The Tainted Relic

by The Medieval Murderers

  Falconer saw the flash of amusement in her eyes. They both knew it was she protecting her son, not the other way round. He saw the outer edges of her eyes crease up, and imagined the smile on her lips.

  ‘It helps that Samson and Hannah brought the rabbi here, and have stayed with us too. Thank you for your concern, but you should look after yourself now.’

  ‘Have you any idea why these people are on the rampage?’

  Falconer could hear the heavy sigh despite the thickness of the door.

  ‘Do they need a reason, when the greatest in the country treat us so badly? But Hannah said she did hear from the cutler who rents his shop from them that there was some talk of a ritual murder near Broken Hays. Whoever found the body has accused us, of course.’

  ‘A ritual murder…?’ Falconer was appalled. Since the ridiculous story of a child murder in Lincoln some fifteen years previously, horrific tales of Jewish rituals abounded. It needed only some incautious remark to set off a vicious attack on local Jews. Could it have been John Hanny who had unleashed this current riot? And had he done it unwittingly, or with malice in his heart? Either way, the boy needed to be found.

  In the dying light of the candles in the nave, Robert Anselm stood at the centre of the labyrinth, far from the turmoil of Jewry. Around him on the floor of the nave were ranged six hemispheres. They resembled rose petals, with the end of the labyrinth walk as the stem of the flower. Each hemisphere was a symbolic representation of the attributes of the world. He turned round slowly on the spot, meditating on each portal individually. The first was Mineral, the next Plant. Then came Animal followed by Human. The last two were Angelic and the Unnameable. The seventh point was the central slab at his feet. Here was Illumination.

  He recalled a time more than thirty years earlier, when he had desperately needed illumination, to resolve the great tribulation that had confronted him with the arrival of the relic. The relic was supposed to have been the answer to Oseney Abbey’s prayers–its saviour. The rumours of its arrival had begun three days before, and had caused a great stir among the brethren. Even the young Anselm had welcomed the news at first. The abbey took a great deal of money to maintain, and resources had dwindled of late. A new focus for pilgrimage could make all the difference. Robert Anselm could see that.

  Brothers Petroc and Peter had been overcome by the majesty of the relic. They had twittered on after nones, finishing each other’s sentences as they had a habit of doing.

  ‘Is it not a wonder to behold, young Robert. A piece…’

  ‘…of the True Cross, here in…’

  ‘Oxford. At our abbey.’

  It was not long, however, before the abbot was cautioning everyone to remain silent on the matter. And Robert Anselm no longer felt elated. No, he had felt only oppressed. By then he had learned a deadly secret, so that, rising from his knees after prayers one evening, he had had to fight for breath. Petroc and Peter had helped him out of the chapel into the fresh air, where he took in great lungfuls of the sweet-scented air. It nevertheless tasted bitter on his tongue. He had retched. He had then hidden his true emotions, by dipping his head between his legs, and moaning. A non-committal sound that the two brothers took as disappointment that the relic was not to be. They had left him to regain his composure. The following morning, though, Anselm had numbly risen from his cot before the third hour of the morning. No great task, because he had not slept all night, and his duties called him to the kitchens. But it had been with a heavy heart that he had begun his daily tasks.

  Daily tasks that had absorbed him ever since. This night, thirty years on, he began to tread the route towards the exit of the labyrinth. This journey out represented Union, and action in the world.

  Falconer crossed Fish Street, and stood in the doorway of St Aldate’s Church opposite Belaset’s house. The mob was rampaging down the street, led by some massive brute of a man with a thick ginger beard. His face was red, though whether this was due to exertion, drink or the light of the flaming brand in his fist was difficult to tell. One eye was clouded dead white, which gave him the look of one half dead. But his actions were lively enough. He charged up to the door of the Jewish synagogue, and thumped on it with the butt of his firebrand. Sparks flew into the air.

  ‘Kill the Jews. Kill the child-killers. Kill the monk-killers.’

  His cries were echoed like a litany by the jostling crowd of angry people behind him. They were largely men of the town, though there were a few women on the fringes, who by their ragged looks were perhaps there for any pickings from the riot rather than out of conviction. Falconer also spotted the gaudy robes of a few clerks in the midst of the more sober dress of the townspeople. He screwed up his eyes to try to commit their faces to memory, cursing his poor vision. The lenses he had were only of use at close quarters. So the faces of those farthest away were no more than a blur. But then he did see someone he recognized skulking on the edge of the mob. It was unmistakably John Hanny, and he looked distinctly uneasy.

  Falconer eased from under the shadow of the church porch, and skirted round the crowd, closer to where Hanny stood. Ginger-beard was having no success with his assault on the synagogue door, and those at the back of the mob were beginning to drift off down Pennyfarthing Street, and Jewry Lane. All but the most hotheaded would soon begin to realize that their shouts, and the noise of their attack on the Jews’ houses, would bring the constable and his crew to the scene. And Falconer knew he should get John Hanny away before that happened. Peter Bullock was no respecter of university privileges. In fact they irked him, despite his friendship with Regent Master Falconer. He would cheerfully incarcerate an errant clerk in the Bocardo, if he could catch him at wrongdoing.

  As the pent-up emotions of the individuals in the mob began to leach away, and they began to disperse, Falconer reached his guilty student clerk. He grabbed his arm tightly.

  ‘John Hanny, you will come with me. Now.’

  The boy’s face, as it turned to Falconer, was a picture of shock, and shame. He stammered a sort of lame excuse, but his teacher was not in a mood to listen. He strode off down Little Jewry Lane, dragging the youth stumbling and groaning behind him. Turning swiftly left and then right, he hurried down the unsavoury alley accurately named Schitebarne Lane, and back towards Aristotle’s Hall.

  In the quiet and safe atmosphere of the communal hall, he sat Hanny down beside the embers of the fire. The other students had retired to their shared dormitory rooms, carelessly leaving a cold mess of potage on the hearth. Falconer, towering over Hanny, demanded to know what the boy was doing starting a riot. Hanny’s face was as white as a sheet, and his words came in little gasps.

  ‘I swear I did not actually say it was the Jews. That was the fault of that wall-eyed giant. He said it must have been the Jews, as they were always killing Christians for their rituals.’

  Falconer snorted in disgust. He would let Bullock know about the wall-eyed man, assuming that the constable hadn’t manage to grab him off the street anyway. The boy had been foolish, and incautious like any young man with a story to tell. But what was it he had said that had excited the crowd so? There was nothing in the details Hanny had given him and Peter Bullock which could have done that. Had he held something back?

  ‘I think you had better tell me everything, John.’

  John looked glumly at the ground, where a careless spillage of bean potage had left a dark brown stain. He pushed at the mark with his foot, spreading it in the straw.

  ‘You will not believe me, if I told you.’

  Falconer smiled gently. Young men like this student often imagined that they had seen wonders. When their vision was clouded with drink, and all they had been witness to was something unusual, that nevertheless had a perfectly rational explanation. The Regent Master’s guiding star was Aristotelean logic, which demanded scientific observation and comparison of facts. Occasionally in the past, he had been incautious enough to express opinions openly about others’ beliefs. And that had put him a
t odds with the Church and the university establishment. More than one chancellor had hinted at heresy, and threatened him with an appearance before the Black Congregation. It had not helped his position in the university, and his reputation was tarnished as a consequence. Lately, he had grown more circumspect, more compliant, which did not entirely please him. But he was weary of conflict and controversy, and not for the first time questioned whether he should even be teaching at all. But, at his lowest ebb, he would encounter such a lost youth as John Hanny, and his commitment was renewed.

  ‘I might just surprise you, John Hanny. I am old enough to have seen many things, and few, if any, have given me cause to marvel. Except for the gullibility of student clerks.’

  John blushed, and began a stumbling revelation.

  ‘I did go eeling that night. That was the truth. And I did fall asleep in the hut, and was awakened by a noise. But I saw more than I told you or the constable.’

  The boy paused, a fearful look in his eyes.

  ‘Go on. You must tell me everything now.’

  ‘When I crawled out of the hut to see what had made the noise, I saw him.’

  ‘The dead monk?’

  ‘No. Him. The murderer. He was bending over the body with something in his hand. A curved blade. It looked like a sickle. I watched as he turned the body over and straightened the legs. He did something else that looked like a sort of magical pass with his hands over the body. Then he laid the sickle under the monk’s hands, folding them across the body. What could he be doing else, but conducting some Jewish ritual over the man he had killed?’

  Falconer wondered too, but was not inclined to think Hanny had seen a ritual of any sort. It was more likely the killer had been searching for something the monk had in his possession. But who had the boy seen who had him so scared he dare not at first reveal this knowledge?

  ‘Tell me who you saw.’

  The boy screwed up his face in fear.

  ‘I thought it was the very Devil, sir. Or if not him, some Jew. He was big and dressed all in black, and I saw his face when he turned away from the body. It was dark-complected, and the eyes burned like coals. I swear that is the truth. He actually reminded me of that youth Deudone, who is always mocking Christians, and bragging about how much richer he is than us.’

  ‘You didn’t mention him by name to the mob?’

  ‘No, master!’

  Falconer held in his anger at the boy’s unthinking demonization of the Jews. But it was doubly worrying, if Hanny imagined he had seen Belaset’s son at the scene of the murder. Most people would not want any further proof of the guilt of a Jew.

  ‘I want you to think most carefully, use your brains to think about what you really saw. Perhaps you will make more sense in the morning. We will tell the constable then.’

  Hanny subsided on to his stool, and looked incredulously at his master.

  ‘Master. Don’t you believe in the Devil?’

  Falconer grunted. How could he explain it to this callow youth in a way that did not sound like heresy?

  ‘The Devil? Put it this way, John. I do believe in the ability of man to create infinite evil.’

  Peter Bullock yawned, and kneaded the small of his back. He had had a frustrating night with nothing to show for his discomfort but cold feet, and a nagging ache at the bottom of his spine. After being hauled from his bed to a disturbance in the Jewish quarter that had turned out to be something and nothing, he had decided to make use of the disruption to his sleep. He had sneaked into the precincts of St Frideswide’s Church, and found himself a hiding place behind one of the empty vending stalls there. He could see the tapers still burning inside the church, and the shadow of someone moving about. It had to be Brother Richard Yaxley, carrying out his duties as feretarius. During the festival, the monk remained in the church at night to guard the shrine. Or rather, he should do so. Bullock was sure he had deserted his post the time Will Plome inserted his fat frame into the shrine. And he suspected Yaxley was also absent when he murdered Oseney Abbey’s Brother John Barley. But suspicion was not enough. Bullock needed proof. Last night he had been determined to gather the evidence by spying on the man.

  He found that by perching on a wall he could observe Yaxley moving around inside the church, going from offertory box to offertory box. He was collecting the coins in a bag, which was soon heavy with the bounty. He then moved towards the high altar. For a while he disappeared from Bullock’s limited view. In fact, he was out of sight for so long that the constable was on the verge of entering the church, thinking Yaxley had given him the slip. Then he reappeared, unencumbered by the bag of coins. Bullock watched as Yaxley climbed to his watching loft at the level of the triforium windows. There, he settled down on a straw-filled mattress, and lay back. Disappointed, Bullock observed in envy as the monk spent a comfortable night resting in the warmth of his station above the shrine.

  It was a grey dawn that saw Bullock easing his aching bones, and slipping away for a cold breakfast of bread and ale. Frustrated at being none the wiser about Yaxley’s earlier activities, he almost didn’t hear his old friend, Falconer, calling from behind him.

  ‘Peter. Peter. You’re abroad very early.’

  Bullock slowed his pace to allow Falconer to catch up with him, and they walked together towards the castle.

  ‘I might say the same for you, William. But I have been on business. What’s your excuse?’

  Despite his determined tread, Bullock was finding himself hurrying to keep up with the taller man’s loping stride. Fortunately for him, Falconer stopped abruptly in response to his question, and stood at the corner of Fish Street and Pennyfarthing Lane. He watched distractedly as the early-rising tradesmen opened the shutters of their shops and began setting up their stalls. They had to profit when they could. And it would be another lucrative day meeting the needs of the pilgrims who thronged into Oxford for the Feast of St Frideswide. The lanky Regent Master turned his gaze on his stockier companion.

  ‘Business? What business? The riot that took place across the street from here yesterday? I was coming to tell you about that. It was a wall-eyed man with ginger hair who was the ringleader…’

  Bullock smiled grimly.

  ‘Ah. William Lawney. That makes sense. He owes a lot of money to the Jews. Money he borrowed for a business venture that failed. Thank you for that. I was on the scene too late to do anything about the commotion. All the excitement had evaporated by the time I arrived, and everyone seemed to just disappear down convenient alleys before I could employ my sword to good effect.’

  The constable was renowned for his huge but rusty sword which hung at his hip most of the time he patrolled the streets of Oxford. He no longer bothered about the sharpness of its edge, because, if he ever drew it, it was to employ the flat of the blade. That was far more effective a deterrent, when laid across a clerk’s buttocks, than a cutting edge. And more forgiving. Last night, the crowd had dispersed without even the need for that.

  ‘I will deal with Master Lawney. But no, that was not the business I was thinking of.’

  ‘The murder, then.’

  ‘Yes. I have been observing my suspect.’

  Falconer frowned, and looked at the salted fish seller rolling his barrels of produce out on to the street. It reminded him again of the starving John Hanny, and what the boy had seen that night.

  ‘You have a suspect? Who is that?’

  Bullock bubbled with the satisfaction of putting one over on his erudite friend. It was not often that he got to the truth before the Regent Master.

  ‘Why, Brother Richard Yaxley, of course. I saw him arguing with the dead man the night before he was killed. He claims over some trifling incident concerning young Will Plome, but that is a red herring.’

  Falconer knew Plome, who had come to Oxford with a troupe of travelling players. There had been a murder that had almost been laid at the door of the fat youth. Until the Regent Master had solved the puzzle. The jongleurs had moved on, but Wi
ll had stayed behind. He now made a living running errands for kindly people who pitied his simplicity.

  ‘What did Will have to do with it?’

  Bullock waved a beefy hand dismissively in the air.

  ‘Oh, nothing really. It was a trifle. But I do think he was put up to embarrassing the feretarius by Brother John Barley. You know how some of the monks at Oseney envy the popularity of the saint’s shrine. Especially at this time of year.’ The constable rubbed his finger and thumb together to signify the lucrative nature of the shrine. ‘And haven’t you always told me that money is an excellent motive for murder? Yaxley also said that the monk had something of great value to offer, but had then played that trick on him instead.’

  Bullock was prepared for his old friend to pour scorn on his conclusion. And was surprised when Falconer merely responded with a tilt of the head, and a little grunt. If he hadn’t known him better, Bullock would have thought the Regent Master had actually agreed with his analysis. Without demur. But in reality, Falconer just seemed distracted, and not at all full of the usual enthusiasm he exhibited over a murder. He appeared to be more interested in the mundane activities of the fish seller, Luke Bosden, setting up his stall across the street. Bullock narrowed his eyes, and peered at Luke as he rolled out another barrel of salted fish. If his actions were so interesting to Falconer, then maybe there was some deep riddle to be solved by observing them.

  In fact, Falconer was not really looking at the fish seller. He was merely worried about the state of John Hanny’s mind. And his belly. The description of what he had seen the night Brother John Barley was murdered had left Falconer half inclined to admit to the very real existence of the Devil. And to consider taking holy orders to seek expiation of all the heretical scientific ideas he had held heretofore. Anything rather than think Deudone was involved in the death.

  Yet Falconer had always relied on observation to guide his thinking. And it was a very real world which bustled around him now. The mundane life of real toil that a man like the fishmonger Bosden pursued in his effort to feed himself and his family. If there was anything spiritual in this world, it was the relentless optimism that sustained such men as Bosden. By comparison, Falconer, who did nothing more than cram a few notions into the heads of boys more often than not reluctant to give them room, felt himself worthless. He took a deep breath, and tried to concentrate on what Bullock had been saying. There was a connection. Suddenly it came to him. The conversation he had overheard between Harbottle and the master mason.