Nightshade

by P. C. Doherty

  ‘Jesu miserere,’ Father Thomas whispered. He stretched himself out on the slush and whispered the Absolvo Te, the final absolution, into the dying man’s ear, then opened the small pyx and forced the host between Jackanapes’ lips before swiftly anointing the dying man’s brow, eyes, lips, hands and feet.

  Corbett, astride his horse, cloak gathered about, crossed himself and whispered the Requiem. Ranulf followed suit even as he turned in the saddle to gaze swiftly around the square. Claypole’s men were now returning. A search was futile, Ranulf realised that. Slayings like these were not new to the sons of Cain. In London the same happened every so often. A killer on the loose, some skilled archer, a veteran, his soul rotten with old grievances and ageing grudges, hating life and eager for death, would deal out summary judgement. Sometimes from a church tower or steeple, the dark mouth of a stinking alleyway or the window of a deserted tavern. Corbett caught Ranulf’s attention and raised a hand as a sign that he should stay.

  ‘He is gone.’ Father Thomas clambered to his feet, eyes brimming with tears. ‘Why should anyone kill poor Jackanapes?’

  ‘Two shafts.’ Corbett leaned over the corpse. ‘That’s not happened before, has it?’ He gazed around. No one answered. ‘One to the chest and one to the throat. The killer wanted to make sure Jackanapes was killed.’

  ‘So swift.’ Master Benedict forced himself through the throng. ‘Master Claypole,’ the chaplain turned to the mayor, ‘I was waiting for you here. I swear the marketplace was deserted. I saw no one. You came down, you rode towards Jackanapes, then that horn.’ He paused, gave the reins of his palfrey to a bystander and walked over to grasp the bridle of Corbett’s mount. ‘That’s how it was, Sir Hugh.’ The chaplain stared fearfully up at him. ‘That horn, followed by the whistling shafts, isn’t that true, Master Mayor?’

  Claypole took a deep breath. Old memories were pressing deep upon him, images from a foul nightmare. He was truly fearful, yet he must hide it. ‘Lord Scrope did not come?’ he asked.

  ‘Apparently not,’ Ranulf snapped.

  ‘Then we must go …’

  Master Claypole paused as Brother Gratian arrived, perched precariously on a palfrey that came trotting across the cobbles, the Dominican’s white and black robe flapping about. He clumsily pushed his mount through the bystanders, reined in and glanced down at the corpse.

  ‘God have mercy,’ he intoned. ‘God have mercy on us all.’

  ‘If we deserve it,’ Father Thomas added. ‘Look …’ He briskly summoned forward some of his parishioners, inviting them by name, issuing instructions for Jackanapes to be taken to the corpse house on the far side of God’s Acre. He then wiped his hands on his gown, muttering that he would join them, and hurried away.

  Corbett decided not to wait, but turned his horse’s head and made his way across the market square, up the side streets and ice-covered runnels towards the trackway that led across frozen fields to the dark forest circling the deserted village. Master Claypole pushed his horse alongside but Corbett ignored him. The clerk could make little sense of what was happening; he would just listen, observe, recollect, sift and analyse. Silence was best. Corbett tried to recall Maeve resplendent in her fur-trimmed nightgown, her rich hair tumbling down framing that beautiful face, those eyes full of mischief. He took a deep breath and glanced back. Father Thomas had joined them, urging his hack alongside Master Benedict. The rest, apart from Ranulf and Chanson, were retainers or town levies, a dark host of men, a black cloud moving across the snow-covered fields. Ahead of them a line of trees marked the edge of the forest. Steel-grey clouds pressed down as if they wished to cover the land criss-crossed here and there by hedgerows or long high mounds marking the end of one field and the beginning of another. A flock of birds mobbed an owl caught out in the daylight. Corbett glimpsed a fox, belly low, loping across a field.

  The silence grew oppressive, despite the muttered conversations of the men. Father Thomas chanted the Dirige psalm for the dead. Chanson quietly teased Ranulf. The Principal Clerk of the Chancery of the Green Wax truly feared the desolate, forbidding countryside. Chanson was whispering stories about Drac, a hideous monster that lurked in the forest and came out seeking its prey especially on a sombre day like this. Corbett smiled grimly to himself. This was similar to marching in Scotland or along those Welsh valleys; the longer the oppressive silence lasted, the worse it became. He took a deep breath and, much to the surprise of everyone, wistfully sang a favourite marching song about a beautiful girl in a tower. The words were familiar, the tune simple to catch. Within a short while, other voices were raised in song, the melody echoing across the bleakness, bringing some warmth, dulling fears about the future and the memory of Jackanapes in his death throes. Once the singing ended, Corbett reined his horse in and turned to Claypole, who was staring curiously at him.

  ‘There’s nothing like a song, Master Claypole. Now, this village, you know the way?’

  Claypole pointed to the trackway snaking between the trees.

  ‘There is only one path in, Sir Hugh.’

  ‘And Mordern,’ Corbett asked, ‘why is it deserted?’

  Claypole pulled down the rim of his cloak, eager to impress this clerk.

  ‘About ninety years ago it was totally destroyed in the civil war between the King’s grandfather and the barons. A massacre took place around the old church; the place became cursed. Some people claim Lord Scrope’s ancestors sowed the earth with salt so the survivors had to move away.’

  ‘And you?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘Oh, I think the village lay too deep in the forest. Its inhabitants lacked the means to fell the trees and plough the land. So they simply used the war as an excuse to move away.’

  ‘Lord Scrope allowed the Free Brethren to shelter there?’

  ‘Why not?’ Claypole declared. ‘Others have. There is very little we can do about it: wandering tinkers, traders, even the occasional outlaw, moon people. Lord Scrope allows them to shelter and snare the occasional rabbit for the pot. As long as they don’t start poaching or hunting venison, he leaves them be. In the summer it’s different, the children go out there to play. When I was a lad I used to follow Lord Scrope there with his sister Marguerite and their cousin Gaston.’

  ‘This cousin,’ Corbett asked, ‘what happened?’

  ‘Wounded at Acre,’ Claypole replied, ‘taken into the infirmary. Sir Hugh, if you read the accounts of Acre, or if you know anything about the fall of that fortress, it was every man for himself. Gaston died. There was little we could do.’

  ‘How do you know he died?’ Corbett asked.

  ‘I followed Lord Scrope when we decided to leave. He was determined to take his cousin with us, but when he entered the infirmary, Gaston was dead.’

  ‘And the Templar treasure?’

  ‘Why not, Sir Hugh? We’d fought hard, the infidels had breached the walls. Why should they have what we could take? So we seized what we could and fled.’

  ‘And Jackanapes?’ Corbett asked. ‘What did he say before he died?’

  ‘Oh, babbling as usual. How the Sagittarius had returned, something about claiming a reward. Nothing but nonsense.’

  Corbett reflected on what he had seen and heard in the marketplace.

  ‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘I truly do!’

  The conversation died as they entered the line of trees. A different world of tangled, snow-covered gorse that stretched like a chain linking the stark black tree trunks, their bare branches laced against the sky. A secret, furtive place of swift movement in the undergrowth, the ghostly wafting of bird wing, the sudden call of an animal or the crack of rotting bracken. Corbett’s hands slid beneath his cloak. He understood Ranulf’s fears about such a place. In the cities and towns, the Chancery of Hell dictated its villainy from narrow runnels or darkened nooks. Here it would be different. A shaft loosed from a knot of trees, a knife or axe sent whirling through the air or a cunning rope or caltrop to bring down a horse. A landscape of white menace harbourin
g God knew what evil that had crawled across the threshold of hell. Here the Sagittarius could hide cloaked by nature. To still his fears, Corbett thought of Maeve and smiled as he recalled the lines of a romance she’d read to him over the Christmas holy days.

  A woman in whose face more beauty shown.

  Then all other beauties fashioned into one.

  ‘This village, Mordern?’ Ranulf, riding behind Corbett, spoke up.

  ‘Haunted and devastated,’ Claypole replied. ‘As I told Sir Hugh …’

  His words trailed away as they broke from the forest into a broad glade with clumps of snow-covered trees and straggling gorse under its icy pall. Corbett reined in and stared across at the derelict buildings, their roofs long gone, the wattle and daub walls no more than flaking shells. Here and there an occasional stone dwelling. On the far side of the glade rose the tumbledown, weed-encrusted wall of the cemetery; beyond this the memorials of the long-forgotten dead circled the ruined church. Corbett studied this, an ancient chapel probably built before the Normans came, with its simple barn-like nave, jutting porches and squat square tower. Once an impressive edifice, but the tiled roof had disappeared, the windows were black empty holes whilst no doors or gates protected its entrances.

  ‘Some people call it the Chapel of the Damned,’ Claypole whispered.

  Corbett glanced at him

  ‘I don’t know why,’ the mayor stammered.

  Corbett just nodded, aware of the growing unease amongst the comitatus behind him.

  ‘Look, master, the corpses.’ Ranulf stretched out a blackgauntleted hand.

  Corbett strained his eyes, secretly wishing his sight was better. The murmuring behind him rose as others glimpsed the horrid fruit of Scrope’s bloody work. Corbett wondered how many of these with him had been present at that hideous assault.

  ‘Sir Hugh?’ Ranulf was pointing again.

  Corbett narrowed his eyes, searched and stifled a gasp. The snow hid the bloody mayhem, but now he glimpsed the eerily shaped mounds sprawled around the church. Frost-hardened and snow-covered heaps, each a corpse, the only sign being the glint of colour or a booted leg sprawled out frozen in its death throes. Corbett followed Ranulf’s direction and stared at the clump of oaks to the left of the church tower, branches burdened down as if with snow. In truth they were hanging corpses, heads skewered, necks twisted, hands tied behind them, feet dangling. Father Thomas and Master Benedict had already intoned the De Profundis. A young man amongst the escort was quietly sobbing; others were cursing.

  ‘You were here, Master Claypole?’

  ‘You know I was.’

  ‘Then you know what has to be done.’ Corbett urged his horse forward and reined in before one of the corpses hanging from a branch. Thankfully the decaying face was covered by a mask of icy snow. Corruption and the scavengers had plucked all dignity from it. He dismounted, leaving Chanson to hobble his horse, and went across into the church porch. A woman’s corpse, garbed in a long red gown, sprawled nearby. Corbett glimpsed the headstone Brother Gratian had mentioned. Its surface had obviously been used to sharpen blades. He crouched beside the corpse. It lay face down, the once blond hair all matted with thick dirt, part of the outstretched arm gnawed clean to the bone. Despite the freezing chill, Corbett caught the stench of corruption. He swallowed hard, crossed himself and stood up.

  ‘Cut down all the corpses,’ he shouted. ‘You, sir,’ he beckoned to Robert de Scott, leader of Scrope’s retinue, ‘organise your men, collect dry kindle, build a funeral pyre. You’ve helped clear a battlefield before?’

  The grim-faced captain nodded. ‘Aye,’ he slurred, then took a mouthful of wine from the skin looped over his saddle horn. He almost choked as Ranulf swiftly urged his horse forward and pressed the tip of his drawn dagger against the captain’s throat.

  ‘Sir Hugh speaks for the King!’ Ranulf’s voice was thick with anger. ‘You, sir, do not gobble wine when he speaks to you.’ He leaned forward and knocked the wineskin from the man’s hand. ‘No drinking!’ He stood high in his stirrups. ‘No eating, nothing until my lord Corbett says.’

  The captain pushed back his cloak, hand going for his sword.

  ‘Come then!’ Ranulf teased. ‘Draw, sir, but I’m no unarmed madcap sheltering in a deserted church.’

  Robert de Scott’s hand fell away.

  ‘How many of you,’ Ranulf shouted, ‘were here at the attack?’

  Most of the escort raised their hands.

  ‘Well you’ve sown the tempest; now reap the whirlwind. Collect the corpses of those you killed.’ Ranulf ignored Robert de Scott and joined Corbett in the narrow porch of the church. ‘A bullyboy, ’ he whispered. ‘In God’s name, Sir Hugh, what was Scrope thinking of, to attack, to kill but then to leave these dead—’

  ‘True,’ Corbett interrupted, putting a hand on Ranulf’s shoulder. ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ he teased, quoting from the scriptures.

  ‘Sir Hugh?’

  ‘Ranulf, you are correct, why did Scrope leave them here? I can understand hot blood running, but later? Surely one of the great acts of corporal mercy is to bury the dead. Even the King does that,’ he added drily. He steered his companion into the church. ‘Despite our threats we’ll not get the truth from them.’ He indicated with his head. ‘I suspect Scrope came here to punish but also to search, but for what? I suspect whatever he was scouring for, he never found, so he left those corpses to frighten away the curious.’ Corbett peered around and whistled softly. ‘Truly named,’ he murmured. ‘The Chapel of the Damned!’ The walls of the ruined church were covered with creeping lichen, its floor a dark, squalid mess littered with the dung of fox, bat and all the wild creatures of the forest. The air smelt rank and fetid. Outside, the men were now busy under the shouted orders of Robert de Scott and Master Claypole. The three priests were chanting the psalms for the dead: Corbett paused and listened to the sombre words:

  That you may be correct when you give sentence.

  And be without reproach when you judge.

  Ah, remember in guilt was I born.

  A sinner was I conceived.

  ‘True, true!’ he whispered. ‘Sin stalks this Chapel of the Damned, Ranulf. Ghosts gather, pleading for vengeance. Blood, spilt before its time, demands Christ’s retribution!’

  Gloomy and shadow-filled, the church had been stripped of all movables, reduced to a mere skeleton of mildewed stone. The light pouring through the lancet windows did little to disperse the ghostly aura. Corbett walked slowly up the nave and paused where the rood screen must have stood.

  ‘Nothing!’ He gestured around. ‘Nothing at all, Ranulf! Yet the Free Brethren must have had baggage, panniers, baskets.’

  ‘Plundered by the rogues outside,’ Ranulf murmured. ‘Master, what is all this? What else are you searching for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Corbett walked into the darkened sanctuary and stared up at the small, empty oriel window. ‘I truly don’t.’ He walked into the sacristy, a long, narrow chamber, its walls plastered and fairly clean. He prodded at the dirt on the floor with the toe of his boot, then walked further down.

  ‘Master?’

  ‘I suspect this was the refectory of the Free Brethren.’ Corbett crouched down and sifted amongst the dirt. ‘See, Ranulf, the imprint of table legs, and look, here’re those of a bench. I am sure Scrope’s men must have plundered everything.’ He rose and walked to the door at the far end. He lifted the latch and opened it. Ranulf glimpsed Scrope’s retainers, dragging a corpse from a ditch near the crumbling cemetery wall. Corbett slammed the door shut. ‘They mended this door to make it secure. They met here to sit and discuss. I wonder what?’

  ‘Sir Hugh?’

  Corbett walked over to where Ranulf was peering at the wall. He pointed at the thick black etchings painted there. Corbett opened the door to allow in more light. At first they could not make out the words – several attempts had been made to obliterate them – but eventually Corbett distinguished the verse insc
ribed there:

  Rich, shall richer be,

  Where God kissed Mary in Galilee.

  Beneath these words were drawings, though most of them had been cut away with a knife. Corbett glimpsed a tower, a siege machine, a man on a couch.

  ‘I wonder,’ he whispered, ‘is this the work of the Free Brethren or someone else? They’ve certainly been done recently, not years ago.’ He walked back into the sanctuary, staring at the dirt-covered flagstones. From outside drifted the shouts and cries of those collecting the dead. Corbett continued his scrutiny, telling Ranulf to do likewise.

  ‘What are we looking for?’

  ‘You’ll know when you find it,’ Corbett murmured.

  Father Thomas came in and said that the dead were now collected and the funeral pyre was being prepared. Corbett went out. The corpses, fourteen in all, lay along what was the old coffin path. The retinue from Mistleham now stood about, faces visored against the seeping stench of rottenness. Corbett moved from corpse to corpse. Decay as well as the forest creatures had wreaked their effect, shrunken flesh nibbled and gnawed, faces almost unrecognisable. Corbett crossed himself and murmured a prayer.