Paul Doherty - House of the Red Slayer

‘Out of the depths have I called to thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice.’

By the time he had reached the fourth verse Athelstan was already distracted. Was Sir John right? he wondered. Did the great demon, the Red Slayer, haunt both his cemetery and the Tower of London? He closed his eyes, finished the psalm and made his way to the pallet bed. For a while Athelstan lay listening to Cranston’s heavy snoring and fell asleep almost at the very instant when, back in the darkened cemetery outside St Erconwald’s, shadows flitted across the graveyard to crouch over a freshly dug grave.

In his dream, Athelstan stood on a darkened ship. The bowsprit, mast and sails were covered in black crepe. Above him on the poop, a skeleton, face a white, leering mask, held the wheel and grinned wickedly down at him. The sea was smooth and clear as thick, dark glass. The sky overhead was empty of stars and hung like a purple-blue cloth around the ship as it drifted towards the horizon where a fiery red glow lit the gateway to Hell. On one end of the mast a figure jerked spasmodically. Athelstan glimpsed the blackened, twisted face of Pike the ditcher hanging by the neck. The friar turned as someone tapped him on the shoulder. His brother Francis stood there: his face was blueish-white under a shock of black hair. A thin red snake of blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth; his chest was an open, bubbling mass of blood where he had received his death wound.

‘You ran away from your monastery, Brother?’ His voice sounded hollow.

Athelstan stretched out his hand. ‘I am sorry, Francis,’ he murmured. Athelstan stared around. Was Cranston here? He was sure he could hear the coroner’s voice.

Athelstan walked to the entrance of the hold and gazed down. A naked woman squatted there, her face hidden behind a black veil; from her mouth came a foul toad and round her neck curled an amber snake, its red-slit eyes flashing like diamonds. A fat-bellied rat crouched beside her. Athelstan walked down the steps. Behind the woman, kneeling stern and impassive, was a knight in full armour, gauntleted hands resting on the hilt of his great two-handled sword. The hold stank of death and Athelstan could feel someone pressing close behind him. He squirmed violently as a hand seized his shoulder.

‘Athelstan! Athelstan! Brother, for God’s sake!’

The friar opened his eyes. Cranston, his fat face wrinkled with concern, stared down at him.

‘Brother, what is the matter?’

Athelstan stared back. ‘Good Sir John, I was dreaming.’ He raised a clammy hand and rubbed his face. ‘I was dreaming,’ he repeated.

‘And not a pleasant one!’

‘No, Sir John. Some succubus of the night with the power of a thousand scorpions seized my mind.’

Cranston gazed quizzically back and Athelstan grinned.

‘I am only joking. I think my nightmare was due more to the table than the grave. We dined too well last night.’

‘Yesterday is gone and today is today,’ Cranston pompously replied. ‘Come on, Brother, it’s daybreak.’

Athelstan rose quickly, said a hasty prayer and washed himself in the freezing water from a cracked pewter jug. They gathered their possessions and moved down to the cold, deserted taproom. The fire was not lit and the room didn’t seem as cheerful and welcoming as it had the night before; they broke their fast quickly on warm oat cakes and mulled wine, saddled their horses and rode back along the track to the highway.

The day looked as if it would be a fine one. A weak sun was about to rise, turning the darkness to a dusty grey: their horses plodded along the frozen track, both riders taking special care against the potholes, some as deep as a man, which could bring down and even kill both the unwary rider and his horse. The countryside was empty and silent. Athelstan shivered as he remembered his nightmare and the eerie stillness of that terrible dream. The hedgerows on either side were still thickly covered with snow and, beyond them, the fields lay iron hard under sheets of ice. A circle of hungry crows soared noisily above a clump of oak trees, branches black against the lightening sky.

‘I wish I was back in London,’ Cranston moaned. ‘I hate the bloody countryside, I hate the silence!’

Athelstan caught a blur of colour in a ditch on the side of the track and pulled his horse over to look closer. The corpse which lay there was frozen hard, that of an old man covered from head to knee in a loose, threadbare gown. Athelstan closed his eyes and breathed a prayer as he glimpsed the blue-black holes where the hungry ravens had pecked at the scrawny, whitening flesh.

‘God rest him!’ Cranston murmured. ‘Brother, there is nothing we can do.’

They moved on through a silent, sleeping village, only a few plumes of black smoke giving any sign of life. After an hour’s ride they approached the village of Leighton. At the crossroads they glimpsed a group of villagers huddled round the blackened scaffold. Thankfully, the iron gibbet which swung from its hook was empty. The villagers were gathered round a corpse whilst beside it two burly labourers hacked the iron ground at the foot of the scaffold. Then-hoes and mattocks cleared a shallow hole while their breath hung heavy in the frost air. Athelstan looked at Cranston. The coroner shrugged though his hand went beneath his cloak to ensure his dagger was loose in its sheath. The villagers turned at the riders’ approach. An old woman, her face yellow and lined with age, scrawny body covered in the battered hide of a cow, shuffled towards them.

‘Morrow! Morrow!’ she cried. ‘Travellers on a road like this?’ Her milky eyes grinned slyly up at Athelstan. ‘Good morning, Father. ‘Tis rare to see a priest up so early.’

‘Mother!’ Cranston bellowed back, loosening the muffler round his mouth. ‘It’s good to see anyone in such Godforsaken weather. What are you doing?’

‘Burying Eadwig.’

‘Here?’ Athelstan asked. ‘You have no church, no cemetery?’

The old hag lifted her skinny hand. ‘Come and see! Come and see!’

Reluctantly they pushed their horses nearer. Cranston’s mount became skittish and even Philomel showed a lively interest in the group round the scaffold. The villagers parted as the coroner and his companion approached. Athelstan glimpsed red, dirty faces, greasy, matted hair, and the occasional glare of hatred at their well-fed horses and warm, woollen cloaks. Cranston took one look at Eadwig’s body, closed his eyes and drew away. The peasant had been hanged. His face was black, tongue half-bitten off but still clenched tightly between yellow teeth, whilst one eye had popped from its socket and lay grotesquely against the bruised cheek.

‘Good God!’ Athelstan breathed. ‘What happened?’

‘He killed himself,’ the old hag cackled. ‘And you know the law, Father?’

‘Oh, yes, Mother, I know the law.’ He looked at the small, wooden stake leaning against the scaffold. ‘Sir John, I suggest we ride on.’

The coroner needed no second bidding. They turned their horses, ignoring the soft cackles of laughter behind them. Athelstan closed his eyes, praying from whatever psalm he could remember to fend off the awful terrors which clung to the world of men. Behind him he heard the faint sounds of a wooden mallet driving the stake through the suicide’s heart.

‘Good God!’ Cranston murmured. ‘You priests, Athelstan, should change all that. Only the good Lord knows why the poor bastard killed himself, but must a suicide be buried near a gibbet at the crossroads with a stake driven through his heart?’

‘The bishops have tried to stop it,’ Athelstan replied. ‘But Christ’s teaching, Sir John, in certain parts and over certain hearts, lies as thin and as loose as a spider’s web.’