My neighbour, Percival

Under clouds heavy with rain, a herald carrying the Earl’s banner arrived in the centre of Avebury village. He dismounted his horse, and in the time it took him to retrieve the scroll of parchment from the saddlebag a throng - wrought with apprehension - began to form around him.

The thatched homesteads and hovels emptied, village folk whispering of war, who it might be with, and how many of the village’s men might be called upon to join the Earl’s levy.

The herald held out the parchment at an arm’s length and loudly began his announcement: “Aethelred the Younger, Earl of Marlborough and the townships therein, invites the good folk of Avebury to participate in a most neighbourly venture. His message to you reads as follows:”

Rolfe, arriving late, jostled his way to the front of the crowd who were now shuffling and murmuring amongst themselves.

“I invite each homestead within the village boundary to grow a pumpkin; whomever can deliver to me the largest pumpkin shall find themselves in receipt of a generous six shillings, and will share an evening feast with me in the Great Hall. Yours sincerely, Earl Aethelred.”

During the announcement, the villagers had formed an almost perfect circle around the herald and his horse. On the other side of the circle, Rolfe had spotted Percival, a man of a similar age with fair features and red hair. I suppose that crafty heretic feels that he can win the favour of our good lord. Not without the grace of God on his side, he won’t, Rolfe thought to himself.

Two summers past - after Rolfe had noticed a long absence in Percival’s attendance at church - he had spread news of Percival’s godlessness across the village. Others had told him of Percival’s terrible sickness, but Rolfe maintained that no affliction would have kept him from surrendering himself to the Lord, the son of god, and the holy trinity. Only weeks before Percival’s absence, Rolfe’s entire family of a wife and two daughters had attended church every day through their own sickness, all the way until their untimely ends.

Rolfe stared bitterly across the crowd at Percival, who he had no doubt would find some method or another to cheat and connive his way to victory. If this happened, he told himself, then he might even sway the young and impressionable Earl into heresy himself. With the devil’s words slipped into his mind, Rolfe imagined that the Earl may let this humble village come to ruin. Rolfe cringed; he wasn’t willing to let that happen.

At dawn, three days after the herald had first visited, Rolfe scrambled out of his small hovel after hearing the sound of wheels over the stone paving that marked the beginning of Avebury. Living at the wooded edge of the village, both Rolfe and Percival were always the first to hear the arrival of traders and used this to their advantage in getting the first pick of their wares.

“Good sir, good sir,” shouted Rolfe, slamming the rickety wooden door behind him and vaulting the small stone wall. “Good sir will you stop a moment, I have much to buy from you.” The trader, with his mule and cart, stopped in front of Rolfe’s hovel.

“Let me be as bold to guess what you’re here for,” said the trader. “Pumpkin seeds?”

“You’re quite right, a wise man you are,” said Rolfe hurriedly. At that very moment, he heard the slamming of Percival’s door on the other side of the small road, and his grin immediately melted into a sourness.

“Good morning, neighbour,” said Percival. Rolfe grunted and turned back to the trader.

“I need a small bag of seeds, no more than ten,” said Rolfe, quietly as if to keep the secret from Percival.

“Pumpkin seeds!” the trader bellowed, his voice carrying down the road. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Word of the contest has spread far; the lucky man will take quite the bounty, I hear.”

“Indeed,” said Percival, arriving at the cart. “All in good spirit, though - Lord only knows the village could do with a few more silvers.”

“Aye, aye. Now, lads: when I went to collect pumpkin seeds on my journey here, I came across something quite incredible. One of you is in luck,” he said, lifting an eyebrow.

Rolfe glanced bitterly at Percival. It will be me that is in luck, not him, thought Rolfe as he awaited to hear of his good fortune.

“Seeds from the Far East. Now they don’t come cheap boys, and I don’t have many - but I’m told that the pumpkins they produce will grow as big as this mule, here,” he said, slapping it on its rear end.

“How much?” blurted Rolfe, already reaching for his pockets.

“Thruppence for the lot of them, friend.”

“Thruppence! Covetous scoundrel! And I suspect you’d want me to hand my daughter over, too!” laughed Rolfe.

Percival and the trader shared an uncomfortable glance.

“And what is a thruppence next to the six shillings you stand to gain?”

Rolfe grunted and threw his hands in the air as if the trader had robbed him of these special, Eastern seeds.

“And for the regular seeds?” asked Percival.

“A penny.”

“That’ll do me,” Percival said with a smile, handing over a coin in return for a small fabric bag. “May the best man win, neighbour.”

Rolfe recoiled at the wink he’d received from Percival. “I’ll take the special seeds,” he said to the trader, proudly. “But I’ll need to borrow some money from my uncle. Will you be in the centre of the village in a few hours?”

All evening, Rolfe didn’t take his eyes off of the seeds. He rolled them in his hands, inspecting them for some kind of hidden attribute, some quality that justified so great of an expense. He cradled the seeds like children, knowing completely that their destiny was tightly entwined with the fate of Avebury itself. But do they feel special? he asked himself. And what would he tell Uncle Garrett? A thruppence - almost of quarter of the homestead’s yearly income, spent on what? And didn’t God decree gluttony a sin? In the afternoon, he’d told his uncle bluntly that he’d pay him back as soon as he could. If he could hold off Uncle Garrett until then, he decided, he’d pay back his last surviving relative with interest. Family comes first, he assured himself.

That night, Rolfe dreamt of what would come of the village, should his plan fail to be brought to fruition. In his dream, he walked down from his hovel, traversing the hill down the cobbled path into the village opening where the herald once stood. Around the village centre, the thatched homes burned, and with each step he took, the sky grew blacker and blacker, choking on the smoke of Avebury. In the centre of the village a great chasm began to open, coughing out glowing molten rock. He turned to make his way back to his hovel, but there stood his late wife and children, disfigured, rotting, and calling out his name.

Rolfe woke up the next morning, like every morning, to the sound of the village animals. The crowing, bleating, chirping symphony of Avebury made him quickly forget details of the dream, though the motivation it had provided him remained. I’ll plant the seeds right away was the very first thought in his mind that morning. Every second and minute counts when there is so much on the line; my own fortunes and the fate of the village both. But when he emptied the small bag into his hand for another inspection, Rolfe realised that something was awry almost instantly: the colour of the seeds had changed. He reminded himself that a lesser mind might have missed it, nothing more than a slight discrepancy in hue. That was all. It wasn’t obvious, but Rolfe felt that he’d always had a keen eye for this type of thing, and faith that his devotion to God would always lead him to the ultimate truths, big or small.

Held up in the cold light of morning, these seeds were visibly several shades lighter than the ones he’d purchased the day prior. “That bastard!” he said, slamming his hand down onto the small table. “That filthy, godless bastard!” he shouted once more.

Rolfe had come to the realisation that Percival had crept into his home during the night - much like a small rodent, he felt - and swapped the exotic seeds with his own. Rolfe had thought it strange how quickly Percival had agreed to buy the cheaper seeds, and now the picture was becoming clear. Rolfe would front the cost, whilst Percival would take the prize. A trick as old as time itself!

Rolfe lingered outside Percival’s door, picturing the inevitable outcry as he broke it down to reclaim what was his - the shrieks of Percival’s family, the village roused and descending upon him, his execution, burned at the stake, crying, screaming, skin boiling to a crisp! Was it all worth it, he wondered? Was it at all possible that the seeds had simply appeared different in the warm light of the candle to the cold light of morning? Rolfe shuddered. The devil’s whispers! he exclaimed to himself. A fork away from the path of righteousness, the path of Avebury’s salvation. Too much resolve have I, too much fortitude to succumb to temptation. It’s like I used to tell that dear daughter of mine: the path of righteousness is never the easy path.

But then he saw it - a trowel beside freshly dug dirt, the empty seed bag atop. Percival had already planted them! Rolfe frantically dug through the damp soil, retrieving as many seeds as he could. But Percival would soon discover this - the buffoon would denounce it as treachery to the Earl, bringing the sum of all Rolfe’s efforts to nil. Rolfe rushed back into his home, careful to avoid knocking something over and waking Percival, before quickly returning to his neighbours home and re-planting the seeds that Percival had deceived him with.

It was only a week later, walking down to the market to pick vegetables for a stew, that Rolfe noticed small saplings in Percival’s lot. He glanced from Percival’s patch - in it, the man crouched over the green sapling with his daughter by his side, pinching a leaf and laughing with her - laughing at Rolfe, no doubt. The warm fragrance of Percival’s wife’s soup seeped out and covered the street. And then the other side: mounds of featureless dirt beside an empty, cold home. A thought rushed to the front of his mind: why hasn’t my Margaret started on dinner yet?

Rolfe could hear Percival talking to his daughter: “I’ve never seen pumpkins sprout so quickly!”

Rolfe was frozen in the middle of the road, staring dumbfounded. His fists formed into tight knots of hatred, ever-reddening and shaking.

“Good morning to ya,” said Percival with a wave. “Go on lass, say hello to neighbour Rolfe.” The girl waved shyly. Percival smiled and looped an arm around the waist of the girl.

“Morning Percival, morning lass,” said Rolfe. “I’ll tell my little’un you said hello.”

At Sunday Mass, the priest told Rolfe under flickering candlelight that word came - Percival had again fallen sick. What is wrong with that man? Rolfe wondered. As the villagers filtered out, he took his place on an empty pew and clasped his hands together. The setting sun cast colours from the church’s stained glass windows across his face, and Rolfe felt pleased that he had prayed for Percival to find his way again, to see that sickness was no reason to turn his back on God but instead should be a reason to find God. For a brief moment, Rolfe wanted Percival to be shown the path to righteousness, to know what it felt like to bask in God’s loving glow. I want Percival to have everything that I have, he prayed, to be surrounded by love, as I am. Only then will he understand God’s plan.

But on the way home, Rolfe saw Percival, not at his home but in the woods. He was collecting firewood and skulking around like a rodent, much like on the night that he switched the seeds. Rolfe could see that the man didn’t have a sick bone in his body. And that’s when the truth came to him, charging like a boar; at first a mere spec in the distance but quickly filling his vision until all that could be seen was a grunting, drooling, biting creature. He’s not sick of body, but sick of mind! It all makes sense now! The devil has filled a void within him, and it is not his fault; for he knows not. And at that moment, Rolfe could feel God speak to him, not with words, but with a driving purpose. The path was clear. Rolfe could free Percival from his prison. We must guide the blind, for they cannot see.

Rolfe crept under the moonlight, snatched the wood-cutting axe from Percival, and struck him down. He drove the blade of the axe clean through his collarbone, missing his head entirely. Percival wailed until the second splintering blow landed.

Rolfe waited to move the body until midnight. Rocking back and forth, the voice of God had grown louder and drowned out Percival’s family calling out for him in the darkness. When the body was buried back in the village, Rolfe knew that Avebury had finally been saved.

Four months later, sitting at the table of the Great Hall, Earl Aethelred asked Rolfe a question: “So, tell me, how did you get that pumpkin to grow quite so enormous? It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

Rolfe used a dirty sleeve to wipe tomato juice from his beard, and Aethelred did little to hide his disgust. “The grace of god, M’Lord, I can only be thankful to the grace of God.”

“Inspiring,” sighed the Earl, “I am always so very humbled by simple folk like yourself. Such humility in the peasantry, something that Father Edgar has tried to instil in me always. Seeing you here, now, reminds me how much I have to be grateful for. And now, something else that brought me gratitude - servants!” he shouted, turning to face his house staff, adjusting himself to sit upright in his chair. Moments later, four servants carried out a large platter - so large that they carried it between them like pallbearers - and placed it on the centre of the dining table. On the platter, a pumpkin the size of a mule.

The young Earl inspected it closely. “How wonderful!” he said, fidgeting on his chair with excitement. “Servant, boy! Here!” he barked. A boy, similar in age to the Earl, nervously approached the table. “Boy, is this really a pumpkin?”

The boy looked back at the other house staff, hands clasped behind his back. They nodded.

“Yes, M-M’lord.”

“Then why is it so red? Pumpkins are supposed to be orange!” said the Earl, outraged. He took in hand a carving knife, but couldn’t break the tough skin of the pumpkin. “One of you, get me something proper! Something to smash this thing open with!”

A few moments later a member of the house staff returned with a small axe. The Earl took it in his hands and slammed the axe upon the pumpkin. Its skin barely shifted, but on the second blow it split open, and its red, seedy innards emptied across the table and the young Earl cried out in delight.

Rolfe trembled, hands gripping the table, and God’s voice had become so loud that he could hear nothing else.