The Bishop's Brood

by Simon Beaufort

  Treading in snow that was knee deep in places, he considered the aggressive Alice and her dead husband. Was it chance that sent the half-brothers to their graves within a few days of each other? And what about Mother Petra? She did not harbour deep maternal sentiments for her offspring, with the possible exception of Flambard’s father, and Geoffrey thought she was certainly crafty and cunning enough to indulge herself in murder. But her age meant she was also frail – not so much as she would have people believe, but she would not be able to shoot men on the New Castle road.

  So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he had ploughed some distance before he realized he had left the city and was on a footpath that went east. Instead of houses lining the street, there were fields, each carefully dug, so the frost would break up the larger clods and ease the work to be done in spring.

  He was about to retrace his footsteps, when he saw a dark mass looming ahead. It was a church with a tower and an overgrown churchyard liberally smattered with people-sized mounds. Geoffrey picked his way across them, intending to shelter from the blizzard for a while and sit alone with his thoughts. He pushed open a wooden door that clanked, and entered. The dog ignored his command to wait outside, and was past him in an instant, disappearing into the shadows to sniff and explore.

  Geoffrey closed the door and peered around him. It was dark. The windows were little more than narrow slits in the wall, and the shutters on every one had been closed to keep out the snow. An attempt had been made to provide some light, and cheap tallow candles had been placed in holders along the walls, which flickered and jumped in the draughts that whistled under the door, and through the holes in the roof. It was a simple building: there was a nave with a high altar and a Lady chapel from which came a low murmur of prayers.

  He reached the Lady chapel and stepped inside. It was more brightly lit than the nave, because two coffins rested there on trestles, each with a thick beeswax candle at either end. They by far exceeded the quality of the spluttering tallow candles that lit the rest of the building, and shed a warm golden glow. Each coffin comprised an oblong wooden box draped with a cloth; the lids leaned side by side against a wall, waiting to be nailed down when the time came for burial.

  It did not take a genius to discern that here were the bodies of Jarveaux and Stanstede, waiting for the weather to improve so they could be interred in the graveyard. Geoffrey recalled that Stanstede had been taken to St Giles’ Church, and Helbye, who had been directed to stay with Eleanor while her husband was laid out, had complained that it was a dismal and cold building.

  There was a faint odour that was far from pleasant, although the dog’s tail wagged as it sniffed at the air. Jarveaux had been dead for four days, and the scent of the candles, the chill of the church, and the bowls of dried flowers on the altar could not quite mask the fact that it was time he was buried. However, Geoffrey suspected this would be difficult as long as the snow continued to fall, and no one would want a corpse put in a hole that was shallow and attracted wild animals.

  Kneeling between the coffins was a priest, and it was his prayers that whispered around the church. His Latin was good, although his threadbare habit and the fact that Geoffrey could see white feet through the upturned soles of his boots suggested that an education had not brought him much in the way of material wealth. He glanced around as Geoffrey entered, and his words faltered. Not wanting to disturb him, Geoffrey backed away, and went to inspect the rest of the building.

  There was little more to see. The high altar was a table with a wooden cross on top. A square niche was cut into it, and a wreath of holly leaves rested inside. Geoffrey went to sit at the base of a pillar in the nave, careful not to let his sword clank and make a noise that would bother the priest. The hiss and mutter of Latin in the otherwise silent church made Geoffrey feel as though he was truly in a House of the Dead. While he listened with half an ear, he tried to decide what he should do next.

  By craning his neck, he could see the corpses from where he sat. He knew that a lot could be learned from the dead, and here were the bodies of two men whose deaths he suspected were related to Flambard, no matter what Alice claimed about oysters. He decided that it would do no harm to inspect them, to see what secrets they might yield. But he could hardly do so while the priest knelt with them, so he settled himself down to wait; he sensed it would not be long, given how the man was shivering. The dog lay beside him, resting its head on its paws. Its ears flicked back and forth as the wind rattled the shutters and doors, and Geoffrey relaxed, knowing it would growl should anyone else enter.

  No more than an hour had passed before the priest, shuddering almost uncontrollably from the cold, nodded to Geoffrey on his way out. The knight unlatched one of the window shutters and watched him disappear into a small house nearby. Almost immediately, smoke started to drift from the chimney, indicating that the priest had added a damp log to his fire. Geoffrey suspected he would not return before he had made himself something warm to drink, and perhaps not even at all that day.

  Alone at last, he walked towards the coffins and raised one of the sheets. Stanstede gazed at him with wide eyes, as though he had imagined Death was not something that would happen to him. Geoffrey knew the body had been prepared by Eleanor, so did not expect to discover anything too unusual. It had been dressed in a cream-coloured shift that reached its ankles, and its hands clutched a wooden cross. Eleanor had been lovingly thorough: she had shaved his face, washed him with scented oil, and even trimmed his beard. Geoffrey had the feeling Stanstede looked a good deal better in death than he had done in life.

  Surreptitiously, and conscious he would have a lot of explaining to do if he was caught, Geoffrey eased the shroud away from Stanstede’s neck, wanting to know whether he, like Xavier, had been strangled. Then he pulled the shroud up as far as it would go, and even turned the body in its coffin so he could inspect its back. The only mark on Stanstede was the hole in his chest where the arrow had been. Geoffrey had seen enough wounds to know that this one would have been almost instantly fatal, and would probably have pierced the heart.

  He put the body back as he had found it and turned his attention to the next one. Unlike Stanstede, whose face was pallid, Jarveaux’s was dark purple. The half-closed eyes had an opaque quality about them, like a dead fish, and the skin was mottled. Geoffrey had never seen the body of a man who had choked on his dinner, so was not in a position to say whether the ugly, dark features were what would be expected from such a cause of death. He took out his dagger and prised open the goldsmith’s mouth, deciding the only way to know for certain if Alice’s claim was true would be if he were able to retrieve the offending oyster. He was just moving into a position where the light was better when the dog stiffened, its eyes fixed on the darkness of the nave.

  Geoffrey abandoned his examination, watching as the hackles arose on the back of the dog’s neck. He could hear and see nothing, but something had disturbed the animal. Still holding his dagger, he walked briskly down the nave, peering into the shadows at either side to see whether anyone was hiding. But St Giles’ was a small church, and it would have been difficult for a person to conceal himself in it. As far as Geoffrey could tell, he was alone.

  The dog, however, continued to growl, and Geoffrey saw its attention was fixed on one of the windows. He ran towards it and ripped it open, ready to use his dagger if anyone was there. But the graveyard was deserted, and Geoffrey could see nothing moving. He closed the shutter and conducted another search of the church, deciding the dog must have heard something from outside – a cat or perhaps the wind.

  When he returned to the bodies, the dog lay with its head on its paws looking bored, and whatever had made it uneasy had evidently gone. Geoffrey took a deep breath to steady himself, and went back to Jarveaux. Fighting down his distaste, he held open the dead man’s mouth and pushed his fingers into it, trying to reach the back of the throat. He found nothing, except that the throat was swollen. Whether this happened in cases of choking
, or was even something that happened naturally after death, Geoffrey did not know. Growing exasperated, he took one of the candles and held it close to Jarveaux’s face, to see whether he could see the oyster.

  He almost dropped the candle when its flickering light revealed the inside of Jarveaux’s mouth. It was a mass of tiny, reddened blisters. Geoffrey stared at them, wondering whether the goldsmith had been one of those men who had violent reactions to certain kinds of foods, and that shellfish was something he should not have eaten. But Alice said he had liked oysters and ate them often. If he regularly indulged himself, then he should not have had an aversion to them, and they should not have poisoned him.

  Puzzled, Geoffrey looked at the dead man’s hands. There were blisters on his fingers, too, and three fingernails were broken. He turned his attention to the neck, and saw it was streaked with scratches, where the dying man had clawed at his throat.

  Geoffrey replaced the candle and rearranged the shroud so no one would know what he had been doing. His thoughts whirled with questions and suppositions, and he wished more than ever that he had not travelled north in the first place. He found a pile of snow next to an especially loose shutter, and rubbed his hands in it, trying to remove the stench of the dead man’s mouth. Then he went back to the base of the pillar, sat, and drew his cloak around him, although he knew the chill that seeped through him had nothing to do with the temperature in the church.

  He was no physician, but he had seen enough dead men to tell one cause of death from another, and this one was obvious. Jarveaux had not choked on any oyster while lecturing to his household on the joys of manure. He had been poisoned.

  Once daylight began to fade, night set in quickly, bringing an earlier than usual end to the winter day. The heavy, grey-brown clouds and the swirling snow made it almost impossible to see, and Geoffrey realized it would be a while before he was able to leave the church and return to Eleanor’s warm and welcoming solar. He glanced up at the sky, hoping the flakes that fell so thickly, swept horizontal by a furious wind, would soon stop, and that he would be able to leave.

  He went back to the pillar and sat in the gathering darkness, watching the way the tallow candles shed their flickering light in feeble pools of gold. Despite the cold, he began to feel drowsy, and was on the verge of sleep when a noise roused him. The dog was growling again, and Geoffrey had drawn his dagger before he was even aware of what he had done. He stood and waited in the shadows.

  But the pattering footsteps that slapped briskly down the nave belonged to the priest, who had come to secure the church for the night. He was startled by the presence of a knight in his domain, and stumbled in his haste to run away. Geoffrey caught his arm and prevented him from falling.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ squeaked the priest, struggling to free himself. ‘I have nothing to give you! This is a poor church – you can see that. Even our relic has gone.’

  Geoffrey studied him. He was a thin man with a spotty, oily complexion and a pallid face, both of which indicated a poor diet. His clothes also attested to the fact that he had little money: not only were his boots so holed that Geoffrey wondered whether he might be better off barefoot, but the cloak he wore over his threadbare habit was patched and frayed. Geoffrey saw he was exactly what he appeared – an impoverished priest eking a meagre living by burying the dead, and marrying and baptising his parishioners. Geoffrey imagined that the funerals of Stanstede and Jarveaux, both wealthy men whose widows might be generous with funds for masses for their souls, would provide an unlooked-for but welcome boon that winter.

  ‘I mean you no harm,’ said Geoffrey gently, releasing his arm and sheathing his dagger. ‘I am here to pay my respects to Master Stanstede. I am staying in the house of his widow.’

  ‘Oh, it is you,’ said the priest, relieved as he recognized Geoffrey in the candlelight. ‘You are Sir Roger’s friend. I saw you praying here earlier. I am Brother Eilaf.’

  ‘What did you mean when you said that even your relic had gone?’ asked Geoffrey curiously.

  ‘Brother Wulfkill died trying to protect it. At least, we think that was what happened. His arrow-pierced body was found the same morning the relic went missing.’

  ‘I heard something about a stolen relic,’ said Geoffrey, struggling to make sense of the priest’s rambling dialogue. He nodded at the niche in the altar. ‘Is that where it rested?’

  Eilaf nodded. ‘Bishop Flambard gave us St Balthere’s bones four years ago, so we Saxons could have our own saint when the abbey took the others. Balthere was a hermit, and miracles often occurred around his shrine. He may not be Cuthbert, but we loved him.’

  ‘My sergeant said the abbey had something to do with the theft.’

  ‘Prior Turgot denies it, but my parishioners believe the abbey is behind the loss, because of the foundations.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Geoffrey, bewildered. ‘What foundations?’

  ‘The foundations in the Chapel of the Nine Altars cracked a few nights before Balthere was stolen,’ explained Eilaf. ‘Us Saxons believe God was expressing His displeasure at the way His saint was about to be treated. And it is not as if the cathedral needs another saint – it has Cuthbert, Oswald, Bede, and Aidan to name but a few, and Bishop Flambard has also promised it Aaron’s Rod.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Geoffrey flatly. ‘That.’

  Eilaf studied him in the gloom. ‘I see you are sceptical about its existence. So am I, but you will not be popular if you say so here. But I am gabbling. You startled me when you emerged from the shadows. I immediately assumed that you were some lout employed by him.’

  ‘By whom?’ asked Geoffrey, confused again by the priest’s chaotic conversation.

  ‘Burchard. He was here yesterday and today, poking around the deceased like a carrion crow.’

  ‘The abbey bursar?’ asked Geoffrey, wondering what Eilaf was talking about now. ‘Why would he poke around Stanstede’s corpse?’

  ‘It is not Stanstede he is interested in,’ said Eilaf. ‘It is the other one – Jarveaux.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Geoffrey, although he knew exactly what Burchard had been doing, given that he had just done the same thing himself.

  ‘He is convinced that Jarveaux had an important document that has gone missing. He made me strip the corpse to see if it was there.’

  ‘And did he find it?’ asked Geoffrey.

  ‘Of course not. Alice paid me to prepare her husband’s body, and if I had found anything, it would have been passed to her, along with his other effects.’

  ‘You prepared Jarveaux?’ asked Geoffrey, straining to see the priest’s face in the dim light. Was Eilaf an honest man? Had he given everything he had found to the widow?

  ‘Eleanor insisted on tending Stanstede herself, but Alice declined to see to Jarveaux. I suspect they did not have a close relationship, but I was grateful for the money she paid, and dealing with the dead holds no terrors for me, as it does for some people.’

  ‘Not Burchard, apparently,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘I wish there had been something to find,’ Eilaf went on. ‘Because then Alice might have paid me more when I returned it to her. It will be a long, lean winter without Jarveaux to pay me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Geoffrey, wondering whether hunger was responsible for Eilaf’s randomly meandering discourse.

  ‘Alice will not hire me to write for her, like her husband did. She will sell his business to one of the other goldsmiths, and settle back to enjoy her wealth.’

  ‘You were Jarveaux’s scribe?’ asked Geoffrey, thinking that here was the man who might know whether the goldsmith had received a missive from Flambard.

  Eilaf nodded miserably. ‘I was. The money I had from him was important, too. He was good to me – he always came to me for his scribing, even though most people use the ones at the abbey and parish priests are ignored.’

  ‘Why did he employ you? Kindness?’

  Eilaf gave a bitter laugh. ‘No! It was because he did not wa
nt the abbey familiar with his business. He knew I needed his money, which forced me to be a discreet servant.’

  ‘Jarveaux did not approve of the abbey?’

  ‘Who does? They are a greedy, scheming rabble, interested only in power and wealth. The rich merchants in the city hire their own scribes – as Jarveaux employed me – but the poorer ones are forced to use the abbey’s.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They have learned they lose customers if they do not.’

  ‘Why would the abbey want its scribes used for town business when they should be illustrating manuscripts and suchlike?’

  ‘For two reasons. First, it brings additional revenue and the bursar loves money. And second, it allows him to know what is happening among the city’s tradesmen.’

  Geoffrey’s mind raced. Was there any significance in the fact that Flambard had chosen a merchant who did not trust the abbey to receive one of his maps? And was there any significance in the fact that he had chosen the prior to receive one of the others? Perhaps that was how Flambard intended to keep them in check – by choosing men who treated each other with healthy scepticism.

  ‘Perhaps Eleanor will be able to find you something to do,’ suggested Geoffrey. ‘She might need a clerk now she is responsible for her husband’s business.’

  Eilaf gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘I am sure she will, and she can scarcely take that custom to the monks! But what would my bishop say, if he knew I was making my living by acting as clerk to a brothel?’

  ‘Very little, I imagine. Flambard is not a man overly endowed with inconvenient moral standards.’