The Brothers of Glastonbury

Chapter Seventeen

There was a moment’s pause before Gilbert Honeyman gave a somewhat uncertain laugh.

‘I daresay you have a reason, lad, for visiting these places — apart, that is, from the usual one.’

‘I do.’

‘And will that reason help to find these two young men who are missing? Will it assist Dame Gildersleeve?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I replied honestly, ‘but it might move us one step further on in this inquiry.’

He sucked his teeth for another two or three seconds, then clapped me on the back, a prurient curiosity seeming to have overcome his natural reluctance. ‘Very well! I’ll come with you, provided that I don’t have to enter any of those dens of vice.’ He puffed out his chest. ‘I’m a respected citizen and I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about me.’

‘I promise that you needn’t do more than wait for me outside. Now, if you’re willing, we’ll be off.’

Cock Lane was a narrow twisting street well away from the main thoroughfares of the town, dark because the overhanging eaves of the houses met almost in the middle. The central drain was piled high with refuse, including the rotting carcass of a sheep, and rats ran openly in and out of doorways. The muckrakers, who had been busy in the High Street when we quit the shop, had not yet reached this far, and by the look of things were not too punctilious at any time in their duties hereabouts.

Gilbert Honeyman held his nose and picked his way fastidiously through the litter. For my own part I was less cautious, but my boots were stout and had survived worse conditions than those at present prevailing underfoot. I noted that there was only one house where a rail outside provided for the tethering of horses, and I made directly for it. Two girls, wearing striped hoods to indicate their calling, were leaning from the upstairs window, both amply proportioned and in a state of undress. One was quite pretty, but the other had a pronounced squint which marred looks already rendered plainer than necessary by several layers of white lead paste.

‘Can I come in?’ I called up to them. ‘Is the house open yet?’

The girls exchanged glances then burst into raucous laughter. ‘You’re a bit early, my dear, aren’t you?’ Squinteyes giggled. ‘Your goodwife have a headache last night, did she?’

I waited for the hilarity subsequent upon this sally to subside before telling them, ‘I’d like a word or two with your Madam.’

There was further merriment. ‘She doesn’t do anything, my old acker,’ the prettier one said, using a local term of endearment, ‘except take the money.’

Her companion nodded, her smile vanishing. ‘Ay, she’s good at that, but not so generous when it comes to sharing it out.’ She focused her good eye on me, while the other seemed to stare off into space. ‘But come in, all the same. Nice-looking fellow like you won’t have any difficulty fixing himself up with a partner, early though it might be, and half of us not yet awake.’

I didn’t argue with them but went inside, leaving an uncomfortable Gilbert Honeyman hovering in the shadows, trying to render himself as inconspicuous as possible.

He breathed a huge sigh of relief when I reappeared after only a couple of minutes. ‘Can we go now?’

‘Not yet, but I promise to be as swift as I can.’

By the time I had called at every house in the alley, however, Gilbert had withdrawn from the vicinity of Cock Lane and awaited me in a neighbouring street. Here he had located another tavern which he deemed worthy of his attention, after a conversation with the landlord concerning the method of brewing and the contents of the latter’s various ales.

‘Come in! Come in!’ In the dark interior, he guided me to a table where two pots of ale were already set out — ‘and paid for,’ Gilbert assured me — indicating the settle alongside it. ‘Sit down, lad, and drink up.’

He raised his beaker and gave me the old Saxon form of cheer, still often heard in western parts: ‘Was heil!’

‘Drink heil!’ I responded, but absently, my mind on other things.

‘Tell me then!’ he ordered once he had quenched his initial thirst. ‘Did you find out what you were hoping to, or have you been wasting your time and mine?’

‘No,’ I answered, setting my beaker down on the table and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘I made a discovery.’

‘Go on!’ he urged, as I hesitated. ‘Explain to me why were you so anxious to visit the town brothels.’

I had told him most of the facts relating to Mark and Peter Gildersleeve the previous day, but, because I had then thought it unnecessary, I had mentioned nothing of Lydia’s encounter with Mark on the night she was taken ill, nor of Rob and John’s explanation of these nocturnal expeditions. I was therefore obliged to do so now.

Gilbert Honeyman was much shocked. ‘That poor creature!’ he exclaimed, referring to Dame Joan. He shook his head despondently. ‘But it only goes to show that even the best of women can breed a wayward son.’

‘Undoubtedly,’ I agreed. ‘But whatever Mark Gildersleeve has been up to, it isn’t whoring. Not one of the madams in Cock Lane could recollect ever seeing him, nor entertaining him, in her establishment. And he’s a familiar enough face in the town to be recognized by all of them.’

Gilbert frowned. ‘So what does that mean?’

‘It means I was right when I thought it unlikely that Mark would ride his horse, especially one so well known as Dorabella, on such an errand. First of all, it would let every passer-by know of his presence, and secondly, the animal could be stolen under cover of darkness; both of which reasons add up to taking an unnecessary risk when there was a safer alternative.’

Gilbert looked relieved. ‘Then you’ll be able to inform Dame Joan that her fears regarding her younger son’s conduct are unfounded. That at least must be of some comfort to her.’

‘Must it?’ I regarded him straitly. ‘Why, if it wasn’t true, did Mark tell the two apprentices that he had been whoring when he hadn’t? And where in fact was he during those nights when he was absent from home?’

‘Ah!’ Gilbert Honeyman grimaced. ‘I’m growing old. My wits aren’t as sharp as they used to be.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘So? What’s your explanation?’

‘I haven’t one yet,’ I answered. ‘I wish I did. It might throw some light on his and his brother’s disappearance.’

Gilbert finished his ale and bade me drink up. ‘We’ll have one more before we go. I find there’s nothing better than good ale for clearing the mind.’

I was extremely dubious about this pronouncement, my experience being that the better the ale the more muddied my thoughts were likely to become. And one thing I could be sure of, potent liquor always loosened my tongue. Now, after only two or three sips from my second cup, I found myself telling Gilbert where I had gone and what I had done yesterday evening, after he and I had parted company at the abbey gate. When I had finished, I turned to see him regarding me with much the same expression in his eyes that I had noted in Cicely’s.

‘Look here, lad,’ he said at last, patting my arm in an avuncular fashion, ‘I know we’re in Avalon and that King Arthur and Queen Guinevere lie buried in the abbey, but to tell you the truth I’ve never more than half believed those stories myself. And as for this business of Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail, well…!’ He broke off with an expressive shrug of his shoulders.

I answered defensively. ‘But there’s no proof that Joseph didn’t come to Britain after the Crucifixion, any more than there’s proof that he did. Perhaps we ought to respect ingrained, age-old beliefs that are part of the very air and soil of a region, legends and stories that go back into the mists of time. They had their origins somewhere, in some event or other…’ I drank the dregs of my ale. ‘Nevertheless, in this case I’m not saying that I necessarily believe the story of the Grail, or that it’s the relic referred to in the account of its concealment by Brother Begninus. But I feel sure it’s what Peter Gildersleeve thought.’

‘Why?’ Gilbert Honeyman was sceptical.

I repeated the reasons I had given to Cicely the previous night. They sounded feeble enough now as then, but I was still convinced that I was right.

Gilbert pursed his lips. ‘I’m not much of a one for reading,’ he said, ‘and I can’t make head nor tail of stories and yarns and suchlike. I know enough to keep my accounts in good order and to be sure that customers aren’t cheating me, but that’s about it. But I had my girl, my Rowena, taught her letters by the nuns at Shaftesbury. There are some who say educating girls is a waste of time, but I don’t hold with that. She’s my only chick and she’ll need all her wits about her when I die. However, that’s beside the point — which is that she knows all these tales of King Arthur and his knights, and now and again, of a winter’s evening, she’s related bits of them to me. And those knights weren’t searching around Glastonbury for the Holy Grail — leastways, not as I remember it. They went here, there and everywhere, up and down the country, but mostly overseas. And what adventures they had! Enchanted halls and castles! Angels, magicians, fairies! Wonderful things were involved. People who appeared and disappeared…’ His voice faded to an embarrassed silence as he realized what he had just said, then he coughed and went on hurriedly, ‘Yes, well … there you are. You see what I mean.’

‘Of course I do! But don’t you see that those are the legends?’ I urged excitedly. ‘As I said just now, most such tales are probably rooted in a grain of truth. With the passage of centuries they become distorted as layer upon layer of romantic invention is added bit by bit. But long ago, in the dim and distant past, something actually happened that gave birth to the original story. Have you never, as a boy, rolled a snowball down a hill and watched it getting bigger and bigger before it reached the bottom? Legends must grow like that.’

The Bee Master peered into his beaker, and finding it empty called the pot-boy. I hastily declined his offer of a third cup of ale, and was treated to a diatribe on the inability of modern youth to hold its drink. This however was mercifully brief, Gilbert being anxious to get back to the subject under discussion.

‘So, what you’re saying,’ he continued, as soon as his beaker had been replenished, ‘is that the legend of Arthur’s knights looking for the Holy Grail is based on the fact that this Brother Begninus hid some relic or other because the pagan Saxons were approaching, and afterwards people had to try to find it again?’

I reflected that there was nothing wrong with Gilbert’s understanding, and that he was quicker on the uptake than many a younger person of my acquaintance.

‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘Perhaps Brother Percival and Brother Geraldus, the two monks mentioned by Begninus as departing the following day for Ireland, never returned. Perhaps Brother Begninus himself, and the Abbot and the other inmates of the church at Ynys Witrin, were all killed by a Saxon raiding party, or died naturally, one by one, of old age and disease. If the latter, maybe the Abbot decided that it would be wiser to leave the “great relic” where it was, rather than bring it back to the church. Even though 500 AD was the year of the battle at Mount Badon, when Arthur is said to have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Saxons somewhere away to the east, there were still other bands of invaders coming ashore along the south coast and gradually making their way inland.’

‘So when the monks died, the secret of the relic’s hiding place died with them?’

‘Yes. But the relic was famous enough for other people to have heard of it, and to make them anxious to find it again. Both before and after the completion of the Saxon conquest it was searched for, probably over a period of many years. And gradually the hunt became a part of the stories about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The quest for the Holy Grail.’

Gilbert swallowed another draught of ale. ‘That’s all very well,’ he demurred, ‘but surely no one in their right mind could imagine that it is still possible to find it today, after almost a thousand years!’

It was the same argument advanced by Blethyn Goode and Brother Hilarion, and still as unanswerable as when they had posed the question.

I could only give the same response. ‘Peter Gildersleeve, by my reasoning, thought it possible, and we must therefore try to think as he did.’

The Bee Master grunted doubtfully. ‘What was the wording of this precious parchment of yours? Where did this Brother Begninus say that he’d hidden the relic?’

I quoted, for I knew the words now by heart: ‘“Amongst the hills, in the hollow places of the earth, on the altar by Charon’s stream.”’

‘Well, there you are then! A chapel, or a shrine maybe … But no building of that age could possibly be standing today. The idea defies all reason. And so Master Gildersleeve must have known. He doesn’t sound a fool by anything I’ve heard tell of him. No, I think you’ve been sitting on a mare’s nest, lad, and you’ve hatched out a three-legged donkey.’ He sighed. ‘But it doesn’t alter the fact that both that poor woman’s sons have disappeared and no one is any the wiser as to where they’ve gone or why. But what anyone can do about it, I don’t know. You’ve done your best, Roger, and you can’t do more. You’ll have to forget it. Even if, by some wild stretch of the imagination, you’re right about the way Peter Gildersleeve’s mind was working — but I think it’s unlikely — you can only follow his logic so far. And how did he vanish so completely within the span of just a few moments?’

The ale-house was filling up, the clamour of voices growing greater by the minute. I felt defeated, useless, and leant back against the settle, closing my eyes. Immediately I was caught up once more in my strange half-dream, half-vision, watching the monks process, each man along his track of beaten earth, until they reached the thatched, circular building in the middle of the enclosure. Again, I could see their lips moving, but heard no sound: utter silence engulfed me. As on the previous night, they began walking in single file around the church, slowly at first, then increasing their pace until they were running. Now they were diminishing in numbers, one less appearing after each encirclement. Finally, no one re-emerged at all. I floated weightlessly towards the central building with its conical roof and, as before, it became transparent. Through its walls, I could see the monks standing in a row on the other side …

‘Are you all right, lad?’ Gibert Honeyman’s voice was taut with alarm. ‘You’re looking very pale. You’re not ill, are you?’

I passed a hand across my forehead. I was sweating and filled with that same, strange lassitude that had afflicted me last night. The noise all round me seemed deafening, and I noticed that people were beginning to stare at me. With a prodigious effort, I pulled myself together.

‘No. No, I’m just a little drunk, that’s all,’ I lied. ‘This ale must be more powerful than I thought.’

‘Ay, it’s potent stuff all right. Nevertheless, I think you’d better let me accompany you back to Dame Gildersleeve’s and ask her to dose you with one of those concoctions women always seem to have in the medicine press. And then I’d think seriously if I were you about my advice to go home and leave others to solve this mystery. If there is a solution, that is. You’re suffering from a touch of the sun if you want my opinion. It’s been a hot enough summer, goodness knows, to affect the strongest constitution. And then all this thinking and teasing of your brain — it’s no good for anyone.’

I realized that it was pointless to argue with him. I should never convince Gibert that I was perfectly hale and hearty and in my right mind. To tell the truth, I knew a moment’s doubt on the subject myself. I had never before had a dream without being asleep, and it worried me, until my companion put me a little more at ease on that score.

‘You’re tired,’ he went on. ‘Just now you nodded off for a second. You need to get some rest.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I answered.

All the same, I knew that I should get no rest until I had worked out what it was that my dream was trying to tell me.

Gilbert Honeyman accompanied me as far as the shop, but declined to enter. ‘Give my respects to Dame Gildersleeve, lad, and say that I shall call to make my farewells before I leave for home on Monday.’ He lowered his voice to a confidential whisper. ‘Why don’t you ride with me, as we’re going in the same direction? Get out, before this sorry business really turns your brain.’

I hesitated. His offer seemed suddenly very tempting. But then I knew with absolute certainty that I must not accept it. God had sent me here, as He had sent me elsewhere in the past, to uncover evil. If I failed to do so, I failed Him as well as myself — and I had already done that once in my life. I could not do it again.

I embraced Gilbert. ‘You’re a good man,’ I said, ‘but I must see this through to the end.’ I braced my shoulders. ‘And who knows? With God’s guidance I may have solved this mystery by Monday. I might, after all, be free to ride with you.’

I could see that he thought it unlikely, but he clapped me on the back and answered with a false heartiness, ‘Ay, so you might at that, lad! I’ll pray that it’s so. Now, I must go and take a look at that horse of mine and make sure he’s being properly treated.’

Gilbert administered me a second boisterous clout before disappearing into the crowds which thronged the High Street on this Saturday morning. It was warm and airless, with little sign of the sun breaking through the clouds which continued to pile up in the east, turning Saint Michael’s chapel and its enclave on top of the Tor into nothing more than a two-dimensional black shape against a grey background. The streak of red which I had noticed earlier in the sky had correctly presaged a stormy day.

As I turned to enter the Gildersleeves’ shop I felt a sudden desire to speak to Brother Hilarion again, so I crossed the street and presented myself once more at the porter’s lodge. It was a different lay Brother this time, and he informed me that my old friend had not long ago conducted a party of pilgrims into the abbey church, where I should doubtless still find him. I thanked the man and joined the tail end of yet another band of pilgrims who had entered just ahead of me, processing beneath the north porch and into the nave.

Some of the pilgrims turned to their right, down the Galilee steps to the Lady Chapel, but I followed those who moved to the left, in the direction of the choir. A few stopped in the north transept to pray in the chapel dedicated to Saint Thomas à Becket, but most continued towards the tomb which reputedly housed the remains of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. It was, after all, this which they had travelled many hard and weary miles to see. It was not a holy relic, and no one bowed the knee in worship, but they stared in awe and wonderment at the great shrine of black marble, a cross guarded by two carved lions at its head, and an image of the king, flanked by two more carved lions, at its foot.

I perused the inscriptions slowly and with difficulty, translating my rusty Latin into English: Here lies Arthur, the flower of Kings, the kingdom’s glory. His morals and virtues commend him with everlasting praise. And also: Arthur’s fortunate wife lies buried here, loved by Heaven for her virtues. For those pilgrims unable to do it for themselves, Brother Hilarion was reading aloud, while a few of them stooped to gain a better view of the carvings.

One, a goodwife, straightened up with a piercing shriek.

‘A mouse! There! There! At the base of the tomb.’

Most of the women scuttled clear while Brother Hilarion tiptoed cautiously around the shrine, looking for the offending animal.

‘I think you’re mistaken, my child,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t see anything.’

A man who was standing near gave me a nudge and pointed in the direction of the choir, where a field mouse was just whisking out of sight behind a pillar. I nodded and grinned. My neighbour had seen, as I had done, exactly what had happened. Neither of us said anything, however, and the pilgrims proceeded on their way to offer up prayers before the high altar. But I stayed where I was, staring unseeingly at the shrine and thinking about the little creature …

And suddenly my dream became clear to me. I knew what it was trying to tell me, and what it was that I had been too dense to understand all along. I made for the north door without more ado, and within five minutes was entering the Gildersleeves’ shop.

Cicely and Dame Joan had returned by this time from the scrivener’s house, and the former met me in the passageway.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded.

‘I’ve been visiting whore-houses in Cock Lane with Master Honeyman,’ I answered. Ignoring her gasp of astonishment and outrage, I gripped her wrist. ‘Where’s your aunt?’ I demanded.

‘In the shop. Rob’s found a carter going all the way to London, and she’s arranging for him to carry her letter to my father. What do you mean, you and Master Honeyman have been visiting-’

‘Never mind that for now,’ I cut in impatiently. ‘I’ll explain later.’ I shook her arm. ‘I think I’ve discovered how your cousin Peter disappeared!’