Paul Doherty - The Darkening Glass

I closed the door and looked around. Eusebius’ chamber was really nothing more than a closet containing a pallet bed, a stool and a rickety table. A dingy, shabby place, its corners laced with dust-laden cobwebs. I gave him a coin; he chattered like a magpie, describing his duties. I peered up at the thick wooden flap pulled down to reveal a square opening in the middle of the roof for the ropes to hang through. Access was provided by a stout wooden ladder. The tower was ancient, a soaring four-sided edifice. The floors were of hard oak. Five levels in all, with the sixth serving as the belfry. Eusebius explained how the masons had dispensed with a stone floor as too unwiedly. I nodded in understanding. Such constructions were highly dangerous. Stone platforms were heavy and difficult to construct, and if one collapsed, the consequences would be hideous. He then described how he rang the Jesus bell, the bell at the end of mass and other peals, as well as the calls for Vespers and Compline. No, he shook his head as he used his foot to shove away a beer jug peeping from the beneath the cot bed, he did not live here, though he often used the tower to rest and meditate. He explained how earlier that morning he’d arrived just before mass, but had found nothing untoward. He had tolled the bell at the introit and the consecration, as well as to mark the final blessing. He’d kept the door open because he knew enough of the Latin rite to hear Brother Stephen (no, Eusebius assured me, he did not really know the Dominican) pronounce the ite missa est — the mass is ended. The tolling of Peter and Paul was coming to an end when he heard the screaming outside.

‘ Pax et pax et pax — peace and peace and peace — all shattered. Fly he did, like poor Brother Theobald.’

‘Theobald?’

‘Theobald was a novice here many, many years ago,’ Eusebius gossiped on. ‘He fell in love, he did, with a moon-maid who became his leman. When she left him, Theobald climbed to the top of the tower and tried to fly like an eagle. Before he fell, he carved some words in the belfry. You can see them there.’

‘You mean he committed suicide?’

‘Now, you hush!’ Eusebius raised one black-nailed finger to his lips. ‘You hush! Theobald’s ghost haunts this place, so be careful what you say.’

I thanked him and took heed of his warning about how the swinging bells could be dangerous. I climbed the ladder to the first floor. A grim, chilling experience, the cold air seeping through the arrow-slit windows. Eusebius, his voice like that of a ghost, echoed up, reminding me to be careful and telling me that he was now leaving for the buttery to break his fast. Each of the floors of the tower was the same: dirt-filled, cobwebbed, nothing but shards of rubbish and heaps of bird droppings. At last I reached the bell chamber. The ceiling rose to a cavernous vault above me. The heavy bells, and the wood and cordage to which they were attached, looked like some grim engine of war. There was hardly any room to move. The windows in each of the four walls now looked much bigger than the apertures glimpsed from the courtyard below; each was about two yards high, the same across, the brickwork on either side about two feet in thickness. The slate ledges, slightly sloping away to drain any rainwater, were broad enough to allow a man to stand on. The sills were at the same level as the two bells hanging side by side, so if these were swung, anyone standing between them and the ledges would be struck. Had this happened to Lanercost? I walked carefully around, examining the floor, studying the droppings and clumps of rotting feathers as well as spots of oil, paint and polish used to grease the bells and the apparatus that carried them. The bells themselves were massive, their yawning bronze mouths tinged a greyish-blue due to the elements. The sharp rims of both were decorated with the lettering of their names, carved by some ancient smith above the date on which they had been consecrated.

I can still recall that bell chamber. A lonely, sinister place made even more so by some bird, wings splayed, swooping in to dim the light, only to wheel away with raucous screeching. Was it also an abode of murder? Had someone been up here with Lanercost? What had truly happened here? Using my hand to rest against the wall, I edged carefully around to the window that Lanercost must have fallen from. I examined the slippery, sloping ledge but could detect nothing untoward. I leaned over to inspect the heart-stopping drop, first to the black-slated roof of the nave, then to the great courtyard below, where the occasional friar hurrying across looked so small. I eased myself back and stared at the rough, undressed walls of ashlar, those bells hanging so silently, the corners choked with the dust of centuries. I recalled Eusebius’ remark about Theobald. I found nothing until I returned to the window from which Lanercost must have fallen. High on the smooth lintel stone, I detected some letters carved so many years previously: ‘Theobald, who loved so much and lost so much’. My fingers traced the inscription. I wondered if Lanercost had known of such a story. Had he been so overcome with guilt at the death of his brother that he’d climbed up here and committed suicide? Yet Lanercost was a young warrior hardened in the service of Gaveston — so was it murder? Yet again, he was a man of war and would have defended himself vigorously, and if murder was the explanation, why had he scaled the ladder up into this narrow forbidden room in the first place? Surely he wouldn’t have come up here with an enemy. This was the root of the mystery.

I startled at a creak, steadied myself then gazed in horror — the bells were moving slightly, swinging backwards and forwards. I was still standing at the window where Lanercost must have fallen. The bells were slowly swaying as if in a dream, like monsters roused from their slumber. They swung, dipped and came out towards me; their sharp rims seemed more like teeth. I glimpsed the heavy metal clappers even as I realised that if I stayed there, as Lanercost might have done, the bells would tip me over the rim. Why were they moving? It was about Nones, yet no peals should mark such an hour. I edged around the wall even as the bells began to move faster, their heavy metal edges skimming the air like deadly sharpened blades. They did not move in accord but one in either direction. I was in no real danger as long as I did not panic or make a mistake. I reached the opening and clambered down the ladder to the floor below.

‘Brother Eusebius!’ I screamed.

The first faint toll struck, then fell silent. I glanced at the ropes that fell through the gap to the floor below. Whoever was pulling them had now stopped. I reached the bottom breathless, the sweat on my coarse woollen kirtle cooling in the icy air of the tower. For a brief moment memories surged back of running down a ladder in my father’s farm while he urged me to be careful, shouting so loudly my mother came rushing out of the house, clothes flapping. I blinked. I felt feverish and agitated. I drew my dagger from its concealed sheath on the belt beneath my cloak. I turned to the left and right but no one was there. The ropes were still moving slightly. The door leading back into the church hung half open. I went through. The nave held so many gloomy corners a host of enemies could lurk there unseen. I opened the main door of the church and went out on to the porch. The Aquilae Petri stood at the bottom of the steps, staring up at me.

‘Have you been in the church?’ I accused. I gazed around. The great cobbled square was busy with the good brothers going about their usual duties. Barrows stood piled high with vegetables; a cart of manure from the stables trundled across. A lay brother, raucously singing a hymn, pushed bracken into the braziers. I could see no one hurrying away. I felt unsteady, as if I was in a dream. The horrors of that lonely belfry contrasted so sharply with the normal duties of a busy friary and those four young men staring up at me curiously.