by Paul Doherty
Colum, refreshed after a good night’s sleep, prepared and saddled the horses. He was fully armed, with his great war-belt packed about his waist and an arbalest looped over the horn of his saddle.
‘What about Kingsmead?’ Kathryn asked.
‘Oh, Holbech’s a sturdy man. He expects me when he sees me. Anyway, the manor’s still ringing with the aftermath of Gloucester’s visit.’ He grinned. ‘Megan’s glad of the distractions.’
‘Has the Duke left?’ Kathryn asked.
‘Yes, that’s Gloucester, ruthless as ever. He came to kill Faunte and now he’s completed that task for his beloved brother. Before I left the Guildhall, the Duke ordered me to report to him in London within the week about what progress was made in recovering the Eye of God.’ Colum grinned bleakly. ‘If we discover nothing today, then a week will be too long.’
They mounted and, shouting farewells to Agnes and Wuf, left Ottemelle Lane, going up Steward Street towards Westgate. The city was quiet. It was too early even for the church bells to be ringing for morning Mass. Now and again the occasional garishly dressed whore would slip across the street, eager to escape the clutches of the watch who patrolled the thoroughfares, staves in hand, faces heavy with sleep. The dung-collectors were busy in Hethenman Lane, their huge four-wheeled carts stacked high with the ordure and filth raked from the sewers. The stench was so great that Colum, Kathryn and Thomasina had to wrap their cloaks round their mouths and noses whilst they ignored the cheerful catcalls of the dung-collectors, who revelled in the chaos they were causing. Two debtors from the city gaol, manacled together at hand and foot, mournfully patrolled the streets, begging for alms. In the stocks outside the Black Friars near Saint Peter’s Gate, a group of drunken roisterers were already arrayed to spend the day being abused by the same citizens whose sleep they had so roughly disturbed the night before.
Westgate was open, and carts full of farm produce were being driven through, down to the Buttermarket in preparation for the day’s business. Kathryn closed her eyes as they went under the arch and breathed a prayer for the repose of poor Faunte’s soul. They continued up by Saint Dunstan’s Church, past the crossroads, taking the road to Whitstable, where the taverns and the farms which straggled the highway gave way to open countryside. The fields were thick and lush, already dotted with peasants preparing for the harvest whilst their children danced through the corn armed with slings to frighten away the marauding crows and ravens. The sky brightened, the grey-white clouds breaking up under the strengthening sun. Kathryn and Colum stopped at a small alehouse, musty and warm, to break their fast on watered wine and oatcakes. Kathryn had brought her father’s map and she and Thomasina advised Colum on what route to take.
In the main, they found the roads and trackways empty, except for the occasional pedlar, tinker or wandering hedge-priest who pushed his paltry possessions before him in a small handcart. Now and again, especially at alehouses and taverns, they met groups of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury, all chattering excitedly, agog to see the greatest shrine in Christendom. On one occasion Kathryn and Colum became lost, but a bleary-eyed farmer with red chapped cheeks put them back on the right track. About an hour after noon, they turned into a narrow overgrown pathway which led to the deserted village. Their horses found it heavy going so they dismounted, trying to avoid overhanging branches, quietly grumbling at the way the brambles caught at their clothes. The air had a heavy stillness, broken only by the chatter of a bird or the buzzing of bees hunting above the wide-faced, sweet-smelling wild flowers. At last they had fought their way through, and there, before them, in a small hollow in the hillside, sprawled the ruins of a deserted village.
‘Sweet Lord above!’ Colum breathed, patting his horse.
They stared across at the ruined houses, some built of stone, their roofs either fallen in or stripped of their tiles. Others, fashioned out of wattle and daub, were little more than piles of refuse. Kathryn pointed to the disused mill standing on the bank of a small stream; the roofless tavern, the post which held its sign now crooked and lopsided; and the overgrown village green. Beyond this lay the simple village church, really a small chapel. Its nave was now roofless, the square tower on its western end weather-beaten, the home of rooks and crows which cawed raucously above them, angry at being disturbed.
‘Why?’ Colum asked. ‘Why this desolation?’
‘My grandfather told me.’ Thomasina spoke up, wiping the sweat from her face. ‘My grandfather said the great death came. Much worse than the sweating sickness. Whole towns disappeared. They say two out of every three people died.’
‘Thomasina’s right,’ Kathryn agreed, leading her horse forward. ‘There are villages and towns like this the length and breadth of the kingdom.’ She shivered. ‘The haunts of ghosts and spectres.’
‘Someone was here,’ Colum asserted. He crouched and sifted with his dagger amongst the thin sparse grass. ‘Horses were hobbled here, the dung is dry and beginning to crumble.’
They wandered round the village. Kathryn tried to ignore the prickling between her shoulder-blades, a feeling that she was being watched, as if the ghosts of the people who lived and died here resented such abrupt intrusion. The very silence of the place was oppressive. Sometimes she thought she could hear footsteps or a low throbbing behind the walls; whispers of doors creaking open. She tried to dismiss these as the work of a fevered imagination and the eerie, silent atmosphere of the place.
Colum and Thomasina were no different. Now and again they broke their watchful silence as they found traces of horsemen, certainly Brandon’s party, in the village.
‘Why did they come here?’ Colum asked.
‘It stands to reason,’ Kathryn answered, standing outside the disused mill. ‘Don’t you feel it, Colum? This place is haunted, forgotten, the ideal hiding-place.’ She bit her lip and glanced at the crows circling the old church tower. ‘I suspect someone in Brandon’s party knew of this place, though God knows,’ she murmured, ‘what happened here.’
They continued their search, now and again going into one of the disused houses. Suddenly Colum shouted in excitement.
‘Come, Kathryn, here!’
She left her horse and stepped through the battered doorway. Colum pointed to a pile of black ashes in one far corner, a small mound of horse droppings nearby.
‘Brandon certainly came here, but apparently so did someone else, and quite recently.’ Colum walked over and kicked the pile of manure. ‘This is fresher, more recent.’
They continued searching and found similar indications of a recent visit.
‘Two horsemen,’ Colum concluded. ‘On different occasions. Two horsemen came here, searching for what?’
‘The only place left,’ Kathryn replied, ‘is the church.’
She looked over where Thomasina was sitting, rather dejectedly, on a low, crumbling wall.
‘Perhaps it’s time we stopped for something to eat.’
They hobbled their horses in what used to be the church graveyard and went through an open gap of the tower which led them into the small sanctuary where they stood looking down the nave. The church was gaunt and empty, the roof long gone. The greying walls were covered with lichen and moss whilst the pillars on either side, dividing the nave from the narrow transepts, were beginning to flake and crumble under the wind and rain. Kathryn gazed round the sanctuary. The old altar was there, built against the apse of the church. She glimpsed a small enclave in the wall for the offertory cruets, a painting, now faded, and the great gaps on either side of the sanctuary where the rood-screen had once stood.
‘So sad,’ she murmured, ‘to think people worshipped and prayed here.’
Thomasina suddenly squealed as a bird, nesting high in the wall of the church, broke free in a flutter of wings.
‘Come on!’ Kathryn put the panniers on the floor, and for a while they sat eating and drinking in silence. When finished, all three wandered off down the church.
‘If you see anything,’ Colum
called, ‘shout!’
‘There’s nothing here,’ Thomasina grumbled, kicking at the moss-covered floor.
Kathryn wandered down one of the transepts, running her fingers against the lichen growing on the wall.
‘How old do you think this church is?’ Colum asked. ‘It reminds me of chapels in Ireland.’
‘Very old,’ Kathryn replied absent-mindedly. ‘Perhaps built before the Conquest, simple and stark.’
She wandered back into the sanctuary and leaned against the altar. She pushed at this but there was no movement, and looked down at her feet. There was more moss here, but then she noticed the twigs and packed soil. She recalled her father’s advice, which she was always quoting to herself when treating patients.
‘Discover what is strange, out of the ordinary.’
Kathryn looked down.
‘Colum!’ she exclaimed.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, coming back to join her.
‘Well, there are twigs, parts of bark and packed soil, but there’s no overhanging tree, nor has a fire been lit here.’
Kathryn knelt down, brushing the twigs aside. Colum went outside and took a rushlight from his saddle-bag. He came back and lit it, the flame’s shadow dancing against the stone.
‘There’s a letter here,’ Kathryn said. She crushed aside more of the twigs and dirt. ‘The moss has been cleared. Look, there are more letters!’
Thomasina hastened over to join them as Colum pushed the rushlight forward, handing Kathryn his dagger so she could clear away the dirt.
‘“Levate!”’ Kathryn exclaimed excitedly. ‘“Levate Oculos ad Montes”! “Lift your eyes to the hills,”’ she translated, smiling at Colum. ‘The same prayer Brandon had scrawled in his cell at Canterbury Castle.’
‘Why is it there?’
‘Some sort of tombstone,’ Kathryn answered. ‘There’s probably a burial pit beneath here belonging to some local long-forgotten lord.’ Kathryn smiled. ‘There’s a tradition that when the soul leaves the body, devils and angels fight over it, so people like to be buried in a sacred place.’
Colum was now moving the rushlight away and was digging with his dagger.
‘There’s a gap,’ he said. ‘It can be raised.’
Once the large flagstone was cleared of debris, Colum, using pieces of wood, his sword, scabbard and dagger, was able to prise the massive stone up.
‘There’s probably an easier way,’ he grunted, ‘but I don’t know it.’
Kathryn and Thomasina helped him. The heavy flagstone was raised and forced back, a musty smell made them cough and sneeze. When the dust cleared, they glimpsed a yawning pit and a narrow set of steps leading down. Armed with the rushlight, Colum carefully entered the pit. Kathryn was following when the Irishman’s exclamation of horror set her teeth on edge, curling the hair on the nape of her neck.
‘Colum, what is it?’
‘Oh, my God!’ Colum shouted. ‘Oh, the poor bastards!’
Kathryn hastened on. The steps were flaking and crumbling.
She almost screamed as she reached the bottom, put her hand out and touched the cold, white arm of a skeleton jutting out from its decaying coffin. She turned and looked. Colum was standing in a pool of light. Kathryn could glimpse shapes about him.
‘Colum, it’s only a mausoleum.’
Colum waved her forward.
‘No, no,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘It’s a murder pit.’ He held the rushlight up. ‘Look, Kathryn!’
Kathryn moved forward and stared in horror at the decaying corpses of the four men sprawled there, the flesh on their faces and hands shrunken and dry. They lay sprawled, eye-sockets empty, mouths gaping. Kathryn, taking the rushlight, went over and knelt beside them. She pulled aside a tattered, mildewed cloak and made out the faint impression on the linen of the man’s jerkin: a bear, chained and muzzled, holding a ragged staff.
‘Warwick’s arms,’ Colum said. ‘We have found the rest of Brandon’s party, Kathryn. But how did they die?’
Kathryn overcame her distaste and carefully examined each of the cadavers, particularly the skulls and the front of their jerkins.
‘No sign of violence,’ she murmured. ‘No mark on the skull or blood on the cloaks. I am only guessing, Colum, but I think these men starved to death.’
Colum, however, had caught sight of a small leather saddlebag pushed into a niche in the wall. He pulled this out, cut the rotting clasps and brought out a golden pendant; even in the darkness the sapphire caught the weak flame of the rushlight and shimmered as brilliantly as a star.
‘The Eye of God!’ Colum pushed it into Kathryn’s hand. ‘We’ve found the Eye of God!’
Kathryn stood up, taking care not to knock her head against the low ceiling, and stared down at the golden lozenge-shaped pendant. The workmanship was beautiful: pure filigree gold sculpted and carved in the Celtic fashion, yet it paled to insignificance against the fiery sapphire set in the top corner above Christ’s head.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she exclaimed.
Kathryn was so immersed in admiration she almost ignored Thomasina, who now bustled down and screamed at the horrid sight. This abruptly turned into a gasp of delight as Thomasina saw the pendant.
‘A King’s fortune,’ Thomasina whispered. ‘No wonder the Duke of Gloucester wants it back. Men would kill for that!’
Kathryn glanced up. ‘Men have,’ she whispered. She glimpsed one of the decaying faces. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Colum moved the torch; as he did, Kathryn saw the fresh scratchings on the wall. She grabbed the torch and pushed it against these. In the flickering light she made out the crudely etched names: ‘Appleby, Claver, Durston and Farnol.’ She read, ‘Jesu have mercy.’ Kathryn glanced at Colum.
‘A last, terrible prayer,’ she whispered.
‘Aye,’ he replied. ‘And it proves both Moresby and Brandon were not with them.’
They climbed the steps and re-positioned the stone.
‘What do you think happened?’ Thomasina asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Colum said. ‘But we’ll have to think upon it. I don’t know why or how, but some demon incarnate murdered those four men, left them there to die!’
Chapter 12
They left the deserted village, Colum vowing he would send men to arrange honourable burial for the corpses. The day was drawing on. They rode silently and swiftly, though it was nightfall by the time they reached Canterbury.
Kathryn, as a physician, had a key to a postern gate of the city near Westgate. They went through and made their way down to Ottemelle Lane. The house was quiet. Wuf was already asleep, so was Agnes, her head resting on the table. She awoke, yawned and stretched, assuring her mistress that nothing untoward had happened. Thomasina bustled her off to bed whilst Kathryn and Colum sat down at the kitchen table. Thomasina returned and said she would serve something to eat and drink.
Kathryn was saddle-sore and wished she could just bathe, change and have a good night’s sleep, but the scene in the burial vault still haunted her – that shadowy recess with those corpses, grotesque in death, and the beautiful Eye of God, which Colum had already locked away in a coffer in his own chamber.
‘Why?’ Kathryn wondered. ‘Why had they to die like that?’
‘What worries me,’ Colum replied bluntly, ‘is that all of them are dead: those four in the burial chamber, Moresby in a ditch, whilst Brandon was murdered in Canterbury Castle.’
‘They were murdered,’ Kathryn continued. ‘Four able-bodied men wouldn’t stay in a burial vault and accept their fate as a matter of fact.’
‘I think they were put there,’ Colum replied, ‘perhaps to hide them from pursuers, perhaps to ensure they would not flee with the jewel. Promised that someone would come back, and the tomb was sealed. You saw how difficult it was to enter from above. With the stone re-laid, those unfortunates would have found it impossible to push it up from the inside.’
Kathryn shrugged. ‘It’s happened before. The
re have been similar deaths involving children in deserted ruins around Canterbury.’
She paused as Thomasina served them wine, manchet loaves, sliced cheese and pieces of dried ham. Kathryn sipped the watered wine carefully. She felt so heavy-eyed she was sure that if she drank too much she would copy Agnes, rest her head on the table and fall fast asleep. She absent-mindedly pulled at the cord round her waist.
‘All we can surmise,’ she said, ‘is that Brandon escaped. Those left in the burial vault kept the Eye of God as some form of surety that he would return.’
‘But why didn’t he?’ Colum asked. ‘Or was Moresby the one who was supposed to return?’
Kathryn chewed her lip. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘It was Brandon. He knew the phrase, “Levate Oculos ad Montes,” the clue to where the Eye of God and his companions were. But then he was captured and was unable to go back. He was probably planning to do so, once he’d received a pardon and been released, but he is then mysteriously murdered.’
‘In which case,’ Colum said despairingly, ‘what do we do now?’
Kathryn stared at Thomasina, who was bustling around the kitchen, happy to be away from macabre burial vaults, deserted villages, and jobbing about on the back of some hack.
‘Something is very wrong,’ Kathryn said. ‘First, what was Moresby doing?’ She licked her lips. ‘Did Moresby and Brandon leave those men in the vault? Did Brandon also kill Moresby and then allow himself to be captured, hoping he would receive a pardon, be released and return to collect the Eye of God? In which case,’ Kathryn concluded, ‘Brandon was a coldblooded killer and deserves to burn in Hell!’
‘But would Moresby give his life up so easily?’ Colum asked. ‘We are also forgetting something. First, whose was that corpse found in a ditch? How do we know it was Moresby? Secondly, we discovered traces of Brandon’s party at that deserted village but also signs that two different horsemen had visited the place. So who were they, eh?’ Colum sighed and shook his head. ‘Is it possible, Kathryn, someone else followed Moresby, Brandon and their companions after the Battle of Barnet?’