Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

There was emptiness, then, but there was not always silence. The horses occasionally snorted in their sleep, the old building creaked fitfully, the odd rat scuttled about his slimy business, and somewhere in the distance a solitary owl hooted.

  I had first taken up the position shortly after the rogues had stumbled drunkenly to bed and the last remaining inn servant awake – finally free to retire himself – had toured the yard and the gallery, snuffing out the torches which burned in the wall brackets. A strong impulse had come over me, as I watched the servant plunging our small world into darkness, to ask him to desist. Yet I suppressed that impulse, for how could I have persuaded him, without first explaining the franklin’s mad scheme?

  I had been in my present position in this corner for nearly three hours, I calculated, which should mean that the franklin would be coming to relieve me soon. It could not be soon enough, as far as I was concerned, for time was truly beginning to drag, and with only my own thoughts to keep me company, I found myself wondering just how mad were both the franklin’s scheme and the argument behind it.

  There had been no murder the night before, so that argument ran, because there had been no tale preceding it. And by the same token, because there had been a tale that day, a murder would inevitably follow it. There were moments when this all made sense to me, but others when I asked myself whether any murderer – however insane – would follow such a pattern.

  And what about the franklin himself?

  Was I right to put my trust in him?

  Wasn’t it possible that he was the murderer, and that his apparent hunt for the killer served no other purpose than to disguise this fact?

  Why should the franklin be the killer? I asked myself.

  Yet, for that matter, why should any of the pilgrims act like the robber Death and try to steal the lives of their travelling companions?

  And what did the previous two victims – a drunken miller and a demure prioress – have in common with the charlatan of a pardoner who, we had decided (no! - who the franklin had decided) was likely to be the third person to die?

  I heard a soft scuttling from the gallery.

  Another rat?

  If that were so, it was making enough noise to be a very large rat indeed.

  So someone was up there – not safely sound asleep inside a chamber, but awake and without - and probably malevolent.

  It was at this point, I must confess, that the holes in what the franklin considered to be his admirable plan became apparent to me.

  My chief problem, as I saw it, was that though the knight’s yeoman was there to support me, I had no way of alerting him that I was about to move towards the gallery without also alerting the murderer – if murderer, indeed, it be.

  Yet the yeoman, as watchful as I was myself, must also have heard the scuttling on the gallery, I thought hopefully. And even if he had not, he would be bound to realise what was happening once he heard my footfalls as I crossed the yard.

  ‘Be bound to realise it!’ repeated that part of my mind which is never truly surprised when something in life goes terribly wrong.

  Certainly bound to!

  Unless the yeoman himself has fallen asleep!

  A solid, reliable man like him would never fall asleep, my hopeful side argued. And even if he had done, for the yeoman to awaken I had only to scream loudly when - and if - I came face to face with the killer.

  True, the dark level of my mind agreed. He would awaken. He would rub the sleep out of his eyes. His dream-befuddled mind would begin to wonder, in a slow and laborious way, what had occurred to disturb him. And by the time he had gained a true picture of the events, I would be lying on the gallery with a dagger stuck between my ribs.

  It was a chance I would have to take, I told myself as I heard the scuttling again - even louder this time.

  And why should I be so timid?

  True, I was approaching my fiftieth year, but in my youth I had been a hearty soldier, so surely I would still remember - when the time came – some of the ways I had once learned to defend myself.

  Thus do all men fool themselves when they remember the vigour of their younger days!

  I broke cover and crossed the yard. What moon there was did not light up the gallery, but at least it provided enough illumination to guide my feet without mishap.

  I was making little sound - certainly less than the homicidal rat who was lurking somewhere up on the gallery.

  I reached the steps, and only then did it occur to me that there was a possibility that some of them would creak.

  Why had I not thought of that before? I asked myself angrily.

  Why had I not previously paced out the ground between where I was now and where the killer rat appeared to be, so that I would have known what pitfalls lay ahead of me?

  I put my right foot down on the first step with infinite care and delicacy. No loud creak to betray me.

  I put my left foot on the first step and my right on the second.

  Still nothing.

  I advanced one more step, and then another.

  It took an age to reach the level of the gallery, and after all my effort I felt a slight twinge of disappointment that I seemed to know no more about what was going on now than I had when I was standing in the yard. True, I was closer to the scuttling sound, but still I was denied the sight of a dark menacing shape which had already been responsible for two murders. In fact, I saw nothing at all.

  I moved cautiously along the gallery, my hand clutching the handle of my sheathed dagger and my spirit resolved to sell my life dearly. The shuffling had grown a little louder, and I paused to consider what action I might take next.

  It was then that I heard the slight click behind me! My bowels turned to water. The enemy was not only in front, he was also at my rear!

  How could I best defend myself, my panicked brain demanded?

  Should I rush forward, which action, while it would take me closer to the killer waiting ahead, would at least remove the possibility of my being stabbed in the back?

  Should I swing quickly round, and attack the murderer who seemed almost close enough to breathe in my ear?

  I was still undecided between the two courses of action when I felt a pair of strong hands clamp onto my shoulders and pull me backwards. This should have been the moment – above all others - when I screamed out for the yeoman’s help, yet though my mouth was open, my voice seemed to have retreated into the very pit of my belly.

  I was dragged back into the bedchamber, then flung forward so hard that I staggered across the room, lost my balance, and landed heavily on the bed.

  After the darkness of the outside world, the chamber seemed brilliantly illuminated, and the smoke from the burning torch filled my nostrils.

  I twisted round to face my attacker. She was standing in the chamber doorway, blocking my retreat. She was wearing a shift of white cotton which clung to her more-than-ample curves, and the look which filled her wide face was one of expectation.

  ‘When I heard the noise outside my door, I suspected that it might be you,’ the widow of Bath said.

  ‘Madam, you misunderstand,’ I blathered.

  The widow smiled complacently.

  ‘That is the second time in just a few hours that you have accused me of misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘Why not be a man about it? Why not admit that you are here because you could contain your passion no longer?’

  She pulled the door closed behind her, then reached down and lifted the shift over her head. She was indeed a big woman, yet, even in my confused state, I could understand why the young squire had chosen to spend a night with her.

  Or was it two nights he had spent? That was something I was still to establish.

  ‘Madam…’ I said.

  She advanced towards me ... a pyramid of wobbling flesh ... a monumental tower of unbridled lust.

  ‘I will give you a night you will never forget,’ she promised me confidently. ‘Yea, though you should sleep with a thousand doxies ere you die,
you will never have another night such as this one.’

  Her breasts swung ready to club me into submission. Her thighs tensed to crush the life out of me. I could see no possible avenue of escape – and when I heard the scream cut its way through the night air, I could almost believe that it had come from me!

  *

  The widow froze and became like a heavy, naked statue. And so did I – but only for a moment.

  The cry had come from somewhere further down the gallery, I guessed.

  Somewhere close to where I had heard the scuttling sound.

  Somewhere close to the pardoner’s chamber!

  I grabbed the torch from its bracket, stepped quickly around her still-frozen bulk, and was out on the gallery once more.

  The door to the chamber two doors further down was open, and the sound of sobbing came from within. Without any thought of my personal safety – how foolish men can be in the heat of the moment! – I burst into the chamber, dagger in one hand, flaming torch in the other.

  By the light of my torch, I could see that the pardoner was huddled on his bed. His face was buried in his hands, and he was weeping copiously. I could smell the fear in the chamber, and thought it strange that that was the only thing I could smell.

  I advanced towards the pardoner. He was wearing a nightshift, and its right sleeve was torn to reveal an ugly gash on his arm, from which blood gushed forth copiously.

  ‘What has happened here?’ I demanded.

  ‘Oh spare me!’ the pardoner moaned. ‘Spare me, Lord, and I swear that I will mend my ways.’

  ‘You are quite safe,’ I told him. ‘I am a friend.’

  The pardoner spread his fingers, and peeped out from between them like a child.

  ‘Are you truly a friend?’ he mumbled.

  ‘If I were not, wouldn’t I have killed you already?’ I asked.

  The pardoner let his hands fall onto his knees.

  ‘Guard me, friend,’ he wailed. ‘Save me from my foes.’

  ‘What foes? Who are they?’

  ‘I do not know. They were masked.’

  ‘How many of them were there?’

  The pardoner shuddered. ‘Ten! Maybe more!’

  It would have been impossible for ten men to fit into a chamber this size, I thought. Yet I did not believe that the pardoner was telling a deliberate lie, for, to a poor, pathetic wretch like him, even one man could have appeared to be a threatening army.

  ‘Tell me more,’ I said.

  ‘They stood all round me. They were laughing like the very fiends of hell. They stabbed me – once, twice, a hundred times.’

  ‘Stand up,’ I ordered him.

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘Stand up!’

  The pardoner rose to his feet like a cur which has already received one beating and expects another to follow. I ran my eyes quickly up and down his body. There were no more tears in his nightshift, and no other signs of blood.

  ‘You were stabbed once!’ I told him, perhaps a little more contemptuously than was kind or intended.

  ‘Once! Are you sure?’ he whined. ‘It felt like so much more.’

  ‘Once,’ I repeated. ‘And that wound is little more than a scratch. Still, I suppose we had better bind it.’

  I removed his snuffed torch from its bracket and replaced it with my own burning brand, then sheathed my dagger. With both my hands now free I tore off the lower half of his damaged sleeve and wrapped it tightly around the gash.

  ‘It hurts!’ he complained.

  ‘It could have been very much worse,’ I said. ‘Tell me about these ten men who came into your chamber.’

  ‘What … what do you want to know?’

  ‘Why did they not finish off the work they had come to do?’

  ‘I do not know,’ the pardoner said. ‘Believe me, I do not know. I saw them standing over me. I felt the pain. I screamed and fell off my bed. I made a rush for the window. I thought if I could climb out of it, I would be safe. But it would not open. It … would … not … open. I turned around again, to beg them for mercy, but they had gone.’

  A braver man than he might not have screamed so loudly, I thought. Yet it was probably the very intensity of his scream which had saved his life, for hearing it his attackers must have taken fright and fled.

  ‘Where is your companion?’ I asked.

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘The summoner, you fool!’

  Fresh tears poured from the pardoner’s eyes, and I did not think it was the pain of his wound which was causing them this time.

  ‘He … he wants no more to do with me,’ the pardoner stuttered. ‘He … he says that he has other fish to fry.’

  Other fish to fry! By which he probably meant the widow of Bath!

  Well, he was certainly welcome to her as far as I was concerned! But if there was truly a possibility of his quelling his burning lust between her sturdy thighs – as he must have thought there was for him to burn his bridges with the summoner - then why had she been sleeping alone that evening?

  Other guests had been awoken by the pardoner’s scream and would soon be making their appearance on the gallery, but it was the franklin – who was already dressed and ready to take over guard duty – who was the first to appear in the doorway.

  ‘It seems that I was right,’ he said, looking first at me, then at the pardoner, and turning back to me again

  ‘Yes, it does,’ I agreed - for much as I hated his complacent attitude, what else, in all honesty, could I have said.

  ‘Perhaps you could explain to me exactly what happened,’ the franklin suggested.

  ‘I was in the corner of the inn yard, as we had agreed I should be, when I heard a noise on the gallery,’ I said in a flat tone, as if I were giving evidence in court. ‘I crossed the yard and made my way up the stairs to the gallery.’

  ‘Where were you when you heard the pardoner cry out?’

  ‘I was half-way up the stairs,’ I lied.

  ‘And so you will have seen the attackers leave this room!’ the franklin crowed triumphantly.

  ‘No,’ I mumbled. ‘I … I tripped on the stairs. It winded me. By the time I recovered, they were gone.’

  I could have told him the truth, I suppose – could have admitted that I had been abducted by the amorous widow, and would probably have been raped had it not been for pardoner’s scream. Perhaps with someone else in my place would have been honest, but I had already resolved to die rather than reveal my humiliation to this supercilious franklin.

  The franklin shook his head despairing. ‘You were given the perfect opportunity, and you bungled it,’ he said. ‘If only I had been there instead of you.’

  ‘Why must I take all the blame?’ I demanded, applying the maxim that attack is usually the best form of defence. ‘Was I the only one charged with ensuring the pardoner’s safety?’

  ‘No,’ the franklin agreed, reluctantly.

  ‘Where is this yeoman, in whom you and the knight seem to set so much store?’ I continued.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ the pardoner asked bewilderedly.

  ‘Well, where is he?’ I said, ignoring the pardoner and addressing my remark solely to the franklin. ‘He has been in the wars – and much more recently than I have myself. Why was he not here to do his duty?’

  ‘I do not know,’ the franklin admitted. ‘It’s true enough that he should have been here. Perhaps he has met with an accident.’

  ‘What’s all this talk of yeomen?’ the pardoner complained. ‘I’m the one who’s met with an accident. Though there was nothing accidental about it. Those ten men I spoke of were intent on murdering me in my bed!’

  More pilgrims had begun to gather in the doorway – the nuns’ priest, with the three nuns clinging into him for comfort; the cook, so drunk that he could hardly focus his eyes.

  The knight, his sword in his hand, stepped over the threshold and looked at us questioningly.

  ‘We need to talk,’ said the franklin, nodding
first at the knight and then at me.

  ‘Indeed we do,’ I agreed.

  ‘But not here,’ said the franklin in a whisper, indicating the gathering crowd with his eyes.

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I will come to your chamber anon.’

  ‘Anon?’ the franklin repeated. ‘Why not come immediately?’

  ‘Because I need a little time alone,’ I said. ‘A little time to breathe air which does not come from this inn.’

  *

  I did not go far from the inn, no more than a few yards from its gate - for I had no wish to be questioned by the night watch. Even so, being just a little distance from a tavern in which a murderer lurked unseen was something of a relief.

  The houses were in complete darkness, and I stood on the totally silent street, looking up at the stars and wondering if our learned doctor could read the name of the killer in them. But why should I expect any such great feat from him – a man who, at first, put the miller’s death down to an unfavourable movement of the planets, rather than a red-hot poker up the backside?

  Did I say the street was totally silent? That was what I had thought, but I soon discovered that I was wrong. For in the distance I did hear a sound – a slight, musical sound, already so far away that, though it seemed strangely familiar to me, I was unable to identify it.

  I closed my eyes, shutting off the visual world completely, and tried to dredge up the source of the sound from the deepest recesses of my memory.

  For some reason the image of a church was the first thing which came to mind, but I brushed aside impatiently.

  I screwed my eyes up even tighter, and thought of hunting. But why that? Was the sound which was growing ever fainter like the swish of a hawk’s wings, as it swoops down on its prey? No! It was nothing like that!

  I stamped my foot in exasperation – not once, but several times.

  And then, suddenly, I had it! What I had heard was the sound of a bell!

  That was why I had thought of hawks.

  That was why I had pictured churches.

  Because of their association with bells.

  Churches had bells in their towers, and hawks wore bells on their legs!

  Yet no church rang its bell at this time of the night. And no hawk, whose eyes were so keen in the sunlight, would fly blind in the darkness, when all its natural victims were asleep.