Pip Vaughan-Hughes - Relics

Luck was keeping an eye out for fools that day. As I landed on the wet cobbles I realised I had leaped before looking, but now I was in a deep, narrow alley and no one was about. I could hear the faint sounds of shovel-work behind me, so the theft hadn't been noticed. But it would be soon enough. I shoved the flagon into the satchel, which I tucked up under my robe. The leather strap I pulled through the collar and looped around my neck. Now boasting a fine beer-gut, I crept to the mouth of the alley.

I looked out onto one of the broader streets that sloped down to the river. People were about, but the drizzle was keeping their heads down. I decided to take a risk: hopefully my appearance, filthy, unshaven and starved as I was, would be disguise enough. I hurried down the street until I reached the bottom of the hill, then took a right turn. I was now in a busy thoroughfare that ran parallel to the river. It led to the castle, I figured, and to the rocky, deserted shore beyond. Cowl pulled down, hands clutching my stolen prize, I trotted on.

At last the street ended. I was beyond the town. Some fishermen sat around mending nets, looking wet and dejected. They did not notice me as I passed, and soon I was amongst the rocks in the lee of the castle. The tide was out, and the river was a narrow ribbon winding between wide plains of rippled sand. I found a jutting tusk of stone to hide behind, just beyond the tide line. The gravediggers' lunch turned out to be a great hunk of yellow cheese the colour of the skin on an old man's heel, but tasty and powerfully strong. There were two raw onions still in their skins, and two slabs of black bread clamped around a slice of salted pork fat. In the flagon was scrumpy, fresh and fine, as sour as death. I took a bite of onion, then a bite of cheese, then a swig of scrumpy, chewing all to a pulp in my mouth which I savoured until every morsel was swallowed, then began all over again. I finished an onion, most of the cheese and enough of the cider to feel it in my head and limbs. Then I stuffed the remains back into the satchel, which I used as a pillow while I took a long, deep and dreamless nap. The gulls woke me to bright sunshine. It seemed to be about three hours after noon. The tide was in and boats were bobbing on the water. A couple of big sea-going craft were edging towards the wharves, and a gaggle of fishing boats were sailing out to sea. A few yards off shore, a little rowing cob rode at anchor while its occupant jigged a hand-line up and down in the water. The fisherman looked up to see me watching him. Feeling suddenly exposed, I waved a hand, not knowing what else to do. The man waved a languid hand in return, and went back to his jigging. To him I was no one important. That felt good, so I had a few more swigs of scrumpy and a corner of bread and pork. I would have to wait until dark before going back into town to find Adric's Frenchman, so I settled myself against the warm rock with the flagon between my legs and watched the gulls wheel overhead.

There were fewer people in the darkened streets, but the wharves were still busy. Fishing boats were putting out and coming in. Catches were being piled up and inspected by lantern-light. Sailors were coming and going from the bigger ships as well. I wondered which of those belonged to Monsieur de Sol. I had slipped back into the town just after dusk, not wanting to risk being caught by the Watch. It was still too early, I thought, to look for the inn, so I made my way back to the church and slipped into the graveyard. I noted that the grave had been filled in and was strewn with flowers. There was a wooden marker, but I could not make out the name carved upon it. I gave silent thanks to the unknown soul who had inadvertently supplied me with lunch, and returned to my nest under the yew-tree.

There I waited. It was pitch-dark in my leafy cave, but I was too anxious to sleep. Instead I went back over the past few days, reliving them in my mind: the meeting and parting with Adric; the Dart in the moonlight, the foxes. It is strange how quickly the human spirit adapts to change, for I was already putting behind me the pain of leaving my old life. Wounds as deep as those do not ever entirely heal, perhaps – and I could no longer bear to let my mind linger for even an instant on Will, for the pain would come at once like hot iron pressed on flesh – but they were closing now, and I could half-smile as I remembered how the old boar had stared at me, indignation and terror in his piggy eyes. My heart sank again as I thought of Adric, who might even now be suffering the anger of Sir Hugh. But I had seen unsuspected depths in my friend, and a strength and goodness that someone like the Sieur de Kervezey could never understand or dominate. Somehow I knew that the coming summer would see Adric back on his pony, seeking out new wonders to delight his voracious mind and filthy, old and grisly artefacts to horrify his brother monks. I toasted him with the scrumpy, and grew a little more calm. An owl landed in the tree somewhere far above me and hooted softly to itself. In a little while I heard the watchman calling out ten of the clock. It was time to go in search of the White Swan.

But first I finished the scrumpy, needing the courage and not wishing to be weighed down by the empty flagon. I took off my robe and wedged it into a bole of the tree. Now I would look like any country boy, so long as no one looked too closely at my scalp. I left the flagon on the new grave-mound as a puzzle for the diggers, and made my way out into the streets. Not knowing anything of Dartmouth's inns, and being too afraid of drawing attention to myself to ask directions, I would have to search the town, and do it quickly. I had not passed the White Swan so far, so I could rule out two big streets. I decided to investigate the wharves first.

The waterfront was as busy as before, and no one paid me any mind. Dartmouth stretches out along the river, and it took me some time to walk the full length of the docks. There was no White Swan inn, although there were a number of other noisy hostelries and I was tempted to step inside more than one of them for a beer and some company. Finally I was back on the outskirts of town and turned back. I would have to search the alleys that ran back from the river first, then take to the back streets. I walked into a couple of empty courts. The third sheltered a sailor and his whore, hard at work against the wall of an old house. I slipped out of sight before they noticed me, but the woman's groans, and the cider that still warmed my guts, began to give me a warm glow inside, and not one that a cleric should be feeling. I began to feel my blood heat up – began, perhaps, to feel like a hunted fox, and not like the fox's future dinner.

The fourth alley I tried was not a dead end, but turned sharply to the right. I followed it, passing through a narrow opening where the houses leaned so close together that they formed a kind of tunnel. Then the alley turned again, and I was in a small court, blocked at the far end by a tall house from which poured lamplight and the sound of a hurdy-gurdy. The front of the building was plaster between wooden beams carved with laughing, leering faces and animals scurrying amongst oak leaves, and from a jutting post hung a great white-painted swan, a crown around its neck. I looked back down the alley, but saw only darkness. Time, then, to take my new road, be it short or long. Better to go on, and to get matters over with for good and all.

Stepping over the threshold of the White Swan was like walking into the heart of a vast bonfire. Candles and lanterns hung from the ceiling, burned in sconces on the walls, rose in great mountains of wax from the tables. At one end of the long, low room logs crackled in a big stone fireplace. Meat and birds roasted on spits or hung from slowly revolving strings in front of it, and kettles steamed merrily on the hearth. I had been living in a world of cold and shadows for so long that my senses faltered. The carved swan over the door outside and the light inside merged, and I truly believed for a moment that I had been enfolded in the wings of a great bird of fire, whose feathers were flames that did not burn but fluttered softly against my face. Coming back to reality, I discovered that I had walked right over to the fireplace and was staring into it, standing there like a statue.