The Gallows Curse by Karen Maitland

  But Gytha could read the flash of uncertainty in his eyes.

  'There are some things that can't be fought with a sword, Hugh of Roxham.'

  This time his grey eyes betrayed something bordering on fear. 'How do you know me?'

  'Every soul in these parts has heard of you and your brother. But they say Hugh is the handsome one of the pair.'

  Hugh laughed. 'You heard right, mistress.'

  'Yet they say Osborn is the more powerful.'

  'Is that what they say?' Hugh muttered savagely.

  Gytha knew that baiting such a man as Hugh was as wise as baiting a wounded boar, but it is sometimes necessary to goad a beast into charging before you can ensnare him.

  'Osborn was born afore you, isn't that the way of it? The elder receives the title and property, while the younger is tossed his brother's leavings.'

  Fury blazed in Hugh's face. 'My brother is a fool and treats me like some halfwit child. He has all the power and wealth and knows nothing of how to use either. He follows in blind obedience whoever sits on the throne, even if it leads to ruin. He was forced to borrow a fortune to finance Richard and his own men in the Holy Wars and he won back not a half of it in spoils. And now John demands more money for more wars.'

  'But what can you do?' Gytha asked innocently. 'It's the way of it, the natural order for the younger to obey the elder, and the subject to obey the king.'

  'John didn't sit around waiting for his divine right to inherit the throne,' Hugh said, his eyes glittering with malice. 'If he had, it wouldn't be his royal backside sprawled across it just now. But I promise you, my brother won't...' He seemed to realize what he was saying and seized Gytha's wrist, yanking her towards him. 'What is this to you? What do you want?'

  Gytha did not betray even by the smallest grimace that he was hurting her. She had mastered that art as a child. She'd had to, for the offspring of cunning women are seldom treated kindly by their playmates.

  'It seems unjust that the fool should lord over the wise,' she said evenly. 'I could help you get what a man like you deserves.'

  Hugh snorted, looking down at her stained homespun kirtle. 'And what can a beggar offer a man such as me — money, soldiers, power? What could you possibly do to help me?'

  'I've already saved you from death today,' Gytha said. She slid her hand into her scrip and pulled out a long thin band of black fur with two leather thongs dangling from either end. 'This'll guard you against the owl's curse and aid you in gaining the power you seek.'

  Hugh, as if he couldn't help himself, stretched out his hand and fingered the fur. Then, shaking his head to clear his senses, he pushed it roughly away.

  'Don't you dare take me for a fool. Do you really think I'm going to buy a mangy old piece of fur from you? This is how you make your living, is it, cheating the gullible with fake charms? I could have you flogged bloody for this.'

  Gytha shrugged and pushed the fur back into her scrip. 'How do you think I could stand so close to a wounded wild boar and come to no hurt?'

  She turned back to the spring and calmly dipped her bucket back into it.

  There was a moment's silence, then Hugh asked suspiciously, 'What are you asking for it? I warn you, don't try to cheat me; I know what these things are worth.'

  Gytha placed a tight coil of cloth on her head and swung the full pail up, balancing it on the coil.

  'Nothing. I ask nothing now. When you have the power you seek, perhaps you will remember me.'

  Hugh gave a harsh laugh. 'So when I have my brother's estates, you think I will reward you handsomely, do you?'

  Gytha thought no such thing. But she knew only too well that men are suspicious of anything which is freely given and anyone who gives it. She smiled, then set the pail down again.

  'Show me your hand.'

  Hugh hesitated, then peeled off the glove. Gytha ran her fingers over his palm, turning the hand this way and that to the bright sunlight, as if she was examining it carefully. She was not. She knew what lay there would tell her nothing. She had already decided what she would say to him.

  'You are a king-maker, Hugh of Roxham. And kingmakers have more power than the sovereign himself.'

  His eyes flew wide. You know this . . . you . . . you can see this?' He peered down at his own hand as if he had never noticed his arm ended in such an appendage before.

  Gytha let his hand fall. Then she pulled out the strip of fur again, and held it up before his greedy eyes.

  You must wear this as a girdle about your waist, next to your bare skin. It will guide you. Do whatever it leads you to do. Follow the desires it awakens in you, for as you satisfy them so your power will increase. You will feel the hunger, you will feel the strength grow in you, as soon as you put it on.'

  Hugh was about to speak, but she held up a warning hand.

  'Listen, your friends are coming this way.'

  He turned his head towards the sound. She was right; the barking of hounds and crashing of the horses' hooves were growing louder, coming straight towards them. He turned to say something to her, but she had vanished. Puzzled, he looked down and started violently as he realized that he was holding the girdle of fur.

  Hugh would wear the girdle of fur about his waist, Gytha was sure of that. He wouldn't be able to resist the temptation, not if he thought there was the slightest chance it would give him what he desired. And when he wore it, he would be forced to satiate the desires it would awaken in him. He would have to act. He would be driven to it. It was but one small step, but each step leads to another. You must raise the skeleton one bone at a time before you can set it dancing.

  Darkness stretches time, as wetting stretches a woollen cloth. A man waiting alone under the stars feels each passing hour drawn out so far he can no longer trust even the hourglass to mark it faithfully, and Raffe had no hourglass in his hand.

  He was squatting in the concealment of some trees, gazing out on the twisting black waters of the river, his ears straining for the splash of a paddle. His limbs were so stiff, he was beginning to think that if the boat came now, he would be unable to stir a muscle to meet it.

  His mind felt more numb than his legs. Although he'd thought of little else all day, still he could not digest the news that Elena had murdered Raoul. It was impossible to think that such a fragile, innocent creature could have killed a man. Yet Talbot said she had as good as admitted it. If she had realized who Raoul was, if he'd threatened to take her back to Gastmere, she would have been terrified. If he'd hurt her, forced himself on her, she might have lashed out in panic, like a cornered animal, not meaning to kill him, an accident. But Talbot had said the corpse had been found at the inn and she'd been missing all night. That meant she must have followed him and . . . no, Raffe couldn't bring himself to think that. He wouldn't allow himself to think that.

  Osborn would tear the city apart when he discovered Raoul was dead. Raffe's head was pounding. He couldn't think about this now, he would drive himself mad and he couldn't afford to lose concentration, not tonight, too much was at stake. He must focus on the priest. If the priest was caught and started talking, both Raffe's and Lady Anne's lives would be forfeit. And there was Gerard's body. This might be his only chance to obtain holy unction for Gerard. Raffe would not fail his friend.

  No, before he could even think about Elena, he must deal with the priest first. As long as Osborn was at court, Elena was still safe where she was. Blessed Virgin, let John send Osborn to France, Flanders, anywhere, but just keep him far away from us.

  A chill wind blew off the marshes and Raffe drew his cloak tighter about him. God's bones, why was it always so damn cold at night in England? Even in midsummer, as soon as night closed in, you felt yourself encased in cold as if you were entombed in a cave.

  When he'd been a boy in the mountains of Italy he could lie outside on a summer's night staring up at the great bright stars and the air was as silky and warm as a perfumed bath. It had been just such a night when he'd first laid eyes on Gerard. r />
  Gerard had ridden into the farmstead near sunset, with all the bravado of a youth of nineteen years, scattering chickens to the four winds. Four other knights clattered into the yard behind him, their horses foaming at the bit. Sweat had caked the white dust from the road to the men's faces so thickly that one of Raffe's little sisters had come screaming into the cottage that dead men were attacking the house.

  All of the men and boys in the household had grabbed up pitchforks and stout sticks and run outside to defend their farm to the death if need be, but Gerard had wearily eased himself from the saddle and walked towards them, his hands upraised in a gesture of peace. One of the horses had a loose shoe, he told them, which the beast was likely to lose altogether if they continued to the next town. So he announced that this household would have the pleasure of their company for the night.

  Raffe's mother and aunts had whispered to Raffe's father that the knights must be sent away. They had not enough food to spare and where would these gentlemen sleep for they could hardly be asked to bed down in the byres?

  Raffe's father sadly hushed the scolding women. 'What we don't give them, they'll take anyway and more besides. Have you not seen their sign?'

  He gestured to one of the knights who carried a lance from which hung a small pendant in the shape of a scarlet cross on a white ground. Crusaders! The women crossed themselves, muttering and spitting on the first two fingers of their right hands to ward off the evil eye, for if rumours were to be believed, and they always were believed in those parts, Crusaders were the very demons of hell made flesh. If they rode into a village they were likely to ride out again with the cottages in flames behind them, and their scrips bulging with the looted treasure from the village and its church.

  Raffe's mother seized Raffe's younger brother. 'You take your sisters and female cousins through the cellar to the caves. Get word out to warn our neighbours.'

  The cellars of every home and church on that mountainside led into a series of labyrinthine caves, once home to their ancestors, but which now served as storage chambers as well as an escape route for any who might need to disappear from view. A man might enter one cottage and while his pursuers were keeping watch on that door, he was slipping out of another house a mile or more away.

  Raffe's brother knew well what to do. He herded the five unmarried girls down to the cellars along with his pregnant sister, for her swelling belly would be no deterrent to a soldier whose blood was hot. The old women would have to pray to the Blessed Virgin that the Crusaders were not desperate enough to want them, for they would be needed to cook.

  The men dragged trestles and benches out into the yard and called to Raffe to bring wine, while the women heaped onions and olives dressed with olive oil into wooden bowls to stay the men's hunger and buy them the time to add more vegetables and beans to their family's own meagre pottage.

  The Crusaders picked suspiciously at the proffered bowls. Then one scooped up a handful of olives and angrily threw them at Raffe's head. 'God's arse, what are these, sheep droppings? Are you trying to poison us?'

  Raffe wiped the drips of oil from his face. 'They are the fruits of the tree, very good to eat.'

  The man stared at him then roared with laughter. 'What are you, a maid or a man? I do declare I've never heard a girl's voice come from a man's body. Did your mother think to dress her daughter like her brothers to protect you from our ravishings?'

  The others joined in the mocking laughter, for a moment forgetting their impatient demands for food. Even Raffe's own brothers giggled. Gerard alone didn't laugh, but met Raffe's dark eyes with his own sapphire-blue ones. His face creased in a grimace of pain as if he had felt the barb himself.

  'Are you the maid's mother?' the knight asked. 'Tell me what you have bred here, for she's the mostly comely maid I've seen yet in this household, and I think I've a mind to warm my bed with her, if you've nothing better to offer me.'

  Raffe's mother regarded her son with disgust. 'Do what you like with him, for he's neither man nor woman, and has brought us nothing but shame.'

  'In that case, I'll throw him back, mistress. Once when I was a boy, I pulled a fish from the river that was covered in a furry white wool. "What's this?" I said, "Mutton you can eat on a fish day, now there's a miracle." But when I tasted it, it was fowl and I was as sick as a drunkard all night.'

  The others snorted with laughter, but it only reminded them they were hungry and they roared again for food, banging with the hilt of their knives on the wooden table. Even the pottage did not satisfy them and they demanded meat. When Raffe's father protested they had none, two of the men went to the byre where the hens were roosting and returned with five of them dangling from their fists, their necks wrung. Raffe's mother wept as she plucked them.

  The family spent the night huddled together in the byre while the Crusaders occupied their beds in the house. Raffe did neither. He could not sleep and wandered alone among the olive trees under the star-filled sky. What the Crusader had said had glanced off him like a deflected lance blade leaving only a flesh wound, nothing more. He'd swallowed such jibes ever since he had returned to the village. He scarcely separated the pain of each remark any more, for they merged like bruises. No, it was not the Crusader's laughter that made him punch his fists over and over again into the trunk of the olive tree. It was the burning pain of his mother's words that was tearing him apart from within.

  'Can you beat a man with as much strength as you can strike that tree?'

  The voice startled him and he turned around searching for the source, and eventually saw a man sprawling on the ground in the darkness under an almond tree.

  'I can beat any man to pulp,' Raffe boasted through gritted teeth.

  'Then don't wreck your hands on an enemy you cannot overcome. Ride with us, and try your strength on men who can be beaten.'

  Raffe's face burned with anger. He took a step closer. 'Can you fight as well as you can mock? Get up and face me.'

  'I have no wish to fight you.' The man held out one open palm towards Raffe. 'I am Gerard of Gastmere, and I don't mock you, my friend. I'm serious. I have no squire to ride with me.' He chuckled. 'Or rather I do, but I couldn't prise him from the arms of a doe-eyed beauty he discovered the first night we landed on these shores. I suppose I could have forced him to come with me, but I would have no man ride by my side or drink with me in a tavern who does not want to be there with his whole heart. So I told him to stay until he wearies of her or her of him.' He laughed again, an open, honest laugh and in spite of himself, Raffe felt drawn to this man.

  'Now, what do you say, lad? Shall you stay here and be the whipping boy of your family for the rest of your life or do you ride with me and make men respect you for your courage and your fists? Oh, you'll hear jokes aplenty at your expense wherever you go. I'm not pretending you won't. Those men riding with me will torment you till you're ready to crack their skulls open, but if you hit harder, ride longer, and fight with more courage than any of them, those knights will come to call you brother and run any man through with their swords if they hear him say one mocking word about you.'

  And Raffe had needed no other words to persuade him.

  The two of them had stayed sitting side by side under the vast arch of stars. Gerard talked of the manor of Gastmere and his own beloved parents. His father had left him in charge when he rode off to the Holy Wars with King Richard. Gerard had been desperate to ride with his father, but his father would not hear of it. It was his duty to stay and look after his mother and the manor.

  Besides, as his father confided when they were alone, 'I would not have your poor mother lose a son and husband in the same battle, if it should come to it, and it likely would, for I should be so distracted by marking your progress in the fight, I would surely fail to protect myself.'

  'So why do you ride to the Holy Land now?' Raffe asked. 'Your mother, is she dead?'

  Gerard shook his head, then hesitated. 'There is a woman in our village. I was . . . fond o
f her once. She has a gift of second sight. She told me that my father would soon find himself in mortal danger. His thoughts would turn to me and he would desperately need my help.'

  You trust this woman?' Raffe asked him.

  Gerard stared up at the bright stars for a long time without answering. 'Did you know that men call the stars by different names? Some look at the same sky, but see quite different shapes and creatures in it? I thought once that the names I knew were the true names of the stars, but if all men have different names for the same objects, how shall we know which of them is their real name? Do you suppose the stars have names that only they know?'

  He turned and fiercely grasped Raffe's arm. 'My father needs me and I have to go to him. I could never forgive myself if I discovered that I might have saved him, but I did not. If there is any chance I can help him, I must do it, do you see?'