The Treason of the Ghosts

and felt the cold mud beneath him. What happened if that keen
hunting dog of a clerk started to dig up the bones of the past? This was not
some local matter. The King had intervened. The great council at Westminster had issued
warrants under the Great Seal. Blidscote knew something about the law. Sir Hugh
Corbett may stand in his dark clothing and travel-stained boots but he
represented the Crown. He could go anywhere, see anything, ask any questions. God and his angels help any who tried to impede him! Blidscote
had so much to hide. Sometimes he sought consolation in being shriven, in
confessing his secret sins in church, in vowing repentance, in lighting
candles, but still the burden on his back grew heavier.
    Blidscote
became so frightened, he got up and walked back into
the town for company. He’d visited a dingy alehouse. Now he was sickened at
what he had drunk so quickly from the polluted vat and the dirt-encrusted,
leather tankard. He had enjoyed a quick fumble with a greasy potboy in one of
the outhouses but the ale fumes were now dulled, his sense of pleasure replaced
by remorse. Blidscote stumbled along the lanes, making his way towards the
square and the Golden Fleece. Guilt perched on his shoulder like a huge crow.
He’d ignored Corbett’s request to visit the families of the victims. They would
tell him nothing. Images came and went like fiery bursts in his befuddled mind.
Blidscote was a boy again, snivelling-nosed and ragged-arsed, standing before
Parson Hawdon, the old priest who had served St Edmund’s Church long before
Parson Grimstone ever came.
    ‘Do
not lie , boy!’ the old parson had thundered. ‘A lie
echoes like a bell across the lake of Hell and the demons
hear it.’
    Blidscote
paused, wiping the sweat from his unshaven face. He always did have an awful
fear of the church: those gargoyles which grinned down at him from the pillars;
the wooden carvings, depicting the realms of the dead, the dancing skeletons...
Blidscote felt so hot, he wondered if it was the glow from the fury of Hell. He
paused and leant against the plaster wall of a house, mopping his face with the
hem of his cloak. He was about to walk on when he felt the touch of cold steel
on his sweaty neck. Blidscote tried to turn.
    ‘Stay
where you are, bailiff of Melford!’
    The
sharp steel dug in a little closer. Blidscote couldn’t stop shaking. The voice
was low, hollow, muffled, as if the speaker was wearing a mask. Blidscote
forced his head round. It was a mask, ghoulish and garish like the face of a
demon. Blidscote closed his eyes and whimpered. Was he having a nightmare? Had
he died? Was this one of Hell’s scurriers sent to fetch him? Yet he recognised
that voice from many years ago.
    ‘Well,
well, Master Blidscote, we meet again.’
    ‘I have kept faith,’ Blidscote muttered. ‘And a still tongue in my head.’
    ‘And
why shouldn’t you, Master Blidscote?’ came the cool reply. ‘What can you do?
Confess all to the King’s justice or seek private words with the royal clerk?
Will you tell him the truth? You can hang for perjury, Walter.’ The tone was
now bantering. ‘Or haven’t you heard the news? How the King’s parliament at Winchester have issued a new statute? Perjury is now treason’s brother. And do you
know what happens to a traitor?’
    Blidscote
just whimpered.
    ‘Then
let me tell you, master bailiff. For we are all alone in the
dark. That’s what we are, aren’t we, creatures of the night? Scurrying
rats with our horde of secrets?’
    The
sword was quickly withdrawn.
    ‘Stay
where you are!’ the voice hissed, and the demon figure melted away.
    Blidscote
did. A beggar was coming up the lane, trundling a small barrow heaped with rags
and other rubbish he’d collected from the town midden heap. The small
wheelbarrow creaked and clattered on the cobbles. Blidscote turned. He would
have loved to have run but he knew his tormentor was still lurking in the
shadows on the opposite side of the lane. The beggar man drew closer. He
recognised Blidscote, put his barrow down and grinned in a display of rotting
gums and fetid breath. Blidscote flinched, waving his hand.
    ‘Good
evening, Master Blidscote.’
    ‘On your way! On your way!’
    The
man was about to protest but Blidscote gripped him by the shoulder.
    ‘Get
you gone or I’ll have you in the stocks for vagrancy!’
    The
beggar took up his barrow and almost ran down the lane, muttering curses about
unchristian