Beauchamp cursed, fumbling with the torch. ‘Now I hear,’ he declared. ‘Let us. .’
Anselm didn’t wait but, clutching his leather satchel in one hand, the other on Stephen’s shoulder, stepped round the royal clerk and marched swiftly through the darkness. Simon hurried behind, jangling his keys. They reached the narrow door with its rusty iron studs. Simon unlocked and pushed back the creaking door. Anselm, Beauchamp and Stephen entered. The royal clerk lit one of the sconce torches just inside. Immediately a cold wind swept by them; the torch flickered and died. Higden and the rest hastily retreated.
‘You should also go,’ Anselm warned Beauchamp. The clerk just shrugged. Anselm walked into the church and pulled across a bench into the centre of the nave. He sat down with Stephen on his right. Once again the exorcist began the ritual. ‘Oh, God, come to our aid. .’
Stephen and Beauchamp murmured the responses. The novice began to tremble. Anselm grasped his hand and squeezed it. Beauchamp was at a loss, aware of the cold, the rank stench, though he could not see the faces which swarmed out of the gloom, white and drawn, eyes black holes of fire, hair like trailing wisps of mist.
‘You see them, Stephen?’
‘Aye, Magister.’
‘What?’ Beauchamp whispered.
Anselm ignored him as he concentrated on the gathering malevolence. The dire memories those terrors of the night summoned up swept in to distract his mind and chill his soul. Anselm was back as a soldier in that French city the English had stormed, its streets full of wild animals feeding on human flesh. Drunken ribauds, armed to the teeth, looting and raping as they moved like a horde of demons through the fallen town. Old women dragging out corpses from houses filled with fire and smoke. Packs of rats, bellies full, snouts stained with a bloody froth. Corpses stacked like firewood in the middle of squares. The black smoke of funeral pyres winding everywhere. The screams and yells of souls in their last extremity. The gallows breaking under the weight of cadavers while corpses crammed the wells and polluted the streams. Anselm forgot the rite and began to mouth the memories which plagued him.
‘Magister!’
Anselm heeded the cry. He began to recite the Credo as he stared at the haunting, nightmare faces massing close. Beside him, Stephen could take no more. He fell to his knees, head bowed, hands clenched in prayer. Beauchamp, cloak tight about him, drew his sword and half-raised it. Anselm pressed on the clerk’s arm until he lowered the blade.
‘By the grace of God,’ he whispered at the wraiths which surged all around him. ‘By the grace of God, in the name of that same God, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who are you? Why are you here? Why do you haunt this place? In the Lord’s name, tell me, here in the House of God and at the very gate of heaven.’ Anselm closed his eyes and prayed. Neither he nor Stephen knew if the phantasms spoke or whether their own souls echoed the desperate pleas for forgiveness, for justice.
‘Against whom?’ Anselm begged. ‘Take comfort. I shall light tapers and sing Masses for the repose of your souls. Tell me, who are you? Why are you here?’
‘Thrust out!’ a voice hissed close to Stephen. ‘Thrust out, our souls winkled out of their shells; now we swim amongst the dark ones.’
‘Except for me!’ A man’s voice, mocking and strident, called out. ‘Taken, plucked from my rightful place but then. .’ The voice faded like the rest.
Stephen strained to hear but it was like listening to the murmured conversation of a crowd passing beneath a window. He caught some words and phrases, some in English, others in French or a patois he couldn’t understand. Stephen opened his eyes. ‘They’re going,’ he murmured. He felt the press around him ease. The cold faded. The stench seeped away, turning back to the general mustiness of that old church. Stephen sat back on the bench. Beauchamp began to softly whistle the tune of a song.
‘What happened. .?’ A clatter and clash stilled the clerk’s question. Beauchamp jumped to his feet as around the church kneeling rods, stools, benches and other furniture were violently overturned.
‘They are leaving,’ Anselm explained. ‘They vent their temper at not being believed or not being helped. They are withdrawing for a while but I think they’ll return.’
‘But why are they here?’ Beauchamp insisted.
‘In a little while. .’ Anselm sighed. ‘Sir Miles, that will have to wait. For the time being, we are finished here. .’
Sir William Higden gathered all his guests into his dining parlour, a fine pink-washed room with a gleaming oaken table. A mantled hearth, the carved face of a dragon in its centre, warmed the chamber, while on the walls either side of it hung tapestries celebrating David’s victory over Goliath. Green, supple rushes, tossed with herbs and sharp garden spices, covered the floor and sweetened the air as they were crushed underfoot. A partition to the petty kitchen had been removed. A cook, assisted by two sleepy-eyed servitors, prepared bowls of diced chicken smothered in mushrooms, cream and garlic sauce. Sir William had broached his finest cask of wine sent from Bordeaux four years earlier. Goblets were filled, except for Anselm’s — he never drank. The exorcist had once confided to Stephen that if he started to drink the delicious juice of the grape he’d never stop.
When the food had been served and blessed, the kitchen shutters replaced, the fire built up and the doors closed over, Beauchamp raised his goblet in toast towards Anselm, who replied by lifting his beaker of water.
‘Well,’ the royal clerk dabbed his lips with a napkin, ‘Brother Anselm, I have business with you. However,’ he shrugged, ‘that can wait. Why did you go back to the church?’
‘I had to,’ Anselm retorted. ‘An important principle. An exorcist never lets himself be driven out, though God only knows the truth behind all this.’
‘I began it,’ Parson Smollat put his horn spoon down, ‘or rather, I noticed it first, both me and my good friend, Simon.’
The sexton nodded in agreement.
‘Tell them all,’ Sir William urged, ‘from the beginning.’
‘I was provided with the benefice here,’ Parson Smollat began, ‘two years ago by the grace and favour of Sir William, who has the right of advowson to Saint Michael’s, Candlewick.’
‘As well as other parish officials,’ Simon, his spotty face flushed with claret, quickly added.
‘Saint Michael’s is an ancient church,’ the parson continued, ‘built during the time of William the Norman. You can see that from its nave — the thick, clumsy pillars have none of the beauty of Westminster or La Chapelle. The great tower is built on the side and has been strengthened and extended by successive generations. To the north- east of the church lie the sacristy and store rooms, and there is a cellar and a crypt which serve as our charnel house. The cemetery itself is sprawling, the soil very coarse, difficult to cultivate. The dead have been buried there for at least three hundred years. During the day, despite my protestations, the people used to flock there to trade. Well,’ Smollat’s fat face creased in embarrassment, ‘it depends on what they were trading. Prostitutes, tinkers and hawkers. During summertime the cemetery is the trysting place of lovers of either sex or both. At night, well, sorcerers, wizards, warlocks and practitioners of the dark arts creep in to sacrifice black cockerels and offer their blood to the full moon.’ The parson’s voice grew weary. ‘I did my best. The parish is, or was, a busy, thriving community — baptisms, shrivings, weddings, funerals, ale-tastings. We observe the liturgical feasts, especially Michaelmas, the solemnity of the great Archangel. We have a fine statue to him.’ The parson paused as the door opened. A woman came in, round as a dumpling with cherry-red cheeks, a smiling mouth and eyes bright as a sparrow. She was garbed in a blue dress with a silver cord around her plump waist. A thick white veil covered her black hair, streaked with slivers of silver, and over her arm she carried a heavy cloak.
‘My housekeeper, Isolda,’ Parson Smollat explained. The woman bobbed a curtsey to the assembled guests. ‘She came with me tonight,’ the parson continued. ‘Isolda, what do you want?’
‘Shall I stay, Parson Smollat, or do you want me to go?’
‘It’s best if you left.’
‘Ask one of my men to act as Lucifer,’ Sir William joked, ‘light-bearer.’ He answered the woman’s puzzled look. ‘One of them will see you safely across to the priest’s house.’
Isolda again bobbed a curtsey. Stephen noticed the smiling glance she threw Parson Smollat as she made her farewells to the rest of the guests.
‘God be with you,’ Anselm called out.
‘And you too, Brother.’ Isolda gazed hard at the exorcist then left.
‘Very good, very good,’ Beauchamp softly declared once the door closed behind Isolda, ‘but why are we really
