The Crowfield Curse (8 page)

William found the prior standing by the foot of the stairs to the abbot's quarters, talking to Brother Gabriel. He caught the last snatch of their conversation before they noticed him.

“. . . we can't afford to turn him away,” the prior said.

“But what shall we do when the others find out?” Brother Gabriel said, sounding flustered.

“We will worry about that when the time comes, which we must hope will be after he has paid the abbey the money he promised . . .” The prior saw William and broke off. He glared at the boy. “What do you want?”

William held out the keys. “We've unloaded Master Bone's possessions and I've locked up.”

The prior took the keys. “Go about your work, and don't let me catch you listening in on conversations that do not concern you again, or you will be punished.”

“I wasn't!” William said, stung by the unfairness of his words.

“Do
not
argue with me, boy!”

William scowled and walked away. He turned down the passageway beside the chapter house and set off across the garden. By the time he reached Brother Snail's workshop, his anger had faded and he had begun to wonder what it was the prior and Brother Gabriel were trying to hide from the other monks.

The hob was sitting by the fire, poking the embers with a stick and humming softly to himself. There was a small pile of hazelnuts on a hearthstone, their shells blackened from being roasted in the fire. He carefully chose four and held them out to William. “I saved these for you.”

“Thank you,” William said, touched by this generosity. Hazelnuts were the hob's favorite food. He sat on the floor and cracked the shells with his teeth.

“Where did you get these?” William asked, hoping they weren't from the abbey storeroom.

“I found them.”

“Where?”

“They were hidden in a hole in an apple tree near the snail brother's hut. By a squirrel.” There was a gleeful expression on his small face. “A
hungry
squirrel.”

For a few minutes, they sat in companionable silence, eating the hazelnuts and gazing into the fire. William's thoughts turned to Master Bone's lute.
One day, people will sit and listen to me play an instrument like that
, he thought with a deep certainty.
They'll nod and agree that they've never heard anything so wonderful before. I don't know how, or when, but I will make it happen somehow.

C
HAPTER
NINE

 

 

S
t. Clement's Day was wrapped in a shroud of fog. The abbey, a cheerless place at the best of times, was gloomier and chillier than usual. The fire in the kitchen burned sullenly that morning and seemed reluctant to part with any heat. William riddled the embers and broke up a couple of branches to add to it. He crouched beside the hearth and watched as small flames licked the new wood.

There was a tight knot of excitement in his stomach. Master Bone was due to arrive sometime that day. William thought of the musical instruments, waiting for their owner in the guest chambers, and he smiled gleefully. Perhaps now the endless silence of the abbey would be broken occasionally, and he might finally hear the golden lute being played.

William's first task of the day, after seeing to the fire, was to fetch water from the well in the yard and take it to the kitchen and the monks' lavatorium in the west cloister alley, where they washed their hands and faces before going through to the frater to eat. After that he would take a pail to Brother Snail's workshop. Today, there would be one extra trip to the well, to fetch water for the guest chambers.

By the time the monks filed into the chapter house for the daily meeting, William had delivered water to the lavatorium and the guest chambers and had hung a cauldron of water to heat over the kitchen fire. He carried a pail of water up the day stairs to the reredorter beside the monks' dormitory, where he washed the wooden seats of the latrines. He poured the last of the water away, down into the drain that ran below the row of small wooden stalls and out into the river. A thin stream had long ago been diverted to run through the drain, to flush it out, but even so, Peter still had the all-too-frequent job of cleaning out the drain itself. William would sooner be thrown out of the abbey and left to starve than crawl through that fetid stone tunnel, clearing away the buildup of human waste. He and Peter had to make do with the small wattle-walled latrine hut on the far side of the yard. Peter had to clear out the cesspit beneath that, too.

William set off to take a pail of water to the workshop. The fog drifted like a mournful ghost through the trees on the edge of the abbey vegetable garden. Beyond the trees, the world faded to nothing. The cawing of the crows, high up in the branches of Two Penny Copse, sounded far-off and eerie.

In the monks' graveyard, beyond the wattle garden fence, Peter Borowe stood, a dark shape in the fog, staring at the ground. Even from this distance, William could see the unhappy droop of Peter's shoulders. He set the pail down on the path and walked over to see what the lay brother was doing.

Peter stood beside the shallow beginnings of a grave, shovel in hand. He looked at William but said nothing. There was no wave or smile today. William could see the trail of tears on Peter's mud-streaked cheeks. His thick brown hair was lank from the damp fog.

William looked down into the dark scrape at his feet. “Whose grave is this?” he asked.

“It's for Abbot Simon.”

William stared at him in shock. Abbot Simon was dead? Shouldn't the passing bell be ringing? “When did he die?”

Peter shook his head. “He's still alive. Prior Ardo thought it would be wise to dig the grave before the ground freezes again, just to be ready.”

“Why isn't he being buried in the chapter house?” William asked, puzzled. It was where all of Crowfield's abbots were buried. William had glimpsed the stones marking the graves through the doorway, carved with crosses and letters and set amongst the red and white floor tiles.

Peter shook his head again. “Abbot Simon wanted to be out here, in the sunlight and air, not laid beneath cold stone in the darkness.”

William opened his mouth to say that the abbot would hardly be in the light wherever he ended up, and that it surely wouldn't matter much one way or the other, but thought better of it. Peter was upset enough without William adding to it.

The sight of the pile of brown earth on the ground beside the grave gave William a tight feeling in his chest. For a few moments he was back in the churchyard in Iwele, standing beside the four heaps of newly dug earth that covered the graves of his family. He had been too numb to feel anything that day. It was only later, when life in the village had moved on and returned to normal, that the pain started. It washed over him now in a wave of raw grief, catching him off guard. He quickly blinked away the tears that blurred his eyes.

He would not feel anything when the abbot died because he had never really known him, but Peter would. Abbot Simon had taken Peter in when he was a child and had shown him great kindness and patience, by all accounts. William felt sorry for the lay brother, but there was nothing he could do to lessen his pain. It was something everyone had to face sooner or later.

“Will,” Peter said suddenly, nodding to something behind William, “look.” William glanced around and saw a large white crow standing on the path a few paces away. One blue-gray eye watched him intently. He was sure it was the same bird he had seen here the other evening. It showed no fear and made no attempt to move off the path. William waved a hand at it, in the hope it would hop or fly away, but it did not move.

Peter squatted down and whistled softly to the crow. The bird's sharp gaze flicked from William to the lay brother. Peter whistled again. He looked up at William with a puzzled frown.

“He wants you to follow him.”

“It told you so, did it?” William asked, grinning.

Peter nodded. “You have to go with him
now
.”

William looked down into Peter's face for a few moments and realized he was being entirely serious. “I didn't hear it say anything.”

“I didn't hear him in words,” Peter said. He tapped the side of his head. “It is just a kind of knowing in here.”

The crow waited patiently. Its head was turned so one eye stared unblinkingly up at William.

“Where does it want to take me?” William asked, a vague feeling of unease beginning to creep over him.

Peter stood up and shrugged. “I don't know, Will. He didn't tell me that.”

William took a step toward the crow. The bird moved a little way along the path with an odd little hoppity-skip and then stopped again. It continued to watch William beadily, a fierce expression in its eyes. William picked up the pail of water for the workshop and followed the crow cautiously along the path. The crow stayed a few steps ahead, hopping and walking by turns, and disappeared around the corner of the hut.

William paused by the rainwater barrel. The bird's strange behavior made him feel uneasy and he wondered what waited for him behind the hut. He glanced back at Peter. The lay brother was still standing by the partially dug grave, watching him anxiously. Taking a deep breath, William walked around the corner.

The crow stood on the bench outside the hut door, where Brother Snail sometimes sat on warm days in the dappled shade of the blackthorn tree. A few paces away stood a woman. He was sure he knew most of the villagers from Weforde and Yagleah, by sight at least, but he had never seen her before.

The hem of her green woollen cloak was damp and muddy, as were her scuffed leather boots, and she leaned heavily on a hazel stick. She was small and neat of build. Her hair was hidden under a linen hood tied beneath her chin, and her weather-browned face was finely webbed with wrinkles. But it was her eyes that held William's attention. One eye was pale milky blue and the other one was light brown — unsettling eyes that stared at him as if seeing beneath his skin. The crow leaned forward and gave a harsh caw.

The woman's head turned toward the crow. “Keep watch, Fionn. Warn me if any of the holy brothers approach the hut.” She said the words “holy brothers” contemptuously. The bird rose into the air with a rustling flap of its glossy white wings and glided away over the hut roof.

“You shouldn't be here,” William said, setting the pail down. If Prior Ardo caught her, there would be trouble. Women were not tolerated in the abbey precinct; they were permitted into the nave of the church to hear mass, though none had ever come to Crowfield while William had been living there. To see one here in the garden was a little shocking.

“I have more right here than you do.” Her voice was as harsh as her bird's. She swung the stick around the foggy garden and orchard. “And more right than any of those crow-robed men of God will ever do.”

William stared at her as if she was mad. How could the woman have more right to be at Crowfield than the monks did? That made no sense. She did not
look
mad, but that did not mean she wasn't. “What do you mean?”

Her strange eyes narrowed to slits and the lines on her face seemed to deepen. “You will find out for yourself one of these days.”

That sounded like a threat
, William thought, taking a cautious step backward. There was something about the old woman he did not like, a subtle air of menace that was out of keeping with her appearance.

“What's your name, boy? Are you a novice here?”

William shook his head. “No. I'm a servant. And my name is William Paynel, of Iwele.”

She was silent for some moments. Her thin hands, the nails black and the parchment-dry skin ingrained with dirt, folded around the top of the stick. “Tell me this, how does a boy like you come to have the gift of Sight?”

“The Sight?” he repeated, startled. “I don't.”

“No? Yet you found an injured hob in Foxwist Wood and brought it here. Such creatures are rarely seen by humans, but
you
saw it.”

William stared at her warily. His first instinct was to deny all knowledge of the hob, but he shrugged that aside. He had the feeling it would not be wise to lie to her.