‘I’ll come back,’ she whispered. ‘I promise. I must see Ralph.’
‘Of course, Beatrice,’ he said and turned away.
Beatrice was already in the tower hurrying up the spiral staircase, aware of the torches, the dancing shadows, of grotesque shapes, odious smells and macabre forms. She reached Ralph’s room and passed through the door into the small, circular chamber. Beatrice gave a deep sigh of grief. The room was so familiar, so full of loving memories: the rushes on the floor, green and supple; the little pots of herbs she had brought; the crucifix on the wall; the small triptych on the table next to the bed.
Ralph was sprawled there. In the light of the capped candle she could see he was asleep but his cheeks were tear-stained. He moved and jerked, muttering to himself. On the floor lay a cup in a puddle of spilled wine. Beatrice was filled with a deep longing. She wanted to stretch out and touch him but she could feel nothing. She lay down on the bed next to him as if she was his handfast wife. She put her arm round him and kissed him on the cheek, whispering his name. She told him how she loved him and would do so for all eternity. Ralph stirred and moved. He called out her name, his eyes opened and closed. He groaned and dug his face deep into the bolster. Beatrice stroked his hair and tried to dry the tears on his cheeks.
‘Oh Ralph, Ralph!’ she whispered. ‘Oh sweetheart!’
He moved and turned. Beatrice felt as if she was crying herself.
‘It’s all invisible,’ she murmured. ‘My tears mean nothing.’
She recalled Crispin’s words and the flame of anger and hatred seethed. What did he mean, was she the real victim? She sat up and stared across at the crucifix and noticed a silver disc of light was moving around it. She glanced away. Everything had been a mockery. Where was Heaven? Where was the good Lord Jesus? The angels, all the mysteries the Church had taught? She had been cast up like a rotten boat on the banks of a sluggish river. All she could do was watch the water run by. How long would this go on? For ever? Sealed in this existence for all eternity? She kissed Ralph on the brow and walked out of the chamber.
‘Well, Beatrice?’ Crispin was standing in the stairwell. ‘All gone,’ he said. ‘Lost like tears in the rain. Come.’
He took her by the hand and she didn’t resist. They walked out to Midnight Tower and up flights of steps. Beatrice found herself in Adam’s room. He and Marisa were lying, fully clothed, on the bed, arms about each other. Marisa was crying. Adam was soothing her, stroking her hair.
‘So unnecessary,’ Crispin’s voice murmured.
Beatrice felt a surge of resentment. She and Ralph should be lying like this. Why her? Why now? And before Crispin could say another word, she turned and fled down the stairs. Crispin called after her but Beatrice didn’t care. She crashed into the wall and slipped but felt no pain. She stopped and laughed hysterically. A silver disc hovered above her. She drove it away with her hand as a child would a ball. She reached the bottom of the tower and stopped. A woman blocked her way. Tall, hair as black as a raven’s wing, her face could have been beautiful but it was white and ghastly with red-rimmed, staring eyes. Her lovely samite dress was dirt-stained. She stared malevolently at Beatrice and, opening her mouth, screamed like a wild animal. Beatrice stood her ground. The woman advanced. Beatrice recoiled at the disgusting smell which emanated from her.
‘Who are you?’
‘Welcome to the kingdom of the dead, Beatrice Arrowner. Look at me and weep. Lady Johanna de Mandeville, walled up, tombed in for death. Nothing but darkness. He shouldn’t have done it. It was cruel and no one raised a hand. No pity in life, no mercy in death. Nothing but a desert of hate and chambers full of spectres!’
Beatrice could stand no more and fled like a shadow from Midnight Tower.
Chapter 3
Beatrice found herself on the path leading from the barbican. The stars were bright above her, the silver moon slipped in and out of the clouds yet it wasn’t the usual blue-black of country nights. The heathland, Devil’s Spinney and the walls of Ravenscroft were bathed in that eerie bronze tinge, like light reflected in a brass pot. The silence, too, was strange, not the calm and peace of the countryside at night but more threatening, as if other phantasms lurked behind the curtain of night, ready to spring out. Beatrice stopped and looked back at the castle. She’d walked this way earlier, her mind full of Ralph, May celebrations and, of course, her wedding day. The castle had always seemed friendly with its familiar turrets and towers. Now it looked foreign. Where there had been windows were now plain bricks, strange emblems and pennants flew from the ramparts, and ghostly lights glowed on the tops of the towers.
A group of horsemen burst out of Devil’s Spinney, fleeing like bats under the moon. They charged towards the drawbridge, thundering across in ghostly cavalcade – a vision of things as they once were rather than the reality she had left. Strange cries overhead made Beatrice glance up at the sky and she saw geese-like forms flying between the clouds. Fires burnt in Devil’s Spinney and loud shouts and cries came from the darkness on her right. Beatrice felt afraid and then laughed.
‘If I am dreaming,’ she murmured, ‘then I shall wake up and these are nothing but phantasms. If I am truly dead, separated from Ralph, then what else can happen to me?’
She walked on and came to the crossroads. She recognised them immediately but not the gibbet which stretched out against the night sky or the grisly cadaver which hung in chains from its rusting hook. Beneath it a young woman, red hair falling down to her shoulders and dressed in a white shift, was staring in horror at the great bloody patch on her chest. She raised her head as Beatrice approached.
‘Who are you?’ the young woman asked. Her face was ghoulish, her eyes like those of a dead fish, the pallid skin of her hands tinged with dirt and mud.
‘I am Beatrice Arrowner.’
‘And I am Etheldreda.’ She saw the puzzlement in Beatrice’s face. ‘We see each other, we can talk and hear.’ Etheldreda smiled in a show of blackened teeth. ‘But we are of the nether world, in the kingdom of the dead.’
‘Why don’t you leave?’ Beatrice asked. As soon as the words were out, she realised this was how she used to speak in dreams.
‘I cannot leave,’ Etheldreda moaned. ‘So long ago yet just like yesterday. What year is it?’
Beatrice stared at her. ‘I am not too sure.’
‘Well, who is King?’
‘Young Richard reigns in Westminster.’ Beatrice recalled the proclamations read out in the parish church four years ago after the old King had died. ‘It is the year of Our Lord 1381.’
‘Young Richard?’ Etheldreda stared at her, lips opening and closing like a landed carp. ‘Has time passed so quickly? In the parish church Father Bernard preached against King John.’
‘King John? But he lived many years ago. The ancient ones tell stories about him. How he marched through Wessex and lost his treasure in the Wash.’
‘Where’s that?’ Etheldreda asked.
‘To the north,’ Beatrice replied. ‘Where the sea comes in and drowns the fields.’
Etheldreda nodded her head. ‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘And I drowned myself in Blackwater. Seduced, I was, by Simon the reeve.’ Her dead eyes filled with tears. ‘Promised we’d become handfast, he did. On Midsummer Day, yes, that’s it, we were drinking midsummer ales. He spurned me, laughed with the other men. I fled the fair and went down to Blackwater. All I remember is jumping, the water filling my mouth and nose. Even as it did, I didn’t want to die. Yet they took my corpse, drove a stake through my heart and buried me here at the crossroads.’
‘Why don’t you move?’ Beatrice asked kindly. ‘Come.’ She held out her hand.
Etheldreda turned away. ‘I cannot,’ she answered wearily. ‘I will not. If I stay here they might come back. If I wait long enough, Simon the reeve will walk this way. I will speak to him about his unkindly words.’
Beatrice shook her head. ‘But that is all gone.’
Etheldreda looked away, staring into the darkness without speaking.
Beatrice walked on. She reached the village church of St Dunstan’s and paused outside the lych gate, gazing
