Devil's Acre

by Stephen Wheeler

  He looked at me seriously. ‘You are a good man, Walter of Ixworth. I am forced by my affliction to live as I do. But you saw past it and for that I will be forever in your debt. If there is ever anything I can do for you, tip-tip…?’

  ‘Just clean the sewers and stay out of trouble. That will be thanks enough.’

  Chapter 17

  THE REVENANT

  I left Tomelinus to begin his new career of honest, if malodorous, labour and returned to the prior’s study where I found Samson pacing the floor. He stopped when I walked in.

  ‘Walter, where have you been?’

  I was a little taken aback by the sharpness of his tone. ‘Doing my duty, father.’

  ‘Your duty is to be here at my side, not wandering off on your own. You’ve been missing half the day.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been tending to the sick and needy - as is my calling.’

  ‘What sick? What needy?’

  ‘Tomelinus.’

  He had to think for a moment. ‘You mean that scoundrel we met on the road? What’s he doing here?’ He flapped his hand: ‘Never mind. Don’t go disappearing like that again. I need you to be ready.’

  I looked at him with exasperation. ‘Ready for what? We’ve been here two days and so far I’ve done nothing. I thought I might have been asked to see the earl but you went off without me. I may as well use my skills for others’ benefit.’

  ‘The earl has doctors of his own. He doesn’t need you.’

  ‘Then why am I here?’

  For a moment I thought I might finally get an answer to that question. He opened his mouth to speak - but changed his mind.

  ‘Just do as I ask.’

  Well, that was quite a different Samson from the one earlier when he was filling his belly with mussels. I wondered what could have happened to upset him, and I didn’t think it was indigestion.

  I saw no more of the abbot or the prior that night. They supped alone in the prior’s solar while I was left to join the priory monks in the church for compline, the last office of the day. But early the next morning three of them appeared at my door in a state of barely suppressed panic:

  ‘It is the dead priest, brother.’

  ‘Ralf?’ I yawned scratching my fuzzy pate. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Sacrilège,’ whispered the second monk.

  ‘La profane,’ breathed the third, and they both nodded earnestly.

  It was too early in the morning for guessing games, especially in a foreign tongue. I turned to the first monk who at least seemed to speak a half decent version of English. ‘What are they talking about, brother?’

  He looked at me hesitantly. ‘We thought at first it was you. You tried to desecrate the grave once before.’

  I grimaced. ‘That isn’t quite what I was doing.’

  ‘You have not been back to the grave since?’

  ‘No - well briefly, to speak to Jane. Look, what’s this about?’

  The three of them went into a huddle and jabbered rapidly between themselves. Eventually the English monk emerged:

  ‘The grave, brother. It is empty.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The body is gone.’

  ‘Oui,’ said the second monk. ‘Emp-ty.’

  I looked from one face to the other. They looked terrified. ‘But that’s impossible.’

  ‘Not impossible, mon frère. It is le revenant. He has risen,’ and then all three shuddered and crossed themselves.

  Revenant. I knew the word, of course. Literally “The Returning One” - returning, that is, from the dead. I’d heard of such creatures but never actually seen one. They were the subject of childhood nightmares and tales told on dark winter nights by my old nurse who having thus aroused my terror to the point of insanity would end with the exhortation: “Now go to sleep.” But they were fantasy, surely. Such creatures didn’t really exist - did they? Clearly my trio of interlocutors thought so. Worse, they seemed to think I was somehow responsible. They stared at me expectantly. Reluctantly I pulled on my cloak and stepped out of the room.

  ‘Show me.’

  I could hear the moaning even before we got to the cemetery, like a creature in torment. A number of priory monks were huddled together at the entrance like a herd of terrified deer that didn’t know which way to run for safety. When they saw me they came over in a rush.

  ‘Yes, thank you brothers, there’s no need to push.’

  I tried to resist the pressure of bodies but with a dozen terrified monks shoving me I had little choice but to go with the flow. Ralf’s grave was right at the edge of the cemetery and at this unearthly hour it was still shrouded in mist. Even from a distance I could see that it had been disturbed. We stopped a few feet from the grave. The animal-like noises certainly seemed to be coming from the grave and sent a cold shiver up my spine.

  Revenant they said. Was I really about to come face to face with a semi-decomposed Ralf? I squinted in the gloom but could see nothing. I could feel the pressure again building behind me. Then one of the monks gave me one final shove propelling me forward. I spun round to protest: ‘Please brothers!’ But their eyes were not on me. From the terrified look on their faces I knew that something dreadful was occurring behind me. I turned slowly to see…something…rise up from the grave. Whatever it was it reached up silhouetted against the sky and then dropped back down again. A gasp went up from the monks some of whom prostrated themselves and cried out to a merciful God.

  But then came another sound, more familiarly human:

  ‘What in the name of all that is holy?’

  It was Samson. Never have I been to relieved to see his pink crown and white beard.

  ‘Walter!’ he snarled at me. ‘You again?’

  ‘Not me this time father,’ I protested and pointed towards the grave.

  The inhuman wails were coming louder than ever now. With a growl Samson marched right up to it as though it contained nothing more terrifying than a child’s toy. I gasped with admiration at his boldness. It was Daniel entering the lion’s den - except that Daniel knew exactly what he was confronting while Samson did not. He stood at the edge of the grave for a moment peering in. Then without warning he leapt in.

  Instinctively I put out my hand to stop him, but too late - he’d already disappeared inside. I should have jumped up too but to my shame I was too petrified to move. We all waited with baited breath for Samson’s screams of agony. When none came I did manage to summon enough courage to creep forward and tentatively peer into the grave myself. What did I really expect to find there? Samson wrestling in the bottom with a monster? Ralf’s semi-decomposed corpse returned to life, its flesh falling off and dripping maggots? None of these. If the corpse of Father Ralf had indeed risen up it had long since departed. What I saw instead was an empty hollow, and grubbing around at the bottom was the bent figure of Jane.

  ‘Gone,’ she moaned. ‘No rest. The poor man has no rest.’

  ‘Father?’ I whispered.

  He put up a warning hand to me. ‘Jane,’ he was saying gently, ‘what are you doing? Come away now. You do no good here.’ He placed a tentative hand on her arm but that just seemed to act like a trigger. She shrugged him off violently.

  ‘You! You did this to him! You denied him peace and now he is condemned to walk the earth for ever!’

  ‘Jane, you don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ She looked up. ‘Ask him!’ she said stabbing a finger at me. ‘He knows,’ and she started pelting Samson with clumps of earth so that he had to step back and defend himself.

  She leapt out the grave and looked round at the terrified faces of the monks. Then she raised her hand high in the air like a priest giving a blessing - except this was anything but a blessing:

  ‘I curse you, Samson of Tottington, as you cursed my Ralf. May the Devil and all his slaves carry you off to Hades!’

  Having uttered her oath, she glared round at the rest of us and darted off down the slope towards the river befo
re anyone could stop her.

  For a moment no-one moved or made a sound. But then one monk let out a gasp of despair and others began rolling on the ground jerking and contorting their bodies as though they were being stabbed by red-hot forks. I was astonished. It was like a scene from the Last Judgement.

  By now the prior had arrived. ‘Maynus!’ Samson barked at him. ‘Get your men away from here!’

  Samson himself seemed too bewildered to do anything more than stare after Jane. Still crouching on the ground I too looked in the direction she had gone but I didn’t think there was much point in trying to follow her. She would either keep going until she reached Thetford or more likely she would come back when she was hungry. Dreadful as her curse was, its truth was undeniable for it was what I had been trying to tell Samson since leaving the Sisters of Saint George. At the point of death the Devil literally sits upon a man’s chest and if we fail him then he cannot have peace. We had failed Ralf. That was Jane’s indictment.

  And now all the old doubts were returning once again: Why had Samson withheld these essentials when such a simple act could have saved all this anguish? What was the cause of the quarrel between Ralf and him? Did the abbot really have some hand in Ralf’s death? And add to these two even more urgent questions: The grave was manifestly empty so Ralf must have gone somewhere.

  But where? And to do what?

  *

  I rejoined Samson and Maynus in the prior’s study to find the abbot pacing again. He was furious.

  ‘That woman! I knew we shouldn’t have brought her. I blame you for this entirely, Walter.’

  My jaw fell open. ‘Me? ’

  ‘Yes you. If you hadn’t been so obsessed with seeing the body the thought would never have entered her head.’

  ‘If you had permitted me to examine him, father, I wouldn’t have needed to be obsessed.’

  ‘Please, my brothers,’ frowned Maynus gently from a corner of the room. ‘Recriminations are not going to help.’

  Samson ignored him. ‘And now I, Samson of Tottington, Abbot of Edmundsbury, protector of the most holy shrine of the king-martyr, am accused of precipitating this…calumny!’

  ‘You don’t believe in Revenants, father?’ I asked him.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘The point is,’ I said parrying the question, ‘the body is missing. If Jane didn’t dig him up then what else could it be?’

  Samson snorted with contempt. ‘Ridiculous!’

  I could understand his reluctance to accept the possibility that Ralf had joined the undead. After all, it is said that one of the main reasons these creatures return from the dead is in order to seek revenge on those who tormented them in life. If Samson really was responsible for Ralf’s death then he would be the one the Revenant sought. If I were him I wouldn’t want to believe it either.

  ‘There was a case,’ said Maynus quietly from his corner, ‘in the county of Hereford, I think. A creature like this who wandered the streets at night calling out the names of villagers.’

  ‘What nonsense,’ said Samson.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of this,’ I said. ‘Those whose names the monster called became sick and died.’

  ‘And their solution?’ sneered Samson. ‘Presumably they had one. Or is this living corpse still wandering the streets of Hereford?’

  ‘The matter was resolved by the Bishop of Hereford. Bishop Foliot - a former monk of Cluny, by the way,’ Maynus smiled. ‘He had the body dug up and the head cut off, holy water was sprinkled on the grave and the body reburied.’

  ‘Barbaric!’

  The prior continued undeterred: ‘There was another instance, this time in the county of Northumberland. The monster is said to have roamed the streets of the town breathing plague.’

  ‘People die of plague all the time. And the Northumbrians are a superstitious lot.’

  ‘Some men came at night when the body was back in its grave,’ Maynus went on. ‘It is said the undead cannot pass a night away from their place of rest. They took it out of the town and burned it on a pyre having first removed the heart.’

  ‘Well then our course is clear,’ said Samson with heavy sarcasm. ‘All we have to do is wait by the grave for Ralf to return.’

  ‘It looks as though we may not have to,’ I said looking out of the window. A group of men had gathered in front of the priory porch armed with clubs and scythes.

  Samson came over to the window and peered out with a groan. ‘Go down and speak with them, Walter.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you got us into this mess. Take Maynus with you since he’s such an expert on the subject.’ He started to put on his cloak.

  ‘What will you be doing?’

  ‘I’m going to the castle to try to put a stop to this before it gets out of hand.’

  It was as Maynus had described. The men - young hotheads most of them whose bravado came largely from the bottom of an ale barrel - wanted to wait by the grave until Ralf returned at sunset. Quite what they thought they were going to do if Ralf did appear I don’t know but Maynus wasn’t going to permit a gang of armed, possibly drunk, men to be camped on priory land all night. But they refused to take no for an answer, so after some difficult negotiating a compromise was agreed: two of the more sensible among them would be permitted to come back at dusk and together with two monks keep watch by the graveside. Unfortunately only one monk from the priory could be found who was willing to take part in this vigil so I agreed to be the other one, although the way things turned out I wished I hadn’t. With daylight fading so early and the temperature dropping again I could see it was going to be a long, cold wait.

  We arrived shorty after nones and set up camp a few feet from the grave. Cemeteries are eerie places even in daylight and at night they can be terrifying. As darkness falls shapes begin to change, the familiar becomes unfamiliar. Every shifting shadow, every wisp of wind is enough to spook the most steadfast soul. Being February it was already very cold, but we could not allow fires, not even a torch in case it alerted the monster. My brother monk, a young man of doubtful courage, wanted to sing a psalm to keep up our spirits but we had to silence him for we needed to keep our ears alert. So here were the four of us in complete silence, near total darkness and growing colder and more fearful by the minute.

  At first there was nothing but the snuffling of rats and the bark of a dog-fox. But then we heard it, quietly at first like the sobbing of a child. It came out of the darkness a few feet away startling us by it nearness. By now the moon was up and we could see a little as it poked through the cloud. I don’t know if any of us seriously believed anything would actually happen but now that we were facing it for real we were terrified. Instinctively we shuffled closer together. I looked at the other three faces wide-eyed with fear in the moonlight. I was certain mine was too.

  ‘What is it?’ said one of the townsmen. His breath smelt of ale. Despite Maynus’s stipulation of no alcohol in the cememtery he must have sneaked some in.

  ‘The monster,’ said the second man.

  ‘Ssh!’ I said and cocked my ear.

  Another sob.

  ‘Where’s it coming from?’ asked the second man

  ‘Near the grave,’ whispered the first.

  We drew further away. And then came the smell. I looked down at the face of the young monk; the smell was coming from him. He was trembling and pointing towards the grave:

  ‘Look!’

  The first townsman, doubtless made courageous by ale, had crept forward. He was on his knees and leaning into the grave. ‘There’s something here,’ he whispered and started scraping with his knife. ‘Something - it looks like… Urrgh!’ He stopped and fell back. He tried to get up but fell again. He was struggling, pulling on his coat but something seemed to be holding him down. ‘I can’t -’ he said and pulled again more frantically this time, his voice sounding increasingly desperate. ‘Help me! For the love of God, someone help me! Please! Help me! Help me! Help - !’

  Si
lence.

  The man’s body slumped forward. We none of us moved but all held our breath. Then something hopped out of the grave: a big black shiny crow. It looked at us sideways. It had something in its beak: a big piece of liver which it swallowed in one gulp.

  That was enough.

  Terrified, we all leapt to our feet. The young monk ran off screaming towards the priory church clutching the back of his robe. I didn’t see what happened to the other townsman but I presume he ran too. I wanted to do the same but was torn between saving myself and saving the man in the grave. Then something caught my eye. I peered hard towards a clump of bushes next to the grave where I saw a shape I was sure I recognised…

  Chapter 18

  DEAD MEN RISING

  I thought at first it must be Jane returned from her sojourn in the wild and wailing again. But it wasn’t. It was the boy from the castle, Nicholas. He was the last person I expected to see on this freezing dark night, but there was no mistaking it was him - the size, the shape, it couldn’t have been anyone else. He was crouching behind a bush and sobbing like a baby.

  ‘Nicholas? What are you doing here?’

  He jumped at the sound of my voice.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ I said putting up my hands. ‘It’s me, Brother Walter. Do you remember me? We met yesterday at the castle.’

  Once he knew who I was he let out a great sob. ‘Oh brother!’ he bawled and threw his arms around my neck…

  Now, a fourteen year old boy blubbing on your shoulder is not the most pleasurable thing and Nicholas could blub more copiously than most.

  ‘Hey hey, there’s no need for this,’ I said trying to extricate myself with difficulty. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m running away,’ he sobbed.

  ‘Running away? Whatever for?’

  I suppose running away from home is something most boys do - or think of doing - at some time. I can remember doing it myself as a young child. In any case I didn’t get very far. I’d gotten as far as the chicken coop where I promptly fell asleep and was found next morning by a milkmaid, my knapsack of cheese and bread still tied in a bundle next to me. I think I was about eight years old at the time. It’s not usually something a boy of Nicholas’s age would want to do, but then I had to remind myself that he had the mind of a child. And if the castle guards were out looking for him - which I was sure they were for I could already hear dogs barking in the distance - it wouldn’t be long before they found him. Knowing who he was and who his uncle was I really didn’t want to be with him when they did.