‘Yes, yes, you must go. Anyway, Edward the King took the stone and the other magical items and kept them amongst his trophies.’
‘Was Puddlicot a warlock?’ Parson Smollat asked.
‘No evidence exists for that.’
‘This business. .’ Beauchamp was eager to bring attention back to the matters in hand.
‘Ah, yes, this business.’ Anselm paused. ‘I thought, prayed, reflected and speculated.’ The exorcist rubbed his hands together slowly. ‘Undoubtedly the Midnight Man and his coven were blood-drinkers. Rishanger certainly was. They used that desolate house and that infernal pit in its dismal, isolated garden to entice young women and subject them to every kind of abuse. No wonder the place was haunted. However, the cemetery at Saint Michael’s, Candlewick is different.’
‘Yet undoubtedly haunted?’ Parson Smollat interjected.
‘Of course, but why?’ Anselm added hastily. ‘Rishanger could carry out his gruesome rites in his own dark temple. However, would young women willingly go into a cemetery? Even if they weren’t enticed but abducted, they could resist, protest — eventually such a crime would be noticed. I mean, God knows who used to wander that place — beggars, lovers, the curious?’
‘I agree,’ Parson Smollat slurred, ‘and yet it is haunted.’
‘When I first thought some innocents had been taken there and murdered, I did wonder if they had been killed and buried in graves already dug.’
‘But that means, Brother Anselm,’ Sir William declared, ‘you suspected Bardolph, even Parson Smollat?’
‘No, no,’ Anselm retorted. ‘Remember, I asked about burials there. A grave is invariably dug the day before the requiem Mass, yes?’
‘Correct,’ Parson Smollat agreed.
‘Accordingly, I wondered if the assassin would use such occasions to kill and, under the cloak of darkness, bury his victim in a grave already dug, then cover her with soil. The funeral takes place. The coffin or shroud cloth is lowered. The grave is filled in and no one is any the wiser!’ Anselm straightened up. ‘I was mistaken. However, I still believe that corpses, horribly murdered, lie somewhere else.’ Anselm gathered together his writing satchel. ‘As for poor Simon’s death — and I rightly call him poor Simon — believe me, my friends, a fiend did that, though not from hell but from Dowgate.’ Smiling grimly at his companions, Anselm rose, made his farewells, then left with Stephen.
Once outside the house the exorcist made his way back towards St Michael’s. The day was quiet. A Franciscan stood on a plinth, begging alms for a group of lepers clustered a short distance away, their faces and hands swathed in bandages. Only their eyes, frenetic and desperate, peered out at a world that had forsaken them. Stephen ran up and told the friar to take his little flock to The Unicorn, where Master Robert would undoubtedly see them well. The Franciscan hopped down as nimble as a cricket, kissed Stephen on the cheeks and shouted at his charges to follow. He led them off singing the ‘Salve Regina’ while the lepers followed at a distance, shaking their rattles and bells. Children, playing with an inflated pig’s bladder, scattered at their approach. Women shouted from the windows of houses, begging their little ones to be careful. A false trader came racing up the lane, breathless and sweaty, as he dodged and twisted in a desperate attempt to escape pursuing market beadles. No sooner were they gone than a relic seller stepped out from an apothecary’s shop, a tray slung around his neck, offering miniature portions of soap. Each was wrapped in a linen cloth which, he proclaimed, Joseph of Arimathea had used for the Lord’s body on the first Good Friday. Stephen stood and watched these sights, aware of the different smells from the various shops and stalls. He glimpsed a necklace of gleaming copper being hawked by a tinker and immediately wondered if Alice would like it. He was about to walk across the lane when a cold breeze wafted against his face. A voice whispered something about the devil’s wolf, hungry for the hunt. Stephen whirled around. A sense of pressing danger agitated him. Were those two beggars at the mouth of the runnel watching him? Or the man, heavily cloaked, who now stood just beneath the sign of the apothecary shop? Was he masked? Was his hand resting on a dagger hilt? The people milling around did not seem so welcoming now. Glittering eyes peered from deep hoods. A bulbous-eyed servitor, apron stained with blood, hastened by then paused to stare slyly at Stephen. Above him a window casement flew open and a man leaned out. Stephen thought he was holding a crossbow, yet when he looked again the casement slammed shut. A fierce whispering broke around him, like the humming of a noisome cloud of flies. Stephen felt the terrors seize him. He was not safe here. He broke free of his panic and hurried after Anselm, finding the exorcist standing at the lychgate to St Michael’s. Stephen paused and took a deep breath.
Anselm turned. ‘Believe me, my friend,’ the exorcist leaned against the heavy wooden gate, ‘this truly is the Kingdom of Cain. Murder was committed here but how, Stephen? Why and when?’
‘Magister, what shall we do?’
‘I’ll stay here.’
‘Stay here?’
‘Yes.’ Anselm left the gate and crouched down with his back to the cemetery wall. ‘I just want to watch and see what happens.’ He shaded his eyes, squinting up at Stephen. ‘You have some money?’
‘Yes.’ Stephen grinned. ‘Why? Are we to beg?’
‘No, to eat,’ the exorcist replied. ‘Stephen, I am famished. A pastry full of minced beef with peppers and a dash of mustard? Master Robert sells the best!’ Stephen, his terrors forgotten, needed no second bidding. Swift as a lurcher he ran to the tavern, bursting breathless into the kitchen, surprising the cook who gently mocked his eagerness, saying that two pastries and a pie were easy to serve. However, the lovely Alice had accompanied her father to St Paul’s to meet a merchant beneath the Great Cross.
Stephen blushed, then grinned at the teasing. Once the linen parcels were ready, stowed in an old leather sack, he left the tavern, turning back into the street. A shout echoed through his mind. A woman’s voice whispered, ‘Ave, ave.’ Stephen whirled around as four figures, hooded and garbed in black leather jerkins and hose, soft boots on their feet, merged out of the shadows. These were no phantasms. They breathed noisily behind their masks while their wicked knives winked in the light. ‘Good morrow, little friar. You must come with us.’
‘I must not.’
One of the nightmare figures stretched out his blade. ‘What are you, little friar, you God-mumbler, you prattler of prayers? You stand there like some rabbit, jerking and trembling at the rustle of life.’
Stephen felt the anger well within him. He stepped back, determined to resist.
‘God save you all! God save the King! God save Holy Mother Church!’ Cutwolf, as if appearing from nowhere, sauntered down the alleyway. Behind him was his companion, face and head all oiled and shaved — Stephen knew this must be Bolingbrok, just by the way he swaggered. Beyond them, at the mouth of the alleyway, others thronged. Stephen heard a sound. He glanced back. His sinister assailants had disappeared into the spindle-thin runnel which stretched through the old houses in this quarter. Breathing in deeply, Stephen tried to ignore the clamouring voices. Cutwolf and Bolingbrok approached, sauntering along without a care in the world, confident in their own strength, the weapons strapped to their war belts. Bolingbrok stopped before him and bowed. ‘The Lord hath delivered thee,’ he intoned, ‘as he did Israel from Og King of Bashan and Sihon King of the Amorites.’
‘Blueberry.’ Cutwolf laughed. ‘That is what he is calling himself now. But we shall always know him as Bolingbrok. Anyway, young Stephen, we have kept you under close scrutiny. You really should be more careful.’
‘Who were they?’
‘Oh, undoubtedly the Midnight Man’s messengers, but come,’ Cutwolf beckoned, ‘Brother Anselm is starving.’
‘What did they want with me?’