Paul Doherty: Song of a Dark Angel

'Why shouldn't they?' Alice said. 'I believe there are similar movements all over Europe?'

'But no one questions all this?' Ranulf insisted.

'The Pastoureaux also come to me,' Dame Cecily told him. 'We give them cloth, wine and food. In return they work on our estate, in our gardens and orchards, as they do for Sir Simon. Their community is a changing one, but the young men and women seem full of hope. They stay for a few weeks at the Hermitage, for what Father Joseph calls the period of purification, then he or Master Philip takes them to the nearest port. They are given money, a warrant, a change of clothing, some food, and off they sail.' She shrugged. 'They seem honest enough. They hold everything in common and anything they earn is put into the community treasury.'

She smiled at Ranulf and the manservant glimpsed the lechery in the prioress's eyes.

A hot one there, he thought, and smiled to himself – perhaps a visit to the good canonesses might not go amiss. Ranulf often boasted to Maltote, 'I was born a villain and I can smell villains'. Well, he had smelled them tonight and, as he held the prioress's glance, Ranulf fleetingly wondered what old Master Long Face thought of it all.

'And the women travel abroad as well?' Corbett asked.

'Why shouldn't they?' Father Augustine asked. 'What's a young girl's lot in a peasant village? Hard work, marriage to some lout? Half-dead with child-bearing by the time she's reached her twentieth summer. It's not much better for the young men, they're either chained to the plough or sent off to the king's wars in Scotland.'

'I don't like them,' Adam Catchpole interjected. He carefully placed his thick, muscular arms on the table top. 'I don't like Philip Nettler or even the saintly Master Joseph. They are both idle buggers! I come from a village something like this.' His harsh voice suddenly rose. 'I've seen these movements before! They tell the simpletons that Jerusalem is round the corner or over the brow of the next hill. It never is!' He stared at Corbett. 'And you know that, don't you, Sir Hugh? Otherwise you and Master Monck would not be here.'

'In a way, yes,' Corbett replied quietly. He paused as a servant refilled his goblet. 'The Pastoureaux,' he went on 'originated in France. The name means Shepherds. They were organized some fifty years ago by a renegade monk called Jacob who assumed the strange title Master of Hungary.' Corbett sipped from his goblet. 'According to reports, Jacob claimed to have been told in a vision to organize the poor, like the shepherds of Bethlehem, and send them to the Holy Land to await Christ's return. Unfortunately, he attracted all society's human flotsam and jetsam – apostate clerics, prostitutes, thieves, murderers and wolfsheads. Jacob divided them into companies and, instead of marching to Jerusalem, they began to live off the land like mercenaries. Some who opposed them were cut down by the axe; others, particularly clerics, were stabbed to death or drowned in rivers. These Pastoureaux attacked the Jews and, within years, had decided that their principal task was to wipe out all clerics – priests, bishops, even the pope himself – and found a new Church. Then the movement spread across the Rhine to England. Each group of Pastoureaux is different. Some are violent. Others, like the group at the Hermitage, are peaceful – they lead a simple life and lift their hands against no man. However' – Corbett looked across the table at Father Augustine – the king is concerned. He does not wish to harass innocent people, but a similar group of Pastoureaux, at Shoreham in Sussex, organized an affray in which a royal official was killed.' He shrugged. 'Hence our arrival at Hunstanton.'

'I still think that those at the Hermitage are troublemakers,' Catchpole spoke up. 'Far too many strange things have happened in the area since they arrived.'

'Such as?' Ranulf asked in mock innocence, nudging Maltote, who had drunk so much wine he was beginning to fall asleep.

Catchpole was also drunk; his hard face was flushed and he beat his fist gently on the table top. 'Must I speak for everybody?' he asked. He thrust forward a raised hand, thumb up. 'We've had graves robbed, haven't we, Father Augustine?'

The priest nodded solemnly.

'What do you mean?' Corbett asked.

'Graves in our churchyard have been disturbed,' the priest said. 'Coffins buried for years have been dragged to the surface and hacked up, their contents strewn about like offal from a butcher's yard. God knows who does it! Perhaps witches, Lords of the Crossroads, Masters of the Black Sabbath or whatever they call themselves. Sir Simon and I have both organized watches, but the perpetrators have never been caught.' Father Augustine sighed deeply. 'I have warned my parishioners that, if we catch the blasphemers responsible, I will excommunicate them with bell, book and candle!'

'There've been other happenings as well,' Catchpole interrupted. 'I've seen ships coming close inshore at night, lanterns winking. Signals to someone, but God knows who.'

'Do you think the Pastoureaux are involved in that?' Selditch asked.

'In the autumn,' Catchpole continued, ignoring the question, 'when the evenings were fair, I went out on the headlands. I saw the ships, or rather their lights, but could see no answering signal from the land!'

'But the Pastoureaux never leave their enclosure at night,' Father Augustine asserted. 'These are smugglers.' He smiled apologetically at Gurney. 'No offence, Sir Simon, but the coast is rife with them. Ships from Boston, Bishop's Lynn, Ipswich and Yarmouth. There's a thriving trade. Nonetheless Master Catchpole is right. Strange things do happen here,' – he looked slyly along the table at the prioress – 'such as the death of a member of your community, Dame Cecily.'

The prioress pursed her lips and looked down her nose, as if she did not wish to discuss the matter.

'One of your sisters?' Corbett enquired.

'Aye,' Monck added maliciously. 'It would appear that Dame Agnes, treasurer of the convent was accustomed to taking walks at night along the headland. Apparently she slipped and fell to her death on the rocks below.'

'And, of course,' Selditch interposed, 'there are the murders.' His flushed face and sparkling eyes showed how much he was relishing this litany of disasters. He might perhaps have said more, but at that moment the steward blew his silver horn and the servants brought to the table apples roasted in brown sugar, flavoured with cinnamon and covered with a thick, rich cream as well as plates of sweetmeats, comfits and marchpanes. As Gurney's other guests chattered amongst themselves Ranulf nudged his master. 'A pretty pottage,' he whispered. 'Who would think, Master, that such a collection of notables would have so much to hide?'

Dame Cecily was straining her ears to overhear them so Corbett simply shook his head in reply. But I am not surprised, he thought, staring across the table. Wherever there is wealth, power and the human heart you will find all sorts of crimes, misdemeanours, and sordid affairs. At the king's court high-born wives sold themselves for favours and high-ranking clerics hid in their love-nests a sweet girl or a fresh-faced boy with soft hands and plump buttocks.

At last the servants withdrew. Gurney tried to divert the conversation by asking Corbett about the progress of the war in Scotland, but Selditch, full of wine and mischief, steered the conversation back to the recent murders.

'The murder of the baker's wife,' he said challengingly, 'is a mystery that will tax even you, Sir Hugh.'

'I shall advise Sir Hugh about that and the other deaths in my own time,' Lavinius Monck warned quietly.

'Tush! Tush!' said Selditch. 'It's a macabre mystery. Here is the good wife, a pretty young thing – flaxen-haired and full-bosomed, with generous hips and a mouth like an angel's. She slips out of the house at dusk, leaving her husband behind, saddles their one and only horse and rides out along the headland. The next morning her corpse is found dangling from the old gallows.'