by Paul Doherty
‘I’m not sure,’ Stephen replied hotly, ‘I was an only child.’ He blinked away the tears of anger. ‘My mother,’ his voice faltered, ‘died young. I remember seeing her, as well as other people who had died. When the church bells tolled, voices whispered to me. Faces and shapes appeared in the dead of night. I would also glimpse them in puffs of incense smoke.’ Stephen paused. ‘My father thought I was moon-touched, fey-spirited. He sent me to the White Friars, the Carmelites at Aylesford. He claimed that I would never follow his profession, which dealt with facts. Do you know something, Beauchamp? The more he pressed me the more intense the visions became. I was glad to be free of him, to hide, to shelter at Aylesford.’
‘And I,’ Anselm intervened, ‘took him under my wing.’ The exorcist smiled across at the novice. ‘Cherished him as I would the apple of my eye.’
‘Or as your own son,’ Beauchamp cut in, ‘the one you lost?’
‘Aye,’ Anselm pulled at his sleeves and stared down the table, ‘the one I lost with his little sister and my beautiful Katerina. You know about the great pestilence sweeping in like the Doomsday angel? In a matter of days my entire family was wiped out. Perhaps I went mad; I certainly lost my wits. To me the world, the very air, became dank. Nothing but visions of death, a yawning darkness. Out of this emerged an old woman with wild hair and glaring eyes wielding a broad-bladed scythe, and behind her a horde of hellish skeletons garbed in moth-gnawed shrouds, their bare-boned faces grinning with malice. Vipers curled in their ribs, clawed hands grasped the heads of the dying. Demons clustered like flies. I became insane with grief. Satan, like a huge raven, constantly floated above me. I fled into deep forest. I met shapes, shadows, spectres, wraiths — all the undead. I entered that misty underworld between life and the kingdom of the hereafter. I visited the dungeons of the dead and confronted the furies which scourge, the key-dangling janitors of hell. I had visions of the black lake, the rivers of flame, the fearsome battlements of Hades.’ Anselm breathed out. ‘Others would dismiss it all as nonsense. Nevertheless, I have seen the storm hags ride the winds and heard their calls from the deep, wet greenness of the woods. The dead danced around me. After a time the visions faded but the ghosts remained: those souls who do not wish to pass on.’ Anselm rubbed his face. ‘Eventually I came out of my grief. I bathed, I fasted, and I found my vocation as a Carmelite priest. I also realized,’ he added tartly, ‘that the dead will not leave me alone. Accordingly my superiors, so-called astute men, decided to use my unwanted gift. Yet,’ he added wistfully, ‘I still commit treason against my own vocation. I sometimes wonder what might have been: sitting in an orchard perfumed with apple blossom, hand in hand with my beloved wife, watching our children play. . but, of course, these, too, are ghosts.’ Anselm put his face in his hands. For a brief while he sobbed quietly, then fell silent.
Beauchamp glanced at Stephen, who put a finger to his lips and shook his head.
‘If you want to know what I believe. .’ Anselm dried the tears from his seamed cheeks. ‘If you want to repeat the question that people always ask me about death, we human beings suffer two deaths. The body dies, it corrupts. The soul, the spirit, goes forth. However, once it does, a challenge is mounted by those forces hostile to God and man. Each adult soul is confronted. Some are reluctant to face the challenge. They pause, they wait. They don’t want to give up their lives on Earth. They cower, dragged down by sin, by unresolved acts and hopes. They are reluctant to go into the blinding light which burns all clear so they can make their decision for all eternity. Their world is my world. I try to reassure such souls. I try to release them from the traps. I urge, I pray for them to move on.’ Anselm rose and moved across to the shuttered window. He opened this and stared out. A bell began to clang, a solemn salutation to the gathering dark.
‘It’s time, isn’t it? You brought us here, Beauchamp. Let us see what the twilight brings.’
They left the guest house and entered the monks’ cemetery, a stretch of wild grass, flowers and shrubs bending slowly under an impetuous breeze. Above them the gathering clouds promised rain: the sky was grey and lowering, shrouding the cemetery in a more sinister aspect. They re-entered the gardens of the dead, row after row of battered crosses and crumbling headstones, hummocks and mounds long overgrown. All this was being disturbed as Beauchamp had described. Graves were being opened, rotting shrouds ripped, mouldy coffins and caskets shattered. The skulls and bones of long-dead monks were being piled into carts, tumbrils and wheelbarrows all intended for the charnel house. The workers had stopped for the day but the mounds of white glistening bones and heaps of skulls with gaping jaws were unnerving. A huge crow perched on a skull, claws slipping as if that bird of ill omen wished to grasp and carry it away. Stephen fingered his Ave beads even as Anselm took out his own from the pouch on his waist cord. The dead truly hung close. Faint voices carried on the wind. Whispered conversation, softly murmured prayers and traces of plain chanting. Shapes and shadows assumed a life of their own. Wisps of mist hovered then moved swiftly out of sight. The undergrowth became alive with strange scuttlings. Twigs snapped as if others walked beside or behind them. Steven glanced at Beauchamp. The clerk seemed unmoved by all this, walking purposefully, cloak thrown back, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.
They entered the shadowy precincts of the great abbey church. Stephen glanced up and flinched at a massive gargoyle face glaring down at him from a cornice, a fierce dragon with scaly bat-like wings and a monstrous head, its clawed feet brought up as if ready to spring. Other stone faces glowered at him from pillars, sills, corners and ledges: grinning apes, fierce lions or rearing centaurs. A lay brother met them at the west door. As they turned into the cloisters, Stephen glimpsed the windows of the crypt; the lay brother, mumbling to himself, led them straight to that underground chamber. He unlocked an oaken door; black with age and studded with iron, it creaked open. The flaring sconce torch just inside leapt in the draught as if fiercely greeting them. The monk took this from its holder and handed it to Anselm.
‘Brother,’ his face creased in a fearful smile, ‘everything is ready below. This is as far as I go. The cloisters are empty. Father Abbot wishes it so but,’ he pointed towards the nearby pyx chamber, ‘if you need help there is a bell. As I said, the cloisters are empty, at least of the living.’ The lay brother bowed and padded off into the darkness.
‘Sir Miles.’ Anselm raised the torch a little higher to throw light on that enigmatic royal clerk, standing deliberately in the darkness. Stephen couldn’t decide if the clerk was fearful or just a cynical observer of all that was happening.
‘Sir Miles,’ Anselm repeated, ‘you need come no further. We will be safe.’
‘I could stay and keep watch with you?’
‘No, if need be we will ask.’ Anselm sketched a blessing in the air. ‘You will stay where?’
‘In the guest house.’ The clerk smiled and walked away in a clatter of high-heeled boots and the jingle of silver-edged spurs.
‘Et tenebrae facta,’ Anselm whispered, watching him go, ‘and darkness fell. Come, Stephen.’
They moved on to the spiral staircase. Anselm closed the door behind them. They continued down, clutching the wall. Anselm paused. ‘The steps here are wooden,’ he explained. ‘Another protection when the jewels were stored here. These steps were usually taken away to create a wide gap, a sure hindrance, or trap, for any would-be thief.’
They stepped on to the wooden casings which bent sharply under their weight. Stephen fought to control his fear. The wooden boards also created a noisy clatter which seemed to fill the iron-stoned, sombre stairwell. They continued down, the fiery cressets making the shadow dance. The air grew chilly and slightly musty. Stephen sensed they were not alone. Shadows flittered before them along the winding staircase. A gossiping voice rose and fell. Something brushed the back of Stephen’s hand. He was gently jostled and slipped a foot. He steadied himself and thought of Alice, her face summer-warm, full lips firm against his,
and he desperately wished to be with her. He would love to be sitting in a garden or some cheery taproom staring into those laughing eyes. Instead he was here in this ice-cold tomb, ghosts bustling around him, the crypt opening up like some greedy mouth ready to devour him.
‘Leave us!’ a voice spat.
Stephen paused at the clang of iron against stone, as if someone below was picking at the walls or floor.
‘Ignore it, Stephen,’ Anselm warned.
They reached the bottom. Torches, candles and oil lamps glowed. The crypt, buried deep beneath the chapter house above, was octagonal in shape, about four yards in width. The only natural light was provided by six windows set at ground level with chamfered jambs and square heads. Deep recesses swept up to the windows, the jambs being set back at least two yards from the inner wall. Each had a segmented pointed arch and could only be reached by that narrow sloping gulley. The windows were heavily barred, iron rods embedded in the stone sill along the bottom of each window and set in the square head at the top. The floor was tiled. The concave ceiling, a gloomy vault, was supported by thick ribs of stone radiating from a massive rounded pillar in the centre of the crypt. Stephen slowly walked around this. The pillar, with a moulded base and capital, was about three feet in circumference and fashioned out of red square brick. Stephen crouched and inspected one section closely. He realized that some of these bricks could be removed to reveal a hollow recess within. He got to his feet. Despite the candles, lantern horn and the faint glow from the brazier, the crypt was definitely cold. Even so, Beauchamp had prepared well. The crypt had been stripped of everything except for two stools, palliasses and a table with water and wine flagons, two pewter goblets and a platter of dried food. Anselm was staring at the windows; the shutters had been removed and the light pouring through was now greying as dusk settled.
‘Seventeen feet thick,’ Anselm murmured, ‘that’s what they say about these walls.’ He pointed to the window on his far right. ‘That’s how Puddlicot got in; his stone mason chipped away at the sill. See, unlike the rest, it no longer has one. They then removed the iron bars, squeezed in and slid down the recess into the treasury. Some items were stored in the pillar; its removable bricks served as a strong box.’ Anselm’s account was so matter-of-fact that Stephen was startled violently by the pounding on the door leading to the stairwell. He hurriedly opened the door but there was no one. The pounding began again, this time against the door at the top of the steps, which Stephen had bolted behind them.
‘Close the door!’ Anselm shouted.
Stephen did so, pushing with all his strength, but some invisible presence, like a violent wind, seemed to be pressing against it. Anselm hastened to help. They slammed the door shut, pulling the bolts across. Anselm leaned against this, fighting a racking cough while wiping the sweat from his brow.
‘So it begins.’ He gasped and staggered across to pick up his psalter. He motioned Stephen to sit on the stool next to him as he intoned the opening verse of Vespers. ‘Oh, Lord, come to our aid. Oh, Lord, make haste to help us. Our help is in the name of the Lord. .’
Stephen glanced up and recoiled at the face, like an image in burnished steel swimming towards him, eyes all bloodshot, purple lips twisted in a cynical smile. Other figures, hideous in aspect, jostled in: hollowed, furrowed faces, eyes staring, mouths opening and closing. Stephen crossed himself. The faces seemed unaware of him but turned on each other as if in conversation. He could not hear though his mind caught sharply-whispered words such as ‘treasure’, ‘pyx’, ‘charnel door’. The figures grew more distinct, taking on bodily shapes like steam twisting up from a bubbling cauldron. The visitants were garbed in the robes, girdles and sandals of Benedictine monks. Stephen could even make out their tonsures. One of them carried a massive key ring which he jangled, though no sound was heard.
‘Monks,’ Stephen declared, getting to his feet. ‘Shapes of what once was.’
The hideous banging on the doors began again. Footsteps pounded on the stairwell. The door was tried, the latch clattering up and down; sounds at the windows made Stephen stare in horror. Dark shapes moved at the sixth window. Dust swirled down from the sill. A cold breeze smacked his face and Stephen gagged at a stench of corruption, the foulness from an open latrine. Anselm was reciting a Pater Noster. Stephen tried to join in. Candles guttered fiercely before snuffing out. The flames of the torches abruptly turned a light blue, flickered and died. Darkness filled the crypt. A hand clawed Stephen’s shoulder, pulling him back even as the clatter outside, the banging on the doors, rose to a crescendo before lapsing into silence. The crypt lay eerily still except for the soft slither of footsteps. A brick in the pillar was pulled loose, crashing to the ground. Again, silence. Stephen sensed they were not alone. Something or someone stood in the blackness before him. Anselm began the prayer of exorcism. Despite the dark he found the stoup of holy water. Anselm incensed the threatening, clawing atmosphere closing in around them. Stephen recited the responses to the prayers until the formal act of identification was reached.
‘By what name are you called?’
‘Peregrinus.’ The reply was low and throaty.
Stephen, as always, wasn’t sure if the voice was real or an echo in his own mind.
‘Ego sum, peregrinus,’ the voice replied in Latin. ‘I am a pilgrim.’
Stephen stepped back as a face, white and glaring, rushed through the darkness towards him. Ghosts swarmed, their voices mocking.
‘You are a wanderer — why?’ Anselm asked.
‘No rest, no peace.’ The voice was tired.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Here and there. I have met the jailers of the underworld. I have stood before its water black and bitter; around it lurk the ugly shapes of pestilence, fear, poverty, pain and death. I have sheltered under the great oak tree. I have been across the meadows of mayhem and misery where centaurs, gargoyles and harpies hunt lost souls like rabbits through the fiery grass. I have seen the dead flock and cluster, whispering like the dry murmuring of autumn leaves. I have wandered through the forest of the damned to confront the suicides. I have crossed the bridge of despair, over white-hot flame; I have glimpsed the iron towers of limbo and met the Furies who scourge the dead. I have encountered the Hydra with her yawning, poisonous mouth.’ The voice sighed and faded.
Stephen recalled how ghosts, like the living, often describe their own nightly dreams. Anselm often argued that no more truth should be attached to them than the ravings of a delirious patient.
‘Yes, yes,’ Anselm retorted, ‘but why do you not go into the light? Why dwell in darkness?’
‘Judgement.’
‘The Lord is merciful to the repentant.’
‘I cannot,’ the voice hissed. ‘I will not,’ it hurled back. ‘I cannot rest. You know the injustice.’
‘I know what?’
‘We have met before, at the other church where the injustice was done.’
Anselm tensed. ‘What other church? Saint Michael’s, Candlewick? What injustice?’
‘I cannot say,’ the voice rasped. ‘The guardians are here. You search for the treasure, like the rest?’
‘Are you Puddlicot the thief? The executed felon?’
‘The others asked the same.’
‘Which others?’
‘How can you describe a dream? Faces you see, all distorted, like gazing through running water? Give me peace; let me be buried. The sheer shame. How can I break free? Even Picard’s prayers do not help.’
‘Who is Picard? I adjure you to tell me the truth.’
‘The guardians have come, swift and deadly. You cannot see them. They are here.’ The voice crumbled into incoherent phrases, the occasional mumbled word. The clamour in the stairwell outside began again: the clatter of mailed feet followed by an incessant banging on the door, the latch rattling as if pressed by a mad man. Ice-cold draughts swept the crypt. The sound of dripping water grew as if a barrel was filling to the brim and splashing over. Spi
kes of fire appeared then faded. The blackness began to thin. The threat of impending danger receded. Anselm moved across to the table, searching for a tinder. After a few scrapes he forced a flame and lit the candles and cressets. The crypt flared into light. Stephen glanced fearfully at the pools of darkness. A disembodied hand appeared in one of these, long, white fingers curling as if searching for something, like the hand of a drowning man making one last desperate attempt to find something to cling on to, then it was gone.
‘Stephen, look at the walls.’
He did so. Hand prints scorched the stone, the same on the table and pillar as if some being, cloaked in fire, had crept around the crypt desperate for an opening. Stephen watched these fade even as Anselm, sitting by the table, began to slice the bread and cheese.
‘Eat, Stephen, drink.’
The novice did so though his belly rumbled. His throat felt dry, sore and sticky.
‘Is it over, Magister?’
‘It is never over, Stephen. Not until we free the nets and break the snares which keep these souls bound.’
‘The snares?’
‘Their own guilt, remorse and fear. Above all, the injustices done to them.’
‘And the guardians?’
‘Demons, Stephen, who prowl the wastelands between life and death, between heaven and hell.’
‘He talked about Saint Michael’s?’
Stephen bit into a piece of cheese and startled at the voice which bellowed: ‘We’ve shut him up, forced his mouth closed.’
Stephen dropped the cheese and whirled around in terror. Something moved in the pool of darkness. Abruptly the noise outside began again; this was repeated by the pounding on the door opening on to the steps to the crypt.
‘Enough is enough!’ Anselm sprang to his feet. ‘Why the door? I am sure it’s the door, Stephen. God knows why. Is it seen as a barrier or a representation of guilt? Why?’ Anselm opened the crypt door. He asked Stephen to bring the lantern horn and both began the arduous climb through the freezing stairwell. Every so often Anselm had to pause in a fit of coughing. They reached the wooden steps. An icy draught buffeted them. The wooden steps began to shake and, to Stephen’s horror, slightly buckle, as if some unseen power beneath was striving to break free. He clutched his lantern horn, steadying himself against the wall as Anselm prayed. The wooden steps rattled but then settled. They reached the top and opened the ancient door. Stephen was glad to be free of the crypt. He welcomed the rich night air, the comforting sight of torches flickering in their holders. Anselm, angry at what had happened, strode up and down the hollow-stone passageway, peering into the darkness before coming back to examine the door. ‘Nothing!’ Anselm exclaimed. He sat down on a stone plinth.