‘Somebody wanted Adele dead,’ Anselm wondered out loud. ‘But who, and why? Let’s search this place.’
‘Why?’ Sir William declared.
‘I’ll tell you when we find it,’ Anselm quipped.
They conducted their search in the squalid taproom, the dirt-encrusted scullery and buttery, the two chambers above and the dust-filled attic. The rooms were filthy and chaotic, reeking of staleness and neglect. They emptied broken caskets and coffers, moved the straw-filled mattresses and black-stained bolsters but found only tawdry items. They all gathered, yawning and stretching, in the taproom, where someone had thrown the sheet back over Adele’s corpse.
‘Magister,’ Stephen whispered, ‘the hour is very late. I am exhausted.’
‘Gentlemen,’ Sir William Higden stood next to both corpses, ‘surely we have finished here? I will take care of the cadavers. The hour of compline is long gone. These matters must wait for the morrow.’
Beauchamp and Anselm agreed. The royal clerk led the two Carmelites out of the shabby alehouse. Cutwolf and the others were waiting outside, torches held high. ‘Come,’ Sir Miles smiled through the dark, ‘we will see you safely to White Friars.’
They moved off deep into the dark, the glow of torch on naked steel keeping the busy shadows at bay. The clink and clatter of weapons, the tramp of booted, spurred feet, stilled all other noise. Beauchamp walked in silence then came between Stephen and Anselm. ‘You do realize what was wrong with our search?’ he asked.
‘We didn’t find anything,’ Anselm murmured. ‘We should have done. More curious still, Bardolph and Adele were parishioners yet never once in that shabby, mean house did I find a crucifix, a statue, a set of Ave beads or any other religious artefacts.’ Anselm pulled his cowl up against the night breeze. ‘In fact, I suspect that someone went through that house before us and removed certain items.’
‘What?’ Beauchamp asked.
‘Oh, anything associated with magic and the black rites,’ Anselm replied. ‘I suspect Adele, perhaps even Bardolph, were members of a coven.’
‘The Midnight Man’s?’
‘Very possible,’ Anselm replied.
Stephen quickly crossed himself against a thought. Was it sinful, malevolent or the truth? Was the Midnight Man someone very close to them?
Words Amongst the Pilgrims
The physician rose and walked to the canopied hearth where he warmed his hands, rubbing them slowly, staring into the jagged flames. His fellow pilgrims sat in silence for a while before busying themselves. A few hastened out to the latrines and closet chambers. Minehost of The Tabard asked for some platters of dried meat, bread and fruit ‘to ward off’ as he put it, ‘the demons growling in their stomachs’. The food was served, the jugs refilled.
Chaucer watched the physician, who had turned slightly and was now peering over his shoulder. Chaucer followed his gaze. The physician was staring at the Wife of Bath, now recovered from her former state of quiet surprise. She raised her goblet in response to the physician’s stare. Chaucer rose and walked over to the far wall as if interested in the painted cloth, describing in rough brushwork the great epic of Roland and Oliver. He waited. The physician left, walking into the garden, the Wife of Bath soon after. Chaucer, allowing curiosity to reign over courtesy, quietly followed. The buttery yard was empty. Chaucer walked across to the lattice screen over which wild roses sprouted from a thick green bush. Soft-footed as a cat, he stopped short of the flower bed: in the faint light he could see the brittle twigs which would snap under his boots. The physician and the Wife of Bath were sitting on a turf seat on the other side of the rose-covered fence. Straining his ears, Chaucer heard snatches of their hushed conversation. ‘Do souls still hover?’ The Wife of Bath’s question trailed clearer than the whispered reply of the physician. ‘Sometimes,’ Chaucer heard, ‘they sweep in,’ but the rest was hidden by the screech of a night bird deep in the garden. Chaucer heard the phrases ‘grisly murder’ and ‘that hideous burning’. A sound made him turn. The summoner stood in the doorway to the tavern. Chaucer walked over. In the pool of light the summoner’s face appeared leaner, more purposeful than the usual vacuous, slobbery-lipped look, nose red as a rose, skin scabby as a leper’s.
‘Good evening, Master Chaucer. What do you think of our physician’s tale? Truth? Fable?’
‘Do you know, master summoner? I suspect some of the characters of this miracle play do live and breathe and are not so far from us.’
‘Really?’
‘Summoner, what is your name? Do not reply, we are legion because we are so many. I suspect your demons thrive at the bottom of a deep-bowled wine goblet.’
‘True, true,’ the summoner glanced over Chaucer’s shoulder, ‘but now our physician returns.’
‘Your name, friend?’
‘Why, Master Chaucer, I am Bardolph, come again,’ and, laughing softly to himself, the summoner went back into the taproom.
‘Master Chaucer?’ The physician, the Wife of Bath trailing behind him, strode through the darkness. ‘Master Chaucer,’ he repeated, ‘you are curious whether this is fable or fact?’ He grabbed Chaucer by the elbow. ‘Believe me,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘the dead do speak to the living, as my tale will prove.’
The Physician’s Tale
Part Four
‘Questions.’ Anselm tapped the table in Sir William Higden’s chancery chamber. ‘We will deal with this as we would a problem in the halls of Oxford. Put forward certain questions to be addressed. Sir William, Curate Almaric is taking notes for you. Stephen will do the same for myself and Sir Miles. Gentlemen,’ Anselm pointed to Simon the sexton and Gascelyn, ‘you may listen and,’ he shrugged, ‘and add anything we may have overlooked.’
‘Is this really necessary?’ Sir William looked peevish after what appeared to be a poor night’s sleep. The powerful merchant knight’s face was shaven and gleaming with oil, but the dark rings under his eyes betrayed the fact that he had drunk too deeply of the claret he apparently loved. While Anselm made soothing noises, Stephen glanced around the luxurious chamber. He was particularly fascinated by the brilliantly hued tapestries of blue, red, green, silver and gold depicting the legends of King Arthur, be it the Knights of the Round Table or Galahad’s pursuit of the Holy Grail. Stephen recalled how his own father had taken him to the great Abbey of Glastonbury where Arthur and Guinevere were supposed to lie buried, their tomb being discovered during the reign of the present King’s grandfather. Were those happy days? Stephen wondered. The past seemed so distant, so strange, as if he was recalling someone else’s life. His time with Anselm had so changed him. .
‘We should begin,’ Beauchamp insisted. The royal clerk, elegant as ever in a dark green cotehardie over a white cambric shirt and black hose, pointed to the green-ringed hour candle in the centre of the table. ‘Soon the Angelus will ring.’
‘I was only wondering,’ Sir William protested, ‘why a second exorcism cannot take place? I mean. .’ He wandered off into a litany of speculation. Stephen picked up a quill pen and sharpened it. He felt refreshed and eager for the day. Anselm and he had risen early, celebrated a dawn Mass then broken their fast. Afterwards Anselm, without explanation, had instructed Stephen to pack his panniers with a change of clothes and all he might need for a long stay away from White Friars. The exorcist had refused to elaborate but had promised the novice he would like the surprise.