A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  If outlaws or tinners had taken his horse, they had all that Alban was carrying, including Nicholas’s report. It was unlikely that any man who had stolen it could read. They would simply have burned it, with anything else that might incriminate them. And if the horse was found wandering by an honest man on the moor, he would recognise the Hospitallers’ seal and would surely bring both beast and scrip to us. Either way, that report would not now reach Clerkenwell. Relief washed over me, swiftly followed by guilt that my deliverance had been at the cost of a man’s life. I sank to my knees and tried to pray for Alban’s soul.

  Chapter 46

  Hospitallers’ Priory of St Mary

  Brother Nicholas eyed the lump of bread with disgust. Even prisoners received larger portions than this. On the other hand, did he really want to eat any more of it? God alone knew what it had been made from, ground goat bone judging by its dryness. But he knew from experience that a diet of meat alone turned your excrement to rocks. Years of hard riding in sweaty armour had caused him enough problems with his backside without the pain that came from straining for hours over a draughty shithole.

  Nicholas spooned some of the goats’ liver and heart pottage into a bowl and crumbled the bread into the sour gravy. He told himself he must have eaten worse in the service of the order, though not much, but as his growling belly now reminded him, he’d swallowed nothing since that early breakfast of goat’s meat. No one had had much appetite after they’d seen Alban’s body, but now his head was throbbing and he felt dizzy with hunger. He’d have to shovel this pigswill down.

  He stabbed his knife into another piece of what, from its texture, seemed to be a lump of lung. God’s teeth, it was rank. Not even the strong sauce masked it. Were they trying to poison him? The thought took hold and he felt the whole mess rising in his gorge.

  He dropped to his knees and flung open the lid of his wooden chest, rummaging feverishly until his fingers grasped an object the size and shape of a walnut enclosed in a pierced silver case, which dangled from a chain. He had bought the bezoar years before from an Arab trader and had always carried it on his belt, but since he’d been living in Buckland, he’d not felt the need to arm himself with such protection until now. Holding it by the chain, he staggered to his feet and dipped the silver case in the remaining wine, then drained the goblet in a single gulp. He breathed more easily as the goat pottage settled itself in his stomach. If it had indeed been poisoned, the bezoar would render it harmless. But he’d certainly lost his appetite again.

  Alban was dead. Would he be next? A brother of his order was even now lying mutilated in the chapel on the same table they’d used to hack those goats into bloody pieces. And he knew exactly who was responsible. That boy! That devil! That demon of the witch Johanne! She had commanded him to kill Alban just as surely as he had murdered the old priest. What other explanation could there be?

  In all his years in the order, Nicholas had met few riders more skilful than Alban. On the journey to the priory, when a deep mud hole had brought the sergeant’s rouncy crashing to its knees or when its hind legs had slipped from under it on a treacherous slope, Alban had not only kept his seat, as if his arse was nailed to the saddle, he had got the horse back on its feet and calmed it, before the beast had realised what had happened. Nothing less than a demon from Hell could have so spooked both horse and rider to cause a man like Alban to be thrown.

  Nicholas knew only too well what demons could do. In the Holy Land, he’d seen tiny swirls of dust swell into mighty whirling djinn that flogged all in their path with whips of scorpion stings. They could pluck up a rider and his horse together, carry them through the air and fling them down a dozen miles away. He had seen a soft night sky fill with a thousand shrieking black imps that had flown at bands of men, fastening on to the eyes and flesh of horses and knights, sending the horses rearing and bolting in panic while their blinded riders lay crushed and trampled beneath the plunging hoofs. An innocent form could disguise fiends of such power and evil, that even the strongest warrior was powerless against them.

  Nicholas wrenched open the door of the guest chamber, admitting a blast of icy night air, and peered out into the courtyard. Unlike the night before, the yard was unusually deserted and dark. Both sisters and servants, exhausted by the hours spent butchering and preserving the meat, had fallen into their beds almost before the last rays of the sun had vanished, some barely able to keep their eyes open long enough to pick at the boiled goat on their trenchers.

  A few candles burned in casements, set ready in case anyone should need to rise in the night. Their faint glow flickered around the edges of the shutters. Nicholas’s gaze methodically quartered every wall in turn, like a hound trying to pick up a scent. Earlier that day he had convinced himself that the boy had been hidden in the refectory, which was why the sisters were trying to keep him out. So, while they were in the chapel praying for Alban’s soul, he had searched it but, to his disgust, had found nothing but dishes of goat meat being pressed into brawn, just as Johanne had said.

  He’d waited until Basilia and the lay servants were occupied in preparing Alban’s body, then slipped behind the screen in the infirmary, determined to question Sebastian, the conjuror of Johanne’s demon. Nicholas would have been the first to admit he lacked the skill and finesse of the Grand Inquisitors. They understood that it was not enough merely to inflict pain. Men can grow inured to it. You have to break their minds and spirits, drag them down into the sucking mire of despair and hopelessness, so that they no longer even imagine there can be a Heaven. You must convince them that only you possess the truth, that everything they once held dear is a lie, that they are a lie. You must make them believe they are not even men. And an art like that is not mastered overnight.

  But, still, Nicholas was only too aware that the memory of a battle could be more terrifying than the battle itself. Simply pressing his weight on an already twisted, dislocated joint or forcing open clawed fingers could reawaken the horror in Sebastian, remind him of what he had suffered and what awaited him again if he were to be delivered back into the tender mercies of the Inquisition. That might be sufficient to loosen his tongue.

  But as soon as Nicholas had approached his bed, he’d known it was useless. Sebastian lay insensible, drugged to the point that Nicholas could have smashed his leg with a hammer, eliciting no more than a groan, much less a single word that made sense. Johanne’s instructions, Nicholas had had no doubt. But she couldn’t keep him asleep for ever, not without killing him, and the prioress needed her sorcerer alive.

  Nicholas closed the door of the guest chamber and shuffled back across to the smouldering fire. He poked savagely at the sulky embers trying to stir them into a blaze, though at this hour, the fire should have been safely damped down for the night. He glimpsed a tiny movement on the floor and brought the poker thudding down with a great clang. He felt a satisfying crunch under the iron.

  ‘Got you, you little imp.’ He crouched, then straightened again, swinging the mangled remains of a mouse by the tail. He let it dangle for a moment, revelling in the proof that the swiftness and accuracy of his sword arm had not diminished, then dropped the tiny corpse on to the fire. The impudent creature had gnawed holes in his boots during the night. Well, the vermin had paid for its crime now. But, as if they were thumbing their noses at him, he heard the scurry of a dozen more in the rafters.

  Nicholas threw himself down on to his bed, which groaned beneath his weight. It was the boy. He was drawing these plagues here. All the filth and evil in the land were crawling out of the ground towards him. Those foul creatures could smell the stench of the devil in the priory. Beelzebub, Lord of the Dunghill, was calling to his minions. Even the birds of ill omen flocked over the place where the boy was, hundreds gathering on the roofs and walls, waiting and watching over their master. That demon child was the curse that infected this place, a curse summoned by the witch Johanne and her sorcerer.

  And she had surrounded herself with a treachero
us sisterhood who thought nothing of cheating any man who crossed their path, like every woman Nicholas had ever met. They had continually lied to the villagers about the well. They had even tried to keep Nicholas, a brother in their own order, from discovering the truth of what lay down there. Lies came so easily to their lips that they didn’t even hesitate or blush with shame. They—

  The well . . . That was it! That was where they’d hidden the boy. Nicholas struck his head with his hand. How could he not have known it at once? Where had the frogs and flies swarmed to their demon king? Down in that cave! That was where the fiend would assume its true form. Why were the sisters trying so hard to keep himself and all the pilgrims from the spring, even though it was losing them money? Because they knew a demon had taken up residence down there. But no more! He would send that monster howling back to Hell whence he had come. And once he had defeated that devil, the sisters would have no weapon to send out against him, as they had against Alban and the priest. Then he would see to it that the whole coven of hags was dragged to Clerkenwell in irons.

  Meggy stood in the doorway of her small hut, huddled in a blanket, blinking up at Brother Nicholas. She never removed her clothes when she was abed. In fact, often she did not trouble to lie down, preferring to doze in her chair close to the warmth of the fire. At her age, sleep came quickly, but did not linger long, so she was more than a little vexed to be jerked awake by a thumping on her door. She eased it open a crack, grumbling all the while that such shocks were not good for a body at her age.

  ‘What is it? If you’ve a mind to go out, the gates are locked for the night and no one enters or leaves till the Prime bell.’

  ‘I have no wish to depart,’ Nicholas said. ‘I have come for the key to the chapel and the well. And before you protest, old woman, many souls in this priory may perish if I do not succeed in my work tonight.’

  Meggy took a step outside and peered across the courtyard towards the prioress’s casement. It was in darkness.

  Nicholas caught her arm and stepped in front of her, so that she was forced to pay attention to him. ‘The prioress has retired for the night. It is I who demand the keys. As a brother of this order I have every right to enter the chapel and the well at any hour of the day or night I see fit. And as a knight of St John, I can, as easily as the prioress, have you dismissed and banished from this place. You would do well to remember that.’

  Meggy pulled the blanket tighter about her shoulders against the cruel wind. ‘If you want to spend the night freezing in the chapel that’s naught to do with me. But you might have fetched the keys afore decent folks retired to their beds, ’stead of disturbing them in the middle of the night. Up all last night I was, ’cause of those goats. Not a whisker of sleep did I have, and here you are banging on my door, dragging me from my fireside, when I’ve only just managed to close my eyes. It’s not Christian. Call yourself a holy knight? You ought to have more consideration.’

  She bustled inside, emerging moments later with a ring of keys, which she thrust into his hand. ‘You make sure you lock up after you and don’t you go banging on my door again tonight. You can give me the keys back at a decent hour, when the sun’s at least had time to wash his face.’

  Nicholas edged into the chapel and closed the door quietly behind him. He did not want to warn the demon that he was coming. He lifted the lantern and peered around.

  Five fat candles had been lit around Alban’s body, which still lay on the rough wooden trestle beneath a long white cloth. Raw wool had been packed beneath it to absorb the liquids dripping from it. But even though thyme and other dried herbs had been bound into the winding sheet, the stench of putrefaction was beginning to fill the chapel.

  An image flashed into Nicholas’s head. Bloated bodies lying strewn across a sun-scorched earth. The sky almost bronze above the shimmering heat haze. The deathly silence, save only for the head-splitting buzzing of the flies that covered the corpses in a dense black crust, and the flapping of the vultures’ wings as they lumbered to the earth to stab at the swollen bellies. And that smell, the sweet, gagging stench of rotting flesh: it clung to your clothes, your hair, your skin; it slid down your throat and filled your nostrils and mouth till you could taste and smell nothing else for days, maybe for a lifetime.

  Nicholas glanced up, trying to wipe the memory from his mind. He stared at the bowed head of the crucified Christ on the altar haloed by the soft light shining down from the oil lamp hanging above. Kneeling on the hard, cold stones, he bowed his own head and tried to gather his faltering strength for the battle that would take place in the depths below. The fiend, the beast of Satan, was squatting directly beneath the body of the man he had already killed. Nicholas could see it. Its great frog eyes bulging, unblinking. Its long snake tongue coiled, ready to lash out. Could it sense the presence of the knight above it? Was it preparing to take another victim? His hand slid towards the hilt of the sword hanging from his belt. Could this demon be defeated by steel? If he had been facing a man, ten men even, excitement would have borne him up, but he found himself gripped by something he had rarely known before a battle: a cold tide of abject fear.

  He prayed fervently. He found himself repeating the same words over and over again, and that chilled him the more, for he could feel the demon crouching beneath him, sucking his breath from his body so that he could barely think, much less remember how to pray.

  In the end, it was the pain from kneeling on the merciless stone that drove Nicholas, tottering, to his feet. He took up the lantern and advanced towards the well door. It was only as he struggled to fit the prongs of the key into the holes in the wooden bolts on the other side that he remembered he had not bolted the chapel door. He hesitated, then realised he would feel safer if he left it unlocked. At least if he was forced to flee, he would not be left grappling to open his only escape route.

  He paused at the top of the steps, holding the lantern low so the light was cast as far down as it could reach, which was only the first few steps. Beyond that, the darkness rose up, reaching out to drag him down. He listened, but heard only the sound of his own heart thumping and his rapid breaths. No water splashed or even dripped. Although he knew the spring had stopped flowing, the silence was unnerving, ominous. Should he call out a challenge? Even as he opened his mouth, he knew the words wouldn’t come. With one hand pressed against the wall, he edged down the stairs, but though he tried to tread lightly, the gritty mud on the soles of his shoes ground against the stone with each step he took, echoing through the granite till it sounded, even to his ears, as if a great scaly creature was clawing its way down.

  As he descended, the walls began to shimmer with that green-gold glow. But it served only to remind Nicholas of what lay at the bottom: the monstrous poison-green beast. The glistening walls no longer seemed miraculous, but as if the bloated creature had slimed the walls of its lair as it passed up and down, like a slug leaves a shining trail wherever it crawls. He snatched his hand away from the wall, rubbing icy wetness on his breeches. Why had he not realised from the first that this unnatural light was a sign of evil? But the steps, though he knew they were solid, seemed to undulate beneath his feet, twisting in the eerie, flickering light, until he was forced to press his hand against the wall once more, just to keep from plunging down into the bottomless mire of darkness.

  He paused on the steps as the lantern illuminated the entrance to the cave. Something was squatting in the deep shadow just beyond the glow of the candlelight. He froze, heart thudding, staring until his eyes hurt, watching for the slightest twitch of movement.

  He grasped the hilt of his sword, but the stairs were too narrow to draw it. He should have had it ready in his hand. He was a knight of St John. It was second nature to him. The demon had bewitched him, was fuddling his mind, making him forget the most basic lesson that had been beaten into him long before his voice had broken.

  He thrust the lantern forward so that the light pierced deep into the cave. Where the creature had been sq
uatting, he now saw only the side of the coffin-like trough, covered with green moss. Where had it gone? He swept the lantern about, but the cave was empty. Had he been staring at the basin all along, or had the demon transformed itself and was hiding? But unless it had made itself as small as a spider, there was no crevice large enough to conceal it. Unless the beast was crouching inside the trough . . .

  He raised the light high, trying to peer inside the long stone basin without leaving the comparative safety of the last step. The yellow candlelight showed only a rim of red mud, and above it, on the far side, a face. He had never seen the carving without its veil of water, but now that it was naked, grinning out at him, he realised it was a skull, with vipers writhing from the dark eye sockets and darting out from between its grimacing jaws. As he moved, so the snakes in the shadows moved too. The jaws of the skull opened wider and more vipers wriggled out, their tongues tasting the air. In his terror, every word of defence he knew against the forces of darkness fled from his brain. Raising his arm to shield his face from the devilish sight, he turned to flee.

  It was then that the guttering lantern light caught something black behind him on the stairs. He saw the flash of steel and instinct made him jerk back even before his mind had registered that it was a blade. His foot missed the step below him and he crashed down. His head cracked against the wall, as the knife slashed towards his face.

  Chapter 47

  Prioress Johanne

  I eased the door of the chapel open and stood on the threshold listening. When Meggy had come to my chamber grumbling that Brother Nicholas had roused her from her bed to demand the keys, I had sent her back to her gatehouse and hurried over at once.