The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

His followers had, of course, noticed the absence of Letice, not least because of her constant mutterings, but also because of her skill at catching anything that moved for her cooking pot, which was constantly bubbling away. William said only that Letice had been taken from them and that they should not try to seek her, for there were mysteries on this hill that had no earthly explanation, forces that were stronger than any power they had yet encountered. Even Martin seemed willing to be convinced now that Letice had not met her death by any human hand, and little wonder, for though as a sexton’s son he had seen more corpses than most village lads, none had been so strangely adorned.

The sudden vanishing of Letice, and William’s warning, had been unnerving enough to have every one of his disciples volunteering to keep watch, swearing to rouse their master at the first sign of attack. Not that William would have taken much rousing. What little sleep he’d had these past two days had been disturbed by dreams in which serpents, as huge as dragons, had erupted out of the hillside and wriggled up on all sides towards him, their long fangs dripping with green poison that burst into flames as it fell. William would wake screaming and sweating. His disciples watched him wide-eyed, whispering that his spirit had been wrestling with demons as he slept. That much was true, but the demons William fought in his sleep were not the spirits that haunted Solsbury Hill.

A rose-pink light had begun to trickle down into the valley. Despite the sun not yet having fully risen, it was already beginning to feel close and airless, even up on the hill. William glanced down. Two horses and their riders were approaching along the track leading from Bath. He stiffened, and then tried to calm himself with the knowledge that Edgar would never approach him so openly and in company. The riders tethered their mounts to some trees at the bottom of the hill and toiled slowly up towards the camp.

Martin, as always, bustled up to greet them and soon led them over to where William stood on the rim of the hill, before respectfully withdrawing.

As soon as the lad was out of earshot, one of the two men bowed in courtly manner and cleared his throat. ‘My master seeks your help. He is suffering from… a melancholia.’

William scarcely needed to be told that. The man’s master was a thin, sallow-faced man, his skin made paler by his black clothes. He stared into the middle distance, his eyes dull and unfocused, his shoulders hunched as if he was hiding even from himself.

‘And is it a lover’s melancholy, a malcontent’s melancholy or a melancholy of reason?’ The question came out of William’s lips without thought. When he had learned his trade as a physician it was the first thing he had been taught to ask.

The servant uneasily glanced at his master. ‘Of reason, but more than that. My master possesses a silver mirror, the nature of which troubles him.’

‘How does it trouble him?’

‘He sees things in it that are not reflections of what stands before it. He sees the face of a man long dead.’ Again the servant glanced at his master, but the man gave no sign he’d even heard what was said.

William frowned. ‘I must see this mirror.’

It took the servant several attempts to rouse his master to respond, as if his spirit had travelled a long way from his body and had to be recalled. Finally, and with great reluctance, the master opened his black coat and revealed a leather bag hanging from his neck. With hands trembling so violently he could scarcely unfasten the buckles, he withdrew a flat, round object about the span of his own hand.

As soon as William laid eyes on it the blood began to pound in his temples. It was as if the sun itself had fallen to earth, for the gold and silver and blood-red rubies glittered so brightly in the morning light that he could scarcely look at it without being dazzled. The mirror must be worth a king’s ransom.

His mind raced. These men would probably pay him something for a cure, but judging by the plainness of their clothes, he guessed it wasn’t going to be a generous amount, not nearly enough to buy passage on a ship. But if he could get his hands on this mirror, he could go to any distant land he pleased and live in the lap of luxury when he got there.

But it was plain from the way this man reverently clasped the mirror, unable to tear his gaze from it, that he was not simply going to hand it over, even if William convinced him it was cursed. No, something more elaborate would be required if he was going to part this man and his mirror.

William adopted his most authoritative voice. ‘There is a demon in this mirror, which takes the semblance of a dead man. It is a trick they often use.’

For the first time, the thin man spoke, but still did not lift his eyes from the mirror. ‘No, you are wrong. It bears the image of a holy saint,’ he said in a dull tone.

‘On the reverse,’ William said firmly. ‘The saint faces away from the mirror, so that the demon is able to hide behind the holy image, just as on a coin the head of the King can never see what is stamped on the other side. You must return tonight, so that I may exorcise it and when I do, the melancholy and all else that troubles your mind will vanish with the demon.’

A look of desperate hope flickered across the man’s face. ‘But why can you not do so now?’

To William’s surprise it was the servant who came to his rescue. ‘Master, the mirror is silver and it’s the moon that governs that element. Therefore, the chances of success will be greatly improved if the exorcism is carried out under her domain.’

His master seemed to wilt again, retreating back into himself.

The servant nodded to William. ‘I will bring my master back tonight, as soon as it is dark. I assure you, he will be here.’

Godfrey purchased a beaker of tepid cider from one of the market stalls and threw it down his throat almost in a single swallow. He drew out a kerchief and waved it ineffectually at a cloud of flies buzzing round his head, before mopping the sweat from his forehead. The air was as hot and sticky as a blacksmith’s armpit. Since noon thick clouds had been building in the sky, giving it a dense yellowish haze that seemed only to intensify the heat. The stench from the rubbish and offal lying around the market place was enough to sicken the stomach for life. But, he consoled himself, if all went to plan he had to endure only one more day in this stinking sewer of Bath.

This man Serkan had proved to be all he had hoped for and more. He had gambled that this prophet would take little persuasion to perform his healing at night. Such things were always more dramatic and appealing to the crowd then, and these charlatans loved to perform for a crowd. He had little doubt the unwitting Serkan would play his part beautifully; all Godfrey had to do was to arrange a little performance of his own, but for that he needed a player.

He’d been watching the actors at the far end of the market place for a couple of hours now. Five men, and a couple of lads dressed as women, had been struggling to entertain the crowd, but most people were either too occupied with the business of buying and selling, or too exhausted by the heat, to want to stand around and watch. The players had given up the struggle and were packing up their wooden wagon for the day.

Godfrey sidled up to one of them, a giant of a man, who was sitting on a barrel, pulling off a mask. He’d been playing the part of a lion or perhaps it was a wolf – the costume was so ragged it was hard to tell.

‘You want to make some money?’ Godfrey said, trying not to show his disgust at the overpowering stench of sweat and onions, which was oozing out of every pore.

‘Make a change,’ the actor grumbled. ‘People in this city are so mean they’d not even share their fleas with you. So what are you offering?’