The Midnight Man

Words Amongst the Pilgrims

The physician, who stood narrating his tale fluently and lucidly, now sat down, grasped the wine jug and filled his goblet to the brim.

‘Is this a tale?’ the pardoner jibed. ‘Or the truth?’

‘What is truth?’ the physician quipped back.

‘But these voices, shapes and shades?’ The man of law spoke up.

‘My friends,’ the poor parson declared, ‘listen to my advice. If God has his contemplatives and mystics so does Satan; he can immerse them in raptures. I’ve seen Satan,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘like a deformed bird winging through my own church. Once a parishioner of mine beheaded two old beldames. She later confessed how she’d been walking in Summer Meadow when a devil appeared to her in the form of a man, garbed and cowled. He handed her a scythe so she could do his bloody deed.

‘And?’ the man of law asked.

‘She was hanged then burnt.’

‘Satan stabs the heart with terror,’ the prioress murmured, stretching out to clasp her chaplain’s hand.

The conversation now descended into the pilgrim’s personal experiences. Tales about gruesome demons with horns and tails, fire spurting from every orifice with harsh, horrifying voices. How demon ghosts had spindly bodies, bulging eyes, lipless mouths, horns, beaks and claws. Master Chaucer watched this carefully. Most of the pilgrims joined in, though the summoner sat stock-still, lost in his own dark memories. The knight, too, was silent, staring down at the table top, tapping it with his fingers. Master Chaucer had his own misgivings. The physician was sitting in his costly robes all serene, yet there was a tension here. Chaucer shivered. Wispy shapes swirled around the physician’s head, which disappeared. Were these, Chaucer wondered, just his imaginings? Ghosts or traces of smoke from the chafing dishes and braziers? The taproom was decked out to be merry with its long table. Sweet-smelling hams, bacon and vegetables hung in nets from the smartly-painted rafter beams. The rushes on the floor were spring-green, glossy and powdered with herbs. Candlelight, lamplight and lantern horn all danced vigorously, yet there was something wrong. The physician’s story had summoned up a dark cloud which housed its own macabre secrets. The friar looked not so merry now while the haberdasher, dyer, weaver and carpet-maker, so trim and fresh in all their livery, sat heads together, locked in hushed conversation. Next to them the cook, scratching his leg ulcer, listened in, his scabby head nodding vigorously.

‘Master physician,’ Minehost of The Tabard also sensed the unease, ‘your tale is unsettling.’

‘We’ve heard about this.’ The fat-faced haberdasher, eyes all choleric, half-rose. ‘Oh, yes, the great mystery at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘Hidden crimes, scandalous secrets. .?’

‘And I know of The Unicorn.’ The cook spoke up. ‘I’ve worked there. Master Robert Palmer and his daughter Alice. .’

‘Please,’ the physician spread his hands, ‘do not spoil my tale.’

‘These ghosts and demons. .’ the bulbous-eyed manciple exclaimed. Thankfully his interjection forced the conversation back on to the personal experiences of ghosts, hauntings and visions of hell the pilgrims had either been told of or dreamed of. How the violent are boiled in blood while murderers turn into trees, their leaves and bark shredded and eaten by hog-faced harpies. The only exception was the Wife of Bath. She sat all flush-faced, slightly sweating. She did not join in the conversation but sat quietly, hands on her lap. She had taken out a pair of Ave beads and was threading these through her fingers, eyes glazed, lost in her own memories.

Minehost banged his tankard on the table. ‘Enough!’ he declared. ‘The flame on the hour candle has eaten another ring. Master physician, your story, please?’