A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Good deal to be said, if you ask me,’ another man retorted. ‘She’s been ripped to pieces, bones gnawed like she was a roasted sheep.’ He stared over his shoulder at the impenetrable black tide that lapped around the camp. ‘Whoever did this is still out there. Could take any of us next.’

  ‘Hounds gone wild, I reckon,’ a woman told him. ‘Masters have died or driven them out to fend for themselves ’cause they’ve not got scraps enough to feed them. Dogs start roaming in packs and they get so crazed with hunger they’ll hunt down anything that moves. I’ve heard them howling many a night.’

  ‘And there’s men gone wild too,’ another tinner said, raising his head as he crouched by the fire. ‘I heard tell of a family, ten of them, maybe more, used to lie in wait for lone travellers, picked them off one at a time, dragged them to their cave and killed them. Whole family would feast on the corpses. Didn’t even bother to cook them, liked their meat raw. When the sheriff’s men hunted them down, they found a heap of human bones and skulls in the back of the cave. Hanged the lot of them, they did, even the children who were barely old enough to walk because they’d have grown up to do the self-same thing. No cure, there isn’t, not once they get a taste for human flesh. It’s like when a dog’s taken to savaging sheep.’

  His gaze crept towards the corpse slung over the horse, then darted back to the safety of the fire. ‘I reckon that’s what we got ourselves up on the moor, a nest of those corpse-eaters. I saw the marks on that body and I’d swear on the devil’s arse and the Holy Virgin both that they weren’t dog bites.’

  There was a rumble of voices, some agreeing, others telling him he was talking out of his backside.

  ‘Either way, the tinners’ court can’t handle this,’ the stoker from the blowing-house said, raising his voice above the rest. ‘Even they’ve not got the powers to deal with murder. Coroner will have to be fetched, and if he reckons there’s men in these parts feeding off human flesh, he’ll call in the sheriff and roust men-at-arms to smoke them out.’

  ‘No cause to go involving them.’

  Heads jerked round as Gleedy slithered out from the shadows beside a hut. As if he’d dragged it with him, a vicious gust of wind tore across the fires, flattening the flames and biting deep into wet skin. The tinners shuffled uneasily. How long had he been standing there?

  ‘That’s Eva we found,’ the stoker said, getting to his feet. ‘And if someone’s murdered the poor mare, we want to see them hanged for it.’

  One of Gleedy’s eyes flicked towards the horse and its burden. His face was drawn and haggard in the firelight, as if he’d not slept. ‘So long as they hang the right man, but those coroners aren’t bothered about that. Fat and lazy as hogs in a mudbath, they are. Just want to collect as many fines as they can for the King’s coffers. The more they collect, the more they can cream off.’

  ‘That’s the pot calling the pan burned-arse, if ever I heard it,’ a woman whispered in my ear.

  Gleedy gazed around at the faces, gaunt as skulls in the firelight. ‘And if I go sending for the coroner, it’ll be you and your families that’ll suffer, and I’ll not let that happen. Eva cooked for you and she’d never see any man starve even when he had naught. She’d not want to bring down trouble on your heads. We all know who it was, who did this. I warned Eva time and again only to use food from my store, but she would insist on foraging. You all know she was a bondswoman. I warned her that there’s hirelings combing every inch of these moors with their hounds for runaway serfs and villeins to drag them back to their masters for a heavy purse. I reckon she got caught by one.’

  Gleedy jerked his head at the woman who’d spoken of the wild dogs. ‘Those are the hounds you hear baying. Those serf-hunters are watching this valley night and day for the chance to snatch back any runaway who strays beyond it. And they think it great sport to set their hounds on any poor wretch whose only crime is to want to live free. They enjoy watching them ripped to pieces, just like their masters love to see a hind’s throat torn out by their dogs.’

  I stared at the limp bundle hanging from the horse. So, Eva had been on the run from her master, just like Todde and, like him, she’d dared not leave the protection of the tinners. So why had she gone out there yesterday?

  I glanced at Todde. He was staring fearfully at the moor, doubtless wondering if a hunter out there was lying in wait to run him back tied to a horse’s tail, battered and bruised, then deposit him, more dead than alive, at his lord’s feet. Had Eva, too, stolen from her master? Was that why they’d hunted her down, or had the lord of the manor merely wanted her returned to make an example of her to deter others from following?

  ‘All the same,’ the stoker said, ‘bondswoman or not, if murder’s been done the sheriff ought to be summoned. Even a serf can’t be done to death without a fair trial.’

  Gleedy shook his head gravely. ‘I want poor Eva’s killer brought to justice as much as any man here. If I could lay my hands on the bastard who did this to that good woman, I’d string him up myself by his cods. But you all know, same as I do, that the sheriff will not risk losing his office by pointing the finger at any lord or his hirelings. Those coroners and sheriffs all have good parcels of land, and you know how jealous the landowners are of the tinners’ rights. They’ll not go looking for anyone else, my friends, ’cause a chance like this is what they’ve all been waiting for. Eva was working here, they’ll say, so it must have been a tinner that killed her and dumped her body on the moor, hoping the birds would peck it clean. The sheriff will arrest any man in this valley who can’t prove he was in plain sight of others every moment of yesterday afternoon – anyone who slipped away to shit, anyone going to fetch a tool or a swallow of ale. I know how they reason. He’ll hang the tinner, drive his woman and children on to the moors to starve, and announce justice has been done.’

  The men were glancing anxiously at each other. There must have been at least a few moments that day when they’d vanished from sight behind a spoil heap or were crouching down in the ditch scraping up the last handful of gravel.

  Gleedy stared pointedly round us all. ‘And there’s a few among us I reckon wouldn’t relish being examined too closely by any coroner or sheriff. Isn’t that right, Toddy?’

  Todde’s eyes blazed in the firelight. ‘Don’t you go accusing me. I was here streaming same as everyone. Isn’t that right, Sorrel?’

  All the faces around the fire turned to me. I tried to speak, but the word wouldn’t come. I stared at Todde and saw fear flash across his face as he suddenly remembered I hadn’t been in the valley when Eva had gone missing.

  Gleedy grinned, his swarm of teeth glistening, like maggots, in the firelight. ‘Think how the justices will see it. Most tinners in the camp have their womenfolk with them to warm their cods. But Sorrel told me, the first day she arrived, that you weren’t her man, quite adamant she was, as I recall. But the justices, they’ll look at you and say, “Here’s a fellow has needs, just like us, and if the woman he’s with won’t satisfy those needs, well, he’s bound to get roused up.” They’ll say you forced yourself on Eva and killed her to stop her telling. There’s plenty here will swear to it that they saw you attack me in the warehouse for no good reason. You’ve a hot temper on you.’

  ‘I never laid a hand on her, you dogshit!’ Todde launched himself towards Gleedy, fists flailing. But Gleedy had already stepped swiftly back behind the fire. Three of the tinners grabbed Todde, wrestling him away.

  Gleedy held up his hands. ‘Course you didn’t,’ he cooed, his tone as soothing and slippery as butter. ‘We all know that. It was the men hunting runaways, like I said. But I’m just telling you how a sheriff would reason it.’

  I saw looks passing between some of the women and glanced at Todde, uneasy now. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the chilling thought.

  He was still struggling in the clutches of the men who held him, but the fight had drained out of him and he looked as if he might collapse if they let him go. The men
sensed it too, for they lowered him to the ground, where he sat, head in hands, rocking and groaning.

  The men and women had all fallen silent. They sat round the fires hunched, withdrawn into their own thoughts, while the shadow of the corpse on the horse’s back moved restlessly over them as the beast shifted.

  In the wall behind Eva’s fire, vipers’ heads were appearing, swaying back and forth, their eyes glittering, their forked tongues slithering in and out between their fangs, tasting the chill night air. Then, far out in the great lake of darkness, a hunting horn sounded, vibrating across the hills, and at once came the howls of a great pack of hounds as they took up the cry to seek and kill.

  Chapter 30

  Prioress Johanne

  ‘Tinners.’ Sister Clarice flung the charge across our supper table. ‘That’s who’s to blame for our well turning red. They’re damming every river and stream and building their leats right across this moor. Not to mention pouring the filth from their workings straight into the water that the villagers use downstream. It’s a wonder they haven’t poisoned every man and beast for miles. Some of those streams coming from their workings are so thick with mud and silt you could walk dry-shod across them.’

  ‘For once, I find myself obliged to agree with you, Sister Clarice,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ve seen it myself. The water spewing from those workings is much the same colour as that oozing from the spring.’

  He laid aside the beef bone he’d been digging into with his spoon, finally forced to concede there was not a shred of marrow left inside it, and was reaching for the last bone on the platter, which had been placed between him and Alban. But Alban’s fingers were nimbler, even though he had lost the two on his right hand, and he snatched it up. Nicholas glowered at him.

  ‘But it’s a holy well,’ Sister Basilia protested. ‘A healing well. The water is miraculous, pure. It gushes from the rock. It doesn’t come from any of those rivers on the moor.’

  Nicholas snorted, staring pointedly at the marrow bone Alban was burrowing into. I suspected the sergeant was well aware of the knight’s hostile glances, and was taking a childish and somewhat malicious pleasure in having beaten his superior to the prize. Nicholas dragged his attention back to Basilia.

  ‘Your holy water comes from the moors. Even you can’t be so naïve as to think it flows from solid rock.’

  Basilia flushed and stared down at her trencher. I knew I should have intervened, but in truth I was relieved that at least this discussion seemed to be silencing Sister Fina. These past few days, I never knew what wild words would suddenly burst from her. It wasn’t so bad when we sisters were alone, but whenever Brother Nicholas was within earshot, I felt as if I was trying to stamp out sparks blowing across a field of dry corn, knowing that he was listening for the smallest thing he could use to destroy us. But for the moment, happily, he had launched into one of his many gory tales of the Citramer to prove his point to poor Basilia.

  ‘Some years back, I found myself part of an army laying siege to a Turkish citadel. An old man had attached himself to us and sold us information, for he knew the area well. He’d been captured in his youth and forced to become a Mussulman upon pain of death, but he’d always borne a hatred for them. He was willing to work for us, though he was crafty enough to make sure he was paid first. Anyway, this citadel of theirs had plenty of wells inside and well-stocked food stores. And they taunted us each day that we’d run out of supplies before they did, even waved their meats and bread at us from the battlements.

  ‘But this wily old serpent sidled up to our commander and told him to send men out into the countryside to find some pigs, slaughter them and leave the carcasses to bloat in the sun for a couple of days. The soldiers cursed him with every foul plague they could think of. They craved fresh meat and thought it a wicked waste.’

  Nicholas glared at Alban again, who was chewing a lump of beef, apparently paying no heed to his lecture.

  ‘The commander even had to set a guard over the pigs to stop his men sneaking in and stealing a leg or two, and the guards were even more incensed when the carcasses began to rot. They were having to stand next to the putrid stench. But when the pigs were good and ripe, the old man told us to wedge them in a particular river where the water would wash over them. None of us could see what good that would do, except add to the stink and flies, but a day or so later everyone in the citadel was vomiting and sweating in agony. The poisoned water from the stream had somehow flowed into their wells.’ He raised his hand as Basilia seemed on the point of interrupting again. ‘You can call that another miracle if you want – the Turks probably called it a curse – but years ago, someone told me that all the streams, springs and pools in the world rise up from one vast lake deep beneath the earth.’

  Fina raised her head, glowering at Nicholas as if he had grossly offended her. ‘Hell lies beneath the earth, deserts of fire and vast howling whirlwinds where thieves spin for ever in the darkness,’ she said, like a child reciting a lesson.

  Nicholas frowned, evidently wondering if we’d missed the point of his story. But the word thieves sent a shiver of danger down my spine. Why had she selected that particular sin?

  I rapped sharply on the table, trying to divert her. ‘The water in the courtyard well still runs pure and clear,’ I said, with as much cheer as I could muster. ‘And one blessing of this rain is that it is even higher than usual. So, we shall certainly not want for water. We must give thanks for that.’

  Basilia beamed at everyone, nodding so vigorously that her chins wobbled like a calf’s foot jelly.

  But Nicholas glared at me. ‘And if this filth seeps into the well in the courtyard?’

  ‘We have cisterns and barrels that are filled only with rainwater. They cannot be polluted.’

  Nicholas let out a snort of derision. ‘Even on this accursed moor, it cannot rain for ever. You must bend your neck, Prioress, and send word to the Lord Prior to ask for the knights to ride to our aid. It is only a matter of time before our cattle and sheep are poisoned and those of our tenants. We have a duty to protect them and, besides, it is in our interest to do so. How will they pay their rents if they have starved to death?’

  The eyes of every sister were fixed on me and they all seemed to be holding their breath. Even Alban had stopped eating.

  I laid down my knife and fastened my gaze on Nicholas. ‘I assure you that I am fully aware of my duties both to my tenants and to my order. I trust no one will ever have cause to say I have neglected either. I thank you for your concern, Brother Nicholas, but if you imagine that the tinners will be frightened off by a band of knights, you are much mistaken. They are tough men, not armed with swords, I grant you, but more than capable of cutting down a horse and rider with such implements as they can weld. They will fight and they have the law on their side.’

  A candle, guttering on a spike on the wall behind Nicholas, threw his face into deep shadow, but I did not need to read his expression to know the fury that was written there.

  ‘As you yourself have already so eloquently pointed out to me, the tinners are answerable only to King Edward. They live and work under his protection. The Lord Prior is not an imprudent man. And, as you have also told me, Brother Nicholas, he is anxious not to give the King any reason to act against our order. I am sure Lord William is wise enough to realise that, should the tinners send word to the King that a group of heavily armed Hospitaller knights had ridden down upon a camp of defenceless men, women and children lawfully engaged in the King’s business, injuring, if not killing, many, he would take that as an act of war against the Crown.’

  ‘Defenceless!’ Nicholas exploded. ‘They are terrorising the villagers.’

  ‘Even a king may be caught in a snare of words, if they are well twisted, especially if they are delivered by a limping old man and a child with a bandaged head, which you may be quite certain they would be. Besides, the King needs tin and he needs the taxes from it. He does not need the Knights of St John.’


  My chair scraped back on the stone floor as I rose. The sisters hastily scrambled to their feet and it gave me not a little satisfaction to observe that Nicholas and Alban, who shared their benches, were obliged to stand too, as they were pushed back.

  ‘There are those among us who feared that the frogs and the flies meant the end of our holy well, but those plagues passed. The spring will soon cease to flow red, of that I am certain. Have faith, sisters, and pray. This is but another test of our courage.’

  I guessed that Clarice would follow me to my chamber, but I was in no mood for her talk of falling revenues. I hurried across the darkened courtyard, pausing only to listen outside the casement of the infirmary for any sounds that might tell me Sebastian was distressed. Mercifully all seemed quiet. I unlocked the chapel door and slipped inside, pulling the wooden bolt into place behind me. I did not light the candles. I did not want anyone to know I was there. I craved just a few moments of peace and solitude. I knelt before the altar, bunching my robe beneath my knees to cushion them against the cold, hard flagstones. The bowed head of the crucified Christ, hanging above me, glowed beneath a halo of soft light shining down from the oil lamp above.

  How long could I contain Nicholas? I truly believed what I had told him that declaring war on the tinners would bring more danger and call down the King’s wrath. That was always the trouble with men. They thought every problem and vexation in the world could simply be put to flight by the point of a sword.

  But was Nicholas really so foolish? He knew we were deceiving Clerkenwell, although I was certain he had no real proof yet. Otherwise he would have acted. He was arrogant, and he was no bookkeeper, that much was evident, but he wasn’t stupid. The more we thwarted him, the deeper he would dig. As the proverb says, ‘Suspicion has double eyes.’ But if he started a feud between the priory and the tinners, he would not need to prove his case to finish us. I had to prevent any report of his from leaving the priory.