‘The Midnight Man was furious. We were summoned to a meeting in the ruins of Portsoken but did not go. Since then all has been quiet. There are rumours of a great stirring but. .’
‘A great stirring?’
‘The Midnight Man is whistling up his coven — that is all I know.’
‘And the other two who were with you at Rishanger’s death?’
‘Dead,’ the man gasped. ‘Strange, isn’t it? We failed so we, too, were marked for death.’
‘And the Midnight Man?’
‘I know nothing of him or his coven. Father, please absolve me.’
‘Stay outside.’ Anselm spoke over his shoulder.
Bolingbrok, Cutwolf and Stephen stepped into the ill-lit narrow gallery. Beauchamp’s henchmen stood silently, shadows against the shadows. Stephen glanced through the narrow window — nothing was there, yet he could hear a distant chanting. Stephen closed his eyes and prayed. The gathering was imminent. He recalled Eleanor’s words. She was certainly right: this would end in blood. They stayed for a while. The door opened. Anselm stepped out. ‘He could tell me no more.’
‘He still lives?’ Bolingbrok asked.
‘Just.’
Bolingbrok stepped around Anselm and, opening the door, entered the chamber. The bolts were drawn; a short while later they were pulled back. Bolingbrok, dagger in hand, stepped out. ‘He is gone,’ he murmured. ‘A mercy cut. No physician could save him. When the opiate faded he would have known hideous pain. He is past all caring and gone to God. We must leave.’
Anselm put his fingers to his lips and, abruptly, without warning, burst into tears. Cutwolf seized his arm but the exorcist shook him off. ‘I weep,’ he explained, ‘at the sheer, soul-harrowing sadness of it all.’ The exorcist took a deep breath and crossed himself. ‘Let us go.’
They left St Olaf-all-alone and walked briskly back through the streets. Even before they reached Dowgate the smell of burning curled heavy in the air, while a bright orange glow suffused the night sky. Bells began to toll. Lantern horns appeared. Doors opened and shut as they turned through the maze of lanes leading to Saint Michael’s. ‘The church is on fire!’ Anselm exclaimed. They hastened on; the closer they drew, the deeper their alarm. Stephen followed his master who, he noticed, had to stop to relieve his hacking cough. Tendrils of smoke brushed their faces; the smell of burning grew thicker. They rounded a corner and stared in horror. A fire raged through St Michael’s; its vivid glow illuminated the church set on top of a slight rise. The windows of the nave were bright with an unholy light. Tongues of flame shot up through the roof. The ward had been alerted. Sir Miles, swathed in a cloak, stood under the rain-drenched lychgate. Beside him, Sir William Higden, Almaric and Gascelyn. A figure lurched out of the darkness, slipping and slithering on the grass. Holyinnocent stepped into the pool of torch light. ‘The very fires of hell!’ he exclaimed. ‘Sir Miles, you must come. It is safe. You must see this.’
Beauchamp turned to the two Carmelites, ‘Good evening,’ he whispered, ‘
‘We did.’
Sir Miles nodded and indicated that they all accompany Holyinnocent across the cemetery. Stephen followed, staring fearfully at the furious inferno ravaging the black shell of the nave. Window glass had disappeared and all wooden structures must have burst into flame.
‘How?’ Anselm called out.
‘We do not know,’ Sir William replied. ‘I was a-bed when the tocsin sounded and the alarm was raised. I thought your man Holyinnocent was guarding the lychgate?’
‘He was,’ Beauchamp snapped tersely, ‘while your squire was in the death house.’
‘I heard nothing,’ Gascelyn declared. ‘I woke to the roaring flames. It was so sudden.’ Any further conversation was cut off as Holyinnocent led them under the great, canopied yew tree where they’d found the log to breach the sacristy door. At first Stephen thought it was a vision: two shapes hung above the ground, moving soundlessly from side to side. Only when Holyinnocent walked across, joined by Cutwolf, who had fired another sconce, was the full horror revealed. Necks twisted, faces a ghastly blueish-white, eyes popping, mouths gaping, Parson Smollat and his woman Isolda hung from the end of ropes, the nooses tied so tightly around their necks that their flesh was ploughed a rough, bloody furrow. Smollat was dressed in his robes; one boot had slipped off, lying next to the bench both must have stood on then kicked over. Isolda was garbed in a simple robe, soft buskins on her swinging feet, her hands, like those of Smollat, hanging listlessly by her side. Both just dangled, slightly twisting, the yew tree’s branches now creaking in protest.
‘Their hands?’ Holyinnocent muttered.
Anselm inspected them, lifting them up. Even in the poor light, Stephen, standing beside the exorcist, could see that they were blackened. Anselm sniffed at Parson Smollat’s and let them drop. ‘Oil,’ he declared, ‘possibly saltpetre. Did they start the fire then come here and hang themselves?’
‘So it would seem,’ Beauchamp answered. ‘Let us inspect them more closely. Bolingbrok, cut them down.’
Sir Miles walked off towards the blazing inferno now consuming St Michael’s; even as he did, part of the roof cracked and collapsed in a furious surge of fire and spark. Standing behind him, Stephen stared back across the cemetery.
At the gate Beauchamp and Sir William’s retainers were holding back the gathering crowd, assuring them there was nothing to be done. The fire would be left to burn. Sir William had already proclaimed that as there were no buildings standing nearby, the danger was slight. So, apart from the usual warnings about every household being wary of sparks and to have ladders, hooks and buckets of water at the ready, there was nothing to be done for the church.
‘A cleansing fire, eh, Stephen?’ Anselm, who had finished his inspection, came up to stand beside him.
‘What truly happened here, Magister?’
‘God knows, but Saint Michael’s church is finished.’
Anselm turned away as Beauchamp, along with Cutwolf, strode off towards the priest’s house. The henchman’s flaring cresset streaked the darkness, the flames flickering in the direction of the church as if they were eager to join that violent conflagration. Stephen continued to watch the fire. Molten lead streaked down the walls, a grey, moving sludge, and the fire had now spread to the tower; an ominous red glow already lit the high open windows. The more Stephen stared at that maelstrom of flame, the deeper his anxiety grew — a chilling apprehension that this fire would do little to cure the evil which hung over this place just as heavy and as real as the thick clouds of smoke now pouring into the night. Stephen caught his breath. He glimpsed movement against the hellish red nimbus around the windows. Figures and shapes moved swiftly, as if the gargoyles and babewyns had come to life and were leaping about the fire.
‘
The choir of voices shrilled across the cemetery. Stephen looked over his shoulder; Bolingbrok and the rest were cutting down the corpses. Gascelyn had managed to provide canvas sheets. They worked unaware of anything apart from the burning church and those two ghastly bodies. The singing, however, low and carrying, came from the other side of the cemetery. Stephen walked across and stared into the night. He swallowed hard, clenching his mouth tight against the apparitions. No longer tendrils of mist or vapour but figures, stark and clear, now gathered threateningly amongst the tombstones and crosses. He could not make out individual faces but they stood unmoving, staring across at either him or the burning church. Gathering his courage, Stephen walked slowly towards them. The cowled figures shifted gently in the gloom. ‘Light and peace,’ a voice whispered. Stephen started as something raced through the gorse in front of him, rustling the grass: a dark, darting shadow of an animal, snorting and snarling like some fierce dog. Stephen blinked at the abrupt flashes of light. He felt himself shoved in the chest. A face, horrible in every aspect, gasped and mouthed before him. Crouching down, Stephen tried hard to control his panic. The vision disappeared; nothing but the bleak night lit by that conflagration.
Stephen rejoined the rest. Bolingbrok had finished sheeting the corpses. They followed the torch-bearers through the cemetery, across the enclosure and into the priest’s house. Stephen was immediately struck by its ordinariness: the kitchen was clean, well-swept and tidy, the great carving table scrubbed a dull white, clear except for a bunch of keys lying on top of a piece of greasy parchment. The rushes on the floor were green and wax-like, the pink-painted walls shiny in the candlelight. The fire in the grate had burnt low, the small ovens either side still
