‘Oh, that is easy enough, isn’t it, Sir Miles?’ Anselm replied. ‘To leave England without proper licence, especially for a goldsmith, is very dangerous and just as much for the captain of any ship.’
‘Rishanger daren’t lie.’ Bolingbrok moved in a clatter of chains, his rags exuding an odious smell. ‘He couldn’t point to some petty misdemeanour to explain his flight so he told the truth, as far as he could. Not that he was a member of a coven — merely an observer.’
‘Which is why,’ Anselm broke in, ‘when Rishanger was attacked at Queenhithe, the captain of the cog refused to help any further.’
‘True,’ Bolingbrok agreed. ‘Safe, quiet, illegal passage is one thing, sword and dagger play on one of London’s wharfs is another. Rishanger paid heavily for that passage in more ways than one.’
‘And since then,’ Beauchamp asked, ‘what else have you discovered mingling amongst the dead men?’
‘The assassins who attacked Rishanger, who may have killed his mistress, though Rishanger himself could have done that, must be members of the Midnight Man’s coven. No one knows anything.’ Bolingbrok licked dry, cracked lips. ‘You will be out of here soon enough,’ Beauchamp soothed, ‘eating and drinking merrily.’
‘Rishanger,’ Bolingbrok explained, ‘was attacked at Queenhithe. He fled along the river to be murdered in the King’s own abbey. Rumours abound of a great treasure being found with him. Such news runs like flame amongst the stubble. Usually people know those responsible for such an attack but, on this occasion, nothing! No one, and I mean no one, knows anything about what happened in the abbey.’ The prisoner shook his chains. Stephen became aware of the appalling cries from above.
‘The crying, screeching, swearing, roaring, bawling and shaking of chains,’ Bolingbrok whispered to him, ‘are the plain chant of Newgate, but they hide the true business of London’s Hades, the real chatter. Who does what to whom, where, when, how and why? But not on this business.’ He pushed back his matted hair.
‘Sir Miles, I assure you, I am done here.’
‘Tell me,’ Stephen spoke up, ‘is there chatter amongst all this chaffing, swearing and shaking of chains about young women disappearing?’
Bolingbrok looked at Beauchamp, who nodded. ‘Why is a young Carmelite interested in that?’
‘Because I am,’ Anselm retorted. ‘Is there?’
‘There is,’ Bolingbrok whispered. ‘Some of the pimps are full of it. Young women disappear, but they also reappear in one form or another. This doesn’t happen here. Whispers crackle. They say a blood-drinker is on the loose.’
‘Blood-drinker?’ Stephen asked.
‘Brother Anselm, Sir Miles.’ Bolingbrok rubbed his brow on the back of his hand. ‘You, like me, have served in the King’s armies in France. You, Sir Miles, also read the reports of sheriffs and justices from every shire. You know who the blood-drinkers are.’
‘Blood-drinkers,’ Beauchamp’s face was sombre, ‘are usually men who have served in the array — lunatics, dangerous ones. They like to take a woman and kill her. Oh, yes, Stephen, for them that is the only way their seed can burst out. They lie with a woman whom they terrify; this excites them, even more so because they know this woman is going to die. Abroad in enemy towns and villages, these men hide behind the mask of a soldier. They can do what they wish. They return home but they cannot stop hunting. They regard women as quarry as hunters would a deer.’
‘Any names?’ Anselm asked.
‘No one knows,’ Bolingbrok replied, ‘but they say there may be more than one.’
‘And the Midnight Man?’
‘Why, Brother Anselm? Rumour abounds — they say he could be a priest.’ Bolingbrok grinned. ‘Even a Carmelite.’ Bolingbrok’s smile faded. ‘Or someone powerful.’ Bolingbrok sounded not so confident. ‘Someone who likes whores but not in the way I do. This blood-drinker likes hunting and killing them. Sir Miles, I can tell you no more.’
‘We should go.’ Anselm rose and sketched a blessing over the prisoner. He walked to the door and turned. ‘You were once a friar, Bolingbrok?’
‘Will you always be one, Brother?’ the prisoner retorted. Anselm smiled, shrugged and opened the door. Once free of the prison, Beauchamp and Anselm stood in one of the shadowy recesses of the gatehouse, heads together, murmuring. ‘Stephen,’ Anselm called out, ‘we will visit Rishanger’s house.’
‘Cutwolf!’ Sir Miles stepped from the enclave and whispered into the ear of his henchman. Cutwolf nodded, winked at Stephen and sauntered off. Stephen wished he could question his master but Anselm seemed in a hurry. They crossed the blood-soaked cobbles of the Shambles. The exorcist grasped Stephen’s shoulder and whispered how time was passing, the graves at St Michael’s were about to be opened and they had to be there when it happened. Anselm moved on to walk with Beauchamp. Stephen felt a deep, cloying fear, an agitation of the heart. He stared around, not interested in the slaughter stalls, the hacked flesh or the bizarre characters who thronged the noisy crowds. The reek from the tanner sheds and tallow shops faded, as did the strident noise. Stephen felt as if something was going to happen; he had experienced this before. His father called it a form of the falling sickness, a deep foreboding which seizes all the senses.
As soon as they reached the entrance to Hagbut Lane the warnings swept in. Rishanger’s house, narrow and tall, stood forlornly on the corner of an alleyway. The place reeked of evil. Beauchamp tore at the seals along the rim of the door and kicked it open, leading both the Carmelites into a long, ill-lit passageway. Stephen entered cautiously. This was no longer a house but a gloomy valley. On one side savage fires roared while on the other a storm of white hail and sleet pelted down. At the far end a pit glared with hell’s dark fires. A figure was walking towards Stephen. It reminded the novice of a painting he had glimpsed of the hideous, legendary Medea, who stalked lonely crossroads leading a legion of suicides, their very passing making the fiercest dog howl and shiver.
‘Stephen, Stephen!’ He opened his eyes. There was no valley, only that stinking, dark passageway. Anselm was peering at him. Beauchamp stood further along, cloaked in darkness.
They entered what must have been Rishanger’s chancery chamber; the room was stripped of everything. Beauchamp, protesting at the dank air and gloom, unlocked and threw back the shutters. Columns of light pierced the oiled linen panes. Stephen started as a mouse, jet black, shot across the floor. Anselm, also alerted to the gathering evil, had drawn his Ave beads and wrapped these around his fingers. They moved from chamber to chamber. Stephen was sure that Beauchamp, although blind and deaf to the visions he and Anselm were experiencing, was still sensitive to the oppressive evil which followed them around this soulless house. The longer they stayed, the closer the sheer wickedness perpetrated here wrapped itself around them, a heavy pall of unnamed terrors. A quickening of the breath. A lurching of the heart. A pitching of the stomach as their skin crawled. There was nothing tangible to explain this. The King’s surveyors had stripped the house. The place was relatively clean, yet a cold darkness hung like an arras around them, so much so that Stephen wildly wondered if he would ever be allowed to leave.
‘Magister, what are we searching for?’
‘Anything.’ Beauchamp drew his sword and drove its point into the plastered wall of the clean, swept buttery they had entered. ‘A secret compartment, a hidden casket.’ The clerk walked over to the staircase built into the corner of the entrance hall. They climbed the steps. Stephen blinked at the flashes of light, the leaping sparks which swam before him. Small bursts of red fire, each containing a face which came and swiftly went. Voices cried, including that of a child. Screams and yells echoed. A voice, low and sombre, quoted that dreadful verse from the Apocalypse: ‘I saw a pale rider and his name was Death and all hell followed in his wake.’ Another voice answered, ‘Hell-born souls drift like columns of blackness. This is the night of the weighing of souls. Doom-laden they are, born of hell, fit for hell. Eternal punishment will be theirs.’