They went down the steps and began their search. ‘Here!’ Gascelyn called from a darkened transept, and they hurried over. The sexton lay in a wide, congealing puddle of his own blood, turned on his back, eyes staring up, the savage cut across his throat gaping like a second mouth. His sprawled arms were outstretched, his own dagger grasped in his right hand. Stephen stifled his cries as the others exclaimed at the horror lying there. Anselm demanded some sacking be brought from the church tower. He placed this around the corpse and immediately administered the last rites, whispering hoarsely the words of deliverance followed by the prayers for the dead. Parson Smollat was shaking so much Gascelyn had to take him to sit on the sanctuary steps.
Beauchamp, aided by Sir William and Almaric, immediately searched the church, going into every nook and cranny, but Stephen knew it was futile. This place was a barren wasteland peopled by restless ghosts now clustering hungrily around them. Something crept across Stephen’s booted feet. He glanced down at the moving shadow trailing like black smoke. Tendrils of wet hair swept the side of his face. Cold fingers pressed against his brow. Anselm was still intoning the prayers for the dead. The sacking he knelt on squelched blood which began to bubble. Stephen, mouth dry, had to step away. He flinched at the disfigured, twisted faces drifting out of the gloomy transept: pale and thin, eyes glaring madly, jowls twisted in anger. He glanced over his shoulder. Gascelyn had struck a tinder; he was lighting the torches as well as different candles. Parson Smollat was blubbering like a child, shoulders shaking. Anselm’s voice rose. ‘I command you, Michael Archangel and all the heavenly hosts, to go and meet him.’
‘Ours in life, ours in death!’ a voice snarled in reply.
‘I command you,’ Anselm retorted. ‘Begone to your proper place and stay there. Stephen,’ Anselm insisted, ‘kneel, pray!’ The novice did so, yet all he could think about was Alice, of sitting beside her in that rose-garlanded bower with young Marisa spying on them from the brambles. He prayed but he could only think about them as the cold breeze returned with its offensive stench.
‘Remove the corpse,’ Anselm ordered, getting to his feet. ‘Let us leave here swiftly. This is no longer a place for God or man.’ Anselm swept by Stephen, tapping him on the shoulder as a sign to follow. The exorcist hurried up the sanctuary steps, pausing to deal with a coughing fit which bent him double. Stephen again glimpsed the red specks on the linen cloth but Anselm waved a hand and, taking a deep breath, straightened up. He walked across the sanctuary, took a stool, stood on it and unhooked the silver pyx. He removed the round white host and reverently ate it. He stood for a while, hands clasped, murmuring the Eucharistic prayer, ‘May the body of Christ be to my salvation, not to my damnation’, followed by the ‘Anima Christi’ poem.
Stephen stood with him and, by the time they had returned, Beauchamp had organized Cutwolf and others to use more sacking as a makeshift stretcher. The corpse was removed from the church. They left by the sacristy door. Parson Smollat, now partially recovered, murmured about the corpse door remaining bolted and locked and how its key was still missing. Stephen was just relieved to leave that abode of shadows. He turned, revelling in the sunlight and the pleasing breeze. He watched as Cutwolf hurriedly searched the corpse, now stretched out on the sacking. The sexton, however, only carried a few paltry possessions: coins, rosary beads, a small cross and a few nails but nothing else. No key to the corpse door could be found.
‘Take his corpse back to the priest’s house,’ Beauchamp ordered. ‘Brother Anselm, you accompany it, see that all is well. Sir William,’ Beauchamp turned to the merchant knight, ‘we shall meet in your chamber within the hour, yes?’
Anselm whispered to Stephen to follow him. The exorcist went to walk on but paused, crouching to examine dark stains on the paved path which went round the church. He picked at the congealed specks, plucked a piece up and sniffed at it, rubbing it between his fingers. He scrutinized similar droppings then rose to his feet. ‘Strange,’ he murmured, ‘but let us go on.’ They walked through the cemetery towards a small wicket gate which led into the enclosure before the priest’s house, a fine pink-plastered, black-timbered dwelling built on a grey stone base with a blue-slated sloping roof. Parson Smollat explained how the sexton had two chambers, which could be approached by an outside staircase. The exorcist intoned the De Profundis as they approached the steps.
Stephen, however, remained distracted. He felt as if they were being followed: the sound of dry leaves whirled and rasped behind them, yet when he looked back there was nothing but the swaying wilderness of wild grass. He glanced back at the church. A shape like a gargoyle or babewyn was crouched on the sloping slate roof, black and hideous like some wild ape. He glanced again but it was gone. Stephen’s eye was caught by movement at the top of the tower — shifting shapes as if bowmen, hooded and cloaked, clustered there. ‘Stephen, Stephen!’ a woman’s voice called. He glanced across the bending grass which parted to reveal a black tombstone — from this a wicked white face, hair all a-tangle, glared furiously at him. Stephen stumbled and swiftly crossed himself.
They reached the wicket gate and went through on to the cobbled courtyard before the pretty-fronted priest’s house. Isolda, wimple all awry, hands outstretched, came out. She began to chant a hymn of mourning until Parson Smollat gathered her in his arms and led her away. They took Simon’s corpse up the outside staircase. The door to his two chambers hung unlocked, and they entered. Stephen was immediately struck by their ordinariness. Two white-washed cells with crucifixes and painted cloths on the walls, a few sticks of furniture, coffers and caskets. They placed the corpse on the narrow bed but, even as they arranged the dead man’s limbs into some form of dignity, both Anselm and Beauchamp were busy about the chamber. They examined the tattered, grimy sheets of parish records piled on the chancery table in the second chamber. Coffers and caskets were opened. Stephen was surprised at how swiftly both Beauchamp, looking rather tired and absorbed, and Anselm sifted through the dead man’s possessions. Parson Smollat, accompanied by a now comforted Isolda, came up the outside stairs. Beauchamp asked the woman to look after the corpse, adding that he would leave Cutwolf and his companions to assist her in cleaning and washing the body. ‘We must go,’ the royal clerk declared. ‘Parson Smollat, we shall wait for you below.’
Beauchamp, Anselm and a slightly nervous Stephen left the chamber and went down to wait in the courtyard. ‘Magister,’ Stephen pleaded, ‘where have you been, what have you been doing?’ He glanced swiftly at the royal clerk. ‘You are coughing blood. You should not be involved in this.’
‘Brother Anselm.’ Beauchamp grabbed the exorcist’s arm. ‘What is this spitting blood? Have you been poisoned?’
‘No, no.’ The exorcist smiled, exerting all his charm and beckoning them away from the door of the priest’s house. ‘I have been studying here and there and my cough is as old as I am. Now, Stephen, do not fret or worry.’ He rubbed the side of the novice’s face. ‘Be at peace,’ he urged. ‘Think of God’s goodness and,’ he teased, ‘Alice’s smile. You have enjoyed yourself. No,’ Anselm wagged a finger, ‘I will not talk about myself. Let us talk more about poor Simon.’
‘We discovered nothing,’ Beauchamp declared. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Except this.’ Anselm twisted a piece of parchment, small and greasy with age between his fingers. ‘A mere scrap.’ He handed this to Beauchamp, who simply pulled a face and passed it to Stephen. The novice read the scrawl repeated time and again in dog Latin, Norman French and English. The message was simple and stark: ‘Now Lucifer was the friend of Saint Michael.’ As the Angelus bell abruptly tolled, Stephen thought about the arbour and sitting next to Alice.