‘Master Rokesby!’ Santerre shouted. ‘We have come to see you!’
Rokesby jumped and stirred. His ale-sodden face was unshaven. He blinked bleary-eyed.
‘Who is it?’ he muttered.
‘Matthias Fitzosbert, Domine. I’ve come to speak to you.’
Rokesby, wheezing and puffing, got to his feet. He reminded Matthias of a toad: he had a malevolent look on his face and kept wetting his lips.
‘What do you want?’
‘Why, sir, I’ve come to make my peace.’
Rokesby smirked. He undid the points of his hose and, waddling across the room, picked up a chamber pot and noisily pissed into it. Matthias chose to ignore such an obscene insult. Rokesby finished relieving himself, put the chamber pot down then walked across, tying his points up. His eyes were clearer now though Matthias could smell the stale odour of ale.
‘So, the priest’s brat has come to speak to me? Eh?’ Rokesby poked Matthias in the chest. ‘Clever little boys should keep their mouths shut or get their bottoms smacked. Yes, that’s what I should do.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘I should birch you in public. A warning against insolence and questioning your betters. After all, that’s what they do to heretics, isn’t it?’
‘I’m no heretic,’ Matthias replied hotly.
‘Yes you are. I know a lot about you, Master Fitzosbert. Come from Gloucester, do you? Patronised by the powerful Baron Sanguis, eh? Well, Sanguis is powerful no longer, is he?’ He poked his head forward and clasped his hands behind his back, like some angry school teacher berating a dullard. ‘Baron Sanguis was a Yorkist. Now that was all well and good but where are the Yorkists now, eh? Where is the great King Edward? Died of apoplexy, he did, three years in his grave. And where are his sons, the Princes?’ Rokesby lifted his hand up and snapped his fingers. ‘Gone like a mist on a summer’s day.’ He wetted his lips. ‘And the great Clarence? Murdered by his brother, Richard of Gloucester.’ Rokesby widened his eyes. ‘And we know what happened to him.’
Matthias stared at this wicked little man with his malicious, greasy face.
‘What is all this to me?’ Matthias declared.
‘I know,’ Rokesby snapped. ‘Your patron, Baron Sanguis — his son fought for Richard III at Bosworth and was killed for his treason! Baron Sanguis’ name is not popular at the court of Henry Tudor. There are many who would be delighted to hear that his protege at Oxford was dabbling in heresy and the occult.’
‘Shut up, you pig’s turd!’
Rokesby’s eyes slid to Santerre. ‘Ah, so the Frenchman has found his tongue. Master Matthias’ bum boy, eh?’
Santerre stepped forward. ‘What do you want with my friend? Why do you harass him?’
‘Oh, I’ll stop him!’ Rokesby bit his lip as if he’d said too much. ‘For a night with Amasia. A juicy little morsel, eh? How does she perform in bed? Oh, I’d love to see her bouncing, those long legs, her hair flying. They say she squeals a lot.’
Matthias would have turned on his heel but Santerre grasped him by the sleeve.
‘Do you know, Master Rokesby,’ the Frenchman sneered, ‘the girls at the Blue Boar talk about you? They say how small your member is.’ Santerre waggled his little finger. ‘And now I’ve seen you piss, I can see they were exaggerating.’
Rokesby’s face suffused with rage. He drew the dagger from his belt and lunged at Santerre. The Frenchman caught his wrist, twisted it and plucked the knife from his fingers but he didn’t stop there. He grasped Rokesby by the jerkin, pulled him forward and, with one sweeping cut, slit the lecturer’s belly. It happened so quickly Matthias couldn’t object.
Santerre held the knife up before Rokesby’s startled eyes then dropped it. Rokesby, clutching his stomach, staggered forward. He went to say something but coughed blood and slumped to one knee. Santerre kicked his leg. Rokesby keeled over on to the dirty rushes, body twitching. Matthias stared horrified.
‘God save us, Santerre!’ he muttered. ‘We’ll both hang for this!’
‘No we won’t.’ Santerre smiled down at the corpse. ‘He was a pig and he died like one. It will be days before they find his corpse and we’ll be gone.’
He pulled Matthias out of the room, slamming the door, and, holding Matthias by the arm, hustled him down the stairs.
They hurried back through the late afternoon crowds to Exeter Hall. Matthias found himself numb, unable to speak. All he could remember was Rokesby’s sneering face, the quick, deft way Santerre had killed him.
Once back in their chamber Matthias climbed up to his bed in the loft and sat, head in hands. Rokesby had been correct. Sanguis had supported the usurper Richard III and any influence the Baron had at court had died at the Battle of Bosworth the previous August. The good Baron still sent Matthias monies but he was old, grieving over his son and wary of the new Tudor King calling him to account. Matthias cursed his own selfishness but he knew that, apart from Sanguis, no one else could help him.
He glanced down. Santerre had taken his flute from a coffer and, as if nothing had happened, piped some music. The Frenchman paused then played notes Matthias had never heard before. The tune abruptly changed; Matthias stiffened. The playing was sweet, fluid, the same song he had heard the hermit sing on that dreadful day when the peasants of Sutton Courteny had burnt him to death.
12
‘Why?’ Matthias sat opposite Santerre. The Frenchman kept his face turned away. ‘Who are you?’ Matthias’ mouth and throat felt dry. He fought hard to control his panic, the cold sweat which broke out on his body. ‘Who are you?’ he repeated.
‘Oh, Creatura bona atque parva!’
Matthias couldn’t stop the tears. The voice was the same, an accurate echo from his childhood, of sun-filled glades, of his father’s house and church. The lonely Tenebral, a dove flying against the blue sky.
Santerre turned his head. Matthias knew he was not dreaming: the same face, but the eyes were different. He’d glimpsed that look in the hermit and Rahere the clerk; brooding, gentle as if the soul behind it wished to say something but couldn’t find the words.
‘Don’t call me that!’ Matthias blurted out. ‘Just answer me, why?’
‘Because I love you.’
‘In the body of a man?’
‘“The flesh profiteth nothing, it is the spirit which quickens,”’ Santerre replied, quoting from the Scriptures. ‘Do you really think love is a matter of the flesh? There’s more to it than what hangs between the thighs.’ He touched his head. ‘It’s in the brain, it’s in the soul!’
‘Why me?’
‘In time I’ll tell you.’
Matthias calmed himself. Santerre was holding his gaze, not just to tell him something but, like the hermit, to soothe, to lull any anxieties.
‘I saw you take the Eucharist.’
‘How long ago is that, Matthias?’ Santerre smiled. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’
Matthias glanced away.
‘You are a murderer, an assassin.’
Santerre remained unperturbed.
‘Life breeds on life. The hawk kills the dove, the fox the rabbit, the lords of the soil whomever and whatever they wish. You saw that at Tewkesbury, Matthias. Men taken out and killed just because they fought for another prince. Or Baron Sanguis — you’d take his money but where does that come from, Matthias? From the blood and sweat of others.’
‘Those villagers,’ Matthias retorted, ‘my father and the rest.’
‘I could do nothing against them. They brought it on themselves. ’ Santerre’s face became hard. ‘I came to their village and, though they did not know it, my presence brought prosperity. They turned on me. I, who had done them no harm.’