The Crowfield Curse (13 page)

The monks all began to talk at once, shouting each other down and drowning out the prior's attempts to regain control of the meeting.

William left them to it. He took the wood to the warming room and built up the fire. It was a small, windowless chamber, one of the few rooms in the abbey to have a fireplace and chimney. The monks were permitted to come in here for a short time on cold days, and warm their chilblained hands and feet. If the wind was in the wrong quarter, though, smoke would blow back down the chimney and fill the room. In wet weather, the fire would spit and sizzle or burn with sullen reluctance. But there were no fires in the frater or dormitory, and the church seemed to hold the cold within its walls even in high summer, so those precious minutes in the warming room were a much-valued privilege, smoke or no smoke.

William stacked the logs and branches on the floor near the fireplace. He pulled up a stool and sat for a few moments, hands out to the small flames.

Today, there was no wind. The logs on the hearth burned cheerfully. William took off his scuffed old boots and held his feet out to the flames, sighing with pleasure as the feeling returned to his chilled toes.

What would Prior Ardo and the monks do if they knew the truth about Jacobus Bone? What would they say if they found out that Shadlok was not even human? William smiled briefly. What uproar that would cause.

With a sigh, William pulled on his boots and stood up. He put the fire screen across the fireplace and went back out into the drafty cloister. The monks were still in the chapter house but they were talking now, not shouting.

William turned the corner into the south cloister alley. His heart seemed to stop when a figure stepped out of the shadows near the stairs up to the abbot's lodgings. It was Shadlok, his hair and skin startlingly white against his dark clothing. The unsettling blue eyes held no hint of friendliness.

“Master Bone wishes to talk to you,” he said. Without waiting for William's reply, he turned and walked away, his boots making no sound on the stone-paved floor.

William hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was go anywhere near Jacobus Bone, but he had the feeling that it would be unwise to cross Shadlok.

William paused in the doorway to the guest quarters. The windows were shuttered and the only light in the room came from the small fire burning in the hearth. There was no sign of Shadlok, and all he could see of Jacobus Bone was the top of his head above the back of the chair beside the fire.

“Come in, boy.” Jacobus Bone's voice was little more than a whisper but it echoed in the stillness of the chamber.

William walked slowly across the room, keeping as far from the man in the chair as he could. He jumped when the door closed with a hollow bang behind him. He turned quickly to find Shad-lok, arms folded, standing by the door, watching him. His face was expressionless and his cold eyes reflected the firelight. William swallowed a couple of times, but his mouth and throat had gone dry.

“Over here, where I can see you,” Jacobus said. He was sitting stiffly in the chair, just as he had been the previous evening. Had he been there all night?

He had removed his hood. The mask was still in place, and above it William could see his hair-less, ulcerated scalp. His ears were just lumps of discolored flesh. If he was aware of William's revulsion, he gave no sign of it.

“I want your help, boy.”

William waited for Jacobus to continue. His stomach was churning and he tried not to stare at the man's ravaged head. He was uncomfortably aware of Shadlok standing behind him, still and silent, blocking his way to the door.

“The monks are not pleased to have a leper living amongst them,” Jacobus said. “Even now they are asking their prior to send me away, so I may not have much time at Crowfield Abbey.”

It seemed William had not been the only one eavesdropping that morning. He stared into the dark eyes and wondered if this was what Jacobus Bone's life was like: always shunned and turned away, even by monks who prided themselves on their charity toward those in need.

“Will you help me, boy?”

William hesitated. “Help you with what?”

Jacobus shifted in his chair. He rested his elbows on the carved arms and leaned forward. “I have come here to find something. You know the woods and fields around the abbey. Perhaps you can help me find it.”

William glanced over his shoulder at Shadlok. Whatever these two were up to, some instinct told him he would be foolish to get involved. “What is it?”

Jacobus nodded, once, slowly. Without a word, Shadlok crossed the room and lifted the lid of a chest. He took out a roll of vellum tied with a narrow red silk ribbon and handed it to William.

“Look at it,” Jacobus said.

The vellum was a piece of fine and smooth calfskin, unlike the rougher and far less expensive sheepskin parchment used by the Crowfield monks. William unrolled it and saw that it was a page cut from a book, a book of hours, perhaps. The text was decorated with small colored pictures. William had seen Brother Mark working on pages such as this at his desk in the cloister, before they were gathered together and bound into books.

“Look closely at the drawings,” Jacobus said. “Tell me what you see.”

William angled the page to catch the light from the fire. The words were meaningless to him, just black lines and curves crawling across the page like neat rows of ants. Along the right-hand margin of the page were two long-bodied dragons, one blue, the other red, biting each other's entwined tails. There was a single large letter in a blue and gold square in the middle of the writing. Behind it was a man in red robes with the lower part of his body in the jaws of a large fish: Jonah, perhaps, being swallowed by the whale. William knew the story from the priest at Iwele, who liked to liven up his sermons with spirited retellings of Bible stories. William peered closely at the drawing and smiled briefly at the look of surprise on Jonah's face.

“There are dragons, and Jonah and the whale,” William began, glancing up at Jacobus. He looked back at the page and tried to make out the details in the three small drawings at the foot of the page. They were enclosed by a border of crows amongst twisting branches and leaves.

The first picture showed a hill with trees growing on the top, and in the foreground a white-robed figure with feathered wings. There was what appeared to be the shaft of an arrow sticking out of its chest. A chill went through William as it dawned on him what he was looking at.

The second picture showed a group of black-robed figures carrying a shrouded body. Their tiny faces looked anxiously out of the page, as if frightened of discovery. Behind them, the dark blue sky was dotted with gold stars and a full moon. In front of the huddle of monks was an acorn, which struck William as odd. The acorn was the same height as the figures and carefully painted, as if the artist had wanted to make sure it looked as realistic as possible.

The third picture was harder to make out. William moved closer to the fire so more light fell on the page. What at first just seemed like a jumble of shapes resolved themselves into a white feather and something that looked like a hazelnut.

“Well? What else do you see?” Jacobus asked softly.

“I . . . I'm not sure,” William muttered.

“Then look closer.” Master Bone's voice was as soft as thistledown, but it held an edge of suppressed excitement that William did not like.

“I think . . . ,” he ventured, and then hesitated. “I think there is an angel. And monks. And a feather. And an acorn.”

Jacobus nodded. “Very good, William. Now tell me, does any of that mean anything to you?”

“Why would it?” William's voice sounded odd to his own ears, too high and strained. He could not look Jacobus in the eyes.

“The hill with the trees, do you know of a place like that hereabouts? And look at the picture again. What of the animal behind the angel?”

Animal? William frowned and looked again. Yes, now that he was looking for it, he could see something small and white, almost hidden by a fold of the angel's robe.

A sheep
, he thought suddenly. Didn't Brother Snail say the angel died at the ford over Sheep Brook? Was the sheep a clue to the name of the place? And if the first picture showed Sheep Brook ford, then the hill behind it was Gremanhil.

He peered at the other two drawings with renewed interest. Perhaps the acorn and the hazelnut, and the crows in the border, were also clues to place names? The crows could mean Crowfield.

William met Jacobus's steady stare. Should he tell him what he knew? He decided against it, for now. He would keep it to himself until he found out what Jacobus Bone wanted with the angel. He shook his head and shrugged, and feigned an air of ignorance.

“The hill with the trees?” Jacobus said, with a trace of impatience. “Do you know such a place?”

“There are hills everywhere around here,” William said. “Crowfield is in a valley. So is Weforde, and you have to go over two hills to get to Yagleah. There are trees on most of them. Except the small one north of Yagleah. There is a windmill on that one.”

Jacobus sat back in his chair, his movements slow and stiff. His eyes never left William's face.

“I see,” he said evenly. “Very well, you can go.”

Shadlok appeared at William's side and held out a hand for the vellum page. William gave it to him and for a couple of moments, their eyes met.

A shiver of unease went through William. He had the feeling Shadlok knew he was hiding something. He would wager that Shadlok was the stranger who had been asking questions in the local villages about the angel.

William walked quickly to the door and stepped out into the cloister alley. He took deep breaths of damp morning air and leaned against the wall for a moment, relieved to be away from the dark room and its unearthly occupants.

At least now he knew what Jacobus Bone was doing at Crowfield Abbey, even if he did not know
why
he was so interested in the angel.

But whatever his reasons, they were important enough to have brought him to Crowfield in winter, a difficult enough journey for someone young and in full health, and Master Bone was neither.

As William hurried off to the relative safety of the kitchen, he told himself he would have to be careful. If Shadlok and Master Bone suspected he knew more about the angel than he was saying, then what were they prepared to do to make him talk?

C
HAPTER
FOURTEEN

 

 

T
he monks had finished discussing the problem of what to do about Master Bone and had filed out of the chapter house in a solemn-faced line. Brother Stephen came looking for William.

“I want you to take the pigs into Foxwist,” he said, “to forage. Stay there until the prior sends word for you to bring them home.”

William looked at the monk in astonishment. Take the pigs to forage in
winter
? He had spent a few weeks in the woods with the pigs early in the autumn, watching over them while they foraged for beech mast and acorns in the abbey's old deer park. The Weforde villagers had rights of pannage in Sir Robert's part of Foxwist, but nobody had told the pigs where the boundary was, and they often strayed onto abbey land and helped themselves to the acorns there. It meant that by now, the ground was all but bare. Brother Stephen knew that as well as William did, but it seemed the monk was in no mood to discuss the matter.

“Well, don't just stand there, boy,” he said briskly. “The pigs won't take themselves into the woods.”

The monk walked away. He had big feet and his boot soles slapped on the muddy cobbles like hand-claps.

William stared after him in dismay. Under different circumstances, he would have been delighted to go into Foxwist with just the pigs for company, but now it was the last thing he wanted to do. Somewhere out in the woods were fay creatures who thought nothing of killing an angel. The only good thing about leaving the safety of the abbey walls was that he would not have to eat Brother Martin's rook stew for supper.

William hurried to the kitchen and packed some bread, cheese, and apples in a leather bag, enough to last a couple of days, until Peter brought more food out to the wood for him. He was rolling up his blanket when Brother Martin banged open the yard door and came into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, hands on hips, and stared at William.