‘Go carefully!’ he warned.
Beatrice ignored him. She stood on the edge of the parapet and stared down. The hideous execution scene had disappeared. The yard was as she’d known it; the blue cloth was still spread over the grass. Adam and Marisa were standing by the keep door. They were joined by Father Aylred. A messenger left, spurring his horse towards the barbican. A wild thought seized Beatrice. She was dreaming and to prove it she would jump from the parapet and before she hit the ground she would wake up in her little cot bed above the taproom in the Golden Tabard. She would cry out. Aunt Catherine would come hurrying in to embrace her and tell her not to worry about horrid nightmares.
Beatrice felt the cold night air on her face. She spread her arms like a bird taking flight and launched herself into the darkness. She reached the cobbles. No pain, no flesh-juddering impact, no taste of blood spilling into her mouth, no last dying moments. It was as if she had taken a small step.
‘Beatrice! Beatrice Arrowner!’
She spun round. A young man stood there. He had blond hair, a smooth face, and was dressed exquisitely in a short cote-hardie, lined and trimmed with fur, parti-coloured hose and a rather exaggerated codpiece. On his feet were long
pointed shoes, the toes curled back and fastened to garters below his knee. In one hand he carried a chaperon, and a brocaded dagger sheath hung from his silver belt. He was sniffing at a pomander, red in colour and decorated with gold and silver thread.
‘Who are you?’
The young man smiled. He was beautiful, like a courtier who had passed through Maldon on his way to Westminster some months ago. That visitor to the Golden Tabard had arrogant eyes and a petulant mouth. This young man was friendly, smiling, the lips open to reveal white, even teeth. He walked closer. She could smell the fragrance of his clothes. He offered her the pomander. She didn’t take it but caught a perfume like roses crushed in fresh water.
‘Who are you?’ she repeated. ‘Where am I? Can you please help me, sir?’ A silver disc shimmered on the edge of her vision.
‘You are Beatrice Arrowner. You died in a fall from the parapet wall.’
‘I know that!’ Beatrice snapped. ‘But what has happened? I saw a knight dark and hideous. He was here in the yard slaughtering men. A great mastiff hurled itself at me. Look!’ She pointed at the dark shapes flitting around her.
‘Just phantasms,’ the young man replied.
‘Who are you?’ she insisted.
‘Oh, quite petulant, aren’t we? Fiery-tempered Beatrice. My name, well, you can call me Crispin.’
‘Are you a ghost, Crispin?’
‘I am what you see, Beatrice. I am what you want me to be.’
Beatrice felt uneasy. Crispin was standing there like some beautiful Christ statue in church but the night around him seemed darker, denser; the silver disc had disappeared.
‘I did not die,’ she blurted, suddenly angry. ‘I was murdered !’
‘I know,’ said Crispin smoothly.
‘And do you also know who is responsible?’
He shook his head. ‘If I did, Beatrice, I’d tell you. So, what do you think of it, Beatrice, eh? Not yet eighteen summers old and snatched out of life. No Ralph, no wedding day, no warm embrace or sweet kisses.’
‘Where is Ralph?’ Beatrice asked.
Crispin pointed to the Lion Tower. ‘He’s in his chamber. He’s drunk deeply, Beatrice. He thinks wine will ease the pain, and perhaps it will. In time he will forget you. It could have been so different, couldn’t it?’
‘Yes!’ Her voice came out as a snarl, so sharp, so hate-filled, even she was surprised.
‘And what about Uncle Robert and Aunt Catherine? Those poor guardians who regarded you as their only child? Riven with grief, they are.’ Crispin sniffed at the pomander. ‘What a waste,’ he whispered. He glanced mice-eyed at her. ‘Do you want vengeance, Beatrice? I can help you.’ He stepped a little closer, his light-blue eyes full of kindness, red lips parted.
Impulsively Beatrice stood up on tiptoe and kissed him. She felt strange, on the one hand attracted to this beautiful young man, on the other, troubled by the hate his words stirred up in her.
‘I’ll give you another thought,’ Crispin whispered. ‘And listen to me now. Were you the real victim?’
‘What do you mean?’ she gasped.
‘Think about it. Just think.’ His words came in a hiss.
‘Beatrice! Beatrice Arrowner!’
She whirled round. The merry-faced man she had glimpsed earlier was sitting, cross-legged, on the blue cloth.
‘Come away, Beatrice,’ he murmured. ‘Ralph is crying.’
‘Oh, ignore him!’ Crispin retorted. ‘He’s a liar and a thief !’
Beatrice stepped back. She was being so selfish. Ralph was crying. She should comfort him. As she moved away, Crispin’s eyes turned hard.
‘I’ll come back,’ she whispered. ‘I promise. I must see Ralph.’
‘Of course, Beatrice,’ he said and turned away.
Beatrice was already in the tower hurrying up the spiral staircase, aware of the torches, the dancing shadows, of grotesque shapes, odious smells and macabre forms. She reached Ralph’s room and passed through the door into the small, circular chamber. Beatrice gave a deep sigh of grief. The room was so familiar, so full of loving memories: the rushes on the floor, green and supple; the little pots of herbs she had brought; the crucifix on the wall; the small triptych on the table next to the bed.
Ralph was sprawled there. In the light of the capped candle she could see he was asleep but his cheeks were tear-stained. He moved and jerked, muttering to himself. On the floor lay a cup in a puddle of spilled wine. Beatrice was filled with a deep longing. She wanted to stretch out and touch him but she could feel nothing. She lay down on the bed next to him as if she was his handfast wife. She put her arm round him and kissed him on the cheek, whispering his name. She told him how she loved him and would do so for all eternity. Ralph stirred and moved. He called out her name, his eyes opened and closed. He groaned and dug his face deep into the bolster. Beatrice stroked his hair and tried to dry the tears on his cheeks.
‘Oh Ralph, Ralph!’ she whispered. ‘Oh sweetheart!’
He moved and turned. Beatrice felt as if she was crying herself.
‘It’s all invisible,’ she murmured. ‘My tears mean nothing.’
She recalled Crispin’s words and the flame of anger and hatred seethed. What did he mean, was she the real victim? She sat up and stared across at the crucifix and noticed a silver disc of light was moving around it. She glanced away. Everything had been a mockery. Where was Heaven? Where was the good Lord Jesus? The angels, all the mysteries the Church had taught? She had been cast up like a rotten boat on the banks of a sluggish river. All she could do was watch the
water run by. How long would this go on? For ever? Sealed in this existence for all eternity? She kissed Ralph on the brow and walked out of the chamber.
‘Well, Beatrice?’ Crispin was standing in the stairwell. ‘All gone,’ he said. ‘Lost like tears in the rain. Come.’
He took her by the hand and she didn’t resist. They walked out to Midnight Tower and up flights of steps. Beatrice found herself in Adam’s room. He and Marisa were lying, fully clothed, on the bed, arms about each other. Marisa was crying. Adam was soothing her, stroking her hair.
‘So unnecessary,’ Crispin’s voice murmured.
Beatrice felt a surge of resentment. She and Ralph should be lying like this. Why her? Why now? And before Crispin could say another word, she turned and fled down the stairs. Crispin called after her but Beatrice didn’t care. She crashed into the wall and slipped but felt no pain. She stopped and laughed hysterically. A silver disc hovered above her. She drove it away with her hand as a child would a ball. She reached the bottom of the tower and stopped. A woman blocked her way. Tall, hair as black as a raven’s wing, her face could have been beautiful but it was white and ghastly with red-rimmed, staring eyes. Her lovely samite dress was dirt-stained. She stared malevolently at Beatrice and, opening her mouth, screamed like a wild animal. Beatrice stood her ground. The woman advanced. Beatrice recoiled at the disgusting smell which emanated from her.
‘Who are you?’
‘Welcome to the kingdom of the dead, Beatrice Arrowner. Look at me and weep. Lady Johanna de Mandeville, walled up, tombed in for death. Nothing but darkness. He shouldn’t have done it. It was cruel and no one raised a hand. No pity in life, no mercy in death. Nothing but a desert of hate and chambers full of spectres!’
Beatrice could stand no more and fled like a shadow from Midnight Tower.
Beatrice found herself on the path leading from the barbican. The stars were bright above her, the silver moon slipped in and out of the clouds yet it wasn’t the usual blue-black of country nights. The heathland, Devil’s Spinney and the walls of Ravenscroft were bathed in that eerie bronze tinge, like light reflected in a brass pot. The silence, too, was strange, not the calm and peace of the countryside at night but more threatening, as if other phantasms lurked behind the curtain of night, ready to spring out. Beatrice stopped and looked back at the castle. She’d walked this way earlier, her mind full of Ralph, May celebrations and, of course, her wedding day. The castle had always seemed friendly with its familiar turrets and towers. Now it looked foreign. Where there had been windows were now plain bricks, strange emblems and pennants flew from the ramparts, and ghostly lights glowed on the tops of the towers.
A group of horsemen burst out of Devil’s Spinney, fleeing like bats under the moon. They charged towards the drawbridge, thundering across in ghostly cavalcade – a vision of things as they once were rather than the reality she had left. Strange cries overhead made Beatrice glance up at the sky and she saw geese-like forms flying between the clouds. Fires burnt in Devil’s Spinney and loud shouts and cries came from the darkness on her right. Beatrice felt afraid and then laughed.
‘If I am dreaming,’ she murmured, ‘then I shall wake up and
these are nothing but phantasms. If I am truly dead, separated from Ralph, then what else can happen to me?’
She walked on and came to the crossroads. She recognised them immediately but not the gibbet which stretched out against the night sky or the grisly cadaver which hung in chains from its rusting hook. Beneath it a young woman, red hair falling down to her shoulders and dressed in a white shift, was staring in horror at the great bloody patch on her chest. She raised her head as Beatrice approached.
‘Who are you?’ the young woman asked. Her face was ghoulish, her eyes like those of a dead fish, the pallid skin of her hands tinged with dirt and mud.
‘I am Beatrice Arrowner.’
‘And I am Etheldreda.’ She saw the puzzlement in Beatrice’s face. ‘We see each other, we can talk and hear.’ Etheldreda smiled in a show of blackened teeth. ‘But we are of the nether world, in the kingdom of the dead.’
‘Why don’t you leave?’ Beatrice asked. As soon as the words were out, she realised this was how she used to speak in dreams.
‘I cannot leave,’ Etheldreda moaned. ‘So long ago yet just like yesterday. What year is it?’
Beatrice stared at her. ‘I am not too sure.’
‘Well, who is King?’
‘Young Richard reigns in Westminster.’ Beatrice recalled the proclamations read out in the parish church four years ago after the old King had died. ‘It is the year of Our Lord 1381.’
‘Young Richard?’ Etheldreda stared at her, lips opening and closing like a landed carp. ‘Has time passed so quickly? In the parish church Father Bernard preached against King John.’
‘King John? But he lived many years ago. The ancient ones tell stories about him. How he marched through Wessex and lost his treasure in the Wash.’
‘Where’s that?’ Etheldreda asked.
‘To the north,’ Beatrice replied. ‘Where the sea comes in and drowns the fields.’
Etheldreda nodded her head. ‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘And I drowned myself in Blackwater. Seduced, I was, by Simon the reeve.’ Her dead eyes filled with tears. ‘Promised we’d become handfast, he did. On Midsummer Day, yes, that’s it, we were drinking midsummer ales. He spurned me, laughed with the other men. I fled the fair and went down to Blackwater. All I remember is jumping, the water filling my mouth and nose. Even as it did, I didn’t want to die. Yet they took my corpse, drove a stake through my heart and buried me here at the crossroads.’
‘Why don’t you move?’ Beatrice asked kindly. ‘Come.’ She held out her hand.
Etheldreda turned away. ‘I cannot,’ she answered wearily. ‘I will not. If I stay here they might come back. If I wait long enough, Simon the reeve will walk this way. I will speak to him about his unkindly words.’
Beatrice shook her head. ‘But that is all gone.’
Etheldreda looked away, staring into the darkness without speaking.
Beatrice walked on. She reached the village church of St Dunstan’s and paused outside the lych gate, gazing across the cemetery. She had played here as a child. Now it was full of forms and shapes. Piteous cries rang out like those of wild geese in autumn. Beatrice hurried on, fearful of being caught by the likes of Etheldreda.
She reached the high street, pleased to be in familiar surroundings. There was Thurston the weaver’s house, Walter the brewer’s and the Pot of Thyme, an alehouse of ill repute despite its name. Its shutters were thrown open, lights, song and chatter broke the darkness. Beatrice paused. She was unsure if she was seeing things as they were or other visions of the night. The door opened and Goodman Winthrop lurched out, swaying on his feet, one arm round a tavern wench, the other pushing down her dirty, low-cut bodice, fondling her breasts
as he tried to kiss her. The wench shrieked with laughter and led him on. Goodman Winthrop’s belly was full of ale. If it hadn’t been for his companion, he would have fallen flat on his face. Beatrice watched them go up the street. The man was a fool. He was a tax collector yet he’d come unguarded into the village to sup among his enemies. Did he think that on May Day memories faded? Alarmed, Beatrice followed the swaying couple. Now and again they’d stop so Goodman Winthrop could steady himself.
‘Be careful, sir!’ Beatrice called.
The darkness around Goodman Winthrop was deeper than the night. She ran up behind him. Goodman was whispering obscenities into the wench’s ear, trying to persuade her to return with him to the castle. She was acting the reluctant maid. Beatrice felt both sad and responsible. Goodman Winthrop should have been invited to their feast. After all, he was a guest at Ravenscroft. He must have witnessed their celebrations as well as those in the town and become morose, letting wine and ill judgement get the better of his wit. They stopped beneath an apothecary’s sign.
‘Come back with me,’ Winthrop slurred.
The young woman giggled.
‘I have silver there,’ the tax collector rasped. ‘Silver that will delight your heart if you lift your petticoats.’
The young woman led him on. Beatrice followed, now seriously alarmed, her own troubles forgotten. They came to the mouth of an alleyway. The wench freed herself and stood back. Goodman turned, arms outstretched.
‘Come here!’ He swayed on his feet. ‘Come to Goodman!’
The two men who stepped out of the mouth of the alleyway were masked and cowled but the long blades they carried winked in the night. Beatrice screamed but it made no difference. Goodman’s assailants were upon him. He fell to his knees, a knife in his back, blood spurting out of his mouth. He was seized by his scrawny hair and his exposed throat slit from ear to ear. He collapsed on the muddy cobbles, coughing and
spluttering on the blood pouring from his mouth. The wench and the two assassins fled into the blackness of the alleyway.
Beatrice crouched beside the corpse and stared in astonishment. Goodman was dead, his cadaver had stopped twitching. He lay, eyes open and then he was standing up, separate and distinct, the same as had happened to her. He patted his jerkin, his hand going to the dagger in his belt.
‘What is the matter?’ He saw Beatrice staring at him. He took a step forward. ‘What is the matter?’ he cried. ‘I lie there, yet I am here!’
Beatrice was frightened. She was aware of a terrible stench like that of a slaughterhouse. Goodman staggered towards her and then suddenly stopped, terrified. A dark shield had appeared beside him. Another to his left. One above his head. The shields clustered into a great dark opening, a yawning cave, and out of this poured armed and mailed men, their armour black, their surcoats trimmed blood-red. One of them glared at Beatrice. His helmet was empty, except for eyes which glowed like fiery charcoal. Goodman screamed as these strange apparitions seized him and dragged him into the black opening. Then they were gone. The street was silent and empty except for Goodman Winthrop’s corpse lying on the cobbles in an ever widening pool of blood.
Beatrice hurried on. She did not want to see or experience anything else. She passed a fleshers’ yard and, before she realised it, was in the herb garden behind the Golden Tabard. She walked through the wall into the deserted taproom. The tables and stools had been cleared away and the candles doused. Only a night-light, capped in the lantern horn, stood on the empty hearth. She heard the sound of weeping and went up the stairs to a small chamber which served as the parlour. Aunt Catherine and Uncle Robert were sitting in the window seat, arms round each other. Aunt Catherine’s sweet face was damp with tears. Uncle Robert, barely able to cope with his own grief, sat and patted her gently on the shoulder.
‘I want to go there.’ Aunt Catherine got to her feet. ‘We shouldn’t let her corpse lie cold and alone.’
‘It is the dead of night,’ Uncle Robert replied gently. ‘Beatrice would have understood. Her body is in good hands. Sir John Grasse will show her honour, and Father Aylred always praised her.’
‘I went up to her chamber,’ Aunt Catherine said, her voice catching. ‘I found a garland of flowers on her bed. She must have intended to wear it this morning but she was in such a hurry, so eager to see Ralph, so determined not to be late.’ Aunt Catherine put her face in her hands and sobbed. The sight of her generous-hearted aunt, loving as any mother, sitting there sobbing, her body shaking with grief, and Uncle Robert, ever practical, now not knowing what to do, was too much for Beatrice. She kissed each on the brow. ‘If I could I’d break through,’ she said from the bottom of her heart. ‘I’d tell you not to mourn, not to grieve.’ And she turned and went down the stairs, out across the moon-washed garden into the high street.
She wandered aimlessly, staring at the things she had taken for granted only a few hours earlier. At the end of the high street a light was burning in a rear window. This was Elizabeth Lockyer’s cottage, a good-hearted old woman who made simples and herb poultices for those who could not afford the fees of physicians, leeches or apothecaries. A few weeks earlier Elizabeth herself had fallen ill and her life was despaired of. Now Beatrice went into the cottage and up into the bed loft to see how she was.
Elizabeth Lockyer lay with her head back against a dirty bolster, her grey hair soaked in sweat. She was alone and undoubtedly at death’s door. Her skin was tight, eyelids fluttering, mouth open. She feebly stretched out a hand to reach for a cup of water but knocked it over. The water soaked the dirty horse blanket.
‘All alone,’ Beatrice whispered. ‘Oh, Elizabeth, all alone.’
How often this old woman had gone out in the middle of
the night to tend to a sick child or an expectant mother. Now she was dying in this shabby, ill-smelling bed loft without the comfort of even a priest. Beatrice crouched beside the thin straw bed. She tried to grasp the old woman’s vein-streaked hand and wipe her brow. Elizabeth opened her eyes, staring up at her, smiling.
‘Is it you, Beatrice? Beatrice Arrowner? I have had such strange dreams.’ The words came in a rasp. ‘You’re a fine girl,’ the old woman whispered. ‘Always generous. It’s good of you to come. Won’t you wait, just for a while?’
‘I am here,’ Beatrice replied, wondering if the old woman could hear her. She crouched, the silence broken only by mice scrabbling in the corner. The end came quickly. The death rattle in the old woman’s throat grew stronger, the breathing more rapid, then Elizabeth gave a great sigh and lay still.
Beatrice stared down at the corpse. Would the same thing happen as with Goodman Winthrop? She felt a blast of heat. One of the golden spheres she had seen in the castle chapel appeared out of the darkness. It spun, turning and twisting above the corpse, and grew larger. Elizabeth Lockyer’s spirit, looking the same as she did on her death bed, rose. The old woman was bewildered, dazed. As she stared in confusion, the sphere of light enveloped her. It was peopled by young men and women dressed in pale green and gold, laughing and talking. Beatrice watched fascinated. The young men and women spoke to Elizabeth. Beatrice could tell by the gestures of their hands, their smiles, the way their sapphire-blue eyes twinkled that they were reassuring her and offering her comfort.
Elizabeth grew less agitated; her back straightened, the lines and wrinkles disappeared from her face, and as the years receded her hair grew longer, rich and black. The old, threadbare gown was also transmuted as this alchemy took place. Beatrice called out. Elizabeth turned and smiled but one of the figures came between her and Beatrice. The golden sphere rose, growing smaller, full of blazing light before it abruptly disappeared. Beatrice, standing alone in a
tawdry chamber above a raddled, sweat-soaked corpse, felt a profound sense of desolation. Why was this happening? Had she been condemned? But what had she done in life? What wrong had she committed? Even Father Aylred had chuckled in amusement when she had gone to be shriven. ‘Petty faults, Beatrice,’ he had murmured. ‘They make God laugh more than weep.’
Beatrice resisted the surge of fury which threatened to overtake her. She had never been prone to feel sorry for herself yet here she was, plucked from life by some foul assassin and cast adrift in this grey world. She was haunted by spectres, ghouls and phantasms, excluded from the light whose warmth she had tantalisingly felt.