Saint Milburga's Bones (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 5)

by Jason Vail

  “What is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “In the relic’s box beneath a fold of velvet.”

  “I cannot imagine why it would be there. Is it gold?”

  “I think so. It could be bronze, though. I’m not sure.”

  Gilbert glanced at Wattepas’ house. “Why don’t we ask him? He’s a goldsmith. He should know what it is.”

  They crossed the street to the Wattepas house, which occupied half the frontage of the block facing High Street. The shutters were still down and two journeymen, one of them Wace Bursecot, and an apprentice were working together shaping a silver bowl that could have sat comfortably on a man’s head. Wace noticed them and came to the window. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Is your master about?” Stephen asked.

  “Regrettably he is not.”

  “Perhaps then you can tell me what this is.” Stephen put the little round thing on the shutter top, which served as a counter.

  Wace stared at the little ring, a finger poised over it as if to prod it, but the finger hesitated and did not carry through with the gesture. Wace rubbed his lips. It was some time before he spoke, and when he did so his voice was hoarse. “Where did you get this, sir?”

  “I found it in the box which had contained the relic of Saint Milburga. It’s been stolen. I know you heard. I saw you at the chapel just this morning.”

  “News that grave is hard to keep a secret,” Wace said. “We had the object in the shop only a few days ago. This,” he indicated the little bit of metal, “secures the spike of a pin.”

  “What sort of pin would that be?”

  “We attached emeralds to the relic, or relics, I should say, because the bone was in two pieces.”

  “How does that work?”

  “A moment.” Wace retreated into the back of the shop. He returned with a small pin and another little round disk with a hole in the center. He pressed the disk onto the spike of the pin. He rested the assembly in Stephen’s hand. “Like that.”

  Stephen tried to work the disk loose. It came off, but not easily. He returned the disk and pin to Wace. “That disk, it’s your work?”

  “Andrew over there,” Wace pointed to one of the others working on the silver bowl. “He makes them. He’s better at the small stuff than the rest of us, the master excepted, of course.”

  “I take that as a yes.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “How long ago was this, exactly?”

  “Let me think. Four days ago. Earl Percival’s steward came by with a crowd of monks to have the final work done.”

  “Why the steward?”

  “The earl commissioned the elaboration of the relic. The monks were none too happy about it, I have to say. They moped about while we did the work, muttering and complaining.”

  “I should say they would!” Gilbert exclaimed. “It is outrageous. It’s heresy to deface a sacred object in such a way!”

  “I wonder what the point of it was?” Stephen mused.

  “The earl intended to give the relic as a gift to Prince Edward,” Wace said. “The steward mentioned it several times. He was quite emphatic that the settings be of the highest quality.”

  “Gold?”

  “Naturally. But the stones themselves were the centerpiece and they were worth a fortune. Imported from Austria.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an emerald.”

  “These were quite large.” Wace extended a thumb. “Quite as large as my thumbnail, and well cut and polished, green and so luminous they seemed to shine with their own light. Beautiful objects, not a flaw in any of them. I’ve never seen the like and I probably never will again. A magnificent gift for the Prince.” He stammered and said in a voice that seemed too loud: “Too bad they’re lost now. All that work wasted.”

  “How many were there altogether?”

  “Four, two for each fragment of bone.”

  Stephen nodded. He prodded the disk he had found. “Do you have a scrap of cloth? Something to wrap this in so it doesn’t get lost?”

  “Certainly. Just a moment.” Wace retreated into the rear of the shop, and returned with a scrap of linen. He handed it to Stephen.

  “You say the earl planned to make a gift of the emeralds to the Prince,” Stephen said.

  “Yes,” Wace said.

  “After they were fixed to the relic.”

  “So the steward said.”

  “Which means that the earl planned to give the relic also.”

  “That seemed plain.”

  “I cannot believe that.”

  “It is what I heard.”

  Stephen was shocked at the suggestion that FitzAllen could give away something belonging to the priory. He glanced at Gilbert, whom he was sure would be equally shocked. But he saw only a long face and a drooping mouth, with Gilbert’s hands stroking his cheeks.

  “Is that all?” Wace asked. “It is late and we still have work to do before we are allowed our supper.”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  Wace pulled up the shutters so he did not have to respond to any afterthoughts from Stephen.

  As Stephen stepped toward Broad Street with Gilbert moping at his side, he asked, “How is the earl able to give away the relic?”

  “Because it belongs to him,” Gilbert said. “The priory is merely its repository.”

  “How did that come to be?”

  “The relic was found in the graveyard of the village church, more than a hundred-fifty years ago. The land belonged to the Wybern family, who held the manor at that time. They deposited it with the priority, but did not make it a gift. Ownership came to the FitzAllens through their marriage to the one of the Wybern heiresses. Most people have forgotten this, but the monks of Greater Wenlock have not and apparently neither has FitzAllen.”

  “FitzAllen does not hold the manor?”

  “No, his father sold it to pay off some debt or other. His connection with Greater Wenlock is thin. I’m surprised he even knew about the relic, to tell you the truth.”

  They turned onto Broad Street where John le Spicer kept his shop on the corner. John the elder was in the doorway just closing up, and they exchanged greetings. He had started as an apothecary, but his son had gone into the wine business. The location was perfect for the wine trade, since it enabled sales to be made to anyone passing down High and Broad Streets or coming to the market. They had recently torn down and rebuilt the house so that it was almost as grand as the Wattepas mansion.

  Stephen and Gilbert began the steep descent down Broad Street, watchful for piles of horse and dog manure — and the occasional spills of human offal — which plagued the streets despite the efforts of the town bailiffs to require those with houses along the way to keep their doorsteps clean. When Stephen had first come to Ludlow briefly as a boy to squire at the castle before his father had sent him to London to read the law, he had given no thought to the town. When he had returned last autumn, at first he had regarded it as a place of exile, but he had grown to look upon it with some affection. The panorama down Broad Street was one of those that warmed him as much as the view from his garret window, with the houses on either side of the street marching downhill in solid walls, neat and tidy and prosperous, the street curving gently right, concluding at the gate tower at the bottom, and beyond the rising hills on the opposite bank of the River Teme covered with trees.

  “That’s odd,” he said when they were halfway to the gate and just passing Bell Lane.

  “What’s odd?”

  “I don’t see Harry.” Harry’s licensed begging spot was just inside the gate. He was visible from Bell Lane when he was occupying it. It was early for Harry to have abandoned his post, and that was the source of some concern. It was unlike Harry to give up the chance to collect a farthing.

  “Perhaps it was the prospect of rain,” Gilbert said, for although the day had begun with a clear sky, an overcast had rolled in, low, dark, and
threatening. “You know how he hates to get wet.”

  “I know he complains about it, but when have you known him to run from a few raindrops?”

  “You have me there.”

  When they reached the gate, Stephen called to Gip, the toothless gate ward who was sheltering in his niche, “What happened to Harry?”

  “He’s gone to the Kettle,” Gip called back. “Getting airs that one. Thinks he’s better than ordinary people now. And we’ve you to thank for it.”

  “I bear no responsibility for anything Harry does.”

  “Well, you’re the one who forced him to take a bath last month. Now he thinks he’s got to have one regular. He said I could use one myself, that he could smell me all the way out in the street. The cheek! If he wasn’t so short, I’d smack him in the head, but it’s too much trouble to lean over.”

  “Good God!” Gilbert said as they passed on to Lower Broad Street, where the Wobbly Kettle sat just before the bridge. “Harry bathing once a month? I can’t believe it.”

  “The foundations of the earth are trembling,” Stephen said.

  The Wobbly Kettle lay just over a hundred yards ahead beside a water mill at the foot of the bridge. The prior of Saint John’s Hospital across the street stood on his doorstep and glared as they went inside to convey his disapproval of their visit to the bawdy house, but he said nothing. The town whores needed somewhere to ply their trade, and the town elders did not want them on the streets where they might bother men walking about with their wives and families.

  The front room was stuffy from the fire burning in the fireplace, one of the few in town because they were so expensive to build. The room was otherwise unoccupied except for a pair of whores lounging on a bench, but it was early yet. Harry’s platform leaned against the wall behind the door. Stephen bought mugs of ale for himself and Gilbert, and they pushed into the rear, where the tubs for bathing were kept in a long shed that stretched behind the house, each tub separated by curtains.

  Stephen peeked through the gaps in the curtains until he found Harry in the third tub on the left. A girl was also there, holding a comb, scissors, and razor.

  “Damn it,” Harry said as Stephen and Gilbert entered and sat on the bench beside the tub. “Can’t a man bathe in peace without being bothered by the likes of you?”

  “We were so amazed when we heard you’d come here of your own choice that we rushed immediately to verify the rumor,” Stephen said.

  “No one would believe it without proof,” Gilbert said.

  “Well, you’ve seen it,” Harry said. “Now off with you. Unless you’d care to share some of that ale. Hot water is damnably expensive. So I’ve used up all my money.”

  “Water does cost money,” Stephen said.

  “Actually, I think it’s the wood,” Gilbert said.

  “Someone has to carry water from the river,” Stephen said. “I doubt they do it for free.”

  “Are you going to waste my valuable time with idle chit chat or are you going to share that ale?” Harry demanded.

  “You are making yourself unpleasant,” Stephen said. But he handed Harry his mug.

  Gilbert was heard to murmur, “He is always unpleasant.” At Harry’s glare, Gilbert regarded the ceiling, twiddling his thumbs on his ample stomach as if he had not spoken.

  The girl asked rather impatiently, “Do you want a shave or not?”

  “A moment, dear,” Harry said. “I’m thinking. This is an important decision, and I am torn. And they have interrupted my thoughts. Give me time to collect myself.”

  “There is so little of you left that it should not take long,” Gilbert muttered.

  “You look better without the beard,” she said. One might doubt she meant this sincerely, since she stood to gain if he yielded. But it had turned out that under what had been a terrible mat of beard, Harry in fact was a handsome man, a matter which had not gone unnoticed in the town.

  “That is the problem,” Harry said. “With the beard I am more pitiful and attract more charity. Without it, I only attract women.” Harry pointed at Stephen. “And it’s his fault I am in this conundrum. He forced a shave upon me, and it’s nearly ruined me. Every time I turn around some girl wants to take me home. But there’s no profit in that.”

  The girl ruffled Harry’s hair. “Poor baby. I bet they wish they had that problem.”

  “Why don’t you compromise,” Stephen said. “Make it a short trim.”

  “I had not thought of that,” Harry said. “It might do. All right. Let’s do that.”

  He raised his bearded chin and the girl set down the razor and went to work with the comb and scissors. In short order, she trimmed the beard close but left a rakish point at the chin. Stephen had to admit that the effect was excellent.

  “Would you mind paying Emily?” Harry asked.

  “I paid once already,” Stephen said. “This one is on you.”

  “I know. With that.” Harry indicated a block of wood lying on the bench beside Stephen, who had paid no attention to it when he sat down.

  Stephen picked up the block. He saw that one end was carved. It was a woman’s face. As he held it up, it became clear that it was Emily’s face.

  “That is a good likeness,” Stephen said, amazed as he held it out to Emily.

  She took it, planted a kiss on Harry’s head, and left them. They heard her calling to someone beyond the curtains to show them her likeness, and there was a babble as several women gathered to admire it.

  Stephen retrieved a clay pot sitting beside the barrel. It still held some ale, and he replenished their cups. He poked his head out of the curtains and called for a refill. One of the women clustered about Emily accepted the pitcher. Stephen sat back down on the bench.

  “I trust my messengers found you this morning,” Harry said.

  “You sent the boys?”

  “They were loitering about my spot discussing their find.”

  “Yes, they found me.” Stephen briefly recounted the finding of Ormyn’s body and his examination.

  “Naked, you said,” Harry said, taking another sip. “The Thumpers will have the whys and wherefores of that.”

  “That’s what we thought,” Stephen said.

  “What did they have to say about it?”

  “I haven’t talked to them yet.”

  “What! Why not?”

  “Something else has come up. Something deemed more important.”

  “What could be more important than murder?”

  “You haven’t heard, then?”

  “You wouldn’t be talking about that bunch of bones.”

  “Not a bunch of bones,” Gilbert said. “A sacred relic of Saint Milburga. It’s one bone, actually, a piece of the thigh broken in two.”

  “What do you have to do with that?” Harry asked.

  “We’re to find it,” Gilbert said.

  “Why would anyone want to steal the relic?” Harry asked. “You can’t sell something like that.”

  “Why, to have it, of course.”

  “Who would want just to have it?”

  “Another religious house perhaps,” Gilbert speculated. “The competition for relics can get quite fierce, I am afraid to say.”

  “Another house might buy it? That hardly seems likely. They’d not be able to tell anyone they had it. Word would get out and FitzAllen would demand its return. Good God, he might even summon lawyers. No one wants to have them involved.”

  “Perhaps some rich man who feels in need of the protection the relic provides,” Stephen said.

  “I’d not take such a risk or incur such an expense,” Harry said.

  “What if you were dying, or someone close to you was dying? You might then.”

  “But if that was the case, he could simply pay the monks for a view of it, and make a prayer. Much easier than theft.” Harry pursed his lips. “I heard that it was encrusted with jewels.”

  “I don’t think encrusted quite describes it,” Stephen said. “There were fo
ur jewels attached, two on each fragment. That hardly counts as encrusted.”

  “Emeralds,” Gilbert said, his disapproval plain.

  “Ah, emeralds,” Harry said, as if he had a deep knowledge of emeralds, although he had no idea what one looked like.

  “Yes, FitzAllen recently had them put on,” Stephen said. “By Wattepas. He intended to give the relic to the Prince. The gems were to enhance the gift, to make it more precious.”

  “He can do that?” Harry asked.

  “Do what?” Stephen replied.

  “Give away someone’s relic.”

  “It was his.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Nonetheless,” Gilbert said, “it is true.”

  “Well, you were at Greater Wenlock. You should know.”

  “Indeed, I was,” Gilbert said with obvious regret.

  “You knew this?” Stephen asked.

  “Of course, I knew it,” Harry said. “He mopes about it, especially when he’s drunk. You haven’t heard him? He stole that Gospel of his when he ran off with Edith, too.”

  “So I’ve learned.”

  “I did not steal it,” Gilbert said. “It was mine.”

  “Fat chance of that.” Harry sat up. “He looks honest but behind that cheery face lurks a heart filled with avarice and lust. Don’t be fooled.”

  “Stop it,” Gilbert said.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Stephen said in an effort to change the subject.

  Fortunately for Stephen’s effort, the girl who had fetched away the pitcher returned with it. Gilbert refilled their mugs. Stephen was beginning to feel a little lightheaded from the ale, even though it was weak. He worried that Harry might also be feeling its effects since he had been drinking longer. Stephen had never seen a drunk Harry, and the prospect was frightening. Harry was bad enough when he was sober. But Harry’s cup was recharged before he could say anything about it.

  “Have you given any thought to the possibility that your thief was after the jewels, and not the relic itself?” Harry asked.

  Stephen kept his mouth from falling open with a conscious effort. This had not occurred to him. He had simply assumed that the relic was the object of the theft. This could be, he reflected during the fleeting moment available, another of his mistakes. He had leapt to conclusions before, and they had led him astray.