as if fascinated by the snow-white hand breaking free from the dark green water bathed in a setting sun to grasp the great jewel-encrusted sword Excalibur.
‘And?’ Beauchamp asked gently.
‘Something else is also there — retainers of the apostate angel, hell’s dark robber.’
‘What are you saying?’ Sir William insisted.
‘The Midnight Man, in his foolish blundering, drew in the rankest lords of the air. However,’ Anselm’s voice grew sharper, ‘some great evil,’ he pointed in the direction of the church, ‘has definitely occurred there. No,’ he hushed their protests, ‘let me assure you of that. I have great experience, God forgive me, of hauntings, ghosts and exorcisms. I tell you all, such spiritual manifestations have their suppurating roots firmly in human wickedness. Let me explain. Once,’ Anselm paused, his head down. ‘Once,’ he repeated, ‘I was summoned to an old manor house. I shall not give you the name but it stood in the Romney marshes, a forbidding, gloomy place built of stone, wood and plaster. It was much decayed, a desolate habitation abandoned after the great pestilence. The nearby village was also an abode of ghosts.’ Anselm shrugged. ‘No life, no work. Once a thriving community, the angel of devastation had swept through as it had so many places. A sheer nothingness brooded over it. No crops, cattle or sheep. The trackways around it lay abandoned as traders and tinkers saw little profit in going there. Now, the King, freshly returned from France, wished to reward one of his young knights. He granted him that manor and all the land attached to it. This young paladin received his chancery writ to take up possession.’ Anselm waved a hand. ‘He also married a young noblewoman. Both knight and lady moved into their new home.’
‘Romney?’ Beauchamp abruptly asked. ‘Why, Sir Thomas de-’
‘Please,’ Anselm interjected, ‘I beg you — such matters are best kept secret. I promised.’
Beauchamp pulled a face, shrugged then sat back cradling his goblet, watching Anselm intently.
‘The knight and his beloved bride occupied this manor on Romney marsh. Retainers and servants were hired, ditches dug, fields cleared, the house and outbuildings were repaired.’ Anselm sipped at his beaker of water. ‘Few of the retainers stayed. The house was declared accursed. Like you, Sir William, the knight appealed for help. .’
‘Not really,’ Beauchamp interrupted.
‘Sir William, you do want our help, yes?’
The merchant knight murmured his agreement.
‘But there was more,’ the royal clerk insisted. ‘The King’s Justices of Oyer and Terminer have just completed their circuit through the London wards. They received many petitions that the hauntings at Saint Michael’s be investigated. Similar pleas were sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King’s council.’
‘I encouraged these,’ Higden declared. ‘Didn’t I, Smollat?’ He turned to the parson, who nodded vigorously even as he stifled a yawn.
‘The same,’ Anselm continued, ‘occurred with this hapless knight. I was asked to visit the manor and exorcize whatever lurked there.’ He stretched out and grabbed Stephen by the arm. ‘This was before my young friend here joined me.’
Stephen smiled at the word ‘friend’.
‘When I arrived at Romney,’ Anselm continued, ‘the manor house was gloomy, a place bereft of joy. I walked its chambers, store rooms and galleries, its cellars and outhouses. The very walls exuded a deep sadness, a horrid despair. Ghosts truly gathered there. It was one of those arid places where demons loved to lurk, well away from the light. I celebrated Mass in its small chapel and felt a malevolent presence just beyond the door, a rank horde of venomous spirits mouthing their own foul curses as they controlled who or whatever was also there. I searched that manor, and the more I did the deeper the darkness grew. A heavy pall of misery stifled my own spirit — never more so than in a narrow chamber, a dusty room with peeling plaster and dirty boards. Cobwebs cloaked every corner and niche; its lancet window was divided by a thick, rusting iron bar. I grasped this and stared out into the weed-filled kitchen yard. As I did I heard a voice.’ Anselm shook his head. ‘Let me explain. When I say I hear a voice, or see anything supernal, as God is my witness, I am never certain if it’s within or without me.’
‘And this voice?’ Almaric asked.
‘A woman’s voice.’
‘And she said?’
‘“Help me, for the love of God, help me! Let me be free. Let me move into the light. Break the chains which bind me to him.” I asked her who she was and what she meant.’
‘And?’ Almaric asked.
‘The door behind me opened and shut with a crash. I heard a scream, something brushed my face — the ice-cold fingers of some ghostly hand — then it was gone. I stayed and searched that manor. The more I did, the more I returned to that morbid chamber at the back of the house and the long, gloomy paved passageway leading down to the kitchen and buttery.’
‘Did you attempt an exorcism, as you did here?’ Sir William asked.
‘I attempted, and I failed. I could hear a woman’s voice but some hell-lurker, a darkness-dweller, always intervened. I blessed and sanctified. I also prayed that the Lord would send me an angel of light.’ Anselm gave a rare smile. ‘Angels come in many forms and guises. Near the manor stood a hermitage, an ancient, small dovecote hidden in a dense clump of trees. The land around it was so marshy and treacherous, the hermitage could only be approached carefully. I tried to speak to the old man who lived there, locked in his fasting and prayers. I failed but one morning he came to see me, a true ancient with his white hair and beard. He asked to be shriven. I cannot reveal what he told me except that afterwards he agreed to help me lift the paving stones of the passageway stretching from the kitchen to that godforsaken prison chamber.’
‘Why?’ Beauchamp asked.
‘Let me explain without breaking the seal of confession,’ Anselm retorted. He glanced quickly at Stephen. ‘I certainly could have used your help there. I, the manor lord, his henchman and even his lady helped. The henchman had to retreat, as did the knight’s wife.’
‘Why? Why?’ Almaric sat like a rabbit petrified by a stoat.
‘Evil swept that gallery like the winds of hell. Full of hideous terrors, rank smells, fearful faces, curses and obscenities. Sometimes it turned hot as if a blast of wind blew from the seething deserts of Outremer, only to turn so cold we could scarcely grasp the picks and poles we used.’ Anselm lifted the Ave beads wrapped around his left hand. ‘I prayed and sprinkled holy water. I insisted that the candles in front of the cross on the table set up in the passageway stay alight. At last we found it — a pit beneath the paving stones containing the skeleton of a woman. We could tell that from the remnants of her robe and sandals. She lay in an oiled sheet drenched in pine juice with no cross, pyx holder or Ave beads; instead, between her legs, laid the severed head of a man.’ Anselm stilled their gasps and exclamations. ‘The head and face had been preserved though these were shrunken and ghastly. Severed cleanly at the neck, the head had been soaked in brine and tarred like those of traitors polled on London Bridge. I blessed these gruesome remnants. I thanked the hermit. I could now question him outside the seal of the sacrament, and he confessed the most macabre tale. Years earlier, before the great pestilence, the manor lord who lived there married a local woman of outstanding beauty. He loved her to obsession but, during the King’s early wars against the Scots, this knight was called away by the commissioners of array. He obeyed the writ, fought valiantly along the Scottish march then returned to his manor. .’
‘To find she had been unfaithful?’ Beauchamp asked swiftly.
‘Yes, she had fallen in love with the steward of the manor, a man she’d known since childhood. Other servants betrayed her secret trysts. Her husband caught her. He had the steward decapitated, his severed head pickled and preserved.’
‘And his wife?’
‘She was condemned to a living hell. She was confined to that ghastly cell, walled up like a recluse. Every night her husband and chosen servants entered her cell and prepared the table for supper. Three chairs: one for him, one for her and a third for her dead lover. Every evening the food would be served, brought from the kitchen, along with the severed head which would be placed opposite her. The manor lord insisted that she eat and drink with him. Never once would he utter a word to her or answer any of her pleas, except to point to the ghastly remnants of her former lover.’
‘Surely,’ Stephen asked, horrified by the story, ‘the other servants would object?’
‘No.’ Anselm tapped the table. ‘The knight was both feared and loved, well-respected by the King; and his wife had been found playing the two-backed beast while he had been honouring his oath to the Crown. She had
