Nightshade

Prologue

‘The well-fed body and delicate complexion are a tunic for the worms and hell fire!’ Brother Gratian, a Dominican of the Order of Preachers, shook one bony hand free from the sleeve of his black and white gown. A finger, thin and pointed as a bodkin, jabbed up at the lowering grey skies as if the threatening snow clouds would break to reveal Christ, seated in glory and surrounded by angels wielding swords of fire, coming to judge the people of Mistleham in the King’s shire of Essex. Some of that market town’s citizens would sagely agree that such a Day of Doom was just. For had not Mistleham become a haven of murder and mayhem? The Dominican’s powerful voice rang out, cutting like a hiss of steel across the marketplace crowded in by town houses, the guildhall and the brooding mass of St Alphege’s, the parish church, with its four-square crenellated tower, grey brick and grimacing gargoyles. The dirt-strewn, slippery cobbles echoed to the usual sounds of carts rumbling and horses clattering, their sharpened hooves sparking the stone. Peasants trodwearily as they moved from one stall to the next, looking to barter or to purchase. Now all fell eerily silent under the preacher’s eloquent voice: even the bailiffs gathered around the stocks, waiting to imprison a huddle of malefactors, paused in their shouting and cursing. Raucous laughter at an adulterer forced to carry a prostitute on his shoulders to the stocks, her skirt pulled up, bare legs swinging, faded abruptly away. The Dominican’s voice rang as clear as the sacristy bell that announced the elevation of the host during mass, the ice-cold morning air serving as God’s silver trumpet for this preacher, Lord Scrope’s personal chaplain and confessor.

‘The body is vile,’ Brother Gratian proclaimed, ‘stinking and withered. The pleasure of the flesh is, by its very nature, poisoned and corrupt. It brings down upon you a shoal of God’s curses.’ The Dominican’s ever-growing congregation nodded and murmured amongst themselves. They realised Brother Gratian was referring obliquely to the Free Brethren of the Holy Spirit, those wandering beggar-preachers who had swept into Mistleham and taken over the haunted, derelict village of Mordern deep in the nearby forest. The Free Brethren had preached how the flesh was sweet and its pleasures wholesome. Indeed, it was rumoured, if the men amongst the Free Brethren made love to a woman, they, like Adam did for Eve in Paradise, could restore her virginity. Lord Scrope, who’d recently gone riding by on a charger draped in a mantle, dressed in a costly diapered tunic woven in Constantinople, silken breeches pushed into pure leather boots, gold spurs winking in the sunlight, had brought a savage end to such nonsense.

‘Satan,’ Brother Gratian’s voice grew even stronger, ‘roams ourroads with his demonic packhorses! On each are millions of souls, bound and fettered, all destined for hell. Satan’s head is larger than that of a horse or any other animal. He has bushy hair, and a sweeping forehead more than two hands broad. He has large soft ears like those of a baboon, enormous brows, owlish eyes in a fat face and a cat’s nose. A cleft lip closes over fangs like those of a ravenous wolf, sharp and red.’ Brother Gratian’s voice was now so carrying it could even be heard inside St Alphege’s with its graceful pillars, arches and columns, delicate stone tracery and windows glazed with jewel-like studded glass.

In a darkened corner of that church, near the mercy seat close to the lady chapel, Lady Hawisa Scrope and Domina Marguerite, abbess of the nearby convent of St Frideswide, paused in their conversation. They had been discussing a fresh approach to Lord Scrope about those corpses still hanging deep in the forest around the village of Mordern. Now they drew apart. Lady Hawisa’s face, white as hawthorn blossom, puckered in concern. She rubbed her eyes, glanced at Abbess Marguerite, then raised her eyes heavenwards. She was about to continue her conversation when a more sinister, threatening sound echoed like the crack of doom, low but powerful: the drawn-out braying of a hunting horn. Lady Hawisa sprang to her feet and hastened towards the coffin door, the side entrance to the church. She threw this open and ran outside. Again the hunting horn sounded, promising violence and sudden death. The people of Mistleham were already scattering, fleeing for refuge; some even brushed by her, flinging themselves into the church. Across the square, archers and men-at-arms wearing the russet-green livery of her husband, Lord Scrope, came spilling out of the Honeycomb tavern, bows strung, arrowsnotched. Others were drawing swords and daggers. Traders deserted their stalls; women clutched children to shelter in doorways. Again that dreadful horn brayed, but from where? Lady Hawisa gazed wildly around. More people were running towards the church, screaming, ‘Sagittarius, Sagittarius! The Bowman, the Bowman!’ Brother Gratian came hastening across. For a man who preached so often about death, he now seemed particularly frightened at the prospect. He paused before Lady Hawisa, opened his mouth to speak, then thrust by her to join the others flocking into the church.

‘Come on, hasten!’ someone behind Lady Hawisa shouted from the safety of the porch.

She turned and gazed back across the square. Eadburga, daughter of Oswin, ostler at the Honeycomb, was hurrying towards her clutching the hand of Wilfred, her beloved. They were shouting and screaming as they raced across. Lady Hawisa heard, or thought she did, the ominous twang of a longbow. Someone grabbed at her arm, trying to drag her into the church, but all she could do was stare at the fleeing lovers. Eadburga abruptly staggered, turning sideways even as the long barbed shaft that had pierced her back broke through her chest in a flurry of blood. The young woman crumpled to the ground as Wilfred, still clasping her hand, turned to help. A second arrow lanced his neck, straight through flesh and bone, cutting off breath and life. Wilfred collapsed to his knees, hands fluttering, blood bubbling between his lips as his eyes glazed over in death.