The First Murder

by The Medieval Murderers

‘But it’s true. I came across his corpse . . . by accident. There was no mistaking he was dead – a sword cut to the neck. His head was almost severed.’

  ‘How do you know it was a sword cut, if you did not kill him?’

  ‘Because . . . I realised who must have done it, and the sword . . . I . . .’

  Alan resumed his pacing. ‘If a man finds a corpse he is by law required to raise the hue and cry, but you did not. Why would you not report it, if you are as innocent of the death as you claim, especially if you knew who had murdered him?’

  Martin stared wildly round the room, looking for someone who might take pity on him, but the faces of all three men were equally impassive.

  ‘I . . . suspected that his killer was really after me. It was dark, Luke was wearing a hood. He must have returned to the wagon to search for the money his uncle accused me, quite falsely, of taking. The man who killed him obviously mistook him for me. We’re much the same height. When I saw Luke’s body I realised that could have been me lying there, and if the man who killed him learned he had made a mistake, then he’d continue looking for me. So I thought if everyone believed I was dead . . .’

  ‘Including the players you robbed, then you could escape with your life and their money, was that it?’ Stephen said.

  ‘I was merely trying to prevent another murder being committed,’ Martin said resentfully.

  ‘Continue,’ said the prior sternly. ‘What did you do after you found Luke’s body?

  ‘I didn’t want the corpse to be discovered by the watch before I had time to get out of Ely when the gates were opened the next morning. I tried to drag the corpse into the wagon, but the head was lolling about too much, so in the end I took my knife and sawed through the last bit of the neck, then I heaved the corpse in. I dressed Luke in my angel costume.

  ‘I realised I had to dispose of the head where no one would find it. My clothes were soaked in blood from moving the body. So I changed into some old clothes from the props box, wrapped the head in my bloodstained clothes, put it all in a sack along with Luke’s clothes and set off for the river. But when I was halfway down the hill I saw the flames of a torch moving towards me. I thought it might be the watch making their rounds, so I fled back to the wagon and hid beneath it until morning. I couldn’t go to the river then, all the players live down there and besides it would be swarming with boatmen and paggers. And I daren’t risk carrying the head out of the town gates in the sack, in case I was stopped and searched.

  ‘It was looking up at the roof of the cathedral, at all those carved heads, that gave me the idea. I managed to mingle with the crowd going in for the servants’ Mass. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the door to the tower open. With all those people milling about, no one noticed me slip inside. I stuffed the sack and clothing under one of the beams in the dark corner inside the tower, then put the head on the turret where the birds could pick it clean. I thought when it was eventually found, people would think they’d found my head.’

  ‘As indeed some did,’ Alan said, glaring at Stephen.

  ‘But when I came down the tower, someone had locked the door at the bottom. I couldn’t get back out. I had to hide and wait for someone to open it again, but no one came until long after the noon bell. I made straight for the town gate, but even before I got there I saw the long queues waiting in front of it and I realised the guards were stopping and questioning everyone. I couldn’t leave Ely.’

  ‘So you decided to hide in plain view,’ Alan said.

  ‘No one looks at beggars,’ Martin said, with something of his old swagger at his own cleverness.

  ‘But what I don’t understand,’ Will said, ‘is how you broke into St Withburga’s tomb. You said yourself there was a crowd of people, and the cathedral is searched thoroughly each evening to ensure no thief is hiding.’

  ‘But I didn’t go near any of the saints’ tombs. I didn’t want to risk being seen.’

  ‘Then how did you steal the saint’s hand and replace it with Luke’s?’ Will demanded.

  ‘How he did it is irrelevant,’ Prior Alan snapped.

  ‘But, Father Prior, if there has been some breach in the security of the cathedral, others may use it to steal, and as custodian—’

  ‘That can wait. The only thing that matters at this moment is recovering that relic.’

  Alan strode across to Martin and seized his shoulders, shaking him as if that would make the words drop out of his mouth. ‘We know you placed the hand of the murdered boy in the shrine and stole the saint’s hand. Tell us what you’ve done with it. Where have you hidden it?’

  ‘But I didn’t take anything from the shrine. I told you, I couldn’t get near it.’

  Martin tried desperately to pull himself out of the prior’s grasp, but his hands were bound fast and, for a man in his sixties, Alan was surprisingly strong.

  ‘Then what did you do with Luke’s hand,’ Alan demanded, ‘the hand you so brutally sliced from his corpse?’

  ‘Nothing! I did nothing. Luke’s hand was already missing when I found him.’

  ‘You didn’t mention that before,’ Stephen said.

  Martin hesitated. ‘I . . . I guessed the man who took it had cut it off . . . because he thought Luke was a . . . thief.’

  Prior Alan pounced. ‘But you told us this mysterious man believed he was killing you, that means that you are the thief. So what did you steal from him? It must have been something of great value to warrant murder. Well?’ He shook Martin again.

  ‘All right, if you must know it was a sword . . . a silver sword.’

  ‘Valuable indeed,’ Alan said grimly. ‘But why did he not simply have you arrested? He would have had the satisfaction of seeing you hanged without risk to himself.’

  ‘He didn’t dare,’ Martin said sullenly. ‘It’s no ordinary blade. The sword is inscribed with the secret names of God, Agla and On. And this man is an alchemist . . . from Cambridge.’

  Prior Alan sank down into the nearest chair. ‘This gets worse by the hour,’ he groaned.

  Stephen and Will looked bewildered.

  ‘Only twelve such swords were ever made,’ Alan explained wearily, ‘to be used by consecrated priests who were specially trained in the art of conjuring spirits and angels. The Mass of the Holy Spirit was said over those blades. They’re all supposed to be safely under lock and key. So how on earth did a layman get hold of one? It’s obvious why this alchemist did not report the theft. He must have stolen the sword himself or bought it knowing it was stolen.’

  The colour drained from Stephen’s face. ‘You used a sword in the play of “Cain and Abel” . . . surely it was not that one.’

  Martin’s silence told him it was.

  ‘What evil demon have you conjured!’ Stephen cried.

  Prior Alan thumped the table. ‘He has conjured nothing! Whatever mischief has gone on in Ely has been the work of human sin, as the very play itself warns. The townspeople may believe in demons flying down from towers, but we know it is not so.’

  Will and Stephen exchanged glances that plainly said they knew no such thing.

  ‘But Father Prior,’ Will said, ‘what about the theft of St Withburga’s hand? I still don’t see how Martin could have accomplished it.’

  Martin looked positively triumphant as if he’d just been proved innocent.

  ‘If what this man says is true,’ Alan said icily, ‘then we have found our thief and he is most definitely human. If the alchemist cut off Luke’s hand, then he must have placed it in the shrine and stolen the saint’s hand, no doubt to use in some evil charm or sorcery. Find the alchemist and we will find the hand.

  ‘You,’ he turned to Martin, ‘tell Brother Will all you know about this man and the places he is likely to go. Will and Stephen, you must prepare to set out at once for Cambridge, but you’ll have to travel alone. No one outside this room is to learn St Withburga’s hand is missing. If you have to enlist help when you are there to apprehend this alchemist, then tell the
m only that he is wanted for murder in the cathedral precincts, but make sure you search his lodging and workshop thoroughly. I want that hand found.

  ‘As for you, Martin, you will be reunited with your cousin in the hell-pit. He will doubtless be overjoyed to discover you’re alive, but I suspect Luke’s uncle will be somewhat less welcoming, especially when he learns it was you who placed his nephew’s head on the tower.’

  Cambridge

  It took Stephen and Will three days to locate the alchemist’s house. On the first morning after they arrived in Cambridge they sought an audience with the sheriff and explained they were in pursuit of a man who had committed murder in the grounds of Ely Priory, though they were careful to make no mention of either the relic or the sword. The sheriff showed little interest. Scowling, he told them that he had his hands full trying to keep the townspeople, the students and the various orders of monks from killing one another, without solving Ely’s murders as well, and demanded to know why they hadn’t brought more men with them. Finally, but only after he had been reminded in no uncertain terms by Will that he had a sworn duty to root out fugitives from justice hiding in his city, he grudgingly assigned two of his men to go with them and arrest the man, if he could be found.

  Martin, realising his only hope of escaping the gallows was the arrest of the alchemist, had told Will exactly how to find the undercroft of a house where the alchemist had his workshop. But when Stephen and Will arrived and hammered on the door, they were met only with silence. Finally, after they had knocked a good many times, a woman leaned out of a casement on the upper storey.

  ‘We were told that we might find a man called Nicholas working here,’ Will called up.

  ‘Used to. Left in the middle of the night, he did, and the bastard still owes me rent.’

  ‘Do you know where he went?’

  ‘Do you think he’d still owe me rent if I did?’ the woman retorted, and promptly withdrew her head.

  But even in Cambridge the smells and noises of an alchemist’s workshop couldn’t remain unnoticed for ever. Stephen and Will were eventually led to a house backing on to the stinking waters of King’s Ditch by a grubby street urchin who seemed to know the business of every household in Cambridge, information that he was eager to sell, though only after negotiating his fee as ruthlessly as any lawyer.

  Without apparently any understanding of the word stealth, the two sheriff ’s men thundered up the rickety staircase to a room tucked under the eaves of a house. Not even a deaf man could have failed to hear their coming and when they burst in, the alchemist was frantically trying to squeeze himself out through the impossibly small window. Where he imagined he could go next was anyone’s guess, since only a bird could have escaped that way, but the soldiers didn’t waste time asking questions. Their instructions were to take the prisoner back to the sheriff at the castle, what happened to him after was not their concern.

  ‘Go with them,’ Will whispered to Stephen. ‘Find out what he says to the sheriff. It’ll give me time to search this room.’

  He glanced round at the vast array of boxes, jars, charts and scrolls that were crammed onto every shelf, and the many more lurking between the curiously shaped flasks that steamed and bubbled over candle flames and small braziers.

  ‘The hand must be in here somewhere,’ Will said. ‘He’s evidently a man who likes to keep his possessions close, but it could take me a month to search through this lot.’

  ‘I should douse those flames first,’ Stephen warned. ‘That pot looks near to bursting open.’ He hastily backed away from a vessel that was wobbling alarmingly as clouds of greenish steam belched out of it.

  But after several hours of methodical searching, even examining the walls for any concealed hiding place as well as the mysterious contents of the flasks, Will was reluctantly compelled to admit the bones of St Withburga were not in the room. He had discovered the silver sword concealed in a roll of bedding, and a desiccated mouse squashed behind a chest, but otherwise nothing. He was forced to conclude that if the alchemist had indeed stolen the hand, it was no longer in his possession.

  Subprior Stephen confirmed this as soon as they met up again. ‘Nicholas confessed to the murder, in fact he seemed quite proud of it. Even the news that he killed the wrong man didn’t disturb him. He showed no remorse at all. It was as if the killing of Luke meant no more to him than the squashing of a beetle compared to the importance of his work. I’m certain he believes that no one would dare to execute a great alchemist like him over something so insignificant.’

  ‘But did our alchemist mention the hand?’ Will asked.

  Stephen grimaced. ‘I managed to persuade the sheriff to leave us alone for a few minutes and questioned him, but he was adamant he didn’t steal St Withburga’s hand. In fact he was scornful of the very idea he should need it. He also claimed that Luke’s corpse still had both hands when he left. I’m inclined to believe him. He’s so arrogant; he would certainly have boasted about the cleverness of the theft if he had committed it.’

  ‘Then that brings us back to Martin again,’ Will said grimly. ‘Though I still can’t see how he could have done it. I’m beginning to think the townspeople might be right and thanks to that wretched play there is a demon at work.’

  The two monks left Cambridge without the alchemist. Having decided that Nicholas was a dangerous lunatic, the sheriff was not going to risk having him escape from the two monks, or being rescued by his friends, if indeed a man like that had any. But the sheriff refused to spare men to accompany them to guard the prisoner, saying that if the prior wanted the alchemist returned to Ely he should send an adequate number of men to fetch him, otherwise he would remain safely locked up in the castle to await the next assizes.

  Stephen and Will broke their journey at Denny Abbey, knowing they would not reach Ely by dark. The ancient causeway track across the waterways and sucking mires was dangerous enough by day, but only a man who longed for death would venture upon it at night. When they set off shortly after dawn the following morning, to their great relief a brisk wind was whipping across the bleak wetlands. It cut through their robes, but at least it blew away the thick mists that so often curled over the marshes.

  The track was an ancient way constructed to take man and beast dry-shod across the sucking marshes and black expanses of water. But over the centuries the causeway had sunk in places, so that mud and water oozed back over it, and the last hot dry summer had cracked the bridges, making some of them so perilous that Stephen and Will were forced to dismount and gingerly lead their horses across on a long rein, as the wood creaked ominously beneath them. But the state of the track wasn’t the only thing that made them nervous. The tall reed beds, and the patches of willow and birch scrub, made the perfect cover for cutpurses and robbers. The monks’ cowls and tonsures would not protect them. Everyone knew that Ely Priory was wealthy, and monks travelling that road might well be carrying heavy purses or other treasures.

  Stephen kept looking ahead of him to catch his first glimpse of the cathedral rising above the fenland. At any other time he would have been eager to see it, knowing he was in sight of a good meal and bed to rest his aching backside. But on this occasion, he found himself dreading his return and the inevitable interview with his superior. As Prior Alan had reminded him before they left, this whole sorry business had been his fault and he did not look forward to having to report yet another failure. But at least they had recovered the sword. Prior Alan must surely be a little cheered that such a sacred object was once more back in the hands of the Church.

  It had begun to rain, and the wind was lashing it so hard against them that even their oily woollen cloaks were becoming sodden. However low a man’s spirits are, being cold and wet are certain to drive them still lower. Ahead of him Stephen saw Will dismount and start to lead his horse over another of the rickety bridges. With a sigh, he prepared to do likewise.

  Will was halfway across the bridge when both monks heard the cry. The words were so
faint that neither of them could make them out, but the voice was unquestionably human.

  They stared around, but saw nothing except the reeds, which towered high above them and the sluggish black water in the ditch. This was just the kind of place an ambush might be set.

  Will hesitated, uncertain whether to cross or go back. But it was plain he’d have to continue, for if he tried to turn his horse on the creaking bridge they would probably both end up in the water. As quickly as he dared he pulled the horse forward and Stephen prepared to follow him the moment Will’s horse was on solid ground, for it was well known that outlaws would try to separate travellers, making attack easier.

  Just as Will’s horse cleared the bridge they heard the cry again.

  ‘Help me! Of your mercy, help me.’

  ‘I think it’s coming from under the bridge,’ Will called.

  He hastily tethered his mount to a birch tree before stepping back onto the bridge. He peered down through the gaps in the warped planks.

  ‘There’s someone under there. I’m sure I can see something moving. Who’s there? Are you hurt?’

  ‘Mud, can’t pull my leg out . . . so cold.’

  ‘It might be a trap,’ Stephen warned. He stared round wildly, trying to peer into the reeds to see if anyone was lurking, waiting to rush out at them. His heart almost stopped as he heard something rustling, but it was only a moorhen.

  Will leaned as far over the side of the bridge as he dared. ‘I see him! He’s just under this side . . . God’s blood, I think it’s one of our own brothers.’ He straightened up. ‘He’s up to the armpits in water. God knows how long the poor fellow has been struggling in there, but he must be numb with cold. If we knot the cords from our habits together, I can try to loop them around him and get one of the horses to pull him out.’

  ‘But suppose you fall in and get stuck,’ Stephen said. ‘Shouldn’t we go for help?’

  ‘No time. He’s exhausted. If he faints, he’ll go under and drown. See if you can find a pole or branch or something I can hang on to.’