An Ancient Evil (Canterbury Tales Mysteries)

by Paul Doherty

  Sir Godfrey pointed to the table, the steaming cauldron and the poor people thronging about it. ‘Like yourself, Father Andrew.’

  ‘It’s the least we can do,’ the priest replied. ‘So many people come to Oxford. The price of a bed or a loaf of bread would tax even the wealthy. It’s good to use the revenues of the Church for such matters.’

  Sir Godfrey nodded. He had seen such sights before, wandering labourers, poor students, even entire families. He recalled the debates at the great council held by the king last Easter; how the roads were being thronged as the lords used their fields and arable pastures to grow sheep and grow fat on the profits of wool while the poor were turned out of their homes. The exorcist, who had smelt the savoury odours from the cooking pot, pushed her palfrey forward.

  ‘You do good for the body, sir priest. But I hear no bell for mass or the creak of anyone going through your door.’

  Father Andrew laughed.

  ‘Domina, you can see as well as any person with keen eyesight. The church is barred because the roof inside has grown weak, the beams are cracking.’ Father Andrew laughed again. ‘I know the Church is supposed to be the gate of heaven but we should not take that too literally.’

  They laughed at the priest’s sally, made their farewells and continued along the streets, across the drawbridge and up into the castle. Servants took their horses and a busy-eyed steward led them up to a comfortable solar on the second floor where Sir Oswald Beauchamp and the lanky, dark-faced proctor, Nicholas Ormiston, were waiting for them. Introductions were made and pleasantries exchanged as a servant took round a tray of goblets of sweet white wine and a plate of figs dried and sugared. As they all sat around the small table in the far corner of the solar, Alexander seized the initiative.

  ‘Sir Oswald, you are a descendant of the Mortimers, of the lord who first challenged and destroyed the Strigoi?’

  Sir Oswald shuffled his feet and stared down to hide his embarrassment.

  ‘It’s something I don’t like to mention,’ he muttered. ‘My mother was the last of the Mortimers and she was only too pleased to take my father’s name.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on Sir Oswald,’ the proctor intervened. ‘Were you also told, master clerk, that I, too, am a relative of the Mortimers?’ He grinned sideways at the sheriff. ‘Albeit the link is a weak one.’

  Dame Edith just sat listening attentively, her head slightly cocked to one side. Alexander glanced at her in puzzlement. She was old and yet young, distant even holy. She could talk like a trooper but had a sharp practical mind. Father Andrew was right, she could see better than even the most sharp-eyed. The exorcist turned to Alexander and smiled. The clerk noticed how white and even her teeth were.

  ‘I am listening, master clerk, and I am fascinated. Tell me, Sir Oswald, did your family have any legends about the Strigoi?’

  Beauchamp shrugged. ‘Nothing was written down,’ he replied slowly. ‘Just legends and folklore passed by mouth from one generation to the next. Sir Hugo was seen as a great champion of both Crown and Church.’

  ‘Where is he buried?’ Dame Edith asked.

  ‘He was of Norman blood and owned lands on both sides of the Channel. He lies buried under the high altar at Caen in Normandy.’

  Dame Edith whispered something under her breath. Alexander was sure it was ‘Then at least he’s safe’.

  ‘What other legends were passed down?’ Dame Edith abruptly asked.

  Sir Oswald leaned his elbows on the chair and stared up at the heavy-beamed roof, his embarrassment apparent to all.

  ‘There wasn’t much,’ he replied haltingly. ‘More like a nightmare you can only faintly remember. Oh, we knew about the legends of the Strigoi and Hugo’s destruction of his tower. Sometimes the stories were just rejected as legends but at other times there was a feeling of unease that the Strigoi curse might return to take its vengeance.’

  ‘There is one story.’ The proctor spoke up, looking quizzically at his distant kinsman. ‘You remember, Sir Oswald?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ The sheriff closed his eyes, chewing his lip as he tried to remember. ‘An old saying in the Mortimer family,’ he murmured. ‘Ah, I remember now, that’s how it goes.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Mortimer, beware when the devil from the old keep comes to the rock near the new keep!’ He shrugged. ‘That’s it!’

  ‘What does it mean?’ Alexander asked.

  The sheriff shrugged. ‘God knows, I’d tell you if I did.’

  The exorcist had now turned in the direction of the proctor as if studying him intently.

  ‘You, sir, you are a Doctor of Theology?’

  ‘Yes, domina.’

  ‘Skilled in philosophy and logic?’

  Ormiston laughed like a young boy. ‘Well, so they say. I have those who praise me and others who criticize me. There is a great deal of learning at Oxford but very little charity. Why do you ask?’

  Now the exorcist smiled. ‘You must find it hard to believe in devils and Strigoi, people who shift their shape and feast on human blood.’

  Ormiston shook his head. ‘When I was younger, yes,’ he replied slowly. ‘But I believe in the powers of darkness. Go out into the countryside, domina, you’ll find those going to church on Sunday who, the night before, have danced in moonlit glades offering sacrifice to Cernunnos, the horned god.’ Ormiston shifted on his seat. ‘Three years ago, in this very city, I presided at the trial of a student who had fashioned an image of a rival from the fat of a hanged man then scored it with pins.’

  ‘Such things are common,’ Alexander jibed.

  Ormiston looked bleakly at the clerk.

  ‘Oh, no, he wasn’t tried for that. What the court wanted to know was why the image’s legs were broken on the very morning, master clerk, when his rival’s legs were crushed by a cart in Carfax.’

  The proctor leaned forward. He pushed his face towards the exorcist as if he believed she could really see from behind her blindfold.

  ‘Oh, I believe in evil, Dame Edith. Satan can walk the alleys of Oxford as he can any moonlit glade.’

  Dame Edith now looked straight at Beauchamp.

  ‘Do you have doubts, Sir Oswald?’

  The sheriff squirmed in embarrassment. ‘Dame Edith, I am an officer of the crown. I hunt down outlaws. I trap felons and hang murderers. I don’t know what you mean by Strigoi, devil-worshippers.’ His hands flailed out. ‘To me they are just filthy murderers.’

  Alexander stared obliquely at the exorcist. He, too, had the same doubts as the sheriff and was intrigued that the knight, his more practical companion, had not questioned what the exorcist had told them the previous evening.

  ‘All I can say,’ Dame Edith replied, ‘is that we do deal with murderers but, whether you believe it or not, they act on the authority of higher, darker powers. They believe that human sacrifice and the drinking of human blood strengthens their cause. These are the Strigoi, shape-shifters, what others would call vampires.’

  Sir Oswald got to his feet.

  ‘Well, whatever they are,’ he muttered, ‘they have killed again. You’d best come and see.’

  And, taking two of the sconce torches from the wall, he gave one to Sir Godfrey and, with Dame Edith resting on Alexander’s arm, he led them out of the solar down a narrow, spiral staircase and into the cellars of the castle.

  Chapter 5

  The sheriff dismissed the two soldiers on guard outside the rusting dungeon door. He inserted a key and led them into the high-ceilinged, fetid cell. The place had been swept clean; two oblong boxes lay next to each other on the flag-stoned floor. Dame Edith whimpered and stayed near the door; Alexander caught her sense of dread. The sheriff, turning his face away, pulled back the lids of the two makeshift coffins. The human remains in each were disgusting. Ormiston immediately left the cell. Alexander closed his eyes, trying hard to control his stomach. Sir Godfrey pushed forward and stared down. The girl’s throat looked as if it had been bitten out, her body drained of every drop of blood. She l
ooked grey and ghastly in the flickering torch-light. The man had been mutilated beyond belief; his throat, too, had been slit but his body bore strange marks, crude carvings in the flesh, as if someone had tried to sculpt the antlers of a deer on his chest and arms.

  ‘We’ve seen enough,’ Sir Oswald muttered. ‘For God’s sake, man!’

  Sir Godfrey simply stared. He’d seen worse in the ditches and battlefields of Normandy but this was different. He had no difficulty in accepting what Dame Edith had said. He’d met evil before, in all its forms, but this was something new – a purposeful, deliberate malice, murder carried out in the name of some ancient rite.

  ‘Close them up!’ Sir Godfrey ordered. He stared at Alexander’s white face. ‘Not here,’ he said. ‘We can’t talk here.’

  Sir Oswald had the dungeon locked and took them back to the solar, where he testily ordered a servant to fill their goblets.

  Ormiston and Alexander looked as if they wished to retch. Sir Oswald’s hand shook as he handed out the wine cups. Dame Edith sat as if carved out of stone, her lips, thin and bloodless, pressed tightly together.

  ‘What makes you think the two we have just seen were murdered like the rest?’ Alexander asked. ‘I take it they were not found in the city?’

  ‘No,’ the sheriff replied, ‘in the woods to the north. The girl was found near a ford. The same party of hunters discovered the soldier’s body placed like an animal’s carcass in the branches of an oak tree.’

  ‘Is there anything special about the places where they were found?’ Sir Godfrey asked.

  ‘The ford is used by many people, but the glade? Well, there are legends that it was once used by pagan priests, long before the Romans came.’

  ‘So, how did the hunters find it?’

  ‘They didn’t, their dogs did. They caught the smell of blood and led them straight to it.’

  ‘You say he was a soldier,’ Alexander commented. ‘The man was as naked as the day he was born. Did you know him, Sir Oswald?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ the sheriff replied, leaning back in his chair, ‘or, at least, I think I did. He came to the castle here and gave his name as Reginald Bouilang. He was wandering the countryside, offering his sword to the highest bidder. He claimed to have served in the retinue of some great lord in France. I offered him a bed and the normal wage of a serjeant and he accepted.’ Beauchamp shrugged and looked at the knight. ‘You know the sort, Sir Godfrey? The roads and lanes are full of them. They go from castle to castle offering their services. He seemed able enough, quiet and industrious. He mingled with the rest of the garrison as if he had been born here and they never gave him a second thought. Yesterday he was sent to one of the millers in the local village to find the price of corn and flour.’

  ‘You said you thought you knew him?’ Sir Godfrey intervened.

  ‘Yes, yes, I did.’ The sheriff plucked a small scroll of parchment from his wallet. ‘At about the same time as his corpse was brought back here with that of the girl, I received this proclamation from the sheriff of London about an outlaw, Jean Mabille.’ He waved the parchment. ‘According to this Mabille was a serjeant in the Hospitaller order based at Clerkenwell just outside London. He apparently absconded from there with a purse of gold and, more importantly, a precious reliquary containing a piece of the true cross. The description of Mabille fits that of the dead Bouilang.’

  Sir Godfrey sighed and slumped back in his chair.

  ‘I suppose you’ve searched the man’s possessions?’ Alexander asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have and it didn’t take long. A battered saddle bag full of bric-à-brac, a change of clothing, two stilettos and an empty purse – but no gold or reliquary.’

  ‘Could he have hidden them anywhere?’

  Sir Oswald shook his head. ‘I have thought of that. No one saw the dead man act suspiciously and I have searched the castle myself. I know every brick of this place. He could have buried them anywhere: in a field or beneath some tree in the forest.’ The sheriff threw the piece of parchment on the table. ‘I’ll write back and tell them that Ivlabille’s dead and the gold and reliquary have disappeared.’

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ Dame Edith raised one white hand. She leaned forward. ‘We have two deaths here. The girl was taken near a ford. Has that ever happened before, Sir Oswald?’

  ‘No, never. All the deaths have occurred within the city.’

  ‘But the soldier,’ Dame Edith continued, ‘was not only murdered outside the city but used as a victim in some sort of sacrifice.’ She paused, lacing her fingers together.

  ‘What are you implying, Dame Edith?’ Alexander asked.

  ‘Oh, clerk, use your logic. First, none of these murders has occurred beyond the city walls and, yet, now we have two. Secondly, a soldier who has stolen a precious relic – and I suspect the relic is genuine, not one of those traded by pardoners up and down the kingdom – is killed in the same wood as the girl. Thirdly, he was a fighting man, he would not have given up his life cheaply. Ergo, I believe the soldier was ambushed; these Strigoi, these murderers, were waiting for him. The poor girl was just unfortunate. She wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Do you think the soldier was killed for the reliquary?’

  Dame Edith laughed sourly and shook her head.

  ‘These Strigoi would be frightened of such a relic, as they are of the sacrament. Oh no, if the soldier had had it on his person he would have been safe. They would never have approached him. I think that, somehow or other, this soldier, and the reliquary he carried, caused grave inconvenience and distress to these murderers and they punished him with death.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know why, how or when. But we should find out where the poor man hid the reliquary and that might lead us to his murderers. Sir Oswald, do you have any clue?’

  ‘One thing,’ the sheriff replied. ‘Mabille slept in the guard house with a number of others. As I said, his possessions were few and I have been through them. But, above his pallet bed, he had scrawled some words on the wall as if to remind himself. “Le chevalier outre mer”, the knight from across the sea.’ Sir Oswald shrugged. ‘But, what it means is a mystery. Now . . .’

  He rose, went to the door and whispered to the captain of the guard and then came back.

  ‘I have one final thing to show you,’ he declared, ‘the imprisoned clerk, a Brabanter called Lascalle. He was the student found near the house when those women were massacred. He was covered in blood but protests that all he is guilty of was drinking too much ale in the Sparrow’s Heart tavern.’

  ‘And what do you think, Sir Oswald?’ the knight asked.

  ‘I have been to Lascalle’s hall,’ the proctor interrupted. ‘He is not the most industrious scholar in Oxford. He is a toper, a roaring boy who neglects his studies and is more often drunk than he is sober. He hails from Dordrecht and enjoys the patronage of one of the queen’s knights, but he lives a conventional life, nothing remarkable.’

  ‘He should hang!’ Sir Oswald snapped. ‘He cannot remember anything. He was found near the house, his dagger was missing and he was covered in blood.’

  ‘Sir Oswald, as sheriff you have no authority over him,’ the proctor insisted. ‘He should either be tried by the university or by the Church. He is a clerk in minor orders.’

  The sheriff made a rude noise with his mouth but Alexander could see he was not prepared to push matters further. In any case, the conversation ended when the door was flung open and two guards pushed the hapless Lascalle, his ankles and wrists loaded down with chains, into the room.

  He was not a pretty sight. His florid, wart-covered face was unshaven and dirty, his eyes were red-rimmed through lack of sleep and his hair, smeared with mud, was dishevelled and spiky. His tattered gown still carried blood-stains mingled with his own vomit and the dirt of much of the dungeon he had lain in. He stared speechlessly at the sheriff’s grim face and fell to his knees, arms clasped, as he whimpered for mercy in a patois Alexander found difficult to underst
and.

  ‘You can speak English!’ Ormiston insisted. ‘Master Lascalle, you stand accused of the most horrible murders.’

  ‘Innocent I am!’ the clerk wailed. ‘Innocent I am! I will take any oath! I will purge my innocence!’

  Alexander got up, stood over the prisoner and grasped him by the elbow.

  ‘Courage!’ he whispered. ‘For God’s sake, man, get on your feet and answer the questions.’

  ‘This is my court!’ the sheriff snapped.

  ‘No, it is not,’ Sir Godfrey quietly intervened. ‘We hold the king’s commission in this matter.’

  When Lascalle heard this he began to shake and would have fallen on his knees again if Alexander, wrinkling his nose at the foul stench of the man’s body, hadn’t held him firmly by the arm. Sir Godfrey got to his feet and poked Lascalle in the chest.

  ‘I will listen to you,’ he said softly. ‘You will tell me the truth and, at the end, if I believe you are innocent, you might walk from this castle a free man. If you lie? Well, I couldn’t care if you were related to all the cardinals in Rome, you’ll hang from the castle walls.’ He seized the man’s unshaven chin between his fingers and squeezed it gently. ‘Now, the truth!’

  Lascalle drew in a deep breath. ‘Two nights ago, I went to the Sparrow’s Heart tavern. There’s a servant wench there, Roseanna, who likes young students.’ Lascalle licked his lips. ‘Free with her favours she is. But that night she would have nothing to do with me – one of your young lords was passing through Oxford. So I sat by myself and began to drink. I was joined by another student, very well dressed he was, with a purse full of silver, and one pot of ale followed another. I remember going outside, vomiting in the cesspit and coming back for more.’ His voice faltered.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘The next minute I was being kicked in my ribs by the watch, dragged to my feet, my hands bound. I was slung into the Bocardo and accused of some murder. God knows why! My dagger’s gone.’ Lascalle blinked and stared round. ‘I never killed anyone,’ he whimpered. ‘As God is my witness, I don’t know where this blood came from!’