die. People might say that he had taken the cross and played the traitor to Brythnoth. So he buried it, somewhere in the grounds of this castle, and hurried back to the battlefield. When Brythnoth saw him he became enraged. “You have disobeyed my command!” he thundered. “But blood will out and the ravens will feast! I shall die here and so shall ye but your spirit will guard that cross until it is hallowed again.”’
‘What does that mean?’ Marisa asked.
‘Until the cross is found,’ Ralph explained, ‘and re-blessed.’
Father Aylred looked solemn. ‘And Brythnoth and Cerdic died?’
‘Oh yes, back to back in the press of the fight. They say the Blackwater ran with blood for days afterwards.’
‘And the cross?’ Theobald asked eagerly.
Ralph shrugged. ‘No one knows. Except…’ he paused for effect, ‘after the battle the Danes, who knew about this great treasure, searched for Brythnoth’s corpse. They found him lying beneath Cerdic. The young squire was still alive and the Danish chief demanded to know where the cross was. Cerdic smiled. “On an altar to your God and mine.” That’s all he said before he, too, died.’
‘What did he mean?’ Father Aylred asked.
Ralph laughed. ‘If I knew that, Father, I’d find the treasure.’
‘So you look among the manuscripts for clues,’ said Father Aylred.
‘The tale appears in many forms, handed down from one chronicler to another,’ Ralph explained. ‘It is recorded that even those who built this castle searched for the cross. The legends have multiplied.’ He glanced sideways at Beatrice. ‘One, which first appeared in the reign of the King’s great-grandfather, says that only lovers will find Brythnoth’s cross.’
‘In which case you are well qualified,’ Father Aylred laughed. ‘Ralph, Beatrice, I look forward to your wedding day.’ A cloud crossed the sun and the Franciscan shivered. ‘I wonder if Cerdic can hear us now?’
‘Quite possibly,’ said Lady Anne. ‘According to local lore, this castle is truly haunted.’
‘Is it?’ Marisa asked excitedly.
‘Yes, and not only by Cerdic,’ declared Adam, eager to show his knowledge. He sipped from his pewter cup. ‘There are other ghosts here as well.’
‘Oh, go on, tell us,’ Beatrice urged, though she noticed how troubled Father Aylred had become.
‘Ravenscroft was first built during a time of terror and devastation in Essex,’ Adam recounted. ‘The castle was owned by a robber baron, Sir Geoffrey de Mandeville, a true spawn of Satan, a fiend in human flesh. Sir Geoffrey ravaged to his heart’s content. He brought back prisoners to be tortured by his master executioner, a man called Black Malkyn. Malkyn liked nothing better than to see his prisoners suffer excruciating pain. He used the thumb screw, the rack, the pulley, the bed of nails.’ Adam lowered his voice. ‘Sometimes he would fill the dungeons with flesh-eating rats.’
‘Oh, stop it!’ Marisa cried.
‘But it’s true,’ Sir John said. ‘Sir Geoffrey was a devil incarnate. He built our Midnight Tower.’ He pointed across to the great ragstone tower built into the curtain wall.
‘I must admit,’ declared Father Aylred, ‘I do not like the place, it’s cold and dank.’ He lowered his head and mumbled something.
Beatrice was sure she heard the word exorcise.
‘Oh, it’s cheery enough,’ Sir John scoffed. ‘You just have a fanciful imagination, Father. Anyway, Sir Geoffrey used to go out raiding,’ he winked at his wife, ‘searching for soft virginal flesh to satisfy his lusts, gold and silver to fill his treasury.’
‘I’d take your ears if you did that!’ Lady Anne retorted.
Sir John patted his wife affectionately on the knee. ‘Sir Geoffrey had a wife, the Lady Johanna, a beautiful young woman. A ray of light in the gathering darkness around Mandeville. She was repelled by her husband, so the legends say. Isn’t that right, Ralph?’
The clerk nodded.
‘Lady Johanna fell in love with a young squire. When Sir Geoffrey was away, they’d meet in her chamber in the Midnight Tower.’ Sir John glanced at Father Aylred. ‘Well, just to console themselves. One day Sir Geoffrey came back and surprised the lovers. Lady Johanna was immured for life in a dungeon beneath the tower. The young squire was handed over to Black Malkyn. For days that limb of Hell tortured the young man in a room next to Lady Johanna’s cell. She had to sit and listen to his shrieks and screams.’ Sir John sat back and drank his wine.
‘Oh, finish the story!’ said Lady Anne impatiently.
Sir John needed no more encouragement. ‘Well, one night the screams ceased,’ he said ominously. ‘Lady Johanna, who had been left for days without water or food, was now given some meat and a cup of wine. The dish was pushed through a small slit in the wall. She had to eat it, drink the wine and hand it back. This went on for months. The food and wine were always delivered when the bells of the castle sounded midnight.’
‘Oh, I think I know what you’re going to say.’ Marisa put her fingers to her mouth and drew closer to Adam.
‘One night the meat and wine stopped being served. Lady Johanna looked through the narrow slit in her cell. She pleaded with her husband to set her free. “Oh no,” that evil man replied. “Tonight at midnight I will brick up this wall totally. There will be no more food or wine.”’
‘Be careful how you tell this part,’ Lady Anne warned.
‘Well, Lady Johanna asked why, so that scion of Satan told her the truth. The meat she had eaten was the salted flesh of her lover whom Black Malkyn had torn to pieces, and the wine cup she had been using was fashioned from the skull of her dead lover.’
‘Oh, no!’ Beatrice exclaimed. ‘Sir John, that is a hideous story!’
Sir John drank from his cup and smacked his lips. ‘Well, that’s why they call it the Midnight Tower. On the anniversary of Lady Johanna’s death, you can hear her dying screams and cries of horror as her brain turned mad before her body failed her.’
‘Is the cell still there?’ Marisa asked.
‘It could be.’ Sir John’s eyes widened. ‘There are storerooms in that part now, passageways and galleries. No one has ever looked, so no one knows what might be hidden there.’
‘That’s enough,’ Lady Anne declared. ‘You’ll frighten us all. This is May Day!’
The conversation turned to other events. Father Aylred expressed his concern at the discontent in Maldon and the outlying villages where the peasants fumed and seethed with anger at the impositions laid on them by the great lords who held their wages down and kept them shackled to the soil. ‘They are only poor earthworms,’ Father Aylred said. ‘And similar discontent is apparently spreading like fire among the stubble in other shires. There is talk of a great revolt, of a peasant army, more than the leaves in autumn, gathering and marching on London.’
‘If that happens,’ said Sir John stoutly, tapping the hilt of his dagger, ‘Ravenscroft will drop its portcullis and raise the drawbridge.’ He glanced round. ‘We are all the King’s men here. If the black banner of rebellion is unfurled, we will do our best to defend the King’s rights.’
‘But they are poor men and women,’ Father Aylred protested. ‘Their children grow thin, their bellies sag with hunger.’
‘I know, I know.’ Sir John was a kindly man and Beatrice could see he was deeply worried. ‘I’ve done the best I can. I’ve given grain from the storerooms and I’ve warned the tax collector not to shear their sheep so close.’
‘Well, thank God that person’s not at our feast!’ Lady Anne snapped.
They all murmured in agreement. A week earlier Goodman Winthrop, a tax collector from London, had arrived at the castle: a lanky, balding, snivel-nosed individual dressed in a grey fustian robe and high-heeled leather riding boots. Goodman Winthrop was a lawyer sent by the Exchequer to collect the poll tax in Ravenscroft, Maldon and the outlying areas. A sour, dour man who seemed to take delight in the task assigned to him, he had arrived accompanied by a clerk and four royal archers. He had demanded the protection of Ravenscroft Castle; Sir John had reluctantly agreed, on one condition, that Goodman Winthrop should not begin his tax collecting until after May Day. Sir John had provided him and his escort with chambers near the barbican overlooking the moat. ‘Maybe the smell will drive him out’ he commented. ‘A more miserable caitiff I’ve never met.’
