Toby Clements - Kingmaker - Winter Pilgrims

He watches Brother Barnaby making his way through the cloister. Barnaby waves up at him, a rude gesture of alliance. Thomas cannot help but smile. Barnaby is the closest thing he has to a friend in the priory, a good-natured boy, the son of a wool merchant, who cannot hold his ale and who will confide almost anything in anyone.

His thoughts turn to the morning. He had only heard the horsemen when they’d spurred their horses along the road and his first reaction had been to fling himself to the ground. It was only when he’d regained his feet that he saw the two sisters, and again, his first instinct had been to look away, following the Rule of St Gilbert, and so he could not then explain, even to himself, what had taken hold of him.

Why had he run at a man — at men — on horseback? He cannot understand it. It was madness. He is an illuminator, a draughtsman. He is used to working bent-backed over his psalter, pricking out the designs, shaping the gesso, applying inks and paints, burnishing shivering gold leaf. That is what he does; that is what he is.

Nevertheless he had felt some savage fury grip him and from the moment he broke cover and let that staff fly, he knew that it would hit the man on the horse, and hit hard.

Now he remembers the horseman’s threats, delivered through the gate. There is something about them, something more than merely the grisly specifics, something that made them all the more pressing. But what is it? What were the words he used? Thomas tries to reconstruct them, but finds he cannot.

How long he stays in the tower, on his knees below the bell, he is unable say. The life of the priory is disrupted and the observation of the Hours stalled while the canons maintain their stations at the walls and the sisters remain within the nave below.

He thinks about the two sisters. He had only seen the face of one of them: the one who had thrown the bucket. She looked fierce; that is the word that occurs to him. The other sister he would only ever recognise again by her beautiful rosary beads. He’d not dared look too closely at her face. They are the first women he has seen for five Eastertides.

Soon his stomach is like a stone for want of food and he needs to relieve himself. He is about to call out for help when he stops. He has heard something.

What is it? The wind? No. It is a distant and regular drumbeat, coming from the east. He can make nothing out in the mist, but the noise is constant now, and getting louder. It is solidifying into something like — like what? It is a confusion of scratching, shuffling, and grinding.

And then he sees it.

First comes the suggestion that the road is firming, becoming darker and more distinct, but then there comes one of those gaps in the mist as it hurries across the marshland. It slips over the road and with a start Thomas catches the fleeting glimpse of a man on horseback.

No sooner has he seen him than he is gone. He begins to doubt himself.

But no. There he is again. Less distinct, but surely there?

Then the rider emerges from the mist again. This time he is close enough so that Thomas can make him out. On a grey. His coat red. Behind him comes a huge man on a dray horse, then a cart loaded with hay, then another two men riding alongside one another and then more, in pairs, until Thomas cannot judge their numbers, for he cannot see the rear of the line where it vanishes into the mist. It might go on forever.

They all wear the same white livery coat; some carry long spears in their stirrups, others hammers and bills over their shoulders. One is carrying a banner that hangs in frozen swags.

Thomas tries to swallow but his mouth has gone dry. Then he is on his feet. He seizes the clapper of the bell and begins hammering it against the bell’s brass lip.

The Dean appears in the garth.

‘They are without!’ Thomas cries. ‘A host!’

‘How many?’

‘I cannot say. Many hundreds.’

The Dean seems to shrink. Thomas turns back. Had he not recognised the man in the red coat, he might entertain the hope that the soldiers will pass them by, that they might be bound elsewhere; but there he is, astride that grey horse, and behind him the giant, and now Thomas sees a man is lying on the straw-filled bed of the cart. His hands are pressed to his face and he twitches every time the cart jerks.

The man in the red coat spurs his horse ahead of the column and disappears from Thomas’s view behind the wall by the gatehouse. There is some shouting and then the lay brethren manning the gate turn and stare back over their shoulders, looking for an order from the Dean. Thomas cannot hear what is being said, but the Dean seems to have frozen. Then he motions that the gate should be opened and so the locking beam is removed.

What are they doing? The fools.

‘Stop!’ Thomas shouts. No one looks up. He is forgotten.

The gates swing open, admitting the man with the red coat and the giant. The lay brethren shrink back and the riders stop in the courtyard in front of the gatehouse. They sit there, apparently in silence. Then the Prior emerges and approaches, and the first horseman swings his leg over the saddle and dismounts. It is an awkward movement: perhaps he is carrying an injury? The horseman speaks to the Prior for a minute, gesturing and once touching his face. The Prior is listening hard and then turns and speaks to the Dean. The Dean shakes his head. Then he looks up at the belfry where Thomas is still kneeling. The giant walks out through the gate and a moment later returns, leading the carthorse by its bridle.

Then the infirmarian appears from his quarters. He approaches the back of the wagon and climbs up into it and crouches over the prostrate man for a moment. He tampers with the bandages and instantly the man in the hay gives a spasm. The infirmarian gestures and a lay brother runs for something from the infirmary.

Thomas continues watching, unable to understand.

Then the first horseman follows the Prior to the almonry and, after they have gone in, the door is closed. A moment later the Prior appears again and speaks to the Dean, who is waiting outside.

Then the Dean shouts up:

‘Brother Thomas! Come. Your testament is required.’

Thomas feels his way to the hatch, his cassock now smutted with bird shit, and begins the descent. His heart is pounding irregularly and he feels so faint he can barely cling to the ladder. His feet slip on the rungs.

The Dean is waiting for him in the cloister.

‘What have you got yourself into, Brother?’ he asks. ‘Sir Giles Riven is here, and that’s his boy in the cart. Says a canon attacked him on the road this morning. Can only be you.’

Thomas shakes his head.

‘As God is my judge I have done nothing wrong.’

The Dean says nothing and leads the way across the garth. As they walk, the other canons stare, and rumour flies fast in hand signals. Thomas can hardly place one foot in front of the other. Together they pass the giant, who watches them with vacant eyes. The Dean knocks on the door of the almonry, and they go in.

Sir Giles Riven is warming himself by a newly lit fire, a mug of something steaming in his hand. To a man used to tonsures and faded workaday cassocks, Riven appears exotic. His short, padded coat glows in the dark, the colour of rose petals in the summer sun, and his hose are made of finespun wool the colour of lapis. His leather riding boots are turned down to his knees and at his hip hangs his sword.

He stands as tall as the Prior, with his hair hacked short above his ears, but he is much bulkier and more powerful. He has horseman’s thighs and broad shoulders, and he stands on the balls of his feet, ready to move.

He turns to Thomas. His skin is rough and reddened from travel, and his teeth are ruined by the sweetmeats and the dried fruits that only the rich can afford, and there is a bruise on his cheek and one eye socket is puffed and dark. The other eye is dark, unreadable in the singular.