He sighed and drained his cup again. It was hard to blame his wife, for as she always pointed out, he was away so much through the summer that it would be a miracle for her to conceive. The optimism that was never far from his cheerful nature rose to the surface: winter was here, and offered unrivalled opportunities for early nights in bed.
The house was silent, and the hiss and crackle of the fire sounded almost deafening in the absence of all other noise. As Coffyn smiled at his happy thought, he heard a door bang upstairs, and the unmistakable sound of Martha’s footsteps in the passage from the solar. He filled his mug quickly and stood, but as the door opened and his wife entered the hall, he was convinced for a second that he heard something else. It was a rustling and a thump, as if someone had cautiously made his way along the thatch of the roof of the stable and down into the yard.
Coffyn’s blood ran cold. The pin of jealousy pricked the balloon of his pleasure and suddenly all his trust in his wife exploded in his face.
His cuckold’s face.
“Jesus!” John muttered under his breath. He had gained the safety of the tree where his rope was stored, and paused only long enough to throw the coil over his neck before quietly making his way toward the wall and his home.
His ankle was throbbing slowly with a dull intensity. It augured badly for the morning. Nothing was broken, he reckoned, for he could put his weight on it, but he wouldn’t forget the sudden stab of pure agony as he climbed silently from the window into the cobbled yard behind. That must be what had done it, he thought, his jaw clenched against the pain. A loose cobble must have moved under his foot.
What a night! That shite Coffyn wasn’t supposed to be back yet; he’d told his wife he’d either be late tonight, or more likely wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. Why had the stupid sod turned up now? John had been forced to scramble ignominiously from the hall before he could be discovered. The Irishman rested a moment against an apple tree while he enjoyed his bitterness. Then his good temper got the better of him and he grinned to himself.
John wasn’t given to introspection: he knew his place in the world, knew what gave him pleasure, and didn’t reason or rationalize why things were as they were. But he also had the gift of seeing the ridiculous side of any situation, and at this moment it was tempting to give a guffaw at his own position. Here he was, after a summer of enjoying his woman, complaining because her master had come home early for once. And instead of lying with her in her bed, John was here, in the dark, with a sprained ankle and a damn great wall to surmount.
“Should’ve taken the knight’s advice,” he muttered.
Shaking his head at the capricious nature of fate, he haltingly made his way round the wall to his oak. Here he unwound his rope and drew back his arm to catch the broken limb. But as his arm went back, it was suddenly gripped. John stiffened in silent terror as the blade of a long knife shimmered in an arc before him, gleaming evilly in the light of the stars before coming to rest on his Adam’s apple.
He swallowed. Carefully. “Ah-it’s a fine night for a walk, isn’t it, sir?”
It was no surprise that the leper camp was so dark, for there was no need of lighting for the inmates. Their day began with the dawn, and when the darkness stole over the land they went to their beds.
Quivil was used to the dark. In his home, so few miles away, the days were gauged by whether the animals were awake, and at this time of night, all were asleep. Now, he knew, his father would be sitting at his old stool before the fire, occasionally casting an eye at the sheep as they grumbled to themselves, huddled in the corner farthest from him. He would be whittling a stick, sometimes breaking off to whet his blade against the stone by the fire, spitting to lubricate the metal as he honed it to sharpness.
For his whole life Quivil had assumed he would take his place there by the fire. He had thought he would replace his father when the old man died, and then he would sit at the stool and fashion walking sticks and furniture by the firelight until the days grew longer and his every waking hour was filled with other forms of work. He had seen himself growing old and bent, just as his father was, knowing what his responsibilities were, knowing what jobs needed to be done daily. And where his mother sat, near her man, there would Mary sit, her eyes on him, looking to ensure that he was content, just as his mother had always watched his father so lovingly. And now he had nothing to look forward to. His life was over.
A noise came from outside his doorway, and the curtain was pulled aside. Framed against the night sky Quivil saw a darker shape. He muttered to himself, pulled his blanket tighter and rolled away. This room was home to another besides himself, and he assumed this must be his roommate. He had no desire for company, he wanted the peace of solitude.
But it wasn’t one man preparing to climb into bed. Quivil heard murmuring voices. They were hoarse from the disease they shared, but it wasn’t that which made his blood run chill. It was the cruel delight in them.
“What are you doing? What do you want?” he demanded, turning to face them.
“We want you.”
All at once he was grabbed by four pairs of hands, and hauled from his mattress. He could do nothing: his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and all he could utter was a whimper of dread.
They dragged him from the hut and out into the black night. The cold penetrated his robe, sending a fresh trickle of ice-cold terror washing down his spine. His mind, which had been in a state of sheer panic for days already, was frozen with horror. He had lost all will. In his blue funk he was certain he was about to die, but after the loss of all his self-respect and the destruction of his life, he had no strength to resist.
He could see them in the miserable light, and to his strained senses they looked like demons: small, misshapen, deformed, swollen with the putrescence of leprosy. Their appearance was that of gibbering fiends, their stench was the reek of the charnel-house. He was transfixed with horror.
They stopped, and he heard one of them give a chuckle. It sounded like the devil himself. Quivil felt his knees weaken, and would have fallen, but felt himself propelled forward, and then he found he was falling. The ground opened into a gaping hole before him, and he screamed, a high, keening noise, as he saw the earth rise up on either side.
Rodde had seen the petrified Quivil being dragged to the chapel’s yard as he reentered the grounds. He had slipped into the protection of the building’s wall as the group passed by, then followed after. At the sight of the young man being shoved into the newly dug grave, he felt rage choke him. It took but a moment to cover the few yards to the men, and he swung his staff. It caught a leper on the shoulder, then he whirled to stab and thrust at the others. “Leave him, you bastards!” he spat, his staff held high over his chest.
“Leave us alone, stranger. It’s nothing-we do it to all the new ones,” one man whined.
Rodde knew it was true. He had been forced to undergo a similar initiation ceremony when he had first been driven into a camp; the other lepers had thrown him into a grave, then scattered soil on him in obscene imitation of burial; sometimes he had seen other victims squirming while their tormenters urinated over them.
“It stops now.” Rodde couldn’t prevent his voice from shaking with disgust. He caught sight of a figure hobbling near him, and the stick shot out, catching the man in the chest. “I said it stops! Now, leave us.”
He stood protectively while the lepers, muttering to themselves, backed away from him and made off toward their huts, and only when they had disappeared did he glance down into the hole. At the bottom, Quivil was kneeling, sobbing, gathering up handfuls of soil and wiping them over his face, smearing blood and tears together into a mask of utter despair.