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  The Midnight Man

  ( Canterbury Tales of Mystery And Murder - 7 )

  Paul Doherty

  Paul Doherty

  The Midnight Man

  PROLOGUE

  Words Amongst the Pilgrims

  Murder, Master Geoffrey Chaucer of the Custom House, London, reflected, and mystery were two invisible chains which seemed to link all his fellow pilgrims as they wandered down the old Roman road towards Canterbury. Strange, Chaucer continued his musing, that Becket, whose blissful bones these pilgrims hoped to venerate, was the victim of both murder and mystery. Did Henry truly order the killing of his archbishop during those Christmas days over two hundred years ago? Some claim it was the work of his Queen Eleanor. .

  ‘Master Chaucer, you like this tavern?’

  Chaucer broke from his reverie and smiled at the physician sitting next to him. He then gazed around the taproom of The Strong One of Jacob, a spacious, well-endowed hostelry with its lush gardens and lofty stories of open galleries, each with their own narrow guest chambers. Chaucer pointed to the window-shutters, flung back to allow in the warm scent from the herbers. ‘The day is fading,’ he murmured. ‘Darkness will fall and all these passageways and entrances will fill with dancing shadows.’

  ‘And another macabre tale will be told.’ The narrow-faced pardoner clawed at his straw-coloured hair, hanging lank as rats’ tails, before moving to finger the host of relics dangling on a chain around his neck, or pinned to the great woollen cloak Chaucer truly believed the pardoner had filched from The Tabard in Southwark.

  ‘Yes, another tale will be told,’ Chaucer lisped, scratching his neatly clipped moustache and beard. He glanced at the physician sitting next to him at the communal table. The physician, who openly despised the pardoner, had turned his back on that peddler of untidy, unholy rubbish. A handsome man, the physician’s face was oval-shaped and ruddy-coloured, the nose thin and sharp as a quill pen, deep laughter lines marking the full lips and clever grey eyes. He was clean-shaven, his silver-grey hair cropped close like that of a knight and, when he moved, his blood-red garments, slashed a bluish-green and lined with taffeta, gave off a pleasing perfume. Gold and silver rings glittered on his long fingers, their nails neatly pared and clean. A precise man, Chaucer concluded, in both dress and action, except for one nervous gesture: the physician kept fiddling with the Saint Joseph medal on a silver filigree chain around his neck. He followed Chaucer’s gaze, tapped the medal and smiled.

  ‘This, too, tells a story.’ He gestured down the table at the pilgrims, bellies now full, chattering amongst themselves. ‘We travelled well today,’ he murmured. ‘I mean, from Demonhurst. Thank God we’ll not sleep out in the open tonight.’ He paused as the miller made a grab at the buxom Wife of Bath who sat even more flushed-faced, wimple all askew. She opened her gap-toothed mouth and screamed so shrilly at her tormentor that it stilled all clamour. The miller withdrew, grabbed his bagpipes and blew a strident, wailing blast in reply. The knight, Sir Godfrey Evesden, warned the miller with an outstretched hand. Chaucer noticed how the knight, a self-confessed hunter of the Strigoi — blood-drinkers, even then did not fully turn his back on the monk; that dark shaven pate sat close, cowl pulled forward, hands pushed up the voluminous sleeves of his gown.

  ‘He keeps a dagger there, I am sure,’ Chaucer murmured to himself.

  The yeoman, the knight’s faithful retainer, sitting directly across the table from the bald-headed, wolf-toothed monk, his eyes staring like those of a mad March hare, drew his knife. The cowled, cloaked man of the dark, as Chaucer secretly called the monk, swiftly showed his hands in a gesture of peace. Minehost, the keeper of The Tabard, also sensed the tension surfacing amongst this motley group of pilgrims who seemed, in one way or another, related to each other. He abruptly rose to his feet from his chair at the top of the table, clapping his hands for silence.

  ‘Fair gentlemen and ladies, Domini atque Dominae.’ Minehost tipped his head at the murmur of praise for his use of Latin. ‘The day is done and soon we are for the dark.’ He let his words echo like the peal of a funeral bell. ‘We have journeyed far, feasted well but, remember, we have decided that each of us tell a tale during our daily pilgrimage along the white, dusty shire roads.’ He paused. ‘At night, however, we tell a different tale, of murder, mystery and intrigue. We have promised visions of those who parade through hell carrying their severed heads like lanterns before them. We summon from the shadows those beings with skin like that of a boar and the face of a monkey.’

  ‘You mean the summoner?’ the miller shouted.

  Up jumped the summoner, armed with a wooden trancher. The knight also sprang up, calling for his squire, who held Sir Godfrey’s sword. Down went the summoner, slamming the trancher back on the common board, glaring around at the rest of the pilgrims, daring anyone to continue their sniggers at the miller’s jibe. The franklin rose, combing his snow-white beard with the glittering fingers of one hand, the other resting on his silken purse with its ornate gold stitching. The purse was strapped to a beautiful Cordovan belt around the franklin’s bulging belly, which intended his purse to stay there, not cut by some thief such as the summoner, who’d been eyeing it as lustfully as he had the Wife of Bath’s shapely ankles in their gold-starred hose, ever since they’d left The Tabard in Southwark. The franklin rapped the table with the loving cup he always drank from.

  ‘My friends,’ he called over the whispers and murmurs, ‘fellow pilgrims, I insist that, for your silence, I buy us all jugs of wine and firkins of ale.’ The declaration was cheered with noisy banging on the table. ‘On one condition.’ The franklin grinned in a show of yellowing teeth. ‘By the time I count to forty, the same number of days as our Lord’s Lenten fast, one of you will have agreed to tell us a tale to tingle the spine and chill the blood.’

  The franklin began counting. He’d reached twelve when the physician abruptly rose. Tall and dignified, he held up both hands. ‘I will,’ he declared. ‘Indeed, I already see my story curling into our midst like black smoke or some ruthless phantasm waiting amongst the dead for Death to come.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the pardoner cried.

  ‘I have seen sights,’ the physician replied, ‘which haunt the soul for ever, poisoning life till life is done. There, my grim warning has your attention! So, hush now.’

  The taproom did not seem so well lit now. Shadows moved. Timbers creaked. The weak fire in the stone-bound hearth crackled noisily, spitting sparks. Outside the darkness thickened. A brisk breeze stirred the branches of a tree to clatter against the bolted shutter, as if someone stood outside desperate to get in. So, as the light faded and night descended, the physician began his tale. .

  The Physician’s Tale

  Part One

  Brother Anselm, Carmelite friar and principal exorcist to the Archbishop of Canterbury, closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. He and his clerk, the novice Stephen of Winchester, were now alone. The doors to St Michael’s, Candlewick in Dowgate Ward, London were closed and guarded by Parson Smollat and members of his parish council. All flambeaux, candles, cressets and tapers had been extinguished. They were alone in the darkness and already ‘the presence’, as Brother Anselm described it, was making itself felt. The usual mustiness had faded. The warmth of the spring day, still to be enjoyed in the gloomy cemetery beyond the corpse door, now disappeared. A horrid cold swept the nave of that ancient church, bringing with it the stinking stench of corruption, the horrid perfume of hell. The attack had already begun. Memories whirled through Anselm’s mind like black fat flies. He thought about what he had witnessed in Norwich. The lady who’d fled with her lover monk: her brothers had caught up and killed both her and her priestly paramour.
They’d castrated the monk then drowned both in a sack weighed down with rocks. Their souls had refused to move on into the light and judgement. They had clustered in that derelict watermill, sheltering like bats twittering in a cave, the horror and bloody terror of their deaths darting out like tongues of hellish flames to disturb and harm the living.

  ‘Brother Anselm,’ Stephen whispered, ‘it’s cold, and I’m frightened.’

  Anselm started, freeing himself from the devilish distraction. ‘Surely we shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living,’ he intoned reassuringly. ‘Take heart and hold firm. Hope in the Lord.’

  Stephen threaded his Ave beads, fingers slippery with sweat. He tried to recite the Pater Noster but could not speak the words. ‘Qui est in coelis — who art in heaven.’ He stared into the gathering blackness. Anselm had warned him about this sticking cold, the unpleasant thoughts. More terrors would soon press in. Stephen’s mouth and throat turned dry. He jumped as something brushed his face, soft yet menacing, like a fluttering hawk wing. He must remain vigilant, prayerful and remember everything so as to faithfully record it. He drew himself up on the stool next to the shriving chair in which Anselm sat. He was about to cross himself when his shoulder was poked. He whirled around, alarmed by the hissing whispers. Something crawled over his sandalled feet, cold and slithering — a viper, here? The novice moved his feet. Anselm did likewise. He gripped Stephen’s arm and pressed reassuringly. ‘Phantasms!’ he murmured. ‘Ignore them. More will come.’

  As if in answer a dog howled, a flesh-tingling sound. Stephen was not sure whether the hound was in the church or beyond the corpse door. A black shape moved furtively between the drum-like pillars of the nave.

  ‘Magister,’ Stephen whispered, ‘this is supposed to be a holy place, not the domain of demons.’

  ‘So it is,’ Anselm whispered back, ‘but, as scripture proves, Satan even appeared to the Holy One himself. What I am certain of is. .’ Anselm broke off as candles in the chantry chapel immediately to his right flared into life, lit by some unseen hand. Stephen followed his master’s gaze and shivered. The candles on their spigots were burning briskly, shoots of flames leaping up to illuminate the vivid wall painting just beneath the darkened window. The fresco recorded a vision of hell where the damned hung by their tongues from trees of fire. Others smouldered in furnaces, heaped with burning coals, roasted on spits or plunged head first into cauldrons of bubbling black oil. All around these gathered hordes of demons, serpents and monstrous beasts. Black dogs, armed with swords, stood guard over other damned souls being led to a gibbet which stretched over a plunging abyss. The candles were abruptly extinguished and the flames smothered. The whispering began again as a crowd of ghosts hustled close.

  ‘Earth swallowed Abel’s blood; it thirsts for more.’ The voice was low and mocking.

  ‘Aye,’ Anselm replied sharply, ‘and all those hallowed by receiving Christ’s body before the great resurrection condemn you.’

  The voice screamed and faded away. Anselm rose to his feet, Stephen likewise.

  ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ Anselm began the rite of exorcism. He had assured Stephen, before being locked in this darkened church, that ‘the scriptures say this type of demonic activity can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.’

  They had certainly fasted. Stephen’s empty stomach grumbled in protest. He forced himself to join in the prayers, even as the ghastly voices began to mimic what was said. The verses drifted back, distant echoes. Lights appeared, floating like those strange marsh fires above the fens of Ely. Were they, Stephen wondered, goblins, fairies, fireflies or the souls of the damned? Anselm was now chanting a psalm. The lights disappeared; the stench remained as if from some open sewer. A cold, as freezing as the north wind sweeping across the snowbound fields of Lincolnshire, chilled their bodies. Anselm had stopped his reciting. He just stood in the centre of the nave, hands hanging by his side.

  ‘Magister, Magister?’

  Anselm turned and grabbed Stephen’s shoulder in a hard squeeze. ‘I saw one once, Stephen — a knight. The cross-bolt bow had knit his gorget to his throat. Another had smashed into his nose. Others were being slaughtered, some eviscerated; they trod on their own entrails and vomited their own teeth. Some stood gazing speechlessly at where their arms should have been. Yet when I turn away, I see the pestilential horde, bodies covered with buboes, white and round like shining shillings. These turn into burning candles in their flesh; they erupt like the seeds of black peas, broken fragments of brittle sea coal, dark black berries. .’

  ‘Magister, Magister?’ Stephen freed himself from his master’s grip. He seized Anselm’s freezing cold hands, even as he was aware of sinister shades gathering like bats, their silent wings wafting putrid air towards them. ‘Magister?’ Stephen could not see Anselm’s face through the gloom but he felt his master’s hands grow warm. Anselm gave a great sigh, turned and promptly fainted into Stephen’s arms. The novice, sweat-soaked, lowered his body down to the cold paving stones. Stephen knelt by his master, aware of the darksmen, as Anselm called them, the night-walkers pressing in. Anselm stirred, groaned and struggled to sit. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he whispered. ‘Let us see. .’

  Anselm staggered to his feet and walked down the nave. He was calling out questions, pausing and listening to replies. The darkness thinned. The ancient mustiness of the church returned. No longer was it cold. No voices echoed. No lights flared. No darting shadows or flitting shapes. They had all faded, trailing away. Anselm stood in the centre of the nave, hands clasped, staring up at the elaborately carved rood screen. He stepped forward as if to go up into the sanctuary but paused and looked over his shoulder. ‘Stephen,’ Anselm murmured, ‘it’s over. Unlock the doors.’

  A short while later Anselm, Stephen and others assembled in the great solar of Sir William Higden’s stately mansion which overlooked St Michael’s, Candlewick. Anselm had washed his hands and face. He’d drank a full loving cup of water and eaten a platter of diced meat, beef garnished with a spicy vegetable sauce. Stephen had also eaten and drunk, perhaps more wine than he should have done. The excitement of the evening had diminished. The novice stared around the opulent chamber, such a contrast to the stark simplicity of the cells at the House of the Carmelites, the White Friars. The solar was luxuriously furnished. Oaken panelling gleamed against the walls; above this the delicately plastered walls were decorated with gorgeous cloths, embroideries and tapestries. The tiled floor was carpeted with dark turkey cloths while the full glory of the solar was illuminated by an array of fiery candles and flaring cressets. Stephen felt the strong arms of his leather-backed chair and stared at the other items of polished furniture: the dressers, tables and shelves displaying a magnificent array of silver and gold cups, mazers, platters and dishes. Stephen glanced at Anselm. The exorcist slouched in his chair at the top of the table picking at strips of dried fruit, his bony face creased with tiredness. Anselm, Stephen reflected, looked what he was, a priest used to the tangled warfare between the visible and the invisible. Anselm had a streak of gentleness carefully hidden behind his hard-featured face, hooded eyes, aquiline nose and bloodless, thin lips. He was clean-shaven, his black-silver hair closely cut to reveal the tonsure as well as proclaim the austerity of this former knight who’d once fought and killed under the snarling, gold leopards of England.

  The others grouped around the table were subdued. Parson Smollat, neat and fussy, his rosy cheeks now full-red from the claret he’d generously supped, his piggy eyes ever darting, his clean little face screwed up in concentration as he listened to the conversations swirling about him. Simon the sexton was no different. A smug little man with a streak of vanity betrayed by the way he let his scrawny, silver-grey hair tumble down to his shoulders. Curate Amalric was different. A scion of a noble Somerset family, or so he often proclaimed, Amalric disdained what he dismissed as ‘courtly fancy’ and dressed simply in a long black robe, heavily stained
with food, wine and other unmentionables. Amalric, head and face completely shaved, was bony and angular — so much so that the curate reminded Stephen of a skeleton.

  ‘You want more claret?’

  Stephen glanced down at the other end of the table where their host, Sir William Higden, sat enthroned, holding up the wine jug, gazing expectantly around at his guests. A plump city merchant knighted by the King, dressed in a beautiful quilted jerkin of dark murrey, Sir William was trying to remain cheerful despite what was happening in his parish church of which he was the lord, holding its advowson, the right to appoint the parson and other clerics. Sir William’s podgy face under its mop of thinning reddish hair gleamed with oil.

  ‘More wine, sirs, surely?’

  Sir William’s question was politely refused. Amalric gazed longingly into the far corner where the flame of the hour candle was slowly sinking to the next ring — compline time.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Sir William’s face was now drained of all good humour: his small black eyes hard as pebbles, no longer wrinkled in a smile. The merchant knight put the wine jug down. He played with the medallion on the chain around his neck then started to slip on and off the rings decorating his podgy fingers. A strange man, Stephen reflected, Sir William had fought strenuously for King Edward in France before amassing a fortune in the wool trade. He had raised loans for the King who’d rewarded him with a knighthood and a secure place in the Commons where, of course, Sir William could defend the Crown’s rights. A warrior turned merchant, Sir William’s stately mansion overlooked the sprawling cemetery of St Michael’s, Candlewick. He was a lord who took a keen interest in his local church and all things parochial. He now used the wine jug to bang on the table and still the desultory conversation. He was about to speak but paused at a knock on the door. This swung open immediately and Sir Miles Beauchamp, Chief Clerk in the Chancery of the Secret Seal, swept into the room. Beauchamp arrogantly surveyed them all as he undid the clasps of his heavy, dark blue cloak; he swung this off, tossing it over an old chair just within the doorway.