The Midnight Man

Words Amongst the Pilgrims

The physician stopped speaking. He drank generously from his wine cup while studying, as if for the first time, two painted cloths hanging against the wall to the left of the great mantled hearth. The first showed a creature with a beast’s snout, ears like a pig, a human body and legs with hooves. This grotesque had a long tail curled up behind it and was watching an ape riding face to tail on a galloping goat. On the ape’s left wrist perched an owl, while the ape’s right hand was raised in mock benediction. Next to this painting was an Agnus Dei; the lamb held the Cross of the Resurrection while blood from the lamb’s side seeped into a waiting chalice. The rest of the pilgrims watched the physician, wondering why he had paused so abruptly.

‘A fearsome tale.’ The yeoman spoke. ‘Do these paintings, my friend, remind you of something?’

‘Yes and no,’ the physician replied. ‘Not of my story — more about the contrast of good and evil in man.’ The real reason why the physician had paused was the Wife of Bath who — her fat, cheery face even redder from the wine — sat staring, her mouth gaping.

‘I know of both Sir William and Sir Miles,’ the knight declared. ‘I came across both in my hunt. Have you, Brother?’ The knight pointed directly at the monk who, cowl pushed up, now retreated deeper into the shadows which thronged the taproom. The darkness had certainly deepened, while the flames of the candelabra danced in the strengthening breeze, seeping through window-shutters or beneath closed doors.

‘My friend.’ The monk’s voice was rich, mockery charging every word with double meaning. ‘My friend,’ he repeated, ‘why should what you hunt — the Strigoi, so I understand — trouble themselves with the dead or those who try to speak to them? I have never been to Saint Michael’s, Candlewick, though I have heard about its ripe, full whores. .’

‘And I’ve heard the same,’ the friar intervened, his brown face and bald head greasy with sweat. ‘I’ve preached at the cross nearby. I heard the most terrifying stories about. .’

‘Then hush, friend.’ The physician smiled. ‘Let me tell my tale as it unfolds.’

‘Oh, I shall,’ the friar replied. ‘I knew the White Friar Anselm, a peaceful, powerful man of deep prayer and austere life.’

‘Unlike other friars we know,’ the miller scoffed.

‘He came to our convent once,’ the prioress intervened. Like the rest, she wanted the physician to continue. She had to know the end and not have it spoilt by childish squabbling amongst her companions. ‘Yes, Brother Anselm came to our convent,’ she repeated, ‘because of a shocking haunting. Our cloisters were walked by the ghost of a young novice who hanged herself from an iron bracket there. She simply slipped a noose around her pretty white neck and stepped off the ledge. Weeks afterwards her ghost could be both seen and heard sobbing uncontrollably. They say,’ the prioress said, now forgetting her usually exquisite courtesy and glaring venomously at the friar, ‘that she fell enamoured of a wandering preacher, a troubadour, really a friar in disguise, hot and lecherous like a sparrow. I think. .’

‘I saw a painting once,’ the friar cheekily replied, ‘of an ass playing a harp.’

‘What was that?’ The prioress’ voice rose to a screech.

‘Gentle pilgrims,’ Master Chaucer quickly intervened. The physician had quietly disappeared.

‘He’s gone out.’ The softly spoken ploughman pointed to the taproom door, which hung slightly open.

Chaucer rose swiftly and went out into the moon-washed garden. The air was heavy with the smell of the late spring flowers and the fragrance from the herbers. Water splashed from a fountain, carved in the shape of a pineapple, into an ornamental pool lit by flaring cresset torches, lashed to poles on either side. Chaucer heard the cries and exclamations from the pilgrims in the tavern as they demanded the tale continue. A figure stepped out of the shadows, a slattern bearing a tub smelling richly of crushed roses, violets, bay leaves, fennel, mint and other aromatics. Chaucer immediately recognized them as a sure protection against any contagion in the air.

The slattern stopped before him, her pale, skinny face under the hair cap eager to please. She indicated behind her. ‘The physician, as soon as he arrived, advised the tavern master to keep the air fresh. Anyway, your physician is back there with his friend.’ She slipped by him. Chaucer followed her back in and sat down, pretending to fuss over the wine jug. Eventually the physician returned, clapping his hands and apologizing to his fellow pilgrims, distracting them all except Master Chaucer. He glimpsed the scabby-faced summoner also slip back in from the garden, silent and stealthily as any hunting stoat. Chaucer chewed his lip. He wondered if the summoner, who acted the shifty nip or foist, was only playing a part. The physician, however, eyes all bright, lifted his goblet in toast to the company and returned to his tale.