Dark Ages. John Pritchard
then looked round. Prentice stood there, looking jittery. She smiled at him. ‘Okay?’
He nodded jerkily. ‘Wanna see John.’
‘Fine. I’ll leave you to it, then.’ Getting up, she glanced at John; still looking for a spark of empathy. But he’d gone back to studying the Bible on the tabletop before him.
She moved away, still watching. Prentice sidled up towards the table, as gingerly as someone paying homage to his lord. He’d been here for a fortnight – a schizophrenic, suffering from paranoid delusions. Among other things, he’d claimed that his landlord had tried to kill him – by injecting spiders with petrol, and sending them along the pipes like tiny firebombs. Prentice had related this with unblinking conviction: enough to send imaginary spiders up her spine.
He rummaged in his pocket now, and brought three cigarettes out. With deference he laid them on the table. John looked up solemnly …
‘How do, Sister.’
‘Mike.’ She knew his jovial voice before she even turned. ‘And how’re you today?’
He was sitting in an armchair, looking smug. ‘Cooking on gas, Sister. Feeling fine. Living life on the line.’
‘I’m not a Sister, Mike, I’m just a poor downtrodden staff nurse.’ She went across to join him. ‘You’re feeling good today, then?’
‘Cooking on gas …’ He nodded vigorously. ‘Soon be out of here, yes.’
Still wearing a reflexive smile, she glanced back towards the table. John had claimed his gift of cigarettes. He was murmuring to Prentice, who looked spellbound. She felt the faintest twinge of apprehension – as if watching a child making friends with a stray, grizzled dog.
‘Care to join me in a game of draughts?’ asked Mike.
‘Can’t today,’ she said. ‘I’m going early.’
He nodded. ‘Fair enough … Cooking on gas, feeling fine, living life on the line.’
I’ll give you bloody gas, she thought. It made her realize just how stressed she was, behind her smile.
Prentice left the day-room, with a covert glance at her. Perhaps he thought she had a spider up her sleeve. Or maybe John had warned him to watch out …
Now who’s getting paranoid, my girl? She walked back over. John’s eyes came up warily. His hand closed round the cigarettes, as if he thought she’d take them.
‘It’s all right, you can keep them.’ She hesitated. ‘Just take care not to frighten him, he’s younger than he looks.’
Sitting back, he searched her face: like someone trying to see behind her eyes. She felt an inner tingle of discomfort. Her tiredness welled up, and almost peeled her smile away. The worry that had nagged throughout the shift began to bite.
‘What do you tell them, John? Why do they come?’
He didn’t blink; just answered in an almost wary tone. ‘They think that I can save them from this place.’
‘Oh, John. We’re trying to help you all, you know that.’
He rested his chin on one hand, and returned his attention to the book.
‘Remember it’s no smoking on the ward,’ she said, a little stiffly. ‘We don’t want you starting a fire.’
He looked up again, from under his brows. She glimpsed a strange, sharp glimmer in his eyes. Then the shutters rattled down again.
Claire gave a sigh, and turned away. She needed to be off in any case, her appointment was at four. Now that it was getting close, she found her mouth was dry. She thought he might be watching as she walked back down the ward, but she didn’t bother looking round to see. Right now her mind was otherwise engaged.
Perhaps some holy people were allowed into this place. Perhaps the demons couldn’t keep them out. He thought she might be one such: curiously attired, but still a Sister. One of the Franciscan Clares, perhaps – she’d claimed that she was poor. He closed his twitchy fingers to a fist.
We don’t want you starting a fire, she’d said. He realized that she knew about his sins. He looked back to the Bible; but his mind broke free, and plunged into the past.
3
The village looked like Hell had ridden through it.
Everything had been laid waste – the place and all its people. Houses had collapsed like burnt-out bonfires. Vivid flames still licked amid the heaps of blackened timber, but mostly there was just the smoke and stench. The sewer stench of battle, like a cesspit full of blood.
Appalled, he stumbled closer. His sandals squelched through the yellow mud. Everywhere he looked, he saw destruction. People had been hacked and burned to death. There were no bodies here, just lumps of bodies. Skinny dogs were scavenging along the littered road.
A dusty-looking group of men had gathered in the square. Lean and vicious as the dogs, and scavengers like them. Routiers, the Frenchmen called them. Restless thieves and killers on the road.
‘In Christ’s name, what is this?’ the Preacher said – so horrified, he spoke in his own language.
One of them was an Italian, too: a smiler in a grimy leather coat. He looked towards the newcomer, and shrugged. ‘The will of Holy Church. An end to heresy.’
His voice was harsh – the smile, a scar. As if the man was maimed inside; disfigured by the things which he had done.
The Preacher looked from face to face, in anger and dismay. The youngest were like old men now, their features smoked and callused. Souls had withered; eyes had lost their colour. Two or three of them were drunk, and glowered stupidly. The rest just stared in unrepentant silence.
And how did he appear to them? A poor friar, made sterner by his eyes and greying hair. Presence enough to give them pause? Or was he just a beggar among wolves?
The silence grew around them, except where flames still crackled in the background.
‘You can’t speak for Holy Church, and murder men like this.’
The other’s smile became a sneer. ‘It’s you who preached the judgment, friend – you dogs of Dominic.’
They knew him by his clothes, of course. The travel-stained white habit and black cloak. A Friar Preacher on the road – as rootless as themselves. He’d railed against the heretics at every market cross. But how could he have driven men to this?
‘Dominic came to reason with these people – not to burn them.’
‘How can someone reason with the enemies of God? Kill ’em all, says Holy Church: the Lord will know His own.’
The Preacher braced his staff against the ground: the gesture like a challenge to their daggers and their swords.
‘The poor are His own people. You kill them, and they cry out for revenge.’
The smiler’s eyes grew narrower. ‘Spare us the sermon, brother dog. You’d better get along – or stay and join them.’
Mirthless chuckles drifted round the square. The Preacher closed his fist around the staff. He gave each routier a last, accusing glance; then strode on through them, following the road.
One of the men called out in French: his tone was coarse and taunting. The last words made the Preacher turn his head.
Chevaliers de charogne.
‘What did he say?’
The smiler shrugged. ‘There are mercenaries fighting for the heretics. Carrion Knights. Black English.’ His smile didn’t flicker, but he quickly crossed himself. ‘Try preaching them your sermon … Domini Canis.’
The