A Gathering of Ghosts Read online

  Copyright © 2018 Karen Maitland

  The right of Karen Maitland to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  This Ebook edition was first published by Headline Publishing Group in 2018

  All characters in this publication – apart from the obvious historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 3589 3

  Cover design by Patrick Insole. Snake illustration courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library/Natural History Museum

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Karen Maitland

  Praise for Karen Maitland

  About the Book

  Also by Karen Maitland

  Epigraph

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Epilogue

  Historical Notes

  Glossary

  Reading Group Guide

  Keep Reading . . .

  About Karen Maitland

  © John C. Gibson

  Karen Maitland travelled and worked in many parts of the United Kingdom before settling for several years in the beautiful medieval city of Lincoln, an inspiration for her writing. She is the author of The White Room, Company of Liars, The Owl Killers, The Gallows Curse, The Falcons of Fire and Ice, The Vanishing Witch, The Raven’s Head and The Plague Charmer. She now leads a life of rural bliss in Devon.

  Step back in time with Maitland’s dark tales

  ‘Enthralling, completely immersive, gripping stuff . . . An incredibly powerful evocation of one of the most raw and bitter periods of medieval history. I genuinely couldn’t put it down’ Barbara Erskine

  ‘A brilliant writer, with a real sense of history’ Susanna Gregory

  ‘Fear and hysteria are portrayed with claustrophobic skill’ The Times

  ‘Imaginative, hideous, irresistible’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Bawdy and brutal’ Simon Mayo

  ‘Scarily good. Imagine The Wicker Man crossed with The Birds’ Marie Claire

  ‘Captivating, unforgettable, truly compelling’ InStyle

  ‘A jewel of medieval mystery’ New York Times

  ‘Wonderfully told, full of twists and surprises’ For Winter Nights

  ‘The queen of the dark ages’ Bookeaters

  ‘Maitland knows how to wrap you up in the darkest wings of medieval storytelling’ Sunday Express S Magazine

  ‘Disquieting and compelling’ Historical Novel Society

  ‘Utterly immerses you in the dark shadowy superstitions of the time’ Booktrail

  About the Book

  1316. On the wilds of Dartmoor stands the isolated Priory of St Mary, home to the Sisters of the Knights of St John. People journey from afar in search of healing at the holy well that lies beneath its chapel.

  But the locals believe Dartmoor was theirs long before Christianity came to the land. And not all who visit seek miracles. When three strangers reach the moor, fear begins to stir as the well’s waters run with blood.

  What witchcraft have the young woman, the Knight of St John and the blind child brought with them?

  The Sisters will need to fight for everything they hold dear as the ghosts of the Old World gather in their midst.

  Also by Karen Maitland

  The White Room

  Company of Liars

  The Owl Killers

  The Gallows Curse

  The Falcons of Fire and Ice

  The Vanishing Witch

  The Raven’s Head

  The Plague Charmer

  Digital E-Shorts

  Liars and Thieves

  The Dangerous Art of Alchemy

  Wicked Children: Murderous Tales from History

  I shall see a world I will not like – summer without blossom; kine without milk; women without conscience; men without courage; conquests without a king; woods without mast; seas without fish; faulty judgements of old men; false precedents of judges. Every man a betrayer, every son a destroyer . . . An evil time.

  The Prophecy of the Morrigan from Cath Maige Tuired (The Battle of MaghTuireadh). Irish, circa ninth century in its written form

  Soften your tread. The Earth’s surface is but bodies of the dead,

  Walk slowly in the air, so you do not trample on the remains of God’s servants.

  Abu al-Alaa al Maarri, eleventh-century poet and philosopher, born AD 973

  Cast of Characters

  Hospitallers’ Priory of St Mary, Dartmoor

  Prioress Johanne – sister in the Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem and elected head of the Commandery of St Mary

  Sister Fina – sister of the Order of the Knights of St John and keeper of the Holy Well

  Sister Clarice – bookkeeper and steward

  Sister Basilia – infirmarer, in charge of the infirmary for the sick and elderly

  Sister Melisene – hosteller, responsible for the hospitality for travellers and pilgrims

  Goodwife Sibyl – lay servant who cooks for the sisters

  Meggy – local widow and lay gatekeeper of the priory

  Sebastian – disturbed patient in the infirmary

  Father Guthlac – a blind patient in the infirmary

  Brengy – the stable boy

  Dye – a kitchen scullion and sister of Brengy

  Hospitaller Brothers

  Knight Brother Nichol
as – warrior-monk and steward of the Knights of St John

  Brother Sergeant Alban – groom and non-military serving brother of the Knights

  Hob – a carter from Buckland

  Commander John de Messingham – preceptor of the Knights of St John at Buckland

  Lord Prior William de Tothall – head of the Knights of St John of all England, based in Clerkenwell

  Knight Brother Roul – Knight Hospitaller from Clerkenwell

  Villagers on Dartmoor

  Morwen – young cunning woman, daughter of Kendra

  Kendra – blood charmer and former keeper of the Holy Well

  Ryana and Taegan – Morwen’s elder sisters

  Deacon Wybert – local parish cleric

  Tinners

  Sorrel – woman with a withered arm

  Todde – seeking his fortune as a tinner

  Master Odo – owner of the tin-streaming works

  Gleedy – Master Odo’s right-hand man

  Eva – cook for the single tinners

  Chapter 1

  Hospitallers’ Priory of St Mary, Dartmoor Eve of May Day and Feast of Beltane, 1316

  That night, of all nights, Sister Fina was late. If she had arrived on time to close the holy well beneath the chapel, perhaps she might have averted all that came after, but she hadn’t. And it was Sister Clarice who was to blame. Never let that woman start talking if you’re in a hurry.

  ‘Could I beg a moment of your time, Sister Fina?’ she’d say.

  But it never was just a moment.

  Sister Basilia, who wouldn’t hear a bad word said about any soul, not even if they’d murdered every child in Widecombe, once told her fellow Hospitallers they should be thankful for Clarice’s gift of words, as it pleased her to call it, for she said the pedlars and merchants were so battered down by them they gave her what she wanted at half the price just to get away. The other sisters had rolled their eyes, for Basilia was cheerfully determined to see God’s blessing in everything, even a burned bun, which vexed them even more than Clarice’s nagging.

  That night, Clarice’s little word was about the extravagant use of candles, or was it beeswax polish? Probably both, Sister Fina couldn’t remember. She’d long stopped listening, though that hadn’t stopped Clarice talking, and by the time Fina eventually hurried across the priory courtyard it was already dark. She’d had to light a lantern to avoid tripping over the abandoned pails and pitchforks littering the cobbles. The priory cat, which was ignoring the mice and hunting for scraps of roast mutton, hissed as the sister’s heavy black skirts clipped her tail. Fina giggled, for the little beast sounded just like Clarice sucking her breath through her teeth at the wanton waste of yet another candle. But it served the old steward right: if she hadn’t lectured her for so long, Fina wouldn’t have needed to burn one.

  Even though the buildings surrounding the courtyard gave some shelter, the cold wind almost ripped the cloak from Fina’s shoulders as she picked her way towards the chapel. But it sounded even louder inside, as if the devil was beating his tail against the stone walls in a violent rage, furious that he’d been shut out. Fina glanced up at the tiny stained-glass window above the altar. She was always afraid the wind would blow it in if the rain didn’t smash it first. Basilia said that the casement was too narrow to come to any harm, but Fina took care not to stand too close.

  Fina was the youngest of the eight sisters at the priory and taller than all of them. Her shoulders were perpetually hunched as if she was trying to make herself shorter, but her red-raw bony hands and feet looked as if they’d been intended for someone twice her height, and she’d been given them by mistake.

  She hurried across the stone floor, the cold seeping up through her thin leather soles, and locked the pilgrims’ door at the opposite side of the round chapel, which allowed worshippers to enter the church without going through the priory. She didn’t want any villagers slipping in while her back was turned. Then she ducked beneath the low arch of the doorway that led to the well. The narrow stone staircase spiralled down into the darkness and, far below, she could hear the splashing of water in spite of the roar of the gale outside. But even before she’d taken a step, something made her draw back.

  The rock walls of the staircase always glimmered for they were covered with a fur of delicate green moss that radiated a strange emerald-gold light whenever the candles were burning below, like glow-worms twinkling on a summer’s night. Pilgrims gasped in awe when they first saw it. When they thought no one was watching, some scraped their fingernails down those walls to steal what they imagined to be a strip of precious gold, but they found themselves grasping only a handful of wet mud. That gave them a fright, thinking St Lucia had turned gold into dirt to punish their thieving. Fina had been tending the well daily for a year or more and the golden light was as commonplace to her as a loaf of bread, but what she saw that night certainly wasn’t. The walls were glowing with a ruby-red light that throbbed and pulsated like a beating heart. She felt as if she was staring down into the belly of the hill slashed open. The rocks were bleeding.

  The sight so terrified her that she almost slammed the door and fled, but she was more afraid of her prioress’s tongue. That woman’s glare could freeze the sun in the sky. Fina forced herself to examine the walls again. But she could make no sense of what she saw. Was the red glow coming from a fire in the cave below? She sniffed, but there was no smell of smoke and, besides, there was nothing much to burn down there, except the St Brigid crosses left by pilgrims or the rags they dipped into the holy water. And Prioress Johanne always insisted those filthy offerings were cleared away nightly.

  Still clutching the lantern, Fina slowly descended the uneven stone steps, holding herself tense and ready to retreat at the first sign of flames. The holy spring gushed out of a gap between three rocks in the wall and poured into an ancient stone trough, just long and wide enough for a man to lie in, as if he was in his own coffin. Fat yellow candles burned on the spikes that had been driven into the rock on either side of the spring. The melted wax dripped down the rock face to form frozen waterfalls at the base. But when Fina reached the point on the stairs where the interior of the cave became visible, she thought she saw something red glowing at the bottom of the trough, as if a scarlet flame burned beneath the water. It was there only for the blink of an eye. Then it was gone, and soft yellow candlelight flickered across the rocky floor once more.

  Ducking under a low jag of rock, she stepped down into the cave and edged towards the spring, thinking that a pilgrim must have thrown a jewel into the water, which had caught the light, but there were only the usual bent pins and silver pennies in the trough, nothing else, except a few stems of the creamy-white flowers of may blossom floating on the surface – another offering from a villager that would have brought a frown to Prioress Johanne’s brow if she’d seen it.

  Some village girl had probably been using the flowers to sprinkle herself with the spring water in the belief that on the eve of May Day it would turn her into a beauty. As a child, Fina had watched the servant girls in her father’s manor house do such things and was almost tempted to copy them now, but her prioress’s face rose in front of her, like an archangel with a flaming sword. She’d never be able to hide such a sin from her inquisitorial gaze.

  Fina scooped out the dripping flowers, crushing them in her fist. A stray thorn pierced her palm and she winced, glancing guiltily up at the painted wooden statue of St Lucia above the well. The saint knew her thoughts and was punishing her.

  Averting her eyes, Fina searched the cave for what her prioress called ‘rubbish’ – a bandage stiff with dried blood, a three-armed cross woven from rushes, and a crude doll fashioned from reeds and wrapped in a white rag. By now, Fina knew all of the little holes and crevices in the cave where the local women tried to hide such things, and it didn’t take her long for the cave wasn’t large. There was room for only four or five people to crowd in around the well, though mostly they came in ones and twos. />
  The figure of St Lucia, patron saint of the blind, stood in a niche above the spring, for the sisters had dedicated the well to her. The long wooden dagger in her hands pointed menacingly at the pilgrims as if she meant to kill any sinner who despoiled it. Johanne had had the statue installed there when she had been elected as prioress eight years ago, to remind everyone that they should pray to the saint that the waters might heal them. No one ever dared say as much to the prioress, but in truth only the sisters of the Knights of St John and a few of the pilgrims ever offered their prayers to her at this well.

  Old Kendra and her tribe of daughters, who once were the keepers of the spring, called it Bryde’s Well and they’d cursed the whole priory on the day it was blessed for St Lucia. Prioress Johanne had forbidden them to come near the place, but the villagers who crept down to the cave still whispered the old name and made their prayers and offerings of clooties, pins and three-armed crosses not to the saint gazing down at their spring, but to the ancient one, the stone face that stared out at them behind the spring through a veil of water.

  The prioress had not brought her to the holy well. That face had been watching over the spring centuries before the first Hospitaller sisters had set their dainty feet upon the moors a mere thirty years ago. Compared to that ancient carving, the sisters were no more than blades of grass beneath an ancient oak.

  Fina tried never to look at the stone carving, though the face always drew her gaze, like a viper lying coiled in the corner of a room. It was hard to make out the features beneath the cascade, especially in the flickering candlelight. Basilia said it was a woman’s face, with ears of wheat sprouting from her eyes and mouth. Melisene was sure it was the face of the sun, with tongues of fire leaping from it. The prioress said it was the face of a she-devil, who now lay crushed beneath the holy feet of St Lucia.

  But Fina saw a skull surmounted by a warrior’s helmet, with burning spears shooting from it, and when she was alone in the cave, she saw those spears dance with flame and the skull turn to stare at her. Even though she tried to convince herself it must be a trick of the candlelight flickering over the twisting water, even though she knew the demon had been crushed, still she could not shake off the feeling that the she-devil was very far from dead.