Paul Doherty - Corpse Candle

Corbett wiped his hands on the wet grass, dried them on his cloak and walked on. The great oak trees stood in a line from the abbey walls down to Falcon Brook, so symmetrical Corbett wondered if they had been planted deliberately? Squat, round trunks with powerful black branches reaching up to the greying sky. Corbett stared back at the tumulus. With the abbey wall at one end, the oaks on either side resembled the pillars of a church whilst the tumulus in the centre looked like a place of worship. He walked into the shadow of the oaks. Corbett could hear faint sounds from the abbey, as well as the trundling of carts and the shouts of the labourers as they finished their work in the far fields. The abbey bell began to toll again. Corbett recalled how Prior Cuthbert had ordered special prayers to be said for both Taverner and the sub-prior now stiffening under their corpse sheets in the death house.

The undergrowth between the oaks was thick in places. Corbett had to watch his step. He paused at the great burn mark which scorched the grass and brambles. Corbett crouched down and prodded at it with his dagger: black, flakey ash about six inches broad, the scorch mark stretched for at least two yards. Poachers, Corbett wondered? Mystified, he got to his feet and continued. He left the oaks and walked to the edge of Falcon Brook. It was really nothing more than a rivulet about a yard across. On the far bank was a line of straggling bushes and gorse. The brook was sluggish and against each bank a thick green slime had formed. Corbett carefully scrambled down and measured its depth with his boots: no more than a foot. The brook was probably man-made, its water diverted from the swamp or the fens; certainly not used by the Harcourts or the abbey either as a source of fresh water or fish for the kitchens. Corbett pulled himself out and froze. Further along the bank, on a hummock of grass beneath a willow, sat one of the monks, cowl pulled forward, head down, hands up the sleeves of his robe. He was so deep in thought he hadn’t heard Corbett approach. He sat like a statue. Corbett drew his dagger, walked softly forward and coughed. The figure didn’t stir. Corbett felt a prickle of fear along his back.

‘ Pax vobiscum , Brother!’ he called out and sighed with relief as the figure started and turned, one hand going up to push back the cowl. Corbett recognised Brother Dunstan the treasurer. The monk leapt to his feet, hands flailing. Corbett could see he had been crying.

‘Brother Dunstan, this is a cold and lonely place to meditate and pray!’

The monk, feet slipping on the wet grass, made his way forward.

‘I thought you were at the chapter meeting! Brother, what is the matter?’

Brother Dunstan’s eyes were swollen from crying. The man raised a hand to brush away the tears from his cheek, displaying a row of fingernails bitten to the quick.

‘We are going to die, aren’t we, clerk?’

Corbett stared round the monk and noticed the small wine-skin lying on the grass.

‘Brother Dunstan, we are all going to die: that doesn’t mean we must camp out in the cemetery and wait for it to happen.’

‘I didn’t attend the chapter meeting,’ Brother Dunstan slurred. ‘What’s the use, Sir Hugh? I brought some wine here and decided to think.’

‘Is there any left?’

The monk grinned and stepped back. He picked up the wineskin and tossed it over. Corbett lifted the wineskin. He drank and handed it back.

‘Remember the good book: a little wine gladdens the heart but too much dulls the soul. Brother Dunstan, you sat there like a man the world has forgotten.’

‘I am worried, I truly am.’ Brother Dunastan grasped the wineskin as if it was a precious relic. ‘The news of these deaths will soon spread. Pilgrims won’t come. Merchants will be reluctant to stay. Moreover, when the King hears. .’

‘It will pass,’ Corbett reassured him. ‘You are frightened about the abbey’s revenues?’

Brother Dunstan nodded quickly.

You’re lying, Corbett thought: this abbey is rich and powerful enough to withstand a year-long siege.

‘What are you truly worried about, Brother?’

The monk looked away. ‘Sin!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Sin!’ Brother Dunstan repeated. ‘It’s true what the proverb says, isn’t it, clerk? Your sins will find you out.’

‘What sins?’

‘Abbot Stephen was a good father. He was strict yet gentle and kind.’ Brother Dunstan glanced back towards the massed buildings of St Martin’s. ‘He knew our sins but was compassionate.’

‘Did you confess to him?’ Corbett asked.

Brother Dunstan nodded. ‘He shrived me and gave me good counsel.’ The monk’s watery eyes came up. ‘He was a good priest, clerk. I have never met his like before. Now we shall be punished for our sins.’

‘First, what do you mean, his like?’ Corbett stepped closer.

‘It was almost,’ Brother Dunstan bit his lip, ‘almost as if he believed there was no sin.’ He glimpsed Corbett’s puzzlement. ‘You’d have to listen to him to know what I mean.’

‘And yet he was an exorcist?’ Corbett demanded. ‘He believed in Satan and all his power.’

‘I know, I know, it’s a conundrum.’

‘Did Abbot Stephen have a father confessor?’

‘Yes, yes, he did.’ Brother Dunstan’s fingers went to his lips. ‘He told me once that sometimes he confessed to a priest he met on his journeys but there was also someone in the abbey. Ah yes, Brother Luke! He used to be the infirmarian here, and is now almost a hundred years old! Brother Luke says he can remember King John when he progressed through Norfolk. Old Luke! A sharp mind in an ageing body!’

Corbett promised himself that he would seek this old one out.

‘It’s beginning to snow,’ Brother Dunstan declared.

White, soft flakes were lazily floating down. The sky was now low, a dark grey.

‘It will be a cold night,’ Brother Dunstan whispered.

Corbett looked back towards the soaring towers, spires and gables of St Martin’s-in-the-Marsh. Strange, he mused, how a place can change. When he’d first approached the gatehouse, the abbey had seemed welcoming, a pleasant refuge from the wilderness which surrounded it. Now it looked sinister, forbidding, even threatening.

‘I am cold,’ Brother Dunstan murmured, stamping his feet. ‘Sir Hugh, are you walking back?’

Corbett agreed. They crossed the field; the snowfall was now heavy.

‘What did you mean,’ Corbett asked, ‘about Abbot Stephen almost believing there was no sin? You called it a conundrum.’

Brother Dunstan pulled up his cowl. Corbett wondered if it was as much to hide his face as for protection against the biting wind.

‘This is only a thought, Sir Hugh.’ The treasurer measured his words. ‘Philosophers argue about the existence of God. Sometimes I had the impression that Abbot Stephen had gone the other way, that it was almost easier for him to discover the spiritual life through the world of demons, though I wouldn’t dare say that to our community.’

‘So, Abbot Stephen saw the rite of exorcism as a journey into the darkness?’

‘Why not?’ Brother Dunstan laughed abruptly. ‘We live in a sea of evil, Sir Hugh: murder, rape, theft, lawlessness.’ He sighed. ‘You very rarely meet an Angel of Light.’

Corbett was about to continue the discussion when the Judas gate was abruptly thrown open and Brother Perditus appeared waving his hands.

‘Sir Hugh, you’d best come!’

‘Oh no!’ Brother Dunstan murmured. ‘Not another death!’

‘What is it?’ Corbett shouted.

Perditus just gestured at him to hurry. Corbett quickened his stride. The lay brother stood agitated.

‘I bear a message from Brother Aelfric. You must come, he wishes to show you something.’