The Hangman's Hymn

by Paul Doherty

  ‘Holy Mother Church,’ he declared flatly, ‘says a Mass can be celebrated in such circumstances.’

  The cart was prepared and two candles lit. Friar Martin placed a wooden cross between these; he had also brought his black, velvet-lined box containing a chalice, a small phial of altar wine and some unconsecrated communion wafers. He began the Mass as darkness fell, using the service from a Book of Hours. He spoke in Latin but Simon recognised, from the tone of the friar’s voice and the fervour in his face, that he was beseeching the powers of heaven. He then gave them communion and, before he pronounced the Mass was ended, once again blessed water and salt which he sprinkled round the edge of the glade.

  ‘If this goes on,’ Shadbolt whispered to Simon, ‘we are going to spend the rest of our days as sanctuary men, never daring to leave a church.’

  In the end the Mass must have proved effective: the night was untroubled, apart from the usual forest noises. They all slept well and woke much refreshed the next morning. They went hunting, ate, drank and generally relaxed. Flyhead even began to scoff at his own fears. Simon hoped against hope that, perhaps, the night at the hunting lodge would be the sole visitation of terror and the powers of hell would leave them alone.

  Just before eventide, as dusk fell and the mists crept in from the trees, Friar Martin celebrated another Mass, giving them communion and blessing their encampment.

  Afterwards they sat round the fire, eating and drinking. Simon felt a prickle of cold on the nape of his neck and, every so often, he would turn and stare into the blue-black darkness, wondering what hideous horrors lurked among the trees.

  The attack came just as the moon slipped behind the clouds: a low moaning and a cry of desolation brought them quickly to their feet, hands going for knives, daggers, bows, whatever protection they could find. Shadbolt didn’t even wait but, raising his longbow, sent two arrows swiftly into the trees. Simon took note. He knew so little about his companions. The chief executioner’s skill demonstrated that once he must have been a master bowman.

  ‘Why not loose again?’ a voice mocked from the darkness.

  Shadbolt was going to but Simon seized his arm.

  ‘Don’t!’ he warned.

  Friar Martin agreed. ‘They are playing upon our fears. God help us all but none of us should move out of the firelight.’

  It turned into a night of terrors. The three witches appeared, dressed in their shabby, tattered gowns, hoods pulled over their heads. They moved along the trees, prowling like wolves round the edge of the camp, mocking and cursing, taunting and inviting the hangmen to come out and meet them.

  ‘You are in our hands!’ Agnes Ratolier screamed. ‘You can pray, you can whine and that priest may prattle to his heart’s content. But your bodies are for the worms and your souls are for hell!’

  The sounds of the screams, the mocking laughter, chilled their blood. Shadbolt loosed another arrow but his hands were shaking and the witches were out of bowshot.

  As the night drew on, the Ratoliers’ attack became more insidious as they began to call out the hangmen’s secret sins. Simon sat dumbfounded at the litany of vices placed against the souls of his companions: lechery, violence, homicide, robbery, rape, desertion.

  ‘They are lies!’ Shadbolt put his face in his hands, his face soaked in sweat. He pressed his fingers to his ears. ‘They are all lies!’

  Merry Face sprang to his feet, hurling insults back, as if trying to drown the ominous chanting of Agnes Ratolier and her daughters.

  At the first streaks of dawn the witches disappeared. They vanished as swiftly as they had come, leaving the forest quiet. The group round the fire sat drained and exhausted.

  ‘Why?’ Shadbolt asked, springing to his feet. ‘Why us?’

  ‘Friar Martin,’ Flyhead cried. ‘I wish to be shriven!’

  ‘Bollocks to that!’ Merry Face objected. ‘Perhaps it’s only this forest which is cursed? We’ve been here three nights: I say we return to Gloucester and leave immediately.’

  ‘Wait!’

  Flyhead had pulled his cowl over his head and now sat cross-legged, arms hidden up the sleeves of his gown.

  ‘I want to make a confession. I listened to those screams last night and I realise the evil of my life. I am to blame for this.’

  Simon, resting against the wheel of the cart, caught the desperation in Flyhead’s eyes. The man’s face seemed to have aged, his eyes red and rheumy. Shadbolt crouched down beside him as the others drew close.

  ‘What are you talking about, Flyhead?’

  ‘Do you remember No Teeth?’

  When Flyhead glanced quickly at Simon, shivers seized the young carpenter. He had a premonition of what Flyhead was about to confess.

  ‘Do you remember No Teeth?’ Flyhead repeated, looking up at the lightening sky.

  ‘Of course we do. He killed a man in a tavern and was hanged,’ Shadbolt snarled. ‘You should know, Flyhead, you were deputed to carry out the execution.’

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ Flyhead stammered. ‘It’s what you said, Friar Martin, about there being a coven in Gloucester.’

  ‘Go on,’ Simon insisted. ‘Flyhead, I have a suspicion about what you are going to say.’

  ‘No Teeth was a strange one.’

  ‘We all know that,’ Merry Face said.

  ‘Ah, it was more than that. He kept to himself, remember? Often disappeared?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘He had a doxy,’ Shadbolt revealed. ‘A toothsome, little wench with hair as yellow as ripened corn and eyes as blue as the sky. She used to make me itch. I always wondered what she saw in No Teeth.’

  ‘She came and lived with me,’ Flyhead retorted.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Well, she used to. But then, about three or four weeks ago . . .’

  ‘She disappeared, didn’t she?’ Simon asked.

  Flyhead nodded. ‘I don’t know where she went. One day she was there, the next minute she was gone.’

  ‘Perhaps she’d left to go and join No Teeth?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to say,’ Flyhead replied. ‘Do you remember No Teeth was condemned by the justices? Master Shadbolt, you were away and Merry Face, you were ill with the rheums?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘I told No Teeth that he was safe; that he’d have the collar round his neck.’

  ‘You said you put it there,’ Friar Martin said. The friar’s hand went to his lips and his eyes rounded in horror. ‘What did you do?’ he gasped.

  ‘It was the wench.’ Flyhead scratched his brow. ‘Since I met her I used to spend every minute of the day and night thinking about her, those lips, the neck, the breasts, the way her hips swayed when she walked. I lusted after her.’

  Shadbolt seized Flyhead by the jerkin and dragged him to his feet, pushing him against the cart.

  ‘You hanged him, didn’t you, you bastard!’

  Flyhead, now sobbing quietly, opened his mouth to reply. Shadbolt stood back and smacked him across the mouth. Flyhead sank to the ground holding the blood bubbling through his lips. Shadbolt was about to kick him. Simon drew his dagger and came in between them. The chief hangman stepped back breathing deeply through his nose.

  ‘Well, well, Master Cotterill.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘What do we have here? Are you now master of our happy band of brothers?’

  ‘I want the truth,’ Simon replied. ‘Beating and kicking Flyhead will achieve nothing.’

  Shadbolt was about to disagree but Friar Martin grasped him by the shoulder.

  ‘Leave it!’ the friar commanded.

  Flyhead wiped the blood on the back of his hand. The look he threw Shadbolt was of pure murder. And Simon wondered if this, too, was the work of the witches, setting them all at each other’s throats.

  ‘Yes, I lusted after her. I moved the rope. No Teeth died.’

  ‘But didn’t you accompany him to the graveyard?’ Shadbolt turned to Friar Martin.

  ‘No.’ Friar Martin shook his head: �
��I couldn’t watch No Teeth be strung up, even if it was a charade. I stayed in the Friary.’ He pulled a face. ‘I dug the grave.’

  ‘I cut him down,’ Flyhead added, ‘took him to the pit, threw him in and thought that was the end of it.’

  ‘And No Teeth was buried?’ Shadbolt whistled between his teeth. ‘You are sure he was dead?’

  ‘As I was those three bitches were strangled. But I did it quickly.’ He shrugged. ‘I knew I’d done wrong.’

  Simon opened the wineskin and poured a generous measure into a cup. He recalled his meeting with No Teeth, his quiet impudence, and realised that he had not been so clever. Indeed, had No Teeth really sought him out?

  Friar Martin pushed his cup across.

  ‘A drink for a friar, Simon?’

  Simon filled his cup. Shadbolt was tapping the ground with his boot. Merry Face crouched, digging his dagger, time and again, into the dirt. Flyhead had got up and walked away into the trees.

  ‘The first thing I am going to do,’ Shadbolt said, ‘is go to the common graveyard in Austin Friars and see if No Teeth’s corpse is still where it should be.’

  ‘A waste of time,’ Simon assured him. ‘I’ll tell you what, Shadbolt, the answer is obvious and quite simple. A coven exists in Gloucester steeped in black magic. The Ratoliers were members, probably its leaders. No Teeth was also a member of this coven. Such groups are usually thirteen in all. There must be at least nine other members.’ He scratched his chin. ‘What puzzles me is that No Teeth bore no rancour. He hides but the Ratoliers are different. I wonder why?’

  ‘I don’t think No Teeth hid in the shadows.’ Friar Martin slurped from the cup. ‘His doxy has disappeared, hasn’t she? I’m sure she’s been taught a sharp, brutal lesson. It also explains why No Teeth didn’t leave the area. I’d be careful if I were you, Flyhead. I’m sure our former comrade is desirous of having words with you.’

  ‘But we are safe from him?’ Shadbolt wondered. ‘We did him no wrong.’

  ‘The Ratoliers see us as their enemies,’ Simon declared.

  ‘And I don’t think we are the only ones,’ Merry Face added. ‘I wager the mayor and the alderman will not be allowed to sleep quietly in their beds.’

  Simon took his cup and walked towards the edge of the clearing. He pinched his thigh because, sometimes, he felt as if he was in a nightmare and would surely wake up. Nevertheless, he could not doubt what he had seen and experienced over the last few days. When he heard Shadbolt shouting at the rest to get in the cart he sighed, drained his wine and walked back to join his companions.

  They left the clearing within the hour, taking the trackway down to the crossroads following the verderer’s directions. Late in the afternoon they began to pass the occasional hamlet and lonely farmstead. Shadbolt said he was thirsty so they turned off to rest and drink at the only wayside tavern in the locality, the Scarlet Dragon. This was a large, spacious hostelry which had seen better days: the plaster was peeling, the wood was chipped and weatherbeaten. Mullioned glass horn once filled its windows, but this had now been replaced by strips of horn or left vacant like sightless eyes. The taproom was gloomy and dank. At first Simon could only make out small, rounded tables, together with the beer casks and wine tuns which served as stools, then he glimpsed a long trestle table with a coffin on top.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked a chapman sitting just within the doorway.

  ‘A corpse has been found,’ the fellow replied. ‘It’s been sheeted and coffined now the coroner has given his verdict.’

  Simon nodded. In these country parts, the victims of sudden death were often displayed in taverns or on the steps of churches for people to view in the faint hope that witnesses might come forward. Merry Face picked up the coffin lid.

  ‘Oh sweet Lord!’ he whispered.

  Simon pushed him away and looked himself. At once he recognised the corpse as that of the verderer, Deershound, his face white as snow, dark rings under his eyes and a long, red gash like a gaping mouth that seared his throat from ear to ear. The half-open eyes, the bloody mouth, the tufts of hair sticking up strangely made his stomach heave and he turned away.

  ‘Jesus miserere!’ Simon whispered.

  The others, too, now gathered round.

  ‘Did you know him?’ The taverner came out of the kitchen, a small, thickset man with balding pate, greasy face and pebble-black eyes. He was wiping his hands on a blood-covered apron.

  ‘We know of him,’ Shadbolt replied tentatively.

  He beckoned the others to join him at a table over near the window, nothing more than a square opening which looked out on to a bramble-choked garden.

  ‘Aye,’ the taverner replied, following them across. ‘It’s Deershound. He often came here to slake his thirst.’

  ‘What happened?’ Simon asked.

  The taverner shrugged. ‘Well, you know the Forest of Dean, full of poachers and wolfs-heads. Deershound was not popular with them. Thanks to him many a poacher ended up on the gallows for taking the King’s venison.’

  ‘What happened?’ Simon insisted.

  The taverner drew his brows together.

  ‘What did you order?’

  ‘Five pots of ale.’

  The taverner turned to the pot boy.

  ‘And your best,’ Simon added. ‘None of your slops.’

  The taverner looked back. He was about to object but then glimpsed the silver coin Simon held between his fingers.

  ‘Of course, sir. You heard the gentleman, Tomler: our best ale and a piece of pie. I am sure the gentlemen are hungry.’

  ‘Venison,’ the taverner added slyly. ‘Bought, of course, in the market.’

  ‘Of course,’ Shadbolt said. ‘But what happened to Deershound?’

  ‘From what I gather, the royal foresters found him hanging like a rat from a branch, throat slit from ear to ear. A rope had been put round him and he had been hoisted up on a tree. Were you friends? The coroner wants to meet anyone who knew him.’

  ‘We didn’t know him,’ Shadbolt replied.

  The taverner caught their hostility. He sniffed and walked away.

  ‘So, Deershound’s dead,’ Shadbolt said mournfully. ‘And that’s only the beginning.’

  ‘You think it’s the work of the Ratoliers?’ Merry Face piped up.

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ Flyhead grumbled. ‘Master Shadbolt, I think we should finish our ale, eat our pie and get out of here. The day is drawing on. I don’t want to be caught in the forest at night.’

  They all agreed. They drank the ale, wolfed down the pie and went back to the cart.

  They reached Gloucester just as dusk fell. The city gates were already closed but Shadbolt produced his warrant and the watch let them through. The streets were deserted and empty, still soaked from the recent rain. Simon felt as if the city had changed since they had left, as if the grisly news from the forest had already swept through the narrow lanes and runnels.

  ‘Do you think something’s happened?’ he asked as Shadbolt cracked the reins, urging the horses on.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Shadbolt kept his face impassive. ‘I tell you this,’ he whispered so the others behind couldn’t hear, ‘I think it’s time we disappeared.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise that,’ Simon replied tersely.

  ‘We’ll see.’ Shadbolt clicked his tongue.

  They entered the Hangman’s Rest, leaving the horses and cart in the small cobbled yard. The sly-eyed innkeeper bustled across the deserted taproom.

  ‘You’ve been gone for some time, Master Shadbolt. Secret business for the council, eh?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Shadbolt asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ The taverner stepped back hurriedly. ‘But last night someone was asking after you.’

  ‘Who?’ Shadbolt rasped.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t say. She was cowled and hooded, a young woman I think. Came here asking after you. “Where’re the hangmen?” she asked. “Master Shadbolt and his companions?” “Gon
e to a hanging,” I joked.’

  ‘And?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Well, the woman chuckled. She said you’d be back soon but to give you a message that she hoped to see you again.’

  Simon glanced quickly at his companions. Shadbolt’s hand went to his mouth. Merry Face and Flyhead looked as if they were going to cry while Friar Martin grasped his Ave beads.

  ‘Bring some ale!’ Simon said hastily.

  The taverner did and the stoups were drunk quickly.

  ‘None of us should leave,’ Simon told the group. ‘I know what you are all thinking, that the further you get from Gloucester the better. However, I’d strongly advise against it.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  Flyhead was staring at the small casement window at the far side of the taproom. He half lifted his hand. Simon looked across. For no more than a simple glimpse, he was sure that Agnes Ratolier’s face was pressed up against the window, eyes crinkled in amusement, mouth gaping in a sardonic smile. Merry Face went to rise but Simon pushed him back on the stool.

  ‘Master taverner!’ he called out.

  The taverner hobbled across.

  ‘What news from the city?’ Simon asked.

  The fellow pulled a face. ‘Nothing of note.’

  ‘Any trials?’ Shadbolt asked. ‘Have the justices sat?’

  ‘Now, that’s strange,’ the taverner replied. ‘We have a clothier who comes here to break his fast each morning. He had been up to the Guildhall last night, said it was closely guarded, the mayor was meeting in secret. There are whispers and murmurs in the city that something’s gone wrong but no one knows what.’

  ‘I’m going home.’ Merry Face sprang to his feet.

  ‘And we’ll come with you,’ the others added.

  They drained their tankards, eager to be gone. Flyhead, however, kept to his stool, looking at Simon.

  ‘It’s business as usual,’ Shadbolt declared, as if he wanted to convince everyone that all was well.

  They made their farewells, Shadbolt saying he would take care of the cart and horses. Once they had left Simon glanced across at Flyhead.

  ‘Are you going with them?’

  Flyhead put his tankard down. ‘I’m a dead man, Simon.’ He blinked and gnawed nervously at his lips.