Part Three
‘I can only tell you what I suspect.’ Magister Anselm folded back the voluminous sleeves of his coarse, woollen white robe. ‘Nothing is certain,’ he added wistfully. ‘Well, not in this vale of tears. No.’ He shook his head at the murmur his words created and lapsed into silence.
The two Carmelites and the others had all assembled in Sir William Higden’s council chamber next to his chancery office on the second floor of the merchant’s manor in Candlewick. Sir William, Parson Smollat, Gascelyn, Amalric and Simon the sexton as well as the royal clerk, Beauchamp, who’d recently arrived from his own house in Ferrier Lane only a short walk away. Beauchamp sat opposite Stephen, the raindrops still glistening on his fair hair.
‘You have reached certain conclusions, Brother Anselm,’ Beauchamp urged. ‘You must share them.’
‘By Saint Joachim and Saint Anne that is true.’ Anselm drank from his water goblet. ‘Richard Puddlicot,’ he began slowly, ‘broke into the royal treasury in the crypt at Westminster in April 1303. He and his coven, which comprised most of London’s notorious sanctuary men, outlaws and wolfheads, stole a King’s fortune. They were not allowed to enjoy it. A royal clerk, Drokensford,’ he glanced fleetingly at Beauchamp, ‘hunted them down. Puddlicot, a married man who’d left his wife, was consorting with a woman of ill-repute — Joanne Picard. They lived in Hagbut Lane. .’
‘Lord, save us,’ Sir William interjected, ‘that’s Rishanger’s house, the goldsmith who tried to take sanctuary in the abbey and was murdered.’
‘The same. I shall come back to him,’ Anselm agreed. ‘What is noteworthy is that Puddlicot, the great thief and violator, escaped from Drokensford’s clutches and, Parson Smollat, took sanctuary in Saint Michael’s, Candlewick.’ Anselm’s words created further cries and exclamations of surprise. ‘It’s true,’ he confirmed. ‘I have visited the crypt. I cannot say what happened there except that those involved in the great sacrilege decades ago still haunt that gloomy place. Little wonder! I also asked Sir Miles to bring from the memoranda rolls stored in the Tower all the records pertaining to Puddlicot. Our notorious felon was plucked by force from Saint Michael’s, sanctuary or not.’
‘But that is against church law!’ Parson Smollat cried. ‘Not to mention the statutes of Parliament?’
‘Oh, at the time the Bishop of London and all the city clergy pleaded and protested but Drokensford had his way. Puddlicot was lodged in the Tower where he was tried before the King’s justices. He tried to plead benefit of clergy, that he was a cleric — this was later proved to be a lie. He was condemned to hang on the gallows outside the main abbey gate. The King insisted that he be humiliated, so Puddlicot was pushed from the Tower to the Westminster gallows in a wheelbarrow. He was hanged, then his corpse suffered further indignities, being peeled and the skin nailed to the door leading down to the crypt.’ Anselm paused at the exclamations this provoked.
‘Our present King’s grandfather,’ the exorcist continued, ‘was determined that the monks of Westminster never forgot their part in the sacrilegious theft. They had to pass that door with its grisly trophy every time they wound their way up to the chapter house.’
‘And the skin remained there,’ Almaric whispered fearfully.
‘From what I learnt from the records, yes. It decomposed and merged with the wood. I went and re-examined that door; traces of human skin can still be detected.’
‘So Puddlicot’s ghost still walks?’
‘Puddlicot, God rest him, was a great sinner. He left his wife to consort with a whore. He committed sacrilegious theft and died a violent death. I doubt if his corpse was given holy burial. Little wonder he haunts Westminster as well as here, at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick in Dowgate ward.’
‘You are sure?’ Sir William swallowed hard.
‘Puddlicot definitely lived in Dowgate, in Hagbut Lane. He and Joanne Picard were members of this parish.’
‘Sir William is correct — that’s where Adam Rishanger lived,’ Almaric declared. ‘Puddlicot was a thief and so was Rishanger. .’
‘A hateful soul.’ Sir William spoke. ‘A greedy madcap full of dark designs and sinister stratagems. He once approached me for money. He claimed he’d found a way to create the philosopher’s stone and so transmute base metal into gold. Gascelyn threw him into the street.’
‘Mad as a March hare,’ the squire declared lugubriously.
‘Rishanger rarely took the sacrament,’ Parson Smollat observed. ‘Rumours abound that after he was murdered treasure was found close to his corpse.’
‘That is correct,’ Beauchamp affirmed. He went on: ‘Such a story spread across the city: a dagger and a pure gold cross,’ then fell silent.
‘But what,’ Sir William pleaded, ‘has this ancient robbery got to do with our troubles at Saint Michael’s?’
Beauchamp gestured at Anselm. ‘Brother, your thoughts?’
‘Primo.’ Anselm paused as if listening to the rain pattering against the window. ‘Puddlicot hales from Saint Michael’s, from whose sanctuary he was illegally dragged. He also haunts the abbey, the stage on which he lived and died a hideous death, sent into the dark, his soul drenched in sin. However, why Puddlicot’s ghost has defied all attempts to prise him loose to continue his journey I am not sure. Secundo,’ Anselm continued, ‘ghosts surround us all like plaintiffs outside a court. They wait for their opportunity for a door to open; the demons do likewise. Our souls are like castles, constantly besieged by the lords of the air, the dark dwellers, malevolent wraiths and unsettled ghosts.’
‘And a door has been opened?’
‘Yes, Amalric, it certainly has. More than one gate or postern has been unlocked, unbolted and thrown wide open.’
‘By whom?’
‘Why, parson, the Midnight Man, which brings me to my third point — tertio: his macabre rites around All Souls, on Saint Walpurgis eve. What happened then? I truly don’t know. Something went dreadfully wrong. I have questioned Sir Miles but. .’
‘All I have learnt,’ Beauchamp explained, ‘was from one of my spies in the city and, believe me, they are many. This gentleman, who rejoices in the name of Bolingbrok, heard rumours, nothing more, about a midnight ceremony where the Satanists summoned up powers they could not control, so they fled. I have searched — hungered — for more details.’ He pulled a face. ‘I have whistled sharply into the darkness but so far there has been no reply.’
‘Quarto,’ Anselm continued, ‘somehow Rishanger, that petty goldsmith, found or was given two precious items from the long-lost treasure. Others, we don’t know who, also discovered this. Rishanger tried to flee into exile but he was ambushed and later murdered. Now how — and where — did they come across this treasure? We don’t know. Nor do we know if what Rishanger held was part of an even greater hoard, or who murdered him and his mistress Beatrice Lampeter, whose eyeless corpse was dug up in that garden at Hagbut Lane.’ Anselm paused for breath. Stephen could hear the bubbles on his chest and wondered if his master was falling ill.
‘Quinto,’ Anselm continued, ‘who is the Midnight Man? Is he still searching for the missing treasure which, according to the Exchequer records, still totals hundreds of thousands of pounds? Sexto, what has happened in Saint Michael’s cemetery? Why has it led to an infestation of demons and ghosts? My friends, to conclude,’ Anselm stared sadly around the assembled company, ‘I believe some other grievous sin lurks deep within the layers of our existence. But what?’ He pulled a face.
‘Why did the Midnight Man choose Saint Michael’s, Candlewick?’ Beauchamp asked. ‘My parish church, our parish church.’
‘Because he knew about Puddlicot,’ Stephen declared, ‘which means that the warlock learned about Puddlicot’s story, but from where? I mean, the robbery occurred decades ago.’
Anselm smiled at the novice. ‘You are correct, Stephen. How did the Midnight Man know? Did he study the records? Yet I asked the clerk of the Tower muniment room. No one, apart from you, Sir Miles, has asked to study that schedule of documents.’