The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  Brother John had become too feeble and unreliable to continue his old duties about the farm or dealing with the pilgrims, so the prior had relegated him to the scriptorium, a small chamber above the chapter house. This housed the priory’s small library and was where any work on manuscripts was carried out, directed by the sacristan. John had been given the task of making copies of psalms and chants for the choir and any other calligraphic work that was needed.

  After supper, in the mild light of the summer evening, most of the monks congregated for a social hour in the ‘warming room’ situated at the end of the refectory. The fireplace was now empty, but in the cold weather it contained the only fire in the monks’ accommodation, apart from that in the prior’s parlour.

  They sat around the stone benches built into the walls to discuss their activities and any local news and gossip. Of course, the rumours about the advancing Welsh army were a major topic.

  ‘I am told on good authority that Glendower has a sizeable contingent of French troops with him now,’ declared Jude, the cellarer, without disclosing who his good authority might be.

  ‘I still fail to understand how this Welsh barbarian is able to command the support of the French,’ grumbled Brother Pierre. ‘Nor why he is able to defeat a much mightier nation like England.’

  ‘In the hills and valleys of his rugged country of Wales, he is able to run rings around the English forces,’ replied Mark. ‘In a pitched battle on the open field, the King’s troops would defeat him, but as they have done since Roman times, the Welsh wage a guerrilla war, darting down from their rocks and crags upon tired soldiers, wet and dispirited after their long march from the Midlands into the forbidding mountains.’

  Louis, ever contentious, pointed out that the Welsh leader had virtually annihilated a much stronger English army at the battle of Brynglas.

  ‘Their archers are the most skilful in Europe, which is why they are hired as mercenaries by many countries, even including England itself !’

  The conversation and argument about warfare and tactics went on for some time, a somewhat incongruous subject for a group of monks, but eventually one of them changed the subject to Brother John, who like some of the other monks, had taken himself to his bed, to get as much sleep as possible before they were awakened at midnight for matins.

  ‘Old John is becoming a serious liability to the welfare of this priory,’ grumbled the cellarer. ‘I sometimes see him stumbling about the courtyard, mumbling to the sky and waving his arms about. It is an embarrassment to the supplicants who come here. They must wonder what sort of place this is to have a madman wandering about.’

  Brother Arnulf, the hospitaller, agreed with him.

  ‘Several of the guests who stayed with me have been concerned about him and it cannot do the reputation of this place any good. The prior should think about settling him in one of our sister abbeys, which have places for such aged brothers in their declining years.’

  The younger secretary, Mark, was not so ready to condemn the old man.

  ‘He seems quite harmless, surely little damage can be done by him. His fantasies can be quite interesting, for only a few days ago he told me that he had spoken with an angel during the previous night, who informed him that we need have no fear of the advancing army for at least another two weeks.’

  Some of the monks chuckled, others clucked their tongues at this further evidence of Brother John’s dementia.

  ‘Perhaps our Lord God has set one of his Angels with the keenest eyesight on top of the Malverns, to spy out the movement of Glendower’s troops for us!’ suggested Pierre sarcastically.

  For the next two days, little was seen of Brother John, as he spent most of his time in the quiet of the scriptorium, seated at his high desk with a quill and ink. He was copying out a dozen duplicates of a new chant, which Patrice, the precentor, intended to add to the choir’s repertoire. In spite of his age and other problems, John still had a sharp eye and produced excellent black-letter copies on sheets of parchment. He attended the frater at mealtimes and his appetite seemed undiminished. He was very quiet, but otherwise did nothing to give the other monks any cause for concern or irritation.

  However, on the third morning all this changed.

  At dawn, the brothers went down the night stairs into the church for prime, the first service of the day. The fact that Brother John was not amongst them failed to register, due to their sleepiness, until the office was over, when they trooped out into the early morning light of the inner courtyard. Here they found the old monk pacing up and down, shaking his fists at the heavens and muttering angrily at some unseen person apparently hovering above him.

  ‘This is becoming insufferable!’ snapped Matthew, the sub-prior. ‘Someone call Brother Paul. He must do something about this man.’

  As Arnulf hurried across the precinct to the prior’s house, Mark went to the old man and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘What is troubling you, John?’ he asked. ‘Have you been hearing voices again?’

  The aged Benedictine lowered his arms and turned an angry face towards the younger man. ‘A message directly from St Oswald, no less! We are undone, this house is a sham and must be abandoned!’

  Some of the other monks had begun to drift towards the refectory for their breakfast, but the vehemence of John’s voice caused them to turn back and stare at him. The infirmarian, in his role as a doctor, joined Mark at the old man’s side in an attempt to pacify him, for he seemed to be in a towering rage.

  ‘John, John! Why are you so troubled?’ Louis asked soothingly.

  John glared at him scathingly. ‘I tell you, all is lost with this place! We have been tricked for centuries.’

  ‘Have you had more strange dreams?’ asked Mark gently, but this seemed to annoy the elderly brother even more.

  ‘Dreams? Not dreams, boy!’ he ranted. ‘St Oswald came to me in the night – or rather, I went to him.’

  Louis decided to humour him once more. ‘You went to him? Just where was this meeting – in the dormer?’

  The elder monk’s lined face looked at him pityingly. He raised an arm and pointed a quivering forefinger at the hill visible above the priory wall.

  ‘Up there, at the British Camp.’

  Brother Louis’s eyebrows rose. ‘On the top of the Herefordshire Beacon? Really, Brother, you test my patience. Those old legs of yours would hardly take you to the foot of that hill.’

  John scowled at him. ‘I was taken up there by a pair of angels. They held my arms and we drifted up there as gently as a butterfly.’

  ‘And St Oswald was there waiting for you, I suppose?’ said Pierre sarcastically.

  ‘He was indeed, standing in the centre of that great earthen circle built by the ancients.’

  By this time Arnulf had returned with the prior hurrying behind him. Paul went straight to John and held both his hands in his.

  ‘Brother, you must try to restrain yourself with these wild tales. They do no good for the reputation of our house.’

  ‘Our house no longer has a reputation!’ bellowed the old man defiantly. ‘We have been living a lie these past two centuries.’

  The prior turned to the infirmarian. ‘Brother Louis, will you take our old friend to your sickroom and give him something to calm his spirits? Perhaps a good sleep will settle his mind.’

  He laid a calming hand on the sleeve of John’s habit, but the old monk irritably shrugged it off.

  ‘I’ll not go to bed. It’s not long since I rose!’ he declared loudly. ‘I must proclaim this message of deceit to the world.’

  He began shuffling towards the gate between the inner and outer precincts, repelling all attempts to restrain him. However, at a sign from the prior, his secretary ran forward and closed the large wooden gate that sealed the archway.

  ‘Brother, where do you think you are going?’ coaxed Paul. ‘Come back with me to my parlour and take a cup of wine to settle your spirit.’

  Frustrated at ha
ving his exit cut off, John began mumbling again and waving his hands to heaven, but after few moments, he seemed to sag into submission, allowing Mark and the prior to lead him slowly back towards the house in the corner of the inner court. The dozen monks, who had congregated around them, watched as they reached the entrance porch.

  ‘The poor man has lost his mind altogether now,’ observed the sub-prior, not without a tinge of satisfaction unbecoming in a servant of God. ‘If I was the prior, I would get him to a place of refuge without delay. He does this house no good with his bizarre behaviour.’

  Pierre, the sacristan, privately had his own ungodly thoughts, thanking Heaven that the austere Brother Matthew was not yet prior, but aloud he joined in the general agreement that something must be done about old John.

  ‘I wonder what our patron saint told him up there?’ mused Arnulf, the hospitaller, pointing up towards the Beacon, which hovered over the priory.

  Jude grunted. ‘As always, no doubt our prior will listen politely to John’s ramblings. He has the patience of a saint himself.’

  A few minutes later, the agitated old monk was seated on a stool before the prior’s table, behind which Paul was beaming at him with his inevitable fixed smile. Mark was hovering to one side, after providing the other two with cups of wine from the prior’s cupboard.

  ‘Now, Brother John, tell us why you were so set on leaving the priory just now,’ asked Paul gently, ‘and where did you think you were going?’

  The seemingly innocent question set off the old man’s temper once again. His hand shook and some of the red wine spilled onto the polished floorboards.

  ‘Where? Anywhere, out of this accursed place!’ he quavered. ‘But I will soon direct my feet towards the bishop in Hereford or Worcester – and then to Canterbury, or even Rome, if needs be!’

  Paul shot a look at his secretary, his eyebrows raised in surprise. Mark shrugged, then spoke to the aged brother.

  ‘John, that is an ambitious enterprise! I doubt you have been further than Worcester in your life?’

  ‘I will find a way. The Lord and St Oswald will guide my steps.’

  Prior Paul felt it was time that they got down to essentials.

  ‘John, dear brother, what exactly is it that so disturbs your mind?’ he asked gently. ‘You speak of betrayal and shame, but what is in your turbulent mind that so distresses you, at a time of life when peace and tranquillity should be your lot?’

  John’s lined face looked from one to the other of the men who were trying to soothe him, but the wildness did not leave his eyes.

  ‘St Oswald has chosen me as the channel to deliver the truth to the world!’ he declared. ‘I am in honour bound to carry out his sacred mission, no doubt ordered by the Almighty Himself!’ He rocked on his stool as he crossed himself at these words, spilling more wine in the process.

  Mark rolled his eyes at his superior and Paul sighed; even his fixed smile was weakening a little at the old man’s intransigence, and he responded more firmly.

  ‘Brother John, you must tell me what exactly was this vital message that you feel so fervently bound to convey it to the highest levels of our Mother Church!’

  A life-time of vows of obedience surfaced in the monk and he bowed his head in submission. The secretary retrieved the cup from his fingers before what was left of the wine was spilled, as John began to speak.

  ‘I have been troubled for some weeks by feelings of impending doom, Prior,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It was as if a malignant thunder-cloud was hovering over the Malverns and over our house. I knew something bad was going to happen and at first I thought it was the destruction that might be wrought by these advancing Welshmen.’

  Paul nodded sagely. ‘A natural enough fear, Brother. I doubt there is one of us who has not been touched by such apprehension.’

  John shook his head, still looking down at the floor. ‘No, it was not that, for the blessed Oswald assured me that we would suffer little harm from Glendower, who he said was a devout man and a protector of God’s houses in Wales.’

  The prior privately thought that this might not apply to England, but he kept his doubts to himself. ‘So what was it?’ he persisted.

  Brother John took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh as he committed himself to exposing his secret.

  ‘He told me that all those centuries ago, the woman Beornwyn, who has become our patron saint and whom we praise and revere every day, was a brazen hussy, a whore who even fornicated in God’s house, in the church of St Oswald himself! She was not killed by berserk Norsemen, but rightly executed for her profligate lewdness.’

  The prior’s face paled and his famous smile dropped from it like breeches falling when a belt breaks.

  ‘That is a terrible thing to say, Brother!’ he gasped. ‘I am your confessor and I will have to give you a severe penance for such evil thoughts.’

  ‘His mind is deranged, Prior,’ murmured Mark. ‘He is not responsible for his fantasies.’

  But aghast at this sudden blasphemy, Prior Paul’s habitually placid nature crumbled and he rose to point a shaking finger at the old monk.

  ‘I will listen to no more licentious slander against our beloved Beornwyn!’ he howled. ‘Go to your bed and stay there until I have decided what to do about you!’

  As John stumbled to his feet, the furious prior turned to his secretary.

  ‘On second thoughts, escort him to the penitentiary cell and make sure that he stays there. Say nothing to the others. We cannot have the rest of our brotherhood tainted with his vile accusations!’

  Mark took the culprit by the arm and gently led him away. John went unprotestingly, his eyes lowered to the floor as they left the prior to simmer down in his parlour.

  As they walked across the inner courtyard, some of the other monks were still standing there, looking expectantly at the couple as they made their way to the chapter house, where a tiny cell was attached to the side of the building.

  Brother Matthew, the sub-prior, came across to intercept them. ‘What has happened?’ he demanded imperiously. ‘Why are you shutting him away?’

  Mark raised a hand warningly at Matthew. ‘Our brother here is unwell. The prior wishes him to be kept alone for a time.’

  Matthew glowered at the young secretary. ‘I am the sub-prior. I demand to know what’s going on!’

  Stubbornly, Mark shook his head. ‘You must speak to the prior yourself, Brother. Those are his orders.’

  Matthew angrily marched off towards the prior’s house, leaving Mark to shepherd the old man into the small room that was kept for those who had offended in some way. It was rarely used, save for occasionally housing a brother who came home drunk from the village or was repeatedly late for holy offices.

  Reluctantly, Mark ushered John to the hard chair, which, along with a lumpy mattress and blanket on the floor, was the only furniture, apart from an empty bucket and a large wooden cross on the wall.

  ‘Sit there and rest, Brother,’ he said compassionately. ‘Lie down, if you wish, though it’s early in the day for sleep.’ As he went to the door, he turned to look at the old monk sitting with downcast eyes. ‘I’ll get one of the kitchen boys to bring you some broth, bread and water.’

  Getting no response, he went out and pulled the door shut behind him. There was a key on the outside, but the prior had not told him to lock the old man in, so he left it there and went back across the precinct. Inside, John stirred himself and went to the small window, an unglazed square with bars across it. The only view was of the bare stone of the outside wall of the church, but as he held on to the bars, a blue butterfly fluttered in and alighted on the back of his right hand. With a strangled cry, he jerked away and as the creature flew off, he collapsed onto the hard bed and cried piteously, his chest heaving with sobs.

  At about the ninth hour, after the office of prime, the monks all trooped into the chapter house for their daily session, which was part service, part business. As the priory had no novitiat
es at the moment, all the brothers had taken their vows and could remain for the whole meeting. One began by reading a chapter from the Rule of St Benedict, then the date, calendar and phase of the moon was announced, together with the names of the saints that were commemorated on that day. Prayers were said for the King and for the dead, then the daily schedule of services and duties were read out.

  At chapter, any brothers who had offended in any way were brought before their fellows and penances ordered where necessary by the prior or his sub-prior. Today, the usual dull routine had been broken by John’s weird behaviour, and the monks were eager to hear it discussed. From his chair facing the half-circle of benches where the brothers were sitting, Prior Paul began the proceedings, his face looking uncharacteristically drawn and sombre.

  ‘We need to consider what must be done about the affliction of our Brother John, who, I must remind you all, has been a faithful member of this community for more than thirty years. His mind is now obviously deranged, but the distasteful nature of his recent fantasies is such that we must seriously consider how we should deal with him.’

  At this, Brother Luke, one of the older monks, stood up to ask a question.

  ‘Prior, we have only heard rumours of what John alleged this morning. Can you please tell us what he said?’

  Paul looked very uncomfortable at this, but he had little option in the fraternal nature of their closed community. He cleared his throat.

  ‘It is a hideous blasphemy, which I am loath to repeat, but you will have to acknowledge that it comes from a diseased mind. Brother John, in his demented state, alleges that St Oswald of blessed memory had told him that our dear patron, Beornwyn, was not a pure virgin, but a fornicator who actually committed her sins in a house of God!’

  There was a hiss of disbelief and a wave of muttering amongst the brothers, but it was cut short by the harsh voice of Matthew, sitting on a chair at Paul’s right hand.

  ‘Forgive me for interrupting, Prior,’ he snapped. ‘But I find to my horror that this is the most foul and terrible accusation that it has ever been my lot to hear! To malign and slander our beloved patron, who cannot answer for herself, is an injustice that has no equal in my memory.’