‘I can answer that.’ Almaric spoke up. ‘Parson Smollat was very busy. A cart-load of purveyance was delivered just before Nones today. I thought they were the usual supplies but he must have bought oil and the other kindling.’
‘Perhaps,’ Sir William spoke up, ‘the poor be-knighted fool thought he could cleanse this place.’ The merchant knight scratched his unshaven, sweaty cheek. ‘Perhaps he and Isolda then regretted it and decided to take their own lives. I shall miss them,’ he added sadly. ‘Smollat was a good man, though easily frightened. Perhaps he viewed all that had happened as a judgement on himself. Yet in a way he was correct about the purification.’
‘What do you mean?’ Beauchamp asked sharply.
‘Sir Miles, our church is burning. There is nothing we can do about that — let it burn. The ward has been alerted — let the flames spend themselves. Once it is done, we will cleanse this site. I promise,’ Sir William became more invigorated, ‘a new and splendid church will rise like a phoenix from the ashes.’
‘The corpses?’ asked Anselm gently. ‘If they are suicides, can they have Christian burials? When the news spreads, Sir William, not everyone will be as charitable as you. They will demand that both cadavers be taken to a crossroads outside the city, a stake driven through their hearts and their remains buried beneath some gallows post. Deranged, possessed?’ Anselm stretched across the table. ‘I cannot say. Parson Smollat certainly scrawled this note. He had it with the keys.’ Anselm picked it up. ‘It is Parson Smollat’s writing?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ Sir William replied. ‘Both myself and Almaric have compared it to other documents found here. Yet it is strange, Brother Anselm. Read it again.’
‘“Habeo igne gladioque destruxi ecclesiam nostram” — I have, with fire and sword, destroyed our church.’ Anselm shrugged. ‘Is that a confession? Is he admitting to the fire?’
Beauchamp leaned across and took the parchment script. He read it and handed it back, a fleeting smile crossing his lean, saturnine face. Anselm, too, stared at the parchment and gave it to Stephen, who studied the large bold letters, ‘Habeo igne gladioque destruxi ecclesiam nostram’.
As the novice stared down at the text he felt a shift, a tug at his very soul. ‘Now!’ a voice whispered. ‘All will be revealed. For the fowler’s snare will spring, as it shall on every living soul.’
‘We should leave.’ Beauchamp rose, gathering his cloak and staring at Anselm. ‘Let the fire burn itself out. Keep the wardsmen vigilant against sparks. Sir William, I will have my henchmen remove both corpses to the Chapel of Saint Peter Ad Vincula in the Tower. The chaplains will bury them there. No one need know. I have searched this house — there is nothing to prove Smollat or Isolda were members of any coven. Once the corpses are removed, my men will lock and seal the house. .’ He stopped short at the sound of a hideous crash which echoed across the cemetery. Beauchamp picked up his cloak and hurried out, the others following.
‘It’s the roof,’ Cutwolf explained. They entered the cemetery and stared across, the flames leaping through where the roof had been. ‘So intense,’ Stephen whispered.
‘Remember,’ Anselm murmured, ‘the benches, the chantry chapels, the pulpit, all the furnishings, the drapes, the carvings, those heavy rafter beams. Parson Smollat must have soaked the place in oil.’ Anselm’s voice trailed off. ‘Sir Miles is certainly correct — there is nothing more to be done, and all,’ he added in a whisper, ‘for a piece of useless rock which is probably lying at the bottom of a slime-filled pond.’
‘And the rest of the treasure,’ Stephen added.
‘That, too,’ Anselm declared. ‘So many deaths, Stephen — for what? Does it really profit a man if he gains the whole world’s treasure but suffers the loss of his immortal soul?’
Words Amongst the Pilgrims
The physician paused in his tale and filled his water cup. This time no one stirred; his fellow pilgrims realized he was approaching the climax of his story and waited restlessly. Chaucer glanced swiftly around. The haberdasher was drinking so heavily, Chaucer wondered if the man would be fit to ride the next morning. The Wife of Bath’s plump red cheeks were wet with tears. The summoner just sat with a sombre look on his face.
‘I remember this.’ The knight spoke up. ‘I, too, was on secret business for the Crown. There were whispers about blood-drinkers roaming the streets and alleyways close to the river, though they weren’t the monsters I hunt. And the fire? I was in London at the time. In the end a fine new church was built. Sir William must have. .’
‘Hush now, Sir Godfrey,’ the physician called out. ‘Softly, let me finish.’ The knight nodded in agreement, going back to cradling his tankard.
‘Yet this tale is certainly true.’ The usually taciturn shipman spoke up. ‘Master physician, I have kept a still tongue in my head but I was on board the cog which Rishanger tried to reach. I served my apprenticeship with its captain,’ he grinned sourly, ‘from whom I learned so much. I watched Rishanger’s clash with those assassins on the quayside, his flight up river.’
‘Oh, yes,’ the physician assured him. ‘This is all true.’
‘Cloaked in secrecy, it was,’ the franklin rose, fingering his snow-white beard.
‘What was?’ the friar demanded.
‘The business at Saint Michael’s,’ the franklin replied, pointing at the physician. ‘A hideous tragedy, yes?’
‘Gentle pilgrims all,’ the physician stretched out his hands, ‘please let me finish my tale.’
The Physician’s Tale
Part Six
The fire at St Michael’s had burnt itself out by late the following morning. A heavy pall of smoke hung over the blackened remains of the church. The roof and east wall had collapsed, as had the top sections of the tower. At Beauchamp’s order the mysterious deaths of Parson Smollat and Isolda were kept secret; for the rest Sir William Higden came into his own. He hired bully boys under Gascelyn to guard both the cemetery and the church. Of course the gossip and tittle-tattle swept through Dowgate swifter than the wind. Anselm absented himself, returning to White Friars, promising to meet Stephen the following evening at The Unicorn before going on to Beauchamp’s house to enjoy a great and splendid supper. Stephen felt a deep disquiet about his master. Anselm was more secretive than ever and the novice sensed that something had happened between the exorcist and the royal clerk.
Alice, however, was full of curiosity about what had occurred. Bright of eye and pert of tongue, she would sidle up to Stephen and ask if this or that were true. Was that rumour genuine? Where was Parson Smollat? What would Sir William do? And did Sir Miles have any news about Margotta Sumerhull? Alice danced around him as merry as a robin in spring. Stephen loved every second of it, although he found it impossible to throw off the growing sense of disquiet, a menacing threat as if some malignancy was gathering beyond the veil.
On the night after the fire, Minehost Robert insisted that everyone retire early as he was sure that the magnificent feast at Sir Miles’ the following evening would go on into the early hours, long after the monks had finished their chants at Matins and Prime. Alice, eyes all teasing, said she had to bathe and lay out her gown and kirtle which, she proclaimed, would outshine that of Lady Moon, Mistress Alice Perrers, the resplendent mistress of the old King. Stephen pretended to be shocked that Alice could even know of such things. Alice then delved into her wallet and produced a beautiful, oval-shaped medal of St Joseph, a thin wafer of silver on its own chain. She slipped this around Stephen’s neck, nuzzling his cheek with her hair as she breathlessly whispered how she must fix the clasp properly. Stephen felt her warm, full breasts against his chest and tried to kiss her but, laughing softly, she stepped back out of reach. Stephen glanced down at the medal. ‘You told me about your father,’ she murmured, ‘so I brought you a medal of Saint Joseph. I mean, if he guarded the Lord God, he will certainly guard you. Now,’ she grinned cheekily, ‘I must be gone.’ And away she whirled, but not before dragging Marisa from a shadowy corner where ‘the little imp’, as she called her younger sister, was hiding and spying once again.