The Midnight Man Read Free Page B

flowers, violets, lavender, peonies and lilies planted years ago by some enterprising parson or his woman. Now night cloaked everything in darkness. For Stephen this ancient burial place, God’s acre or not, seemed a domain of brooding menace dominated by the sheer stone mass of the old Norman church. Some of its glazed windows caught the light; others, covered by stretched oiled pig’s bladders, simply gazed sightlessly out into the darkness.
    â€˜Look!’ The retainer pointed to the top of the soaring tower. ‘No light! The beacon fire has been extinguished.’
    â€˜But I relit it,’ Simon the sexton declared hoarsely. ‘The beacon was firmly packed, and there’s been no rain.’
    â€˜I am tired of this.’ The retainer turned and came back.
    Sir William stepped forward to urge him on but Anselm placed a restraining hand on the merchant’s arm.
    â€˜You are tired of what, my friend?’ Anselm asked. He took the torch and raised it high. ‘What’s your name?’
    Stephen stared at the man, his burly, unshaven face all pocked and marked, furry eyebrows either side of a fat drinker’s nose, with the jutting lips and protuberant jaw of a mastiff.
    â€˜Bardolph.’ The man’s voice was grating. ‘My name is Bardolph, Brother. I serve the parish as a gravedigger and corpse-mover. My wife and I also own a small alehouse nearby. We used to sell ale here in the churchyard after Mass on Sundays and holy days. Now, because of this, there are no fees for digging, no fees for corpse-moving and no fees for ale stoups.’
    â€˜I had no choice.’ Parson Smollat stepped forward. ‘The eerie happenings here, God save us.’ He breathed out noisily. ‘Sir William wants that, don’t you, Sir William?’
    â€˜I certainly do. The cemetery will be closed until these matters are settled.’
    â€˜This is our parish church.’ Bardolph wouldn’t give way.
    â€˜Enough!’ Sir William declared. ‘Bardolph, this can be discussed elsewhere.’
    â€˜God will resolve all these problems,’ Anselm offered.
    â€˜Then I hope He does so soon.’ Bardolph grasped the torch and stomped off up the path.
    They were about to follow when a loud banging echoed from the church. Anselm ordered everyone to go on. They did, following the pool of light thrown by the fluttering torch up to the narrow corpse door. The path turned and twisted between the stark, fading memorials of the dead. Briar, bramble and bush snaked out to catch the ankle or snare the cloak. The ominous banging continued. Simon explained how it might be the door leading down to the crypt, the charnel house where the gleaming white bones and skulls of the long dead were stored. Bardolph, holding the torch, began to tremble, the flame shaking and juddering. Stephen could even hear the man’s teeth chattering. Beauchamp seized the torch and dismissed Bardolph back to the house.
    â€˜We are in the realm of the rat and rot,’ Beauchamp turned, face all smiling, ‘of corruption and decay. If you have the words, you can even summon up each soul buried here and ask them if they’re damned or not.’
    â€˜Walk on,’ Anselm insisted. ‘The dead gather here but so do a horde of angry, hostile spirits.’
    â€˜Or,’ Beauchamp, still trying to make light of it, lifted the torch and stood blocking the narrow path, ‘I remember the story of a man who, every time he passed a cemetery, recited the
De Profundis
for the departed. One night, as he did so, he was attacked by robbers but was saved by the dead who rose up, each holding the tool they’d used in their lifetime to defend him vigorously.’
    â€˜Not here,’ Anselm whispered hoarsely. ‘This is not the place for your mockery. I am an exorcist – ghosts gather here. I can hear their faint chatter. Listen!’
    â€˜Nothing!’ Beauchamp