Hugh Corbett 13 - Corpse Candle Read Free

guesthouse. The Prior had hinted at what he’d seen here in Bloody Meadow but Abbot Stephen had only stared coldly back.
    Prior Cuthbert turned back. He was halfway across the meadow when he heard a sound and whirled round. Surely not? Then he heard it again – the haunting blast of a hunting horn! He paused, holding his breath. Again the sound echoed, braying through the night. Prior Cuthbert’s stomach lurched and his sweat ran cold. So the stories were true! Yet who could be blowing a hunting horn at the dead of night? The sound had seemed to echo across Falcon Brook from Lady Margaret’s place: perhaps a retainer who had drunk too much? It couldn’t be a ghost! Prior Cuthbert did not believe in spectral horsemen or the Mandeville demon. He glared back at the tumulus. Soon the sun would rise and the night would disappear. The abbey of St Martin’s would remain, as would this meadow, but the dreams Prior Cuthbert had nourished would fade into nothing. Perhaps it was a time for action? The Prior turned back, went through the Judas gate and down by the side of the church towards his lodgings. He paused in the courtyard and stared up at the great bay windows of the Abbot’s lodgings. The shutters were open and he glimpsed the glow of candlelight. He smiled grimly to himself. Abbot Stephen, too, was thinking. Perhaps in time he might bow to the sound arguments and ominous threats of his prior.
    Abbot Stephen had also heard the hunting horn. He sighed, got up, walked to the bay window and stared out into the night.
    ‘Go away!’ he prayed. ‘Please stop that!’
    The final blast of the hunting horn seemed to mock him. It invoked memories long hidden, buried beneath years of service as a monk: the hours of prayer, the fasting, the hair shirts, the private pilgrimages on bruised knees up the long nave of the abbey church. Oh yes, Abbot Stephen thought of the past with its nightmares, haunting dreams, soul-wrestling anguish and heartbreak. Wasn’t his reparation accepted? Hadn’t God forgiven him for his sins? Couldn’t he be allowed to continue his great work? Was there a God who listened? Was there a God at all? Abbot Stephen heard a footstep from the courtyard below and peered quickly through the mullioned glass. He couldn’t make out the shadowy form but he knew it must be Prior Cuthbert. Abbot Stephen stepped away and crossed to the small wood fire burning in the canopied hearth. The Abbot crouched down and stretched his hands towards the flames.
    ‘Perhaps I should resign?’ he whispered.
    He stared at the small gargoyles on either side of the hearth, the wizened faces of monkeys each surmounted by a pair of horns.
    I could resign, he reflected, but what then? He was not only Father Abbot but also Exorcist in the dioceses of Lincoln and Ely. He had work to do, both as a monk and a priest, so why should he give it up? Especially now, when Prior Cuthbert was so concerned about that meadow and his new guesthouse! His hands now warm, Abbot Stephen returned to his long polished desk and sat down. Before him was a triptych, the central scene showing Christ on the cross and the side panels, Mary and St John. It was the Abbot’s favourite picture. He looked at the great book before him which he had taken from the library. Beside it was a sheet of vellum where he made his own notes. This was his world; prayer and study, ink horn and quill, pumice stone and freshly prepared parchment. Abbot Stephen was a great letter writer. In the past two years he had been engaged in academic debate with his old adversary Archdeacon Adrian and the great Dominican Order at Blackfriars in London over the nature of demonic possession and the rite of exorcism. The debate had been sharp but scholarly. The Dominicans supported the Archdeacon of St Paul’s, Master Adrian Wallasby maintaining that exorcism was much exaggerated and those described as possessed, were more sick in mind than in the possession of the Lords of the Air, the demons