The Midnight Man (11 page)

‘Seventeen feet thick,' Anselm murmured, ‘that's what they say about these walls.' He pointed to the window on his far right. ‘That's how Puddlicot got in; his stone mason chipped away at the sill. See, unlike the rest, it no longer has one. They then removed the iron bars, squeezed in and slid down the recess into the treasury. Some items were stored in the pillar; its removable bricks served as a strong box.' Anselm's account was so matter-of-fact that Stephen was startled violently by the pounding on the door leading to the stairwell. He hurriedly opened the door but there was no one. The pounding began again, this time against the door at the top of the steps, which Stephen had bolted behind them.

‘Close the door!' Anselm shouted.

Stephen did so, pushing with all his strength, but some invisible presence, like a violent wind, seemed to be pressing against it. Anselm hastened to help. They slammed the door shut, pulling the bolts across. Anselm leaned against this, fighting a racking cough while wiping the sweat from his brow.

‘So it begins.' He gasped and staggered across to pick up his psalter. He motioned Stephen to sit on the stool next to him as he intoned the opening verse of Vespers. ‘Oh, Lord, come to our aid. Oh, Lord, make haste to help us. Our help is in the name of the Lord . . .'

Stephen glanced up and recoiled at the face, like an image in burnished steel swimming towards him, eyes all bloodshot, purple lips twisted in a cynical smile. Other figures, hideous in aspect, jostled in: hollowed, furrowed faces, eyes staring, mouths opening and closing. Stephen crossed himself. The faces seemed unaware of him but turned on each other as if in conversation. He could not hear though his mind caught sharply-whispered words such as ‘treasure', ‘pyx', ‘charnel door'. The figures grew more distinct, taking on bodily shapes like steam twisting up from a bubbling cauldron. The visitants were garbed in the robes, girdles and sandals of Benedictine monks. Stephen could even make out their tonsures. One of them carried a massive key ring which he jangled, though no sound was heard.

‘Monks,' Stephen declared, getting to his feet. ‘Shapes of what once was.'

The hideous banging on the doors began again. Footsteps pounded on the stairwell. The door was tried, the latch clattering up and down; sounds at the windows made Stephen stare in horror. Dark shapes moved at the sixth window. Dust swirled down from the sill. A cold breeze smacked his face and Stephen gagged at a stench of corruption, the foulness from an open latrine. Anselm was reciting a Pater Noster. Stephen tried to join in. Candles guttered fiercely before snuffing out. The flames of the torches abruptly turned a light blue, flickered and died. Darkness filled the crypt. A hand clawed Stephen's shoulder, pulling him back even as the clatter outside, the banging on the doors, rose to a crescendo before lapsing into silence. The crypt lay eerily still except for the soft slither of footsteps. A brick in the pillar was pulled loose, crashing to the ground. Again, silence. Stephen sensed they were not alone. Something or someone stood in the blackness before him. Anselm began the prayer of exorcism. Despite the dark he found the stoup of holy water. Anselm incensed the threatening, clawing atmosphere closing in around them. Stephen recited the responses to the prayers until the formal act of identification was reached.

‘By what name are you called?'

‘Peregrinus.' The reply was low and throaty.

Stephen, as always, wasn't sure if the voice was real or an echo in his own mind.

‘
Ego sum, peregrinus
,' the voice replied in Latin. ‘I am a pilgrim.'

Stephen stepped back as a face, white and glaring, rushed through the darkness towards him. Ghosts swarmed, their voices mocking.

‘You are a wanderer – why?' Anselm asked.

‘No rest, no peace.' The voice was tired.

‘Where have you been?'

‘Here and there. I have met the jailers of the underworld. I have stood before its water black and bitter; around it lurk the ugly shapes of pestilence, fear, poverty, pain and death. I have sheltered under the great oak tree. I have been across the meadows of mayhem and misery where centaurs, gargoyles and harpies hunt lost souls like rabbits through the fiery grass. I have seen the dead flock and cluster, whispering like the dry murmuring of autumn leaves. I have wandered through the forest of the damned to confront the suicides. I have crossed the bridge of despair, over white-hot flame; I have glimpsed the iron towers of limbo and met the Furies who scourge the dead. I have encountered the Hydra with her yawning, poisonous mouth.' The voice sighed and faded.

Stephen recalled how ghosts, like the living, often describe their own nightly dreams. Anselm often argued that no more truth should be attached to them than the ravings of a delirious patient.

‘Yes, yes,' Anselm retorted, ‘but why do you not go into the light? Why dwell in darkness?'

‘Judgement.'

‘The Lord is merciful to the repentant.'

‘I cannot,' the voice hissed. ‘I will not,' it hurled back. ‘I cannot rest. You know the injustice.'

‘I know what?'

‘We have met before, at the other church where the injustice was done.'

Anselm tensed. ‘What other church? Saint Michael's, Candlewick? What injustice?'

‘I cannot say,' the voice rasped. ‘The guardians are here. You search for the treasure, like the rest?'

‘Are you Puddlicot the thief? The executed felon?'

‘The others asked the same.'

‘Which others?'

‘How can you describe a dream? Faces you see, all distorted, like gazing through running water? Give me peace; let me be buried. The sheer shame. How can I break free? Even Picard's prayers do not help.'

‘Who is Picard? I adjure you to tell me the truth.'

‘The guardians have come, swift and deadly. You cannot see them. They are here.' The voice crumbled into incoherent phrases, the occasional mumbled word. The clamour in the stairwell outside began again: the clatter of mailed feet followed by an incessant banging on the door, the latch rattling as if pressed by a mad man. Ice-cold draughts swept the crypt. The sound of dripping water grew as if a barrel was filling to the brim and splashing over. Spikes of fire appeared then faded. The blackness began to thin. The threat of impending danger receded. Anselm moved across to the table, searching for a tinder. After a few scrapes he forced a flame and lit the candles and cressets. The crypt flared into light. Stephen glanced fearfully at the pools of darkness. A disembodied hand appeared in one of these, long, white fingers curling as if searching for something, like the hand of a drowning man making one last desperate attempt to find something to cling on to, then it was gone.

‘Stephen, look at the walls.'

He did so. Hand prints scorched the stone, the same on the table and pillar as if some being, cloaked in fire, had crept around the crypt desperate for an opening. Stephen watched these fade even as Anselm, sitting by the table, began to slice the bread and cheese.

‘Eat, Stephen, drink.'

The novice did so though his belly rumbled. His throat felt dry, sore and sticky.

‘Is it over, Magister?'

‘It is never over, Stephen. Not until we free the nets and break the snares which keep these souls bound.'

‘The snares?'

‘Their own guilt, remorse and fear. Above all, the injustices done to them.'

‘And the guardians?'

‘Demons, Stephen, who prowl the wastelands between life and death, between heaven and hell.'

‘He talked about Saint Michael's?'

Stephen bit into a piece of cheese and startled at the voice which bellowed: ‘We've shut him up, forced his mouth closed.'

Stephen dropped the cheese and whirled around in terror. Something moved in the pool of darkness. Abruptly the noise outside began again; this was repeated by the pounding on the door opening on to the steps to the crypt.

‘Enough is enough!' Anselm sprang to his feet. ‘Why the door? I am sure it's the door, Stephen. God knows why. Is it seen as a barrier or a representation of guilt? Why?' Anselm opened the crypt door. He asked Stephen to bring the lantern horn and both began the arduous climb through the freezing stairwell. Every so often Anselm had to pause in a fit of coughing. They reached the wooden steps. An icy draught buffeted them. The wooden steps began to shake and, to Stephen's horror, slightly buckle, as if some unseen power beneath was striving to break free. He clutched his lantern horn, steadying himself against the wall as Anselm prayed. The wooden steps rattled but then settled. They reached the top and opened the ancient door. Stephen was glad to be free of the crypt. He welcomed the rich night air, the comforting sight of torches flickering in their holders. Anselm, angry at what had happened, strode up and down the hollow-stone passageway, peering into the darkness before coming back to examine the door. ‘Nothing!' Anselm exclaimed. He sat down on a stone plinth.

‘I'm satisfied about what we saw, heard and felt. I assure you Stephen, it was not of human origin.'

T
he physician, who stood narrating his tale fluently and lucidly, now sat down, grasped the wine jug and filled his goblet to the brim.

‘Is this a tale?' the pardoner jibed. ‘Or the truth?'

‘What is truth?' the physician quipped back.

‘But these voices, shapes and shades?' The man of law spoke up.

‘My friends,' the poor parson declared, ‘listen to my advice. If God has his contemplatives and mystics so does Satan; he can immerse them in raptures. I've seen Satan,' he continued remorselessly, ‘like a deformed bird winging through my own church. Once a parishioner of mine beheaded two old beldames. She later confessed how she'd been walking in Summer Meadow when a devil appeared to her in the form of a man, garbed and cowled. He handed her a scythe so she could do his bloody deed.

‘And?' the man of law asked.

‘She was hanged then burnt.'

‘Satan stabs the heart with terror,' the prioress murmured, stretching out to clasp her chaplain's hand.

The conversation now descended into the pilgrim's personal experiences. Tales about gruesome demons with horns and tails, fire spurting from every orifice with harsh, horrifying voices. How demon ghosts had spindly bodies, bulging eyes, lipless mouths, horns, beaks and claws. Master Chaucer watched this carefully. Most of the pilgrims joined in, though the summoner sat stock-still, lost in his own dark memories. The knight, too, was silent, staring down at the table top, tapping it with his fingers. Master Chaucer had his own misgivings. The physician was sitting in his costly robes all serene, yet there was a tension here. Chaucer shivered. Wispy shapes swirled around the physician's head, which disappeared. Were these, Chaucer wondered, just his imaginings? Ghosts or traces of smoke from the chafing dishes and braziers? The taproom was decked out to be merry with its long table. Sweet-smelling hams, bacon and vegetables hung in nets from the smartly-painted rafter beams. The rushes on the floor were spring-green, glossy and powdered with herbs. Candlelight, lamplight and lantern horn all danced vigorously, yet there was something wrong. The physician's story had summoned up a dark cloud which housed its own macabre secrets. The friar looked not so merry now while the haberdasher, dyer, weaver and carpet-maker, so trim and fresh in all their livery, sat heads together, locked in hushed conversation. Next to them the cook, scratching his leg ulcer, listened in, his scabby head nodding vigorously.

‘Master physician,' Minehost of The Tabard also sensed the unease, ‘your tale is unsettling.'

‘We've heard about this.' The fat-faced haberdasher, eyes all choleric, half-rose. ‘Oh, yes, the great mystery at Saint Michael's, Candlewick.' He swallowed nervously. ‘Hidden crimes, scandalous secrets . . .?'

‘And I know of The Unicorn.' The cook spoke up. ‘I've worked there. Master Robert Palmer and his daughter Alice . . .'

‘Please,' the physician spread his hands, ‘do not spoil my tale.'

‘These ghosts and demons . . .' the bulbous-eyed manciple exclaimed. Thankfully his interjection forced the conversation back on to the personal experiences of ghosts, hauntings and visions of hell the pilgrims had either been told of or dreamed of. How the violent are boiled in blood while murderers turn into trees, their leaves and bark shredded and eaten by hog-faced harpies. The only exception was the Wife of Bath. She sat all flush-faced, slightly sweating. She did not join in the conversation but sat quietly, hands on her lap. She had taken out a pair of Ave beads and was threading these through her fingers, eyes glazed, lost in her own memories.

Minehost banged his tankard on the table. ‘Enough!' he declared. ‘The flame on the hour candle has eaten another ring. Master physician, your story, please?'

‘I
can only tell you what I suspect.' Magister Anselm folded back the voluminous sleeves of his coarse, woollen white robe. ‘Nothing is certain,' he added wistfully. ‘Well, not in this vale of tears. No.' He shook his head at the murmur his words created and lapsed into silence.

The two Carmelites and the others had all assembled in Sir William Higden's council chamber next to his chancery office on the second floor of the merchant's manor in Candlewick. Sir William, Parson Smollat, Gascelyn, Amalric and Simon the sexton as well as the royal clerk, Beauchamp, who'd recently arrived from his own house in Ferrier Lane only a short walk away. Beauchamp sat opposite Stephen, the raindrops still glistening on his fair hair.

‘You have reached certain conclusions, Brother Anselm,' Beauchamp urged. ‘You must share them.'

‘By Saint Joachim and Saint Anne that is true.' Anselm drank from his water goblet. ‘Richard Puddlicot,' he began slowly, ‘broke into the royal treasury in the crypt at Westminster in April 1303. He and his coven, which comprised most of London's notorious sanctuary men, outlaws and wolfheads, stole a King's fortune. They were not allowed to enjoy it. A royal clerk, Drokensford,' he glanced fleetingly at Beauchamp, ‘hunted them down. Puddlicot, a married man who'd left his wife, was consorting with a woman of ill-repute – Joanne Picard. They lived in Hagbut Lane . . .'