by Paul Doherty
‘Something to drink and something hot to eat,’ Alexander murmured, ‘would be heaven on earth.’
‘Not now,’ Sir Godfrey muttered and, ignoring his companion’s protests and the warm cloying smell from the taproom, the knight wrapped his cloak about him and slouched back out of the yard.
‘Why?’ Alexander shouted, coming up beside him.
‘I hate cities,’ Godfrey replied. ‘I feel fenced in like a horse in a stable.’ He glared at the clerk. ‘Soon others will know we are here. They’ll mark our faces and perhaps plot our footsteps. You know what we are going to deal with here, Alexander? Skilful, bloody murderers who appear like will-o’-the-wisps at night. They know the lanes, the gateways, the alleyways and the traps. Well, now’s our chance to learn. Who knows, our lives may depend on it.’
The knight, with Alexander trailing behind, trudged through Carfax and along Catte Street, passing the sellers of illuminated parchments, most of whom had given up trying to do a day’s business and had removed their precious wares into the front rooms of their houses. Suddenly the rain began to ease. They paused for a while at the Saracen’s Head. Godfrey ordered cups of wine for both of them but then stood at the door drinking quickly, urging the clerk to do likewise, until Alexander felt his usual good humour strained to the point of breaking.
They went back into the streets, past the low, timbered halls that served as hostelries for students – the Eagle, the Falcon, the Wyvern and the Sparrow. They continued up School Street past the university church of St Mary’s and into the High Street, pushing their way through the Straw Market until they reached All Saints’ church. Sir Godfrey felt pleased and ignored his companion’s black looks. At first the knight had dismissed Oxford as just a ragged warren of lanes, a labyrinth of dark runnels. Now he realized that Oxford was a city made up of small villages. The villages were the halls or colleges; each, enclosed by its high curtain wall, contained a hall as well as a library, refectory, dorters, workshops, forges and stables. Godfrey wiped the rain from his face and stared up at the looming spire of All Saints’ church. Very snug, very close, Godfrey thought, but a death trap for anyone fleeing from the law or being pursued by some red-handed murderer.
They both stood aside as the church door opened and scholars in shabby tabards, tied around the waist by cords and leather straps, came out from the noonday mass. The students jostled and pushed each other, shouting raucously, and some sang blasphemous parodies of the hymns they had previously chanted.
‘Sir Godfrey,’ Alexander appealed, ‘must we die here of the cold?’
The knight clapped his hands. ‘You have earned your meal.’ Grasping the clerk by the arm, he pushed him into the dry warmth of the Swindlestock tavern, shouting at the landlord for onion soup, freshly baked bread and dry bacon. They sat squelching in their clothes, both men eating hungrily from the hard-baked platters before leaning back licking their fingers and sighing with relief.
‘Where to next, knight?’ Alexander teased, his good humour now fully restored.
‘To she who awaits us, the abbess of St Anne’s.’ The knight drained his tankard. ‘You know why we are here?’
‘A little. There have been terrible murders.’
‘Not just that,’ Godfrey replied. ‘Oh, yes, the deaths have happened, and more. Did the chancellor give you any details?’
Alexander shook his head.
‘At first,’ Godfrey said, leaning back, ‘the occasional student disappeared and their anxious relatives made enquiries but, of course, such cases were dismissed out of hand.’ Godfrey grinned wryly. ‘After all, it’s not uncommon for students and clerks to go on pilgrimages or become involved in some mischief more attractive than their studies. Nevertheless,’ he continued, ‘these disappearances became more frequent and none of the students was ever found. Then, three months ago, the murders began. The first was dismissed as the work of house-breakers, but now there have been three incidents, all of the same pattern. A house is broken into late at night, though there are no signs of entry. The entire family is killed-father, mother, children and servants. Their throats are cut and the bodies hoisted up on to the beams by their ankles, as a butcher would hang slaughtered pigs, to allow their blood to drain.’
Alexander blanched and gripped his stomach, hoping it would not betray him.
‘The sheriff and the university proctors have all tried to reason it out but have been unable to discover anything. What has perplexed them,’ Godfrey looked squarely at the clerk, ‘is that each of the corpses has been drained of blood but there’s no sign of this in the house.’
‘So, what was behind these murders?’
‘Not profit or gain; it’s believed the murders are connected to some ancient rite involving the drinking of the victim’s blood.’
Alexander gagged and the knight leaned over and picked up his tankard.
‘You’d best drink,’ he said softly. ‘It will calm your stomach.’
‘And why the abbess of St Anne’s?’ Alexander gasped, pushing the tankard away.
‘She’s the king’s kinswoman and both the sheriff and the university proctors appealed to her for assistance. Apparently,’ Godfrey played with the ring on his finger, ‘the lady abbess is a scholar and knows something of the history of these parts. She believes the murders are somehow linked to terrible crimes that occurred in and around Oxford hundreds of years ago. She not only asked His Grace the King for help but sent pleas to the Archbishop of Canterbury as well as to the chancellor. They put their heads together and have sent an exorcist to St Anne’s convent, an anchorite named Dame Edith Mohun. Our task,’ Sir Godfrey continued gruffly, ‘is to search out the murderers and hang them. There are to be no trials or public outcry.’
‘Is that why they sent you?’
Godfrey grinned. ‘Now and again there are cases discovered by the justices in eyre or the king’s commissioners that cannot be dealt with in open court. Yes, I carry out judgement against them.’
‘But this is different?’
‘Oh, yes, master clerk. This time we deal with murderers who do not kill for profit or revenge but because they believe in ancient rites. These are the lords of the gibbet, the black masters of the graveyard, who reject the cross of Christ and put their trust in the Prince of Darkness.’
The clerk’s face paled.
‘So,’ the knight went on, ‘this is no mundane task of the chancery, some bill drawn up for a court. Your task will be to collect and sift the evidence, be my eyes and ears in this city of subtle knowledge. But enough, I have told you what I know. We’d best continue our journey.’
Godfrey led Alexander out of the tavern, up Northgate, past St Peter’s church and into Buddicot Lane, where the stinking town gaol stood. Godfrey stopped and studied this for a while, intrigued by the soldiers wearing the sodden but colourful livery of the city standing on guard. A little farther along, at the end of the gaol wall, loomed a stark set of gallows with a rotting, bird-pecked cadaver gibbeted in its cage of iron bars.
‘I have seen enough,’ Alexander moaned.
‘This time I agree,’ Godfrey replied and took him back to the Silver Tabard where they collected their horses. They rode along the city wall to the convent of St Anne. A porter let them in, grooms running up to take their horses while a wizened old lay sister, casting disapproving glances at their rain-drenched garments, led them through the dank cloisters past the chapel and up to the abbess’s chamber.
The lay sister knocked, then pushed open the door, ushering the two men into a warm, sweet-smelling chamber before withdrawing.
‘What is it?’
Despite her age, the woman behind the desk rose quickly. She was dressed in a brown habit, her dark-blue wimple edged with gold filigree. She moved from the high-backed chair near the fire where she had been conversing softly with two men whose faces were hidden in the shadows.
Her face was narrow; it would have been saintly had it not been for the piercing dark eyes and hooked nose. Her lips
were thin and bloodless. ‘I am Lady Constance, abbess of this convent,’ she said imperiously, though the words were accompanied by a generous smile. ‘Sir Godfrey Evesden, and you must be Alexander McBain.’ She allowed first the knight then the clerk to raise her vein-streaked hand to their lips.
‘My lady,’ Godfrey muttered, ‘we apologise for our appearance but that is due to an act of God.’
The abbess shook her head and stepped backwards.
‘You are most welcome, sirs, and come highly recommended by the king and the chancellor.’
Lady Constance stared at the two young men. Alexander she summed up as no more than a youth, exuberant, ever-smiling, full of the joys of spring. The knight was different. She saw the furrows around his mouth and the pain in his eyes.
‘Master McBain, the chancellor says you are the most resourceful of his clerks and, Sir Godfrey, your feats in battle as well as in the tournament are widely known. I am,’ she stammered, ‘I am sorry about the recent death of your wife.’
Godfrey shrugged and looked away.
‘Master McBain, the chancellor says you are a rogue,’ she quipped, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Well, are you?’
‘If that’s the same as resourceful, my lady, then yes I am.’
The abbess threw her head back and laughed like a young girl, clapping her hands softly. ‘Yes, yes, resourceful, that’s how he described you.’ Her face grew serious and she cocked her head sideways. ‘You are going to need all your skill and resourcefulness,’ she murmured. ‘Dreadful things happen here in Oxford. Believe me, sirs, you have entered the Valley of Shadows and Satan and all his fallen angels are camped about us.’
The abbess stared at them sadly and Godfrey sensed that when, or if, they left Oxford, their lives would have been changed by what had happened here. Lady Constance looked over her shoulder at the two men sitting silently before the fire and her lips moved as if she was talking to herself. She turned back and forced a smile.
‘Matters will wait, you look cold and damp. Where are your saddle bags?’
‘With our horses.’
‘Oh, that can’t do!’ Lady Constance murmured. ‘That can’t do!’
She went back to her desk and, picking up a small bell, rang it vigorously so that it echoed around the stone-flagged room.
‘Our visitors will stay in the guest house,’ she told the lay sister who came in response to the bell’s summons. ‘Have their bags brought round.’ She went over to the fire, murmured something to the two men sitting there and then returned. ‘Come, I will take you.’
The abbess, walking forcefully, head erect, her shoulders straight as a knight’s, went down the steps and into the cloisters. Godfrey looked up and saw the clouds were dispersing and already the sun was struggling to break through. Some of the nuns had come out to sit on benches along the cloister wall, awaiting the warmth of the strengthening sun while watching a host of small birds plunder the soft turf of the cloister garth for grubs and worms. They were almost out of the cloister when Godfrey and Alexander glimpsed a young woman seated by herself bent over a piece of embroidery. She looked up as they approached and both the knight and the clerk stopped and stared.
‘A veritable Venus!’ Alexander murmured.
Godfrey could only nod in open-mouthed agreement. The girl must have been seventeen or eighteen summers old. Her hair was not fair but golden and fell in rich cascades down her back, bound in place only by a dark purple headband with a spray of diamonds in the centre. Her gown was dark green, fringed at the cuff and neck with silver filigree. Godfrey noted the swell of her breasts, her slim waist and her delicate hands but it was her face that made his heart lurch and thrill with pleasure. It was oval-shaped, the complexion a dusty gold, with eyes as blue as the summer’s sky and lips soft, red and full. The abbess had also stopped and looked back in annoyance, then she followed the direction of their glance and smiled faintly.
‘Lady Emily,’ she called out softly. ‘Do these gentlemen know you?’
The girl rose shyly, her cheeks tinted with a blush; her eyes had the look of a gentle fawn.
‘Lady Constance,’ she stammered, her voice soft yet musical, ‘I have no knowledge of them.’
Alexander swaggered forward. ‘Accept my apologies, my lady.’ He bowed to the girl. ‘We did not mean to stare, it’s just that we did not expect in a convent. . .’
‘To find someone so young and comely,’ Lady Constance broke in tartly, ‘amongst us old sticks!’
‘My lady,’ Alexander replied quietly, ‘beauty is a passing thing and has many forms. In you it takes one shape, in my lady Emily another.’
Both ladies smiled at the smooth, swift compliment. Godfrey could only stand and stare hungrily, making Emily blush even more deeply. The abbess reasserted herself.
‘Lady Emily de Vere, may I present the king’s commissioners in Oxford, Sir Godfrey Evesden and the clerk Alexander McBain.’
Both men paid their courtesies. Alexander, chattering like a magpie, made the young girl laugh so much she blushed and hid her face behind her hand as the clerk’s stream of subtle compliments hit their mark like well-aimed arrows.
‘Enough!’ Lady Constance cried and led both men away.
Alexander looked over his shoulder and winked slyly at Emily, which only made her blush grow pinker.
‘A true rose,’ Alexander murmured.
Godfrey glared at him to hide his own confusion; he was always the same, he could wield an axe or ride a horse but any beautiful woman would tie his tongue in knots. Alexander jostled him.
‘Come, sir knight! Have you ever seen such beauty?’
‘Lady Constance,’ Godfrey called out, trying to hide his embarrassment, ‘is the young girl one of your novices?’
‘Oh, no, she’s one of the king’s wards, the owner of three manors and lush fields within a day’s ride from Oxford. Her marriage is in the king’s hands.’
‘Most fortunate,’ Alexander whispered.
Godfrey just walked on as Lady Constance took them across the rain-soaked grass to a two-storied sandstone building.
‘The guest house is empty,’ she explained. ‘You will be the only visitors staying in it.’ She showed them round the small buttery and the refectory where they would eat and introduced them to a red-cheeked lay servant.
‘Mathilda will look after you,’ she said. ‘Of course, you cannot join us in our refectory, but your food will be sent across.’ She touched Godfrey’s wet cloak. ‘Your chambers are upstairs. You can change your clothing, then I will bring my other guests across.’
‘Has the exorcist arrived?’
‘Oh, yes, we have given her a small cell built into the wall of the church near the sanctuary. She said she is happy there.’
The Prioress took her leave and Mathilda, a hearty cheerful matron of indeterminate years, showed them up to their sparse but comfortable chambers.
The soldier was running for his life, his tunic torn by the cruel, sharp-edged branches that leaned down to block his passage and claw his skin. All around him the wind moaning through the trees mocked his actions. He stopped, frozen, hands on his knees as he fought for breath. Was he safe? He had to be safe. He stood up, gulping in the fresh forest air. He wished he hadn’t left the castle. Perhaps he should go back, take the relic and inform the sheriff of what he knew. Yet, what could he say? He was a thief and now Satan was rising from his throne to drag him to the deep pit where scorpions would gnaw at his innards for all eternity. After all, he had violated his oath; he was a soldier of a Hospitaller order, yet he had forsaken his vows, stolen a relic and fled west. He had hoped to reach Lundy Island and seek passage abroad; the princes of the Rhine, the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne, would pay richly for the relic he had filched from the high altar of his church in London.
Now all had changed. He had gone down to the village to deliver a message to the miller and was returning to Oxford, whistling a song recalling warmer, brighter days in the wine-rich province where
he had been born. He had been half-way across the simple bridge, above the cold, swirling waters of the river, when he had looked over and glimpsed the terrible scene on the far bank. A dark creature knelt over the body of a young girl, some country wench, her skirts pushed up revealing naked, brown legs. Disturbed by his approach, the hooded figure half turned and snarled, revealing the young girl’s body soaked in blood, an awful, gaping wound in her throat. The creature had risen even as the soldier turned to run back along the bridge, his heart skipping with terror as he heard the pitter-patter of footsteps behind him.
The soldier had fled like the wind, his heart pounding fit to burst, his breath coming in short burning gasps until he had to stop. Surely, he thought, his terrible pursuer must have given up the chase? The Hospitaller froze. He heard a twig snap and realized all the birdsong in the forest had died. He drew his dagger and staggered on. He heard a chilling laugh behind him. He stopped, turned and whimpered in terror as he glimpsed the black-garbed figure skipping over logs, racing like a greyhound towards him. The Hospitaller fled on, his heart beating furiously in these, his last moments of life. Would he get back to the castle? The Hospitaller looked round. No sign of any pursuer. So he paused, gasped for breath and, still grasping his dagger in his sweat-soaked hands, hurried on, ignoring the branches that tore at his face and the harsh, coarse bracken that stung his legs and impeded his progress. He caught a blur out of the corners of his eyes. Was the creature racing alongside him? The man moaned in fear of death. A terrible notion occurred to him. The creature, whoever it was, seemed to be playing with him and the Hospitaller was now sure that he had been ambushed. Had this demon been waiting for him? Where could it have come from? The friary? Those priests so sly and secretive? What dreadful mysteries did they hide?