A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Someone whistled, sent it flitting.’

  Sorrel chuckled softly. ‘Learned that trick when I was a bairn. I was always afraid of the village dogs. Boys would set them on me to make me run. Thought it funny, the way my arm would flap about and throw me off balance so I couldn’t go straight. An old man in the village, who’d been lame since he was a lad, saw the dogs leaping at me one day and sent them howling off by whistling. Taught me how.’

  ‘And the shriek that frightened the wits from those men? You did that too?’

  Sorrel shook her head. ‘Not me . . . I mean, I don’t think . . . No, I couldn’t do that. I was so angry I wanted to, but how could I have done it? But then . . . who?’

  We stared out into the vast hollow dome of darkness. In the distance, we could see the tiny glow from the tinners’ fire in the stone circle. The wind rattled the bushes and shook the grasses. Clouds tumbled over each other as they charged across the inky sky, but nothing else was stirring – at least, nothing that was of this world.

  Chapter 21

  Hospitallers’ Priory of St Mary

  For the third time that morning, Deacon Wybert paused and glanced uneasily at his congregation in the priory’s chapel, catching sight of their frowns and furtive grimaces. All through the mass his voice had grown ever more strident, the words gushing out of him like liquid shit from a man with the flux. Now he hesitated, staring wildly around.

  Nicholas flicked his fingers impatiently, urging him to continue. The knight’s evident annoyance only served to unnerve the village deacon even more. He stammered, lost his place in his head and could only recover by returning to the beginning of a lengthy prayer he had already said and reciting it again, for he’d learned the service by rote, listening to old Father Guthlac.

  Nicholas gave a deep-throated growl, alarming several of the elderly village women, who edged away from him, as if he might drop to all fours and start biting. Prioress Johanne glowered at him. But he ignored her. He was impatient to see the mass ended, so that he could grab the deacon before he escaped again.

  Nicholas suspected the man had been deliberately avoiding him: each time he’d called at his cottage, his housekeeper had sworn Wybert was in another village. Having been thwarted by Father Guthlac’s untimely death, he was determined to learn what the deacon could tell him, but from the way the gibbering fool was muddling his way through the mass, Nicholas was beginning to think that wasn’t going to be much. On the other hand, he was obviously easily intimidated so he might be frightened into letting something slip.

  Something else was annoying Nicholas even more than the deacon’s babbling. He glanced around. What was that infernal noise? It was also alarming the handful of elderly villagers and pilgrims who leaned wearily on the pillars at the back of the circular nave, exhausted from having trudged miles across the moors to reach the priory. Now they, too, seemed anxious for the service to be over and not just to claim the bread and meat that would be doled out afterwards.

  Up at the altar, the deacon’s hand shook as he made the sign of the cross over the silver chalice containing the wine, now transformed by his gabbled words into the Holy Blood of Christ. His prayer ended, he sank heavily to his knees on the cold stone, raising the sacred cup to his lips. But the noise he had been trying to drown grew louder in the silence, a dull but skin-crawling buzzing. Several villagers peered nervously up into the thick shadows of the thatched roof, as if they feared a swarm of bees or wasps might be hanging there.

  Wybert lowered the chalice and glanced fearfully towards the door that led down to the holy well, whence the droning seemed to come. Was some evil spirit trapped there? The whole village knew Kendra and her daughters had cursed the sisters the day they’d turned them from the well. Could this be their revenge? Now that Father Guthlac was dead, would he be called upon to vanquish whatever was down there? He shuddered.

  ‘Deacon Wybert, you must finish the mass,’ Prioress Johanne prompted.

  Startled by the sound of her voice, he almost spilled the consecrated wine. The buzzing was invading every crevice and corner of his skull, driving out all other thoughts. He raised the chalice again and took a gulp of wine, but panic made him gasp for air at exactly that moment. The burning liquid was sucked into his lungs, and he choked violently, coughing and flailing for breath. The precious Blood of Christ spewed from his mouth and ran in red streams from his nose as he fought for air. He fell forward on to his hands and knees. The chalice clattered on to the stone and rolled away, leaving an arc of crimson wine spreading over the flags.

  Sister Basilia reached him first, pounding on his back with her broad hands so hard it felt as if she had broken his ribs. But, gasping and vomiting, he was too weak even to crawl away from her ministrations. As the other sisters pressed around him, the prioress retrieved the chalice from among the feet and set it safely on the altar.

  The villagers and pilgrims crowded forward, their excited chatter obliterating the sound that, only moments before, had so perplexed them. This spectacle was far more enthralling than any strange noise, for if this man had been struck down by God at the very instant the Blood of Christ had touched his lips, he must have committed some terrible sin. At least, that was what the pilgrims were telling each other. The moor folk, though, were glancing in awe at the locked door to the well. Perhaps it wasn’t God he’d angered but old Brigid herself, for hadn’t he been standing on the very spot where her spring gushed out below his feet? But God or goddess, whoever had struck him down, they were determined to enjoy his gruesome demise.

  The prioress was equally determined to disappoint them. She tried to clear them from the chapel – though at first not even her authority could prise them away from the entertainment.

  Sister Melisene knew her customers better. She hurried to the door, flung it open and bellowed above the din that she was off to distribute the dole of food. The villagers hesitated, but empty bellies triumphed, and they limped and shuffled after her. The pilgrims were harder to disperse, but by the time the prioress had succeeded in closing the door behind them, the deacon was hunched miserably on the stone floor, his chest heaving painfully and his face still scarlet. Otherwise it appeared he would live. As silence fell on the group of sisters, the buzzing grew louder till it filled the chapel, blotting out all the sounds of life outside.

  Nicholas, ignoring Wybert, was prowling around the chapel trying to determine where the noise was coming from. He soon realised it was loudest by the well door. But it certainly wasn’t frogs croaking. He marched over to Fina and thrust out his hand. ‘Give me your keys.’

  She turned wordlessly to the prioress.

  ‘I think you may find it more convenient to ask Sister Fina if she would be kind enough to unlock the door,’ Johanne said evenly. ‘The wooden bolt often swells because of the damp, but she has a way of coaxing it.’

  Nicholas was in no mood to ask any of the women anything. He snatched the ring of keys from Fina’s hand and advanced on the door with one thrust in front of him like a lance. He regretted his impulse almost at once, for no amount of wriggling would make the prongs connect with the slots in the bolt on the other side of the door and he had no way of knowing if he had thrust the right key into the hole or if it was merely as stubborn and obdurate as the women who guarded it.

  The sisters watched in silence, though he could sense their supercilious glances to each other behind his back. His temper and frustration were reaching boiling point. But even he realised he’d been beaten.

  ‘Like everything else in the priory, it would seem that you have arranged it so that this bolt will yield its secrets only to a woman. Sister Fina, will you please open this door?’

  His humiliation was complete as the bolt slid back for her as smoothly as ale slips down a thirsty man’s throat.

  But as it swung open, both stench and noise charged out, smashing against Nicholas like a battering ram – the sickening reek of hundreds of rotting frogs and the buzzing of the thousands of blow-flies
that swarmed over them. The iridescent green vermin crawled so densely over the steps and walls that the very rock itself seemed to be undulating. It was as if he was staring down into an open grave. For a moment, he saw – he thought he saw – the putrefied remains of a man lying on the stairs beneath the pall of flies, as if a corpse had tried to claw its way out of a tomb.

  Clamping his sleeve to his mouth to stop himself retching, Nicholas backed away from the stairs, stumbling over his own feet in his haste to escape. But though he kept telling himself it was only the shadows cast by the candlelight and the heaving mass of greenbottles, he could not shake the ghastly image from his head. All the sisters had taken an involuntary step backwards, clamping hands over mouths and noses, their eyes wide with shock and disgust. Mercifully, the flies were too cold and lethargic from the chill of the cave to fly out in any number, though a few were escaping into the chapel.

  Johanne recovered first and slammed the door shut. Clarice snatched up the first thing she could seize, which happened to be a white linen manuterge with which Deacon Wybert had dried his hands during the unfinished mass, and vigorously swatted the few flies creeping out under the door. Wybert gave a feeble squeak of protest at the desecration of a holy cloth but no one paid him any heed. He began furiously batting and brushing at his clothes and tonsure, as if he could feel the tiny creatures crawling over his skin.

  ‘There must be thousands of them,’ Basilia mumbled, through the hand she still pressed across her nose and mouth, for the flies might have been contained behind the closed door, but the stench had escaped to fill every corner of the chapel, making even the strongest stomach heave.

  ‘That is hardly to be wondered at,’ the prioress said sharply. ‘Flies are born of corpses. Judging by that smell, it would seem all the frogs have died and the flies have sprung from their remains. We must—’

  She broke off. Sister Fina’s moans were becoming ever louder, as though she was about to start screaming. She was staring fixedly at the bottom of the door, where more flies were emerging from the gap between wood and stone. Johanne seized her arm, and turned her, dragging her a few paces towards the courtyard door.

  ‘Sister Fina, go at once and fetch wet cloths to stuff around the door. Otherwise the chapel will be filled with flies.’

  Fina stumbled towards the courtyard, darting horrified glances back at the well door, as if, at any moment, the whole swarm would burst through it.

  Nicholas strode after her and stood in the open doorway, gulping air. For once the smell of stable dung and burned beans from the pilgrims’ kitchen seemed almost as fragrant as a summer meadow.

  ‘I can’t be expected to celebrate mass with that noise and loathsome stench,’ Deacon Wybert said, clambering shakily to his feet. ‘It’s not seemly.’ He stumbled past Nicholas and almost hurled himself into the courtyard in his haste to leave.

  Nicholas tried to grab his arm. ‘I want a word—’

  The deacon gagged, then vomited, barely missing Nicholas’s boots. He staggered out of the gate looking as if another bout might overtake him. Nicholas, an expression of disgust contorting his face, decided there was little point in trying to detain him. ‘Lily-livered fool,’ he muttered. ‘A spell in the order would do him good. Our priest brothers sing mass standing knee deep in blood, with the screams of dying men and horses as their choir, and they don’t stumble over a word.’ He glared at Prioress Johanne. ‘But your gutless deacon has a point. No one will attend services here while the place is swarming with more flies than a dunghill, and all the time the door to that chapel remains shut the order is losing valuable income. How do you propose to rid it of that vermin?’

  ‘For the present, there is nothing that can be done,’ Johanne said briskly, ‘except ensure the well door is sealed as best we can.’

  ‘Hare’s gall in milk will kill them,’ Basilia said. ‘I always leave some dishes of that in the casements of the infirmary when the weather is warm.’

  ‘I fear we would not be able to catch enough hares to dispatch as many flies as we appear to have,’ Johanne said.

  Basilia looked crestfallen, but instantly brightened. ‘I’m sure I’ve read in one of my herbals that burning fleabane and willow herb together will drive them away. But I can’t remember if it was dried or fresh. We use fresh fleabane to mix with the rushes, but that’s to keep down the fleas, so perhaps dried—’

  Her prioress stemmed the flow by laying a hand on her arm. ‘Sister, it is a good thought, but I fear any attempts to drive away the flies will merely send them pouring into the chapel and then they’ll be crawling over the kitchens and the infirmary. We must be patient.’

  ‘Patient!’ To Nicholas, the buzzing seemed to be growing louder. He was sure he could feel the stone beneath his feet vibrating as if the creatures were dashing themselves at the roof of the cave. ‘How many plagues are we to endure? It appears you can’t maintain a simple holy well, much less a priory and all its lands and tenements. May I remind you, Sister Johanne, that this priory belongs to the order and exists solely to carry out our ministry to the poor and sick, and to collect the revenues the Citramer so desperately needs. And if the one appointed to have the care of it is found wanting, she, with all those sisters who support her, will swiftly be removed, by force should that prove necessary.’

  Chapter 22

  Sorrel

  That evening I did not go up to Eva’s fireside, though I told Todde that was where I was going. Eva was growing stronger. Since she shared the food she cooked for the tinners, she ate better than most of the women in the camp and, unlike them, she’d time to snare birds and animals for the pot too. But though the bleeding had stopped even before I’d returned with the charm – I reckon it must have happened at the moment Morwen held the cloth – there was still something draining out of Eva day by day, as if her spirit was shedding invisible drops of blood or weeping tears that could not be seen or heard. Even after all we’d shared that night, she talked no more to me than she had done before. She never spoke of her lost bairn, even when I asked her, but I could see in her eyes the edges of her soul freezing over, like the ice creeping towards the centre of a pond. And I climbed up to her fire of an evening as much for her sake as to seek warmth for myself. But not that night.

  Why did I lie to Todde? Why would he care where I went? I was nothing to him. There were plenty of women with two good arms in the camp. Why would he or any man look twice at me, save in disgust? But, all the same, I knew he’d try to dissuade me from going out on the moor at night. He’d not ventured out there himself since we’d arrived in the camp. Few of the tinners would leave the valley alone after dark, for fear of the hounds we heard howling across the moors. But I had to go, just as I’d had to leave my village and set out on this journey. Morwen held the answer I’d been searching for. She knew whose the voice was and why she was calling me. I was growing more certain of that each day.

  It was already dark by the time I neared Kendra’s cottage. A chill wind blew through the sedges and rustled every furze bush. I couldn’t stop myself constantly turning my head, certain that some beast was creeping through the long grasses behind me. I should not have come. When I’d ventured to this place before, I had been fretting so about Eva that a herd of dragons could have roared past me and I’d not have noticed. But now I heard every scurry among the heather, heard the cry of all the birds winging towards their roosts.

  Kendra’s cottage squatted like a black toad in a cold puddle of moonlight. A flickering tongue of gold-red light darted out beneath the leather curtain that hung in the doorway as if it was searching for grubs. I stopped. What reason could I give for coming? I’d no food to spare. I didn’t even know what I would say to Morwen if I could speak to her alone. It was madness.

  As quietly as I could, I began to back away. The slippery wet stepping-stones in the stream glinted in the moonlight. The bubble and rush of the water seemed louder than when I’d crossed a few moments ago and I stared down, trying to balance myse
lf. But as I stepped out on the other side I collided with something in the darkness that was both soft and hard. I almost pitched backwards into the stream, but a hand grabbed my arm and steadied me.

  ‘I knew you’d come.’ Morwen’s eyes glittered so brightly, it was as if a candle burned behind them. She put a finger to her lips, nodding towards the cottage, then beckoned to me to follow. We climbed up the side of the stream. When the clouds hid the moon, Morwen didn’t falter. She slipped around every stone and bush, every mire and mound, as if, like a cat, she could see as well at night as in the day. She darted ahead and I lumbered behind, slipping and tripping, until suddenly she vanished. I called out, terrified she’d been swallowed by one of the quaking bogs the tinners feared.

  I breathed again, as I heard her voice, but I couldn’t make out where it was coming from. Then the moon sidled out from the clouds and I saw that I was standing on the rim of a hollow on the side of a hill, as if a giant ladle had been plunged into the earth and scooped it out. A small pool, black and glistening, lay in its heart. I could just make out the figure of Morwen crouching close to the water. I stumbled down after her, squelching through patches of oozing mud that lay hidden beneath sodden grass.

  She grinned, her teeth flashing white in the moonlight. ‘I knew I could fetch you back to the cottage.’

  ‘Fetch me? No, you didn’t. I came looking for you,’ I said indignantly. I’d had a lifetime of my father and brother ordering me to do whatever they pleased. I knew that was the way of it with men. But since I had walked away from them, I was determined to be commanded by no one.

  ‘I can teach you how,’ Morwen chirruped, oblivious to my annoyance.

  She was as excited as a bairn wanting to show off some new-found treasure. Before I could stop her, she was yanking at the cloth twisted about my head. My hair whirled out in the breeze.