The Midnight Man

‘Brother Anselm,’ Stephen whispered, ‘it’s cold, and I’m frightened.’

Anselm started, freeing himself from the devilish distraction. ‘Surely we shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living,’ he intoned reassuringly. ‘Take heart and hold firm. Hope in the Lord.’

Stephen threaded his Ave beads, fingers slippery with sweat. He tried to recite the Pater Noster but could not speak the words. ‘Qui est in coelis — who art in heaven.’ He stared into the gathering blackness. Anselm had warned him about this sticking cold, the unpleasant thoughts. More terrors would soon press in. Stephen’s mouth and throat turned dry. He jumped as something brushed his face, soft yet menacing, like a fluttering hawk wing. He must remain vigilant, prayerful and remember everything so as to faithfully record it. He drew himself up on the stool next to the shriving chair in which Anselm sat. He was about to cross himself when his shoulder was poked. He whirled around, alarmed by the hissing whispers. Something crawled over his sandalled feet, cold and slithering — a viper, here? The novice moved his feet. Anselm did likewise. He gripped Stephen’s arm and pressed reassuringly. ‘Phantasms!’ he murmured. ‘Ignore them. More will come.’

As if in answer a dog howled, a flesh-tingling sound. Stephen was not sure whether the hound was in the church or beyond the corpse door. A black shape moved furtively between the drum-like pillars of the nave.

‘Magister,’ Stephen whispered, ‘this is supposed to be a holy place, not the domain of demons.’

‘So it is,’ Anselm whispered back, ‘but, as scripture proves, Satan even appeared to the Holy One himself. What I am certain of is. .’ Anselm broke off as candles in the chantry chapel immediately to his right flared into life, lit by some unseen hand. Stephen followed his master’s gaze and shivered. The candles on their spigots were burning briskly, shoots of flames leaping up to illuminate the vivid wall painting just beneath the darkened window. The fresco recorded a vision of hell where the damned hung by their tongues from trees of fire. Others smouldered in furnaces, heaped with burning coals, roasted on spits or plunged head first into cauldrons of bubbling black oil. All around these gathered hordes of demons, serpents and monstrous beasts. Black dogs, armed with swords, stood guard over other damned souls being led to a gibbet which stretched over a plunging abyss. The candles were abruptly extinguished and the flames smothered. The whispering began again as a crowd of ghosts hustled close.

‘Earth swallowed Abel’s blood; it thirsts for more.’ The voice was low and mocking.

‘Aye,’ Anselm replied sharply, ‘and all those hallowed by receiving Christ’s body before the great resurrection condemn you.’

The voice screamed and faded away. Anselm rose to his feet, Stephen likewise.

‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Anselm began the rite of exorcism. He had assured Stephen, before being locked in this darkened church, that ‘the scriptures say this type of demonic activity can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.’

They had certainly fasted. Stephen’s empty stomach grumbled in protest. He forced himself to join in the prayers, even as the ghastly voices began to mimic what was said. The verses drifted back, distant echoes. Lights appeared, floating like those strange marsh fires above the fens of Ely. Were they, Stephen wondered, goblins, fairies, fireflies or the souls of the damned? Anselm was now chanting a psalm. The lights disappeared; the stench remained as if from some open sewer. A cold, as freezing as the north wind sweeping across the snowbound fields of Lincolnshire, chilled their bodies. Anselm had stopped his reciting. He just stood in the centre of the nave, hands hanging by his side.

‘Magister, Magister?’

Anselm turned and grabbed Stephen’s shoulder in a hard squeeze. ‘I saw one once, Stephen — a knight. The cross-bolt bow had knit his gorget to his throat. Another had smashed into his nose. Others were being slaughtered, some eviscerated; they trod on their own entrails and vomited their own teeth. Some stood gazing speechlessly at where their arms should have been. Yet when I turn away, I see the pestilential horde, bodies covered with buboes, white and round like shining shillings. These turn into burning candles in their flesh; they erupt like the seeds of black peas, broken fragments of brittle sea coal, dark black berries. .’

‘Magister, Magister?’ Stephen freed himself from his master’s grip. He seized Anselm’s freezing cold hands, even as he was aware of sinister shades gathering like bats, their silent wings wafting putrid air towards them. ‘Magister?’ Stephen could not see Anselm’s face through the gloom but he felt his master’s hands grow warm. Anselm gave a great sigh, turned and promptly fainted into Stephen’s arms. The novice, sweat-soaked, lowered his body down to the cold paving stones. Stephen knelt by his master, aware of the darksmen, as Anselm called them, the night-walkers pressing in. Anselm stirred, groaned and struggled to sit. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he whispered. ‘Let us see. .’

Anselm staggered to his feet and walked down the nave. He was calling out questions, pausing and listening to replies. The darkness thinned. The ancient mustiness of the church returned. No longer was it cold. No voices echoed. No lights flared. No darting shadows or flitting shapes. They had all faded, trailing away. Anselm stood in the centre of the nave, hands clasped, staring up at the elaborately carved rood screen. He stepped forward as if to go up into the sanctuary but paused and looked over his shoulder. ‘Stephen,’ Anselm murmured, ‘it’s over. Unlock the doors.’

A short while later Anselm, Stephen and others assembled in the great solar of Sir William Higden’s stately mansion which overlooked St Michael’s, Candlewick. Anselm had washed his hands and face. He’d drank a full loving cup of water and eaten a platter of diced meat, beef garnished with a spicy vegetable sauce. Stephen had also eaten and drunk, perhaps more wine than he should have done. The excitement of the evening had diminished. The novice stared around the opulent chamber, such a contrast to the stark simplicity of the cells at the House of the Carmelites, the White Friars. The solar was luxuriously furnished. Oaken panelling gleamed against the walls; above this the delicately plastered walls were decorated with gorgeous cloths, embroideries and tapestries. The tiled floor was carpeted with dark turkey cloths while the full glory of the solar was illuminated by an array of fiery candles and flaring cressets. Stephen felt the strong arms of his leather-backed chair and stared at the other items of polished furniture: the dressers, tables and shelves displaying a magnificent array of silver and gold cups, mazers, platters and dishes. Stephen glanced at Anselm. The exorcist slouched in his chair at the top of the table picking at strips of dried fruit, his bony face creased with tiredness. Anselm, Stephen reflected, looked what he was, a priest used to the tangled warfare between the visible and the invisible. Anselm had a streak of gentleness carefully hidden behind his hard-featured face, hooded eyes, aquiline nose and bloodless, thin lips. He was clean-shaven, his black-silver hair closely cut to reveal the tonsure as well as proclaim the austerity of this former knight who’d once fought and killed under the snarling, gold leopards of England.

The others grouped around the table were subdued. Parson Smollat, neat and fussy, his rosy cheeks now full-red from the claret he’d generously supped, his piggy eyes ever darting, his clean little face screwed up in concentration as he listened to the conversations swirling about him. Simon the sexton was no different. A smug little man with a streak of vanity betrayed by the way he let his scrawny, silver-grey hair tumble down to his shoulders. Curate Amalric was different. A scion of a noble Somerset family, or so he often proclaimed, Amalric disdained what he dismissed as ‘courtly fancy’ and dressed simply in a long black robe, heavily stained with food, wine and other unmentionables. Amalric, head and face completely shaved, was bony and angular — so much so that the curate reminded Stephen of a skeleton.

‘You want more claret?’

Stephen glanced down at the other end of the table where their host, Sir William Higden, sat enthroned, holding up the wine jug, gazing expectantly around at his guests. A plump city merchant knighted by the King, dressed in a beautiful quilted jerkin of dark murrey, Sir William was trying to remain cheerful despite what was happening in his parish church of which he was the lord, holding its advowson, the right to appoint the parson and other clerics. Sir William’s podgy face under its mop of thinning reddish hair gleamed with oil.

‘More wine, sirs, surely?’

Sir William’s question was politely refused. Amalric gazed longingly into the far corner where the flame of the hour candle was slowly sinking to the next ring — compline time.

‘Are you sure?’ Sir William’s face was now drained of all good humour: his small black eyes hard as pebbles, no longer wrinkled in a smile. The merchant knight put the wine jug down. He played with the medallion on the chain around his neck then started to slip on and off the rings decorating his podgy fingers. A strange man, Stephen reflected, Sir William had fought strenuously for King Edward in France before amassing a fortune in the wool trade. He had raised loans for the King who’d rewarded him with a knighthood and a secure place in the Commons where, of course, Sir William could defend the Crown’s rights. A warrior turned merchant, Sir William’s stately mansion overlooked the sprawling cemetery of St Michael’s, Candlewick. He was a lord who took a keen interest in his local