Leper's Return Read online

  “Brother, may I speak with you?”

  Ralph was surprised to see that the girl had recovered her composure. The tears still marked her cheeks, but she stood resolutely at his side. He managed to raise a wan smile. “Yes, my sister, of course.”

  At his home, Matthew Coffyn grunted as he swung down from the saddle. It had been a long journey, and his back and legs ached as if he had walked the whole way. He led his horse to the thatched stables that leaned against the side of his hall, running from the door to the solar block. The window of his bedchamber gave out over the stable roof, and he glanced up hoping to see his wife, or at least the glow of a candle, but there was nothing visible. He watched while his grooms fetched the large trunk from the back of his cart. The light was fading, and he was glad to be back before it was fully dark.

  His servants lifted the great box and staggered with it over the threshold and into the hall. They waited while he unlocked the door to his storeroom, then half-dragged, half-carried it inside. Coffyn relocked the door once they were out again, and sent his bottler for a pint of wine.

  It had been a good trip. Coffyn disliked travelling, he was happier running his affairs here in Crediton, but for the last four months, through the summer, he had left his home and his wife to sell his cloth at fairs; it was a relief that this was the last of the year. There wouldn’t be any more during the winter months.

  His business was profitable at long last, and he was determined to make as much gold as he could, and not only to repay his ruinous debts. Rumors were growing of the prospects of war both at home and abroad. Matthew needed the protection that money could provide; money was power, and power was safety. What with the French and the Scots, he found it hard to understand why people wanted to fight each other, but all he heard at the fairs and markets pointed to a battle between the King and Lancaster, and when the soldiers started marching, he wanted to have as large a fund as possible. Sometimes the only defense lay in buying off raiders.

  Not that it should come so far south and west, he mused, swallowing a gulp of wine and sitting on the bench before the fire. The two English protagonists would probably slug it out round London and York. They were the wealthy areas, the places where the richest pickings could be had, and any captain of men knew that the best way to ensure loyalty among his army was to pick a field where the best profits were available.

  Even if the English themselves didn’t go to war, there was always the risk of French pirates or an invasion. The thought was one he had considered several times recently, and once more he resolved to hire some men-at-arms. His eyes went to the locked door. There were dangers inherent in hiring itinerant soldiers, but the advantages outweighed them. He wouldn’t be happy until he had some better defense. There were always men at Exeter. He resolved to hire some at the first opportunity.

  He wondered where his wife was, and bellowed for his bottler. “Where is my lady?”

  “Sir, she went to her bed this afternoon with an upset.”

  He waved away his bottler impatiently. The bitch was always ill. He slurped wine and belched, and his glower left his face for a moment to be replaced by a hopeful smirk. What if she was pregnant?

  Matthew Coffyn was not a particularly cruel or even unkind man. He had been brought up on a farm north and east of Exeter, and had been apprenticed to a cloth merchant at seven because his father was desperate that his son would be able to keep him when he became old. The scheme had failed, though, because his father had died before he completed his apprenticeship.

  But Coffyn had thrived, and when he was almost in his twenty-ninth year, he had wooed and wed. Now he was almost thirty-four, and his wife, his beautiful Martha, was just twenty. Yet he had not managed to sire a son, and the lack of children was aggravating. It wasn’t right that he should be childless: it wasn’t good for a man to go through life without an heir to leave his work to.

  He sighed and drained his cup again. It was hard to blame his wife, for as she always pointed out, he was away so much through the summer that it would be a miracle for her to conceive. The optimism that was never far from his cheerful nature rose to the surface: winter was here, and offered unrivalled opportunities for early nights in bed.

  The house was silent, and the hiss and crackle of the fire sounded almost deafening in the absence of all other noise. As Coffyn smiled at his happy thought, he heard a door bang upstairs, and the unmistakable sound of Martha’s footsteps in the passage from the solar. He filled his mug quickly and stood, but as the door opened and his wife entered the hall, he was convinced for a second that he heard something else. It was a rustling and a thump, as if someone had cautiously made his way along the thatch of the roof of the stable and down into the yard.

  Coffyn’s blood ran cold. The pin of jealousy pricked the balloon of his pleasure and suddenly all his trust in his wife exploded in his face.

  His cuckold’s face.

  “Jesus!” John muttered under his breath. He had gained the safety of the tree where his rope was stored, and paused only long enough to throw the coil over his neck before quietly making his way toward the wall and his home.

  His ankle was throbbing slowly with a dull intensity. It augured badly for the morning. Nothing was broken, he reckoned, for he could put his weight on it, but he wouldn’t forget the sudden stab of pure agony as he climbed silently from the window into the cobbled yard behind. That must be what had done it, he thought, his jaw clenched against the pain. A loose cobble must have moved under his foot.

  What a night! That shite Coffyn wasn’t supposed to be back yet; he’d told his wife he’d either be late tonight, or more likely wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. Why had the stupid sod turned up now? John had been forced to scramble ignominiously from the hall before he could be discovered. The Irishman rested a moment against an apple tree while he enjoyed his bitterness. Then his good temper got the better of him and he grinned to himself.

  John wasn’t given to introspection: he knew his place in the world, knew what gave him pleasure, and didn’t reason or rationalize why things were as they were. But he also had the gift of seeing the ridiculous side of any situation, and at this moment it was tempting to give a guffaw at his own position. Here he was, after a summer of enjoying his woman, complaining because her master had come home early for once. And instead of lying with her in her bed, John was here, in the dark, with a sprained ankle and a damn great wall to surmount.

  “Should’ve taken the knight’s advice,” he muttered.

  Shaking his head at the capricious nature of fate, he haltingly made his way round the wall to his oak. Here he unwound his rope and drew back his arm to catch the broken limb. But as his arm went back, it was suddenly gripped. John stiffened in silent terror as the blade of a long knife shimmered in an arc before him, gleaming evilly in the light of the stars before coming to rest on his Adam’s apple.

  He swallowed. Carefully. “Ah—it’s a fine night for a walk, isn’t it, sir?”

  It was no surprise that the leper camp was so dark, for there was no need of lighting for the inmates. Their day began with the dawn, and when the darkness stole over the land they went to their beds.

  Quivil was used to the dark. In his home, so few miles away, the days were gauged by whether the animals were awake, and at this time of night, all were asleep. Now, he knew, his father would be sitting at his old stool before the fire, occasionally casting an eye at the sheep as they grumbled to themselves, huddled in the corner farthest from him. He would be whittling a stick, sometimes breaking off to whet his blade against the stone by the fire, spitting to lubricate the metal as he honed it to sharpness.

  For his whole life Quivil had assumed he would take his place there by the fire. He had thought he would replace his father when the old man died, and then he would sit at the stool and fashion walking sticks and furniture by the firelight until the days grew longer and his every waking hour was filled with other forms of work. He had seen himself growing old and bent, just as his
father was, knowing what his responsibilities were, knowing what jobs needed to be done daily. And where his mother sat, near her man, there would Mary sit, her eyes on him, looking to ensure that he was content, just as his mother had always watched his father so lovingly. And now he had nothing to look forward to. His life was over.

  A noise came from outside his doorway, and the curtain was pulled aside. Framed against the night sky Quivil saw a darker shape. He muttered to himself, pulled his blanket tighter and rolled away. This room was home to another besides himself, and he assumed this must be his roommate. He had no desire for company, he wanted the peace of solitude.

  But it wasn’t one man preparing to climb into bed. Quivil heard murmuring voices. They were hoarse from the disease they shared, but it wasn’t that which made his blood run chill. It was the cruel delight in them.

  “What are you doing? What do you want?” he demanded, turning to face them.

  “We want you.”

  All at once he was grabbed by four pairs of hands, and hauled from his mattress. He could do nothing: his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and all he could utter was a whimper of dread.

  They dragged him from the hut and out into the black night. The cold penetrated his robe, sending a fresh trickle of ice-cold terror washing down his spine. His mind, which had been in a state of sheer panic for days already, was frozen with horror. He had lost all will. In his blue funk he was certain he was about to die, but after the loss of all his self-respect and the destruction of his life, he had no strength to resist.

  He could see them in the miserable light, and to his strained senses they looked like demons: small, misshapen, deformed, swollen with the putrescence of leprosy. Their appearance was that of gibbering fiends, their stench was the reek of the charnel-house. He was transfixed with horror.

  They stopped, and he heard one of them give a chuckle. It sounded like the devil himself. Quivil felt his knees weaken, and would have fallen, but felt himself propelled forward, and then he found he was falling. The ground opened into a gaping hole before him, and he screamed, a high, keening noise, as he saw the earth rise up on either side.

  Rodde had seen the petrified Quivil being dragged to the chapel’s yard as he reentered the grounds. He had slipped into the protection of the building’s wall as the group passed by, then followed after. At the sight of the young man being shoved into the newly dug grave, he felt rage choke him. It took but a moment to cover the few yards to the men, and he swung his staff. It caught a leper on the shoulder, then he whirled to stab and thrust at the others. “Leave him, you bastards!” he spat, his staff held high over his chest.

  “Leave us alone, stranger. It’s nothing—we do it to all the new ones,” one man whined.

  Rodde knew it was true. He had been forced to undergo a similar initiation ceremony when he had first been driven into a camp; the other lepers had thrown him into a grave, then scattered soil on him in obscene imitation of burial; sometimes he had seen other victims squirming while their tormenters urinated over them.

  “It stops now.” Rodde couldn’t prevent his voice from shaking with disgust. He caught sight of a figure hobbling near him, and the stick shot out, catching the man in the chest. “I said it stops! Now, leave us.”

  He stood protectively while the lepers, muttering to themselves, backed away from him and made off toward their huts, and only when they had disappeared did he glance down into the hole. At the bottom, Quivil was kneeling, sobbing, gathering up handfuls of soil and wiping them over his face, smearing blood and tears together into a mask of utter despair.

  Quivil’s distress was the misery of mankind. Rodde stood quietly by the side of the grave, his staff still held to protect the younger man until Quivil subsided into weeping. Then he cast his prop aside and climbed down to help Edmund out.

  A fortnight later the weather had turned. Now each morning the land was frozen, the grass rimed with frost. The ponds and ditches were filled with ice, on top of which the ducks and geese waddled, protesting loudly and with some confusion at the sudden loss of their favorite element. Sir Baldwin Furnshill still found the English weather difficult to cope with, even after so many years back at his estate. His blood had been thinned by his sojourn in the Mediterranean and subsequent soft living in Paris.

  He pulled up at his stableyard as twilight fell, shouting for his groom and dropping from his horse. Usually he rode a dainty Arab, but today he had left early, and had chosen his rounsey, a solid beast who jerked his head and pranced skittishly, his breath steaming in the bitter evening air. The knight patted his neck while he waited for his men. “I know, I know—you haven’t had enough exercise today. I’ll see you’re taken out for longer tomorrow. Calm yourself!”

  Cold it might be, but Baldwin loved his land. The small estate stood some five or six miles north and east of Crediton, near to Cadbury. It had been his older brother’s, but when poor Reynald had fallen from his horse while hunting and broken his neck, the land had come to Baldwin. After wandering for so long with little money and few comforts, the knight was delighted to own so prosperous and fertile a region of Devon—especially with the comfortable house; especially with his recent improvements. He was determined to impress his guests. One of them, anyway, he amended with a small smile.

  The sun was already gone and twilight was giving way to nighttime. In the distance he could see a wraithlike streamer of smoke rising over a wood. There, he knew, a tenant of his was settling down with a pint or two of ale, tired after a day of hedging. Baldwin had passed him on the way. Above, the stars were breaking out as the sky dulled and darkened. It was strangely relaxing, as if no harm could come to anyone who appreciated its beauty, and the knight felt some of his earlier trepidation and gloom fade away.

  Passing the reins to the groom, Baldwin walked from the yard and strode to his front door. Before he opened it, he looked back over his shoulder. In the time it had taken to reach the threshold, night had fallen. He could make out the faint outlines of the hillsides shining like old pewter in the moonlight. Above him the sky was a deep blue-black, across which silver-rimmed clouds drifted idly.

  He opened the door. Instantly there was a scrabbling, and he caught a glimpse of the massive shape.

  “Oh, no—God, no!”

  It launched at him. His eyes widened in shock, then it was on him, and the knight staggered back under the assault. His heel snagged on a step, and he was falling. Even as his shoulder struck the packed earth of the path, he saw the jaws open at his throat, smelled the foul breath, and he shut his eyes against the inevitable.

  “Good evening, sir.”

  Baldwin dared raise one lid, fending off the attack as best he could. A thick gobbet of saliva landed quivering on his cheek and he shuddered. “Edgar, get the brute off me!”

  “It wasn’t my idea to get the monster,” Edgar said pointedly. “In fact I remember saying it would be stupid to replace the bitch.”

  Baldwin felt the weight leave his chest as his servant hauled on the thick leather collar, and rolled stiffly to his side before levering himself up. The mastiff was sitting at Edgar’s side now, his hindquarters wriggling as he tried to wag his tail. Slobber dribbled from his huge black jowls, and he was whining excitedly, desperate to greet his master with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. And that, Baldwin knew, was a lot of enthusiasm.

  Edgar was right, he reflected, but that hardly eased matters. It had seemed such a good idea at the time, replacing his old mastiff with a new one. Lionors had been his brother’s bitch originally, and when the knight arrived after Reynald’s death, Lionors had transferred all her affection to him unreservedly. At first it had been stifling, for Baldwin had been used to a hard life of constant travel, and having a creature so dependent upon him was irksome, especially when she took to grabbing whatever she could and chewing it in a demonstration of fervent adoration.

  But he had been surprised by his sense of loss when she died. It had happened quite quietly. She had no
t come to him in the morning when he arose, but had remained lying by the fire. Ben, the brown and black farm dog Baldwin had adopted in days gone by, had stayed at her side, sitting quietly, and gazing at Baldwin with an expression of anxious confusion. When the knight touched her old body, it was still warm, but there was no breath whistling and snorting through her short, age-whitened muzzle, and he suddenly found his eyes brimming at the realization that she would no longer chew his sticks, or dribble on his lap while he ate, or leave a noxious reminder of her presence in the corner of the hall. He found he missed her.

  So he had decided to take one of her great-grandchildren to replace her. He had overruled Edgar and gone to the kennels behind the stables, and as soon as he had seen the tawny mass of blubber and fur, he had pointed, and said, “That is the one.” And so “Uther” was chosen as the house’s guard.

  Except Baldwin’s servant refused to dignify the animal with such a name. He felt that the monster should be identified by something that reflected the reality. Consequently, due to Edgar’s constant repetition, the eight-month-old now answered to “Chops.”

  “This dog should return to the kennels, sir,” Edgar said.

  “Uther stays.”

  “He attacked Cottey this morning.”

  “Uther st—” Baldwin gave his servant a suspicious look. What do you mean, “attacked Cottey‘?”

  “Cottey came to speak to you and the dog scared him almost stupid.”

  “You mean Uther made him brighter than normal!” he growled.

  “It was nothing to laugh about. When I got there, Uther had him up against the table and—”

  “The table?” A light glimmered in Baldwin’s eye. He asked suavely, “So this was in the hall, was it?”