The Hanged Man

Chapter Two

During the next few days, I lay in that twilight state, half waking, half sleeping, between sanity and nightmare, when evil seems to gibber at the edges of the senses and has to be fought with might and main to be held at bay.

Only on three occasions before the fever finally abated did I have moments of conscious clarity.

The first time, I think, must have been briefly on the morning following my arrival, for just long enough to remember what had happened and to take in my surroundings. I had been undressed and was wearing a clean linen shift a size or so too small for me. The material was strained across my chest and had already split a little near the top of one of the sleeves. I was lying on a straw-filled mattress, covered with a couple of rough blankets which smelled sweetly of dried lavender, close to a central hearth. A fire of driftwood and sea coal, both doubtless scavenged for along the shores of the tidal River Avon, belched smoke through a hole in the roof of the cottage's single room. An adjustable pot-hook hung from the metal crossbar of a cooking crane, and from the hook was suspended a sizeable iron pot which made bubbling noises as well as giving forth the smell of a good broth; an aroma which at any other time would have made my mouth water, but then only made me heave.

I closed my eyes for a moment and did not open them again until my stomach had settled. This second glance informed me that a spinning-wheel stood near the only window whose shutters were open, allowing the pallid daylight of a January day to filter through the oiled parchment pane. The dim outline of a bed, large enough to a accommodate two people, could be seen at one end of the room, while a chest, a table, two stools, a wooden bench and a narrow cupboard were ranged around the walls. Recollecting the direction in which I had been carried in the litter, down the gentle slope of High Street and across Bristol Bridge, my previous experience of the city, nearly three years old now but still vividly remembered, told me that I was in the Redcliffe district where the weavers had their quarters, huddled in the lee of St Thomas's Church. There were rich dwellings here, as I recalled, but this was a weaver's cottage. Or had been, I guessed, when Mistress Walker's husband was alive; and it said much for the master that he had not turned her and her daughter out after the man's untimely death, although she was undoubtedly valuable as a spinner.

That was my last thought as I drifted once more into a semi-conscious state. The soft, low tones of women's voices, the rustle of their feet among the floor rushes, were only dimly heard; their gentle touch, as they washed mid fed me and attended to more intimate needs, only vaguely felt. I had retreated again into darkness and a world where I either burned or froze, but which was never free of demons.

The second time I came to myself, it was night. Rushlights burned in candle-holders set on table and chest.

Shadows flickered and curtseyed across the walls.

Margaret Walker was spinning by the light of a dying fire, while the girl Lillis sat and watched her. I realized with a shock that I had been moved to the comfort of the bed, and that the mattress I had lain on formerly was rolled up, together with the blankets, against one wall, and was, presumably, being used by the women. Had I been so ill that such a sacrifice was necessary? It must have been so, and indeed, when I made an attempt to move and call out, my limbs and voice refused to obey me. The most I could achieve was a feeble motion of one hand and a kind of mangled croak.

It was enough, however, to attract Lillis's attention and to bring her immediately to my side. 'He's awake, Mother,' she said, and the chatter of the spinning-wheel ceased.

Margaret Walker crossed the room in her deliberate, unhurried fashion, and smiled down at me. 'Don't try to talk,' she instructed, placing a soothing hand on my forehead. 'I expect you're thirsty. Lillis, fetch water and put some of that dried lettuce-juice powder in it. It'll make him sleep and that's what he needs just now. You've been very sick,' she added, confirming my own suspicions, 'and it will take a day or so yet before you're fit enough to be allowed out of bed.' She took the beaker handed to her by Lillis and held it to my lips. 'Get this down. It will do you good.' She propped up my shoulders while I drank, then lowered me back on to the pillows. 'Can you manage to tell me your name?' she asked. 'It's difficult not knowing what to call you.'

'Roger,' I whispered and closed my eyes. It worried me that I felt so weak, and that so little effort left me exhausted. I needed to get back on the road as soon as possible and to stop imposing on the charity of these good women.

Margaret seemed to read my thoughts. 'You're not to worry,' she admonished me. 'You must stay here until you are completely well. It's no hardship to us. In fact, it's a pleasure to me to have a man to look after again. I've missed the sense of purpose since my father died…' She broke off short, as though she had said more than she intended, and got up from her seat on the edge of the bed. 'There! Try to sleep now.'

She returned to her spinning-wheel, calling sharply to Lillis, who showed a tendency to linger at the bedside, smoothing my forehead with small, cold fingers. I smiled at the girl and let my eyelids droop, but continued watching her from beneath my lashes.

Lillis Walker was slight and very dark. Thin and plain, her huge brown eyes and coils of thick black hair were her two redeeming features. Her skin was sallow, her face elfin, and her body had the sharp angularity of a child's.

I still remember the surprise I felt when I learned that she was less than two years younger than myself, and was approaching her twentieth birthday. Her movements were quick and birdlike as she darted impulsively from one thing to another, her bright, inquiring gaze taking in everything around her. She had a strong Celtic strain, derived from her maternal grandmother, a Cornishwoman, and her father's people, who had originally come from Wales. All this, however, I learned much later, when I was up and about. That evening, as I lay and watched her as she returned reluctantly to her mother's side, I simply thought her a rather odd child.

The dried lettuce juice was starting to work its potent spell, lulling me once more into a troubled sleep, when there was a knock on the door which jerked me awake.

Both women stared silently for a moment, first at the door, then at each other.

'Don't answer,' breathed Lillis.

The tapping came again, soft but persistent. With a resigned sigh, Margaret rose to her feet and drew back the bolts and bar before opening the door a crack. From where I was lying, the aperture was just wide enough to help me make out a shadowy form and the gleam of a lantern, partially obscured by a drape of black cloth. Whoever stood outside was evidently at pains not to advertise his presence as he went about his business through the dark streets. This reticence might simply have been the result of its being after curfew, but somehow I did not think so. Obedience to the bell was no longer as strictly enforced as it had been once upon a time, any more than curfew's original purpose of damping down fires was nowadays regularly observed.

I caught a low, indistinguishable murmur, then Margaret's voice sounding firm and dear. 'No. I've already told you, I don't want you here. I made my message plain after my father died. You waste your time and mine. Please go.'

The caller, however, was not so easily put off. Further mutterings followed until his unwilling listener lost her patience. 'No! And again, no! You and your kind have no place in this house any longer. Remove your foot or I shall send my girl for the Watch.' Margaret glanced over her shoulder, 'Lillis!'

But there was no need for Lillis to risk the night streets, as her mother had probably guessed. The threat of authority was sufficient to frighten her unwelcome visitor and make him withdraw in a hurry. There was something which sounded like a curse, the lantern bobbed and dipped and then the light disappeared. Margaret Walker shut and barred the door for the second time that evening, and returned to her seat by the fire. I expected her to be upset, but when she spoke, she sounded more angry than perturbed.

'I think they've realized I'm in earnest and won't bother us again. At least, let's hope so. If they do, then they'll have to understand…'

But what the mysterious 'they' would be made aware of, I was not at that point destined to know. The lettuce powder had done its work and I heard no more. I fell asleep as abruptly as a candle-flame is doused by the snuffers.

I have said that I had three moments of clarity during those early days of my illness, and of the two I have recounted, I was perfectly certain. They remained fixed in my memory long after I was up and about and taking my first cautious steps about the room. Of the third, however, I retained doubts for some time, until Lillis herself unblushingly assured me that it was true; that I had not dreamt it, that she had indeed crept naked into my bed to warm me when I was in the throes of one of the terrible shivering fits which seized me during the onset of the fever.

'You were so cold,' she said, propping her elbow on the table and cupping her chin in one hand. She regarded me unblinkingly across the narrow board, her gaze wide and limpid as though what she was admitting to was the most natural thing in the world. And so I might have thought it in this strange elfin creature, half woman, half child, except for a gleam of prurience lurking at the back of the eyes; those enormous dark eyes which seemed at times to be the whole of her face.

I could feel the hot colour mounting my cheeks, and was thankful that I had not yet found the energy to shave.

A week's growth of strong, springy, blond hair was sufficient to mask my blushes.

My companion went on a little breathlessly. 'I only asked if you remembered because you haven't mentioned what happened, and I wasn't sure if you did. Remember, I mean. And if you did, you might blurt it out in front of Mother, and she… well, she might not understand.' This I could believe. I cleared my throat and answered as steadily as I was able, 'Yes, I do recall… That is, I thought what happened, happened. But I wasn't sure if I had dreamt it or not.'

Lillis gave her small, secretive smile and flicked me an upwards glance from beneath her long lashes. 'Oh no, you didn't dream it. It was that first night after we brought you home. You were on the mattress on the floor and Mother and I were in bed. She was fast asleep and so were you, but then in the early hours of the morning you grew restless, moaning and tossing. Then you began to shiver violently. Your teeth were chattering and you couldn't seem to get warm. I slid out of bed to put another piece of turf on the fire, but then… well… I thought it a better idea to get under the blankets with you and wrap you in my arms.' The smile deepened and the eyes became like a cat's: two gleaming slits. 'And it soothed you. After a while, you stopped shaking and fell asleep.

So I stayed with you until the first crack of light showed through the shutters, when I crept back to bed. And not a moment too soon. Mother was stirring within minutes, but she suspected nothing, and there's no need that she should ever know.' "

'I certainly shan't tell her,' I assured Lillis fervently.

She gave a little crow of laughter. 'You're embarrassed! A great lad like you who's probably had a score of girls! I wonder why.'

I would have been hard put to it myself to explain why the thought of her naked body curled close to mine, even though I knew nothing of it, made me so uncomfortable. She was right; there had been women in plenty these past two years since, an innocent escaping from the religious life, I had laid my first girl on the banks of the River Stour, in far-off Kent. Was it because I already suspected that she had marked me down as her own? The huntress and her quarry.

It was late afternoon, some fortnight after I had entered Bristol through the Pithay Gate, and for the fourth or fifth day running I had been allowed to get up, wash and dress myself and take a few tentative steps up and down the room. Tomorrow I would definitely be rid of my beard, and as soon as possible after that I must start looking for other lodgings where I could stay until I was fit enough to take to the road once more with my pack. I had insisted on sleeping on the floor again at nights, thus enabling the women to return to their bed, but the confined space was becoming an embarrassment, as well as making me feel hemmed in.

Margaret Walker, who had finished spinning for the day, had taken her yam to the weaving sheds, and would be back presently with her two willow panniers dangling from their shoulder-yoke and packed with new wool. Outside, the weather continued icy-cold and wet, the relentless spears of rain soaking the cobbles, making the stones treacherous to walk on and causing the pack-animals to slither miserably beneath their loads. So much I had been able to observe from the open doorway before Lillis had scolded me back to the warmth of the fire. And it was when I had settled myself on a stool at one end of the table, my feet extended towards the blaze on the hearth, that she had come to sit opposite me and asked if I remembered her getting in beside me that first night.

Now, our conversation had petered out, and we sat in silence, Lillis continuing to watch me, more than ever like a cat with a mouse, while I resolutely avoided her gaze, staring into the burning heart of the fire. And it was thus that Margaret Walker found us when she at last returned, a gust of bitter wind almost lifting her off her feet as she came through the doorway, in spite of the heavy baskets hanging at her sides.

'You're both very quiet,' she said, lowering her burdens to the floor and unhooking them from the wooden yoke.

She shook the drops of water from her cloak and put back her hood, exclaiming sharply as she did so, 'Lillis! Why haven't you begun to get the meal? You haven't even put the water on to boil, let alone prepared the vegetables for the pot.'

Lillis grimaced but, to her credit, she never took exception however harsh her mother's tone, and sometimes Margaret's admonitions were unmerited. She rose good-humouredly to her feet, reached down the iron pot from its place on the shelf beside the door, and filled it from the water barrel in one comer. When I would have helped her carry it to the fire, Margaret told me shortly to sit down.

'You're not fit to lift things yet, and besides, we have to manage by ourselves when you're not here. We're both willing and able.'

I had to admit that Lillis, for all her apparent fragility, had great strength in her stick-like arms, and made no more ado about hooking the full pot on to the crossbar of the cooking crane than she might have done about lifting a jar of flowers. I retired once more to my stool, where I sat watching the two women chop up the herbs and root vegetables which provided the staple ingredients of the afternoon meal. For dinner, we had had some salted mutton with our broth, but a lump of bacon fat was considered sufficient to give whatever flavour was needed to our supper stew. And, ladled over a slice of wheat and rye bread, it would suffice to curb my swiftly reviving appetite.

Margaret looked up from her chopping and gave me a smile. 'You're beginning to get the colour back in your cheeks at last, what I can see of them under that beard.'

'It's coming off tomorrow,' I promised. I shifted uneasily on my stool, rightly foreseeing that my next words might cause trouble. 'And then I must be off, to Wells, if I can make it,' I added, coming to a sudden decision. 'It was where I was heading when I lost my way, coming up from Salisbury. It's my birthplace. I was hoping to renew some old acquaintance of my mother’s and find a berth for the winter.'

The consternation on both their faces was writ large.

'But you can't think of walking twenty miles or more in your condition,' Margaret protested angrily. 'I've never heard such foolishness!'

'You have a place to stay. Here!' Lillis wailed. 'You can't desert us, not after all we've done for you!' But this remark only diverted her mother's wrath on to Lillis's own head. 'What we've done, we've done because it was our Christian duty, my girl, and don't you forget it! It's not a weapon to force Roger's hand and make him do something he doesn't wish to.' Margaret turned back to me. 'Take no notice of her, lad. Never consider yourself beholden to us for a minute. I'm only thinking of your health, although I don't deny we'd both be glad of your company if you changed your mind and decided to stay.

It's lonely, just the two of us, these long, dark nights.' Lillis nodded agreement. 'Especially since Grandfather died and there's been all the whispering behind our backs. And sometimes people pass remarks openly within our hearing. As though what happened was our fault, or had anything to do with us! We're just as ignorant of the truth as the rest of them.' She caught Margaret's eye and added impatiently: 'He's going to hear the story sooner or later, Mother, if he stops, So he might as well hear it from us and not just anyone. At least what we tell him will be fact and not just rumour.' She laughed triumphantly. 'Look! I've aroused his interest, you can see it in his face.

Who knows,' Lillis went on mockingly, 'Roger might even be able to resolve the mystery for us!'