Paul Doherty - The Midnight Man

‘What is it? Stephen?’

‘Magister, nothing.’

‘Nonsense!’ Anselm pushed his face close. ‘You saw something, didn’t you?’

Stephen nodded and described what he’d glimpsed.

‘I felt it,’ Anselm murmured, staring at a shaft of window light. ‘Even now, Stephen, at day time, they make their presence felt, but come. .’

They left by the corpse door going out into the cemetery. At first Stephen considered it to be a different place from the night before. The weak sun’s glowing warmth soothed his fears. The tumbled headstones and crosses didn’t seem so threatening. The ancient yew trees were just solid reminders of how things were rather than threatening shapes through the darkness. The wild grass and flowers exuded a sense of the ordinary. The air was sweet with different scents. Beyond the cemetery wall surged the noise of the ward coming to life: the clatter of carts, the clop of horse hooves and the first cries of tradesmen. Anselm insisted on walking the length and breadth of that unkempt cemetery. They went round the church, Anselm peering up at cornices, sills, ledges and buttresses. He seemed fascinated by the sun sparkling the glass and pointed out the carved faces of gargoyles with their gaping mouths, through which the rain water would pour. Anselm patted the grey stone wall of the square tower built to the right of the main door. He stepped back, shading his eyes as he stared up at the sheer height of this soaring donjon. He then walked on, stopping to rattle the latch of the narrow door to the sacristy, though that had been firmly locked the night before.

‘Magister?’

‘Nothing.’ Anselm walked back into the sunlight. ‘Do you sense or feel anything strange, Stephen?’

‘No, but. .’

‘Too silent, eh?’ Anselm nodded. ‘I also have a feeling of being watched.’ A rustling behind them made Anselm turn.

He strolled back up the low bank through the long grass, pushing aside the tangle of briar and bramble bush. Despite the disturbance there was no muffled pigeon cooing, no chattering jay or raucous gang of sparrows fluttering here and there, no swooping swallow or blackbird singing its heart out. Anselm seemed intent on finding something. Stephen hurried after him. He’d almost caught up with his master when a figure loomed up from behind an ancient, moss-covered tombstone. Stephen stifled a cry of surprise.

Anselm grabbed the stranger’s shoulder and pulled him closer. ‘Who are you?’

The stranger was tall and burly. His black hair hung in lank strips, his bushy moustache and beard almost hiding the sunburnt face. He broke free of the exorcist and held up a wickedly pointed harvest sickle.

‘Don’t threaten us,’ Anselm warned.

‘And don’t seize me!’ the stranger rasped back. ‘I am Owain Gascelyn, hired by Sir William to tidy this cemetery, if I am not harassed by demons, haunted by ghosts, plagued by warlocks or grabbed by exorcists.’

Gascelyn was the same height as Anselm, two yards at least, thick-set and well built, dark eyes bright. He was dressed like a labourer in a smock, leggings and scuffed boots, but his voice was cultured and, in his angry protest, he’d moved fluently from English to Norman French and then into Latin, describing Anselm as ‘Exorcisimus’. Anselm, taken by surprise, stepped back, studying the man from head to toe.

‘A labourer, a gardener with a Welsh first name and a Gascon surname, fluent in both French and Latin! Greetings and blessings to you, Brother! Excuse my surprise but I thought we were being watched. .’

‘As you were.’ Gascelyn stepped closer, scrutinizing Anselm and Stephen.

The novice stared back; for some reason this man frightened him. Why was that? Stephen wondered. Because he emanated the same violence Stephen’s father had, and still did? Gascelyn had thrown the sickle down but his fingers played with the Welsh stabbing dagger in its sheath on his broad belt.

‘Who are you, really?’ Anselm asked. ‘No, let me guess. Despite your appearance you’re educated, undoubtedly in some cathedral school then in the halls of either Oxford or Cambridge.’ He leaned forward and gently poked the man’s chest. ‘I know who you are, I know what you are. You’re a mailed clerk, aren’t you? A scribe who arms for battle? One who is also prepared to dirty his hands? Sir William’s man, yes? Ostensibly you’re here to clear this tangled mess now winter’s past but, in fact, you’re here to guard and to search, perhaps?’

Gascelyn grinned in a display of white broken teeth. ‘I am he,’ he replied. ‘And Sir William told me about you, Brother Anselm. You are correct. Since All Souls past and the depredations of the Midnight Man, I guard this cemetery. I am,’ he joked, ‘the Custos Mortuorum — the Keeper of the Dead. I warn off those night-walkers who might lurk here once twilight falls.’ Gascelyn grinned lopsidedly. ‘Not to mention the whores with their customers, the gallants with their lemans and the roaring boys with their doxies.’

‘And what have you seen?’

‘Nothing,’ Gascelyn replied. ‘Word has gone out, seeping along the alleyways, runnels and lanes of Candlewick, that this truly is God’s acre. Nothing more exciting happens here than a hunting cat, or that tribe of stoats nesting in the far wall. Come,’ he picked up the sickle, ‘I’ll show you my kingdom.’

Gascelyn led them off along the narrow, beaten trackway, pushing aside bramble and briar. He explained how most of the cemetery was full, pointing to the mounds of milk-white bones thrusting up out of the coarse soil. On one occasion he surprised a mangy, yellow-coated mongrel from the alleyways, nosing at a broken skull. Gascelyn hurled a stone and the dog fled through the long grass, barking noisily. Gascelyn showed them where the great burial pit had been dug, its soil still loose due to the lime and other elements used. Only the occasional sturdy shrub now grew in this great waste ringed by bushes and gorse. It also served as the Poor Man’s Lot, the burial place for strangers as well as Haceldema — the Field of Blood, where victims of violence or those hanged along the nearby banks of the Thames were buried. Nearby stood a simple wooden shed: two walls and a roof like any city laystall. Anselm and Stephen walked over to this. The inside was gloomy and reeked of putrefaction. Three corpses lay there, wrapped in filthy canvas shrouds lashed tightly with thick, tarred rope. Gascelyn explained how all three were the cadavers of beggars found dead in the surrounding streets. Anselm recited the requiem and blessed the remains. Gascelyn thanked him, adding how all three corpses would be later buried in the great burial pit as the soil was looser and easy to dig.

Stephen felt the place was stifling hot. ‘A brooding evil hangs here,’ he whispered.

‘Though that can be for the good,’ Gascelyn offered. ‘It keeps the undesirables away.’

He then answered questions about himself as the exorcist led them out of this dingy shed: how he was the son of a Welsh woman and a Gascon knight who’d served in the King’s wars against the French. How he’d been educated as a clerk, entered Sir William’s retinue and seen military service with his lord both in France and along the Scottish march.

‘And so you’re Sir William’s sworn man by night and day, in peace and war?’

‘I’ve not taken an oath of fealty, but yes.’

‘Were the Midnight Man’s revelries held on the site of the great burial pit?’ Stephen asked, abruptly trying to shake off a deepening unease.

‘Yes, I believe they were.’

‘A place of desolation and devastation where any abomination could flourish,’ Anselm declared. ‘I felt it. I am sure my friend Stephen did also. This is a sad and sombre place.’