The Midnight Man

Once outside the house the exorcist made his way back towards St Michael’s. The day was quiet. A Franciscan stood on a plinth, begging alms for a group of lepers clustered a short distance away, their faces and hands swathed in bandages. Only their eyes, frenetic and desperate, peered out at a world that had forsaken them. Stephen ran up and told the friar to take his little flock to The Unicorn, where Master Robert would undoubtedly see them well. The Franciscan hopped down as nimble as a cricket, kissed Stephen on the cheeks and shouted at his charges to follow. He led them off singing the ‘Salve Regina’ while the lepers followed at a distance, shaking their rattles and bells. Children, playing with an inflated pig’s bladder, scattered at their approach. Women shouted from the windows of houses, begging their little ones to be careful. A false trader came racing up the lane, breathless and sweaty, as he dodged and twisted in a desperate attempt to escape pursuing market beadles. No sooner were they gone than a relic seller stepped out from an apothecary’s shop, a tray slung around his neck, offering miniature portions of soap. Each was wrapped in a linen cloth which, he proclaimed, Joseph of Arimathea had used for the Lord’s body on the first Good Friday. Stephen stood and watched these sights, aware of the different smells from the various shops and stalls. He glimpsed a necklace of gleaming copper being hawked by a tinker and immediately wondered if Alice would like it. He was about to walk across the lane when a cold breeze wafted against his face. A voice whispered something about the devil’s wolf, hungry for the hunt. Stephen whirled around. A sense of pressing danger agitated him. Were those two beggars at the mouth of the runnel watching him? Or the man, heavily cloaked, who now stood just beneath the sign of the apothecary shop? Was he masked? Was his hand resting on a dagger hilt? The people milling around did not seem so welcoming now. Glittering eyes peered from deep hoods. A bulbous-eyed servitor, apron stained with blood, hastened by then paused to stare slyly at Stephen. Above him a window casement flew open and a man leaned out. Stephen thought he was holding a crossbow, yet when he looked again the casement slammed shut. A fierce whispering broke around him, like the humming of a noisome cloud of flies. Stephen felt the terrors seize him. He was not safe here. He broke free of his panic and hurried after Anselm, finding the exorcist standing at the lychgate to St Michael’s. Stephen paused and took a deep breath.

Anselm turned. ‘Believe me, my friend,’ the exorcist leaned against the heavy wooden gate, ‘this truly is the Kingdom of Cain. Murder was committed here but how, Stephen? Why and when?’

‘Magister, what shall we do?’

‘I’ll stay here.’

‘Stay here?’

‘Yes.’ Anselm left the gate and crouched down with his back to the cemetery wall. ‘I just want to watch and see what happens.’ He shaded his eyes, squinting up at Stephen. ‘You have some money?’

‘Yes.’ Stephen grinned. ‘Why? Are we to beg?’

‘No, to eat,’ the exorcist replied. ‘Stephen, I am famished. A pastry full of minced beef with peppers and a dash of mustard? Master Robert sells the best!’ Stephen, his terrors forgotten, needed no second bidding. Swift as a lurcher he ran to the tavern, bursting breathless into the kitchen, surprising the cook who gently mocked his eagerness, saying that two pastries and a pie were easy to serve. However, the lovely Alice had accompanied her father to St Paul’s to meet a merchant beneath the Great Cross.

Stephen blushed, then grinned at the teasing. Once the linen parcels were ready, stowed in an old leather sack, he left the tavern, turning back into the street. A shout echoed through his mind. A woman’s voice whispered, ‘Ave, ave.’ Stephen whirled around as four figures, hooded and garbed in black leather jerkins and hose, soft boots on their feet, merged out of the shadows. These were no phantasms. They breathed noisily behind their masks while their wicked knives winked in the light. ‘Good morrow, little friar. You must come with us.’

‘I must not.’

One of the nightmare figures stretched out his blade. ‘What are you, little friar, you God-mumbler, you prattler of prayers? You stand there like some rabbit, jerking and trembling at the rustle of life.’

Stephen felt the anger well within him. He stepped back, determined to resist.

‘God save you all! God save the King! God save Holy Mother Church!’ Cutwolf, as if appearing from nowhere, sauntered down the alleyway. Behind him was his companion, face and head all oiled and shaved — Stephen knew this must be Bolingbrok, just by the way he swaggered. Beyond them, at the mouth of the alleyway, others thronged. Stephen heard a sound. He glanced back. His sinister assailants had disappeared into the spindle-thin runnel which stretched through the old houses in this quarter. Breathing in deeply, Stephen tried to ignore the clamouring voices. Cutwolf and Bolingbrok approached, sauntering along without a care in the world, confident in their own strength, the weapons strapped to their war belts. Bolingbrok stopped before him and bowed. ‘The Lord hath delivered thee,’ he intoned, ‘as he did Israel from Og King of Bashan and Sihon King of the Amorites.’

‘Blueberry.’ Cutwolf laughed. ‘That is what he is calling himself now. But we shall always know him as Bolingbrok. Anyway, young Stephen, we have kept you under close scrutiny. You really should be more careful.’

‘Who were they?’

‘Oh, undoubtedly the Midnight Man’s messengers, but come,’ Cutwolf beckoned, ‘Brother Anselm is starving.’

‘What did they want with me?’

‘To see what you know, because the trap is closing, Stephen. But don’t you worry. Where you go, your shadows will also follow.’

‘Why didn’t you try to arrest them?’

‘For what? No, my friend,’ Cutwolf grinned, ‘too dangerous and, I suspect, they are merely hired bully boys who know very little.’

They returned to St Michael’s. Anselm still sat sunning himself against the wall, watching the people drift by. Stephen joined him, handing over the linen parcel, making no mention of what had happened. Cutwolf and his companions drifted into the cemetery, squatting down in the long grass, shouting and laughing with each other. Stephen bit into the still-warm pastry and watched, as Anselm did, the shifting scenes. A group of pilgrims, armed with iron-tipped staves and preceded by a priest swinging a smoking thurible, hurried down to Queenhithe, chanting the litany of St James of Compostella, whose shrine at Santiago they hoped to visit. Tumblers and tinkers, moon men and mountebanks, jongleurs and the tellers of tall tales swarmed by. Cutwolf and Bolingbrok joined the two Carmelites, sitting like young boys with their backs to the walls, faces to the sun, commenting on all who passed: the court fops in their prigging fineries, the beadles and bailiffs, the staggering drunks and sober-clad officials.

As the daylight began to fade, the more colourful of Dowgate citizens, those who lived in the Mansions of Darkness, emerged fresh for a night’s mischief. Cutwolf knew many of them by name and reputation. ‘Hedge- Popper’ and ‘Hob the Knob’ were two pickpockets; ‘Peck Face’ a professional beggar and ‘Rattle Ears’ a well-known cheat. Anselm seemed to enjoy himself and yet the more Stephen watched, he realized his master was mostly interested in the young drabs, whores and doxies who passed by. ‘I have learned something,’ Anselm breathed, ‘the Holy Spirit be thanked. I confess my arrogance. I can now begin to learn.’

He finished the pastry and was about to get up when the two Franciscan Minoresses suddenly appeared in the mouth of the alleyway opposite and hobbled across. ‘Light immortal, light divine,’ a voice whispered, only to be answered by the snarl of a fierce dog — a chilling, resounding sound which sent Stephen scrambling to his feet. He wiped the sweat on his jerkin as the two women approached. The first was very elderly and venerable with a seamed, wizened face, eyes like small black currants in a flour-white skin. The other was also old but still vigorous, sharp of eye and firm of mouth, with the natural authority of a Mother Superior. They paused and bowed at Anselm, who returned the courtesy. ‘You are Anselm, the Carmelite, the exorcist?’

‘Yes!’

‘We have much in common, Brother Anselm.’

‘Such as?’

‘Richard Puddlicot.’

Anselm just gasped.

‘Puddlicot!’ Stephen stared at the older woman, thinning hair peeping from beneath her wimple, eyes milky blue, mouth chomping on pinkish-red gums.

‘Who are you?’

‘Joanne Picard,’ the old woman whispered. ‘God have mercy on me, and on him. I was Puddlicot’s mistress. Now I am his relict.’

She leaned on her companion and smiled. Despite her age, Joanne Picard was resolute in both speech and