Paul Doherty - The Treason of the Ghosts

‘What do you mean?’ Corbett asked.

‘We have to use these roads,’ Branway explained, ‘and we can’t help passing by Melford on our way to the coast. But you’ll find none of our women wandering the lanes. Over the years some have disappeared.’

Corbett took a step closer. ‘You mean disappeared, not run away?’

‘Oh, I know what you are thinking, clerk. We have taken into our care some of the poor wenches who flee from your cities and towns. Our women do not run away. It’s common talk amongst the Moon People how, over the years, six or seven of our women have disappeared: in the main, young girls stupid enough to wander out, intrigued by what the market holds. They left and never came back. We searched but did not find. I’ve heard the same amongst other travelling people. That’s all I can tell you.’

‘But surely you’ve gone to the Guildhall?’

Branway threw his head back and laughed. ‘And get beaten for our pains! No, master clerk, we just avoid Melford, whilst our women are kept within the encampment.’

‘And have you seen anything amiss?’

‘I’ve told you what I know: no more no less.’

The man nodded at Corbett, kissed Sorrel on each cheek and walked off into the darkness.

Corbett watched him go.

‘I must leave too. I thank you for what you’ve told me.’

Corbett nodded at Sorrel, bade her good night, collected his horse and crossed into the water meadow. For a while he paused and looked up at the sky, reflecting on what he’d learnt.

‘True,’ he whispered into the darkness, ‘this is a place of hideous murder!’

Walter Blidscote was having nightmares. He wasn’t asleep but he wished to God he was. After he had met that terrifying clerk in the crypt beneath St Edmund’s Church, Blidscote had strode off wielding his staff of office. He had walked quickly, pompously, with all the authority he could summon up. Once away from prying eyes, he’d slumped beneath a sycamore tree and allowed his fat body to tremble. Sweat had trickled down his back whilst his stomach squeezed and winced so much he had to retreat deeper into the trees to relieve himself.

Blidscote had been petrified.

‘I am living in the Valley of Ghosts,’ he’d whispered, staring round. He believed he could see shapes amongst the trees. Or was it just the branches in the curling mist? Blidscote felt he was being haunted. He recalled the words of a preacher: how a man’s sins, like hungry dogs, can pick up the scent and come howling down the passage of the years. Blidscote’s mind trailed back. He couldn’t forget the day of Sir Roger’s execution: Chapeleys standing on the cart, the noose round his neck. He’d protested his innocence, shouting that one day he would have his vengeance.

Blidscote stared at his hands. Were they covered in blood? Or was it just dirt? He wiped them on his hose and felt the cold mud beneath him. What happened if that keen hunting dog of a clerk started to dig up the bones of the past? This was not some local matter. The King had intervened. The great council at Westminster had issued warrants under the Great Seal. Blidscote knew something about the law. Sir Hugh Corbett may stand in his dark clothing and travel-stained boots but he represented the Crown. He could go anywhere, see anything, ask any questions. God and his angels help any who tried to impede him! Blidscote had so much to hide. Sometimes he sought consolation in being shriven, in confessing his secret sins in church, in vowing repentance, in lighting candles, but still the burden on his back grew heavier.

Blidscote became so frightened, he got up and walked back into the town for company. He’d visited a dingy alehouse. Now he was sickened at what he had drunk so quickly from the polluted vat and the dirt-encrusted, leather tankard. He had enjoyed a quick fumble with a greasy potboy in one of the outhouses but the ale fumes were now dulled, his sense of pleasure replaced by remorse. Blidscote stumbled along the lanes, making his way towards the square and the Golden Fleece. Guilt perched on his shoulder like a huge crow. He’d ignored Corbett’s request to visit the families of the victims. They would tell him nothing. Images came and went like fiery bursts in his befuddled mind. Blidscote was a boy again, snivelling-nosed and ragged-arsed, standing before Parson Hawdon, the old priest who had served St Edmund’s Church long before Parson Grimstone ever came.

‘Do not lie, boy!’ the old parson had thundered. ‘A lie echoes like a bell across the lake of Hell and the demons hear it.’

Blidscote paused, wiping the sweat from his unshaven face. He always did have an awful fear of the church: those gargoyles which grinned down at him from the pillars; the wooden carvings, depicting the realms of the dead, the dancing skeletons. . Blidscote felt so hot, he wondered if it was the glow from the fury of Hell. He paused and leant against the plaster wall of a house, mopping his face with the hem of his cloak. He was about to walk on when he felt the touch of cold steel on his sweaty neck. Blidscote tried to turn.

‘Stay where you are, bailiff of Melford!’

The sharp steel dug in a little closer. Blidscote couldn’t stop shaking. The voice was low, hollow, muffled, as if the speaker was wearing a mask. Blidscote forced his head round. It was a mask, ghoulish and garish like the face of a demon. Blidscote closed his eyes and whimpered. Was he having a nightmare? Had he died? Was this one of Hell’s scurriers sent to fetch him? Yet he recognised that voice from many years ago.

‘Well, well, Master Blidscote, we meet again.’

‘I have kept faith,’ Blidscote muttered. ‘And a still tongue in my head.’

‘And why shouldn’t you, Master Blidscote?’ came the cool reply. ‘What can you do? Confess all to the King’s justice or seek private words with the royal clerk? Will you tell him the truth? You can hang for perjury, Walter.’ The tone was now bantering. ‘Or haven’t you heard the news? How the King’s parliament at Winchester have issued a new statute? Perjury is now treason’s brother. And do you know what happens to a traitor?’

Blidscote just whimpered.

‘Then let me tell you, master bailiff. For we are all alone in the dark. That’s what we are, aren’t we, creatures of the night? Scurrying rats with our horde of secrets?’

The sword was quickly withdrawn.

‘Stay where you are!’ the voice hissed, and the demon figure melted away.

Blidscote did. A beggar was coming up the lane, trundling a small barrow heaped with rags and other rubbish he’d collected from the town midden heap. The small wheelbarrow creaked and clattered on the cobbles. Blidscote turned. He would have loved to have run but he knew his tormentor was still lurking in the shadows on the opposite side of the lane. The beggar man drew closer. He recognised Blidscote, put his barrow down and grinned in a display of rotting gums and fetid breath. Blidscote flinched, waving his hand.

‘Good evening, Master Blidscote.’

‘On your way! On your way!’

The man was about to protest but Blidscote gripped him by the shoulder.

‘Get you gone or I’ll have you in the stocks for vagrancy!’

The beggar took up his barrow and almost ran down the lane, muttering curses about unchristian bailiffs.

Blidscote took a step forward but the razor-sharp steel nicked his neck.

‘The Golden Fleece will wait,’ the voice whispered. ‘I was telling you about the penalty for treason and perjury. You will be taken to London and lodged in Newgate. Then you’ll be fastened to a hurdle behind a horse and dragged all the way to Smithfield. They’ll put you up a ladder and turn you off. Your fat legs will dance, your face will go black as your tongue protrudes. Afterwards they’ll cut you down, half dead or half alive. Does it really matter? They’ll quarter your sorry trunk, pickle it, dip it in tar, fix it above the city gates. Ah, travellers will comment, there’s Master Blidscote!’