Men, old and grizzled, grey beards reaching down beneath their stomachs, their heads garlanded with wreaths, stood beneath an oak tree. They were garbed from head to toe in dirty white robes. They carried sickle-shaped knives and were staring up into the branches. Beatrice felt a chill of fear and started in alarm as a naked body crashed from the branches only to jerk and dangle on the rope tied round its neck. Beatrice stared in disgust. The man was naked except for a loin cloth. He choked and kicked as the ancient priests, following some bloodthirsty ritual, lifted their hands and chanted to the skies. The grisly scene provoked memories of what Ralph had told her about this place. He used to frighten her, in a teasing way, when he described the pagan priests who would meet here to sacrifice victims to their pagan god of the oak.
Beatrice was watching a phantasm but the horror repelled her. She wished, despite what Antony had said, that Crispin or Clothilde were here.
Words Between the Pilgrims
The clerk of Oxford paused in his tale and stared at the faces, tense and watchful in the firelight.
‘Would you fill my stoup with ale?’
The miller hastened to obey.
The summoner, his pimples even brighter in the firelight, staggered to his feet and stared across at the clerk. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘He didn’t say it was true,’ the squire pointed out.
‘Well, is it true?’ the summoner demanded, his voice shrill.
‘It depends,’ said the clerk, ‘what you mean by true.’
‘That’s no answer,’ the summoner replied aggressively.
The clerk stared across at their leader. Sir Godfrey was studying him closely. The knight did not wish to intervene even though he was a man who had experienced the twilight world of demons. He had hunted the murderous blood-drinkers scattered throughout Europe from the shores of the Bosphorus to the cold, icy wastes of Norway. Yet that was his personal struggle. He was also special emissary for the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury and often attended hushed, closed meetings in certain chambers at the House of Secrets in London. Beside him his son, the squire, stirred.
‘Father,’ he whispered. ‘Weren’t you sent to Ravenscroft Castle?’
‘Hush now,’ his father responded.
He sat and listened as the summoner continued to question the clerk. For some strange reason the summoner seemed most perturbed by the story. The knight smiled grimly to himself. His son was right, he had been sent to Ravenscroft Castle, and it was only a matter of time before someone recognised the name Goodman Winthrop. After all, the tax collector had been the scourge of the southern shires.
The taverner raised his fat, cheery face. ‘Sir!’ he shouted at the summoner. ‘Will you shut up!’ He stretched out his hands towards the flames. ‘I know of Ravenscroft Castle and I also know of two people called Robert and Catherine Arrowner who owned a tavern named the Golden Tabard.’
‘But if the tale is true,’ the pardoner exclaimed, ‘it concerns us. Good ladies, gentle sirs, look around you.’
They did so, staring into the mist-cloying darkness.
‘The miller said this place was haunted,’ the pardoner continued. ‘Does that mean the dead are all around us now?’
‘Oh, spare the thought and don’t tickle my imagination!’ the wife of Bath squeaked. She just wished she hadn’t turned away from the flames. The trees stood like menacing sentinels around them. And that mist! Did it bring more to this silent grove than just the cold night air?
‘It could be true,’ the prioress’s priest spoke up. Usually this handsome, florid-faced man kept his own counsel. ‘I believe death is like entering a mansion house; each chamber is full of new worlds.’ He smiled at the clerk. ‘I am much taken by your description, sir.’ He paused as an owl hooted. ‘And before this night is done, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell us where this story came from.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ the clerk muttered. ‘But listen now, gentle sirs and ladies. True, the darkness is deep, a mist has swirled in through the trees and the owl keeps its lonely vigil. Yet these are not real terrors.’ He glanced away. ‘Not like the ones to come.’
PART II
Chapter 1
Ralph Mortimer sat in Devil’s Spinney, his back to an oak tree. He watched a squirrel clamber between fallen branches and scrabble up the trunk of one of the ancient oaks. Ralph wiped the tears from his eyes and pushed the wineskin away.
‘I’ve drunk enough,’ he muttered. ‘And that’s no help.’
A few hours earlier he had attended Beatrice’s funeral in the small cemetery in the far corner of the castle near the rabbit warren. Her aunt and uncle had attended, Theobald Vavasour, Adam and Marisa, and of course Sir John Grasse and Lady Anne. Father Aylred had sung the Requiem Mass and then the corpse had been taken out on a bier and lowered into the shallow grave. The carpenter had put together a crude cross and Sir John had solemnly promised that it would be replaced, within the month, by a stone plinth bearing Beatrice’s name.
It was only when the grave was being filled in that Ralph had fully understood what was happening. Beatrice was gone. He would never see her again: those beautiful eyes, the merry mouth, her endearing mannerisms. Above all, her presence, warm and loving, like stepping out into the sunshine and basking in its golden warmth. Sometimes, in his chamber, he smelt her perfume – Beatrice had kept some there and unable to bear the reminder he’d given it to Marisa.
Ralph, who had studied all forms of knowledge at the Halls of Cambridge, could not come to terms with his grief. Deep in his heart he felt a devastating loneliness, a savage hurt which would not heal. Adam and Marisa had been helpful. Father Aylred had tried to give words of comfort but it was to no avail. The more they spoke, the more intense the pain flared.
‘What can I do?’ Ralph whispered. He stared up at the interlacing branches. The weather had turned cold, dark clouds scudded in to block out the sun. ‘If I drink, I become sottish. If I work, my mind becomes distracted.’ He beat his fist against his thigh. ‘Why?’ he screamed, his voice echoing round the empty glade. ‘Why, Beatrice, did you climb the parapet walk at night?’
Doubts pushed away his grief, and allowed reason to surface. Beatrice was not frightened of heights. She had often walked along the parapet at the dead of night. She knew the dangers. She was safe as long as she kept to the wall. The night had been calm. No rain or wind. So how had she fallen? He recalled her corpse, laid out in its coffin before the chapel altar. Lady Anne and her tiring-women had done their best to dress the body for burial. Ralph had inspected the wounds and bruises most closely. The terrible fall had left its mark. Father Aylred, however, had whispered about the great bruise on the right side of Beatrice’s head. Had that occurred before the fall? The priest seemed agitated so Ralph had questioned him.
‘Why, Father, do you think it is significant?’
They had been standing alone in the small sacristy. Father Aylred put his fingers to his lips; he closed the door, turning the key in the lock.
‘I am just worried, Ralph.’ The little priest’s face was pale and unshaven. ‘Nightmares plague my sleep; I am troubled by doubts and worries.’
Ralph had only half listened, eager to return and sit beside the coffin before the lid was sealed for ever. ‘Father, this is not the time or the place.’
‘No, no, it isn’t.’ And the priest picked up a pruning knife to trim one of the purple candles for the Requiem Mass.
Ralph pulled his cloak firmly about him. The grove was dark, it looked threatening. He half smiled as he recalled the frightening stories he had told Beatrice, more the work of his imagination than anything else. He heard a twig snap and whirled round. Someone was in the trees behind him.