet long. He worked steadily, broadening and deepening the blade along the long chine, leaving the mounting tang until later.
‘You’ll never be done by the morrow, young cub!’ Osbert chided him, bringing in his mould to set.
‘I will, old man,’ Jared retorted with the confidence of twenty years. Tomorrow was a feast day, May Day!
Jared fell to it, hammering with redoubled speed and the unmistakeable shape of the scythe blade began emerging. Two more heatings and he had a wicked pointed end drawn out and the run of the blade sighted and trued.
A deft working with mandrel and punch and the mounting point for the sinuous long wooden handle was ready.
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Osbert offered.
The piece was formed but now it had to be worked to a hardness along its edge, and that could only be done by peening, cold beating the metal with smaller hammers in a painstaking progression down the blade. They set to together, one manipulating the work on the anvil while the other kept up a rapid tattoo with the hammer.
At last it was done. A workmanlike tool whose hard edge only needed occasional touching with a whetstone to see many years of yeoman duty on grain or grass.
‘Fetch us a muzzler, young ’un.’
While the apprentice scurried off for a jug of ale Jared wiped his forehead and sat on the floor against the anvil.
Osbert joined him. ‘You’ll be going a-maying, then.’
‘I might.’
‘Maypole ready?’
‘Aye, it’s up. Me and Nolly did it.’
There was a small pause, then Osbert said, ‘She’s May Queen, I hear.’
‘Who’s that?’ Jared said casually, fiddling with his belt.
‘You don’t fool me, lad – young Aldith Beavis, I mean.’
Jared said nothing, staring obstinately ahead.
‘Look, none o’ my business, but I seen how she looks at you with them deer’s eyes as you passes.’
‘So?’
‘And I seen your sheep’s eyes looking back. Now she’s of an age, like to be married even before harvest’s in.’
‘Leave it alone, Osbert,’ Jared flared. ‘I happen to know old Beavis went to talk with Master Frauncey and stayed a-while, must have had a good hearing. And can you blame him – a blacksmith agin a bailiff’s clerk?’ he added bitterly.
‘Ha! You don’t know Beavis as well as I do. He’s ruled by Hetty, his wife – won’t refuse her anything. Now, here’s my advice, take it or leave it. You get out there, open your heart to the damsel, let her know how the wind blows. She takes a fancy, goes back to her mother and they has women’s talk as will soon have Beavis ploughing a different furrow. See?’
‘I’m to thank you for your help with the scythe, Osbert,’ Jared said stiffly.
The ale arrived and they drank thirstily.
‘Just you remember what I said. Tomorrow you has your chance – and none other after it,’ Osbert said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
CHAPTER 7
Jared was awake before first light began stealing into the smithy house, where he lay on an oat-stuffed mattress in the family bedplace in the upper level. Maud, his mother, slept behind a curtain and two servants snored below in the smoky darkness.
He’d thought about what Osbert had said and felt resentful that he’d caused him to hope. Perhaps he was right that the shy maiden did hold him in thrall but he’d never allowed himself to dream. Marriages were settled by parents on the basis of family advantage, social standing or the acquiring of property, even at his level. The base villein, a field labourer, was more fortunate. He had only to gain the assent of a disinterested lord of the manor, more concerned with increasing his workforce.
John Frauncey, the haughty bailiff’s clerk who gave himself such airs on account of his learning, would probably rise in the course of time to the position of steward in the manor house. What could he put up against this? His father’s careful husbandry had bequeathed him a fine forge and impressive array of tools and skills – but he would always be a blacksmith, earning his daily bread with the sweat of his brow.
He could now make out the pattern of his bedspread: morning was breaking. Easing himself up he reached up the wall to where his belongings hung from hooks in linen bags. He’d laid out good silver for a new outfit – a doublet in brown and slender green hose under a flaring red jacket; pointed leather shoes and a jaunty felt hat narrowed to a peak over the nose, finished off by a soft leather purse hung from a belt.
‘Is that you, Jared?’ came a voice from the other side of the bay. The growing chorus of roosters, barking dogs and the like made sleep impossible now.
‘Yes, Mother.’
She sat up and drew back the curtain. ‘So you’ll be off into the woods a-bringing in the May.’
‘Aye, I am, Mother.’
‘Just you mind what goes on in there, Jared. A goings-on as will have Father Bertrand a-worrying over souls for a sennight, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Yes, Mother.’ As if he was going to miss the fun!
Outside, the village was coming to life.
There was a gathering throng at the well, geese were being noisily driven to the common and from afar came the shrill voice of Margery Blundel berating her meek husband, the miller’s gristman.
And a quick glance heavenward showed that the day promised fair!
‘Good day to you, Nolly!’ Jared called to the tousle-haired young man emerging from the carpenter’s house next to his.
‘And a right merry May morn to you, m’ friend,’ he laughed, finishing fastening his jacket, clearly as new as Jared’s own.
They were soon joined by others heading in the same direction – across the Coventry to Banbury highway to the common, and then to the woods that lay to the north.
‘They’s about, then!’ Nolly chortled.
On the common dozens of girls were kneeling, splashing their faces in the early morning May dew, a sure way to win a beautiful complexion for the whole year. Others were already in the adjacent woods, gathering wild flowers and greenery, their laughter and song lifting hearts now that a hard winter was past.
Wolfscote Forest behind the woods was thick and ancient. Trackways meandered deep inside the lair of outlaws and vagabonds, and within living memory, home to the wolves that gave it the name. Somewhere in its dark heart was a deserted priory that many claimed was haunted by ghosts of the nuns who had been struck down by a deadly plague.
The villagers grazed their pigs and collected firewood in accordance with their ancient rights but none ventured far into the forest – in the cleared areas of the woods was all they needed.
‘Good morn to you, Meggy m’ love!’ Nolly threw at a young girl in a green kirtle, her striking red hair falling around her shoulders. She was plucking bluebells with her sister; they giggled and ran on.
Jared found a particularly fine wood anemone and fastened it to his hat, looking for others to complement it but Nolly had seen something through the trees.
‘Pageant wagon’s here.’
‘Well, let’s be at it, sluggard!’
Age-old traditions had the girls gathering flowers and rushes for weaving crowns while the menfolk sought hawthorn boughs and greenery to load the wagon.
A cow-horn sounded an imperious summons. Folk hurried to the pageant wagon from all parts of the woods, a sizeable ox-drawn conveyance more to be seen as the stage for wandering mystery players but now set with a wooden throne. It was gaily decorated with garlands of flowers, draped with greenery and hawthorn and was attended by the Master of the Procession, as usual the well-respected Old Turvey, a Hurnwych franklin of thirty acres.
‘I’ll thank ’ee to form up, one and all!’
There was a scramble for precedence but the old man was having none of it. Girls first behind the wagon, then at a decent remove the men, to be joined by the approaching cavorting figures of a hobby horse ridden by a youth with an extravagant cap threaded through with May blossoms and attended by two tumblers in green. A shawm and tabor took position in the lead and the procession moved off – bringing in the May!
It was exhilarating and joyful, a release after the bleak winter, and with the slow pace of the oxen Jared joined others in darting out to seize a girl and whirl her around in a frenzied dance.
They crossed the common and entered the village, lined with onlookers, laughing and admiring. Leather mugs of ale were thrust at them and as more joined in the procession the noise grew to an outpouring of merriment.
Jared however began to quail.
There was only one small road through the village and it was going to stop at the house of Beavis – where the May Queen lived. Aldith.
The noise died away as Old Turvey brought the procession to a standstill.
‘Oyez! Oyez! Does the May Queen of Hurnwych Green lie within? Your Grace, know your liege subjects await!’
A vision appeared at the door before Jared. In a long white gown, her dark tresses flowing loose, Aldith glanced demurely about her. Supported by Turvey she mounted her throne to sit in regal majesty, bestowing a bashful wave at the throng, who immediately fell to their knees.
Jareth’s heart was in his mouth. Had she noticed him in his new red jacket?
The jubilant procession moved off, down to the last little hut and back again, this time turning on to the Banbury road and the bridge over the River Dene. On the other side was the manor with its hall and tithe barns to the right and the village green and church to the left.
Already the green was alive with activity, booths for entertainments set out, trestle tables readying for the feasting and a fast gathering crowd eager for the coming festivities. Over at the maypole several figures stood waiting, the notables of the village.
