Holy Blood Read online

  From then on he kept out of the towns, scuttling into hamlets only long enough to buy provisions, and dodging back to obscurity again. When he approached Winchcombe, the sight of the green Cotswold hills ignited memories in his heart. Taken to live in the butcher’s family, learning how to slit a pig and catch the blood; mincing flesh into puddings; the iron salt tang that hung over the house and shop. Was this home, he wondered, as the old horse slogged down the main street. No one now to recognise him or even remember the orphan child the butcher took in.

  The horse’s lungs were leather, cracked and wheezing. Lazarus fingered the coins in the bag at his waist. A night in an inn. A warm stall and good feed for the mare; a pallet and blanket for him; and a plate of meat and bread. He turned the horse’s head towards the inn and swung painfully out of the saddle.

  ‘Brush her down and give her food and water,’ he ordered the stable lad who scuttled out to greet him. The boy blanched at the sight of him and grabbed the reins, yanking the horse away.

  Lazarus tugged off his leather gloves and stumped into the inn. ‘A bed for the night, food, and ale,’ he demanded.

  The innkeeper looked him up and down, wiping his hands over the front of his apron. ‘We’ve not welcomed you before, stranger,’ he said.

  ‘Nay,’ said Lazarus.

  ‘You travelling through?’

  ‘Aye.’ Lazarus coughed. ‘Thought to see the old Abbey on my way.’

  The innkeeper shook his head. ‘Not much left of it now. Though it’s risen again in many houses.’

  Lazarus recalled the stone dwellings lining the main street. Stone pilfered from the destroyed Abbey. And why not? No point it lying smashed and mossy on the ground. He remembered the Abbey from his childhood, its imposing towers and the bustle of activity. All gone.

  ‘And the other Abbey, Hailes, is gone too?’ Lazarus asked.

  ‘A long time ago,’ the innkeeper agreed. He took a leather beaker from a shelf and filled it with beer from a barrel. It frothed and spattered onto the floor.

  ‘It was a place of healing,’ Lazarus said. He fingered the scar down his face with his left hand, revealing the stumps where his fingers had been.

  ‘There is physic to be had there, for those in need,’ the innkeeper said, sliding the beaker of ale over to Lazarus.

  Lazarus threw some coins down on the table. ‘A warm, dry bed is what my tired bones need tonight,’ he said.

  His bed was in a dormitory: a long room that ran the length of the inn. The beds lay in two lines facing each other, low to the ground. Lazarus’s hips screamed as he lowered himself onto his pallet. Though there was space for twelve people in the room, to his relief he only had four bedfellows: two young men who snored like the devil, and a couple who claimed to be husband and wife, though from their endearments and soft glances they had not yet met before a priest. They occupied the furthest corner of the room and squirmed beneath the blankets all night.

  Lazarus took the pallet opposite the door. Old instincts: his escape was ready should he need it. He fell asleep almost the moment he lay down and covered himself with the blanket. He woke in the deep part of the night to snoring and lovers’ murmuring. A flea bit his neck. His scratched it and slept again. When he woke, it was dawn.

  He rose and folded the blanket onto the pallet, and trudged downstairs, startling the innkeeper who was still in his nightshirt.

  ‘You’re an early riser, my friend,’ he said.

  ‘An old habit,’ Lazarus said. ‘Bread, beef, ale, when you’re ready.’

  The look he gave the innkeeper sent him scurrying to his chamber for clothes, and he reappeared shortly after and set about preparing Lazarus’s breakfast.

  ‘There is physic to be had in Hailes?’ he asked, grinding on a tough bit of beef. ‘My horse needs a poultice. She’s nearer to glue than horseflesh.’

  ‘They say he can cure animals as well as man,’ the innkeeper said.

  ‘He?’

  ‘An old monk. He worked in the infirmary at the Abbey, and stayed there to minister to the sick after the place was pulled down.’

  ‘Where might I find him?’ Lazarus gulped a mouthful of beer. ‘Maybe he can cure my aching bones as well as my horse.’

  ‘He has a cottage in the old Abbey grounds. Go to the village of Hailes and ask for Brother John. They’ll tell you where to find him.’

  ‘Brother John?’

  ‘Aye. He works miracles, so they say.’

  Hailes village was a cluster of wattle-and-daub cottages around a central flattened circle of earth. Beyond lay the ruins of the Abbey: a skeleton of jagged stones and empty windows raising its fists to the sky. Lazarus dismounted when he saw scraps of smoke rising from the cottages, and led the wheezing nag into the village. There was an inn at the edge of the village: a timber-framed house that was as crooked as his horse’s back.

  A girl sat outside the inn, shelling peas into a bowl clamped between her knees. Her eyes narrowed as Lazarus approached.

  ‘Can a thirsty man get ale and bread here, mistress?’ Lazarus asked.

  She glanced at his scars then scurried into the inn. Lazarus’s paw was in the bowl and the sweet peas in his mouth before she’d reached the inn door. A pea popped on his tongue. How long since he’d tasted them. All those years in the Holy Land, with fruits and dried meat, and he’d yearned for a freshly shelled pea.

  Theresa had never understood when he told her about his homeland. She’d gazed at him with her large, dark eyes full of merriment, and traced her plump fingers down his chest to his groin.

  ‘Tell me about the English girls,’ she’d whispered, her hot breath alive in his ear.

  ‘They couldn’t hold a candle to any I’ve seen here,’ he’d said, his hands in her hair as her mouth moved down his body.

  He rubbed his eyes to wipe away the memory of Theresa. A long time ago now. A long time since he’d left her dead body sprawled on the bed, mouth gaping and bloody where her teeth had gnashed against her lips.

  The girl reappeared with a hunk of bread and a beaker of ale. He tossed her a coin and took up a place in the shade in the ley of the inn. The ale was sour and the bread hard. It had been baked two days ago and the mice had had their turn before him, judging by its nibbled edges. He tore off a corner with his teeth, softening it with the ale and swilling it round his mouth several turns before swallowing.

  The girl watched him from the stool.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, mistress,’ he called. ‘I know I am the stuff of nightmares, but I am just a poor sick man.’

  ‘You travelling through?’

  ‘I have been told to find physic here,’ he said.

  The girl nodded. ‘He’s at the Abbey.’ She stared at the stumps of his fingers and the scars on his face. ‘Though whether he can help you, I cannot say.’

  The ale and bread didn’t refresh him, but he left the horse with a bucket of water and a nosebag, and walked to the Abbey. The gatehouse was gone, the stones pulled down and the lead carted away. There was little left of the Abbey church either, the windows empty eye sockets and the altar exposed.

  Sheep grazed amongst the ruins. They lifted their heads and stared as he walked past. One side of the Abbey was laid out in a garden. Lavender, lady’s mantle, sage, rosemary, sorrel. Apple trees spread their branches against a wall, soaking up the sun. Kneeling beside a clump of feverfew was a man in long dark robes. As Lazarus’s shadow fell over him, he turned.

  ‘Good day, my friend,’ he said.

  He was an old man, in his sixties by the look of him, and his skin was burned to the colour of acorns by the sun. A large nose dominated his thin face, but the main feature was a pair of bulging blue eyes.

  He struggled to his feet with difficulty and took up a walking stick and propped it under his arm. ‘You have come far, my friend,’ he said. It wasn’t a question.

  ‘A goodish way,’ Lazarus agreed.

  ‘And have seen many troubles.’

  Unthinking, Lazarus finge
red the scar down his face. ‘True enough, as any can see.’

  The blue eyes pierced his for a long moment. ‘And your soul has known much sorrow.’

  Lazarus laughed. ‘I long ago stopped worrying about that.’

  The eyes never left his face. ‘Perhaps you should.’ The old man steadied himself on his walking stick. ‘I can help you,’ he said. ‘I cannot make your fingers grow back, but I can ease those pains in your hips that trouble you at night. And I can ease the nightmares that will not go away.’

  He turned and walked to the far end of the garden, and set about snipping twigs of rosemary and stripping the leaves.

  ‘Who are you?’ Lazarus called.

  The old man turned. ‘I am Brother John.’ He held Lazarus’s gaze for a long, silent moment before he said, ‘Do you not know me, Sweet Matthew? I knew you at once. You’ve come home, I see.’

  Winchcombe, March 1536

  The pig, its insides plundered, hung from a hook in the killing shed. A stench of singed bristle choked the air. The blood was still warm as it poured into the bowl.

  ‘Take that to the kitchen, boy,’ Samuel, the butcher, ordered.

  Matthew took up the bowl and a little of the blood slopped onto his hand.

  ‘Don’t you spill a drop, boy.’

  Head down, concentrating on the blood sloshing from side to side, Matthew inched across the yard towards the open kitchen door.

  ‘Don’t take all day about it!’ The roar behind him made him jump. The bowl jerked and fell from his hands, landing with a smash on the cobbles, and the blood spread in a scarlet river.

  Two heavy footsteps behind him. Matthew cowered and scrabbled for the broken pieces of pottery. A hand grabbed a fistful of his hair, wrenching him to his feet. His scalp was on fire.

  ‘You stupid bastard!’ Samuel shouted, his face so close that spittle landed on Matthew’s lips. ‘You’ll pay for that.’

  He let go of his hair, but only so he could land a punch on the side of Matthew’s head. His neck snapped back and for a moment pinpricks of light danced in front of him. As his head righted itself, a punch landed on the other side. This one felled him, and he sprawled in the spilt blood.

  ‘Get up, you bastard!’ Samuel shouted, his bulk heaving.

  Matthew curled into a ball, his arms wrapped round his head. Dimity would be out soon, he prayed. She always stopped Samuel before he went too far.

  ‘Get up!’ A kick in his ribs. ‘So you’re a coward as well as a useless boy!’ Another kick.

  Matthew dug his fingernails into the cobbles and dragged himself along a few inches closer to Dimity in the kitchen. She must’ve heard the racket by now.

  He tried calling, ‘Dimity! Dimity!’

  ‘She won’t help you,’ Samuel said, stamping on his arm. ‘She knows better than to cross me.’ He swung back his foot and slugged Matthew straight in the face.

  All was black, he didn’t know how long for, but when he could see again, he made out Dimity hugging the kitchen door, crying. A bruise circled her eye.

  ‘Dimity!’ he tried to cry, but the word came out as a froth of blood and spit.

  ‘Get up,’ Samuel said. ‘Get up I tell you.’

  Matthew saw the foot swing back again, and flinched, his arms around his head, waiting for the blow.

  ‘Stop!’

  Matthew peeked out and knew he was dead already. A tall man in white robes stood over him, the sun behind his head casting a halo over his fair hair.

  ‘What are you doing to this child?’ the angel of death asked.

  ‘He’s a useless piece of shit.’

  The angel of death crouched down next to Matthew and asked gently, ‘Are you hurt, child?’

  Matthew attempted a nod, and winced with pain.

  The angel stood. ‘You have hurt this child before now.’ He directed a glance at Dimity, cowering by the kitchen door, who gave a barely perceptible nod.

  ‘Five years we’ve had him,’ Samuel said. ‘Fed him and warmed him at our fire, and this is how he repays us?’

  ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

  ‘And all the other times? He didn’t mean those, neither?’

  The angel of death regarded Samuel for a long moment. ‘I will take the boy,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He can be useful to me.’ He bent to Matthew and asked, ‘Can you stand?’

  He helped Matthew to his feet, and putting one arm about him, started to lead him out of the yard.

  ‘Now hang on a moment!’ Samuel called, running after them. ‘That’s my boy. You can’t just take my boy.’

  The angel fixed him with a look from piercing blue eyes. ‘He is not your boy, he is an orphan who your wife, in her pity, took in. He has been troublesome to you, but he can be useful to me. I relieve you of your responsibility.’

  And with that he turned and led Matthew away, through the town, and out along the dusty road to the Abbey.

  ‘Am I dead?’ Matthew asked.

  The angel laughed. ‘No, you’re not dead, and once I treat those cuts you’ll be good as new.’

  ‘Then who are you?’

  ‘I am Brother John,’ the angel said. ‘Infirmarian at Hailes Abbey.’ Matthew looked at him properly: a large nose in a long, bony face; a young man’s face. Brother John was not yet thirty. ‘And what do they call you, child?’

  ‘I am Matthew Sweet,’ Matthew answered. ‘But some call me Lazarus, on account of how I survived the sweats when the others didn’t.’

  The blue eyes appraised him for a moment. ‘Matthew Sweet. Sweet Matthew. Very well.’

  He took Matthew into the infirmary, where he stripped him off and tutted at the blue and green mottling his body: a map of the beatings Samuel had dispensed.

  ‘I feared you had been hurt more,’ Brother John said, ‘seeing all the blood on your clothes.’

  ‘It’s pig blood,’ Matthew said. ‘I dropped the bowl.’

  To his astonishment, Brother John tipped back his head and laughed. ‘Thank God for that,’ he said.

  Matthew laughed in return, then fingered his cut lips. ‘Ow.’

  ‘You’re made of strong stuff, Sweet Matthew,’ Brother John said, as he painted ointment onto the cuts from that day’s kicking. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Ten, Brother John.’

  ‘Old enough to work and young enough to learn. How would you like to be my apprentice, in the infirmary?’

  Matthew looked around at the bottles and jars, the spices and herbs hanging up to dry, and at the soft features of this man, and nodded.

  Brother John brought him a sour-tasting potion in a leather beaker and tucked him up in clean linen in a corner of the infirmary dormitory. He shared the room with an ageing monk who muttered to himself in the far corner. Though the windows were too high up on the wall to see out, a defiant March sunshine painted the boards with warm stripes. Matthew fell asleep to the chimes of the Abbey bell calling the brothers to prayer.

  When he awoke, Brother John’s cool hand was on his forehead.

  ‘You’ve slept well, my friend,’ the monk said. ‘Almost a whole day and a night. Are you hungry?’

  He was, and he grabbed at the bowl of mutton broth and barley that Brother John handed to him, tipping it to his lips.

  ‘Steady! There is plenty.’

  ‘I thought monks didn’t eat,’ he said, through slurps of broth.

  ‘We fast, as good men do, but that does not apply to you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you are a lay brother, not a monk,’ Brother John said. ‘The lay brothers’ lodgings are on the other side of the Abbey. Warm, too, and you can chatter all you want. I’ll take you there once you are well again.’

  Matthew glanced around at the long room. ‘Can’t I stay here? With you?’

  Brother John sucked in a breath and thought for a moment. ‘Brother Abbot will not like it, but then he is seldom here. And if he discovers you, we will tell him you’re my servant in the i
nfirmary and I need you close at hand at all times.’ He smiled. ‘How does that please you?’

  ‘Very much,’ Matthew said. He finished the broth and slid his finger around the bowl, scooping up the remains of the thick, greasy soup.

  ‘You must rest again today,’ Brother John said. ‘But tomorrow I think you will be mended enough to start your lessons.’

  ‘Lessons?’ He didn’t like the sound of that.

  ‘Aye, boy, I’ll teach you all I know.’

  And he did. Each morning, the two went to Brother John’s garden, where he grew the herbs and plants he used in his ointments and syrups. With infinite patience, he explained how to tend each plant, and what effect each one had on the body.

  ‘This will strengthen the heart of a man whose blood is sluggish,’ he told Matthew one day, as the foxglove spikes unfurled. ‘But don’t ever give it to a man in good health, for it may kill him.’

  ‘Kill him?’

  ‘All things are good, in the right measure,’ Brother John said. ‘But in the wrong measure, they may harm a man or send him to his death.’

  The afternoons were spent mixing medicines and pounding roots into plasters so the infirmary was always well stocked should any come to the door seeking relief. At night, once the great bolt was shot across the Abbey gates, and the monks settled to their devotions, Brother John and Matthew dwelled before the infirmary fire, a Bible open between them, and Brother John taught him how to read.

  One evening, almost a month after he’d arrived at the Abbey, while he was spelling out the Sermon on the Mount by the wayward flame of a small fire, Matthew was struck with a deep and shocking emotion. His words faltered and his heart stammered in his chest.

  ‘Matthew? You do not know the word?’

  ‘I do know it, Brother, it’s just …’ he shook his head and continued with the reading, but late that night, when the darkness closed around him in his bed in the infirmary, he picked the emotion raw again and at last was able to name it. Contentment. For the first time in his life he was safe.