Paul Doherty - A haunt of murder

‘Don’t think that, Beatrice,’ he whispered. ‘The lover always wishes the best for the loved.’

Beatrice glanced away.

‘Remember what I have said. Remember the warnings I have given you. Let me tell you something else. As you travel this world, as you cross from one existence to another, be careful of those who seem to be angels of light.’

‘How will I know the difference?’

‘How do you know an apple tree?’ He countered, and answered his own riddle. ‘By the fruit it bears.’

Beatrice started at the terrible howling of a dog, followed by terrible cries from Devil’s Spinney.

‘I must go.’ Antony smiled. ‘But I shall return. I shall watch you, Beatrice, and, when I can, I will help. But in the end all decisions must be yours.’ He passed a hand over his face, gently stretched forward and patted her cheek. His eyes were sad. ‘You have so much light in you, so much power. Don’t let it be turned. Beware. Crispin and Clothilde are what they are but, in your travels, be most careful of the Minstrel Man.’

‘The Minstrel Man?’

‘You will meet him.’ Antony was now moving away.

‘The Minstrel Man?’

‘That’s what he calls himself,’ Antony replied. ‘He knows you are here, Beatrice, and he’ll come looking for you. You are a great prize. You are not as lonely as you think. Farewell, Beatrice!’

The silver disc of light appeared between them and Antony was gone.

Beatrice rose and walked towards Devil’s Spinney. She went into the trees, moving without effort through the undergrowth; the brambles and weeds proved no hindrance. At last she found herself in the grove, a small glade in the centre, fringed by seven great oaks. She had been here on many occasions with Ralph; they’d lie in the soft grass and plan their future lives. Beatrice again felt that terrible surge of rage like a tongue of fire through her whole being. She crouched down, stared across the glade and blinked. She was not alone.

Men, old and grizzled, grey beards reaching down beneath their stomachs, their heads garlanded with wreaths, stood beneath an oak tree. They were garbed from head to toe in dirty white robes. They carried sickle-shaped knives and were staring up into the branches. Beatrice felt a chill of fear and started in alarm as a naked body crashed from the branches only to jerk and dangle on the rope tied round its neck. Beatrice stared in disgust. The man was naked except for a loin cloth. He choked and kicked as the ancient priests, following some bloodthirsty ritual, lifted their hands and chanted to the skies. The grisly scene provoked memories of what Ralph had told her about this place. He used to frighten her, in a teasing way, when he described the pagan priests who would meet here to sacrifice victims to their pagan god of the oak.

Beatrice was watching a phantasm but the horror repelled her. She wished, despite what Antony had said, that Crispin or Clothilde were here.

Words Between the Pilgrims

The clerk of Oxford paused in his tale and stared at the faces, tense and watchful in the firelight.

‘Would you fill my stoup with ale?’

The miller hastened to obey.

The summoner, his pimples even brighter in the firelight, staggered to his feet and stared across at the clerk. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘He didn’t say it was true,’ the squire pointed out.

‘Well, is it true?’ the summoner demanded, his voice shrill.

‘It depends,’ said the clerk, ‘what you mean by true.’

‘That’s no answer,’ the summoner replied aggressively.

The clerk stared across at their leader. Sir Godfrey was studying him closely. The knight did not wish to intervene even though he was a man who had experienced the twilight world of demons. He had hunted the murderous blood-drinkers scattered throughout Europe from the shores of the Bosphorus to the cold, icy wastes of Norway. Yet that was his personal struggle. He was also special emissary for the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury and often attended hushed, closed meetings in certain chambers at the House of Secrets in London. Beside him his son, the squire, stirred.

‘Father,’ he whispered. ‘Weren’t you sent to Ravenscroft Castle?’

‘Hush now,’ his father responded.

He sat and listened as the summoner continued to question the clerk. For some strange reason the summoner seemed most perturbed by the story. The knight smiled grimly to himself. His son was right, he had been sent to Ravenscroft Castle, and it was only a matter of time before someone recognised the name Goodman Winthrop. After all, the tax collector had been the scourge of the southern shires.

The taverner raised his fat, cheery face. ‘Sir!’ he shouted at the summoner. ‘Will you shut up!’ He stretched out his hands towards the flames. ‘I know of Ravenscroft Castle and I also know of two people called Robert and Catherine Arrowner who owned a tavern named the Golden Tabard.’

‘But if the tale is true,’ the pardoner exclaimed, ‘it concerns us. Good ladies, gentle sirs, look around you.’

They did so, staring into the mist-cloying darkness.

‘The miller said this place was haunted,’ the pardoner continued. ‘Does that mean the dead are all around us now?’

‘Oh, spare the thought and don’t tickle my imagination!’ the wife of Bath squeaked. She just wished she hadn’t turned away from the flames. The trees stood like menacing sentinels around them. And that mist! Did it bring more to this silent grove than just the cold night air?

‘It could be true,’ the prioress’s priest spoke up. Usually this handsome, florid-faced man kept his own counsel. ‘I believe death is like entering a mansion house; each chamber is full of new worlds.’ He smiled at the clerk. ‘I am much taken by your description, sir.’ He paused as an owl hooted. ‘And before this night is done, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to tell us where this story came from.’

‘Perhaps I will,’ the clerk muttered. ‘But listen now, gentle sirs and ladies. True, the darkness is deep, a mist has swirled in through the trees and the owl keeps its lonely vigil. Yet these are not real terrors.’ He glanced away. ‘Not like the ones to come.’

Ralph Mortimer sat in Devil’s Spinney, his back to an oak tree. He watched a squirrel clamber between fallen branches and scrabble up the trunk of one of the ancient oaks. Ralph wiped the tears from his eyes and pushed the wineskin away.

‘I’ve drunk enough,’ he muttered. ‘And that’s no help.’

A few hours earlier he had attended Beatrice’s funeral in the small cemetery in the far corner of the castle near the rabbit warren. Her aunt and uncle had attended, Theobald Vavasour, Adam and Marisa, and of course Sir John Grasse and Lady Anne. Father Aylred had sung the Requiem Mass and then the corpse had been taken out on a bier and lowered into the shallow grave. The carpenter had put together a crude cross and Sir John had solemnly promised that it would be replaced, within the month, by a stone plinth bearing Beatrice’s name.

It was only when the grave was being filled in that Ralph had fully understood what was happening. Beatrice was gone. He would never see her again: those beautiful eyes, the merry mouth, her endearing mannerisms. Above all, her presence, warm and loving, like stepping out into the sunshine and basking in its golden warmth. Sometimes, in his chamber, he smelt her perfume – Beatrice had kept some there and unable to bear the reminder he’d given it to Marisa.

Ralph, who had studied all forms of knowledge at the Halls of Cambridge, could not come to terms with his grief. Deep in his heart he felt a devastating loneliness, a savage hurt which would not heal. Adam and Marisa had been helpful. Father Aylred had tried to give words of comfort but it was to no avail. The more they spoke, the more intense the pain flared.