betrayed him and been caught red-handed. God forgive them but no mercy or compassion was shown to her.’ Anselm drank from his beaker. ‘By then the vengeance was making itself felt throughout the kingdom. The great pestilence had emerged in Dorset. All the terrors of the underworld emerged. The village and manor on Romney Marsh was devastated by the Angel of Death. Entire families fled. Apparently, according to the hermit, only the manor lord, his wretched wife and a few servants remained. Nevertheless, the torture continued until one day she managed to get a length of rope. She hanged herself and her husband buried her in that passageway; the final insult was her dead lover’s severed head being placed between her legs. The husband was later swept away by the plague. The manor house and village were deserted.’
‘Except for the ghosts?’
‘Aye, Sir William, evil ghosts, supported by their kind as well as those two unfortunates who had loved unwisely.’
‘And what did you do?’ the sexton asked.
Anselm sat listening to the cries of some night bird in the gardens beyond, a lonely sound answered by the creaking of this stately, three-storey mansion.
‘I arranged a Christian burial for the remains in consecrated ground. The new lord of the manor and his lady vowed to go on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham as well as Saint Swithun’s Well. I offered Mass in reparation as well as a requiem for the dead. I blessed that house, hallowed the chamber and,’ Anselm lifted his hands, ‘as God be my witness, peace returned.’
‘And you think the same has happened here?’ Sir William demanded.
‘Yes, I do. The secret rites of the Midnight Man disturbed something, opened the door to spiritual forces, venomous and vindictive, but they must have a nestling place here. Something wicked and hideously evil has been committed in and around that church.’
Parson Smollat gulped his wine and stared askance at Sir William.
‘I was granted the advowson of this church three years ago after my wife died,’ Sir William declared. ‘I could not abide to continue to live in my house in Cheapside where my wife had lingered with a wasting disease. I moved here. A year later I was pleased to appoint Parson Thomas Smollat as the parson but,’ his voice faltered, ‘well, that’s all I know.’ He almost gasped before continuing: ‘I cannot tell you what the cause of all this is.’
‘I have studied the recent history of the church,’ Parson Smollat offered. ‘Certainly there have been murders in the cemetery, drunkards with flashing knives, while during the great plague a huge burial pit was dug in the cemetery. .’
‘It cannot be any of these,’ Anselm observed.
‘But what you’re claiming,’ Beauchamp declared, ‘is that all the hauntings and ghostly manifestations at Saint Michael’s are rooted in human activity? Some bubbling iniquity, some unresolved sin?’
‘Yes,’ Anselm got to his feet, ‘that is what I am claiming. A mortal sin, an act which has killed God’s life in souls. I did not succeed tonight because I could not find the root.’ He beckoned at Stephen. ‘Now, Sir William, I believe we have lodgings here?’
‘Magister,’ Beauchamp also got to his feet, ‘as I said, I have other business with you. Messages from the council but,’ he smiled, ‘you have worked long and hard. I shall have words with you tomorrow, if not here then at White Friars.’
Anselm shrugged, picked up his pannier and moved to the door.
‘Tell me,’ Sir William called out, ‘did you learn anything tonight during your exorcism?’
‘No,’ Anselm retorted. ‘Young women, perhaps, who died in great distress except for one voice, a man’s, strong, rather mocking, loudly complaining at being dragged away though what that means I cannot say. Now, Sir William, if you could show us to our chambers. .’
Words Amongst the Pilgrims
The physician stopped speaking. He drank generously from his wine cup while studying, as if for the first time, two painted cloths hanging against the wall to the left of the great mantled hearth. The first showed a creature with a beast’s snout, ears like a pig, a human body and legs with hooves. This grotesque had a long tail curled up behind it and was watching an ape riding face to tail on a galloping goat. On the ape’s left wrist perched an owl, while the ape’s right hand was raised in mock benediction. Next to this painting was an Agnus Dei; the lamb held the Cross of the Resurrection while blood from the lamb’s side seeped into a waiting chalice. The rest of the pilgrims watched the physician, wondering why he had paused so abruptly.
‘A fearsome tale.’ The yeoman spoke. ‘Do these paintings, my friend, remind you of something?’
‘Yes and no,’ the physician replied. ‘Not of my story — more about the contrast of good and evil in man.’ The real reason why the physician had paused was the Wife of Bath who — her fat, cheery face even redder from the wine — sat staring, her mouth gaping.
‘I know of both Sir William and Sir Miles,’ the knight declared. ‘I came across both in my hunt. Have you, Brother?’ The knight pointed directly at the monk who, cowl pushed up, now retreated deeper into the shadows which thronged the taproom. The darkness had certainly deepened, while the flames of the candelabra danced in the strengthening breeze, seeping through window-shutters or beneath closed doors.
‘My friend.’ The monk’s voice was rich, mockery charging every word with double meaning. ‘My friend,’ he repeated, ‘why should what you hunt — the Strigoi, so I understand — trouble themselves with the dead or those who try to speak to them? I have never been to Saint Michael’s, Candlewick, though I have heard about its ripe, full whores. .’
‘And I’ve heard the same,’ the friar intervened, his brown face and bald head greasy with sweat. ‘I’ve preached at the cross nearby. I heard the most terrifying stories about. .’
‘Then hush, friend.’ The physician smiled. ‘Let me tell my tale as it unfolds.’
‘Oh, I shall,’ the friar replied. ‘I knew the White Friar Anselm, a peaceful, powerful man of deep prayer and austere life.’
‘Unlike other friars we know,’ the miller scoffed.
‘He came to our convent once,’ the prioress intervened. Like the rest, she wanted the physician to continue. She had to know the end and not have it spoilt by childish squabbling amongst her companions. ‘Yes, Brother Anselm came to our convent,’ she repeated, ‘because of a shocking haunting. Our cloisters were walked by the ghost of a young novice who hanged herself from an iron bracket there. She simply slipped a noose around her pretty white neck and stepped off the ledge. Weeks afterwards her ghost could be both seen and heard sobbing uncontrollably. They say,’ the prioress said, now forgetting her usually exquisite courtesy and glaring venomously at the friar, ‘that she fell enamoured of a wandering preacher, a troubadour, really a friar in disguise, hot and lecherous like a sparrow. I think. .’
‘I saw a painting once,’ the friar cheekily replied, ‘of an ass playing a harp.’
‘What was that?’ The prioress’ voice rose to a screech.
‘Gentle pilgrims,’ Master Chaucer quickly intervened. The physician had quietly disappeared.
‘He’s gone out.’ The softly spoken ploughman pointed to the taproom door, which hung slightly open.
Chaucer rose swiftly and went out into the moon-washed garden. The air was heavy with the smell of the late spring flowers and the fragrance from the herbers. Water splashed from a fountain, carved in the shape of a pineapple, into an ornamental pool lit by flaring cresset torches, lashed to poles on either side. Chaucer heard the cries and exclamations from the pilgrims in the tavern as they demanded the tale continue. A figure stepped out of the shadows, a slattern bearing a tub smelling richly of crushed roses, violets, bay leaves, fennel, mint and other aromatics. Chaucer immediately recognized them as a sure protection against any contagion in the air.
The slattern stopped before him, her pale, skinny face under the hair cap eager to please. She indicated behind her. ‘The physician, as soon as he arrived, advised the tavern master to keep the air fresh. Anyway, your physician is back there with his friend.’ She slipped by him. Chaucer followed her back in and sat down, pretending to fuss over the wine jug. Eventually the physician returned, clapping his hands and apologizing to his fellow pilgrims, distracting them all except Master Chaucer. He glimpsed the scabby-faced summoner also slip back in from the garden, silent and stealthily as any hunting stoat. Chaucer chewed his lip. He wondered if the summoner, who acted the shifty nip or foist, was only playing a part. The physician, however, eyes all bright, lifted his goblet in
