The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  Before Paul could reply, Louis spoke up in his native language, addressing the speaker. ‘None before Malvern or Upton. You need to move on a few more miles.’

  Not to be outdone before a fellow-countryman, Pierre also made his nationality known, by using the same tongue. ‘It is a pleasure to hear God’s own language spoken in this outlandish country, Monsieur.’

  Glyndwr’s bushy eyebrows rose a little as he turned his head to speak to his Gallic comrade.

  ‘We seem to have come across a nest of Frenchmen, Comte de Salers!’ He swung back to Pierre and Louis. ‘And what are you doing here, sitting on the Welsh border?’

  ‘I am the sacristan, recently from the abbey of Fontrevault – and anxious to return there! This is Brother Louis, our infirmarian.’

  ‘A Doctor of Physic from Montpellier.’ Even in such a fraught situation, Louis could not resist flaunting his badge of fame, and the Welsh leader seemed interested.

  ‘One reason for our need to halt here for a day or so is that we have sick and wounded men. Will you look at them or have you scruples about helping the enemy?’

  This was a challenge to Louis’s Hippocratic oath.

  ‘They are not my enemies,’ he snapped. ‘All men in distress deserve Christian aid. You seem to have many of my countrymen in your retinue, so I will ask them how we might best aid the sufferers.’

  Owain called the Comte de Salers forward and the two French monks went to confer with him, leaving the prior and his secretary facing the prince.

  ‘If you have many sick men, perhaps they would be better housed in our infirmary and in the guest-house, rather than lie in carts or on the cold grass out there,’ he suggested, pointing to the mass of men who were now covering the field, many sitting or lying down.

  Already some were forming into groups and lighting fires with sticks picked up on their journey through the woods.

  ‘Where are your own villagers now?’ demanded Glyndwr.

  ‘Inside our walls. The women and children are in the guest-house, but we can move them to the lay brothers’ dormitory if you wish to shelter your sick and wounded.’

  Glyndwr regarded the plump prior critically. ‘You are a compassionate man, unlike some clerics we confront! They often abuse us, resist and even try to offer us violence.’

  Mark thought it was time he said something to support his prior. ‘We are a house of healing, sir. The priory was founded centuries ago because of the miracle of the spring, above which the church was built. Much of our work is treating the sick, either by the magic of Beornwyn’s fountain or by the expertise of physicians like Brother Louis.’

  Glyndwr seized upon the idea of a magical spring. His fascination with divination and mystic signs made anything occult a welcome diversion from the years of warfare to which he had committed himself.

  ‘We have a strong tradition of healing wells in Wales. Tell me of this spring you have here.’

  Between them, Mark and the prior outlined the history of Beornwyn and St Oswald.

  ‘Some two hundred years ago, we were given some of the bodily relics of that saintly virgin to keep in the church,’ added Paul. ‘Since then, the power of healing has increased, as has the reputation of the priory to attract pilgrims.’

  The Welsh prince was no fool and knew that this meant that donations must have filled the coffers many times over since the spring and the relics attracted a stream of supplicants. But he was interested in the more mystical aspects of the story.

  ‘I must see this famous fountain for myself – and touch your virgin’s relics,’ he announced. ‘They may confer good fortune upon our crusade!’

  Paul realised that the gold-banded skull was now hidden away, and they had carefully avoided mentioning it in treating the sick. Thankfully, he thought, they still had several other mouldering bones in the reliquary, which could be shown to Glyndwr to satisfy his curiosity. The more affable they could make their relationship, the better chance the priory had of getting away with a minimum of looting.

  ‘Come in now, and bring your senior officers with you,’ he invited. He led them back to the priory gates and called to the porters to throw them wide. ‘And leave them open, there will be sick and wounded coming in shortly,’ he commanded.

  His two French brothers had gone off with some of Owain’s captains into the now dense crowd of soldiers, to find men in most need of medical care, but Mark kept close to the prior as they led Glyndwr into the outer courtyard. Many of the villagers and lay brothers shrank back as the armed men strode through, but Paul called to the rest of his monks to follow them to the church.

  He led the invaders up the steps and across the empty nave until they reached the marble fountain and the effigy of St Beornwyn. As Paul genuflected in deference to the high altar, he was surprised to see that Owain Glyndwr dropped to both knees on the flagstones, crossed himself and held his hands before his bowed head, as he murmured some prayers. Then he climbed to his feet and looked with interest at the unusual fountain that sat before the chancel arch.

  ‘This is where your pilgrims come for a taste of your miraculous water, Prior?’ he asked.

  Paul nodded. ‘They are also shown part of our blessed patron’s relics kept in that reliquary up at the altar,’ he said, trusting that God would forgive his economy with the truth – though he assuaged his conscience with the fact that the other bones they possessed in the casket were relics and that omitting to mention the skull-cap was not an outright lie. ‘And, of course, our infirmarian, a skilled physician, offers them medical treatment where necessary,’ he added, to cover up any hint of evasion in his voice.

  ‘I wish to avail myself of this same benediction from your saint,’ said Owain, bluntly. ‘She is an English saint, but no matter. Many of our Welsh saints were Breton or Irish – and the apostles were Palestinian Jews. The Kingdom of God knows no nationality.’

  Paul was pleasantly surprised to find the Welsh prince such a devout man. It might be a good sign for hoping that the priory might come off relatively lightly from the attentions of the horde of invaders outside.

  He beckoned to his sub-prior and the precentor and whispered in their ears, sending Matthew up to the altar to open the reliquary and reverently bring down a leg bone of Beornwyn, resting on a linen cloth. Patrice was dispatched to the aumbry in the chancel wall, from where he retrieved a communion chalice made of pewter, chased with silver ornamentation. As they had hidden their valuable vessels under the floor, this goblet was one used to take around the villages with Beornwyn’s relics, when holding Mass during pilgrimages to raise funds for the priory. Paul hoped that it would look good enough for Glyndwr not to wonder if they had more valuable ones hidden away somewhere.

  The monks filed into their places in the quire and began their familiar routine of chants as the prior extemporised on the ritual for administering the ‘cure’.

  Accompanied by prayers in Latin, he filled the chalice from under the angel’s jet of clear water and set it on the rim of the large basin below. Then Matthew solemnly offered him the cloth carrying the ancient bone, which with more ceremony was presented to Glyndwr, who had again kneeled before him. Several of the other lieutenants, including a couple of the French officers, kneeled beside him and Paul gravely bent to present the crumbling thigh-bone to each man, who all touched it somewhat tentatively before making the sign of the cross.

  Then he went along the row of kneeling warriors and offered each a sip of blessed water from the cup. After more prayers, and amid the soporific chanting from the quire-stalls, Matthew and Patrice returned the relics and the goblet to their resting places. The ceremony over, the soldiers rose to their feet and the prior rejoined them below the chancel steps.

  ‘I see that your beautiful basin has recently suffered some damage,’ said the observant Owain, pointing at the rim of the bowl. ‘Is that not fresh cement in that repair?’

  Hoping perhaps to increase the prince’s sympathy for their house and further strengthen the good rel
ations that seemed to be building between them, Paul began to recount the events of the past week.

  ‘We have recently had a tragic episode, sir. One of our oldest brothers, weak in the mind from age and illness, caused us much anguish by his strange behaviour – and was murdered for his demented fantasy!’

  His secretary, Mark, seeking to consolidate the prior’s tactics, began to give Owain the details of Brother John’s weird claims that he had been transported up to the ancient site on the hill above, to meet St Oswald and be told the shocking news of their patron’s infidelity. Before he could continue with the description of John’s violent death, the Welsh leader interrupted him, seemingly in a state of excited interest.

  ‘What? And you all ridiculed the man? It may well have been true! Such visitations have occurred throughout history.’ He glared around at the circle of monks, who began to look sheepish, then apprehensive as the Welsh leader’s anger became obvious.

  ‘We had no reason to believe the old man’s claims,’ said Paul, falteringly. ‘He had been having fits for years and recently had been acting strangely.’

  ‘That may be a manifestation of his contact with forces beyond our comprehension,’ snapped Glyndwr. ‘Many visionaries in the past have suffered from such seizures as they were used as a channel by mystical powers. You should have listened more diligently to what he had to say through your patron saint!’

  The prior rallied his defence against these accusations.

  ‘His claims that our beloved Beornwyn, revered for many hundreds of years, was a libidinous fornicator who desecrated a house of God, were repugnant to us,’ he cried. ‘It also damaged our reputation and threatened to ruin our healing of the sick!’

  ‘And, no doubt reduced the contributions to your treasure chest,’ observed Owain, scathingly. ‘So who killed this poor man?’

  ‘We do not know, sir,’ said Mark, seeing that the prior had become too emotional to speak wisely. ‘All we know is that to our great regret and anguish, it must have been one of us, as the circumstances permit of no other explanation.’

  ‘And you have not exposed this villain?’ roared Glyndwr. ‘Is he one of these?’ He flung a brawny arm around to indicate the group of monks now cowering on the steps.

  Prior Paul stepped forward again, red-faced with a mixture of anger and apprehension.

  ‘This is our business, Prince! It is not a secular matter, but one to be settled by the Church – even by the Pope, if need be!’

  ‘Pope! Which one, eh? The true father in Avignon or the imposter in Rome?’

  He had recently transferred the allegiance of his new parliament and Church in Wales to the pontiff in the south of France.

  ‘We have done all we can to make the culprit confess,’ cut in Mark, hoping to calm the developing dispute. ‘But all the prior’s efforts have been in vain.’

  Glyndwr glared around at them all, his forked beard jutting forward aggressively. ‘I’ll soon alter that, priest! No one slays a man of vision chosen by God and gets away with it in my presence!’

  He swung around and barked orders at Rhys Gethin, one of his principal compatriots, to call in a score of soldiers from outside.

  ‘I want these monks hanged, for one of them is a murderer!’

  ‘How do we know which one?’ queried Rhys.

  The reply he received was the one that the papal legate Arnaud Amalric had uttered during the Cathar heresy several hundred years earlier, when he ordered the killing of twenty thousand people in Beziers. ‘Kill them all, for God will know which are the innocent!’

  There was instant confusion, with the prior making vociferous protests, some of the brothers falling to their knees, hands clasped in supplication and others try to escape back into the chancel. But well-disciplined men-at-arms surrounded the monks, though the two French brothers who had gone to see the sick troops had been forgotten. The monks were dragged into a line before Glyndwr, though he spared the loudly protesting prior the indignity of being a suspect.

  ‘This is your last chance to save yourselves!’ he said in an ominously level voice, full of menace. ‘Don’t think I will spare you, for King Henry’s armies have slain scores of monks in Wales, burned their abbeys and massacred men, women and children by the hundred.’

  He glared along the line as the ashen faces and trembling knees. ‘Whichever amongst you is guilty, step forward!’ he roared. ‘This is your last chance to join the martyrs! Otherwise the weight of your consciences in letting your innocent fellows join you in death will load you down as you all take the last few steps to the hanging trees outside!’

  His own followers had increased in numbers as curious soldiers had pushed into the nave to see what was going on. Their leader turned to them and waved an imperious hand towards the group of terrified monks.

  ‘Help Rhys Gethin to take these murderous men to the nearest wood and hang them!’ he commanded.

  There was a sudden commotion as one of the brothers abruptly dropped to his knees in front of Owain Glyndwr and grasped his ankles in desperate supplication.

  ‘Sire, have mercy! If I confess, I can tell you where the treasures of this house are hidden. But spare my life, I beseech you!’

  The Welsh leader kicked him aside contemptuously, so that the monk fell onto his side on the cold stones.

  ‘Don’t try to bargain with me, you dog!’ he bellowed. ‘If you wish to confess, it can only mean that you are the guilty one. You should be hanged twice over for betraying your brothers, you treacherous coward!’

  Arnulf, for it was the hospitaller who had caused this dramatic turn of events, clasped his hands before his face, tears running from his eyes, as he looked up at the grim figure of Glyndwr.

  ‘It was not me who delivered the blows,’ he gabbled desperately. ‘Jude was the killer. I was drawn into helping him against my will!’

  At this the cellarer, Jude, lunged from amongst the crowd of quaking brothers and tried to leap on his fellow monk, who was cowering on the floor. He was grabbed by a couple of soldiers, but still managed to screech denials of his guilt.

  Arnulf continued to blabber his confession. ‘Jude killed the old man after we agreed to get rid of him, as he was responsible for maliciously ruining the reputation of this house.’

  ‘You liar, may you rot in hell!’ yelled Jude, struggling in the grip of the two brawny soldiers. ‘It was you that was afraid that your fleecing of visitors to the guesthouse would be damaged if their numbers were reduced!’

  From his position on the flagstones, where he was now being held down by the riding boot of one of the French officers, Arnulf screamed his counterclaims.

  ‘Be damned yourself, Jude! You feared that old John’s slander would reduce the profits you make from selling priory stores to outsiders!’

  At this, Prior Paul became so incensed that he even forgot the presence of the invading troops around him.

  ‘You evil, foul men! How dare you shelter in this house of God merely to embezzle our substance! I have long had my suspicions about you, but had no means of proving it.’

  At a sign from Glyndwr, the men holding Jude threw him to the ground to join his partner in crime.

  ‘You miserable wretches, how dare you masquerade as holy men while all the time you were lining your own purses? I suppose when you had stolen enough ill-gotten gains, you would vanish to spend your loot in comfort.’

  He turned to the prior, who was so devastated that his familiar smile had vanished, probably for ever.

  ‘At least our invasion has solved your crime, Prior! I think, in return for our help, we deserve to see this treasure of yours.’

  He aimed a kick at the prostrate form of Arnulf, still lying on the floor. ‘Show us where it’s hidden, swine! Though it won’t save your neck from being stretched.’

  Looking as if he had aged ten years during the past few minutes, the prior intervened, shaking his head in resignation.

  ‘Let him be, Prince. I will show you where our hard-earned saving
s and our treasured relics are hidden.’

  Wearily, he led a strange procession of armed men and monks towards the altar and indicated the slab beneath which the spring was concealed. It took hardly a moment for soldiers to use their pikes to lever up the loosened flagstone, revealing the wrappings that held the priory’s wealth.

  Glyndwr looked with great interest at the contents of the woollen blankets. The weight of the treasure chest brought a smile to his face, but his fascination was with the skull of Beornwyn, of now-dubious fame, as the prior’s secretary explained how the calvarium was used in their healing ritual.

  Owain held it up reverently and examined the wide gold band with its butterfly decoration. Then he kneeled on the edge of the well and reached down to fill the skull-cap with the clear water that was bubbling from the earth. He stood up again and offered it to Paul, who was by now totally bemused by the actions of this superstitious Welsh leader.

  ‘Prior, though you gave me water in a goblet just now, I wish to take it again in its proper holy vessel. It may have a greater power in blessing my campaign with success.’

  He handed the skull to Paul and, with his lieutenants grouped around him, Glyndwr kneeled again before the prior. Gathering his wits together with an effort, the monk held the libation aloft and murmured a stream of Latin as a form of blessing. This time, there was no background chanting from the monks, who were saving their prayers for their own souls in imminent anticipation of being hanged. Then, with more muttered incantations, Paul held Beornwyn’s relic to Owain’s lips and waited until he had taken a mouthful.

  Then the prince rose to his feet. ‘I think that we can now leave you in peace, Prior. I will spare the innocent brothers – though you will need to recruit two new ones after we have gone!’

  This threat revived Paul’s agitation and he thrust the relic at Owain, the remaining holy water slopping onto the floor.