Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  I shuddered as the truth came to me. The sound had been too soft for a church bell, and too loud for a hawk’s. Yet it had been just right for another kind of bell – the kind that lepers were obliged to wear round their necks!

  *

  The franklin’s room stank even more of smoke than the widow of Bath’s had done. And not without reason. For in addition to the torch in the wall bracket there were several candles which, judging from the amount of wax around their bases, had been burning long before the attack on the pardoner.

  I found myself wondering why the franklin had needed so much light.

  Had he been reading?

  Writing?

  I thought not, since I saw no evidence of either book or parchment, inkwell and quill.

  Had he, then, needed the light so that he might study the faces of others? Or to phrase it slightly differently, had he been holding a meeting of which I had been kept in ignorance? And if he had, who had attended such a meeting?

  Had the knight and he felt it necessary to meet in private because they felt they could no longer trust me?

  Or was the franklin playing a yet more subtle game?

  Were the knight and I the only ones he had taken into his confidence, or had he recruited other pilgrims into a second – and perhaps more devious - circle of his conspiracy?

  My head was swimming as I considered all the levels of possibility, and it came as almost a relief when the franklin broke the silence – and hence, my concentration – by saying ‘Tell us exactly what happened.’

  He was addressing the knight’s yeoman, who was sitting on a stool in the corner of the room, intermittently rubbing the back of his head.

  ‘I doesn’t know what happened,’ the yeoman replied. ‘One minute I’s was watching youse, Sir Geoffrey, climb up them darned steps…’

  ‘Why didn’t you follow me?’ I demanded.

  ‘Nobody told I to,’ the yeoman replied. ‘I’s were told I’s was to help youse if youse got into any trouble, but youse weren’t in no trouble just climbing them steps, now was youse?’

  I sighed, and wished the franklin had made his instructions to the yeoman a little more explicit. But perhaps he had deliberately made them vague, I realised with a shudder. Perhaps, for reasons of his own, he had never intended the yeoman to follow me onto the gallery.

  ‘So you watched Thatcher go up the steps,’ the franklin continued. ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I heards a door open, and the sound of a struggle.’

  I felt myself start to redden - for the struggle he had heard had been between myself and the widow of Bath, as she pulled me into her bedchamber.

  ‘Was this after Sir Geoffrey slipped on the stairs?’ the franklin asked.

  ‘I’s didn’t hear him slip on no stairs,’ the yeoman said.

  ‘Of course you did,’ I interrupted hastily. ‘You heard me fall and thought it was a struggle.’

  The yeoman knew better than to openly contradict his betters, and instead contented himself with merely shaking his head dubiously.

  ‘Whatever it truly was, you believed that you had heard a struggle, so why didn’t you go up to the gallery?’ the franklin asked the yeoman accusingly.

  ‘Because it didn’t seem to I’s like it was desperate,’ the yeoman said. ‘It didn’t seem like a fight, if youse know what I’s mean.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ the franklin said. ‘If it didn’t sound like a fight, what did it sound like.’

  ‘It sounded like…’

  ‘Why are we wasting our time on this matter?’ I asked, my face burning with embarrassment. ‘Whatever our good yeoman here thought he had heard, I have already told you actually happened to me. What I want to know is exactly what happened to him.’

  ‘Somebody sneaked up right behind I, as quiet as the Devil, and gave I a belt on the noggin,’ the yeoman said.

  ‘And you blacked out?’

  ‘I’s must have done, for I don’t remember no mores till there was already a crowd of folk on the gallery.’

  ‘Two killers again!’ I said.

  ‘Explain yourself,’ the franklin demanded.

  I calculated how long I had been a quivering captive in the widow’s room. Though it had seemed like an eternity to me, it had, in truth, been nothing but a short while.

  ‘I was dazed when I fell on the stairs, but certainly not long enough for a single murderer to knock the yeoman out, climb the steps to the gallery – stepping over my reclining form - enter the pardoner’s chamber, attack him, and make his own escape. So there had to be two of them, one creeping across the yard, and the other hiding on the gallery until he was sure that the yeoman was no longer a threat.’

  ‘What I still don’t understand is how the murderer could have entered the pardoner’s room – and then left it again – without you hearing him and or least seeing his shape,’ the franklin said. ‘Perhaps you were so stunned that more time elapsed than you imagined. Perhaps the murderer had time to launch two attacks – one on this yeoman in the yard, and a second on the pardoner in his chamber.’

  I could have – perhaps should have - cleared up all the confusion and inconsistencies by confessing what had really happened, but the longer I held that confession back, the harder it became to eventually introduce it.

  I searched my mind for some way to deflect the franklin from this particular line of inquiry, but it proved not to be necessary, for the knight came to my rescue - just as knights are always supposed to do.

  ‘One man or two, why did they fail to kill the pardoner?’ he asked, ever the practical warrior.

  ‘The pardoner screamed,’ I pointed out. ‘Very loudly.’

  ‘The miller screamed too.’

  The franklin and I exchanged quick glances, and through them decided that I should be the one to lead the knight by the nose along the path of logic.

  ‘The miller only screamed once,’ I said.

  ‘And so, according to you, did the pardoner.’

  I sighed again. ‘Indeed,’ I admitted. ‘The miller screamed once, and then was dead. But the pardoner was only wounded, and was capable of delivering a great many more screams before he met his end. Perhaps the murderer decided that if he stayed to finish the job, he would be caught.’

  ‘I see,’ the knight said, but neither the franklin nor I knew for certain if he really did.

  ‘We are no closer to finding the murderer than we were at the start of this night’s doings,’ I said.

  ‘That is not true. We now know the killer was not the pardoner,’ the franklin pointed out.

  And I, at least, knew that it was not the wife of Bath, either - though I would have been prepared to see her burnt at the stake as a witch rather than produce the one story which could prove her innocence.

  ‘The expression on your face is very strange, Sir Geoffrey,’ the franklin said. ‘What are you thinking of?’

  ‘I was thinking ….’ I began, wondering what in God’s name I could say next, ‘I was thinking that though our night’s work must be counted a defeat, we may at least be able to gain one small victory out of it.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  What indeed. ‘I … we saw a number of pilgrims appear on the gallery after the pardoner was attacked,’ I said. ‘But which ones did we not see?’

  There was silence for a while, then the knight said, ‘I did not see the friar.’

  ‘Nor I,’ the franklin agreed. ‘I did not see the monk either.’

  Neither had I. But, to be honest, I had raised the question more to divert attention from my own situation than because I was interested in an answer.

  So the friar had not been there! What did that prove? Perhaps he had been out once again turning yet another merchants’ wife into his personal concubine.

  And the monk? Perhaps he was no more than a heavy sleeper.

  I glanced out of the window, and saw that dawn had broken.

  ‘We are only ten miles from Canterbury,’ I said. ‘By the time the su
n sets again, we will have reached the city, and our murderer will have got away with all his crimes.’

  ‘Need that be so?’ the knight asked. ‘Will we not also have the journey back to London on which to catch him?’

  Both the franklin and I laughed.

  ‘After all that has happened, do you think that any of our fellow pilgrims – with the exception of the murderer himself - will run the risk spending another night under the same roof as the others?’ the franklin asked.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ the knight agreed. ‘Perhaps they will not even consent to ride to Canterbury together.’

  ‘Oh, they will not refuse to do that,’ I said.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ the knight asked.

  ‘Because, having done his work – even if one of his tasks is only half completed - it will be only natural for the murderer to want to get away from us as soon as possible.’

  ‘I still do not see…’ the knight said weakly.

  ‘So each pilgrim will think that if says he intends to ride off alone, all his companions will assume he is the murderer. Thus, in order to prove this is not so, all the pilgrims – including the murderer – will agree to stay together until we reach Canterbury.’

  The knight sighed. ‘I am still not sure that I understand.’

  ‘Shall I explain it again?’

  The knight shook his head. ‘There would be no point, for I have found that I either understand things the first time they are explained to me or else I understand them not at all.’

  The door suddenly swung violently opened, and the young squire burst into the room.

  ‘Father!’ he gasped, falling at the knight’s feet. ‘Terrible news, Father.’

  The knight reached down and gently stroked his son’s hair. And, for the first time since we had met, I could see that, though he might lack brain, he had qualities about him which might inspire others to gladly follow him into battle.

  ‘Be calm, my son,’ the knight said softly. ‘What is this terrible news of yours?’

  ‘Murder!’ the squire.

  ‘There has been no murder,’ his father told him. ‘The pardoner has been injured, but he will live.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘I know nothing of the pardoner.’

  ‘Then who do you think has been killed?’

  ‘Not think! Know! For I have seen the body with my own eyes.’

  ‘Whose body?’

  ‘Did I not say?’ the squire asked. ‘I have seen the friar’s body!’

  *

  There was already, of course, a dense crowd gathered around the head of the alley where the friar’s body had been discovered, and had the franklin and I been alone, I am sure we would have been compelled to remain on the edge of it. But we were not alone. We had the knight with us, and, without him needing to say so much as the word, that crowd parted like the Dead Sea in order that he should have passage. And following in his wake, I – who had looked down on him for his limited intellect – began to feel very humble indeed.

  The alley was located between two large houses which undoubtedly belonged to prosperous merchants. The friar lay on the ground. Standing over him was a tall, thin man, who – from his obvious air of self-importance – could only have been the town beadle.

  ‘Who are you?’ the beadle demanded.

  ‘Companions of the dead man,’ the knight replied. ‘We were all travelling together to Canterbury.’

  I looked down at the friar. He was lying flat on his back. The expression on his face was one of pain - but also of surprise. A dagger was buried deep in his heart – if, indeed, he had ever had one – yet there was also a deep bloodstain at the level of his belly.

  ‘We have no need of you here,’ the beadle said brusquely. ‘This parish will bury the body, and word has already been sent to the friar’s order of his death. You had best be on your way, for it is no business of yours.’

  ‘Indeed it is our business,’ the knight contradicted him. ‘He is the third of our party to be killed, and we believe that the murderer in each and every case is the same man.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ the beadle told him. ‘The monk was killed by a stranger to all of us.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ the knight demanded.

  For a moment, the beadle looked lost for words. Then, as if sudden inspiration had floated into his mind, he said, ‘We have witnesses to the murder. They recognised the killer as a man who had been in our town for the last few days.’

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘Alas, he has escaped.’

  ‘Have you not raised a hue and cry to pursue him?’

  ‘There would be little point. He had the fleetest horse I have ever seen, and the moment he killed the friar he jumped onto it and rode away.’

  The story was so ludicrously thin that even our good knight refused to take it at face value.

  ‘Why has the friar bled below?’ he asked.

  ‘What does that matter?’ the beadle countered. ‘You can clearly see that he was killed by a dagger to the heart.’

  ‘We must lift his habit and see what has caused the bleeding,’ the knight said grimly.

  ‘That you shall not!’ the beadle protested. ‘I am in charge here.’

  ‘And how many men slain in battle have you ever seen?’ the knight demanded.

  ‘Some,’ the beadle replied, defensively.

  ‘Ten? Twenty?’ the knight asked, with scorn creeping in his voice.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘I have seen hundreds,’ the knight said. ‘Perhaps even thousands. And if anyone is to judge what examination is necessary in a case of violent death, I am that man. So I say again, lift his habit.’

  The beadle seemed about to argue further, then, seeing the fierce and determined glint in the knight’s eyes, he shrugged and stepped back. Together the squire, the knight and I struggled – for the friar was a formidable weight – to lift the corpse far enough from the ground for us to be able to raise his habit.

  We pulled the habit up over his thick legs, down which ran trails of blood. We raised the garment as far as his belly, and saw what had caused the bleeding. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say, we saw the absence of what had caused the bleeding.

  The knight looked down at the castrated man and nodded as if all were now clear to him.

  ‘It is written the Bible that those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword,’ he said. ‘May it not also be true that those who live by the flesh shall die in a like manner?’

  He had come, you see, to the same conclusion as the beadle must have done earlier – that the friar had talked his way into the bed of one of wives of the town and, unfortunately for him, had still been there when the husband had returned home unexpectedly and caught him in flagrante. The outraged husband had instinctively drawn his dagger and stabbed the friar through the heart. Then, almost as an afterthought, he had cut off the engine which had driven the friar’s desires. That done, the final step was to throw the friar’s body out onto the street, where it would lie like the cur he was.

  Procedure dictated that there should be an investigation held. But the danger of conducting such an investigation was that it might prove to be all too easy to discover who had killed the friar - and that he would turn out to be a man of some local wealth and influence.

  So what should happen to this man once he was apprehended? According to the law, he should be executed. But was it right that respectable merchant should be hanged for defending his honour by slaying a lascivious friar? Both the knight and beadle clearly thought it was not, and thus the knight was now more than willing to accept the beadle’s weak story of murder by a stranger who had since departed.

  For my own part, I could not but feel some grudging admiration for the friar’s killers – who were also the killers of the miller and the prioress.

  I can sense my readers’ disbelief at my last remark. Surely the beadle and the knight were right on this occasion, and Geoffrey Chaucer wrong, I can
hear them thinking, even across the span of time. For did not the friar have his testicles cut off? And is not that the act of a jealous husband?

  Yes, but it was also the act of a cunning murderer who wished to make it appear as if the friar had been killed by a jealous husband!

  How could I be so sure that I was right, and they were wrong? the reader asks.

  My answer is simplicity itself. The dagger which killed the friar pierced first his habit and then his heart. If he had really been caught cuckolding some hapless husband, he would have been naked when the blow was struck!

  Day the Fifth

  Morning

  As those of you who have read my Tales in full will already know, there are many more of the pilgrims’ stories in that book than there have been – and will be – in this one. And for those who have not yet read my Tales, but intend to, I offer the following piece of advice – do not waste your time reading these later stories!

  Why should I thus decry my own work?

  Because it is not worthy of your attention.

  My heart was never in it; I knew that even at the time.

  So why did I even attempt it?

  Because man is a creature of habit, and having laid out my grand scheme for the work before the pilgrimage began, instinct drove me on once the pilgrimage was over. Besides, if I am to be honest – and I have already promised you that is what I will be – I must confess that I also used them as an excuse, a way of putting off writing the book I am writing now.

  One more word on these later tales before I leave them. They are made up! The prioress told her tale as I described it, as did the pardoner. But the squire’s and the manciple’s are no more than the sort of tales I imagine they would have told if they had told any tales at all.

  The reason that there were no more tales is, I would have thought, obvious. Though all the pilgrims had once believed that the miller had been killed by a stranger, and most were once prepared to accept that the prioress had, too, even the dullest among them could not persuade himself that what had happened to the pardoner also been the work of outsiders. Nor did most of them find it as easy as the knight did to swallow the idea that the friar had been killed by a jealous husband.