Hill of Bones

ACT TWO

September 1204

The lay brother set the wooden tray on the floor at his feet and stretched himself, hands pressed against his aching back. He had been bending for the last ten minutes, polishing the brass feet of a lectern until he could see his face in the gleaming metal.

Eldred took an almost proprietorial pride in his part of the great abbey church and now gazed around fondly in the peaceful noon-time, glad to be alone while the priests, monks and deacons were eating in the refectory. He was a slight, fair man of thirty, with an open face and an inoffensive manner to match.

He had been tending the fabric of Bath’s cathedral for the past ten years and had graduated from being a lowly cleaner down in the nave, to being responsible for this upper part of the building, the most sanctified area of the choir, the presbytery and the sanctuary, the space that held the high altar.

Picking up his tray of cleaning cloths and beeswax polish, Eldred moved to the centre and genuflected towards the altar, a long table covered with a lace-edged linen cloth of spotless white, on which was a bronze cross and a pair of tall candlesticks. He crossed to the north side of the presbytery, the space between choir and sanctuary. As he went, he looked briefly down through the rows of choir stalls. Beyond them, he saw the carved rood screen that shielded the holiest area from the nave and the rude stares of the townsfolk, when they came to stand there for Sunday worship. There was still no sign of anyone returning from their midday meal, so Eldred decided to give a quick polish to the sacred vessels – his favourite task, as it allowed him to handle the most venerated objects in the abbey.

Padding across the tiled floor in his sandals, he went to the aumbry, a cupboard set in the thickness of the wall between the presbytery and the ambulatory, the corridor that ran around inside the east end of the church.

The two doors of the aumbry were of polished oak with brass corners, an ornate ivory cross set into each panel. They were closed by a large brass hasp and staple, with a padlock securing them. Eldred fumbled for the ring of keys that hung on a chain from the leather belt around his long brown robe. By touch alone, he chose one that he had handled virtually daily for the past four years and advanced on the lock.

It was then that warning bells began to ring inside his head. As he touched the lock to push the key into the hole, the hasp swung slackly back on its hinge, the staple from the other door coming away with it. Almost unwilling to believe his eyes, Eldred saw that the four long rivets that had held the staple to the oak were drooping from the brass plate, scraps of torn wood falling to the floor beneath. In a frenzy of concern, he pulled open both doors, still hoping that this was some explicable happening, like dry rot or woodworm – a foolish thought, but better than the obvious alternative.

Inside, there were two shelves, the lower one carrying vials of oil and unguents, as well as the service books, sheets of parchment bound between wooden covers. Nothing there was amiss, but the upper shelf was almost bare. A couple of silver patens remained, on which the consecrated host was carried to those taking communion, but the pride of the abbey, the golden chalice and the pyx, had gone!

Sweat began to pour from Eldred’s brow. He knew he would get the blame for this, as he was the only one with access to the aumbry, apart from Hubert, the sacrist, responsible for setting up the arrangements for each Mass, who was his direct superior, and Brother Gilbert, the cellarer, who was responsible for the material contents of the abbey. Even Prior Robert did not possess a key. That the aumbry had been forcibly broken into would not help Eldred, unless the real culprit was rapidly discovered, as the prior disliked him and would be only too ready to make him the scapegoat.

As the first horror of the situation subsided into a deadening acceptance, the lay brother knew that he had to report the theft immediately. The chalice, though small, was solid gold, a legacy of the first monastery on this site, many hundreds of years earlier. Eldred was not an educated man – he could neither read nor write – but had been around the abbey for many years and had picked up something of its history from listening to others. The chalice, given by Offa, King of Mercia in the eighth century, was probably made from gold stolen from the Welsh by the Saxons. The pyx, a small gold-lined silver box, was for holding the ‘reserved sacrament’, communion wafers that had been consecrated ready for use.

With feet of lead, Eldred made his way to the steps that led to the south transept, after first pushing the rivets back into the shattered holes in the door of the aumbry. For a moment, he contemplated leaving it as he had found it and letting someone else discover the catastrophe, denying any knowledge of it. But that would be futile, he recognised. Everyone knew that Eldred spent much of his time in the chancel, cleaning and polishing.

He began to hurry and reached the small door set just beyond the south transept, which led directly out into the cloisters. The clergy were thronging the cloister, gossiping as they came out of the refectory into the pillared arcade.

Almost immediately, Eldred saw the skinny figure of the sacrist approaching. Hubert of Frome, the monk responsible for the fabric and furnishings of the abbey, was a small, weasely fellow with a sallow complexion and a turn in his left eye. The black Benedictine habit hung badly on his meagre frame and his permanently irritable expression made him even more unattractive. His first words set the tone for a fraught encounter.

‘Eldred, what are you doing here?’ he rasped. ‘Why have you left your duties?’

There were a dozen monks within hearing distance and Eldred sidled up to the sacrist to murmur in his ear, ‘You must come to the presbytery at once, brother! An evil thing has happened!’

Hubert scowled at his lowly assistant, but something in Eldred’s voice persuaded him not to make a public issue of it in the cloister. He followed Eldred as he scurried back to the presbytery and crossed to the other side without acknowledging the high altar. Hubert crossed himself as he bent a knee, then prepared to berate the other man for not doing the same. But his protests died in his throat as Eldred reached the aumbry and with a dramatic gesture, pulled open the doors to display the broken lock and the bare shelf.

‘The chalice and the pyx, Master! Gone!’

The sacrist was speechless. Then with a moan, he dropped to his knees and peered inside the aumbry. His hand groped blindly at the back of the upper shelf, as if his sense of touch might reassure him that his sight was defective. When he rose to his feet, his normally pallid features were almost dead white with shock.

‘How can this be? What have you done, fellow?’

‘Nothing, Master! I found it like this, not ten minutes ago,’ wailed Eldred. ‘See, the staple has been torn from the wood!’

With trembling fingers, Hubert rattled the still-closed padlock and prodded the long rivets hanging loosely from the staple.

‘You swear by Almighty God that you had no hand in this?’ he hissed. He would liked to have yelled at the top of his voice, but the sanctity of this place overcame even the horror of the situation.

‘Of course, Master!’ said the terrified but still outraged Eldred. ‘I carry a key – why should I break the doors?’

Hubert of Frome managed to pull himself together and his pallor began to change to a rising flush as anger and fear of retribution flooded his system.

‘Prior Robert must be told at once! The chalice was priceless, as well as being a historic legacy. And the pyx…!’ A sudden thought occurred to him and his face blanched once again. ‘Holy Mary! Was there Blessed Host within it?’

Eldred shook his head emphatically. ‘None was reserved after the last Mass – it was all used.’

Hubert puffed out a long breath of relief. ‘Thank God for that!’ he sighed, crossing himself fervently. If consecrated wafers had been stolen along with the sacred vessels, not only would it have been a greater sacrilege, but the pillaged Host would have had a high monetary value. Witches and necromancers set great store by such rare material for their evil rituals and spells.

With sudden resolve, the sacrist grabbed the loose sleeve of Eldred’s robe and pulled him towards the doorway into the side passage.

‘Come with me, we must find the prior immediately!’ he brayed, releasing Eldred’s arm and padding ahead of him back to the cloister door. The unhappy lay brother followed him, his feet slapping on the flagstones as they went into the cloister. The sacrist grabbed the ring of a nearby door, which led into the stores.

‘I saw the prior go in here after dinner. He was seeking Brother Gilbert,’ he said in a voice trembling with agitation, as he pushed the stout door open. Inside it was gloomy, the only light coming from small apertures high up on the walls, laced with wicker mesh to prevent birds from entering to steal the grain that was stored in large tubs. Partitions divided the long chamber into sections, but left a central aisle running its full length.

‘He will be down at the end, in Brother Gilbert’s cell,’ muttered Hubert, pattering down the aisle, past cubicles piled with flour, oats, wheat and fresh vegetables, others containing bales of coarse cloth, kegs of French wine, furniture, candles and all the provisions necessary to sustain a monastic house.

At the end was an arch, beyond which was a chamber stretching across the width of the building, with double doors on the right leading into the abbey yard. A large table was set in the centre, and to the left was a desk where another monk was perched on a high stool. He was busily writing lists of merchandise with a quill on sheets of parchment, held flat with small pebbles from the nearby River Avon.

The sacrist marched up to the table, where two more monks were hunched over a large pile of silver pennies, counting them into leather bags. One was the cellarer, Brother Gilbert, a squat, heavily built man, with black hair shaved high on the back of his neck and temples in the Norman style, leaving a dense rim below his tonsure. The other was Prior Robert, the dictatorial head of the abbey. Though an abbey should have been led by an abbot, the monastery had reverted to a priory a century before, when John of Tours, King William Rufus’ physician, moved the bishopric of Somerset from Wells to Bath and built a great new cathedral on the site.

The present prior was a corpulent man with wiry dark hair. His chubby face carried an almost permanent benign smile, but the responsibilities of his office had eroded his patience so that if he was crossed, this could vanish, to be replaced by a show of temper. At the sound of someone approaching, his bag of money dropped with a clunk onto the table, as he turned his head to beam at his sacrist, whose job he had held himself before his elevation to prior.

‘Dear Brother Hubert, you seem in a hurry! I cannot be disturbed now, we are accounting for the wool sales.’

‘Prior, you must come at once!’ the agitated sacrist cried. He clutched the prior’s arm with his hand, which Robert shook off irritably, but before he could protest further, Hubert gabbled out the story of the missing treasures.

The sanctimonious prior placed the palms of his hands together high before his face in an attitude of prayer and rolled his eyes upwards towards heaven.

‘O Lord my God, I beseech Thee to assure me that this is some grave mistake. Surely this cannot be!’

Then he dropped his hands and spun round, snarling at both Hubert and Eldred, who was cowering behind the sacrist.

‘What have you done, you wretched souls? Which of you has stolen these priceless relics – or forgotten to lock the aumbry, eh?’ He was quivering with rage, arms upraised, his fingers clawing the air.

‘The fastenings have been smashed, Prior,’ quavered Hubert. ‘You must come and see for yourself!’

Robert shoved the two men aside and stormed ahead of them to the cloister door, with the others, including the cellarer, hurrying after him, leaving the young clerk Maurice to guard the bags of money on the table. In the presbytery, it was a matter of a moment for the prior to confirm both that the staple had been wrenched out of the door and that the top shelf was empty.

‘I possess a key, Prior!’ whined Hubert, determined to get his alibi in first. ‘So I could not be involved in this sacrilege!’

‘Nor I, for I too hold one,’ boomed Brother Gilbert, aggressively. He was a short-tempered man, as most of the residents of the abbey could testify.

The three monks swivelled to glower at Eldred, who nervously grabbed the ring on his belt and held up his own key.

‘I also have a key! It is my task to clean those blessed vessels,’ he said timorously. ‘Which I have done faithfully these past four years,’ he added.

The prior took one last desperate look into the aumbry, as if the chalice and pyx might have miraculously reappeared during the last half-minute. Then he moved to the centre of the presbytery and dropped to his knees before the altar. Once again lifting his supplicant hands before his face, he prayed in loud high-pitched voice for God, his Son, the Holy Mary and all the saints and angels to reveal who had done this awful act and to restore the sacred vessels to them, so that their humble servants might continue to worship in the manner to which they were accustomed.

The others, well aware of Prior Robert’s ostentatious show of piety, listened with varying degrees of impatience, more concerned with their own vulnerability when the prior unleashed his ire upon them. They had not long to wait, for as soon as Robert had finished talking to his Creator, he rose to his feet and with a face like thunder, pointed a quivering finger at Eldred.

‘Sacrist, send for the proctor’s men to seize this fellow!’

The fact that Eldred had suspected that he would be made the scapegoat did not lessen the terror with which he heard these words.

‘Prior, I am innocent!’ he screamed. ‘It was I who ran to tell the sacrist. I handle those holy things almost every day! Why should I steal them after all this time?’

Surprisingly, Hubert spoke up for him. ‘Prior, he does have a key. Why would he break the fastenings?’

Robert ignored him. ‘Send for the proctors, I say! Let the processes of canon law and the judgement of Almighty God decide on his guilt.’ He crossed himself vigorously again. ‘And now, set up a search throughout the abbey… throughout the whole town! Go, marshal every monk, every lay brother, every kitchen boy to leave no stone unturned! We must find those sacred treasures!’

The two proctor’s men were what passed for the police force of the abbey, keeping order amongst the lay brothers, the servants and, less often, the monks themselves. They were nominally lay brothers in that they enjoyed the Church’s protection from the secular law, but in reality were a pair of strong-arm men not over-imbued with intelligence. The actual proctors were a pair of the more senior monks, charged with the discipline of the brethren, but it was their two servants who carried out the day-to-day policing of the large abbey compound, which behind its high wall, occupied most of the south-eastern quarter of the city.

Within minutes of the prior’s peremptory command, they had grabbed Eldred and marched him off to the detention cell, a small outhouse built on to the end of the stable block at the south end of the abbey yard. As well as for the storage of animal fodder, it was used mostly for housing drunks, beggars and troublemakers found in the abbey yard, which was open to the public.

Servants, lay brothers and even novitiate monks who had transgressed the rules were also incarcerated in the cell on a diet of bread and water until they had expiated their sins. The Church jealously guarded its independence from the legal apparatus of the State, strengthened by old King Henry’s penitent promise after the murder of Thomas Becket.

After the first shock of arrest had passed off, Eldred became more philosophical about his plight, as he was sure that his innocence would soon become apparent. Although it was well over a century since King William the Bastard had conquered England, there was still a prejudice against Saxons such as himself, even though generations of intermarriage had blurred the distinction. He was being set up as the villain by the largely Norman Church, mainly because of his name and fair Saxon hair and complexion.

Despondently, he sat on the bare board that formed the bed and looked at the rest of the furnishings – a pile of hay, a battered leather bucket for his ablutions and a large wooden cross on the wall, set there by the pious Robert to remind prisoners that the Almighty was always watching them. There was nothing else to comfort him, apart from a rough blanket folded on the end of the bench. There was no window and the only light came through a gap above the heavy oaken door, which also admitted a strong stench of horse manure from the adjacent stables.

Eldred’s first concern was for his wife, Gytha. Before he was dragged away, he had managed to plead with Hubert to let her know of his arrest, so that when he failed to return home that night, she would not think that he was either dead or had abandoned her. The Abbey did not oblige lay brothers to be either celibate or resident, and Eldred and his wife lodged with two other families in a small house in Binnebury Lane, only a few hundred paces away from the main abbey gate. They had no living children and their one half of a room, divided by a curtain from a family of four, was enough for them to be content with their lot.

A few hours passed and no one came near him. As the afternoon waned, he heard the bells of the abbey church tolling for compline. It was hot and stuffy in the little room, but there was no water to drink. Eldred assumed that the prior was not going to starve him to death, or until he confessed to a crime he had not committed, but he was getting hungry, having missed his midday meal in the servants’ hall.

The thick door had no cracks for him to peer through, so he had only sounds to tell him what was happening outside. The abbey yard was a busy place, as townsfolk came in on many errands, and it was a focus for gossip and business dealings. Goods came constantly to the cellararium, ox-wagons and handcarts bringing supplies to feed and clothe the many inhabitants of the abbey. Horses whinnied nearby as they were taken in and out of the stables and the shouts of yard boys rang out as they sluiced down the soiled floors. Farriers came to shoe horses at the forge opposite, and the saddlery at the other end of the stables was always busy. But no one came near Eldred and he began to wonder if he had been totally forgotten.

His dry tongue was cleaving to the roof of his mouth and his empty stomach was rumbling before he heard the noise of the bar being lifted from its sockets on the outside of the door. Almost blinded by the light of the early evening sun, he squinted as the welcome figure of Gytha was silhouetted in the doorway. Behind her, he saw the burly figure of William, one of the proctor’s men, who pushed her inside and slammed the door, though he did not replace the bar.

‘I’ll give you a couple of minutes, that’s all!’ he yelled from outside.

The plump goodwife of about thirty, another fair-haired Saxon, put a basket on the floor, then threw her arms around Eldred.

‘What have you been up to, you silly man?’ she cried, with an attempt to cover her distress with scolding bravado. ‘I’ve brought you a skin of ale and some bread and meat. Now tell me what’s been going on!’

They sat down side by side on the board and he explained how he had been unjustly accused of the theft.

‘It counts as sacrilege and a mortal sin!’ he wailed. ‘Unless I can prove my innocence, Prior Robert will probably hand me over to the sheriff, for it’s common knowledge that the Chapter despises us Saxon servants. Then I’ll hang, that’s for sure.’

Gytha tried to console him, saying that his status as a lay brother would protect him through ‘benefit of clergy’, but Eldred was pessimistic. ‘The bishop’s Court can’t hang me if they find me guilty, but they can choose to hand me over to the King’s men for sentence and execution.’

Again his wife tried to soothe him. ‘When I leave here, I’ll go straight to Selwyn and ask him for help. He’ll think of something!’

Selwyn was Eldred’s best friend – in fact, almost his only friend, for in the restricted orbit of his life, he was confined to work in the abbey for twelve hours a day and spent most of the remainder on his bed. Selwyn was a servant in the King’s House, a substantial residence built in the abbey precinct three years before by the new King John. The monarch rarely visited it, but used it when his country-wide perambulations brought him to this part of the West Country. More often, it was loaned to other favourites in his court, so a permanent staff was kept there and Selwyn was one of the two stewards who maintained it. Though not a Saxon himself, he had struck up a friendship with Eldred, who often visited him in the kitchen of the King’s House and shared a pot of ale and a gossip.

Before Gytha could elaborate on how Selwyn might be able to help, the door was flung open and William hustled her out. Before it was slammed shut again, she called out that she would bring him more food and drink in the morning.

Eldred ate and drank the simple fare that Gytha had brought. Then, though it was still early, he settled down on the hay in preference to the hard bed, more hopeful now that his faithful wife was seeking some aid for him.

When Gytha left her husband, she went straight to the King’s House to seek Eldred’s friend, Selwyn Vassel.

Gytha was a determined woman who loved her husband, and she was grimly set upon rescuing him from the unjust predicament in which he now found himself. She marched across the abbey yard beside the high wall that separated it from the bishop’s palace, which occupied the south-western corner of the precinct. This barrier turned sharply left to reach the abbey’s outer curtain wall. The King had built his house against this, almost opposite the West Front of the cathedral.

At the front of the house was a wide flight of steps leading up to the main door, used only by the King himself or his invited guests. Gytha used a small door for servants and tradesmen on the further side. This led into a scullery and storeroom, beyond which was a large kitchen, where Selwyn was usually to be found. As the house was presently unoccupied by any of the nobility, none of the other servants was present, his fellow steward being away visiting his parents in Cheddar.

Selwyn was a tall, erect man of forty years, with powerful shoulders and dark hair cropped short. He had a handsome and kindly face and as soon as Gytha entered, he jumped from his stool by the fire and sat her down opposite, giving her a pot of small ale to match his own. She hastily poured out her story and beseeched Selwyn to help his friend, swearing that he was innocent of the baseless accusation.

‘But they’ll hang him, I know!’ she wailed. ‘They have no idea who did this awful thing, but they need a scapegoat to satisfy the bishop.’

Selwyn did his best to soothe her agitation and promised to do all he could to help. Eventually he rose and went to the door.

‘You bide here, Gytha. I’m off to talk to people around the abbey and see what the latest news might be.’

He vanished, leaving the goodwife sitting anxiously by the small fire that burned in the hearth. When he returned half an hour later his face bore a grave expression, which further increased Gytha’s concern.

‘Virtually all the monks and servants have been searching the precinct, looking for the stolen vessels,’ he said. ‘This must be the only place they have not visited, as it is the King’s property.’

‘They found nothing? Have they been to our home?’

Selwyn nodded. ‘Yes, I spoke to one of the proctor’s bailiffs. Your dwelling was one of the first places they searched.’

‘It would take them no more than a minute to discover there was nothing in our part of that humble room,’ she said bitterly. ‘So what happens now?’

‘Eldred will be interrogated by the prior and other members of the Chapter this evening. Then if he does not confess and tell them where the treasure is hidden, he will be sent before the consistory court tomorrow.’ Selwyn sighed. ‘I know that Bishop Savaric is returning in the morning. I fear it will go badly with poor Eldred when he is hauled before him.’

Gytha sobbed quietly. ‘If they hand him over to the sheriff and his gang of ruffians, it will be the end of him. Maybe they will torture him to get him reveal where he put the stolen vessels – but how can he tell them what he does not know?’

The tall steward paced up and down the kitchen, where clean cooking pots and ladles awaited the next batch of guests.

‘We must get him out of the abbey and hide him until the real culprits are found. You go home now, Gytha, and stay quietly until I come to you with news. It is best if you know nothing of this; then you cannot be accused of being involved.’

She nodded mutely, trusting this good friend even with her husband’s life. As she went to the door to leave, she had one further question.

‘Can you do this alone, Selwyn? Can you not find help?’

He nodded. ‘Eldred has another good friend. I will ask Riocas to share this task.’

It was getting dusk when they eventually came for him. The two proctor’s men grabbed him by the elbows and hauled him off to the Chapter House, a semi-circular building attached to the back of the monks’ dormitory, near the south transept. This was where the abbey’s hierarchy met daily to settle their business, but this evening, only five of them were there when the guards hustled Eldred inside to stand before them. The half-circle of benches was empty and the interrogators sat on chairs on the low dais at the front, near the lectern from which a chapter of the Rule of St Benedict was read before each meeting, a ritual that gave the place its name.

Prior Robert, from his seat in the centre, began the proceedings.

‘You wretched man, tell us where you have hidden those sacred vessels!’ he demanded. Tonight, there was no trace of his usual oily benevolence, and he glowered at Eldred with a face like thunder. ‘We have searched everywhere, but there is no sign of them.’

‘You must have taken them out of the abbey, into the city,’ rasped Brother Gilbert, the cellarer. ‘Tell us what you did with them, if you want any chance of saving your neck!’

Two of the others also had their turn at haranguing the luckless lay brother, threatening him with every penalty from excommunication to flaying alive. One was Brother Thomas, the treasurer, the other the precentor, Brother Seymour, who was responsible for organising the cathedral services.

The only one of the five who did not castigate Eldred was Hubert of Frome, under whose supervision the lay brother worked. The sacrist looked sadly at him, either from sorrow at the man’s present plight or disillusionment at his presumed treachery. Though usually a miserable, carping fellow, Hubert now seemed inclined to defend his lowly assistant.

Eldred had done all he could to protest his innocence, but he could hardly get a word in between the harsh accusations pouring from the senior monks. Only when their vituperations eased off from lack of breath, did the sacrist manage to speak on Eldred’s behalf.

‘Brothers, I fail to see what evidence we have of this man’s guilt,’ he offered tentatively. ‘As he pointed out, he has a key, so why should he break the lock?’

‘For the very reason that you are making the suggestion, Hubert,’ ranted the cellarer. ‘It is a device to mislead us. I too have a key, but if I were to pillage the aumbry, I would also break it open to deflect suspicion.’

‘That is a very illogical argument, Brother Gilbert,’ answered Hubert, stubbornly. ‘Eldred has not left the abbey since the theft and he has had no chance to secrete the stolen items, as he was arrested straight away.’

‘You too are lacking in logic,’ snapped the prior. ‘How do we know when the treasures were stolen? He could have taken them during the night and only claimed to have discovered their disappearance today.’

‘That would have given him plenty of opportunity to hide them away,’ agreed the precentor, a stout, blustering émigré from Brittany.

The bad-tempered dispute went on for a time, again with no chance for Eldred to protest his innocence. Eventually, Prior Robert tired of their attempt to bully a confession from him and brought the meeting to a close.

‘The bishop returns tomorrow and he will be appalled to hear of this loss. I will ask him to hold an immediate session of the Consistory Court to try this miserable wretch. Eldred, you have until the morning to confess your great sin and to tell us what you have done with those priceless relics. Bailiffs, take him back to his cell!’

Riocas of Dinan was a Breton who had lived in Bath for many years, since he had been chased out of his home town over the Channel for seducing the daughter of the harbour master.

He had a shop-house and a stall in the street market selling cheap fur linings and trimmings, mainly coney, squirrel, otter and cat. In fact, he was known locally as ‘Riocas the Cat-Catcher’, as this was how he obtained much of his stock.

Selwyn found him in one his usual evening haunts, the Black Ox alehouse in Fish Lane, an alley off High Street. They met there once or twice a week to grumble and put the world to rights over quarts of thin ale. Tonight, Riocas was sitting on a plank seat below a small window in the crowded taproom, staring out at the twilight. Selwyn dropped down alongside him and signalled a slatternly girl to bring him a pot of ale.

‘We have a problem, friend,’ he began without any preamble, then went on to tell the cat-catcher about Eldred’s predicament and Gytha’s plea for help. He paused as the serving wench, who looked about ten years old, banged an empty pewter pot on the window sill and filled it from a large earthenware jug, before topping up Riocas’ half-empty quart. When she had moved away, Selwyn explained that they needed to get Eldred out of the abbey that very night.

‘Unless we do, the next time we see him might well be from the foot of the gallows!’ he concluded in sombre tones.

His companion nodded gravely. ‘We can’t let the poor little devil swing, I agree,’ he grunted. Though Eldred was indeed rather small, he was almost a dwarf compared to these two men. Selwyn was tall, but Riocas was enough of a giant for the mothers of Bath to use him to frighten their misbehaving children. Not only was he huge in height and girth, but his massive head and spade-like hands seemed straight from some ancient forest legend. His face was a rocky crag, with heavy eyebrow ridges, a bulbous nose and a lantern jaw like the prow of a ship.

Selwyn resumed his story after a long swig from his tankard.

‘We must get him out before the morning, because that bastard of a prior is intent on finding a culprit – any culprit – so that he can appease the bishop when he returns tomorrow.’

‘I suppose he’s in that fleapit that the proctors use, next to the stables?’ growled Riocas. ‘That’s no problem – a pig with the palsy could break into that – but where could we take him?’

‘It will have to be out of the city. Bath is too small to hide him for long. We’ll have to keep him hidden until the real thief is discovered.’

Riocas ran sausage-like fingers through the wiry black stubble that passed for his hair. ‘Out in the country then! Somewhere that most folk keep clear of, but near enough for us to get food to him.’

Their commitment to a friend in need was assumed without question and Selwyn responded with a suggestion.

‘What about Solsbury Hill? Not too far away for us – and all these daft tales of haunting and evil spirits will help keep folk from snooping around there.’

They discussed details for the space of two more quarts and agreed to meet at the King’s House as soon as they heard the abbey bell for matins, soon after midnight. When he left the alehouse, Selwyn called on Gytha and told her what they had planned.

‘I’ll hide him in the King’s House for the rest of the night; we could never get him out of the city until morning, when the gates are opened. They’ll come here to seek him straight away as soon as they discover he’s gone, but just play dumb. You know nothing, right?’

Leaving the wife worried but hopeful, the steward went back to his kitchen, thankful that his fellow servant, the bottler, was away. With the house empty and no guests expected for several weeks, he was free to find a hiding place for Eldred. The cellar, with its stores of food and wine, were obvious targets for a search and, deciding that boldness was the best solution, he went upstairs to the four bedchambers and chose the largest, the one reserved for King John himself. A thick mattress stuffed with lambswool lay on a wooden plinth and two large clothes chests stood opposite. A chair and a table were the only other furniture, set near the empty fireplace. As steward, Selwyn knew every inch of the house and decided that here was the best place for concealing his unfortunate friend.

Soon after the abbey bell rang out its midnight summons to matins, the first holy office of the day, Riocas slipped into the house, moving very quietly for a man of such bulk. After a quick consultation, he and Selwyn went out into the abbey yard and sidled along the back of the stables, taking care not to awaken any of the grooms and cleaners, young boys who slept on the hay with the horses. Rounding the far end, they went to the last door, that of the proctor’s cell, where Riocas examined the securing bar in the dim starlight.

‘Not even a lock on it!’ he whispered, as he carefully lifted the stout piece of oak from its iron brackets. It was never contemplated that any outsider would wish to rescue the usual run of prisoners, mostly drunks and petty thieves.

Selwyn vanished inside and almost immediately reappeared with a dishevelled Eldred, who seemed quite composed, considering the tribulations of the day. The cat-catcher quietly replaced the bar and they slid back behind the row of stables and made their way back along the palace wall to the King’s House.

Once in the kitchen, Selwyn sat Eldred by the fire and gave him a wooden bowl of potage, which he filled from an iron pot hanging from a trivet hanging over the glowing logs.

‘Get this down you, boy, compliments of King John!’ he said, as he added a hunk of coarse bread. ‘He doesn’t know it, but I doubt he’d begrudge you.’

He got the same for Riocas and himself, and the three conspirators sat on stools around the fire to discuss how they would manage Eldred’s escape.

‘They’re bound to come here looking for you in the morning, but I think I can keep you safe. Then later in the day, we’ll get you out of the city and up to Solsbury Hill.’

Eldred shivered, but not from the cold. ‘They say it’s haunted and is the lair of demons!’ he muttered. ‘How can I survive up there?’

‘Better than you’d survive the gallows-tree with a hemp rope around your neck!’ retorted Riocas bluntly.

At dawn, there was a rumpus in the abbey yard, started by William, the proctor’s bailiff when he found his prisoner flown. Then a succession of abbey seniors arrived, and soon the prior himself added to the fury. His normally ingratiating manner had vanished and he was livid with anger at having his prize scapegoat spirited away only hours before he intended parading him before Bishop Savaric as the perpetrator of the dastardly theft.

Once again, all the abbey brothers and servants were mobilised to search for the sacrist’s assistant. The gatekeepers on the two abbey gates into the city were interrogated and all swore that no one resembling Eldred had passed through their portals.

‘He must still be within the precinct,’ fumed Prior Robert. ‘Seek him out, wherever he might be hiding. There are others involved in this; they must also be rooted out and punished!’

Inevitably, the King’s House was included in this frantic search, though as it was royal property, not within the jurisdiction of the prior or bishop, the ecclesiastical faction had to tread carefully.

The cellarer, Brother Gilbert, was deputed to tackle this task and though he tried to browbeat Selwyn, everyone knew that the steward was a royal servant, not beholden to the Abbey in any way. However, he could hardly refuse them entry without arousing grave suspicion, but did so grudgingly, saying that he would have to send word of the intrusion to Gloucester, where the King was currently quartered. He followed Gilbert, his assistant, Maurice, and William the bailiff everywhere in the house, muttering his protests. When they went upstairs to peer into the upper chambers, Selwyn at first refused to produce the key to the royal bedroom.

‘That would be too much, Brother Gilbert!’ he complained. ‘He is your sovereign lord as much as he is mine. Would you dare to do this if you were in Westminster or Windsor?’

The cellarer looked uneasy, but was adamant. ‘What is there to hide, steward? Let us just glance within from here. That can hardly amount to treason!’

Having calculated the risks, Selwyn made a great show of reluctantly producing the key from his pouch.

‘This is the only room with a lock, with good reason!’ he growled, and pushed open the door, but stood with his body half in the entrance. ‘See, it is as bare as a widow’s pantry!’

Gilbert glared around the room. ‘What’s in those large chests?’

‘Nothing, until the King’s chamberlains arrive with his robes. Send your man here to look, if nothing less will satisfy you!’

The steward grabbed Maurice, a weedy young man with a long nose, and pushed him into the room.

‘May God grant that the King never learns that you defiled his bedchamber!’

The cellarer’s monk scurried across the room and with quick movements raised the lids of each chest and banged them down almost instantly. ‘Empty, Brother Gilbert!’ he squeaked.

‘Check the bed, now that you’re there,’ snapped Gilbert defiantly.

As he hurried back to the door, Maurice made a couple of panic-stricken prods into the mattress. ‘No one hiding there, brother!’ he panted, as he pushed his way out of the room and the imagined wrath of the irascible monarch.

Gilbert scowled at Selwyn, then led his fellow searchers back down the stairs, stamping his feet to mark his irritation.

‘If you see hide or hair of that damned fellow, you will let me know at once – or face the consequences!’ he blustered as he went out into the abbey yard once again.

Selwyn spent a few minutes needlessly brushing the kitchen floor, to make sure that the cellarer did not make a surprise return visit. Then he went back up to the King’s chamber and stood by the bed.

‘Are you still alive, Eldred?’ he asked in a low voice. He was answered by a muffled cry of distress and going to the back of the plinth that supported the mattress, gave it a hefty tug to pull it away from the wall. It was really an inverted wooden box, open at the end against the wall. From the gap, a dishevelled figure crawled out crabwise and lay gasping on the floor.

‘Another few minutes and I would have suffocated,’ he croaked. ‘Thank God I’m thin, for the space was the same height as my body. I could hardly breathe!’

Selwyn helped him up and dusted the dirt and cobwebs from his habit. ‘You’d not have breathed very well with a rope around your neck, either,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘Come down and have some food and drink. We’ll have to decide what to do with you next.’

When Eldred was reminded of the plan to smuggle him out of the city to a hiding place several miles away, he refused to countenance the idea.

‘I cannot leave my wife so far away,’ he protested, to the exasperation of his two friends. ‘How will she survive without me being nearby?’

‘What good can you do here, skulking in some cellar, afraid to show your face to any man?’ demanded Riocas.

‘And where will you find such a cellar, eh?’ snapped Selwyn, annoyed that Eldred was proving so difficult after all the effort and risks that he and the cat-catcher had taken. ‘No way can you be hidden here in the King’s House, for the other steward will be returning in a day or two. Also I would not put it past the prior or sheriff to make another search in their desperation to find you.’

They argued the matter for several minutes, then the lay brother came up with another suggestion, which the other two received with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

‘I could seek sanctuary in one of the churches,’ proposed Eldred. ‘That would give me more than a month of immunity from arrest. Surely evidence of my innocence will be forthcoming long before then!’

Riocas, whose fondness for the Church and all its attributes was sadly lacking, was scathing about the idea. ‘And if it doesn’t, you’ll be dragged out at the end and will have gained nothing.’

‘I could claim “benefit of clergy”,’ replied Eldred, stubbornly. ‘I am able to recite “the neck verse” well enough.’

This was a device whereby men, including lay brothers, could avoid being tried in the secular courts by showing that they could read and were therefore in holy orders. The ability to recite a short excerpt of the Twenty-first Psalm was accepted as a convenient test of literacy, even though it was often learned parrot-fashion by illiterates. This had saved many a man from being hanged and was therefore cynically known as ‘the neck verse’.

‘In the circumstances, I doubt the bishop’s court would resist handing you over to the Commissioners of Assize for sentence,’ retorted Riocas. ‘So you’d still end up dancing on the end of a rope.’

Selwyn’s brow was furrowed in thought. ‘It would be a terrible gamble, for if the real villains were not found in that time, you would be doomed.’

Eldred was still obdurate about his intention, but Selwyn had not finished. ‘If you are really intent about seeking sanctuary, why seek a church in the city? You are already on consecrated ground – an abbey, no less.’

Riocas was doubtful. ‘Is the King’s House included in that? You were quick enough to claim its immunity when they came here searching.’

‘If he steps outside, then he is safe, for every inch of a church’s domain constitutes sanctuary. There is no need to be within the building itself, prostrate in the chancel, clutching the altar-cloth!’ Selwyn added sarcastically.

The cat-catcher refused to abandon his objections. ‘If that be so, then the proctor’s cell is also included in sanctuary!’

‘In strict canon law, perhaps it is!’ retorted the steward. ‘But I’m damned sure that the bishop and rest of his crew would take little notice of that, unless someone took a year to go to Rome to protest to the Pope!’

The agitated lay brother became impatient with this bickering.

‘I will creep out tonight and seek sanctuary in one of the city churches. St Michael Within is the nearest. I have met Father Eustace, its parish priest, he seems a compassionate man. I will prevail upon him to offer me the protection of his church.’

Selwyn and Riocas tried to dissuade Eldred of this dangerous venture, but he was firmly set on the plan. A devout man, he was of the opinion that the ages-old traditions of the Church would be proof against any machinations of the abbey prior and his Chapter. Eventually, they came to a compromise.

‘I also have some slight acquaintance with Father Eustace,’ said Selwyn. ‘Before you expose yourself in the city streets to try to reach his church, I will speak with him and make sure that he is willing to offer you sanctuary. You are in the employ of his bishop, for one thing, and he may be reluctant to cross Savaric Fitzgeldewine.’

When Eldred reluctantly agreed, the royal steward set off across the small city to St Michael’s. He found the parish priest huddled in a corner of the nave, hearing a whispered confession from a fat matron, down on her knees before him. Selwyn stayed a respectful distance away, out of earshot and when the woman had struggled to her feet after receiving a trivial penance and a benediction, he approached the priest and asked if he might discuss something with him.

Eustace was a short, slightly fat man with a round red face under his tonsured ginger hair. A glowing nose suggested a fondness for the wineskin, but he had an amiable nature that went well with his broad country accent indicating his Dorset origins.

‘If you’ve come to confess, my son, I hope it’s more interesting than that poor widow who’s just left!’ he said with an impish grin. ‘She comes thrice each week to waste my time with trivialities, just to have someone to talk to!’

When Selwyn indicated that this was something much more serious, Eustace invited him into the sacristy, a tiny room off the chancel where vestments and service books were kept.

Pulling out a couple of stools, the priest then produced a pottery flask of red Anjou wine and two pewter cups. When they were settled over a drink each, Selwyn broached his problem.

‘I trust this will enjoy the sanctity of the confessional, as much as your dealings with the widow just now,’ he began. ‘For I might be revealing my own complicity in aiding an alleged criminal, though it concerns an unjust accusation.’

The cheerful vicar immediately became serious, but assured the steward that his lips would be sealed. Selwyn set out all the facts and ended by asking if it would compromise Eustace with Bishop Savaric if Eldred sought sanctuary in his church.

The parish priest looked crestfallen, saying that it was an impossible request. ‘But not because of the bishop’s undoubted anger at my agreement – though in fact that is not required when someone seeks sanctuary, as it is an ancient and compassionate act provided by God Almighty, not within the gift of some insignificant priest, be he vicar, bishop or even Pope.’

‘Why cannot it be granted in this case, then?’ asked Selwyn, secretly relieved that Eldred’s scheme had been defeated before it had even begun.

‘Because the Church withholds the privilege of sanctuary from those accused of sacrilege – and the theft of holy vessels would certainly be considered as such.’

‘But he is innocent of that crime! We just need some time to find the true culprits.’

Eustace shook his head. ‘I fear it is the nature of the allegation that matters, not the eventual truth.’ He paused to take a mouthful of his wine. ‘Even if he was granted sanctuary, he would have to confess his guilt to the coroner before his forty days’ grace was up, otherwise he would not be able to abjure the realm.’

This meant leaving England, dressed in sackcloth and carrying a rough cross, by going to a port nominated by the coroner where he had to take the first available ship out of the country.

Eustace shook his head sadly. ‘There are several reasons why this will not work, my son. If your friend entered here under the impression that he was safe, it would be a false hope, as because of the sacrilege issue, the sheriff would be entitled to immediately drag him out and behead him in the street outside!’

When they had finished their wine, the priest reassured Selwyn that their conversation would remain confidential, leaving him with the impression that Eustace was not too fond of the arrogant, overbearing Bishop Savaric.

Selwyn returned to the King’s House and gave the priest’s verdict to Eldred, who accepted it more philosophically that the steward expected.

‘So be it. Then I am fated to share Solsbury Hill with outlaws, ghosts and other fiends,’ he said, crossing himself as he saw the sacrist and prior do twenty times a day.

‘You’ll not be there long,’ said Riocas heartily, trying to reassure their friend that he would be safe from the reputed demons that inhabited the hill. ‘Now we need to decide how we are to go about getting you there.’

The escape had to be made in two stages, as the city gates were locked at dusk. The sheriff was obsessional about keeping out the bands of outlaws who roamed the countryside, pillaging villages and small towns. Not long before, he had hanged one of the gate-keepers who had accepted a bribe to let in a thief after midnight. So Eldred’s exit from the city had to be made in daylight, but to get such a well-known face out of the abbey compound needed darkness.

An hour before midnight, when the priests and monks were still asleep before being called for matins, Selwyn and Eldred slipped out of the King’s House and, keeping to the wall of the precinct, went behind the bath-house opposite and then past the back of the infirmary beyond it. The night was dark, with heavy clouds obscuring a crescent moon as they slunk along the wall. Where the lay cemetery gave way to the monks’ burial ground there was no night porter to challenge anyone entering or leaving. Moments later, they were walking along the nearby High Street to reach Twichen Lane, where Riocas had his shop. Though nominally there was a curfew after dark, there were still a few people about, mostly drunks. Prompted by Selwyn, Eldred feigned a slight stagger whenever anyone came within a few yards, until they reached the doorway in the alley that housed the home and business premises of their friend.

The cat-catcher was waiting for them and soon they were in his cramped room, which smelled strongly of the animal skins that were curing out in the yard behind. Over ale and bread, they discussed the second phase of the escape to be mounted early next morning.

‘I’ll take my cart out of town, as I often do, looking for cony skins in the villages around. People are happy to sell them to me at four for a half-penny.’

The gaunt giant seemed to be enjoying this escapade, but come the dawn, Eldred was less than happy at being hidden under a stinking heap of part-tanned cowhides in the small cart that was pulled by Riocas’ donkey. As well as trading in small furs, he had a sideline carrying hides for tanners, who often needed to send some skins to other tanneries in the area for further processing. The porter at the North Gate knew him well and waved him through without any question, other than a bawdy remark about the smell that wafted from his cart.

Once well outside the city, Eldred emerged gasping from under the pile of rank skins, which he declared was worse than being hidden for an hour under the King’s bed. Looking around, he saw that they were already within sight of Solsbury Hill, which loomed up as a green cone on the north side of the road from Bath towards Chippenham.

The little cart jogged along the track, the old Roman Fosse Way, until it neared the base of the hill, the lower slopes of which were heavily wooded. Then the skinny donkey had a harder task, as Riocas pulled it off the road into a steep lane on the left, which went up the valley on the eastern side of the base of Solsbury Hill towards the hamlet of Swainswick, a collection of dismal huts.

‘We’ll stop here, before the village,’ announced Riocas. ‘They’re a nosy lot, best that they don’t see me dropping you.’

As Eldred clambered out, Riocas handed him down a bundle tied up in a blanket provided by Gytha, in which was a fresh loaf, a lump of hard cheese and a cooked lamb shank wrapped in a cloth.

‘This will keep you alive until tomorrow morning. Be here about this time and I’ll bring you some more food and hopefully news of what’s happening back in the city.’

With that, he flicked the backside of the long-suffering donkey with his willow switch and clattered off, leaving a bemused Eldred to his lonely sojourn on Solsbury Hill.

The fugitive lay brother slung the bundle over his shoulder and with a quick glance up and down the lane to make sure no one was spying on him, vanished into the bushes at the side of the track. After a few hundred yards, the ground began to rise steeply and soon he was puffing as he climbed through the dense thickets of spindly ash, birch and beech that clothed the lower slopes of the hill. There were bigger oaks and elms here and there, but charcoal burners had felled many of them over the years, leaving clearings clogged with brambles, coarse grass and seedling trees.

Eldred kept wary eyes and ears open for signs of other men, as he knew that Solsbury was the haunt of outlaws and other fugitives, but at present it seemed deserted, apart from the sound of birds and the occasional rustle of unseen animals in the undergrowth. With only a blanket for protection, he needed somewhere to shelter for the night – and perhaps for many nights to follow, if his friends failed to discover who had really stolen the abbey treasures.

Though he was a city dweller rather than a countryman, Eldred had plenty of common sense and felt confident of surviving for a time on his own, as long as he was supplied with a little food. But he needed somewhere to hide, as much from other people on the hill as from the inevitable rain and cold winds, even though so far it had been a mild September. As he climbed towards the summit, he saw several fox and badger dens, but they were too small for him to creep into. Several clear springs seeped out from under overhanging banks, but again there was insufficient shelter for him under these.

Panting with the effort of hauling himself up the incline, he was almost at the end of the trees, where they gave way to the earth rampart that encircled the flat top, before he found a place to settle. Here a very steep part of the hill had crumbled, exposing a weathered rock-face a few yards long and a dozen feet high. He thought perhaps the ancient people who had occupied the top of Solsbury long ago had used this as a quarry to obtain the yellow-grey stone for their defences up above. But whatever the cause, he was happy to see a small cavity at the bottom, where rock had either fallen out or been taken way. The hole was too small to be called a cave, but was enough for him to crouch inside under a lintel formed by a band of the limestone strata. In front was a narrow weed-covered platform, with brambles loaded with ripe blackberries growing part-way across the hole.

Relieved, Eldred evicted a pair of squawking magpies from the hole and kicked away some loose stones from the bottom of the crude shelter. Dropping his bundle outside, he collected an armful of loose bracken and grass to pad the floor of his new home. Sinking down on it with a sigh of relief, he found that he could manage to sit with his head just clear of the rock above – and that if he pulled his knees up, he could lie sideways under the overhang. It was just as well, for at that moment, it started to rain.

Riocas was back in Bath by noon, having completed his business in Swainswick. Though he often went there during his tour of the surrounding villages for skins, he had made a point of visiting it today as a cover for dropping off Eldred at Solsbury. He had picked up a dozen coney and six red squirrel pelts there – and had only just missed catching a black cat on his way out of the village.

Now he was back with Selwyn at his shop, earnestly discussing how they should proceed. They were in the cat-catcher’s back room, out of hearing of Riocas’ young apprentice, who sat in the shop at the front, the window-shutter opened down to form a counter to display their goods to passers-by.

‘Eldred can’t stay up there for long,’ declared Selwyn. ‘The autumn is upon us, the nights are getting colder. We have to lift the suspicion hanging over the little fellow – or else smuggle him and his wife somewhere far away if we wish to save his neck.’

‘Any news from the abbey today?’ demanded Riocas, his coarse features glowering over the rim of a tankard.

‘The prior is still smarting over the harsh words that the bishop no doubt gave him. They searched the abbey again this morning, then came once more to the King’s House and virtually ransacked it, without any result. They knew that I had befriended Eldred, so probably only my status as a King’s servant prevented them from arresting me.’

Riocas grunted. ‘I doubt many know that he was also my friend, so we should be safe enough there. But what can we do now?’

‘Discover the true culprits – and the whereabouts of that chalice and pyx. Any ideas?’

The Breton rubbed his massive jaw, now bristling with coarse stubble. ‘As it stands, that treasure is worth little to any thief. It’s too recognizable. They would want to sell it on for coinage, even at half its true value.’

Selwyn agreed. ‘And where would they be likely to do that?’

The giant shrugged his great shoulders. ‘Some jeweller or moneylender, almost certainly a Jew. Better to do it in Bristol or Winchester for safety.’

The royal steward looked dubious. ‘They’d have to get there first. Easier to dispose of it in Bath, even if they got less money for it. There are several gold- and silversmiths in the city.’

After more discussion, they agreed to tour the alehouses to listen discreetly to any gossip. They both had acquaintances who had an ear to the less savoury activities that went on in the narrow streets and more squalid alleys.

After sharing a bowl of potage and more ale, Selwyn went off to see Gytha, to tell her that her husband had been safely delivered to Solsbury Hill, and to collect another blanket and some more bread and meat for delivery next morning – to which he added a small wineskin filched from the King’s stores.

When the two conspirators met again in the evening, Riocas had some news from his spying around the city taverns.

‘I talked with Alfred, the night-soil collector, who I know well. He told me what he heard this morning at the shop of Ranulf of Exeter.’

Selwyn was dubious, not about Ranulf the goldsmith, but about Alfred, the lowliest of the low, who scratched a living from shovelling out the ordure from privies in the town and taking it in his stinking handcart to dump in the River Avon.

‘That Alfred is half-way mad!’ he objected. ‘Surely you don’t rely on anything he tells you?’

The furrier shook his head. ‘He’s odd, I grant you. But Alfred usually tells the truth as he sees it, being too lacking in imagination to make things up. Anyway, he says that when he was in Ranulf’s yard yesterday, emptying his privy-pit, he heard the goldsmith telling his journeyman that if they came back, not to have any dealings with the men who tried to sell him a gold-lined silver box.’

Selwyn’s eyebrows went up his forehead. ‘That would have to be the missing pyx! But everyone in Bath knows it’s been stolen from the abbey. Are you sure that Alfred wasn’t making this up?’

Riocas shook his formidable head. ‘Why should he pick on that one thing? He had no reason to invent it – and he didn’t mention the gold chalice, which would have been much more dramatic.’

‘But what about Ranulf? He would know straight away where it came from. Why didn’t he rush off and tell the prior or the sheriff?’

The cat-catcher gave a cynical grin. ‘Ranulf? He’s well-known for buying stolen goods, but not ones this valuable – and from our own abbey! Yet he’d keep quiet about it, for if it became known that he had a loose mouth, he’d forever lose the custom from all the thieves for miles around.’

Selwyn stirred these new facts around in his mind for a moment. ‘Alfred didn’t hear who those men were, did he?’

‘No, I asked him that. The goldsmith only spoke to his journeyman for a moment, as they were standing at the back door. That’s all Alfred heard.’

Selwyn looked out of his friend’s unglazed window. The shutter was open and he could see that it was already getting dark.

‘Too late tonight, but first thing in the morning, I’ll be having a word with that Ranulf.’

But Fate had other plans.

Riocas could hardly visit Swainswick two days in succession, so next morning he stopped his cart on the main road at the junction of the lane and walked up a little way, trusting to Eldred’s common sense to look out for him. Soon, the fugitive emerged from the bushes and eagerly took the bundle from the cat-catcher. He was hungry and also grateful for another blanket; although he had slept fitfully in his rocky shelter, the autumn night had been chilly.

‘If Selwyn is successful today, you may not need to spend much longer here,’ announced Riocas, optimistically. He told Eldred what he had heard from the night-soil collector and the fact that the King’s steward was at that moment trying to discover who had offered the stolen pyx for sale.

The lay brother was so overcome with relief and gratitude that he flung his arms around Riocas, the difference in their sizes making him look like a squirrel clinging to an oak tree.

‘Have you any idea who the thieves might be?’ demanded the embarrassed giant. ‘From what Alfred heard there must have been more than one who approached the goldsmith.’

Eldred stepped back, then shrugged. ‘It surely has to be someone from the abbey,’ he said pensively, but their conversation was cut short, as they heard the clopping of hoofs coming along the main road and Eldred rapidly vanished after a hurried farewell. Riocas ostentatiously stood emptying his bladder into the bushes as an excuse for stopping his cart in such a lonely spot, then as soon as two merchants had passed on their horses, he turned his donkey round and headed back towards Bath, anxious to hear if Selwyn had learned anything from Ranulf of Exeter.

When he had stabled his beast and walked to the King’s House, he discovered the sad fact that neither Selwyn nor anyone else would learn anything ever again from the goldsmith, for he had suffered a violent death.

‘His house was plundered late last night,’ said the steward, as they sat in the kitchen over quarts of the King’s best ale. ‘Ranulf lived alone, and his journeyman found him when he opened up this morning. He was lying in the shop, beaten to death, his head a bloody mess.’

Riocas shook his head in disgust. ‘So now we’ll never know who offered him the pyx! You say the place was robbed?’

‘It was in great disorder and his journeyman, after taking stock, said that some of the smaller, more valuable things were missing. Large objects, like silver plate, dishes and cruets, were left behind.’

Riocas used the back of his hand to wipe ale from the dark beard that rimmed his jutting jaw. ‘And I’d given poor Eldred hope that his exile would soon be over. Now he’ll have to stay on Solsbury Hill for a while longer until we find who those bastards were!’

The news of the goldsmith’s murder spread all over the city within minutes, rather than hours, including to the abbey.

They knew nothing about the fact that someone had offered the dead victim one of the objects stolen from the cathedral church and Selwyn pondered whether he should tell the sheriff, or even Prior Robert, what the night-soil man had alleged. The problem was that even if the feeble-minded man was believed, could it make matters even worse for Eldred? If the men who offered the pyx to Ranulf could not be identified, then Eldred might be accused not only of a sacrilegious theft, but also a callous murder! The steward decided to hold his tongue for the moment and hope that the murdering thieves would give themselves away by some other means.

That evening, Selwyn and Riocas met at Gytha’s humble dwelling in Binnebury Lane, to discuss the situation and for the furrier to pick up a clean pair of breeches and a tunic to take to Eldred. As Gytha was now virtually destitute, without even the few pence a week that lay brothers earned from the abbey, Selwyn and Riocas provided food for both Eldred and his wife.

‘It’s going be harder each day for me to take provisions to him,’ said Riocas gravely. ‘I can’t find an excuse to go every day to Swainswick, or even along the Chippenham road. The gate-keepers will get suspicious, even though they know me. There are plenty of spies about reporting to both the sheriff and the Abbey – and with this murder, they’ll be more vigilant that ever.’

Gytha became tearful, suggesting that it might be best for her husband to make a run for it and try to go somewhere like Gloucester or Salisbury to start a new life, where one day she could join him. Selwyn tried to calm and reassure her.

‘Running away would look as if he was admitting his guilt, woman! And how would he make a living elsewhere? There are few places where he could get employment polishing the brasses in a cathedral!’

Riocas nodded his agreement. ‘This murder and robbery is to his advantage, much as it inconvenienced poor Ranulf. Sooner or later, it will be learned who those villains are – and that will prove that Eldred must be innocent.’

In the Chapter meeting at the abbey that day, Eldred’s innocence was not on the agenda, only his assumed guilt and the frustrating fact of his disappearance.

‘He must be excommunicated, of course,’ the precentor angrily declared, but the prior’s response was scathing.

‘What use is that, brother? Will it restore our chalice and pyx?’ he snapped, his usual veneer of affability now stripped away.

Hubert, the sacrist, had a more practical observation. ‘We have heard that the workshop of Ranulf was pillaged when he was killed last night. I dislike slandering the dead, but he had a poor reputation for honesty. Could it be that he had obtained our treasure from whoever was the thief and it was then stolen again by others, who had learned that it was in his possession?’

As usual, the cellarer was keen to deride the sacrist’s opinion.

‘Brother Hubert, you need not include “whoever was the thief” in your speeches. We all know it was Eldred, may God curse him!’

‘I rather thought that the Almighty was the fount of forgiveness,’ retorted Hubert in his mild voice. ‘And I still need some proof before I am satisfied that my assistant is guilty of this crime.’

Brother Gilbert muttered, ‘Then you are an old fool!’ under his breath, but the prior brought them to order.

‘It is useless for us to bicker over this matter, brothers. We have searched the abbey time and again with no result, so we have no option but to leave it to the sheriff and his men.’

The cellarer was determined to have the last word. ‘I still suspect that royal steward had a hand in this, somehow. The damned man was too thick with Eldred. I’ve seen them together many times.’ He glowered around at his colleagues. ‘If I was the sheriff, I’d put him to the torture, King’s man or not!’

Up on Solsbury Hill, Eldred decided to explore a little. He had spent an uncomfortable night in his rocky cleft, but now that the day had improved, he felt the need to stretch his legs. Though he was still nervous about meeting others on the hill, whether human or fiendish, he urgently needed a change from the constriction of the rock face. Leaving his blankets hidden under some fern fronds in his sleeping place, he moved sideways to regain the trees and clambered up from them onto a grassy bank. A deep groove ran beyond this, a long-overgrown ditch the height of a man, which ran almost entirely around the top of the hill, which was a flat, rounded triangle.

The inner bank of the ditch was steep and rose higher than his head, but some yards to his left there was a break in the rampart, with a gap that went through at an angle to give easier access to the enclosure, a couple of acres of weedy grass. He knew from years of listening to gossip and old men’s tales, that in ancient times this had been a fortress with a stockade all around it. There were many lurid theories as to who once lived up here, varying from a race of giants to the Roman legions, but today it was deserted as Eldred ventured warily through the gap on to the small plain. The sun was shining intermittently between the scudding clouds and in the brightness of an autumn afternoon, he felt more confident about being on this hill, which had such a mystical and often threatening reputation. There was a striking view, especially to the south and west, and he could see the tower of the abbey church and the city walls alongside the silver streak of the Avon, as it ran at the foot of the many hills that surrounded Bath.

His eyes misted as he wondered if he would ever see his wife and the familiar things of his everyday life back in the city. Unless his two staunch friends could discover who had stolen the abbey’s treasures, he would become a hunted outlaw, cut off from God and man for the rest of his miserable life. Overcome by grief and self-pity, he sank on to the grass and began to sob.

After a few moments, Eldred pulled himself together and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his tunic. He had abandoned his lay brother’s brown cassock for this exile in the countryside, and wore instead the thigh-length belted tunic and worsted breeches that were the usual garb of the commoner.

Squatting there in the sunshine, he plucked a grassy stem and chewed it ruminatively, staring unseeingly at the distant view as he tried to make sense of the catastrophe that had so suddenly disrupted his ordered life. He fully realised that he’d had to take the blame for the theft merely because he was the nearest and most convenient scapegoat, rather than that he was the target of some foul conspiracy. But who could possibly be the true culprits?

The abbey was a tightly knit community, full of petty squabbles and jealousies, for all that the religious life was supposed to be a haven of peace, tranquillity and benign tolerance. Monks and their acolytes had the same emotions and faults as men anywhere, saints being very few and far between. Many were there because their families had pushed them into the life as children, others were escaping from problems with their personal affairs – and others merely sought advancement in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, often linked to secular politics, the prime example being the ambitious Bishop Savaric.

But who had stolen the chalice and the pyx, agonised Eldred. Was it someone from outside or was it an inhabitant of the abbey? And if the latter, was it a lay brother or a monk? But what would a monk, many of whom were ordained priests, want with gold and silver?

Eldred immediately realised that that was a stupid question, as many of the higher ranks of the clergy were amongst the richest men in England – and rich men often coveted even more wealth. However, he could hardly credit that the bishop or the prior were likely to have stolen treasures from their own church.

As he sat looking over the rolling hills of Somerset, he could not help thinking of those he disliked most in the abbey. Though a mild-natured fellow, like all men Eldred had those whose company he preferred to avoid. His immediate master, the sacrist Hubert, was a miserable, carping man, but had never caused him any serious trouble, and indeed, had been the only Chapter member to express doubts about Eldred’s guilt.

He thought of Prior Robert as a ‘whited sepulchre’, as the Bible had it, for his permanent affability and ostentatious devoutness was a sham, but he was an unlikely robber. This applied also to the mean-minded precentor, Brother Seymour, whose Spartan existence suggested that he would not know how to spend gold even if he had any. The treasurer, Thomas de Granville, was an unknown quantity to Eldred, a silent, rather sinister character who spoke rarely and then only in French or Latin, as he had never bothered to learn English since coming from an abbey in Normandy.

Time and again, Eldred’s mind came back to the cellarer. Brother Gilbert was a bluff, worldly man who had been a soldier and then a cloth merchant before taking the vows of a Benedictine a dozen years ago. As with so many monks, some of whom had something to hide in their past, little was known of his previous life except that he was originally a Bristol man. He had gained the post of cellarer because of his previous experience of commerce. Certainly his efficiency in running the complex business of feeding and housing the abbey community was notable, exceeding his enthusiasm for devotional duties, which he often evaded with the excuse that he had to attend to some urgent matter in his stores. Eldred had not a shred of evidence that Gilbert might be involved in the theft, but his personal antipathy to the man’s abrasive character and contemptuous manner made him a possible candidate in the lay brother’s mind.

A cloud passed over the sun and a sudden cold breeze brought Eldred out of his reverie, so he rose and began walking around the inside of the ditch, eating the last of his bread and cheese, which he had saved in the pouch on his belt. He felt a sudden overwhelming loneliness and yearned for the next morning, when he would go down to the track to meet Riocas and, he hoped, learn some good news that would end his exile in this strange place.

Riocas and Selwyn were endeavouring to find that good news for their lonely friend when they met again in the fur-trader’s shop late that afternoon. The steward would have preferred to have used his royal kitchen for their discussion, as the pervading smell of partly cured animal pelts was not particularly pleasant, but he realised that if Riocas was seen to be visiting him too often in the abbey enclave, it might arouse suspicion about who might have been responsible for Eldred’s escape.

The cat-catcher pushed aside a basket of rabbit skins from his table and replaced it with a crock of cider and two pottery mugs.

‘What do we do now, my friend?’ he asked, as he poured out the murky liquid. ‘If all the sheriff’s men have failed to find Ranulf’s thieving killers, what chance do we have?’

‘That’s assuming that they have any connection with the missing valuables from the abbey,’ added Selwyn, rather despondently. ‘We have no evidence that the murder of Ranulf is anything to do with the theft.’

Riocas disagreed, thumping his mug down on the table. ‘It’s too much of coincidence that the night-soil man heard about two men offering what must have been the pyx to Ranulf, on the very day of his killing.’

‘You may be right,’ admitted the steward. ‘But what can we do about it?’

After some more discussion, the two men decided, mainly from a lack of any other ideas, to visit the scene of the crime to see if they could find anything that may have escaped the attention of the sheriff’s men. When they had fortified themselves with some bread and the remains of a rabbit pie, together with what was left of the cider, they walked across the town almost to the West Gate, which led out on to the Bristol road. A lane ran around inside the town wall, in which was a row of houses and shops, the first being Ranulf’s premises. The two heavily shuttered windows on each side of the door were firmly closed, but when Riocas banged on the panels, the door was opened and a timorous face appeared. They recognised the late owner’s assistant, who was qualified as a craftsman by his guild, but had not yet been able to set up his own business. Being paid by the day or journee, he was known as a ‘journeyman’.

Selwyn and Riocas commiserated with him over the loss of his master and learned that, much to the man’s relief, the business had been taken over by Ranulf’s cousin, so his job would be saved. They explained that they wanted to see the place where his master had been fatally assaulted. To justify this strange request, they truthfully explained that they were trying to clear their friend Eldred’s name, though carefully omitting any mention of their part in his escape.

Their frankness – plus the passage of a silver penny from Riocas’ purse – persuaded the smith to let them into the shop, which consisted of a front room where articles were displayed for sale, together with a workshop at the back and living quarters on the upper floor.

‘I found him in this room,’ explained the journeyman. ‘He was lying here, in the middle of the floor, his head covered in blood!’ He made a dramatic gesture with his arm. Though the floor had been washed, there were still ominous brown stains between the cracks in the flagstones.

Selwyn looked around at the trestle tables against three walls, where a few silver brooches, bracelets and earrings were on display.

‘They took nothing made of gold then?’ he asked.

‘The master kept all that locked in a stout chest in his chamber upstairs,’ explained the journeyman. ‘They took some silver bracelets and necklaces from here, which were quite valuable. I suspect that when they found that they had killed him, they ran away without looking for anything more.’

Riocas looked around the shop, where a chair lay against a wall, one of its legs broken off and a large pot lay smashed on the floor.

‘There was quite a struggle, by the looks of it!’

‘My master was a big man, with a quick temper,’ declared the smith, with some feeling. ‘He would not have given in easily!’

Selwyn noticed something on the floor and bent down to retrieve it from behind one of the legs of a trestle table. He showed a small piece of leather to Riocas, then questioned the journeyman again.

‘Is this room cleaned often?’

The man stared at him in surprise at such an odd query. ‘Our apprentice brushes it out every morning without fail – though since the shock of discovering the master’s bloody corpse, he has not been coming to work.’

Selwyn held up the object he had found. ‘So this is unlikely to have been on the floor before the robbery?’

As the journeyman shook his head in mystification, Riocas took the piece of leather from his friend and stared at it with a frown on his big face.

‘What’s this, then? Looks like part of a strap.’

Selwyn nodded. ‘And it’s part of a sandal strap. Look, it’s worn through where the buckle crossed it.’

Riocas, for whom leather goods were part of his trade, held it nearer to his eyes. ‘Yes, torn across at the weakened part. But what use is this to us?’

‘If it fell to the floor when Ranulf was killed, then it may well have been lost by one of the robbers during the fight.’

Riocas still looked dubious. ‘Half the citizens of Bath wear sandals, so how does that help?’ He turned to the journeyman. ‘What did your master wear on his feet?’ he demanded.

‘Good stout shoes, for he could well afford them,’ said the man, rather bitterly. ‘So that didn’t come from him.’

Selwyn had taken the strap back from the cat-catcher and was examining it intently. ‘I know where this came from,’ he said, tense with excitement. ‘Look there, near the tip.’ He pushed it back under Riocas’ nose. ‘There’s a small punch mark, see?’

The short-sighted furrier peered again at the worn leather. ‘A little cross, you mean?’

‘Yes! The abbey cordwainer always marks his work with that. It must have come from there, so almost certainly the owner of the sandal is either a monk or a lay brother!’

Both Riocas and Selwyn knew that all the leather-work for the abbey was done in the saddlery, next to the farrier’s forge on the end of the stable block furthest from the proctor’s cell. The present cordwainer was Roger of Devizes, who had given up his shop there to become a lay brother. He had a cobbler and a novice to help him, as they had to look after all the abbey’s harness and leather-work.

Riocas and Selwyn hurried back towards the precinct, and as they turned in through the main gate, Riocas wondered if it would be possible to match the broken sandal-strap to any particular person.

‘We can but try, friend,’ replied Selwyn. ‘I’m sure that sandal was damaged during the scuffle – and we know it wasn’t from the goldsmith’s footwear.’

They reached the saddlery where, inside the open double doors, two men were at work at a pair of benches and another was sitting on a stool with an iron last sticking up between his knees, punching holes in a long strip of leather. Ox-collars, bridles, traces and other pieces of harness were hanging around the walls, and a row of shelves bore shoes, riding boots and sandals, both old and new. The man on the stool, dressed in a short brown tunic and breeches, was Roger of Devizes, a thin fellow with a face as leathery as the material he worked on.

He greeted Selwyn with a quizzical look. ‘The royal steward, no less!’ he quipped. ‘Does the King want a new pair of shoes, then?’

Selwyn grinned. He had known Roger for a long time and they were comfortable with each other, if not close friends.

‘I have a puzzle for you, Master Shoemaker! Do you recognise this?’ He held out the broken strap, which the wizened cordwainer took between his fingers, then peered at it closely.

‘Where did you find this, Master Steward?’

Selwyn avoided the question. ‘Is it one of yours, Roger? It has the abbey mark upon it.’

The seated man nodded. ‘It is indeed – and the sandal it came from is up there.’ He pointed to a nearby shelf, where a collection of used footwear was awaiting repair.

This was more than Selwyn or Riocas had hoped for and the steward seized on the opportunity. ‘You mean you have it here already? Who brought it?’

Roger did not reply, but rose from his seat and picked the sandal from the shelf. With the torn strap still in his hand, he fitted the two ragged ends together, showing how they corresponded exactly, even the discoloured line matching where the bar of the buckle had chafed the leather.

‘No doubt about that!’ he muttered. ‘But I can’t mend the strap, it will need a whole new piece sewn to the sole.’

Riocas had no concern about the state of the sandal; he wanted to know only who had brought it for repair.

‘But who does it belong to, for God’s sake?’ he barked.

Roger, now sensing that something serious was amiss, bent his head towards them, then murmured a name in a confidential manner.

They found Brother Hubert on his knees before one of the small altars in the north transept of the great church of St Peter and St Paul. Built in place of the older Saxon abbey church, it was far too large for its purpose, being a monument to the grandiose ambitions of the physician-bishop, John of Tours.

Selwyn and Riocas had decided that the sacrist was the best person to approach with their suspicions of who had stolen the Church’s treasure, as he had been the only one to express his doubts about Eldred’s guilt. The bare, echoing transept was empty apart from Hubert, who kneeled in front of a gilded statue of the Virgin placed on a velvet-covered table against the wall.

They padded up behind him on the flagged floor, making their own automatic obeisance to the altar. For a moment, Selwyn thought that the old sacrist was asleep, as he kneeled with his chin bowed onto his chest, his hands clasped across his belly. He was about to cough to attract his attention, when Hubert suddenly raised his head and looked around.

‘Who are you? What do you want?’ he snapped in alarm, perhaps mindful of the grievous theft that had so recently desecrated this place. Then he focused on Selwyn, whom he now recognised. ‘You are the King’s steward, are you not? Who is this with you?’

Selwyn explained who Riocas was as the old sacrist hauled himself to his feet. ‘We are sorry to disturb your devotions, brother, but the matter is important.’

Hubert testily motioned them away from the altar and led them to a corner of the transept, which was curtained off as a place where spare cassocks and cleaning materials were concealed.

Pulling back the hangings, he sat on a stool and looked up at the two visitors, the squint in his eye being more pronounced as he swivelled his gaze between Selwyn and Riocas.

‘So what is this about, eh?’

Selwyn explained the situation and the sacrist’s impatience vanished as he saw the possibility of justifying his doubts about Eldred’s guilt. He had little fraternal love for either the prior or most of the members of the abbey Chapter, so the prospect of confounding them was appealing.

‘Have you got the proof of this?’ he demanded.

Selwyn produced both the sandal and the broken strap and handed them to the sacrist, pointing at the obvious match between the broken ends of the leather. ‘The cordwainer has no doubt at all that it came from that sandal, Brother Hubert.’

The monk rose from his stool, still clutching the footwear. ‘I hope for your sake that you are telling the truth!’ he warned. ‘For I will seek out the prior at once to tell him of your story.’

He padded off towards the cloister door, but threw one last question over his shoulder. ‘Do you know where Eldred has hidden himself?’

‘I hear that he is outside the city,’ replied Selwyn evasively. ‘But I am sure that he could be found as soon as his innocence is accepted.’

The sacrist made no response and vanished rapidly into the gloomy nave. Riocas looked at his friend uneasily. ‘Let’s hope we can trust him to act honourably over this.’

Brother Hubert of Frome certainly wished to act honourably. In fact, when he made his next confession, he would have to admit to his secret satisfaction at the discomfiture of the prior and his cronies for being proved wrong about Eldred. Unfortunately, a factor unbeknown to him would prevent him getting the credit for having the real criminals arrested within the hour.

He found the prior in his parlour, conferring with the treasurer, the precentor and the cellarer about the rising cost of provisions bought for the abbey. The prior’s secretary, a skinny young monk, hesitantly tapped the door and admitted Hubert. The four men who were gathered around the prior’s desk examining account rolls, turned irritably at the interruption, but Prior Robert at once put on his jovial face.

‘Brother Hubert, have you come to add to our worries with demands for more furniture or vestments? Or do you want a few dozen more shoes, as you are carrying one in your hand?’

Hubert ignored the weak jest and went straight to the heart of the matter.

‘Prior, I have discovered who robbed us of our treasured vessels. It was not Eldred, as I declared from the outset.’

There was a sudden silence, broken then by the clamour as the three men demanded to know how he knew.

Savouring his moment of triumph, the sacrist held up the sandal and explained how it had been found at the scene of the murder of the goldsmith, who had been offered what could only have been the cathedral’s gold and silver pyx.

‘And our cordwainer has definitely identified it as belonging to your clerk, Maurice, Brother Gilbert!’

All eyes turned to the cellarer, who glared at the sacrist with unconcealed dislike. ‘What foolishness is this, Hubert! Of course Maurice is not involved. What mischief are you plotting now?’

‘It is his sandal strap that was found at the place of Ranulf’s murder,’ retorted Hubert in triumph. ‘How else could it have got there?’

Red-faced with anger, Gilbert stepped threateningly close to Hubert. ‘Nonsense! Have you lost your reason? If it is his sandal, then either someone else was wearing it or he went there for some legitimate purpose.’

The prior felt that he had lost his dominance in this verbal battle and he stepped into the fray to challenge Gilbert.

‘Unlikely though this story seems, brother, why should anyone else wear a monk’s sandal? And why should he, a penniless novitiate, visit a goldsmith?’

The cellarer, looking like a bull-baited dog, glared from one to other. ‘I don’t know, but by St Michael and all his angels, I’ll soon find out!’

As he marched to the door, his face thunderous, the prior called after him, ‘Bring Maurice back here at once, brother! Call upon the proctor’s men, if needs be!’

While they waited for the cellarer’s clerk to be fetched, the prior and the other Chapter members questioned Hubert closely and he again had to go through the story that Selwyn and Riocas had told him.

‘So where is this Eldred?’ demanded the treasurer. ‘If he is innocent, as you claim, why did he run away? And who helped to escape?’

Hubert shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘He had little chance to defend himself, didn’t he? You were all convinced that he was the culprit, though you had no shred of evidence.’

‘He may still be guilty,’ pronounced the prior heavily. ‘We have to hear more than your unlikely tale of a shoe to be certain that Brother Maurice is the culprit.’

‘That idea is preposterous,’ gabbled the precentor. ‘Maurice is a monk – and a monk who has already taken his vows. This Eldred is merely a menial lay worker.’

‘We shall soon clear this matter up when we hear Maurice’s explanation, if this really is his sandal,’ concluded Prior Robert, looking expectantly at the door where the cellarer would soon appear with his assistant.

They waited for several more minutes, then Hubert became restive. ‘Where is the fellow? We need to resolve this immediately.’

After another delay, the prior also became impatient and waved an imperious hand at his own secretary. ‘Go and hurry them up! Surely Brother Gilbert must have been able to find his own clerk by now!’

The nervous chaplain hurried off and the group waited with mounting impatience. It should have taken the messenger no more than five minutes to get to the cellarer’s office and back again, but a quarter of an hour went by without a sign of him. Then the door burst open, and he almost fell inside in his haste.

‘Prior, the cellarium is in disarray! It seems that both Brother Gilbert and Maurice have gone!’

Several hours later, two men in dark Benedictine habits rode their horses along the Chippenham road until they came to the foot of Solsbury Hill. Some way beyond where the lane turned up to Swainswick, they reined in and looked intently up and down the track to make sure that no one else was within sight.

‘This will do!’ said Gilbert harshly, sliding from his saddle and leading his brown mare into the trees at the side of the road. Maurice, on a grey pony, did the same, and in a moment they were out of sight amongst the greenery. The ground here was flat and heavily wooded, then sloped gently before the steeper gradient of the hill began. They threaded their way between the saplings and more mature trees until they found an open area where a large beech had fallen in last winter’s gales. A small stream ran at one side and the cellarer decided that this would have to do for an overnight stop, as the autumn evening was closing in and it was already twilight. They roped their horses to trees near the stream, so that the beasts could crop the grass between the bushes and get water to drink. Settling themselves down with their bulky saddlebags, they prepared to spend an uncomfortable night in the open.

Gilbert seemed the least affected by their sudden change of circumstances, but the weedy Maurice whined incessantly about their plight.

‘Are you sure that we needed to run away so precipitately?’ he complained, in a high-pitched voice that irritated his senior companion. ‘We had planned to leave our departure until next month.’

‘Of course we had to run, you fool!’ snarled Gilbert. ‘And don’t dare complain. It was your stupidity in leaving that sandal strap in the goldsmith’s shop that caused all this trouble.’

Chastened, the young monk began groping in his bag, pulling out some clothing, a loaf of bread and a block of cheese that he had hastily grabbed from their storeroom before their hurried flight from the abbey.

‘Shall we take off our habits now and change into these tunics and breeches?’ he asked humbly.

Gilbert climbed back to his feet and grabbed some of the more anonymous garments from Maurice. ‘We may as well – then use the robes to cover us during the night – it will be a lot colder than the abbey dormer!’

As he put on the dowdy garments, Maurice sadly dropped his cowled Benedictine habit to the ground, realising that he would never again wear this uniform of the religious life. He had agreed some time ago to join Gilbert in his ambition of forsaking holy office for the worldly pleasures of an affluent secular life. With this in mind, they had been systematically rifling the abbey finances to provide themselves with sufficient money and valuables to keep them in comfort for some time.

Now, while Maurice’s saddlebag had contained their clothing and food, that of the cellarer was heavy with a leather sack of silver pennies and some golden besants, as well as the chalice, pyx and other smaller items of considerable value.

They did their best to make themselves comfortable on the hard ground, eating half of the loaf and some cheese, and drinking water from the stream. It was impossible to light a fire, partly because of lack of the materials to do so, but also they needed to avoid drawing attention to themselves by making smoke.

As the gloom deepened, both in the sky and in Maurice’s mind, they rolled up in their discarded robes and attempted to sleep. Gilbert, a man nearing forty, was by far the most sanguine about their situation. He was not all that concerned about their premature departure, his main concern being getting clear of Bath before any pursuit caught up with them. This was obviously on Maurice’s mind as well.

‘Do you think we will get to your house safely, brother?’ asked Maurice, as he stared up at the stars, visible between the patchy clouds.

‘I see no reason why not,’ grunted Gilbert, irritated at his former clerk’s timidity. ‘We left openly by the West Gate, so when a hunt is begun – if it ever is – they will not know that we doubled back over the hills down to this road.’

They were aiming for Southampton, as Gilbert possessed a house within the walled seaport. He had been embezzling abbey funds steadily for several years, secretly selling stores to unscrupulous merchants and creaming off some of the cash obtained from the sale of wool from the abbey farms outside the city. He had invested some of the proceeds in buying a small burgage in Southampton, anticipating the time when he would slip away from the monastic life. Unfortunately, six months earlier, his clerk had discovered his nefarious activities and the only way that Gilbert could cover it up was by taking Maurice into partnership, though he had to admit that with both of them corrupted, their criminal enterprise had been much easier and more fruitful.

He had been fortunate in that the clerk had quite readily accepted the sacriligious partnership, mainly because Maurice had never been enthusiastic about the monastic life, his parents having dumped him on the abbey when he was a child.

As the sounds of the forest increased as darkness fell, with the hooting of owls and rustling and occasional crashes as larger beasts went about their nocturnal business, the two fugitives fell into an uneasy sleep, indifferent to the confusion that reigned in their erstwhile home back in Bath.

The prior had called a late evening meeting in the Chapter House to discuss the emergency caused by the disappearance of their cellarer and his clerk.

‘There is no doubt that Gilbert de Lacy is deeply involved in this heinous plot,’ brayed Thomas, the abbey treasurer. ‘Not only do we know that two men were involved in this murder of the goldsmith, but a large amount of money is missing from the cellarer’s chest downstairs. This was the fund that I regularly gave him to pay for all the provisions he purchased for the abbey.’

‘We need no convincing that Gilbert was involved,’ said the precentor sarcastically. ‘He was seen by the porters riding brazenly out of the West Gate with Brother Maurice – may they rot in hell for this!’

The prior’s usual benign expression had failed to survive the events of the evening. ‘Of course those two were the plotters!’ he snapped. ‘And I have little doubt that Gilbert was the main instigator. That clerk of his was a poor thing, with not the brains to do other than his master commanded.’ He chewed at his lip in agitation, looking around at the ring of senior monks huddled in the candle-lit gloom. ‘What matters now is how we are to proceed. The bishop has gone to Wells again today, but I know he will be livid with anger on his return tomorrow, when he hears of this catastrophe.’

Hubert the sacrist ventured a comment: ‘There is little we can do as a religious house, Prior. The miscreants have left the city, God alone knows where they have gone. We cannot mount any search, we have no men-at-arms, no constables apart from those two louts who act for the proctors.’

One of the older brothers, one of the proctors mentioned, protested. ‘They do their best, brother, but they are not equipped in mind nor body for this sort of disaster. We need the services of the King’s men, through his officers.’

Prior Robert scowled. ‘That is easier said than done! Our sheriff is theoretically Hubert de Burgh, but he never sets foot in Somerset – and rarely in England, these days, as he is too busy trying to save Normandy from the French. But I suppose those knights who do his work for him in Bristol might help.’

‘We have asked the city council for aid,’ offered the precentor. ‘The portreeve and the wardens of the guilds have agreed to organise a search party tomorrow. The guilds of the goldsmiths are particularly incensed at the murder of Ranulf, who was one of their prominent officials. And some of the men who serve the under-sheriff in Bristol say they will join in. They say they can have a score of men assembled at dawn, who will ride out and seek any trace of this evil pair.’

The prior nodded resignedly. ‘I cannot imagine how they can be successful, but I suppose in time we might track them down. Certainly every religious house in England will be on the lookout – and any sanctuary they might seek will be denied them.’

Hubert took advantage of a lull in the discussion to consolidate his original contention that his lay assistant was innocent.

‘I take it, Prior, that no one now contests the fact that Eldred had no part in this affair, and that he can be safely reinstated in his position. I feel he deserves an apology for our false accusations, which I might remind you, I did not believe from the outset!’

There were some grudging murmurs of assent, though no one seemed particularly interested in Eldred, being too concerned with the loss of their funds and the valuable holy vessels. They also disliked the fact that the sacrist had been proved right and was doing all he could to remind them of the fact.

As dawn broke, Eldred left his hole in the cliff and, stiff in the limbs and empty in the stomach, made his way down the hill to meet Riocas, hoping for both food and good news.

He reached the bottom of the steepest part of Solsbury and began cautiously to aim for the lane up to Swainswick, where Riocas arranged to meet him. He was too early, he knew, as the city gates were not opened until first light and then his friend had to trot for a few miles in his little cart.

Eldred squatted on a fallen tree to wait, still well inside the belt of trees. The birds were still at their morning chorus and, if it were not for his fugitive state and his absence from wife and hearth, he could have found it a quiet and restful interlude in his life.

However, after a few minutes he realised that a distant noise was not part of this arboreal idyll. Into his consciousness crept the sound of a horse neighing, well away to his left. Riocas had a donkey to pull his cart, so it couldn’t be his.

Curious, but fearful of strangers, Eldred rose and quietly moved through the trees in the direction of the sounds, which were repeated several times, becoming clearer as he approached. Warily, moving his feet a step at a time to avoid breaking fallen sticks, he closed on the horse until he stopped short and dropped behind a large bramble bush, for he had heard someone berating the animal, telling it to be quiet. But more than that, he swore he knew the voice – and a moment later, his suspicions were confirmed, as another person spoke, one he knew equally well. This was Brother Maurice and the first utterance had come from Gilbert, the cellarer!

Eldred sank to his haunches behind the bush, quivering with fright. He assumed that brother Gilbert and his weedy assistant were part of a search party sent out by the prior to seize him and drag him back to the abbey for trial and probable execution. But how did they know he was on Solsbury Hill? Perhaps Selwyn or Riocas had been interrogated, maybe even tortured by the sheriff’s men – or had Riocas been followed on his journeys to bring food to the hill?

Petrified with fright, he hardly dared breathe, but his ears still functioned well. The other two were barely a score of paces away and were not guarding their voices, as the main road was far enough away at this point.

‘By the Virgin, my back is breaking after a night on this ground!’ growled Gilbert. ‘I’ll not complain about the pallets in the abbey dormer after this – not that I need to, now.’

There was some coughing and scuffling, then Maurice’s familiar voice filtered through the brambles.

‘Here, take the last of this bread and cheese. What are we going to do about finding something else to eat today?’

‘As soon as we get well beyond Chippenham, we can stop in a tavern and fill our bellies. God knows I’ve got enough money now.’

This conversation puzzled Eldred. If they were part of the abbey’s hunt for him, what was this about them going beyond Chippenham? And why the comment about money? The truth never occurred to him, as it was so far removed from his present concerns. His ears almost wagged as he listened for more.

‘How can we keep up this pretence that we are simple merchants, travelling in pursuit of our lawful business?’ whined Maurice. ‘Even though we’ve discarded our habits, we both have shaven heads that mark us instantly as being in holy orders!’

‘I have a wide pilgrim’s hat, don’t I?’ retorted Gilbert roughly. ‘And you had better tie the laces of that coif under your chin and keep it on, if you don’t want your neck stretched on the gallows!’

Though now totally confused, Eldred gathered from this that he was not the target of their search and that they themselves were on the run. They were two of the people he had disliked most in the abbey, and indeed, when the chalice and pyx had gone missing, their names had passed through his mind when he was seeking culprits. Now it gradually dawned upon him that he had been right, but did the rest of the world know that?

He heard them moving around and feared that they were on the point of leaving, as Gilbert was telling his clerk to wrap the treasure in the redundant habits to protect them inside their sack. Eldred saw no way of preventing them from escaping, and all he could do was to move back to where he was to meet Riocas and tell the cat-catcher what he had learned, so that some kind of hue and cry could be mounted – though by then they would probably be far away.

Carefully, he rose to a crouch and started to move back the way he had come. Then disaster struck, as his foot caught in a loop of bramble that had sent down sucker roots to anchor itself firmly in the soil. He pitched forwards on to his hands and knees with a crash and, seconds later, cries of fury heralded the arrival of Gilbert, closely followed by his clerk.

The burly monk grabbed him and hooked a brawny arm around his neck, hoisting him to his feet in one powerful movement.

‘Who the hell are you, you damned spy?’ roared the former cellarer, able only to see the back of Eldred’s head. Then Maurice, nervously circling around them, saw to his shock that it was the sacrist’s lay brother.

‘It’s Eldred, Gilbert!’ he shrieked. ‘We are discovered!’

The older man grabbed his captive by the hair and jerked his head round to confirm his identity.

‘What in hell’s name are you doing here?’ he bellowed. ‘Is this where you’ve been hiding out as well?’

Half-strangled, Eldred was unable to answer, especially as Gilbert began dragging him back into the clearing where the horses were tethered.

‘What do we do?’ screeched the terrified Maurice. ‘He will betray us!’

‘I’ll kill the bastard! We’ve murdered already, so another will make no difference, either on earth or in hell,’ grated Gilbert callously. He reached with his free hand for the dagger he carried in a sheath on his belt, but as he did so, his hold on Eldred’s throat slackened. Convinced that he was about to die, his prisoner let out a scream of terror and a loud plea for help, in which he was joined by the two horses, who, frightened by the noise, gave out loud whinnies and thrashed their hoofs against the undergrowth.

‘Shut up, blast you!’ howled Gilbert, who, regaining his grip on the struggling victim, hauled the knife clear of its scabbard.

Maurice was paralysed with horror, for it was one thing to beat a burly, outraged goldsmith on the head during a fight, but another to cold-bloodedly cut the throat of a lay brother.

‘Gilbert, stay your hand, for the sake of Christ!’ he blubbered, but his former master appeared to take no notice of his entreaties.

However, a stay of execution was close at hand…

When the sacrist had left the meeting in the Chapter House the previous evening, he found the King’s steward and the cat-catcher waiting for him outside the door. As it was they who had exposed the truth about the murderous scandal that was rocking the abbey, they felt entitled to be the first to know if their friend Eldred was now officially considered to be innocent.

‘The prior and chapter have lost interest in him now,’ confirmed Hubert sarcastically. ‘They are too concerned with pursuing our cellarer and his acolyte to be concerned with my brass-polisher! They are more interested in both retribution and recovering the abbey’s gold and silver.’

‘So we can get a message to Eldred that it is safe for him to return home, Brother Hubert?’

The scrawny old sacrist nodded. ‘Yes, bring him back when you like. In the circumstances, I won’t ask who aided his escape nor where he has been hiding himself.’

Relieved, the two men went back to Selwyn’s kitchen and celebrated with some of the best ale he had there, then went around to Eldred’s mean lodging, where they gave the anxious Gytha the good news.

‘We’ll both go first thing in the morning to Riocas’ usual rendezvous and fetch the poor fellow back,’ said Selwyn. ‘No need for the donkey-cart now, the time for that subterfuge is past, thank God. I’ll borrow a couple of rounseys from my friend who keeps the livery stable in Goat Street. Eldred can ride back behind my saddle.’

As soon as the North Gate was opened at dawn, the two friends rode out on a pair of rather short-legged mounts, the general-purpose rounseys used for a variety of purposes. They covered the couple of miles to Solsbury in half an hour and reined in on the lower part of the side road to Swainswick, where Eldred should appear from the trees. After some time, there was no sign of him and Riocas began to get concerned.

‘He’s usually waiting for me; let’s hope nothing has befallen him.’

‘We rode faster than your poor old ass can pull that cart,’ soothed Selwyn. ‘We’re probably earlier than he expected.’

They sat in their saddles for another quarter of an hour, when the big furrier became too impatient to wait any longer.

‘Let’s go in a little way and see if we can find him. Knowing his luck, he may have twisted an ankle scrambling down the hill.’

They led their steeds some way into the trees and tied them to saplings where there was a patch of grass for them to browse.

Then the pair stood irresolute for a moment, unsure whether to start climbing the slope in the hope of meeting Eldred. Their minds were made up for them when a distant, but quite clear scream was heard, way off towards the main road. Without a word, they both turned and ran through the leaf-mould and sparse undergrowth in the direction of the noise, obviously made by a human voice. A couple of minutes later, they heard horses neighing and then, as they got nearer, another scream of terror and a cry for help resounded through the trees, followed immediately by more sounds of agitated horses.

‘I’ll swear that’s Eldred!’ panted Selwyn, running at the heels of his stronger companion. ‘Let’s shout for him. He can’t be far away now.’

Riocas let out a mighty bellow that echoed through the forest, followed by similar shouts from Selwyn, as they continued to run in what they hoped was the right direction. There were no more cries from ahead, but the uneasy stamping and neighing of horses soon led them to the clearing.

As they burst past the bramble clump, they saw the two beasts tethered to trees and a pair of saddlebags on the ground. But of human beings, there was no sign.

The moment Gilbert heard the distant shouts, he knew they must run for it. His captive, still squirming in his arms, managed to scream for help, and instantly the cellarer slapped a hand over his mouth and increased his choking grip.

‘Bring that sack, then run!’ he yelled at Maurice, who was standing in the clearing, paralysed with fear. Without waiting for him, Gilbert dragged Eldred bodily into the trees, still stifling his attempts at crying for help. He was a powerful man, stocky and muscular, able to trot across the gently sloping ground at a fair pace while half-carrying his wriggling victim.

Left alone, Maurice was suddenly galvanised into action and, grabbing the sack with the money and treasures, he raced after Gilbert. When they had covered a few hundred paces, Gilbert stopped and listened for any sounds of pursuit. His keen ears picked up some shouts in the distance, but none that seemed to be coming their way.

‘Go forward slowly and don’t make any noise!’ he hissed at the panting Maurice. Still keeping a hand firmly over Eldred’s mouth, he moved onward at a walking pace for a few score yards, before dropping to the ground behind a clump of hazel bushes. Pulling out his dagger again, he touched the point to Eldred’s neck. ‘Make a sound and you’re dead, damn you!’ he hissed.

He motioned Maurice to lie down nearby and they waited and listened. A few distant shouts eventually died away and there was silence, but the cautious Gilbert, knowing his neck may depend on it, waited almost motionless for many more minutes, his knife still drawing a small bead of blood from Eldred’s neck.

The pause gave him time to get his breath back after his exertions and also provided time to think out a plan of campaign. The original idea of riding to Southampton was ruined. Their horses were lost to them and no doubt search parties would soon be combing these woods. On the positive side, he still had his loot and now also a hostage, who might be of some value if they were trapped.

When the silence had lasted for what seemed to be an age, but was probably no more than half an hour, he rose cautiously and pulled Eldred up with him, his knife now being brandished in front of the terrified lay brother’s face.

‘Those others have gone in another direction, so there’s no point in your yelling – and if you do, I’ll cut your damned throat!’ he snarled. With a jerk of the head at the almost equally terrified Maurice, he grabbed Eldred by the collar of his tunic and began marching him up the lower slopes of Solsbury Hill.

Selwyn and Riocas stood in the clearing and shouted repeatedly for Eldred, but silence was the only response. They made a few forays into the undergrowth and trees surrounding them, but soon returned to the clearing, as there was no indication of which direction the fugitives had taken.

‘We’re townsmen, not trackers,’ exclaimed Selwyn in exasperation. ‘We need help to find the little fellow.’

‘You mean we need a damned big posse with hounds to search the area,’ growled Riocas, equally frustrated by the disappearance of their friend.

Although they had not yet guessed who had spirited him away, the horses tethered at the edge of the clearing soon raised their suspicions. Selwyn went over to the two rounseys to pacify them, as they were still skittish from all the recent disturbances. As he patted the neck of the nearest to soothe it, he gave a sudden exclamation.

‘Riocas, these are from the abbey stables! Their harness has the same cross stamped on the harness that Roger the saddler uses, like the one he put on that sandal.’

The bigger man came across to see for himself. ‘Two abbey horses hidden in a forest! It’s those two thieving, murdering swine from the cellarium! And now they’ve got our Eldred!’

After an agitated discussion, they had to accept that there was nothing the two of them could do alone, as they had no idea where to look for the fugitives and their captive.

‘You ride back to Bath as fast as you can, Selwyn,’ suggested Riocas. ‘That search party was supposed to be leaving early. If you can find some of them, raise the alarm and bring them back straight away.’

‘What about you?’ demanded the steward. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll follow with these two animals on head ropes. We can’t just leave them here,’ replied the cat-catcher, though he was lying about his intentions. When Selwyn had left to hurry back to their own horses, Riocas untied the tethers on the two abbey rounseys and hitched them up where they could crop a fresh patch of grass.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t forget you’re here,’ he reassured them, and then slipped into the trees, heading for the top of the hill.

Gilbert reached it a good twenty minutes before the furrier, in spite of having to march his captive in front of him. He took a diagonal path up the incline to lessen the gradient, steering Eldred between the trees and bushes, his knife still prominent in his left hand. Maurice stumbled after him, clutching the precious bag with the valuables and mumbling a litany of anxiety and fear as he went.

The trees thinned, and almost abruptly they found themselves at the lower edge of the grassy rampart and ditch that encircled the top of Solsbury Hill. The renegade monk shoved Eldred over the rim and down into the gully beyond, a good ten feet below the level of the flat summit.

‘Keep going or I’ll skewer your kidneys,’ he snarled, pricking the small of Eldred’s back with the point of his dagger. With Maurice trailing behind, they hurried along the flat bottom of the ditch until they had reached a point almost halfway round the circuit. This was the furthest point away from the ‘nose’ of the hill that looked south over the Chippenham road far below and was nearest to where the forest came along the ridge from the north. Here the trees were in a small valley, their tops almost level with the crest of the hill. Gilbert used a break in the lower rampart to climb out again and pushed his captive across to the forest edge, forcing him to stand with his back to a slim birch, just inside the tree line.

‘Our habits are in that bag,’ he snapped at Maurice. ‘Take the girdles from them and tie this fellow up.’

The plaited black cords that had belted their robes were now used to lash Eldred to the tree, one from wrist to wrist around the trunk. At Gilbert’s direction, the other was passed around his neck – firmly, but not enough to strangle him unless he struggled. Satisfied that the lay brother was now immobilised, Gilbert used his knife to cut a strip of cloth from one of the habits. He gagged Eldred with it, the material cutting between his lips to produce a maniacal grin. Frightened and exhausted, the captive’s head dropped on to his chest and he seemed uncaring as to what happened to him. After all the panic and exertion, there now seemed to be a sense of anticlimax, as the two criminals regained their breath and stared at each other.

‘Now what do we do, brother?’ demanded Maurice, with a fragile show of defiance. ‘We have no horses, no food and we are stuck on top of a hill, miles from anywhere – especially Southampton!’

Gilbert had his own ideas about solving this dilemma, but he had no intention of sharing them with his former assistant.

‘We get away from here as soon as possible, before they come searching for us. We’ll keep to the forest and aim north towards Sodbury, then go east, giving Chippenham a wide berth.’

He dipped into the bag and retrieved a few handfuls of silver pennies, which he stuffed into the pouch on his belt.

‘I’ll hide the rest, we can’t lug it all across England. Then we can creep back here in a few weeks to collect it, when all the hue and cry has died down.’

He lifted the leather sack and began walking back to the ditch, Maurice following him uneasily.

‘What about Eldred?’ he whined. ‘You can’t just leave him there!’

‘Why not? He’ll either be found by the searchers – or he’ll die of starvation, I don’t care which,’ Gilbert grunted callously, striding along the deep cutting. He scanned the sides of the ditch as he went and stopped opposite a patch of loose earth where a rabbit had kicked the soil out while digging a burrow. It was one of many such excavations around the top of the hill, where conies, foxes and badgers had dug shelters for themselves.

Gilbert squatted in front of the hole and thrust his arm inside to check that it went deeply into the ground. Satisfied, he pushed the bag inside as far as he could reach, then kicked earth back into the burrow and tamped it firmly with his fist to hide all trace of the treasure.

As he peered into the hole to satisfy himself that the bag was completely hidden, a sudden sound behind him made him wheel around to find Maurice looming over him with a knife held high in his hand. With a yell, Gilbert threw himself sideways as his clerk lunged desperately downwards, aiming to bury the blade between the cellarer’s shoulder blades.

The puny Maurice was no match for the other man, who grabbed his ankle and pulled him violently to the ground, the knife skittering away out of reach. Leaping to his feet, Gilbert gave the clerk a vicious kick in the belly to keep him down, then unsheathing his own knife, drove it deep into Maurice’s chest.

‘Stab me in the back, would you, you bastard!’ he hissed. ‘I was going to kill you anyway. Did you think I was going to share any of my hard-won spoils with you?’

His former assistant made no reply as he was already dead, the long blade having sliced through the root of his heart. Gilbert pulled it out and wiped it on the grass, then stood quivering as he regarded the corpse.

‘Now I’ve got to hide you as well, damn you!’ he muttered.

He climbed the outer bank and looked around cautiously, but the hill top was deserted, apart from the still figure of Eldred tied to his tree.

Going back down to the body, Gilbert seized one hand and unceremoniously dragged it along the bottom of the ditch, looking for a large enough hiding place. He wanted to get away as fast as he could and this further encumbrance was highly unwelcome. He staggered along for a few hundred paces without finding any suitable grave for the clerk, so went out through a gap in the outer rampart and walked until he found a gaping hole under the roots of a solitary beech tree, which grew on the edge of a depression half filled with dead leaves. It must have been an old badger sett, but was large enough for him to push Maurice’s body inside. Thankfully, the former monk was small and skinny, and when Gilbert had pulled down a small avalanche of earth from the upper lip of the hole and liberally scattered armfuls of leaves, nothing was visible. As he did so, he wondered why he was bothering to hide Maurice’s corpse, as one more killing would make no difference to his final penalty if he was caught. The act was an almost instinctive one, to hide all traces of his most recent felony.

Then, almost exhausted by his recent efforts, he trudged back towards the ditch in order to get his bearings, as he had become disorientated and urgently needed to set off along the ridge that led northwards through the forest. Deciding that the clearest view would be from the flat top of the hill, he clambered up the inner bank of the dyke – and came face to face with a very large and very angry man!

Some years earlier, Riocas had explored Solsbury Hill, hoping to trap animals for his trade. However, the effort of climbing up and down every few days proved not worth the few rabbits he managed to snare, but he had learned something of the layout of the hill. This proved helpful now, as he laboured straight up the steep slope, stopping every few yards to listen for any sign of Eldred or his captors. As Gilbert had gone diagonally to the left, their paths diverged and when Riocas came out of the trees below the ditch and bank, he was on the southern side, a considerable distance from the other men.

All was silent, apart from the birds and the breeze. The cat-catcher stood for a moment on the lip of the first embankment, uncertain what to do next. Deciding that the higher he could get, the better the view, he climbed down into the ditch and up the other side to gain the grassy field on top. Across on the other side of the enclosure, he could see the dense trees of the ridge, but there was no movement to be seen anywhere and no cries of help. He began walking around the edge, peering down as he went into the ditch and at the trees lower down the hill. He stayed wary and alert, his only weapons being his dagger and a heavy stick, part of a fallen branch that he had picked up in the woods.

As he neared the trees on the north side, his eye caught a distant movement, which at first he thought was due to the wind. Then, a few yards further on, he saw that something was thrashing up and down. Hurrying towards it, he saw a leg waving and kicking back against a tree. It belonged to a figure tied to the trunk and a seconds later, he saw it was Eldred, bound and gagged.

Racing towards him, Riocas tore off the crude gag and untied the bonds that held him. The frail lay brother promptly collapsed at his feet and Riocas, surprisingly gentle for such a hulking fellow, cradled him in his arms and murmured reassurance into his ear.

When Eldred had recovered a little, he managed to flap a hand towards the further trees and whisper, ‘They went that way – Gilbert and Maurice, just a few minutes ago!’

After making sure that his friend had suffered no serious injury, Riocas propped him sitting up against the tree.

‘Selwyn has ridden for help – there will be city men here very soon, so you’re quite safe now.’ He rose to his feet and grabbed his makeshift club. ‘I’m going to follow those swine! When Selwyn and the posse get here, they’ll need to know which way they’ve gone.’

Leaving a limp and very apprehensive Eldred slumped against the beech, Riocas ran back to the ditch and climbed once again to the summit, unknowingly stepping over the rabbit hole that contained a small fortune.

On top, he reasoned that the only safe way off the hill for the fugitives was northwards through the forest, so he marched across the ancient enclosure in that direction. As he once more reached the rampart, he heard a noise and stopped to listen. Right in front of him came the sounds of scrabbling and heavy breathing, and a moment later the ruddy face of Gilbert appeared over the edge.

Shock, surprise and rage passed in succession over those belligerent features as he recognised who was glaring down at him – for everyone in Bath knew the oversized cat-catcher. Riocas had similar emotions and with a roar of anger, raised his impromptu club to strike the head of the man who was now heaving himself over the lip of the embankment. But just as he had bested Maurice, Gilbert now grabbed Riocas’ leg and toppled him over. The cudgel flew from his hand.

Though not nearly as large as his opponent, Gilbert was strong and fit, and was now fighting for his very life. He crawled over the edge and grappled with the fallen Riocas, the two men rolling about, each trying to kick, punch or strangle the other, all the while shouting abuse at his adversary.

The combat was short, sharp and nasty. Riocas managed to get on top and, lifting his huge body momentarily, let it fall on to Gilbert, squeezing the breath out of him like the closing of a bellows. Then the furrier leaned back and punched the other in the face with a fist the size of a boot. Somehow, both men crawled to a crouch, but Riocas ended the fight by seizing Gilbert by the throat and an ankle and throwing him bodily over the edge into the ditch.

Panting, and with blood running into one eye from a cut, Riocas staggered to his feet to look into the ditch, prepared to go down and continue the fracas, but there was no need. Gilbert was lying motionless at the bottom, his head against a large stone, a remnant of the ancient fortifications.

Riocas waited for a few moments to get his breath back, then clambered down the bank and warily approached the inert figure, in case he was shamming. Close up, the furrier thought that Gilbert must be dead, but then saw his chest moving slightly. Prodding him with the toe of his boot produced a guttural sigh, but he was obviously deeply unconscious.

‘I hope you’ll live long enough to be hanged!’ muttered Riocas, as he turned and began making his way back to where he had left Eldred.

The lay brother had recovered a little and was now leaning against the tree, rubbing his throat, which was sore after Gilbert’s prolonged armlock.

‘I heard you shouting just now,’ he croaked. ‘What’s happened? Have they escaped?’

‘I don’t know where Maurice has gone, but that swine Gilbert is lying up there, his wits completely lost from a blow on the head.’

Riocas picked up the two girdles that had fallen to the ground and went back to the fallen man. As he was tying Gilbert’s flaccid arms and legs together with the plaited cords, Eldred appeared, having stumbled wearily after his friend.

‘What’s going to happen now?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Am I still accused of this theft?’

The cat-catcher shook his head. ‘Everyone knows that you’re as innocent as a newborn lamb, Eldred! It looks as if Maurice has made off with the chalice and pyx, but that’s not our concern now.’

That evening, Selwyn and Riocas called at Eldred’s dwelling, where Gytha was fussing over her man like a hen with one chick. Tearfully grateful to the two men for saving her husband, she plied them with rabbit stew and ale before being brought up to date with events.

‘Gilbert is in the city gaol, as the prior has disowned him as a monk and won’t have him in the abbey infirmary,’ reported Selwyn. ‘He has regained his senses, but won’t admit to anything. That evil man blames it all on Maurice, whom he says has run away with the treasure.’

‘No one believes it was all Maurice’s idea, surely?’ exclaimed Eldred. He looked pale and wan, but unharmed after his ordeal on Solsbury Hill.

‘Of course not. The facts speak for themselves,’ said Selwyn. ‘He’ll hang for this. The bishop has waived his right to try him before his own court and has left him to the custody of the sheriff’s men.’

The King’s steward had met the search party just outside the city that morning and twenty men had hastened back to Solsbury, where they found Riocas and Eldred on top of the hill, guarding Gilbert, who was trussed like a fowl.

They talked about these momentous happenings for a while, until there was a rap on the door into the lane. It was Hubert of Frome, come to enquire after his assistant.

The black-robed sacrist looked uneasy at being out of the abbey, which he rarely left, but was very solicitous about Eldred’s health. ‘You must rest for a few days, brother, before you return to your duties.’

This was the most welcome thing he could have said to Eldred, who had feared for his beloved job in the cathedral.

‘I will miss my task of cleaning the chalice and the pyx, sir,’ he said sadly. ‘I am told that the posse comitatus found no sign of Maurice or the treasure he stole, even though they searched the forest almost as far as Sodbury.’

Hubert shrugged. ‘It must be God’s will, Eldred. The Almighty will extract vengeance one day, though it may be a long time before Maurice is found.’

The squinting sacrist was right, but he had no idea how long it would be before the cellarer’s clerk was discovered.