A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  I had asked a servant to deliver small ale and a platter of boiled goat’s meat to Nicholas’s chamber well before the usual breakfast hour, and instructed her to inform the knight that the refectory was being used by the cook to press the head meats for brawn, there being no space left in the kitchens. She was to tell him that his meals would be served in his chamber and the sisters would eat in their dorter until the refectory could be cleared. I had hoped in that way I might avoid him for a few hours at least, but it seemed my prayer had not been answered.

  Brother Nicholas’s voice rang out imperiously even before he’d reached me. ‘Where is the boy, Prioress Johanne?’

  ‘If Brengy is not in the stables, he will probably be in the kitchen with his sister, Dye, helping with the goat carcasses. Why? Did you want your horse saddled? Are you planning to leave us like Brother Alban?’

  I was aware of Clarice’s gaze upon me, and found myself torn between hoping we were about to be rid of our brother and dread that she had been right: he would try to ride to Buckland and deliver his report in person to Commander John. It was too much to hope that neither Alban nor he would get through to Clerkenwell or Buckland.

  ‘I’m not looking for the stable lad,’ Nicholas snapped, ‘I visited the infirmary last night, but I didn’t see the blind boy there.’

  My stomach churned. Why had he taken it into his head to visit the infirmary? Was it to question Sebastian?

  ‘It was most thoughtful of you to visit the sick, Brother Nicholas. I am sure that they were much comforted.’

  All the time I was talking, I was trying to edge away, though it was difficult: that corner of the yard was not only greasy with blood, dung and the contents of the goats’ stomachs, it was also littered with kegs, pails and the other tools of last night’s butchery.

  ‘But the boy was not in the infirmary and I wish to question him,’ he repeated firmly.

  ‘And as I have explained many times, Brother Nicholas, the boy is not able to speak. It is likely he has been dumb from birth, and since he is also blind, we cannot even make gestures to ask him if he is hungry, much less ask him questions.’ This time I pointedly turned away from him and, lifting a pail, moved it out of my path, deliberately setting it between myself and my brother knight. But as I took a pace towards the kitchen, I was startled to feel a hand grasp my arm and heard a gasp of outrage from Clarice. The knight’s fingers dug into my flesh, but I refused to flinch. I stared down at my arm, then up at Nicholas, meeting his gaze full on, determined to say nothing until he had removed his hand. For a long moment, we glared at each other, neither stirring. Then he grudgingly released me, his face flushed, though from his furious expression, it was not with embarrassment.

  ‘I demand to see the boy, Sister Johanne.’ His voice rang round the courtyard, bouncing from the walls.

  ‘Prioress Johanne,’ I said. ‘And you may demand all you wish, Brother Nicholas. I will not allow you near that child.’

  ‘I know who that creature is and I know you have tried to keep me from him since the day he arrived, afraid no doubt that I would discover his real nature. Is that heretic you harbour also a sorcerer? Did he conjure that demon boy? Is that why you whisper with him?’

  I tried once more to walk away, fearing that any answer I gave might endanger Sebastian still further, for Nicholas would twist whatever I said. As I turned, I glimpsed several of the sisters and servants gazing at us curiously from doorways and casements. Nicholas was not troubling to keep his voice low – indeed, he seemed determined that the whole priory should hear him.

  ‘That devil’s spring lies at the heart of all of this,’ he thundered. ‘That’s why you and your coven of sisters seek to stay here, because the well is the source of all the evil and corruption that infest this priory. Is that why the heretic was drawn here, so that he could use its malevolent power for his sorcery? I will see that well of yours destroyed stone by stone and filled with rubble, so that no one can ever enter that place again. And as for the sorcerer who lies in your infirmary, I will finish what the Inquisition started. Do you know the penalty for a pardoned heretic who relapses into his old sin? He is burned on the pyre, Sister Johanne, burned alive.’

  Nicholas took a step towards me, which would have been far more menacing had he not tripped over the pail I had placed there and stumbled sideways, having to grab at my skirts, like a child in clouts, to avoid crashing down on to the filthy stones.

  Flushing still deeper, he drew himself upright. ‘You cannot hope to hide that demon boy in a place such as this, Sister Johanne. I will seek him out and I will send him screaming back to the devil, his master. And, mark this, if you dare to stand in my way, I will have you bound hand and foot to that heretic and dragged to the pyre with him. I will see the two of you burn in this life and in the fires of Hell to come.’

  Though I had known from the moment he arrived that he was determined to have me removed as prioress, even I was shocked by the malice that contorted his face. He was a knight of the holy order of St John, a monk who had devoted his life to the service of God: how could he be filled with such hatred? I found myself shaking, unable even to summon the words to begin to defend myself. How could you reason with a man who thought that a blind child was a creature summoned from Hell? I was beginning to think it was Nicholas who was blind. The boy was pure innocence, entrusted to my care by St Lucia herself. The more Nicholas sought to harm him, the more I knew I must protect him. If I could guard this child, keep him safe, then St Lucia and the Holy Virgin would surely defend us.

  ‘Prioress! Prioress!’ Meggy was hurrying across the courtyard.

  A man shuffled awkwardly behind her, seemingly unable to make up his mind whether to come towards us or to retreat. His gaze slid to the bloodstained table and the tub of axes and knives that were steeping in the pool of gore that had dripped from them. Flies were crawling over the tub and more were buzzing over the puddles of dung and blood in the courtyard.

  The man’s eyes darted briefly to Clarice, Sibyl and me, but he addressed himself firmly to Brother Nicholas, as if certain the knight must be in charge.

  ‘Thing is, there’s a body been found out on moor. Reckon it to be one of yours seeing as how he’s wearing the white cross. You want him brought in here?’

  Nicholas frowned. ‘A knight of our order? Dead?’

  ‘As salt pork,’ the man said. ‘No question of it. Dogs and foxes have been at him, birds too, I reckon.’

  ‘If he is of our order, you may lay the body in our chapel,’ I said, gesturing towards the door. ‘But has the coroner given leave for it to be moved and brought here?’

  The man eyed me warily, as if I was some strange talking bird, and when he did speak, he addressed himself to Nicholas again. ‘No call to be fetching any coroner. Found the body alongside the river. Water flows fast and deep there and with all this rain . . .’ He spread his hands, which were almost black with ingrained dirt. ‘Reckon he must have got lost in the dark, and stumbled into the water. Managed to drag himself out, but was too exhausted to move. He’d have lain there and died of the cold, I shouldn’t wonder. Seen it afore a heap of times, I have, ’specially when men have had a drop or two more cider than is good for ’em. Hound belonging to one of our lads was sniffing around and found the body behind a great heap of tailings. We’re not dumping waste there any more, see, ’cause we’re working further along the valley.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Tinners. That’s where we found him, on tinners’ land. So, you see, there’s no call to be dragging coroner all the way out here. Natural death, it was, in as much as any can be called natural. Nothing for the coroner to be fretting himself over. But we thought it only right he be given a decent burial, if he was one of yours. We don’t want any man accusing us of trying to hide a corpse. So, we fetched him here. Lost a day’s work over it, we have.’

  ‘No knight would go walking over the moor,’ Nicholas said. ‘If he was on a journey for our order he would have been riding.
Where is his horse?’

  ‘There you are, mystery solved,’ the man announced happily. ‘His horse must have thrown him off into the river. No crime’s been committed, save by the horse, that is. Beast will be miles away by now. Still, if we should happen to catch it, I dare say there’ll be a reward.’ He looked Nicholas up and down. ‘There’s none in your order rides anything but the best blood. Worth more than most men earn in a lifetime, those horses of yours. And, like I say, times being what they are, a man can’t afford to lose even an hour’s work. For it’s our poor wives and chillern that’ll go hungry ’cause of it, though they didn’t ask for any knight to go wandering into the river,’ he added.

  ‘When you have fetched the corpse in, go to the alms window and I shall instruct Sister Melisene to give you food enough for your family’s supper tonight,’ I told him.

  ‘Food?’ The tinner could not have looked more affronted if he’d been promised a flock of sheep and received only a skein of wool.

  ‘Think yourselves fortunate to be getting anything,’ Clarice said, eyeing him shrewdly. ‘For I dare say you’ve already helped yourself to your own reward.’

  A spasm of what might have been guilt flashed across the man’s face under Clarice’s steely glare, but it vanished rapidly and he turned back to Nicholas. ‘Could have left him where we found him, ’stead of hefting him all the way up here,’ he said plaintively.

  But his efforts to appeal man to man were wasted, for Nicholas was loudly commanding us to fetch candles and a bier on which to place the body, as if he was in charge. Since we had no bier, I instructed the man to wait until the blood had been scrubbed from the trestle table and it had been carried into the chapel, then set before the altar ready to receive the body. When that had been done, two tinners lugged the tightly wrapped cadaver inside and dumped it, none too gently, on the rough wood. They slouched off towards the alms window, muttering that they should have buried the carrion under a spoil heap and spared themselves the effort.

  Most of the sisters, who’d been listening to Nicholas shouting in the courtyard, now crowded into the chapel behind us, crossing themselves and staring at the bundle. Sister Fina hastened to light the candles on the altar, then pressed herself back against one of the pillars, holding it on either side as if she could not stand without support. I was on the verge of sending her out: I feared what the sight of a corpse might do to her. I knew she’d resent it, though, so I allowed her to stay.

  I decided it might be wise for once to allow Brother Nicholas to have his way and take charge of the deceased. It was, after all, a brother knight who lay dead and Nicholas might recognise him. At the very least, he would be diverted from thoughts of demons and sorcery.

  The head and shoulders of the dead man were encased in a filthy sack and lengths of soiled cloth had been wrapped around the body, bound tightly in place with lengths of straw rope, trussing it from neck to ankle. The tinners were plainly not prepared to waste a serviceable cloak or blanket on a corpse.

  ‘I must discover who this brother is,’ Nicholas said pompously, the moment the door closed behind the tinners. ‘His preceptor will have to be informed without delay. He will want to send knights to collect the body for burial in his own priory.’

  He motioned us back with his knife as if we were the fluttering wives of noblemen, who must be kept from unpleasant sights in case we swooned. Clarice raised her eyebrows at me, but I mouthed at her to let him get on with it. At least it was keeping him from the infirmary.

  Nicholas set to work with his knife, sawing at the straw rope. From the tail of my eye, I saw Fina flinch as each band broke and the body beneath sagged, as if she feared that, freed from its bonds, it might leap up and attack her. Nicholas cut the final rope around the ankles and a pair of feet flopped out from beneath the cloth, revealing blue-white mottled skin and horny toenails.

  ‘A brother of our order riding barefoot?’ I said.

  Clarice snorted. ‘I dare say he was well shod when he was found, but those tinners wouldn’t let a pair of good boots or hose go to waste. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find half his clothes have accidentally fallen off in the river too.’

  Nicholas took hold of the ends of the sack that covered the man’s head and tugged, but the sack would not come off.

  ‘Stuck to the skin,’ he said. He tried again, almost jerking the corpse on to the floor in his impatience.

  Only with Clarice’s help, and a great deal of pulling, did the sack finally slide free. It gave way so suddenly that the man’s head thumped back on to the wood. But it was not the crash that made those standing around cry out.

  Nicholas’s jaw tightened so hard that it was a wonder he didn’t splinter his teeth. I realised I was doing the same. Most of the sisters were trying to disguise their hastily averted gazes by crossing themselves and murmuring prayers.

  The face of death is rarely known for its beauty, but this face, or what was left of it, was enough to make the bile of even the battle-hardened rise in their throats. The nose, lips, tongue and part of one cheek had been chewed off, leaving a cavernous black hole and a mocking grin of teeth stained rust red by the man’s own blood. The eyes had been pecked out and the skin of the forehead, which had been stuck to the sacking by dried mucus and blood, had peeled off the flesh beneath as the cloth had been torn away.

  No one spoke. A long moment passed before even I could unclench my jaw to force out the words, ‘Ch-Christ have mercy on his soul. This must be the work of wild dogs or foxes. For pity’s sake cover his face, Brother Nicholas. Let us offer our brother some dignity in death.’

  Nicholas picked up the stained, stinking sack and tried to drape it over the ravaged face. But Clarice tugged it out of his hand, letting it fall to the flags. She trotted to the chest containing the altar cloths, took out a small white linen manuterge and laid it over the head. She threw a defiant glance at Nicholas, as if daring him to protest at this misuse of a sacred object, but for once he was silent.

  ‘We’ll have to examine the rest of the body,’ I said grimly. ‘I fear even his closest friends would find it impossible to identify our brother from his face and it will be harder as each day passes. In my experience, decay is more rapid wherever there is a wound. Perhaps some item of his clothes or his scrip will help.’

  Nicholas did not acknowledge that I had spoken, but he began silently removing the pieces of soiled cloth from the feet up, as if even he was reluctant to approach the head again.

  ‘It would appear that for once you have been overly harsh in your judgement of the tinners, Sister Clarice. His jerkin appears to be still in place, though—’ Nicholas broke off, as he lifted the sack covering the corpse’s belly.

  We could see at once why the tinners had been reluctant to strip anything more than the boots from the corpse, for even had they removed the black jerkin, they could not have sold it or given it away even to the most desperate of beggars. It was so badly shredded and mauled, it looked as if it had been thrown into a pack of hounds for them to fight over. And the dogs, if they had done this, had not merely savaged the cloth, but also the soft belly beneath it. The corpse had been eviscerated, the stomach, liver and guts torn out, leaving a gaping hole, black with dried blood.

  ‘Tears of Mary!’ Clarice muttered grimly. ‘It seems those tinners were right not to bother sending for the coroner. Only this man’s ghost could tell you if he met his death by accident or foul murder. He could have taken a dozen stab wounds to the face or belly and there’d be no knowing it now. If it was the same pack of hounds that attacked our goats, there’s someone hunting out there whom I’d not want to run into after dark.’

  Several flies, which had found their way in through the holes in the chapel shutters, came buzzing towards the corpse and immediately crawled inside the belly. Nicholas flapped at them and quickly drew the filthy cloth back over the wound.

  ‘We must get the corpse into the stone drying coffin until his preceptor can arrange to collect him for burial,’ he
said curtly. ‘Otherwise this body, too, will begin breeding flies and all manner of flesh worms to infest the chapel again. And I mean to put an end to these plagues once and for all.’ He glowered at me.

  ‘But how are we to know which priory to send word to?’ Now that the wounds were covered, Basilia had found her voice. ‘He may have recently arrived by ship or have been making his way to a port to board one. In either case, his priory will not yet realise he is missing and be searching for him.’ She gnawed her lip. ‘If he had a scrip . . . or a purse.’

  ‘If he had a purse you can be sure that’s long gone,’ Clarice said.

  ‘Look!’ Fina was still standing with her back pressed hard against the pillar. She gestured wildly towards the corpse. ‘His hand . . . the right one, see!’ Her words ended in a high-pitched shriek.

  I glanced down. The man’s arm had slipped, so that it was dangling off the table. I took a step closer and, pinching the cloth of his sleeve, pulled the arm upwards. The skin was dark with pooled blood and smeared with dried mud, but that did not disguise the fact that the hand was missing the forefinger and half of the middle finger.

  Nicholas gaped at it. ‘Alban! But it can’t be. He should be on his way to . . .’ He lifted the linen manuterge covering the corpse’s face and stared briefly at the mauled flesh beneath, closing his eyes and breathing hard as he dropped it back. Gingerly he lifted the edge of the cloth covering the gaping hole in Alban’s belly.

  ‘His belt, the scrip . . . they’re gone! Those tinners, are they still here?’

  Without waiting for an answer, which none of us in the chapel could have given him, he ran towards the door.

  ‘Aren’t you going to stay with us to pray for him, Brother Nicholas?’ I called, but the only reply I received was the slamming of the chapel door.

  I stared again at the corpse, trying to picture Alban as I had last seen him alive, wrestling with the beam on the great door. I realised he had not been wearing the large leather scrip. On such a rough track, it would have bumped against him constantly as he rode, irritating both rider and horse. Instead it had been strapped to his saddle along with his blankets and provisions.