by Paul Doherty
‘It happened, didn’t it?’ the Shipman broke in, waving his hand up and down as he explained. ‘About ten years ago. I was on a cog, the Merry Mary. We were pursuing the French up and down the coast. My squadron was off the Medway when news came through that a French force had been defeated by peasants and their galleys taken by the sheriff of Kent.’
The Poor Priest just smiled.
‘Oh!’ the Wife of Bath exclaimed. ‘So terrifying, Father!’ She pulled her rug closer about her ample shoulders. ‘I would not stay in a haunted place.’
‘You never know,’ the Poor Priest answered, ‘what is haunted and what is not.’ He waved round the ruins. ‘How do we know the dead don’t throng here? Watching us, listening to us?’
‘I don’t give a fig!’ the Summoner retorted, rubbing his stomach. He felt slightly sick after the wine he had drunk. He stretched out his legs, waggling his toes in front of the fire. He didn’t care that his leggings were dirty whilst his feet hadn’t seen water for many a week. ‘I don’t give a fig,’ he repeated, ‘about ghosts or demons! I don’t believe all this. A lively tale, but fable not fact.’
‘So, you don’t believe in ghosts?’ The Man of Law pushed back his hood. ‘Well, that doesn’t matter.’
‘Why?’ the Summoner asked suspiciously.
‘Because ghosts may well believe in you,’ the Poor Priest replied.
‘And this is true,’ the Cook added, scratching the ulcer on his leg. ‘It’s true, isn’t it, Father?’
‘Oh yes, Bartholomew,’ the Poor Priest replied. ‘Of course it’s true. You know it is.’
PART III
Chapter 1
The entire village slept late the next morning. During the night Sir Richard’s messengers rode furiously up and down the roads of Kent. By dawn the sheriff and a posse of his men arrived to take the prisoners and march them off to the prison hulks at the mouth of the Medway. The dead had all been collected, the burials completed: a great, broad swathe of freshly turned earth now ran across the cemetery like a scar. The Templar arms were hidden under a canvas sheet in an outhouse behind the Priest’s house. Philip slept well and awoke refreshed, despite the previous night’s hard labour. He rang the church bell and, at noon, celebrated a Mass of thanksgiving. At the end, he and Sir Richard led the congregation in thundering out the verses of the Te Deum. Afterwards the villagers swarmed up round the priest, slapping his shoulders, thanking him for his work.
‘God’s will has been done!’ the blacksmith shouted on the steps of the church. ‘And it has been seen to be done. Our priest, as far as I am concerned, can build a hundred churches!’
His words were greeted by a roar of approval and the rest of the day was given over to a village celebration. Sir Richard’s munificence made itself felt. Tables were laid out. Carts arrived from the manor house with hogsheads of ale, vats of wine and a huge ox gutted and ready to roast. The blacksmith built up a huge fire in the centre of the village and soon the air was thick with the smell of roasting beef. Bread and sweetmeats were piled high in baskets. Everybody contributed what they could: apples, slightly rotten where they had been kept all winter; rounded pieces of marzipan; sweet-bread; whilst the ale and wine flowed like water. There was dancing on the green from where young couples, hand in hand, stole off into the woods.
‘I just hope they are careful,’ Philip remarked to Edmund. ‘Otherwise, in late summer, we’re going to have a crop of weddings and be busy at the baptismal font.’ He glanced around. ‘Where’s Stephen?’
‘Gone to High Mount,’ Edmund replied.
Philip glanced away so his brother would not catch his annoyance. Philip was concerned about Stephen. His friend was not his merry self: he had become taciturn and drawn. Philip was growing increasingly suspicious. High Mount could wait, so why was it so important to go there today? Did Stephen realise Philip and Edmund would be busy in the village? Did Stephen know more about the legends of Scawsby than he admitted? And was he more interested in the hidden treasure than building God’s house?
‘Come on, Father.’ Piers swaggered over. He thrust a blackjack of ale into the priest’s hand. ‘Hard knocks yesterday, eh, Father? Grisly work digging up those graves. What was that armour we found?’
‘Nothing,’ Philip murmured. He pulled a face. ‘Well, in time, I’ll tell you.’ He toasted the verderer with the blackjack. ‘But you, you were going to tell me a story? About Father Anthony?’
‘Oh yes. Have you met Walkin?’
‘Who?’
‘Walkin the stone-cutter. He’s very old and venerable. Some people say he was here when Romanel was vicar.’ Piers glimpsed the interest in the priest’s eyes. ‘Come on, Father. You’d best come and talk to him before he gets too drunk.’
They found Walkin on a table which had been laid out before the tavern. He was small and wiry, neck as scrawny as a chicken, popping eyes and red, flushed face, the lower half of which was hidden under a wispy moustache and beard. Piers made the introductions.
‘Sit down. Sit down.’ Walkin patted the bench beside him. He smiled in a display of toothless gums. ‘Sit down, Father. I’ve been longing to meet you. This is my helpmate, my grandson, Bartholomew.’
He pointed across to a dirty-faced boy whose hair was so greasy it hung in rat’s-tails to his shoulder. The lad had his foot up on a bench, scratching vigorously at his leg.
‘Stop that, Bartholomew!’ Walkin snapped. ‘He has a sore on his leg which never heals.’ He indicated over his shoulder with his thumb at the tavern. ‘He works there. He wants to be a cook. If I were you, Father, I wouldn’t eat a thing he’s touched.’ Walkin sniffed the air like a dog. ‘It will be dark before the beef is done. I want a nice, crisp piece. I’ve got some salt in my pocket and I’m going to sit and chew it.’
‘Good for you, Walkin,’ Philip replied. ‘Piers tells me you knew Father Anthony?’
‘Well, of course I did,’ the old man retorted. ‘I’ve known a lot of the priests. I always go to church on Sundays and Holy Days.’
‘Did you know Romanel?’
‘Oh Father, I was only a boy, a mere stripling, but I remember him.’ He shook his head. ‘We children didn’t like him. He was a bad bugger. Mysterious, out in the cemetery there at the dead of night. Aye, I’ve heard what you’ve found. I bet if you dug a bit more you’d find something else.’
‘What do you mean?’ Philip asked.
Walkin leaned closer and tapped his red, fleshy nose. ‘He was a leader, was Romanel. Men feared him. He would often come down to the tavern here. He could drink any man under the table and often did. Now those were the bad old days, Father, when our King’s great-grandfather, Edward II, married the French woman. Times were hard. The Scots were raiding under Bruce. The royal commissioners were collecting stores and harvests were bad. Famine sat at many of our tables. Do you know, Father, further west, away from the towns and villages, they said men turned to cannibalism?’
‘Romanel,’ Piers interrupted.
‘Ah well, yes. With the crops failing and the livestock dying, some of the villagers became outlaws. You’ve ridden round Scawsby, Father, even today it’s a lonely place.’ He drank from his jug of ale and once again told Bartholomew to stop scratching his leg. ‘Anyway, Romanel and the old manor lord, they used to take men out in the marshes and attack the unwary.’
‘But you were talking about the graveyard?’
‘Ah, yes, so I was. Now, you’ve heard about the Templar treasure and all that nonsense? Well, I tell you this, Father, one night they did go out but not all of them came back. Those who did were all dead within the year.’
‘A curse?’ Philip asked.
‘Aye, you could call it that, Father. Now Romanel also claimed to be a leech, which made him such a lecher.’ The old man smiled at the pun he had created. ‘There were rumours that Romanel helped members of his gang into the grave: a potion here, a touch of powder there. Whatever, every man jack of them died. As I have said, he was an evil bugger.’
‘And Father Anthony?’ Philip asked.
‘Oh, he was different. He was a gentle, old soul. He loved the antiq—’
‘Antiquities,’ Philip finished the sentence for him.
‘Yes, that’s it, Father. Always coming down here asking people about the history of Scawsby. He was a good priest, until he met up with that idle bugger Waldis.’
‘And what was your involvement?’ Philip asked.
‘Father Anthony came down to see Grandfather,’ Bartholomew suddenly spoke up, as if to distract himself from scratching. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘Didn’t he? He came down to the tavern. He was strange by then, white-faced, unshaven and he smelt to high heaven.’
‘A case of the pot calling the cauldron black!’ Walkin snapped.
‘He wanted to see Grandfather,’ Bartholomew continued. ‘Asked us would we come to the church.’
‘You see,’ Walkin interrupted, ‘in my youth, Father, I was a very good stone-cutter. Anyway, Father Anthony took me up to the church. He led me down to the crypt and pointed to the pillars. “Walkin,” he asks, “would it be possible to dig into this stone?” Well, I thought he was madcap and witless to boot. “Father,” I replied. “You could spend eternity hacking at that stone and hardly make a dent. And if you did, well, you’d cut away the supports of the church. The crypt would cave in.” He then asked about the flagstones on the floor. I said they could be lifted but what was the use? The old priest just smiled, he said it was a problem which was vexing him. He gave me a coin and that was it.’
Philip questioned him again but the old man couldn’t give any indication of what was in Father Anthony’s mind.
‘I never saw him again, Father. Well, not till they cut his poor corpse down from the tree in the graveyard.’
Philip thanked him. He picked up his blackjack of ale and walked along the village high street, stopping to talk to this family or that. By the time he returned to the church he felt a little embarrassed; his parishioners regarded him as a hero. But, now the danger from the French had receded, Philip looked up at the stark tower of his church. He was truly convinced that the best thing he could do was destroy this place and not even wait for the new one at High Mount to be built. He was certain that in the cold, bleak winter of 1308, Romanel had massacred those Templars, left their corpses at High Mount, desecrated the old graves there and then buried the Templars’ armour in his own cemetery. Philip stared at the gravestone: armour was difficult to hide. Fresh holes out at High Mount or discovered in the woods might create suspicion. Or did Romanel intend, at a later date, to dig the armour up and sell it? Anyway, by doing this, Romanel hid any evidence of the Templars disappearing on the marshes outside Scawsby. No eagle-eyed royal commissioner would be able to collect a scrap of proof which would indict him. Romanel hadn’t finished there. He knew that those who had joined him, guilt-ridden, eager to confess or greedy to gain a reward, were also a danger. Philip knew enough about physic to realise that the fields around Scawsby contained deadly herbs. These could be collected, crushed and dried ready to dissolve in his accomplices’ ale or wine. Of course, when they fell sick who would visit them? Their parish priest, pretending to bring more medicine but, in fact, hastening them all towards their graves.
Philip remembered the coffin woman’s excitement the previous evening. He went through the lych-gate and across the cemetery. When he reached the grave which had been freshly dug the previous evening, he was surprised to see small candles had been pushed into the earth and lit so they formed a shape of a cross. On the other side of the newly turned earth, Priscilla knelt, eyes closed, praying her beads. Philip knelt opposite her. She opened her eyes.
‘They are rejoicing, aren’t they?’ Her face seemed more youthful.
‘Why did you scream last night when you saw the armour?’ Philip asked.
‘It was the violence,’ she replied. ‘Men of war with their bloody swords and the screams of the dying.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘Always the swords, the flying arrows, shapes in the darkness.’
‘Have you seen the armour before?’
‘In my dreams, yes.’
‘These dreams, what happens in them?’
‘I am on a lonely moor. The wind is cold. There’s no moon, only clouds. A huge, white owl, with wings which fill the heavens, swoops over me. A harbinger of death.’ She screwed up her eyes. ‘Last night I dreamed again and it was more clear. There are men around me, they are tired. I can smell the sweat and boiled leather. They are good men. They are warriors but they are kind to me: gentle-eyed and gruff-voiced. There’s one in particular. He has a moustache and beard. A wise man. Is he my father?’ She opened her eyes. ‘What do I mean by that?’ she asked as if talking to herself. ‘What am I saying? Romanel was my father, wasn’t he?’
A shiver ran down Philip’s spine and his mouth went dry.
‘You were there, weren’t you?’ he asked. ‘You were there when the Templars were attacked? What on earth, child, were you doing out there? Was Romanel so evil as to include you in his nefarious affairs?’
‘I don’t know.’ The reply was sing-song. ‘Father, I don’t know. Sometimes I dream and it’s terrible. Sometimes I draw pictures.’ She beckoned with her hand. ‘Would you like to see those pictures?’
Philip got up and followed her across into her hut. It was neat and tidy and smelling fragrantly of herbs and wild plants. The floor was earth-packed and strewn with fresh grass from the cemetery. The walls were of plaster recently painted. Philip surmised that the old woman had probably done that herself. A small hearth stood beneath the chimney piece, a crude affair. In the far corner was a ladder which led up to a bed loft. She made the priest welcome, sitting him on a stool whilst she wearily climbed the small ladder and came back with yellowing rolls, of parchment. She handed these to the priest.
‘I drew those myself,’ she said shyly. ‘Sir Richard, whenever he asks me what I want for Yuletide, I always say parchment and some sticks of charcoal.’ She smiled. ‘And, of course, fresh milk. Look at them. You are the only person who has seen them.’
Philip unrolled the parchment. Some were cracked and dried. Others were still clean and soft to the touch. At first he could make little sense of them. He moved to catch the light from the window and realised they were drawings, simple yet possessing a vigorous life of their own. He lay them out on the floor.
‘Others have been lost,’ she murmured. ‘On one occasion I burnt a few by mistake.’ She tightened her lips. ‘And, Father, I confess, sometimes I grow tired of it all.’
Philip just nodded, fascinated by the drawings. They seemed to depict the same scene. A group of men on horses crossing the countryside. He could tell they were knights. They wore pointed helmets, carried shields and spears and, in the middle, a small figure riding a palfrey. Like all the people in the drawings, the body was stick-like but Philip realised it was a small girl with long hair. The next pictures were black as if the woman had just rubbed and filled every available space with a piece of charcoal, except for the small drops of red ochre daubed onto the parchment, like pitch torches flickering in the dark. Philip recalled the wall paintings he had glimpsed in the garret: these were just the same.
‘What are these?’ he asked, pointing to the red drops.
‘Corpse candles, Father. At least, that’s what they call them. They are fires out over the marshes. Some people call them jack-o’-lanterns: to me they are corpse candles.’
‘And what do they signify?’
‘Death. The Devil’s lights. Satan is coming through the darkness, Father. He misleads souls and he misleads bodies. He takes them onto the marsh where they die.’
‘And have you seen these corpse candles?’ Philip asked.
‘Oh, no, Father. I am too afeared. I never leave the church. I never go out of Scawsby.’
‘What?’ Philip exclaimed. ‘You must be well past your eightieth summer and you’ve never left the village?’
‘No, I am too afea
red. The corpse candles will be there.’ She shivered and hitched the coarse blanket she had put across her shoulders closer round her. Lifting her head, she sniffed the air. ‘They are roasting an ox, aren’t they?’ She wetted her lips. ‘I’d love a piece of meat. Soft and juicy and maybe some to dry, to keep for another day?’
‘You will have your meat,’ Philip murmured. ‘Priscilla, don’t you know that these corpse candles are only fires, gases from the marsh.’ He smiled. ‘Or so I have been told.’
‘To you, Father, they can be, but, to me, they are corpse candles, the Devil’s lights.’
‘But, if you haven’t been out to the marsh, how can you remember?’
‘It’s like here. When the mists come and curl up around the trees and stones in the cemetery, I see the corpse candles and I know Romanel is about.’
Philip put the drawings down. ‘Romanel!’ he exclaimed.
She smiled slyly at him, turning her head sideways.
‘You’ve seen him: wicked in life, wicked in death! I tell you this, when you see the corpse candles in the graveyard, Romanel is about. He will haunt this place until reparation is made.’
‘Reparation for what?’ Philip asked.
‘I don’t know, Father. But he was an evil man. He killed those Templars and he killed others.’ She shook her head. ‘Or I think he did.’
Philip returned to the drawings. The more he looked at them the more convinced he became that this old woman had witnessed the attack on the Templars in the marshes outside Scawsby. Each drawing told the same story.
‘Why were you with the Templars?’
She shook her head. ‘Was I? Was I really?’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t know!’ she sobbed. ‘Oh Lord, I wish I did!’
Philip collected the drawings together and handed them back.
‘Thank you.’ He got to his feet. ‘Do you have anything, Priscilla, anything else from your early life?’
‘Nothing at all, Father. All I have is what Romanel gave me.’
Philip helped her to her feet and kissed her vein-streaked hand.
