The Gallows Curse

The Devil's Bargain



Down in Ma's hidden chamber, Elena heard the bell tolling in the guest hall and moved closer to the hollow mask on the wall. She dared not open the shutter which covered the mask for she guessed the light from the candle in Ma's chamber would shine out of the eyes of the mask and give her away. And she was too afraid of being left in the dark to extinguish the candle.

Elena had not been permitted to leave the chamber since Ma had hidden her here. She could only count the passing of the hours by the guest hall bell. She knew it must be evening when the bell in the guest hall began to toll repeatedly as the customers arrived and then later she would hear the great door opening and closing as one by one they left. But as far as she could tell it was morning now, too early for customers. Was it the sheriff's men? Her heart began to race.

So she pressed her ear against the wooden shutter, but she could hear little except Talbot's deep growl. No words of any visitor, which meant there was only one of them, she thought. If there were a group of men in the guest hall, she would surely hear them. The sheriff wouldn't come alone.

The trapdoor grated above Elena's head. She tripped and almost sprawled headlong in her effort to get back on to the bed before Ma descended the ladder. But there was no creaking of the ladder.

Instead, Ma put her head through the hatch. 'Come here, my darling.'

Elena crept over to the foot of the ladder. Ma's face peered down at her, as distorted as one of the grotesques on the wall.

'Hurry up, my darling, you have a visitor.'

Slowly, still trembling, Elena mounted the steps and emerged in Ma's chamber. Talbot was standing in the doorway.

'Best show her visitor up here,' Ma said. 'We can't have Holly seen below.'

Talbot grunted and moved off down the stairs.

'Is it Master Raffaele?' Elena asked. Ma must have got word to him that she was no longer safe here. This time he surely would take her away. He must, no matter what he'd said before. Her heart gave a little judder of excitement and fear.

'Not Master Raffaele, but someone from your village.' Ma glanced up at her curiously. 'Someone you haven't seen for a long time.'

Despite the dark hollows that fear and sleeplessness had carved around Elena's eyes, they suddenly shone so radiantly that you would have sworn someone had lit a candle behind them.

'Athan! It's Athan, my husband. I knew he'd come in the end. I knew Raffaele would tell him where I was.'

But her delight was suddenly tinged with fear. In her joy at the prospect of seeing him, she had almost forgotten her dread of him finding her in this place. But if he'd come here asking for her that surely must mean he wanted her back. She heard footsteps on the staircase and it took every grain of willpower she possessed to stop her feet from running down the steps to meet him.

Talbot entered the room first and stepped aside. The smile of joy on Elena's face dissolved instantly as a tall, slim figure stepped out from behind him. The woman threw back her hood. Ma was right. It was someone she had not seen for a very long time and someone she had never thought to see again.

Gytha, the cunning woman, stood in Ma's chambers, gazing round the small shuttered room with a look of admiration and amusement, her eyes darting from the petrified forest of wax to the serpent throne. She ran her fingers lightly across the carved snakes, which almost seemed to ripple and purr under her touch.

'So the spirits speak to the dwarf too.'

Talbot was staring at the dark-haired woman, his jaw hanging as slack as a pimple-faced youth's. As if Gytha could read his thoughts, she turned swiftly round to face him, her cold, slate-blue eyes regarding him with an unblinking stare. He hastily averted his gaze and backed out of the chamber, surreptitiously spitting on his two forefingers like some old crone warding off a hex.

Elena, numb with shock, looked round for Ma, but she had vanished.

Gytha glanced at Elena's hair. 'A good disguise, though I'd still have known you, lass.'

Shock gave way to fury and Elena suddenly sprang to life. Not caring who might hear her, she screamed, 'Where's my baby? What you have done with my son?'

Gytha regarded her with amused tolerance. 'Don't fret yourself. He's well enough and safe . . . for now at any rate. I promised you he would be.'

'Where is he?' Elena demanded again. 'Where did you take him? Why did you disappear like that? They accused me of murdering my baby. I told them I'd given my bairn to you to keep him safe, but they couldn't find you anywhere and they wouldn't believe me. They tried to hang me.'

'You look very much alive to me,' Gytha answered calmly.

'Only because . . .' Elena stopped herself just in time.

She didn't know how much Gytha knew of Raffaele's part in her escape, and yet surely only Raffaele could have told Gytha where she was hiding? Who else knew?

'How did you find me? Who told you where I was?'

Gytha let her fingers trail across the box with the carved eye on Ma's desk. She paused, her hand hovering above it like a falcon hunting.

'The spirits told us. Madron and I, we've been watching you, lass. Her with her bones, me I see things clearer in my bowl, but no matter, the spirits tell us the same things. We've performed some powerful charms for you, and see,' she touched Elena's cheek, 'you're thriving like a cow on fresh pasture.'

Elena flinched away. 'But then you knew! You knew what I was accused of and still you didn't come back and speak for me.'

'There was no need, lass. The danger passed.'

Up to that moment, Elena had been too bemused and angered by Gytha's unexpected visit to think through what this now meant. She had been expecting Raffaele to take her away from this place, but it suddenly occurred to her there was no need. If Gytha simply gave her back her son, she could go home and prove that she had been innocent all along. True, she was still a runaway villein, but surely if they could see she had been falsely accused then all would be well. Only Ma and Talbot knew she'd killed Raoul and Hugh and they wouldn't tell anyone. As Ma said, they'd be putting themselves in danger if they did.

Athan would be overjoyed to see them both and filled with remorse at not having believed her. She could already feel his arms about her; smell the familiar, comforting warm- hay scent of his neck; hear him say he would do anything to make it up to her. And that bright, multi-coloured dream drove all other thoughts from Elena's head. She was a drunkard who laughs at the pretty dancing flames without realizing that it is her own house that is burning.

She beamed at Gytha. 'Now that you've come, I can take my son back home to Athan. I don't have to hide here any more.'

Gytha frowned. 'Athan, but. . .' A curious look came over her face. 'So,' she breathed softly, 'so Madron was right, this will make it easier.'

'What?' Elena demanded. Then, receiving no answer, she said eagerly, 'When can I see my little son? Is he here in Norwich? Is he grown? I've longed so much to hold him again.'

Gytha's eyes flicked round each of the chairs in the room, then, drawing up a footstool, she squatted on that instead, as if she was back in her own cottage. She motioned Elena to sit, and without thinking, Elena hunkered down on the wooden floor. It seemed natural now that Gytha was here.

'Don't fret over your bairn, lass, you'll see him soon enough. But you made a promise, remember? A debt. You must needs pay it afore you can see your son.'

You mean money for the child's keep?' Elena said. 'I can get that. How much does the wet nurse want?' She was sure Raffaele would give it to her.

Gytha gave a grunt of laughter. 'Not for the bairn, for Yadua. You bought her from me, remember, so you could learn what the night-hag would show you in your dreams. I told you Yadua can't be got with coins or jewels, only for the same payment for which she was bought. I warned you that some day I would ask you for a small service. And you swore you would do it.' Gytha had leaned forward, and now her cold, hard eyes were boring into Elena's so intensely that Elena felt her skin prickle. 'That day has come, lass. Time to pay what you owe.'

Without knowing what she was afraid of, Elena's stomach shrank into a knot. What is it... what do you want me to do?'

Gytha cupped her hands together like a bowl, and stared down into them. Whether it was the angle at which she held them to the candles, or something more, Elena couldn't be certain, but it seemed to her that an ice-blue light was flickering in the hollow of Gytha's palms as if she held a tiny imp imprisoned there.

'Let me tell how Yadua was bought, lass, the price that was paid for her. Then you'll understand what you must do.'

Gytha's gaze flickered briefly up to Elena's face before returning to the dancing flame in her hands.

'Many years before I was born, a poor man called Warren came to visit a healer in the city of Lincoln in the dead of night. This woman's name was Gunilda. Warren told her his little daughter had been cruelly raped by a Norman knight, but being a poor man, he could get no justice for his child who lived in constant terror that the man might return and attack her again. He begged Gunilda for a poison to kill this knight, so his daughter might recover her wits. Gunilda felt pity for him, for she had a daughter of much the same age, and seeing how distraught he was, she agreed to give him the poison, and in exchange he gave her the priceless treasure of a mandrake.

'But the man had lied. He had no daughter, nor any bairn to his name then. He was himself a wealthy knight and wanted the poison to murder his innocent wife, so that he could marry his pregnant mistress. But when his wife lay in her coffin, the foul deed was discovered. Warren swore that Gunilda had visited his wife and poisoned her while he was away from home. Gunilda was tried by ordeal and found guilty. She was strangled and her body burned in front of her little daughter. Before she died, Gunilda cursed Warren and all his descendants.'

Elena was staring in bewilderment at Gytha. The story shocked and saddened her. After her own trial, she could feel only too well the despair of the woman at not being believed, the cruel and bitter injustice of it. But she couldn't understand why Gytha was telling her this.

Gytha opened her palms. The bright blue-white flame darted upwards and vanished, leaving only a curling tongue of silver smoke in the form of a running fox. Gytha cocked her head on one side, watching Elena.

'You want to know what this has to do with you, don't you, lass? Before you bought Yadua, this story was nothing to you. But now it is your story. You belong to it, as it belongs to you. Before she was executed Gunilda gave the mandrake Warren had given her to her own little daughter. And now you own that very mandrake, because, you see, Gunilda's little daughter is my mother, my own Madron. And she was forced to stand alone in the square in front of the great cathedral and watch her Madron burned to ash. The priests wanted to make sure that Gunilda was utterly destroyed both in this world and the next. For without a body, the priests say she cannot be resurrected at the world's end. They wanted to obliterate any trace of her, any memory. She was nothing to them and they would make sure that nothing of her would remain.

'And in due course, Warren's mistress, now his new bride, was brought to bed of a boy, a precious son. Now that bairn is grown to a man. And you know that man, lass, you know him only too well. It was he who ordered you to be hanged. Warren's son is Osborn of Roxham.'

'Osborn!' Elena's eyes opened wide. For a moment all words fled from her. Then she whispered, 'It makes sense that a man as cold as Osborn should have such an evil father. Your poor grandam, and your mam too, she must hate that family.'

Gytha's mouth twitched in a flicker of a smile. 'More than you could ever know. But many have cause to hate him, especially you.'

Elena felt suddenly chilled. She had touched the mandrake that this dead woman had held in her own hands, perhaps even lying in a dungeon the night before her execution, as Elena had lain in hers. She felt as if the dead woman's hands were grasping hers and would not let go, but were dragging her back down into the earth.

Elena drew in a deep, shuddering breath. You said you wanted me to do something for you, but you still haven't told me what it is. When I get back to the village I could—'

'This will not wait till you return to the village, lass,' Gytha said. Yadua was bought with my grandam's life, a life taken by murder. I warned you that as the mandrake was bought, so she must be paid for. Warren's first-born son is coming here to Norwich to hunt for his brother's killer. And you must kill him. That is how you will pay for Yadua. She was bought with blood, and only in blood can you pay the price for her.'

Elena sprang to her feet, her eyes wide in horror. 'No, I can't! I can't kill Osborn. I'll give you back the mandrake. I'll fetch it at once and you can take it. I don't want it.'

She tried to push past Gytha to reach the curtain which concealed the trapdoor. But Gytha reached out a long bony arm and barred her way.

'I can't take her back, lass. She belongs to you. She has proved that, for she has been your fetch. If she had not truly been yours, she could never have shown you the dreams. You swore on spirit bones that you would pay the price for her. You gave your oath.'

'But I didn't know you meant this,' Elena pleaded. 'I can't kill anyone. I wouldn't know how. Osborn is a man, a knight, how could I possibly kill someone like him?'

Gytha smiled. 'But the dwarf tells me you have already killed Raoul and Hugh. Have you forgotten so soon why Osborn is coming here, to find his brother's murderer? To find you!'

'But I can't have. I only dreamed —'

Yadua cannot lie. You saw yourself doing it and you have certain proof that you did it, for both men are dead. You killed them, and you know full well you would have murdered your son also, had you not begged me to take him to safety. If Osborn discovers his runaway serf has murdered his own brother, a man of noble blood, he will not just hang you; he will have you executed for treason. You will burn to death and you will taste such agony as you have not even imagined. You will scream to die, but they will not let you. It is you or Osborn. It's only a matter of time before he discovers the truth.'

Elena was pacing the room frantically, almost dashing herself against the walls in a frantic attempt to escape Gytha's words.

'No, no! It isn't true. I didn't kill Hugh or Raoul. They will find the real killer. God won't let me die for something I didn't do. He protects the innocent. That's why I was able to escape from the manor, because God knew I was innocent.'

'My grandam was innocent and God did not protect her,' Gytha said savagely. 'Once Osborn discovers you here, that will be all the truth he needs.' She rose, towering over Elena. 'Listen to me. You can deny it to others, but you know in your heart you have already killed twice. Osborn is an old man compared to Hugh. You can do it again easily enough. You are strong. Think about how he tried to hang you, without a second thought.'

'But I wasn't hanged. He was angry. Maybe . . . maybe in the morning he would have shown me mercy. Perhaps he just meant to frighten me to test whether I was telling the truth. And if I can show him my son, prove to him that I didn't kill him, then he will believe I am telling the truth about Raoul and Hugh too.'

Gytha clamped her hands on either side of Elena's face, forcing her to look up at her. You think Osborn would have shown you mercy, do you, lass? Like the mercy he showed Athan, when he discovered you'd escaped?'

A cold bubble of fear shot upwards through Elena's spine. 'What. . . what did he do to Athan?'

Gytha's face was impassive.

'What?' said Elena, frantically. This time it was she who was trying to force Gytha to look at her. 'Tell me, what did he do? Did he beat him? Fine him? What?'

'Osborn hanged him,' Gytha said quietly.

'No.' Elena's legs gave way beneath her and she crumpled to the floor. 'No, no, he can't have. Athan is at home waiting for me. I know he is. Raffaele would have told me ... he would have told me. Athan can't be . . . dead. He can't. . .'

Gytha crouched down. 'Osborn hanged him in place of you, because he thought Athan had helped you to escape. He was your lover, after all. Athan denied it, but Osborn wouldn't listen. Do you still think he will listen to you, lass? Osborn murdered Athan, an innocent man. Can you really tell me you don't want to kill that devil for what he did?'

Elena's teeth were chattering uncontrollably, but she was too shocked to cry. She still couldn't take it in. It had been so long since she'd seen Athan. All this time she'd been imagining what he was doing each day, who he was with. Every morning she'd looked up at the little square of sunshine or rain or cloud above the courtyard, thinking that soon that cloud would drift across

Athan, or that rain would fall on him. It had almost been a way of touching him. She'd pictured him scrubbing the sweat from his face with a twist of hay, or sitting at the fireside plugging his leaking boots with wisps of sheep's wool, or shovelling down his pottage as if he'd been starved for a week. She could see him turning towards her with a bashful grin as she called out his name. In her head he was still doing all these things, and being told he was dead couldn't stop her seeing him alive.

Elena didn't even notice that Gytha had crossed the room and was standing by the door.

'Kill him, lass, and the debt will be paid. You'll have your son safe. But if you fail, remember what Madron told you that day you came to me. Yadua has other powers, powers she can turn against those who do not pay the price for her. Fulfil my grandmother's curse and destroy Warren's son, else by the power of Yadua, her curse will fall upon your own son. And that I swear. Ka!'





Elena didn't know how long she crouched there on the floor of Ma's chamber. At times her thoughts flashed so quickly through her head, she couldn't make sense of them, then they were drifting down around her like the seeds from a dandelion, blowing away when she tried to grasp them. Athan was dead . . . no, he was still waiting for her. All these months she had been praying for him, thinking about him, so he couldn't be dead ... he was lying in the cold earth, decaying, his flesh was rotting, his cornflower-blue eyes eaten away . . . No, no they couldn't be because she'd seen them laughing at her as she ran towards him.

It was easier to imagine her own baby dead, because she'd seen that in her head, but not Athan. She'd seen the other men dead too, and now Gytha wanted her to kill Osborn. She could picture him too in her head, bored, impatient, ordering her hanging as if he was ordering a cook to wring a chicken's neck. A huge man, a powerful man, who could knock a soldier down with a sideways glance.

'You made your mind up, my darling?'

Ma was sitting on the serpent's throne, peering down at her. A dozen ruby eyes stared out unblinking from her crow- black hair.

'She speaks sense,' that friend of yours. There'll be no convincing Osborn his brother was killed by the dog-fighters. It's him or you, my darling.'

Elena stumbled to her feet. They were so numb from where she'd been kneeling that she almost tumbled into Ma's arms.

'But I can't. I can't kill a man. I couldn't kill anything'

'But you have. You can't cod me. When you're in your right mind you're as soft as rabbit fur. But if you hate something enough, you can kill as ruthlessly as any soldier. Think about how much you hated Hugh for what he did to you and Finch. You loathed him. You thought he deserved to die, and you saw to it he did. You made sure Hugh could do to no other lad what he'd done to Finch. And Finch wasn't even your flesh and blood.'

'But I don't remember doing it.' Elena collapsed on to her knees again, her head pressed against Ma's legs.

Ma gently stroked her hair. That's a good thing, my darling, the best way,' she murmured. 'Means when your blood is up, you're not yourself and you've the strength of ten. If you can kill one brother so easily, why not the other? You going to let Osborn live after what he did to your Athan? Are you going to sit back and wait for him to do the same to you? And what of your little one, if Osborn has you executed, who's going to take care of him? Do you want him to grow up like Finch to live in a place like this, where other Hughs will use your son as he did that boy? Because there's one thing I'd wager this brothel against, my darling, that friend of yours is never going to tell you where she's hidden your baby till she knows for certain Osborn's dead.'

The wall inside Elena which had held firm for so many months finally burst apart and she howled in grief and fear.





Elena woke to the sound of murmuring voices. At first she thought she was back in the girls' sleeping chamber, but then she realized that she was lying on a fur. She wasn't down in the chamber beneath the trapdoor though. A faint light was filtering in from behind a heavy drape in front of her and she knew that she must be behind the curtain in Ma's upper chamber. The last thing she remembered was Ma giving her a beaker of heavy wine that for all its sweetness still had a curious bitter aftertaste. She licked her parched lips; she could still taste it now. Her head throbbed and she knew it had been laced with poppy syrup. She must have fallen asleep at once.

She lay where Ma had placed her, unable to summon the will to move. She felt dismembered, as if her limbs were no longer joined to her body but had been dropped carelessly beside her. Thoughts swam in and out of her head, but they didn't stay. Gytha had been here. Athan was dead. Her baby was alive. Osborn ... what was it about Osborn?

The voices behind the curtain floated towards her, joining the darting shoal of words in her head. A chair scraped against the floorboards.

'She'll never do it, not Osborn,' a man's voice said. 'She's too afraid of him.'

'She will, if she's frightened enough of the consequences if she doesn't.' That was Ma's voice. 'There's her child to think of. That cunning woman threatened to curse the boy. Make no mistake, that's no idle threat. I've seen the mandrake that girl's got in her bundle. Felt it. It's real, trust me, that's no bryony root. I've known some powerful charms in my time, but the mandrake's stronger than all of them put together. Most spells only have power in this life, but a mandrake's born at the same instant a man dies. That means its curse can follow you through the gates of death itself and into the life beyond. I'd not go against it, not for a whole kingdom and every lusty man in it.'

'You could throw the lass out,' Talbot growled. 'She'd take the curse with her and then we'd be done with it. She rides an ill wind, that one.'

'Maybe it's you I ought to throw out,' Ma snapped. 'Those fights of yours have knocked the wits clean out of you, if indeed you ever had any. Hugh's dead. You got the revenge that you wanted for him trying to hang you, so now you think we've no further use for the girl. Don't you understand, we need the girl to kill Osborn? That cunning woman was right, any commoner arrested for Hugh's murder will more than likely be charged with treason for killing nobility. You given half a thought to what that will mean for us? If Osborn thinks that one of my girls murdered his brother, you think he's not going to hold me responsible? And if he comes for me, then you'll hang too, my darling. I'll make quite sure of that.'

There was a violent scraping back of a chair as if someone had sprung to their feet.

'You try to take me down, you old witch, and I'll take your eyes out long afore the hangman gets his hands on that scrawny chicken's neck of yours.'

If Ma was impressed by the threat, she did not betray it. Her voice was as unruffled as ever. 'If Osborn dies it'll be up to Raffe, as Osborn's steward, and the sheriff to make report of it to the king. Neither of them is exactly going to shed any tears over Osborn, are they? And the Bullock's going to make damn sure that no one suspects the girl. If they have to find a pigeon to truss up for hangman they need look no further than that Frenchman Raffe brought to Norwich. He can be blamed for anything, especially murder. John won't need any persuading that the French have a hand in this. From what I've heard, if a bean gives him the bellyache he swears it was a French one.'

'But if the lass fails?' Talbot protested.

'She can't. She's got the mandrake. By rights that girl should be dead a dozen times over, but she has a charmed life. She just needs convincing that she's killed before. But you'll have to help her,' Ma continued. 'You needn't scowl like that, my darling; I'm not asking you to kill him. The racket you'd make doing it, we may as well put up a tent and charge the crowd a penny to watch. Subtlety was never your strong point and this one must be dispatched quietly. But we need to make it easy for the girl. You'll have to keep a watch on Osborn when he arrives here, you and that gang of street urchins of yours, for I'm certain that cunning woman is right, he will come to Norwich. And when he does, we need to find a way to get him alone for long enough for the girl to do her work. You can surely manage that much at least.'

Talbot growled. 'If you ask me, it'd be easier to stuff the pair of them down that hole in the cellar, Osborn and the girl, save ourselves a deal of bother. I should never have hauled her out of there, but that's me, too tender-hearted for me own good.'





Six Days after the Full Moon,

October 1211



Cabbage — will strengthen the sight of those whose eyes are weak and ease the pain of those with gout. The juice of the cabbage in wine will aid those bitten by vipers. If the leaves are boiled in honey and eaten, they may relieve a hoarseness of the throat and help those who are falling into a consumption.

Mortals who would know their future must pull up the whole plant with their left hand upon the midnight hour. The quantity of soil that clings to the roots shall be the measure of their future wealth.

When the cabbage is harvested, a cross must be cut in the stalk that remains in the ground, so that it shall be protected from the Devil and bring forth new shoots. Likewise, a cross must be cut in the stalk of the plant before it is cooked, so that evil spirits may not hide among the folds of the leaves and so be swallowed by the eater and take possession of him.

For it is the nature of evil to hide where mortals least think to find it.

The Mandrake's Herbal





The Ring



Another roar and a crash echoed out of the Great Hall and the servants in the courtyard glanced uneasily at one another. They moved hurriedly about their tasks, hardly daring to speak to one another, except for hastily whispered news of the latest outburst of Osborn's temper. Few dared to linger in the courtyard, still less in the Great Hall, unless they were forced to. Scullions and pages drew lots with straws to select the unfortunate lad who would next answer a summons for wine or meat, for those that did thought themselves lucky if they escaped with only the dish tipped over their heads or the flagon cracked across their skulls. Even Osborn's own men found excuses to be attending to their horses or falcons.

Osborn had been in a seething rage ever since he had learned of Hugh's murder the evening before. But if he had shed any tears over his brother's death, no one had seen them.

A messenger from Norwich had arrived just as the sun was setting. He had ridden swiftly ahead of the trundling ox-wagon which conveyed the lead coffin, to prepare Osborn and the manor for the sad burden they were shortly to receive. The messenger, though young, was well accustomed to being the bearer of unwelcome tidings and had delivered the news in what he thought to be suitably gravid and sympathetic tones. In his experience, after initial disbelief, whilst the women of a household would shriek, sob or even swoon, a grieving brother or father would usually bow his head in sorrow, or mutter a prayer, or just sit in shock and silence.

But Osborn did none of these things. Instead he sprang up and with a great bellow of rage had thrown over the heavy oak table, so that it crashed down from the dais. Only the messenger's adroit leap backwards had prevented the table edge from severing his toes. Osborn strode towards him and, grabbing the front of his tunic, demanded how, when and above all by whom this outrage had been committed. The quaking messenger could answer the first two questions easily enough, but as to the third, as he explained, no one had any idea, though the sheriff was even now looking for the culprit and would not rest until. . . But Osborn did not wait to find out when the sheriff would rest. He flung the messenger aside and, calling for his horse, rode out to meet the ox-wagon as it rumbled its slow, melancholy pace towards the manor.

The messenger started to run after Osborn. He had been given firm instructions to ask for the cost of transporting the body and the coffin, for lead coffins did not come cheap, and the sheriff was in no mind to dip into his own coffers. But even the hapless messenger could see that Osborn's wrath was more to be feared than the sheriffs. In the end Raffe took pity on the young man and paid him from the manor chests, though he did not add in the hefty bribe that the sheriff had hoped for to sweeten the long hours he would have to spend trying to find the killer.

The coffin, still sealed, now lay in the undercroft of the manor. In due course, when frost hardened the roads, it would be transported back to Hugh's birthplace in the south of England, but the tracks were sodden and muddy after the storm, and would become more so as autumn rolled on. This was no time to be transporting such a heavy load, and in any case Osborn had only one concern just now, to lay hands on Hugh's murderer and personally see to it that the wretch suffered all the agonies of hell, before he was dispatched there for eternity.

Osborn intended to set out for Norwich as soon as he could make ready. He had made it abundantly plain he had no faith in the sheriff being able to find a rabbit in a warren, never mind a murderer. So he would take charge of the search himself.

Grooms had been dispatched to check that the horses' shoes were firm and their feet sound. Scullions and maids were stuffing parcels of food and wine into the horse-packs, fumbling clumsily with the straps in their haste to have the tasks done and be safely out of sight before Osborn appeared. They glanced anxiously at Raffe as he ascended the steps of the Great Hall, but he waved them back to work, trying to reassure them. He knew there would be a collective sigh of relief from the whole manor as soon as Osborn's retinue clattered out of sight, but it would be nothing compared to the relief he'd feel.

He took a deep breath and pushed open the heavy door, a young maid almost butting him in the stomach as she raced from the Great Hall, tears filling her eyes and with dark red finger marks on her pale cheek. A pewter beaker came flying towards the girl's head, which Raffe deftly caught before it could hit her. One of Osborn's men, evidently the hurler of the beaker, scowled at Raffe. Osborn was venting his rage on his retinue and they were taking their humiliation out on the servants. The servants were yelling at the underservants and so it would continue down the chain to the lowliest little scullion whose only relief for his misery would be to find some tree to kick. Raffe suddenly thought again of that night when Gerard had found him punching the olive tree, and smiled.

'Think it funny, do you?' Osborn's man said. 'You'll not be laughing for long. He wants you.' The man jerked his thumb towards the private chambers.

Raffe tried to keep his face expressionless as he pushed through the curtain that hung over the entrance to the room. Osborn was pacing up and down, while around him small travelling chests lay open and his manservant scurried between them, packing linen, Osborn's favourite goblet and even packets of herbs and flasks of cordials. Osborn plainly trusted no one and was even taking his own cook with him as well as his pander, for fear of poison.

Osborn wheeled round to face Raffe.

'You took your time. Now listen well, Master Raffaele, you will see to it that my brother's coffin has a constant guard on it day and night. I've heard of thieves making off with the lead coffins that lie above ground to sell for their value, and dumping the bodies in ditches.'

'Only those coffins left to lie outside the sealed church doors because of the Interdict,' Raffe said. 'No one would dare to —'

'They dared to murder him, a nobleman,' Osborn thundered. 'Why would they not dare to desecrate his body? You will do as I say. And if I see so much as a mark on it when I return, that shows someone has tried to tamper with it, I'll personally mark your hide so deep you'll carry it to your own grave, do you understand?'

'It will be guarded,' Raffe said grimly.

'If I have not returned before the next Quarter Day, you will see to the collecting of the rents and dues and you will bring them to me in Norwich as soon as you have them. There will be people to pay. Some men require a good deal of persuasion to loosen their tongues and unfortunately sometimes that must take the form of gold. Besides, I know that sheriff of theirs. Even with my boot up his arse, he'll not bother to do his duty thoroughly unless his palm is well greased.'

Thinking of the messenger's comments the night before, Raffe couldn't help thinking it would take a barrel load of grease to cover the sheriff's greedy palm.

'How long will you be away, m'lord?' Raffe asked the question with uncustomary deference for he knew the whole manor would ask him just as soon as Osborn had gone. They would all be praying it would be weeks or even months, though miracles like that were seldom granted.

'I'll be away just as long as it takes me to find my brother's killer, so stay alert, Master Raffaele, because I shall be riding back here when you least expect it.'

He grasped Raffe's shoulder, his cold grey eyes boring deep into Raffe's own. 'If I discover even the flimsiest shred of proof that someone close to this manor had a hand in Hugh's death, that man will find himself begging and screaming for death long, long before it is granted to him.'

Raffe met his gaze calmly. 'Your brother had a talent for making enemies. You'll not lack for suspects in Norwich. Any man who ever had the misfortune to exchange a word with Hugh will have had good reason to have killed him.'

Raffe heard the horrified gasp from Osborn's manservant, but he did not brace himself for a blow. Hugh would have lashed out instantly and viciously, but Osborn's revenge was always planned and something he liked to savour.

His eyes as he stared into Raffe's own were as hard as granite pebbles.

'My brother was watching you, that much he confided in me. There was something about you he didn't trust, something he was on the point of proving, and when I find out what it was, I give you my oath, Master Raffaele, you will wish your head was even now rotting on a Saracen's spike, rather than that you had lived to fall foul of me.'

'Perhaps,' Raffe said levelly, 'you should have been watching your brother.'

'What do you mean by that?' Osborn demanded.

Raffe hesitated. 'I simply meant, m'lord, that had your brother been better guarded, he might not have been murdered.'

Raffe was certain in his own mind that Hugh was a traitor. But it would be impossible to prove without revealing what Elena had overheard, and even if he tried, Osborn would never listen to him, not in the mood he was in now. His brother's treachery was something Osborn would have to discover for himself.

The two men continued to stare at each other, neither willing to break his gaze first, but the manservant was unable to bear the tension. He hurried forward to assure his lord the travelling chests were now prepared. And Osborn at once snapped into action, bellowing for his retinue to prepare to leave at once, whether or not they were ready.

Raffe stood at the gate, watching the horses thunder out of sight around the bend, their hocks already splattered with mud.

Walter, the old gatekeeper, watched the last hoof disappear, then spat copiously on the track.

'They ride like that in this mud and one of them beasts is going to break its leg and its rider's neck.'

'Let's hope it's Lord Osborn's neck,' a boy's voice muttered behind Raffe, but he did not turn round to admonish the lad. He was certain every servant in the manor was making the same wish, as he certainly was.

He clapped Walter on the back. 'What say you to some mulled ale? I think we can all breathe easy now, at least for a week, but you'd best tether one of the hounds near Hugh's coffin, just to stop anyone going near it. It's not that I think anyone might come in here to steal the lead, but I'm not so certain they wouldn't take the body. A corpse with a heart as poisonous as that would be a fair prize to those who dabble in the black arts.'

'Aye, if I knew the man who'd killed the bastard, I'd embrace him and name him my own son, that I would. But God have mercy on the man who did drive that dagger in, whoever he was, for if Osborn finds the poor devil, it's certain he'll show him none.'

Walter shivered and, with a last look down the track just to reassure himself Osborn was really gone, stomped off towards the kitchens in search of his ale.

Raffe was about to follow him when he heard a long, low whistle. He spun round and saw the unmistakable outline of Talbot's bowed legs next to a clump of birch on the far side of the track.

He hurried across and, without pausing in his stride, drew Talbot behind the trees and towards the edge of the deep ditch. Only a few dead leaves still clung to the branches, which hardly afforded them cover, but at least they were out of earshot.

'What are you doing here?' Raffe demanded. Why didn't you send a message to meet you after dark?'

'No time to wait,' Talbot muttered. 'So he's left for Norwich?'

'Osborn? Yes, he means to find his brother's killer.' Raffe's eyes narrowed. 'Do you know something about it?'

'More than something. It was Holly, your girl . . . Elena. She did it... she killed Hugh,' he added, seeing Raffe's look of incomprehension.

'Elena? No! Why are you saying this?' Raffe yelled. 'It was madness even to think she might have killed Raoul, but Hugh, never!'

'Keep your voice down.' Talbot cast an anxious look towards the manor gate, but the servants were too busy celebrating Osborn's departure to be hanging round it.

You know fine rightly she did kill Raoul. She'll tell you herself she remembers throttling him. And if she could murder him, why not Hugh 'n' all? Hugh recognized her. That's why she did it. Ma's got her hidden in her own chambers. The other women think she's run off. Thing is,' Talbot continued, 'Hugh came to Ma's Michaelmas feast. Everyone saw him there and saw him go to one of the chambers with Holly. Our girls'll say nothing, they know better than that, but there were dozens of men and lads from the town there that night. It'll not be long before one of 'em comes forward and tells Osborn where his brother was a few hours afore he died.'

Raffe was so stunned he could hardly breathe. There was no question that Hugh deserved to die. He would have willingly killed Hugh himself if he could, but to think of Elena committing cold-blooded murder, not once but twice, maybe even three times ... In his mind he could still see her standing there on the manor steps looking up at him, her eyes wide with innocence. He felt himself torn between the horror of what she had become and the desperate need to protect her even now.

He grasped Talbot's sleeve, panic rising in his voice. 'We need to get her away, now, before Osborn starts searching.'

'Like I say, Ma's got her well hidden and all the girls will be able to put their hands on the Holy Cross and swear that she's gone for good, for that's what they believe. Safest thing is for you to leave her where she is. You try moving her while Osborn's turning the town arse over tit and you'll both be caught. Anyway, it's not the girl I've come about. No sense fretting over a fox among the lambs, when there's a wolf on the prowl. And this wolf is a savage one.'

Talbot fiddled inside his clothes and pulled out a leather pouch. He clumsily tried to get his great hand inside and after much scrabbling and grunting, he finally pulled out an object on a broken leather thong and held it up. It gleamed in the watery sunshine. He thrust it towards Raffe. 'Recognize this?'

Raffe, distracted by thoughts of Elena, barely glanced at it.

'Look at it, Bullock!'

Raffe stared down. There was no mistaking it. There were not two like it in the world. It was the gold ring set with the pearl. The same ring he'd given the sailor who had delivered the French spy.

Talbot was watching his face. 'I'm right, aren't I, that it's yours?'

Raffe nodded. He'd have known every twist of that gold knot even in the dark.

'How did you come by it?'

'The alewife you spent the night with in Yarmouth. She recognized it.'

'The sailor came back?' Raffe asked.

That was not surprising. Probably he tried to trade the ring in her alehouse. It was the kind of place where such clandestine deals were done, but the alewife didn't seem wealthy enough to buy it, and even if she had, why would she return it to Raffe?

Talbot dropped the ring into Raffe's palm. 'The night after the storm they found a corpse.'

'I was there,' Raffe told him. 'The poor woman was sure it was her dead husband, but it was too far decayed for anyone to be certain who it was.'

He shuddered. That voice pleading and begging outside the door to be let in still rang in his head. Was it really the ghost of her husband or his revenant corpse?

Talbot grunted. 'That corpse wasn't her husband. When they laid him out they found he'd a silver amulet on a chain still hanging about the bones of his neck. There was a sliver of bone in it. Someone recognized the signs on the amulet. St Jude or St Julian, or some such. But the thing is, it was far too costly for the likes of her husband. There was another corpse washed up that same night though. Only this one wasn't decayed, it was fresh as an oyster. When the alewife heard of it she insisted on seeing it, in case she recognized it, though everyone said he wasn't a Yarmouth man. It was on that corpse they found your ring.'

Raffe looked down at the band of gold in his hand. 'It must have been the sailor. He must have tried to row back to his ship in that storm and drowned.'

Talbot shook his head. 'This man was no sailor and he wasn't drowned neither. He'd been knifed. The alewife spotted that ring clutched in his hand as if he'd grabbed it in a struggle and the thong had snapped.'

'Maybe the sailor went off to another inn after he delivered the Frenchman to me and got into a brawl.'

'Could be.' Talbot chewed on the words. 'But there was something else they found on the man, a token, the emblem of St Katherine.'

Raffe suddenly felt a cold chill run through him.

Talbot squinted up at Raffe. 'This man they delivered to you, what did he look like?'

'Small, scrawny ... I might have taken him for a monk if he'd had a tonsure. Strong though. He'd been taught to fight,' Raffe added ruefully, remembering the well-aimed punch. 'And he had a withered hand. Not useless, a good grip, but I'd say the bones had been broken years ago and not healed straight.'

Talbot gravely shook his head. 'I found a lad who'd served on the Dragon's Breath. Cut loose at Yarmouth. Didn't want to go back, leastways not on that ship. He said there was only one passenger on board. But he'd no withered hand; the boy would have mentioned that. And this man was plump, gut-stuffed. Sailors made jokes about his whale-belly, said if the ship sank they'd all climb aboard and float ashore. The man they found stabbed in Yarmouth was exactly as the boy described.'

Raffe's face had blanched. 'Then the man I delivered to Norwich?'

'Is one of John's men, I reckon. Either someone else was expecting the Frenchman or maybe your sailor realized what was happening and saw a way to make money from both sides and the middle at the same time. Reported his suspicions when the ship laid anchor. We knew John would be keeping watch on Yarmouth now it's a free port. Whoever he told more than likely paid your sailor to kill the Frenchman on the evening of the storm, once he was safely off the ship, and then John's man took his place.'

'God's teeth!' Raffe pressed his fists against his head. 'I'm a f*cking, bloody fool. That's why the sailor came back alone without his companions. Why wasn't I more careful? I should have checked more, asked more questions. If Martin is John's man all he has to do now is to follow the trail until he discovers every person involved, then try to catch us all in the net.'

'Unless he's silenced,' Talbot said. You know him. You'll have to find him. And you'd best do it quick, afore he gets word to the king. If he discovers you come from the manor, he'll more than likely warn Osborn, first chance he gets. You'd best see to it that he doesn't get that chance.'