The Midnight Man by Paul Doherty Page A

appearance you’re educated, undoubtedly in some cathedral school then in the halls of either Oxford or Cambridge.’ He leaned forward and gently poked the man’s chest. ‘I know who you are, I know what you are. You’re a mailed clerk, aren’t you? A scribe who arms for battle? One who is also prepared to dirty his hands? Sir William’s man, yes? Ostensibly you’re here to clear this tangled mess now winter’s past but, in fact, you’re here to guard and to search, perhaps?’
    Gascelyn grinned in a display of white broken teeth. ‘I am he,’ he replied. ‘And Sir William told me about you, Brother Anselm. You are correct. Since All Souls past and the depredations of the Midnight Man, I guard this cemetery. I am,’ he joked, ‘the
Custos Mortuorum
– the Keeper of the Dead. I warn off those night-walkers who might lurk here once twilight falls.’ Gascelyn grinned lopsidedly. ‘Not to mention the whores with their customers, the gallants with their lemans and the roaring boys with their doxies.’
    â€˜And what have you seen?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ Gascelyn replied. ‘Word has gone out, seeping along the alleyways, runnels and lanes of Candlewick, that this truly is God’s acre. Nothing more exciting happens here than a hunting cat, or that tribe of stoats nesting in the far wall. Come,’ he picked up the sickle, ‘I’ll show you my kingdom.’
    Gascelyn led them off along the narrow, beaten trackway, pushing aside bramble and briar. He explained how most of the cemetery was full, pointing to the mounds of milk-white bones thrusting up out of the coarse soil. On one occasion he surprised a mangy, yellow-coated mongrel from the alleyways, nosing at a broken skull. Gascelyn hurled a stone and the dog fled through the long grass, barking noisily. Gascelyn showed them where the great burial pit had been dug, its soil still loose due to the lime and other elements used. Only the occasional sturdy shrub now grew in this great waste ringed by bushes and gorse. It also served as the Poor Man’s Lot, the burial place for strangers as well as
Haceldema
– the Field of Blood, where victims of violence or those hanged along the nearby banks of the Thames were buried. Nearby stood a simple wooden shed: two walls and a roof like any city laystall. Anselm and Stephen walked over to this. The inside was gloomy and reeked of putrefaction. Three corpses lay there, wrapped in filthy canvas shrouds lashed tightly with thick, tarred rope. Gascelyn explained how all three were the cadavers of beggars found dead in the surrounding streets. Anselm recited the requiem and blessed the remains. Gascelyn thanked him, adding how all three corpses would be later buried in the great burial pit as the soil was looser and easy to dig.
    Stephen felt the place was stifling hot. ‘A brooding evil hangs here,’ he whispered.
    â€˜Though that can be for the good,’ Gascelyn offered. ‘It keeps the undesirables away.’
    He then answered questions about himself as the exorcist led them out of this dingy shed: how he was the son of a Welsh woman and a Gascon knight who’d served in the King’s wars against the French. How he’d been educated as a clerk, entered Sir William’s retinue and seen military service with his lord both in France and along the Scottish march.
    â€˜And so you’re Sir William’s sworn man by night and day, in peace and war?’
    â€˜I’ve not taken an oath of fealty, but yes.’
    â€˜Were the Midnight Man’s revelries held on the site of the great burial pit?’ Stephen asked, abruptly trying to shake off a deepening unease.
    â€˜Yes, I believe they were.’
    â€˜A place of desolation and devastation where any abomination could flourish,’ Anselm declared. ‘I felt it. I am sure my friend Stephen did also. This is a sad and sombre