House of Shadows

by The Medieval Murderers

  But Geoffrey’s recollections of the prior’s words were interrupted by a shout from outside. Then an answering shout. Then another and another. Not good-natured banter this time but real insults flowing between the workmen who were repairing the crumbling stone at the base of the gatehouse wall. Whereas before the sporadic chatter hadn’t been audible, it was now all too plain. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that workers in a priory would have more respect for their holy surroundings? But no, it was all ‘hog’s turd’ this and ‘bull’s pizzle’ that. None of Chaucer’s business, but that was all the more reason to take a look.

  Glad enough to be disturbed in his work – and at the same instant thinking, Work? What work? – Geoffrey rose from his stool and pushed the table slightly to one side so that he could get a clearer view out of the window. The downward angle was awkward, and he could at first see only a couple of workmen, hats pulled low over their brows to shield them from the sun, which was hot and high even this early in the morning. Chaucer could tell nothing more about them except that one seemed young, scarcely more than a lad.

  The workmen were watching something out of Chaucer’s line of sight. They stood, tense and expectant. Geoffrey recognized the stance of people on the edge of an imminent fight, wondering whether to weigh in, wondering whether to get involved or to separate the participants. Then two more men, out of view until now, shifted further away from the base of the wall. They were facing each other, a couple of yards apart and at a half-crouch. From his position by the window, Geoffrey couldn’t see the expression on their faces, but their closeness to a fight was evident from their stance and the way in which each was clutching an ordinary tool – a chisel, a trowel – so as to turn it into a weapon if necessary. The man holding the chisel had the use of only one hand. The other one, his left, was withered and turned in on itself like the claw of a bird. Perhaps in compensation, all his strength and force seemed to be concentrated in the good hand and arm.

  Geoffrey looked beyond the group of four. The area south of the gatehouse, the inner court, was empty apart from a black cat slinking through a patch of sun between the shadows. But there were no black-habited monks walking – or slinking – anywhere. Not surprising, since the bell that had just rung was for terce, already the fourth of the day’s devotional calls even though it was still early in the morning. Chaucer squinted into the sun-dazzled yard, willing someone to appear and intervene. Now the one-handed man raised his implement, the chisel. He was shorter than the other but looked the more dangerous. He shifted his weight on to his right foot, ready to attack.

  Geoffrey leaned further out of the window. Without thinking, he shouted out. Not ‘Stop it!’ or ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Simply: ‘Hey!’

  It was enough. The man wielding the chisel looked up. The sun was in his eyes. He squinted, but Chaucer must have been no more than a shadow in the window. The man’s mouth opened as if he was going to say or shout something in reply – it was a black hole of a mouth, with fewer teeth than he had good fingers. But whatever this individual had been about to say he thought better of. He lowered the chisel and shook his head, perhaps as a way of denying that he’d ever meant any harm. The second man, too, looked up before letting the hand holding his implement, the trowel, fall to his side. The two onlookers were also gazing in Chaucer’s direction.

  He felt that something more was required of him but couldn’t think what to say. After all, an argument among the lay workers in Bermondsey Priory was none of his business. He was a guest in this place, with no authority over any of its occupants. It was enough if he had reminded these people that he was a witness to their goings-on and so managed to avert violence for the time being.

  ‘Good day to you,’ he said, withdrawing from his place at the window.

  But Geoffrey stayed close to the window. He heard the beating of his heart. His breath was coming short, as if he had been on the verge of a fight himself. He strained to listen. Nobody was speaking as far as he could tell. It was the silence that follows a quarrel. After a few moments the sounds of work resumed, the scrape of the trowel, the thunk of a hammer.

  He sat down at the table once again and picked up his pen. To work! Geoffrey Chaucer was supposed to be penning a report on some recent negotiations in the city of Genoa to do with the establishment of a trading centre for the Genoese on the south coast of England. The success of such diplomatic missions was measured by the amounts of paper they generated. But, in truth, the writing of the report was a pretext. What Geoffrey really wanted to do was to get back to writing his verses.

  But the scene outside had unsettled him, and whereas before he hadn’t wanted to concentrate, now he wasn’t able to for thinking of the foursome by the gatehouse entrance. He hoped that the monks would soon finish their devotions in the great church and that one or two of them would appear, black-hooded strollers in the court. Their very presence would surely be a deterrent to any further trouble. If they noticed what was going on, that is. The Cluniac monks at Bermondsey Priory had a reputation for scholarship. They weren’t like some orders, taking pleasure in hard sweat and calloused hands. Rather, they left that to the lay workers, like the quarrelsome individuals outside the window. They were the only ones privileged to get their hands dirty.

  And a thought occurred to Geoffrey. Wasn’t it rather odd that a man with a crooked hand should be employed as a mason, repairing a cavity in the fabric of the gatehouse? Although he might be able to use a trowel and perhaps shift blocks of stone, he could not wield a hammer and chisel (other than as weapons). Perhaps his continued employment was an act of charity on the part of the monks. Except that the last thing the crooked-hand man looked as though he’d require was charity.

  Shrugging his shoulders, Geoffrey picked up his pen yet again and lifted a sheet of paper from the pile in front of him. Get going. You write verses, he told himself; you’re a maker. Well, make something. That was evidently the reputation he’d brought with him to this priory. It was with these words that the prior, Richard Dunton, had greeted him the previous evening. ‘Ah, Master Chaucer, the court poet.’

  The court poet? Chaucer had never thought of himself like that before, or more precisely he had never heard himself referred to in that way. True, he’d written a piece in memory of John of Gaunt’s first wife, and from time to time he recited his work to some of the nobility at the Savoy or at Windsor. The ladies and gentlemen seemed to appreciate his words. At least they applauded politely when he’d finished. And his invitation to spend a few days at Bermondsey had come about because of Dunton’s links to the various royal households. But to be termed ‘the court poet’ now, as if it was an official title! Despite himself, he felt a little kick of pride.

  Richard Dunton had personally escorted Geoffrey on a tour of the priory. This was an old foundation, he’d explained, dating from shortly after the Conquest. The conventual church loomed above the cloister, the upper reaches of it like a great cliff catching the declining rays of the sun. It had taken years, decades to build, and had been completed and dedicated within living memory, yet it might have stood on this spot for centuries. Dunton’s deep voice echoed as they made a circuit of the cloister. The area in the centre was in shadow, and martins threaded the air between their nesting places among the eaves and buttresses. Geoffrey soon realized that the prior had his own kind of quiet satisfaction. He was the first Englishman to be appointed to the position of superior. He was new, he was relatively young, and there was vigour in his words and movements.

  Geoffrey was surprised to find how knowledgeable Richard Dunton was about outside affairs. The prior knew the latest news about King Edward’s health (declining) and that of the Prince of Wales (also declining). He was better informed than Chaucer on some of the most recent comings and goings at court. When Geoffrey commented, tactfully, on this, Dunton said: ‘You must not think, Master Chaucer, that because we spend our time thinking of a higher world we are somehow not of this one too. It is very necessary for the prior
of a great place like this to be aware of what the king is thinking and feeling – and of the state of his health. It’s not so many years since we were taken under his protection on account of debt and other misfortunes.’

  At one point, as they were rounding a corner in the cloister, a hooded figure almost collided with Geoffrey. The figure was carrying some books, which he dropped in his confusion. Another brother was following in his wake. This second monk busied himself retrieving the dropped books. After apologies had been exchanged, Richard Dunton said: ‘This is well met.’

  He introduced the brothers. The first, who’d been carrying the books, was Brother Peter, who combined the posts of sacrist and librarian. The second, who’d picked the books up, was a moon-faced young man called Ralph. He was described as the revestiarius and the sacrist’s assistant. Chaucer was a little hazy on the responsibilities of the various posts in the order, but he had an idea that the revestiarius was in charge of the linen and vestments.

  Richard Dunton explained the reason for Geoffrey’s presence in Bermondsey and once again made reference to the ‘court poet’. If Brother Peter had never heard of Geoffrey Chaucer, he made a good job of disguising the fact by nodding and saying: ‘Of course, of course, Master Chaucer.’ The librarian was old but with a stringy strength to him. He pushed his hood back and thrust his lined, spectacled face towards the newcomer as if to read Geoffrey like a book. The cloister was gloomy enough, but the gesture seemed like a lifelong habit, acquired from years of poring over texts. What little light there was reflected off Brother Peter’s spectacles, making it hard to interpret his expression, in fact giving an odd impression of blindness. Meanwhile, Brother Ralph stood smiling pleasantly in the background.

  ‘You remember that I wish to speak to you, Brother Richard?’ said the librarian to the prior. When the other did not respond, he said: ‘The matter cannot wait.’ His voice was, like his body, creaky but firm.

  ‘Come after compline,’ said the prior.

  Peter seemed about to say something more but, tucking his books under his arm, he nodded to his assistant and the two men rounded the corner of the cloister. Chaucer and Dunton resumed their walk.

  ‘There is a man who does not live in the higher world or the lower one but only among his books,’ said the prior.

  ‘I can think of worse worlds,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘No doubt his ceiling is leaking or a bookish mouse has chewed some manuscript.’

  Geoffrey wondered that the prior needed to account for the librarian’s wish to see him. He thought there’d been a greater urgency in Brother Peter’s voice than would be justified by a leaking roof or a trespassing mouse. By now they had wandered out of the cloister and were walking near the chapterhouse. Beyond lay the monks’ cemetery, with its modest white stone markers, all identical in the dying light, sheltered by willows and oaks. Richard Dunton gestured at some more scattered buildings. Like all great establishments, Bermondsey Priory was, if not a world unto itself, at least a township. It contained a bakery and an infirmary and, at some distance, even a farm. Around them stretched the flatlands of Surrey rising to gentle hills in the distance. This was marsh country, at risk from high tides and protected by ditches and dykes.

  But now the prior took Geoffrey Chaucer by the elbow and, saying that there was something very precious that he wished to show him, led him back in the direction of the great church. Perhaps because of the nearness of water – in the river to the north, in the very ground under their feet – Geoffrey suddenly thought of the church as a stone ship. An upturned ark. Passing down the slype, or covered passage, they entered the building through a door off the cloister.

  The interior was deserted save for a couple of figures who were kneeling in prayer. It was between the hours for vespers and compline, the final prayers for the day. Inside, it struck chill after the warmth of the evening. The mighty stone columns seemed to pass into dusk as they climbed towards the vaulted roof. The stained glass in the great rose window at the end of the nave burned with the last of the day. The prior once again guided Chaucer by the elbow until they reached a side chapel. A small cross, made of brass or latten by the look of it and studded with little gems, stood in a niche behind a grille flanked by burning tapers. Richard Dunton unlatched the grille so that they could see the cross more clearly. It was delicately fashioned and stood scarcely more than the height of a man’s hand.

  ‘I have heard of this,’ said Geoffrey. ‘The Bermondsey cross. There is a story that goes with it.’

  ‘It was found during the time of the first King Henry by members of our order. You know the story, you say?’

  ‘Not the details of it,’ said Geoffrey, sensing Dunton’s eagerness to tell the tale. As the two men gazed at the crucifix, the prior recounted how three of the Cluniac monks had been walking and debating by the banks of the River Thames one morning all those centuries before. It was a cloudy, workaday morning. Of course, the brothers should not have been outside the bounds of the priory, nor should they have been engaged in a theological discussion – given their vow of silence they should not have been talking at all, in fact. But perhaps things were not so strict in those days. Legend had it that they were discussing miracles and whether any such wonders were possible in these late times. One of the three monks, Brother James, was especially vociferous in his belief that the age of miracles had passed. At that instant they heard a flap of wings and looked up to see a great bird passing overhead, flying towards the river.

  Fear struck deep into their hearts, for it was a larger bird than they had ever seen in their lives, larger even than the largest eagle. They clutched each other in their fear and watched as the bird reached the river. Some object appeared to fall from its beak before it began to climb higher and higher until it was no more than a speck against the clouds. Where before the brothers had been disputing noisily, they were now struck dumb. They were about to return, silent and chastened, to the priory when a narrow ray of sun shot through a hole in the cloud – at the very spot where the bird had disappeared – and seemed to fasten on a muddy stretch of the foreshore. ‘Like a finger,’ said Richard Dunton. ‘That is how it is described in the account left by Brother James. Like a celestial finger directing him and his brothers to this particular point.’

  Curiosity got the better of their alarm. They saw something glinting on the foreshore. They picked their way across the mud and muck of the shore until they reached the place. There, planted perpendicular in the mud, was the cross that now stood in front of Geoffrey Chaucer. The gems crusting its arms were untarnished, said Richard Dunton. There was no trace of mud or water on the cross. This, surely, was the very item dropped by the great bird. It was the strongest reproof to Brother James’s words about miracles. When the brothers had recovered a little from their astonishment, they left him to guard the cross and ran back to the priory to get the prior who, like the present librarian, went by the name of Peter.

  ‘Peter was an old man by then,’ said Richard Dunton, ‘but witnesses say that he ran to the spot. No one had ever seen him run before. And not just him, but the other brothers and the lay workers, too, since word spread fast that something remarkable had happened. Well, to shorten my tale, everyone agreed that this was a miraculous event beyond question. Brother James and the others were forgiven for their wilful wandering outside the priory, and they were even forgiven for breaking their vows of silence, since the results had been so happy…so extraordinary. The cross was retrieved from the mud. Even that part of it which had been sunk into the river mud emerged fresh and shining. It was as if the metal had been freshly beaten and polished and the gems newly cut. It was ceremoniously carried to this place, and here it has stood for more than two hundred and fifty years.’

  As if to mark the close of his story, the prior reached out and latched the grille in front of the cross. While he’d been speaking, Geoffrey had been examining the crucifix more closely. If he hadn’t just heard this strange account, he probably wouldn’t hav
e spared the cross a second glance. It was a handsome enough item but not much different from what you might find in any religious house or church.

  ‘You do not keep it locked away?’ he said. ‘Many people must wish to see this and even a priory may receive a thief unawares.’

  ‘We welcome many guests here and there may be thieves among them. But who would dare to take it?’ said Dunton, with a rare flash of unworldliness. ‘Besides, this place is always occupied. And the cross will guard itself.’

  Geoffrey wasn’t so sure about that, but he said nothing. The two men turned away from the niche in the wall. The darkness in the nave had grown deeper, relieved only by the pinprick of scattered candles elsewhere and the embers of light in the western window. Geoffrey wasn’t sure either how far the prior believed in the story he’d just told. There had been no trace of doubt or irony in his tones. When it came to miracles, Geoffrey put himself in the sceptics’ camp. He didn’t think they happened nowadays, or at least not with such convenient timing.

  It was easy enough to see how the legend of the miraculous Bermondsey cross might have developed. The object was small enough to be carried in the beak of a large bird, which had probably been attracted by its bright sheen. But a bird wouldn’t see much purpose in carrying it far and would soon drop it. By pure chance the cross had landed not in the water but on the Thames foreshore. Probably the monks had witnessed this straightforward event and, wittingly or otherwise, had transformed it into something wondrous. It couldn’t be denied that the cross, like any relic and quite apart from its religious significance, must be useful to the priory. With such a history, it would draw pilgrims and the devout to this marshy spot south of the river.