of their journey, flagrantly exaggerated to ensure Tuddenham would fully appreciate the gesture the Michaelhouse men were making by undertaking such a long and dangerous mission.
* Listening to the conversation with half an ear, Bartholomew sipped his ale and began to relax, grateful that the journey was at an end at last. All they needed to do now was to draft the advowson – which might take as long as several days, if Tuddenham’s personal affairs were complex – and then go home. He pushed the dull prospect of legal documents from his mind, and turned his attention to the merrymaking on the green.
The villagers seemed in high spirits, something that had been conspicuous by its absence in most of the settlements they had passed since leaving Cambridge. The plague had hit rural England hard, and many people, tied by law to the lord of the manor in which they were born, were no longer able to scrape a decent living from the land. To see folk well fed and adequately clothed, and even with spare pennies to squander on the useless trinkets that a chapman was hawking on the green, was a pleasant and unexpected change.
Bartholomew’s teaching, his patients and his half-finished treatise on fevers seemed a long way away as he watched Grundisburgh’s villagers celebrate their Pentecost Fair. Some of the younger people were dancing to the musicians’ furious music, skipping and weaving around each other playfully, and calling for others to join in. Bartholomew was about to yield to the persistent demands of one pretty flaxen-haired girl and be her partner in a jig, when a sharp cry from Dame Eva made him glance at her in surprise.
‘Barchester? You came through Barchester?’
The old lady and Isilia exchanged a significant glance, and Isilia shifted closer to her mother-in-law, as if for the comfort of physical contact. Michael, who had been about to describe the clothes in the otherwise deserted village, regarded them uncertainly, while Bartholomew’s golden-headed maiden backed away hurriedly at the mention of the plague village, and ran to find another man with whom to dance.
‘That was the way the path ran,’ said Michael, watching the girl leave with unmonklike interest. ‘Have we done something wrong? Trespassed unknowingly on someone’s land?’
‘Barchester belongs to no one,’ said Isilia, in a hushed voice.
‘No one would have it,’ added Dame Eva, crossing herself vigorously.
‘Actually, it stands on
my
land,’ said Tuddenham, a touch impatiently. ‘Near the boundary with Otley. It was abandoned after the plague, and all sorts of silly stories have grown up about it. The only people who visit it these days are travellers, like you, who do not know that the locals use the new track to the east, to avoid it.’
‘It is a village that the plague destroyed,’ whispered Isilia, her eyes wide as she moved closer still to Dame Eva. ‘It is a haunted place, and no one from around here would set foot in it under any circumstances.’
‘Nonsense, my dear,’ said Tuddenham. ‘It is just like any other of the plague villages in the shire – a poor, sad place that the Earth is slowly reclaiming.’
‘It is one of the gateways to hell,’ announced Dame Eva uncompromisingly, crossing herself again. ‘Only the damned willingly go there – in the darkest hours near midnight, in order to commune with the Devil.’
‘There was nothing to be afraid of,’ said Michael, not entirely truthfully, since, by his own admission, the village had unnerved him. ‘Matt even looked in one of the houses, and there was nothing amiss.’
‘You went into a house?’ asked Isilia, aghast. She flinched away from Bartholomew, as though his very presence might prove contaminating. ‘You touched a threshold?’
‘I looked inside,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There was nothing sinister or terrifying there –just a few old vegetables on the table, and some clothes in the doorway.’
Dame Eva and Isilia exchanged more
* Listening to the conversation with half an ear, Bartholomew sipped his ale and began to relax, grateful that the journey was at an end at last. All they needed to do now was to draft the advowson – which might take as long as several days, if Tuddenham’s personal affairs were complex – and then go home. He pushed the dull prospect of legal documents from his mind, and turned his attention to the merrymaking on the green.
The villagers seemed in high spirits, something that had been conspicuous by its absence in most of the settlements they had passed since leaving Cambridge. The plague had hit rural England hard, and many people, tied by law to the lord of the manor in which they were born, were no longer able to scrape a decent living from the land. To see folk well fed and adequately clothed, and even with spare pennies to squander on the useless trinkets that a chapman was hawking on the green, was a pleasant and unexpected change.
Bartholomew’s teaching, his patients and his half-finished treatise on fevers seemed a long way away as he watched Grundisburgh’s villagers celebrate their Pentecost Fair. Some of the younger people were dancing to the musicians’ furious music, skipping and weaving around each other playfully, and calling for others to join in. Bartholomew was about to yield to the persistent demands of one pretty flaxen-haired girl and be her partner in a jig, when a sharp cry from Dame Eva made him glance at her in surprise.
‘Barchester? You came through Barchester?’
The old lady and Isilia exchanged a significant glance, and Isilia shifted closer to her mother-in-law, as if for the comfort of physical contact. Michael, who had been about to describe the clothes in the otherwise deserted village, regarded them uncertainly, while Bartholomew’s golden-headed maiden backed away hurriedly at the mention of the plague village, and ran to find another man with whom to dance.
‘That was the way the path ran,’ said Michael, watching the girl leave with unmonklike interest. ‘Have we done something wrong? Trespassed unknowingly on someone’s land?’
‘Barchester belongs to no one,’ said Isilia, in a hushed voice.
‘No one would have it,’ added Dame Eva, crossing herself vigorously.
‘Actually, it stands on
my
land,’ said Tuddenham, a touch impatiently. ‘Near the boundary with Otley. It was abandoned after the plague, and all sorts of silly stories have grown up about it. The only people who visit it these days are travellers, like you, who do not know that the locals use the new track to the east, to avoid it.’
‘It is a village that the plague destroyed,’ whispered Isilia, her eyes wide as she moved closer still to Dame Eva. ‘It is a haunted place, and no one from around here would set foot in it under any circumstances.’
‘Nonsense, my dear,’ said Tuddenham. ‘It is just like any other of the plague villages in the shire – a poor, sad place that the Earth is slowly reclaiming.’
‘It is one of the gateways to hell,’ announced Dame Eva uncompromisingly, crossing herself again. ‘Only the damned willingly go there – in the darkest hours near midnight, in order to commune with the Devil.’
‘There was nothing to be afraid of,’ said Michael, not entirely truthfully, since, by his own admission, the village had unnerved him. ‘Matt even looked in one of the houses, and there was nothing amiss.’
‘You went into a house?’ asked Isilia, aghast. She flinched away from Bartholomew, as though his very presence might prove contaminating. ‘You touched a threshold?’
‘I looked inside,’ said Bartholomew. ‘There was nothing sinister or terrifying there –just a few old vegetables on the table, and some clothes in the doorway.’
Dame Eva and Isilia exchanged more
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