Michael JECKS - The Leper's Return

She was a shrewd woman. Brought up a pampered young girl in London, she knew the value of polite circles, and didn’t esteem them highly. To her, a pretty husband with a good-looking leg in hose was as handy as a bucket with no base. She had no use for either.

No, Cecily knew her own worth, and she knew full well that she would soon become the source of intense speculation, but she must reject all offers. And to do that she must show an ability to see to her own affairs. Only by seeming strong could she remain free. She must make sure that the staff were all kept on their toes. That was the way to guarantee that she had a free hand to continue with her scheme. She couldn’t fail to meet the requirements of the oath she had made to the stern-faced leper from the north country.

That thought made her eyes glisten, and her companion, noticing her wiping at them, called out anxiously, “Mistress? Are you well?”

He was used to her fluctuating moods, and had been warned by old Putthe that she could change her temper more swiftly than a coursed hare could change direction, but he was unprepared for her fury.

“Of course I’m all right! Do you think I’m some weakly slut who can’t cope with a little dust in her eye?”

He had thought she was thinking about her father. Until his death she had been so quiet always, so meek and obedient to the tyrant who was Godfrey, the stableman had assumed the tear was a sign of feminine sadness. Her biting contempt was as unexpected as it was cruel, when he had only been trying to offer his sympathy. He resolved to keep silent for the rest of their journey.

She rode out every day for her exercise, no matter what the weather, and her routine had only been changed on the day after her father’s death. Now she insisted that she must carry on as before. The usual route was to avoid the town itself, and today the groom saw she was intending to keep to it. She led the way, turning right from the hall’s entrance, and leading up the hill toward the woods at the top. This was the road that went past John of Irelaunde’s place, and she glanced at it in some surprise. The gates were open.

Having ridden this way since before John had built his little place, she knew that he always kept his gates shut against the inquisitive. Not so today. As her mare took her closer, she saw that they stood wide open, and she stared in with interest. It was the first time she had been able to. She had almost gone past, when with a gasp she recognized what she had seen.

Wrenching her mare’s head around, she rode in, and hurtled herself from the saddle, throwing herself at the little bundle of rags the stableman had already noticed and disregarded.

“Quick!” she screamed. “To the church! Ride as though the Devil’s wish-hounds were at your heels! Bring a monk trained in nursing. Don’t sit there gaping, fool! Go!”

They rode into the smith’s yard at full tilt, and Baldwin’s horse reared as he came to a halt. “Smith? Come out here, I want to talk to you!”

Simon, who knew most of the knight’s moods, was surprised to hear him bellow in so strident a tone. To the bailiff, lepers were a source of disgust and loathing, and although they deserved sympathy, perhaps, and compassion as well, their repulsive appearance was reason enough, he felt, for them to be victimized. It wasn’t due to any cruelty on his part. Simon was generally an easygoing man, comfortable with himself and his life, and he was happy to see others enjoy their own lives as best they might. He was not driven by an inane compulsion to bully those he didn’t understand, but he was fearful of leprosy; not only because it might clutch him in its hideous grip, taking away his freedom and his health, but because it could similarly strike down his wife, or his precious daughter. That another might attack lepers as dangerous, he could not condone, but neither could he find it in his heart to condemn. Their feelings were simply a little more guided by hatred than his, which leaned rather toward pity.

The matter was not so difficult for Baldwin. He had an enduring revulsion of anything that smacked of victimization. His friends, the members of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon – the Knights Templar – had been accused of heinous crimes by an avaricious French King who lusted after their property and money, and were hounded throughout France. Arrested, jailed, and convicted without an opportunity of defense, they had been guilty only of believing the word of the King and the Pope. Their faith and integrity led to their death in the fires.

That, Baldwin knew, was the result of intolerance mixed with the twin spices of repression and propaganda. He had seen it before. He was determined not to see it here.

“Smith! Come out!”

Simon dropped from his horse and passed the reins to Edgar. Striding to the door, he hammered on it with his fist. “It’s strange he’s not open yet,” he noted. “You’d expect him to have the forge going by now.”

As he spoke, there was the sound of a heavy bar being lifted from its sockets. A moment later the doors swung open, and they found themselves faced with the smith.

Jack had evidently enjoyed his ale the night before. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his complexion, under its layer of charcoal dust and ashes, looked almost transparent. He shivered, although whether from the cold or a reaction to alcohol Baldwin wasn’t sure. Blearily looking from one to the other, he wiped a hand over his mouth as if to remove a foul taste. “What is it?” he asked sullenly. “Can’t a man take a rest without being woken?”

“Your appearance explains a little your behavior last night,” Baldwin said harshly, and shoved the confused smith from his path. The others followed him inside.

“What’s all this about?”

“Shut up! Last night you and your friends chose to attack a pair of lepers, and then you had the bad judgment to put the fear of God into a young woman whose only guilt was that she has devoted her time to caring for those who are worse off than herself. Today I hear you threatened her family.”

“That’s not true,” Jack muttered. “Why’d I want to do that?”

“That is what I want to know, and the explanation had better be good.”

Jack shrugged and walked to his forge, raking the ashes and clearing the old fire out. As he worked, setting out tinder and striking a spark from flint and knife-blade, he spoke as though he was talking to himself. “I don’t see what cause there is for anyone to take upset at trying to get rid of the likes of them. Who wants lepers in the town? They’re defiled by their disease, and they defile the town itself by being here. It’s not like they’re normal. They’re marked out by God – they’d only get that if they were specially evil. They must have committed the most horrible sins.”

“I doubt that’s true,” said Baldwin, and a certain tone in his voice made Simon glance at him.

It was clear to the bailiff that the knight was holding his anger at bay with only the greatest difficulty. It was natural, Simon thought, that his friend should wish to defend the girl – Mary had done nothing that merited the persecution she had received – but he felt at best ambivalent toward lepers. All he had heard said that they had been marked out by God for punishment, as the smith claimed, and their hideous deformities bore it out.

“No one can doubt it,” said the smith, and bent to blow his tinder into flame. When he was satisfied, he set twigs about the little fire, and soon had a cheerful blaze. Only then did he surround it with charcoal, creating a small mountain, and throw himself on the bellows. Soon the cone was glowing red-hot, and the smith lifted the whole sack of coals and upended it, giving the bellows a couple of experimental squeezes to ensure the fire would catch, and then wiping his hands while he waited for the forge to build up its heat. “It’d be heresy to suggest otherwise.”