by Paul Doherty
‘Yes,’ he declared. ‘I am, sir, who you think I am. Nevertheless, hold your peace and let me continue.’
PART II
Chapter 1
The next morning, although Edmund and Stephen were up eager to start the day, Philip was dull-eyed and heavy-headed. He had fled from the church the night before and felt he could not share his experiences with his companions. He could not decide whether he had been tired or had drunk too much wine. Or was his soul now stuffed full of ancient legends and mysterious curses? Philip found it difficult to return to the church but, when he did so at mid-morning, he found it dull and cold, dark and dank. However, he was soon distracted by the parishioners who clustered through the rood screen and around the altar whilst he celebrated the Mass of the day. Edmund, who had celebrated a dawn Mass in the Lady Chapel, officiated as his server. Afterwards a few of the old parishioners remained to shake his hand and welcome him into the parish. Philip smiled at them but his eyes kept going to the back of the church, where the coffin woman crouched near the baptismal font. One of the parishioners, Simon the blacksmith, followed his gaze.
‘Oh, don’t worry about her, Father,’ he declared. ‘She always likes to sit at the foot of the pillar. We always invite her to join us but it’s of little use.’
Philip thanked him and went into the small sacristy where he divested and hung up his vestments. Edmund caught his sour glance.
‘It’s untidy,’ Edmund explained, gesturing at the albs, amices and other priestly vestments which lay about the room whilst half-burnt candlesticks littered the table.
‘I thought we had a parish clerk!’ Philip snapped.
‘So did I.’ Edmund smiled back. ‘But Adam Waldis seems to have disappeared like the mist. Roheisia and Crispin knocked at his door this morning but his house was all shuttered up.’
Philip closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. Wasn’t anything going to go right here? he thought. He told Edmund to stay and tidy up and went across to the priest’s house. The day was a fine one and a strong sun in a clear blue sky had burnt off the frost. Even the graveyard looked pleasant and, in the soft breeze, Philip caught the first fragrance of spring. Roheisia was waiting for him. She had been busy at the ovens and the air was fragrant with the odour of meats and bread. She now bustled around the kitchen as busy as a bee whilst her son Crispin sat humming in the ingle-nook, mending battered, leather reins. Philip sat down and broke his fast on watered ale and a fresh meat pie.
‘And Waldis hasn’t arrived yet?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Stephen declared, coming in, his cloak around him.
The master mason sat down opposite. He pushed his blond hair away from his face which looked flushed and excited.
‘You are really pleased to be here, aren’t you?’ Philip asked.
‘Of course!’ Stephen smiled. ‘You are going out to High Mount with us?’
Philip shook his head. Stephen’s smile faded.
‘Stephen! Stephen!’ Philip exclaimed. ‘There’s a lot to do here!’
‘But you need to see the new site,’ Stephen insisted.
‘Let Edmund go with you.’
Stephen was going to argue the point when there was a knock on the door. Roheisia answered it and a young man, thin and wiry, dressed in a green tunic and brown leggings, sauntered into the kitchen. He carried a bow with a quiver of arrows across his back: a dagger was stuck into his belt. He came up and extended his hand.
‘Piers Bramhall.’ He scratched nervously at the scrawny moustache which covered his upper lip. ‘I am verderer of the manor. Sir Richard sent me down. I am to be your guide.’
‘That was kind of Sir Richard.’ Philip rose and clasped the stranger’s hands.
‘I am also here to protect you,’ Piers confessed, plucking at the bow string. ‘It’s a fine day but, if you stay out late and the mists seep in, it is easy to get lost. And, of course, there’s the French . . .’
‘Is Sir Richard still receiving reports?’ Stephen asked anxiously.
‘Oh yes, all the coastal towns and villages are on a war footing. Sir Richard maintains that if the bastards steal horses, they may well ride further inland.’
Stephen drew the verderer into a detailed conversation about High Mount. Philip sat half listening, picking at the food on the pewter plate. Edmund came in. He, too, broke his fast and then, amid shouts and farewells, all three left. Philip sat moodily at the table. Now and again he caught Roheisia glancing furtively at him but he refused to be drawn, deciding that he would be most discreet in what he said.
Philip yawned. He felt tired. Last night was a nightmare and, in his soul, Philip realised that what confronted him at Scawsby was something he had never prepared for. He saw himself as a priest. Now, he quietly conceded that he was arrogant, patronising to those he was supposed to serve. He had always tried to improve himself. He wished he could pray more fervently, that he had a deeper faith, that he could be a true shepherd and not a wolf. Now, in the presence of evil, of real wickedness, he understood why other priests had simply walked away. Philip closed his eyes and remembered his mother: she had been so proud of her two sons. When they had stood, either side of her death bed, she had grasped the hand of each of them.
‘Be good priests,’ she whispered. ‘Do not lose faith in God and he will not lose faith in you.’
‘Father, are you well?’
Philip opened his eyes. Roheisia was staring at him.
‘Oh, it’s nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘I just wish Waldis was here.’ He tried hard not to sound petulant. ‘I mean, he is our parish clerk.’
‘Never been the same since he worked so closely with Father Anthony,’ Roheisia retorted.
Philip, not wishing to be drawn into conversation about such matters, got to his feet.
‘I’ll be in my chamber, Roheisia. I didn’t sleep too well last night.’
As soon as he was back in his own room, Philip immediately began to sift through Father Anthony’s papers and books. He found the calfskin ledger specially made by a stationer in Norwich. This was the parish journal, kept by the vicar and handed over to the bishop or his officers whenever a visitation was made. It stretched back over a hundred years and Philip immediately leafed to the section filled in by Romanel. The ink was faded but the hand was firm, the writing cursive and elegant. Most of the items were of little importance: births, deaths, marriages, the failure of corn. Romanel bemoaned his lack of income but then, abruptly in the spring of 1309, the writing became more feverish; the script less delicate, letters unformed, words not finished. Philip, fascinated, watched this slow disintegration of a soul. Romanel was clearly agitated, trying to hide something, torn between a desire for secrecy and a wish to confess. Most of the entries were mundane but then they’d break off, slip into phrases, expressions which made no sense: THE EYES ARE WATCHING. They are always there. Montalt’s no help, the demons chase me. Then a misquotation from the Book of Ecclesiastes: Some spirits there are who are bent on vengeance and lay on with furious strikes. This was followed by a paragraph from the prophet Isaiah: In the ruins of Babylon, demons dwell. Philip turned the pages over. Now there were gaps as if Romanel hadn’t even bothered to write. However, under the year 1312, Philip read: On this day was buried Lord George Montalt, he asked to be buried in sight of the altar but this will not save him from the demons of hell. He died without God and without God he will remain. A few lines later: The Watchers are back! I hear their whispers on the breeze and, when I look out of my casement window, I see them, hands stretched out. Perhaps I should kill her? Perhaps she should die too? Ah Veronica, who wiped the face of Jesus, wipe my soul of sin. Reparation, reparation but what reparation? And, finally: Montalt is gone. The treasure is gone with him. I should be gone too, deep into the madness of hell.
For a while Philip just sat. There were no more entries but those he had read, what did they mean? He understood about the watchers and the whispers. He had witnessed these himself. But who was Veronica? And who was t
he woman Romanel wished he might kill? He turned to the front of the ledger. Romanel had sketched a drawing of the old Saxon ruins at High Mount. Philip could make out the shape of a priory but what fascinated him were the crude drawings of coffins which filled the sketch. Each was carefully numbered. Philip turned to the back of the ledger, leafing through the pages since 1312. Sometimes the entries were short and ordinary but, now and again, Philip sensed the fear of some of the priests who had stayed too long.
‘This is a terrible place,’ one of them had written. ‘The very gate of hell.’
‘Something is wrong here,’ another had inscribed. ‘There is a lingering sense of evil, of wickedness, yet the people are good. The lord of the manor is kind and generous but, here in the church and in the house and the cemetery beyond, something is very wrong. Should it be exorcised?’
After that Philip found nothing until he came to a vicar called Father Norbert. He had only stayed fourteen months. He had made the usual entries about parish life but, now and again, there were slips: ‘Last night was fearsome, why do I feel as if I am always being watched? Should there be an exorcism?’ Then this priest’s last entry: ‘Yesterday afternoon I began an exorcism, too frightening, too dangerous to continue. I have asked his Lordship to be moved. I am a sick man, I am a priest not a wonder worker.’
At last Philip came to the tenure of Father Anthony Holness, the previous incumbent of the parish. Once again the ledger began with the usual parish events. Philip leafed through the pages. So ordinary were the entries that he got the impression that Father Anthony knew about the mystery but remained so long because he turned a blind eye to it. Only now and again was there a sign of what was coming, as the deceased priest mentioned, time and again, his growing friendship with the parish clerk Adam Waldis. Philip looked up.
‘And I wonder where he is?’ he whispered.
He returned to the ledger: an abrupt change occurred just after Easter two years ago. Father Anthony described a visit to High Mount accompanied by Waldis. He wrote excitedly about the legends and the possibility of hidden treasure. He, too, copying Romanel, had drawn a plan of the old Saxon priory at High Mount, marking with crosses the site of graves in the nave and sanctuary. There was an elliptical entry about something they had found: bones where they are not supposed to be. Philip noted references to ‘Veronica?’ ‘6?’ ‘And 14?’ ‘Letters of the alphabet?’ ‘Treasure in High Mount?’ Then there was a gap for about three months. By mid-summer, however, Father Anthony was making further entries but the handwriting had changed: shaky, sometimes illegible, sentences not completed. In the margin of the ledger, the dead priest had copied out the eyes inscribed in the church. Father Anthony seemed fascinated by these: ‘What are they watching?’ ‘Where are they looking?’ ‘Are they guarding something?’ Father Anthony’s disintegration became more apparent as he referred to the Watchers, to the whispers and the nightmares he was suffering. All entries ceased about six months before his death. Philip looked down at the blank page. He just wished Waldis was here. He could tell him more surely?
Philip then turned to the Blood Book. Most parishes kept such a record to indicate lines of consanguinity and affinity, so a priest could agree to a marriage provided the young man and young woman were not within the forbidden degrees of relationship. The Blood Book also contained the dates of births, deaths and burials. Some of these registers were kept meticulously, depending on the priest. Philip found St Oswald’s no different. If the priest was of a clerkly mind and hand, the entries were full and carefully written. Sometimes there were gaps. He turned to the section by Romanel. Philip noticed nothing untoward except in the spring of 1309 where the vicar had written ‘mortuus’ beside certain entries. Against another, ‘Corpus non inventur, body not found’. Philip recalled his conversation with Lord Richard the previous day, about the curse affecting certain families in the village. Due to the haphazard nature of the entries, Philip was unable to trace any pattern except in two families where, generation after generation, the young wife died after childbirth. He noticed that one of these was Bramhall, the verderer’s family.
Philip put down the Blood Book and listened. The house was very silent. He went to the door and called for Roheisia but there was no answer. Philip remembered that she had mentioned something about going to the small market in the village. He closed the door and listened to the sounds of the house creaking around him.
‘I should really go,’ he murmured, ‘to High Mount. Stephen and Edmund will be waiting for me.’
He felt tired, still confused; he seized a quill, took a piece of parchment and began to write down what he had learnt.
Item – In the winter of 1308, a group of Templars, fleeing from their church in London, and probably carrying treasure, had been ambushed and killed out on the marshes. Their assailants were from Scawsby led by Sir George Montalt and the priest Romanel.
Item – All the Templars had been killed but where were their bodies buried? More importantly, where was the treasure? What did the inscription on the tomb mean? UNDER THE HIGH MOUNTAIN LIES THE TREASURE OF THE SON OF DAVID. Was that a reference to Solomon and that the treasure came from the Temple in Jerusalem? Did the high mountain refer to the old Saxon priory? Was that why Waldis and Father Anthony had been drawn to these ruins? Why Romanel never went out there, as he regarded the place as cursed? Was the Templar treasure buried there?
Item – Who were the watchers, the ‘Spectantes’? Why the eyes? Was this a reference to the Ghosts?
Item – What did the name Veronica mean? Or the numbers 6 and 14? And why did Sir George Montalt talk of reparation? Reparation for the murder and the theft? And the Blood Book? Why the question mark against the word ‘Mortuus’ – dead? And, ‘Body not found’?
Item – If there was a curse on Scawsby why did it appear, at least on the surface, a happy and prosperous place? Or did the curse and the haunting only affect those who had either a hand in the slaughter of the Templars or, like Father Anthony, tried to discover the secret behind it?
Philip yawned, put his pen down and went to lie down on the bed. He stared up at the thick cloth canopy stretched between the four posts, studying the faint emblems there: a cross, a unicorn. He rolled over and drifted into sleep. When he awoke, he felt dreadfully cold, as if someone had opened a window, and the room smelt like a midden-heap, rank rot and corruption fouling the air. Philip pulled back the curtain on the bed: a hooded figure, a horrid spectre, stood there.
Philip stifled a cry as the cowl fell back revealing a face white as snow, a balding head, eyes, upturned at the corners, black as night, thin lips curled in a sneer.
‘Kill her!’ A claw-like hand jabbed the air. ‘Kill her!’
Philip broke from his reverie and screamed, lashing out with the bolster he plucked up from behind him. He heard sounds in the passageway outside.
‘Father Philip! Father Philip!’
He hurried to the door and threw it open: Roheisia, cloak still about her, stood there.
‘Father, are you all right? Your face, are you sick?’
Philip let go of the door. He turned slowly, as if the phantasm might still be there waiting, those lips hissing their command, yet there was nothing: only the bolster he had hurled, lying against the wall. He ran a hand through his hair.
‘Roheisia, I am sorry, I had a bad dream, a nightmare. I’m tired.’
Roheisia offered him some food but Philip shook his head. He thanked her and, when she had gone, walked across to the lavarium to splash water over his face. Was it a nightmare? A dream? He went and studied the small table which stood beside his bed. It was covered with a veneer of dust. Roheisia had promised a proper clean of their chambers would take place once they had unpacked. Philip’s mouth went dry; there was an imprint of a hand, the palm small, the fingers long. He placed his own hand down and realised it wasn’t his imprint. Seizing his cloak Philip went downstairs. The afternoon was becoming grey, a weak sun setting. Philip walked out into the cemetery. Ther
e was a mist seeping in. Philip shivered but, his mind set, he walked through the trees to where he thought the coffin woman had her hut. He found her, a piece of embroidery on her lap, sitting on a stool outside: she didn’t even glance up at his approach.
‘Are you well, Father Philip?’
She lifted her head and smiled. Philip could detect no malice.
‘I’ve come to talk to you.’
‘Talk is cheap,’ she replied.
She carried on with her stitching, a piece of snow-white linen. Philip was surprised at how clean it was.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Making my own shroud.’
‘Do you expect to die?’
‘Why, Father, don’t you?’
Philip grinned and crouched down beside her.
‘I make my own shroud and I say my prayers,’ she declared.
‘What do you pray about?’
The corpse woman paused, needle held up. ‘For salvation, Father: that my life in heaven will be happier than that on earth.’
‘Have you ever married? Look.’ Philip brushed the back of her hand. ‘You are a human being, a woman, a member of my parish, a sister in Christ. I can’t keep calling you the coffin woman. What did Romanel call you?’
‘He called me Priscilla.’
‘Priscilla, why Priscilla?’ Philip exclaimed.
‘I asked him that once. You know that malicious way of his?’
Philip withdrew his hand, the coffin woman flinched.
‘What do you mean?’ Philip snapped. ‘How could I possibly know a man who has been dead over seventy years? You know I’ve had a vision, don’t you?’
The old woman sighed. She pulled the linen up into a bundle onto her lap. She leaned closer. She smelt sweet, of lavender and other herbs, and Philip noticed how clean her fingers and nails were.
‘They’ve all seen it.’
‘Seen what?’ Philip replied evasively.
Priscilla stretched forward and touched him on the tip of his nose.