The Crowfield Curse (14 page)

“You bin in the guest chambers today?” he growled.

William nodded. “Master Bone asked to see me.”

The monk made a strange gurgling noise in his throat and crossed himself. He stood aside and pointed out into the yard with one meaty fist. “Out!” he yelled. “Get yer leprous hide out of this kitchen, and don't come back.”

“I don't have leprosy,” William said angrily, picking up the bag and cramming the blanket into it.

“Out!”

White-faced with fury, William slung the bag over his shoulder and walked to the door. He paused beside the monk and saw the fear in his eye. The monk backed away and crossed himself again. Without a word, William stepped out into the yard. The door slammed behind him.

William felt sick. Is that why he was being sent out to Foxwist? Because the monks believed he might have caught leprosy from Master Bone?

The thought made him go hot and cold in quick succession. Perhaps the monks intended to leave him in the woods and not allow him back to the abbey at all. They would not send Peter with food and he would be left to starve.

William's hands were shaking as he pulled up his hood. Surely, if they wanted him to go, they would not be sending him off with the abbey's pigs? They were worth far more than he was. The monks would never risk losing
them
.

He crossed the yard to the pigpens. Mary Magdalene was lying in the straw in her thatched shelter. The two younger pigs in the next-door pen were rootling through a pile of scraps. William knew Brother Stephen had intended to slaughter them in the next day or so. That would have to wait now, though the monk had already put it off as long as he could to make sure there would be meat, however sparse, through the winter months. William leaned over the fence and rubbed one of the pigs on its back, glad that the animals' last few days would be spent out in the woods, and not in this small, muddy pen.

“William!” someone called.

William looked over his shoulder and saw Brother Snail hurrying across the yard toward him.

“I'm glad I caught you before you left,” Snail said breathlessly, one thin hand pressed to his chest. “I tried to talk the prior out of sending you into the woods, but he wouldn't listen.”

“Does he think I might be a leper now, too?” William asked, straightening up. “Is that why he wants me to go?”

The monk's eyebrows shot up. “Of course not, Will. Quite the opposite. He wants to keep you safe, and that means keeping you away from Master Bone. He will see to it that water and firewood are left outside the door to the guest chambers every morning, but beyond that, he doesn't want anyone from Crowfield having unnecessary contact with our guests. You can bring the pigs home as soon as Master Bone leaves the abbey.”

Relief surged through William but it was short-lived. That was one worry out of the way, but another, darker one took its place.

“It's not safe in Foxwist,” William said, folding his arms around his shivering body. He hesitated, then, looking away, added softly, “I'm scared.”

He would not have admitted that to anyone else, but Snail understood.

“I know, Will, I know.” The monk took a small bundle from inside his sleeve and held it out to William. “It isn't much, but it might help against . . . any unwanted visitors to the hut.”

William unwrapped the square of cloth. Inside were several iron nails, a few twigs with withered leaves and shriveled berries, and a folded scrap of waste parchment. William opened it and found a dried clover leaf tucked inside. He looked up at the monk with an uncertain smile. “How will these help?”

Brother Snail picked up the twig. “This is rowan, an effective protection against fays. Keep it close to you. Wear it inside your tunic.”

“What do I do with these?” William asked, picking up one of the nails.

“Hammer them into the wood around the hut door, but keep one back. Carry it with you at all times. Fays do not like iron. It burns them if they touch it, and if they stay close to it for long, it poisons them.” The monk smiled briefly. “Brother Walter assures me it works.”

William frowned. “But I saw him chopping leaves with a knife the other day.”

Brother Snail took his small herb knife from his belt and held it out to William. “The blade is made of bronze, not iron.”

“What about the clover leaf?”

“Clover usually has three leaves. This one has four. It can break a fay spell and dispel glamour, so you can see any fay in its true shape.” The monk pulled a small lead cross on a leather cord from beneath his habit and handed it to William. “And wear this, too.”

William put the cross around his neck. He wrapped the nails, clover, and rowan twigs in the cloth and tucked them inside his tunic.

“How do you know about these things?” he asked. In his experience, monks did not believe in fays and suchlike. Brother Snail not only knew they were real, he seemed to have an understanding of their ways.

The monk smiled. “I have not always been a monk, William. When I was a boy, I was sickly and did not play much with the other children. My father was a freeman and comfortably wealthy, so I was neither needed nor expected to work on the land. Instead my time was spent in the fields and woods, learning about the plants and the creatures that lived there. I think I have always known there was another world, a hidden, magical place existing alongside our own. I could sense it out there in the wild places, where the hand of man has not left its mark.”

“But you chose to be a monk,” William said, puzzled. He could not imagine Prior Ardo giving him advice on how to protect himself from fays. Anything with the faintest whiff of magic that crossed the prior's path was likely to be tied to a stake and burned or damned to hell for all eternity. How could Brother Snail live amongst men who saw evil in things that were merely different?

“I chose to worship God in the only way I could, Will,” Brother Snail said with a smile, “by living quietly and simply, and helping any of His creatures, be they man, beast, or fay, in need of my skills. Is that so hard to understand?”

“No,” William said after a moment's thought, “I suppose not.”

The monk was quiet for a moment. “The prior and men like him follow their own path to God. Perhaps theirs is just that bit longer.”

And with a few more potholes and heading in the wrong direction
, William thought, but he kept that to himself.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Snail said, holding up a hand. “One more thing.” He took a harness bell from the pouch hanging from his belt. “The hob told me fays do not like the sound of bells. I think he meant church bells but this will have to do, because I'm sure Prior Ardo wouldn't be too happy to see you haul the bells down from the church tower and drag them into the woods with you.”

William shook the bell and grinned at the small jingle it made. “I don't think this would scare a flea, let alone the Dark King, but thank you anyway.”

“Take no chances, Will.”

“Don't worry, I won't,” William said, putting the bell inside his tunic. He glanced around to make sure there was nobody about and added, “Jacobus Bone knows about the angel.”

“He does?” Brother Snail sounded startled. “How did he find out?”

“He has a page from a holy book with pictures showing its death and burial.” William described the details in each picture. The monk listened intently, a look of worry shadowing his eyes.

“Did he say where he found this book?”

William shook his head.

Snail lowered himself slowly and stiffly to sit on an upturned pail next to the pigpen and rested his hands on his knees. William squatted down next to him, so their faces were level.

“One of the monks who helped to bury the angel that night left soon after for the abbey of Our Lady of Bec, in France,” the monk said. “He was a fine scribe and illuminator. He must have continued his work at the French abbey, and for some reason, he hid the story of the Crowfield angel amongst the illuminations. I am sure that is where Master Bone must have found the page.” The monk was quiet for several moments. “But it doesn't explain why he is so keen to find out more about the angel. What did you tell him, Will?”

“Nothing.”

“Good.” Snail nodded. “We must keep it that way until we find out what he's up to. Now”— he slapped his knees and forced a bright smile —“it's time for you to be on your way.”

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of William's stomach as he stood up and helped the monk to his feet. In spite of the things Brother Snail had given him for protection, he felt as if he were about to climb into a bear pit.

“With luck, the prior will send Master Bone on his way in a day or so, and you'll be back home and safe before you know it.”

William opened the gate of Mary Magdalene's pen. He hoped the monk was right, because somehow, he did not think the Dark King of the Unseelie Court was going to be fended off with a withered twig and an old harness bell.

C
HAPTER
FIFTEEN

 

 

T
he bells for sext rang out from the tower of the abbey church as William and the pigs set off into Foxwist. Mary Magdalene, who had made this journey many times over the years, was content to trot along beside William. Every so often, she stopped to rootle through a pile of dead leaves or nose a patch of earth, grunting softly to herself. The two younger pigs ran off in all directions, excited by their unexpected freedom. William rounded them up if they strayed too far, prodding them back onto the trackway with the pig-stick, an ash rod dark and shiny from countless years of use by abbey swineherds.

From the moment he crossed the bridge by the abbey gatehouse, William had the feeling he was being watched. The feeling persisted when he turned off the main trackway and headed northward. He was tense and watchful as he walked along, but whatever was keeping pace with him through the trees remained hidden.

The track skirted the abbey's hazel coppice and reached a bank topped by a wattle fence and stretches of thorn hedging. It had once enclosed the abbey's deer park, a remnant of more prosperous days, but there were no deer there now. Over the years the hedge had thinned to a straggle and the fence had fallen in places and lay rotting under the leaf litter. Now the park was only used to provide pannage for the abbey pigs, and the pigs of Crowfield's two tenant farmers.

The ditch was shallow and easily crossed. William climbed the bank, herding the pigs ahead of him. The undergrowth was sparse here. There were wide clearings around ancient oaks and stands of birch trees, and open sweeps of bracken. This was the heart of Foxwist, a place of deep green shadows in summer and mist and silence in winter. Local people told stories of strange creatures that haunted the glades on moonlit nights, of fays that danced between the trees. As William walked along, the stories came back to him and he wished that he was safely back inside the walls of the abbey.

The swineherd's hut stood on a low ridge overlooking a stream. Its wattle and timber walls leaned to one side and had been propped up with a couple of huge oak branches. The thatch was green with moss, and thorny whips of bramble twisted through it. In spite of its ramshackle air, the hut was weatherproof. Firewood was stacked against one wall beneath the overhang of thatch. A small wooden pail hung from a nail by the door.

William dropped his bag on the ground and set off down to the stream to fetch water. The pigs were already there, drinking. Mary Magdalene would not stray far from the hut, but he knew he would have to keep an eye on the other two. He rubbed his arms to warm himself as he stood on the stream bank and looked around. He no longer felt he was being watched, but he knew he would be foolish to believe that whoever it was had gone for good. They would be back sooner or later, of that he was sure.

William carried the pail back to the hut. He pushed open the door and peered inside. It was just as he had left it the last time he had stayed here. The bed, a frame of planks piled with dried straw and bracken, stood against the end wall. William poked through the bedding with the end of the pig-stick, to make sure there were no small creatures settled there for the winter, then unrolled his blankets and spread them out.