A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  Brother Roul leaned forward, frowning. ‘Three months? Even with the roads as foul as this and stopping nightly for shelter he should have reached Buckland in days, a week or two at the most. But Commander John de Messingham arrived in Clerkenwell less than a month ago, and he told the Lord Prior he had neither seen Brother Nicholas nor received any of the reports he had expected from him since he was dispatched here. Both Commander John and the Lord Prior are anxious to hear from him. They’ve become concerned that some disaster or deadly contagion has ravaged the priory, for there’s been no word from anyone. It’s why we were ordered here, to discover the cause. Has Brother Alban had word from Brother Nicholas since he left?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Sister Melisene blurted out. She paused in the throes of directing a couple of servants who were carrying in the straw-filled pallets that were needed for those brothers who would have to sleep in the refectory. She hastily busied herself arranging blankets, as if the words had not come from her.

  ‘You believe Brother Nicholas has perished?’ Roul asked sharply.

  ‘My sister is referring to the passing of Brother Alban,’ the prioress said, before Melisene had a chance to jump in again. ‘He tragically died shortly before Brother Nicholas left. Indeed, that is why we assumed Brother Nicholas rode off in such haste, to convey his heart to Buckland for burial, since the state of the roads made it impossible to take his body there by wagon.’

  In spite of their hunger, all of the brothers had stopped eating, their knives suspended in mid-air, as if they had turned to granite.

  ‘But what manner of death was it?’ Brother Roul demanded. ‘Did he die of a fever?’

  The other knights around the table now began to regard each other with alarm.

  ‘I went to the infirmary,’ one muttered. ‘There was an old crone in the corner so yellow she looked as if she’d been dipped in saffron. Even the whites of her eyes were like mustard.’

  The door opened and Dye edged in. She began to collect the empty trenchers. Roul heaved himself from the prioress’s chair, which he had been occupying, and strode over, intercepting the scullion before she had a chance to reach the door. She backed against the wall, alarmed.

  ‘You, girl, I warrant you know all of the gossip in this place. Can you remember back three months ago, when the two knights, Brother Nicholas and Brother Alban, were here? Did either of them fall sick?’

  Dye’s gaze darted towards her prioress, but the knight shifted his position slightly, deliberately blocking her view with his broad shoulders.

  ‘Not them, Master. Always tell when a man or a pig is sick ’cause they can’t stomach their meats, but the brothers must have been the fittest men alive – they ate enough for a dozen men and a dozen pigs too.’

  The knights around the table roared with laughter and visibly relaxed a little.

  ‘So how did Brother Alban die, girl?’

  ‘Wisht hounds, that’s what they say, Master. He was hunted down by the terrible black hounds who haunt these moors.’

  Brother Roul swilled the sour, watered wine around in his mouth and spat it into the fire, but nothing seemed to remove the foul taste of the grave that clung to his tongue and crawled up his nostrils. He’d been outraged to discover that Brother Alban’s corpse was not lying in the stone drying coffin but had been hastily buried in the sodden ground where it lay rotting in several inches of water. It confirmed his suspicions that there was much about the brother sergeant’s death that Prioress Johanne and the other sisters were anxious to conceal.

  He had learned that neither coroner nor sheriff had been summoned when Alban’s corpse had been discovered, though plainly his death had been sudden and violent, and he did not for one moment believe the servants’ tales of spectral hounds. To learn that one of the two Hospitallers, who’d been dispatched on the order of the Lord Prior to investigate the financial affairs of a priory, had met with an unnatural end, and to discover that the corpse had been hastily dumped in the mire without Buckland or Clerkenwell even being informed of his demise would have aroused the suspicions of a saint. And if that was not bad enough, it seemed that within hours of the corpse being discovered, a noble knight of the order had vanished in the middle of the night without even waiting for his own horse to be shod.

  Roul had searched the knight’s chambers himself and, with growing alarm, had discovered that not only had Nicholas abandoned all his clothes and possessions but had left his sword hanging on a peg near his bed. A sword was as dear to a knight as his right arm. He would no more set foot outside without it than he would lop off a limb and leave that hanging on the wall. Here was certain proof that Nicholas had not willingly embarked on any journey, not even as far as the nearby village, much less to Buckland or Clerkenwell. If his brother knight had left the priory at all, it must have been as a prisoner or corpse.

  Roul had ordered Alban’s grave opened the very next day, much against the protests of the village deacon, who warned of all manner of ills that would follow such a wicked desecration of the resting place of a man in holy orders. The sisters had withdrawn, leaving the grim-faced knights watching while Brengy, the stable boy, and an elderly manservant dug into the squelching soil. It was almost impossible to distinguish mud from the soaked and soiled winding sheet, and they only realised the spade had cut into the corpse’s shoulder when a stench as foul as Satan’s farts rolled up towards them. Brengy gagged and fled, but only managed to get a few yards away before he doubled over, vomiting so violently it seemed he might retch up his own guts. The knights, though they had encountered plenty of fresh corpses in their time, found themselves stepping backwards and gritting their teeth to avoid humiliating themselves by emulating the boy.

  When some of the festering grave gases had dispersed, and with a cloth clamped to his mouth and nose, Roul, with a knight who had worked as a physician on the ships, examined the corpse. It was impossible to say what had finally killed their brother, but in spite of the putrefaction, one thing was evident: his heart had not been cut from his chest. Was that evidence that Nicholas had had a hand in his brother’s death? Did he fear the corpse would bleed in the presence of its murderer and proclaim his guilt? Or was Nicholas also lying somewhere, foully slain, like his brother?

  Brother Roul drew himself upright in the high-backed chair and studied the woman seated in the centre of the refectory. His five brother knights were ranged along the hard benches that had been pushed against the walls so that they might have something to rest their stiff backs on during the long hours of questioning that had been in progress since Prime that morning. The winter sun had long since vanished behind the high walls, and the fiery glow from its dying rays skimmed through the top of the casement, casting a blood-red puddle of light at the woman’s feet.

  Roul had sent for each of the sisters in turn, with those few servants he considered might have at least some wits, but neither coaxing nor threats had produced a tale from any of them that made sense. The sisters talked of plagues of frogs, flies and water turning to blood. The servants told wild tales of hellhounds, of a blind boy who was a powerful sorcerer, and even creatures called pigseys who, though they were invisible and barely taller than a man’s thigh, were apparently able to spirit away strapping knights who were powerless to resist them. And between these fanciful tales, both sisters and servants had babbled about rampaging tinners and murderous outlaws, as if Dartmoor was to be found on the edge of the world among the isles of the dog-headed men rather than in the civilised realm of fair England.

  Roul glanced at his brothers. Some were beginning to look glazed, others shifting on the creaking benches, trying to ease their numbed buttocks. He knew they were willing him to call a halt for the day, but he was determined to finish it. The Lord Prior had made abundantly clear what was expected of his emissary when he’d walked with Roul alone in the private walled garden. It was the only place Lord William could be sure they would not be overheard, for he knew well the maze of listening tubes, squint holes and co
ncealed passages that riddled Clerkenwell, like worm holes in a ship’s timbers.

  ‘No scandal, no trial, no outsiders,’ he’d commanded. ‘Not a breath, not a whisper of any wrong-doing must leak out. Deal with whatever you find, Brother Roul. Deal with it decisively, but discreetly.’ And as the knight had knelt for his blessing, he’d added, ‘If the end is in God’s cause, then the means will always be sanctified.’

  Roul had bowed his head obediently. There had been many times when, as a young knight, his conscience had smote him over those means, when he had been jerked from his dreams by the cries of terrified boys or tortured old men, cries that years later still pursued him through the dark and twisting labyrinths of sleep into his waking hours. And as he’d lain in his bed trying to calm his breathing, he’d wondered if the living Christ could gaze down on the agony of His enemies with such solemn-eyed indifference as He did in his painted image on the walls of the churches as He watched the damned being clawed into Hell.

  But later, when Roul had seen for himself what his enemies did in the name of their god, he had come to believe that it was not for a man like him to reason the cruelties of Heaven. And there was no question of not doing his duty now. If the order was disbanded and the Knights of St John arrested as the Templars had been, the women would be lost anyway. Better that they be sacrificed than thousands tortured. Besides, if they were guilty of the deaths of two of their brothers, not to mention stealing money from their holy order when it was most needed to defend Christendom from the Turks, then Christ Himself demanded their punishment.

  ‘Sister Basilia,’ Roul said.

  The plump woman was staring up at the fragment of jewelled light still gleaming at the top of the narrow casement. She smiled at him in spite of the anxiety that was evident on her face, like a child who was eager to please but afraid she would not be able to do what was asked of her.

  ‘We have been informed that on the night Brother Alban’s corpse was brought to the priory, Brother Nicholas went into the chapel, apparently to remove Brother Alban’s heart. But it would appear he never had the chance to do so because he received a blow to the head. And you were summoned to the chapel to attend to his wound.’

  ‘It wasn’t a blow, Brother Roul.’

  ‘It wasn’t? You mean he had no head injury when you examined him?’

  ‘His head was hurt, poor lamb. He had quite a nasty bruise here.’ She tapped her temple to indicate the place, then frowned. ‘Oh dear, perhaps it was this side,’ she said, changing hands. ‘It was over three months ago and I can’t quite be sure. Now let me see. He was lying—’

  Conscious of the audible groan from one of his brothers behind him, Roul hastily cut her off. ‘You admit his head was bruised, Sister, yet you have just said he didn’t suffer a blow.’

  Basilia, thrown by the interruption, shook her head, apparently trying to clear her thoughts, making her chins waggle. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry, Brother. What I meant was that a blow makes it sound as if someone had struck him, which they hadn’t, of course. He slipped . . . down in the well. The floor’s always wet. I didn’t see it myself, but that’s what the Prioress Johanne told Brother Nicholas. She explained to him that he’d slipped and hit his head on the rocky wall. There are lots of rocks sticking out and—’

  ‘The prioress told him? He didn’t remember?’

  ‘He was confused. People often are after they’ve knocked themselves out. Like I told him, I once had to physic a woman . . .’ This time Basilia caught the exasperated expression on Roul’s face and managed to stop herself. She took a deep breath. ‘Poor Brother Nicholas saw Sister Fina behind him on the steps holding a knife. He told the prioress he was afraid our sister was going to stab him but, of course, she’d never dream of doing such a thing. She’d seen a light moving in the chapel. Sister Fina thought it was thieves who had broken in, but as soon as she realised it was only Brother Nicholas, she came back up the stairs. And that was when he slipped. Poor Brother Nicholas thought someone was trying to kill him, but it was all a mistake. Prioress Johanne was the one who found him. She and Meggy brought him up because it would have been no use me going down, not with my girth.’

  She gave a nervous giggle, but Roul ignored her. In all the fog of these wild tales, he felt he had finally glimpsed the end of a thread, which, if he could grasp it, might lead him to the truth.

  He leaned forward. ‘So, let us be quite clear, Sister Basilia. Brother Nicholas swore that someone tried to stab him while he was in the cave, and three other people went down to the well that night besides him – Goodwife Meggy, Sister Fina and Prioress Johanne. None else.’

  Sister Basilia’s eyes flew wide. ‘But he was mistaken, I told you.’

  ‘Brother Nicholas claimed an attempt was made to kill him and days later he mysteriously vanishes during the night, leaving everything behind, even his sword. Perhaps our brother wasn’t as mistaken as you have been led to believe, Sister.’

  Even Brother Roul did not know quite what he hoped to find when he gave orders that the sisters’ dorter, the prioress’s chambers and the gatehouse should be searched. A bloody knife perhaps, a bloodstained kirtle, concealed chests of money and jewels that those at Clerkenwell suspected had been withheld from the responsions. But despite Lord William’s absolution, even Roul realised he could not, in all conscience, convict any of these three women merely on the garbled account given by the infirmarer. He couldn’t even swear that a crime had been committed, much less that one or all three of them were guilty of it.

  Alban had been buried with indecent haste and without either the sheriff or coroner being summoned, which could, if the coroner pressed the matter, result in a heavy fine, but it did not mean the women had killed him or, indeed, that the sergeant had died by any human hand. As for Nicholas, Roul couldn’t prove he was even dead, though he would have wagered his own life on it. No, he needed something more before he could act. And, as if God had heard his prayers and had sent an angel to deliver it straight into his hands, Brother Roul was to discover far more than even he could ever have dared to hope.

  Chapter 60

  Prioress Johanne

  This will be my last night on earth and I will go to my death unshriven. I will receive no mercy, but Death is not merciful to anyone. He spares neither the good nor the wicked, the innocent nor the guilty. Why then should we expect more from men?

  There are many things in my past I could confess to – deeds and denials, doubts and deceptions. They all line up, shouting and whispering their accusations. And they are right to shame me for I am guilty of them all, but not of what I have done to protect this priory, to protect my brother. If I had not done those things, I would not have sinned, and yet I would have caused the innocent to suffer. If you do what God and man declare wrong, but do it for good, is that a sin? Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not kill. They are crimes that condemn the body to the gallows and the soul to Hell. Yet if you steal to feed the hungry, kill to spare the innocent? Does God condemn me for that?

  I will not say, ‘I am guilty.’ To kill is not the same as being guilty of killing. To kill is not the same as murder. Yes, I did it – I lied, I stole, I killed – but I am not guilty of doing these things, for guilt means shame and regret. And I feel no shame, no regret, no remorse.

  It was old Meggy who was the cause of my betrayal in the end. Forgive me, betrayal is too cruel a word. Poor soul, she meant only to protect us – that was all she’d ever tried to do. But in the end, it was her very loyalty to me that gave Brother Roul all the proof he needed to condemn me. They found nothing when they searched my chamber. They did not discover the little room behind the panel in which I’d concealed the chest of money, the true ledgers and even, in those last few days, had hidden Cosmas from Brother Nicholas. That room remains sealed. Only Sister Clarice knows of its existence.

  They found nothing among Sister Fina’s possessions. There was no evidence that she had tried to kill Nicholas that night in the cave, tho
ugh she would have done it, poor creature, had I not wrestled the knife from her hand. She’d heard his threats to destroy her beloved well, and I think she would have killed a dozen knights to save it.

  Finally they searched Meggy’s hut. It took them a long time and they were losing patience. Both Clarice and Melisene had to hold the old woman back, while the knights threw her broken pots, torn blankets, rags and ropes into the courtyard in a jumbled heap. Her treasured possessions were only rubbish to them. It was almost dusk, when one of the knights, poking about with a stick beneath the thatch, caught something pale as it fell from the top of one of the rafters. When he carried it out into the dwindling light, we all saw what it was: a roll of parchment fastened with the order’s seal, a report written in Nicholas’s hand. The mice had nibbled the wax seal but sadly not much else. And I did not have to read those spider-black words to know of what I stood accused. Theft! Sorcery! Harbouring a heretic!

  Meggy had stolen the parchment from Alban’s scrip when he had left her holding his horse as he struggled with the gate. There had not been time enough for her to warn Sister Clarice of his departure, as she’d been instructed, and besides, she knew Clarice could never have bribed Alban. Had Meggy deliberately fumbled with the beam so that she could search his scrip?

  But why had she kept it? Was she afraid to confess to the theft after Alban was killed or afraid to burn something she could not read? Or was it simply that our old gatekeeper could not bring herself to part with anything? I almost smiled. Fate had played a cruel jest on us all, for if poor Meggy had not been so diligent, that parchment would long since have been dust and ashes from an outlaw’s fire blowing in the wind.

  I can hear them outside the door, the rustle of their robes, their whispers so low I cannot make out the words, their breathing as they lay their ears to the wood to hear if I am sleeping. My heart begins to race and my stomach churns, even though I have knelt here for hours praying, trying to convince myself that I am not afraid to die – should not be afraid to die. We are taught that the saints even blessed the instruments of their torture, became protectors for the very things that brought about their death because they released them from the travail of this sinful world into the bliss of Heaven.