The Deepest Grave

by Jeri Westerson

  He pried a flame out of the hearth, fed it and wondered, as his own stomach growled, if there was something about with which he could feed himself.

  A knock on the door told him that at least others were up with the day.

  ‘Master Crispin,’ came the voice of Isabel through the door. ‘I brought you your mixtum.’

  ‘Come in.’

  She shoved the door open with a hip and waddled in with a tray. She looked him over. ‘You don’t look so good. I’ve warmed some wine for you. You should drink it up while it’s still hot.’

  ‘Thank you, Isabel. You take good care of me.’

  ‘I’m grateful that you take such good care of Jack, for he sorely needs someone looking after him.’

  ‘I rather think that he’s the one who looks after me.’

  Jack tromped up the stairs and passed through the doorway. He used a cloth to carry the hot handle of the kettle with Crispin’s hot water for his wash.

  ‘It’s nice and hot for you, master. Oh. You don’t look good this morning, sir. A bit gray around the edges. Well, a good shave will content you, I’ll wager.’

  ‘Perhaps all I need is a good bleed. You don’t happen to have a leech about, do you?’

  ‘I’d get a barber if we had the funds, sir.’

  ‘Never mind. I’m sure your steady hand will remedy that.’

  Jack gave him the eye as he prepared the soap and razor. ‘Now Master Crispin, I haven’t nicked you but once or twice, and that was when I was first learning.’

  ‘Which is why you wear a beard, I see.’

  Jack cracked a smile. ‘See how much we save on leeches?’

  Crispin allowed Jack to shave him as he sipped the wine. It did invigorate and he was able to relax into the feel of hot water on his face, the soap lathering his chin and cheeks, and the smooth glide of the razor making all right again.

  He passed his hand over his newly shaved chin and smiled. ‘Well done, Jack. As good as any barber.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. And now to your mixtum. Don’t let it get cold.’

  Pottage from the night before and a piece of bread was kept warm under a cloth, and Crispin pulled it off and dug into his bowl. The pottage was even better the next day, and he slurped it down, running his bread around the bowl to sop up the rest.

  He’d been a fool last night, feeling sorry for himself. It was the late hour, surely, that had flung him into such a morose state. No more of that! He had a problem of roving corpses to solve.

  Jack seemed to know when he was ready to dress, for he appeared just as Crispin was buttoning up his cote-hardie. He stood still, enduring Jack’s vigorous brushing of the woolen cloth, taking care to rid it of churchyard mud.

  Crispin affixed his belt and his dagger’s scabbard. ‘Jack, have you given any thought to last night’s happenings?’

  ‘Nothing but thought, sir. I tried to think logically, as you taught me, laying it out like skittles. But I could not for the life of me explain it.’

  ‘Nor could I. Puzzling. I intend to examine the churchyard and then talk of walking corpses with Abbot William.’

  ‘Shall I go with you, sir?’

  ‘If you’ve a mind to it.’

  The morning work bells had rung, starting the business day for all. Thank goodness the day had dawned with a glorious spray of sunshine instead of gloom, thought Crispin, for he had had enough of gloom.

  They walked through London toward the tower, shining white in the distance on its hill. ‘What are your thoughts on the matter?’ asked Jack suddenly, after a long portion of silence.

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘What – or who – would cause a corpse to rise, sir?’

  ‘Sorcery. Forcing a corpse to rise to do their evil bidding. I have heard tell of such but have never seen it. I’m not certain I’ve seen it now.’

  ‘Ever the skeptic.’

  ‘It is best not to assume, Jack. The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness, and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.’

  ‘And it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.’ Jack turned a self-satisfied smile on Crispin.

  Crispin returned the smile. ‘So it is. I’m glad to see you’re still reading your Aristotle.’

  ‘For self-defense as much as anything else, sir.’

  Crispin carried his smile with him all the way to the church, and promptly lost it when he surveyed the churchyard over its stone wall.

  ‘Will we go into the church, sir, and seek out Father Bulthius?’

  ‘Not at the moment. I want to view the graves first.’ He passed through the lychgate, with its wooden arches and slate-covered roof, and held the gate open for Jack, who grumbled behind him. ‘Better in the light of day, eh, Jack?’

  ‘Much, sir. But it still crawls me skin with shivers.’

  And mine too, but he didn’t wish to say that aloud. He made his way between the mossy headstones and found the disturbed grave of last night. The dirt covered the hole and all seemed as if the funeral had only just come to pass.

  They stood silently, both staring at it warily, as if the corpse would suddenly burst from the ground.

  Crispin shook his head as he folded his arms, casting his cloak back off his shoulders. ‘I confess, I don’t know what to look for.’

  Jack knelt tentatively by the grave and took the dirt in his hand, crumbling it between his fingers. ‘Lately tilled.’

  A twig cracked and they both jerked, heads snapping in the direction of the sound. A man with a wheelbarrow and a spade worked in the distance. A younger man was with him, using a rake. Crispin headed there with Jack at his heels.

  ‘Good sirs,’ said Crispin, hailing them.

  They looked up. The older man wore a wide-brimmed hat over his thin leather hood and a dirt-laden apron over his tunic. He bowed to Crispin and gave a nod to Jack. The younger man – about fifteen or so – wore a simple leather cap with its straps untied and hanging loose, with a tunic streaked with dirt.

  ‘Are you the gardeners?’

  ‘Among other things, master,’ said the older man. ‘We are gardeners, ostlers, gravediggers, and anything else that Father Bulthius requires.’

  ‘Can you tell me about these graves, then? Those that Father Bulthius claims were … disturbed.’

  The man’s eyes widened and he exchanged a look with the young man. ‘I can’t talk about that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Beggin’ your mercy, but who are you?’

  Jack got in his face. ‘That there’s Crispin Guest, the Tracker of London. If he asks you a question, it’s best you answer sharp, and no smarting back.’

  ‘Now Jack.’ Crispin edged him back and with a mild expression faced the man. ‘If you could answer me.’ Sometimes Crispin found it more advantageous when Jack served as an angry underling, while Crispin played the pacifying lord.

  ‘You’re the Tracker? Aye, I heard o’ you. Well then. We did see something strange hereabouts, didn’t we, Hal?’ He got in closer, voice down to a gravelly whisper. ‘Graves all dug up, coffins opened. I thought it was robbers. But then what I seen at twilight …’ He shook himself. ‘Made all me hairs stand straight up.’

  ‘Mine, too,’ echoed Hal, the younger one.

  ‘And what exactly did you see?’

  ‘The grave was open and Father and me and Hal seen it. We seen him walking with his coffin on his back. My heart was pumping so loud I thought it would burst.’

  ‘And when was that?’

  ‘Less than a sennight ago.’

  ‘And what did you do about it?’

  ‘Do? We ran – that’s what we did. Like any sane Christian man would!’

  Jack nodded soberly.

  Crispin folded his arms over his chest. ‘And what did you do the following day?’

  ‘I thought mighty long and hard about leaving my position … but where else was I to go? And Hal here and leaving poor Father Bulthius alone
and all, well. So I came back and we all scoured the churchyard, but the grave was all put to rights. But the next night, the same thing happened again.’

  Hal crossed himself and closed his eyes in prayer.

  ‘To the same grave?’

  ‘Aye. And then another new grave the next night.’

  ‘Did you or Father Bulthius tell this to the grieving families?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I didn’t tell them. How do you tell them families that their loved ones is going about sucking blood in the countryside?’

  ‘And how do you know there is, er, bloodsucking going on?’

  Hal snapped his eyes open and jerked forward. ‘Why, their faces. I seen the blood on their face cloths. Oh, it’s horrific is what it is. We saw it for ourselves, didn’t we, Tom?’

  ‘Aye, that we did.’

  ‘I see. Thank you.’

  Crispin gave each man a farthing and both gravediggers bowed, Tom leaning on his wooden spade and Hal holding tight to his rake. They watched as Crispin and Jack walked away.

  ‘Just as the priest said,’ Jack insisted.

  ‘Yes. Strange.’

  They made it to the lychgate, but Crispin wanted to check again where he had seen the ‘walking corpse’. He pivoted on his heel and set off for the meadow.

  ‘Master Crispin!’ hissed Jack. He heard the boy swear and then the tramp of his feet as he ran to catch up. ‘I thought we were done here.’

  ‘You’re so hasty, Jack. Frightened away. Has it ever occurred to you that this is precisely why we’ve both been told this story … with a performance to back it up?’

  ‘Or maybe we saw what we saw because it’s true. Master, I don’t understand you. You saw it plain as me. Why are you so skeptical all the time? Why must there be more than we see with our own eyes?’

  ‘Because the alternative is … is impossible. I would rather be at the mercy of some treacherous plot than at the supernatural urgings of some great evil.’

  Jack grumbled for a time, until his rumblings formed words Crispin could discern. ‘And relics?’ asked Jack. ‘That’s God’s grace, not evil. We come across them all the time and you don’t believe in their power. You never do, and yet they do affect us.’

  Crispin automatically put his hand to his scrip, where at the very bottom lay a thorn from a certain venerated object. Jack told the truth. Crispin seldom believed in the relics that came their way. But some had affected him more than others. The thorn had seemed to give him an unexplained confidence when it pricked his finger, but he had never dared toy with the notion again.

  Yet this was no religious relic. This was the rising of corpses, that which was spoken of in the end times of Revelations. There had been a terrible plague before he was born. It had devastated London and all of England and Europe. Surely it meant the end times were coming. How could he accept that?

  He tamped down his fears and put on his logical mask, a shield to protect himself. His intellect could ferret it out. But if it truly was the intercession of the Devil, then he would fight that, too, with his very soul if need be.

  Saying nothing more, he reached the spot where he thought he saw the apparition. The mud showed footprints – his and perhaps the other. Something heavy was dragged as well. And then the footsteps simply stopped. Vanished.

  ‘Do you see that, sir?’ said Jack anxiously.

  ‘Yes.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘Right before your eyes and you do not believe it. Let us go to Abbot William. Maybe he can convince you.’

  Perhaps Jack was right. Perhaps his skepticism was preventing him from seeing the truth of it. He strode quickly back through the churchyard and through the lychgate from where they had come.

  They’d have to travel across all of London and then on to Westminster, to the Abbot of Westminster Abbey. In the last few years, Abbot William de Colchester had become a friend and confidant. He had been cold at first to Crispin, unlike his predecessor Abbot Nicholas de Litlyngton. But as Crispin proved his worth, the stoic abbot warmed to him. They played chess often. As often as Crispin could get away from his duties as Tracker. And in the intervening year, while Crispin was accustoming himself to a woman in the household, that had been his escape.

  He wondered if Jack knew it, or knew how uncomfortable Crispin had been in their new circumstances. Surely he did, for the boy was nothing if not astute. And tactful, for he never broached the subject. There was nothing to be done, in any case. It was up to Crispin to gird himself and live with it. Especially if he didn’t want to lose his apprentice.

  The road to Westminster was busy as always, with more wagons than usual with the doings of summer, what with hay carts and drovers bringing lambs to market, with produce beginning to come in from the fields.

  Once they passed Charing Cross’s tall stone structure of arches and pediment, Westminster Abbey’s two towers, one on the north side and one at the west entrance, were finally visible.

  They took the familiar worn path to the cloister and rang the bell.

  As many times as Crispin had been there since, pulling on that same bell rope, he still expected to see Brother Eric … and the ache of betrayal in his heart that this was not to be jabbed at him once more. He could not help himself as he sent up a silent prayer for the man.

  One of the abbot’s own chaplains, Brother John, served as porter today and slowly approached, giving a courteous nod upon recognizing Crispin. ‘Here again, Master Guest?’ he said, unlocking the gate. ‘Your winning the last chess game put the abbot in a foul temper.’

  ‘Sore loser, is he?’ Crispin chuckled.

  ‘I’m afraid so. Though, I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention I said so.’

  ‘Of course. Not a game of chess, unfortunately, but I do need to speak with him.’

  They walked together, all three, through the windswept arcade to the abbot’s apartments at the cloister’s west end. Brother John knocked upon the door, and without waiting for a reply, pushed it open. A man playing melancholy strains on a flute sat on a stool by the fire, while the abbot sat at his table, carefully going over parchments with quill poised. He did not look up.

  ‘Yes, Brother John?’

  ‘Crispin Guest is here, my lord.’

  Abbot William raised his head and his pale blue eyes sought out Crispin and crinkled in pleasure. He set down his quill. ‘Ah, Master Guest. But you have your man in tow. This tells me this is no mere social call.’

  ‘Astute as always, Lord Abbot.’

  ‘Osbert,’ said Abbot William to the musician. ‘You may go.’

  The man bowed, picked up a scrip, and followed Brother John out the door.

  ‘Have your man Jack pour us some wine, Crispin.’

  ‘Aye, m’lord,’ said Jack with a bow. He took the familiar trek to the sideboard and poured wine into two goblets.

  Abbot William skirted his table and came to the fire, seating himself in one chair while Crispin took the other. ‘What is it you have come to me to discuss, Crispin?’

  ‘I have a very strange tale, Lord Abbot. It is one I am loath to tell you.’

  ‘I am adequately intrigued.’

  Crispin glanced at the abbot’s face. Intrigued he might be, but his broad face never revealed what he was thinking. His many years as archdeacon and envoy to Rome had schooled his features into an unreadable mask. ‘I was called to investigate … walking corpses.’

  The abbot’s brows raised as he took the wine Jack offered. ‘Indeed. And where were these moveable deceased?’

  ‘St Modwen’s near the tower.’

  ‘Now that has sparked my memory.’ He rose and walked to his bookshelves. They housed an array of precious leather-bound volumes and a collection of parchment scrolls piled atop one another, their only indication as to what they might contain were dangling labels attached to cords. He reached for a leather volume and took it down, opening it on his table. Gently, he turned the pages, searching through the carefully penned texts. ‘An Abbot Geoffrey of Burto
n upon Trent made mention of these same happenings, coincidentally, in his Life and Miracles of St Modwenna. He wrote about the precious saint almost three hundred years ago. Let me see if I can find the passage … yes. Here it is. Listen. “That very same day on which they were interred they appeared at evening, while the sun was still up, carrying on their shoulders the wooden coffins in which they had been buried. The whole following night they walked through the paths and fields of the village, now in the shape of men carrying wooden coffins on their shoulders, now in the likeness of bears or dogs or other animals.”’

  ‘Holy Mother,’ gasped Jack. ‘That’s it, Master Crispin!’

  ‘Hush, Jack. The abbot has more to read.’

  ‘Indeed,’ the abbot went on. ‘Apparently, this went on for days, afflicting the nearby peasants with disease and terror. Finally, they talked to the bishop. See here: “… they received permission from the bishop to go to their graves and dig them up. They found them intact, but the linen cloths over their faces were stained with blood. They cut off the men’s heads and placed them in the graves between their legs, tore out their hearts from their corpses, and covered their bodies with earth again.”’

  Jack looked down at the book with pale cheeks. ‘What did they do with the hearts?’

  ‘Burned them at a crossroads from morning till evening. It’s the only way to rid the demon from the revenant.’

  ‘Revenant?’

  ‘Yes, young Jack. From the Latin reveniens. The “returned”. Animated corpses such as you have described. I’m curious. Did you see them?’

  ‘We did, sir,’ Jack put in hastily before Crispin could reply.

  ‘Truly?’ Abbot William put his hand to his heart and walked thoughtfully around the table. Jack peered over the Latin text, reading it, his lips moving slowly and silently.

  ‘Master Guest, do I take it that you intend to investigate this … this event?’

  ‘I was hired for that very thing, my lord. If necessary, I suppose I shall be required to perform this ritual of beheading and heart burning.’ He sneered. ‘Though I am reluctant to do so.’

  ‘Indeed. As any Christian would be. It is such a coincidence this happening at a church bearing the name of the same saint who encountered the like before.’