Toby Clements - Kingmaker - Winter Pilgrims

‘May God forgive us,’ Mayhew whispers.

Beyond is a river, emitting mist, and there is a weir down there over which the water flares and seethes. Bodies choke the valley. It is unbelievable. They stare so long that they do not notice the archer slip away.

When she does so she can think of nothing good to say.

‘We will never find him now,’ Richard laments.

‘No,’ she says. ‘He is here. He is not dead. I know it.’

There is a long silence. All they can hear are the furtive rustlings of the looters and the sighing of the dead, the rush of the beck below, and the wind luffing across the dale.

‘He is here,’ she says, but her voice is no more than a whisper.

‘Come,’ Richard says. ‘Come.’

‘No.’

‘My lady,’ Richard says. He fumbles for her arm. She tries to resist but he is firm.

‘He must be gone, my lady,’ Mayhew says. ‘No man would willingly stay out here if he could leave.’

‘I know he is here.’

‘Then he must be dead,’ Mayhew says.

She cannot believe it. She cannot believe this is what the Lord had in mind for Thomas when he survived all that came his way before.

‘Come,’ Mayhew says. ‘We cannot stay here. The miasma-’

‘He is not dead,’ she says.

She pulls free, grabs the torch from Mayhew and holds it high above her. She illuminates only more corpses.

‘Thomas!’ she calls. ‘Thomas Everingham!’

There is nothing. Only the wind and a flurry of blows in the distance, short and sharp, where the looters are finishing off yet one more.

‘Thomas!’ she cries again. ‘Thomas! Thomas Everingham!’

But still nothing.

‘Where is he?’ she demands.

There is another long silence.

‘I know what he was to you,’ Richard continues. ‘I know.’

She does not wonder what he means. She thinks only of Thomas. Of how they left one another.

‘He was. .’ She is going to say ‘everything’. She bites back a sob. Tears are pouring down her cheeks. She feels she could catch them and fill her palms.

‘Perhaps it is right that we don’t find him, do you think?’ Richard goes on. ‘That he is buried with the men who died with him? A sort of fellowship?’

Katherine nods in the dark, but she snivels. She remembers burying Red John and she knows how that felt. Then:

‘No,’ she says. ‘No. He is here. Thomas!’ she shouts. ‘Thomas!’

‘My lady. .’ Richard begins.

She wipes her eyes, her cheeks, her nose, her chin. Tears are everywhere.

Again: ‘Thomas!’ and her shout is racked by a sob. ‘Oh God, Thomas!’

And this time, nearby, there is a movement on the edge of the pile of corpses. A man holds up a bloodied hand. He is hidden, half buried by another man’s body, and they cannot see his face.

‘Katherine,’ the man whispers.

At first she does not hear it.

‘Katherine,’ he says again, louder, calling.

And this time she hears him, and she turns.