Paul Doherty: The Darkening Glass

We breasted the rise and stared down at a scene from hell. Devil’s Hollow was a broad, deep-bowled basin in that rough landscape. At its centre rose the ruins of an old house built of grey moor-stone, its thatched roof long gone. Around it stood stunted trees, probably the relic of some ancient forest where the murderous pagan gods used to shelter. The poet writes: ‘Who paints a rose cannot paint its fragrant soul.’ That also applies to those who describe demons; they cannot summon up the true terrors of hell, which was what Devil’s Hollow had become. The ancient cottar’s place lay silent, but from the branches of the nearby trees hung five corpses. The scene was cruel and hard. We rode swiftly down, dismounted and searched around. We found traces of battle: the ground had been scuffed by many horsemen, and the blood-splattered grass was littered with grim straps of leather, armour and a broken dagger. There was nothing else. No horses, no baggage, nothing but those five corpses, their eyes gouged out, dressed solely in jerkins and hose, feet bare, their bodies swaying slightly in the breeze, the branches creaking under their weight. Some had died before they were hanged. Horrid blue-black wounds to the chests and guts; their mangled mouths and shattered skulls told their own macabre tale. Certain places reek of terrible evil. Devil’s Hollow certainly did. The way the ground abruptly dipped, the abandoned cottar’s house of rough stone and those gnarled trees rich with their grisly fruit.

I walked into the old cottage. It stank, fetid and sour, a dark cave of stone with a floor of beaten earth. Outside echoed the curses of my companions as they cut the corpses down. I searched the cottage but found nothing except the spent embers of a fire. A shadow darkened the door.

‘They are ready,’ Demontaigu declared. ‘God have mercy on them, Mathilde.’

I went out. Estivet, a priest Templar, was crouching by a corpse, whispering the words of absolution into the dead man’s ear, in the hope that the living soul would gain some comfort on its journey towards the light.

‘Go forth, Christian soul.’ Estivet’s horror and anger at what had happened thrilled his words. ‘Go forth like a soldier to meet your God. May Michael and all his angels come forth to meet you. May you not fall into the hands of the enemy, the evil one, and so I absolve you from. .’

I waited until he had finished, then I inspected the corpses. Everything of value had been stripped off them: belts, buckles, boots, armour and weapons. Three had died in vicious hand-to-hand fighting, with deep, ugly wounds to the face, neck and chest. Two of them, in my judgement, had still been alive when hanged. All had been abused: noses slit as if they were felons, with the added indignity of having their eyes gouged out, and their gaping mouths stuffed with dirt and the excrement of wild animals, a blasphemous mockery of the viaticum. Ausel and the others were now in deep conversation, heatedly discussing what had happened. I stared down at the faces of the dead men, then up at the rim of the hollow. I could visualise how these Templars had been trapped and slaughtered.

‘Noctales!’ Ausel spat the word out.

I nodded in agreement.

‘Scots?’ someone called.

‘Nonsense!’ Demontaigu snapped, face all pallid. ‘We have a treaty with them, they wouldn’t. .’

‘Outlaws? Wolf’s-heads?’ another called.

‘No!’ I replied loudly. My companions were sorely frightened. So terrified they wanted to ignore the obvious menace: Alexander of Lisbon and his comitatus. A free company of murderers, specially commissioned by Clement V of Avignon and Philip of Paris to hunt down Templars and kill them. Edward of England, to his eternal shame, had also issued them licence under letters patent to pursue their quarry in England.

Some of the Templars shook their heads, muttering at the opinion of a woman. I walked towards them.

‘These corpses are cold,’ I declared. ‘They were killed early today, perhaps just before dawn.’ I pointed to the rim of the hollow. ‘A safe place most times, but the Noctales ringed them in here and rode down. Your comrades were surprised and massacred. Well,’ I brushed the dust from my gloves, ‘that is what I think.’

‘But how did the Noctales know about them?’ Ausel asked. ‘Here, out in the wilderness?’

A spate of answers greeted the question. Demontaigu took me by the shoulder and led me towards the cottage. Estivet joined us.

‘Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales: you are sure, Mathilde?’

‘Who else, Bertrand, for the love of God?’ I shivered. Such a gloomy place: those corpses lying sprawled on the barren earth, the tree branches twisting out as if waiting for fresher fruit, the edge of that hollow, its long grass bending gently in the breeze. Ravens screeched above us as they fought the strengthening winds. I wanted to be gone. Cold fear pricked my heart and twisted my stomach. ‘They may return,’ I whispered.

‘Not now.’ Demontaigu shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not in daylight: the land is too flat and open. They could not surprise us.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘Alexander of Lisbon must have learnt about this place and led his demons here before dawn. They did their bloody work and left. They’ll be long gone now.’

I disagreed, but I did not wish to argue the point.

‘The corpses?’ I asked.

‘We’ll leave them here.’ Estivet called over one of his companions and gave him instructions. ‘I’ll pay the good brothers at the friary,’ he continued. ‘They’ll see it as an act of mercy and give them proper burial in the poor man’s lot in God’s Acre.’

‘This,’ Demontaigu gestured at the dead, ‘is finished. Their bodies are for the soil, their souls to God, but who betrayed us, Mathilde? Alexander of Lisbon must have been told how our men were coming out of Scotland. He must have been given the exact time and place those serjeants would arrive here, but how, who?’ he whispered hoarsely.

Ausel, seeing us deep in conversation, drifted across as the others carried the corpses into the cottage, cloaks being offered as shrouds, stones quickly collected to protect the dead from wild animals.

‘You are probably asking the same as we all do.’ Ausel’s usually laughing face was grim and his keen green eyes were cold and hard, while a nervous tic high in his right cheek muscle betrayed his simmering fury. ‘How did this happen, Demontaigu? The only people who knew were you, me and Estivet.’

‘And myself,’ I added, ‘but only two days ago. Demontaigu will swear to that.’

‘I do,’ Demontaigu murmured. He raised his hand to his companions and led us up the side of the hollow. We stood on the rim. I stared out across the patchwork landscape of heather, gorse, brambles, marsh, stagnant pools and the occasional copse of trees.

‘How did your companions know to come here?’ I asked.

‘Some of them were local men.’ Demontaigu replied.

‘Their names?’ I asked.

‘Morseby, Thorpe, Rippenhale, Lanercost and Easterbury.’

‘Lanercost?’ I queried.

‘Yes, John Lanercost,’ Demontaigu agreed. ‘Why?’

‘Any relation or kin to one of the Aquilae Petri?’

‘The Gemstones?’ Demontaigu faced me squarely. ‘One of Gaveston’s creatures?’ He pulled a face. ‘Our Lanercost was an experienced squire, a serjeant. He was born in these parts. He might be related to Gaveston’s minion. Yes, yes.’ He blinked across the breeze. ‘Our man sheltered in a garret close to the Shambles in York. Lanercost organised sanctuary for others. Most Templars moved north. York is a good place to hide. What are you saying, Mathilde? That Lanercost told his kinsman, who informed Gaveston, who then betrayed them all to Alexander of Lisbon and his Noctales?’