‘Lucky fellow.’ Cutwolf, striding beside him, winked at Stephen.
‘Love,’ Anselm murmured. ‘How truly boring life would be without it.’ Stephen felt elated. The darkness no longer clung to him. He grasped the linen parcel like a trophy, his lips still burning from the kiss. The sun would rise. The mist would thin and fade. All hell might be invoked against him but Alice was wonderful. She was thinking of him. He felt like dancing, singing alleluia. Stephen opened the parcel and stared at the manchet loaf cut, buttered and laced with thin slices of ham. He broke this, distributing it to his companions.
‘Manna from heaven,’ Anselm whispered. ‘Have you ever tasted anything so delicious, Stephen?’
The novice blushed, hastily swallowing his portion as they moved across an alleyway, stopping before Rishanger’s house. Beauchamp had been busy. Tower archers boasting the royal livery ringed the abandoned mansion. Inside the King’s serjeants in their blue, red and gold tabards guarded the various chambers. Beauchamp swept past these into the gloomy garden, now lit by flaming cressets lashed to poles driven into the ground. These revealed what Anselm could only whisper as the ‘abomination of desolation’. At least six burial pits had been uncovered, each containing a white tangle of bones and skulls.
‘So many,’ Beauchamp breathed.
‘My Lord,’ Cutwolf retorted. ‘They were buried with their possessions.’ He pointed to a pile of tawdry shoes, slippers, bracelets and other dirt-encrusted jewellery. ‘They were all young women.’
‘But killed some time ago,’ Anselm declared, moving to the edge of one of the burial pits. ‘They have been in the ground some time.’
Pausing at the chattering song of a nightjar, Stephen wondered if demons nestled in the branches of the clustered orchard trees. Did the malign ones stare out, gabbling their malevolence? Stephen could not look away. The sheer misery of that place was suffocating. Anselm was correct: these skeletons belonged to the long dead — at least a year. They would not find Edith Swan-neck here.
Stephen returned to the house even as Anselm, cross in hand, solemnly cursed the perpetrators of these wicked acts. ‘May they be cursed by the sun, moon, stars, grasses and trees,’ he declared. ‘May their corpses be left unburied to be devoured by the dogs and birds of the air. May their souls enter the eternal darkness of hell where grief, without consolation, gnaws the heart and evil flourishes like weeds. May their souls be cursed to wander for ever.’
Words Amongst the Pilgrims
The physician coughed and raised his hand, rings sparkling in the light. ‘I have said enough for the moment,’ he declared. ‘My tale runs on but, there again, we promised a late start for the morrow.’ The physician moved to stand once again before the hearth. The other pilgrims also stirred, quietly discussing what they had heard. Master Chaucer, aware of their sharp and changing mood, watched intently. He did not mean to be so curious, yet he felt like a hawk on its branch, keenly surveying the field before him. The Wife of Bath was tearful. She sat crying but quickly wiped her face and rose, demanding to know where the latrines were. Other pilgrims moved. Chaucer noticed how the burly haberdasher had grown very agitated. The summoner, too, had changed, no longer the scab-faced, lecherous, hot-eyed court official, he sat on a stool tapping his fingers against the long Welsh stabbing dirk in its scabbard on his belt.
Master Chaucer felt the tension. A mystery play was being staged behind the veil of this long spring evening. Ghosts were gathering. People were doffing masks and donning others. Chaucer, dry-mouthed, watched the haberdasher holding his crotch; the man moved swiftly out of the taproom towards the latrines. Immediately the summoner followed, his hand on the hilt of his knife. Chaucer rose to his feet and pursued both men. The haberdasher was walking across the lawn to the lattice fence with the summoner on his heels. Chaucer saw the glint of shimmering steel. The dagger was drawn. Mischief was afoot. The haberdasher paused by the fence, admiring the wild tangle of roses. The summoner, soft-footed, dagger out and hanging by his side, made to follow. Chaucer coughed loudly. The summoner’s dagger disappeared beneath the folds of his robe. The haberdasher turned, his burly face flushed and slackened by wine. He forced a smile and continued on around the lattice fence. The summoner strolled back to Master Chaucer. The court official did not look so bumbling but purposeful and deliberate. He paused beside Chaucer and grinned in an array of jagged, yellowing teeth.
‘The dagger?’ Chaucer queried.
‘Nothing.’ The summoner simply tapped the coiled hilt of his knife. ‘Even here, Master Chaucer, in the midnight garden of a Kentish tavern, one should be very careful.’ He brushed Chaucer on the shoulder, attempting to pass him by. He tensed as Chaucer grabbed his arm. The summoner’s hand reached again for his dagger.
‘Peace, peace,’ Chaucer whispered. ‘The physician tells a tale yet there are strong echoes of it here amongst some of our fellow pilgrims.’
‘Some stories,’ the summoner retorted, freeing his arm, ‘never finish and never will, even if all the souls who throng that tale lie cold in their graves. Remember that, master poet.’
The summoner walked back into the tavern, while Chaucer waited for the haberdasher. The bulbous-eyed individual came from the latrines beyond the fence; he appeared nervous, fumbling, trying to tie the points on his hose. He walked falteringly, his swollen belly full of wine. He staggered by Chaucer and stopped, swaying on his feet. ‘What are you looking at, sir?’ he slurred.
‘I was wondering that myself,’ Chaucer quipped. ‘Who are you really, sir? Do you not realize that our physician’s tale has stirred memories amongst our companions?’
‘Has it now, has it now?’ The haberdasher put his face in his hands. ‘Oh, God,’ he murmured, ‘the demons still pursue us.’ He took his hands away. ‘This hunt will never finish. I recognize the summoner now.’
‘Master Chaucer?’ The physician stood in the light of the taproom door. ‘Come,’ he beckoned. ‘Come!’ he repeated. ‘And bring your friend.’ The physician’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. ‘My tale is set to resume.’
The Physician’s Tale
Part Five
Stephen tried to forget the grisly horrors of Rishanger’s macabre house. Anselm and Beauchamp busied themselves about the removal of the remains to the city cemeteries. Stephen, on the other hand, now free of the Carmelite rule, settled into his life at The Unicorn. He came to love that warm, welcoming tavern with its sweet-smelling taproom, kitchen garden, scullery, buttery and large stone kitchen. Minehost Master Robert allowed Stephen the free run of the hostelry before deciding that he was best suited to the kitchen. He was soon instructed into the mysteries of that great, stone-flagged cooking chamber with its yawning hearth, furnished with a spit, side ovens, grid irons and what the cook called his ‘sizzling pans and cauldrons’. Stephen was shown the various knives, stone mortars with their wooden pestles, the vivarium for fish, the hooks for fleshing, the skillets and different bowls. He watched the cooks and spit boys prepare a wide range of dishes: fillet of cold boar glazed with honey; capon braised with sweet wine stock; sole in yellow onion sauce. He embraced the world of chopping, smoke, steam and a host of delicious thick smells which tickled his nose, watered his mouth and teased his stomach.