The Bones of Avalon

XVI

Love the Dead

No bones were visible within the shop, only raw skin, and I began to wonder if I were tricked.

The premises were in a mean and stinking alley off what was called Magdalene Street, opposite the abbey gatehouse. The sky was darkening now, and swollen like a vast bladder, with unshed rain.

Inside the shop, however, all was pale and soft: everywhere, the skins and fleeces of sheep, some made into rough garments and bulky hats.

And could this truly be Benlow the bone-man?

I’d imagined him old and shrivelled, clad in rags, but this man was no more than my own age. Tall, fair-haired and fresh-faced, and his apparel was of a quality far finer than mine and almost certainly above his station – the silver brooch in his hat, that fashionable slash in his doublet, red as a fresh wound.

He bowed and made gesture toward an array of garments hanging from hooks along one wall.

‘Fleece cloak, my lord?’

‘Fleece-?’

‘You don’t want to be took in by this fine weather. ’Twill turn biting cold by the week’s end, that’s what all the shepherds say, and nobody knows the weather better than a shepherd.’

‘I already, um, have a cloak,’ I said.

‘Fleeced?’

‘Well-’

‘Thought not!’ He bounced upon his toes, his tone light and soft as down-feathers. ‘I’m guessing, my lord, that you ain’t from these parts. London, am I right? Not been here long?’

‘Not yet one day.’

Jesu, it felt like a month.

‘Thought I knew not your face! Well, let me tell you, my lord, the winters in London they don’t compare – they do not compare – with what it’s like out here when the snow comes. And it will come again, before spring, sure as I’m standing here. Don’t mean to put fear into you, but this is God’s absolute truth – without a fleece about your shoulders, my lord, you may die. Ask anybody.’

Eyeing me, now, from head to boots, as if estimating what size coffin I’d require. His accent was more London than the west, which maybe explained why Cowdray had been so quick to finger him to me.

I was silent for a moment, and then looked him in the eyes.

‘No man need fear the cold, ‘ I said calmly, ‘if he has the love of God in his heart.’

‘Ah.’ His face turned at once solemn. ‘How true. How very true that is, my lord.’

‘You’re Master Benlow?’

‘So my mother tells me.’

‘Well, I’m here with a friend.’

‘A friend.. I see. ’

‘We’ve ridden for many days. My friend -’ my voice falling away – ‘is ill.’

‘Oh.’

‘ Sorely ill.’

‘That saddens me, my lord, it truly does.’

‘And, since his arrival, is become worse.’

‘Oh, that is bad news.’ He folded his arms. ‘Because, you know, they say that however strong a man’s faith be…’

‘Sometimes prayer alone is not sufficient.’

‘I’ve heard that, too.’

I was, as you know, not much good at this, but kept step with him.

‘We came here,’ I said, ‘having been told of… miracles?’

He leaned back at last, arms folded, lips pursed at an angle.

‘Been many of those, true enough. Glaston be famous the world over for its miracles. The mark of the Saviour’s been upon this town since He walked these hills as a boy and his uncle, old Joe Mathea, laid down the first stones for the abbey, but I expect you know that.’

I nodded. ‘Once, a true pilgrim might have gone to the abbey and prayed over the relics of saints. All the hundreds of saints buried there.’

‘All gone now.’

I took breath, met his slanting gaze.

‘ All gone?’

‘Gone from the abbey,’ he said.

‘But not necessarily from…’ I’d run out of byways and subtlety. ‘Master Benlow, my friend is a man of considerable wealth.’

‘Where’s he lie, my lord?’

‘At the George.’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘There is a man lying at the George, I’ve heard that. They thought it was the plague.’

‘We don’t believe it to be the plague,’ I said. ‘But he’s very weak, all the same.’

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘two women were cured of the plague after a visit to St Joe’s shrine. Sure as I stand before you. You knew of that?’

‘Where is… the shrine?’

To my knowledge, there was no evidence at all that Joseph of Arimathea had ever set foot in Glastonbury, never mind been buried here… only lustrous legend.

‘Ah!’ Benlow tapped his lips. ‘Not many know that, and those that do keeps silent.’

‘And are you one of them, Master Benlow?’

‘The Vicar of Wells, now,’ Benlow said. ‘ He couldn’t walk proper and he comes limping over here one day and he was cured in no time at all! And a boy – no word of a lie – was carried in stone dead and was, there and then, raised. Oh, your friend, he’s come to the right place.’

‘Yes.’

‘It just ain’t so easy no more… to find a bone to kiss.’

This was the first mention of bone. I told him we’d thought to take something home with us, some small, blessed relic that might be kept in our own church… secretly, of course.

‘Oh, must be secret, my lord. Must!’ He peered beyond me toward the door. ‘What did you have in mind? A splinter from the true cross? Bottle of water poured from the Holy Grail itself? Or… a fragment…’

‘A fragment?’

‘A piece’ – he leaned close, his voice a wisp upon the air – ‘ a shard of sainted skeleton. ’

I waited a moment, lest I be thought too eager.

‘How much?’

‘Well now, that would depend upon the size of it… and the eminence of the saint.’

‘Who was the most eminent here?’

His eyes went still. I sensed his greed.

‘I am,’ I said, ‘a man of discretion.’

‘Follow me then,’ he said, ‘my lord.’

In the windowless storehouse behind the shop, a single candle burned from a ledge, and the smell of new fleece was overlaid by the almost suffocating scent of incense around the foot of a ladder to the loft.

‘Lambs of God,’ Benlow said. ‘Poor beasts.’

He giggled. Picking up a broom, he brushed wool and rushes away from the centre of the boarded floor, exposing there a shallow well. He paused, peering at me through the gloom.

‘And you were sent here, were you?’

I nodded.

‘See, I don’t usually do no business in town. Some folk feels strongly about certain items being taken away, if you get my flow. When the weather’s better, I usually goes on the road – with a big, hairy friend, naturally, for holy theft’s still a problem in some parts. Though I do reckon a relic stole is a relic cursed and he who steals it won’t last long in this life.’

Bending to the well in the floor, he pulled out a short board and then a second.

‘Pass me the candle, my lord.’

I saw a wooden ladder, leading into blackness.

‘You may go first.’ Benlow held up the candle. ‘Mind your head.’

I held tight to the ladder, not knowing how deep this well might be, but after three or four rungs my feet were both on the ground. It was no deeper than…

…a grave. And as cold.

And smelled like one. An acrid richness, full of earth and damp, and I began to wonder if I’d descended into some kind of cemetery vault.

Benlow handed down the candle, and I saw that the ground was earthen, with rough stone flags set into it, and the wooden ceiling was too low for me to stand upright.

‘There’s a bench to your left,’ Benlow said. ‘Best to sit, or you may emerge unable to hold up your head again. I always sit myself. Or lie.’ He giggled. ‘Not always alone…’

He arrived at the foot of the ladder. Dusted down his doublet, then gestured me to a bench against a wall of what looked to be rubble stone and took the candle to fire two rush-lights on brackets.

Sinking down uncomfortably on the bench, I perceived that the smell of damp and earth was overlaid now with a strange sweetness. Turning my head as light flared, I saw another smile and shuddered: a human skull sat on an arm of the bench, jawless, as if the teeth were sunk into the wood. Hitting my elbow on something hard, turning to see another on the opposite arm, this one with a hole in its cranium.

And then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the faint light, I saw that the wall was not of rubble but of hundreds of tight-packed bones – skulls and pelvises and skeletal hands, all jammed in, some with numbers painted on them in black and red. Benlow looked over them, waggling his fingers, then darted and plucked something from the wall, and I saw that the fat for the nearest rush-light was held in what was, unmistakably – dear God – an upturned human brain-pan.

Benlow saw me taking all this in and grinned, a diadem of small, pointed teeth.

‘Out of death comes light. I do so love the dead. Do you not? And where in the world would I find such company as here? Tell me that, my lord.’

He came and sat down next to me, and I saw he was holding a slim, curved bone, brown as a willow-twig.

‘See this? A rib of St Patrick. One of the very bones that caged his noble heart. Did you know St Patrick was here, and all the Irish monks that followed him? And look…’

Opened out his other hand. The specks in his palm looked like bird-shit.

‘Teeth of St Benignus, after whom the new church is named. He was Patrick’s heir, did you know that?’

‘Why aren’t they in the church? Where did you get all-?’ ‘Relics? In a church? Where have you been, my lord?’ He sniffed. ‘Bloody old cold coming on. I don’t think you have yet introduced yourself.’

‘My name is Dr John.’

‘A doctor.’

‘Not of physic. Tell me… what of other relics?’

‘My lord, how many do you want?’

I said nothing, unsure how to approach this. He leaned close, and I realised then that the sweet smell came from Benlow himself. Either his clothes or his body was copiously scented. A kind of incense mingled with sweat. Feeling, of a sudden, alarmed, I edged toward the end of the bench. Smiling faintly beside me, Benlow stretched out his long legs, hands behind his head, St Patrick’s rib lying in his lap.

‘ I do have -’ he whispered it, not looking at me – ‘ apostles.’

‘In Glastonbury?’

‘Many famous people came here to die, in a state of grace. And because death comes easy, here, where the fabric between the spheres is finer than muslin.’

I did not hesitate.

‘Like King Arthur?’

Maybe it was my own apprehension, or maybe not. But I felt something. A change. A troubling of the air. Benlow sat up, apparently unhurried, but I knew it was not so.

‘A hundred saints in the wall,’ he said sourly, ‘and all the bastards want is Arthur.’

‘All who want?’

I saw his full lips compressing.

‘Who sent you here, my lord?’

‘The innkeeper at the George, that’s all.’

He turned to look at me.

‘And what use would Arthur be to your sick friend?’

‘Arthur stands for strength and valour. My friend’s been a soldier.’

‘Well, I don’t think you have a sick friend.’

‘Actually, I do. And you know of him. Because you keep your eyes open, Master Benlow. As anyone would, in your particular trade.’

He sniffed. Wiped his nose with the back of a hand.

‘And there was me,’ he said, ‘thinking that such a nice-looking young man might be not averse to some boy-play.’

‘What?’

‘You’re a much-travelled man, I can tell that. And you came down here without a word. Always a good test. Most men tell me what they want and wait in the light. Whereas a man drawn towards darkness and death… I can tell you that down here among the dead, you get a rare-’

‘Master Benlow!’

Oh my God, a buck-hunter. Louvain had been full of them. I backed up against the skull.

‘Master Benlow, who else has been here in search of the remains of Arthur?’

‘And who are you to ask?’

‘I’m an officer with the Queen’s Commission on Antiquities.’

‘Oh, blind me!’ Benlow laughed shrilly. ‘There’s a bloody ole mouthful for you.’

‘And the only mouthful, I’m afraid, that you’re likely to get from me. Now, who-?’

‘Ho fucking ho!’

The light flickering wildly in his eyes.

I said, ‘Listen to me… I’m not Leland. I’m not here to take away your livelihood. Or any of your bones. Bones, as you say, are not much in favour any more.’

‘Except for Arthur’s, it’d seem.’

‘Someone’s been here in search of the bones of Arthur?’

He said nothing. His face was sulked in the yellowy light. ‘Did you have them?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know where they are? Do you know who took them when the shrine was toppled at the Dissolution?’

‘I can’t help you. Not with bones.’

‘Meaning what?’

He half rose. He was panting. ‘If I give you what I have of Arthur, will you go away?’

‘That depends.’

‘Wait.’

He sprang up and was gone into the shadows. I tensed, keeping my eyes on the ladder in case he should double back and leave me down here, boarded up with the dead, but I could hear him scuffling about, the clacking of bones pulled out and flung aside. All the saintly bones that never were.

I saw then that the underground chamber was longer than I’d supposed, and in the dimness beyond the light I made out a wooden door. A door? Where could it go? We were already, I guessed, beyond the walls of Benlow’s shop.

I’m not a complete fool and was about to make for the ladder when Benlow emerged at last from the shadows bearing a wooden box, clearly modern and hardly big enough for Arthur’s foot-bones. He knelt at my feet and lifted its lid.

‘Look…’

On a bed of fleece lay a fragment, not of bone, but of splintered wood.

‘There,’ he said.

‘What is it?’

‘Touch it.’

I placed a finger inside the box. The wood was hard, probably oak, blackened with age.

‘Picture it, my lord,’ Benlow said, but his voice was strained now and desperately wheedling. ‘See a great hall hung with banners and lit by a thousand torches. Hear the walls echoing tales of valour.’

‘Don’t piss with me, Benlow.’

He slammed the lid down on the box and thrust it at me. ‘Take it.’ His jaw trembling. ‘Take it back to London with you. Please. Don’t come back! How many other men alive today can say they’ve laid hand on the round table?’