The Bone-Pedlar by Sylvian Hamilton

Author:Sylvian Hamilton [Hamilton, Sylvian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Historical
ISBN: 9780752832609
Publisher: Orion
Published: 1999-12-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Robert shared his lord and patron’s interest in the black arts for as long as it only involved the sacrifice of beasts. But children, baptised souls, were another thing entirely, and horror had overwhelmed him. He had panicked and fled to the isolated safety of Skelrig. From there he wrote to his sister, bidding her have no more to do with the murderer, de Soulis. He, Robert, was surely damned, he wrote, for his part in such evil, unless God could be persuaded to forgive him.

Priests could persuade God, and money could persuade priests. He must confess and be absolved of his sins, but before he even dared to confess he must be sure of eventual forgiveness. For that, naturally, he was prepared to pay. God had his price like anyone else. Robert would make a gift of his Hoplaw estate to the abbey at Mailros. That should smooth the way, and then, when they agreed to accept him as a novice, he would give them Skelrig as well. After all, he’d have no use for it any more once he was safely in the cloister.

Then he’d remembered Martin. Martin Brus.

They’d been boys together: friends, quarrelling and making up, brawling and being punished, enduring together the years of brutal training, gashes, bruises, broken limbs and physical exhaustion. They’d shared boyhood illnesses, boyish crimes and the aspirations of idealistic youth. For nine years they had been as close as brothers; first pages, then squires, until the culmination of all those years of discipline, violence and endurance—knighthood. Robert had been exalted. They would be perfect knights without sin or stain, chivalrous, brave, undefeated. Minstrels would make songs about them, ladies beg to give their favours, princesses would pine, infidels and heretics fall like bulrushes to their swords.

And, just a few days after their dubbing, Martin packed his few possessions in his saddlebags and rode away.

‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘There’s something else I have to do. It is more important.’

‘What? In God’s name, what’s more important than being a knight?’ Robert shouted.

Martin clenched his fists, and tears ran down his cheeks, but he just kept saying he had to go; there was something he must do. Over and over.

‘You’re throwing away all you’ve worked for. Your uncle will never forgive you!’ Martin was his uncle’s ward, his parents being dead.

‘It’s all right. Uncle Blaise knows all about it.’

Robert had an idea. ‘It’s not the Church, is it? God’s Blood, Martin, tell me you haven’t decided to be a bloody monk!’

To his astonishment, Martin began to laugh. ‘No, no! You’re wrong, Rob. That’s not it at all.’

‘Then what? Are you ill? Is that it? Something’s wrong with you!’

Martin sighed. ‘I can’t explain. Forgive me, but I gave my word. Believe me, Rob, there is another task for me. I am going to serve my uncle, and he will teach me.’

‘Teach you what?’

‘I can’t say. But it’s very important, more than being a monk or a priest, and much more than joining the troop of some lord, no matter how great he may be.

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