‘I encouraged these,’ Higden declared. ‘Didn’t I, Smollat?’ He turned to the parson, who nodded vigorously even as he stifled a yawn.
‘The same,’ Anselm continued, ‘occurred with this hapless knight. I was asked to visit the manor and exorcize whatever lurked there.’ He stretched out and grabbed Stephen by the arm. ‘This was before my young friend here joined me.’
Stephen smiled at the word ‘friend’.
‘When I arrived at Romney,’ Anselm continued, ‘the manor house was gloomy, a place bereft of joy. I walked its chambers, store rooms and galleries, its cellars and outhouses. The very walls exuded a deep sadness, a horrid despair. Ghosts truly gathered there. It was one of those arid places where demons loved to lurk, well away from the light. I celebrated Mass in its small chapel and felt a malevolent presence just beyond the door, a rank horde of venomous spirits mouthing their own foul curses as they controlled who or whatever was also there. I searched that manor, and the more I did the deeper the darkness grew. A heavy pall of misery stifled my own spirit — never more so than in a narrow chamber, a dusty room with peeling plaster and dirty boards. Cobwebs cloaked every corner and niche; its lancet window was divided by a thick, rusting iron bar. I grasped this and stared out into the weed-filled kitchen yard. As I did I heard a voice.’ Anselm shook his head. ‘Let me explain. When I say I hear a voice, or see anything supernal, as God is my witness, I am never certain if it’s within or without me.’
‘And this voice?’ Almaric asked.
‘A woman’s voice.’
‘And she said?’
‘“Help me, for the love of God, help me! Let me be free. Let me move into the light. Break the chains which bind me to him.” I asked her who she was and what she meant.’
‘And?’ Almaric asked.
‘The door behind me opened and shut with a crash. I heard a scream, something brushed my face — the ice-cold fingers of some ghostly hand — then it was gone. I stayed and searched that manor. The more I did, the more I returned to that morbid chamber at the back of the house and the long, gloomy paved passageway leading down to the kitchen and buttery.’
‘Did you attempt an exorcism, as you did here?’ Sir William asked.
‘I attempted, and I failed. I could hear a woman’s voice but some hell-lurker, a darkness-dweller, always intervened. I blessed and sanctified. I also prayed that the Lord would send me an angel of light.’ Anselm gave a rare smile. ‘Angels come in many forms and guises. Near the manor stood a hermitage, an ancient, small dovecote hidden in a dense clump of trees. The land around it was so marshy and treacherous, the hermitage could only be approached carefully. I tried to speak to the old man who lived there, locked in his fasting and prayers. I failed but one morning he came to see me, a true ancient with his white hair and beard. He asked to be shriven. I cannot reveal what he told me except that afterwards he agreed to help me lift the paving stones of the passageway stretching from the kitchen to that godforsaken prison chamber.’
‘Why?’ Beauchamp asked.
‘Let me explain without breaking the seal of confession,’ Anselm retorted. He glanced quickly at Stephen. ‘I certainly could have used your help there. I, the manor lord, his henchman and even his lady helped. The henchman had to retreat, as did the knight’s wife.’
‘Why? Why?’ Almaric sat like a rabbit petrified by a stoat.
‘Evil swept that gallery like the winds of hell. Full of hideous terrors, rank smells, fearful faces, curses and obscenities. Sometimes it turned hot as if a blast of wind blew from the seething deserts of Outremer, only to turn so cold we could scarcely grasp the picks and poles we used.’ Anselm lifted the Ave beads wrapped around his left hand. ‘I prayed and sprinkled holy water. I insisted that the candles in front of the cross on the table set up in the passageway stay alight. At last we found it — a pit beneath the paving stones containing the skeleton of a woman. We could tell that from the remnants of her robe and sandals. She lay in an oiled sheet drenched in pine juice with no cross, pyx holder or Ave beads; instead, between her legs, laid the severed head of a man.’ Anselm stilled their gasps and exclamations. ‘The head and face had been preserved though these were shrunken and ghastly. Severed cleanly at the neck, the head had been soaked in brine and tarred like those of traitors polled on London Bridge. I blessed these gruesome remnants. I thanked the hermit. I could now question him outside the seal of the sacrament, and he confessed the most macabre tale. Years earlier, before the great pestilence, the manor lord who lived there married a local woman of outstanding beauty. He loved her to obsession but, during the King’s early wars against the Scots, this knight was called away by the commissioners of array. He obeyed the writ, fought valiantly along the Scottish march then returned to his manor. .’
‘To find she had been unfaithful?’ Beauchamp asked swiftly.
‘Yes, she had fallen in love with the steward of the manor, a man she’d known since childhood. Other servants betrayed her secret trysts. Her husband caught her. He had the steward decapitated, his severed head pickled and preserved.’
‘And his wife?’
‘She was condemned to a living hell. She was confined to that ghastly cell, walled up like a recluse. Every night her husband and chosen servants entered her cell and prepared the table for supper. Three chairs: one for him, one for her and a third for her dead lover. Every evening the food would be served, brought from the kitchen, along with the severed head which would be placed opposite her. The manor lord insisted that she eat and drink with him. Never once would he utter a word to her or answer any of her pleas, except to point to the ghastly remnants of her former lover.’
‘Surely,’ Stephen asked, horrified by the story, ‘the other servants would object?’
‘No.’ Anselm tapped the table. ‘The knight was both feared and loved, well-respected by the King; and his wife had been found playing the two-backed beast while he had been honouring his oath to the Crown. She had betrayed him and been caught red-handed. God forgive them but no mercy or compassion was shown to her.’ Anselm drank from his beaker. ‘By then the vengeance was making itself felt throughout the kingdom. The great pestilence had emerged in Dorset. All the terrors of the underworld emerged. The village and manor on Romney Marsh was devastated by the Angel of Death. Entire families fled. Apparently, according to the hermit, only the manor lord, his wretched wife and a few servants remained. Nevertheless, the torture continued until one day she managed to get a length of rope. She hanged herself and her husband buried her in that passageway; the final insult was her dead lover’s severed head being placed between her legs. The husband was later swept away by the plague. The manor house and village were deserted.’
‘Except for the ghosts?’
‘Aye, Sir William, evil ghosts, supported by their kind as well as those two unfortunates who had loved unwisely.’
‘And what did you do?’ the sexton asked.
Anselm sat listening to the cries of some night bird in the gardens beyond, a lonely sound answered by the creaking of this stately, three-storey mansion.
‘I arranged a Christian burial for the remains in consecrated ground. The new lord of the manor and his lady vowed to go on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Walsingham as well as Saint Swithun’s Well. I offered Mass in reparation as well as a requiem for the dead. I blessed that house, hallowed the chamber and,’ Anselm lifted his hands, ‘as God be my witness, peace returned.’
‘And you think the same has happened here?’ Sir William demanded.
‘Yes, I do. The secret rites of the Midnight Man disturbed something, opened the door to spiritual forces, venomous and vindictive, but they must have a nestling place here. Something wicked and hideously evil has been committed in and around that church.’
Parson Smollat gulped his wine and stared askance at Sir William.