The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

That Easter Sunday the little church of St Bridget was crammed to the door with villagers celebrating the holy feast and for once they had something to celebrate. There was not a family in Brean who didn’t have some of the spoils from the wreck hidden under their byre floors or concealed in the thatch of their roofs. And when, out of sight of Father Jerome, they’d swum the Easter sun in a pail of water, the reflection had been clear and strong, a good omen for the rest of the year.

Even Father Jerome, worn down by years of battling against poverty, superstition and the cruelty of the sea, felt a little of the old joy returning that he had once felt as a newly ordained priest. But his contentment was short-lived for, as he was in the very act of raising the Holy Chalice before his little flock, Joan’s granddaughter, Margaret, gave a cry of pain and fell to the ground clutching her belly, her face blanched to the colour of milk.

The congregation crowded round, the Mass forgotten in their concern.

One woman prodded the child. ‘Get one of the lads to carry her to my cottage, Joan. I’ve a good strong purge ready.’

As people bent to lift her, Margaret fought and screamed. ‘I won’t drink any purge. It makes it hurt more.’

Joan folded her lips grimly. ‘Now you know fine rightly Martha’s treated every man, woman and child in this village since afore you were born, and her mam afore that. If she’s says a purge is the cure, then it is.’

But Margaret stubbornly resisted every attempt to lift her.

William pushed his way through the crowd. ‘Let me examine the child.’

‘Are you a physician?’ Father Jerome asked.

But William ignored him and, kneeling, took Margaret’s hot little hands in his, stroking them until her fists unclenched. ‘Now look at me, child.’

Reluctantly she opened her eyes and looked into his startlingly green ones. He did not blink and after a few moments, neither did she. He was muttering, softly at first, in a language she did not understand, full of strange guttural noises that seemed more like the warning growl of some wild beast. As his voice grew louder and deeper, his hand pressed down upon her belly. She screamed, arching her back, trying to squirm away. Joan and the priest started forward in alarm, but William waved them back.

In that touch, he had felt all he needed to know. His former master, a physician and alchemist, had taught him well. William had paid scant attention to his books and dusty phials, finding girls and cockfighting far more to his taste; nevertheless, he learned easily, though more by absorption than conscious study, and had acquired a knowledge that sometimes even surprised him. Purges would not cure the child, nor indeed would any physic. She would recover for a while, but the pain would return and one day kill her. There was no cure.

But why tell these simple people that? She might have days, months or, with luck, even longer. Why should the child and her grandmother live in fear and dread of something they could not prevent? And at least he could stop them adding to her misery with these purges that would only hasten her death. Besides, they believed he was a saint, didn’t they? They were expecting a miracle. He could not disappoint them.

He looked round at the anxious faces. ‘The child is possessed. A demon dwells in her belly. It bites and torments her. I must expel it.’

Father Jerome grabbed his arm. ‘I cannot allow this. Only those who are in holy orders-’

William rose and stood towering over the little priest. ‘Have you forgotten the miracle of my saving, on this day of all days? Why do you think I was delivered to your shore? I told you I am the prophet. I have the gift of sight beyond the powers of mortal men and I tell you that if this poor child is not released, the demon will grow inside, tormenting her with pain beyond imagining, feeding on her and growing ever stronger, until it bursts forth to devour the souls of every man, woman and child in this village. Is that what you want, Father? Would you have me abandon her to this foul fiend?’

Margaret was sobbing, trying to crawl across the floor as if she could get away from the creature inside her. Joan was wailing and even Father Jerome was trembling.

‘I must send word at once to the bishop for him to dispatch his exorcist to us.’

Martin, the sexton’s youngest son, elbowed his way through the crowd. ‘And how long will it be afore he comes, Father? Weeks, maybe – that’s if he bothers to come at all. Besides, old Joan can’t afford what the likes of them would charge. Let William try. I reckon that’s why God sent him here.’

The sexton grabbed his son by the arm, cuffing him vigorously several times around the head. ‘How dare you gainsay the priest? Think you know better than your elders and betters, do you?’ He struck the cowering lad again, and would have gone on doing so, had William not caught the sexton’s arm to prevent him.

Father Jerome held up his hands in a gesture of peace. ‘Leave the boy. He means well.’

Joan could bear it no longer. She fell at William’s feet, clutching at his knees and begging him to save her grandchild. Many in the crowd nodded eagerly, and when William turned an enquiring look upon Father Jerome, the little priest gave a resigned shrug. He’d lived long enough in this parish to know that even if he forbade it, the villagers would do it anyway behind his back, just as they stole holy water from the church for their heathen spells however often he denounced such things from the pulpit.

William helped Joan to her feet and calmly bade the crowd to close the shutters of the church. He sent Martin to fetch a lighted candle, which he placed behind the child’s head. Then William commanded all to kneel. He crouched beside little Margaret and ordered her once more to look into his eyes.

The strange words poured out of him again, rising in a crescendo so that his voice reverberated from the walls of the church. He laid his hands on Margaret’s belly, his eyes closed, his head thrown back and sweat bursting from his forehead as if he was wrestling with a ferocious monster. A shriek of unearthly laughter echoed through the church, like the cry of a thousand gulls. At that instant the candle blew out and the church was plunged into darkness.

Father Jerome blundered to the door and, with trembling hands, flung it wide. Most of the villagers, dragging their children, charged out after him as if the devil himself was at their heels. But once safely out in the daylight their panic subsided. They huddled together, clutching their little ones and staring back at the church.

Inside Joan was sobbing and hugging her granddaughter to her, but the child, though pale as the moon, was not crying any more.

‘It’s gone… it doesn’t hurt now,’ she whispered.

William strolled to the church door and, calmly surveying the little crowd, announced, ‘All is well. I have expelled the demon from the child.’

He held out something in his palm. There were gasps of wonder as everyone pressed forward. The creature was tiny to be sure, but they later learned this was because it was a mere infant, a baby demon that would have grown into a monster were it not for William’s skill. For there was no mistaking it was the most unearthly and satanic-looking beast they had ever seen in the flesh, and very like the demons painted on the wall of their own little church. It was grey and wizened. It had no discernible body, only a broad triangular head that tapered into a long arrow-shaped tail, two bulging black eyes and a wide curved mouth full of black needle-sharp teeth.

When the tale was later told, as it was to be many times throughout the long winters in those parts, some of the villagers swore they had seen the demon twitching, others said that it was lashing in fury. But the truth was they barely had time to glimpse anything at all for just as deftly as William revealed it, so he slid it into a small stone flask and rammed the stopper home.