Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  It had been a mistake to answer me thus! A big mistake - for a man who had nothing to hide would merely have told me to mind my own business!

  ‘A book of poems,’ I said, sounding interested. ‘Do they happen to be my poems, by any chance?’

  ‘No, they are Gower’s,’ the dark-haired man said, and immediately looked as if he would cheerfully have swallowed his own tongue.

  ‘And a change of clothes!’ I continued, not giving him time to recover himself. ‘What manner of clothes are they, might I ask? A leper’s gown and bell, perhaps?’

  The two men exchanged glances, then the fair one, who appeared to be the leader, turned back to me.

  ‘Perhaps it is time that we had a talk, Sir Geoffrey,’ he suggested.

  *

  We sat at a table outside the inn, pots of warm ale in front of us.

  ‘How long have you known who I am?’ I asked.

  ‘From the first moment we saw you,’ the fair-haired one said. ‘We recognised you from a happier time, when you were in favour at court.’

  ‘Had we known beforehand that you intended to be a part of this pilgrimage, we might have asked you to assist us,’ the dark one said.

  ‘And would I have agreed to help you, do you think?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I think you would.’

  Interesting!

  ‘Why would I have agreed to help?’ I wondered.

  ‘You would have helped us because you were once under the protection of John of Gaunt, and may yet be again.’

  ‘Are you his servants?’ I asked.

  A smile came to the fair one’s lips. ‘I am no man’s servant,’ he said. ‘But that does not mean I am unwilling to serve.’

  ‘What is your mission?’ I asked.

  ‘There would be little point in telling you that now,’ the fair one said. ‘Indeed, for your own safety, it is far better that you do not know.’

  ‘So you will not tell me what cause you serve,’ I said. ‘Will you at least provide the answer to a few of the questions which have been troubling me?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the fair one said.

  ‘Did you kill the miller, the prioress and the friar?’

  He shook his head. ‘That is not our function. We serve as no more than reserves – ready to be called on if we are needed.’

  ‘But you did strike the yeoman on the back of his head when he was standing guard in the in yard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the others were unable to do it for themselves.’

  ‘So you do have men placed within the pilgrimage itself, do you?’ I said.

  The fair man seemed surprised that I had even needed to ask the question. ‘But of course,’ he said.

  ‘And who are they?’

  ‘It is better that you do not know.’

  ‘Harry Bailey, our host?’ I pressed.

  ‘He has played a minor part in scheme of things. But not out of any conviction on his part. He is not one of us. He acted as he did purely for the payment he had been promised.’

  ‘What was this minor part he played?’ I asked. ‘Had he been instructed to propose this story-telling competition as a way of ensuring that we all of us travelled together?’

  ‘Yes. Exactly that.’

  ‘But why should you wish us all to travel together?’

  ‘It is better that you do not know,’ the fair-haired gentleman repeated. ‘Far, far better.’

  ‘Will there be any more killings?’

  The fair one shrugged again. ‘There will be some more - perhaps there will even be many more - before this is all over. But not now. Not on what is left of this pilgrimage.’

  ‘Unless …’ the dark one said ominously.

  ‘Unless what?’ I asked tremulously.

  ‘Unless we are forced to kill. Unless another death is necessary to ensure that we have covered our tracks.’

  There could be no doubt about what he was saying – no possible interpretation save the obvious one. My heart began to pound against my rib cage, as if it were a felon banging on the church door just ahead of the hue and cry. My blood ran cold, and though it was a warm spring day, I shivered.

  ‘What do you intend to do now, Sir Geoffrey?’ the fair one asked me.

  ‘I … I intend to finish my drink and then mount my horse,’ I managed to gasp.

  ‘And once you are astride the beast?’

  ‘I will ride directly back to London.’

  ‘Will you talk to others about what has happened on this pilgrimage?’

  ‘How could I, since it was Geoffrey Thatcher, not Geoffrey Chaucer, who made up a part of it?’

  The two young men looked at each other for a moment, then both of them nodded.

  ‘Yes, it would be wise to return to London directly,’ the fair one agreed. ‘But before you go, let us consider one more question. Say the pendulum swings in your favour again, and you find yourself in court. How will you act if you see one – or both – of us there?’

  ‘How will I act? I will be polite, as good manners dictate. How else should a man act when he comes face-to-face with complete strangers?’

  The fair one nodded again. ‘How indeed, Sir Geoffrey? God speed, and may your journey back to London be without misadventure.’

  *

  I mounted my horse, and set off down the road towards London. I was aware that the two young men’s eyes were on me as I rode away, but though I felt a powerful impulse to glance over my shoulder, I did not do so even once.

  I was more than half a mile from the inn when I reined in my horse and looked down at my trembling hands. I’d had a very lucky escape, I realised, for if there is any certainty in this world it is that, if they had considered it necessary, the young men would have killed me without a second’s hesitation. That they had not was perhaps due to my past association with John of Gaunt, and it was more than likely that the same association would continue to protect me if I went straight back to London, as I’d promised I would.

  Yes, going home was by far the safest plan, I told myself. Any other course of action would be more than foolhardy – it would be the act of a lunatic.

  I turned and surveyed the countryside behind me. The land was flat enough, and while I would not make as good time crossing it as if I had travelled by road, it should still not take me too long to catch up with the pilgrims again.

  *

  There are times when, looking back on the events that momentous day, I try to persuade myself that it was nothing more than the pursuit of justice which made me rejoin the pilgrimage on the last stage of its journey to Canterbury. I try – but I never come close to succeeding. For if the love of justice had been my true aim, would I have acted as I later did, when all was revealed to me? Of course I would not!

  What then, if not justice, did spur me on? The answer is deceptively simple – I was driven by my curiosity.

  Ah, dear reader, even across the years I can sense your scepticism and almost read your thoughts.

  ‘Would a man who just been so convincingly threatened with death if he did not return to London truly take such a risk?’ you ask yourself. ‘And all for mere curiosity?’

  But there is nothing ‘mere’ about curiosity. It is at the core of my writing - and hence at the core of my being. When I embark on a new work it is not fortune or fame I am seeking. I do it because something deep within me demands to know whether or not I can. And just as this ‘something’ compels me to write, so it compelled me to return to the pilgrimage. For I was simply unable to abandon the drama I had been witnessing without learning for myself if I could impose some logic and order on what - even at that point - seemed like no more than a series of random incidents.

  I do not mean to suggest that when I caught sight of the rest of the pilgrims on the other side of the hedgerow I did not contemplate turning once more and heading back for London. Of course I contemplated it! What sane man would not? And yet, like a soldier in a battle charge (who knows wit
h certainty that many will be killed, but cannot believe he will be amongst them), I urged my mount towards the gate which led onto the road.

  *

  I arrived at the gate in time to rejoin the caravan at its head, had I wished, but instead of doing so I waited until the pilgrims I needed to talk to had drawn level with the spot at which I was stationed. The four of them were riding in a tight bunch, the nuns’ priest in the middle, the three sisters staying as close to him as baby chicks stay to the mother hen. I did not think my intrusion on their company would be a welcome one – at least as far as the women were concerned – but my mind was concerned with far more important matters than the sensibilities of these giggling nuns.

  The nuns’ priest looked at me quizzically as I reined in beside him.

  ‘I have a need to find an answer to certain matters,’ I said, replying his unspoken question.

  ‘And who do you hope will assist you in this need?’ the priest asked cautiously. ‘Myself? Or my sisters?’

  ‘All of you.’

  The priest thought for a moment. ‘Your questions would be about Madame Eglantyne?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what is it you wish to learn of her?’

  Why, exactly, she had failed to take the simple precaution of bolting the door to her bedchamber less than a day after the miller had been murdered in his, I thought. But like the fox in the nuns’ priest’s tale, I knew that it would be wiser not to go straight to the heart of matter.

  ‘I would like to learn something about her life,’ I said.

  The priest frowned. ‘Why should that which has already been taken from her be of any interest to you?’

  ‘It isn’t,’ I said. ‘But if I am ever to understand her death, I must know a little of what took place before it.’

  The priest looked anxiously at the three nuns, just as a father, finding his family in uncertain circumstances, might have looked at his daughters.

  ‘Do you swear, on the lives of your children and your grandchildren, that you yourself had nothing to do with her murder?’ he asked.

  ‘And on the lives of my great-grandchildren and all generations of my family which will follow them,’ I promised him.

  ‘And do you also swear that you have no desire to blacken her name, but only wish to unmask her killer?’

  ‘I do.’

  The nuns’ priest nodded gravely. ‘Very well, Sir Geoffrey, you may ask your questions.’

  I smiled gratefully. ‘How long had Madame Eglantyne been your prioress?’ I asked the sisters. ‘Had she held the post for many years?’

  The nuns giggled.

  ‘Of course not,’ the boldest of them said. ‘Why, she was still a young woman – almost as young as we are.’

  ‘Then when did she become your prioress?’

  ‘A few months ago.’

  ‘But you knew her, did you not, before then? When she was just an ordinary nun, like the rest of you?’

  ‘No,’ the boldest nun said.

  ‘She was not of our priory,’ the priest explained. ‘She came to us from the outside.’

  ‘From another priory?’

  ‘She did not speak of it, but that would be the reasonable assumption.’

  ‘Who decided that she should be made prioress? The bishop? The nuns themselves?’

  The priest shook his head. ‘Though the priory owns some little land, it is not as rich as the one in Dartford, and we depend on the generosity of our patron for much of our income. It was he who suggested, when the old prioress died, that Madame Eglantyne should take her place.’

  ‘And who is your patron?’

  ‘My lord the Duke of Gloucester.’

  His answer came as no surprise to me. Indeed, I would only have been amazed if he had given any other.

  ‘Tell me more about Madame Eglantyne,’ I said to the nuns.

  The three women giggled again. ‘What is it you wish to know?’ the boldest asked.

  ‘Was she a good prioress?’

  The three sisters exchanged quick glances. ‘What do you mean?’ the bold one said.

  ‘Was she very strict with you?’

  ‘No, not very strict.’

  ‘Was she one of those prioresses who wear their knees through to the bone with praying - and expect all their nuns to do likewise?’

  Again, there was a rapid exchange of glances. ‘Madame Eglantyne was of a rather delicate nature,’ the bold nun said.

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  ‘That she was not always well enough to attend prayers.’ The bold nun looked away from me. ‘Sometimes she was not even well enough to ensure that we attended them ourselves,’ she confessed.

  ‘Can you tell me anything else about her?’

  ‘I am not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Was there anything she did which surprised you?’

  The nuns looked to their priest for guidance.

  ‘As I have already said, I have no wish to blacken her name, but only to find her killer,’ I assured him.

  The priest nodded his consent to the sisters.

  ‘Well, there was her French,’ the bold nun said.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘When we had visits from our sisters or brothers in France, she always spoke to them in their own language. But it wasn’t…’ she struggled to find the right words, ‘it wasn’t as if it came naturally to her. Rather it was as if she had been taught it by a tutor in some noble house, as I was myself.’

  I could still not see where this was all leading, but though I could not yet see the fox itself, I was sure that I had at least caught the scent.

  ‘She made mistakes?’ I suggested.

  The nun grinned. ‘She made mistakes with both her grammar and her vocabulary. And her accent was awful. It was an embarrassment to hear her speak the language.’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I should not have said that. Not now she is dead.’

  ‘There is no shame in being poor with languages, and you do her memory no dishonour by telling me what you have,’ I assured the nun. ‘But what is the point to this story?’

  ‘Well, one night, very late, she had a visitor. A monk. I do not know who he was, or even what he looked like, for he kept his cowl well over his face. But I did hear her speaking to him.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The kind of French she spoke to him was as different to the kind of French she spoke to others as chalk is to cheese.’

  ‘Suddenly she seemed to have learned how to speak it well?’

  ‘Yes! There was no hesitation as she searched for the right word, and she seemed to get her tongue around all the more difficult sounds very easily.’

  I nodded. It came as no great shock to learn that the French were involved in the conspiracy that I had already come to suspect existed. Indeed, if the picture I was building up in my mind were at all accurate, the support of our old enemy would have been vital.

  ‘I have one more question,’ I said. ‘You three discovered Madame Eglantyne’s body, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, you know we did.’

  ‘I have asked you before how you came to be up and about so early in the morning, and you said you were curious. But you would not tell me what the source of that curiosity was. Will you tell me now?’

  Beneath their wimples, the nuns’ faces reddened.

  ‘It was about nothing in particular,’ the bold nun said, much as she had done the last time we had spoken on the matter.

  ‘Be honest with me,’ I pleaded. ‘If we are to have any chance of apprehending the murderer, then it is important that you tell me the truth.’

  The nuns shook their heads in confusion and panic, and for a moment I thought I would get no further with the matter.

  Then the priest said, ‘Why do not you and I ride a little way from the sisters, good sir, so that they may examine their consciences in tranquillity?’

  I saw no choice but to agree with his suggestion, and we manoeuvred our horses away from the nuns. />
  ‘They will never tell you truth,’ the priest told me.

  ‘And why should that be?’

  ‘Because they are embarrassed – both for their dead prioress and for themselves.’

  ‘Do you know the truth?’

  The priest shrugged. ‘Perhaps some of it.’

  ‘Then tell me what you know.’

  The priest sighed. ‘We are taught during our training at the seminary to hide our light under a bushel – to suppress our true selves and becoming nothing more than the obedient servants of God.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘But there are moments when our old selves break out of the spiritual cell to which we have confined them. Moments when we become the men we might have been had we not chosen to follow the strictest path to the Lord.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  ‘I had one of those moments just two days ago. When the host called on me to tell my tale, I could have recounted the life of a saint. That is indeed what I should have done. Yet instead I chose to entertain you with the tale of Chanticleer and Pertelot.’

  ‘And a very amusing tale it was,’ I agreed.

  ‘But not one you would have expected to hear from a priest?’

  ‘No.’

  He shook his head. ‘No! Even the monk, who is a much more worldly man than I will ever be, told a tale with religious meaning. Yet I, vain fool that I am, could not do the same. And when I had finished my tale, I finally understood what I had done – understood that the other pilgrims would never see me in quite the same light again.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I admitted.

  ‘And neither would the party I was travelling with,’ the priest said bitterly. ‘I was charged with helping to bring these three frivolous young women to Christ. And I failed them, for after my tale they began to see me more as a lover than as a spiritual guide. And they were not the only ones.’

  ‘The prioress began to regard you in a different light, too?’ I guessed.

  The priest nodded. ‘I had heard rumours of her free nature before this pilgrimage began. But rumour is the very life-blood of priories, and not one in a hundred has any foundation.’

  ‘So you didn’t believe them?’

  ‘I saw no reason to. The prioress herself never gave me cause. She paid scant attention to me. She did not even come to me to make her confession. But …but once she had heard my tale - once she had begun to see me as a man…’