Those Who Go by Night

by Andrew Gaddes

  “I try to stay away from politics, Your Grace.”

  “Oh, I know you would prefer to hide away in your library, surrounded by your dusty tomes, but the time is coming when we must take part in events lest they simply overwhelm us. He who straddles the fence for too long is likely to get a sore arse, Thomas. A very sore arse indeed.”

  The bishop lowered his voice and leaned a little closer.

  “It is not just fanatics like De Gui who concern me. There are those to whom the Inquisition would be a useful political tool. King Philip used it to purge the Templars, and Edward might easily be persuaded that it serves his own purposes. I do not know if you are aware, Thomas, but I am not exactly in the king’s good graces myself.”

  Thomas was indeed aware. For years England had been teetering on the edge of rebellion. Appalled at King Edward’s ineffectual Scottish wars, his extortionate fiscal practices, and the gross excesses of his various favorites, a powerful group of barons, led by the Earl of Lancaster, had finally risen in rebellion. Although he had not exactly favored the barons in the ensuing conflict, nor had the bishop been particularly vocal in his support of the king. As a result, with the rebel forces soundly defeated, he found himself completely out of favor at court, and his many enemies were now circling about him like a flock of graveyard crows, only too ready to take advantage of his fall from grace.

  “Thankfully, I am not yet friendless. Were the Inquisition to arrive on our shores, however, I imagine I would be one of its first victims. And it would not end there.”

  “And my reward?” Thomas asked after a considered silence.

  “Reward?” the bishop scoffed, his lips twitching. “I would have thought that the peace of the realm and the solace of seeing proper justice done would be more than enough reward for you. And I seem to recall that I already pay you a handsome allowance.”

  Thomas stared back stonily. It was not the first time they’d had this discussion. The meager allowance to which the bishop referred was actually more in the nature of a retainer, for which Thomas worked damned hard, representing the bishop in any number of those personal and business affairs with which his benefactor would rather not soil his lily-white hands. The arrangement was nevertheless a satisfactory one for Thomas, and certainly preferable to selling his services in yet another pointless border war, but it had never been intended to encompass matters such as these—matters, as he kept telling the bishop, in which he really did not wish to become involved.

  “As it happens, however, I have only recently acquired a rather special artifact. Something I think the Church might be willing to entrust to your stewardship. It would make a nice addition to your … collection.”

  “Is it something better than the splinter from the true cross that turned out to be a cutting from a dogwood tree?”

  Bishop Henry looked genuinely hurt.

  “That was an honest mistake, Thomas.”

  “An honest mistake? There are no dogwoods in Palestine, Your Grace. A splinter of the true cross, and it wasn’t even cypress wood.”

  The bishop squirmed about guiltily.

  “I swear to you it came with papers, with genuine articles of authenticity.”

  Thomas rolled his eyes. “So, what is it this time? A hair from the beard of Saint Francis? A toenail shorn from the foot of Saint Andrew the Apostle?”

  “Now you are just being mean. You know I would never attempt to foist such things off on you. I am not some petty relic peddler. No, this is a truly precious item left to my diocese by a grateful parishioner who only wished me to say a mass for his soul. I am sure you will appreciate it, and I would rather you become its protector than it lie collecting dust among the other scrolls in the cathedral librarium.”

  Thomas’s eyes flared wide. So, it was some sort of writing. That intrigued him. He had always possessed a reverence for the written word and a thirst for the wisdom that an ancient text might impart. The bishop was well aware of his weakness and not at all above using it to his own advantage.

  “And must I remind you that I helped you in your time of need, Thomas? That I took you in when all others spurned you?”

  “Why not remind me, Your Grace? You do so every time you ask me for a favor,” Thomas replied with a wry smile.

  The bishop chuckled. “Ah, have I become so predictable? But then so are you. I already know you will say yes. So what say we skip this merry dance and get you on your way?”

  He rose without waiting for an answer, patted Thomas companionably on the shoulder, and walked him over to the door.

  “And what if I do find heresy? What if there is even sorcery?”

  “The chances of that are rather slim, don’t you think? These things are usually the work of some criminal with a depraved mind. Thankfully it has been some time since we had an honest-to-God heretic, let alone a necromancer. Should that be the case, however, I expect you to deal with it quickly and quietly. Rumors of heretical practices are quite bad enough. The real thing would be disastrous. We would face the full fury of the Holy See and all its Dominican inquisitors. No, that would not do at all. In the unlikely event that you find heresy, Thomas, I think you know what to do.”

  The bishop squeezed Thomas’s shoulder and gave him a slow, conspiratorial nod. “The same thing you did with Timothy of York.”

  Timothy of York was a sad old man, full of unspent lust, who believed that communing with demons would give him power over women, and over one widow, in particular, who had tickled his fancy. Incantations had been made, false idols worshipped, and countless chickens sacrificed, Timothy becoming ever more desperate as no demons answered his summons and the widow continued to spurn his advances. The bishop had dispatched Thomas to make the problem go away, as he had put it. For some reason, he believed Thomas had done so by offing the old man in the most violent fashion and that Timothy’s savagely dismembered body now lay buried somewhere under the muddy banks of the River Ouse. He seemed perfectly content with this scenario, and whenever Thomas tried to persuade him otherwise, would simply shake his head, wag his finger in the air, and smile knowingly, as though they were sharing a particularly salacious little secret.

  He would be surprised to know that Timothy of York was in fact not dead, but merely living in Dumfries, Scotland, where he no doubt still practiced the dark arts and was still unsuccessful in his attempts at magically wooing Scottish widows, for no amount of dead chickens could change the fact that Timothy was a truly ugly man, with a warty face and breath that could fell an ox at twenty paces.

  “Well,” exclaimed the bishop happily, stretching and pressing a hand to his aching back, “I shan’t keep you, Thomas. You have much to do, and I need a nice warm bath. And then I believe I must visit the prioress at Stixwould. She has some young initiates she wishes to introduce to me. They are quite charming, apparently. Lovely creatures. The prioress has high hopes for them and is keen for me to further their spiritual edification. I must say I am looking forward to it.”

  The bishop caught Thomas’s incredulous look.

  “Good Lord, Thomas! You really need to get your mind out of the runnels. What on earth did you think I was suggesting?” He dusted irritably at a speck of dirt on his sleeve. “Honestly, I sometimes wonder about you. For that matter, you could do with finding a nice woman yourself.” He stared at Thomas. “And I mean a nice young woman, Thomas, not one of your old doxies from the hovels by the River Witham. A good, honest swiving with a nice, clean wench would do you a world of good. You need to stop this mooning about over lost loves and begin to move on with your life. You are becoming quite a bore, what with your fits of melancholy and your prudish behavior. How long has it been since you had a good woman anyway?”

  Thomas did not bother to respond. In truth he had not had a good, honest swiving, as the bishop had so elegantly put it, for a long time.

  The bishop looked Thomas up and down disapprovingly. “And while we’re on the subject, it is high time you did something about your appearance. I mean,
just look at you, man! What on earth do you do with the money I pay you? I would think you could afford a nice doublet or a cambric shirt. And a bit of color here and there, instead of those dull browns and grays, would help. You really are turning into a terrible rustic. Honestly, I half-expect you to walk in here one day dressed in one of those ridiculous farmer’s smocks with your hose rolled down around your ankles and a pair of sod-covered clogs on your feet.”

  “Why do you care what I look like, Your Grace?”

  “I care because you are on my business, Thomas, and being on my business, you represent me. I also hope to see you settled down some day with a nice young woman. You are a handsome man, Thomas, but you are not likely to catch anyone’s eye dressed like that.”

  A sly look came over the bishop’s face, and he plucked at his sleeve, trying his hardest to feign nonchalance. “Now that I mention it, I seem to remember that De Bray does have a rather attractive daughter. Cecily, I believe is her name. She seemed a might uptight for my liking; too serious by half, and too skinny as well. Not nearly enough for a man to grab hold of.”

  He pumped his arms and hips again, to leave Thomas in no doubt of his meaning.

  “But I suppose she might do for you. I can see it now. The two of you sitting together on one of the resting benches in her father’s garden, a cloud of melancholy hovering above, the sullen silence broken only by an occasional spouting of some old Greek or Roman verse. It will be something suitably deep and morbid—Plutarch’s Moralia, perhaps, or something of that ilk. And, naturally, each of you will be striving to outdo the other with the profundity of your selection and the gravity of your recitation.

  “Yes, I dare say that the two of you should get along very well. And I am sure that if you chip away diligently enough at the ice, you will find underneath a deep pool of good, honest lust just waiting for you to dive in and splash about. Who knows? Perhaps you shall kill two birds with the one stone on this trip, Thomas. Put to bed this heresy business and the girl both.”

  The bishop chortled out loud, thoroughly impressed with the jape. He liked a good jape, did the bishop, and he liked his own japes best of all.

  “You might even return to me in a better humor and rather less of a boorish prude.”

  “Is that why I am really going to Bottesford, then—to find a bride?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. You are going to Bottesford on God’s work. And I never mentioned marriage. Not that I would for a moment condone relations out of wedlock, you understand. After all, let us not forget, I am the Bishop of Lincoln.”

  And he held out his hand that Thomas might be granted the undoubted privilege of kissing the ring on his finger.

  CHAPTER 3

  And because it is just that those who by their deeds make mock of the Most High should meet with punishment worthy of their transgressions we pronounce the sentence of excommunication which it is our will they shall ipso facto incur, who shall presume to act contrary to our salutary warnings and commands. And we firmly decree that in addition to the above penalties a process shall be begun before competent judges for the infliction of all and every penalty which heretics are subject to according to law …

  —Pope John XXII, Decretal Super Illius Specula (1326)

  Dame Alice Kyteler turned around in a slow circle, dolefully surveying the meager little cottage that was to be her new home.

  A single shutterless window let in barely enough light to see by, leaving full half the room veiled in shadow. But there really wasn’t much to see anyway. A crude trestle table stood on one side of the room, tilting ever so slightly where its broken leg had been mended short. There were also a couple of backless benches, a milking stool, and a splintered trunk with shattered locks. That was all. Nothing more.

  The hearthstone was cold and unwelcoming.

  In one corner of the cottage, the barbs of a bramble bush had forced their way through the crumbling wattle wall, leaving a messy dusting of clay amid the clumps of leaves and soiled straw that lay scattered across the floor. Overhead she could hear the telltale skittering and chattering of birds nesting in the thatch. As if that weren’t enough, there was a distinctly musty odor of animal droppings that suggested the presence of mice and made her nose wrinkle in disgust. It was a truly squalid place, the very air inside laden with neglect. Nobody had lived there for some time. And why would anyone want to?

  Alice lowered herself warily onto one of the benches before the tilting table, realizing for the first time how far she had fallen. Not long ago she had been one of the wealthiest women in Ireland, with a fine home, a thriving business, and servants at her beck and call. Now she was an exile, chased and harried by the Church at every turn, having only those few possessions she had managed to steal away with her when she fled. And for the first time in her life, Alice was utterly alone.

  She took a compact out of her purse, opening it up to reveal a small silver-lined mirror, and watched as the reflection of her fingers traced upward over a finely formed jaw and cheek to touch the faint lines only just beginning to emerge at the corners of her eyes—brilliant, violet eyes, deep with intelligence, but shadowed with weariness after her long journey.

  Alice had always loved the tiny mirror, at times taking an almost sinful pleasure in the sparkling glass and in what it revealed. It had been a gift from her first husband. He had been a good man, and in her own way, she believed that she might have loved him—even if only a little.

  She hesitated for a moment, lost in nostalgia, and then snapped the compact shut.

  Standing up, Alice trailed a finger across the table, surprised to find that the wood was solid English oak, dark and heavy, and the tilt not quite so bad as she had at first supposed. Like her, the table might have seen better days, yet it still stood, sturdy enough, defiantly waiting to serve a new owner, even as nature slowly reclaimed the hut all around it.

  The elegant lady smiled to herself. It was not in her nature to give in to despair, and Alice Kyteler was far from helpless. Yes, she had fallen a long way and she had fallen quickly, but she could always begin again. Who knew? This might actually be fun, and it was certainly a sight better than the fate she had left behind. She would be safe here in England, she thought, at least for the time being. Hidden away deep in the woods, in her dingy little hut, with her wonky old table.

  CHAPTER 4

  It was that time of year when nature finds itself poised in a delicate balance between the seasons, the warm and humid days of summer giving way reluctantly to crisp autumn breezes, the bright colors of the flowers soon to be replaced by the turning of leaves, the fragrant sweetness of summer bloom and of harvest by the earthier scents of damp and rot.

  Thomas Lester sat on one of the resting benches scattered judiciously about Bottesford Manor’s spacious gardens and looked out admiringly over the abundant meadows, orchards, and fields of the demesne lands.

  The harvest had already been gathered, the sheaves carted to the barn for threshing and winnowing, and the flocks turned out into the fields to graze among the white stubble. Michaelmas, falling as it did at the end of September, was a time to take stock, to settle debts, to pay and set rents. It was a time to pause, even if only for a moment, before preparations began for the celebration of Lady Mass and the approach of winter. Soon, the final plowing of the fallow fields would begin, followed by the sowing of winter wheat and rye; the last of the mid and late season fruits would be collected and either boiled for marmalade or laid out to dry, providing a tasty supplement to the villagers’ diet during the dead season when nothing grows. The tranquil scene made it hard to imagine that England had only recently been torn apart by war. Or that the embers of discontent still glowed warmly, ready at any moment to kindle a fresh flame that could once again consume the entire country.

  Thomas had heard it said that it is possible to feel the weight of a stare. He did not know if that was true, but he sensed a sudden pricking at the nape of his neck.

  And turning to the side
he saw her.

  She stood still and silent, her hands clasped loosely in front of her, regarding him with soft blue eyes set in an oval-shaped face defined by its delicate features and faultless symmetry. His first thought was that his wife had come back to him, and for a moment he held his breath, just for an instant, even though he knew it could not be true. Hawisa was long gone and he would never see her again, but this young woman looked so much like her. She had the same slender build, the same fair complexion, the same russet-brown hair, its coils catching the light with glints of reddish-gold, and the same graceful carriage. Just as Hawisa had once done, she drew the beholder’s eye to her as naturally as lavender draws bees.

  Yet as he looked closer, Thomas saw that there were also differences. The woman before him had a harder set to her mouth. Her lips, though full and red, were unsmiling and pressed together in what could easily be considered disdain. The eyes that he had at first perceived to be the softest blue betrayed a touch of flint. And she carried herself not so much with grace, perhaps, as with pride. She was elegant—some would say beautiful—and well worth the looking at, but at the same time she struck him as aloof and unwelcoming.

  Nevertheless, the memory of his wife made Thomas smile. And he realized at once his mistake. The woman’s eyes first widened in shock and then narrowed, fixing him with a look as withering and as cold as winter ice, a look he rather suspected she had perfected at a young age.

  Thomas was a good-looking man by any standards, of a little above average height, well built, with wide-set hazel eyes and a broad, handsome face that reflected his Saxon heritage. A tousled thatch of wavy brown hair, left somewhat unkempt and unshorn, fell about his brow and ears in a becoming way that might have charmed a village girl, but to this highborn lady probably appeared uncouth. From the simple, mud-splattered homespun and leather he had chosen to wear for travel, she might take him for a freeman, and at best a yeoman farmer. In either event he was someone who worked the land for a living, not a man of any particular substance in her eyes.