The Holy Innocents

Chapter Twelve

I came slowly to my senses from the depths of a deep, untroubled sleep. Something had woken me, but as yet I was unsure what it was.

Before turning in, I had eaten well at the castle ale-house, free of Jacinta’s conversation, as she was visiting a neighbour who had just been delivered of twins. This much I prised out of her taciturn son, who answered all my questions with a series of grunts and a few grudging phrases. There were a half-dozen other men present: a couple of guards from the castle garrison, a stout and respectable burgher of the town and three travellers who had obtained lodgings at the Priory guest-house for the night. I was grateful for the landlady’s absence, and while I ate my boiled bacon and peas, washed down with a cup of Rhenish wine, I turned over in my mind the events of the day and tried to sort out my impressions.

But I was too tired to do them justice, and by the end of the meal, I was nodding over my empty platter, the wine spilling from the cup in my hand. I paid what I owed and left.

I decided that I could not endure another long and wakeful night, like the one before, so I dragged the flock mattress and two woollen blankets downstairs from the smaller bedchamber, and made myself comfortable. Too comfortable, perhaps, for, having stripped off my outer clothing and cleaned between my teeth with my strip of willow bark, I was sound asleep almost before I had rolled beneath the covers…

And now, for some reason I could not immediately fathom, I was wide awake, sitting bolt upright, my hand already reaching out towards my cudgel. I listened intently, but the house was silent except for the slight nocturnal groans of settling timber. Yet something had disturbed my rest, penetrating the veils of sleep which still clung about my eyelids. Or was it simply the echo of a dream?

After a few minutes, I lay down again, pulling the blankets around my ears, finally convinced that I was mistaken. A finger of moonlight silvered the floor as it probed its way between the shutters.

I was drifting on a cloud of pleasant dreams, a child again, back in my home in Wells. My mother had sent me out of doors to play, while she swept the cottage floor with a broom she had made from stems freshly gathered that morning.

These stems had been carefully stripped of their flowers, which made a good yellow dye, or, when mixed with woad, a green one. She was a thrifty housewife, my mother, but she had need to be since the death of my father. As she sent dust and old rushes flying through the open doorway, she began to sing, her voice very faint, high-pitched and far away…

I was wide awake again, the hair beginning to rise on the nape of my neck and droplets of icy sweat breaking out all over my body. I propped myself on one elbow, straining my ears, suddenly realizing with horror that this was no dream, but reality. The sound came from above me, a child’s voice, very thin and reed-like, some way off, but the words clearly audible in the stillness. I recognized them as part of a lullaby my mother used to sing on those many nights when, as a young child, sleep proved elusive.

I shivered, aware of a coldness in the room. I battled against the impulse to burrow down into the mattress and throw the blankets over my head, to block my ears with my fingers until that eerie keening had ceased. The wraiths of darkness seemed, to my fevered imagination, to be circling all around me: hobgoblins, spectres and phantoms of the night, unhappy spirits rising from yawning graves.

The voice came again, still clear and high, but this time with a slight quaver in it, like a child who is comforting itself and trying to be brave. A boy’s voice or a girl’s? It was hard to tell. I only knew that the sound was piteous, that it was asking for help, drawing me on like the sailors of old who heard the sirens’ call, only to be dashed to pieces against the rocks…

I forced myself to rise from my lowly bed and, with trembling fingers, sought for the tinder-box which I had left on the parlour table. Twice I tried to rub the flint against the steel, and twice failed, but the third time, I managed to steady my hands long enough to strike a spark. The tinder flared and I held it to my candle, the flame illuminating the room and bringing the shadows creeping stealthily out of their corners. I must have dragged on my hose and shirt and laced up my tunic, but I had only a hazy recollection afterwards of having done so. Then I picked up the candle-holder in one hand and my cudgel in the other, and began to mount the stairs.

The voice continued its singing, enticing me forwards. Just for a moment, as I reached the top of the flight, it wavered and broke, the final notes of the verse sounding louder and closer at hand. I spun round on my heel, raising my candle above my head, letting its pale radiance play across the walls and furniture of the upper parlour. The carved saints at the end of the roof-beams stared down with sightless eyes, the reds and blues, greens and yellows of their robes leaping out at me, jewel-bright, before subsiding back into shadow as the light slithered over them and passed on. The tapestry Judith, holding up the head of Holofernes, was transfixed in the moment of her triumph, the embroidered gouts of blood, dripping to the ground of the Assyrian’s tent, looking almost real in the glow from the candle…

There was no one there: my ears had tricked me. And now the singing started again, in the distance. I stepped through to the tiny, airless landing. The door of the children’s room was shut, but the one leading into the larger bedchamber stood ajar, and I could hear the words of the lullaby with even greater clarity.

I entered the room, once more raising my candle aloft, and looked around me. With a jolt of fear, which made me tremble from head to foot, I saw that the further door, leading to the courtyard gallery, was open, letting in a blast of cold night air. Almost certain that I had locked it the previous day, and not having been up here since, I knew an overpowering impulse to turn and run downstairs and out into the street, to seek sanctuary in the Priory from whatever restless spirit haunted this unhappy house. I was shivering violently, my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth, my hand shaking so much that drops of hot tallow spattered the red and white walls. And beneath the horror ran a more mundane fear that I might let the candle fall, setting light to the old, dry and brittle rushes which remained scattered across the floor.

The voice soared to a high, pure note, like the pealing of a silver bell, then ceased abruptly. In the moments of utter silence which followed, I waited, my heart thumping in my chest, for it to begin again. Nothing happened. The stillness became first oppressive, then menacing. Finally, summoning every ounce of courage, I crept towards the paler oblong set in the blackness of the wall and stared out into the moonlit night.

Shadows filled the inner courtyard. I could make out the shapes of well-head and pump outside the kitchen door, which, I noted with relief, appeared to be shut. The windows, too, were closed, displaying no chink of light. Immediately ahead of me stretched the covered gallery, and the door at the further end also presented a blank and shuttered face. My candle-flame paled into insignificance against the beams of the waxing moon, and I snuffed it out. I could find my way downstairs sure-footed now that my eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. I waited, unmoving, my ears alert for any resumption of that ghostly singing, any last echo, however faint, of the childish treble whose sex I still could not determine. The beating of my heart had quietened a little, making it easier to breathe, and I drew in a mouthful of the early morning air. For surely, I decided, it must have long gone midnight. It was the dead time of darkness when nothing stirs. No noise, not even the cry of the Watch, disturbed the town which slumbered all about me.

I leaned against the jamb of the door, waiting to regain control of my limbs, vainly telling myself that I had imagined the whole. It must, after all, have been an extension of my dream. It was my mother’s voice, long since stilled by death, that I had heard. After a moment or two, I felt it possible to move and gently eased my body away from its support. As I did so, a flash of movement at the other end of the covered gallery riveted my attention.

The door leading into the lofts and the servants’ quarters above the kitchen stood wide open, where, only seconds before, it had been fast shut. It had swung inwards on silent hinges, revealing an archway of blackness. There was no glimmer of light nor any sign of life, but the solid, iron-studded oaken leaf could not possibly have moved of its own accord.

My heart began to thump once more, and I found it difficult to swallow. I cursed myself for having prematurely doused my candle, for having too eagerly embraced the notion that what had happened had been due to nothing more than my imagination. I hesitated, tempted to turn and flee, but a voice inside my head urged me not to be a coward. I crossed myself, placed my candlestick on the floor, took a firmer grip of my cudgel and advanced along the gallery, the boards creaking a, little beneath my weight.

The moonlight made my passage easy, so that I was able to keep my eyes on the cavern of darkness ahead without worrying too much about my feet. Thus it was that I saw the faint movement beyond the storeroom door, the merest flicker of black upon black, but sufficient to reassure me that the events of the night were indeed real and not imagined.

‘Hello!’ I called. ‘Who’s there? Stand fast, whoever you are. You’re trespassing!’

My voice sounded strange and unnatural, and the profound silence which ensued left my words echoing through my head without form or meaning. Then suddenly there came again that weird, almost unearthly singing.

I could stand it no longer. I lunged forward, pounding along the gallery with long, hasty strides, not noticing how the boards were shaking beneath my feet. As I reached the middle, there was a terrible groaning, the ominous crack of splintering wood, a rending shriek as the old and rotten planking gave way, fragmenting into a gaping hole. I grasped desperately at the handrail in an attempt to save myself, but it was too late. My hands were slippery, unable to get a grip, and I fell, feet first, to the courtyard below.

It was not a long drop, perhaps only a distance of seven or eight feet, but I could have done myself more hurt than I did. As it was, I struck my head on the flagstones, a blow which made my senses reel, and twisted one leg beneath me.

How long I lay there, stunned, I have no idea, but it could not have been many minutes. Cautiously and painfully, I dragged myself upright, using my cudgel, which, by God’s providence, had fallen close at hand, as a prop to aid me in getting to my feet. My left ankle was very tender when I first put it to the ground, but after hobbling to and fro across the courtyard several times, the pain grew less and it was able to take my weight. I had been extremely fortunate to escape without any broken bones.

A glance in the direction of the covered gallery showed it irreparably damaged. Apart from the roof, which now sagged drunkenly in the middle, the walkway stood in two separate parts, the flagstones beneath strewn with fragments and splinters of wood, some of them sizeable pieces of timber. It would take the craft of a master carpenter, aided by his apprentice, to try to put it right, although in my estimation it was past repairing, a structure long neglected and rotted by the effects of the weather.

I realized that I had almost forgotten my original fear in the aftermath of my fall and concern for my body’s wellbeing. Now, it returned in full force, and I gazed up at the storeroom door above me, in terror of seeing some ghostly, childish face peering over the end of the broken balustrade.

There was nobody there, and the door was shut. At first, I thought it a trick of the moonlight, and stood on tiptoe, craning my neck, getting as close to the rickety structure of the gallery as I dared, but I was not mistaken. Whoever, or whatever, had opened the door had now closed it.

Again plucking up my courage, I decided to search the kitchen building. I hobbled towards the door and tried the latch, but it was barred and bolted. Moreover, the keys were not upon my person. Before retiring to rest, I had placed them for safekeeping beneath the mattress. Once more, fear pricked along my spine. Doors had been opened that night, but whether by witchcraft or by human agency I had, as yet, no means of knowing.

Before I had time to give the matter much thought, however, I was struck by another consideration, and one of more immediacy. As I did not have the keys upon me, I was unable to re-enter the front part of the house except by the bedchamber door, to which my only access was the gallery, now broken. I was trapped in the inner courtyard unless, by some chance, the intruder had also unfastened the door into the downstairs passage. But it, too, was locked and bolted.

Desperately, I cast about for some way out of my predicament. The moonlight aided my search, its pale beams showing me imperfections in the stone of the wall, outside the counting-house window, which might provide me with a foothold. I judged that the floor of the gallery at either end was still firm enough to support my weight, and if I could manage to scale the wall and heave myself over the balustrade, I would be able to re-enter the main bedchamber.

I laid my cudgel on the ground and began the ascent, my hands still slippery with fear. But as so often throughout my life, my height was to prove a blessing. A jutting stone some eight or nine inches above the ground and close to the gallery, enabled me to gain a foothold, and, by dint of clinging to another protuberance with my right hand and stretching my left arm as far above my head as I could reach, I was able to catch hold of one of the balusters. After a moment in which to steady myself, I swung my right arm across and grabbed a second baluster, allowing myself to hang by my arms from the broken structure, which creaked and groaned a little, but showed no signs of total collapse. Encouraged, I began to haul myself up by my hands until, after much sweating and heaving, I managed to fling first one arm, and then the other over the balustrade. This way, I obtained sufficient purchase to pull myself up until I found kneeholds between the uprights. Eventually, exchanging kneeholds for toeholds, I managed to get one leg across the handrail and, moments later, was crouched outside the open bedchamber door, gasping heavily from my exertions. My hands were scratched and bleeding, my whole body aching unpleasantly from head to foot. I straightened and stepped into the shelter of the room, closing the door behind me.

Yet again, for the past quarter-hour, or for however long my climb had taken me, I had forgotten my terror, but now, as before, it came flooding back. I picked up my abandoned candlestick, blundered downstairs and felt with trembling fingers for the bunch of keys beneath my mattress. They were still there and I gave a groan of relief Somewhere at the back of my mind had lurked an unacknowledged fear that they might have been stolen from me by my ghostly visitor.

I sat down in the armchair and closed my eyes, my mind whirling with a hundred thoughts, none of which made any sense in my present distressed condition. I had heard a child’s voice, to that I was ready to swear, but both Mary and Andrew Skelton were dead. So who could it have been, if not the unhappy shade of one of them?

After a while, I forced myself to my feet, re-lit my candle, took the keys and walked the length of the passageway to the door at the far end, which I unlocked and unbolted before stepping out into the courtyard. All was silent and everything just as I had left it, the broken planks scattered across the flagstones, the gallery in two parts, sagging towards the middle, the doors at either end fast shut, the windows blank and sightless. My cudgel lay where I had dropped it when I began my climb, close to the counting-house wall, and my fingers fastened round it with a sense of the utmost relief. It felt thick and solid in my palm, an old, familiar friend and protector on whom I could rely in times of trouble. I knew its every knot and imperfection, felt the comforting weight of its rounded end. I swung it gently to and fro for several moments, first in one hand, then in the other, making sure that I had done no harm to wrists or shoulders. Satisfied, I went back indoors, turning the key in the lock and lowering the bar.

My next task was to return upstairs and fasten the bedchamber door securely. For good measure, I dragged one of the clothes chests across it, as close to the jambs as possible.

Yet, even as I did so, I realized the futility of my action, for if the presence in the house that night were inhuman, no barriers could gainsay its access. If, on the other hand, the voice belonged to flesh and blood, there was no way in which the intruder could reach the door across the broken gallery.

I found that I was shivering again. My limbs felt heavy and extremely cold. I went downstairs and sat for a second time in the armchair, unable to bring myself to lie on the mattress.

I needed to be alert, to have all my wits about me in case…

In case of what? What could I do against the spirits of the grave? My teeth were chattering, and at last I was forced to wrap myself in the blankets, even though they hampered my movements. I left my arms free, however, and propped my cudgel against the chair, within easy reach.

I must not sleep, that was the thought uppermost in my mind as I tried to stop my eyes from closing. For, in spite of my terror, my lids constantly drooped and my senses swam.

And, of course, in the end, there was no way I could prevent myself from losing consciousness…

When I at last awoke, the early morning sunlight was creeping through the shutters, harbinger of another fine, warm day.

Painfully, I got to my feet, tenderly stretching each part of my body, feeling along each limb with cautious fingers, examining my bruises. The latter were plentiful, some already turning an angry purple, others were still a sickly yellow. But there was little else wrong with me, apart from the general feeling of having been soundly beaten. I went into the yard and stripped, holding my head beneath the pump and allowing the cold, clear water to trickle through my hair and down across my neck and shoulders Then I hauled up water from the well, ignoring the effort it cost me, and emptied bucket after bucket over my aching body. Water has great healing properties and, after a while, I began to feel better. I rubbed myself dry with the piece of rough linen I always carried in my pack for such a purpose, dressed again and was almost ready to face the prospect, when I had shaved, of breakfast at the castle ale-house.

Before that, however, I had things to do, the first being to inspect more closely the broken strut where the boards of the gallery had given way. There was no doubt, after a closer examination, that the planks were rotten and had shattered beneath my weight and heavy-footed pounding, but the rest of the walkway was in no better condition. Why, then, had it collapsed at that particular spot? I picked my way through the fallen timber and looked carefully at the strut which had supported it. The top was cut cleanly through, no jagged splinters protruding as there should have been had the structure been torn apart by accident. Someone had taken a sharp knife or cleaver to it, weakening the whole fabric of the gallery. Someone, too, had lured me on to walk across it.

But why? Such a short fall could not possible have killed me. It could, however, have injured me, and that quite seriously. Even at the time, I had considered myself lucky to escape as lightly as I did. I might well have broken an arm, a leg, a shoulder, or twisted my ankle more severely, and been laid up in the Priory’s infirmary for weeks, By which time, my interest in the disappearance of Mary and Andrew Skelton would have waned – or so, at least, my attacker would happily have imagined. But who was my attacker? Who wished so strongly for the matter to be forgotten? Who found my interest a threat to his peace of mind? Above all, who would have another set of keys to let himself in and out of the house at will? There was only one answer. Eudo Colet.

I went across to the kitchen door, unlocked it, mounted the ladder to the servants’ quarters and opened the shutters.

Here, where the dust lay thick on the floorboards, there should have been evidence of only one set of footprints, my own from the day before yesterday. Now, however, the dust had been scuffed into lines and whorls, evidence of some attempt at obliteration. I passed into the storeroom and again let in the morning sun. The same scuff marks were everywhere apparent. This was not the work of a spirit. A human foot had made this effort to wipe out all trace of its owner’s presence. And who, in the dark, would be aware of the dust on the floor, except someone who knew how long the house had stood unoccupied? Yet again, the name of Eudo Colet came to mind.

I tried the door which opened on to the gallery, but it remained fast shut until I unlocked it with my key. It swung easily and soundlessly inwards, and when I stooped and touched the hinges, my fingers were smeared with a thick, black grease. Most certainly, my nocturnal visitor had been no denizen of the after world, but made of flesh and blood, like me. Yet it had been a child’s voice singing, I would swear to that, a child’s voice, thin and high and pure. I began both to shiver and to sweat. There was something deeply evil here, and as yet I did not know what it was. I still was no nearer to the truth.