The Gallows Curse

Elena lay curled up on the turf seat in the darkened garden, but she wasn't sleeping. She was so drained and exhausted that she felt she might never again have the energy even to lift her head. But she couldn't sleep. She couldn't bear to close her eyes in case he came to her again in her dreams.

The green scales glinting in the candlelight, the long black horns and the sharp fangs protruding from the blood-red mouth. The only things that moved were his eyes, glittering in the shadow of his wooden mask.

She saw him over and over again walking slowly towards her, silent and expressionless. Just those cold green eyes flickering over her body. She felt again the ropes tying her to the post, keeping her helpless, tangled like an insect in a web, waiting for the spider to sink his fangs into her. She crushed her fists into her eyeballs till they hurt, trying to make them stop seeing what was burned on to them. The water, the cold water from the great fat lips of the fish, pouring down over her head, running over and under her mask, till she thought she was drowning, her lungs tearing as she struggled to breathe.

Far above, the stars prickled in the small square of hell- black sky caged by the high walls of the courtyard. Elena's cheek was crushed against the rough stems of the thyme, but she ignored the scratches. It was nothing to the pain that engulfed her whole body and burned between her legs.

Most of the women had already staggered back to their own chamber or else lay sleeping in the arms of customers who had paid to stay all night. The giggles and shrieks had long since ceased, but still Elena didn't stir from the garden.

She was shivering, but she couldn't bring herself to go inside, to be near hot human flesh, to smell the stench of sweat and semen on the women's bodies. She tried in vain to draw in the cleansing scent of the thyme to rid herself of his stench that returned again and again to her nostrils like an echo that wouldn't stop.

A year and a day, Raffaele had said she must stay. A year and a day to gain her freedom, but if she couldn't prove her innocence, who knew how long? And how many times in a year could that man come again, or others like him? If only she knew how long she had to endure this place, maybe she could teach herself to bear it. But what if she waited and hoped and never got out? Never again felt Athan's arms around her or saw her son's little face? She had to know if there would be an end.

Although she had thought herself unable to move, Elena pushed herself upright. Her knees almost giving way beneath her, she stumbled towards the communal sleeping chamber. Carefully stepping around the bodies of the prone women, so as not to awaken them, she found her own sleeping pallet and, lifting the edge, pushed her arm beneath it until her fingers felt the cold leather of her scrip. Sliding it out as quietly as she could, she crept back outside and crossed the moonlit garden to the turf seat. She froze as she heard the great door of the hall open and then close. But no one came into the garden. It must have been someone leaving the brothel.

Beyond the walls, she could hear a dog howling, but inside the courtyard there was no sound. Trees, gilded in silver, breathed softly in the warm night air, and the dark shadows of the branches glided as gracefully as dancers across the sable grass.

Elena needed no light to perform her task. How many times had she done this in Athan's cottage while he lay sleeping? She drew out the little bundle from her scrip and carefully unwrapped it. She lifted her knife and, steeling herself, drew the sharp blade across her tongue. His semen was crusted on her thighs. She pulled up her skirts and let the blood from her tongue drip on to her bare legs, until it mingled with the dried white crust. Then she carefully anointed the mandrake with the salty blood-milk.





It had been months since Elena had fed me. I had not drunk since her child was born and I was hungry. I was ravenous. The red milk in my mouth was like sweet wine is to men. It is easy to get intoxicated by it, giddy on the perfume of it, heavy as iron. But unlike wine-sodden mortals our wits grow sharper, our strength increases with each drop of the thick red curds we imbibe. I trembled in her fingers and she felt me stirring in her grasp.

I knew what she wanted, far better than she did, but she had to ask, all she had to do was ask. That is our code, our pledge — Ask and it shall be given unto you. That was our promise long before another usurped it; for there were gallows and crosses centuries before He bawled his lungs out in the byre. We are as old as murder itself, and only the Angel of Death can make claim to be our elder brother.

Elena held me close to her lips and whispered, 'Show me a dream. Show me what will happen. That man who came tonight, show me if he will come again. Tell me how I can be free.'

But I knew what she was really asking. I knew only too well.





2nd Day after the Full Moon,

August 1211



Thyme - This herb gives courage to the faint-hearted and joy to the melancholy. The crushed leaves relieve the pain of bee stings, cure headaches, kill the worms of the belly and banish nightmares. Foolish ladies give sprigs of it to those who ride to the Holy Wars in the forlorn hope that their lovers will remember them.

The souls of the dead take shelter in thyme. When a mortal dies, thyme is brought into the house, and kept there until the body is taken for burial, but it is not used in the funeral wreath, for time means nothing to the dead.

But if a man or maid be foully murdered, the sweet smell of thyme shall haunt the place where they fell for all eternity, though no thyme plants grow near it. For the passage of time cannot undo the crime of murder, since the victim is gone from mortal reach and has no tongue or sign to forgive the one who wronged him.

The Mandrake's Herbal





Crime of Passion



It is dark, but she sees him standing there with his back to her, gazing into the flames of a small fire. He is mesmerised by the twisting orange light, as men are when they are exhausted. His head is drooping slightly. She advances, a knife in her hand, but she doesn't mean to kill him. Not murder, no. She has another use for him. Swiftly and silently as a cat pounces, she slashes him across the backs of his thighs.

With a cry of agony he falls forward, narrowly missing the fire. He rolls away and writhes on the ground, clutching at his legs. She is sure they must be bleeding, but it is too dark to see. She raises the hilt of the knife and brings it crashing down on the man's head. But the blow is not hard enough. He is still moving, still yelling. She must make him stop. Someone will come running, if she does not. She raises the knife to bludgeon him again, but he knows what is coming and lashes out with his arm as she strikes, dashing the blade from her hands and sending it spinning off into the darkness.

Now he is struggling to kneel, groping at his belt for his sword, but he is too stunned to act quickly enough and it is awkward for a kneeling man to draw a long blade from the scabbard. Even so, in time he will succeed in freeing the sword and then she will be at his mercy for she has no weapon. She cannot see her knife and she dares not waste time searching for it, for he is still yelling, shouting for help, and soon someone must hear him. She pulls the rope from her waist, the rope she meant to tie him with, but she knows now he cannot be tied. It is too late. She flings it over the kneeling man's head like a noose, pulling it tight against his throat. He struggles, trying to grab her hands as the rope tightens around his neck. If he does, he will be able to pull her over his head. She knows that, she has seen men do it.

Something rolls beneath her feet as she struggles with him. A kindling stick, not big enough to strike him with, but she snatches it up and thrusts it through the rope, twisting the rope tighter and tighter round the stick. She hears the rasp of his breath, sees the frantic and now futile beating of his hands. Still she twists the rope harder and harder. Finally she realises that it is only the rope which is holding the man upright. His hands have fallen limp at his sides. His head lolls forward. He is not screaming. He is not breathing. She lets the body fall and this time he does not rise.





Raffe stayed away from the manor until he saw the early morning smoke rising from the kitchens and the first of the carts trundling in through the manor's gates. If he went banging at the gate for Walter to open up in the middle of the night, word of it would race round the manor quicker than a lightning flash. But if he strolled in through the morning bustle of servants, with luck he would not be noticed. He thanked heaven Osborn and Hugh were away.

He had not wasted the night. Even now a small boat laden with sacks of grain was being sculled upstream towards Norwich, by the same boatmen who had taken Elena to safety. They would carry the message to Talbot that passage was required on a ship for a gentleman who needed to slip away quietly from these shores. Talbot would know where to find a ship's captain who would ask no questions.

The few hours' sleep in the bottom of the boat Raffe had managed to snatch before dawn had been fitful and uncomfortable. Perhaps it was meeting the priest that made him think of it, but for the first time in many years, when he did manage to sleep he dreamed not of the wars, but of the abbey where he lived as a child.

Those years in the abbey choir had been the happiest Raffe had ever known. After the initial shock of being left there by his parents, given to the Church to pay for his father's life, he had found himself among friends, boys and men like himself, mutilated for the greater glory of God. He was taught to read and write, to sing in Latin and to study music. The laity who flocked to the abbey church treated the castrati like princes. Stout matrons vied with one another to bake them the most delicious treats; girls gave them flowers; and rich men bought them costly trinkets. Among the ordinary choir whose voices, though accomplished, were merely human, these rare and costly boys and men were the elite.

The boy castrati worshipped the beautiful young men in their twenties whose looks and voices surpassed the angels'. But they'd giggle and whisper about the older castrati who dragged their bloated bodies about, yet whose voices, behind the screen, could still move men to tears. It never occurred to them that one day their own bodies too would become as aged and grotesque.

Raffe loved the comradeship of this little band of chosen brothers. But his greatest joy was to sing, to stand among the choir and hear their voices rising together up to the throne of God. Daily he dreamed that one day the whole church would hold its breath as his voice ran like molten silver from the moon.

But though he prayed every night and tried to convince himself that he was one of them, he knew something was starting to go badly wrong. Even if he hadn't seen the singing master shaking his head and the choir members exchanging glances whenever he was asked to sing alone, he knew that his voice wasn't like the others'. The music was perfect in his head. He could hear exactly how each note should sound. He knew what was required of him, but when he opened his mouth, what came out now made even him cringe.

When he was eleven years old, they sent for him. The cart to take him back to his village was already standing at the abbey door. Sometimes with training the voice can be improved, they said, but his was becoming worse. It happens with some castrati. Unlike normal boys, their voices can never break, but they can crack as the child grows, and a bell that is cracked cannot ever sound a pure note.

Raffe begged them to let him become a monk or to take Holy Orders as a priest, so that he could remain among them and listen to those voices even if he could never be one of them. But they sadly shook their heads. Did he not know, had he not learned in his studies what is written in the Holy Bible — 'He that is wounded in the stones shall not enter the congregation of the Lord.' Eunuchs are unnatural. They are an abomination. They are unclean. He had been wounded for God, and for that very wound he would be cast out from God's sight.

When he returned home, his father said nothing. In contrast, his mother had plenty to say about the wicked waste of money and the dashed hopes of the whole family after all they had sacrificed for him. He had trampled on all their dreams by failing to study hard enough, by failing to be good enough. He found his sleeping place occupied by his younger brother. His tasks on the farm had been shared out among the others. They had not expected him to return. Like a stone lifted out of a pond, the water had closed over the gap where he had once been, leaving no trace. But all that he could have borne, for none of it had hurt him as much as his father's silence.

A swan alighted with a splash on the river, almost colliding with the boat. The ripples sent the slender craft rocking. Raffe squinted up at the sky; the sun had risen high enough now for Walter to have opened the gate and the servants to be about their morning tasks. He hauled himself upright, scratching violently at the swelling bites of the marsh midges on his arms.

Having returned the boat to the old eel man, Raffe made his way back to the manor. He could not suppress a yawn as he crossed the courtyard, weaving between the bustling servants.

'Weary already at this bright hour, gelding?'

Raffe whirled about to find Osborn's younger brother, Hugh, standing in front of the stables. God's teeth, when had he returned? Only yesterday he'd ridden out with Osborn and the rest of his men on their way to attend the king at court. What was he doing back here?

Hugh looked the steward up and down with amused disdain. 'By the Blood, you look so draggled, had it been any other man I'd have sworn he'd spent the night in the arms of a whore, but we know you weren't losing your sleep in that cause, don't we?'

Raffe, aware of the barely suppressed grins of the other servants, turned away, trying hard to swallow his anger. It wasn't easy for his fist was itching to connect with Hugh's nose.

'I can see you still want for manners. Like a dog to a whistle you should come running to your masters when they address you.'

Raffe wheeled around and walked rapidly towards Hugh, his fists clenched. He stopped so close to him that, being a good head shorter, Hugh was forced to crane his head back to look Raffe in the face.

'Did you want something?' Raffe said coldly.

Hugh giggled. 'You know, however many times I hear you speak, I still can't get used to the voice of a little girl coming from a man's body. Well, I say man, but we all know that's not exactly true, is it?' His tone changed without warning. 'Yes, I want something, gelding. I want to know where you were yesterday. When I returned last night I was burning up with a fever, but the maids brought me nothing to ease it. I was kept waiting for my food for hours and when those feckless arse-wipes did finally stir themselves to bring it, it tasted like dog shit. I sent for you to speak to you about their neglect, but apparently not one of the numbskulls you laughingly call servants could find you. So where had you sneaked off to?'

'I am not a villein,' Raffe said coldly. 'I may come and go as I please. Since my duties were done, I decided to spend the night where the air was sweeter and the company had greater wit than I've been forced to endure these last weeks. So I spent it on the river with the fish.'

'Let's see, shall we?' Hugh's dark grey eyes flicked to Raffe's basket, the same one in which last night he had carried food to the priest. 'Open it!'

Raffe shrugged and unfastened the lid. A knot of three fat black eels squirmed over one another in a nest of damp weeds. Just as Raffe had hoped, the eels had snapped at the worms on the lines he'd laid out in the river before meeting the boy and had got their teeth entangled in the mass of sheep wool. He had pulled them from the water at dawn in a matter of minutes, but how could any man prove how long it had taken to catch them?

Hugh scowled. 'So you were off enjoying yourself when you should have been here checking that the servants carried out their duties. It's as well I returned to see how my poor brother's manor is neglected the moment his back is turned.'

'The servants know their duties.'

'That's what you think, is it? Here, you! Come here, boy.'

A thin, hollow-chested stable boy crept out of the darkness, his head held down at an angle, cringing away from Hugh. Raffe could immediately see why. The lad's nose, encrusted with blood, was so swollen it was hard to tell if it was broken. His eyes were purple and one was so puffy he couldn't open it more than a crack. There were bruises on his scrawny arms, and from the way the lad was limping, Raffe suspected that his clothes concealed more injuries.

Hugh grabbed the lad's neck and pushed him forward to face Raffe. 'This wretch was instructed to tend to my horse, but when I came to see all was well with the beast, I found his hooves still caked in mud.'

'So you beat him?' Raffe demanded furiously.

If any of the lads had been so lazy as to neglect a valuable horse, Raffe would have taken a switch to them himself, but he would never have disciplined them like this. Besides, they all knew better than to leave mud under the hooves where it could cause rot. And this lad loved horses and doted on all of them as if they were his personal pets. Raffe knew that Hugh had beaten the boy solely to punish him for his absence rather than anything the poor lad had neglected to do. God's blood, he wouldn't rest until he'd found proof that Hugh was a traitor, and when he did, nothing would give him greater satisfaction than watching the bastard die as slowly and painfully as possible.

The boy stood shivering with misery. Raffe placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, shocked to feel him cringe under it. He called out to one of the scullions who was crossing the yard with an armful of fresh-cut herbs.

'Take this lad to the kitchen, and tell cook she's to mull him some ale. My orders. And get someone to clean the lad up, gently mind. I'll be across myself presently.'

The scullion laid a brotherly arm around the lad and led him off as quickly as he could, darting a scared glance over his shoulder at Hugh.

'You reward a lazy little midden-brat like him, when you should be thrashing him,' Hugh thundered. 'No wonder you can't keep order in this manor.'

Raffe's temper finally lunged out of his control. You are not master here and if you ever lay a hand on one of my charges again, I'll break every bone in it, one by one.'

Hugh was white with anger, two high spots of colour blazing on his pale cheeks. 'Have a care, gelding, I'll see you brought to the whip yet, by God I will.'

He stormed into the stable and, grabbing the reins of his horse from a boy, swung into the saddle and clattered across the yard and through the open gate, scattering terrified chickens and maids to the right and left of him.

Raffe, now that his temper had cooled slightly, cursed himself silently. Hugh would be watching him like a vulture from now on. How the Devil was he going to get the priest past him? He felt for Gerard's pearl ring which hung from a leather thong beneath his shirt. Whatever the danger he must do it. If there was the slightest chance that the priest's anointing would bring peace to Gerard's soul, then he must try even if it cost him his own life.





The serving maid waddled awkwardly across the courtyard at the back of the Adam and Eve Inn, trying not to let the contents of the slops bucket she was carrying splash on her skirts. She glanced up at the shuttered windows of the inn; the guests wouldn't stir for another hour or more, and even then they'd be lucky if they could crawl off their sleeping pallets, given the amount of ale and cider most had drunk last night. She thumbed her nose at the shutters behind which the innkeeper and his crabby wife still lay snoring. It was all very well for them, they could sleep on, but the old termagant would grumble all day if the chores weren't done by the time she deigned to wake.

The maid went round the back of the wooden shack where the meals were cooked over the great fire and flung the contents of the bucket towards the midden, without bothering to look. She didn't need to; she'd been emptying slops here at least twice a day for the past five years. There was a screech, and a cat with a wet tail raced past her ankles, spitting its indignation.

The sudden appearance of the cat made her glance down. For a moment she just stared at the ground without her mind being able to comprehend what her eyes saw. Then she began to scream and once she'd started, she couldn't stop. She carried on screaming until the innkeeper, naked save for a short shift which barely covered his scrawny thighs, came hurrying round the shack, closely followed by his wife who was armed with a heavy cudgel. Several of the guests trailed after them, grumbling at the disturbance.

The maid, her hand trembling violently, pointed at the earth next to the midden heap. A man lay on his belly in the filth, his head twisted to the side. Flies swarmed over the dark blood congealed in his hair and crawled over his purple, grotesquely swollen face, settling in the deep black bruise that encircled his neck. Only the buzzing of the flies broke the stunned silence in that courtyard.

Finally, the innkeeper shook himself, and seizing the maid by the shoulder, shouted at her to go and raise the hue and cry, and send someone to find the bailiff. She did not need any urging to run.

It took a while for the bailiff to appear and by that time half the street had crowded into the courtyard to see what was afoot.

The bailiff peered at the body from several angles, though he did not attempt to touch it.

'Plain as a pig's ear what's happened,' he announced to the crowd. 'Someone's whacked him across the back of the head with something heavy, maybe while he was drunk and taking a piss. That would have floored him. Then they throttled him to make sure he was good and dead. He wouldn't have put up much of a fight, not if he was already half-dead from the crack on the head, none at all if he was out cold from the blow. Wouldn't have taken much strength to kill him. A boy could have done it, just as easily as any full-grown man ... or woman, come to that.' The bailiff stared pointedly at the cudgel in the innkeeper's wife's hand.

'I'll have you know I'm not in the habit of murdering my customers,' she said indignantly. 'What profit would there be in that?'

'One of yours, was he?' the bailiff said, as if that explained everything. 'There'll be no shortage of suspects then. Every rogue between here and Yarmouth passes through your doors. I wager it'll be a falling out among thieves.'

The innkeeper's wife was about to retort to this wicked slander on her respectable establishment when something caught her eye.

'What's that?'

It was half concealed beneath the corpse's hand, but it stood out vividly against the dark muck and filth of the yard.

With evident distaste, the bailiff crouched down and wriggled the object out from beneath the cold fingers. It was crushed and wilted, but it was still recognizable. It was a single white rose.

As they stared at it, the buzzing in the air grew louder. It seemed that every fly in Norwich was swarming towards the corpse.





The candles on the walls bled drop by drop on to the twisted mass of wax below. Ma Margot sat enthroned in her snake chair, a goblet of wine untouched on the table in front of her. She stared hard and long at Elena, her bulging yellow-green eyes unblinking in the candlelight. Elena felt sick and she longed to sink down into the chair in front of Ma's table, but she dared not do so without being invited. She grasped the back of it, trying to keep herself upright. Her stomach had been churning ever since Talbot had said Ma wanted to see her. Not another gentleman, not so soon, she couldn't.

'Please, Ma, I can't! I can't—'

'Wait till you're spoken to, girl,' Talbot growled. Elena jumped, not realizing that he was still standing behind her. But Ma continued to study her without making any attempt to speak.

Elena's head was throbbing. Back at the manor she had once drunk too much cider at a harvest-home and remembered the same dizzy, nauseous misery the day after as she felt now. But she had scarcely drunk anything at all last night, just a mouthful or two of the wine when the man had insisted. Could there have been some herb or potion in it?

Ma's fingers caressed the carved head of the serpent on her armrest. 'Where were you last night?'

Elena gaped at her, wondering if she had heard the question aright.

'With the gentleman . . . you dressed me, you and Luce.'

'And after he left?' Ma's voice was low, but sharp as a dagger.

'I was here, asleep.'

'You're lying. Luce swears you were not in the women's chamber when she went to bed and she didn't retire until after the watch called midnight. Your gentleman had long gone by then. Talbot says you were not abed when he made his rounds when he returned. So I'll ask you again, my darling, where were you?'

'I ... I was sleeping out on the turf seat in the courtyard. I couldn't bear to be inside after . . . what he did.'

'Never mind what he did,' Ma snapped. 'It's what you did that matters.'

She beckoned to Talbot, the heavy blood-red ruby on her finger flashing like a warning in the candlelight.

Talbot lumbered round and stood beside Ma. His broken nose seemed even more twisted out of shape in the deep shadows cast by the candles.

'Tell her,' Ma ordered.

Talbot folded his thick, hairy arms, glowering at Elena. 'A corpse was found this morning in the courtyard of the Adam and Eve. Been murdered.'

'You know who that man was?' Ma asked.

Elena shook her head. They were both staring at her so intently that she found her cheeks burning with guilt even though she didn't understand why.

'The man's name was Raoul. He was in the service of Lord Osborn,' Ma said.

Elena's heart began to pound. 'Did he come to Norwich searching for me?'

Ma and Talbot exchanged glances.

'He'd been asking questions in the taverns about a runaway girl with red hair,' Ma said. 'He wasn't very discreet about it. But last night it seems he was just searching for pleasure.'

Elena's chest was so tight it hurt to breathe.

'And it seems, by chance, you were his pleasure,' Ma Margot added with relish. 'He was the gentleman you entertained last night.'

'But he never told me his name,' Elena said, horrified. 'I didn't know. I didn't who he was. He wore a mask, you know he did.'

'Told you,' said Talbot, 'no one ever gives their real name here. Not customers, nor girls. Now you know why. If he'd heard your real name last night. . .'

Elena clung to the edge of the table, her head reeling. She had been forced to pleasure one of Lord Osborn's men. Had Ma known who he was? But she couldn't have. Ma was trying to hide her, wasn't she?

'And now Raoul's dead,' Ma said. 'So, what happened, my darling? Did you let your name slip? Were you scared he'd recognized you, or did he tell you he was one of Osborn's men? Is that why you followed him after he left here? Is that why you killed him — to stop him talking?'

Elena's legs would hold her up no longer. She sank into the chair beside her, burying her head in her hands.

'I didn't... I couldn't have! I dreamed of a murder, but I couldn't really have done it. It was only a dream, a warning . . . about the future. It wasn't real.'

'What dream?' Ma asked sharply. When did you have it?'

'Last night when I was asleep on the turf bench ... I dreamed I killed someone. I didn't mean to, but he was yelling and I had to stop him. But it was a dream, that's all. I've had them before. I dreamed of killing my baby — that's why I gave him away.'

'So you tell us,' Ma said tardy. 'But there are plenty who believe you murdered your child in the flesh, else you'd not be with us now. And if you've killed once, it makes it easier to do it again. In this dream of yours, how did this man die?'

'I ... he was . . . strangled.' Elena looked up in desperation. 'That wasn't how Raoul died, was it? Tell me! Please, tell me.'

Talbot and Ma looked at each other again.

'He was strangled all right. Living breath choked out of him,' Talbot told her with a grim satisfaction.

Elena gave a shuddering moan. 'But it couldn't have been me. I don't remember doing it. I don't remember going out. I was asleep on the seat and when I woke again I was still there.'

'But no one saw you there,' Ma reminded her. She reached behind her back in the snake chair and pulled something out, dropping it on to the table. It was the white linen shift Elena had worn last night, crumpled and stained with dried blood. Ma fingered the stains and raised her black brows quizzically.

'But that's my blood,' Elena protested, '. . . from the thorns ... it isn't his. It can't be his.'

'And the scarlet girdle you wore about your waist last night, my darling, where exactly is that? It wasn't found with the shift. Luce has looked all over for it, but it seems to have vanished.'

'Handy thing to strangle a man with, a girdle,' Talbot said.

Ma leaned forward, cocking her great head to one side. The candlelight flashed from the ruby-headed pins in her coiled black hair. 'I understand, my darling, murder is a terrible thing, a shock to a soul.'

'Aye,' Talbot said grinning. 'A bastard of a shock to the poor sod who snuffs it.'

Ma glared at him. 'They tell me that those who commit such dreadful deeds walk as if they are in a sleep, not knowing what they do, and after remember it as a distant dream. Fear can make us desperate, my darling. When you discovered that Raoul was Osborn's man, you panicked. I understand that.'

She gave what might have been intended as a sympathetic smile, but to the terrified Elena she looked more like a wolf baring her sharp white teeth.

'But you should have come to me or Talbot and told us what you feared. There's ways to sort such matters without leaving bodies all over the city to be found by prying eyes.'

'But I didn't know who he was, I swear,' Elena said desperately.

Ma ignored this. "You've put us all in grave danger.'

'Dropped us right in the midden,' Talbot growled.

'If Raoul told anyone where he was going last night, then —' Ma was interrupted by a loud and insistent tolling of the bell at the door.

'By the sound of it they already know,' Talbot said.

Ma's heavy black brows flexed in a frown. 'Talbot, answer the door. But delay them as long as you can before you bring them up here.'

Talbot, despite his bow-legs, could cover the ground as fast as a charging bull when he had to, and he was out of the door and clattering down the stairs before Ma had managed to scramble down from her chair.

'This way, my darling.'

But Elena was frozen to the spot with incomprehension and fear. Ma seized her wrist and dragged her bodily towards the curtain hanging across the corner of the room from which Elena had seen her emerge that very first night. The corner was in darkness and Elena could see nothing behind the drape, but evidently Ma didn't need light to find what she wanted. She was feeling for something on the floor. Elena heard a trapdoor being lifted. Ma tugged her across to the hole.

'Kneel on the edge and feel for the rungs of the ladder with your feet,' Ma instructed.

Elena, shuddering with the memory of the prisoner hole beneath the manor, used all her strength to pull herself out of Ma's grasp. But Ma Margot was as strong as Talbot. Exasperated, she gave a sharp twist on Elena's arm to bring her to her senses.

'It's down there or be arrested for murder. And just you think about this: if they were planning to hang you for killing a mere villein's babe, imagine what they will do to a base- born villein who murders a nobleman!'

'But I didn't, Ma, I swear I didn't,' Elena sobbed.

'You can swear all you like, but they'll no more believe you this time than they did last. Now, get down there and mind you keep as silent as the grave.'

'At least give me light,' Elena begged. 'I can't even see the ladder.'

'No time,' Ma hissed fiercely. 'Just seven rungs is all, then you'll be on solid ground. Hurry, I can hear Talbot climbing the stairs!'

As soon as Elena's head was below the level of the trapdoor, Ma closed it, leaving Elena in total darkness. She stood on the ladder, too afraid to take another step down. But as she shifted her weight the wooden ladder rocked and creaked under her. Scared of it falling, Elena felt for the step below, then the step below that until, as Ma had promised, her feet touched solid ground.

As she turned, her hand brushed something furry, and remembering the caged beasts, she stifled a cry of fear, shrinking back against the wooden ladder. But whatever it was didn't move. She tentatively reached out again and felt thick, silky fur, as soft as melting butter, but it was cold to the touch and she knew that there was no animal beneath the skin.

As her eyes adjusted, she realized that the chamber was not entirely without light. Pricks of daylight were shining in through holes on the other side of the room. She saw dimly that she was standing in a wedge-shaped room, next to a sleeping platform covered with a heap of pelts over a thick mattress. Some of the furs were as pale as snow in moonlight, others dark as the night. She smoothed the skins with her fingers, marvelling at their sensual softness.

Footsteps padded across the wooden boards above her head, followed by the scrape of chair legs and a hum of voices. But although she strained to hear, she could make out no words. Gazing fearfully towards the ceiling, her eyes caught sight of evil, distorted faces in the darkness glowering over at her. She cringed. Were they bats or demons? She held her breath, staring fixedly up at them, but they didn't move. Holding her arms protectively overhead, she crept a little closer, then saw what they were. Around the top of the chamber was carved a series of grimacing grotesques as you might see in a church. Human faces with pig snouts, women with pendulous breasts and tangled beards, men with faces twisted into a leper's leer, owls with human heads and men with the heads of dogs.

Elena sank down on to the bed, trying not to look at the mocking faces glaring at her. Above her she could still hear the murmur of voices. What was Ma saying to them? Would she hand her over to them? Cold sweat drenched her body. Raffe had warned her that if Ma couldn't earn a profit from her then she might be tempted to give her up for the bounty.

She tried desperately to remember what had happened last night. She couldn't have killed that man. She'd wanted to, all the time she was in that chamber with him, every muscle and sinew in her body had been screaming out for his death. If she'd been able to get her hands free, if she'd had a knife or a staff or anything to defend herself, she would have lunged at him through sheer fear, of that much she was certain.

But she didn't even know where this Adam and Eve was, and even if she'd found it by following him, how could she have got there and back without remembering anything? And yet she could vividly remember standing behind him, feeling the panic as he yelled out, his hands groping for hers as she twisted tighter and tighter. She could remember feeling his dead weight sagging from her arms as he swung forward. All of that she could picture with painful clarity, as if his body was lying right here beside her in Ma's chamber.

The image had been as clear as when she saw herself murdering her own child. But she hadn't done that, had she? She pressed her hands to her eyes. She wasn't sure of anything any more. One thing was certain, Raoul was dead. The man who had raped her was dead. If she could kill him and not remember how she got there, then maybe Joan had been right all along and she really had murdered her baby. Perhaps she had only imagined she'd given him to Gytha. She didn't know what was real and what was the dream any more.

Footsteps echoed again on the floor above, and she shrank into the corner of the bed, but the trapdoor didn't open. Then she heard voices as if they were next to her. She slid over the furs and tiptoed to the opposite wall.

One of the carvings in the corner was set lower than the others, placed just above Elena's head. It was like a mask. But it was turned around, facing into the wall, so the hollow back was open to the room. A dim, pale light was streaming into the chamber through the pupils of its eyes and open mouth. There was a wooden shutter to one side of the mask, and a set of steps in front of it, like the ones Ma used to get into her chair. Elena stood on the bottom of the steps and pushed her face inside the stone mask. She could see right through the eyes into the room beyond and realized she was looking into the guest hall where Talbot had taken her that first night.

Three men were swigging the last gulp from beakers of ale, and one by one handing them to Talbot, wiping their mouths with the backs of their hands in appreciation.

'You'll keep your ear to the ground and let us know if you hear any gossip that might give us a lead.'

'Aye, you'll be the first to know, if I hear aught,' Talbot answered. 'What do you reckon this Raoul was doing at the Adam and Eve? Not the place for a gentleman.'

The leader shrugged. 'Maybe your girls were just a dish of dainties to him and it whetted his appetite for stronger meats. He fancied sinking his teeth into the juicy fat haunch of a street whore.'

One of the other men clapped his leader on the back. 'If you think these girls are dainty, you ain't had fat Alice here sit on your face. I warrant her haunches are meat enough for any man.'

All four men laughed.

'Besides,' the man continued, 'a noble like that would take a whore to his lodgings. He was no pimple-faced apprentice who had to have a girl against a wall for fear of his master.'

The leader nodded. 'There's something in that, but it's my guessing we'll not know till we find his killer. God's blood, I wish it had been anyone but a man in Lord Osborn's retinue. Any other man and we could have simply hanged the first knave we came across and called it justice. That would have been the end of the matter. But Osborn's already blaming us for not finding that runaway serf and felon. Any murderer we catch he'll want to put to the hot irons himself to be sure. Osborn will see me put out of my post for this, unless I bring him someone's head on a pike.'

Talbot eased the men towards the door. 'I'll keep an ear open, never you fear, though if I were you, I'd be asking around the moneylenders or the dog-pits. From what I hear, this Raoul liked a wager on the fighting dogs and the cocks too, but some men don't take kindly to a man who can't or won't settle what he owes.' He tapped the side of his nose.

The men nodded seriously to one another, as if Talbot had just given them the information they were looking for, and hurried away.

'Thank the star your mother birthed you under that Talbot's a good liar,' a voice said quietly behind Elena. She wheeled round to see Ma at her side.

Ma drew her away from the mask and pushed her down to sit on the bed. She stood squarely in front of Elena, her arms folded across her pendulous breasts.

'I hope you're grateful, my darling. Talbot's just saved your neck. If they start asking questions among the cock-fighting men they'll be sent round in such circles that by the time they're finished, their heads'll be stuck so far up their own arses, they'll be eating their dinner twice over. But it's far from over for you, my darling. They know Raoul came here. If they don't find someone to pay for his murder, sooner or later one of them'll want to talk to the girl who pleasured him and you'd better pray it isn't Osborn asking the questions.'

'But I didn't kill him, Ma,' Elena repeated woodenly, though she didn't really believe it herself any more.

The tiny woman looked at her and shrugged. 'You think that's going to make a flea's shit of difference?'

She grasped Elena by the shoulders. Elena cringed as Ma's fingers dug as hard as iron fetters into her flesh.

'Now, you listen to me, my darling. If you want us to go on protecting you, you'd better see to it that you do exactly what I say. Next time you entertain, put your back into it and look like you are enjoying it. Give your customer all he asks for and more. Men don't have any imagination, but we do. We show them what they can't even dream of, and for that they're willing to sell their own mothers. In the meantime, if you still believe in such things, you'd best get to your knees and pray that no one comes forward who saw you near the Adam and Eve last night.'





7th Day after the Full Moon,

August 1211



Cuckoo pint — which some call Devil's prick, Bloody fingers, Angels and devils, Wake robin, Wild arum and Jack in the green. This is the plant we most loathe for its presumption. Unlike the mandrake that grows at the foot of the gallows, this weed claims to have sprung up at the foot of the Holy Cross, no less. Its dark leaves, so mortals claim, were spotted with red by the very Blood of Christ, whilst we may claim only the honest semen of dishonest men.

Further more, mortals declare it a certain remedy for poison. They say also that it brings down a woman's menses so that she might conceive even when she is past her child- bearing years and is a powerful love potion. And there is many a foolish mortal youth who before a feast or merry dance sings out, I place you in my shoe, let all fair maids be drawn to you.

Be not deceived, this Devil's prick is but a feeble shadow of what a mandrake can do.

The Mandrake's Herbal