by Paul Doherty
Stephen rejoined the rest. Bolingbrok had finished sheeting the corpses. They followed the torch-bearers through the cemetery, across the enclosure and into the priest’s house. Stephen was immediately struck by its ordinariness: the kitchen was clean, well-swept and tidy, the great carving table scrubbed a dull white, clear except for a bunch of keys lying on top of a piece of greasy parchment. The rushes on the floor were green and wax-like, the pink-painted walls shiny in the candlelight. The fire in the grate had burnt low, the small ovens either side still warm, the copper and brass pans, pots and cutlery hung orderly on their hooks. The corpses were laid out on the floor. Stephen stared at the ghoul-like faces, twisted and frozen in their final death agonies. Beauchamp and Cutwolf, who had conducted a swift search of the other chambers, strode into the kitchen. ‘Nothing!’ Beauchamp declared. ‘Nothing at all.’ Everyone remained silent while Anselm administered the last rites. Once completed and the corpses covered, Cutwolf and the rest guarded the door. The two Carmelites, Beauchamp, Sir William, Gascelyn and Almaric gathered around the great kitchen table.
‘The fire broke out suddenly, without warning,’ Sir William began. ‘It would seem Parson Smollat, God save him, together with his woman Isolda, started it. They moved oil, kindling and other combustibles into the church.’ He pointed at the keys. ‘Parson Smollat apparently had these all the time. Brother Anselm, you found them and that scrap of parchment on his corpse. Both his hands and those of Isolda were stained with oil and pitch, saltpetre and even grains of cannon powder.’
‘I would agree,’ Anselm declared.
‘Did they commit suicide?’ Stephen asked abruptly.
‘So it would seem.’ Anselm sighed. ‘There is no trace of force or imprisonment on their corpses; I was most vigorous in my inspection. My only conclusion is that Parson Smollat and Isolda, for God knows what reason, started that fire then hanged themselves in the shade of that yew tree.’ He gestured around. ‘Look at this house. Sir Miles, you have searched as carefully as any royal surveyor – nothing is out of place! Both the parson and Isolda appear to have lived a normal life. They apparently finished their evening meal in the kitchen then decided on their own deaths and the destruction of the church they served. Parson Smollat must have quietly purchased oil and other materials.’ Anselm paused to clear his throat. ‘Parson Smollat even wrote what might be a confession. We shall come to that. However, did he and Isolda act in their right minds? I don’t know. The parson also held the keys, which raises the strong possibility that he may have had a hand in Simon the sexton’s mysterious death. Was all this deliberate? Or did the infernal powers which haunt this site possess both him and his woman?’ Anselm shook his head. ‘Sir William, I would be grateful if you would make a careful search of what Parson Smollat bought over the last few days.’
‘I can answer that.’ Almaric spoke up. ‘Parson Smollat was very busy. A cart-load of purveyance was delivered just before Nones today. I thought they were the usual supplies but he must have bought oil and the other kindling.’
‘Perhaps,’ Sir William spoke up, ‘the poor be-knighted fool thought he could cleanse this place.’ The merchant knight scratched his unshaven, sweaty cheek. ‘Perhaps he and Isolda then regretted it and decided to take their own lives. I shall miss them,’ he added sadly. ‘Smollat was a good man, though easily frightened. Perhaps he viewed all that had happened as a judgement on himself. Yet in a way he was correct about the purification.’
‘What do you mean?’ Beauchamp asked sharply.
‘Sir Miles, our church is burning. There is nothing we can do about that – let it burn. The ward has been alerted – let the flames spend themselves. Once it is done, we will cleanse this site. I promise,’ Sir William became more invigorated, ‘a new and splendid church will rise like a phoenix from the ashes.’
‘The corpses?’ asked Anselm gently. ‘If they are suicides, can they have Christian burials? When the news spreads, Sir William, not everyone will be as charitable as you. They will demand that both cadavers be taken to a crossroads outside the city, a stake driven through their hearts and their remains buried beneath some gallows post. Deranged, possessed?’ Anselm stretched across the table. ‘I cannot say. Parson Smollat certainly scrawled this note. He had it with the keys.’ Anselm picked it up. ‘It is Parson Smollat’s writing?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Sir William replied. ‘Both myself and Almaric have compared it to other documents found here. Yet it is strange, Brother Anselm. Read it again.’
‘“Habeo igne gladioque destruxi ecclesiam nostram” – I have, with fire and sword, destroyed our church.’ Anselm shrugged. ‘Is that a confession? Is he admitting to the fire?’
Beauchamp leaned across and took the parchment script. He read it and handed it back, a fleeting smile crossing his lean, saturnine face. Anselm, too, stared at the parchment and gave it to Stephen, who studied the large bold letters, ‘Habeo igne gladioque destruxi ecclesiam nostram’.
As the novice stared down at the text he felt a shift, a tug at his very soul. ‘Now!’ a voice whispered. ‘All will be revealed. For the fowler’s snare will spring, as it shall on every living soul.’
‘We should leave.’ Beauchamp rose, gathering his cloak and staring at Anselm. ‘Let the fire burn itself out. Keep the wardsmen vigilant against sparks. Sir William, I will have my henchmen remove both corpses to the Chapel of Saint Peter Ad Vincula in the Tower. The chaplains will bury them there. No one need know. I have searched this house – there is nothing to prove Smollat or Isolda were members of any coven. Once the corpses are removed, my men will lock and seal the house . . .’ He stopped short at the sound of a hideous crash which echoed across the cemetery. Beauchamp picked up his cloak and hurried out, the others following.
‘It’s the roof,’ Cutwolf explained. They entered the cemetery and stared across, the flames leaping through where the roof had been. ‘So intense,’ Stephen whispered.
‘Remember,’ Anselm murmured, ‘the benches, the chantry chapels, the pulpit, all the furnishings, the drapes, the carvings, those heavy rafter beams. Parson Smollat must have soaked the place in oil.’ Anselm’s voice trailed off. ‘Sir Miles is certainly correct – there is nothing more to be done, and all,’ he added in a whisper, ‘for a piece of useless rock which is probably lying at the bottom of a slime-filled pond.’
‘And the rest of the treasure,’ Stephen added.
‘That, too,’ Anselm declared. ‘So many deaths, Stephen – for what? Does it really profit a man if he gains the whole world’s treasure but suffers the loss of his immortal soul?’
Words Amongst the Pilgrims
The physician paused in his tale and filled his water cup. This time no one stirred; his fellow pilgrims realized he was approaching the climax of his story and waited restlessly. Chaucer glanced swiftly around. The haberdasher was drinking so heavily, Chaucer wondered if the man would be fit to ride the next morning. The Wife of Bath’s plump red cheeks were wet with tears. The summoner just sat with a sombre look on his face.
‘I remember this.’ The knight spoke up. ‘I, too, was on secret business for the Crown. There were whispers about blood-drinkers roaming the streets and alleyways close to the river, though they weren’t the monsters I hunt. And the fire? I was in London at the time. In the end a fine new church was built. Sir William must have . . .’
‘Hush now, Sir Godfrey,’ the physician called out. ‘Softly, let me finish.’ The knight nodded in agreement, going back to cradling his tankard.
‘Yet this tale is certainly true.’ The usually taciturn shipman spoke up. ‘Master physician, I have kept a still tongue in my head but I was on board the cog which Rishanger tried to reach. I served my apprenticeship with its captain,’ he grinned sourly, ‘from whom I learned so much. I watched Rishanger’s clash with those assassins on the quayside, his flight up river.’
‘Oh, yes,’ the physician assured him. ‘This is all true.’
‘Cloaked in secrecy, it was,’ the frankli
n rose, fingering his snow-white beard.
‘What was?’ the friar demanded.
‘The business at Saint Michael’s,’ the franklin replied, pointing at the physician. ‘A hideous tragedy, yes?’
‘Gentle pilgrims all,’ the physician stretched out his hands, ‘please let me finish my tale.’
The Physician’s Tale
Part Six
The fire at St Michael’s had burnt itself out by late the following morning. A heavy pall of smoke hung over the blackened remains of the church. The roof and east wall had collapsed, as had the top sections of the tower. At Beauchamp’s order the mysterious deaths of Parson Smollat and Isolda were kept secret; for the rest Sir William Higden came into his own. He hired bully boys under Gascelyn to guard both the cemetery and the church. Of course the gossip and tittle-tattle swept through Dowgate swifter than the wind. Anselm absented himself, returning to White Friars, promising to meet Stephen the following evening at The Unicorn before going on to Beauchamp’s house to enjoy a great and splendid supper. Stephen felt a deep disquiet about his master. Anselm was more secretive than ever and the novice sensed that something had happened between the exorcist and the royal clerk.
Alice, however, was full of curiosity about what had occurred. Bright of eye and pert of tongue, she would sidle up to Stephen and ask if this or that were true. Was that rumour genuine? Where was Parson Smollat? What would Sir William do? And did Sir Miles have any news about Margotta Sumerhull? Alice danced around him as merry as a robin in spring. Stephen loved every second of it, although he found it impossible to throw off the growing sense of disquiet, a menacing threat as if some malignancy was gathering beyond the veil.
On the night after the fire, Minehost Robert insisted that everyone retire early as he was sure that the magnificent feast at Sir Miles’ the following evening would go on into the early hours, long after the monks had finished their chants at Matins and Prime. Alice, eyes all teasing, said she had to bathe and lay out her gown and kirtle which, she proclaimed, would outshine that of Lady Moon, Mistress Alice Perrers, the resplendent mistress of the old King. Stephen pretended to be shocked that Alice could even know of such things. Alice then delved into her wallet and produced a beautiful, oval-shaped medal of St Joseph, a thin wafer of silver on its own chain. She slipped this around Stephen’s neck, nuzzling his cheek with her hair as she breathlessly whispered how she must fix the clasp properly. Stephen felt her warm, full breasts against his chest and tried to kiss her but, laughing softly, she stepped back out of reach. Stephen glanced down at the medal. ‘You told me about your father,’ she murmured, ‘so I brought you a medal of Saint Joseph. I mean, if he guarded the Lord God, he will certainly guard you. Now,’ she grinned cheekily, ‘I must be gone.’ And away she whirled, but not before dragging Marisa from a shadowy corner where ‘the little imp’, as she called her younger sister, was hiding and spying once again.
As they both scurried away, Stephen looked down at the medal with its slightly embossed figure of Joseph holding the Divine Child. He recalled the ancient wooden statue of the same saint on its plinth in the small chantry chapel at St Michael’s. The fire would have reduced all that to ash. A thought occurred to him about the riddle Puddlicot, also a carpenter, had left. He dismissed this. Stephen wanted to forget all that, at least for a while. He bade Minehost Robert good night and climbed the stairs. Stephen reached his own small garret and, feeling suddenly tired, lay down on the bed. When he awoke, night had fallen, black against the small casement window. An ominous humming made him sit up. He stared in horror at the figure seated on the corner stool. The old woman’s face, subtle and cruel as a hunting cat, could be seen through the red net mesh, lit clearly by the candle pot held between her hands. She just sat, a figure of heart-rending terror – not moving, just staring wickedly at him. Panic seethed within him. Stephen shivered at the pressing cold, repelled by the reek as if from the foulest latrine. ‘In God’s name!’ he exclaimed. He felt his cheek brushed, turned and screamed as the old woman’s face now pressed close to his, those milky green eyes, the purple lips curled back to reveal blood-red, toothless gums, her skin black-spotted with age. He threw himself off the bed, feverishly clutching the medal Alice had given him, and pulled open the door. Stepping into the stairwell Stephen felt a savage jab to his back which would have sent him crashing down the steep stairs but, catching the guide rope attached to the wall, he was able to stop and turn. The stairwell was empty. Nursing a bruised arm, Stephen cautiously re-entered the bed chamber, quietly mouthing a prayer for protection. He heard a siren’s voice call his name and walked over to the casement window, pushed it open and stared down. The cobbled yard below was full of young women with straggling hair. They were staring up at him beseechingly, dark-ringed eyes in deathly white faces, hands raised in supplication. The window swung back; he caught it and looked again. The courtyard was empty.
Stephen returned to a fitful sleep. He awoke, heavy-headed, and found even Alice’s glee at the prospect of Sir Miles’ supper difficult to bear. Anselm appeared, coughing into his rag. He asked Stephen to accompany him up to St Michael’s, where Higden’s bully boys allowed them through into the godforsaken cemetery. Stephen was aware of presences, of whispering voices on the misty morning air as they walked up the winding path and through the corpse door, which had simply crumbled into blackened shards.
‘Parson Smollat bought oil by the barrel – skins of it, along with saltpetre. He even obtained some precious cannon powder. Drenched the place, he did.’ Anselm’s voice echoed hollowly through the burnt shell of the nave.
Faint sparks still rose and trails of smoke continued to circle and twist. The church had been truly devastated. The sanctuary, altar, pulpit, rood screen, reredos and chantry chapels no longer existed. The fire had licked the plastered walls and stripped them clean. Only a pure stone statute of St John the Baptist, its face now unrecognizable, remained. Stephen walked over to the chantry chapel of St Michael’s and stared at the devastation.
‘The entire site will be levelled,’ Anselm intoned. ‘Not one stone left upon another.’
‘As the lightning strikes from the east,’ a voice called, ‘and appears in the west, so sudden will it be.’
‘The gloom gathers,’ another voice shrilled, ‘the darkness deepens. Where the corpses lie, the vultures will gather.’
Stephen glanced around. Were those dancing sparks, the trails of black and grey smoke, the remains of the fire or something else? And were those motes milling through the air only an outward sign of inward things? ‘I feel apprehensive, Magister.’
Fingering the medal Alice had given him, Stephen wandered over to where the small chantry chapel of St Joseph had stood: everything, including the beautiful wall paintings, had been destroyed. Anselm came over and Stephen showed him the medal. Anselm simply stared then, quietly whispering to himself, walked away. Stephen stood rooted to the spot. He glanced up at the church. A pall of smoke hung over the sanctuary. Stephen started as a figure, veiled in red, moved swiftly through the murk and was gone. A voice shouted. Anselm walked over and stood staring down at the floor.
‘Magister?’
‘Saint Bernadine of Siena,’ the exorcist declared distractedly. ‘He was a Franciscan. He and his order promoted devotion to Saint Joseph. Ah, well.’ They left the church and cemetery. Stephen was glad to be away. Anselm absent-mindedly remarked how they would meet at The Unicorn then he strode off, lost in his own thoughts.
For the rest of the day Stephen tried hard to distract himself as he worked in the tavern kitchen, assisting the cooks, learning the mysteries of minced chicken relish or spiced capon in a nutted wine sauce. He breathed in the fragrances of poached plaice with mustard or the sweetness of veal and custard pie. Now and again that deep sense of foreboding would close in around him; a choir of ghostly voices chanted their verses. ‘Why must we stand and face the ice storm of hell’s spears? The sword blizzards threaten. The she-wolf presses her paw on the swollen, fatt
ed corpse. Hail stones fall. Cloud pebbles clash against the shield wall.’ Eventually the voices faded and a face with snake-sharp eyes and angry mouth appeared, only to merge into a blaze of burning blue embers. Stephen whispered his prayers and kept to the task in hand.
At last the day finished. Master Robert handed over his tavern to the care of his steward and principal cook. The hour of Vespers was approaching; they had to make ready. Alice appeared in a beautiful gold-spotted gown of Lincoln green with a high-encrusted collar of silver lace, a girdle of gold around her slim waist. She wore blood-red ankle boots with silver buckles on her feet. She had prepared her hair and covered it with the lightest of white lawn veils, adding a little paint to her face. Stephen had never seen such beauty. He called her ‘his fairy princess from the bright grassed lands of the west’. She laughed merrily then clapped her hands as her father appeared resplendent in a russet cotehardie with a matching cloak. Anselm arrived, angular, ascetic and distracted. They made their farewells to the leaping Marisa and walked the short distance to Beauchamp’s fine house, standing in its own high walled courtyard. Cutwolf, all sardonic, welcomed them into the plain but sweet-smelling entrance hall and led them through the house, down the paved passageway, past rooms closed and locked and into the courtyard, which overlooked a splendid garden bounded on all three sides by a high, red brick wall.
