by Paul Doherty
‘From the little we know,’ Sir William replied, ‘Simon went into the church. He entered by the corpse door. Once inside he pulled across the bolts and locked the door. He must have taken the key with him.’
‘And this has not been found?’ Anselm intervened.
‘Yes,’ Sir William agreed. ‘Apparently it wasn’t on his corpse.’
‘I searched the church with Almaric when you took poor Simon’s corpse back to his chambers.’ Gascelyn spoke up. ‘Brother Anselm, that key has disappeared.’
‘So,’ the exorcist demanded, ‘how did the sexton die?’
‘We’ve discussed that,’ Sir William replied. ‘Brother Anselm, it is a mystery except for one conclusion.’
‘Which is?’
‘The sacristy door was locked and bolted — you saw that. So it would seem that Simon entered by the corpse door, drew those bolts, locked it and threw away the key or hid it somewhere. He then went into that darkened transept, pulled his dagger and cut his own throat.’
‘Impossible.’
‘What other solution is there?’ Almaric sniffed. ‘Go back, examine the corpse door. The bolts were drawn. If you draw them back, the door remains locked because the key is missing. Simon must have killed himself, or was forced to, or some secret assassin entered that church. But how? There are no tunnels or secret passageways. Some demon, surely, Brother?’ Almaric grew more loquacious and Stephen suspected that the curate had drunk deeply from the goblet of claret in front of him. ‘Surely,’ he repeated, ‘a man can be so terrified by demons, by the horrors which lurk behind the veil as to take his own life?’
‘I would agree,’ the exorcist conceded, ‘and you all think that?’ He stared around the polished walnut table, slightly dusty from the great bowl of lilies in the centre, their yellow seeds now peppering the polished top. Everyone nodded in agreement. Beauchamp looked rather askance, even sullen as he mulled over his own dark thoughts. The royal clerk caught Stephen’s glance and stared coolly back. The novice wondered if Cutwolf had told him everything, including Stephen’s own suspicions about this mysterious and enigmatic clerk.
‘In which case,’ Anselm tapped the table top, ‘Saint Michael should be placed under interdict until it is cleansed and purified.’
‘Or pulled down?’ Sir William declared. ‘I have petitioned both the Crown and the Archbishop. The entire church should be razed to the ground.’
‘In the meantime,’ Parson Smollat asked, ‘what do I do?’ The priest looked agitated, his balding brow laced with sweat.
‘It is not the end of the world, parson,’ Sir William said kindly. ‘You can look forward to a new church.’
‘If the King and the Archbishop should agree.’ Beauchamp asserted himself, resting his arms on the table. ‘But for the moment,’ he emphasized his points on his fingers, ‘we do not know who the Midnight Man is or his coven. We do not know how he learned about the lost treasure or the robber Puddlicot, yet he has. He has used, to little or no effect, the black arts to learn more. He performed those rites at Westminster and at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick. We know he failed but not how or why this ended in failure, causing such a fierce stir amongst the living dead. Hence the hauntings, the demon infestation of Saint Michael’s and the abbey. Somehow or other,’ Beauchamp paused, ‘I believe the Midnight Man discovered two items of the lost treasure. Rishanger seized these, attempted to flee and was murdered.’ The royal clerk carefully rubbed his hands together. Stephen sensed something false, as if Beauchamp was not revealing his true thoughts. ‘Now, Rishanger was undoubtedly a member of the warlocks coven,’ the royal clerk continued. ‘He may even be the Midnight Man himself, for that sinister figure has fallen remarkably silent. Rishanger was certainly a blood-drinker. He abducted and murdered young women, then buried them in that dire garden of his. Beatrice, Rishanger’s leman, was also murdered, her corpse abused by Rishanger or others — we do not know the truth. Finally, were Rishanger’s other victims the object of his murderous lust or were they used in his diabolic rites?’ Beauchamp shrugged. ‘Again, we do not know.’
‘Then there are the other mysterious deaths,’ Anselm declared. ‘How did Bardolph fall from the top of that church tower? And Simon, his throat cut, locked in a church? Adele, poisoned by a mysterious visitor? Who this was or why they should murder her is, again, a mystery.’
‘Why can’t you free us from all of this?’ Parson Smollat almost shouted. ‘You are the exorcist. Anselm. You failed and then you disappeared.’
‘Yes, I failed. I did so because I have failed to dig out the root of all this, a malignant human wickedness. Yes, I did disappear but I have been very, very busy. I have searched the records. I have also travelled to the great Abbey of Glastonbury in Somerset.’ His words created an immediate silence.
‘Now it comes!’ a voice hissed into Stephen’s ear. ‘Now the wheel spins yet again.’ Stephen glanced over to the corner where a figure sat, a blood-red translucent veil covering its head, face and body. Stephen’s heart skipped a beat. He watched those red-mittened hands: the ends of the fingers were like long white worms, the nails painted a deep blue. Stephen murmured a prayer. The hands were moving. Stephen panicked. They must, he prayed, not pull up that veil and reveal the sinister face beneath — a witch’s face! Stephen abruptly pushed back his stool.
‘Glastonbury,’ Sir William spluttered. ‘Why there?’
Stephen rocked backwards and forwards on the stool. He glanced over again: the corner was empty but a drum, deep in the house, began to beat, followed by the faint trails of a trumpet blast. ‘A l’outrance!’ a voice cackled. ‘Usque ad mortem — to the death, so the tournament begins.’ Stephen felt a blast of heat, as if an oven door had been thrown open and he had been thrust before it.
‘Stephen,’ Beauchamp gestured at the wine dresser, ‘do you want something to drink?’
‘No.’ The novice rubbed his clammy hands along his jerkin. ‘No, I am sorry, I was daydreaming.’
‘As was I,’ Anselm added quickly. He had noticed his novice’s discomfort and was eager to distract attention. ‘Sir William, you asked about Glastonbury? Well, I also searched the records in the Tower, studying every item of treasure stolen from the crypt. Now, as you know, during the reign of Edward I, the present King’s grandfather, the monks of Glastonbury allegedly opened Arthur’s tomb in their abbey. Arthur’s body, a veritable giant, was discovered along with his flaxen-haired Guinevere. However, according to the abbey chronicle and local legend, they also found Merlin’s Stone and other magical items belonging to that great magus.’
‘What,’ Beauchamp asked abruptly, ‘is Merlin’s Stone?’
‘The philosopher’s stone,’ Anselm replied. ‘The means to perform alchemy, to transmute base metals into gold.’
‘Rishanger believed in that nonsense,’ Sir William barked. ‘I told you the murderer came here, begging me for money to achieve that, do you remember?’
‘I certainly do,’ Anselm agreed. ‘Anyway, I travelled down to Glastonbury; the almoner of that great abbey is a friend of mine. He showed me Arthur’s grave and in the library chronicle, a most fascinating account of the discovery.’
‘I have never been there,’ Sir William intervened. ‘I would love to.’
‘Yes, yes, you must go. Anyway, Edward the King took the stone and the other magical items and kept them amongst his trophies.’
‘Was Puddlicot a warlock?’ Parson Smollat asked.
‘No evidence exists for that.’
‘This business. .’ Beauchamp was eager to bring attention back to the matters in hand.
‘Ah, yes, this business.’ Anselm paused. ‘I thought, prayed, reflected and speculated.’ The exorcist rubbed his hands together slowly. ‘Undoubtedly the Midnight Man and his coven were blood-drinkers. Rishanger certainly was. They used that desolate house and that infernal pit in its dismal, isolated garden to entice young women and subject them to every kind of abuse. No wonder the place was haunted. However, the cem
etery at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick is different.’
‘Yet undoubtedly haunted?’ Parson Smollat interjected.
‘Of course, but why?’ Anselm added hastily. ‘Rishanger could carry out his gruesome rites in his own dark temple. However, would young women willingly go into a cemetery? Even if they weren’t enticed but abducted, they could resist, protest — eventually such a crime would be noticed. I mean, God knows who used to wander that place — beggars, lovers, the curious?’
‘I agree,’ Parson Smollat slurred, ‘and yet it is haunted.’
‘When I first thought some innocents had been taken there and murdered, I did wonder if they had been killed and buried in graves already dug.’
‘But that means, Brother Anselm,’ Sir William declared, ‘you suspected Bardolph, even Parson Smollat?’
‘No, no,’ Anselm retorted. ‘Remember, I asked about burials there. A grave is invariably dug the day before the requiem Mass, yes?’
‘Correct,’ Parson Smollat agreed.
‘Accordingly, I wondered if the assassin would use such occasions to kill and, under the cloak of darkness, bury his victim in a grave already dug, then cover her with soil. The funeral takes place. The coffin or shroud cloth is lowered. The grave is filled in and no one is any the wiser!’ Anselm straightened up. ‘I was mistaken. However, I still believe that corpses, horribly murdered, lie somewhere else.’ Anselm gathered together his writing satchel. ‘As for poor Simon’s death — and I rightly call him poor Simon — believe me, my friends, a fiend did that, though not from hell but from Dowgate.’ Smiling grimly at his companions, Anselm rose, made his farewells, then left with Stephen.
Once outside the house the exorcist made his way back towards St Michael’s. The day was quiet. A Franciscan stood on a plinth, begging alms for a group of lepers clustered a short distance away, their faces and hands swathed in bandages. Only their eyes, frenetic and desperate, peered out at a world that had forsaken them. Stephen ran up and told the friar to take his little flock to The Unicorn, where Master Robert would undoubtedly see them well. The Franciscan hopped down as nimble as a cricket, kissed Stephen on the cheeks and shouted at his charges to follow. He led them off singing the ‘Salve Regina’ while the lepers followed at a distance, shaking their rattles and bells. Children, playing with an inflated pig’s bladder, scattered at their approach. Women shouted from the windows of houses, begging their little ones to be careful. A false trader came racing up the lane, breathless and sweaty, as he dodged and twisted in a desperate attempt to escape pursuing market beadles. No sooner were they gone than a relic seller stepped out from an apothecary’s shop, a tray slung around his neck, offering miniature portions of soap. Each was wrapped in a linen cloth which, he proclaimed, Joseph of Arimathea had used for the Lord’s body on the first Good Friday. Stephen stood and watched these sights, aware of the different smells from the various shops and stalls. He glimpsed a necklace of gleaming copper being hawked by a tinker and immediately wondered if Alice would like it. He was about to walk across the lane when a cold breeze wafted against his face. A voice whispered something about the devil’s wolf, hungry for the hunt. Stephen whirled around. A sense of pressing danger agitated him. Were those two beggars at the mouth of the runnel watching him? Or the man, heavily cloaked, who now stood just beneath the sign of the apothecary shop? Was he masked? Was his hand resting on a dagger hilt? The people milling around did not seem so welcoming now. Glittering eyes peered from deep hoods. A bulbous-eyed servitor, apron stained with blood, hastened by then paused to stare slyly at Stephen. Above him a window casement flew open and a man leaned out. Stephen thought he was holding a crossbow, yet when he looked again the casement slammed shut. A fierce whispering broke around him, like the humming of a noisome cloud of flies. Stephen felt the terrors seize him. He was not safe here. He broke free of his panic and hurried after Anselm, finding the exorcist standing at the lychgate to St Michael’s. Stephen paused and took a deep breath.
Anselm turned. ‘Believe me, my friend,’ the exorcist leaned against the heavy wooden gate, ‘this truly is the Kingdom of Cain. Murder was committed here but how, Stephen? Why and when?’
‘Magister, what shall we do?’
‘I’ll stay here.’
‘Stay here?’
‘Yes.’ Anselm left the gate and crouched down with his back to the cemetery wall. ‘I just want to watch and see what happens.’ He shaded his eyes, squinting up at Stephen. ‘You have some money?’
‘Yes.’ Stephen grinned. ‘Why? Are we to beg?’
‘No, to eat,’ the exorcist replied. ‘Stephen, I am famished. A pastry full of minced beef with peppers and a dash of mustard? Master Robert sells the best!’ Stephen, his terrors forgotten, needed no second bidding. Swift as a lurcher he ran to the tavern, bursting breathless into the kitchen, surprising the cook who gently mocked his eagerness, saying that two pastries and a pie were easy to serve. However, the lovely Alice had accompanied her father to St Paul’s to meet a merchant beneath the Great Cross.
Stephen blushed, then grinned at the teasing. Once the linen parcels were ready, stowed in an old leather sack, he left the tavern, turning back into the street. A shout echoed through his mind. A woman’s voice whispered, ‘Ave, ave.’ Stephen whirled around as four figures, hooded and garbed in black leather jerkins and hose, soft boots on their feet, merged out of the shadows. These were no phantasms. They breathed noisily behind their masks while their wicked knives winked in the light. ‘Good morrow, little friar. You must come with us.’
‘I must not.’
One of the nightmare figures stretched out his blade. ‘What are you, little friar, you God-mumbler, you prattler of prayers? You stand there like some rabbit, jerking and trembling at the rustle of life.’
Stephen felt the anger well within him. He stepped back, determined to resist.
‘God save you all! God save the King! God save Holy Mother Church!’ Cutwolf, as if appearing from nowhere, sauntered down the alleyway. Behind him was his companion, face and head all oiled and shaved — Stephen knew this must be Bolingbrok, just by the way he swaggered. Beyond them, at the mouth of the alleyway, others thronged. Stephen heard a sound. He glanced back. His sinister assailants had disappeared into the spindle-thin runnel which stretched through the old houses in this quarter. Breathing in deeply, Stephen tried to ignore the clamouring voices. Cutwolf and Bolingbrok approached, sauntering along without a care in the world, confident in their own strength, the weapons strapped to their war belts. Bolingbrok stopped before him and bowed. ‘The Lord hath delivered thee,’ he intoned, ‘as he did Israel from Og King of Bashan and Sihon King of the Amorites.’
‘Blueberry.’ Cutwolf laughed. ‘That is what he is calling himself now. But we shall always know him as Bolingbrok. Anyway, young Stephen, we have kept you under close scrutiny. You really should be more careful.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Oh, undoubtedly the Midnight Man’s messengers, but come,’ Cutwolf beckoned, ‘Brother Anselm is starving.’
‘What did they want with me?’
‘To see what you know, because the trap is closing, Stephen. But don’t you worry. Where you go, your shadows will also follow.’
‘Why didn’t you try to arrest them?’
‘For what? No, my friend,’ Cutwolf grinned, ‘too dangerous and, I suspect, they are merely hired bully boys who know very little.’
They returned to St Michael’s. Anselm still sat sunning himself against the wall, watching the people drift by. Stephen joined him, handing over the linen parcel, making no mention of what had happened. Cutwolf and his companions drifted into the cemetery, squatting down in the long grass, shouting and laughing with each other. Stephen bit into the still-warm pastry and watched, as Anselm did, the shifting scenes. A group of pilgrims, armed with iron-tipped staves and preceded by a priest swinging a smoking thurible, hurried down to Queenhithe, chanting the litany of St James of Compostella, whose shrine at Santiago they
hoped to visit. Tumblers and tinkers, moon men and mountebanks, jongleurs and the tellers of tall tales swarmed by. Cutwolf and Bolingbrok joined the two Carmelites, sitting like young boys with their backs to the walls, faces to the sun, commenting on all who passed: the court fops in their prigging fineries, the beadles and bailiffs, the staggering drunks and sober-clad officials.
As the daylight began to fade, the more colourful of Dowgate citizens, those who lived in the Mansions of Darkness, emerged fresh for a night’s mischief. Cutwolf knew many of them by name and reputation. ‘Hedge-Popper’ and ‘Hob the Knob’ were two pickpockets; ‘Peck Face’ a professional beggar and ‘Rattle Ears’ a well-known cheat. Anselm seemed to enjoy himself and yet the more Stephen watched, he realized his master was mostly interested in the young drabs, whores and doxies who passed by. ‘I have learned something,’ Anselm breathed, ‘the Holy Spirit be thanked. I confess my arrogance. I can now begin to learn.’
He finished the pastry and was about to get up when the two Franciscan Minoresses suddenly appeared in the mouth of the alleyway opposite and hobbled across. ‘Light immortal, light divine,’ a voice whispered, only to be answered by the snarl of a fierce dog — a chilling, resounding sound which sent Stephen scrambling to his feet. He wiped the sweat on his jerkin as the two women approached. The first was very elderly and venerable with a seamed, wizened face, eyes like small black currants in a flour-white skin. The other was also old but still vigorous, sharp of eye and firm of mouth, with the natural authority of a Mother Superior. They paused and bowed at Anselm, who returned the courtesy. ‘You are Anselm, the Carmelite, the exorcist?’
‘Yes!’
‘We have much in common, Brother Anselm.’
‘Such as?’
‘Richard Puddlicot.’
Anselm just gasped.
‘Puddlicot!’ Stephen stared at the older woman, thinning hair peeping from beneath her wimple, eyes milky blue, mouth chomping on pinkish-red gums.
‘Who are you?’
‘Joanne Picard,’ the old woman whispered. ‘God have mercy on me, and on him. I was Puddlicot’s mistress. Now I am his relict.’