The Midnight Man (6 page)

‘Even if you have confessed and been shriven?'

‘Sometimes the foxes are only driven off – they slink away and lurk waiting in the undergrowth.' He patted Stephen on the shoulder. ‘All I can do is ask God, if I'm in His grace, to keep me there and, if I'm not, to put me there. My sins may be absolved, Stephen, but that doesn't mean I haven't lost my appetite for them.' He gestured around. ‘There's certainly a banquet going on here, an unseen, diabolic feast. Evil spirits summoned up by the Midnight Man have, and are, feasting like hungry hounds on the rank despair which seeps through this church. Anyway, go round, look for anything untoward.'

Anselm walked across the sanctuary. Stephen went down the steps into the sombre nave. He entered the chantry chapel of St Joseph and admired the cleverly carved statue of Christ's protector as well as the paintings depicting scenes from the carpenter's life. He turned left and stopped before the tombs of former parsons, read their inscriptions, then walked on. The light was dim except where the painted glass caught the flash of the sun. Nonetheless Stephen now felt a prickling fear: he was not alone. He glanced up and caught the twisted smile of some gargoyle carved at the top of a pillar or the corner of a sill. He recalled the legend of how such babewyns could spring to life and crawl down the pillar to taunt and trip the unwary. Stephen stopped before a wall painting describing the death of Holofernes in the Book of Judith. The artist had created a vivid scene in the fallen tyrant's pavilion. Judith the heroine clutched a great two-handed sword. The tyrant's corpse lay sprawled amongst his precious cloths and treasures; his severed head had rolled away and stared out from the corner of the painting. Not a dead gaze, the eyes held a ghastly glare, as if the head still lived and was aware of its ignominious situation. The more Stephen stared at the painting the more those eyes seemed to pulsate with a vindictive life. He walked on to another fresco, undoubtedly the work of the same itinerant painter. Here the artist proclaimed his own vision of hell: a great city high and wide under a sky of fiery bronze, cut through by a turbid, blood-black stream boarded by trees with thorns as sharp as daggers. Flames leapt up to greet black snowflakes and pelting grey rain. Fruit, bloated and rotten with noxious potions, gave sustenance to savage dogs. Lungeing vipers and all kinds of loathsome insects crawled. Demons swarmed like bees, thick and plentiful from the hives of hell. Dragons swam the fiery heavens while beneath the soil of hell other monsters reared their ugly heads, fighting to break through. Stephen glimpsed the tags written beneath the painting. ‘“Within its darkness dwell”,' the novice translated, ‘“regions of misery and gloom”.' He heard his master cough and turned. Immediately a fierce chill seized him. Anselm was staring up at an iron bracket fixed to a wall in the far aisle on which lantern horns could be hung. The exorcist was not alone. Figures clustered around him: a blond-haired man dressed in a shabby jerkin, followed closely by young women with long dirty hair, ragged clothes, pitted skin and horrid faces. Stephen shut his eyes and cried out: ‘Magister!' When he looked again, Anselm was standing by him.

‘What is it? Stephen?'

‘Magister, nothing.'

‘Nonsense!' Anselm pushed his face close. ‘You saw something, didn't you?'

Stephen nodded and described what he'd glimpsed.

‘I felt it,' Anselm murmured, staring at a shaft of window light. ‘Even now, Stephen, at day time, they make their presence felt, but come . . .'

They left by the corpse door going out into the cemetery. At first Stephen considered it to be a different place from the night before. The weak sun's glowing warmth soothed his fears. The tumbled headstones and crosses didn't seem so threatening. The ancient yew trees were just solid reminders of how things were rather than threatening shapes through the darkness. The wild grass and flowers exuded a sense of the ordinary. The air was sweet with different scents. Beyond the cemetery wall surged the noise of the ward coming to life: the clatter of carts, the clop of horse hooves and the first cries of tradesmen. Anselm insisted on walking the length and breadth of that unkempt cemetery. They went round the church, Anselm peering up at cornices, sills, ledges and buttresses. He seemed fascinated by the sun sparkling the glass and pointed out the carved faces of gargoyles with their gaping mouths, through which the rain water would pour. Anselm patted the grey stone wall of the square tower built to the right of the main door. He stepped back, shading his eyes as he stared up at the sheer height of this soaring donjon. He then walked on, stopping to rattle the latch of the narrow door to the sacristy, though that had been firmly locked the night before.

‘Magister?'

‘Nothing.' Anselm walked back into the sunlight. ‘Do you sense or feel anything strange, Stephen?'

‘No, but . . .'

‘Too silent, eh?' Anselm nodded. ‘I also have a feeling of being watched.' A rustling behind them made Anselm turn.

He strolled back up the low bank through the long grass, pushing aside the tangle of briar and bramble bush. Despite the disturbance there was no muffled pigeon cooing, no chattering jay or raucous gang of sparrows fluttering here and there, no swooping swallow or blackbird singing its heart out. Anselm seemed intent on finding something. Stephen hurried after him. He'd almost caught up with his master when a figure loomed up from behind an ancient, moss-covered tombstone. Stephen stifled a cry of surprise.

Anselm grabbed the stranger's shoulder and pulled him closer. ‘Who are you?'

The stranger was tall and burly. His black hair hung in lank strips, his bushy moustache and beard almost hiding the sunburnt face. He broke free of the exorcist and held up a wickedly pointed harvest sickle.

‘Don't threaten us,' Anselm warned.

‘And don't seize me!' the stranger rasped back. ‘I am Owain Gascelyn, hired by Sir William to tidy this cemetery, if I am not harassed by demons, haunted by ghosts, plagued by warlocks or grabbed by exorcists.'

Gascelyn was the same height as Anselm, two yards at least, thick-set and well built, dark eyes bright. He was dressed like a labourer in a smock, leggings and scuffed boots, but his voice was cultured and, in his angry protest, he'd moved fluently from English to Norman French and then into Latin, describing Anselm as ‘Exorcisimus'. Anselm, taken by surprise, stepped back, studying the man from head to toe.

‘A labourer, a gardener with a Welsh first name and a Gascon surname, fluent in both French and Latin! Greetings and blessings to you, Brother! Excuse my surprise but I thought we were being watched . . .'

‘As you were.' Gascelyn stepped closer, scrutinizing Anselm and Stephen.

The novice stared back; for some reason this man frightened him. Why was that? Stephen wondered. Because he emanated the same violence Stephen's father had, and still did? Gascelyn had thrown the sickle down but his fingers played with the Welsh stabbing dagger in its sheath on his broad belt.

‘Who are you, really?' Anselm asked. ‘No, let me guess. Despite your appearance you're educated, undoubtedly in some cathedral school then in the halls of either Oxford or Cambridge.' He leaned forward and gently poked the man's chest. ‘I know who you are, I know what you are. You're a mailed clerk, aren't you? A scribe who arms for battle? One who is also prepared to dirty his hands? Sir William's man, yes? Ostensibly you're here to clear this tangled mess now winter's past but, in fact, you're here to guard and to search, perhaps?'

Gascelyn grinned in a display of white broken teeth. ‘I am he,' he replied. ‘And Sir William told me about you, Brother Anselm. You are correct. Since All Souls past and the depredations of the Midnight Man, I guard this cemetery. I am,' he joked, ‘the
Custos Mortuorum
– the Keeper of the Dead. I warn off those night-walkers who might lurk here once twilight falls.' Gascelyn grinned lopsidedly. ‘Not to mention the whores with their customers, the gallants with their lemans and the roaring boys with their doxies.'

‘And what have you seen?'

‘Nothing,' Gascelyn replied. ‘Word has gone out, seeping along the alleyways, runnels and lanes of Candlewick, that this truly is God's acre. Nothing more exciting happens here than a hunting cat, or that tribe of stoats nesting in the far wall. Come,' he picked up the sickle, ‘I'll show you my kingdom.'

Gascelyn led them off along the narrow, beaten trackway, pushing aside bramble and briar. He explained how most of the cemetery was full, pointing to the mounds of milk-white bones thrusting up out of the coarse soil. On one occasion he surprised a mangy, yellow-coated mongrel from the alleyways, nosing at a broken skull. Gascelyn hurled a stone and the dog fled through the long grass, barking noisily. Gascelyn showed them where the great burial pit had been dug, its soil still loose due to the lime and other elements used. Only the occasional sturdy shrub now grew in this great waste ringed by bushes and gorse. It also served as the Poor Man's Lot, the burial place for strangers as well as
Haceldema
– the Field of Blood, where victims of violence or those hanged along the nearby banks of the Thames were buried. Nearby stood a simple wooden shed: two walls and a roof like any city laystall. Anselm and Stephen walked over to this. The inside was gloomy and reeked of putrefaction. Three corpses lay there, wrapped in filthy canvas shrouds lashed tightly with thick, tarred rope. Gascelyn explained how all three were the cadavers of beggars found dead in the surrounding streets. Anselm recited the requiem and blessed the remains. Gascelyn thanked him, adding how all three corpses would be later buried in the great burial pit as the soil was looser and easy to dig.

Stephen felt the place was stifling hot. ‘A brooding evil hangs here,' he whispered.

‘Though that can be for the good,' Gascelyn offered. ‘It keeps the undesirables away.'

He then answered questions about himself as the exorcist led them out of this dingy shed: how he was the son of a Welsh woman and a Gascon knight who'd served in the King's wars against the French. How he'd been educated as a clerk, entered Sir William's retinue and seen military service with his lord both in France and along the Scottish march.

‘And so you're Sir William's sworn man by night and day, in peace and war?'

‘I've not taken an oath of fealty, but yes.'

‘Were the Midnight Man's revelries held on the site of the great burial pit?' Stephen asked, abruptly trying to shake off a deepening unease.

‘Yes, I believe they were.'

‘A place of desolation and devastation where any abomination could flourish,' Anselm declared. ‘I felt it. I am sure my friend Stephen did also. This is a sad and sombre place.'

Gascelyn never replied but plodded on, Anselm and Stephen close behind. The novice just wished they could leave. At first sight this cemetery had seemed a true place of the dead yet the longer they walked, pushing aside nettles and thorns, their feet cracking fallen twigs, the more this cemetery transformed into a living, ominous place breathing out its own malign spirit. The silence was unsettling. The desolation hung like a veil hiding darker, more sinister forces. Now and again Stephen glimpsed the forbidding church tower and the mass of its leaded roof black against the late spring sky. Stephen took a deep breath. A voice whispered to his right, though when he turned only a bush moved in the morning breeze. Stephen turned away then spluttered at the gust of corruption which caught his mouth and nostrils. He stumbled.

Anselm caught his arm. ‘Be on your guard,' he whispered, ‘for the devil is like a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour.' Anselm winked at Stephen and called out to Gaceslyn that they'd seen enough, though he'd like to visit the death house which stood some distance from the church, shaded by a clump of yew trees.

‘My manor,' Gascelyn called back, ‘my fortress – come and see.'

The death house was a spacious, rather grand building of smart red brick on a grey stone base, its roof tiled with blue slate. The windows were covered in oil-strengthened linen; the framework and heavy shutters, like the door, were of sturdy wood and painted a gleaming black.

‘Sir William had this refurbished,' Gascelyn explained. ‘He intends to renovate the church and make the cemetery worthy of the name “God's acre”.'

‘When?' Anselm asked.

‘Once May has come and gone. Stone masons and painters, glaziers as well as labourers by the score have been indentured.' Gascelyn waved around. ‘Some will camp here, others in tenements Sir William has bought down near Queenhithe. That's why he's asked me to guard this place. So,' he shrugged, ‘the death house is my dwelling place.'

He lifted the latch and led them inside. Stephen was surprised. The death house was unlike any he had ever seen. Its walls were smoothly plastered and painted a lovely lilac pink; the floor, of evenly cut paving stones, was ankle-deep in lush supple rushes strewn with scented herbs. Capped braziers stood beneath the two windows. The bed in the far corner was neat and compact and covered with a beautiful gold counterpane sprinkled with red shields. The long mortuary table stood against one wall with the parish coffin on top, half-hidden by a thick woollen black fleece embroidered with silver tassels, while pots of flowers ranged beneath this.

At the other end of the room stood a chancery table, a high leather-backed chair and two quilted stools. The room also had a long chest with coffers and caskets neatly stacked on top. Pegs on the back of the door were used to hang cloaks as well as Gascelyn's gold-stitched war belt with its decorated scabbards for the finely hilted sword and dagger.

‘I sleep well.' Gascelyn gestured round. ‘Isolda the parson's woman brings me cooked food.' He paused as he heard voices. ‘Indeed, I think that is Parson Smollat and his lady now. They'll be going in for the Jesus Mass – wait here.'