Lies of the flesh, p.14
Lies of the Flesh, page 14
Chapter 10
Will paces the room, rubbing his face and pushing a hand through his hair so that it sits like a crown around his tonsure. Everyone watches him, even if they pretend to be doing something else. ‘It is not what I expected,’ he says at last.
‘You’ve already said that.’ Fran pats the chair next to his. ‘But I don’t understand why. You must tell us more about your studies of revenants, so we might compare the ones in the books with Adam.’
‘I know, I know.’ Will throws himself into the chair. ‘But it is not so simple. In truth, the books are not agreed on the subject, so I was unable to come to a firm conclusion as to their nature. To give but one example, it is claimed by some – Bishop Thietmar, for one – that the undead are a most potent proof of the Resurrection. But I cannot believe that. Their murderous behaviour is entirely opposed to Christ’s gentleness. And why should their barbarous activities be rewarded with such a precious gift, paid for by the ultimate sacrifice?’ He is clearly most disturbed by what he’s read, scarcely able to sit or stand still.
It should be more satisfying, Fran thinks, to see Will so discomfited. But he needs the priest to collect his thoughts, so he might advise them. Though nothing has been seen of Adam Fothergill since their encounter with him, knowing he is still out there unsettles them. Once more they feel under siege, prisoners in their own homes and unable to attend to even the most mundane of tasks without trembling thoughts. ‘But are revenants always badly behaved? I mean, necessarily so?’
Will turns a frown on him. ‘Why do you always take Adam’s part?’
‘I do not!’ Fran is bewildered. ‘I only wish to have some notion of what he might do next. He frightened me, is the truth of it.’ The image of that haunting figure flits often through his dreams. He had been much dismayed up on the fells, with Adam, with himself, even Edie. But since then, in his waking hours, he has turned a less fevered mind back on what happened. It’s not as if the revenant actually harmed them, though he surely meant to cause them to imagine he might. Fran scratches the side of his neck. ‘We all know what he’s capable of. But up there he did no more than yell and look malevolent. Is that fair, Edie?’
Edie sits quietly on the floor at Sarah’s feet, arms wrapped around long legs. She is content now among company that once she would never have kept, occasionally offering a thought that Giles and even Willow try hard to contradict, but which only makes them sound like fools. More than once, Fran has gone looking for her in the kitchen or outside in the herb garden, speaking out loud the thoughts that have plagued him all day. By the time he’s spoken, and she’s asked him questions so as to be sure in her own mind what he means, and offered something in return, he is much surer in what he thinks.
Now Edie rubs one hand along the back of the other, staring hard at her feet peeking out of the bottom of the dress. Giles sniggers, and Fran throws him a warning look that he refuses to catch.
But Will is impatient. ‘I hear what you say, but he is playing you for a fool! That ungodly creature has killed God’s creatures and defiled them, deliberately putting them out for innocent people to find.’
‘But that’s the . . .’
Fran stops as Edie unwinds herself and moves a little towards them. Lowering her gaze to the floor, she addresses the priest. ‘I is happy to answer, sir. I am thinking the same as my lord Francis. When I is first going tae speak wi’ him, he is frightening me wi’ the way he’s flying about away frae me, and later too, when this place is being spoke of. He’s like some kind o’ demon, like you all is saying. But I is thinking after that it is being like some kind o’ show.’
‘Exactly so.’ Fran leans forward. ‘And though he wasn’t overly friendly, it was only when I spoke of Elsdon that he became monstrous. But even then . . . I expected him to attack us, but he didn’t. He just disappeared. It is most strange.’
Edie steps forward even further. ‘I would say, sirs, that he is still—’
‘Be quiet, Edie.’ Will’s face is fallen into peevish folds. ‘We have no need of your foolish opinions.’
Fran feels the blow and stiffens. He knows he cannot rebuke Will, their priest, in front of everyone. But he sees Edie flinch, the colour withdrawing from her face, and feels the injustice most keenly. Of course, Giles sniggers. If the squire were nearer, Fran would kick him, just to feel a brief deliverance. But that will not help Edie, who is looking at him now, eyes shimmering. Inclining his head towards the door leading to the kitchen, he proffers her a slight smile. She scuttles away, head down.
Will settles back in his chair, quite indifferent to the humiliation he’s just inflicted.
But Fran is too dismayed to swallow his words, out of respect or affection. He leans over, keeps his voice low. ‘If I wish to hear Edie’s opinion, I do not see why you should oppose it.’
The priest blinks. But then he smiles, shaking his head. ‘Ah, Fran, you still have much to learn. You really should not encourage her. If she learns to speak up now, she will only find herself disappointed when she marries. No husband wants a wife who thinks she knows better than he does.’ He rolls his eyes. ‘Can you imagine what kind of a household that would be!’
Fran withdraws in dismay, a host of unruly thoughts rushing to his lips. For the first time in his life, he mislikes Will, thinks him cruel. Such a thought makes him miserable, but not as miserable as imagining Edie’s dismay, the injustice of her dismissal, the stupidity in not letting her speak when she knows far more about Adam Fothergill than any of them. What purpose can God have, to put sense and wisdom in a girl’s head even as he counsels men to silence her?
But then he realises Will is still speaking about revenants, fingers pointing and stabbing, black locks falling gracefully into his eyes.
‘. . . the night creature Grendel, who is vanquished by Beowulf. Grendel is cursed, of course, because of the punishment the Almighty inflicted on his ancestor, Cain.’
Fran struggles to give proper attention to the words, sees himself as if from a distance sitting in his own hall like an unwelcome stranger. He coughs. ‘And he was an undead creature?’
‘Indeed. A grim spirit banished from the company of men and unable to feel the joy of their companionship.’ Will smiles at Fran, who does not smile back.
Willow is rapt, for he loves this story almost as much as those of King Arthur and his knights. He claps his hands. ‘That’s just like our creature, isn’t it?’
Giles glares at him. ‘How would you know?’
‘Yes. Just like him.’ Fran grasps at Willow’s eagerness as cover. ‘But the question is, what do we do to get rid of him?’ He will not meet Will’s gaze, though he feels it charging him down.
‘I was just coming to that.’ There is no warmth in Will’s voice now, only judgement. ‘Brother William of Newburgh’s History was most instructing, providing a number of powerful remedies. I have taken care to commit them all to memory. One was to take turns as watchmen, though we would have difficulty knowing where to stand guard. On more than one occasion he mentions that the corpse should be dug up from where it rested and burned. We should bear that in mind.’ He pauses, studying the toe of his boot for inspiration. ‘Ah, yes. Attacking it with a battle-axe also worked, as did putting an absolution written by a bishop in the tomb with the corpse.’
Fran sighs, reminding himself they have work to do. ‘But we don’t really know where he’s buried, do we?’
Giles and Willow compete to look the most solemn, shaking their heads vigorously.
‘Yes.’ Will kneads his forehead. ‘That is a problem.’
Fran leans forward, elbows on knees, carried away once more by the devilish enigma that is the revenant. ‘Though presumably he’s not very far from where he fell at Elsdon. Perhaps the people there know something.’
Will brings a thumb to his bottom lip, stroking it gently. ‘What about the Dickinsons?’
Fran looks away, shakes his head. ‘They seem to have left almost as soon as the killing began. We could ask Jamie if they said anything, but I doubt it.’
Will gets up, begins to pace around the room. ‘How did he seem to you? I mean, the state of the body. Did it look as if it were decaying?’
Fran considers the question, knowing it is important. He remembers Will saying that revenants can only roam among the world of men while there is flesh on their bones. ‘I would say so. It’s not just that he’s so much thinner than he was in life, though that’s certainly true. There’s something awful about his skin.’
Will stops. ‘In what way?’
Fran considers this, keeping his gaze on his hands. ‘It’s as if it’s been eaten up from the outside. All down one side of his face and one of his hands. I couldn’t see much more, of course. I’m sure Edie would say the same.’ He could not resist that.
‘And was he—’
The door bangs and everyone starts, turning towards the sound. Fran rises, awaiting whoever has arrived so peremptorily. Will moves towards him and they stand, shoulder to shoulder, arms folded.
Sarah stomps in, hands a-flutter. This time, whatever it is, she has understood and is dismayed. She sees Fran and pours forth a loud lament, wordless but potent.
Behind her, Aidan, the blacksmith’s son – the same one as came to tell Sir Henry of the return of Wat and Rob from Scotland – nearly trips over the back of her skirts. With an ungentle arm, he pushes her out of the way, bowing to Fran and Will, but locking his eyes on the priest. Fran is about to rebuke him for his rough treatment of Sarah, but the look on his face stops him.
Aidan’s face is bright red, his breath arriving in short eruptions, as if there’s not enough of it. They know he has run here and quickly. It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that something terrible has happened.
Will steps forward, lays a hand on Aidan’s shoulder. ‘Gather yourself before you speak.’
Aidan nods, a hopeless look in his eyes.
They wait, silent and afraid, and at last the gasping and panting is subdued. ‘Jamie Dickinson’s dead, sirs.’ Aidan bows his head.
‘How?’ Will looks incredulous as if he will not believe it. ‘He was in rude health but yesterday. Was it a sudden sickness?’
‘No, sir. It be murder.’
‘Adam?’ Fran whispers it, knows it, but cannot comprehend it.
Aidan nods, a fierce look on his face.
Will snatches up his cloak.
‘Shall I come too?’ Fran does not really mean it as a question.
‘If you think it might make you see what that devil is really about, then yes.’ That is not a question either.
Jamie Dickinson hangs on the church gate, arms outstretched. Blood is everywhere, seeping from the many wounds on his body, pooling on the ground beneath, splashed on to the gate itself.
They sit on their horses looking at this fearful, incredible sight with no words between them. Aidan slips down and runs off. No one comes out to speak with them. Giles and Willow, at the back, look round most carefully. They all cross themselves.
Fran gets down too, throwing Fauvel’s reins to Giles. The thought does not come upon him to let someone else deal with this. He is not sure why, but he feels a certain responsibility, the seeds of a belief he might have poked a hornet’s nest when he went to see the revenant.
No one else moves. The smell is powerful, apt to overwhelm, as Fran knows well from his monthly courses. In truth it’s not the blood that discomfits him, in spite of its profusion. What truly sickens him is Jamie’s face, eyes bulging, mouth locked open. Fran tries not to dwell on it, for that face can only tell him what all sensible people would know already: that Jamie Dickinson was terrified when he died.
And yet, Fran thinks, it would be better not to assume anything. Jamie was tied to the gate by his arms and legs, his feet still on the ground. All three Dickinsons are forceful, well-built men, the father no less than his sons, despite his age. But surely the revenant possesses unimaginable powers to make light work of any living being, however strong? Fran is perplexed, for the way Jamie Dickinson has been left – awkwardly propped against the gate – suggests Adam Fothergill had not the strength to pin Jamie up off the ground. He turns to look at Will, who has covered his nose with his cloak. ‘I would cut him down.’
Will nods. ‘Do you wish for me to help you?’ He must shout it if he desires to keep his cloak up.
‘Let me help, sir.’ Willow leaps from his horse.
‘Where’s Giles?’
Willow jerks his head back behind him. ‘He’s not feeling very well.’
Fran grunts. ‘Come then.’
Willow walks towards the gate as if it were a holy relic, eyes never moving from Jamie Dickinson’s inert body. ‘I never thought to see such a thing.’
‘You don’t need to whisper, Willow. He can’t hear you.’
‘Who can’t, sir?’
‘Jamie Dickinson. I would have thought that was obvious.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of him.’
‘Ah.’ Fran fights the urge to look round too, telling himself the revenant is long gone. ‘I don’t think he can hear you either. If you cut the cords, I’ll hold the body and we can lay him down over there.’ He points to a patch of grass a few feet away, beneath the church wall.
He braces himself for the mortal remains of Jamie Dickinson to press heavily upon him and indeed he is nearly knocked over when the last cord is cut. Grunting a little, he manages to remain upright but is heartily glad when Willow comes to help.
‘He’s so stiff. Why is he so stiff?’ Willow looks outraged.
‘I don’t know.’ They lay Jamie down carefully. Fran gets on to his knees.
‘Close his eyes,’ Will calls from a muffled distance.
‘Yes.’ Fran is glad to disguise the horror imprinted there. He closes his own eyes, the better to imagine what the revenant must have done. But then he decides to count the wounds. Seventeen in total, but none to the heart or the vital organs. He sits back on his heels, deep in thought. Jamie surely bled to death, and the revenant must have meant him to do so. He cannot imagine what possessed the creature that had once been Adam Fothergill to even think of such a thing.
‘What are you doing?’ Will sounds more fearful than annoyed.
‘Wait a minute, please.’ Shuffling on his knees towards Jamie’s head, Fran waves at Willow to come down beside him. ‘I’m going to bring him up to sit. You must take him from me. There’s something I want to look at.’
Willow nods eagerly, putting himself across Jamie’s legs and taking the weight of him with clenched teeth. Fran wonders, not for the first time, how he can see anything with all that hair.
As soon as the corpse is bent over, Fran knows he was right to imagine that the revenant had surprised Jamie Dickinson. What he sees on the back of the head is a great gash very different to the stab wounds. These edges are not sharp and smooth but jagged, the hair folded into it where it’s not come away altogether. And the rock, or whatever else was used to inflict it, was brought down on Jamie’s head so forcefully, Fran is dismayed to see pieces of bone in the gaping hole. Now, at last, he feels a great revulsion in his stomach, turns away and spits out bile. He turns to Willow, but Jamie Dickinson is already lying flat on the ground, the back of his head safely hidden in the grass.
Fran stands up on shaking legs, walking carefully back to Will. ‘I think I know what happened.’
‘Just by looking?’ Will tentatively removes his cloak.
‘It’s written all over him.’ He sees Giles slumped over on his saddle but decides to say nothing.
Will looks disbelieving, but he too says nothing.
Fran composes his thoughts. ‘The first question I asked myself was how the revenant got Jamie Dickinson up there.’
‘But the accounts say he might well have prodigious strength—’
‘Will you wait until I’ve finished, please?’ Fran tries not to glare at the priest in front of Giles and Willow, forcing a smile.
Will narrows his lips, nods.
‘That’s why I looked at the back of the head. It’s clear Jamie was hit from behind, very hard, with a rock or something similar. The wound is not at all like the others.’
Giles sits up, fixes bloodshot eyes on Fran.
Fran raises his eyebrows at his squire but quickly turns his gaze back on Will. ‘I think the revenant brought Jamie here and tied him to the gate. That would have been hard enough even if Jamie were insensible, as he must have been. After that, it would have been no trouble to inflict the knife wounds. But what I also noticed is that those wounds wouldn’t have killed him outright.’
‘Really, sir? I would have thought that most unlikely.’ Giles is feeling well enough to copy Will’s disbelieving tone.
This time Fran does glare. ‘You can go and look if you like.’ That is cruel, but he thinks it justified.
Giles turns even whiter. ‘I just meant—’
‘Well, don’t. But perhaps you can answer this question. Where would you stab a man if you wanted to kill him?’ He hears himself sound just like Will all those years ago, trying to coax him into looking at the facts of a particular matter and drawing conclusions.
Willow opens his mouth, but Giles spits out the answer first. ‘The heart.’
‘Yes. Anywhere else?’
‘The other organs?’
‘Indeed. You might not die immediately, but it would be certain. Poor Jamie over there has no wounds in such places. Which means?’
Giles stares at him, shakes his head.
Fran turns to Willow, but he too looks blank.
‘It means that—’
‘Wait, sir!’ Giles has been twisting his face quite dreadfully. ‘He cannot have wanted him to die in a short time.’ He lowers his voice. ‘He wanted him to suffer.’
Fran nods. ‘That’s what I think too. It was the bleeding that killed him and who knows how long it took. The thing that confuses me . . .’ He tries to knot the strands of his imaginings together. ‘I would have thought a revenant was more than a match for Jamie Dickinson.’
