The Turn of Midnight Read online

  ‘Who then?’

  Peter thought the question foolish. ‘Lady Anne,’ he said. ‘He’ll break his back getting food to Develish if that’s what he’s told her he’ll do. Was it your idea to ride for help or his?’

  ‘Mine. I thought we’d have better luck with six of us moving the wheels. He’ll not be happy to see just Edmund and Joshua.’

  ‘He’ll be mighty glad to see anyone if he’s anything like you when we found you,’ Peter retorted bluntly. ‘Where did you leave him?’

  ‘By the roadside. Olyver said he’d get him into the wagon but I don’t know if he did. They’ll be all right, won’t they?’

  Peter gave a reassuring nod but, in his heart, he doubted it. There was a big difference between the half-hour it had taken him to hoist Ian’s limp body across his pony and lead him back to the inn and the much longer time it would take Edmund and Joshua to do the same for Thaddeus and Olyver.

  Assuming they found them.

  Edmund looked from left to right, but the road was empty in both directions. ‘We must separate. I’ll head towards Athelhelm and you for Develish. If I don’t find Olyver before I reach the village, I’ll turn and follow you.’

  ‘And if you do find him?’

  ‘I’ll shout. The pack will hear me even if you don’t.’

  Joshua gestured to the dogs who stood together, hindquarters quivering, muzzles pointing to the left. ‘They sense something already. We should both go towards Athelhelm.’

  Edmund nodded. ‘And we must hurry,’ he said, setting off at a run. ‘The light’s all but gone.’

  It was a quarter-mile to the first bend and the pack rounded it well ahead of the boys. With no barks or howls to alert them, and with heads lowered against the driving rain, Edmund and Joshua followed blindly and were amongst the horses at the rear of Bourne’s wagon before they knew it. Each thought the same as he jumped away from the stamping hooves and buffeting rumps of the nervously recoiling animals: where there was a wagon, there would be soldiers.

  Dry-mouthed, Edmund pulled his sword from his belt and made ready to fight, but Joshua laid a hand on his arm. ‘The dogs aren’t anxious,’ he whispered. ‘Look at the mastiff. He recognises someone in the wagon.’

  Edmund watched the creature scent the air at the side of the vehicle then rear up on its hind legs, tail wagging, to place its paws on the sill. ‘Olyver?’

  ‘More likely Thaddeus. That dog has a real liking for him. I think Olyver’s over there.’ Joshua pointed some twenty paces along the road to where the rest of the pack was milling around something in the shelter of the trees. ‘I see an arm.’

  Edmund swore under his breath. Every instinct told him he was entering a trap, but he raised his sword anyway and took an unsteady step forward. He could barely produce a croak as he approached the back of the wagon, demanding that those inside show themselves. He pounded the hilt of his sword against the canopy to inspire fear, but the only response came from the mastiff, who gave an excited whine before dropping to the ground again.

  Edmund positioned himself to the side of the opening and used the point of his sword to lift the flap. When nothing happened, he took a deep breath and glanced through the aperture. To his left were clothes, boots, tabards and weapons, piled on top of barrels and chests. To his right lay Thaddeus, curled in a crumpled heap on the floor, his knees drawn tight against his chest and his feet twisted awkwardly beneath the seat. There was no one else.

  The pallor of Thaddeus’s skin and the blood and gore on his sodden clothes suggested death and, with a sense of dread, Edmund reached beneath the cuff of the fur-lined coat to feel for a pulse. His fingers touched raw flesh where Thaddeus had pulled and strained against his bonds, and he wasn’t prepared for the groan that issued from the big man’s mouth or the speed and strength with which a vice-like grip fastened on his throat.

  ‘Who are you?’ Thaddeus whispered in a grating rasp.

  Edmund cast a pleading glance at Joshua as he tried to pull away. ‘Edmund Trueblood, son to John and Clara,’ he gasped. ‘Joshua Buckler is with me. We’re here to assist you, Thaddeus. You’ll die of cold if you can’t rouse yourself. Do as we say and we can lead you to safety.’

  When Thaddeus made no answer, Joshua climbed onto the step beside Edmund and reached inside to force Thaddeus’s fingers apart. He spoke in the same firm tone that Peter had used with Ian. ‘Wake up!’ he ordered. ‘You must be strong. Olyver lies by the roadside and his need of warmth is more pressing than yours. We can’t save you both unless you help yourself. You’re too heavy for Edmund and me to lift from this wagon. When we bring you a horse, you must pull yourself onto it. Do you understand?’

  Thaddeus half opened his eyes and Joshua was relieved to see recognition in them. ‘What of Ian?’

  ‘He’s safe,’ answered Edmund. ‘He told us where to find you. We expected soldiers when we saw the wagon. Should we still?’

  ‘Not unless the dead can walk.’

  Perhaps it was fortunate his legs became racked with cramps once Joshua and Edmund succeeded in hauling him to a sitting position. The air turned blue with his blasphemies but the pain restored intelligence. He took a key from around his neck and unlocked a chest at his side, muttering that he cared nothing for the gold but he’d have the letters. One he placed inside his tunic, the others he gave to Joshua, telling him to put them in Killer’s saddle pack. He then sent Edmund to help Olyver and instructed Joshua to release Bourne’s horses into the woodland. They’d not wander so far they couldn’t be found again.

  Edmund persuaded himself that Olyver looked no different from Ian, closing his mind to the coldness of his friend’s wrist and the absence of a pulse. He knelt at his side, watching the relentless rain fall on the upturned, unresponsive face, and then, with a grunt of effort, hoisted Olyver over his shoulder and rose to his feet. ‘Is Thaddeus mounted?’ he called to Joshua. ‘Do you have Olyver’s pony?’

  Receiving a yes to both questions, he carried the body across the mud of the road and laid it face down over the pony’s saddle before clambering through the canopy to fetch tabards and rope. ‘They’ll keep him warm,’ he said as he draped the tabards over the boy’s back and wrapped the rope over him and under the pony’s belly to secure them. ‘He’ll be fine once we get him back to the inn.’

  Joshua heard the tremor in his voice and knew he was lying. ‘We should head towards Athelhelm,’ he answered gently. ‘From there, the route through the woodland will be shorter. As long as we keep the river on our right, we can’t fail to find our way to Holcombe.’

  They left the highway after rounding the bend above Athelhelm, too scared to draw any closer to the turbulent scene that confronted them. A river of mud and stones pounded against what remained of the buildings, and neither had the stomach to dwell too long on the dimly seen shapes that bobbed and rolled in its flow.

  Inside the trees, they walked in single file with Joshua at the front, leading Killer. Every so often Edmund moved alongside the charger to put up a hand to keep Thaddeus in the saddle. He took heart from the fact that Thaddeus responded to his prodding, for it suggested he was fighting sleep rather than surrendering to it.

  There was so little light in the forest that Joshua allowed the dogs to pick a path. They seemed to understand the need for a track wide enough to take the horses, for only rarely was he brushed by a low-hanging branch. Each time, he held it aside to allow Thaddeus and Killer to pass before alerting Edmund to do the same for the pony carrying Olyver. They spoke little, because the sound of the river would drown their words, but both shed unashamed tears of relief when the pack took them unerringly to the stretch of grassland that led to Holcombe.

  As they moved along it, Joshua wondered if it was the snickering of their hobbled horses that had drawn the dogs. The whinnies and snorts grew louder the closer they came to the camp. One of the mastiffs darted forward with a yap of excited acknowledgement, receiving an answering yap in return, and suddenly the woodland was alive w
ith sounds. The swelling crow of a rooster. The contented grunt of pig. Most sweetly, the song of a robin.

  Edmund’s face cracked into a tired smile when Peter appeared out of the darkness in front of them, his hands cupped in front of his mouth.

  ‘I swear I’ve never been so bloody pleased to see anyone in my life,’ he declared as Peter, the master mimicker of sounds, put a thumb and finger between his lips and the robin’s chirrup gave way to the trill of a skylark, ascending into the blue of a summer’s day.

  The hall of the inn was sweltering after the weather outside. Peter had stacked the fire high with broken stools and added more as Edmund and Joshua carried Olyver inside and laid him on the floor in front of it. Ian slept peacefully a few paces away, the colour in his face a stark contrast to the deathly white of his twin’s.

  ‘I couldn’t leave him out there alone,’ said Edmund with a break in his voice. ‘We all need to say our goodbyes, but Ian most of all. He’d not have forgiven me if I hadn’t brought him back.’

  Peter pressed his fingers to Olyver’s wrist, and like Edmund felt nothing. Milady had taught every serf in Develish how to tell the difference between a strong beat and a weak one, but with Peter’s grandfather, she had also searched for a pulse in his neck. He tried the same with Olyver and wondered if he was imagining the intermittent flicker. With sudden decision, he ordered Edmund and Joshua to return outside for Thaddeus while he stripped Olyver of his clothes and dressed him in dry ones. Lady Anne had worked so hard to bring life back to his grandfather, and it had broken Peter’s heart when she failed—the old man was his truest friend—but her failure was no excuse not to try as hard for Olyver.

  He moved the boy closer to the fire and pulled him into a tight embrace as he’d done with Ian. He watched Edmund and Joshua walk Thaddeus inside with his arms draped across their shoulders, and told them to bring him close to the fire and give him dry clothes. But Thaddeus would only allow them to remove his coat. Even half-asleep, he guarded the square of parchment that was pressed against his chest, unwilling for anyone else to read Lady Anne’s words. His awareness improved as the heat of the fire warmed his blood, but not enough to move or speak. He saw Ian lying on the floor and Olyver, white and unmoving in Peter’s arms, but he lacked the will to do anything about it.

  All the industry came from Peter. While Edmund and Joshua were saying prayers for their dead friend, he was rubbing and pinching Olyver’s exposed skin. Every so often a blush of pink appeared beneath his fingers, and he told his friends it was what Milady had looked for in his grandfather. ‘I think it means the blood’s still flowing in his veins.’

  He instructed them to take his place so that he could feed Thaddeus. ‘Work as hard as I did,’ he told them, filling another bowl from the cauldron of mutton stew. ‘Grandfather looked a lot worse, but Milady still thought she could warm him enough to save him.’ He carried the bowl to Thaddeus and began feeding him spoonsful of shredded meat and gravy. ‘When a body loses heat, it must be warmed from within as well as from without. Milady was very clear about that. When Olyver opens his eyes, we must force him to eat whether he wants to or not.’

  The method had worked with Ian, and it seemed to be working with Thaddeus. Joshua and Edmund were alarmed by the violent shivers that suddenly rocked the big man’s body. Peter said Ian had reacted the same. A person only shivered when he knew he was cold.

  There was no shivering in Olyver; no movement of any kind. If he was breathing at all, his breaths were too shallow to lift his chest. When Edmund said as much, Peter moved to kneel beside Joshua at Olyver’s side. ‘I once saw Lady Anne bring a newborn to life,’ he told them. ‘It was a little girl. She lay still and unmoving until Milady blew warming air into her mouth.’

  ‘Which little girl?’ asked Edmund.

  ‘My sister. I asked Milady how she’d known to do it and she said it’s written in scripture that God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed life into him. When I told Father Anselm what she’d done, he said only a devil would do such a thing. Do you think he was right?’

  Edmund shook his head. ‘Your sister wouldn’t have lived if God hadn’t wanted her to.’ He eased his arm beneath Olyver’s shoulders to raise him up and the small elevation caused the boy’s throat to arch and his lips to part. ‘It’s a sign,’ he said. ‘If Lady Anne showed you the way, I believe you should try. It can’t be a sin to want to save a friend.’

  In a corner of Lady Anne’s chamber in Develish a darker scene was unfolding as an infusion of angelica, wormwood and pennyroyal leaf dislodged the foetus from Eleanor’s womb. The pains that cramped her belly and the blood that flowed from between her legs would have brought forth screams had Lady Anne not held a hand over her mouth for fear of waking the household. There was so much distrust of the girl that cries of any kind would lead Milady’s people to think violence was being done. The door would be forced and all hope of keeping the incestuous pregnancy secret would be gone.

  Eleanor lay on a pile of linen napkins to absorb the blood, tears of distress coursing down her cheeks. There was nothing Lady Anne could say to ease her mind. All she could do was change the napkins and lessen Eleanor’s pain with birch-leaf oil and white willow bark liniment. Had she thought it would help to say the purgative was working as it should, she would have done so, but the girl needed no reminders that her decision to take the infusion meant a life was being washed away.

  Lady Anne had neither looked for, nor wanted, gratitude for her part in this tragic story. It had surprised and moved her, therefore, when she returned to her chamber and Eleanor had thanked her in a tearful whisper for not abandoning her to deal with the miscarriage alone. Lady Anne had expected anger, even accusations that the murder of the foetus was her crime and not Eleanor’s; and, in truth, she’d have thought that a rightful penance, for she had held herself to blame from the moment she’d learnt of Eleanor’s condition the previous evening. She had protected her servants from her husband’s lust but hadn’t thought to protect his daughter. Even in her worst imaginings she had never believed Sir Richard so vile that he’d lie with his only child.

  When the flow of blood ceased, Lady Anne fetched a bowl of water from a table and washed Eleanor clean before dressing her in a shift and assisting her to the bed. She gave her chamomile and valerian to help her sleep and then returned to the corner to remove all evidence of the aborted birth. She placed one of her shawls on the floor, laid the bloodied napkins on top and tied the corners to form a tight bundle. As she opened the window which overlooked the moat and dropped the shawl into the fast-flowing water, she could only pray it would stay afloat long enough to be carried away from the demesne by Devil’s Brook. Too many of the female serfs would recognise the fabric and ask questions if it became snagged on weeds in sight of the house.

  She remained where she was, allowing the rain to wet her face. Eleanor would continue to bleed for several days, but the servants would think it was her natural cycle. In time, Lady Anne hoped Eleanor would believe the same, because her life would be happier if she persuaded herself the pregnancy had never happened. When the weather improved, she would be returned to her prison to serve the allotted time of her sentence for harming Isabella—fifteen days in a hut beside John Trueblood’s on the path to the church—and her forced absence would allow the serf boys she had hoped to blame for her condition to come home to plaudits for driving two hundred sheep from Afpedle.

  Was it wrong to hope for such outcomes? Lady Anne knew the Church would condemn her harshly if she ever confessed to her actions this night, but did God? Was He so set on every misbegotten life being born that innocent youths must be accused of rape to excuse their lord’s wickedness? Was Sir Richard’s depravity so easily forgiven that his daughter must play both mother and sister to his child?

  With a sigh, she closed the window and drew a stool to the side of the bed. She was loath to trouble God with entreaties, believing the duty of solving problems was hers alone, but she had prayed
so many prayers these last twenty-four hours. For Eleanor. For Develish. For Thaddeus. For rain. Would it be wrong to add another? She placed her hand over Eleanor’s and bent her head.

  In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, may something good come out of this sad and terrible night.

  (EXTRACT FROM A PRIVATE JOURNAL KEPT BY LADY ANNE)

  The first week of October, 1348

  Thaddeus and his companions have been with us 7 days now. The boys came first with 200 sheep from Afpedle. They were delayed by the River Pedle flooding, and had to wait for the water to subside before they could cross the ford at Athelhelm. They stayed long enough to pen the sheep, exchange greetings with their families and speak briefly to My Lord of Bourne before departing again. They returned 2 days later with Thaddeus, bringing My Lord’s wagon filled with grain and flour, a column of horses, a pack of hunting dogs, fine clothes, weaponry, jewellery and 2 black cats in wicker cages.

  Thaddeus has allowed My Lord the use of the hut and has built a second shelter twenty paces from it for him and his companions. They have used their time to harvest what was left of the beans and vetch after the torrential downpours, and to truss sheep for safe carriage on the raft. 20 of the animals have been slaughtered and preserved, 30 are in the pens behind the church, 50 in the orchard, and some 100 graze the pastureland outside the moat.

  Each night, the boys build a fire close to My Lord’s hut and regale us with stories of their adventures. The young girls swoon to hear of their heroism, apparently unaware that the tales are growing in the telling! Edmund Trueblood would have us believe there are rats as big as foxes roaming the land, Peter Catchpole that he is able to demolish buildings single-handedly and Joshua Buckler that his hounds are so ferocious they would put an army to rout.

  The only story Develish hasn’t heard is how Thaddeus and the Startout twins defeated My Lord of Bourne’s army. The details are known to me and our leading serfs after Gyles crossed the moat by night to speak with Thaddeus in secret, but Thaddeus has asked us to keep it to ourselves. He believes there is more to be gained by allowing My Lord of Bourne to keep his dignity than making the full extent of his crimes and cruelty known to our people.