Hill of Bones

ACT THREE

Brean, Somerset, Good Friday, 1453

Old Joan found the first corpse just before dawn or, to be more accurate, she fell over it and banged her knee hard on a sharp rock jutting out of the sand. She cursed loudly as she massaged the bruise, but she could not afford to indulge her pain for long. Distant voices, carried towards her on the salt breeze, compelled her to focus her attention on the man lying on the beach.

There was no question that he was dead. His bulging eyes were open and glassy, staring sightless up at the ghost of the moon. Strands of wet grey hair clung to his forehead and a crust of salt was already beginning to frost the stubble on his grizzled chin. Wincing, Joan crouched down on the damp sand. She slid her hand over the stranger’s fish-cold face and closed his eyes.

She crossed herself, muttering a swift prayer to St Nicholas, patron saint of sailors, and Our Lady of the Sea, for them to have mercy on this stranger’s soul. Then, in less time than it takes to say a ‘Paternoster’, Joan ran her callused fingers over the body of the corpse and stripped it of what few items of value she could find – an enamel amulet in the form of a blue eye, a small leather bag containing a couple of silver coins and a belt with a broad brass buckle. Painfully, the old woman struggled to her feet and moved on, searching for another corpse or, if she was lucky, a barrel or chest she could prise open.

She knew there would be other bodies. Last night there had been a storm. Seeing the purple clouds massing, all the local boatmen had beached their little fishing boats high up on the shore long before nightfall. But when the villagers left the church of St Bridget, after the vigil for the Eve of Good Friday, they spotted the lanterns of a ship rising and falling in the darkness far out in the bay. They stood silently huddled against the wind, watching the ship being driven relentlessly towards the cliffs of Brean Down at the far end of the sands. They saw the wind rip her sails into rags and her back break on the rocks. Then, as one, the villagers crossed themselves as the foaming waves surged over her decks, dragging men and masts alike down into the thundering depths.

The sailors and fishermen among the villagers – and there were many – shook their heads. The storm was a bad one, to be sure, but it was not so violent as to drive a well-manned ship onto the rocks, not if the sails had been furled in time and the captain had been doing his job. They muttered darkly that the ship was on a doomed voyage, cursed from the outset. Maybe an enemy had hidden a hare’s foot on board, or else a sailor’s daughter had neglected to crush the shell of her boiled egg, but whatever the cause, once the ship was on the rocks there was no saving her, nor any man who sailed on her.

The villagers had gone to their beds then, knowing that neither kegs nor corpses would drift ashore until the tide turned. The priest had remained a while on his knees before the altar, praying for the souls of the men drowning out there, but at the same time he could not help adding a plea to the Blessed Virgin for the ship to be carrying a valuable cargo that might wash ashore, for the church was badly in need of repair.

And so it was that as the rind of the sun crept above the horizon, the shoreline was already crawling with villagers, who, like Joan, were searching for anything of value they could salvage from the stricken ship and drowned men. They worked in haste, not only to beat their neighbours to the treasures that might be strewn along the sand, but also because they knew only too well the penalties of getting caught.

Anything washed up on the shoreline belonged to King Henry, a milksop of a king, they all agreed, who had once vomited so violently at the sight of a traitor’s quartered body, that he gave orders that no such mutilation was to occur again. But a feeble king cannot control his own officers, and the local sheriff interpreted the law exactly as he pleased, inflicting cruel punishment on anyone who deprived him of spoils that would otherwise mysteriously disappear into his own coffers. The villagers had learned to spirit away anything they could salvage before the sheriff’s men arrived to search their homes – that was the way of it and had been for generations.

Old Joan was losing ground. Years of beachcombing had lent her fingers skill in searching, but in payment those same years had taken swiftness from her feet and strength from her back. She couldn’t carry off the great barrels like the men, nor run like the girls to be first at a corpse. So, like the gulls, she sidled around the other villagers, her eyes searching for any unfamiliar shape against the distant rocks she knew so well, in the hope of spotting a body lying apart from the others.

Joan was in desperate need of any scrap she could find. First her poor daughter had died in childbirth. Then, within weeks, her grieving son-in-law had been crushed by an overturned wagon, and Joan had suddenly found herself the sole provider for her three grandchildren. And if that was not trouble enough to heap on any old woman’s head, the eldest grandchild, Margaret, had of late been struck down with pains in the guts and frequent vomiting, which no amount of purges or physic could cure. If ever a woman deserved a crumb of good luck in her life, poor old Joan did.

Her attention was caught by a pair of gulls repeatedly diving at something on the water’s edge. She raised her hand to shield her eyes and squinted against the sun dazzling off the sea. There was something drifting out there in the shallows, though it might be nothing more than a splintered plank from the ship. She edged cautiously along the shore, trying to look as if she was still searching the ground at her feet so as not to draw attention to the distant shape. When she was close enough not to be overtaken, even by the young men, she hurried over.

The top of a ship’s mast was floating in the shallow water, rising and falling in the gentle wavelets. The wood had broken off in such a way as to form the shape of a cross. But it was not the shape of the wood that made Joan gasp and stare. The body of a man was stretched out on the mast. The corpse’s feet were bound fast to the down spar with a stout rope. His arms had been stretched out on either side of him, and his wrists were bound equally firmly to the cross spar.

As the old woman stared, a larger wave lifted the wooden mast, pushing it higher up the beach, as if the sea was offering her a gift. She hitched her skirts into her belt and waded into the water. Seizing the top of the spar, where the man’s head lolled, she tried to pull it higher up the sand. It was so heavy that at first she could only drag it an inch or two, but using the force of the next wave to lift it, she finally managed to beach it where it would not easily be pulled back into the sea.

Joan stared down. The eyes of all the other corpses had been opened wide as if desperate for a last glimpse of this world before they entered purgatory. But not this one; his eyes were closed and there was an expression that you might almost have called triumph about those slightly parted lips. He looked to be in his thirties. His hair and beard were long, thick and, beneath the salt shimmer, dark as a mussel shell. With a straight, thin nose and sharp cheekbones, he would have been a striking figure when he lived – not handsome exactly, but with the kind of face that would command a second look.

Her gaze travelled to his hands, bound tightly against the dark wood. They were as soft and elegant as a highborn lady’s. This man was no sailor, that much was plain. She felt her pulse quicken. He must have been a passenger on the ill-fated voyage, a gentleman perhaps, even a noble. What might such a man have concealed beneath his sodden clothes – ingots of silver or gold, a jewel?

She ran her hands over his chest and felt the cord beneath his shirt. She traced it down with her fingertips to the bulge of what felt like a leather pouch. Joan slid her knife from her belt. It would be easier to cut the cloth than to try to drag the pouch up under his clothes.

‘Spare me, I beg you!’

Joan started so violently that her legs shot from under her and she found herself sitting in the shallow icy water.

The man on the cross ran his tongue over parched lips and his voice, when he spoke again, was cracked and hoarse. ‘Almighty God has brought me safe through the storm and raging seas. His curse will be upon you if you harm me now, for I am under His protection.’

Joan could scarcely take in what he was saying for the sheer amazement of his being alive. He turned his head towards her, and now that his eyes were opened she saw that they were a brilliant green, like the first flush of grass in spring.

The bell in the parish church began to toll, calling the villagers to prime. Joan suddenly remembered that this was the morning of Good Friday, the day Christ had hung on the Cross. And now, here, right in front of her, was a man who might have been the statue of Christ sprung to life. With a look of wonderment dawning in her eyes, Joan struggled to her feet. Heedless of her sodden skirts she began to run as fast as her old legs would carry her, stumbling back towards the main beach and the other villagers.

‘A miracle! A miracle. It’s our Lord. He has returned!’

Godfrey pressed his ear closer to the door of the royal chamber where his master, King Henry VI of England, slept, dressed and these days even ate, if you could call the meagre amount he consumed ‘eating’. Godfrey was sure his master was alone, he usually was. Even the Queen seldom entered his chamber and would wait patiently in her own apartments for him to visit her, but those visits too had become less frequent of late. Godfrey, his head hard against the wood, strained to listen. On the King’s orders, he had kept guard outside the door this past hour and had admitted no one. Yet now he could hear voices inside.

Henry had retired to meditate and pray, something he did several times a day, a practice that was growing more frequent, much to the mockery of the Court, but His Majesty was resigned to being interrupted. He would never send his ministers away with an angry word, but that only made them despise him the more. A gentle, meek, forgiving king was no king at all.

The voice was rising inside the chamber, shouting and raging. The words were pouring out too hysterically for Godfrey to distinguish them, but it was Henry’s voice, he was sure it was, though he’d never heard it raised like this.

Godfrey hesitated, his fingers gripping the metal ring of the door handle. Should he enter, despite the King’s orders?

‘No, no, have mercy!’ The voice was shrieking in fear.

Someone was surely threatening the King’s life. An assassin must have crept into the chamber and hidden there, one of Richard of York’s men, maybe even Richard himself. Henry would never offer any resistance if attacked, but even if he tried, his efforts would be as useless as an infant’s, for he refused to practise any form of fighting.

Godfrey snatched his fingers from the handle and backed a few paces away into the shelter of a doorway. If this was an attempt to murder the King, he certainly wasn’t going to prevent it. He shrank into the shadows and waited. But there was no sound of violence coming from the small chamber, no furniture overturning, no one came running out.

Taking a deep breath, Godfrey crept back towards the solid oak door. Someone was still talking, but the tone was low and dull now.

‘Sire, are you in need of assistance?’

He called out to warn of his approach to anyone who might be with the King. He did not want a dagger intended for the royal heart to be plunged into his own.

Receiving no reply, Godfrey turned the handle and made to enter, but the door would not move more than an inch. He put his shoulder to it and shoved; slowly it grated open just far enough for him to look through the gap. The chamber appeared empty save for Henry himself, who was crouched beside his bed, muttering under his breath as if he was praying. The bedcovers were crumpled and half tumbling off the bed. A small wooden table had been wedged against the door. Godfrey gave a violent shove and stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

‘Sire?’

Henry was hugging his long black coat tightly across his chest, like a beggar on a cold winter’s day. He slowly raised his head. His tight black cap, the one he always wore, made him seem more pale and haggard than usual.

‘Shall I fetch the Queen, sire?’ Then seeing the look of incomprehension on Henry’s face, Godfrey added, ‘Margaret, sire, your wife, shall I send for her?’

Henry adored her and when he was in one of his reclusive moods only Margaret could coax him out of his chamber.

‘I saw a face,’ Henry said. He pointed across the chamber.

Godfrey crossed to the casement. On such a bitter day the gardens below were almost deserted, save for two gardeners tidying up the fallen twigs and branches after the storm.

‘Not the window, in there. That!’ Henry gesticulated wildly at an object on the floor just as Godfrey stumbled over it.

He stooped and retrieved it. It was a silver mirror, perfectly circular and about the breadth of a man’s hand. The reflective surface was set in a silver frame gilded with gold and decorated with rubies and pearls. Godfrey knew it well. It had once been a gift from King Richard II of England to Henry’s maternal grandfather, Charles VI of France. Now it belonged to Henry. But normally it rested on a stand.

He peered about. The stand was lying smashed in three pieces in the corner of the room. He glanced at the King, who was staring at the mirror with an expression of horror in his eyes, as if Godfrey was holding up a severed head.

‘Sire, it was just your own face you saw reflected in the mirror. Sometimes if I catch a glimpse of myself unawares, I am startled-’

‘No, no!’ Henry waved his hands agitatedly. ‘It was not my face… it was my grandfather’s face staring out at me.’

‘Some say you favour your grandfather in appearance,’ Godfrey replied cautiously. He could not think what else Henry meant.

‘It was Charles’s face, I tell you… the face of my grandfather, watching me. Look in the mirror. Look! Can’t you see him in there?’

Godfrey struggled to think of a diplomatic answer that would not suggest that he thought his master was a raving lunatic. ‘Sire, a little diversion might dispel these phantasms – some dancing, perhaps, or music. You should not spend so much time alone.’

‘Dancing is a sin, don’t you know that? And it is sin my grandfather is trying to warn me of. I must meditate upon the mirror. I have to pray! I have to pray!’

Godfrey looked down at the object he still held. On the reverse of the mirror was a scene engraved on gilded copper. The figures were set on a background of translucent red enamel and depicted the murder of St Thomas Becket by the knights in Canterbury Cathedral. Godfrey grimaced. Staring at that bloody murder for hours on end was enough to addle anyone’s wits.

‘Majesty, the stand is broken. Shall I not send it to a craftsman to be mended? Then when it’s returned, if the mirror distresses you, you might bestow it as a gift on-’

He staggered backwards as the King leaped to his feet, snatching the mirror from his hands and sending him reeling.

‘I must not let it out of my sight. My grandfather is trapped in that mirror and I must release him. I have to help him, don’t you see? I must help him.’ He clutched the mirror to his chest, rocking back and forth like a child cradling a precious toy.

Then, as if he was awakening from an enchantment, he slowly let the mirror fall upon his bed.

He grasped Godfrey’s arm, his voice now tremulous and his eyes full of fear. ‘Tell me, Godfrey, speak the truth. Is this madness? Is my grandfather’s madness coming upon me at last?’

William broke off a morsel of the bitter salty bread and wiped it around the bottom of the bowl, cleaning up the last juices of the fish stew. Joan’s grandchildren stared bug-eyed at him as if they had never seen a man devour three great bowlfuls before. With a slight twinge of guilt, William wondered if he had just eaten their meal for tomorrow as well as today. But it was only a momentary pang, like the twitch of a wasted limb, for guilt was an emotion William seldom experienced.

He drained his beaker of ale and leaned back in the low narrow bed. The one-roomed cottage stank of fish, wood smoke and what William thought might be dried seaweed, which he suspected was a major ingredient in the strange-tasting bread. The priest had wanted to conduct him to his own house, but one glance at the little man’s patched habit and pinched sallow face had convinced him that Father Jerome ate no better than his parishioners, probably worse. So when Joan had claimed him firmly as her prize and insisted on caring for him, William had graciously agreed, kissing the old woman’s hand with murmurs of gratitude that had made her simper like a virgin maid.

But much to his irritation, Father Jerome had insisted on accompanying him to Joan’s cottage and, having firmly shut the door on the other curious villagers, sat patiently in the only chair watching William eat. Now he cleared his throat with a dry nervous cough and leaned forward.

‘I have known men lash themselves to masts to keep themselves from being washed overboard in a storm and if that mast should break, they have drifted ashore upon it, but… both your hands were tied. A man cannot tie himself like that. For what crime had you been bound up in such a manner by your companions?’

‘What are you saying, Father?’ Joan asked in a scandalised tone. ‘Crime indeed. It was a miracle, Father. A miracle for Holy Easter. God has sent us a saint.’

She glowered at Father Jerome. It had taken a lot of persuasion on his part to convince the old woman that William was not Christ returned, but she was determined not to be done out of a saint.

The priest gnawed anxiously at his lip. ‘I did not mean to accuse… it may be that this man was the victim of pirates who had captured him and bound him as their prisoner. If I am to bury their corpses on the morrow, I must know what manner of men they were and if they should be accorded a Christian burial.’

Father Jerome had presented William with a perfectly reasonable explanation, furthermore one that the priest was bound to accept since he himself had fashioned it. But William had never settled for merely reasonable. When both the priest and the old woman turned to him, the words slid as smoothly as melted butter from his tongue.

‘Father, you are astute indeed. For I was a prisoner of pirates, wicked, godless men, heathens who prey on the innocent.’

Joan’s granddaughter, Margaret, shook her head in disbelief. She had not said a word up to then; now she made up for it with a defiant tilt of her head. ‘But some of them was good Christians, I know, ’cause Anne showed me the crucifixes and rosaries her father had taken from the bodies.’

‘I’ll speak to her family tomorrow,’ Father Jerome said sharply. ‘Such things should have been given over to the Church.’

William noticed the priest did not object to the dead being robbed. But he ignored Father Jerome’s indignation and turned a beatific smile on the annoying little brat.

‘Such pious objects that were found on the men were stolen from the good Christians they robbed and murdered, even…’ and here he shook his head in grief, ‘… even from girls as young as you, and they did worse than steal from those poor girls, far worse.’

Old Joan crossed herself and spat three times on the back of her fingers to ward off such a dreadful fate ever befalling her innocent granddaughter.

‘How then,’ Father Jerome asked, ‘were you spared?’

‘It was as this good woman says, a miracle. I have a gift, a rare gift, of prophecy. I am shown many mysteries, given many warnings of things to come that are denied to other men. It is as if I walk as a seeing man in a world where all others are blind. I saw in a vision how a great storm would rise up and destroy the ship. I warned the pirate captain to put in to port, but he wouldn’t believe me, for there was no hint of cloud in the sky, nor any sign of rough weather approaching. He accused me of trying to spread fear and mutiny amongst his men. When I told them I could plainly see it, he said that if I wanted to see clearly, he would oblige me. He gave orders that I be hauled up to the top of the highest mast and tied up there in the burning sun till I died of thirst. As I hung there they all mocked me, saying to be sure to tell them if I saw a cloud.

‘I saw the storm flying towards me. I saw black hounds with eyes of fire streaming across the sky, howling our deaths, their slavering jaws opened wide to devour us. But I said nothing more, for I give warning but once. Even when they too could see the weather turning the captain refused to lose face and furl the sails, too proud to admit I was right. The first crack of lightning severed the mast and I was cast into the sea, thrown safely away from the rocks upon which the ship foundered, and so upon my holy cross of wood I floated ashore.’

Joan gave a sigh of satisfaction and wonder. Her old eyes gazed upon him with such adoration that William felt a sudden thrill course through him, like the fire that surges through a man’s belly when he stakes all the money he possesses on the single tumble of the dice.

The burial of the sailors’ corpses was a hasty affair, delayed only by the length of time it took for the sexton and his sons to dig a grave large enough to contain all the bodies. They buried them on common ground. Heathen pirates were not to be accorded a good Christian burial. All the same, Father Jerome was uneasy. He only had this stranger’s word for the fact that the men were pirates, but a man who so miraculously survives the waves must be, if not exactly a saint, at least blessed by divine favour, and God would surely not save a liar while He let good Christians perish.

William asked to be shown the bodies that he might forgive the men who had so cruelly wronged him, a gesture of compassion that brought a tear to the eye of many a woman in the village. He walked along the line searching each face carefully. Finally he turned to Martin, the sexton’s youngest son, leaning wearily on his spade.

‘There were more men aboard the ship than this. Where are the other bodies?’

The lad pointed to a mass of gulls circling out over the bay. ‘See those birds flying there where the ship was lost? Those gulls are the souls of the men who drowned and they’ll not leave that spot ’cause they know their bodies are still down there beneath the waves. Not every man who’s lost in these parts washes ashore. Sometimes the current carries them out instead of in, and they pitch up weeks or months later further along the coast. My father reckons if the sea wants them for her own she’ll never give them back.’

William stared at the row of corpses. There was one face he had been desperate to see lying among the dead, but it was not there. He hoped with every fibre of his being that the sexton’s lad was right and that Edgar was lying somewhere at the bottom of the bay. He had to be dead. He must be. No one could have survived that wreck. Yet he himself had survived, hadn’t he?

That Easter Sunday the little church of St Bridget was crammed to the door with villagers celebrating the holy feast and for once they had something to celebrate. There was not a family in Brean who didn’t have some of the spoils from the wreck hidden under their byre floors or concealed in the thatch of their roofs. And when, out of sight of Father Jerome, they’d swum the Easter sun in a pail of water, the reflection had been clear and strong, a good omen for the rest of the year.

Even Father Jerome, worn down by years of battling against poverty, superstition and the cruelty of the sea, felt a little of the old joy returning that he had once felt as a newly ordained priest. But his contentment was short-lived for, as he was in the very act of raising the Holy Chalice before his little flock, Joan’s granddaughter, Margaret, gave a cry of pain and fell to the ground clutching her belly, her face blanched to the colour of milk.

The congregation crowded round, the Mass forgotten in their concern.

One woman prodded the child. ‘Get one of the lads to carry her to my cottage, Joan. I’ve a good strong purge ready.’

As people bent to lift her, Margaret fought and screamed. ‘I won’t drink any purge. It makes it hurt more.’

Joan folded her lips grimly. ‘Now you know fine rightly Martha’s treated every man, woman and child in this village since afore you were born, and her mam afore that. If she’s says a purge is the cure, then it is.’

But Margaret stubbornly resisted every attempt to lift her.

William pushed his way through the crowd. ‘Let me examine the child.’

‘Are you a physician?’ Father Jerome asked.

But William ignored him and, kneeling, took Margaret’s hot little hands in his, stroking them until her fists unclenched. ‘Now look at me, child.’

Reluctantly she opened her eyes and looked into his startlingly green ones. He did not blink and after a few moments, neither did she. He was muttering, softly at first, in a language she did not understand, full of strange guttural noises that seemed more like the warning growl of some wild beast. As his voice grew louder and deeper, his hand pressed down upon her belly. She screamed, arching her back, trying to squirm away. Joan and the priest started forward in alarm, but William waved them back.

In that touch, he had felt all he needed to know. His former master, a physician and alchemist, had taught him well. William had paid scant attention to his books and dusty phials, finding girls and cockfighting far more to his taste; nevertheless, he learned easily, though more by absorption than conscious study, and had acquired a knowledge that sometimes even surprised him. Purges would not cure the child, nor indeed would any physic. She would recover for a while, but the pain would return and one day kill her. There was no cure.

But why tell these simple people that? She might have days, months or, with luck, even longer. Why should the child and her grandmother live in fear and dread of something they could not prevent? And at least he could stop them adding to her misery with these purges that would only hasten her death. Besides, they believed he was a saint, didn’t they? They were expecting a miracle. He could not disappoint them.

He looked round at the anxious faces. ‘The child is possessed. A demon dwells in her belly. It bites and torments her. I must expel it.’

Father Jerome grabbed his arm. ‘I cannot allow this. Only those who are in holy orders-’

William rose and stood towering over the little priest. ‘Have you forgotten the miracle of my saving, on this day of all days? Why do you think I was delivered to your shore? I told you I am the prophet. I have the gift of sight beyond the powers of mortal men and I tell you that if this poor child is not released, the demon will grow inside, tormenting her with pain beyond imagining, feeding on her and growing ever stronger, until it bursts forth to devour the souls of every man, woman and child in this village. Is that what you want, Father? Would you have me abandon her to this foul fiend?’

Margaret was sobbing, trying to crawl across the floor as if she could get away from the creature inside her. Joan was wailing and even Father Jerome was trembling.

‘I must send word at once to the bishop for him to dispatch his exorcist to us.’

Martin, the sexton’s youngest son, elbowed his way through the crowd. ‘And how long will it be afore he comes, Father? Weeks, maybe – that’s if he bothers to come at all. Besides, old Joan can’t afford what the likes of them would charge. Let William try. I reckon that’s why God sent him here.’

The sexton grabbed his son by the arm, cuffing him vigorously several times around the head. ‘How dare you gainsay the priest? Think you know better than your elders and betters, do you?’ He struck the cowering lad again, and would have gone on doing so, had William not caught the sexton’s arm to prevent him.

Father Jerome held up his hands in a gesture of peace. ‘Leave the boy. He means well.’

Joan could bear it no longer. She fell at William’s feet, clutching at his knees and begging him to save her grandchild. Many in the crowd nodded eagerly, and when William turned an enquiring look upon Father Jerome, the little priest gave a resigned shrug. He’d lived long enough in this parish to know that even if he forbade it, the villagers would do it anyway behind his back, just as they stole holy water from the church for their heathen spells however often he denounced such things from the pulpit.

William helped Joan to her feet and calmly bade the crowd to close the shutters of the church. He sent Martin to fetch a lighted candle, which he placed behind the child’s head. Then William commanded all to kneel. He crouched beside little Margaret and ordered her once more to look into his eyes.

The strange words poured out of him again, rising in a crescendo so that his voice reverberated from the walls of the church. He laid his hands on Margaret’s belly, his eyes closed, his head thrown back and sweat bursting from his forehead as if he was wrestling with a ferocious monster. A shriek of unearthly laughter echoed through the church, like the cry of a thousand gulls. At that instant the candle blew out and the church was plunged into darkness.

Father Jerome blundered to the door and, with trembling hands, flung it wide. Most of the villagers, dragging their children, charged out after him as if the devil himself was at their heels. But once safely out in the daylight their panic subsided. They huddled together, clutching their little ones and staring back at the church.

Inside Joan was sobbing and hugging her granddaughter to her, but the child, though pale as the moon, was not crying any more.

‘It’s gone… it doesn’t hurt now,’ she whispered.

William strolled to the church door and, calmly surveying the little crowd, announced, ‘All is well. I have expelled the demon from the child.’

He held out something in his palm. There were gasps of wonder as everyone pressed forward. The creature was tiny to be sure, but they later learned this was because it was a mere infant, a baby demon that would have grown into a monster were it not for William’s skill. For there was no mistaking it was the most unearthly and satanic-looking beast they had ever seen in the flesh, and very like the demons painted on the wall of their own little church. It was grey and wizened. It had no discernible body, only a broad triangular head that tapered into a long arrow-shaped tail, two bulging black eyes and a wide curved mouth full of black needle-sharp teeth.

When the tale was later told, as it was to be many times throughout the long winters in those parts, some of the villagers swore they had seen the demon twitching, others said that it was lashing in fury. But the truth was they barely had time to glimpse anything at all for just as deftly as William revealed it, so he slid it into a small stone flask and rammed the stopper home.

‘I will bury the demon in the bed of the next river I come to,’ William declared. ‘Evil spirits cannot escape from running water.’

The villagers were no fools. They were as sharp as scythe blades when bargaining in the market place and were not the sort to waste their precious coins on betting which cup the pea was under, or buying elixirs from passing pedlars who promised immortality. But even the oldest among them had never heard tell of a man so strangely saved from a storm, and now they had seen with their own eyes one of their own children delivered from a demon, and by this same stranger.

So William ate his fill that night, for the good people of Brean were determined to lavish whatever they had on this man from the sea. And as he ate, he talked. He was good at talking.

The following morning William was rudely torn from his sleep by a malicious cockerel, which had perched itself right outside the small window above his bed, and was announcing the coming dawn with such raucous insistence that even a deaf man would have felt the vibration of it. William peered blearily over at Joan and her grandchildren who lay, wrapped together under the same blanket, by the embers of the fire, but none of them stirred. Thoroughly awake now, William pulled on his clothes and slipped from the cottage to relieve himself outside. If he could catch that wretched bird, he’d wring its scrawny neck, or at least drive it off where a fox might take it.

Outside the tiny cottage it was as yet barely light enough to see where he was walking. If the sun had indeed struggled over the horizon, it was well concealed beneath a thick fleece of grey clouds scudding across the sky. The wind had a raw damp edge to it, as if rain were not far off. William shivered, suddenly grateful for a warm bed and stout walls.

He hurried round to the midden heap, anxious to get back inside to the fire as quickly as he could. As he reached the back of the cottage, the cockerel, which seemed to sense William’s murderous intent, hopped onto the low thatched roof. William tried to grab the bird, but it fluttered sideways, stabbing at his hand with a beak as sharp as a dagger, before swaggering up to the top of the roof. William cursed soundly and sucked at a bleeding hole in his finger, but the bird was well out of reach and no amount of threatening had the slightest effect on it.

With his bladder now empty, William was making his way back to the cottage again when he noticed something pinned to the door, flapping in the wind. He hadn’t seen it as he came out, if indeed it had been there then. As he came closer he saw that it was a small square of sailcloth. He reached up and held it flat against the door. Someone had used a piece of charcoal to fashion a careful little drawing on the cloth. The picture was simple enough, just a stick with a serpent twined around the length, its mouth wide open revealing sharp fangs and a long tongue.

William stifled a cry of fear. For a moment he could do nothing except stare, his limbs frozen in shock. Then he forced himself to move. He tore the sailcloth from the door and whipped round, glancing fearfully up and down the length of the lane, but it was deserted. The shutters and doors of all the cottages were still firmly fastened. None of the villagers was yet stirring, but someone was abroad, he was certain of that.

His legs trembling, William staggered backwards, leaning on the wall of the cottage for support. He looked down again at the scrap of sail he was clutching. The snake’s forked tongue seemed to vibrate in William’s shaking hand as if it was scenting its prey and as he stared at it, three fat drops of scarlet blood from the wound on his finger fell onto the cloth and trickled into the serpent’s open mouth.

The morning was already half done before William was finally on the track and striding out of the village. His first instinct had been to flee immediately, but once he had stopped shaking he was forced to see the sense in at least waiting to eat breakfast before he left. As Joan anxiously reminded him, he was already weak from the shipwreck; if he tried to walk for miles on an empty stomach he would more than likely faint on the road, and that was the last thing William could afford to do. The thought of lying helpless and unable to defend himself was too terrifying to contemplate.

If that serpent was a sign, a sign that Edgar was still alive, then he needed to put as much distance between himself and this village as he could. Edgar had already been injured before the storm. Surely it would take a week or two before the man was fit enough to travel any great distance, and William intended to make good use of that time to cover as much ground as possible. If he got far enough ahead, Edgar would not be able to track him. But if Edgar found him again… William tried to fight off the icy flood of fear that engulfed him. That monster must not find him!

Naturally, William had said nothing to Joan about the piece of sailcloth. She had been only too willing to accept his explanation that he had received a vision in the night telling him to set out at once for a place he would be led to, a place where the demons and angels fought each other for the souls of men. Joan had hurried out to beg bread and dried mutton from her neighbours, for she would not have it said that she sent a holy prophet out on the road without a bite of food in his scrip. Why, God would never forgive such an uncharitable act. She was gone so long that several times William nearly gave up waiting, for he was desperate to be miles away from Brean by nightfall. But Joan had finally returned with cheese and salt fish as well as bread and mutton. In addition she’d brought a battered old leather scrip to carry them in and a good stout staff, for which William was more grateful than he dared express.

He struck out at first on the track that led around the bay to the south, as if he were making for the village of Berrow, but as soon as he thought he was not observed he turned off on a rough track heading inland towards the river Axe. The path wound its way along the edge of rough pasture and through a coppice where the villagers cut their wood.

Though the trees were not yet in bud, they still afforded too much cover for William’s comfort. If Edgar had pinned the sign to the cottage door, then he had to be holed up somewhere nearby, perhaps in a seldom-used barn or byre, or even in a place like this. William took a firmer grip of the staff and glanced nervously around him, searching every shadow for signs of movement; in consequence he repeatedly stumbled over tree roots and only just managed to stop himself sprawling headlong. He paused to steady himself and catch his breath. When he was glancing once more over his shoulder, a movement caught his eye. He whirled round, the staff gripped tightly between both fists, but saw only some saplings whipping back and forth. Was it the wind that had sent them rocking, or something else?

Even as he stood there, William heard the unmistakable crunch of boots on dried leaves. He slipped behind the trunk of a stout oak and waited as the footsteps came closer. He was gripping his upraised staff so tightly that his arms ached. The footsteps faltered, then stopped. He held his breath as he heard them start up again and come towards him. From his hiding place William glimpsed a hooded figure as it passed the oak tree.

William sprang out, swinging the staff in both hands, aiming for the back of the hooded head. At the same instant the man in front of him heard William’s movement and twisted aside with a cry of shock and fear. Trying to avoid the blow, the man stumbled backwards and fell just as William brought his staff crashing down. It missed the man’s head by an inch. He lay, sprawled on his back, staring up in wide-eyed fear, and William found himself looking down, not into the face of Edgar, but of the sexton’s youngest son, Martin.

‘What the devil are you doing following me?’ William demanded, the staff still raised menacingly, for it occurred to him that this youth might yet be in the pay of Edgar.

‘M-Master, I came to join you… on your journey. I want to be your disciple.’

‘My disciple?’ William said incredulously, lowering his weapon.

The youth bounced to his feet, and brushed his ginger hair out of his eyes. ‘Yes, master. I saw how you cast out that demon and how you were saved from the wreck on the cross. I know you are a holy man. I believe in you. I have the faith, Master. Take me with you.’

‘But why creep up on me like that?’

‘I wasn’t creeping,’ Martin protested. ‘I couldn’t join you openly. Not till we were away from the village. My father would thrash me black and blue if he thought I was running off. You too, if he could, for taking me away.’

William, remembering the sexton’s blows in the church, knew the lad was probably not exaggerating.

‘How long before you’re missed?’ William asked. He had enough troubles already without some irate bull of a father lumbering after him as well.

‘He thinks I’ve gone out with one of the boats. He’ll not look for me till after he comes back from the alehouse tonight.’ Martin suddenly sank to his knees, his hands clasped and his eyes closed as if in prayer. ‘Bless me, Master; make me your disciple.’

He looked so solemn that William almost laughed, until he saw the lad was in earnest.

It was on the tip of his tongue to send the boy packing, but it occurred to William that a companion might be just what he needed. The lad was short but stocky, with a chest as broad as an ox and, judging by the way he’d dug those graves, he had the strength of a man twice his size. Martin would be another pair of eyes to keep watch, especially in the night, and if Edgar did attack, then it would be two against one. The lad would surely fight to the death to defend his master, if he really believed he was a prophet. Besides, disciples did all the cooking and tending to their master’s needs, didn’t they? It would be as good as having his own manservant again.

Solsbury Hill, August 1453

The horses’ flanks were soaked with sweat by the time they finally crested the steep slopes of the hill. Even the five young women who rode them were breathless with the effort of keeping their balance in the saddles on the steep incline. Their grooms, who had been forced to climb alongside the horses, almost dragging them upwards, were more exhausted than the beasts. Their faces were flushed to the colour of ripe plums and beads of perspiration burst out on their foreheads. The sun burned relentlessly down from a cloudless blue sky, baking the valleys below, but at least up on the flat table top of the hill there was the blessing of a breeze to ruffle the brown grass stalks and cool the air. With undisguised relief the grooms assisted their mistresses to dismount and led the palfreys away to a clump of gorse bushes where they might be safely tethered until they were wanted again.

It was several minutes before the falconer and his lad managed to reach the party. The tiny merlins were not heavy to lift on the wooden frame, but they had to be carried smoothly. Any sudden jerking and they would start to flap or even throw themselves from their perches, breaking feathers, legs or even wings. The falconer could not afford to slip or stumble.

For once, though, the merchants’ daughters were not impatiently demanding to begin their sport or stamping their pretty little shoes. They too were far too grateful for the breeze to make a fuss. Arm in arm, they strolled around on the flat top of the hill, listening to the trilling of a hundred larks as they flew for sheer joy up into the hot blue sky.

Ursula, the youngest of the five friends, caught the distant glint of the river, and breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the sweet air after the foul stench of Bath. It was hard to know if the city was more unpleasant in the winter or summer. In winter the streets were ankle-deep in the mud and filth from the blocked and overflowing ditches and sewers. In summer the pigs snuffled among the rotting waste from houses and butchers’ shops, thrown haphazardly into the streets where it was left to stink beneath writhing heaps of bone-white maggots.

Ursula had often begged to move out of the city at least for the summer months. As she repeatedly told her father, no one, by which she meant no marriageable nobleman, lived in Bath any more. Even the Bishop of Bath had sought a more comfortable abode in Wells. But as her doting but practical father told her, a good businessman keeps a constant eye on his livelihood, and since the wool and cloth trade was flourishing in Bath, he had no cause to move. And, he added, before she started turning her nose up at the stench of a good honest trade, she should remember that it was wool and cloth that put the food on her plate and the jewels in her hair.

‘Ursula, come and choose your bird,’ one of the girls sang out and Ursula sauntered across to join her friends as they clustered around the falconer.

The girls donned their leather gloves and collected their favourite birds, laying wagers amongst themselves as to which would be the first to bring down the quarry. Then they released them. As the merlins took flight, the larks rose, still singing, higher and higher into the sky. The little birds of prey winged up after them, until they were almost invisible in the glare of the sun. Then the tiny songbirds dropped as if they had been pierced by an arrow, slipping sideways at the last moment before they hit the ground, as their pursuers swooped down after them. The merlins were forced to twist and turn as they reversed their dive and climbed back up after the soaring larks again. It could take as much as half an hour for a merlin to kill a lark, and the girls gasped, laughed and held their breath as a kill seemed inevitable only for the lark to escape by a mere feather’s breadth.

They were but an hour into their sport when Ursula, turning to follow the progress of her bird, glimpsed a man scrambling up the last few feet of the rise and onto the flat top of the hill. Soon more heads appeared, then still more, until a small crowd stood rather breathlessly on the top of the hill, heaving their packs off their backs and bending over their staves as they tried to regain their breath.

One by one the young women turned their attention from the battle of the birds in the sky to stare at the newcomers who had so rudely interrupted their pleasure. The twenty or so people who stood gazing around the flattened hill were of mixed ages: some had grey hair, others were barely more than children. But it was plain from their patched and dung-coloured clothes, their worn shoes and filthy coarse-spun cloaks that they were not the kind of people who could afford to own falcons, much less enjoy the leisure time to fly them.

The grooms moved swiftly in front of their mistresses, knives at the ready, in case they should be required to defend the ladies from this pack of beggars and vagabonds, but the little band made no move to approach the women.

A man stepped a little apart from the crowd and all eyes turned expectantly to him. He flung himself down on his knees and the rest of the group followed suit. A clamour of voices rose into the hot sunshine, like some great cliff-side colony of nesting gulls, and with as little meaning in sound. Their arms were flung up to heaven, their eyes closed and their heads thrown back. They seemed to be praying with as much fervour as a man condemned to death might desperately beg clemency from a judge.

Finally their leader rose and turned to face the kneeling crowd.

‘Yes, yes, my chosen ones. This is the very place I saw in my vision. I know it! I can feel it! And now God has confirmed it!’

A chorus of, ‘Yes, it is here. Hallelujah! This is the place!’ burst out of many throats.

Ursula edged a little closer. Her groom put a warning arm out to try to stop her, but she was used to getting her own way and moved resolutely to a distance where she could hear more clearly. Her companions, with nervous giggles, followed her.

The leader of the band was a tall man, with high prominent cheekbones and a mass of thick black hair that hung in lank elflocks onto his shoulders. He was dressed simply in a grubby white robe that almost resembled that of a monk, save that his left shoulder and arm were bare and about his waist was a blue cord dyed to almost the same hue as the summer sky above him.

His voice rang out once more. ‘This is the place where the legions of darkness meet the army of light. This is the very hill where demons and angels wrestle for the future of the world. Abraham and Isaac, Moses, even our Lord Himself, were all led to the hill tops and there put to the test for the very salvation of the world. We have been led here to serve a great purpose in the divine plan, a purpose that He will make known to us. Here we shall set up camp and wait for the vision to be revealed to us.’

A great cheer went up from the crowd. Their leader turned away, firmly clasping his hands behind his back, and appeared to be contemplating the great sweep of the valley that lay below him. The crowd waited for a few minutes, but no more words came from him.

Finally one of their number, a broad squat youth with arms like an ape, jumped up and gesticulated wildly at them. ‘Well, you heard the prophet, make camp, quickly now.’

Everyone scrambled to their feet and, as if following a familiar routine, began their chores. Some started to dig fire pits, others gathered kindling or searched for herbs for the pot. With somewhat more reluctance, a few armed themselves with water-carriers and darted miserable glances at each other when they realised the only visible source of water was the distant river at the bottom of that very steep hill.

Seeing some of the men arming themselves with bows and arrows and with slingshots for hunting, the falconer rushed forward with his baited lure, whirling it about his head and whistling in a desperate attempt to bring the merlins down before this pack of lunatics started firing.

All the girls hurried back towards their horses, except Ursula, who did not move. She was still staring at the back of the white-robed figure who stood gazing out over the edge of the hill.

‘He’s calling you, is he?’ a voice murmured in her ear.

She jumped at finding the little ape-armed youth by her elbow. Up close, Ursula thought, he looked even more like a monkey. His arms were covered in a thick mat of red hair and, judging by the bush escaping from the top of his coarse shirt, she rather suspected his body might be equally hairy.

She flushed, taking a few steps back. ‘Calling me?’

‘I was the first disciple he called and I’ve been with him ever since. Not everyone who wants to come with him can. He knows who’s been chosen by God and only they can join him.’ He lifted his head with evident pride.

‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to join him. I should think those who haven’t been chosen are very much relieved.’ Ursula said it with every intention of wounding, but the ape-boy didn’t seem to take offence.

‘You might say that now, but wait till you see the miracles he performs.’

‘So he can do a few tricks, can he? I’ve seen conjurors at the fairs bring dead toads to life and make coins disappear.’

‘Ah,’ the lad said, ‘but have you seen them capture demons in front of your very eyes or pull a venomous worm from a man’s skull that was tormenting him with agonising pain. My master is a holy prophet. He was captured by a fierce band of murderous pirates that bound him hand and foot, and carried him off on their ship to sell as a slave. So he conjured a great storm that cracked the ship open on the rocks and every wicked man aboard perished, but though he was bound fast, he calmed the waves and floated ashore as safe as a babe in its cradle.’

Ursula snorted. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘I swear, on the Holy Virgin’s crown, that I saw it with my own two eyes. Stood on the shore and watched it, I did. And so did the whole village, including the priest. There’s not a man, woman or child in Brean who doesn’t know him for a holy man and prophet. I tell you, he’s been sent to save us all.’

The young man’s blue eyes shone with such a radiance of belief that it seemed as if a candle was burning behind them. Ursula, for all that she was trying to sound unimpressed, felt her pulse quicken, as her eyes were drawn once more to the tall figure who had not moved so much as a muscle, despite all the bustle and noise behind him. The breeze tugged the folds of his robe and blew his long black hair out behind him so that suddenly he seemed the very image of a carving she had seen in a church, of Moses standing on top of the mountain holding the tablets of stone.

‘What is his name?’ she asked without taking her gaze from the figure.

The youth leaned closer to her as if he was imparting a great secret. ‘His holy name is Serkan. It means leader, a leader anointed in blood.’

It was dark now. William drew his cloak tighter about his shoulders, trying not to shiver. The sun had sucked the heat from the earth as it set, taking back the warmth it had lent it, and the breeze whipping up from the valley seemed to carry all the chill of the cold river in it. Stars, like tiny shards of ice, hung in the black sky and the blades of grass turned the colour of steel in the moonlight.

Martin had come running as soon as he’d seen the pinpoints of orange and yellow light winding their way up the valley towards the hill. But William had already seen them. That was why he’d chosen this place. It was like having his own castle. No walls to be sure, but no forest of trees or narrow alleys where someone could lie in wait. All these weeks he’d had no sign that Edgar had followed him from Brean, but somehow that only made him more nervous, as if Edgar were lying out there somewhere, gathering his strength, waiting until William relaxed his guard before he struck.

William felt a little safer up here, where he could see danger coming. But those lights were nothing to fear. Those torches did not belong to an angry mob. The procession was too slow and orderly. They were bringing the mad and sick with them, not sticks and swords. Those giggling girls and their servants had clearly wasted no time in spreading the word in Bath about his arrival.

He felt his blood throbbing through his body with a thrill that was almost like bedding a beautiful woman. He understood now what it felt like to be a great minstrel. There was the trepidation that tonight you might not be able to deliver, that this time your talents might fail you, but stronger by far was the thrill of anticipation, knowing that success would bring adulation.

It was as if at first he had been only a player in costume, an actor in one of the great Mystery Play tableaux such as they had at York. But now he was becoming that very person. He no longer had to pretend to sense the demons in the bodies of those that came to him, he could feel them. In his dreams he really saw the visions of which he spoke, and almost… almost he was beginning to believe that all the events in his life had been leading to this. He had, after all, been saved from the raging sea; surely that meant that he had been chosen for some great task.

He had not set out to attract a following. Nothing had been further from his mind. His only intention had been to get away from Brean as quickly as possible. But with no money to buy decent lodgings, one night he and Martin had found themselves camping on the heath with a band of holy beggars who tramped from town to town begging for themselves and the poor, with their cry of, ‘Bread, for God’s sake.’ The beggars had generously shared their food with the pair, and it was rich pickings too, for townsfolk feared the beggars’ curses as much as they desired a blessing from them that would bring them luck.

Talk had naturally turned to where William was bound and, before he could prevent it, Martin had launched into an account of his master’s miraculous deliverance and his exorcism of the girl, both of which lost nothing in the telling. There were, of course, jeers from the more cynical beggars; after all, these men spent their lives persuading the gullible that miracles would follow if they gave generously. But others in the band, who genuinely believed in their own holy calling, were more willing to accept that William too had seen visions. And it wasn’t long therefore before William was challenged to demonstrate his powers. He obliged: plucking a stone from the head of one man who suffered headaches; convincing another that his falling sickness was caused by the menstrual blood of the Lilith, queen of demons, falling into a well from which he had drunk. And the beggar was full of gratitude when William carved on a piece of wood the names of the three angels that would henceforth protect him.

By the time they parted company the next day, three of the holy beggars had become William’s new disciples. One was a devout young man, who might have made a good life for himself in a monastery were it not for a restlessness that always drove him onwards. The second, an old man called Alfred, claimed to be a soldier who’d lost his right hand in battle, though since both his ears had been severed too, William rather suspected he’d been mutilated for some crime. The third was Letice, a crone so filthy and bedraggled it was hard to tell her age. Like a craggy outcrop of rock, it seemed as if she had looked that way for countless generations and would remain so for countless more to come.

Letice was something of an irritation. She would stare fixedly at you for hours at a time, but never meet your gaze. She talked constantly to herself about the people around her as if they couldn’t hear her, and saw doom-laden omens in everything, from the number of birds in a flock to the way twigs burned on the fire. But even William had to admit she was useful. As soon as they entered a town or village, she would stand on the street corner and shout about the new prophet come among them, with a boldness that not even the ardent Martin could muster.

It was Letice who had revealed that William’s holy name was Serkan. The voices in her head had told her this. Martin had sulked for days that he had not been the one to discover the master’s hidden name, but he used it along with the others. And William couldn’t deny it had a certain grandeur to it.

He gazed around at the motley group of followers he had assembled in the last few months. Most were hunched around the campfires, ravenously devouring the spit-roasted birds and rabbits they had caught, and hiding any food that remained. They’d no wish to be forced to share with those townsfolk who were making their way here. There were a few more women among them now, mostly those that other men had no use for: the maimed and disfigured; the ex-whore too old and scarred by pox to earn a living on her back now; the bruised and battered scrap of a girl on the run from her master. They were grateful for the company and protection, and threw themselves willingly into cooking and mending, glad for any kind word and gentle touch he might offer them.

But why were there no voluptuous beauties among his disciples, no fallen angels, no flame-haired Mary Magdalenes to whom he could offer intimate consolation? He groaned. It had been months since he’d bedded a woman, and he ached for it so much that sometimes he could hardly concentrate on anything else.

‘Master, they are here.’ Martin pointed to where the torches were appearing over the edge of the hill. Sighing, William rose and prepared for his performance.

Ursula positioned herself a little way from the crowd, who sat or kneeled on the short springy turf before the fire. She had deliberately selected a gown of white, impractical for riding, but she knew it would make her stand out in the dark, and she wanted to be noticed.

Her parents were away for the night at the house of an old friend of her father, a wealthy farmer, and would not return until midday tomorrow, after her father’s business was concluded. Normally she would have welcomed any chance to get out of Bath. The farmer and his stolid daughters were as dull as her own parents, but there were usually some farmhands to flirt with when her father’s back was turned. But now that she’d seen Serkan, these farmhands seemed nothing more than clumsy little boys.

So she had feigned a sick stomach and her parents had reluctantly left her at home under the care of her childhood nurse. But the old woman was now as deaf as a blacksmith’s dog, and could be relied upon to fall asleep straight after supper, especially if she was helped to a more than generous measure of her favourite wine. The groom had travelled with Ursula’s parents, but the stable boy, who constantly followed her around like an unweaned calf, was easily persuaded to saddle up her palfrey and lead it up the hill, if it meant he could spend the evening gazing at her. Even now she supposed he was somewhere in the shadows watching her, but she didn’t look. Her gaze never left Serkan’s face.

He stood behind the fire, so that it looked as if he was speaking out of it. His white robe took on a rich ruby glow in the light of the flames and the twin fires burned deep in those emerald-green eyes. His voice rang out with thunder, and his words cascaded over the lip of the hill like some great waterfall.

‘… the city of sin and corruption, of squalor and filth, that city you call Bath, which now lies under the power of darkness, shall be changed, transformed into a city of light, it shall be filled with sweet perfumes and the song of angels. Great men shall flock to it.’

A few of the crowd who had come out from Bath jeered in disbelief, but his disciples fervently shouted ‘Praise be’ and ‘Amen’ to the night sky.

A woman who seemed to be one of Serkan’s disciples tottered out from the crowd. She stood in front of the fire and began to turn, her arms flung out, singing some wordless ditty in a cracked voice, punctuated with sudden whoops and barks. Her dance became wilder and more abandoned. Then, as if she had been struck down, she fell onto the ground. Her body arched, shaking violently, and her heels drummed against the turf. A cry of alarm went up from the visitors, but Serkan, raising his hand for silence, stepped swiftly between her and the crowd.

‘Bring me water and a scrap of leather or parchment.’

The ape-boy ran off and just as swiftly returned with a pot of water and a torn piece of parchment. Serkan pulled a stick from the fire, extinguished the burned end, then using the charred stick as a quill, he drew something upon the parchment and held it up to the crowd. Ursula vaguely recognised the two letters – alpha and omega – like the ones over the altar of the church she attended. Serkan stretched out his arms over the prone woman and began to speak fervently in a strange, guttural language. The orange glow of the fire haloed Serkan’s head and the very darkness seemed to vibrate with those unearthly sounds that were pouring from his lips. The hairs on the back of Ursula’s neck prickled.

As the words died away, he dropped the parchment into the jar of water. Then, dipping his fingers in the jar, he flung water at the woman’s face. She stopped jerking and lay still. He kneeled and, cradling her head in the crook of his arm, helped her to drink. Then he laid the jar aside and extended his hand. ‘Rise now.’

The crowd uttered soft little sighs as Serkan pulled the woman to her feet. She stood there in the firelight, swaying a little as if she was half asleep, but her face had a calmness about it that was almost beautiful.

Ursula found that she was trembling with excitement and some strange stirring in her body that she could not immediately identify. She pressed her hands together beneath her chin, her fingertips tingling as she imagined that strong firm hand clasping hers. As if he felt it too, Serkan’s gaze suddenly turned in her direction and as their eyes met, he smiled at her – and only at her. She was quite certain of that.

William yawned and stretched. He stood for a moment, breathing in the cool morning air. He felt more relaxed than he had done in months. He hadn’t realised how much tension there had been in his body until now. Only yesterday he had desired a beautiful girl to come to him and that very night his wish had been granted. He felt as if he only had to stretch out his hand for whatever he wanted to appear in it.

He had known from the moment he saw her standing there in her virginal white dress, like one of those martyred saints, that she had been given to him. When the visitors from Bath had begun to depart, she had lingered and when he’d beckoned her to approach she had come joyously. Her wide fawn-eyes looked up at him from under those dark lashes, with an expression of what you might call adoration, though definitely not submissiveness; he liked that, and he was captivated by that little habit she had of tossing her head like a spirited horse.

When he finally led her down the hill she ran laughing ahead of him, unafraid of the perilous slope or the darkness. In a hollow near the bottom, screened by gorse and birch, she turned to face him, her hands clasped behind her back in the semblance of a demure child. But in the moonlight he could see she was trying to suppress a grin, and her eyes were dancing under the stars. And it was under the stars they lay together, naked as Adam and Eve before the fall.

He did not force her. He did not have to; she gave herself to him. Suddenly shy and hesitant, she lay quite still on top of his robe which he had spread on the ground for her. She made no move to touch him, but offered no resistance. Then as he gently caressed her, a passion seized her and she dug her fingers into his bare back, thrusting up at him, her head thrown back and her slender white throat arched like a bow.

Three times he had taken her, before rolling into an exhausted sleep in her arms. When he had awoken sometime before dawn she was gone. He had climbed back up the hill and lain down among his snoring disciples, and sunk once more into sleep.

William smiled to himself. Would she come again? He hoped she would. No, he knew she would.

He was startled by a sudden tugging on his sleeve.

‘Master, Master. You must come with me.’

He turned to see Martin standing behind him, panting and sweating as if he had been running.

‘Come where?’ William asked. Then seeing the fearful expression on the lad’s face, he added, ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

Martin’s gaze darted nervously around at the other disciples, but all were occupied with the morning’s tasks of stoking the fires and preparing breakfast. Martin leaned in towards William, his voice low. ‘You must come. She’s… she’s dead.’

William felt an icy hand gripping his insides. ‘Who? Who’s dead?’ He made a grab for the lad, determined to shake the answer out of him, but Martin was already bounding over the lip of the hill and scrambling down the other side. William followed.

It was a miracle neither of them broke his neck in his haste to get down the hill. Martin reached the bottom first and stood aside, pointing towards a clump of bushes.

‘She’s behind there… I was going to fetch water from the river, when… I trod on something soft and when I looked down I saw…’

William swallowed hard, then, bracing himself, he strode towards the bushes. The body of a woman lay on the ground. He couldn’t see her face for a sack had been pulled over her head. But she lay as if she was already in a coffin, her legs neatly stretched out and her hands crossed over her chest.

William’s first emotion was one of profound relief, for even though he couldn’t see her face he could tell at once that this was not Ursula. The woman’s robe was old and torn. Her fingernails were broken and grimed with dirt, but beneath the dirt the fingertips were blue. William lightly touched her leg, hoping that there was still life in her, but the moment he felt the skin he knew there was not. Bracing himself, he kneeled behind the woman’s head and, grasping the corners of the sack, pulled it off. The jerk sent the woman’s head lolling sideways. William gave a stifled cry, scrambling away from the body in horror.

There was no mistaking who it was beneath the sack. Poor Letice lay there, her face frozen in a distorted mask of pain, her mouth open wide as if she had been gasping for breath. It wasn’t the sight of her face, though, that made William cry out, but what lay upon her throat. An adder was wound around her neck, with its head inside her open mouth. And the snake was as dead as the woman.

William’s legs gave way and he sank onto the grass. He knew exactly who had done this. Edgar had been here last night! That fiend, that devil, had finally caught up with him and this was his warning. William stared wildly about him. Had Edgar been hiding down here in the dark, or had he been standing up there on the hill among the people from Bath? William would surely have recognised him in the crowd… but he hadn’t last time, had he, not until it was too late?

He struggled to his feet. ‘Martin, did you see anyone here this morning? A man, did you see a man?’

Martin, still staring numbly at the body, slowly shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Was she trying to catch the viper in the sack and it bit her?’

‘Snake’s longer dead than she is,’ William said dully.

‘Then how did she die?’

William knew the moment he had uncovered her how she’d died. Letice’s lips were blue and he could smell the stench of vomit on her gown. He recognised the signs only too well. He shuddered.

‘Poison,’ he whispered. The word slid from his mouth before he had time to think. As soon as he saw the panic and fear on Martin’s face, he knew he should never have uttered it, but it was too late now.

Martin stared at him aghast. ‘That drink you gave her last night-’

‘No! I didn’t do this.’ William raised his hands as if warding off the very idea. ‘I didn’t harm her. I gave her nothing except water. It couldn’t have killed her.’

‘But everyone saw you give it to her and now she’s dead, poisoned… Master, I know you wouldn’t have harmed her, but the other disciples and the people who came out here from Bath, what will they think? How will you prove you had no hand in this?’ Martin suddenly pressed his fist to his mouth as an even more terrible thought occurred to him. ‘What about me? I fetched the water. What if they think-’

William’s fevered brain had reached the same conclusion even before the lad had finished speaking, and now it raced ahead.

‘She must not be discovered. Go back up and fetch the spade that is used to dig the fire pit and bring it back here. And fetch a fire pot and something that will burn well – tallow, pitch, anything you can find. But don’t let anyone know what you are doing.’

Martin looked bewildered. ‘What are you going to do with it, Master?’

‘Just go! No, wait, help me to lift her over my shoulder… Now go, and meet me at the bottom of the west side of the hill.’

William knew his followers would be gathered round the cooking fires at the southern end of the hill, just above where he was now standing. Although the bushes would screen the body from a casual glance, any movement he made might be enough to draw attention to it. He had to move the corpse to a place where he could dispose of it without being seen.

As Martin scrambled back up the hillside, William pulled the knife from his belt and held it ready in his hand, peering at every clump of trees or hollow where his assassin might conceal himself. He staggered round the base of the hill with his burden, trying to make as much use of the cover of rocks and bushes as he could.

All the time his mind was racing feverishly. If Edgar could murder a poor mad woman just to let William know he had caught up with him, then what might he do to William when he finally moved in for the kill? This was his warning that he could strike at any time he pleased. William suspected he would not do it straight away. He would want him to suffer the torture of waiting first, but for how long – days, weeks? One thing was certain: nowhere in England was safe, not even this hill, as long as Edgar was out there.

He would have to find another ship, leave England for good, but to do that he needed money, a great deal of money, and where was he to get that? Plans formed and reformed in his mind like drifting smoke, but nothing solidified. He knew only one thing: he had to dispose of Letice’s body before her corpse was seen by anyone else.

Fear of discovery and terror of attack gave William a physical strength and stamina he did not normally possess and he had almost reached the place when loose stones clattered down, giving warning of Martin’s precipitous descent. Behind a clump of bushes, William found the hollow where he and Ursula had lain last night, and put Martin to work at once digging a pit. As soon as he had a spade in his hands the lad’s panic seemed to subside a little; digging graves was something he knew how to do.

William set about collecting dry bracken, gorse and kindling, thanking heaven that there had not been a drop of rain these past weeks. But when he returned, Martin was sweating and almost sobbing in frustration. At every turn of the spade he’d hit rock and stones, and though he worked feverishly he’d scarcely been able to dig a trench more than a foot deep in the bottom of the depression.

William wrenched the spade from the boy’s hands and threw it aside. He lined the pit with kindling and bracken. Then he stood back. ‘Help me to get her in there.’

‘But it’s not nearly deep enough,’ the lad wailed.

‘Don’t you think I don’t know that?’ he snapped. But seeing the fear on the lad’s face, he added gently, ‘Trust me, Martin. I am Serkan. There is nothing to fear. Now did you bring tallow?’

Martin fished in his scrip and pulled out a clay pot. ‘It’s the goose grease and turpentine that Alfred rubs on his chest to keep out the cold. I saw him use it once to get a stubborn fire going.’

William wiped the sack in the grease and laid it across Letice’s face, then heaped the rest of the dry gorse and bracken over the corpse.

‘Give me the fire pot. Now go on back to the others. If anyone should see the smoke from the fire, tell them it is a holy rite, tell them that I am purifying myself, and must not be disturbed.’

When the lad had gone, William set the fire. As the gorse began to crackle and burn, he stood with his back to the hill, and raised his arms as if he was praying, which indeed he was and more fervently than he had done for many weeks, though his prayers were not for purification. The fire blazed fiercely but it did not burn for long. He added more dried gorse, but dared not make the fire any bigger for fear that it would arouse the curiosity of some wayfarer or shepherd who would not so easily be convinced by holy rites.

When a third blaze had died down, he kneeled and, brushing away the soft grey ash, examined the pit, trying not to gag at the stench. Letice’s gown had burned away, no doubt helped by the cooking fat and grease that her grubby fingers had wiped on it over the years. The sacking had also burned, and the face beneath was charred black; the features, though clearly human, were now unrecognisable. Where the skin had cracked patches of raw red flesh showed through. But the body, though blackened, was still very much intact and unmistakably that of a woman. The fire had not been nearly hot enough to consume it. But William tried to console himself with the thought that if anyone did discover the body, not even Letice’s own mother could identify her now, nor say how she had met her death.

He began to shovel the heap of soil and stones, which Martin had dug out, over the remains. The lad was right, it was nowhere near deep enough, and to make matters worse the edges of the charred pit stood out black against the ground. He scraped at them, trying to make them blend in, but there was no way he could flatten the mound. He heaved what stones he could find over it to deter animals from digging at it, but even then he could not afford to heap them up for that would only make the mound bigger and easier to see. In desperation he hacked at some nearby bushes with his knife, dragging the branches over the grave to try to disguise it from anyone glancing down from above.

Then, seeing that there was nothing more he could do, he hurried away in the direction of the river to bathe. It wasn’t only the dirt and ash he needed to clean off, it was the stench of burned human flesh that clung to him like a noose round a felon’s neck.

The tavern maid leaned over Godfrey deliberately, or so it seemed to him, thrusting her plump breasts under his nose as she poured more wine into his goblet. He caught her by the waist and pulled her down onto his lap, nuzzling his face in her cleavage, before she good-naturedly pushed him away and rose to answer the raucous calls of her other customers.

Godfrey chuckled. He had every intention of bedding that wench later when he’d drunk his fill. He knew her sort. Slip her a few coins and she’d do whatever he asked, and willingly too; so much easier than having to woo, coax and flatter the noble ladies at Court for weeks before they’d even open the doors of their bedchambers.

Godfrey leaned across the rough wooden table and grinned at the stranger sitting opposite him in the dark corner of the inn. ‘See, now that’s what I mean. Nothing wrong with a comely woman showing what gifts the Good Lord gave her, for the pleasure of others. Brings a bit of joy into this world, but if my master had seen that he’d have had her covered up like a nun. At the Christmas feast last year, three pretty virgins dressed as nymphs were brought in to dance for his pleasure. And what did he do? Put his hands over his eyes and ran out of the hall like a frightened child, just ’cause their rosy little nipples were bare. He wore a hair shirt all night to punish himself for having seen them. I know, ’cause I had to help him into it.’

The stranger grimaced. ‘Riches are wasted on men like him. But then it’s only the wealthy who can afford to disdain good food and girls, the rest of us are only too grateful for any crumbs of pleasure that fall our way.’ He took a gulp of ale, rolling his tongue round his mouth as if even that had soured as soon as the liquid touched his lips.

If Godfrey had not been feeling so hard done by himself he might have enquired about the stranger’s troubles, but a man who feels aggrieved is interested in no one’s misery but his own. And Godfrey did feel sorely aggrieved. It was bad enough having to deal with the King’s black mood at court, but at least there he could moan with the other servants. But now that Henry had insisted on making this fool’s trip to Bath, Godfrey had no one to grumble with. For apart from himself, a groom and a couple of armed men, the King had insisted on travelling alone and in disguise. Not even the monks at the abbey knew who they were entertaining under their roof, not that entertaining was a word Godfrey would ever use to describe the misery of that squalid place.

The stranger took another gulp of ale. ‘So what brings your master to Bath? Business is it, the cloth trade?’

Godfrey snorted. ‘Nothing as frivolous as business. Would that it was. No, he thinks he’s going mad. He’s mistaken, of course, he’s not going mad, he is mad. But he’s come to the abbey in the hope of a cure, which just proves how insane he is.’

‘Why Bath, of all places? The abbey here is falling into ruin. Surely he’d be more comfortable at one of the wealthy ones.’

‘Well, I would, that’s for certain,’ Godfrey said bitterly. ‘The lodgings are as cold as a witch’s tit, and as for the food! A starving hound wouldn’t eat it. Why do you think I’ve escaped here for the evening? There’s nothing else to do in this stinking town. I’d thought to pass a few hours at the bear-baiting they hold outside the city walls, lay a few wagers on the dogs, but it seems they had only one bear and even that escaped last week. Probably couldn’t stand the stench of this place. But my master doesn’t want comfort and entertainment; he wants mortification and misery.

‘Apparently there’s one old monk at the abbey who claims some skill at easing melancholy and phantasms of the mind with healing water he draws from a hot spring. The water smells foul, but that suits my master; the more disgusting the remedy, the more he’s convinced it will cure him. If it was in any way pleasant, he’d shun it. It’s not doing him any good, though. He’s spending more time with his mirror than ever. Did I tell you, he thinks his mirror is talking to him? He’s terrified of the thing, yet he spends hours sitting in front of it just staring at it.’

The stranger shuffled on the bench, turning his face slightly so that the yellow light from the candle fell on his weather-beaten face. ‘So if it frightens him, why doesn’t he just destroy it?’

‘It’s worth a fortune. It’s decorated with rubies and pearls, not to mention some very costly enamel work.’ Godfrey drained his second goblet of wine and snapped his fingers at the tavern maid, holding his goblet upside down to indicate it was empty. She refilled it, this time managing to keep the table between herself and Godfrey, much to his disappointment.

The man leaned forward, the candle flame reflecting in the pupils of his green eyes. ‘You were saying that this mirror is very valuable.’

‘Yeh, but that’s not why my master won’t destroy it. Its value means nothing to him. But he says that the image on the back is holy. It shows St Thomas Becket being slain by the knights, a cheerful subject to meditate upon for any man. Stare at that for too long and it’s bound to have you jumping at your own shadow. If I have to gaze upon a saint let it be a fresh-faced virgin stripped for martyrdom. Now that is an image a man can linger on. There was one statue I saw in a church once – St Agatha just about to be put to the torture, she was. You should have seen the way the artist had moulded her bare breasts.’ Godfrey’s eyes glazed over as he pictured the statue; doubtless she been modelled on the local bishop’s mistress, which was usually the case.

The stranger nudged him with his foot. ‘So he won’t part with it because of the holy icon?’

Godfrey took another swig of his wine. ‘That’s what he says, but it’s my belief he’s too afraid of it to destroy it himself. Thinks if he does, it’ll call down a greater curse.’

For a while the stranger said nothing more, his brow creased in thought. Godfrey rested his chin in his hand and gazed around the inn. There were two wenches who took his fancy, the one who’d served him and a younger, prettier girl, a sister or cousin maybe. Innocence or experience – both had their attractions. He liked a well-fleshed woman, but on the other hand that young one’s lips were delectable. Why shouldn’t he have both? Maybe even the two together.

He had fallen into such a reverie that when the man finally spoke again, Godfrey jerked from his daydream so suddenly that the arm supporting his head shot off the table and he almost tumbled off the bench. A couple of men sitting a few benches along roared with laughter. Godfrey half rose to challenge them, but the stranger pulled him back down.

‘Leave them. This is more important. I think I have a way to help your master. Have you heard of a man named Serkan?’

‘I’ve heard vague rumours; some kind of preacher isn’t he? A miracle-worker? They’re always springing up. The gullible will believe anything.’

‘This one’s different,’ the man said earnestly. ‘They say he really can work miracles and exorcise the most stubborn of demons. As it happens he’s set up camp not far from here, a place called Solsbury Hill. If your master were to take this mirror to him, he would be able to exorcise it and cure your master of this madness.’

Godfrey waved a dismissive hand. ‘I tell you they’re all charlatans. Neither that foul spring-water the monks are dipping him in nor any miracle-worker is going to restore his sanity.’

‘What harm can it do to try?’ the man persisted.

‘It’s a waste of…’ Godfrey suddenly paused. It had taken a few moments for that little word ‘harm’ to penetrate the wine fumes fogging his brain, but now that it had, he fastened upon it. Harm, yes, just what harm could it do? Perhaps the harm in question could even prove to be lethal. Richard of York was a generous benefactor and would reward with wealth and position anyone who helped him to take his rightful place on the throne. Not even Richard would risk openly raising his hand against the King, but if the King’s death could be blamed on some vagabond miracle-worker, that might be very fortuitous. Richard could have the man hanged, drawn and quartered, or burned alive for treason, in a suitable display of grief and outrage that would gain him only favour with the populace. Of course, it would not be so fortuitous for this Serkan, whoever he was, but then prophets loved to be martyred. It’s what they dreamed of, wasn’t it?

Godfrey grinned. ‘Solsbury Hill, did you say? Can you tell me how to find it?’

‘Rouse yourself,’ William bellowed in Alfred’s ear. ‘Do you call this a faithful watch?’

The old man started violently and gazed bemusedly around him as if he couldn’t recall where he was. ‘I was only closing my eyes, Master, the better to listen.’

‘But you didn’t hear me coming, did you?’

Alfred shrugged sullenly. ‘Anyway, it’s near dawn. Them evil spirits has to return to the earth at cockcrow. They’ll not work mischief now.’ He shivered and held out the stump of his right arm towards the little fire, one of several fires William had ordered to be lit around the perimeter of the hill top.

‘Demons are at work night and day without ceasing, Alfred. We must constantly be vigilant.’

But as William watched the first streaks of red creeping into the eastern sky, he felt the tightness in his chest ease just a little. He was almost sure the demon who was hunting him would not risk attacking in daylight. The danger was over for another night.

He patted Alfred on the shoulder. ‘Go and rest awhile ’till it’s time to eat.’

Alfred painfully levered himself to his feet with his staff and glanced across the hill top towards the east. The sun was rising as a ball of blood into the fiery sky.

He grunted. ‘Don’t like the look of that. You know what they say – “A red sun has water in his eye.” I reckon we’re in for a soaking afore it rises again.’

For the last two nights since Letice had been murdered, William had posted men on watch through the night. The excuse was that the devil’s minions, angry that he was casting out demons, were massing, prowling around their fortress, trying to destroy them. He was vague about whether these dogs of the devil were human or spirit.

His followers had, of course, noticed the absence of Letice, not least because of her constant mutterings, but also because of her skill at catching anything that moved for her cooking pot, which was constantly bubbling away. William said only that Letice had been taken from them and that they should not try to seek her, for there were mysteries on this hill that had no earthly explanation, forces that were stronger than any power they had yet encountered. Even Martin seemed willing to be convinced now that Letice had not met her death by any human hand, and little wonder, for though as a sexton’s son he had seen more corpses than most village lads, none had been so strangely adorned.

The sudden vanishing of Letice, and William’s warning, had been unnerving enough to have every one of his disciples volunteering to keep watch, swearing to rouse their master at the first sign of attack. Not that William would have taken much rousing. What little sleep he’d had these past two days had been disturbed by dreams in which serpents, as huge as dragons, had erupted out of the hillside and wriggled up on all sides towards him, their long fangs dripping with green poison that burst into flames as it fell. William would wake screaming and sweating. His disciples watched him wide-eyed, whispering that his spirit had been wrestling with demons as he slept. That much was true, but the demons William fought in his sleep were not the spirits that haunted Solsbury Hill.

A rose-pink light had begun to trickle down into the valley. Despite the sun not yet having fully risen, it was already beginning to feel close and airless, even up on the hill. William glanced down. Two horses and their riders were approaching along the track leading from Bath. He stiffened, and then tried to calm himself with the knowledge that Edgar would never approach him so openly and in company. The riders tethered their mounts to some trees at the bottom of the hill and toiled slowly up towards the camp.

Martin, as always, bustled up to greet them and soon led them over to where William stood on the rim of the hill, before respectfully withdrawing.

As soon as the lad was out of earshot, one of the two men bowed in courtly manner and cleared his throat. ‘My master seeks your help. He is suffering from… a melancholia.’

William scarcely needed to be told that. The man’s master was a thin, sallow-faced man, his skin made paler by his black clothes. He stared into the middle distance, his eyes dull and unfocused, his shoulders hunched as if he was hiding even from himself.

‘And is it a lover’s melancholy, a malcontent’s melancholy or a melancholy of reason?’ The question came out of William’s lips without thought. When he had learned his trade as a physician it was the first thing he had been taught to ask.

The servant uneasily glanced at his master. ‘Of reason, but more than that. My master possesses a silver mirror, the nature of which troubles him.’

‘How does it trouble him?’

‘He sees things in it that are not reflections of what stands before it. He sees the face of a man long dead.’ Again the servant glanced at his master, but the man gave no sign he’d even heard what was said.

William frowned. ‘I must see this mirror.’

It took the servant several attempts to rouse his master to respond, as if his spirit had travelled a long way from his body and had to be recalled. Finally, and with great reluctance, the master opened his black coat and revealed a leather bag hanging from his neck. With hands trembling so violently he could scarcely unfasten the buckles, he withdrew a flat, round object about the span of his own hand.

As soon as William laid eyes on it the blood began to pound in his temples. It was as if the sun itself had fallen to earth, for the gold and silver and blood-red rubies glittered so brightly in the morning light that he could scarcely look at it without being dazzled. The mirror must be worth a king’s ransom.

His mind raced. These men would probably pay him something for a cure, but judging by the plainness of their clothes, he guessed it wasn’t going to be a generous amount, not nearly enough to buy passage on a ship. But if he could get his hands on this mirror, he could go to any distant land he pleased and live in the lap of luxury when he got there.

But it was plain from the way this man reverently clasped the mirror, unable to tear his gaze from it, that he was not simply going to hand it over, even if William convinced him it was cursed. No, something more elaborate would be required if he was going to part this man and his mirror.

William adopted his most authoritative voice. ‘There is a demon in this mirror, which takes the semblance of a dead man. It is a trick they often use.’

For the first time, the thin man spoke, but still did not lift his eyes from the mirror. ‘No, you are wrong. It bears the image of a holy saint,’ he said in a dull tone.

‘On the reverse,’ William said firmly. ‘The saint faces away from the mirror, so that the demon is able to hide behind the holy image, just as on a coin the head of the King can never see what is stamped on the other side. You must return tonight, so that I may exorcise it and when I do, the melancholy and all else that troubles your mind will vanish with the demon.’

A look of desperate hope flickered across the man’s face. ‘But why can you not do so now?’

To William’s surprise it was the servant who came to his rescue. ‘Master, the mirror is silver and it’s the moon that governs that element. Therefore, the chances of success will be greatly improved if the exorcism is carried out under her domain.’

His master seemed to wilt again, retreating back into himself.

The servant nodded to William. ‘I will bring my master back tonight, as soon as it is dark. I assure you, he will be here.’

Godfrey purchased a beaker of tepid cider from one of the market stalls and threw it down his throat almost in a single swallow. He drew out a kerchief and waved it ineffectually at a cloud of flies buzzing round his head, before mopping the sweat from his forehead. The air was as hot and sticky as a blacksmith’s armpit. Since noon thick clouds had been building in the sky, giving it a dense yellowish haze that seemed only to intensify the heat. The stench from the rubbish and offal lying around the market place was enough to sicken the stomach for life. But, he consoled himself, if all went to plan he had to endure only one more day in this stinking sewer of Bath.

This man Serkan had proved to be all he had hoped for and more. He had gambled that this prophet would take little persuasion to perform his healing at night. Such things were always more dramatic and appealing to the crowd then, and these charlatans loved to perform for a crowd. He had little doubt the unwitting Serkan would play his part beautifully; all Godfrey had to do was to arrange a little performance of his own, but for that he needed a player.

He’d been watching the actors at the far end of the market place for a couple of hours now. Five men, and a couple of lads dressed as women, had been struggling to entertain the crowd, but most people were either too occupied with the business of buying and selling, or too exhausted by the heat, to want to stand around and watch. The players had given up the struggle and were packing up their wooden wagon for the day.

Godfrey sidled up to one of them, a giant of a man, who was sitting on a barrel, pulling off a mask. He’d been playing the part of a lion or perhaps it was a wolf – the costume was so ragged it was hard to tell.

‘You want to make some money?’ Godfrey said, trying not to show his disgust at the overpowering stench of sweat and onions, which was oozing out of every pore.

‘Make a change,’ the actor grumbled. ‘People in this city are so mean they’d not even share their fleas with you. So what are you offering?’

Godfrey tipped the contents of a leather purse into his own palm and thrust it out. The man whistled, as well he might for it would take him months to earn as much.

‘Half now, the other half when the job’s done.’

‘And what’s the job? You want me to kill a man for that?’ He sounded as if he wouldn’t have objected even to a spot of murder for that size of a purse.

Godfrey grinned. ‘No, nothing like that. I just want to play a little jest on a friend of mine. Tonight he’s going up to Solsbury Hill. You know it?’

The actor nodded.

‘There’s some new prophet camped up there. You know the type, says the world is going to end in thirty days.’

The man rolled his eyes and grimaced.

‘I’ve been teasing my friend that this hill is haunted by the ghosts of the wild men and outlaws who’ve lived there. So what I thought was, you could dress as a wild man and leap out at him, give him a bit of a fright.’

‘I could dress up as an outlaw, that’d be easier,’ the actor said.

‘No,’ Godfrey said hastily. ‘It must be a wild man. It’s a private jest, you understand. His wife calls him her wild man.’

The player grinned. ‘Gets a bit carried away in the bedchamber, does he?’

‘Something like that,’ Godfrey agreed. ‘Here, see, I have a costume already for you.’ He opened a sack and showed the actor the bundle inside. ‘What do you say?’

The proffered coins disappeared into the player’s scrip in less time than it takes for a hound to swallow a piece of meat. Hands were shaken and pressed to the market cross to seal the bargain, and they parted, both men grinning to themselves at their good fortune.

Godfrey watched the player amble off in the direction of the nearest inn, clutching the sack. He only hoped the actor wouldn’t get too drunk and forget to turn up, but he was counting on the man’s greed for the other half of the purse.

Though he said so himself, the costume had been a masterstroke: linen cloth, covered in pitch to which had been stuck frazzled hemp, so that the wearer would appear as a shaggy monster covered in long hair from head to foot. The final addition was a set of light chains that would clank whenever the wearer moved. It was identical to the now infamous costume Henry’s grandfather Charles had worn at a ball, a costume that had nearly cost the French King his life.

Henry was teetering on the very brink of madness; the appearance of his grandfather would be just the little push he needed to send him over the edge of sanity, and as he fled in terror, over the edge of the hill too, with a dagger between his ribs. King Charles had miraculously survived his attempted assassination. Godfrey would make quite sure his grandson would not be so lucky.

Ursula looked somewhat less appealing in the daylight than she had three nights ago in the dark. Her swollen, red-rimmed eyes didn’t help, but nevertheless there was something about the way she was frantically wringing her hands and gazing up so helplessly at William that made him long to kiss her again. But kissing was evidently the last thing on the girl’s mind.

‘My father has discovered I was out all night. The watchman on the city gate told him he’d seen me go out and what time I returned. Father is furious. He says my reputation is ruined. He’s going to send me to a nunnery. He means it. But I can’t be walled up in one of those places for the rest of my life. I won’t! I’d go mad. I’d kill myself!’ She lifted her chin with a flash of her old spirit. ‘That’s why I’ve run away.’

William stared distractedly at her. ‘Run away. Where will you go? Have you friends who-’

‘Here. I’ve run away here to you. I’m going to stay with you, become one of your disciples. And…’ she hesitated, blushing, ‘… when we are married, then-’

‘Married!’ William repeated aghast.

‘Of course we will be married. Did you think I wouldn’t consent to be your wife? You said that I was chosen to be your consort. You said our lovemaking would create the divine energy that would transform the world, like the alchemist can turn lead into gold.’ She beamed at him. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t accept you as my husband? How modest you are.’

For a moment, William was at a loss for words, then he recovered himself. ‘What… what about your father – does he know this is where you were that night?’

‘He questioned the stable boy and the snivelling little sneak told him everything.’

William groaned. The last thing he needed tonight was some irate father storming up the hill to retrieve his runaway daughter and interrupting the exorcism. That would ruin everything. If he didn’t get his hands on the mirror tonight, he’d never get another chance, for the man would hardly be likely to return, not if some merchant arrived and accused him of seducing the girl.

‘Ursula, you can’t stay here. This is the first place your father will look when he finds you missing and you don’t want him discovering you here and dragging you straight off to that nunnery.’

‘But where can I go? I can’t go back home.’ She was struggling to hold back the tears.

William suddenly saw that she was no wanton seductress, only a scared little girl. A spasm of guilt flickered through him, but it passed almost before he recognised it.

‘Do you have an aunt or uncle, a cousin perhaps, in some neighbouring town?’

‘My grandmother lives in Saltford, but I can’t go there. She’s more strict than my father. She’d take me straight to the nunnery herself, probably an even worse one.’

William frowned, thinking rapidly. ‘If I send Martin to your father’s house with a message to say you are with your grandmother that will give you time to get away.’

And, he thought, stop the old man charging up here, at least for tonight. Tomorrow, he didn’t care where the girl’s father searched, he would be on his way to a port with that mirror.

Ursula’s fearful expression melted away and, smiling, she held out her hand to him. ‘Then I can stay here.’

‘No!’ The word burst out of William more forcibly than he had intended.

Ursula’s eyes opened wide in alarm.

William tried to speak more calmly. ‘Martin’s message will buy you only a night and, perhaps a day, at the most. Sooner or later your father is bound to find out you are not with your grandmother and come searching up here. Do you have money with you?’

The abrupt question seemed to startle her. ‘A… a little and my jewels.’

At least that was something, William thought. Best to send her to a city where she could easily lose herself among the crowd and where the arrival of a girl travelling alone would pass unremarked and unremembered.

‘You must ride to Bristol, Ursula. There, take lodgings at an inn and wait for me.’

Ursula looked stricken. ‘But I’ve been there only once with my parents. I can’t travel alone. You have to come with me!’

‘There are many troubled souls coming to see me tonight. I must stay to help them, but in a day or two my work here will be over and I will follow you. There is a woman in the city who sells spices in the market place near the cross. Everyone knows her. Goes by the name of Pavia. I will leave word with her when I’ve arrived and tell you where to meet me.’

‘But why-’

He pressed his fingers gently to her soft hot lips. He had to get rid of her, and quickly.

‘Listen to me, Ursula. I am Serkan the prophet and God has chosen you to be my consort. No power on earth will be able to separate us. He will watch over you until I am at your side once more.’ He took both her hands in his and lifted them to his chest. ‘You believe in me, Ursula, don’t you? You have faith in me? I need to know you do not doubt me or my powers. I must know that you believe!’

‘I do! I swear I do.’ Her eyes once more took on that shine of adoration.

He bent and kissed her chastely on the forehead, laying his hand on her head. ‘Bless you, Ursula, bless you, my beloved. Now go and do as I command. Have faith and I will come to you.’

He watched as she led her horse down the steep hillside. She turned once and he held up his hand as if in benediction. He sighed. She was a beautiful creature, a man could be very happy with her for a few months at least. Though he hadn’t intended to do so, now he rather thought he might go and find her once he had the mirror safely in his possession. Sea voyages could be long and exceedingly dull without a woman to while away the hours.

Having dispatched Martin on his errand to Ursula’s house, William devoted his attention to the preparations for that night. He had constructed a fire pit close to the northern lip of the hill. The pit was shallow, and the kindling dry and thin. He wanted the fire to give off more flame than heat, at least to begin with. Just behind it, he carefully cut a sod from the soil, and excavated a shallow hole beneath it. Then he filled the hole with a small leafy branch cut from a bush and replaced the sod. The branch held the sod at ground level, disguising the hole beneath. As long as no one trod on it, no casual glance would reveal it and William intended he should be the only one standing behind the fire. He checked that all the things he would need lay ready beside the pit – an earthenware jar of water, a fire pot in which charcoal burned, and the fumigant. All was ready, there was nothing more he could do now but wait.

Twilight crept in even before the sun had set. Deep purple and slate-coloured clouds had been rising all afternoon and now they towered like great battlements around the hill, plunging it into premature darkness. The wind was gathering strength; dry and hot as the blast from an oven, it dashed dust into stinging eyes and whipped limbs with fragments of broken twigs.

William stared anxiously down at the valley. There was no procession of torches winding its way towards the hill. The people of Bath had evidently decided to stay safely in their homes on a night like this. But what about the man with the mirror – was he desperate enough to make the journey? On the hillside the bushes swayed in the darkness so that it looked as if they were creeping up towards him. On such a night an assassin might easily steal up the hill and not even the sharpest lookout would see him. William found himself frantically praying for the man with the mirror to come. He could not bear another night of terror waiting for a dagger to be plunged in his back, or a blade to be drawn across his throat. He had to get away. He had to get that mirror tonight.

He was so consumed with fear that he didn’t even notice the pinprick of lantern-light coming along the track from Bath, until the two riders had almost reached the base of the hill. When he finally glimpsed them, he had to stop himself running down the hill to meet them. Instead he forced himself to concentrate on the task of lighting the fire. His fear and the gusting wind made him fumble, but finally, after blowing out several times, the dried kindling took hold and the wind whipped up the blaze, sending the flames whirling around the pit like witches at the Devil’s Sabbat.

As he looked up again he saw the two men advancing and his stomach gave a lurch of relief. But William could afford to waste no time in greetings. With an imperious wave of his hand he summoned his disciples who had been watching and waiting, knowing that something was afoot.

William motioned his two visitors to sit on the ground a little way from the fire and his followers sat themselves down behind them. An expectant hush fell upon the crowd as they waited to see what he would do. William could feel their mounting anticipation. They were expecting something special tonight. And he was determined they would not be disappointed.

He took a long stick and charred the end in the fire, then solemnly drew three wide concentric circles around the fire. No one moved or spoke. He could feel the gaze of every man and woman fixed intently upon him.

Charring the stick anew each time, he wrote signs and symbols in each of the circles in turn, calling out the names of what he wrote in a deep booming voice that rose above the roar of the wind. First, ‘Armatus’, the name of the summer moon, though there was not a glimpse of a moon to be seen tonight beneath the deep clouds. Next he wrote the names of the angels of summer – ‘Gargatel’, ‘Tariel’ and ‘Gaviel’. Then he called out the names of all the angels of the air and the four names of God. Finally, in the outer circle, with a great flourish he inscribed four pentagrams, pointing towards the north, east, south and west of the hill. He had just drawn the last stroke when a long rumble of thunder echoed round the valley. William raised his stick as if he was commanding the thunder and the disciples huddled closer together, staring up in awe.

William dipped a bunch of broom fronds into the jar of water and flung drops around the circles and over the small crowd, who flinched and gasped as the water touched them as if the drops were gold coins thrown by a king.

Then he strode into the circles and stood before the fire in silence, his arms folded. His disciples held their breath in expectation.

‘Bring the cursed mirror to me,’ he commanded.

But the man did not move and, for a few sickening moments, William thought he was going to refuse. Finally his servant scrambled to his feet and, wrenching the mirror from his master’s trembling fingers, he marched towards William and placed it in his hands, before retreating to stand in the shadows behind the group of disciples.

William almost howled in delight as he finally felt the weight of the silver mirror in his hands. He stared down into it. His face was reflected back up at him, framed by a halo of glistening pearls, and rubies that drew the very flames of the fire into their blood-red hearts.

He was close now, so close. He scooped up a handful of sulphur from the fumigant jar. With the other hand he held the mirror high aloft in the raven-black sky. There was another great rumble of thunder, louder than before. William felt the power surge through him as if he could command the whole universe.

‘By the thrones of Beralans, Baldachis, Paumachia and Apologia, by their kings and proud powers and powerful princes, by the attendant spirits of Liachis, the servant of the throne of hell, I invoke you. I conjure you. I command you in the three secret names – Agla, On and Tetragrammaton – foul fiend come forth from this mirror!’

William threw the handful of sulphur onto the flames and a dense cloud of stinking yellow smoke exploded upwards, swallowing him and the mirror. All he had to do now was lift the turf off the hole he had prepared behind the fire and drop the mirror into it, but he never got the chance.

Just as he threw the sulphur there was a great roar and something huge and shaggy rose up the hill and burst out of the darkness behind him. William shrieked and stumbled backwards, stepping onto the hole; the twigs supporting the turf broke under his weight and he was pitched forward. The mirror flew out of his hand and fell into the dense smoke and flames of the fire.

With a clanking of iron chains and maniacal howls, the creature skirted around the prone figure of William and bounded towards the crowd. At the sight of the wild man cavorting towards them out of the dense yellow smoke, the disciples tried to scramble up, but they had huddled together so tightly that they were pushing each other back down in their struggle.

Godfrey had eyes for only one man. The king, sitting slightly forward of the disciples, had scrambled to his feet as soon as he caught sight of the figure. Now he was backing away to the edge of the hill, his arms held protectively across his face. He seemed to be praying or whimpering, Godfrey didn’t know which, and wasn’t going to wait to find out. His dagger was already in his hand as he crept around to the edge of the hill, and crouched, waiting for Henry to back just a little further away from the glow of the fire.

One swift thrust of the dagger, a hard shove over the edge, was all it would take to change the fate of England. And when the crumpled body was found tomorrow at the bottom of the hill, why, who would be blamed but the vagabond prophet who had stolen the valuable mirror?

‘Come to me, my liege,’ Godfrey whispered into the roaring wind. ‘Just a little further, just a few more steps and it will all be over.’

A crack of blue lightning split the sky, and at once rain began to pour down in fat heavy drops. Godfrey was distracted for only a moment, but for Henry this new omen from the sky was more than his battered mind could cope with. He threw himself, face down, on the ground, his arms stretched out in the form of a cross, as if he was a monk doing penance before the altar.

Godfrey dashed the water from his eyes and swiftly glanced around. The disciples were fleeing in all directions. The wild man had slipped on the wet grass and was floundering around trying to regain his footing under the cumbersome costume, and Serkan seemed to have vanished. Henry lay motionless on the ground, as if waiting for the mercy of the executioner’s knife that would put an end to his nightmare.

Godfrey crept forward as silently as he could, not that any stealth was needed, for the beating of the rain and crash of thunder would have masked the sound of an army. As he reached the King’s feet he hesitated. It is much easier to stab a standing man in the back than one who is prone. He’d have to kneel and strike in one fluid movement before Henry could sense the presence of someone beside him and turn his head.

He braced himself, choosing the spot, raising the dagger in both fists ready to plunge it in. If he hadn’t been so intent on his mark, he might have seen the wild man throw up his hands in horror. He might have heard the actor cry out a warning, but he didn’t.

He had taken but a single step towards the prone body of the King when he heard the savage roar behind him; he half turned to glimpse something huge and dark rearing up behind him, the red mouth open in a snarl, the long white fangs bared. As another crack of lightning illuminated the full savagery of the great beast towering over him, Godfrey tried to strike out with the dagger he held, but he was too late, far too late. A huge paw struck him on the side of his head. The curved claws tore the flesh from his face, and with a single agonised scream, Godfrey tumbled over the side of the hill and vanished into the darkness below.

The bear flopped heavily down onto all four paws. As the rain pounded down, he sniffed at the prone body of the King, then turned away. For a long moment, the bear stood alone on the top of Solsbury Hill, its great head lifted as if it was looking out over the darkened valley, out over England, out over time itself.

As the thunder rumbled once more around the hill, more distant now, Henry finally came to and began to stir. The great bear looked down at him one last time before it turned and lumbered off down the hill, vanishing into the cavernous night.

A pale primrose light was creeping into the sky. The air had the sharp, fresh scent of wet earth and grass. It had rained all night, washing stones down the hillside in muddy torrents, but with the coming of dawn the clouds had finally rolled away. William, resting heavily on his staff, limped painfully across the sodden grass, his progress made even slower by his soaking robe, which twisted itself around his legs. His ankle had swollen to twice its size from his wrenching it in the hole. It was going to be agony getting down that hill, with the grass so slippery after the storm. But it had to be done; up here alone and injured he may as well have been staked out like a lamb for a wolf.

There was no sign of any of his disciples, not even Martin. The traitors had fled, leaving him completely alone and unprotected. He had lain all night, curled tightly in a ball against the pounding rain, his limbs numb with cold and his brain frozen with fear that the devil he had conjured would return.

He had not for one moment believed that the spell would really bring forth a demon, but when that monster had lumbered towards him, rattling the chains of hell, he had thought that Satan himself had risen out of the earth to take him. He had, he supposed, fainted, for when he came to he could see nothing in the blinding rain, hear nothing except the wind raging. He’d crawled away and hidden in a clump of bushes, reciting every prayer and charm he’d ever learned or even half learned, until it was light enough for him to dare to move.

Now the only thought in his head was to get off this accursed hill as quickly as possible. Nothing would induce him to spend another night here. But first there was something he had to retrieve. It was his only hope of getting so far away from here that he’d never have to lay eyes on England again.

He limped painfully towards the fire pit. The pots and the jar of sulphur still lay where he had left them. The pit had filled with black water on which the dust and ashes of last night’s fire floated. He struggled down onto his knees, and began frantically groping around until his fingers touched the edge of a heavy disc. Almost sobbing with relief, he pulled the mirror out and carefully wiped it on the hem of his sodden robe. The silver was blackened and fragments of the red enamel on the back had cracked and fallen off.

For a moment he felt the crushing weight of disappointment, but he consoled himself. Had the rain not extinguished the fire so quickly, the damage could have been far worse. Besides, he would not have been able to sell it as a mirror, for it would be far too easily identified, and who in these parts could possibly afford to pay the kind of sum that the complete mirror was worth? No, far better to break it apart, sell a ruby here, some pearls there and melt the silver down into smaller pieces.

Hastily he drew his knife, and set about prising a single ruby from its setting. He must have something ready to barter with at the first village he came to, for he was in desperate need of food, new clothes and, most importantly, a strong horse. He wouldn’t get very far on foot with his injured ankle.

Without warning he felt a sharp pain stabbing into his back. He jerked upwards, dropping the mirror for the second time into the black puddle of the fire pit.

‘Throw your knife away,’ a voice growled behind him, ‘or I’ll push this dagger so far into you it’ll cut your navel out.’

Sick with fear, William did as he was bid and heard his staff being kicked out of his reach.

‘Don’t stand up. Just turn around, nice and slowly. I want to see your face, you bastard.’

William couldn’t have stood, even if he’d tried. Wincing in pain he twisted around and looked up into the face of the one man he prayed he’d never see again.

‘So, William, or should I call you Serkan? Oh, where are my manners? I should address you as “Master” now, shouldn’t I?’

The man, towering over him, was smiling coldly. His dark hair was streaked with grey. His scarred face was gaunt and as tanned as old leather, and several of his teeth were missing. But his eyes were the same emerald green as William’s own.

William tried to force his mouth into a smile, but failed miserably. ‘Edgar. Thank God, you… you live. I was so afraid you’d perished in the wreck.’

Edgar gave a bitter laugh. ‘So afraid I’d survived, you mean. But you knew I was still alive, didn’t you? You got the little message I pinned to the cottage door. I thought you’d recognise the sign – the staff of Asclepius with a serpent entwined about it – the emblem of a physician. But then the serpent has another meaning too, doesn’t it, William? One you’d know all about – treachery.’

‘And you left another of your little marks too, didn’t you?’ William said. ‘On the body of that poor woman you murdered.’

‘Only sporting to give you fair warning I was here. I’ve followed you every sorry step of the way from Brean, biding my time. But you’d surrounded yourself with followers, hiding behind women’s skirts as usual. I suppose I could have picked them off one at a time, but that would have attracted attention. I was trying to figure out how to get you alone when, by good fortune, I met a servant in an inn who told me about his master’s valuable mirror. As soon as I heard about that mirror I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to steal it. So I persuaded the servant to bring his master here, because I knew your greed would get the better of you, and it has. Why didn’t you flee last night when you had the chance? You could have been well away by now. But I know you too well, William. I knew you would come back for the mirror and here you are, snouting around in the mud for it, like the swine you are.’

Despite the chill of his wet robes, William’s face was flushed. ‘What… what do you want of me?’

Edgar fingered the blade of his dagger. ‘I want you, dear brother. I want your death. I want revenge.’

‘But after all these years, you can’t still-’

‘Fifteen years and three months, to be exact, and I should know; I counted every rotten, stinking back-breaking day of it. And now you are going to pay. I’m only sorry I can’t make you suffer as long as I did, but I can ensure you do suffer. The question is, how? Staking you to the ground and roasting your feet in a fire – how would that be to begin with? What a pity all your followers have deserted you. There’ll be no one to hear your screams up here.’

‘Except me!’ a voice yelled out behind him. Martin launched himself at Edgar, knocking him to the ground and pinning his arms behind him. ‘Quick, Master, give me your girdle.’

He held the struggling man until William had managed to unfasten the blue cord he wore about his waist and had crawled on his hands and knees over to bind Edgar’s arms behind him. Martin used his own belt to lash Edgar’s ankles. Once the prisoner was firmly secured, Martin hauled him into a sitting position.

‘What should I do with him, Master?’

‘Wait, boy,’ Edgar said. ‘Before you do anything with me, there are things you need to know. Things about this master of yours.’

‘Ignore him,’ William snapped. ‘Fetch my staff and help me to my feet. We’re leaving. This wretch can stay here until someone eventually comes up and stumbles upon him.’

‘Don’t you want to know why I was trying to kill your master?’ Edgar said calmly. ‘Aren’t you at all curious about why I followed him here?’

‘Fetch my staff now, I command you,’ William said with all the authority he could muster.

Martin hesitated, looking at the two men on the ground. Then he picked up William’s staff and Edgar’s dagger, and sat down a little way from the two men, holding the dagger ready in his hand.

‘I want to hear what he has to say. You!’ He pointed with the dagger at Edgar. ‘You called my master “brother”. Is he really your kin?’

Edgar arched his back, trying to ease the ache of the tight bonds. ‘He is my father’s son, though by God, I swear he has shown no brotherly loyalty to me.’

Martin frowned. ‘I used to fight with my brothers all the time, but I never wanted to see them dead. What was the quarrel between you?’

‘Will you tell him, William, or shall I?’

‘Don’t listen to him,’ William roared.

‘I’ll tell it then, shall I?’ Edgar said coldly. ‘The quarrel, as you put it, happened when I was just sixteen and my brother here, a year younger. We were both apprenticed to a great physician and alchemist, a man much respected in the district. I was betrothed to Aliena, the physician’s only child, whom I adored, and it seemed that my life was mapped out for me. Aliena and I would marry and raise our children. In time I would inherit my father-in-law’s business and devote my life to healing the sick.

‘I worked hard, eager to become as good a physician as my master. But William had no interest in studying. He didn’t need to; knowledge came easily to him and somehow he managed to convince our master that he was studying diligently. He always had a gift for words, but the truth was that when the master left us alone, my brother would sneak off to lay wagers on the cockfights or seduce some tavern wench.

‘One day, our master set us both to making up potions and purges for the patients he would visit later that day. He left recipes, which we were to follow to the letter. But a pretty young maid called with a message for the physician. William was supposed to be making up a sleeping draught for a woman who suffered much pain, but he was so busy flirting with the maid that he forgot he had already added the drops of hemlock to the potion and added more. Of course, the woman died. My dear brother swore that it was I, not he, who had prepared that sleeping draught and everyone believed him.

‘I was terrified I would be hanged, but my master pleaded that it was an accident and my sentence was commuted to a public flogging in the market place, and then I was sold to a ship’s captain to pay the heavy fine imposed on my master.

‘I had lost everything, while my brother had it all. He even took my beloved Aliena, until he tired of her and left her with a child swelling her belly. For fifteen years I sweated and slaved before the mast, rowing till my hands were raw and my muscles screamed in agony, climbing the rigging as storms raged, blistering in the heat, shivering in the ice of winter, eating food rotten with maggots and drinking foul water. And if my strength failed me, there was always the encouragement of the lash to spur me on.

‘Then a few months ago a passenger came aboard. I recognised him at once, but he didn’t even notice me. Why should he? He scarcely glanced at the filthy, sunburned sailors toiling over the rigging. I thought time might have improved his character, but it hadn’t. The captain’s mistress was aboard, and it wasn’t long before I saw him groping her in the castle of the ship, when the captain was occupied elsewhere.

‘I confronted him and he finally realised who I was. He grabbed an iron grappling hook and swung it at my head, determined to silence me for good. But years of dodging heavy ropes and tackle on a rolling ship had taught me swiftness. The hook missed my head, but broke my arm. One of my shipmates saw what he did and when the captain questioned me about the quarrel, I told him all about William and his mistress.

‘The captain flew into a rage, threatening to throw them both overboard. His mistress protested that William had forced his attentions on her. So the captain had William lashed to the topmost mast to suffer the full motion of the ship and punishment of the weather. And finally, after fifteen years, I felt a little crumb of justice had fallen my way; for once in his life my brother was going to understand what it meant to endure hunger and thirst, burning sun and biting rain.

‘But in all the commotion no one had noticed how close we were to the headland. Almost at once the storm hit us. The mast was the first thing to topple into the sea. We were driven onto the rocks and fought for our lives. I struggled ashore, though how I did so with a broken arm was more than I could fathom. Rage and bitterness spurred me on. I searched for the others, but they were all drowned. I thought William had perished as well, and I was glad of it. Until I heard that a man had survived, a man tied to the mast of the ship. And I knew then that somehow that bastard had once again survived. But I was determined that this time he would not get away with it.’

The look of disgust on Martin’s face had been deepening all the time Edgar had been speaking, and now the lad turned to look at his master.

‘It’s all lies,’ William shouted, his face contorted. ‘You’re surely not going take his word over mine. Remember the miracles I’ve performed. I am Serkan, and he is… is nothing!’

‘Like me, you mean.’ The boy sprang to his feet. ‘I’m nothing to you either, am I? You let me think that you were a prophet, a holy man. I left my family, my village, everything, to follow you and all this time you’ve lied to me. Everything you’ve done has been nothing but cheap swindler’s tricks.’

Martin raised the dagger and ran at him, but William grabbed a handful of sulphur from the pot behind him and dashed into the lad’s face. Martin squealed, and blindly staggered backward. William reached out and grabbed his ankle, bringing him crashing to the ground. The knife flew from Martin’s hand.

William rolled onto his knees and crawled towards the blade. He stretched out his hand, but just as his fingertips touched it, a large leather boot came down on the dagger, pinning it to the ground.

William stared up. One of the sheriff’s men was looking down at him, his sword pointed straight at William’s throat. A second soldier had his sword pointed at Martin’s chest, an unnecessary precaution since he could do nothing except rub his streaming eyes.

Two men came panting over the rise. The stouter of the two stood bent double for a few minutes, evidently suffering from a stitch. But the second, a bailiff, hurried across to the group.

‘Which of you is the man they call Serkan?’

‘He is,’ Edgar jerked his head towards William.

The bailiff turned to William and said rather breathlessly, ‘Master Thomas says his daughter’s run away and he thinks she’s come here. He claims that four nights ago you seduced his daughter, Ursula. And yesterday, when he returned home after seeing to his business affairs, his maid reported that a lad had come with a message that Ursula had gone to her grandmother’s house. So Master Thomas set off to bring her home, only to discover the good lady hadn’t laid eyes on her granddaughter. So, is the girl with you?’

The stout man, who by now had joined them, rounded on William, his eyes bulging in fury. ‘What have you done with my little Ursula? Where is she?’ He stared around the flat hilltop as if he thought to see her standing there.

‘I haven’t seen her.’

The bailiff hauled William to his feet by the front of his robe. He yelped at the pain in his ankle.

‘Where is she?’ the bailiff demanded. ‘It would be wiser for you to tell me now. I’ve other ways of getting the information I want, far more unpleasant ways,’ he added with a nasty grin.

‘All right!’ William groaned. ‘She came here yesterday afternoon. I told her to go home, but she wouldn’t, she said she was going to Bristol.’

‘Bristol!’ Master Thomas shouted, his face turning scarlet. ‘What would my daughter want to go to Bristol for? She knows no one there. She wouldn’t even know the way. What have you done with my little girl?’

William swayed in the bailiff’s grip. ‘I swear on the Holy Cross, I-’

But they never learned what William was going to swear, for at that moment there was a shout from another soldier struggling over the rise.

‘We found her, bailiff. Leastways we found a body. It was buried in a shallow grave near the bottom of the hill. The rain must have washed some of the soil and stones off the grave. That’s how we saw the corpse, else we might never have found it.’ He turned to Master Thomas, gnawing his lip. ‘I’m sorry, sir. Body’s been burned, but there’s no mistaking it’s a woman. I reckon it must be your daughter.’

The merchant rocked on his heels, his mouth working convulsively. ‘Not my daughter. Please, not her… My little Ursula dead… burned!’ He flung himself at William and it took the strength of two soldiers to hold him back. ‘He murdered her… He murdered my innocent child!’

William stared aghast, his face blanched to the colour of whey. ‘No, no, that’s not her, that’s not Ursula. I didn’t kill her. I swear by all the saints in Heaven, Ursula’s alive. She’s in Bristol. Tell them, Martin, tell them it isn’t Ursula in that grave.’

For a long moment Martin stared at him through swollen and bloodshot eyes. Then he said quite calmly, ‘But who else could it be, Master. Who else could it possibly be?’

Historical Notes

After the truce was agreed between France and England in 1396, Richard II of England and Charles VI of France exchanged gifts every year at the time of the New Year feast. Some of the gifts are well documented, and were lavish and costly pieces such as drinking vessels and ornaments. The mirror in the story is not recorded, but is typical of the kind of work done at that period, decorated with rouge cler enamel, which was in use from the beginning of the fourteenth century.

During his reign, Charles VI suffered several bouts of ‘madness’, violently attacking courtiers and friends. The entrances in his castles even had to be walled up to prevent him escaping. On one occasion at a party he dressed as a wild man with several of his lords, who chained themselves together and cavorted about. The King’s brother, Louis of Valois, approached the wild men with a flaming torch, allegedly to determine their identity. The pitch that covered their costumes was set alight and four of the lords perished. Charles was only saved by a quick-thinking lady-in-waiting, who smothered the flames with the train of her dress. Whether this was, as his brother claimed, an accident or a deliberate attempt at assassination we shall probably never know, but the incident became known as Bal des Ardents, the Ball of the Burning Men.

In the summer of 1453, following the loss of his lands in France, the gentle and saintly Henry VI suffered his first period of ‘madness’. Whether it was, as he feared, a condition inherited from his grandfather Charles, or a nervous breakdown brought about by stress, is difficult to determine. Richard of York, who had an equal claim to the throne, was appointed as Protector in March 1454. When Henry regained his sanity for a short time in 1455, Richard of York was dismissed, but took up arms against the Crown in May of that year, in a conflict that was later to be called The War of the Roses.

The ritual that Serkan used to exorcise the demon from the mirror was based upon the detailed instructions for conjuring of spirits recorded by authors such as Pietro d’Abano, 1250-1316, in his treatise Heptameron seu elementa magica. Pietro d’Abano was an Italian physician, who is said to have ‘accidentally died’ while being interrogated by the Inquisition.