The next two nights — well, parts of the next two nights — I spent sitting against the crumbling south wall of St Andrew’s Chapel churchyard. Midway through the third night I heard a distant creaking sound and my heart did handsprings. I looked up from my seat on the grass and watched the gate, expecting to see it swing open. It did not move, but the creaking continued.
My senses were alert. I had one hand on my cudgel and the other on the dagger, ready to leap to my feet and challenge whoever moved about in the night. Then I saw the light. A single flame, from candle or cresset, moved from the chapel porch and the rotund shadow carrying it moved across the churchyard to the north. It was John Kellet.
I heard another distant squawk of wood against wood as a door was opened. The flame disappeared. I remembered. The chapel privy was along the north wall of the churchyard, just outside the consecrated ground. A few moments later another squeal and the reappearance of the flame indicated that Kellet had completed his nocturnal business. I watched the flickering flame float toward me across the churchyard, then disappear into the porch. A squeal and thud told me that the priest had reentered the chapel. I remained against the wall until I was sure the slovenly priest was snoring in his bed, then set out for the castle.
After three nights propped against a churchyard wall I was tempted to end the practice. The fourth night was Sunday eve. Surely a poacher, or whoever sought John Kellet of a midnight, would not do his work on our Lord’s Day? And it was raining. Not hard, more like a drizzle. But enough that I would soon be cold and soaked, even should I wear a cloak.
These were good reasons to stay in my bed this night, but I did not. I took rope, club and dagger, wrapped my cloak about me, and made my way again to the castle wall. I had given up brushing ashes on face and hands. ’Twas too difficult to remove the next day. I should have continued the practice.
For three nights I had walked the same path from castle to chapel. This night I varied my route, especially where I must cross the barley strips. The tenants whose fields these were might soon notice the flattened stalks and wonder how the crop came to be damaged.
I set out as soon as darkness enveloped the ground, but while the northwestern sky was yet pale beyond the trees. Even so, ’twas near midnight, I think, before I arrived at the chapel, this night being among the shortest of the year.
The grass along the wall was thick and wet with rain. I had sat three nights in the same place, near the gate. Perhaps, if John Kellet was observant, he might wonder why grass in his churchyard was beaten down at but one place along the wall. I crossed the churchyard path and sat against the wall at another place.
I had not long to sit in wet grass this night. Clouds began to break and stars appeared through fissures in the overcast. And then the waning moon appeared to the east. The grey stones of the chapel’s east wall seemed to reflect the moon and stars. I sat in shadow, there by the south wall, but my hands glowed whitely in reflected moonlight.
A snapping twig caused my heart to leap and hairs to stand erect upon the back of my neck. A moment later I heard footsteps on the road beyond the wall.
Moonlight, filtered through the trees to the south of the chapel, provided enough illumination that I saw a shadow fall across the gate. An instant later it swung open, quietly, on wet hinges. A dark figure, pale sack slung over a shoulder, passed the open gate and crept along the path to the chapel. The sack was white in the moonlight against the intruder’s dark cloak. A small, round lump swelled the bottom of the sack.
A stray cloud left behind by the departing rain obscured the moon as the figure reached the shadows of the porch. I heard a soft rapping on the door, and rose from my place along the wall to follow the sound.
I was between gate and porch when the moon reappeared from behind the passing cloud. Without the ashes to disguise me, my pale hands and face would surely have been visible, did any man look in my direction. To my sorrow, a man did.
I must stop prowling about of night-time and seek rogues in daylight. Darkness is not kind to those who seek justice, but is rather an ally of those who do wrong. I crept to the porch and pressed against it, then peered around the corner to see the entrance. The night was suddenly illuminated. A thousand stars flashed before my eyes and I fell, numbed, to my knees. Just as the swirling of comets and stars seemed to cease they began again, accompanied by a sharp pain across my skull. The world went black.
Once again fashion saved me. The liripipe coiled about my head softened the blows. I awoke I know not how long after the two strokes laid me in the grass beside the porch. I heard the soft muttering of voices but had not at first enough wit to understand what they said. My head throbbed, but the cold, wet ground soon brought me to my senses. I heard John Kellet speak.
“You’ve killed ’im.”
“Aye…let’s hope,” another said. I did not know the voice.
“You’ll hang.”
“Maybe.”
“What’ll you do with ’im?” Kellet asked.
“What’ll I do with ’im? You’re in this business, too.”
“Aye…but I’ll not hang.”
The other man spat. “You’ll lose yer livin’.”
“Maybe. But Father Ralph’ll not see me starve. Send me to some monastery t’be a lay brother; maybe make me go on pilgrimage. Always wanted t’see Canterbury, anyway,” he chuckled.
“I’ll drag ’im to the wood there beyond the wall, an’ get a spade. I can have ’im buried and leaves strawed across grave afore dawn.”
“Best be sure ’e’s dead,” Kellet replied.
I held my breath as a dark form bent over me. I thought to use the dagger against the man, but was unsure if my condition would permit a quick and accurate thrust. The man’s stinking breath near caused me to choke but I smothered the impulse. A hand went roughly to my neck to seek a pulse. My right hand lay by my side. I made ready to seize the dagger, but the fellow knew not where to seek an artery and so a moment later stood and spoke to the priest.
“Ain’t breathin’. ’E’s dead. Whacked ’im ’cross the head hard enough. Shouldda hit ’im second time at Alvescot, when I had the chance.”
“Live an’ learn,” Kellet chuckled.
“’Ere…grab ’is feet an’ ’elp me get ’im over the wall.”
I was taken up, dragged across the wet grass of the chapel yard to the west wall, hoisted to the top, and dumped over into a pile of nettles. ’Twas my life depended on my silence, so I did not cry out. Had I done so the nettles would not have stung the less.
“I’m off then, for me spade,” a muted voice came from across the wall. “See you be here t’help when I return.”
I heard the chapel door creak open, then close. I must not be here when the man returned. At least, not alone.
I had walked this grove so often in the dark, I felt at home in it. I rose, head throbbing, to my knees and listened, should the fellow think better of his plan and return. The night was silent. So was I as I wobbled to my feet and staggered through the wood to the barley fields beyond.
A plan formed in my scrambled mind as I stumbled from the shadows of the trees into the moonlit field. I hastened straight west across the wet field. Was a man to study the field he would see my dark form against the barley. But I did not seek to travel the path for fear my attacker might also be on the track, returning with his shovel. And the barley field was the most direct route to Rosemary Lane and John Prudhomme.
I did not wish to rouse John’s neighbors from their beds, so rapped but gently on the beadle’s door. My effort was like much else in life: too little will not serve, and too much may cause unwanted consequence. I knocked several times upon the door, each time more firmly than the last, before I heard from beyond the planks a muttered oath, then a question: “Who disturbs the night?”