by Paul Doherty
‘My ladies, these are Lord Walter’s guests, Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan.’
The young woman, plump and pretty-faced, smiled and nodded; her older companion simply glared. Athelstan guessed there was little love lost between the sub-prior and the lady whom he introduced as the Lord Abbot’s sister, the younger woman being his niece. The two women walked away as Richer took Athelstan and Cranston up into the luxurious manor house, smelling delicately of polish and the fragrance of crushed flowers. Dark, wooden panelling, balustrades, wainscoting and floor planks gleamed in the light of many candles. The abbot’s own chamber was an elegant, oblong-shaped room boasting finely carved furniture. Striking black crosses hung against two of the smooth walls, brilliantly coloured tapestries and turkey rugs covered the others whilst the intricately tiled floor described a map of the world with Jerusalem at its centre.
Abbot Walter and Prior Alexander were sitting in chairs before the great mantled hearth. They rose as Cranston entered. The coroner and Athelstan immediately genuflected to kiss the abbatial ring. Once introductions were finished, they were ushered to the waiting chairs, each with a small table beside it holding a goblet of white wine and a bowl of sugared dry fruit. They made themselves comfortable after the freezing river journey. Athelstan basked in the heat from the flaming logs whilst quickly studying the abbot. Lord Walter was a small, plump man; his black robe was of the purest wool, thick buskins on his feet and a precious pectoral cross hung around his fat throat. Soft and comfortable, Athelstan considered, Lord Walter was portly with a shining, balding pate, his gloriously rubicund, clean-shaven face glistening with perfumed oil. Nevertheless, a stubborn, determined man. Athelstan noted the pert cast to Lord Walter’s thick lips and the shifting eyes ever so quick to wrinkle in a smile as if the abbot was wearing a mask to face other masks. Prior Alexander was different, tall and gangling with a slight stoop to his bony shoulders, his closely cropped red hair emphasized a long, pale face, sharp green eyes with a beaked nose over a thin lipped mouth. Simply by watching them Athelstan sensed the tension between abbot and prior; they hardly looked at each other when they talked whilst their gestures were off hand, as if they were fully aware of some resentment between them. Richer, however, urbane, cultured and soft spoken, seemed to be well liked by both, especially Prior Alexander.
Cranston, sipping his wine, noisily cleared his throat to speak when the door abruptly opened and the largest swan Athelstan had ever seen waddled pompously into the chamber. The bird’s webbed feet slapped the polished floor, its long elegant neck arched, the oval-shaped head of downy white and black-eyed patches ending in a yellow bill which opened to cry eerily as the bird fluffed snow-white feathery wings. The swan headed straight for the abbot. Cranston made to rise. The swan turned, hissing furiously, glorious wings unfolding.
‘It’s best to sit down,’ Prior Alexander declared wearily. ‘Leda only answers to Father Abbot.’
Cranston resumed his seat and the bird continued on to receive food from the abbot’s hand before nestling on soft cushions in the corner. Cranston just glared at the bird as Abbot Walter explained how Leda had been his special pet since a hatchling.
‘A change from the monkeys, apes and peacocks,’ Prior Alexander breathed, ‘not to mention the marmosets, greyhounds and lap dogs.’
‘All God’s creatures,’ Abbot Walter commented cheerfully, ‘all gone back to God.’
‘There’s even a small place in God’s Acre for God’s own creatures.’ Prior Alexander could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
‘All God’s creatures,’ Cranston echoed sharply, ‘and there’s two more for God’s Acre, former soldiers who lodged here, Gilbert Hanep and Ailward Hyde brutally despatched to judgement before their time and,’ Cranston now had the monks attention, ‘I bring you the most distressing news. You expected the Passio Christi to be brought here this morning by Sir Robert Kilverby’s steward Crispin, together with his daughter and son-in-law?’
‘Yes, we wondered. .’
‘Murdered!’ Cranston retorted. ‘Sir Robert was foully poisoned in his chamber and the Passio Christi has disappeared.’
Abbot Walter almost choked on his wine. Prior Alexander sat back clutching the arms of his chair, mouth gaping in surprise. Richer stared in disbelief at both Cranston and Athelstan then glanced away, shaking his head. Once they had recovered, Cranston, ignoring their questions, pithily informed them what they had learnt at Kilverby’s house.
‘So,’ Cranston concluded. ‘Did Sir Robert share with you his intention to leave the Passio Christi here at St Fulcher’s on the very day he left on pilgrimage?’
‘That,’ Abbot Walter waved a hand, ‘may have been in his mind but,’ his fat face creased into a smile, ‘I cannot comment on what Sir Robert intended or what might have been. Sir Robert is now dead. The Passio Christi is missing, then there are the deaths here.’
‘Murders,’ Athelstan broke in. ‘Father Abbot, two of the Wyvern Company have been foully slaughtered in your abbey.’
‘My Lord of Gaunt has heard of the first death,’ Cranston added, ‘when he hears of the second, not to mention the murder of Sir Robert and the disappearance of the Passio Christi, his rage will know no bounds.’ Cranston’s words created a tense silence. His Grace the Regent was not to be crossed, even by Holy Mother Church.
‘I would not be surprised,’ Cranston added softly, ‘if His Grace did not honour you with a visit, Lord Walter, but now, reverend fathers, these murders?’
Prior Alexander replied. He assured Sir John how the Wyvern Company were happy, as they had been for the past four years. They’d claimed the Passio Christi was their find, so twice a year they were allowed to both view and hold it. For the rest, Sir Robert paid the abbey through the exchequer a most generous amount so the former soldiers enjoyed very comfortable lodgings.
‘Until now?’ Athelstan declared.
‘Yes, early this morning just after first light, Brother Otto who tends the cemetery went for his usual morning walk. Gilbert Hanep’s corpse was found near the grave of his old comrade William Chalk.’
‘Another death?’
‘By God’s good grace, in the order of nature,’ the prior replied. ‘William Chalk was sickening for some time from tumours in both his belly and groin.’
‘So Hanep rose in the middle of night to pay his respects to this dead comrade?’
‘Brother Athelstan, Hanep, like his comrades, was a veteran, a warrior, a professional soldier. He was restless, much given to wandering this abbey at night.’
‘And someone who knew that was waiting? His assassin must have followed him down to the cemetery and killed him?’
‘Took his head, Brother, a swinging cut; those who found him were sickened by the sight.’
‘And no indication or evidence for the murderer?’
‘The ground was awash with blood,’ Prior Alexander retorted, ‘but no one saw or heard anything untoward.’
‘And late this afternoon, Ailward Hyde was murdered near the watergate.’
‘A vicious wound to the belly,’ the prior replied, ‘the poor man’s screams rang across the abbey. By the time our good brothers reached him he was dead, soaked, almost floating in his own blood.’
‘Why?’ Cranston asked. ‘Why now?’
‘Sir John, we truly don’t know.’
Was there a link? Athelstan reflected, staring at the carved figure of a seraph carrying a harp on the right side of the fireplace. Was Sir Robert’s death, the disappearance of the Passio Christi and the murder of these two unfortunates all connected, or was it something else? Athelstan shivered. He recalled a lecture by Dominus Albertus in the schools so many years ago. How every evil act like seed in the ground eventually blooms to manifest its own malevolent fruit. Wickedness was like a tangled bramble, cruel and twisting, breaking through the soil, stretching out to create its own trap. Kilverby had enjoyed the reputation of being a hard-fisted money lender, notorious throughout the city and Sout
hwark. Members of the Wyvern Company had killed, pillaged and plundered, even seizing a precious relic for their own greedy uses. Was this their judgement day, ‘their day of wrath, the day of mourning’ as described by the poet Thomas di Celano? Had the victims of all these murders been caught out by their own wickedness sown so many years ago? ‘Everything sown will be reaped’, or so ran the old Jewish proverb. Had harvest time now arrived?
‘Brother Athelstan?’
‘Sir John.’ Athelstan rose to his feet. ‘I have other questions but they will wait. We should view the corpses and question the Wyvern Company. After all, the day is drawing on and my parish awaits.’
‘Your parish?’ Prior Alexander’s voice was harsh. ‘Brother Athelstan, we know of you, a Dominican sent to do penance. .’
‘Then if you know,’ Cranston declared, getting to his feet, ‘there’s little point in retelling it.’ He bowed perfunctorily in the direction of the abbot. ‘Reverend Father, if we can view the corpses?’
Richer led them out of the abbatial enclosure and into the main cloisters. The day was drawing on and the monkish scribes working in their carrels around the cloister garth were collecting their writing equipment in obedience to the bell tolling for the next hour of divine office. Athelstan drank in the sights, watching the scurrying black-robed monks, as organized as any cohort in battle array, prepare for the next task. Other brothers were coming in from the field, doffing their aprons, shaking off their hard wooden clogs and gathering around the different lavaria to wash and prepare themselves. Athelstan wanted to speak to Cranston but Richer kept close as he led them across the abbey. At last they reached a deserted, cobbled yard. Richer ushered them into the whitewashed death house where two coffins rested on trestles beneath a crude black crucifix nailed to the wall. Six purple candles on wooden stands ringed each coffin. Beneath these, fire pots containing crushed herbs exuded a pleasant smell to counter the reek of corruption and decay. A gap-toothed, balding lay brother, hands all a flutter, came out of a shadowy recess to introduce himself. Richer curtly ordered him to raise the deerskin coverlets drawn over both corpses. Once done Athelstan gazed down at both cadavers. Hanep’s head had been sown back on with black twine but the face seemed to have shrunken and shrivelled like a decaying plum. Hyde’s cadaver was still cloaked in congealing blood, the great slit across his belly crammed with scented linen rags.
‘I’ve yet to wash him,’ the keeper of the dead declared mournfully.
Athelstan leaned over and studied the gruesome wounds.
‘Friar?’
‘Sir John, look,’ Athelstan pointed, ‘here’s the gash, the death wound but look, another piercing here.’ He motioned further up the belly. ‘The assassin made a sweeping cut, turning the blade of his sword to skewer his victim’s innards, a killing cut but then withdraws the sword and plunges it again.’
‘And?’
‘The assassin must have enjoyed that, for one slash would have been enough. Hyde’s screams were immediate yet the killer stays for a second thrust.’ Athelstan stepped back; his boot caught something beneath the trestles. He stooped down and dragged out the war belts, swords and daggers in their sheaths.
‘The victims,’ Richer declared.
‘Wearing sword belts in an abbey?’
The sub-prior made a face.
‘When Hyde’s corpse was found, were his weapons sheathed?’
‘He was holding both sword and dagger,’ the keeper of the dead offered. ‘I was there when we found him slumped against the curtain wall near the watergate.’
Athelstan carried the sword belt into a pool of lantern light. He drew both weapons; their blades were clean though flecks of blood stained the hilts where Hyde must have held his weapons close. Athelstan placed the war belt back.
‘And Hanep carried weapons?’
‘Yes,’ the keeper replied, ‘but I do not know whether they were sheathed or not.’
‘And why should Ailward Hyde go down to the watergate?’
‘I don’t know, Brother,’ Richer was quick to answer, ‘but his presence there might indicate that his killer came from the river rather than the abbey.’
Athelstan had seen enough. He put down the perfumed pomander the lay brother had thrust into his hand and walked back into the darkening day. He stood listening to the different sounds of the abbey whilst Cranston took a generous sip from his wineskin.
‘You will meet the members of the Wyvern Company?’ Brother Richer’s dislike of the former soldiers was obvious; his handsome face was twisted in contempt, his English almost perfect except for the slight accent now coming through.
‘They’re all assembled in the refectory of their guest house where they will, as usual, be slurping their ale and boasting about their sins.’
‘Brother, you must resent these men? You come from the Abbey of St Calliste near Poitiers. You believe your abbey was plundered by these men?’
‘Before my day,’ Richer dug his hands up the sleeves of his robe, ‘long before my day, but yes, I resent them. They are pillagers, ravishers, sacrilegious miscreants. If they’d not been on the side of the victors they’d have been hanged out of hand. Brother, why talk here in the freezing cold?’ Richer led them away from the gloomy death house, back into the main buildings. He waved them into a small visiting chamber warmed by two braziers and lit by a huge lantern-horn; they sat around a small table, Richer pulling one of the braziers closer.
‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John,’ Richer smiled, ‘I’m French through and through. I do not believe that the English Crown has any right to that of France but,’ he held up a slender hand, ‘I’m also a Benedictine. Our houses stretch across Europe and beyond. Here at St Fulcher are English, French, Bretons, Hainaulters, Castilians and Germans. One thing binds us: we have all put away our former selves and donned the black robes and accepted the rule of our master St Benedict.’
‘But why are you here?’
‘Because I’m a scholar, Sir John, a bibliophile, a peritus — how do you say? An expert in the care and use of precious manuscripts. I have visited the great libraries of Rome, Avignon and St Chapelle. Three years ago Abbot Walter asked my superiors in France for assistance with the great library here and çela,’ he spread his hands, ‘I am here.’
‘I’ll be blunt, Richer. Did you come here with secret orders to seize the Passio Christi?’
Richer grinned. ‘I’m a Benedictine, Sir John, a librarian. True,’ he conceded, ‘I would love to take the Passio Christi back to St Calliste but, if rumour is true, that was about to happen anyway. I mean, if Sir Robert left it here before journeying on pilgrimage, it would have only been a matter of time before our precious bloodstone passed back into the rightful hands.’
‘You apparently don’t believe the story how the Wyvern Company found the Passio Christi on a cart, along with other precious items, on a deserted road near the Abbey of St Calliste?’
‘No, Brother, I certainly don’t and I suspect, neither do you. A farrago of lies! I was a novice at St Calliste. I followed my vocation there. I’ve heard the stories. The battle at Poitiers was truly a disaster for the power of France. In the days following, English free companies roamed the fields and highways pursuing their enemies and helping themselves to whatever they wanted. St Calliste should have been sacred but a group of ruffians wearing the Wyvern livery scaled the walls and wandered the abbey. The Passio Christi was kept in a tabernacle in a small chantry chapel to the right of our high altar.’ Richer’s face grew flushed, his voice more strident. ‘It should have been safe there, a sacred relic in a most holy place! The House of God, the Gate of Heaven! Yet it was stolen, along with other precious items.’
‘Have you ever confronted the Wyverns with their crime?’
‘Of course, Brother Athelstan, just once. I was mocked and ignored.’ Richer snorted with laughter. ‘Do you think these ribauds are going to confess to sacrilegious theft? I told them if they were guilty of that then they incurred excommunication, ipso facto
, immediate and swift. You know, Brother Athelstan, such an excommunication can only be lifted. .’
‘After three steps have been taken.’ Athelstan recalled the relevant decree. ‘Restitution, reparation and an absolution by a priest.’
‘Tu dixisti!’ Richer quipped. ‘You have said it, but those ribauds will never confess the truth.’
‘And Sir Robert, he often visited St Fulcher for spiritual consolation?’
‘Four or five times a year.’ The sub-prior shook his head. ‘Sometimes I’d talk to him, a strange man much taken up by the state of his soul. Of course I cannot speak about that. I am sorry to hear he died un-shriven but I can say little. He did most of his business with either Abbot Walter or Prior Alexander. If he spoke to me it was on spiritual matters and that is my concern.’
‘And the Wyvern Company — have they changed recently?’
‘If they have, I’ve hardly noticed. They keep to themselves. Prior Alexander might help.’
‘When Hanep and Hyde were murdered they were still wearing their sword belts — why should they go armed here in a peaceful abbey?’
‘Very observant, Brother Athelstan.’ Richer wagged a finger. ‘By the way, we have heard of you here, an indefatigable seeker of the truth.’
‘Praise from a Benedictine is praise indeed,’ Athelstan retorted, keeping an eye on Cranston, who looked on the verge of sleep. ‘But my question?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they feared each other. Perhaps some relict from their past outside this abbey has intervened.’
‘You mean,’ Cranston shook his head, smacking his lips, ‘someone from outside is responsible for their murders? Surely a stranger would soon be noticed here?’
‘Not at the dead of night, Sir John, or on a dark December afternoon with the river mist curling around the abbey. Even worse if the assassin donned the black robes of a Benedictine.’ Richer rose to his feet. ‘Perhaps some ancient, unresolved blood feud, God knows. Such men must have made enough enemies in life. Come, let them tell you themselves.’
