Paul Doherty - A haunt of murder

‘Is that possible?’ Beatrice asked.

‘If Brythnoth’s cross is here,’ said Robin, ‘at least we can look at it. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

Beatrice was distracted by shadows flitting across the skies like dark clouds. ‘I should go back to the castle,’ she murmured. ‘I really shouldn’t leave Ralph. He’s in danger, you know…’

‘Stay for a while,’ Isabella soothed. ‘Stay here, Beatrice. Let’s search for Brythnoth’s cross.’

‘But where can we begin?’ Beatrice asked. The shadows were lengthening and, because she wanted to, she felt the growing coldness of the air. ‘Have you met Crispin and Clothilde?’

‘Oh yes, on many occasions,’ Robin smiled. ‘A precious pair, them!’

‘They said that one day I could learn how to intervene in the world of the living, make my presence felt.’

‘Oh, we can do that.’

Beatrice started in surprise.

‘We can,’ Isabella confirmed, grasping her hand. ‘Come, Beatrice, we’ll show you.’

‘What about Brythnoth’s cross?’

‘Oh, leave that,’ Robin laughed. ‘If, as you say, it is in Devil’s Spinney then it will stay there for a little while longer.’

‘But what about Ralph?’ Beatrice looked longingly towards the barbican.

‘Don’t you want to intervene?’ Isabella asked.

‘Come away, Mistress!’ Brother Antony was suddenly standing on the trackway glaring angily at her. ‘Come away, Beatrice!’ He lifted a hand, dark and threatening against the blue sky.

‘Oh, just ignore him!’ Isabella hissed mischievously. ‘Where would you like to go, Beatrice?’

Beatrice experienced a cold blast of air. Brother Antony appeared to have grown larger. He stood with his hands hanging by his sides, staring fixedly at her. Beatrice suddenly resented his lecturing, his vague promises, his constant watching of her.

‘The Pot of Thyme!’ she declared defiantly, shouting the words as if she wanted Brother Antony to hear. ‘Let’s go to the Pot of Thyme!’

She ran, Robin and Isabella clasping her hands. They hastened across the heathland like children playing some game. Robin and Isabella were laughing, squeezing Beatrice’s hands. They passed the churchyard and Beatrice paused. Usually God’s acre stretched out, a mixture of headstones and weather-beaten crosses among high-growing grass and old yew trees, gnarled and bent, their branches stretching out. A quiet, serene place. Beatrice stared in horror. It had all gone. Instead she was looking down an icy-white valley, high banks of snow on either side with a pathway stretching to the light-blue horizon. At the end of the valley a fiery sun glowed as it dipped into the west. On either side of the valley an army of shadows thronged. What really caught Beatrice’s attention was the figure coming along the pathway. Two great hounds bounded before him, barking loudly, their great ears flapping as they dived in and out of the snow. The figure drew nearer. He looked like a chapman with his sumpter pony. He was dressed in vari-coloured garments on which little bells jingled at every step. Beatrice glanced quickly at her companions. Robin and Isabella were kneeling, foreheads against the ground.

‘What is it?’ she gasped, feeling a fear she had never experienced since that dreadful fall from the parapet walk. ‘Robin, Isabella, what is it?’

She was aware of singing, the deep-throated voices of the shadows on either side of the valley chanting a paean of praise. Robin and Isabella still knelt, heads down. Beatrice again looked at the valley but it had gone, the snow, the trackway, the mysterious jingling figure and those fierce barking hounds.

‘What happened?’ Beatrice demanded. ‘I saw snow, a pedlar!’

Isabella was now on her feet, face glowing, eyes sparkling. ‘Oh, it’s only a friend of ours.’

Beatrice felt uneasy. ‘But why did you kneel?’ She looked again at the graveyard where grey shapes moved among the tombstones like tendrils of mist on a spring morning.

‘You’ll see,’ said Robin. ‘But forget the dead, Beatrice, the living await.’

Beatrice remained fixed to the spot. The graveyard was now full of those silver discs, shining and shimmering. They formed a path as a golden sphere left the church, rising up in the air and then back down again. Beatrice was sure the golden sphere, or whatever was in it, was staring directly at her. She had learnt how to experience, to feel, to stretch out her mind. She closed her eyes and experienced a deep warmth, a loving embrace, as when she and Ralph used to lie together in the grass and stare up at the sky. Then the sphere disappeared and Brother Antony was standing on a tombstone like some huge, forbidding black raven, gesturing at her to come closer.

‘No, come with us, Beatrice,’ Robin whispered. ‘And you’ll learn something. You’ll find the power that he denies you.’

Beatrice was about to refuse then she recalled her helplessness as Ralph struggled in the mire and, turning away, she joined the other two in their wild flight along the cobbled high street of Maldon.

The Pot of Thyme’s taproom was filling with customers. Beatrice was acutely aware something was wrong. She had visited the tavern on a number of occasions. It was usually friendly, the meeting place of travelling people, chapmen, tinkers, pedlars, wandering scholars, itinerant friars. None of these was present now. Only peasants, villeins, cottagers, young men from the village and the surrounding hamlets. Taylis coldly turned away anyone else. The men were gathered round the overturned casks which served as tables. Beatrice noticed that the trap door to the cellars beneath had been opened; one of the pot boys was bringing out quivers of arrows, bows, helmets, pikes and hauberks. Martin the miller was there, his face wet with in tears. Others tried to comfort him.

‘Come on,’ Isabella urged. ‘Let’s see what mischief we can cause.’

‘No, no, let me stay here. What’s happening?’ Beatrice sensed the resentment, hatred and grudges curdling in these men’s hearts.

‘It’s only a cauldron,’ Robin whispered. ‘Coming to bubble – it will spill over soon enough.’

Beatrice would not be moved. She stood in the corner. The ugly mood of the gathering was apparent and audible in the muttered curses about the King’s taxmen, the castle, and Sir John Grasse. After Taylis closed and barred the door, he went and stood in the middle of the room, banging his staff against the wooden floorboards.

‘When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’

The doggerel lines were taken up in a roar.

‘Worms of the earth, that’s what the great lords of the dunghill call us!’ shouted Taylis. ‘We are tied to the soil, we are heavily taxed and now our young men and women are killed. Fulk in the moat, Eleanora in some filthy dungeon.’

‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life!’ an old man chanted, saliva dripping from his gumless mouth.

‘There’s trouble at the castle,’ someone else observed. ‘Fulk and Eleanora are not the only ones to die.’

The words created a moment of silence.

‘What are you saying, Piers?’ Martin the miller demanded.

Beatrice smiled as Piers clambered to his feet. He was a good, strong man, clear-eyed and honest-faced. When she was a child, Piers used to dangle her on his knee and tell her tales about wicked goblins and elves.

‘I think we should take good counsel,’ Piers declared vehemently. ‘Master Taylis is right, the lords of the dunghill oppress us so I do not speak for them. The royal tax collectors are nothing but jackdaws which hunt for anything that glitters. I do not speak for them either.’ His blunt eloquency brought murmurs of approval.

‘But I do think we should be careful and take prudent counsel.’