“Mortal, if in the guise of a handsome devil.” Ailen grinned – which prompted the dean to clutch the eiderdowns up to his chin.
“Forgive my crass humour, Dean Richards. It comes of a good many years spent on tour with a mummers’ troupe.”
“Mummers?” The dean chewed the word over. “The archbishop’s people mentioned a mummer. Pied Piper of the dead, they called him.”
“Aye. That’d be on account of this.” Reaching into his pack, Ailen pulled out a long metal pipe. Worked in silver and brass, the instrument appeared to be a cross between an oboe and a mechanical Chinese dragon. “I blow here.” Ailen pointed to the reed-tipped tail. “Notes are produced here.” He indicated a series of plated “gills” along the tail pipe. “I change pitch with these.” Two wing sections coruscated where the pipe fattened at the body section. “And here is the mouth.” He worked a series of nodules along the neck to exercise the metal jaw.
“So you are our Spirit Catcher?” Dean Richards relaxed his grip on the eiderdowns and sat up.
“What’s a Spirit Catcher?” The canon’s voice was laden with fear and judgement.
“The man who will cleanse our great cathedral of its unwelcome parishioners,” said the dean, rifling through the drawer of a bedside cabinet. “Ah.” He produced a purse and rested back against his pillows.
“Eight shillings and ninepence for the tall spirits. A crown apiece for the two girls.” He arched an eyebrow. “Half up front.” Loosening the string at the neck, he handed the purse to the canon. “Count it out please, Nicholas.”
The canon faltered. Ailen knew it pained the pious young man to play any part in the transaction. After all, such talk of ghosts bore more in common with the earth spirits entertained in pagan rites than with Christian doctrine. But Ailen could see many things others could not, including the canon’s desire to please his seniors and progress through the church hierarchy. He wasn’t surprised when Nicholas kept his concerns private and dug around inside the purse.
Dean Richards gestured to a chair off in the shadows. “Sit with me a while, Spirit Catcher. Let me tell you what I know.”
An hour later, the dean slipped back into his muttered prayer and strange hugging of the eiderdowns. Ailen stood up. Coins belonging to the church jangled in his pocket. He slid the dragon pipe back inside his pack and retrieved an envelope, which he presented to Nicholas.
“Arrowroot, garlic, lilac, mint, and mercury. Sprinkle the powder on the windowsills, the threshold and at the foot of the bed.”
Nicholas looked as if Ailen had handed him the severed hand of a baby.
“I want nothing to do with your witchcraft!”
“Then the Shakes will continue to pollute the dean. Leave him be or use this.” He held up the envelope pointedly then laid it down on top of the bedside cabinet. “Your choice.”
The King’s Head, Bird Street, reputedly opened its doors in 1495 and had since served as a coaching inn, birthed the Staffordshire regiment, and acquired its fair share of ghosts over the centuries.
Approaching the building, Ailen saw a silver-blue orb flicker at a window on the third floor. Voices came to him – men readying themselves for battle, their muskets and pikes knocking against armour as they moved. He was struck by a thick bitumen stench, felt the dry heat of flames. A woman screamed inside the public house. But the sound did not belong to the living. Instead, the scream looped back on itself and then faded.
Unlike the activities in the cathedral which the dean had described, these hauntings were moments in time caught in the King’s Head’s ancient footings. Even the screaming kitchen maid who had perished in a fire was just a shade. He saw her as he stepped into the bar. Most would experience her movement past them as a brief sensation of cold. Closing the door at his back, Ailen watched her sweep the floor, heedless of the patrons in her path.
He was brought back to the land of the living by a blackened face looming in.
“Cutting it close. But the crowd’s nice and eager. Here.” Willy Bones, part-time exorcist, full-time Fool, shoved a pint of ale into Ailen’s hand. “Quaff it quick. Our Saint’s about to announce us.”
Ailen sank a draught from the ale glass. The King’s Head had a generous quota of patrons, all gathered around the edges of the room to allow for a makeshift stage. Thom’s character, Little Devil, stood to the back alongside the anaemic Doctor, Naw Jones. Playing the part of Saint George, ex-clergyman Popule Brick faced the audience and bowed.
“Greeting, good patrons, and drunkards too, a merrysome Autumn eve to you.
“Our play today is fearsome bold, a tale of quandaries aeons old.
“I am Saint George—” A patriotic cry went up from the crowd. “I like to fight.”
Here Willy leaped in to deliver the rhyme. “He smites Man, wyrd worm and ass alike.”
Saint George crowed over the laughter and pointed at Willy.
“Lo, the Fool who pulls a tinkers cart, brays ‘eey-ore’, lifts his tail and f—”
Thom’s Little Devil danced in then.
“Far and wide doth search the godly saint, to fight the bad – or those that ain’t.
“But no good deed goes quite right, when the devil watches from the night.”
Thom withdrew. To the crowd’s delight, the Saint lunged at the Fool, wielding a squeezebox as a weapon. On the run, the Fool dashed over to Ailen, who offered up the mechanical dragon pipe. While the Saint played a jig on the squeezebox, the Fool brandished the dragon pipe. Steam belched from its jaws.
The audience “oohed” and “aahed” at the oddity. Willy the Fool made no attempt to play the pipe. Instead it was paraded as the worm mentioned in the verse – a puppet with gleaming scales and tick-tock inner workings.
Performing their ceremonial dance about the floor, the Saint succeeded in overpowering the dragon; Willy mimed the creature’s death throes then tossed it back to Ailen, who caught the pipe and tucked it back into his pack.
Running over to Popule, Willy announced, “Saint George has slain the worm fast and true, and now my sword will do for you.”
Willy stabbed the man in the belly with his finger. Popule howled and made a great show of staggering about the stage, to the general amusement of the spectators. At last, he collapsed and lay on his back.
Willy tugged on his donkey’s ears.
“Oh, Lord, he’s dead! Oh, me! Oh, my! Why’d that old windbag go and die?
“I’ll have to face the Queen’s cavaliers, and me not yet supped all my beers.”
Ailen strode out on to the stage. He stopped opposite Willy, the crowd clearly enthralled by his bulk and appearance.
“Behold! The woodland son, the Jack o’ the Green,” exclaimed Willy, sinking to one knee. He clasped his hands, imploring, “Oh, sacred son, do not judge me by this bloody scene. Indeed the knight deserved to die.” Willy pointed to his donkey’s ears. “He was a greater ass than I.”
Ailen held out his arms, the feathered sleeves of his tunic fanning out like wings.
“I cannot save this Christian son, who slayed my worm for sport and fun,
“But to save thee gross palaver, I’ll do away with the cadaver.
“In my wyld wood where fairies dwell, I’ll make his death a living hell!”
He swooped towards the onlookers, saw a flash of fear in their eyes accompanied by nervous smiles. At his back, Naw stepped forward, tall black hat exaggerating his height.
“At peace, Green Man, you know as I, all return to your wyld wood once they die.”
Naw switched his attention to Willy.
“Doctor Sham. I alchemize stone into gold, heal the sick and lame,
“Help spirits rest, clear unwelcome guests and raise the dead again.”
Willy the Fool butted in, “You raise the dead? Oh, say it’s so, and to the gallows I’ll not go.”
Naw kneeled down beside Popule, who rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue. Holding out his arms in appeal to Willy, Naw spoke,
“This holy knight I can revive at your behest,
“For one-tenth your mortal soul – and the devil take the rest.”
Thom jigged from one foot to the other at the back of the stage. He hissed in a loud aside, “I’ve use for a foolish man, spread on toast like gooseberry jam.”
The Doctor waved his fingers over the prone Saint.
