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Authors: Toby Clements
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arrow or a point, but they’d stop a blade. He tries the jack on and finds it tight. Still, though. Next he wraps one of the men’s bows in oiled cloth and takes that, along with a bag of arrow shafts. Then he picks a sword – rejecting the first, choosing a second – which he unsheathes and taps on a rail in the stable to check its resonance. It is good. Then he takes a riding cloak, a cloth cap greasy with wear and the largest of the sallets, which he ties to the chosen saddle of his chosen horse.
‘That is my father’s horse,’ the younger boy says.
Thomas looks at him, then the horse. The older boy looks on. He must be a nephew or something, Thomas thinks.
‘Do you want it?’ he asks.
The boy nods. Thomas shrugs and picks another horse. The younger boy takes his father’s horse and saddle, and Thomas and the two boys lead their horses out of the stable. Thomas adjusts his stirrups and when they are ready, John appears, sleep-tousled and malodorous. He has a flask and a loaf of bread from yesterday. He hands it to Thomas.
‘You’ll come back one day?’ he asks.
Thomas nods. They embrace. Then when he is in his saddle his brother looks up.
‘Thomas,’ he says, ‘answer me this before you go. It’s been nagging away at us all. That name you kept calling. When you are having your dreams. What is it?’
Thomas looks down at him. He can feel his eyebrow cocked. He has no memories of any dreams.
‘A name?’
‘Aye. It sounded like that.’
Thomas looks down into his brother’s hopeful eyes. Then he shakes his head and he is about to say no, when something wells up within him, closing his throat, and he can only nod at his brother. His brother nods back, relieved to have got that clear, and then he says goodbye again, and Thomas turns his horse and he leads the two boys off along the path, heading east. Before he has gone very far, he finds that he is weeping so the tears drip from his chin.
4
THE CORONER’S CLERK is bent-backed in his dark coat, a drop of clear liquid quivering on the tip of his long nose, and whenever he fetches ink from his pot he looks up at them over the top of his temporary desk, and Katherine, standing next to the Widow Beaufoy, shivers. It is not just the cold, though that is bad enough to make her ear ache, it is that she feels feared for, just as she used to feel in the chapter house at the priory, when she was made to stand and suffer the inspection of the other sisters while she waited for the Prioress to deliver the inevitable guilty verdict.
‘Get on with it,’ one of the jurymen shouts. ‘We’ll catch our deaths out here.’
He is right. It is the second day after the feast of St Agatha, virgin and martyr, and winter still has its hold. They should be up above in the hall of the Guild of the Blessed Virgin, where inquests might ordinarily take place, but the Guild members will not allow Eelby’s wife’s body to be taken up, and no one really blames them, for she has lain buried in the ground these past weeks, and the rot has taken hold despite the cold. Before the inquest there was talk of leaving her buried, but the coroner says the law is the law; and that he must see the body, or the men of the Hundred must pay a fine additional to all the others they will already incur for having a murder committed in their parish. So this morning, before dawn, Agnes Eelby was disinterred by a couple of men with linen cloths bound around their faces, and now here she is: set out in the open, a little way off, downwind of the Guild house, on a plank and a pair of trestles. A boy stands by with a shepherd’s crook, ready to keep the birds off.
The coroner – a foursquare man with a close-cropped, reddish beard and cheeks mottled in the cold – stands with his back turned on the corpse, not wishing to look on the stained and corrupted shroud, and he addresses the jury.
‘Fellows,’ he says. ‘Fellows. We are here to decide if Agnes Eelby, God rest her soul, late
‘That is my father’s horse,’ the younger boy says.
Thomas looks at him, then the horse. The older boy looks on. He must be a nephew or something, Thomas thinks.
‘Do you want it?’ he asks.
The boy nods. Thomas shrugs and picks another horse. The younger boy takes his father’s horse and saddle, and Thomas and the two boys lead their horses out of the stable. Thomas adjusts his stirrups and when they are ready, John appears, sleep-tousled and malodorous. He has a flask and a loaf of bread from yesterday. He hands it to Thomas.
‘You’ll come back one day?’ he asks.
Thomas nods. They embrace. Then when he is in his saddle his brother looks up.
‘Thomas,’ he says, ‘answer me this before you go. It’s been nagging away at us all. That name you kept calling. When you are having your dreams. What is it?’
Thomas looks down at him. He can feel his eyebrow cocked. He has no memories of any dreams.
‘A name?’
‘Aye. It sounded like that.’
Thomas looks down into his brother’s hopeful eyes. Then he shakes his head and he is about to say no, when something wells up within him, closing his throat, and he can only nod at his brother. His brother nods back, relieved to have got that clear, and then he says goodbye again, and Thomas turns his horse and he leads the two boys off along the path, heading east. Before he has gone very far, he finds that he is weeping so the tears drip from his chin.
4
THE CORONER’S CLERK is bent-backed in his dark coat, a drop of clear liquid quivering on the tip of his long nose, and whenever he fetches ink from his pot he looks up at them over the top of his temporary desk, and Katherine, standing next to the Widow Beaufoy, shivers. It is not just the cold, though that is bad enough to make her ear ache, it is that she feels feared for, just as she used to feel in the chapter house at the priory, when she was made to stand and suffer the inspection of the other sisters while she waited for the Prioress to deliver the inevitable guilty verdict.
‘Get on with it,’ one of the jurymen shouts. ‘We’ll catch our deaths out here.’
He is right. It is the second day after the feast of St Agatha, virgin and martyr, and winter still has its hold. They should be up above in the hall of the Guild of the Blessed Virgin, where inquests might ordinarily take place, but the Guild members will not allow Eelby’s wife’s body to be taken up, and no one really blames them, for she has lain buried in the ground these past weeks, and the rot has taken hold despite the cold. Before the inquest there was talk of leaving her buried, but the coroner says the law is the law; and that he must see the body, or the men of the Hundred must pay a fine additional to all the others they will already incur for having a murder committed in their parish. So this morning, before dawn, Agnes Eelby was disinterred by a couple of men with linen cloths bound around their faces, and now here she is: set out in the open, a little way off, downwind of the Guild house, on a plank and a pair of trestles. A boy stands by with a shepherd’s crook, ready to keep the birds off.
The coroner – a foursquare man with a close-cropped, reddish beard and cheeks mottled in the cold – stands with his back turned on the corpse, not wishing to look on the stained and corrupted shroud, and he addresses the jury.
‘Fellows,’ he says. ‘Fellows. We are here to decide if Agnes Eelby, God rest her soul, late
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