Blood Moon Read Free Page A

– or to give it its old name, the Blood Moon.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Do you know why they call it that? Because it gives the huntsmen a few more hours of light in order to chase down their quarry. A few more short but vital hours,’ she said wistfully, then shook herself. ‘The chase has begun . The question is, who will be the hunter and who the hunted? Let us hope we know the answer before too long.’

Chapter 2
    ONETHUMB AND THE PRIOR
    Blood Moon indeed! I had no idea what my mother was talking about and cared less. Perhaps she was losing her mind after all. But then, she has always delighted in tying me up in these metaphysical knots and watching me struggle to unravel them. Over the years I’ve learned not to try. Whatever her true purpose in bringing me out to Ixworth I assumed it would become obvious in time. Still, she seemed satisfied with the way our meeting had gone and spoke no more of secret letters. I therefore spent the following morning touring the estate villages and re-acquainting myself with old friends and tenants I had not seen for years until it was time for me to begin my lonely trudge back to Bury.
     
    My mother’s behaviour may seem a little odd but these were strange times. King John had been on the throne for fifteen years and for much of them England had been at war - with France, naturally, but also with the church. The French war was over at last, Deo gratias , but John had been forced to return home in disgrace having lost nearly all his overseas possessions and for the first time in nearly a century and a half England was an island nation again. John’s humiliation was made all the more painful by the intransigence of his own barons many of whom had refused to fight or even pay for a war that seemed to them increasingly expensive and irrelevant. This did not bode well for future relations between the king and his courtiers.
    There was, however, better news coming from Rome. Pope Innocent had finally lifted the yoke of interdict he’d imposed on the English people six years earlier as punishment for King John’s refusal to accept Cardinal Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, and we were free once again to ring the bells, to say mass aloud and to rebury the bodies of the dead in consecrated ground - including that of our former abbot Samson of Tottington who, despite having died three years earlier, we were only now able to lay to rest in the chapterhouse amid much veneration and tearful thanks. Joyful as that occasion was, Abbot Samson’s interment highlighted the other great matter that had been concerning the abbey lately, namely the election of his successor. My mother had unfairly blamed us monks for our vacillation but in truth we had little choice for during the interdict all such elections were prohibited. But with the king once more reconciled with the Holy Father we were permitted to make our selection, and after much prayer and careful consideration Hugh Northwold, the subcellarer, was chosen. Alas, this has not been the end of the matter for King John has so far refused to ratify Hugh’s appointment and with half the monks favouring the king’s position and half opposed, stalemate has ensued.
    The one beacon of light to shine amidst all this gloom concerned my brother Joseph. Joseph and I are not really true brothers; we just call ourselves that having grown up together in my father’s house. Both our fathers had been medics during the wars in the Holy Land, albeit on opposite sides, and when they ended they returned to England together to carry on with their work. Joseph and I were born in that house, Joseph first and me three years later. We both inherited our fathers’ enthusiasms for healing the sick but whereas I went to the best medical schools in Europe Joseph had to be content with opening an apothecary shop in Bury town. With an Arab father and Jewish mother he could not practice the mystic arts of the physician since his heathen prayers, so vital