by Paul Doherty
‘I’m satisfied about what we saw, heard and felt. I assure you Stephen, it was not of human origin.’
Words Amongst the Pilgrims
The physician, who stood narrating his tale fluently and lucidly, now sat down, grasped the wine jug and filled his goblet to the brim.
‘Is this a tale?’ the pardoner jibed. ‘Or the truth?’
‘What is truth?’ the physician quipped back.
‘But these voices, shapes and shades?’ The man of law spoke up.
‘My friends,’ the poor parson declared, ‘listen to my advice. If God has his contemplatives and mystics so does Satan; he can immerse them in raptures. I’ve seen Satan,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘like a deformed bird winging through my own church. Once a parishioner of mine beheaded two old beldames. She later confessed how she’d been walking in Summer Meadow when a devil appeared to her in the form of a man, garbed and cowled. He handed her a scythe so she could do his bloody deed.
‘And?’ the man of law asked.
‘She was hanged then burnt.’
‘Satan stabs the heart with terror,’ the prioress murmured, stretching out to clasp her chaplain’s hand.
The conversation now descended into the pilgrim’s personal experiences. Tales about gruesome demons with horns and tails, fire spurting from every orifice with harsh, horrifying voices. How demon ghosts had spindly bodies, bulging eyes, lipless mouths, horns, beaks and claws. Master Chaucer watched this carefully. Most of the pilgrims joined in, though the summoner sat stock-still, lost in his own dark memories. The knight, too, was silent, staring down at the table top, tapping it with his fingers. Master Chaucer had his own misgivings. The physician was sitting in his costly robes all serene, yet there was a tension here. Chaucer shivered. Wispy shapes swirled around the physician’s head, which disappeared. Were these, Chaucer wondered, just his imaginings? Ghosts or traces of smoke from the chafing dishes and braziers? The taproom was decked out to be merry with its long table. Sweet-smelling hams, bacon and vegetables hung in nets from the smartly-painted rafter beams. The rushes on the floor were spring-green, glossy and powdered with herbs. Candlelight, lamplight and lantern horn all danced vigorously, yet there was something wrong. The physician’s story had summoned up a dark cloud which housed its own macabre secrets. The friar looked not so merry now while the haberdasher, dyer, weaver and carpet-maker, so trim and fresh in all their livery, sat heads together, locked in hushed conversation. Next to them the cook, scratching his leg ulcer, listened in, his scabby head nodding vigorously.
‘Master physician,’ Minehost of The Tabard also sensed the unease, ‘your tale is unsettling.’
‘We’ve heard about this.’ The fat-faced haberdasher, eyes all choleric, half-rose. ‘Oh, yes, the great mystery at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘Hidden crimes, scandalous secrets. .?’
‘And I know of The Unicorn.’ The cook spoke up. ‘I’ve worked there. Master Robert Palmer and his daughter Alice. .’
‘Please,’ the physician spread his hands, ‘do not spoil my tale.’
‘These ghosts and demons. .’ the bulbous-eyed manciple exclaimed. Thankfully his interjection forced the conversation back on to the personal experiences of ghosts, hauntings and visions of hell the pilgrims had either been told of or dreamed of. How the violent are boiled in blood while murderers turn into trees, their leaves and bark shredded and eaten by hog-faced harpies. The only exception was the Wife of Bath. She sat all flush-faced, slightly sweating. She did not join in the conversation but sat quietly, hands on her lap. She had taken out a pair of Ave beads and was threading these through her fingers, eyes glazed, lost in her own memories.
Minehost banged his tankard on the table. ‘Enough!’ he declared. ‘The flame on the hour candle has eaten another ring. Master physician, your story, please?’
The Physician’s Tale
Part Three
‘I can only tell you what I suspect.’ Magister Anselm folded back the voluminous sleeves of his coarse, woollen white robe. ‘Nothing is certain,’ he added wistfully. ‘Well, not in this vale of tears. No.’ He shook his head at the murmur his words created and lapsed into silence.
The two Carmelites and the others had all assembled in Sir William Higden’s council chamber next to his chancery office on the second floor of the merchant’s manor in Candlewick. Sir William, Parson Smollat, Gascelyn, Amalric and Simon the sexton as well as the royal clerk, Beauchamp, who’d recently arrived from his own house in Ferrier Lane only a short walk away. Beauchamp sat opposite Stephen, the raindrops still glistening on his fair hair.
‘You have reached certain conclusions, Brother Anselm,’ Beauchamp urged. ‘You must share them.’
‘By Saint Joachim and Saint Anne that is true.’ Anselm drank from his water goblet. ‘Richard Puddlicot,’ he began slowly, ‘broke into the royal treasury in the crypt at Westminster in April 1303. He and his coven, which comprised most of London’s notorious sanctuary men, outlaws and wolfheads, stole a King’s fortune. They were not allowed to enjoy it. A royal clerk, Drokensford,’ he glanced fleetingly at Beauchamp, ‘hunted them down. Puddlicot, a married man who’d left his wife, was consorting with a woman of ill-repute — Joanne Picard. They lived in Hagbut Lane. .’
‘Lord, save us,’ Sir William interjected, ‘that’s Rishanger’s house, the goldsmith who tried to take sanctuary in the abbey and was murdered.’
‘The same. I shall come back to him,’ Anselm agreed. ‘What is noteworthy is that Puddlicot, the great thief and violator, escaped from Drokensford’s clutches and, Parson Smollat, took sanctuary in Saint Michael’s, Candlewick.’ Anselm’s words created further cries and exclamations of surprise. ‘It’s true,’ he confirmed. ‘I have visited the crypt. I cannot say what happened there except that those involved in the great sacrilege decades ago still haunt that gloomy place. Little wonder! I also asked Sir Miles to bring from the memoranda rolls stored in the Tower all the records pertaining to Puddlicot. Our notorious felon was plucked by force from Saint Michael’s, sanctuary or not.’
‘But that is against church law!’ Parson Smollat cried. ‘Not to mention the statutes of Parliament?’
‘Oh, at the time the Bishop of London and all the city clergy pleaded and protested but Drokensford had his way. Puddlicot was lodged in the Tower where he was tried before the King’s justices. He tried to plead benefit of clergy, that he was a cleric — this was later proved to be a lie. He was condemned to hang on the gallows outside the main abbey gate. The King insisted that he be humiliated, so Puddlicot was pushed from the Tower to the Westminster gallows in a wheelbarrow. He was hanged, then his corpse suffered further indignities, being peeled and the skin nailed to the door leading down to the crypt.’ Anselm paused at the exclamations this provoked.
‘Our present King’s grandfather,’ the exorcist continued, ‘was determined that the monks of Westminster never forgot their part in the sacrilegious theft. They had to pass that door with its grisly trophy every time they wound their way up to the chapter house.’
‘And the skin remained there,’ Almaric whispered fearfully.
‘From what I learnt from the records, yes. It decomposed and merged with the wood. I went and re-examined that door; traces of human skin can still be detected.’
‘So Puddlicot’s ghost still walks?’
‘Puddlicot, God rest him, was a great sinner. He left his wife to consort with a whore. He committed sacrilegious theft and died a violent death. I doubt if his corpse was given holy burial. Little wonder he haunts Westminster as well as here, at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick in Dowgate ward.’
‘You are sure?’ Sir William swallowed hard.
‘Puddlicot definitely lived in Dowgate, in Hagbut Lane. He and Joanne Picard were members of this parish.’
‘Sir William is correct — that’s where Adam Rishanger lived,’ Almaric declared. ‘Puddlicot was a thief and so was Rishanger. .’
‘A hateful soul.’ Si
r William spoke. ‘A greedy madcap full of dark designs and sinister stratagems. He once approached me for money. He claimed he’d found a way to create the philosopher’s stone and so transmute base metal into gold. Gascelyn threw him into the street.’
‘Mad as a March hare,’ the squire declared lugubriously.
‘Rishanger rarely took the sacrament,’ Parson Smollat observed. ‘Rumours abound that after he was murdered treasure was found close to his corpse.’
‘That is correct,’ Beauchamp affirmed. He went on: ‘Such a story spread across the city: a dagger and a pure gold cross,’ then fell silent.
‘But what,’ Sir William pleaded, ‘has this ancient robbery got to do with our troubles at Saint Michael’s?’
Beauchamp gestured at Anselm. ‘Brother, your thoughts?’
‘Primo.’ Anselm paused as if listening to the rain pattering against the window. ‘Puddlicot hales from Saint Michael’s, from whose sanctuary he was illegally dragged. He also haunts the abbey, the stage on which he lived and died a hideous death, sent into the dark, his soul drenched in sin. However, why Puddlicot’s ghost has defied all attempts to prise him loose to continue his journey I am not sure. Secundo,’ Anselm continued, ‘ghosts surround us all like plaintiffs outside a court. They wait for their opportunity for a door to open; the demons do likewise. Our souls are like castles, constantly besieged by the lords of the air, the dark dwellers, malevolent wraiths and unsettled ghosts.’
‘And a door has been opened?’
‘Yes, Amalric, it certainly has. More than one gate or postern has been unlocked, unbolted and thrown wide open.’
‘By whom?’
‘Why, parson, the Midnight Man, which brings me to my third point — tertio: his macabre rites around All Souls, on Saint Walpurgis eve. What happened then? I truly don’t know. Something went dreadfully wrong. I have questioned Sir Miles but. .’
‘All I have learnt,’ Beauchamp explained, ‘was from one of my spies in the city and, believe me, they are many. This gentleman, who rejoices in the name of Bolingbrok, heard rumours, nothing more, about a midnight ceremony where the Satanists summoned up powers they could not control, so they fled. I have searched — hungered — for more details.’ He pulled a face. ‘I have whistled sharply into the darkness but so far there has been no reply.’
‘Quarto,’ Anselm continued, ‘somehow Rishanger, that petty goldsmith, found or was given two precious items from the long-lost treasure. Others, we don’t know who, also discovered this. Rishanger tried to flee into exile but he was ambushed and later murdered. Now how — and where — did they come across this treasure? We don’t know. Nor do we know if what Rishanger held was part of an even greater hoard, or who murdered him and his mistress Beatrice Lampeter, whose eyeless corpse was dug up in that garden at Hagbut Lane.’ Anselm paused for breath. Stephen could hear the bubbles on his chest and wondered if his master was falling ill.
‘Quinto,’ Anselm continued, ‘who is the Midnight Man? Is he still searching for the missing treasure which, according to the Exchequer records, still totals hundreds of thousands of pounds? Sexto, what has happened in Saint Michael’s cemetery? Why has it led to an infestation of demons and ghosts? My friends, to conclude,’ Anselm stared sadly around the assembled company, ‘I believe some other grievous sin lurks deep within the layers of our existence. But what?’ He pulled a face.
‘Why did the Midnight Man choose Saint Michael’s, Candlewick?’ Beauchamp asked. ‘My parish church, our parish church.’
‘Because he knew about Puddlicot,’ Stephen declared, ‘which means that the warlock learned about Puddlicot’s story, but from where? I mean, the robbery occurred decades ago.’
Anselm smiled at the novice. ‘You are correct, Stephen. How did the Midnight Man know? Did he study the records? Yet I asked the clerk of the Tower muniment room. No one, apart from you, Sir Miles, has asked to study that schedule of documents.’
‘I asked,’ the clerk replied tersely, ‘after the treasures were found near Rishanger’s corpse.’
‘Has any other such treasure been found in the city?’ Sir William asked.
‘No.’ Beauchamp shook his head. ‘The royal surveyors have been most scrupulous.’ He paused as one of the window-shutters, loose from its clasp, banged noisily. Stephen, the nearest, rose. He pulled the shutter closed and stared back at the narrow face, eyes all bloodshot, mouth gaping, long hair straggling down, pushed up against the opaque, square window glass. Stephen caught his breath. The lips moved soundlessly, as if cursing him.
‘Stephen?’
‘Sorry, Magister.’ Stephen glanced over his shoulder. Anselm was staring at him curiously.
‘Sir William?’
‘Yes?’ The merchant knight glanced in surprise at the novice.
‘Magister, my apologies, but that young woman, Alice Palmer, daughter of the tavern master at The Unicorn?’
‘What about Alice?’ Parson Smollat asked. ‘Oh, she’s approached you, hasn’t she? About one of the slatterns at the tavern — a young woman called Margotta Sumerhull who has apparently disappeared?’
‘Yes, yes, she has asked the same of me.’ Sir William leaned back in his chair. ‘Sir Miles, I appeal to you. How many young women in London just disappear?’
The royal clerk nodded. ‘The chancery coffers and pouches are crammed with such enquiries.’ Stephen caught the note of despair in the clerk’s voice.
‘I organized a search,’ Sir William added. ‘Ask Parson Smollat’s parishioners. But to no avail. However,’ Sir William rubbed his hands together, ‘we have talked enough. My cooks have prepared brawn in mustard, some savoury doucettes made from the sweetest, freshest pork, all mixed in with honey and pepper.’ He paused as Simon the sexton rose swiftly to his feet.
‘Sir William, please excuse me.’ Simon pointed to the hour candle standing in its ornate bronze holder on a corner table. ‘God waits for no one. The archangel guild meet for their weekly devotions before the statue. I must ring the bells, open the doors. .’
Sir William excused him and Simon hurried out. Anselm and Sir Miles began to collect their sheaves of manuscripts. Sir William rose and walked away, deep in conversation with Gascelyn and Amalric. Stephen stared around this comfortable chamber, its lime-washed walls above the highly polished, dark oak panelling, the lowered candelabra shedding a ring of glowing light. He rose and walked across to study the heraldic shields fastened on the wall. One boasted a silver pen with three gold books on a blue field depicting the insignia of St Hilary of Poitiers. Next to this the arms of St Thanus of Alexandria, the courtesan who converted to Christ, and beneath it a white scroll with the Latin tag: ‘You who have made me, have mercy on me’, written in black on a blue and violet field. Stephen studied these even as he guiltily recalled his meeting with Alice Palmer — her kiss so soft and warm, the faint trace of perfume about her. Excitement flushed his face. He only wished he could meet her again. What would it be like, he wondered, to court a young woman such as her? He tried to push aside the usual dark temptation of despondency. How refreshing it would be, Stephen wondered, to break from the shapes, shadows and glimmerings constantly on the border of both his vision and consciousness. He had rejoiced to be free of his father and his wealthy Winchester mansion. The White Friars had welcomed him warmly, educated him as rigorously as any scholar in the schools of Oxford and Cambridge. Magister Anselm had proved to be both a brilliant teacher and a very close friend. Stephen had gone to him to be shrived, to confess these very temptations of the flesh as well as those of the spirit. He had asked Anselm if all the phenomena, phantasms and visions were really true? Hadn’t Stephen’s own father raged like a man possessed against such fancies? Was there a physical explanation? Anselm had surprisingly agreed. ‘Most hauntings and so-called spiritual occurrences,’ he had declared, ‘are illusions, the result of some very cunning sleight of hand. But there are those which are true. Yet, even then I concede,’ Anselm had kept repeating this as one of his sacred
rules, ‘such events or phenomena are always firmly rooted in the human will, in human wickedness, the devious perversity of the human heart.’
Stephen started from his reverie as he heard the Midnight Man being mentioned by Anselm. He walked back to the table where Sir Miles was explaining to the exorcist that neither officials of the Crown nor those of the Church, despite all their resources, could hunt down and trap that most elusive of warlocks. Beauchamp paused as the bells of St Michael’s began to peal. They did for a while then abruptly paused, stilling all conversation in the chamber.
‘What is the matter?’ Sir William strode to the chamber door, flinging it open as the bells began to clang again but this time discordantly, sounding out the tocsin. Sir William, followed by his household, hurried out of the room, clattering down the stairs.
‘We also should go.’ Beauchamp strapped on his sword belt, beckoning to the two Carmelites to accompany him. By the time they reached the tiled entrance hall the servants had also been roused. They passed through the main doorway, down the steps across the rutted trackway to the lychgate. A crowd had gathered — a few going up the winding path to the main door of the church. Sir Miles ordered these to step aside. Stephen noticed how many of those in the cemetery wore a blue and gold livery with a great medallion celebrating St Michael’s victory over Satan on a chain around their necks. The light was dimming; the air fresh after the showers; the rain glinting on the grass and shrubs of the cemetery. As they hurried up the path Stephen noticed a group clustered to the right of the soaring bell tower. One or two were pointing up to the belfry where the tocsin still boomed out. Sir Miles strode off then hurried back, meeting them at the foot of the church steps. ‘Bardolph the gravedigger,’ he murmured. ‘According to members of the guild, they heard the bells tolling and, as they approached the church, saw Bardolph’s body fall from the tower bouncing like a pig’s bladder on to the roof, spinning like a top to the ground.’ Beauchamp crossed himself. ‘Parson Smollat is administering the rites of the dead, and Almaric is with him. Let’s find out. .’