occurrences. The law of the village was very clear: if the church bell was rung in alarm they all had a duty to assemble. They left their scythes, hoes and mattocks in a pile in a corner of the church wall. The women went straight in but the men stamped their feet and looked up at the brightening sky, bemoaning the waste of a good day. They fell silent as Fulcher, followed by his wife and family, came up the graveyard path. The blacksmith’s family were all dressed in their Sunday best with pieces of dyed black ribbon sewn on their tunics and gowns as a mark of mourning. The other villagers let them through, murmuring their condolences, before following the blacksmith into the church. Matthias stared round the cemetery: he glimpsed the fresh mounds of earth where his father had buried the unfortunates killed the day before. The boy chewed on his thumbnail. He did not know whether to stay or flee to Tenebral. The Preacher meant his friend the hermit no good and shouldn’t he be warned? Matthias stood up. Surely he wouldn’t be missed?
‘Matthias!’
The boy turned. Christina was standing in the church porch.
‘Matthias, you are to come, your father is missing you.’ Matthias sighed and followed her into the church. Christina’s firm grip on his hand showed she would stand no nonsense and the way she kept looking down at him made him wonder. Did she know? Did she suspect what he had been planning? The nave was packed. All the families of Sutton Courteny, the old as well as the young, filled the small nave. Fulcher and his family sat at the front, grouped around the parish coffin, which stood on black-draped trestles guarded by six purple candles. The church bell began to ring again. The chattering and the gossip died. The bell ceased its tolling. Parson Osbert, dressed in the black chasuble of the Requiem Mass, came out through the rood screen followed by the Preacher. The villagers watched with interest. Any desire to go out into the fields or gossip outside the Hungry Man was now replaced by a thrill of excitement. Something was about to happen, to shatter the tedium of of their lives. Parson Osbert climbed the steps into the pulpit.
‘Brethren!’ His voice echoed round the church. ‘Today we intend to sing the Requiem Mass and perform the funeral obsequies for a child of this village, Edith, daughter of Fulcher our blacksmith.’ He paused as Fulcher’s wife put her face in her hands and sobbed noisily. ‘The events of the last few days have shattered the peace and harmony of our village. There has been a great battle outside Tewkesbury. Once again the roads are full of soldiers but there are other evils. Edith is not the only person to have died, been murdered, in such terrible and mysterious circumstances. I have news that similar deaths have occurred throughout the shire. I have agreed that the Preacher here-’ Parson Osbert gestured to where the Preacher stood at the foot of the pulpit, staring down the nave, his eyes moving slowly from one face to another — ‘this man of God has news on this. In normal circumstances I would have gone to see Baron Sanguis but our lord is still absent, and these affairs cannot wait.’
Parson Osbert made the sign of the cross and came down the steps. The Preacher now mounted the pulpit. Matthias watched expectantly. This mysterious stranger seemed taller, broader, more powerful than he’d been the night before. For a few moments the Preacher just stared round the church.
‘Satan!’ His voice thundered, making Matthias jump. ‘Satan, as the Good Book says, goes about roaring like a lion, seeking whom he may devour!’
The villagers stared up at him. The reference to the Devil or works of Hell always caught their attention.
‘The murder of this child,’ the Preacher continued, ‘is not the bloody-handed work of anyone who knew her. These deaths, as Parson Osbert has told you, have occurred elsewhere. I ask you now to search your memories. Have such deaths ever occurred before?’
With his hands clasped on the pulpit, the Preacher reminded Matthias even more of a hunting kestrel on its perch.
‘There were deaths eight years ago.’ Joscelyn the taverner spoke up. ‘Not in the village but between here and Tewkesbury.’
‘Horrible murders!’ another cried. ‘Throats gashed, corpses drained. Even then we thought it was the work of night walkers!’
The Preacher stilled the growing clamour with one wave of his hand. ‘And I ask you,’ he was now enjoying himself, ‘who was here in your village at that time?’
Again silence. Matthias tensed. He looked up at his mother. She was now white as a ghost. She sat as if carved out of stone, her eyes never leaving the Preacher. Matthias closed his eyes to pray.
‘The hermit!’
Matthias opened his eyes with a start.
‘The hermit!’ Joscelyn the taverner shouted. ‘He was here, where he is now, in the ruined church at Tenebral!’
‘But he’s a holy man.’ Simon the reeve got to his feet.
‘Holy?’ the Preacher retorted, glaring down at the reeve. ‘No one is holy but God!’
‘I mean. .’ Simon the reeve swallowed hard. He was used to holding his own at such meetings and refused to give up so easily. After all, he knew his letters and could write, was skilled in the hornbook and the ledger. He did not like this stranger entering their village and telling them what to do. Yet the Preacher’s eyes seemed to burn into him. ‘I mean,’ he stammered, ‘he did no one any harm, except beg for food.’
‘Hush! Listen now!’ The Preacher’s voice dropped. He leant against the pulpit, then lifted one hand, fingers splayed. ‘Eight years ago,’ he jabbed the air, ‘these murders occurred, the hermit was here. Eight years later,’ he continued, holding another finger up, ‘and the murders begin again. The hermit can wander hither and thither. No one knows where he goes or what he intends.’ He pointed up to the crucifix behind him. ‘And if he’s a man of religion why does he not come here to church? At Christmas? At Easter? On Lady Day? At Pentecost?’
The Preacher’s voice was now booming through the church. Matthias felt like crying out. He could not believe this. His friend the hermit? Who could make doves appear in his hand? Who was so gentle and kind? Matthias would have screamed out, but his mother, sitting so still, put her hand across his mouth and looked down at him: in that look Matthias knew something was dreadfully wrong.
‘Then let’s arrest him now!’ Simon the reeve shouted.
‘We have no power,’ John the bailiff pointed out, getting to his feet. ‘Baron Sanguis is Lord of the Manor. He has the right of the tumbrel, axe and rope!’
‘Well, it’s too far to go to Gloucester!’ another shouted. ‘Whilst the sheriff could keep us hanging about until Michaelmas!’
The Preacher held up both hands. ‘But you do have the right,’ he intoned. ‘
By now the villagers were nodding and whispering amongst each other. Fulcher the blacksmith got to his feet. The great burly man bowed to the Preacher and turned to face his neighbours.
‘The Preacher speaks the truth,’ he declared. ‘Think now, good people, who would murder poor Edith in such a barbarous way? No woman would, and every man was in the fields preparing for the harvest.’
Fulcher’s words drew a chorus of agreement. Matthias felt himself sweating, heart beating faster than he had thought possible. His mother’s grip on his wrist grew even firmer.
‘However,’ Fulcher continued, ‘my daughter lies here in the parish coffin: her soul is with God but the earth waits for her body. Let us complete what we have begun. I say the funeral Mass should be said, our plans laid and tomorrow, just after dawn, we go out to Tenebral.’
The villagers clapped, getting to their feet. The Preacher smiled and nodded, proud at how quickly he had gained mastery over these strangers.
‘But what happens if he’s warned?’ a voice shouted from the back.
‘But who will warn him?’ the Preacher retorted. His gaze slid quickly to Matthias. ‘I say this: let your young men guard the path through the woods to Tenebral. That is enough.’
His words won general agreement. Parson Osbert returned to the sacristy to don his vestments and the people stayed to hear the Requiem Mass for poor Edith. After this was completed Fulcher and five other men carried her coffin out to the cemetery. The lid was unscrewed, the sheeted corpse taken out and lowered quickly into the earth. Parson Osbert blessed, sprinkled with holy water and incensed Edith’s last resting place. The soil was then thrown in. A wooden cross was driven deep into the earth. Afterwards most of the parishioners streamed out of the graveyard back into the village to break their fast and gossip at the Hungry Man.
