He pictured in his head the woman slicing through the lump of tongue and Thomas running his great blade down the spine of the young goat. They were all clean straight cuts. Butchers’ knives, or the kind of knife any man would carry in his belt to cut his food or defend himself, all had smooth blades. That’s what you needed to slice flesh and meat swiftly. But the wound on Edward’s neck was not a clean cut. The edges of the flesh were jagged and torn as if his throat had been slashed with a serrated blade, and there was only one profession he could think of where serrated knives were used.
Grey pushed back the chair and rose swiftly. ‘I have to go out. It may be very late before I return.’
He saw a look of alarm flash across the boy’s face. ‘You’re welcome to stay here, lad, if you wish. No one will bother you.’
He crossed to his bed and kneeling, pulled out a low, narrow truckle bed from beneath his own and dragged it to the far corner. The truckle bed was intended for servants travelling with their masters, but he guessed it might be warmer and more comfortable than any sleeping place Richard had assigned the boy.
‘You can sleep on this.’
He’d no wish to find the lad curled up in his own bed when he returned and he knew the boy would be tempted.
Grey did not trouble to rouse his two sergeants-at-arms from their warm seats in the ale room. He was not intending to make an arrest – not yet, anyway. Once the murderer was under lock and key there would be little hope of getting him to divulge the whereabouts of the missing reliquary. He would know that even surrendering such a valuable object would not save him from the gallows.
Grey had the stable boy saddle his horse. The lad was sulky at being dragged out into the cold from his supper, for he plainly hoped all of the guests would be settling down for the night in the inn and would not be venturing out again until morning.
The streets were quiet. The horse’s iron shoes rang on the stones. A couple of men lumbered wearily past, returning from their workshops, their breath hanging about them like a cloud of white smoke in the cold night air. They scarcely bothered to lift their heads to stare at the rider.
Grey slowed his horse to an amble along the street, which just a couple of hours ago had been bustling with housewives and shopkeepers. Now the stone benches in front of the houses were empty of goods, and candles flickered through the holes in the shutters of upper storeys, where the shopkeepers and their families were eating their suppers. Grey looked up at the crudely painted signs above the shops, which indicated what each traded in. A pig’s head for the butcher, thread and scissors for the cloth merchant, and a camel that looked more like a cow with a hump for the spice-seller. He found the sign he sought, and counted the houses down to the end of the row, then he turned his horse, and made for the street behind. He counted the houses back along the row.
Dismounting, he tethered the horse a little further down the road in the shelter of the trees and crept back again, until he had the courtyard at the back of the house within his sights. He could hear a horse stirring in the ramshackle stable in the yard, though it was too dark to make out much beyond dark smudges which might have been a cart and stacks of kegs.
Slivers of flickering yellow light crept out around the edges of the shutters on the upper storey, but they were too feeble even to reach the ground, never mind illuminate the spot where Grey stood. At least, Grey thought, it proved the man he sought must be at home. No one would go out and leave candles burning. The question was – would he leave? If the murderer realised the reliquary was still being sought, he might be panicked into moving it. In the meantime, there was nothing Grey could do but wait, watch and hope.
But by the time the lights were finally extinguished in the upper storey, Grey was so numb with cold and fatigue that he didn’t even notice. In fact, it wasn’t until he saw the light of the lantern coming across the yard and heard the whinnying of the horse in the stable that he realised the man was on the move. Grey’s legs were so cold that it took quite a time for him to move himself and it took several attempts before he could heave his stiff body onto his own mount. He had only just settled himself in the saddle when he saw the horse and its rider trot out of the yard.
He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks, urging her to follow, while trying to keep as much distance as he could between himself and the rider ahead without losing sight of him. He quickly realised they were leaving the village and heading straight down the road that led to the Hutt. Grey felt his stomach tighten in excitement. The thief was doing exactly what Grey had hoped he would do: leading him to the reliquary.
On such a still night, the hoofbeats of the horse he was following rang out as clear as a church bell and as the iron struck the stones on the track it sent up a shower of blue sparks in the darkness. It occurred to Grey that if he could so clearly hear the other horse, its rider would also hear him following. He turned off the path and forced his beast to walk on the grass, but Grey was anxious to keep as close behind as he dared. If the murderer had hidden the reliquary in the forest then he could turn off the track without warning and Grey might lose him, just as Richard had done.
Low wisps of white mist wrapped themselves around the roots of the trees, snaking over the track. Grey prayed it would not rise any higher. As the road wound deeper into the forest, the bushes crept closer to the track and the grass verge disappeared, so that several times Grey was forced to leave the line of the road and weave his way through the trees. But that was no bad thing, he told himself. If the rider ahead did happen to glance round, the forest would hide him.
Then, as Grey emerged from the trees, he saw to his consternation the track ahead was empty. Only a swirl of mist hung between the trees, glowing like a spectre under the starlight. Grey reined in his horse and listened. Then he heard the sound of breaking twigs away to his right and a little ahead. He coaxed the horse forward and suddenly saw that they had reached the narrow path that wound away to the Hutt. Even as he stared along it he glimpsed a figure on foot moving towards the door and, moments later, slip inside.
Grey quickly dismounted and, tethering his horse in the cover of some trees close to the track, he edged along the path, keeping his eyes fixed on the door, ready to dart into the undergrowth should the man re-emerge. Several times, he heard the sharp retort of a twig snapping beneath his feet and cursed himself for his own clumsiness. But the door didn’t open and he guessed that the Hutt’s stone walls were thick enough to prevent such sounds being heard inside.
Briefly, the yellow glow from a lantern shone beneath the door, vanishing almost at once. Grey crept up to the door and put his ear cautiously to the wood. Inside he heard a scraping, as if something were being dragged across the stone floor. Someone was searching for the reliquary. It must have been in there all along, but so cunningly concealed that neither he nor his men had found it.
He waited until there were no more sounds of movement within, then, assuming that the thief must by now have it in his hand, Grey drew his sword with his right hand, while slowly and noiselessly lifting the latch with his left.
He edged into the room, every nerve and muscle taut, his sword arm braced for immediate action. But the man he expected to confront was not there. The room was empty. A lantern stood on the floor. The flames guttered, sending shadows stalking round the walls. But the only other thing moving in the Hutt was Grey himself.
His heart thumping, he cautiously began a systematic search, edging round the walls and using his sword blade to probe between barrels, stabbing it into piles of blankets and straw pallets. The man had to be in here somewhere. He couldn’t just vanish. Grey hadn’t taken his eyes from the door, and the walls were solid stone. There was no other way out. Unless . . . A sudden thought struck him and he stared up into the beams above. The candle flame in the lantern on the floor illuminated the boxes and piles of bedding on the floor, but by contrast the rafters above were in deep darkness. Anyone might have climbed up there and be looking down on him, ready to drop as soon as
he stepped beneath.
Keeping the blade of his sword pointing upwards, Grey backed across the floor, feeling for the lantern behind him with his heels. He banged into it and heard it rolling across the floor, though mercifully the candle did not topple out of the socket. He crouched, grabbing the handle with his free hand, then raised both lantern and sword as high as he could, searching through the shadows between the dusty, cobwebbed beams.
So intent was he on searching the rafters that even when he felt a sudden draught on his legs, it did not at first register on his brain as significant. And when he sensed the movement behind him it was already too late, far too late. Even as he tried to turn, a sack was dragged down over his head and shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides. He heard the clang as the lantern and sword fell from his hands. His wrists were grabbed and bound tightly behind him. He struggled to breathe through the coarse cloth.
‘You can shout if you want to, but you’d be wasting your breath. No one’ll hear you. I’m going to take the sack off now. We don’t want you breaking your neck on the steps, not just yet anyway.’
As the sack was pulled free, Grey, gasping for air, smelled at once the odour he had recognised in the church – the pungent stench of fish. He knew without even having to turn his head that the man standing behind him was Yarrow, the churchwarden.
‘Down there!’ Yarrow gave him a shove towards a dark hole, which had suddenly appeared in the corner of the floor. The slab of stone that had covered it stood tipped up against the wall directly behind it.
‘I warn you,’ Grey said, ‘I’m not alone. My men are keeping watch.’
Yarrow laughed. ‘I dare say they are keeping watch – over a flagon of mulled ale back in Blidworth. Do you imagine I didn’t see you following me long before we even left the village? I know you rode here alone. Now walk.’
Grey felt the prick of the knife in his back. He shivered, thinking of Edward’s torn and gashed throat, and he felt sick with fear, expecting any moment to feel the blade ripping at his own throat, but the point did not move from his back.
As he shuffled the three steps to the hole, he thought that he was about to be pushed down a deep pit or well. But when Yarrow retrieved the lantern and held it up over his head, Grey could see a set of stone steps leading downwards from the trapdoor in the floor.
He descended awkwardly, trying to step sideways, so that he could brace his shoulder against the rough stone wall. With his hands bound he was terrified he was going to slip and by the time he reached the bottom his legs were trembling.
At last he found himself standing in a long low tunnel carved out of the rock. It smelled damp and musty at first, but as Yarrow prodded him along it he began to catch the scent of beeswax and something stronger, which he could have sworn was incense.
He rounded a bend in the tunnel and blinked furiously as his eyes were blinded by a sudden burst of light. They had emerged into a cave that glittered like a crown of jewels. Slender candles blazed all around them from rocky crevices and outcrops, while two fat church candles burned on a broad rocky ledge that had been hewn out at the back of the cave, their light sparkling and glinting from a great silver crucifix, and from the golden crown and jewelled butterfly of the reliquary of St Beornwyn.
Grey was so dazzled by the scene that it took a moment or two for him to realise that they were not alone. Several figures, dressed in the dark robes of the Black Canons, were seated motionless, like a flock of monstrous black birds, on ledges around the edges of the cave, the deep hoods of their black cloaks pulled down low, concealing their faces.
Grey tried to moisten his dry lips. ‘What . . . what is this place?’
One of the canons rose and slowly glided towards Grey, his hands folded beneath his cloak, his eyes and nose concealed beneath the shadow of his hood. Only his full lips were visible.
‘This . . . this is now the church of the priory of St Mary. Since we were driven from our home in Newstead, which our order has occupied for nearly four centuries . . . since we were forced to watch our holy church demolished to build byres and pigsties . . . we have had to find another place to worship. God will not permit that heretic King Henry and his satanic servants to destroy us or our faith.’
Grey gaped at him. ‘You’ve been hiding down here all these months? But how have you managed to conceal yourselves and survive?’
‘There are many caves beneath Sherwood Forest and many tunnels connecting them. That one leads straight into the crypt in Newstead Priory.’ The canon pointed to a dark hole on the opposite side of the cave from where they had emerged. ‘At night, after John Byron’s builders have left for the day, we’ve been able to return to our home and remove what is ours. It isn’t much. Most of the valuables were stripped out before we could rescue them, and the workmen rarely leave food behind, but such tools and trappings that are small enough to carry through the tunnels we bring away when we can. As long as we take only odd things here and there, the builders think they have simply forgotten where they left them or grumble that one of their fellows has stolen them.’
‘What they can’t use themselves, I sell for them,’ Yarrow said.
Grey jumped at the sound of the voice behind him. In the shock of discovering the cave, he’d forgotten the churchwarden was there, until he remembered the knife still pointed at his back.
‘Master Yarrow has always been a faithful friend to the Austin Canons,’ the hooded man said quietly. ‘And the villagers have helped us too. They bring candles and offerings to St Beornwyn and the Virgin Mary, which by order of Cromwell’s own decree, Yarrow, as churchwarden, is obliged to remove and so they find their way to us, where they are used for the glory of the saints and in the service of the true Church, as the villagers intended.’
Grey remembered seeing Alan hand something to Yarrow. Had the boy too been in on the secret of where the offerings were really going?
‘Father James – does he know about this?’
‘Him!’ Yarrow said contemptuously. ‘He doesn’t know half of what goes on in the village.’
‘He would have betrayed us had he known,’ the prior added. ‘The regular priests have always been jealous of the Austin Canons. We minister far more faithfully to their parishioners than ever they do, sitting through the night with the dying, absolving them of sins their own priests don’t even recognize, for they’re too busy committing their own.’
Grey, his wrists still bound, gestured with his chin up at the altar. ‘And did you absolve Yarrow of the sin of stealing that reliquary for you?’
‘I didn’t steal it!’ Yarrow said indignantly. ‘I’m no thief.’
‘But you are a murderer,’ Grey said coldly. ‘Edward was slain with the kind of serrated knife that fishmongers use to scrape scales off fish and to gut them, not with a straight butcher’s blade. In fact, I suspect he was murdered with the very knife you are pointing at me right now.’
Before Yarrow could admit or deny it, the prior spoke again. ‘When someone is forced to kill in order to defend the servants of God and the True Faith, it is neither a sin nor is it murder. A soldier who kills the enemy in battle is guilty of nothing save bravery and courage. And make no mistake, this is war between the servants of light and Cromwell’s forces of darkness.’
He gestured back to the reliquary. ‘We needed a relic to consecrate the altar. We asked Master Richard to sell the reliquary of St Beornwyn to us, but he refused. So we prayed and God answered our prayers. Edward stole the reliquary from Richard, though it had no more meaning for him than it did for Richard. Both were only interested in the value of the gold and jewels, not in the precious relics of the virgin saint. We didn’t know Edward intended to take it or why he brought it here. But finding himself pursued, he must have tried to hide in the Hutt, hoping Richard would ride on by.’
‘I didn’t know it was Edward in the Hutt,’ Yarrow broke in. ‘I was half-way out of the trapdoor, and the first thing I knew was when someone burst in through the door. Whoever it wa
s gave a yelp and I knew the man’d seen me for there was a candle burning on the stairs below me. But I couldn’t see the man’s face. It could have been anyone – one of the forest wardens, even you.’
Yarrow fingered the wicked-looking knife as if regretting it hadn’t been Grey. ‘Had to stop whoever it was yelling out or running off. If the passage were discovered they’d have found the canons. So I silenced him. Only thing I could do. I heard the thud of something hitting the ground, just before the man crumpled up. Muffled it was, something heavy wrapped in cloth. I was going to drag the body down into the passageway, but I heard someone else outside the door. So I just grabbed what the man’d dropped, thinking it might be food, and slid back into the hole. I pulled the trapdoor shut, just as the door opened.’
The prior took up the story again. ‘It was only when we examined the contents of the sack that Yarrow brought us, that we saw that God had answered our prayers with a miracle and delivered St Beornwyn into our safekeeping.’
All the canons crossed themselves as one, bowing their heads reverentially.
‘But now that you have found us,’ the prior continued, ‘we must move St Beornwyn to a place of greater safety. We’ve been fortunate so far and no one has noticed us coming and going through the Hutt, but now that there has been a killing here and the reliquary is missing, there will undoubtedly be others, like you, who will be keeping a closer eye on the place in the future. Sooner or later one of us will be seen as we go to minister in secret to those who need us and we cannot risk that. We had already been preparing to leave even before you stumbled upon us, Master Grey, but your presence is a sign that we must depart at once. Although I regret that you, Master Grey, will not be leaving, at least not unless your sergeants are disposed to search far more diligently for you than they did for the reliquary, and with tomorrow being Christmas Day, I doubt they will trouble to make a start soon.’
The False Virgin Page 36
