Raffe out of his reverie, and he saw the black smudge of a low craft sculling towards him across the river. He rose and almost fell over as his legs were seized by a cramp. He jiggled them, trying to shake the feeling back into them. God curse the English weather.
The marsh-boy had borrowed a longer craft than his own light coracle, and despite the chill night his fingers were sweaty as he passed Raffe the rope. His passenger had evidently not helped him to scull the boat. But as Raffe grasped the priest's cold hand to pull him ashore, he realized that he would have been more a hindrance than help, for such soft delicate little fingers as these would have blistered before he'd made half a dozen strokes.
'The boy says you've got me passage on a ship. Where is it?' The priest shivered, and glanced around him as if he really thought some great sea-going vessel would be moored up in the river.
Raffe ignored the question and addressed the boy. 'Hide the boat on the other side of the islet. I'll bring the priest back as soon as he's done and I'll make an owl's cry. When you hear it, bring the boat back.'
He handed the boy the basket of food, which the lad had been gazing at longingly from the moment he moored up.
'Try not to eat it all, the priest'll want some of it for the journey.'
The lad nodded, but Raffe had no great faith there'd be anything but crumbs left by the time they returned. He smiled and patted the boy's shoulder. He remembered what it felt like to be constantly hungry as a lad and didn't begrudge him a mouthful, though the priest undoubtedly would.
'This way, Father. And keep your hood pulled up; though your hair's grown long, it still has the faint shadow of a tonsure for those with eyes to see.'
He helped the priest up the bank and on to the track that led to the manor.
'But where is the ship?' the priest repeated, peering nervously at every tree and bush as if he expected them to be bristling with soldiers.
'When we are done here, we'll return to the boat and get you to the ship.'
The priest stopped dead. 'We must go now, at once, we might miss it.'
'I told you that you will not be going anywhere until you've anointed Gerard's body.'
Seeing the priest was again about to protest, Raffe seized the little man's arm and hurried him forward, growling in his ear, 'Without me, you'll not get to your ship, so unless you want to spend the winter hiding on the freezing marshes or lying chained in some sodden, stinking dungeon I suggest you come with me, and quietly at that.'
He felt the priest resisting every step as he hurried him along, but Raffe pulled him as easily as a child might drag a rag doll. At the manor gate he stopped and opened the wicket gate as silently as he could, peering in to see if the courtyard was empty. It was. He pulled the priest inside and hurried him across to the vaulted arches under the Great Hall.
Raffe had taken the precaution of finding a woman to occupy the gatekeeper, promising to keep the watch for Walter in return for some invented favour he'd asked the gatekeeper to do for him. The woman was well past her prime, with straggly grey hair and a face ravaged by the pox, but Walter would not be looking at her face. The gatekeeper had gone off towards the village with a grin broad enough to split his wrinkled old face in two.
Walter in turn had assured Raffe that he could sleep soundly in the gatehouse, for the pair of hounds would bark loud enough to rouse him from his grave if any should approach the gate. And so they would have done, had Raffe not slipped them each a tasty piece of mutton with a pelt of poppy paste in each one. Now the only sounds which came from the hounds were deep and drooling snores.
Raffe led the priest to the back of the undercroft and lifted up the trapdoor and then the grid which covered the prisoner hole. As soon as the wooden trapdoor was raised, a stench rose up from the hole which was enough to make even a battle-hardened warrior retch. The priest drew the neck of his hood over his mouth and nose.