Murder Most Holy

CHAPTER 3

Athelstan and Cranston walked slowly back to St Ercon-wald’s. The crowd was still there but a short, blunt speech from their parish priest soon dispersed them except for a sleepy-eyed Crim on guard at the door.

‘The workmen are just finishing, Father.’

‘Good!’ he answered. ‘You may go now, Crim.’ And tossed the lad a penny.

Inside the church Athelstan groaned at the dust which now covered everything.

‘You would think the place had been under siege,’ Cranston chuckled. He pulled his face straight when Athelstan glared at him narrow-eyed, then at the workmen busy gathering their tools into leather-handled bags.

‘No more skeletons, Father,’ the foreman shouted.

The ripple of laughter his mockery caused ended abruptly as Athelstan walked purposefully towards him.

‘I was only joking, Father,’ the workman added. ‘You can’t hold us responsible.’ He pointed towards the sanctuary, desperately trying to change the subject. ‘Look, most of the flagstones are up.’

Athelstan stared round: the sanctuary floor was now just beaten earth except for that dreadful hole where the altar had once stood. The stones lay neatly stacked against the wall and the old gravel and sand had been piled in heaps. Athelstan clasped the man’s shoulder.

‘You have done a good day’s work,’ he replied, and went across to look at the stones. ‘Listen,’ he said, fishing into his purse for a coin and flicking it at the workman, ‘have a pot of ale. You’ll be fully paid when the job is done, but you look as if you are experienced in the cutting of stone.’ He tapped one of the slabs. ‘So tell me, were these stones put down when the church was built?’

‘Nah,’ the fellow replied. ‘These were put down in a hurry, and not so long ago neither.’

‘How long?’

The fellow shrugged. ‘About ten or more years. You see, Father,’ the fellow tapped the beaten earth floor with his dusty boot, ‘I reckon this church is about one hundred and fifty years old and, when it was built, it had no sanctuary stone, just a mud-packed floor. You can still find churches like this in London. Now, because we are so close to the river, the earth is wet and soaked: I think one of the priests hired someone to put the flagstones down. He even left his mark.’ The fellow took a candle from the wooden box in front of Our Lady’s statue. He lit the candle with his tinder and held it up against one of the paving stones. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘There’s the mason’s mark.’

Athelstan and Cranston looked at the three letters roughly carved there: A. Q. D.

‘What does it mean?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Well, every mason has his mark,’ Cranston intervened. ‘And this apparently belongs to the man who laid the sanctuary stones.’

‘Could we find out who it is?’

‘I doubt it,’ the workman replied. ‘There are scores of masons in Southwark alone. And who knows? The priest may have hired someone from across the river or even from one of the villages outside London. I certainly don’t recognise it.’ He picked up his bag and beckoned to his fellows. ‘And that is all I can tell you, Father. Come on, lads, our throats are dry!’

‘Close the door behind you!’ Athelstan shouted.

He waited until they were gone then took Cranston over to the great parish coffin. He and Cranston studied the skeleton carefully. Athelstan told the coroner what he had learnt so far.

‘I agree with the good doctor,’ Cranston pronounced, his words ringing hollow in the darkened church. ‘I think it’s a woman.’ He fingered the wooden cross, rubbing the crumbling wood through his hands. ‘The flesh decayed fairly quickly, and though the clay preserved the bones, that’s not true of wood.’ He picked up the wooden cross, really two pieces of wood nailed together. ‘Very crude,’ he observed. ‘The core of the wood is still hard. Do you know, Father, at a guess, I think this young lady was buried no more than fifteen years ago.’

‘At the same time as the paving stones were laid?’

‘Exactly.’

Cranston took a deep breath. ‘God forgive me.’ He lifted the skeleton up and pressed back the head, ignoring the snapping sound of the neck bones. The coroner peered into the skull, bringing the candle closer until the cavity inside glowed eerily. ‘Interesting!’ he murmured.

‘What is, Sir John?’

Cranston now detached the skull from the bones of the neck. The crack seemed to echo in the church like a clap of thunder. Athelstan closed his eyes and murmured a prayer.

‘God rest her!’ he murmured. ‘Lord, you are our witness, we intend no disrespect but only search for the truth.’

‘The good Lord will understand,’ Cranston boomed, lifting up the skull and pushing the candle even closer. ‘Don’t forget the good book, Athelstan. It’s the spirit that matters, the flesh profiteth nothing. Now, my good monk. .’

‘Friar, Sir John.’

The coroner grinned evilly. ‘Of course. But let me give you Cranston’s philosophy of observation and deduction. Look at the skull, Athelstan, and tell me what you see.’

He pushed both it and the candle towards the priest who held the light in the aperture behind the jaw, and closely inspected the inside of the skull.

‘Nothing,’ he murmured.

‘Tut, tut, Brother! Too much ale clouds the mind and dulls the eyes.’ Cranston squeezed his arm. ‘Look again!’

Athelstan did, and gasped. He pushed his candle further in.

‘Be careful not to burn the bone,’ Cranston warned.

Athelstan studied the reddish tinge at the top of the skull. ‘It’s like red paint,’ he muttered. ‘Very faint.’

Cranston took both skull and candle from him, cradling both in his hand so that, in the dimming light, he looked like some Master of the Black Arts.

Cranston blew out the candle and replaced the skull in the coffin. He closed the lid then sat down, tapping the pew with his hand for Athelstan to join him.

‘My theory, my good fellow,’ he pompously began, ‘based on observation, logic and deduction, is that this skeleton belonged to a young lady who was murdered and placed in that hole beneath the altar. By whom I do not know.’

‘How was she murdered?’

‘Suffocation or strangulation.’

‘What is your proof?’

‘I have seen it a few times before. A Genoese physician told me the signs. Apparently, if someone is suffocated or strangled, the blood vessels in the brain are ruptured and the skull is stained.’

‘And you think this happened here?’

‘I know it did, my good fellow. But the question is — by whom, and why? It could have been the workmen who laid the sanctuary floor.’

‘Or the priest who lived here?’

Cranston patted his thigh. ‘Yes, yes. We must not forget Fitzwolfe of blessed memory. Perhaps we should add murder to his list of crimes?’

Athelstan gazed round the church. It didn’t seem so friendly or cheerful now. A dreadful murder had been committed here and the terrible sin seemed to hang over the place like an oppressive cloud. Was nowhere safe? he wondered. Did murder and dreadful homicides seep into every crevice and crack of human existence? He shivered and got up.

‘Sir John, you said you wanted to see me on business of your own?’

Cranston made a face.

‘Yes, but not here, Brother. You still have some of that excellent wine?’

‘I used one bottle today but there’s another left for you, Sir John.’

‘Good, then let’s leave here. My flesh is beginning to creep and my belly roars for the juice of the grape.’

Athelstan locked the church securely and led Sir John across to the priest’s house. Thankfully, Bonaventure had disappeared again. Athelstan closed the shutters, lit the candles and built the fire up with some dry twigs. He poured Sir John and himself two generous cups of wine. Cranston dragged the candle nearer and pushed a small roll of parchment across the table.

‘Read that, Brother.’

‘Why?’

‘Just read it.’

Athelstan undid the parchment and studied the clerkly hand. He read it once and looked up, surprised.

‘A strange story, Sir John. Why does it affect you?’

Cranston told him and Athelstan let out a groan.

‘Oh, Sir John, for the love of God, you are trapped! Don’t you know about these riddles, clever puzzles in logic? Some are hundreds of years old and have never been resolved.’

Cranston shrugged. ‘I think this is a true story.’

‘Sir John, it could cost you a thousand crowns or, if John of Gaunt gets his fingers on to you, your very integrity.’

‘Then help me, Brother.’ Cranston drained the cup and slammed it down on the table.

Athelstan glimpsed the anxiety in the coroner’s usually good-humoured face.

‘I will do my best.’

Cranston made to fill his cup to the brim but thought again. He dared not. He did not wish to return home drunk. So far, he had kept this matter only to himself and Athelstan. He wondered if Lady Maude had heard any rumours.

‘You must tell her, Sir John,’ Athelstan murmured as if reading the coroner’s thoughts. ‘You must tell the Lady Maude.’

‘Aye, there’s the rub. My wife knows I’ll never ask Gaunt for help, but where can I get a thousand crowns? From the bankers? My great-grandchildren will be paying off the interest!’

Athelstan leaned over and squeezed the coroner’s fat fist.

‘Courage, Sir John. Always remember, if a problem exists then logic dictates a solution must also.’

Cranston rose, picking up both his beaver hat and cloak.

‘Aye, Brother, and I will make enquiries about your church and the whereabouts of the sainted Fitzwolfe.’ He shuffled his feet and squinted up at the rafters.

‘There’s something else, isn’t there, My Lord Coroner?’

Cranston sat down with a thump. ‘Yes, there is. I have had a visitor.’

‘Who?’

‘Your Father Prior.’

Athelstan stared up in amazement.

‘Well,’ Cranston licked his lips and looked longingly at his wine cup, ‘as you know, there’s an Inner Chapter meeting to discuss the writings of one of your brethren.’

‘Yes, Brother Henry of Winchester. Why?’ Athelstan’s voice rose higher. ‘How does that affect me?’

‘It doesn’t, but to cut a long story short, Athelstan, something strange is happening at Blackfriars: one monk’s died and another, Alcuin, has disappeared.’

‘Alcuin!’ Athelstan breathed, recalling the ascetic face of his colleague. ‘Disappeared, Sir John? Alcuin was a friar from the moment he was born. I could never picture him leaping the friary wall and off heigh-ho to the shambles to meet some pretty doxy!’

‘Well, he’s disappeared and Father Prior has asked me to investigate.’ Cranston swallowed hard. ‘He’s coming to visit you on Wednesday. Both of us are. I think he’s going to ask for your help.’

Athelstan put his face in his hands. ‘Oh, God!’ he prayed. ‘Not that. Not back to Blackfriars and the politics of the Order!’

And then he swore, muttering every filthy word he’d learned from Cranston. He had been so happy; there were his usual duties as Cranston’s clerk but nothing serious, not since those bloody murders at the Tower the previous Christmas. He had become immersed in his study of the stars, in talking to Bonaventure, helping his parishioners and, above all, renovating his beloved church. Now his hardwon peace and calm were to be shattered: by Sir John with his complex problem; Benedicta and her worries about her husband; the skeleton in the church; and Father Prior wanting his help. He glanced up at Cranston.

‘Murder follows me always,’ he whispered, ‘dragging behind me like some hell-sent beast. I made one mistake, Sir John, and how I have paid for it!’

Cranston rose and stood over him, patting him gently on the shoulder.

‘You did no wrong, Athelstan,’ he said quietly. ‘You were a young man who went to war. You took your younger brother with you. It was God’s will he died. If there was a price to pay, you have done so. Now there’s another Francis — my son, your godson. Life goes on, Brother. I will see you on Wednesday.’

Cranston opened the door and slipped out into the dusk.

Athelstan sat listening to him leave. He went and stood at the window, staring up at the top of the darkening tower of St Erconwald’s. He breathed deeply, trying to cleanse his mind. Father Prior would have to wait and so would that skeleton in the church. He would not study the stars tonight but instead analyse the problem Cranston had brought.

He went back to sit at the table and studied the manuscript Cranston had left. How could men be killed so subtly in that scarlet chamber? ‘No food,’ he whispered to himself. ‘No drink, no trap doors or hidden devices. No silent assassin. So how did those men die?’

Athelstan’s mind raced through every possibility but the deaths were so apparently simple — there was no clue, no hook to hang a suspicion on, not a crack to prise open. Athelstan’s eyes closed. He woke with a start. The candle had burned low. Somehow, he concluded, the key to all the deaths lay in the last two. How had an archer become so terrified he’d shot his companion?

Athelstan’s head sank again and he drifted into a deep dream: he sat in a scarlet chamber where the figure of death with its skeletal face performed a strange dance, whilst some silent force crept slowly and menacingly towards him. .

Athelstan awoke stiff and cold the next morning, still sitting at the table, his head on his arms, Bonaventura brushing urgently against him. Somewhere amongst the squalid huts and tenements of Southwark a cockerel crowed its morning hymn to the sun. The priest rose and stretched, rubbing his face and wishing he had gone to bed. He folded up the piece of parchment Cranston had given him and took it up to the chest in his small bedroom. He then stripped, washing his body with a wet rag, shaved, and tried to concentrate on the mass he was about to celebrate. He must not think about the distractions milling in his mind. He cleaned his teeth with a mixture of salt and vinegar, took out his second robe, broke his fast on some stale bread and absent-mindedly fed Bonaventura who had apparently spent the night touring his small kingdom of alleys around the church.

‘Something tells me, Bonaventura,’ Athelstan said quietly as he crouched to feed the battered torn cat, ‘that this is going to be a strange day.’

He went across and celebrated a private mass on a makeshift altar in the middle of the nave, deliberately not looking at the coffin on his left with its grisly contents. No one else came except Pernel the Fleming and she seemed more interested in the coffin than anything else. Athelstan finished the mass, clearing the altar in preparation for the return of the workmen. He fed Philomel, hobbling his war horse in the small yard to give it some exercise, and returned to his house. He decided to concentrate on drawing up the list of supplies he needed before going back to the crude sketches of how he wished the new sanctuary to look. However, he still felt both hungry and restless so, locking his house, went down to a cookshop in Blowbladder Alley.

He bought a crisp meat pie and a dish of vegetables covered with gravy and sat outside, his back to the wall, enjoying the hot juices and savoury smell. A beggar, his nose slit for some previous crime, came crawling up, whining for alms. Athelstan gave him two pennies. The fellow disappeared into the cookshop to buy pies from the fat dumpling of a baker and rejoined Athelstan. After half an hour the priest got tired of the fellow’s rambling tales about his exploits as a soldier and decided to go for a walk.

He always liked Southwark first thing in the morning, despite the over-full sewers, the putrid mounds of refuse and the denizens of its underworld, now sliding back to their garrets to await the return of night. A whore, her scarlet wig askew, leaned against a wall and shouted friendly abuse at him. A tinker with a hand cart full of battered apples went down to take up position near the bridge to await the morning custom. A journeyman, his pack animals strung out behind him, walked briskly, determined to get out of Southwark before the day’s business began. At the small crossroads between Stinking Alley and Pig Lane a group of lepers, heads hooded, faces masked, crouched in a tight group and watched a mad gipsy woman do a strange, silent dance.

Athelstan stopped and looked up between the overhanging houses. The sky was now streaked with light so he went back to his house, still determined to keep his mind clear. He tidied up, washing cups and sweeping the floor. Outside Southwark woke, stirred by the rattle of carts, the cries of children and shouts of traders. A small group began to assemble outside the church as the workmen returned, announcing their presence by loud oaths and the clatter of tools.

Athelstan decided to leave matters be. He went upstairs and knelt at his small prie-dieu and began to recite divine office, Matins, Lauds and Nones, his mind swept up by the mystery of the psalms, the chants of praise and the graphic descriptions from the prophet Isaiah.

Athelstan heard a commotion below but decided to ignore it. Then a series of shouts and exclamations, followed by a loud knocking on the door. He breathed a final prayer and hurried down. Watkin and Pike stood there, faces bright with excitement.

‘Father! Father! You’ve got to come! There’s been a miracle!’

‘Every day’s a miracle,’ he replied harshly.

‘No, Father, a real miracle.’

They dragged him out of the house and round to the front of the church where a small crowd had assembled. They ringed a tall, white-haired man who had the sleeve of his green gown pushed back and was showing his arm to all and sundry.

‘What is this?’ Athelstan snapped, forcing his way through.

The fellow turned. His face was broad and suntanned. Athelstan noted the laughter wrinkles round his mouth and eyes and the good quality of his garments. Beside him was a woman, auburn ringlets peeping out from under a light blue head-dress; her buttercup yellow smock over a white shift looked costly, well cut and clean. The man smiled at Athelstan.

‘Father, a miracle!’

‘Nonsense!’ snapped Athelstan.

‘Look, Father!’ The man showed Athelstan his right arm from elbow to wrist. ‘When I woke this morning my arm was infected. Five days ago I received a cut.’ He pointed to a small, pink line still faintly discernible halfway up his arm. ‘I left it untreated and so contagion set in, corrupting the skin. Physician Culpepper treated it with ointments and bound it with bandages but it got no better.’ The fellow looked round and Athelstan saw many of his parishioners staring owl-eyed and open-mouthed at the man’s dramatic story.

‘Last night I could not sleep, Father. The itching was so intense.’ He licked his full lips. ‘Yesterday we heard about the saint being discovered. Father,’ the man’s eyes pleaded with Athelstan, ‘I became desperate. I went into your church. I leaned against the coffin and prayed for help.’

‘It’s true!’ The young woman beside him spoke up. She pointed to a pile of dirty bandages just outside the church door. ‘My husband said he felt better, the pain and itching had gone.’ Her smiling eyes pleaded with Athelstan. ‘I can only tell you what happened. We took the bandages off.’ She pointed to a water-seller hurrying down the street. ‘I bought a stoup of water and cleansed the arm. There was no contagion, Father. The skin is as clear as a baby’s!’

A gasp of astonishment greeted her declaration. Athelstan gazed suspiciously at the man’s arm.

‘You said you leaned against the parish coffin and said a prayer?’

The man now unrolled the sleeve of his gown. ‘It’s as I have said, Father. I was there no more than ten minutes.’

‘I saw the bandage being taken off!’ Watkin shouted. ‘It’s true, Father! It’s a miracle!’

People crossed themselves and looked fearfully back at the church.

‘Father,’ Tab the tinker roared, ‘what shall we do?’

‘We should shut up, Tab, and keep a cool head. Come!’ Athelstan ordered. ‘Everyone, back into the church. Pike, go and get physician Culpepper. Give him my apologies but it’s important that he come here now.’

The parishioners followed Athelstan and the man with the miraculous cure back into St Erconwald’s. Athelstan ordered them to sit down on a bench and keep quiet. He went outside and leaned against the door as an excited clamour broke out behind him. He crouched and examined the pile of dirty bandages: they were soiled with dark stains and gave off a putrid odour. Athelstan was still scrutinising them when Pike returned with an aggrieved-looking Culpepper.

‘Father, what is it now?’

‘Master physician, I apologise but there’s a man in the church, one of your patients. He claims his arm had some putrefaction of the skin, that you dressed and bandaged it.’

Culpepper hitched his fur-trimmed robe closer round his bony shoulders, his usually humorous face now tense with vexation.

‘Father, is this all it’s about? I can’t remember every injury!’

‘Go in there,’ Athelstan pleaded. ‘Go in, see the man, look at his arm and then come back and tell me.’

Shaking his head and muttering curses, Culpepper obeyed. Athelstan stayed outside. The babble of voices behind him stilled for a while and then broke out again as Culpepper, a surprised, anxious look on his face, re-emerged from the church.

‘Well?’ Pike asked, his face and body tense as a whippet’s.

The physician looked sheepishly at Athelstan.

‘It’s true, Father. Some days ago Raymond D’Arques came to me with a terrible skin infection. I examined it carefully, put some ointment on, bandaged it and charged him a fee.’

The arm was putrefying?’

‘Definitely, Father. Some sort of fungus-like rash which coarsened the skin and caused a terrible itching.’

‘And now it’s healed?’

‘You have seen it, Father. So have I.’

‘Could such an infection be healed by the ointment you put on it?’

‘I doubt it, Father. Not in the time. Such infections, and I have seen them before, take weeks, even months to heal. The skin is now wholesome and fresh.’

Athelstan kicked the small pile of bandages. ‘And these are yours?’

The doctor picked them up without a second thought and sniffed them carefully. ‘Yes, Father, and if you don’t need them, and he certainly doesn’t, I’ll take them back to use again.’ The physician pushed his face close to Athelstan’s. ‘I can’t explain it, Father, and neither can you. Anyway, why shouldn’t God work miracles in St Erconwald’s?’ He turned on his heel and stamped off down the street.

Athelstan looked at Pike. ‘What do you know of this Raymond D’Arques?’

‘A good man, Father. He and his wife Margot live off Dog Leg Lane. He owns quite a big house near the Skinner’s Yard.’

Athelstan leaned against the wall. Dog Leg Lane was just within the boundary of his parish.

‘I never see them at church,’ he muttered.

‘Ah,’ Pike replied, ‘that’s because he and his young wife are prosperous and go to St Swithin’s. They are good, pious people, Father, and give regularly to the poor. He’s a fair tradesman, well liked and respected. You ask old Bladdersniff. He knows every man’s business.’

Athelstan sighed and went back into the church where his excited parishioners now ringed Raymond D’Arques and his wife. The man came towards him, waving the others back.

‘Father,’ he whispered, ‘I am sorry. My arm was sickly, I came here to pray. All I can do is thank God and you. Please accept this.’ He pushed a silver coin into Athelstan’s hand.

The priest stepped back. ‘No, no, I can’t.’

‘Father, you must. It’s my offering. If the church won’t have it, give it to the poor.’ D’Arques clasped Athelstan’s hand. ‘Please, Father, I won’t trouble you again. Margot,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘we have bothered this poor priest enough.’

He walked away. His wife smiled at Athelstan, touched him gently on the hand and slipped quietly through the door after her husband.

‘Well, Father!’ Watkin the dung-collector, arms folded, legs apart, confronted his priest. ‘Well, Father,’ he repeated, ‘we have our miracle. The cure proves that we have a saint here in St Erconwald’s.’

Athelstan saw the gleam of anticipated profit in the dung-collector’s eyes.

‘There’ll be pilgrimages!’ the sexton shouted. ‘St Erconwald’s will become famous. You can’t stop us,’ he added defiantly. ‘You know church law. The nave belongs to the people. This is our church!’ He pointed a stubby finger towards the transept. ‘That’s our coffin, our skeleton and our saint. Anyone who thinks different can bugger off!’

A chorus of approval greeted his words. Athelstan looked at his parishioners. He just wished Benedicta was here to calm things for he recognised the dangerous mixture of religious fervour and the prospect of fat profits stirred up in the rest. Tab the tinker would go back to his shop and hammer out fine amulets, effigies and crosses, and be selling them within a day. Amasias the fuller would display cloths embroidered with an ‘E’ which he would claim had touched the remains of the saint. Huddle the painter would sell crude drawings on pieces of parchment. Pike would get his wife to bake bread and sweetmeats and form an unholy alliance with Watkin to levy a toll upon the pilgrims and sightseers. Athelstan felt a surge of pity but realised that now was not the time for cool logic or blunt truth.

‘Let me think about it,’ he said. He drew himself to his full height and stared round at his parishioners. ‘Little children,’ he declared, using the phrase he always called them on giving a sermon, ‘I beg you to be careful and prudent. God works miracles. This day is a miracle. Each of you, unique in yourself, is a miracle. Do not act hastily for this matter is not yet resolved. I will not oppose you, but think about what this will do to you and our parish in the end. You are good people but I think you are blinded.’

‘What about the miracle?’ Mugwort shouted. ‘What about our martyr?’

Athelstan smiled. ‘As the psalmist says, Mugwort, who knows the mind of God? We shall see, we shall see.’

He turned on his heel and left them and, despite the hour, went back to his house and drank a cup of wine with a speed the Lord Coroner would have admired.