The Midnight Man

The Physician’s Tale
Part Two

‘Saint Michael, defend us on the day of battle. Do thou leader of the heavenly host, thrust down to hell Satan and all his horde who wander the world for the ruin of souls.’

Stephen, kneeling beside Anselm, answered, ‘Amen.’ He rose and followed the exorcist from the chapel across the nave, under the great, elaborately carved rood screen and up the main sanctuary steps into the sacristy. He helped his master divest and returned to ensure all was cleared from the chantry chapel of St Joseph. Afterwards he followed his master, clothed in the brown and white of the Carmelites, as he strolled around St Michael’s, Candlewick. They had both slept well in the comfortable chambers provided by Sir William. They’d risen before dawn, washed and dressed, packed their panniers and moved across to the church, where a sleepy-eyed Stephen had helped Anselm prepare for the dawn Mass. As usual, Stephen had acted as Anselm’s altar server; now he was famished, eager to break his fast. Anselm, however, was keen to catch what he called ‘the essence of this place’, so Stephen leisurely followed him around the ancient church. In the grey light of the April dawn St Michael’s did not look so forbidding: it appeared clean, swept and tidy, with benches and stools neatly arranged. The sanctuary was laid out in strict accordance with canon law: pulpit, lectern, ambo and offertory table. The pyx hung on a thick brass chain, a fluttering red sanctuary lamp dangling beside it. The windows were filled with horn or oiled pig’s bladders; a few were glazed and some of these brilliantly decorated with the heads of angels or saints, the face of Christ with a nimbus of gold and, of course, depictions of St Michael the Archangel in various guises: as a nobleman, judge, even a knight in armour. In the corner of the chantry chapel dedicated to St Michael stood a life-size statue of the Archangel, cleverly carved and brilliantly painted with the royal colours of blue, scarlet and gold. Anselm stopped before this and pointed to where the painted stone had crumbled; the hilt of the Archangel’s sword was cracked, while the heraldic devices on St Michael’s great oval shield were clearly battered.

‘Sir William told us the statue had been tipped over.’ He gestured at the candle stand of heavy iron. ‘That, too. What force, Stephen, could move them?’ He glanced around. ‘Ah, well, it’s so different now, I mean, from when we were here last night — look!’ He pointed at the light pouring through the windows, now turning gold in the glow of the rising sun. Stephen agreed. St Michael’s now seemed no different from any London parish church — St Mary Le Bow, St Nicholas or St Martin. Anselm walked round. He lit a taper in the Lady chapel, inspected the different inscriptions and went into the Galilee porch. He paused to examine the bell which hung just inside the door. Any man, fleeing from the law, who sought shelter would enter here, ring the bell then hasten up into the sanctuary and grasp the horn or side of the altar, as Joab had done in the Old Testament when fleeing from the killers dispatched by King David. Anselm studied both door and bell closely then walked across to the empty sanctuary recess where he crouched, tapping the palliasse; a fleeing man would use this during his forty-day stay in the church.

‘Magister?’

‘During the exorcism last night, Stephen, a male voice, different from the rest, spoke about being dragged from here. I wonder who it was?’

‘Magister, last night during the exorcism you seemed distracted. What truly happened?’

Anselm rose to his feet and peered down the church. ‘Something quite common, Stephen.’ Anselm rubbed his forehead. ‘During an exorcism I do suffer tricks of the mind,’ he confessed. ‘I do not know whether they are just phantasms born from what is happening or the ploy of an evil spirit. But, rest assured,’ he added grimly, ‘they’re certainly here. Indeed, I think of Ecclesiasticus, chapter twenty-nine, verse thirty-three: “There are spirits who thirst for vengeance and in all their fiery fury inflict grievous torment”. Do they, I ask myself, conjure up visions of sin from the past to dull my soul, chill my heart, darken my mind and so frustrate my soul? Grinning, mouldering skulls, snatches of violence, the smoke and stains of past offences?’ Anselm stared down at Stephen. ‘Augustine claims our sins run like foxes through our souls while God, for his own secret purposes, sends in his hounds to hunt them down. In times of distress these foxes manifest themselves.’

‘Even if you have confessed and been shriven?’

‘Sometimes the foxes are only driven off — they slink away and lurk waiting in the undergrowth.’ He patted Stephen on the shoulder. ‘All I can do is ask God, if I’m in His grace, to keep me there and, if I’m not, to put me there. My sins may be absolved, Stephen, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t lost my appetite for them.’ He gestured around. ‘There’s certainly a banquet going on here, an unseen, diabolic feast. Evil spirits summoned up by the Midnight Man have, and are, feasting like hungry hounds on the rank despair which seeps through this church. Anyway, go round, look for anything untoward.’

Anselm walked across the sanctuary. Stephen went down the steps into the sombre nave. He entered the chantry chapel of St Joseph and admired the cleverly carved statue of Christ’s protector as well as the paintings depicting scenes from the carpenter’s life. He turned left and stopped before the tombs of former parsons, read their inscriptions, then walked on. The light was dim except where the painted glass caught the flash of the sun. Nonetheless Stephen now felt a prickling fear: he was not alone. He glanced up and caught the twisted smile of some gargoyle carved at the top of a pillar or the corner of a sill. He recalled the legend of how such babewyns could spring to life and crawl down the pillar to taunt and trip the unwary. Stephen stopped before a wall painting describing the death of Holofernes in the Book of Judith. The artist had created a vivid scene in the fallen tyrant’s pavilion. Judith the heroine clutched a great two-handed sword. The tyrant’s corpse lay sprawled amongst his precious cloths and treasures; his severed head had rolled away and stared out from the corner of the painting. Not a dead gaze, the eyes held a ghastly glare, as if the head still lived and was aware of its ignominious situation. The more Stephen stared at the painting the more those eyes seemed to pulsate with a vindictive life. He walked on to another fresco, undoubtedly the work of the same itinerant painter. Here the artist proclaimed his own vision of hell: a great city high and wide under a sky of fiery bronze, cut through by a turbid, blood-black stream boarded by trees with thorns as sharp as daggers. Flames leapt up to greet black snowflakes and pelting grey rain. Fruit, bloated and rotten with noxious potions, gave sustenance to savage dogs. Lungeing vipers and all kinds of loathsome insects crawled. Demons swarmed like bees, thick and plentiful from the hives of hell. Dragons swam the fiery heavens while beneath the soil of hell other monsters reared their ugly heads, fighting to break through. Stephen glimpsed the tags written beneath the painting. ‘“Within its darkness dwell”,’ the novice translated, ‘“regions of misery and gloom”.’ He heard his master cough and turned. Immediately a fierce chill seized him. Anselm was staring up at an iron bracket fixed to a wall in the far aisle on which lantern horns could be hung. The exorcist was not alone. Figures clustered around him: a blond-haired man dressed in a shabby jerkin, followed closely by young women with long dirty hair, ragged clothes, pitted skin and horrid faces. Stephen shut his eyes and cried out: ‘Magister!’ When he looked again, Anselm was standing by him.

‘What is it? Stephen?’

‘Magister, nothing.’

‘Nonsense!’ Anselm pushed his face close. ‘You saw something, didn’t you?’

Stephen nodded and described what he’d glimpsed.

‘I felt it,’ Anselm murmured, staring at a shaft of window light. ‘Even now, Stephen, at day time, they make their presence felt, but come. .’

They left by the corpse door going out into the cemetery. At first Stephen considered it to be a different place from the night before. The weak sun’s glowing warmth soothed his fears. The tumbled headstones and crosses didn’t seem so threatening. The ancient yew trees were just solid reminders of how things were rather than threatening shapes through the darkness. The wild grass and flowers exuded a sense of the ordinary. The air was sweet with different scents. Beyond the cemetery wall surged the noise of the ward coming to life: the clatter of carts, the clop of horse hooves and the first cries of tradesmen. Anselm insisted on walking the length and breadth of that unkempt cemetery. They went round the church, Anselm peering up at cornices, sills, ledges and buttresses. He seemed fascinated by the sun sparkling the glass and pointed out the carved faces of gargoyles with their gaping mouths, through which the rain water would pour. Anselm patted the grey stone wall of the square tower built to the right of the main door. He stepped back, shading his eyes as he stared up at the sheer height of this soaring donjon. He then walked on, stopping to rattle the latch of the narrow door to the sacristy, though that had been firmly locked the night before.

‘Magister?’

‘Nothing.’ Anselm walked back into the sunlight. ‘Do you sense or feel anything strange, Stephen?’

‘No, but. .’

‘Too silent, eh?’ Anselm nodded. ‘I also have a feeling of being watched.’ A rustling behind them made Anselm turn.

He strolled back up the low bank through the long grass, pushing aside the tangle of briar and bramble bush. Despite the disturbance there was no muffled pigeon cooing, no chattering jay or raucous gang of sparrows fluttering here and there, no swooping swallow or blackbird singing its heart out. Anselm seemed intent on finding something. Stephen hurried after him. He’d almost caught up with his master when a figure loomed up from behind an ancient, moss-covered tombstone. Stephen stifled a cry of surprise.

Anselm grabbed the stranger’s shoulder and pulled him closer. ‘Who are you?’

The stranger was tall and burly. His black hair hung in lank strips, his bushy moustache and beard almost hiding the sunburnt face. He broke free of the exorcist and held up a wickedly pointed harvest sickle.

‘Don’t threaten us,’ Anselm warned.

‘And don’t seize me!’ the stranger rasped back. ‘I am Owain Gascelyn, hired by Sir William to tidy this cemetery, if I am not harassed by demons, haunted by ghosts, plagued by warlocks or grabbed by exorcists.’

Gascelyn was the same height as Anselm, two yards at least, thick-set and well built, dark eyes bright. He was dressed like a labourer in a smock, leggings and scuffed boots, but his voice was cultured and, in his angry protest, he’d moved fluently from English to Norman French and then into Latin, describing Anselm as ‘Exorcisimus’. Anselm, taken by surprise, stepped back, studying the man from head to toe.

‘A labourer, a gardener with a Welsh first name and a Gascon surname, fluent in both French and Latin! Greetings and blessings to you, Brother! Excuse my surprise but I thought we were being watched. .’

‘As you were.’ Gascelyn stepped closer, scrutinizing Anselm and Stephen.

The novice stared back; for some reason this man frightened him. Why was that? Stephen wondered. Because he emanated the same violence Stephen’s father had, and still did? Gascelyn had thrown the sickle down but his fingers played with the Welsh stabbing dagger in its sheath on his broad belt.

‘Who are you, really?’ Anselm asked. ‘No, let me guess. Despite your appearance you’re educated, undoubtedly in some cathedral school then in the halls of either Oxford or Cambridge.’ He leaned forward and gently poked the man’s chest. ‘I know who you are, I know what you are. You’re a mailed clerk, aren’t you? A scribe who arms for battle? One who is also prepared to dirty his hands? Sir William’s man, yes? Ostensibly you’re here to clear this tangled mess now winter’s past but, in fact, you’re here to guard and to search, perhaps?’

Gascelyn grinned in a display of white broken teeth. ‘I am he,’ he replied. ‘And Sir William told me about you, Brother Anselm. You are correct. Since All Souls past and the depredations of the Midnight Man, I guard this cemetery. I am,’ he joked, ‘the Custos Mortuorum — the Keeper of the Dead. I warn off those night-walkers who might lurk here once twilight falls.’ Gascelyn grinned lopsidedly. ‘Not to mention the whores with their customers, the gallants with their lemans and the roaring boys with their doxies.’

‘And what have you seen?’

‘Nothing,’ Gascelyn replied. ‘Word has gone out, seeping along the alleyways, runnels and lanes of Candlewick, that this truly is God’s acre. Nothing more exciting happens here than a hunting cat, or that tribe of stoats nesting in the far wall. Come,’ he picked up the sickle, ‘I’ll show you my kingdom.’

Gascelyn led them off along the narrow, beaten trackway, pushing aside bramble and briar. He explained how most of the cemetery was full, pointing to the mounds of milk-white bones thrusting up out of the coarse soil. On one occasion he surprised a mangy, yellow-coated mongrel from the alleyways, nosing at a broken skull. Gascelyn hurled a stone and the dog fled through the long grass, barking noisily. Gascelyn showed them where the great burial pit had been dug, its soil still loose due to the lime and other elements used. Only the occasional sturdy shrub now grew in this great waste ringed by bushes and gorse. It also served as the Poor Man’s Lot, the burial place for strangers as well as Haceldema — the Field of Blood, where victims of violence or those hanged along the nearby banks of the Thames were buried. Nearby stood a simple wooden shed: two walls and a roof like any city laystall. Anselm and Stephen walked over to this. The inside was gloomy and reeked of putrefaction. Three corpses lay there, wrapped in filthy canvas shrouds lashed tightly with thick, tarred rope. Gascelyn explained how all three were the cadavers of beggars found dead in the surrounding streets. Anselm recited the requiem and blessed the remains. Gascelyn thanked him, adding how all three corpses would be later buried in the great burial pit as the soil was looser and easy to dig.

Stephen felt the place was stifling hot. ‘A brooding evil hangs here,’ he whispered.

‘Though that can be for the good,’ Gascelyn offered. ‘It keeps the undesirables away.’

He then answered questions about himself as the exorcist led them out of this dingy shed: how he was the son of a Welsh woman and a Gascon knight who’d served in the King’s wars against the French. How he’d been educated as a clerk, entered Sir William’s retinue and seen military service with his lord both in France and along the Scottish march.

‘And so you’re Sir William’s sworn man by night and day, in peace and war?’

‘I’ve not taken an oath of fealty, but yes.’

‘Were the Midnight Man’s revelries held on the site of the great burial pit?’ Stephen asked, abruptly trying to shake off a deepening unease.

‘Yes, I believe they were.’

‘A place of desolation and devastation where any abomination could flourish,’ Anselm declared. ‘I felt it. I am sure my friend Stephen did also. This is a sad and sombre place.’

Gascelyn never replied but plodded on, Anselm and Stephen close behind. The novice just wished they could leave. At first sight this cemetery had seemed a true place of the dead yet the longer they walked, pushing aside nettles and thorns, their feet cracking fallen twigs, the more this cemetery transformed into a living, ominous place breathing out its own malign spirit. The silence was unsettling. The desolation hung like a veil hiding darker, more sinister forces. Now and again Stephen glimpsed the forbidding church tower and the mass of its leaded roof black against the late spring sky. Stephen took a deep breath. A voice whispered to his right, though when he turned only a bush moved in the morning breeze. Stephen turned away then spluttered at the gust of corruption which caught his mouth and nostrils. He stumbled.

Anselm caught his arm. ‘Be on your guard,’ he whispered, ‘for the devil is like a prowling lion seeking whom he may devour.’ Anselm winked at Stephen and called out to Gaceslyn that they’d seen enough, though he’d like to visit the death house which stood some distance from the church, shaded by a clump of yew trees.

‘My manor,’ Gascelyn called back, ‘my fortress — come and see.’

The death house was a spacious, rather grand building of smart red brick on a grey stone base, its roof tiled with blue slate. The windows were covered in oil-strengthened linen; the framework and heavy shutters, like the door, were of sturdy wood and painted a gleaming black.

‘Sir William had this refurbished,’ Gascelyn explained. ‘He intends to renovate the church and make the cemetery worthy of the name “God’s acre”.’

‘When?’ Anselm asked.

‘Once May has come and gone. Stone masons and painters, glaziers as well as labourers by the score have been indentured.’ Gascelyn waved around. ‘Some will camp here, others in tenements Sir William has bought down near Queenhithe. That’s why he’s asked me to guard this place. So,’ he shrugged, ‘the death house is my dwelling place.’

He lifted the latch and led them inside. Stephen was surprised. The death house was unlike any he had ever seen. Its walls were smoothly plastered and painted a lovely lilac pink; the floor, of evenly cut paving stones, was ankle-deep in lush supple rushes strewn with scented herbs. Capped braziers stood beneath the two windows. The bed in the far corner was neat and compact and covered with a beautiful gold counterpane sprinkled with red shields. The long mortuary table stood against one wall with the parish coffin on top, half-hidden by a thick woollen black fleece embroidered with silver tassels, while pots of flowers ranged beneath this.

At the other end of the room stood a chancery table, a high leather-backed chair and two quilted stools. The room also had a long chest with coffers and caskets neatly stacked on top. Pegs on the back of the door were used to hang cloaks as well as Gascelyn’s gold-stitched war belt with its decorated scabbards for the finely hilted sword and dagger.

‘I sleep well.’ Gascelyn gestured round. ‘Isolda the parson’s woman brings me cooked food.’ He paused as he heard voices. ‘Indeed, I think that is Parson Smollat and his lady now. They’ll be going in for the Jesus Mass — wait here.’

Gascelyn left the death house. Anselm walked round and sat on the edge of the bed, Stephen on a stool. The novice glimpsed a book bound in calfskin, fastened by a silver chain on the chancery table. He rose, walked over and opened the book of hours. He read the first entry, a line from the introit for Easter Sunday: ‘I have risen as I said.’ Stephen admired the silver-jewelled illumination. The ‘R’, the first letter of ‘Resurrexi’, was covered in red-gold ivy and silver acanthus leaves. In the top of the ‘R’ a chalice, in the lower half a milk-white host above the Holy Grail. Stephen was about to read on when he heard a girl’s voice whisper, ‘Eleanora.’ He glanced at Anselm, who’d risen to his feet and was staring at the long mortuary table. The room had grown very cold; a faint perfume tickled their sense of smell. After a few heartbeats the sound of a lute could be heard, then the music faded but the rushes beneath the table shifted and a small puff of dust rose.

‘Someone is dancing!’ Stephen exclaimed. ‘Someone is dancing!’

The rushes ceased moving. No more dust whirled. A harsh sound echoed through the death house like a cry suddenly stifled.

‘Is there anything wrong?’ Gascelyn stood, blocking the doorway. He came in. ‘You heard it, didn’t you?’

Stephen glimpsed the desperate, haunted look in the man’s harsh face. Gascelyn stood hands on hips, staring down where the rushes had moved. He kicked these with the toe of his boot. ‘Perhaps,’ he confessed, ‘I don’t sleep too well. I’ve seen it, I’ve heard things. I wish Sir William would release me from this.’ He lifted his head. ‘Well, is there anything else, Brother Anselm?’

The exorcist simply sketched a blessing in the air, then he and Stephen left.

‘Magister, shouldn’t we ask what causes that?’

Anselm stopped and stared at him. The exorcist’s long, bony face was pale, the sharp, deep-set eyes like those of a falcon, lips tightly drawn, square chin set stubbornly. Stephen recognized that look. Anselm was troubled — deeply troubled — because he was confused. The exorcist had confessed as much as soon as they’d risen that morning, and apparently his mood had not changed. Anselm ran a finger down the stubble on his chin then scratched his head. He opened his mouth to speak but then shrugged and walked into the shade of a yew tree, beckoning at Stephen to follow.

‘Night-time, Stephen,’ Anselm leaned down like a magister in the schools, ‘night-time,’ he repeated, ‘is the devil’s dark book, or so authorities like Caesarius the Cistercian would have us believe. He described Satan as a tall, lank man of sooty and livid complexion, very emaciated, with protuberant fiery eyes, breathing ghastly horrors from his gloomy person. In another place Caesarius describes Satan as a blackened, disfigured angel with great bat-like wings, a bony, hairy body, with horns on his head, a hooked nose and long pointed ears, his hands and feet armed like eagle’s talons.’

‘And you, Magister?’

‘I regard that as pure nonsense — foolishness! Satan is a powerful angel. He is pure intelligence and will. He pulsates with hate against God and man. He does not creep under the cover of darkness or feast on fire. He is arrogant. Dawn or dusk makes no difference to him. Filthy dungeon or opulent palace does not exist for him, only his enemy.’

‘God, Magister?’

‘No, Stephen. Us, the children of God. Satan never accepted God’s creation and rose in rebellion, which lasts from everlasting to everlasting. Satan, Stephen, is no respecter of person or place. He waxes fat in the sombre shadows of vaulted cathedrals, behind the stout pillars and recesses of its choirs. He draws power in the silent cloisters from the secret thoughts and feelings of the good brothers. You’ll find Satan on the ramparts of castles, breathing pride into the lords of war. He can also be found in the lonely corpse where the sorcerer hums his deadly vespers and casts his foul spells. He lurks in the furrow and fans the hatred of peasants who plough the earth for those who own it. He also lurks here, Stephen, feasting on some filthy nastiness. What that is remains a mystery which must be resolved. In the end we must make him fast and drive him out. So, let us collect our satchel and panniers from the church — we will return to White Friars.’

They stepped out of the yew trees and paused. The corpse door swung open. Parson Smollat and Isolda came out. Isolda was about to walk away, then abruptly strode back and kissed the parson full on the mouth.

‘Lord, save us,’ Anselm whispered. ‘So our good parson, like us all, is moved by the lusts of the flesh. Quick, Stephen, collect our baggage and away we go.’

Thankfully Parson Smollat was in the sacristy and didn’t see Stephen enter the church. He collected the panniers he had left in the Galilee porch and hurried to join Anselm, who was standing under the cavernous lychgate.

‘Should we not bid farewell to Sir William or Sir Miles?’

‘We’ll return soon enough,’ Anselm replied. ‘While Sir Miles, believe me, will seek us out.’

They left the precincts of the church, going past All Hallows and into the trading area of Eastcheap. Stephen, lost in his own thoughts, felt his sleeve being plucked. He turned, stared at the young woman brazenly walking beside him and was immediately struck by her: soft and feminine, yet a truly determined young woman. Her skin had a golden, healthy hue; her thick, auburn hair, bound in two plaits, was almost covered by a blue veil. This trailed from a small cap on top of her head, then wrapped around her soft throat like a wimple. She wore a woollen fur coat decorated with silver leaves over a dark clean kirtle, with stout leather shoes on her feet. One of these was loose so she gripped Stephen’s arm to steady herself as she put this right.

‘Mistress?’

Anselm, a little further ahead, turned and came back.

‘Mistress?’ Stephen flustered, staring into the young woman’s beautiful grey eyes. ‘What business do you have with me?’

‘None, Brother.’ She smiled cheekily. ‘I am sorry. I’m Alice Palmer. My father owns the tavern The Unicorn on the corner of Eel-Pie Lane close to Saint Michael’s church.’

‘I know it,’ Anselm replied above the noise of the crowd around him. ‘What is that to us?’

‘A scullion, one of our maids, Margotta Sumerhull, has been missing for weeks. Sometimes she’d go to pray before the Lady altar at Saint Michael’s. I’ve asked Parson Smollat.’ She smiled, moving a wisp of hair from her face. ‘My father has also petitioned Sir William but neither can help. Margotta could be wild. Anyway,’ she shrugged, ‘we’ve heard of you, about the strange happenings at Saint Michael’s, as well as the presence of a King’s man — Sir Miles Beauchamp. We know him. He lives nearby. Sometimes he visits our tavern. Perhaps you would be kind enough to support our petition?’

‘We shall do what we can.’ Stephen stood fascinated by that beautiful smile. The young woman grabbed his arm, kissed him full on the lips and fled into the crowd. Stephen’s fingers slowly went to his mouth. Anselm, smiling, shook him gently.

‘A woman’s kiss,’ the exorcist murmured, ‘one of God’s great gifts. Count yourself lucky, Stephen, and let’s move on.’ They hastened through the crowds. ‘The world and its retinue,’ Anselm murmured, ‘have gathered to buy and sell.’ Stephen kept close to his master. The busy, frenetic atmosphere of the city, hungry for trade, was overwhelming. Carts and sumpter ponies laden with Italian spices, Gascon wine, Spanish leather, Hainault linen and lace as well as timber, iron and rope from the frozen northern kingdoms, forced their way through. The clatter of all these competed with the constant din of chickens, pigs, cows, oxen and geese loaded on, or pulling, heavy wheeled carts and tumbrils. The air was riven by the crack of the whip, the neighing of horses and constant yapping of alleyway dogs. From the cramped alleyways and runnels leading on to the broad thoroughfares of Poultry and Cheapside swarmed London’s other city: the hidden world of the wandering musicians, rogues, cozeners, naps and foists, charlatans and coney catchers, all bedecked in their motley, garish rags and eager for prey. A sweaty tribe, which reeked of every foul odour, these swarmed around the hundreds of market stalls, pitting their wits against the bailiffs and beadles who constantly patrolled the markets. The officials had already caught one miscreant, a toper, his nose as brilliantly red as a full-blown rose; arrested for foisting, he was being led off to stand in the cage on the top of the tun which housed the conduit for Cheapside.

The crowd surged, broke and met again. Apprentice boys hopped like frogs, shouting for custom. Fur-gowned burgesses, arm-in-arm with their richly dressed spouses, rubbed shoulders with fish-wives hurling obscenities at each other over a cohort of men-at-arms marching down to the Tower. A market beadle proclaimed the names of two whores missing from their brothel. A juggler leading a mule decorated with cymbals stopped to ask two Franciscans in their earth-coloured, rope-girdled robes for their blessing, only to be screamed at by a group of fops, in their elegant cloaks and soft Spanish leather boots, for blocking the way. Underfoot the thoroughfare was littered with all forms of dirt and refuse. Gong-carts were attempting to clear the mess but were unable to get through. The street air, fragranced by freshly-baked bread and platters of spiced meats, turned slightly rancid as the stench curled in from the workshops of the tanners, fullers and smithies.

The two Carmelites entered the Shambles. Butchers and their boys, bloodied from head to toe, were busy slaughtering cattle. In a flutter of plumage birds of every kind: quail, pheasant, chicken and duck had their necks wrung, their throats slashed, before being tossed to the sitting women to be plucked and doused in scalding, salted water before being hooked above the stalls. The cobbles glittered in the bloody juices from all this carnage. Dogs, cats and kites fought for globules of flesh, fat and entrails. The air reeked of blood, iron and dung. Anselm hurried past on to the great concourse before the forbidding mass of Newgate prison, its crenellated towers soaring either side of the grim, iron-studded gates. An execution party was assembling. The death cart rolled out, crammed with manacled prisoners bound for the Elms at Smithfield or the Forks by Tyburn stream. Immediately the waiting crowd surged forward as friends and relatives fought to make a sombre farewell. Some prisoners screamed their messages; a few were so drunk they lay unconscious against the sides of the cart. Mounted archers beat back the mob with whips and sticks while the sheriffs, resplendent in their ermine-lined red robes, shouted for order. Anselm and Stephen waited until the execution party moved off, then pushed their way through a crowd thronging around a Dominican garbed in the distinctive black and white of that order.

‘Beware,’ the trumpet-voiced preacher declared, ‘beware, you adulterers! In hell you shall be bound to stakes in a fiery pool; each will have to face his mistress similarly bound. And that is not all, oh no! Demons will lash your private parts with wire. You traders who cheated the poor, your fate will be sealed in a red-hot leaden casket in Satan’s own black castle. You gluttons who stuffed your gaping mouths. .’

‘I don’t think this concerns us,’ Anselm murmured. ‘Never mind gluttony! I’m starving.’

They passed through the old city walls, turning left into the maze of alleys leading down to Fleet Street and the House of the Carmelites, the White Friars. Stephen tried to hide his nervousness. These runnels were a labyrinth of iniquity. Here lurked the sanctuary men, the wolfsheads, the utlegati and the proscribed wanted by this sheriff or that. Here the knife, the garrotte or the club were drawn at the drop of a dice or the turn of a counter. Narrow, evil-smelling lanes, the walls on either side coated with a messy slime, the ground under foot squelched with the dirt and refuse thrown out by those who lived in the rat castles on either side. Now and again a candle glowed against the perpetual darkness. A flambeau burnt under a crucifix which did not hold the figure of Christ but Dismas the Good Thief. Shadow people, nighthawks and darksmen flittered through the murk. Anselm and Stephen were watched then dismissed.

‘Friars, white-garbed!’ The cry went out. Doors slammed, shutters clinked. Anselm and Stephen hurried on. The figures who confronted them seemed to merge out of the gloom: three women, street-walkers, their hair dyed different stripes of colour, their feet bare and their loose-fitting gowns open at the neck and chest to expose nipples painted a bright orange. The women blocked their way. At first Stephen thought they were drunk but, as he grew more accustomed to the dim light from the lantern horn the woman in the middle held, cold dread seized him. All three stared, hard-faced and glassy-eyed. Creatures from beyond the edge of darkness.

‘Out of our way!’ Anselm ordered.

‘Preacher! Peddling preacher! Interfering mumble-mouth! Another shaven pate comes with his cub to confront and oppose,’ the woman opposite Stephen snarled, bringing the long stabbing knife out of the folds of her gown to glitter in the juddering light. ‘Who are you?’ the woman jibed mockingly.

‘Anselm the do-gooder,’ one of her companions replied. ‘Mind you, he’s seen enough hot blood gurgle and splash. So, who set you up as a prophet in Israel? Why have you come to meddle?’

‘To spoil our little games with your stupid chuntering,’ her snarling friend jeered. ‘You whoreson bastard! Why have you come into our domain? You, Anselm, a filthy sinner with your dirty thoughts and foul moods.’

‘And you, Stephen of Winchester,’ the third woman took up the litany of insults, ‘a friar, are you — why? No vocation, surely? Fleeing your father?’ The voice was harsh, mocking and ugly.

Stephen, mouth dry, was aware of other dark shapes creeping along the walls on either side — scuttling shadows, as if a horde of hairless rats were swarming around.

Anselm stepped forward. ‘In the name of the Lord Jesus, by what are you called?’

‘The hordes of hell greet you,’ one of the women retorted.

‘And the power of heaven responds.’ Anselm grasped the tau crucifix. ‘In His name. .’

One of the women darted forward, dagger blade snaking towards Stephen, but Anselm knocked her aside with his satchel even as he cried. ‘Deus vult, Deus vult — God wills it, God wills it.’

The third woman lunged with the club she was hiding by her side. Anselm punched her full in the face. She staggered back. The attack faded. The sinister scrabbling along the alleyways disappeared. The darkness thinned. All three women dropped what they were carrying and withdrew, looking fearfully down at their hands then up at the exorcist, faces vacant, eyes staring, mouths gaping. They backed away, then turned and fled. Anselm leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

‘Magister, what were those?’

‘Succubi,’ Anselm replied, ‘the demons we tried to exorcize last night. They swarm like flies seeking entrances to souls. Well, they found an open door to those three ladies.’ He blew his cheeks out. ‘They came to threaten, even to kill. God knows.’ He sketched a blessing above Stephen’s head. ‘And what did they tell us? That we are sinners? Well, we know that already! I am also very hungry and our refectory awaits. .’

Stephen knelt on the prie-dieu before the Lady altar in the Church of the White Friars. The Angelus bell had sounded. Stephen had listened to its peals, recalling the ancient tradition that tolling church bells were a sure defence against demons and diabolic attack. He stared around the lovely shrine. The three walls of the chapel were painted a deep blue. The silver borders at top and bottom were decorated by resplendent, bejewelled gold fleur de lys with a gleaming ruby at the base of the middle stalk of every flower. The chapel ceiling was of a fainter blue; it depicted a scene from the Apocalypse, of the Virgin about to give birth while confronting a scarlet, seven-headed dragon. The floor of the Lady chapel was tiled in a glossy stone, which sparkled in the pool of taper light fixed from silver spigots in front of the magnificent statue. The sculptor had carved the Virgin in the brilliant likeness of a young court maiden, her dark hair half-hidden beneath a gold-edged, gauze white veil, her body clothed in a sheer silk gown under a robe of imperial purple edged with gold. The Virgin’s feet, encased in diamond-studded sandals, crushed the head of a writhing serpent. Stephen, however, as always, was fascinated by the face: not pious or holy but wreathed in a warm, welcoming smile. Such a look, Stephen had come to realize, was all he could remember of his beloved mother bending over him, her face full of concern, a lock of hair out of place — then she had gone. All that remained was a stern father, an esteemed physician who had no time for his son’s flights of fancy.

Now in safety, Stephen’s mind drifted back to the events at St Michael’s and the assault in that eerie, smelly alleyway. Was this what he really wanted? Anselm he liked, respected and even loved, but this constant battle with the lords of the air, the barons and earls of hell? Stephen drew deep breaths to calm himself. Anselm had taught him to do this while repeating the Jesus prayer. Anselm maintained this would lead Stephen to meditation and contemplation but, invariably, it always put him to sleep. He was shaken awake by a servitor, face all anxious.

‘Brother Stephen, Brother Stephen, I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Master Anselm and Sir Miles Beauchamp are waiting for you in the parlour.’

Still heavy-eyed with sleep, Stephen was ushered into the elegant chamber overlooking the main courtyard of the friary. A spacious but austere room dominated by a gaunt, crucified Christ and an embroidered cloth telling the story of the Virgin’s miraculous appearance on Mount Carmel. Sir Miles and Anselm were sitting opposite each other at the oval table, which ran down the centre of the room. Shafts of afternoon light, in which a host of dust motes danced, pierced the glass windows high on the outside wall. Anselm beckoned him to sit on his left and returned to watching Sir Miles. The clerk, as elegant as ever in his blue quilted jerkin and matching hose, was sifting through a sheaf of documents on the table before him. He looked as if he had stepped out of the royal presence chamber: hair neatly combed, jewels sparking on his fingers. Stephen caught sight of the chancery ring emblazoned with the royal arms which could demand entrance to any building as well as insist on the allegiance of those who lived there. Beauchamp had slung his thick war cloak over the prior’s chair at the head of the table and looped his sword belt around the chair’s high post.

Stephen, embarrassed by the brooding silence, apologized once again, explaining where he’d been and how he had fallen asleep. Anselm brushed him gently on the arm. Sir Miles kept shuffling the pile of manuscripts before him. Stephen glimpsed red and purple seals and wondered what the Clerk of the Secret Chancery would want with them.

‘I apologize.’ Sir Miles lifted his head and smiled dazzlingly at both of them. ‘Master Anselm, I apologize for dragging you from your meeting with Father Guardian, and you, Brother Stephen, from your prayerful sleep. Yet,’ he pulled a face, ‘tempus fugit and, cometh the hour, cometh the man.’ He abruptly pushed back the stool on which he was sitting and got to his feet. He thrust the parchments back into a leather pannier, strapped on his war belt and slung the heavy cloak about his shoulder. ‘You have eaten and rested?’

‘We have eaten,’ Anselm replied sharply, ‘but not rested.’

‘You must come.’ Sir Miles was no longer smiling. ‘I, or rather my master, has permission from your masters to take you to Westminster. By the time we reach there the light will be fading.’

‘The abbey or the palace?’ Anselm asked.

‘Why, Magister, the abbey.’

‘But that has been shut, closed by interdict since the murders there.’

‘To others, yes.’ Sir Miles shrugged. ‘To me and mine, no. Now, Brothers, I suggest you go cloaked and hooded. Bring what you have to.’

Within the hour Anselm and Stephen clambered into the royal barge waiting by the narrow quayside near the friary river gate. A dozen royal archers escorted it. Four served as oarsmen either side; the rest clustered in the prow behind the jutting, gilt-edged lion head. The archers wore dark brown fustian under brilliantly coloured surcotes boasting the golden leopards of England and the silver fleur de lys of France. They looked sinister, deep cowls hiding both head and face, and they moved to the clatter of weapons and a reeking, sweaty stench. Once Sir Miles and the two Carmelites were seated in the leather-canopied stern, the order was given to cast off and, with the cries of the serjeant ringing out, they moved swiftly midstream, the oarsmen on either side bending and pulling in unison. Now and again the serjeant would blow a hunting horn, a powerful braying call warning all other craft to pull aside and recognize the royal pennant snapping prominently in its clasps on the lion-headed prow. The weather was calm; the stiff spring breeze had subsided. The barge moved serenely, cutting through the water, rising and falling now and again as it met a surge in the choppy tide.

Sir Miles opened a small fosser lined with costly samite and brought out linen parcels of fresh bread, diced ham and shredded cheese which they could open on their laps. All three ate in silence, then Sir Miles, winking at Stephen, put the linen cloths back into the fosser and drew out a loving cup which he filled from a stoppered wineskin. He took a generous sip himself then circulated the cup. Anselm just sniffed and handed it to Stephen. Once it was drained, Sir Miles smiled across at the two friars.

‘I am sure we’ll eat at Westminster, yet an empty belly can also attract demons — yes, Magister Anselm?’

The exorcist made the sign of the cross in the air as a gesture of thanks. Sir Miles busied himself with the fosser while Stephen peered out over the river. Anselm called it a true road of ghosts; he had told him some heart-chilling tales about the dead, doomed to float there like tendrils of mist. How the drowned, the victims of murders or suicide, gather in ghastly choir to sing their own haunting plain chant. Great evil was also perpetrated by those who lived in the marshes or along the tide-washed river bank — creatures of the dark who emerged after sunset to prey on lonely craft or use false beacons to lure wherries stacked high with produce into some night-shrouded ambush.

‘An interesting meeting yesterday. What did you make of our company?’

Stephen glanced across at Beauchamp, now muffled in his cloak.

‘Brother Anselm, Stephen, I know a great deal about you. What do you know about them?’

‘Only what you tell us,’ Anselm retorted sharply, ‘and, by the way, we know very little about you.’

Beauchamp laughed softly. ‘Sir William Higden,’ the royal clerk declared, ‘is much beloved by the Crown — a warrior who has seen service in France and along the Scottish march; a merchant who has proved himself most generous to our king. Sir William truly loves the church of Saint Michael’s, Candlewick. He has lavish plans to pull it down, rebuild it and put that cemetery to better purpose.’

‘He lives by himself?’ Anselm asked, steadying himself as the barge met with a swell. A seagull, strident in its shrieking, swooped low over them.

‘His wife died; he is childless. He regards Saint Michael’s parish as his adopted son. He wishes to build something magnificent there.’

‘And Parson Smollat?’

‘A London priest of good reputation, he has served a number of parishes.’

‘And Isolda, his woman?’

‘You mean his kinswoman,’ the clerk grinned, ‘or so common rumour has it. The rest,’ Beauchamp moved swiftly on, ‘are what they appear. Simon the sexton had held that position for a number of years.’

‘You seem well-acquainted with Saint Michael’s?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Sir Miles put on his elegant, gold-edged gauntlet. ‘I should have told you. I live in the parish. I have a house in Ferrier Lane on the other side of Saint Michael’s. As for the others, Almaric the curate is a butterfly who constantly moves and never settles. A man of good family, Almaric was apprenticed in his youth as a carpenter. From the little I know he enjoyed a fine reputation as a craftsman but left when God called him’ — Sir Miles steadied himself as the barge shuddered slightly — ‘to be a priest. He served as a chaplain in the commissions of array both at home and abroad. Sir William’s man, both body and soul. He is perhaps not the devoutest of priests or the most assiduous of scholars, yet a good man.’ Beauchamp paused as the serjeant of archers rapped out an order to the oarsmen. The barge shifted slightly in a swell shimmering under the glow of the late afternoon sun.

‘And Gascelyn the Custos Mortuorum — the dweller in the haunted death house?’

Beauchamp glanced away as if distracted. ‘So,’ he turned back, ‘Gascelyn told you?’

‘He let us see it.’

Beauchamp pulled a face. ‘Gascelyn is Sir William’s squire by day and night, in peace and war. A man hot against witches and warlocks. In Bordeaux he served as man-at-arms for the Dominicans, the Inquisition, in their fight against sorcerers. Oh, yes, Sir William couldn’t have a better man or stronger guard.’

‘And the Midnight Man?’ Anselm’s voice remained sharp.

‘I know what you do, Magister.’ Beauchamp’s voice was low, as if abruptly fearful that the oarsmen might overhear.

‘And that is very little,’ Anselm retorted, ‘except by reputation. They say he is a lord of the night, an enemy of the sun, the close companion and friend of the darkness. A being who rejoices at the cries of the screech-owl and the barking of dogs in the ungodly hours. They say he wanders among tombs and sups on human blood.’ Anselm crossed himself. ‘These are only legends, stories to frighten. In the end, however, the Midnight Man has a reputation as a great magus.’ He paused. ‘Or a great sham. Nevertheless, one whom the King’s Council, not to mention the tribunals of Holy Mother Church, would love to question.’

Beauchamp lifted his hand for silence as the barge moved in towards the quayside at Westminster. Stephen glimpsed the soaring turrets of both abbey and palace, the lights sparkling on windows, gilded crosses and cornices. Anselm was now threading his beads and Stephen recalled how the exorcist had a great fear of water. The barge serjeant blew hard on the hunting horn. The barge thrust against the tide and swept into the landing at King’s Steps. Beauchamp led them out, up the steps, under an archway guarded by men-at-arms and into the palace precincts. A busy place thronged with sweat-stained clerks, ostlers and scriveners, busy lawyers in their ermine-lined cloaks and judges in their scarlet silks. They pushed by officials from the Exchequer, the chancery or the many courts which sat next to the great hall nearby: King’s Bench, Common Pleas and others. They passed the Jewel Tower and went down a hollow, vaulted passageway. They reached New Palace Yard, thronged with plaintiffs and pleaders, men-at-arms and a horde of clerks, scriveners and ink-stained officials from the different departments of the royal household, be it the Buttery or the Wardrobe. The day was drawing on and all these royal servants were now eager to eat and drink at the different cook shops set up in the yard by the itinerant food-sellers with their movable grills, ovens and charcoal braziers. The air was heavy with roast meat, richly spiced and salted to curb hunger and quicken the thirst, so the ale-sellers and wine-tipplers could do an even more prosperous trade. The chatter and clatter were deafening. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry and eager to impress with their business. Stephen, trailing behind Beauchamp and Anselm, noticed how, when the royal clerk passed, gossip died and people hastily drew aside, glancing away as if unwilling to catch Beauchamp’s gaze. In turn, the royal clerk neither looked to the right nor left but swept on towards the heavily guarded abbey gates. A knight banneret of the royal household hurried up and, under Beauchamp’s instructions, he opened the gate and allowed them through into the abbey grounds.

Stephen had been there before but, as always, he was struck by the sheer magnificence of the abbey: a breathtaking vision of stone with its many walls and sides, turrets and towers, chapels radiating out like jewelled stems, all supported by a double tier of lofty buttresses. To the far right rose the spires of the parish church of St Margaret of Antioch, and between this and the abbey ranged the domestic granges, courtyards, gardens, orchards, carp ponds, vineyards, mills, guest houses and other outbuildings. Just as they entered the precincts the abbey bells began to toll the next hour of divine office. However, the black-garbed monks of St Benedict now streaming out of the cloisters where they’d washed and prepared themselves, did not hurry to their abbey church but along the path leading to St Margaret’s.

‘Of course,’ Anselm murmured, ‘the abbey church is closed because of the slayings.’

‘And will be for some time.’ Beauchamp waved them along to the red-tiled guest house, a magnificent building of Reigate stone with glass-filled windows. The guest master, an old, wrinkled-faced monk, greeted them warmly. He asked no questions but took them along a corridor, the walls whitewashed and gleaming, the paving stones sprinkled with herb dust. He stopped before a door, pushed it open and motioned them in. The stark, austere chamber lacked any ornamentation except for a crucifix nailed above a painted cloth displaying the IHS symbol. In each corner stood a narrow cot bed draped with a counterpane displaying the abbey’s coat of arms, a blue shield bearing a gold cross with silver fleur de lys and five golden doves. In the centre of the chamber stood a square table with stools on each side — this had been set up for dining with tranchers, napkins, knives, horn spoons and pewter goblets for water and wine. Two large jugs carved in the likeness of a dove stood on a side table beneath the light-filled, latchet window. Next to this was a squat lavarium with stoups of rose water, towels and pieces of precious Castilian soap in a copper dish. The guest master explained how the garderobe and latrines were in a special shed outside. He then hurriedly assured Beauchamp that all was prepared. They only had to ask for anything. Food would be served as soon as divine office finished and the abbey kitchens were ready.

Beauchamp, throwing cloak and sword belt on to a peg against the wall, courteously thanked him, then shut the door firmly behind the guest master, drawing across the bolts and turning the key.

‘Sir Miles,’ Anselm sat down on one of the beds, ‘Father Guardian told me that His Grace the King demanded my presence here. He talked of the need for an exorcism in the ancient crypt beneath the abbey, of the recent terrible crimes here. .?’

Beauchamp pulled the latchet window shut and walked slowly over to the table. He picked up a taper and, taking a flame from the solitary candle burning on its six-pronged spigot, carefully lit the other five. ‘Let there be light,’ he whispered.

‘Let there be light indeed,’ Anselm replied, pausing as the melodious plain chant from St Margaret’s carried across on the evening breeze:

‘They rise up, the kings of this world.

Princes conspire against the Lord and his Anointed. .’

Anselm nodded in agreement, then whispered the next lines from the same psalm:

‘You break them with your rod of iron.

You shatter them like a potter’s jar.’

‘All in God’s good time,’ Beauchamp added in a tone so eloquent in its disbelief of the very words he’d spoken.

‘Be careful, Beauchamp. Remember, the Lord comes like a thief in the night.’

‘And I shall render to God what is God’s,’ the clerk replied blithely. ‘But, for the moment, I must give, or I must return to Caesar, what is Caesar’s.’

‘What do you mean?’

Beauchamp, clutching a chancery pannier, sat down at the table, pushing aside the trancher and goblets. He drew out sheets of parchment as well as two velvet pouches bearing the royal coats of arms and tied at the neck with red twine. He undid these and gently shook out the contents. The first was a Saracen ivory-hilted dagger bound with fine copper wire, its curved blade of the finest Toledo steel. From the hilt and blade, Stephen guessed it was of considerable age: both were blotched and stained though they could easily be refurbished. Stephen then gasped loudly at the contents of the second pouch: a beautiful, pure gold cross studded with the most precious rubies and amethysts; even to the untrained eye the cross was a most costly item. It dazzled in the light, assuming a life of its own, as if some power within was making itself felt. Anselm, usually so reticent about anything, also exclaimed in amazement. He and Stephen handled the precious item, about six inches long and the same across. Although small the cross weighed heavy, Stephen lifted it up, staring at the sparking jewels, noting the intricate Celtic design.

‘Beautiful,’ Anselm whispered. ‘Angelic! The work of God’s own goldsmith.’

‘The Cross of Neath,’ Beauchamp explained, plucking the relic from Stephen’s hand. He then picked up the Saracen dagger. ‘Eleanor’s knife.’ He smiled at their look of puzzlement. Stephen felt a deep unease as soon as he had touched both precious items.

‘I will be succinct.’ Beauchamp put the items back in their pouches. ‘On the Octave of Candlemas last in the middle of February of this year, Adam Rishanger, a petty goldsmith, tried to flee the kingdom. He had sold most of his paltry possessions and went down to Queenhithe where a cog out of Bordeaux waited to take him to foreign parts. On the quayside Rishanger became involved in vicious dagger play with three masked assailants. Rishanger, with the help of some sailors, drove his attackers off. The captain of the cog, however, was reluctant to allow Rishanger on board, so our goldsmith fled down river. He was pursued. He managed to reach the King’s steps and sought sanctuary in the abbey, clinging on to the corner of the Confessor’s tomb. But his assailants followed him in. A lay brother who tried to intervene was killed — a blow to the heart, close to the rood screen. The assassins then seized Rishanger, stabbed him to death and fled. The abbey was put under interdict and closed, as you have said, and will remain so until the Lord Abbot decrees that reparation has been done and the church reconsecrated.’

‘And the killers?’

‘Fled, disappeared. You must have heard about this hideous affray?’

‘Of course,’ Anselm acknowledged. ‘I thought it was just a sign of the times.’

‘Yes and no,’ Beauchamp replied. ‘What was not made public,’ he tapped the pouches, ‘was that Rishanger’s killers did not have time to linger long after the murder; they fled, leaving their victim in a widening puddle of blood. Some of the good brothers tended to him. As they did, they found a sack Rishanger had pushed into one of the recesses beneath the Confessor’s tomb. Inside were these precious items.’

‘Plunder from some robbery?’

‘True, Brother Anselm, though a robbery which took place over seventy years ago.’

‘What?’

‘In the April of 1303, during the reign of the present King’s grandfather, the Hammer of the Scots, Edward I.’ Beauchamp paused, as if listening to the faint plain chant from St Margaret’s. ‘Now, as you may know, the abbey is the royal mausoleum of the Plantagenet family. It also used to be the royal treasury. The Crown Jewels and all the King’s personal wealth and precious items were stored in the crypt, at least until that robbery. Afterwards the crypt was abandoned. It, too, has a tale to tell, but that must wait for a while.’ Beauchamp paused to collect his thoughts. ‘In April 1303, around the feast of Saint Mark, a failed London merchant, Richard Puddlicot, seeking revenge against the King and eager for plunder, broke into the crypt.’

‘What?’ Anselm exclaimed. ‘I deal with magic and things supernal. I’ve seen the crypt: it’s an underground fortress, a bastion!’

‘I know,’ Beauchamp conceded. ‘The abbot at the time, Wenlock, was being blackmailed by two of his leading monks, Sub-Prior Alexander of Pershore and his sacristan, the monk in charge of securing the abbey and keeping it safe, Adam Warfeld. These two reprobates enjoyed an unsavoury reputation with certain ladies of the town. They conspired with Puddlicot, who sowed fast-growing hempen seeds in the monks’ cemetery close to the six windows of the crypt, which are on ground level. They set up a watch and hired a stonemason, John of Saint Albans who, as you will see, worked on the furthest window. They gained entry and passed up the treasure.’

‘But they were caught?’

‘Yes, Stephen, they eventually were. Some of the monks enjoyed a long stay in the Tower. A royal clerk, John Drokensford, who later became Bishop of Bath and Wells, rounded up the ring leaders and their coven.’

‘Including Puddlicot. .?’

‘Including Puddlicot. Drokensford then began to hunt for the missing treasure. Some he found, a great deal he did not. No one has ever discovered the rest of the horde, which included items precious to the royal household. This Saracen dagger was once wielded against the present King’s grandfather when he was on crusade in Outremer. A sect known as the Assassins despatched a killer who entered the royal pavilion and actually struck the King with a poisoned blade.’

‘The same as you’ve just shown us?’

‘Yes, Stephen. The King was wounded but his beloved wife, Queen Eleanor, or so the story has it, sucked the poison from the cut. In thanksgiving Edward dedicated the dagger to the Confessor and had it placed in his treasure house. The Cross of Neath is also symbolic. Once owned by the Princes of Wales, Edward crushed and killed these and seized their most sacred relic, the Cross of Neath, for his own use. Both these sacred items disappeared during the robbery of 1303. They were never seen again until the Octave of Candlemas past.’

‘How did Rishanger come to have them?’ Anselm asked. ‘And what has that got to do with us or the business at Saint Michael’s?’

Beauchamp drew a deep breath. ‘My apologies,’ he murmured, ‘for the secrecy. I wish to finish before the good brothers complete their chanting. We searched Rishanger’s house, which also lies in the parish of Saint Michael’s, Candlewick, within the ward of Dowgate. It was stripped clean. Rishanger had also drawn all his gold and silver from his bankers in Lombard Street. He intended to flee the realm with these items. Rishanger never married. He had a mistress, Beatrice Lampeter — a courtesan, a woman of notorious reputation. She, too, had apparently disappeared, but we found her mutilated corpse, her eyes removed, buried in the garden behind Rishanger’s house. Brother Anselm, you know how the removal of the eyes of a corpse is a curse intended to blight the soul after death. We suspect Rishanger killed Beatrice to keep her mouth shut. We also discovered amulets, inverted crosses, wax figurines, a pentangle.’ Beauchamp shrugged. ‘All the instruments of a warlock. Now,’ Beauchamp kept his head down, ‘the city, the court, even the church, houses those who secretly practice the black rites. Rishanger must have belonged to one of these covens. He certainly hated Sir William Higden.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘According to witnesses, Rishanger once approached Sir William with a scheme to fashion the philosopher’s stone. Higden threw him out of his house. When we discovered Rishanger’s secret cache we also found a wax figure, allegedly of Sir William, wrapped in a scrap of parchment which contained the filthiest curses against the King’s good friend. Sir William also believed Rishanger was one of those who frequented Saint Michael’s graveyard. He and others of that devilish crew were witches and sorcerers.’

‘But the treasure?’

‘To be brief, Rishanger may have been an associate of the Midnight Man and his coven. We know how that warlock held his satanic ceremonies here in the monks’ cemetery, as well as that disastrous attempt at Saint Michael’s.’

‘How do you know this?’ Anselm retorted.

‘For the moment,’ Beauchamp held up a hand, ‘I ask you to be patient. Now, it’s alleged that ghosts throng close about Westminster. An abbey has stood here when all the land around it was described as the Island of Thorns. Generations of monks have lived and died here. Many good, some indifferent, a few downright evil. Stories are rife about this or that haunting. However, recently, frightening phantasms have begun to trouble the monks: screams, cries, ghostly figures, the banging of doors.’

‘Throughout the abbey?’

‘No, just around the pyx chamber and the chapter house, as well as the crypt which lies beneath.’

‘And?’ Anselm shook his head. ‘Your statements, master clerk, are like beads, but what is the string which holds them all together?’

‘Rishanger lodged near Saint Michael’s, Candlewick. The Midnight Man performed his rites there. He did the same here at Westminster. We ask ourselves: did he raise ghosts to question them about where the hidden treasure from Puddlicot’s robbery lay hidden? Did the Midnight Man disturb what you call the spirits, malevolent or not, human or not, to achieve this?’ Beauchamp paused, staring hard at the exorcist. ‘Some would dismiss all you do, Brother Anselm, as arrant nonsense, yet you and I, we have seen the disturbances at Saint Michael’s. Others also have — Sir William Higden is certainly very concerned. More importantly,’ Beauchamp picked up the leather pouches, ‘how did a petty goldsmith find such precious treasures over seventy years after they were stolen? Rishanger must have been part of some coven — hence his pursuit, his taking sanctuary and consequent murder. Finally, Rishanger’s acquisition of such treasure must have been fairly recent. I reckon it was discovered early this year, perhaps in January?’

‘I follow your logic,’ Anselm retorted. ‘It must have been very recent. Rishanger secured possession of those items. He was overwhelmed by their riches. He did not care about the others in his coven. He sells everything he has; in a twisted way he imitated the man in Christ’s parable who finds treasure in a field so he sells everything he has in order to purchase that field. Rishanger was determined to keep such treasures — certainly the Cross of Neath. If he had sold it to the bankers in Marseilles, Genoa or Florence he would have been able to live like Croesus for the rest of his life.’

‘His Grace the King must be greatly concerned,’ Stephen declared, immediately blushing at Beauchamp’s cold, hard stare.

Then the clerk relaxed, smiled and leaned across to touch Stephen lightly on the cheek. ‘We’ll make a courtier of you yet, Stephen. You have said it! That’s why we are really here. Of course,’ Beauchamp emphasized, ‘the Royal Council is concerned at the hauntings both here and at Saint Michael’s. The King, however, in a word, wants that treasure — the precious horde of his warrior grandfather. Look, my dear friars, our King is at war. The Commons sit at Westminster only an arrow flight away. They demand this and that before they vote taxes to the King.’ Beauchamp sighed. ‘That’s before we try to collect such taxes. Now I have seen the list, kept in the remembrance chamber at the Tower, of all the treasures Puddlicot stole but were never returned. Pouches of precious stones, bags of jewellery, gold and silver coins, gold bars by the casket. A King’s ransom, my dear friars — pure, unadulterated bullion. If it’s here, our King wants it.’

‘So we have been brought to Westminster not only to exorcize a ghost but to question it?’

‘Perhaps,’ Beauchamp murmured, ‘you will also discover that His Grace has persuaded our Lord Abbot here at Westminster that the monks’ cemetery is crammed with mouldering corpses, so it is time to open the graves and remove the bones to their ossuary or charnel house.’

‘A good excuse to search the grounds,’ Anselm countered. ‘You, like the Midnight Man, believe that Puddlicot may have buried his plunder here?’

‘I do, but — ’ Sir Miles paused at a knock on the door.

Two servitors entered carrying food and drink: bowls of beef broth, dishes of diced quail spiced with ginger, pots of mixed vegetables, freshly-baked manchet loaves as well as goblets of wine. Once they had served the food and left, Anselm recited the Benedicite and they ate in silence.

Stephen now and again watched Sir Miles eat with all the delicacy of a born courtier, even as the clerk sat lost in thought. Eventually Anselm coughed and took a sip of water.

Beauchamp lifted his head. ‘Brother?’

‘You don’t believe in any of this, do you? Do you even believe in the good Lord, Sir Miles? I mean, sitting here, if not as friends then at least as comrades, I must know. It matters as to why you brought us here. It certainly influences what happens at Saint Michael’s. If someone is present who doesn’t really believe, that can affect an exorcism.’

‘You are not from the Inquisition?’ Sir Miles joked, a lopsided smile on his face. ‘You will not lodge my name with them?’

‘I regard you as a friend.’

Beauchamp pulled a face and dabbed his lips with a napkin. ‘Let me explain,’ he replied, ‘you are wrong about me. I struggle very hard to believe after all I have seen, heard and felt in my life. No, no,’ he shook a hand, ‘I am not talking about the present ills of the church, be it the priest who is lecherous or,’ Beauchamp grinned, ‘the friar who might be even more so. God knows we are all sinners, born weak. No, I remember being in one of the King’s chevauchees in France. I led a posse of mounted archers into a village south of Rouen. Marauding mercenaries had just swept through.’ Beauchamp blinked, clearing his throat. ‘I shall never forget what I saw.’ His voice fell to a whisper. ‘Corpses stripped, bellies ripped from crotch to throat, men, women and children. The village priest had been hung upside down in his own church; he’d been castrated. Children, babes in arms, lay with their skulls shattered like eggs. I found it difficult to accept a loving God would allow that. So,’ he picked up his goblet, ‘if that is life here on earth, is it any different beyond the veil? Isn’t that what you investigate?’ He glanced sharply at Stephen. ‘Of course, you’re the innocent. You believe different, that we really haven’t lost Eden?’

‘You know he does,’ Anselm retorted. ‘You are the Keeper of the King’s Secrets. You must have heard the gossip, the tittle-tattle, and read the reports? You know more about Stephen and myself than we do about you.’

‘You want to be a Carmelite?’ Beauchamp gestured at Stephen. ‘Do you really? Are you one because of your father, or in spite of him?’

Stephen felt a flush of anger. He ignored Anselm’s swift intake of breath and moved his arm from the exorcist’s reassuring grasp. Something about Beauchamp, as with Gascelyn, reminded Stephen of his own father. He felt the furies gather.

‘I became a Carmelite. .’

Beauchamp abruptly stretched across the table and squeezed Stephen’s hand. ‘I am sorry,’ he soothed placatingly. ‘I know you are the son of a famous, well-respected physician of Winchester.’

‘One who was also famous for being free with both his fist and his cane?’

‘You are also a young man who had visions from an early age, or so they say?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Stephen replied hotly, ‘I was an only child.’ He blinked away the tears of anger. ‘My mother,’ his voice faltered, ‘died young. I remember seeing her, as well as other people who had died. When the church bells tolled, voices whispered to me. Faces and shapes appeared in the dead of night. I would also glimpse them in puffs of incense smoke.’ Stephen paused. ‘My father thought I was moon-touched, fey-spirited. He sent me to the White Friars, the Carmelites at Aylesford. He claimed that I would never follow his profession, which dealt with facts. Do you know something, Beauchamp? The more he pressed me the more intense the visions became. I was glad to be free of him, to hide, to shelter at Aylesford.’

‘And I,’ Anselm intervened, ‘took him under my wing.’ The exorcist smiled across at the novice. ‘Cherished him as I would the apple of my eye.’

‘Or as your own son,’ Beauchamp cut in, ‘the one you lost?’

‘Aye,’ Anselm pulled at his sleeves and stared down the table, ‘the one I lost with his little sister and my beautiful Katerina. You know about the great pestilence sweeping in like the Doomsday angel? In a matter of days my entire family was wiped out. Perhaps I went mad; I certainly lost my wits. To me the world, the very air, became dank. Nothing but visions of death, a yawning darkness. Out of this emerged an old woman with wild hair and glaring eyes wielding a broad-bladed scythe, and behind her a horde of hellish skeletons garbed in moth-gnawed shrouds, their bare-boned faces grinning with malice. Vipers curled in their ribs, clawed hands grasped the heads of the dying. Demons clustered like flies. I became insane with grief. Satan, like a huge raven, constantly floated above me. I fled into deep forest. I met shapes, shadows, spectres, wraiths — all the undead. I entered that misty underworld between life and the kingdom of the hereafter. I visited the dungeons of the dead and confronted the furies which scourge, the key-dangling janitors of hell. I had visions of the black lake, the rivers of flame, the fearsome battlements of Hades.’ Anselm breathed out. ‘Others would dismiss it all as nonsense. Nevertheless, I have seen the storm hags ride the winds and heard their calls from the deep, wet greenness of the woods. The dead danced around me. After a time the visions faded but the ghosts remained: those souls who do not wish to pass on.’ Anselm rubbed his face. ‘Eventually I came out of my grief. I bathed, I fasted, and I found my vocation as a Carmelite priest. I also realized,’ he added tartly, ‘that the dead will not leave me alone. Accordingly my superiors, so-called astute men, decided to use my unwanted gift. Yet,’ he added wistfully, ‘I still commit treason against my own vocation. I sometimes wonder what might have been: sitting in an orchard perfumed with apple blossom, hand in hand with my beloved wife, watching our children play. . but, of course, these, too, are ghosts.’ Anselm put his face in his hands. For a brief while he sobbed quietly, then fell silent.

Beauchamp glanced at Stephen, who put a finger to his lips and shook his head.

‘If you want to know what I believe. .’ Anselm dried the tears from his seamed cheeks. ‘If you want to repeat the question that people always ask me about death, we human beings suffer two deaths. The body dies, it corrupts. The soul, the spirit, goes forth. However, once it does, a challenge is mounted by those forces hostile to God and man. Each adult soul is confronted. Some are reluctant to face the challenge. They pause, they wait. They don’t want to give up their lives on Earth. They cower, dragged down by sin, by unresolved acts and hopes. They are reluctant to go into the blinding light which burns all clear so they can make their decision for all eternity. Their world is my world. I try to reassure such souls. I try to release them from the traps. I urge, I pray for them to move on.’ Anselm rose and moved across to the shuttered window. He opened this and stared out. A bell began to clang, a solemn salutation to the gathering dark.

‘It’s time, isn’t it? You brought us here, Beauchamp. Let us see what the twilight brings.’

They left the guest house and entered the monks’ cemetery, a stretch of wild grass, flowers and shrubs bending slowly under an impetuous breeze. Above them the gathering clouds promised rain: the sky was grey and lowering, shrouding the cemetery in a more sinister aspect. They re-entered the gardens of the dead, row after row of battered crosses and crumbling headstones, hummocks and mounds long overgrown. All this was being disturbed as Beauchamp had described. Graves were being opened, rotting shrouds ripped, mouldy coffins and caskets shattered. The skulls and bones of long-dead monks were being piled into carts, tumbrils and wheelbarrows all intended for the charnel house. The workers had stopped for the day but the mounds of white glistening bones and heaps of skulls with gaping jaws were unnerving. A huge crow perched on a skull, claws slipping as if that bird of ill omen wished to grasp and carry it away. Stephen fingered his Ave beads even as Anselm took out his own from the pouch on his waist cord. The dead truly hung close. Faint voices carried on the wind. Whispered conversation, softly murmured prayers and traces of plain chanting. Shapes and shadows assumed a life of their own. Wisps of mist hovered then moved swiftly out of sight. The undergrowth became alive with strange scuttlings. Twigs snapped as if others walked beside or behind them. Steven glanced at Beauchamp. The clerk seemed unmoved by all this, walking purposefully, cloak thrown back, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

They entered the shadowy precincts of the great abbey church. Stephen glanced up and flinched at a massive gargoyle face glaring down at him from a cornice, a fierce dragon with scaly bat-like wings and a monstrous head, its clawed feet brought up as if ready to spring. Other stone faces glowered at him from pillars, sills, corners and ledges: grinning apes, fierce lions or rearing centaurs. A lay brother met them at the west door. As they turned into the cloisters, Stephen glimpsed the windows of the crypt; the lay brother, mumbling to himself, led them straight to that underground chamber. He unlocked an oaken door; black with age and studded with iron, it creaked open. The flaring sconce torch just inside leapt in the draught as if fiercely greeting them. The monk took this from its holder and handed it to Anselm.

‘Brother,’ his face creased in a fearful smile, ‘everything is ready below. This is as far as I go. The cloisters are empty. Father Abbot wishes it so but,’ he pointed towards the nearby pyx chamber, ‘if you need help there is a bell. As I said, the cloisters are empty, at least of the living.’ The lay brother bowed and padded off into the darkness.

‘Sir Miles.’ Anselm raised the torch a little higher to throw light on that enigmatic royal clerk, standing deliberately in the darkness. Stephen couldn’t decide if the clerk was fearful or just a cynical observer of all that was happening.

‘Sir Miles,’ Anselm repeated, ‘you need come no further. We will be safe.’

‘I could stay and keep watch with you?’

‘No, if need be we will ask.’ Anselm sketched a blessing in the air. ‘You will stay where?’

‘In the guest house.’ The clerk smiled and walked away in a clatter of high-heeled boots and the jingle of silver-edged spurs.

‘Et tenebrae facta,’ Anselm whispered, watching him go, ‘and darkness fell. Come, Stephen.’

They moved on to the spiral staircase. Anselm closed the door behind them. They continued down, clutching the wall. Anselm paused. ‘The steps here are wooden,’ he explained. ‘Another protection when the jewels were stored here. These steps were usually taken away to create a wide gap, a sure hindrance, or trap, for any would-be thief.’

They stepped on to the wooden casings which bent sharply under their weight. Stephen fought to control his fear. The wooden boards also created a noisy clatter which seemed to fill the iron-stoned, sombre stairwell. They continued down, the fiery cressets making the shadow dance. The air grew chilly and slightly musty. Stephen sensed they were not alone. Shadows flittered before them along the winding staircase. A gossiping voice rose and fell. Something brushed the back of Stephen’s hand. He was gently jostled and slipped a foot. He steadied himself and thought of Alice, her face summer-warm, full lips firm against his, and he desperately wished to be with her. He would love to be sitting in a garden or some cheery taproom staring into those laughing eyes. Instead he was here in this ice-cold tomb, ghosts bustling around him, the crypt opening up like some greedy mouth ready to devour him.

‘Leave us!’ a voice spat.

Stephen paused at the clang of iron against stone, as if someone below was picking at the walls or floor.

‘Ignore it, Stephen,’ Anselm warned.

They reached the bottom. Torches, candles and oil lamps glowed. The crypt, buried deep beneath the chapter house above, was octagonal in shape, about four yards in width. The only natural light was provided by six windows set at ground level with chamfered jambs and square heads. Deep recesses swept up to the windows, the jambs being set back at least two yards from the inner wall. Each had a segmented pointed arch and could only be reached by that narrow sloping gulley. The windows were heavily barred, iron rods embedded in the stone sill along the bottom of each window and set in the square head at the top. The floor was tiled. The concave ceiling, a gloomy vault, was supported by thick ribs of stone radiating from a massive rounded pillar in the centre of the crypt. Stephen slowly walked around this. The pillar, with a moulded base and capital, was about three feet in circumference and fashioned out of red square brick. Stephen crouched and inspected one section closely. He realized that some of these bricks could be removed to reveal a hollow recess within. He got to his feet. Despite the candles, lantern horn and the faint glow from the brazier, the crypt was definitely cold. Even so, Beauchamp had prepared well. The crypt had been stripped of everything except for two stools, palliasses and a table with water and wine flagons, two pewter goblets and a platter of dried food. Anselm was staring at the windows; the shutters had been removed and the light pouring through was now greying as dusk settled.

‘Seventeen feet thick,’ Anselm murmured, ‘that’s what they say about these walls.’ He pointed to the window on his far right. ‘That’s how Puddlicot got in; his stone mason chipped away at the sill. See, unlike the rest, it no longer has one. They then removed the iron bars, squeezed in and slid down the recess into the treasury. Some items were stored in the pillar; its removable bricks served as a strong box.’ Anselm’s account was so matter-of-fact that Stephen was startled violently by the pounding on the door leading to the stairwell. He hurriedly opened the door but there was no one. The pounding began again, this time against the door at the top of the steps, which Stephen had bolted behind them.

‘Close the door!’ Anselm shouted.

Stephen did so, pushing with all his strength, but some invisible presence, like a violent wind, seemed to be pressing against it. Anselm hastened to help. They slammed the door shut, pulling the bolts across. Anselm leaned against this, fighting a racking cough while wiping the sweat from his brow.

‘So it begins.’ He gasped and staggered across to pick up his psalter. He motioned Stephen to sit on the stool next to him as he intoned the opening verse of Vespers. ‘Oh, Lord, come to our aid. Oh, Lord, make haste to help us. Our help is in the name of the Lord. .’

Stephen glanced up and recoiled at the face, like an image in burnished steel swimming towards him, eyes all bloodshot, purple lips twisted in a cynical smile. Other figures, hideous in aspect, jostled in: hollowed, furrowed faces, eyes staring, mouths opening and closing. Stephen crossed himself. The faces seemed unaware of him but turned on each other as if in conversation. He could not hear though his mind caught sharply-whispered words such as ‘treasure’, ‘pyx’, ‘charnel door’. The figures grew more distinct, taking on bodily shapes like steam twisting up from a bubbling cauldron. The visitants were garbed in the robes, girdles and sandals of Benedictine monks. Stephen could even make out their tonsures. One of them carried a massive key ring which he jangled, though no sound was heard.

‘Monks,’ Stephen declared, getting to his feet. ‘Shapes of what once was.’

The hideous banging on the doors began again. Footsteps pounded on the stairwell. The door was tried, the latch clattering up and down; sounds at the windows made Stephen stare in horror. Dark shapes moved at the sixth window. Dust swirled down from the sill. A cold breeze smacked his face and Stephen gagged at a stench of corruption, the foulness from an open latrine. Anselm was reciting a Pater Noster. Stephen tried to join in. Candles guttered fiercely before snuffing out. The flames of the torches abruptly turned a light blue, flickered and died. Darkness filled the crypt. A hand clawed Stephen’s shoulder, pulling him back even as the clatter outside, the banging on the doors, rose to a crescendo before lapsing into silence. The crypt lay eerily still except for the soft slither of footsteps. A brick in the pillar was pulled loose, crashing to the ground. Again, silence. Stephen sensed they were not alone. Something or someone stood in the blackness before him. Anselm began the prayer of exorcism. Despite the dark he found the stoup of holy water. Anselm incensed the threatening, clawing atmosphere closing in around them. Stephen recited the responses to the prayers until the formal act of identification was reached.

‘By what name are you called?’

‘Peregrinus.’ The reply was low and throaty.

Stephen, as always, wasn’t sure if the voice was real or an echo in his own mind.

‘Ego sum, peregrinus,’ the voice replied in Latin. ‘I am a pilgrim.’

Stephen stepped back as a face, white and glaring, rushed through the darkness towards him. Ghosts swarmed, their voices mocking.

‘You are a wanderer — why?’ Anselm asked.

‘No rest, no peace.’ The voice was tired.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Here and there. I have met the jailers of the underworld. I have stood before its water black and bitter; around it lurk the ugly shapes of pestilence, fear, poverty, pain and death. I have sheltered under the great oak tree. I have been across the meadows of mayhem and misery where centaurs, gargoyles and harpies hunt lost souls like rabbits through the fiery grass. I have seen the dead flock and cluster, whispering like the dry murmuring of autumn leaves. I have wandered through the forest of the damned to confront the suicides. I have crossed the bridge of despair, over white-hot flame; I have glimpsed the iron towers of limbo and met the Furies who scourge the dead. I have encountered the Hydra with her yawning, poisonous mouth.’ The voice sighed and faded.

Stephen recalled how ghosts, like the living, often describe their own nightly dreams. Anselm often argued that no more truth should be attached to them than the ravings of a delirious patient.

‘Yes, yes,’ Anselm retorted, ‘but why do you not go into the light? Why dwell in darkness?’

‘Judgement.’

‘The Lord is merciful to the repentant.’

‘I cannot,’ the voice hissed. ‘I will not,’ it hurled back. ‘I cannot rest. You know the injustice.’

‘I know what?’

‘We have met before, at the other church where the injustice was done.’

Anselm tensed. ‘What other church? Saint Michael’s, Candlewick? What injustice?’

‘I cannot say,’ the voice rasped. ‘The guardians are here. You search for the treasure, like the rest?’

‘Are you Puddlicot the thief? The executed felon?’

‘The others asked the same.’

‘Which others?’

‘How can you describe a dream? Faces you see, all distorted, like gazing through running water? Give me peace; let me be buried. The sheer shame. How can I break free? Even Picard’s prayers do not help.’

‘Who is Picard? I adjure you to tell me the truth.’

‘The guardians have come, swift and deadly. You cannot see them. They are here.’ The voice crumbled into incoherent phrases, the occasional mumbled word. The clamour in the stairwell outside began again: the clatter of mailed feet followed by an incessant banging on the door, the latch rattling as if pressed by a mad man. Ice-cold draughts swept the crypt. The sound of dripping water grew as if a barrel was filling to the brim and splashing over. Spikes of fire appeared then faded. The blackness began to thin. The threat of impending danger receded. Anselm moved across to the table, searching for a tinder. After a few scrapes he forced a flame and lit the candles and cressets. The crypt flared into light. Stephen glanced fearfully at the pools of darkness. A disembodied hand appeared in one of these, long, white fingers curling as if searching for something, like the hand of a drowning man making one last desperate attempt to find something to cling on to, then it was gone.

‘Stephen, look at the walls.’

He did so. Hand prints scorched the stone, the same on the table and pillar as if some being, cloaked in fire, had crept around the crypt desperate for an opening. Stephen watched these fade even as Anselm, sitting by the table, began to slice the bread and cheese.

‘Eat, Stephen, drink.’

The novice did so though his belly rumbled. His throat felt dry, sore and sticky.

‘Is it over, Magister?’

‘It is never over, Stephen. Not until we free the nets and break the snares which keep these souls bound.’

‘The snares?’

‘Their own guilt, remorse and fear. Above all, the injustices done to them.’

‘And the guardians?’

‘Demons, Stephen, who prowl the wastelands between life and death, between heaven and hell.’

‘He talked about Saint Michael’s?’

Stephen bit into a piece of cheese and startled at the voice which bellowed: ‘We’ve shut him up, forced his mouth closed.’

Stephen dropped the cheese and whirled around in terror. Something moved in the pool of darkness. Abruptly the noise outside began again; this was repeated by the pounding on the door opening on to the steps to the crypt.

‘Enough is enough!’ Anselm sprang to his feet. ‘Why the door? I am sure it’s the door, Stephen. God knows why. Is it seen as a barrier or a representation of guilt? Why?’ Anselm opened the crypt door. He asked Stephen to bring the lantern horn and both began the arduous climb through the freezing stairwell. Every so often Anselm had to pause in a fit of coughing. They reached the wooden steps. An icy draught buffeted them. The wooden steps began to shake and, to Stephen’s horror, slightly buckle, as if some unseen power beneath was striving to break free. He clutched his lantern horn, steadying himself against the wall as Anselm prayed. The wooden steps rattled but then settled. They reached the top and opened the ancient door. Stephen was glad to be free of the crypt. He welcomed the rich night air, the comforting sight of torches flickering in their holders. Anselm, angry at what had happened, strode up and down the hollow-stone passageway, peering into the darkness before coming back to examine the door. ‘Nothing!’ Anselm exclaimed. He sat down on a stone plinth.

‘I’m satisfied about what we saw, heard and felt. I assure you Stephen, it was not of human origin.’