The Crowfield Curse Page 7

  Alarmed, he quickly stepped back into the stable and closed the door. Nothing would persuade him to leave the stable until he was sure that they had gone, whoever or whatever they were.

  Shivering as much from fear as cold, William huddled in a corner of Matilda’s stall, glad of the mare’s warm and solid presence. She whickered softly and nuzzled his hair with her lips. William smiled and reached up to stroke her soft nose.

  The abbey no longer felt like a safe place to be. Shadows seemed to be gathering around its cold stone walls, a darkness that went beyond the presence of a leper and his pale-eyed manservant. Strange things were afoot. William knew he would have to keep his wits about him in the coming days.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  William was woken from a bad dream shortly before dawn by the clang-clang of the bell for lauds. He had slept badly and was bleary-eyed with tiredness as he rolled up his mattress and carried it through to the storeroom beside the kitchen. He riddled the embers on the hearth and added branches to get the fire going. Pulling up his hood, he hurried across the yard to fetch water.

  The fog had lifted during the night, and the morning was gray and damp and very hard on the spirits. William yawned and stretched sleep-stiffened muscles as he stood for a few minutes by the well. Light showed around the edges of the shutters covering the windows of the guest quarters. He thought of Jacobus Bone, sitting in the chair by the fire or lying in the carved bed beneath velvet coverlets, and a shiver went through him. The thought of having to take water and firewood to the guest quarters every day filled him with dread.

  As soon as the monks were at mass, William took two apples and a small piece of cheese from the storeroom beside the kitchen. He wrapped them in a napkin, with a piece of bread left over from the previous day’s baking. The crust was as hard as stone but it was still reasonably soft inside. He tucked the bundle of food inside his tunic and set off for the workshop.

  The hob was standing on a stool beside the table. He was grinding something in the stone mortar with a pestle. His face was puckered into a frown of concentration and he took no notice when William came into the hut.

  “What are you doing?” William asked, peering into the mortar.

  The hob glanced up at William. “That is a stupid question.”

  “I mean,” William said, “what’s that?” He nodded to the green, pungent-smelling paste in the bottom of the stone bowl.

  “Wolfsbane root. The snail brother tries to hide it, but his bones ache. This will help him.”

  The hob’s knowledge of plants rivaled that of the monk. Indeed, Brother Snail had confided in William that he had learned a great deal from Brother Walter over the last few days and would be sorry to see him leave. Not that the hob seemed in a hurry to go anywhere, William noticed. He had made himself quite at home in the hut, and could get around surprisingly well with the help of the crutch William had made from a forked ash branch. He was healing quickly and had expressed an interest in seeing the rest of the abbey, much to William’s alarm.

  William took the napkin of food from his tunic and put it on the table. The hob put the pestle down and inspected the contents of the napkin. “No hazelnuts?”

  “Sorry, no. There is a small basket of nuts in the storeroom, but Brother Martin will know if I’ve taken any and he won’t be happy.”

  “The brother with the slow wits, he was digging a grave hole yesterday,” the hob said, picking up a small green glazed pot and pouring a few drops of almond oil into the ground-up roots in the mortar. “Who is it for?”

  “Abbot Simon. He’s dying. The prior thought it would be a good idea to dig the grave while the ground is soft, before the frosts return.”

  “You bury all your dead together in fields of graves,” the hob said, his small leathery face wrinkling thoughtfully as he looked up at William, “but you do not do it for other creatures. Why is that?”

  William squatted down by the fire and warmed his hands. Why did Brother Walter have to ask so many difficult questions?

  “I suppose,” he began slowly, thinking about it, “we don’t bury pigs and sheep, birds, cattle, and fish because they’re food. They’re not the same as people,” he finished with a shrug.

  The hob turned to look down at William, the golden-green eyes widening in astonishment. “They are just the same in here,” he said, patting his chest.

  “They don’t talk or think like us,” William said. “They have no souls.”

  The hob wiped his paws on a rag and climbed awkwardly down off the stool. He tucked the fork of the crutch under his arm and limped over to the hearth to stand in front of William. “I can talk, and I have a spirit that will never die, but I am not human.”

  William was feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. “But you’re . . . different. Not animal, not human.”

  “So would you bury me in your field of graves with the brother men if I died today?” he asked.

  “Eh, no, probably not,” William muttered, feeling himself redden.

  “Why not? Because I am not as important as the brother men? I do not matter, perhaps?”

  “You aren’t a Christian creature,” William said. “You can’t be buried in a churchyard if you are not Christian.”

  “Why?”

  “Because only Christian souls go to heaven.” That was what the priest at Iwele had told him, so it must be true, William thought, though he was no longer quite so certain of that. The hob’s questions were forcing him to look harder at things he had accepted without a second thought before.

  “So where do you think all the other spirits go?” The hob lowered himself onto the floor and eased his injured leg into a comfortable position.

  “I don’t know,” William said. It was one more thing he had never thought about.

  The hob shook his head. “You know so little, human. One day, I will take you to the woods and show you where they go.”

  William did not like the sound of this. “They’re all in the woods?”

  The hob glared at him and made an impatient sound. “Tcha!”

  Which told William nothing. He had a disturbing vision of huge herds of ghostly animals roaming through Foxwist, all the creatures hunted and slaughtered for food over the years, though he had never seen as much as a ghostly whisker there before. Perhaps the hob had magical powers and could make him see things he normally missed.

  The hob turned his attention to picking bits of straw and dried leaves from his fur. “Maybe that is why the brother men buried the winged creature in the wood. They did not want its spirit near their abbey.”

  William frowned at him. “What winged creature?” As he said it, he remembered what he had overheard by the abbey gate: an angel, dead and buried. His heart began to beat a little faster. “What winged creature?”

  “It was shot with an arrow and it died in the snow out in the woods, one midwinter, many years ago. I do not know what manner of creature it was.”

  “What did it look like?” William asked. Surely it could not really have been an angel?

  “I did not see it, but I heard it was as high as this hut.” The hob pointed to the roof rafters. “It had skin the color of shadows on snow, and feathered wings from its shoulders to its feet.”

  “It was an angel,” William said softly, a shiver going down his spine.

  “A nangel?” the hob said with a questioning frown.

  “They live in heaven with God,” William explained. “They serve Him.”

  The hob was quiet for a while. His ears twitched like a cat’s as he puzzled this over. Something was clearly troubling him. “If they live with your god, then they must be very important.”

  William nodded. “Very.”

  There was an odd look in the hob’s eyes as he stared at William. “So why did the brother men hide the nangel’s body in the woods? Why did they not bring it here to the grave field? Won’t your god be very displeased that they treated his servant like that?”

  William could th
ink of nothing to say to this. The hob was right, though. Why had the monks buried it so quickly and in secret? Surely finding an angel, alive or dead, would be a thing of great wonder? A miracle, even?

  “How do you come to know about the angel?” William asked.

  “I heard about it from a hob who used to live in the woods. He was being hunted by a fay king and the nangel came to his aid. The king killed the creature with his bow, and the hob escaped. He never knew what manner of creature had helped him. If I see him again, I will tell him it was a nangel.”

  William stared at Brother Walter uneasily. It seemed the woods were more crowded than Weforde on market day.

  “Comnath, the Dark King of the Unseelie Court, is an ancient and powerful fay warrior,” Brother Walter said softly, his voice tinged with fear. “He has not been seen in these parts since he killed the nangel. He is evil and dangerous and will hunt down any creature unlucky enough to catch his eye.” The hob shuddered and drew a little closer to the fire. “Those who live in the woods are fearful that he will return one day soon. Whispers have reached us that he was seen not far from here at midsummer. I do not know if it is true but I hope it is not.”

  “What will happen if he does return?”

  “All the solitary fays will be given a choice: join the king’s court or be hunted to death. It is hard to know which would be worse.”

  “Is that what you are?” William asked curiously. “A solitary fay?”

  The hob nodded. “And I want to stay that way.”

  “Even if it means being hunted by the Dark King?”

  The hob hunched his shoulders and stared unhappily into the fire.

  “Well, you’re safe in the abbey. If ever he comes after you, you can come here.”

  The hob did not reply. It suddenly occurred to William that perhaps the abbey walls would not offer protection against the fay king. Perhaps he could hunt wherever he chose and nothing could stop him. After all, he had killed one of God’s own angels with perfect ease. It was a terrifying thought.

  William got to his feet. He had work to do, and he wanted time to think about everything he had learned that day. One thing he was sure of, though, was that he wanted to find out more about the angel. There was only one person he could safely ask, and that was Brother Snail.

  “I have to go. Oh, I almost forgot.” He paused with his hand on the door latch and looked back at the hob. “A woman with a white crow came to the hut yesterday, to make sure you were safe here at the abbey. She said her name was Dame Alys. Do you know her?”

  The hob pulled himself to his feet with the help of the crutch and limped over to the stool beside the table. His small face was carefully expressionless and he did not meet William’s gaze. “I have seen her in the woods, collecting roots and berries. She is a healer, like the snail brother.”

  William waited but the hob did not add anything further. He was sure the hob knew more than he was saying but he did not have time to stay and find out what that might be.

  “I will bring you more food later,” William said, opening the door.

  The hob nodded. “Bread, but no more pottage.” He pretended to stick his fingers down his throat and made a gagging sound.

  William grinned and left the hut.

  As he walked along the path to the abbey, he wondered how it was possible that an angel could die. Surely, if they lived in heaven, they were not made of flesh and blood? How could a single arrow, fay or otherwise, kill one?

  And if angels could die, then could the unthink-able happen? Could God Himself die, too?

  Fear knotted in William’s stomach at this terrible thought. As soon as he could, he would speak to Brother Snail and just hope and pray the monk could answer his questions.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  Later that morning, Brother Martin told William to fetch a pail of water and go scrub the long table in the frater. William had almost finished his work when Brother Snail came to clean the pewter candlesticks and replace the tallow candles. He made them in his workshop, dipping wicks of hemp into smelly vats of melted mutton fat. He had made the last batch with William’s help and it had taken a great deal of determined scrubbing with wood ash and cold water for William to get the pungent smell of sheep grease from his hands.

  Brother Snail glanced at William. “You seem preoccupied today, Will. Is there anything wrong?”

  William straightened up and took a deep breath. “I know about the angel.”

  The monk seemed to turn to stone. His smile faded and he stared at William with a look of shock on his face.

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “I overheard Edgar from Yagleah talking to the prior. And the hob knows all about it, too.”

  “I see.” Brother Snail lowered himself slowly and stiffly onto a bench and stared at the floor for a while in silence.

  “And I know monks from the abbey buried the angel in the woods,” William added, watching him warily. Should he have kept what he had found out to himself?

  “The angel has been a closely guarded secret for nearly a hundred years,” Brother Snail said at last, his face pale and his eyes troubled. “It is Crowfield’s curse. What did the hob tell you about it?”

  William sat down beside the monk. “He said the angel was killed by a fay king one midwinter night. The angel was trying to save a hob from the king, so the king killed him instead.”

  Brother Snail’s eyes were wide and bright as he listened intently to this. “A fay king?”

  William nodded. “Brother Walter called him the Dark King of the Unseelie Court.”

  “We never knew who fired the arrow, or why, until now,” the monk said softly. He held out his arm. “Help me up, Will.”

  William took his arm. The monk leaned heavily on him as he got to his feet.

  “Since you already know so much, I have something to show you. Come with me.”

  William followed the monk out into the cloister alley, and around to the door of the sacristy, a small room beside the chapter house where the abbey’s books and few valuable possessions were kept locked away. Brother Snail took a ring of keys from the small purse hanging from the cord around his waist. With a quick glance around to make sure they were not being watched, he selected one and unlocked the door. He ushered William inside and lit the candle in the lantern hanging from an iron bracket on the wall.

  “Close the door, Will.”

  The monk unlocked a wall cupboard in a corner of the room. Candlelight gleamed on silver and William glimpsed a chalice and two candlesticks.

  Snail took a plain oak casket from the cupboard and laid it on the small table in the middle of the room. He hesitated for a moment, and then lifted the lid. Inside was a folded piece of faded

  blue silk.

  William held his breath as Brother Snail carefully lifted the silk aside to reveal what William thought for a moment was a long silver blade. It gleamed with a soft moon-white sheen in the candlelight. Then William realized it was not a blade, but a single white feather.

  “One of the monks who buried the angel found this in the snow. It has been kept here, safe and secret, ever since.” Brother Snail’s voice was barely more than a whisper. William thought he saw the gleam of tears in the monk’s eyes.

  “Brother Walter said the angel was buried in the woods,” William said. “Why wasn’t it brought here and buried in the graveyard or in the abbey church?”

  “The abbot couldn’t allow that, Will. Nobody could know about the angel, don’t you see?”

  William shook his head, puzzled.

  “If people found out that an angel could die like some mortal creature of clay, it would raise doubts about the nature of angels, and perhaps even God Himself, and they would ask questions for which we have no answers. It would shake the church to its very foundations. As far as the world outside these gates is concerned, angels cannot die. It is Crowfield’s curse that we have to know and guard the terrible truth.”

  “The
n how come Edgar of Yagleah knows about it?” William asked.

  Brother Snail gazed down at the feather. “It was a Yagleah man who found the dying angel that night. It was Christmas Eve in the year 1243, and he was returning home after visiting friends in Weforde. He ran to the abbey for help but the angel had died by the time the abbot and two of his monks reached it. The villager helped the monks to bury the body, and the abbot swore him to secrecy.” Snail was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps the burden of such a secret was too much for the man. He told his son, and over the years, the secret has been passed down from father to son, all the way down to Edgar. When the stranger came to Yagleah asking questions about an angel, only Edgar knew what he was talking about.”

  “So how did the stranger find out?”

  The monk frowned. He folded the silk over the feather again and closed the box. “I don’t know, Will.”

  “Whereabouts in the woods is the angel buried?” William asked as Brother Snail returned the box to the cupboard.

  “Nobody knows, not even Edgar. Whatever else was passed down through his family, it didn’t include that.”

  “Where was the body found?”

  “On the track to Yagleah, near the ford over the Sheep Brook.”

  William knew the place. The track from Weforde crossed the brook at the foot of Gremanhil. Huge old oak trees grew on the lower slopes of the hill. The Sheep Brook ran deep and shadowy through the trees before curving out into the sunlight and along the edge of the abbey’s East Field.

  Snail opened the door and waited for William to go ahead of him, back out into the cloister. “Say nothing of this to anyone.”

  William shook his head. “I won’t.”

  They walked back to the frater. As they passed the door of the guest chamber, William said, “Did you know that Master Bone is a leper?”

  The monk stopped and twisted his head around to stare up at William in astonishment. “Are you sure?”