by Paul Doherty
‘Dying!’ she whispered. ‘Thank God, dying at last! In Paradise I’ll see again!’
Then she slid sideways. Sir Godfrey felt for the pulse in her neck but there was none. He stopped, waved with both hands towards the Star of the Sea, then staggered across, down the ladder to where McBain lay. He saw the red bubble on the clerk’s lips and could have wept at the sheer waste of it all. McBain opened his eyes.
‘Dying?’ he asked faintly.
Sir Godfrey nodded.
‘And Dame Edith?’
‘She’s gone.’
The clerk forced a smile. ‘Then she’ll wait for me!’
His eyes fluttered. ‘And the Strigoi lord?’
‘Fled!’ Sir Godfrey replied.
‘You must hunt him down. Promise me!’
‘I promise.’
The clerk smiled. ‘You are a hard man, knight.’
‘And you are a good one, McBain.’
Alexander tried to laugh, the blood dribbling between his lips.
‘I thought you’d never say that,’ he whispered. Then he shuddered. The knight thought he said ‘Edith!’ McBain’s head fell to one side, eyes open in death. Sir Godfrey laid him gently on the floor, checking his blood-soaked neck for any sign of life, but there was none. The knight whispered a prayer that Christ would welcome these two brave souls and glared fiercely into the darkness.
‘And damn those hell-hounds into the pit of blackness!’
The knight struggled up the steps. He collected his sword and dagger from the deck. He picked up the relic from where it had fallen, kissed it and put it carefully around his neck. He stared once more around the fishing smack, which looked and smelled like a butcher’s yard. Dame Edith lay by the mast, small and pathetic, and from under the far rail the priest’s decapitated head glared back at him through half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes. Sir Godfrey felt a spurt of rage. He walked across, picked the head up by the hair and tied it to a loose rope so that it swung in the wind like some rotten fruit. He then clambered over the rails into the waiting boat and, sitting in the stern, kept his eyes fixed on that grotesque head as the oarsmen rowed him back.
Grandison helped him up the rope ladder and back on to the deck of the Star of the Sea. All the ship’s company were assembled – soldiers, archers, even the cooks. They stared in open-mouthed astonishment at the corpses littering the little fishing smack, the deck awash with blood. The bodies appeared to have an eerie life of their own as they moved on the sea-washed decks, black cloaks flapping, at the motion of the waves.
‘God save us, sir knight!’ Grandison exclaimed. ‘What terrible tale is all that?’
‘Woven in hell and told by demons,’ the knight replied.
‘What happens now?’
‘We burn it!’
Grandison rapped out orders. Charcoal blaziers were lit on deck. The catapults were loaded with balls of fiery pitch. The archers strung their bows and waited to catch a flame from the braziers.
‘Wait!’ Sir Godfrey shouted.
He grasped the rigging and climbed on to the ship’s rail. He held his drawn sword in his free hand, blade down, like a cross.
‘Alexander McBain!’ he shouted above the noisy wind. ‘I salute you! Dame Edith, a woman with a crusader’s heart, I salute you! By the cross, I swear my sword will not rest until the Strigoi lord is dead!’
The wind caught the words. The knight crossed himself and climbed down. He nodded at the captain, who raised his gauntleted hand.
‘Prepare!’
Sir Godfrey heard the crack of the catapults and the shouted orders of the master of archers. Grandison’s hand dropped.
‘Loose!’
Fiery arcs sped towards the fishing smack, some dropped, hissing, into the sea, others landed on deck.
‘Again!’
The archers loosed a shower of fiery arrows. The catapults twanged and, again, a thin wall of fire fell upon the fishing boat.
‘Again!’
Once more the fire, like God’s vengeance, dropped from the skies. Sir Godfrey glimpsed a ball of burning pitch go through the small cabin door. Tongues of flame began to appear. There was a large tearing sound as the fire reached the oil and the fishing smack and all on it were enveloped in a sheet of flames. Grandison would have stopped but Sir Godfrey insisted that the shooting continue. He stood for an hour until every shred of the fishing smack was reduced to blackened timbers which the sea lapped gently before pushing away.
Amen.
The Epilogue
The knight finished his tale and stared into the flames of the taproom fire.
‘What happened?’ the wife of Bath breathlessly asked.
Now the knight smiled. He shrugged.
‘My tale is ended.’
‘And the Strigoi lord?’
‘He lives still.’
‘Is it a tale?’ the man of law shouted. ‘Fable or fact, sir knight?’
‘It’s the truth, isn’t it?’ The shipman was now standing on his feet, eyes staring as he pointed at the knight. ‘It’s true isn’t it?’ he whispered. ‘I was there. I was on the Star of the Sea.’
The knight just stared back.
‘But, if it’s the truth,’ the man of law continued remorselessly, ‘there is some explaining to be done. You, sir,’ he looked at the poor priest, ‘said Father Andrew was much respected. And you, the Oxford clerk, said St Peter’s church housed his remains. And you, sir monk, said that the Trinitarian friary has no knowledge of such legends?’
‘No, I know what happened,’ the quiet manciple intervened. ‘Sir Oswald Beauchamp retired. Proctor Ormiston is witless. Sir Godfrey achieved his task and the Church and crown drew a veil over this. The friars were laid under a solemn vow of silence and Father Andrew will be remembered as a much-loved priest. I am correct am I not, sir knight?’
The knight shrugged, rose to his feet and stretched. He glanced at the host.
‘My tale is done, sir.’
‘And a good one, too,’ Harry asserted vigorously. ‘Hell’s teeth! I’ll not sleep easy in my bed tonight!’
The knight yawned, looked quickly at the monk and walked to the door.
‘Sir knight?’
He looked round where the prioress sat, coyly fingering her brooch with Amor Vincit Omnia inscribed on it.
‘Monsieur,’ she pleaded. ‘Excusez moi. La belle dame Emily?’
‘Oh, she married the love of her life.’
The knight smiled and went out into the night air. He walked across the yard, sat on the edge of a stone wall and stared up at the starlit sky.
‘Father!’
The knight turned and looked at his son.
‘Yes, Alexander?’
‘You were the knight?’
‘Of course!’ The knight smiled through the darkness. ‘Emily was your mother. I returned to Oxford and wooed her with all my strength and power. She loved me and bore you, the noblest son any man could ask for. But,’ the knight looked sadly at his son, ‘until the day she died, there was a small corner of her heart, an enclosed shrine, a memorial to Alexander McBain.’
‘And that makes you sad?’
‘No, it does not. I am a lucky man, Alexander. Throughout my life, I have served Christ and his holy mother. I have loved and been loved. My first wife, the Lady Emily, Alexander McBain and Dame Edith Mohun.’ The knight looked over his son’s shoulder and saw a movement in the darkness. ‘And you, Robert Cotterill, who, ever since I took you from Oxford, have served me loyally.’
The yeoman emerged from out of the darkness and drew close.
‘But the hunt will go on?’ Robert asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the knight. ‘I have dedicated my life to hunting the Strigoi lord down. I pursued him to Alexandria, to Algeria, Wallachia, Prussia, Spain, Asia Minor. One day I will catch him, take his head and send his soul back to Hell!’
‘But I thought you had?’ the squire declared softly.
The knight clasped his son’s hand. ‘No, but I
give him no rest. I do not allow him to stay and build up his strength or gather a new coven around him. Now and again, I do catch one of his followers when he sends one of his ilk against me. It always ends in their deaths.’
‘And you always burn their corpses?’
‘Yes, and now you know why.’
‘But not in Canterbury?’
The knight smiled and rose to his feet. He spread his arms, put one round his squire, the other round the yeoman and hugged them close.
‘No, not in Canterbury. I go there to give thanks and beg for the help of the Blessed Martyr Thomas. Now, come, one cup of claret and a good night’s sleep.’ He dropped his arms and fingered the relic still hanging from his neck. ‘I’ve told my tale and tomorrow let’s give our buxom wife of Bath a fair hearing.’
Laughing and talking they walked back into the taproom.
In the darkness a shadow, deeper than the rest, moved. The eyes, half-hidden in a hooded cowl, glittered maliciously through the darkness and the lips curled in a grin like that of a hunting dog.