The wall of posts, which ran along the near side of the river, ended by the bridge that led out from the settlement to Wales. Once underneath the wooden span the Nenn bent into this direction also, and the wall between him and the river’s edge that wound off likewise westward was replaced by great black hedges serving as fortifications. Having thus come to another one of Hamtun’s corners, Peter turned again and set off down what he now knew to be the longer walk before he’d reach its southern boundary where he’d arrived some hours ago. Up to the right of him there was the silvery quarter of the low grey sky where hid the sun, that was about to start its long fall into night. It was a while by noon as he conceived it.
Trudging south he saw there were not many houses here down on the settlement’s low flank, but only crofts, each with its humble cottage. Off and up the easy slopes ahead, thin yarns of smoke were raised and knit into a pall, so that he thought these higher pastures were more densely settled. Down towards the riverside where Peter walked, though, he could only see a single dwelling in his way that seemed built near the corner of a track, the further one of two that led up from his route and eastward, side by side with empty cattle fields between them.
He approached the nearer of lanes, to pause and peer along it. As it rose away from him it was well-walked and had an ancient look, as did the ditch beside it where a small stream gurgled, come as he supposed out of a fount or spring up near the top. He crossed the bottom of the path, bag dangling at his back, and carried on in way of the stone croft-hut by the corner where the second side-track met his road. The lowly building seemed as though deserted, all alone here on the west hem of the settlement, without the sign of any fires burned in its hearth. Across the muddy thoroughfare from this, to Peter’s right, there was a goodly mound of stone made up, with built above it out of wood a winding-shaft that had a rope and bucket hanging down. He’d had no drink since a freshwater pond he’d passed round daybreak, some leagues south of Hamtun, and so veered from his straight line towards the wellhead, whistling an air he part-recalled from somewhere as he went.
When he was come upon this it was bigger than he’d thought, high to the middle of him where the stones were built up in their ring, which was perhaps two paces over it from side to side. He turned the hand-hold on the winder so that more rope was unrolled, at which the brightly painted wooden bucket dropped away from him down its unfathomable hole. After some moments doing this there came a faint splash from below, and soon thereafter he was hauling up a cup far heavier than was the one that he’d let down. The wetted cable squeaked, and he could hear and feel the slosh against the swaying vessel’s sides as it was pulled up from the dark bore, into daylight. Tying off the rope he drew the bucket to him and looked in, thirsty and eager.
It was blood.
The shock of it was like a blow and set the world to spin, so that he knew not his own thoughts. It felt as if a very cavalry of different understandings were stampeding through him, trampling reason with their dizzy, frightful rush. It was his own blood, where his throat was cut that he’d not known. It was the blood of Hamtun come from generations of its people, poured downhill to drain into this buried reservoir. It was the blood of saints that Saint John the Divine said should be quaffed at the world’s end, when in two hundred years from now it did occur. It was the Saviour’s blood, and by this sign it was announced to Peter that the land and soil itself were Jesu’s flesh, for like the barley and the things of earth was he not cut down to grow up again? It was the heart-sap of a fearsome Mystery and richer red than holly-fruit, a marvel of such magnitude that Christians of an era not yet come should know of it, and know of him, and say that truly in God’s sight he had been favoured, that he had been shown this miracle, this vision …
It was dye.
How was he so complete a fool? He’d seen the vivid cloths that were for sale upon the street of drapers, yet had minded not from where they must have come. He’d let the bright red bucket down the well, yet thought that it was painted for a seal and not that it was stained with its unceasing use. These signs had been as plain as daylight, saving to an idiot, yet in his fervour he was blinded to them and had almost thought himself to be already sainted. He resolved he should not tell his brethren back in Medeshamstede of this shameful error, even as a jest against himself, his puffed-up folly and his vanity, lest they should know him for a prick-head.
Laughing now at how he had been tricked by Hamtun for this second time, he poured the contents of the pail back down the black and gargling throat whence they had been retrieved. Reminded of his brother Matthew back near Peterboro, who had made illuminations onto manuscripts and spoken of his craft with Peter, Peter thought it likely that the water’s colour was achieved with iron rust from out the soil. While this would not have harmed him greatly, he was still uncommon glad that he had not quaffed deep without he looked. Red ochre, after all, was not the only thing that might produce red colouring. There was, for instance, rust of Mercury, and at the Benedictine brothers’ meadow homestead he had heard of monks who’d sucked the bristles of a brush where was red pigment still, to make them wet and form them to a point. Day after day, unwittingly, the monks had done this until they were poisoned by it. It was said of one his bones were made so brittle that when he lay dying and the merest blanket was put onto him for comfort, every part of him was broken by its weight, that he was crushed and killed. If this were a true story, Peter did not know, nor did he think it likely that the water in this present well would be thus tainted, but he was yet happy that he had not put it to the test, lest his half-wit mistake had proved instead a deadly one.
Now that the startlement of the event was passed and he reflected, Peter did not judge himself so foolish as he had done. Though the holy blood as he’d supposed had turned out naught but dye in its material truth, was there not an ideal truth to be considered also, where the earthly stain was but a figure made to stand for that which was unearthly, and so without worldly form? Could not a thing have aspects more than one, in that it might be rust of iron when reckoned with the stick of reason, and yet be the very wine of Christ according to the measures of the heart? A well of dye this shade he’d never heard about before, so that it was not much less of a wonder than it were the liquid he had thought at first. Whatever may have been its source it was a sign, to be made out.