by Paul Doherty
The crowd surged, broke and met again. Apprentice boys hopped like frogs, shouting for custom. Fur-gowned burgesses, arm-in-arm with their richly dressed spouses, rubbed shoulders with fish-wives hurling obscenities at each other over a cohort of men-at-arms marching down to the Tower. A market beadle proclaimed the names of two whores missing from their brothel. A juggler leading a mule decorated with cymbals stopped to ask two Franciscans in their earth-coloured, rope-girdled robes for their blessing, only to be screamed at by a group of fops, in their elegant cloaks and soft Spanish leather boots, for blocking the way. Underfoot the thoroughfare was littered with all forms of dirt and refuse. Gong-carts were attempting to clear the mess but were unable to get through. The street air, fragranced by freshly-baked bread and platters of spiced meats, turned slightly rancid as the stench curled in from the workshops of the tanners, fullers and smithies.
The two Carmelites entered the Shambles. Butchers and their boys, bloodied from head to toe, were busy slaughtering cattle. In a flutter of plumage birds of every kind: quail, pheasant, chicken and duck had their necks wrung, their throats slashed, before being tossed to the sitting women to be plucked and doused in scalding, salted water before being hooked above the stalls. The cobbles glittered in the bloody juices from all this carnage. Dogs, cats and kites fought for globules of flesh, fat and entrails. The air reeked of blood, iron and dung. Anselm hurried past on to the great concourse before the forbidding mass of Newgate prison, its crenellated towers soaring either side of the grim, iron-studded gates. An execution party was assembling. The death cart rolled out, crammed with manacled prisoners bound for the Elms at Smithfield or the Forks by Tyburn stream. Immediately the waiting crowd surged forward as friends and relatives fought to make a sombre farewell. Some prisoners screamed their messages; a few were so drunk they lay unconscious against the sides of the cart. Mounted archers beat back the mob with whips and sticks while the sheriffs, resplendent in their ermine-lined red robes, shouted for order. Anselm and Stephen waited until the execution party moved off, then pushed their way through a crowd thronging around a Dominican garbed in the distinctive black and white of that order.
‘Beware,’ the trumpet-voiced preacher declared, ‘beware, you adulterers! In hell you shall be bound to stakes in a fiery pool; each will have to face his mistress similarly bound. And that is not all, oh no! Demons will lash your private parts with wire. You traders who cheated the poor, your fate will be sealed in a red-hot leaden casket in Satan’s own black castle. You gluttons who stuffed your gaping mouths . . .’
‘I don’t think this concerns us,’ Anselm murmured. ‘Never mind gluttony! I’m starving.’
They passed through the old city walls, turning left into the maze of alleys leading down to Fleet Street and the House of the Carmelites, the White Friars. Stephen tried to hide his nervousness. These runnels were a labyrinth of iniquity. Here lurked the sanctuary men, the wolfsheads, the utlegati and the proscribed wanted by this sheriff or that. Here the knife, the garrotte or the club were drawn at the drop of a dice or the turn of a counter. Narrow, evil-smelling lanes, the walls on either side coated with a messy slime, the ground under foot squelched with the dirt and refuse thrown out by those who lived in the rat castles on either side. Now and again a candle glowed against the perpetual darkness. A flambeau burnt under a crucifix which did not hold the figure of Christ but Dismas the Good Thief. Shadow people, nighthawks and darksmen flittered through the murk. Anselm and Stephen were watched then dismissed.
‘Friars, white-garbed!’ The cry went out. Doors slammed, shutters clinked. Anselm and Stephen hurried on. The figures who confronted them seemed to merge out of the gloom: three women, street-walkers, their hair dyed different stripes of colour, their feet bare and their loose-fitting gowns open at the neck and chest to expose nipples painted a bright orange. The women blocked their way. At first Stephen thought they were drunk but, as he grew more accustomed to the dim light from the lantern horn the woman in the middle held, cold dread seized him. All three stared, hard-faced and glassy-eyed. Creatures from beyond the edge of darkness.
‘Out of our way!’ Anselm ordered.
‘Preacher! Peddling preacher! Interfering mumble-mouth! Another shaven pate comes with his cub to confront and oppose,’ the woman opposite Stephen snarled, bringing the long stabbing knife out of the folds of her gown to glitter in the juddering light. ‘Who are you?’ the woman jibed mockingly.
‘Anselm the do-gooder,’ one of her companions replied. ‘Mind you, he’s seen enough hot blood gurgle and splash. So, who set you up as a prophet in Israel? Why have you come to meddle?’
‘To spoil our little games with your stupid chuntering,’ her snarling friend jeered. ‘You whoreson bastard! Why have you come into our domain? You, Anselm, a filthy sinner with your dirty thoughts and foul moods.’
‘And you, Stephen of Winchester,’ the third woman took up the litany of insults, ‘a friar, are you – why? No vocation, surely? Fleeing your father?’ The voice was harsh, mocking and ugly.
Stephen, mouth dry, was aware of other dark shapes creeping along the walls on either side – scuttling shadows, as if a horde of hairless rats were swarming around.
Anselm stepped forward. ‘In the name of the Lord Jesus, by what are you called?’
‘The hordes of hell greet you,’ one of the women retorted.
‘And the power of heaven responds.’ Anselm grasped the tau crucifix. ‘In His name . . .’
One of the women darted forward, dagger blade snaking towards Stephen, but Anselm knocked her aside with his satchel even as he cried. ‘Deus vult, Deus vult – God wills it, God wills it.’
The third woman lunged with the club she was hiding by her side. Anselm punched her full in the face. She staggered back. The attack faded. The sinister scrabbling along the alleyways disappeared. The darkness thinned. All three women dropped what they were carrying and withdrew, looking fearfully down at their hands then up at the exorcist, faces vacant, eyes staring, mouths gaping. They backed away, then turned and fled. Anselm leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath.
‘Magister, what were those?’
‘Succubi,’ Anselm replied, ‘the demons we tried to exorcize last night. They swarm like flies seeking entrances to souls. Well, they found an open door to those three ladies.’ He blew his cheeks out. ‘They came to threaten, even to kill. God knows.’ He sketched a blessing above Stephen’s head. ‘And what did they tell us? That we are sinners? Well, we know that already! I am also very hungry and our refectory awaits . . .’
Stephen knelt on the prie-dieu before the Lady altar in the Church of the White Friars. The Angelus bell had sounded. Stephen had listened to its peals, recalling the ancient tradition that tolling church bells were a sure defence against demons and diabolic attack. He stared around the lovely shrine. The three walls of the chapel were painted a deep blue. The silver borders at top and bottom were decorated by resplendent, bejewelled gold fleur de lys with a gleaming ruby at the base of the middle stalk of every flower. The chapel ceiling was of a fainter blue; it depicted a scene from the Apocalypse, of the Virgin about to give birth while confronting a scarlet, seven-headed dragon. The floor of the Lady chapel was tiled in a glossy stone, which sparkled in the pool of taper light fixed from silver spigots in front of the magnificent statue. The sculptor had carved the Virgin in the brilliant likeness of a young court maiden, her dark hair half-hidden beneath a gold-edged, gauze white veil, her body clothed in a sheer silk gown under a robe of imperial purple edged with gold. The Virgin’s feet, encased in diamond-studded sandals, crushed the head of a writhing serpent. Stephen, however, as always, was fascinated by the face: not pious or holy but wreathed in a warm, welcoming smile. Such a look, Stephen had come to realize, was all he could remember of his beloved mother bending over him, her face full of concern, a lock of hair out of place – then she had gone. All that remained was a stern father, an esteemed physician who had no time for his son’s flights
of fancy.
Now in safety, Stephen’s mind drifted back to the events at St Michael’s and the assault in that eerie, smelly alleyway. Was this what he really wanted? Anselm he liked, respected and even loved, but this constant battle with the lords of the air, the barons and earls of hell? Stephen drew deep breaths to calm himself. Anselm had taught him to do this while repeating the Jesus prayer. Anselm maintained this would lead Stephen to meditation and contemplation but, invariably, it always put him to sleep. He was shaken awake by a servitor, face all anxious.
‘Brother Stephen, Brother Stephen, I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Master Anselm and Sir Miles Beauchamp are waiting for you in the parlour.’
Still heavy-eyed with sleep, Stephen was ushered into the elegant chamber overlooking the main courtyard of the friary. A spacious but austere room dominated by a gaunt, crucified Christ and an embroidered cloth telling the story of the Virgin’s miraculous appearance on Mount Carmel. Sir Miles and Anselm were sitting opposite each other at the oval table, which ran down the centre of the room. Shafts of afternoon light, in which a host of dust motes danced, pierced the glass windows high on the outside wall. Anselm beckoned him to sit on his left and returned to watching Sir Miles. The clerk, as elegant as ever in his blue quilted jerkin and matching hose, was sifting through a sheaf of documents on the table before him. He looked as if he had stepped out of the royal presence chamber: hair neatly combed, jewels sparking on his fingers. Stephen caught sight of the chancery ring emblazoned with the royal arms which could demand entrance to any building as well as insist on the allegiance of those who lived there. Beauchamp had slung his thick war cloak over the prior’s chair at the head of the table and looped his sword belt around the chair’s high post.
Stephen, embarrassed by the brooding silence, apologized once again, explaining where he’d been and how he had fallen asleep. Anselm brushed him gently on the arm. Sir Miles kept shuffling the pile of manuscripts before him. Stephen glimpsed red and purple seals and wondered what the Clerk of the Secret Chancery would want with them.
‘I apologize.’ Sir Miles lifted his head and smiled dazzlingly at both of them. ‘Master Anselm, I apologize for dragging you from your meeting with Father Guardian, and you, Brother Stephen, from your prayerful sleep. Yet,’ he pulled a face, ‘tempus fugit and, cometh the hour, cometh the man.’ He abruptly pushed back the stool on which he was sitting and got to his feet. He thrust the parchments back into a leather pannier, strapped on his war belt and slung the heavy cloak about his shoulder. ‘You have eaten and rested?’
‘We have eaten,’ Anselm replied sharply, ‘but not rested.’
‘You must come.’ Sir Miles was no longer smiling. ‘I, or rather my master, has permission from your masters to take you to Westminster. By the time we reach there the light will be fading.’
‘The abbey or the palace?’ Anselm asked.
‘Why, Magister, the abbey.’
‘But that has been shut, closed by interdict since the murders there.’
‘To others, yes.’ Sir Miles shrugged. ‘To me and mine, no. Now, Brothers, I suggest you go cloaked and hooded. Bring what you have to.’
Within the hour Anselm and Stephen clambered into the royal barge waiting by the narrow quayside near the friary river gate. A dozen royal archers escorted it. Four served as oarsmen either side; the rest clustered in the prow behind the jutting, gilt-edged lion head. The archers wore dark brown fustian under brilliantly coloured surcotes boasting the golden leopards of England and the silver fleur de lys of France. They looked sinister, deep cowls hiding both head and face, and they moved to the clatter of weapons and a reeking, sweaty stench. Once Sir Miles and the two Carmelites were seated in the leather-canopied stern, the order was given to cast off and, with the cries of the serjeant ringing out, they moved swiftly midstream, the oarsmen on either side bending and pulling in unison. Now and again the serjeant would blow a hunting horn, a powerful braying call warning all other craft to pull aside and recognize the royal pennant snapping prominently in its clasps on the lion-headed prow. The weather was calm; the stiff spring breeze had subsided. The barge moved serenely, cutting through the water, rising and falling now and again as it met a surge in the choppy tide.
Sir Miles opened a small fosser lined with costly samite and brought out linen parcels of fresh bread, diced ham and shredded cheese which they could open on their laps. All three ate in silence, then Sir Miles, winking at Stephen, put the linen cloths back into the fosser and drew out a loving cup which he filled from a stoppered wineskin. He took a generous sip himself then circulated the cup. Anselm just sniffed and handed it to Stephen. Once it was drained, Sir Miles smiled across at the two friars.
‘I am sure we’ll eat at Westminster, yet an empty belly can also attract demons – yes, Magister Anselm?’
The exorcist made the sign of the cross in the air as a gesture of thanks. Sir Miles busied himself with the fosser while Stephen peered out over the river. Anselm called it a true road of ghosts; he had told him some heart-chilling tales about the dead, doomed to float there like tendrils of mist. How the drowned, the victims of murders or suicide, gather in ghastly choir to sing their own haunting plain chant. Great evil was also perpetrated by those who lived in the marshes or along the tide-washed river bank – creatures of the dark who emerged after sunset to prey on lonely craft or use false beacons to lure wherries stacked high with produce into some night-shrouded ambush.
‘An interesting meeting yesterday. What did you make of our company?’
Stephen glanced across at Beauchamp, now muffled in his cloak.
‘Brother Anselm, Stephen, I know a great deal about you. What do you know about them?’
‘Only what you tell us,’ Anselm retorted sharply, ‘and, by the way, we know very little about you.’
Beauchamp laughed softly. ‘Sir William Higden,’ the royal clerk declared, ‘is much beloved by the Crown – a warrior who has seen service in France and along the Scottish march; a merchant who has proved himself most generous to our king. Sir William truly loves the church of Saint Michael’s, Candlewick. He has lavish plans to pull it down, rebuild it and put that cemetery to better purpose.’
‘He lives by himself?’ Anselm asked, steadying himself as the barge met with a swell. A seagull, strident in its shrieking, swooped low over them.
‘His wife died; he is childless. He regards Saint Michael’s parish as his adopted son. He wishes to build something magnificent there.’
‘And Parson Smollat?’
‘A London priest of good reputation, he has served a number of parishes.’
‘And Isolda, his woman?’
‘You mean his kinswoman,’ the clerk grinned, ‘or so common rumour has it. The rest,’ Beauchamp moved swiftly on, ‘are what they appear. Simon the sexton had held that position for a number of years.’
‘You seem well-acquainted with Saint Michael’s?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Sir Miles put on his elegant, gold-edged gauntlet. ‘I should have told you. I live in the parish. I have a house in Ferrier Lane on the other side of Saint Michael’s. As for the others, Almaric the curate is a butterfly who constantly moves and never settles. A man of good family, Almaric was apprenticed in his youth as a carpenter. From the little I know he enjoyed a fine reputation as a craftsman but left when God called him’ – Sir Miles steadied himself as the barge shuddered slightly – ‘to be a priest. He served as a chaplain in the commissions of array both at home and abroad. Sir William’s man, both body and soul. He is perhaps not the devoutest of priests or the most assiduous of scholars, yet a good man.’ Beauchamp paused as the serjeant of archers rapped out an order to the oarsmen. The barge shifted slightly in a swell shimmering under the glow of the late afternoon sun.
‘And Gascelyn the Custos Mortuorum – the dweller in the haunted death house?’
Beauchamp glanced away as if distracted. ‘So,’ he turned back, ‘Gascelyn told you?’
‘He let us se
e it.’
Beauchamp pulled a face. ‘Gascelyn is Sir William’s squire by day and night, in peace and war. A man hot against witches and warlocks. In Bordeaux he served as man-at-arms for the Dominicans, the Inquisition, in their fight against sorcerers. Oh, yes, Sir William couldn’t have a better man or stronger guard.’
‘And the Midnight Man?’ Anselm’s voice remained sharp.
‘I know what you do, Magister.’ Beauchamp’s voice was low, as if abruptly fearful that the oarsmen might overhear.
‘And that is very little,’ Anselm retorted, ‘except by reputation. They say he is a lord of the night, an enemy of the sun, the close companion and friend of the darkness. A being who rejoices at the cries of the screech-owl and the barking of dogs in the ungodly hours. They say he wanders among tombs and sups on human blood.’ Anselm crossed himself. ‘These are only legends, stories to frighten. In the end, however, the Midnight Man has a reputation as a great magus.’ He paused. ‘Or a great sham. Nevertheless, one whom the King’s Council, not to mention the tribunals of Holy Mother Church, would love to question.’