Paul Doherty - The Midnight Man

‘It’s time, isn’t it? You brought us here, Beauchamp. Let us see what the twilight brings.’

They left the guest house and entered the monks’ cemetery, a stretch of wild grass, flowers and shrubs bending slowly under an impetuous breeze. Above them the gathering clouds promised rain: the sky was grey and lowering, shrouding the cemetery in a more sinister aspect. They re-entered the gardens of the dead, row after row of battered crosses and crumbling headstones, hummocks and mounds long overgrown. All this was being disturbed as Beauchamp had described. Graves were being opened, rotting shrouds ripped, mouldy coffins and caskets shattered. The skulls and bones of long-dead monks were being piled into carts, tumbrils and wheelbarrows all intended for the charnel house. The workers had stopped for the day but the mounds of white glistening bones and heaps of skulls with gaping jaws were unnerving. A huge crow perched on a skull, claws slipping as if that bird of ill omen wished to grasp and carry it away. Stephen fingered his Ave beads even as Anselm took out his own from the pouch on his waist cord. The dead truly hung close. Faint voices carried on the wind. Whispered conversation, softly murmured prayers and traces of plain chanting. Shapes and shadows assumed a life of their own. Wisps of mist hovered then moved swiftly out of sight. The undergrowth became alive with strange scuttlings. Twigs snapped as if others walked beside or behind them. Steven glanced at Beauchamp. The clerk seemed unmoved by all this, walking purposefully, cloak thrown back, hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

They entered the shadowy precincts of the great abbey church. Stephen glanced up and flinched at a massive gargoyle face glaring down at him from a cornice, a fierce dragon with scaly bat-like wings and a monstrous head, its clawed feet brought up as if ready to spring. Other stone faces glowered at him from pillars, sills, corners and ledges: grinning apes, fierce lions or rearing centaurs. A lay brother met them at the west door. As they turned into the cloisters, Stephen glimpsed the windows of the crypt; the lay brother, mumbling to himself, led them straight to that underground chamber. He unlocked an oaken door; black with age and studded with iron, it creaked open. The flaring sconce torch just inside leapt in the draught as if fiercely greeting them. The monk took this from its holder and handed it to Anselm.

‘Brother,’ his face creased in a fearful smile, ‘everything is ready below. This is as far as I go. The cloisters are empty. Father Abbot wishes it so but,’ he pointed towards the nearby pyx chamber, ‘if you need help there is a bell. As I said, the cloisters are empty, at least of the living.’ The lay brother bowed and padded off into the darkness.

‘Sir Miles.’ Anselm raised the torch a little higher to throw light on that enigmatic royal clerk, standing deliberately in the darkness. Stephen couldn’t decide if the clerk was fearful or just a cynical observer of all that was happening.

‘Sir Miles,’ Anselm repeated, ‘you need come no further. We will be safe.’

‘I could stay and keep watch with you?’

‘No, if need be we will ask.’ Anselm sketched a blessing in the air. ‘You will stay where?’

‘In the guest house.’ The clerk smiled and walked away in a clatter of high-heeled boots and the jingle of silver-edged spurs.

‘ Et tenebrae facta ,’ Anselm whispered, watching him go, ‘and darkness fell. Come, Stephen.’

They moved on to the spiral staircase. Anselm closed the door behind them. They continued down, clutching the wall. Anselm paused. ‘The steps here are wooden,’ he explained. ‘Another protection when the jewels were stored here. These steps were usually taken away to create a wide gap, a sure hindrance, or trap, for any would-be thief.’

They stepped on to the wooden casings which bent sharply under their weight. Stephen fought to control his fear. The wooden boards also created a noisy clatter which seemed to fill the iron-stoned, sombre stairwell. They continued down, the fiery cressets making the shadow dance. The air grew chilly and slightly musty. Stephen sensed they were not alone. Shadows flittered before them along the winding staircase. A gossiping voice rose and fell. Something brushed the back of Stephen’s hand. He was gently jostled and slipped a foot. He steadied himself and thought of Alice, her face summer-warm, full lips firm against his, and he desperately wished to be with her. He would love to be sitting in a garden or some cheery taproom staring into those laughing eyes. Instead he was here in this ice-cold tomb, ghosts bustling around him, the crypt opening up like some greedy mouth ready to devour him.

‘Leave us!’ a voice spat.

Stephen paused at the clang of iron against stone, as if someone below was picking at the walls or floor.

‘Ignore it, Stephen,’ Anselm warned.

They reached the bottom. Torches, candles and oil lamps glowed. The crypt, buried deep beneath the chapter house above, was octagonal in shape, about four yards in width. The only natural light was provided by six windows set at ground level with chamfered jambs and square heads. Deep recesses swept up to the windows, the jambs being set back at least two yards from the inner wall. Each had a segmented pointed arch and could only be reached by that narrow sloping gulley. The windows were heavily barred, iron rods embedded in the stone sill along the bottom of each window and set in the square head at the top. The floor was tiled. The concave ceiling, a gloomy vault, was supported by thick ribs of stone radiating from a massive rounded pillar in the centre of the crypt. Stephen slowly walked around this. The pillar, with a moulded base and capital, was about three feet in circumference and fashioned out of red square brick. Stephen crouched and inspected one section closely. He realized that some of these bricks could be removed to reveal a hollow recess within. He got to his feet. Despite the candles, lantern horn and the faint glow from the brazier, the crypt was definitely cold. Even so, Beauchamp had prepared well. The crypt had been stripped of everything except for two stools, palliasses and a table with water and wine flagons, two pewter goblets and a platter of dried food. Anselm was staring at the windows; the shutters had been removed and the light pouring through was now greying as dusk settled.

‘Seventeen feet thick,’ Anselm murmured, ‘that’s what they say about these walls.’ He pointed to the window on his far right. ‘That’s how Puddlicot got in; his stone mason chipped away at the sill. See, unlike the rest, it no longer has one. They then removed the iron bars, squeezed in and slid down the recess into the treasury. Some items were stored in the pillar; its removable bricks served as a strong box.’ Anselm’s account was so matter-of-fact that Stephen was startled violently by the pounding on the door leading to the stairwell. He hurriedly opened the door but there was no one. The pounding began again, this time against the door at the top of the steps, which Stephen had bolted behind them.

‘Close the door!’ Anselm shouted.

Stephen did so, pushing with all his strength, but some invisible presence, like a violent wind, seemed to be pressing against it. Anselm hastened to help. They slammed the door shut, pulling the bolts across. Anselm leaned against this, fighting a racking cough while wiping the sweat from his brow.

‘So it begins.’ He gasped and staggered across to pick up his psalter. He motioned Stephen to sit on the stool next to him as he intoned the opening verse of Vespers. ‘Oh, Lord, come to our aid. Oh, Lord, make haste to help us. Our help is in the name of the Lord. .’

Stephen glanced up and recoiled at the face, like an image in burnished steel swimming towards him, eyes all bloodshot, purple lips twisted in a cynical smile. Other figures, hideous in aspect, jostled in: hollowed, furrowed faces, eyes staring, mouths opening and closing. Stephen crossed himself. The faces seemed unaware of him but turned on each other as if in conversation. He could not hear though his mind caught sharply-whispered words such as ‘treasure’, ‘pyx’, ‘charnel door’. The figures grew more distinct, taking on bodily shapes like steam twisting up from a bubbling cauldron. The visitants were garbed in the robes, girdles and sandals of Benedictine monks. Stephen could even make out their tonsures. One of them carried a massive key ring which he jangled, though no sound was heard.