by E. M. Powell
‘You do.’ Stanton shook his head. ‘I can’t believe that I quite liked him. More fool me. I suppose I should be glad that I didn’t end up a victim of his handiwork as well.’
‘Work that is done,’ said Barling.
‘Speaking of work that is done, it turned out to be hugely to our benefit that you’d read the book of Tundale, Barling. If you hadn’t read it, you wouldn’t have known about those punished for sexual sin. But because you did, we realised at once what must have happened at the gatehouse. If we hadn’t got there so quickly, Daniel would have escaped.’
‘Not deserved, Stanton, but thank you. Reading is never a chore. I think I will have a couple of hours’ sleep until it is time for me to see the abbot. We need to write an account of what has happened here to share with his General Chapter and for me to bring back to de Glanville. We are doing it after Compline. The brethren need to pray their hours more than ever.’
‘That they do,’ said Stanton. ‘I’ll leave you in peace to get some rest.’
Barling sat in the abbot’s hall with Philip, feeling much restored after his sleep.
‘By the looks of you, Philip,’ he said, ‘you need to get some rest even more than I did.’
The man sat at his table, his pale face drawn. ‘How can I ever sleep again, Barling?’ He rubbed at his face and gave a low moan of despair. ‘I have been no father to these men. No defender. Evil has walked amongst us and I could not stop it.’
‘You have done everything you could, Philip.’
‘But it was not enough, was it? So many lives have been lost in the most depraved way.’
‘Philip, all you – all we – can do is write these letters. Let us turn our attention to that, shall we?’
‘We shall.’ Philip gave a miserable nod, then his face contorted in a painful grimace.
‘Are you all right, Philip?’
‘Yes, please do not be concerned, it’s—’ He bit his lip to suppress a gasp of pain and put a hand to his stomach.
‘I believe I should be. You do not look well.’
Philip nodded, still clutching at his stomach. ‘I have to confess that I am not entirely hale. My innards have been giving me the greatest discomfort recently. I have some herbs that poor William gave me. If you will excuse me, I need to go and fetch them.’ He got to his feet.
‘Take your time,’ said Barling.
As Philip headed out in the direction of his personal quarters, Barling began to lay out his writing materials. Usually that gave him great comfort. But such was the turmoil here, it was not of great use. As he laid down an inkpot, Philip came back in looking grim-faced. ‘I have none left. Now I fear I will have a sleepless night of pain ahead.’
‘Surely there are more of the herbs in the infirmary?’ asked Barling. ‘I saw many jars when I was in there the other day.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to find anything in there. It’s late and it’s cold, Barling,’ said Philip. ‘I shall manage, and we need to get on with writing those letters.’ He sat back down, grimacing again.
That decided it. ‘Philip,’ said Barling, ‘we are not writing a list of how many pails of milk the kitchen requires. This needs to be done properly. Either we fetch your herbs or we wait until you are feeling better.’
‘You’re right, Barling. As always.’
Barling collected his cloak and they walked out into the night, heading for the infirmary, their shoes crunching quietly on the frozen snow.
Suddenly Philip stopped dead and grabbed for Barling’s arm.
‘What is—’ began Barling.
‘Shh.’ Philip raised a hand, a hand that shook. ‘I just saw something. Somebody tall. Dressed in a black cloak.’
Barling’s heart tripped faster. ‘Where?’ he whispered back.
‘There.’ Philip pointed to the shadows at the side of the infirmary.
‘But nobody wears a black cloak here,’ said Barling. ‘Except me.’
‘I know.’ Philip grasped for Barling’s arm. ‘But what if Daniel wasn’t acting alone?’ What little colour he had drained from his face. ‘What if he had an accomplice, one who wishes to fulfil the rest of Tundale’s fates?’
Barling’s mouth dried. A second murderer. One who was still on the loose.
Chapter Forty-Five
Stanton lay on his back in his bed in the guesthouse, fully dressed, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. By the usual routines of the abbey he knew it was very late. For him, it was less so. He wasn’t ready to settle down for the night just yet, though he’d been dozing on and off.
He couldn’t wait to get out of this place. There was something about being helpless in the snow’s grip. He’d always liked open spaces where he could ride fast and far, and knowing such space was beyond the walls would usually have given him a sense of freedom. Now he felt trapped. He’d also give a whole purse of money for a night in a decent alehouse. Never mind, that would come soon.
He yawned deep and long. Wait. What was that? He sat up and listened out.
Nothing. Nothing except the rumble of the river.
He lay back down. There it was again. A sort of hammering noise. Not close. At least not very.
Stanton threw on his cloak and shoved his feet into his boots. He went out of his room but all seemed quiet within the guesthouse. He frowned. There it was again, faint and definitely not from within these walls. He made his way to the main door and opened it. The freezing night wind rushed in.
He stepped outside. Heavy clouds raced across the moonlit sky.
The hammering came again, brought here on the wind and louder now that he was outside.
But there was something else on the wind too.
The smell of smoke. Stanton frowned to himself. The monastery fires would all have been damped down for the night hours ago.
He started off in the direction of the noise, which was coming from somewhere over to the right. He quickened his pace.
As he drew nearer to the group of buildings where the lay brothers worked, the smell grew even stronger and the noise of the hammering grew louder. And he could now make out a male voice along with the urgent hammering. ‘Help me!’
Then he saw it, a flicker of orange light.
Fire.
Stanton ran down the path towards it. Now he could see where it was coming from. The abbey’s forge.
Crackling flames leapt from a burning window shutter along with billowing smoke.
The hammering carried on and Stanton could see why. The door was shut. Locked.
‘Hello!’ He ran faster towards it, and heard the voice, that of a man, yell out in terror again.
‘For the love of God, somebody help me!’ A storm of coughing.
Hell’s teeth. It was Philip in there. ‘Hang on!’
Stanton flung himself at the door handle, wrenched it round. No good. He pounded on the door with his knuckles. ‘My lord abbot!’
‘Stanton? Is that you?’
‘It is, my lord.’
‘Help me.’ More coughing. ‘I beg you!’
‘Stand back!’ Stanton raised a boot and kicked at the door. It bounced on its hinges but stayed firm.
‘Stanton! Hurry!’
He kicked again. The planks bent. A little. Another. More. He summoned all his strength, slammed into them as hard as he could, and two gave. It was enough.
Stanton tore the damaged wood out with his hands, uncaring of the skin on his palms, hauling a screaming Philip through the gap.
Philip dropped to his hands and knees on to the snow-covered ground, coughing and retching and still screaming. His white habit was filthy, as were his face and hands. And his screaming wasn’t stopping. It was one word, over and over and over again.
Satan.
Stanton crouched down to him. ‘My lord?’
Philip looked at him with eyes wild with terror. He stopped screaming, panted for breath, grasped hold of Stanton’s arms. ‘The church. I have to get to the church. Do you hear me, Stanton?’ Philip shook him
as much as he was able in his weakened state, coughing hard again.
‘I don’t think you should try to move, my lord. It’s not wise.’
‘The church.’ It came out as a croak. ‘That is my order.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Stanton broke the abbot’s hold and shoved his shoulder under one of Philip’s arms, grabbing hold of him as he did so.
They set off, Stanton bearing most of Philip’s weight. The man could hardly walk, stumbling every second step and half-sobbing in breathless fear.
Shouts of alarm sounded from the inner precinct, followed by the flicker of light from lamps and torches. The monks were rushing to the burning forge.
‘Brothers!’ Philip’s hoarse shout sent him into a fresh spasm of coughing. ‘The church. You must make for the church!’
His body sagged even heavier in Stanton’s hold and Stanton feared the man’s collapse. ‘My lord—’
‘The church. I beg you. For all our sakes.’
Chapter Forty-Six
Stanton bore Philip into the church, a church that now teemed with frightened monks and brothers.
‘The altar, Stanton,’ came Philip’s hoarse order.
Stanton complied, willing hands stretching out from the brethren to help their abbot to his rightful place.
As they reached the altar, Maurice pushed through the crowd and put his arms around the abbot, taking him from Stanton’s hold. ‘Philip, my boy.’
The abbot managed to stay standing with Maurice’s help, though he was not steady on his feet. The fire and smoke had come close to taking him: as well as his laboured breath and constant coughing, his face and hands and habit were stained and marked.
Stanton stepped back out of the way, nursing his palms. The skin was ripped and bleeding from his assault on the door. He’d not felt a thing as he’d fought to get Philip out of the burning forge. Now that his pulse had slowed, the stinging pain had begun to take hold. He scanned the crowded church for the one face that he couldn’t see: Barling’s. He frowned to himself. The clerk must be in here somewhere. Otherwise, where was he?
Philip was speaking from the altar now, weakened and coughing every few words. ‘My brothers, I thought that when we caught Daniel at his wickedness, and had locked him up, that we had defeated the evil that had visited this place. But we have not. The devil still stalks us.’
The brethren called out in their fear.
‘Tonight, that devil brought me right to the gates of hell. I was rendered senseless and locked into the forge, which was set on fire, so that I might suffer not just death, but a particular death.’ He coughed long and hard again. ‘Brothers, I was to suffer one of the fates of the sinners in The Vision of Tundale: to be cast into an infernal forge and burned to ash. The eighth fate.’
The chorus of fear swelled louder, along with prayers for salvation.
Philip raised a hand as much as he could to get silence.
Every monk and brother gave it, waiting for his next words.
They were not ones Stanton or the brethren expected.
‘But hear my confession, I beseech you: it was a fate I deserved, for I am a sinner!’
The stunned faces before Stanton could be identical, along with the cries of shock and disbelief.
‘My sins,’ said Philip, struggling to be heard, ‘are those as described in Tundale for the eighth fate. I have had such deep anger in my heart for brethren who have slighted me. I have lain abed and slept in my lodge. Consumed food and wine in sickening gluttony. I have added sin to sin to sin. That is why Satan found me and almost sent me to hell! I am a sinner – we are all sinners. We must repent, so no others will be taken in death. We must repent!’ He fell prostrate to the floor, calls for God’s mercy and protection rising up in a loud chorus as Philip wept aloud.
Maurice knelt down to tend to him.
Yet Stanton still could not see Barling.
His heart began to beat faster again. He stepped back on to the altar and crouched down to speak to Philip.
‘My lord abbot,’ he said.
‘Go away,’ said Maurice. ‘Can you not see that our lord abbot is suffering?’
‘Maurice, please,’ said Philip, coughing once more. ‘Without the intervention of Hugo Stanton here, I would surely have perished.’
Maurice muttered something that Stanton couldn’t catch as the monks who stood closest broke into loud thanks.
‘God be praised!’
‘The blessings of eternity to you, sir!’
‘May you have your eternal reward!’
Stanton gave an embarrassed nod. He didn’t care about the thanks. He’d been relieved to have got Philip out alive, to save a life in this place of death. ‘My lord abbot,’ said Stanton, ‘I only need to ask you if you know where Barling is.’
‘Barling?’ Philip looked in confusion at Stanton. ‘He’s with you, isn’t he? He sent you in to save me.’
Now Stanton’s heart was a thud in his chest that he couldn’t ignore. ‘No, Barling wasn’t with me. Your noises from the forge summoned me. The last time I saw the clerk, he was going to help you with some letters in your hall.’
‘He was with me,’ said Philip. ‘But we needed to go to the infirmary for some of my stomach herbs. Then I saw a figure, a black-hooded figure near the infirmary. Barling forbade me, but I set off in pursuit. Then I knew no more. When I woke, I was locked in the burning forge, where you—’ Philip stopped, his eyes growing wide in horror. ‘But if the devil got me, he must have got Barling too. And now we are all in mortal danger. Don’t you see?’
The monks around him cried out in terror, in a bewilderment that Stanton shared, along with his own fear: not of the devil but that something terrible had happened to Barling.
‘Maurice,’ said Philip, ‘help me to rise.’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Maurice.’
The novice master did as ordered with another mutter.
‘My brothers, oh, my brothers.’ Philip swayed as he stood. ‘First I must ask and I pray I will get an answer: has anyone seen the King’s man, Aelred Barling?’
Stanton waited for the call that someone had. That the clerk was at the back of the church. Out in the cloister. Sheltering in the warming room. Every moment that went past was another where his heart beat faster. But nothing came, nothing except a buzz of quiet questions.
Stanton’s mouth dried as he met Philip’s appalled gaze.
‘Then, brothers,’ said Philip, ‘we are nearer the peril of damnation than I have ever known. If Barling has been taken, then his is the ninth fate. And once the ninth fate has taken place, then it is time for the Prince of Darkness to arrive. Oh, God help us.’ His knees buckled and he sank to the floor of the altar, to screams and shouts of fear from the monks. ‘Pray. I must pray – we must all pray! Satan, begone. Begone!’
The brethren took up his call, chanting it over and over.
Stanton grabbed hold of Maurice’s shoulder.
‘What is it, boy?’ hissed Maurice.
‘Brother, what’s the ninth fate?’
‘Not now. Can’t you see we are in turmoil?’
‘Please, brother.’
‘The ninth fate is that the sinner will descend into the very depths of hell. Down to the deepest, darkest place of all. Where there is no light, only blackness. For all eternity.’
Stanton willed his words to change, but they did not.
They could only mean one place. One place where it would be dark forever. The thought threatened to fell him.
Barling, I’ve failed you too. Failed you utterly.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Stanton ran through the library, making for the door that led to the graveyard, terror clawing at his heart. He should never have left the small-framed clerk alone.
Never.
He hauled the door open and caught his breath. The scudding clouds had blocked out the moon.
And cutting through the black of the night was snow. More snow. A thick, swirling curtain o
f it.
Covering the stones, the ground, in a thick, fresh layer.
Any disturbed ground was being covered before his very eyes.
He ran, ran between the gravestones, kicking snow, dropping to his knees to shovel it aside with his hands, shouting Barling’s name, over and over.
It was no good.
He could see nothing, find nothing. His grief roared through him.
Barling was lost.
His head. Dear God, his head. Barling forced his eyes open, braced for the stab of fresh pain that the light would bring.
Nothing.
He closed his eyes again, opened them.
Yet he could still see nothing. Nothing at all.
His fuddled mind fought to make sense of what was happening to him.
His eyes – he should rub them. Yes, that would help. He dared to move his right hand, cautious lest that was injured along with his head. He could scarce feel it.
But no. It was just cold. Cold. He was cold all over. Especially his back. Something hard and lumpy pressed into it too. He went to raise his right hand to rub his eyes.
His knuckles struck against wood before he raised them more than a few inches.
Barling swallowed hard.
Blinked harder.
There was nothing wrong with his eyes. He knew that now. He tried to bend his knees.
Again, they struck wood. Solid wood. He scrabbled hard with his fingers. An edge, there had to be an edge to it. An opening. He couldn’t find one.
A sweat coated his entire body despite the deep chill that possessed him.
He swallowed hard again, filled his lungs.
‘Help me!’ His shout sounded muffled, hollow.
The dread that had been circling at the edge of his mind tore through it, sending his heart into spasms that he feared would shatter his chest.
There was nothing wrong with his eyes: the dust-tasting darkness was utter and complete.