Kate Sedley - The Midsummer Crown

As I approached the church, I noted that Etheldreda Simpkin’s house was in complete darkness, the candle which most people put in their windows to guide travellers after dark unlit. Cautiously, I tried the handle of the church door.

It was locked.

I should have been prepared for this, but for some reason it took me by surprise. For what seemed like an eternity — in reality no more than three or four seconds — I stared at the iron ring in the palm of my hand and decided that that was it then. There was no more I could do. But suddenly, very faint and far off, I thought I heard a cry. A child’s cry. A cry of fear and horror. Whether I really heard it or whether I imagined it I have never been quite sure, but it spurred me into action.

The door of St Etheldreda’s was old, the wood splintering in places, in others already rotting. Exerting all my strength, I hurled my whole weight against it, once, twice, three times. And at the fourth attempt, one of the planks split from its neighbour, leaving a sufficient gap for me to squeeze through.

The church itself was deserted, but I had expected that. Whatever was happening, was taking place in the chamber below the crypt. I considered lighting a candle, but decided against it. I knew my way sufficiently by now to risk the comforting cloak of darkness, so I made my way behind the altar, felt for the rope and lifted the trapdoor which fell open with its usual thud.

I stood stock still, listening, my heart in my mouth, waiting to see if the noise was loud enough to have attracted attention. Nothing happened, so I proceeded to descend the stairs into the crypt. The sound of the Wallbrook gushing along its underground bed was loud in my ears and I shivered, recalling the coldness of its water as it emptied itself into the Thames.

Carefully, my eyes now well accustomed to the gloom, I picked my way between the accumulated rubbish of other people’s lives to the door which led to the lower chamber; that chamber which had once, centuries ago and if local lore were to be believed, been the Roman Temple of Mithras. It flashed across my mind that it, too, might be locked, in which case there was nothing further I could do until help arrived. This sturdy door with its iron studs had been carefully maintained and repaired. It would need a battering ram to demolish it.

I found that the hand I had extended towards the latch was trembling, and that with half my mind I was desperately hoping that the door was locked, thus relieving me of all further responsibility. But then there came another scream, high pitched and full of terror, and there was no possibility this time of it being in my imagination. This was real. My blood seemed to freeze in my veins.

I pushed up the latch without even stopping to consider any personal danger and charged down the half-dozen steps into the room below.

It was like a scene from a nightmare, and even now, all these years on and myself an old man who has seen much evil in his life, it still haunts my dreams and wakes me in the night, sweating with fear. At first my eyes were dazzled by the light that came from a dozen or more candles all concentrated in one area of the room. Shadows flickered menacingly over the damp, moss-encrusted walls and plunged the corners of the chamber into darkness. For a moment or two I was blinded, coming as I had from the gloom of the crypt into this blaze of flame and smoke, but as my sight cleared, I saw with mounting horror that there was a makeshift altar set against the far wall and to this was bound the body of a young boy, no longer drugged into blessed unconsciousness but fully awake and aware of what was happening. And grouped about him were figures robed in white, each face hidden behind a hideous bird mask of the kind used at Christmas and Easter mummings, while the figure standing closest to the altar wore a cockerel’s head. And in the cockerel’s upraised hand was a wicked-looking, long-bladed knife.

Somebody shouted — and I realized a second later that it was me.

I threw myself forward, reaching desperately for that hand before it could plunge downwards into its victim’s heart, but if I had recovered my powers of speech and motion, so had others. Robed figures suddenly hemmed me in on all sides and I could hear the sounds of their fury hissing behind the masks.

‘Kill him!’ came a muffled shout in a voice that, in spite of the distortion, I recognized as Rosina Copley’s.

‘Hold him!’ someone else commanded, and the grip on both my arms tightened.

The figure at the altar — which I could now see was nothing more than a double row of planks from the crypt, piled on top of one another and lashed together with rope — advanced towards me, knife held high, the light from the candle-flames reflected in its steel and giving the eerie impression that it was already covered in blood. Exerting all my strength, fear and horror lending me the energy of ten, I tore free of my captors and looked around me for a weapon. For a heart-stopping moment I could see nothing.

‘God!’ I whispered feverishly. ‘Help me!’

Almost at once, a flicker of light from an errant candle-flame, blowing sideways in a sudden draught of air, illumined the statue of St Etheldreda brought down from the church and placed on a ledge of rock close to the ‘altar’; a good woman whose name, story and feast day had been appropriated by an evil sisterhood for their own bloodthirsty ends. I lunged and as I grabbed the statue, I realized with relief that not only was it made from heavy plaster but it was also weighted in the base (either to discourage theft or to prevent it being easily toppled). Grasping it by its head (a sacrilege for which I felt sure the saint would forgive me) I lashed out, catching my nearest assailant a stunning blow to the side of her chin. She fell like a stone, taking the woman directly behind her with her and pinning her temporarily to the ground.

Immediately all was uproar. The rest of the women, mad with fury, struggled to reach me where I stood with my back to the wall, lashing out with my improvised club. But it was the one with the knife I had to watch, the one I was convinced was Pernelle; my old friend Piers whose swaggering and swearing had always seemed a little unnatural and which, together with my recurring dreams of Eloise Gray, should have apprised me of the truth much sooner. Her reach was longer than that of the other women, and twice I felt the blade nick my face before managing to hit it away. To add to the confusion and general nightmarish quality of the scene, the terrified child was screaming and trying to free himself from his bonds. Suddenly, one of the knots which bound his ankles came untied.

I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I swung again at one of the women — hitting off her mask whose strings had become loosened to reveal the plump, pretty features of Amphillis Hill — but so did Pernelle. With a cry of rage she turned away, leaving me to the frenzied attentions of the others and raised the knife.

I remember yelling ‘No!’ at the top of my voice, but in the event my cry was lost as the chamber door burst open and dozens of armed men in the Gloucester livery poured down the steps, swords and daggers drawn ready, if needs be, for use. After which I have only a hazy recollection of what happened, largely due to the fact that I disgraced myself by fainting yet again and did not recover consciousness until I had been safely conveyed back to Baynard’s Castle.

I came to to find the duke himself — no, the king himself — bending solicitously over me. A cool hand was laid on my brow.

‘I understand I have to thank you once again, Roger, for your services,’ he said, smiling. ‘You see, I was right to put you in charge. You have never failed me yet, even when it means putting your own life in danger. And this time you have also saved the life of a young boy, a very precious thing, and averted a very unpleasant scandal at the beginning of a new reign.’ I noticed that he carefully avoided saying whose reign. ‘So how can I reward you?’