Michael JECKS - The Leper's Return

“Meaning?”

“All I mean is, she is so good a nurse, and so devoted to her new calling, that it might be better for her to leave the town anyway. If she remains here, she can only ever be a cause of strife. Wouldn’t it be preferable that she should go somewhere else where she would be appreciated? I think she would be ideally suited for a life of prayer.”

“You think she might go to a convent?”

“I think she might be happier there. She would be safe from further comment from the uneducated, safe from slanders and lies, and could dedicate her life to helping others in a hospital.”

“And the town would have its boil lanced.” Baldwin threw a wrathful glower eastward, back toward the columns of smoke over the hill. “And bigots would have succeeded in driving away a poor girl to no purpose.”

“Better that than a hothead should fire her house and burn her and all her family.”

“Better that one innocent should suffer than many?” Baldwin muttered, his lip curled, but he gave a short nod. “I despise your argument, Brother, but I find it compelling. Yet I will still visit the smith and make my views known. I’ll not have him poisoning this town. And I won’t have lepers beaten in the streets, either.”

As the sun climbed higher, and cast its rays into his yard, John had to close his eyes against the glare. It was too painful, with his head throbbing and pulsing in time with his shattered leg.

After struggling for what felt like an age, he had finally got himself into some kind of shape. It had been hard, for to tie the old walking stick and besom handle to his leg, he had needed to bend, and each time he did so, a fresh wave of nausea washed over him. Each time he was forced to snap his eyes shut and keep absolutely still for a few minutes, until the sensation passed, and each time he must open his eyes and continue.

One bandage he had reserved for his head. Where the club had struck the right of his skull, there was a growing lump, and there was a smaller one on the opposite side as well. He had to give a twisted grin as he tightened the band round his forehead, thinking that at least the constriction hurt both sides of his skull equally; he wouldn’t be unbalanced when he tried to move.

He had found a staff, a good elm branch which he had been saving to axe into kindling, and gripped it hard. Gritting his teeth, he cautiously eased himself upward, the sweat breaking out at his forehead and chilling his back under his shirt. It was cool enough without his coat, and this moisture made him shudder as if he had the ague, but with set expression and firmly locked jaw, he set the staff to the ground and took a step.

The grating of smashed bone almost made him faint. His headache returned, thudding as hard as if a man was beating him again; his stomach roiled. The world swirled before his eyes, and he had to shut them, but then all his concentration could focus on the exquisite agony, and that was unendurable; he had to open them again.

Now his see-sawing vision steadied a little, and he could swallow heavily. Before he could lose his determination, he moved another step. This time he let out a shout of anguish as his foot caught on a stone and the feeling shot up his leg and into his heart. Eyes wide, he tottered, the breath sobbing in his throat.

And he took another step.

Baldwin set their pace back into town, and it was an angry canter. He had given Simon and Edgar no time to talk to him, but had climbed onto his steed and moved off as soon as they had come to the gate, and the others had needed to hurry to keep him in view.

The knight was no fool, and had no intention of intervening in the normal hurly-burly of Crediton’s life, but this was something different. The town was generally among the quietest in the kingdom, and he knew that other officials of the King looked upon him with a certain degree of jealousy for having not much to do; but if something like this wasn’t nipped in the bud quickly it could grow an evil fruit whose harvest would be death. It was a miracle that the two lepers hadn’t been killed the night before, and still more that the girl hadn’t received more than verbal abuse. If such behavior was permitted to go unchecked, it could only result in violent disturbance, and it was Baldwin’s duty to see to it that no such thing happened.

They rode fast along the street scattering the people, until they came to the hall where Godfrey had died, and here Baldwin slowed. He had a strange presentiment, and he turned his head to look at the hall. There were a few people in the garden, tending to the vegetables, and behind them he saw Putthe standing in the doorway, no longer wearing a bandage, but leaning against a doorpost as if he had a headache while in the broad daylight.

As Baldwin watched, he saw Putthe’s mistress appear. The servant moved aside respectfully, and the knight noticed his slow and careful movement. His head was clearly still giving him pain. Then Baldwin found his attention taken by the woman at Putthe’s side.

She stood happily, tugging on gloves while she kept her eye on the gardeners. In the bright sunlight her hair sparkled as if an ethereal fire was upon it. She noticed the knight and gave him a curt nod of her head, then spun around and stalked back inside.

“Looks like she’s on her way off for a ride, eh, Baldwin?” Simon said from his side.

“Yes. It does, doesn’t it?” said Baldwin. “Simon, we have been taken in by that woman.”

“Taken in? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you see her behavior just then?”

“She was haughty, no question, but so what?”

“I think you missed the most important issue. We shall need to speak to her again.”

And with that the knight clapped spurs to his horse and rode off; if possible, in Simon’s opinion, more angrily than before. The mystified bailiff glanced at Edgar, who gave a shrug as if to indicate that there were times when he gave up trying to understand his master, and chased after.

Cecily was in no good mood when she stalked out to the stables. Her mare, which she had ordered to be ready half an hour before, was not yet saddled, nor was the stallion for her companion and chaperone, one of the grooms.

Of course, she accepted that it would take time for the normal routines to reassert themselves, but that was no reason for simple tasks not to be carried out. It was as though the servants were trying to be – she could think of no other way to put it – willfully incompetent. She made her feelings clear to the head groom and struck the stableboy holding her mare with her crop to make him hurry. The only way, she knew, was to make sure that the staff all knew who was paying their wages from now on. Cecily was no longer the darling little child of the master, the pretty ornament who suffered so much from her bullying father. She was the mistress of the estates and all the money Godfrey had amassed.

The mare was led to her, the lad sullen as she climbed up the stone blocks and mounted. Looking coldly at the boy rubbing his shoulder, she set off through the gates and into the road.

It wasn’t that she was hard – she wasn’t – but my Lady Cecily of London was no fool. From now on she must shift for herself. She was of age, so she was safe enough from interfering cretins who wanted to protect her from the world by uniting her to any man who might show an interest, but Cecily knew that she was about to become known as the most eligible woman in middle Devon, and confidently expected to receive calls from various well – or less well-intentioned buffoons in tight hose and smart tunics, all of them displaying qualities such as a lady should require: money, horses, dogs, farms, and access to the best society. Cecily’s trouble was, she wanted none of them.