The Templar Magician Page 18

  The light was fading. Lamps glowed from hooks on doorposts as well as huge poles erected at the entrance to certain streets. Chains were being stretched across to prevent horsemen and carts clattering through. Church bells chimed the hour of evening prayer. Beacon flames flickered in the huge lantern horns set up in steeples. Stalls had been taken down, goods packed and stored away. Dung carts collected the rubbish, the rakers and street scavengers attacking the sprawling heaps of refuse. Shutters clattered closed. Doors slammed. Here and there a voice called. Incense from a church floated across to mingle with the fading odours from the cookshops, pie stalls and makeshift grills of itinerant traders. Bailiffs and beadles poured buckets of freezing water over those in the stocks to clean their filth before releasing them with a spate of curses. Half-opened tavern doors provided shafts of light and warmth. Around these, desperate beggars clustered for a crust or a piece of meat. Nobody accosted the coroner and his group as they swept along the alleyways. Hastang was very well known, while his retinue, armed with mace, club and sword, was protection enough.

  They passed under the dark mass of Baynard’s Castle, turning into an alleyway leading down to the quayside, the cold breeze heavy with the smell of salt, fish and tar. Hastang abruptly stopped and knocked at a shop door, above which hung the gaudy sign of a ship’s chandler. The door opened, and the owner, displaying the guild insignia, ushered them across the sweet-smelling shop and up some stairs into the solar, where his wife and children clustered around a table. The merchant ignored his family, leading the coroner’s group across to the shuttered window. He opened this slightly, and Hastang gently pushed de Payens forward so that he could peer through the gap down into the street below. He whispered at the Templar to watch the doorway of the tavern opposite, a spacious three-storey building that rejoiced in the name of the Prospect of Heaven.

  ‘The Genoese has been there for some time,’ the chandler murmured. ‘I know he hasn’t left. Gilbert, my apprentice, is still within. He’s been there for at least an hour.’

  De Payens secretly marvelled at the coroner’s cunning. He needed no legion of spies; just tradesmen, craft and guild members who knew the streets and who could recognise a stranger, especially one whose description had been given them. Hastang was determined to discover who Parmenio truly was and what he was about. They waited. The chandler’s wife took her children up to the bedchamber. In the street below, shadows slunk in and out of the light. Cats squealed. A large sow, broken loose from its lead, charged down the street, pursued by a butcher and his dogs. A horse-drawn hurdle, some malefactor lashed to it, trundled by. The tavern door became busy, then Parmenio stepped into the light. He paused, glanced furtively around and slipped into the darkness. A short while later, Gilbert the apprentice darted across the street and into his master’s house. He ran breathless up the stairs and slumped on a stool, gabbling about what he had seen. De Payens could not understand his tongue, but he passed the boy a coin. Hastang heard him out, then led the Templar away.

  ‘Apparently Parmenio was with a Venetian. Gilbert later made enquiries. A carrack from that city lies at Queenshithe and will leave on the morning tide. Parmenio and his guest sat in a corner; chancery pouches were exchanged. The Genoese seemed disappointed, worried, but what they were talking about,’ Hastang pulled a face, ‘we do not know.’

  ‘Venetian?’

  ‘They own the swiftest ships, Edmund; they do business with the ports of Tripoli and elsewhere. It’s not the first time Parmenio has met such strangers. Someone from Outremer is definitely sending him messages and he is replying, but why?’ The coroner turned away. He thanked the chandler and led de Payens downstairs and out into the darkness. Instead of taking him back up into the City, he led his retinue through a tangle of stinking alleyways and runnels, nothing more than murky tunnels, bereft of any light except the solitary chink or glimmer from a shutter, or someone armed with a hooded candle or lantern horn darting across the street in front of them. De Payens, one hand on his sword hilt, the other pinching his nostrils at the stench, glimpsed the occasional figure lurking in the mouth of an alleyway, only to disappear deeper into the murk. A door opened. Women carrying a funeral bier, the corpse on top covered by a shabby shroud, came out and hastened past them into the night. Abruptly a voice called through the darkness.

  ‘Hastang and his bailiffs! They come, they come!’

  ‘On your guard!’

  ‘On your watch.’ Other voices echoed eerily through the blackness.

  ‘Night-watchers,’ Hastang whispered.

  Abruptly a door crashed open as a slattern came out to empty a pot. De Payens glimpsed inside and startled with surprise. Only a glance before the door was slammed shut, but it revealed a great feast being held: tables arranged in a square and laden with platters of steaming meats, bowls of fruit, jugs, flagons and goblets. The scene was lit by a host of flaring candles. Men and women, all garbed in garish clothes, sat around eating and drinking, their goblets raised in toast to a white-clad man in the centre, his black hair wreathed with a holly crown.

  ‘A beggars’ banquet,’ Hastang whispered. ‘Our city holds stranger sights.’

  They cleared the alleyways and reached a stretch of wasteland, silverish in the light of the moon. Far across it a lantern winked high in the air like a beacon light.

  ‘More of my men,’ Hastang declared. ‘They are guarding what’s been found. You must see it, Edmund. I am sure it’s Walkyn’s work.’

  They walked across the wasteland. Here and there de Payens glimpsed the ruins of houses. Hastang explained how a fire, followed by an attack on London during the recent troubles, had laid waste this quarter north of Watling. It was a truly ghostly place: gaunt trees, branches stark and stripped of all leaves, wiry gorse and unseen dips and potholes. When the breeze shifted the mist, de Payens glimpsed the derelict church they were approaching. Owls hooted, the brooding silence broken as a ghost-winged bird came floating over the gorse, hunting for vermin, which scurried in panic through the bracken. A church bell deep in the city began to clang, as if tolling a warning.

  ‘St Blaise on the Heathland,’ Hastang murmured.

  They crossed the tumbled cemetery wall, as the lychgate had collapsed, blocking the entrance to God’s Acre. A torch flared in its makeshift sconce on the door jamb leading into the nave. The baptismal font had been removed, as had the tiles on the floor, together with the wooden furnishings such as the rood screen, aumbries and even the pulpit. Some of Hastang’s men waited in the chancel. They’d fashioned rough torches and pushed these into cracks and crevices, and the juddering light made the shadows dance even more, as if lighting entry to a hall of ghosts. At the coroner’s approach, the men clambered to their feet from around the makeshift fire where the altar had once stood.

  ‘No one has moved it?’ barked Hastang as he strode down the nave.

  ‘No, sir,’ one of the men called back.

  Hastang nodded and led de Payens off into the little sacristy to the left. A corpse lay under a makeshift shroud. At the head and feet glowed a lantern horn. De Payens caught his breath. Hastang knelt and peeled back the cloth to reveal a young woman perhaps no more than fourteen or fifteen summers old, her naked corpse a dirty white, coated and smeared with dried blood. Mercifully her long black hair hid her ravaged face, but the rest of the horror was plain to see: her throat had been slit, her chest ripped open and her heart plucked out. De Payens had seen enough and turned away, retching. He tried to murmur a prayer against such horror, the work of lost, damned souls.

  ‘Taken, she was.’ Hastang stood beside him. ‘Taken from the streets. Some poor wench; not the first, Edmund, to be seized and butchered. A pedlar found her corpse and hurried to tell me. She is not some harlot attacked for pleasure, and as I’ve said, she’s not the first. This is the work of witches and warlocks: a mutilated corpse stretched out in a deserted church.’

  ‘You are sure she was part of some black rite, the work of Walkyn?’

  ‘I
suspect so.’ The coroner tapped his foot. ‘Such bloody business must be brought to an end, Edmund. We need firm rule here. The king must impose his peace. The chaos, the evil mayhem that is a violent cover for such nightmare souls must be brought to an end.’ He peered at de Payens. ‘Templar, you keep strange company. What is all this about, eh? Think, reflect and trust me.’

  De Payens’ hand went to his throat, and he touched the small leather pouch containing the cipher of the Assassins. He stared at Hastang, at that lined face with its honest, clever eyes. He wanted to trust this man fully. He must. He took the cord off, undid the pouch, shook out the parchment and handed it to Hastang. ‘It’s a cipher,’ he explained.

  The coroner inspected it as he walked out of the sacristy and back into the sanctuary, while de Payens stood staring down the nave: a hellish, macabre place of flickering light. Did this represent his church, his ideals, his order? He thought back to that day in Tripoli, turning his horse to confront those assassins; at that particular moment he had entered a bizarre twisting maze of intrigue and brutal murder. All was an illusion. He had suspected Tremelai of every kind of wickedness. Yet the Grand Master had simply been an arrogant fool who intrigued and dabbled in matters beyond him. Memories returned in a myriad of images: Mayele loosing those arrows; Parmenio stealing upon him with a knife; Isabella’s kindness; Berrington, the hard-faced administrator who seemed to revel in power; Nisam staring at him sadly; Montebard, brow all furrowed; Baiocis clutching his stomach at the beginning of the feast; the prince’s chamber with the windows wide open; Parmenio’s duplicity; the coroner’s questions …

  ‘Letters and numbers.’ Hastang came up beside him. ‘Letters and numbers.’ He squeezed de Payens’ shoulder. ‘I can make no sense of it, and neither would you, Edmund.’ He winked. ‘But I know some clerks – aged, yes, but still sharp-witted – scribes of the Chancery, who spend their days concocting mysteries like this. If you trust me?’

  De Payens nodded.

  ‘Good,’ Hastang breathed. ‘Then let’s leave this. I’ll make sure the poor wench is churched and buried properly. As for you, Edmund, look to your companions, Parmenio in particular.’ He held up the parchment. ‘I’ll see to this. Now, I have one last person for you to meet. Bring him out,’ he shouted.

  Chapter 11

  De Mandeville plunged the entire realm into turmoil, spreading cruelty everywhere and respecting neither sex nor rank.

  From the darkness to the right of the chapel door shuffled a figure. Two of the coroner’s retainers, keeping their distance, flanked him with swords and daggers drawn. The figure was garbed in black like a Benedictine monk; a white cloth covered his face, with holes for eyes, nose and mouth. He walked in an ungainly manner, using a staff to support himself but de Payens caught his strength, power and presence. He walked towards them, staff tapping the ground, an ominous, almost threatening sound.

  ‘So, a Templar here in London!’ The voice was surprisingly light and courteous in tone. ‘I see you are surprised, Templar. Once I was a knight of the order of St Lazarus? You know it?’

  ‘Fierce fighters,’ de Payens retorted. ‘Knights who contracted leprosy. Some were infected, others almost cured. In battle they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

  ‘Which is my case,’ the stranger replied. ‘Once, Templar, I was fair, a passionate lover of women. I have fought out in the hot desert where the sun splits the rocks. I have ridden through Jerusalem like a prince. In my pride I broke my vows and slept with a woman who carried a curse, but my story is my own, the song of my soul. Suffice to say I returned here cured.’ He laughed, ‘But too late. My face frightens all. I am still excluded from the company of men.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘So Master Hastang hasn’t told you?’ The stranger chuckled. ‘I am the Hunter of the Dead, the Keeper of the Corpses, the Leper Knight. In the hours of darkness, when the city sleeps, I float my barge out on to the river. I seek corpses in the shallows, among the reed beds and along the mud flats. I know the river, a fickle, cruel mistress. I discover where she leaves her dead, all pale, cold and green-slimed. I collect them for the City council and take them to my tabernacle, the little chapel of St Lazarus down near the great bridge. I wash, purify and anoint them. I post my bills. Two pence for a suicide. Three pence for a victim of an accident. Five pence for a killing or an unlawful slaying.’

  ‘Are you trying to frighten my guest?’ Hastang teased.

  ‘Frighten?’ The Keeper of the Corpses sighed so deeply the white cloth on his face moved. For just a heartbeat de Payens glimpsed the bottom of a cruelly ravaged face. ‘Frighten? How could I frighten a Templar, the great champion and victor of Queenshithe?’ The Keeper tapped his staff on the ground. ‘No, I do not frighten him. I don’t think I could. Anyway, he will come to worse things by and by.’

  ‘Tell him,’ Hastang insisted, ‘tell him what you know.’

  The Keeper moved closer, resting on his staff. De Payens caught a sweet odour from the man’s cloak, some fresh herbs pleasing to the senses.

  ‘As I said, I haunt the river on my barge,’ the Keeper began, ‘a lantern in the prow, another in the stern. Many know me and just pass me by. I see sights that do not concern me. Royal barges going from Westminster to the Tower and back. Smugglers edging out of the wharfs and quays. Young noblemen, hot and lecherous as sparrows, darting across to the stews, bath-houses and brothels of Southwark. Even spies slipping down the side of foreign ships to boats waiting below.’ He paused as Hastang gestured at his two bailiffs to join the rest, still grouped by the fire in the chancel.

  ‘I know the river,’ the Keeper continued. ‘I drag out a corpse and can tell you how the unfortunate died: a blow to the head, a blade to the belly, throat or back. Recently, some fresh horror. The corpses of young women, drained of blood, their rib cages smashed, their hearts plucked out, throats slit, white and cold like some hunk of pork hung above a flesher’s barrow until all the blood has emptied.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Twice; I believe you’ve seen the same here tonight.’ The Keeper pointed with his staff further up the church. ‘But I’ve also seen more. One night just before Candlemas, the river was smooth, the breeze had dropped. I was off Queenshithe and moved into midstream. A powerful wherry with at least six oars appeared out of the mist. Sometimes evil is like curling smoke: it can offend your soul and chill your heart. I immediately became fearful. The wherry was moving fast, all six rowers, capuchined and masked, bending over the oars. A figure stood in the prow, face hidden. I turned my barge swiftly, and as I did, the light from the powerful lantern horn on the prow revealed two young women, bound and gagged, lying in the stern of that wherry. It was like when lightning flashes, cutting through the darkness, revealing something as if in a burst of sunlight. I glimpsed the sheer terror in those women’s eyes. I saw the gags, the cords around their wrists and ankles. God forgive me, Templar, I could do nothing. The wherry went by me, disappearing into the darkness.’

  ‘But such kidnappings are common, surely?’

  ‘No, they are not!’ Hastang came forward. ‘Edmund, you can buy a plump girl for a penny in this city, a full household of them for half a mark. London has more whores than citizens. Why move two young women in the dead of night? I could fill a royal barge with young strumpets all jubilant at earning a crust. Why the silence, the terror, the gags? And where were they going?’ He turned to the Keeper.

  ‘Not to Southwark; the wherry was in midstream, as if heading out to the lonely mud flats of the estuary.’ The Keeper tapped his staff on the floor. ‘I believe I met murder, mayhem, sacrilege and every form of abomination that night. I called it the devil’s barge. I have not seen its like on the river!’ He stepped back. ‘I told my dear comrade Hastang, and he brought me here to view the horror found in the chancel. It’s the same as before.’

  ‘And there’s something else, isn’t there?’ Hastang insisted. ‘You told me about Berrington.’

&nbs
p; ‘Ah, Berrington!’

  ‘You know him?’ de Payens asked sharply.

  ‘I know a great deal about what happens in the City. I have my spies, and the coroner here often shares a cup of claret with me. I’ve heard of Berrington.’ The Keeper grasped his staff with both hands, leaning on it as if favouring some wound in his leg. ‘I too fought with Mandeville, the great Earl of Essex, out in the wetlands. Many men flocked to his standard, devils in human flesh. Berrington was not one of those. I never met him, but I heard of his name, someone whom Mandeville did not like: a knight who objected to the plundering of churches and the occupation of monasteries. His name is familiar because of that, nothing more. You must remember that hundreds, aye even thousands, flocked to Mandeville’s banner!’

  ‘And Mayele?’ de Payens asked.

  The Keeper just shook his head.

  ‘Another name amongst many.’

  ‘And Parmenio?’ Hastang said. ‘I mentioned his name and you recalled something.’

  ‘Ah yes, Thierry Parmenio, the Genoese.’ The Keeper coughed, clearing his throat. ‘Templar, I have travelled the face of God’s earth. When I returned from Outremer, I did not come by sea. Such voyages are not for the likes of me. I travelled overland, and came to Lyons, a noble city. I lodged outside its walls and heard rumours, strange stories about a trial involving witches and sorcerers, local priests who should have had more sense than to be involved in the black rites. On the day I arrived, the executions of such miscreants were being carried out in the city. I am sure that that name, Thierry Parmenio, was mentioned as being somehow involved.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘I was schooled well, Templar. I have a good memory, particularly for names. I have certainly heard of Parmenio before, but more than that I cannot say.’ He sighed. ‘Well, I have to be gone, but first your blessing.’