The Deadliest Sin

The Seventh Sin

‘Pride, vainglory, that’s the worst. It’s the father of all the other sins,’ the voice from the corner growled. ‘Every wicked deed in this world was sired by pride, by man thinking himself more deserving than his fellows and wiser than God.’

His fellow pilgrims at the table craned round in surprised. Up to now on this journey, they’d not heard Randal utter more than a few words, so that some didn’t even recognise his voice. And now that they had heard it, his tone only confirmed the opinion they’d already formed of the man, for his voice wasn’t a pleasant one, more like shingle being dragged out by the tide.

As usual, Randal had taken his food over to the rickety bench in the far corner and had sat, hunched, eating and drinking alone, as if he was afraid his meats might be snatched from him. Even inside the inn, he kept his hood pulled up over his head, the long points wound round turban-style, seeming ready to leave in an instant should the need arise. And in truth his fellow pilgrims privately wished he would leave. Most of those sitting around the table had hoped he would go on ahead with the other group to Thetford, while those in the group who had braved the rain and travelled on were much relieved he’d elected to stay behind. Randal’s presence unnerved everyone.

On the road, he’d always trailed a little way behind the group or kept well to the side of them, as wary as a stray dog. The others had tried to speak to him, but only received the briefest of answers, which had revealed nothing about the man, and even when he did speak he had the disquieting habit of looking over the shoulder of the person he was addressing, as if there was someone standing just behind them. The look was so intense, people would turn to see what he was staring at, but saw nothing.

There was more than enough to make even the boldest man wary on these roads. Any clump of trees or tall rushes might conceal a band of robbers lying in ambush or the next turn might find you stumbling into the deadly embrace of the pestilence, if the chilling rumours were to be believed. Those were fears enough for any man. They didn’t need the additional anxiety of travelling in the company of a fellow who gazed at things no one else could see. Only the mad or those who commune with ghosts and demons do that. In the large group they could avoid him, but now that they were fewer in number, their unease returned.

Randal’s remark about pride might have been left hanging in the air like a stray wisp of smoke had it not been for Laurence, ever the genial host. He could tell from the moment the group arrived that this man had not struck up any friendship among his fellow pilgrims, and reckoned this to be the perfect chance to draw him into companionship.

‘You have a tale for us, sir? Come, we are all eager to hear it, aren’t we?’ he said, nodding vigorously at the others to lend their encouragement to the man. But the grunts and murmurs he received in return were not quite as enthusiastic as he hoped for.

‘Come closer. Join us,’ he urged, but Randal did not move.

He clasped his beaker of ale in both hands and stared into it as if he could see shapes forming in it. Katie Valier shuddered and found herself tucking her thumbs beneath her fingers to ward off evil, as Randal began his tale of…

Pride

My tale takes place in the wealthy city of Lincoln, Randal began, not more than twenty years ago, though at times to me it seems like two hundred. It should be a holy city for it’s a city of many churches, some reckon there to be as many as forty-six within its walls and that’s besides the great Cathedral, the Bishop’s Palace, the chantry chapels and the religious houses. So there are a great many priests in the city and most have precious little to occupy their time, save for saying Masses for the dead, for which the wool merchants pay handsomely.

But the hours that God does not fill, the Devil will. And there was in that city a group of five young clerics who regularly met in the evening to drink, eat and gamble at dice. Their chief amusement was to set challenges for each other – dares, if you will – and wager on the outcomes. They frequented a tavern near St Mary Crackpole, which inspired the name for their little circle – the Black Crows. The owner allowed them to use the cellar, trusting that the priests would not steal from the kegs and barrels. It suited both parties: the young men didn’t want rumours reaching their superiors that they were spending long hours in the tavern and the innkeeper didn’t want the presence of a group of clerics to prick the consciences of his other customers and put them off their drinking and wenching.

Randal paused to take a gulp of his ale and the pilgrims’ host, Laurence, chuckled heartily, nodding as if he understood the problem of entertaining clerics only too well, but his laughter died away under the stern glare of Prior John Wynter, who clearly disapproved.

‘It seems to me this is a tale of greed or gluttony,’ the prior said coldly. ‘I hardly think that these young men can have had anything to be proud of. Shame is the only thing they should have been feeling.’

‘Ah, but they were proud,’ Randal said. ‘Listen and you shall see.’

They sought out each other’s company because they considered themselves to be far more interesting than the dull-witted clergymen who infested most of the city. There was one of the Black Crows in particular who took great pride in his talents and intellect, a young priest by the name of Father Oswin. He’d come to the attention of Bishop Henry Burghersh as someone who would do well in the Church, destined for great things and high office, many said. Oswin could read and write prodigiously well in several languages in addition to Latin, standing out markedly against his fellow priests, many of whom could barely gabble a Latin prayer by rote and that with little idea of what it meant.

Thus it was that Father Oswin, a man of no more than twenty-five, was selected, as one of the youngest men ever to be trained in the art of necromancy and other spiritual defences in the service of the Church. Subdean William and a few other members of the Cathedral Chapter had counselled strongly against it. It took a wise head and a steady nerve to wield power over spirits and angels, they said. No one under the age of forty was mature enough to handle such a role. But Dean Henry pointed out that wisdom did not necessarily increase with age. Many priests were just as addlepated and vacillating at sixty as they had been at sixteen, probably more so, he added, pointedly staring at several of the members of the Cathedral Chapter. The will of the dean, as head of Chapter, prevailed and Father Oswin entered into training.

Although Oswin was supposed to discuss his training only with his tutors, he could not resist the temptation to impress his fellow members of the Black Crows with little hints about the mysteries he was learning and, out of curiosity and perhaps a little jealousy, they constantly pressed him to tell them more.

One cold December night, the members of the Black Crows began to make their way towards their favourite tavern. There was a bitter wind blowing, carrying with it a fine misty rain, which clung to clothes and quickly soaked them.

First to arrive was Deacon Eustace, a thin-faced man with a long nose, which was always dripping and red, for he seemed perpetually to have a cold. He was dismayed to find himself the first, for he hated being down in the cellar alone. It was a gloomy place. Barrels and kegs of wine, flour and salt were stacked around the mildewed walls, and slabs of salted goat and bacon hung from the great hooks in the arched ceiling. The floor had once been the street on which Roman soldiers had marched and some in the town claimed their ghosts still did. It was only too easy to believe in ghostly soldiers in the flickering candlelight, which sent strange shadows creeping around the barrels and boxes.

Eustace had just made up his mind to wait for the others up in the warmth of the crowded ale-room, when he heard footsteps on the stairs and John ducked his head under the arch. He grinned cheerfully on seeing Eustace and clattered down the remaining steps into the cellar, stripping off his cloak as he came and shaking the rain from it. Eustace was still sitting huddled in his, for even in summer he complained constantly about the cold and damp of the cellar.

‘Good,’ John said, rubbing his meaty hands and straight away pouring himself a beaker of wine from the flagon on the table, which had been set ready for them. ‘Thought I was going to be last, and I’d have to drink fast to catch up.’

John had the build of a blacksmith rather than a cleric, with a strength to match. Indeed, that was the trade of his father and older brothers, but there wasn’t enough work in the smithy for all of them, and he, being the youngest, had taken minor orders simply to get an education, but he had no intention of remaining in holy orders. His talent lay in gambling, and he was convinced that if only he could scrape some money together, he could make a comfortable living as the owner of an honest gambling house, which would surely prosper if word spread that his tables had not been rigged, nor the dice weighted.

Footsteps clattered on the stairs again and Giles and Robert descended into the cellar. Giles, like John, was also in minor orders as the parish exorcist, his main duties being to exorcise infants at the church door prior to their baptism and organise the parishioners who were to receive the host at Mass and ensure they didn’t smuggle the bread away uneaten to use in spells and charms. Giles bitterly resented this lowly role. Unlike John, he desperately wanted to be a priest, but he could not be ordained into major orders until he could find a living to support him. Without a wealthy patron, that was proving impossible.

He wiped the rain from his freckled face and threw himself down on the bench. It was evident to all that he was in a foul temper. ‘I swear one day they’re going find that old priest hanging from the rood screen with his tongue cut out. If I could carry him up there I do it myself.’

John leaned across the table and good-naturedly poured a beaker of wine for Giles.

‘Get that down you, lad, you’ll feel better. Giving you a hard time, is he?’

Giles made a growling sound at the back of his throat. ‘I swear that man’s mother was frightened by a viper when he was in her belly and he was born spitting venom. That’s if he was actually born at all. His parents probably dug him up from under a stone.’

Robert took the beaker that John, in turn, held out for him, and drained it gratefully in one long swallow, shuddering slightly at the sour taste. ‘Think yourself lucky you’ve only one like him to please. I’ve a hundred of them each worse than the last.’

Like Oswin, Father Robert was already ordained, but had no great liking for his post. His uncle, William, who was subdean of the Cathedral, had secured him a minor position there, but Robert spent as little time working as possible. As he was forever telling his friends, the one and only benefit of being employed in the Cathedral was that it was so large that, with a bit of ducking and weaving, you could always ensure you were somewhere else whenever anyone was looking for you.

‘And where is the divine princeling?’ Eustace enquired in his nasal tone, dabbing his dripping nose. ‘You two normally arrive together.’

Robert grimaced. ‘Taking instruction behind locked doors, or so some brat informed me. Probably summoning the Archangel Michael to do his bidding,’ he added sourly.

Giles rolled his eyes and John chuckled.

‘Anyway, I wasn’t going to hang around waiting for him. I’ve been trying to dodge my uncle all day. Probably noticed I wasn’t at Mass this morning and wants to blister my ears.’

Although Robert had no intention of exerting himself in the service of the Church – at least not in the position of dogsbody in which he found himself – all the same, he had been annoyed that his uncle had not suggested him for training in place of Oswin. He was kin, after all, and the post commanded a good stipend, and a great deal of respect. Most importantly of all, everyone knew it was a stepping stone directly into high office, and Robert thought the post of bishop would suit him well. He’d rather fancied living in sumptuous rooms and having a host of minions to wait on him.

‘So where were you that you missed Mass?’ John asked.

‘Still abed,’ Robert said.

‘And I wager it was not your own,’ Eustace muttered darkly.

Eustace took the vows of celibacy extremely seriously, unlike many of the clergy in Lincoln. He wouldn’t look at a woman, even turning his face away when one of the older serving women at the tavern approached. Oswin often teased him about it, saying he was scared he’d not be able to resist the temptation to jump on her, but in truth, Eustace gave every impression of loathing all females.

John, grinning broadly, shoved the flagon of wine towards Robert, almost tipping the whole lot over with the strength of the push. Eustace made a grab for it and succeeded in righting it just in time, shaking his head despairingly at John. If there was any object that could be tripped over, broken or crushed, you could always count on John to do it.

‘It’s as well you’ve no ambitions to priesthood,’ Eustace said. ‘You’d drop the infants in the font and knock out half your parishioners every time you tried to put the host in their mouths at Mass.’

As John opened his mouth to retort, the door creaked ajar once more and they glimpsed the hem of Oswin’s robes as he sauntered down the stairs. He ducked under the archway and descended the remaining steps. He was closely followed by the serving maid staggering under the weight of a steaming pot, a basket of bread trenchers and another of fresh bread. She lumbered over to the table and heaved the pot of civey of hare onto it, and handed round the bread trenchers. The young men made no attempt to help her, and she expected none. Clergy, she had long ago concluded, would leave you lying in the street in the path of a stampeding bull, sooner than soil their hands to help you up.

She tucked a greasy lock of russet hair back under her voluminous cap and retreated back upstairs with a promise to return with another flagon of wine as soon as she had a moment, which judging by the laughter and shouts above them wasn’t likely to be soon. The men ignored her and concentrated on the meal, as if it had arrived on the table by magic.

Oswin stripped off his damp cloak, tossed it onto a barrel and settled himself on the bench. He was a well-favoured young man and a fringe of dark hair curled becomingly round his tonsure, making girls and matrons alike sigh that it was a pity that all the good-looking men ended up in the priesthood. Before anyone else could reach for it, Oswin leaned across and helped himself to the stew, sniffing appreciatively at the rich spicy steam.

‘Never realised exorcism could give a man such an appetite.’

Giles snorted. ‘It’s not that taxing. I do it every week, several times in fact.’

‘Saying a few words over a bawling infant or some crazed old woman is hardly the same thing. Even a boy in minor orders can do that.’ Oswin leaned forward eagerly, waving his knife on which he had speared a large piece of meat. ‘I’m talking about wrestling with demons, evil spirits, dark angels.’ His eyes glittered with excitement.

A dark flush spread over Giles’s face at the barely veiled insult. ‘And how many demons have you managed to subdue today? Send them all howling back to Hell in chains, did you? Have you actually read the book of exorcism they gave me when I was made exorcist? Banishing demons is in the book, too, you know.’

‘But divining isn’t, nor summoning spirits,’ Oswin retorted. ‘Divining the hidden holy objects. Now that’s a rare skill.’

‘And I suppose you can do that, too. Go on then, show us!’

Hearing the savagery in Giles’s tone, Robert glanced up from his meticulous dissection of the hare’s flesh from its bone. He cast about for a subject that would divert them and unfortunately blurted out the first and only thing that crossed his mind.

‘They’ve a new girl at the stew, backside sweet as twin peaches.’

‘Which you know, because you’ve been biting into them!’ Eustace snapped. ‘I don’t know how you can face your confessor.’

‘We all have our weaknesses and we all know what yours is, Eustace,’ Giles said acidly.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Hold your peace, lads,’ John said, doling out what remained of the wine into each beaker in equal measure. ‘I reckon one of you brought the Devil in here with you tonight. I’m away to fetch some more wine, ’cause I reckon Meggy’s forgotten we’re down here. So shift your arses and get out the dice. More gaming, less talking is what we need.’

It took John a fair time before he could finally waylay one of the scurrying tavern girls and cajole her into ignoring her other customers and bringing wine from the broached barrel in the yard. Meggy was clearing the gravy-soaked bread trenchers from the table as he lumbered down the steps. John groaned, hearing again the sound of an argument in progress. Mischief rides the east wind, his mother used to say and she wasn’t wrong. It was a spiteful wind that always set men in an ill humour. He set the wine on the table, spilling some of it onto the basket of fresh bread. Unwilling to see either wine or bread go to waste, he crammed the soggy bread into his mouth as he poured the contents of the flagon into the Black Crows’ beakers.

‘So where’s the dice, lads?’

‘We,’ Giles said, with a note of triumph in his voice, ‘have found something far more interesting to wager on, something that should be a challenge even for you.’

They all knew that if women were Robert’s vice, then John’s was definitely gambling, not that he would have considered any pleasure that was so exhilarating to be a vice.

John flopped down on the end of the bench with such a thump that Giles, sitting on the other end, felt it lift beneath him. John leaned forward eagerly.

‘So what’s to do? What’s the wager?’ he demanded.

‘Our princeling here has been boasting that he can find any holy object that’s been hidden,’ Eustace said. ‘Giles has challenged him to put it to the test. Robert is to take something from the Cathedral and hide it. The wager is that Oswin won’t be able to find it, using divination alone.’

‘And when I win,’ Oswin said, ‘Giles will do a penance of my choosing in front of all the Black Crows for accusing me of lying.’

From the malicious expression on Oswin’s face, it was plain he’d already decided any penalty was going to be as humiliating an ordeal as was in his power to devise.

‘And when you lose,’ Giles countered, ‘you will confess the sin of pride and vainglory to your confessor and I trust he will impose the full penance that is laid down by the Church.’

A spasm of alarm flashed across Oswin’s face. The full penance for the sin of pride was, as they all knew, that for seven long years the sinner must abstain from meat every Wednesday, in addition to the regular fish days, and consume only dry bread and water on Fridays. In practice, it was considered so harsh, it was seldom given any more but, for a man in training to do battle with the forces of darkness on behalf of the Church, there was every likelihood the penance would be imposed exactly as written. For a man with such sin on his soul could certainly not fight demons and hope to survive.

‘Never mind that,’ John said, ignoring the serious faces of his companions. ‘What’s the stake to be?’ His eyes were ablaze with a fierce excitement that only the cockfights or gaming tables could normally engender.

‘One full mark,’ Oswin said, staring unblinking at Giles. ‘Each.’

Giles swallowed hard and he swayed slightly on the bench, as if he’d been struck.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. That’s far too rich for our stomachs,’ Eustace protested. ‘It’s all very well for you and Robert, but John and Giles are only in minor orders. They’re paid a pittance, and a deacon’s stipend’s not much better,’ he added, ruefully patting his own purse.

Oswin raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, of course, if Giles can’t afford to pay then we’d better call it off.’

‘Scared, are you? Trying to find a way of weaselling out?’ Giles said. ‘Don’t worry about me finding the money, Eustace. We won’t need to pay, because this braggart isn’t going to win.’

‘Hold the lantern up higher, the keyhole’s not at my feet,’ Robert whispered fiercely.

John obligingly tipped the horn lantern, almost smashing it against the door as he did so.

The wind screamed through the bare branches and rattled the shutters of the tiny chapel. On either side of the lonely track, trees and bushes bowed and swayed, and in the darkness it was only too easy to see them as robbers or wolves advancing. The men clustered around the door drew their cloaks tighter about them, shuffling impatiently. There was nothing, save for their tonsures, to mark them as clerics, for like all priests they dressed in the same clothes as those worn by the laity, except when they were on their way to and from church, and when performing, their duties.

Cursing under his breath, Robert finally wrangled the great iron key into the lock and eased the door open. A stench of mice, mildew and rotting wood rolled out to greet them, but the men jostled each other to get inside, anything to be out of that cutting wind. Tiny creatures scurried into the shadows, as the light of the swinging lantern disturbed their nocturnal foraging. Stagnant puddles of water on the floor glistened black under the candlelight. The roof was evidently leaking in several places. The low door opposite the main one still had its key rusting in the lock though it was evident no one had entered that way for years, since it was draped beneath a thick swathe of dirt-encrusted cobwebs.

The dim yellow light from the lantern revealed a stone altar with a cross cut into each corner, and a heap of bird droppings on top. But filthy as it was, all the men turned as one to face it, kneeling and making their obeisance. They gave the gesture no more thought than breathing.

Eustace took the lantern from John, before he could smash it or drop it, and set it down in a deep niche, the length of a man, built into the wall to the left of the altar. It was the Easter Sepulchre in which the statue of Christ was placed on Good Friday and brought forth from on Easter Sunday. A crumbling wreath of yew branches and the ancient stubs of candles lay among the dirt that had accumulated in there. He hoped that keeping the light low down would prevent it from being seen outside, shining through the broken shutters. He’d no wish to attract the attention of the kind of men who roamed these tracks at night.

He sniffed, wiping his dripping nose with his hand. ‘This place is a disgrace. Who says Mass here?’

‘No one any more,’ Robert said. ‘Family that endowed the chantry all died out and eventually so did money they’d left to pay the priests to say the Masses for their souls.’

‘Is it still consecrated?’ Oswin said. ‘This must be done on consecrated ground.’

‘Trying to find another reason for backing out?’ Giles said, from the shadows.

Robert jumped in quickly, before another argument could break out. ‘The relic’s still beneath the altar; so long as that remains, it’s as holy a place as St Hugh’s shrine at the Cathedral. See for yourself.’

He beckoned Oswin to the altar and, taking his hand, pressed it against a small gap beneath the altar slab, which was invisible in the shadow. ‘Put your fingers in there if you don’t believe me. Can you feel the little wooden box? Earth taken from St Guthlac’s grave. Not as valuable as a saint’s bone or teeth or cloth from his cloak, I grant you, but it is a relic none the less.’

‘Satisfied, are we?’ Giles sneered. ‘Then let’s get on with it.’

‘Anxious to part with your money, Giles?’ Oswin retorted.

‘Like the rest of us, he’s anxious to return to a warm bed,’ Eustace grumbled.

‘Not before I get that cross back where it belongs,’ Robert said. ‘I came far too close to being caught, taking it from the chest. The Treasurer has the eyes of a falcon. I’m sure he suspects me of stealing something. You’ll see – come morning, he’ll be making those poor clerks of his check every candle and spoon in the entire Cathedral against the inventory. If he finds the cross missing, not even my uncle will be able to defend me. In fact, knowing Uncle William, he’ll be the first to suggest I should be exiled to some barren rock in the middle of the sea to spend the rest of my life as a hermit. He more or less threatened as much when I was caught with that girl in my bed. Probably have me flogged round the Cathedral for good measure, as well,’ he added gloomily. ‘I don’t know why I allowed you to talk me into this.’

‘Because,’ Oswin said, with a humourless smile, ‘you want to see me fail as badly as Giles does. But you are both going to be sadly disappointed.’

Robert bleated that it was a gross slander and he had no such desire, but it was apparent he couldn’t think of any other convincing reason for agreeing to do this.

‘Describe the cross,’ Oswin said, cutting through his protests.

‘Silver.’ Robert held his hands about a foot apart. ‘This tall. With blood garnets marking the places of the five wounds and in the centre, a piece of rock crystal covering three strands of hair from Bishop St Hugh.’

‘You addlepated frogwit!’ Giles exploded. ‘What in the name of Lucifer possessed you to take anything so valuable? If they discover that’s missing, they won’t just lock you up, they’ll wall you up for good and leave you to starve to death.’

Robert raked the stubble of his tonsure distractedly. ‘Oswin said he needed something holy, and I thought if I just took a candlestick, he could claim he couldn’t find it because it wasn’t powerful enough to cry out. Besides, they put the cheap stuff out on display and they’d notice any gaps immediately. They check those night and morning to make sure the pilgrims haven’t stolen anything, but the valuables are kept in the chests. They’re only brought out for the big festivals, so they won’t know the cross is gone.’

Oswin laid his hand on Robert’s shoulder. ‘And it will be back before anyone discovers it’s missing, trust me. But I must prepare. And I need silence, absolute silence.’

The other four backed away from him, retreating as far as the small chapel allowed. Oswin kneeled and then prostrated himself before the altar on the dirty, wet tiles, his chin resting on the floor, his eyes fixed on the dim outline of the altar that covered the reliquary of St Guthlac.

He had been certain that he could do this, but now that the moment had arrived, his confidence leeched out of him like the heat from his body into the cold ground. He’d fasted all day, prayed and bathed. Now he tried to clear his mind, calling on the powers of St Guthlac, St Hugh, the saints and all the Holy Virgins to prove as much to himself as to his brothers that he was worthy, that he had the skills denied to other men, skills that he swore before all the saints he would dedicate to the service of the Holy Mother Church.

‘If that which is holy is lost or stolen it will cry out like a child for its mother, calling out to the priest of God and guiding him, until it is found and restored.’

That is what was written. All he had to do was to believe it. He rose to his knees and taking the flask of holy oil from his scrip, anointed his head, hands, feet, ears, eyes, lips and breast, drawing on each the sign of the cross with the chrism. He moved closer to the lantern and, pulling a bottle of water and a tiny bowl from his scrip, he poured the water into the bowl and carefully tipped three drops of the oil into it, watching the pattern of the oil as it swirled in the water.

‘Hair of the blessed St Hugh, call out to me, cry to me, that I may find you.’ He murmured the words over and over again in a fever of prayer.

Finally, Oswin bowed his head to the altar, then clambered to his feet, turning slowly to face the four men. Even though they couldn’t read his expression in the dim light, there was no mistaking the confidence in his stance.

‘I know where the cross is hidden,’ Oswin announced, triumph ringing in his voice.

Giles exchanged an anxious glance with John, ‘Where?’

But already Oswin was making for the door.

The wind, if anything, seemed to have strengthened, hurling them back into the chapel as they tried to force their way out. It seemed to take Robert longer to lock the door than it had to unlock it and Oswin impatiently seized the lantern and strode away into the darkness, with the others scuttling after him. Eustace trailed along behind, sniffing like a bloodhound, as the bitter wind brought tears to eyes and set his nose streaming.

Giles hurried to catch up with Robert.

‘Is he heading in the right direction?’ he whispered, though he was forced to repeat the question several times, almost shouting into Robert’s ear as the wind snatched up the words.

Robert shrugged. ‘It’s not the route I would have taken,’ he said cautiously, ‘but it might lead us there.’

Oswin was out ahead, the feeble light of the lantern bobbing up and down at his side, but even he kept turning his head to make sure the others were following. No one wanted to find himself alone in the darkness on a foul night like this. The trees on either side of the path bent and groaned in the wind, creaking like gallows’ ropes, and somewhere in the distance a dog was howling. Behind them lay the massive city walls. A flickering red glow was just visible above them, from the torches that burned on the walls of its streets, as if the great gate was the entrance to Hell itself.

Ahead of them, Oswin’s tiny lantern light had stopped moving and then it suddenly vanished.

‘He might have waited for us to catch up,’ Giles said indignantly. ‘I can’t see the hand in front of my face. Is he deliberately trying to give us the slip? I knew the cheating-’

But his words were cut off abruptly as John slapped a great hand across his mouth, almost suffocating him.

‘Get off the track. Horses!’

They didn’t hesitate, but scattered and forced their way through the tangle of old undergrowth into the cover of the bushes, smothering curses as hose, cloaks and skin alike tore on brambles. Almost at once they heard the striking of iron on stone and the creak of leather harnesses. Two riders were trotting down the track, heading for the town. Their faces were muffled in hoods and their cloaks billowed behind them.

Each of the clerics crouched lower in his separate hiding place, his ears straining to hear if there were more riders following. Finally, when all seemed quiet, the Black Crows emerged one by one, dragging themselves free of the snagging brambles, and lumbering back onto the road.

‘Messengers?’ Eustace asked, jerking his head back in the direction the riders had taken.

‘Or robbers,’ Giles said. ‘I wasn’t going to stop them and ask. More to the point, where is Oswin?’

‘Behind you!’ a voice shouted into his ear, and Giles jerked round so violently, his foot slipped and he found himself grovelling on his knees in the dirt.

Oswin stood over him, laughing. ‘Why thank you for your obeisance, Giles. I always knew you’d bow to my superior talents one day.’

John hauled the cursing Giles upright, dumping him on his feet as if he was a small child.

‘Where to now?’ John asked.

‘Through here. I’ve found the place,’ Oswin exclaimed.

He plunged back into the grove of trees and they followed, and presently above the wind, they heard the sound of running water. Oswin held up the lantern. They were standing in a small clearing, at the centre of which a spring bubbled up into a pool before trickling away into a stream. They caught a glimpse of something flapping in the wind. As the light fell on it, they saw it was a thorn tree, leafless in winter, but not bare, for it was covered with hundreds of strips of faded rags, teeth strung on cords, locks of hair bound in coloured threads and strands of sheep’s wool, all fluttering wildly in the wind.

Next to it stood a small beehive-shaped shrine made of rough stone. The wooden statue that stood on the shelf inside was protected by iron bars, but that hadn’t prevented other offerings being stuffed through them, mostly crude little dolls in the form of swaddled babies, like the model of the infant Jesus placed in the crib at Christmas, except these were no more than an inch or two long and fashioned from cloth or wood.

‘What is this place?’ Eustace said, eyeing the tree with disgust.

‘St Margaret of Antioch’s well,’ Robert replied. ‘Folk come here to ask her aid.’

They all nodded. Margaret was a popular saint. It was said that any who lit candles to her would receive anything good they prayed for. She could also shield the dying from the Devil if they called on her name and protect women from the many dangers of childbirth too.

‘The cross is here?’ Giles demanded, looking from Oswin to Robert.

All eyes turned to Robert. He nodded slowly. ‘And you have to admit it’s not the most obvious hiding place. I only found it with difficulty and then only because I heard my uncle talking about it a while back.’ He gestured towards the thorn tree. ‘The locals say the tokens they tie there are to ask the saint to intercede for them, but the priest here in these parts reckons they’re offerings to the old goddess, says its pagan. He wanted to chop it down, but his parishioners got wind of it and threatened to chop him down, if he did.’

‘All very interesting, I’m sure,’ Giles said impatiently. ‘But we’re here to find the cross, so where is it?’

Oswin pointed to the shrine.

‘He’s right,’ Robert said. ‘At the back there’s a loose stone. The base of the shrine is hollow.’

All of them crowded round behind the shrine. Oswin placed the lantern close to it, then, pulling the knife from his belt, slid the blade between two of the stones and gently prised the stone forward, first on one side, then the other, until he could get enough of a grip on it to drag it from its resting place. He reached in, a look of undisguised elation on his face, but as the others watched his expression changed to a frown.

‘It was a snug fit,’ Robert warned. ‘You’ll have to tilt it backwards to get it out and in the name of the Blessed Virgin whatever you do, don’t damage it.’

But when Oswin’s hand emerged, it was clutching only a wad of sheep’s wool, tangled in a piece of cord. ‘There’s nothing there. It’s empty!’

‘That’s impossible,’ Robert cried. ‘You can’t be reaching in far enough. You’ve pulled the wrappings off, that’s what you’ve done, and left the cross in there. Here, let me.’

He almost flung Oswin aside and kneeled on the wet grass. Pulling up his sleeve, he reached into the shrine, twisting and turning his arm as he groped his way over every inch, his expression becoming ever more frantic.

‘It’s gone. It’s gone,’ he shrieked.

John hauled him out of the way and stuck his great fist inside and flailed around, bringing down a shower of dirt and small stones, but he could find nothing. Eustace followed, methodically working over every surface, but in the end he also was forced to withdraw empty-handed.

‘It’s not there,’ he announced, as if there could be any doubt in the matter. ‘That space would only just have contained it, as Robert says.’

‘Could some stones have fallen down on top and buried it?’ Giles asked, the only one not to have tried feeling for it.

‘It’s just bare earth on the bottom, nothing fallen, as far I could feel,’ Eustace said, ‘apart from what John brought down, of course. Besides, any fall would have covered the wrappings too. He pointed to the wool and cord still gripped in Oswin’s hand. ‘That is what you wrapped it in, Robert?’

He didn’t answer. He was sitting on the wet ground, his head clutched in his hand, groaning and rocking.

‘Someone must have watched you put it there and taken it,’ Eustace said.

‘But I was so careful,’ Robert wailed. ‘I waited until it was dark this evening and searched round thoroughly to make sure I was alone. What am I going to do? If it isn’t back by morning…’ He buried his head in his hands again, muttering what might have been either a prayer or a curse.

‘You told us this was a pagan place,’ Oswin said. ‘Witches and sorcerers use familiars in the form of hares, cats or ravens to bring them word. Was there an animal or bird close by?’

‘What would a witch want with a cross?’ Giles said. ‘It’d burn her if she touched it.’ His eyes narrowed as he stared at Oswin. ‘But you, on the other hand, you knew where the cross was and you disappeared with the lantern while we were hiding from the two riders. When you came back to find us you admitted you’d already been here. You had plenty of time to take it.’

‘And why, in heaven’s name, would I do that?’ Oswin demanded. ‘The whole point of the wager was for me to prove to you I could find it.’

Robert’s head jerked up. ‘Maybe being necromancer isn’t enough for you.’

He scrambled to his feet to face Oswin, his face contorted in anger. ‘You want to ingratiate yourself still further by discovering a thief. That would certainly get you noticed, wouldn’t it? You always said you’d be a bishop before you were thirty. What are you planning to do? Wait until they discover the cross is missing, then produce it before the whole Cathedral Chapter, claiming you’d divined where the thief had hidden it? It’s not enough for you to have us humble clerics admire your talents. That won’t help you advance. No, you need the bishop and every priest in Lincolnshire to know just how clever you are. Maybe if you’re lucky, word might even reach the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.’

Oswin fumbled with the buttons fastening his cloak and wrenched it from his shoulders, throwing it on the ground between him and Robert. He held his arms out wide.

‘Come on then,’ he taunted. ‘If you really believe I have the cross why don’t you search me? Want me to strip naked to make it easier?’

He whipped round to face Giles. ‘As for me having time to take it when the riders were passing, that applies to every one of you. Any of you could have slipped to the shrine while the others were hiding and taken it. And unlike me, you all had good reason. You all wanted me to fail to find it, so I’d lose the wager. You most of all, Giles, and you, John, because neither of you could afford to pay. You both admitted as much in the tavern. And with your fondness for gambling, you’d find the money very useful, if I had to pay you, wouldn’t you, John? So let’s search everyone, shall we?’

John pushed his way in front of Giles, his huge fists clenched. ‘Are you calling me a swindler, you steaming pile of pig shit?’

Before Oswin could reply, Eustace had stepped between them. ‘You claimed to have found the cross once already tonight, Oswin, so why can’t you tell where it’s gone now, or was that just a lucky guess? After all, you too dine with the subdean, so you could just as easily have heard about this place as Robert did.’

‘I’ve heard about a hundred places, how would I know which Robert would choose?’ Oswin said indignantly.

‘Unless you two are in collusion,’ Giles said. ‘Brothers of the glorious Cathedral are bound to stick together against us mere scullions who labour in the common churches. But Eustace is right. Here’s your chance to prove your talents to us once and for all. Go on, find the cross now!’

Oswin was almost white with rage. ‘I told you,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘The rite can only be performed on consecrated ground. Why do you think we went to that pigpen of a chapel? Because, unlike a shrine, it has a relic. I could go back there, but the time that would take would give the thief ample opportunity to whisk the cross far away. Or is that the idea, Giles? Get us out of the way, so you can carry it off?’

Oswin was breathing hard, trying to control his temper. ‘Look, if one of us took it, he would have had to conceal it somewhere nearby, under some fallen leaves or in a hollow tree, with the intention of returning for it later,’ he added, glaring pointedly at Giles. ‘There wouldn’t have been time for any of us to carry it far and return to the track again. So I suggest we search for it.’

The Black Crows eyed each other with hostility, but since no one else seemed to have a better solution, they reluctantly agreed to separate and search, drawing lots with dice as to who should go in which direction. After further heated argument as to who should get the lantern, it was decided to leave it in the centre of the clearing where its light could guide them back.

They disappeared into the trees. The whining of the wind in the branches mingled with the sounds of shoes shuffling through fallen leaves, of sticks poking under sodden vegetation, and the occasional cry of hope as they struck against something hard, only to find it was a stone or a rusting horse-shoe. In front of them, the wind-whipped bushes and trees loomed out of the darkness as assassins waiting to trip and tear, scratch and strike. Like sailors in a storm, they kept glancing back towards the clearing, fearful of losing sight of the faint yellow glow that appeared and disappeared behind the swaying bushes.

A shriek tore through the darkness, freezing every man in his tracks. They held their breath, listening, frantically trying to decide which direction it had come from, but the cry had been too brief and the wind distorted every sound. So, they turned, stumbling back towards the fragile safety of the clearing, the blood pounding in their ears, as if the Devil’s black horse was galloping behind them.

One by one, they burst out of the trees, staring at each other. What was that? Who was that? Where did it come from? Did you hear? It took several minutes before they realised that only four men stood in the clearing. Where is he? Which way did he go? Come on! Hurry!

Huddling together in a little knot, they edged back into the wood, taking the lantern with them, holding it up high, as monstrous shadows ran beside them.

Over there. What’s that?

His body was lying curled on its side, his back towards them. They hurried across and crouched down. His eyes were staring sightless out into the darkness beyond. His mouth was wide open, in pain and shock, one hand still lying across his chest as if he’d clutched at the wound, trying to stanch the blood that had gushed out over his fingers. The Black Crows did not have to touch him to know at once that Giles was dead.

They stared at one another in shock and fear. But who? Why? They peered into the darkness, staring wildly about them for any sign of an assailant, but only the trees stirred.

Robert was visibly trembling. ‘What are we going to do? If… if we take him back to Lincoln, the whole story will come out, and what if they think one of us killed him?’

‘What if one of us did murder him?’ Eustace said, looking from one to the other of his companions. ‘I don’t see anyone else out here, do you? If Giles stumbled upon the cross before the person who stole it had a chance to recover it…’

‘God’s bones, you surely can’t believe that,’ John said aghast. ‘None of us would kill for that cross.’

‘One of us might,’ Eustace, said, staring at him pointedly, ‘if he was desperately in need of money. People have been known to run up quite a debt at the gaming houses or cockpits, and they say the men who own them are not known for their patience.’

With a bellow of rage and indignation, John aimed his huge fist at Eustace’s jaw. If it had connected, Eustace would probably have lost a few teeth, but he managed to stumble backwards just in time.

‘Stop it!’ Robert pleaded. ‘It’s bad enough one murder’s been committed without adding a second. No one believes you killed him, John, but the point is they’re bound to think one of us did. And how are we to prove otherwise? And once they learn we all took the cross, they might even think we all had a hand in his murder as well.’

‘It was you who took it,’ Eustace said. ‘The rest of us had nothing to do with it.’

‘But we all knew he was going to do it,’ Oswin said quietly. ‘And we told him to do it. That’s conspiracy and it carries the same punishment. Robert’s right, we can’t take Giles back, nor can we let the body be discovered.’

‘We could bury him out there among the trees,’ Robert said. ‘The grave wouldn’t be noticed, if we covered it with the fallen leaves and the old bracken.’

‘Can’t dig with your bare hands,’ John said, still glowering at Eustace. ‘Need a spade to dig a deep enough hole and you’ll be digging through roots. Not an easy job, nor a quick one. Too shallow and he’ll be dug up by any passing dog or fox. I can fetch us a couple of spades. I know where our sexton keeps them. But I’ll not be able to get back with them till tomorrow night. So what’ll we do with the body till then?’

Oswin gnawed at his lip. ‘That chapel we met in, you said no one ever uses it, Robert. We could hide him in there until we can dig the grave.’

It took them some time to retrace their steps to the chapel, for even in the dark they dared not risk using the track and had to wind their way through the trees. John carried Giles’s corpse all of the way, slung over his shoulder like a sack of wheat. But by the time they got inside and thankfully locked the door behind them, even he was staggering and he dropped the body onto the tiles with such a crash, that if Giles hadn’t already been dead, the fall probably would have killed him.

‘Where… where do we put him?’ Robert asked, despondently. ‘It doesn’t seem right just to leave him on the floor, and the shutters are broken in places. Someone could peer in, when it’s light.’

They gazed around. The chapel was so small that there weren’t many hiding places.

‘Behind the altar?’ Eustace suggested.

Oswin shook his head. ‘He could be seen by someone looking through that casement above it. There… in the Easter Sepulchre. We can use the wooden cover to seal it, as they do on Good Friday.’

With Oswin taking the feet and John the head, they carried the body to the long alcove and with much pushing and shoving managed to ease it inside, crossing the hands over the breast. From his scrip, Oswin removed the flask of chrism for the second time that evening. Eustace grasped his sleeve, shaking his head.

‘You cannot. He died unshriven.’

Oswin angrily jerked his arm from Eustace’s grip, and dipping his fingers in the holy oil, made the three-times-seven crosses on Giles’s body. Eustace turned away, but John and Robert murmured the words with Oswin. ‘I anoint thee with holy oil in the name of the Trinity, that thou mayest be saved for ever and ever.’

When all was done, they heaved the dusty wooden cover into place to seal the side of the alcove and, in silence, hastened away out into the bitter night.

A man clad in deacon’s robes standing in a Cathedral Close is as near as any person may come to being invisible. Beggars, pilgrims, thieves and clerics alike keep a sharp lookout for those dressed in the robes of high offices, but those wearing the robes of deacons, priests and clerks are as common as dog dung and few men even bother to look at their faces.

The Cathedral Close was crowded. Priests sauntered by in twos and threes, while clerks with arms full of scrolls scurried past them. Pilgrims in little bands jostled to get ahead of their fellows and be first in line for the queues to the shrine of St Hugh. Men hefted bundles of dried fish, whole pigs’ heads and planks of timber. Women clustered round the stalls selling boiled sheep’s feet, spices or herring. A group of choristers dodged round the legs of horses as they chased a ball, kicking it from one to the other, ignoring the bellows of the woman whose pots it came within a whisker of smashing.

No one took any notice of Eustace as he swiftly mounted the outside stairs to Robert’s chamber. Thanks to his uncle’s influence, Robert had managed to secure lodgings in one of the many little houses that surrounded the Cathedral, though such chambers were normally assigned to clergy far more senior than he. A wooden shelter protected the top of the stairs and prevented the rain being driven straight in whenever the door was opened. Eustace groped along the top of one of the beams inside the roof of the shelter, until he found the nail on which Robert kept his key. Robert constantly mislaid his key and as Eustace had discovered on a previous occasion when he accompanied Robert home, he had taken to concealing it rather than carrying it around with him. Eustace swiftly turned the key in the lock and slipped through the door, closing it behind him.

The chamber was scarcely more than a loft in the roof space, with only enough room to stand fully upright in the centre, but as Robert had said, at least he was the sole occupant, unlike many of his fellows who were obliged to share the bigger rooms. Eustace scowled. He knew exactly why Robert thought this a virtue, because while he might live alone, he certainly didn’t sleep alone.

Eustace gazed round the room. Robert was fastidious about his clothes, if not about his bedfellows, and the room was stuffed with chests holding linens, hose, and tunics, while a line of well-crafted leather boots and shoes stood along one wall, like an army ready to march.

As Robert had feared, the treasurer had called for every artefact in the Cathedral to be checked again the inventories. It was only a matter of time before the cross was reported missing. Eustace had already searched the rooms of Oswin and John, but found nothing. He’d left Robert till last, certain that if he had retrieved the cross, unlike the others, he would have smuggled it back into the Cathedral chest. But supposing he hadn’t had a chance to do that, and it was still hidden in his room somewhere?

Eustace worked his way methodically round the chamber twice, first searching in and behind boxes and the bed, then with the help of a chair, running his hands along the top of the beams, but he found nothing. That, Eustace thought, left only one culprit – Giles. He had not had the cross on him when he… when he died. So either he hadn’t retrieved it from where he had hidden it, or he had stowed it in another hiding place in the grove. It had to be there somewhere among those trees. There’d been no time to take it anywhere else. Eustace would have to return to the forest and search again, this time alone.

The wind was no less fierce on the following night, but at least it was dry. Oswin was grateful for that much at least as he trudged up the dark track towards the chapel. He had brought his own lantern this time, but kept the light muffled by his cloak, trying to ensure that it illuminated only the foot or so of the ground ahead of him. It was law that any man walking abroad at night should carry a torch or lantern to prove his good intent. Unfortunately, it also proclaimed to all those whose purpose was not lawful just where the honest man was walking. Not that what Oswin was about to do was either honest or lawful.

Every step along the track was a forced one. He had to goad himself forward, for his brain was screaming at him to turn back. Let the others do it. Walk away from this while you can. What could they do about it anyway if you didn’t come? And what if they don’t turn up and leave you to bury the corpse alone? But he had not managed to sleep during what remained of the night yesterday and he knew he’d never sleep until he’d seen with his own eyes that the corpse was safely buried where no one could find it. Only then could he breathe easily again.

If Robert kept his wits about him, there’d be nothing to link any of them to the missing cross. As to the disappearance of Giles, no one knew of the Black Crows’ existence, save for the tavern-keeper, and why should anyone start asking questions at the tavern? There were thousands of men in minor orders who became discontented and left to take a wife or to seek more profitable employment as soon as they got the education they needed. Unlike deacons and priests, those in minor orders did not take lifelong vows. All someone like Giles legally had to do to return to the life of a layman was grow out his tonsure. His parish priest might call him an ingrate, but no laws had been broken if such a man simply wandered off. There was no reason for anyone to start looking for him.

As Oswin approached the chapel, he saw the flicker of a light behind the broken shutters, as someone passed across in front of a lantern. His relief that the other Black Crows had come was mixed with annoyance. Did those fools not realise their light could be seen? Why hadn’t they the sense to shield it inside the Easter Sepulchre as before? Then he realised why and shuddered.

Pressing his ear to the wood of the door, he could hear the shuffle of feet inside and the low murmur of voices. He rapped softly. Instantly all was still. He knew those inside were listening, as tense as he was himself.

‘It’s Oswin,’ he called, as loudly as he dared. He heard the footsteps crossing the stone flags and the door was opened a crack, impatiently he pushed it wide enough to get in.

The stench in the chapel was worse than he remembered. Damp, rot and mice as before, but something even more unpleasant. But Oswin only vaguely registered it. He was impatient to get this business safely over as quickly as possible.

‘Is Eustace not with you?’ Robert asked, the moment Oswin had turned the key in the lock.

‘No sign of him on the track,’ Oswin said,

‘I knew he wouldn’t come,’ Robert grumbled.

‘Typical of him to leave others to clean up the mess while he keeps his hands clean,’ Oswin said.

‘Happen he’s afeared that if he came we’d discover who murdered Giles,’ John muttered. ‘If a murderer touches his victim’s body, the corpse’ll bleed afresh.’

‘You think it was him, then?’ Robert asked. In spite of the cold, damp air, beads of sweat were running down his face.

‘He’s the only one of us who isn’t here,’ John said. ‘I reckon that proves it.’

Robert unfastened the two buttons that closed his fur-lined cloak and cast about him, trying to find somewhere to drape it, other than on the filthy, wet floor. A small handcart stood ready in front of the altar, with two spades propped up against it. He dropped the cloak into the handcart.

John scowled resentfully. Unlike Robert, who could afford both summer and winter cloaks, John possessed only one of plain homespun, and he’d been forced to discard that in the water-filled ditch on his way home last night, because thanks to the others leaving it to him to carry Giles’s body, it was soaked with blood. But he didn’t hear any of them offering to share the cost of buying a new one or even bothering to ask if he had another.

The three men approached the wooden board that sealed the Easter Sepulchre. They hesitated, grimacing at each other. Was the same thought going through each man’s mind? What if the corpse starts to bleed?

Oswin took a deep breath. ‘The sooner we get him in the ground, the safer we’ll be. The corpse’ll probably still be stiff, so we’ll roll the body out onto the board. Did anyone bring anything to cover it?’

By way of an answer, John pulled a folded length of sacking out from the front of his tunic. His jaw was clenched so hard, it seemed impossible for him to speak.

Oswin kneeled down beside the sepulchre. The terrible stench he’d noticed when he first entered the chapel was much stronger here, and indeed seemed to be coming from the sepulchre itself. But surely it couldn’t be Giles’s corpse. It was the middle of winter and cold enough in the stone chapel to keep ice from melting. His stomach heaved, but he swallowed hard and, trying to ignore the smell, seized the top of the wooden board and pulled it downwards towards him. A stench of rotting flesh billowed out and even John and Robert, standing some way behind him, began to gag, hastily covering their noses and mouths with their sleeves.

The recess was deep and low to the floor and John and Robert were standing between the lantern light and the sepulchre, but even before Oswin’s brain had made sense of what his eyes were seeing in the half-light, he knew that something was terribly wrong. He jerked back. The long board clattered to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and, snatching up the lantern, he held it close to the recess. John and Robert gasped, crossing themselves as they rapidly backed away.

Giles’s copse was lying in the sepulchre, his hands folded across the blackened bloodstain that covered his chest, just as they had arranged him the night before, but he was no longer lying alone. A second body had been pushed in beside him, a body so rotted and putrid it must have been dead several months. Her gown was the only sign that the corpse had once been a woman. They lay side by side, as if whoever had put her there intended some cruel mockery of the carvings of knights lying beside their wives on the tombs in the great Cathedral itself.

Even as the three men gaped wordlessly at each other, a great hammering sounded on the wooden door of the chapel, as if someone was striking it with a sword hilt.

‘Open up, in the name of the King!’

For a moment, they stood frozen, then they sprang into action. John threw the spades into the handcart, covering them with the cloth, while Oswin struggled to try to fit the wooden board back into the side of the sepulchre.

The hammering sounded again. ‘Open up, or we’ll smash the door down.’

The splintering of the wood of the rotten door suggested they were attempting to do just that.

Robert sprinted the few yards down the small chapel. ‘Hold fast, hold fast!’ he begged. ‘I’m trying to turn the lock, but it’s rusty.’

He jiggled the key as if he was struggling to turn it, but the hammering redoubled and he dared stall them no longer.

As he opened the door, he was almost smashed against the wall as three men came charging through, their swords drawn.

The sergeant-at-arms gestured with the point of his sword. ‘You three, against that wall where I can see you. Search them,’ he commanded the man beside him. ‘God’s arse, what’s that infernal stink?’ he added, screwing up his nose. ‘Smells as if an animal got itself trapped in here and died.’

The pimpled-faced youth ordered to do the searching carried out his duty with undue diligence, tossing their knives with a clatter onto the floor and running his hands over every inch of their bodies that might be concealing any weapon or stolen item and a few parts of their anatomy that plainly couldn’t. The other man-at-arms, an older and considerably stouter man, grinned as he collected the knives from the floor, clearly enjoying watching the prisoners squirm.

‘So,’ the sergeant said, ‘what mischief are you three making? Someone reported seeing a light in here two nights running. They thought the place was haunted the first night, until they saw you lot creeping in tonight.’

‘Can’t you see we are clergy?’ Oswin said sharply. ‘And in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a chapel.’

‘Can see your tonsures, right enough, but that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in here behind locked doors in the middle of the night. This chapel’s not been used for years.’

‘If you ask me, Sergeant,’ the older man said, ‘I reckon they fancy each other and this is where they come to do it, ’cause they know they’d get their balls sawn off if they was caught at it.’

John gave a roar of outrage and tried to take a swipe at the man. He was only prevented by the prick of the sergeant’s sword in his chest, forcing him back against the wall.

‘Listen, you imbecile!’ Oswin snapped. ‘We came to offer prayers for the souls of the family who endowed this chapel. We’re in Holy Orders and you have no authority-’

His words were severed by a crash, as the board in front of the sepulchre slipped from the stone and clattered onto the floor. All eyes swivelled towards it.

‘What the Devil…?’ His curiosity evidently aroused, the sergeant took a few tentative paces towards it, his sword held defensively in front of him. Oswin closed his eyes and prayed. But it seemed that not even the most fervent prayers could make one corpse vanish, much less two.

Every prisoner knows there are a few blessed moments that creep between sleeping and waking, nightmares and misery, in which you briefly imagine all is right with the world. You are safely dozing in your own bed, in your own house. You are happy. Then, as you open your eyes, reality douses you with a bucket of filthy, icy water. You realise where you are and what lies in wait for you. So it was for Oswin, as he awoke the next morning to find himself in the bishop’s carcer.

Not even Oswin had been able to think of a convincing explanation for the two bodies. But in truth it scarcely mattered, for the sergeant-at-arms, though well used to seeing the worst depravities that a sinful city could conspire to produce, was so shocked by the sight of those two corpses, one fresh, the other rotting, that if St Michael himself had appeared with flaming sword and attempted to defend the three clerics, the sergeant would have arrested him as well.

Before they could even open their mouths to protest, all three Black Crows found their arms bound behind them so tightly they were in danger of losing both limbs, and they were being marched, at sword point, back to the city gate. Once inside the walls, they were taken at once to the Bishop’s Palace, opposite the Cathedral, for clergy could neither be detained nor punished by the civil courts. Which, the sergeant muttered beneath his breath, was a gross injustice, for he’d have willingly hanged them from the castle walls himself, for what he had witnessed was surely more foul and depraved than any crime a layman could commit.

There was nothing to be done that night, so all three men were marched to separate cells and ushered, none too gently, inside. Oswin found himself alone in a tiny cell below ground, with nowhere to sleep save in the straw on the floor. There was a single narrow window so high up on the wall, that its only real function was to add to the prisoner’s misery by admitting freezing winds, rain and snow, and the occasional piss of passing dogs or choir boys, the latter finding it highly entertaining to compete as to which boy could most accurately drench the incumbent below.

Oswin sat huddled against the wall, his fingers pressed to his forehead, trying to make sense of all that had happened. If only he could work out how or why the second corpse had come to be in the chapel, he might be able to come up with some sort of defence. But he couldn’t. Only the fact that he was sitting in the cell convinced him that what he’d seen hadn’t been some ghastly nightmare or vision. He was still trying in vain to reason it out when he heard a jangle of keys outside the stout oak door. He clambered stiffly to his feet as the door opened.

The gaoler, a grizzled man with a belly as round as a farrowing sow and tunic that bore testimony to every meal he’d ever eaten, regarded his prisoner in silence for several long minutes, as if Oswin was some unknown creature he’d never before encountered.

Finally, he jerked his head towards the passage. ‘Sent for you, so they have.’

Without warning, the gaoler reached in and grabbed Oswin’s arm, gripping it so tightly that Oswin was sure he was going to snap the bone.

As he dragged Oswin up the stairs at the end of the passage and out under the grey skies, the gaoler added cheerfully, ‘You’re the first. Means you can get your story in afore the others. Mind you, that’s not always a good thing. If the others gainsay you, you’ll look like a liar, so you will. If they think you’re lying, they’re bound to think you’re guilty. So what you been up to, then?’

‘Nothing!’ Oswin said hotly. ‘And there’s no need to break my arm. I can’t exactly run off, can I?’

The courtyard was closed in on all four sides by high-walled buildings and all the doors were firmly shut.

‘If I was you, I’d admit to whatever they say you’ve done. Throw yourself on their mercy. Swear you repent. Go at lot easier on you, they will, if they think you’re contrite. You deny it and they’ll come down as hard as an axe on wood, ’cause that’s the sin of pride, so it is, refusing to admit you’re a miserable worm.’

They’d reached a narrow archway in one wall, which opened onto a spiral staircase. Here, the gaoler was finally forced to let go of Oswin’s arm, since they couldn’t climb the stairs side by side. He flung Oswin in front of him with such force, he fell onto the steps, banging his knees. The gaoler prodded him to his feet and he limped up the stairs, rubbing his bruised arm, his stomach knotting tighter with each step.

At the top, the gaoler reached around him and rapped on the door at the head of the stairs. The mumble from inside might have been, ‘Come in’ or ‘Go away,’ but the gaoler evidently took it for the former. He twisted the iron ring and, once more gripping Oswin’s arm as tightly as if it was a live eel, propelled him into the room.

Oswin found himself in a richly decorated chamber. The plaster above the wainscoting was painted with colourful scenes from the life of the blond and bearded Edward the Confessor. Gold leaf glinted on his crown and on the ring he was holding out to a beggar.

Below the painting and behind a long, heavy oak table sat three men, who Oswin recognised as the Subdean William de Rouen, Precentor Paul de Monte Florum and, to his dismay, the Treasurer of the Cathedral, Thomas of Louth. Ranged along the table were platters of mutton olives, roasted quail, and spiced pork meatballs set amid flagons and goblets. At the sight of the meats, Oswin’s stomach began to growl. Supper the night before was now but a distant memory.

The only other occupant of the chamber was a pallid man who was hunched over a small table set in front of the casement, angled so that the light from the window might best illuminate a stack of parchments on it. He had the wary look of an ill-used hound.

‘Here he is, Fathers,’ the gaoler announced cheerfully. ‘This ’un’s Father Oswin.’

‘We know who he is.’ The subdean impatiently flapped his hand at the gaoler, his florid jowls wobbling, like the wattle of a chicken. ‘You may go. I’ll toll the bell when Father Oswin’s to be taken back to his cell.’

Oswin had thought his spirits could sink no lower, but they did. It seemed his superiors had already made up their minds, before a single question had even been asked, that he was not simply going to be released.

‘That,’ Father William continued, indicating the man at the writing table, ‘is my clerk. I will conduct this interview in English, but he will take note of your answers and later translate them into good Latin, so that they may be entered into the record books.’

Subdean William had become even more punctilious since the death of the dean, Henry Mansfield, a week earlier. It was widely rumoured that he was expecting to be appointed dean himself now that the post was vacant, and he was determined that nothing should prevent that. Oswin knew he would be far from pleased that his nephew had got entangled with one corpse, never mind two. Even a whiff of scandal would not reflect well on Father William if it was thought he couldn’t keep his own family in order.

Father Paul selected a mutton olive from the platter and delicately bit into it. He had one eye that wandered off at a slight angle so that it was hard to tell where he was looking. Strictly speaking, as precentor he was the senior in rank after the dean and should have temporarily assumed the dean’s duties following his death, but everyone knew Father Paul had little interest or aptitude for anything other than his music and was quite content to let Father William take over the role until a new man should be appointed.

But it was the treasurer, Thomas of Louth, whose presence most worried Oswin. The disciplining of clerics was not normally something he needed to involve himself in. Was he here because he’d discovered the cross was missing? He was a man who, it was whispered, had never heard of the concept of forgiveness or mercy, and to add to his fearsome reputation he had a puckered white scar that ran from his temple to his chin, twisting his mouth into a perpetual snarl. There were as many stories circulating in Cathedral Close as to how he’d come by that as there were tongues to whisper them, and each of the tales was more chilling than the last.

‘So, Father Oswin,’ Father William said, ‘suppose you begin by explaining to us what the three of you were doing in the disused chapel after the curfew bell.’

Oswin, though he knew the question was coming, still hesitated. No better explanation had come to him than the one he had tried to give the sergeant-at-arms the night before.

‘We’d gone there to say Mass as an act of piety to pray for the souls of the dead family. We heard, from your nephew,’ he added pointedly, ‘that the family who had endowed the chapel had died out and there was no one left to pray for their souls in purgatory.’

‘Did someone offer you money for these prayers, a family friend, perhaps?’ the precentor enquired.

Oswin shook his head.

‘You were giving up a night’s sleep and putting yourself to this trouble for no payment?’ The precentor’s eyebrows shot up so high, they vanished beneath the fringe of hair around his tonsure.

‘It was a penance,’ Oswin said hastily.

‘And which of your confessors imposed such a penance on you?’ Father William asked.

‘We imposed it on ourselves, as an act of piety. We had feasted and drunk too well a few nights before and wanted to make amends with some act of charity.’

‘Thereby committing a greater sin,’ William said, ‘by thinking yourselves wise enough to act as your own confessors and determine the penance for a sin that you were too proud to confess before others.’

Oswin felt his face grow hot, but he could hardly deny it without refuting his own explanation.

The treasurer impatiently shuffled in his feet. ‘Whether or not he should have confessed the sin of gluttony, Subdean, is hardly worthy of discussion, given the far more serious matter of these young men being discovered with two dead bodies. That, surely, is what we should be investigating here.’ Before Father William could answer, he turned to Oswin. ‘Do you have an explanation for that, Father Oswin?’

‘I… was just as shocked as the men-at-arms. I swear we didn’t know they were in the Easter Sepulchre until the door fell off. The men-at-arms slammed the chapel door as they came in. It must have shaken the wood loose. We were horrified by what was revealed.’

The precentor made a studied selection of a roasted quail and, ripping one of the legs off, dragged the flesh through his teeth before waving the bone at Oswin. ‘Surely, you saw the door was on the sepulchre when you entered. You had, after all, been there two nights running. Didn’t you think it strange the Easter Sepulchre should be sealed? From Easter Sunday until Good Friday, it is left open to proclaim the joyful news that Christ has risen. Why didn’t you remove it straight away?’

‘It was dark in the chapel, Father Precentor. We didn’t notice. We came in and immediately kneeled to pray and, naturally, we didn’t look around as we prayed.’

‘Naturally,’ the treasurer repeated with heavy sarcasm. ‘And I suppose you were so immersed in prayer you didn’t notice the stench either.’ He turned to address his colleagues. ‘I’ve inspected the body of the woman personally and I could hardly hold onto my breakfast, the smell was so bad.’ He picked up a pomander of spices from the table in front of him and wafted it under his long nose, sniffing hard as if the stench of death still lingered in his nostrils.

‘It wasn’t nearly as strong when the door was in place, and the smell of damp in the chapel masked…’ Oswin trailed off. It was plain from his expression, Father Thomas believed not one word of it.

‘Did you recognise either of the corpses?’

Oswin had prepared himself for that one. ‘As the sergeant-at-arms will tell you, Father Thomas, we never got close enough even to glimpse them. He had his men drag us from the chapel straight away. The sergeant was the only one who actually saw them.’

‘I think that explains everything satisfactorily,’ Father William announced, ignoring the expressions of incredulity on his brothers’ faces. ‘There is just one tiny detail that still puzzles me,’ he continued blithely. ‘Do you normally take spades and a handcart when you go to say Mass for someone’s soul? I must confess it is a new refinement to me. But then perhaps the archbishop has issued a decree that you, as an eager young student, have read, but I, as a dullard, have not. Have you been privy to some synod council meeting perhaps, to which us lesser men were not invited?’

Oswin’s mind raced. ‘They were already in the chapel when we arrived, Father William. Labourers making repairs probably left them there for safekeeping overnight.’

Father William glanced along the table. ‘Have you given any workman a key, Father Thomas? Given orders for any repairs?’

‘None,’ Thomas said. ‘As our young brother reminded us himself, the family has died out and the money they left for the maintenance of the chapel has run out.’

The subdean leaned his elbows on the table, his fingers pressed together as he gazed at Oswin. ‘You see, that is something else that troubles me, Father Oswin. You say that the cart and spades belonged to some labourers, yet when the chapel was searched, my nephew’s cloak was found under the spades in the cart. I can understand that if he found the cart and spades already in the chapel, he might have tossed his cloak on top of them. But why would he go to the trouble of lifting the spades and placing his cloak underneath such dirty tools. Were you perhaps expecting to be translated from the chapel into heaven in a whirlwind for this act of piety of yours, and my nephew, fearful that such a wind would also carry his heavy fur-lined cloak away with it, felt compelled to anchor it down?’

Oswin tried to speak, but Father Thomas interrupted: ‘I’ve no doubt you can invent an explanation for that, too, but let’s stop wasting time. Father Robert’s cloak was found in the cart covered with short hairs, which at first I thought might belong to the male corpse, but in fact they match the strangely cropped hair on the woman’s skull. The cloak was also smeared with…’ He wrinkled his face as if he was going to vomit. ‘Let us just describe it as other of her bodily remains. Not to put to finer point on it, the cloak stank of the woman’s corpse. So, the only conclusion we may draw is that you three covered the woman’s corpse in the cloak and used the cart to carry it to the chapel, where you concealed it in the sepulchre, for what diabolic purpose I cannot yet tell.’

The treasurer leaned forward and continued. ‘As for the dead man, he has been identified as a young cleric in minor orders from the Church of St Rumbold, who has not been seen since vespers two nights ago. I only had to take one look his body to see he’d been stabbed to death. So what exactly were you planning to do with these corpses, Father Oswin? Use them to raise demons or conjure the spirits of the dead? Then what were you going to do? Bury them together in whichever grave you stole the girl’s body from, so that the murder of this poor young man should go undetected?’

Subdean William sucked his breath in through his teeth. ‘I warned the dean that allowing a priest as young and arrogant as Father Oswin to study the arts of necromancy and the conjuring of spirits was a mistake. And I regret to say, I’ve been proved entirely right. The Devil will turn these Holy Mysteries to his own wicked purposes in those who are too inexperienced to handle such dangerous knowledge. And it seems Father Oswin has dragged other innocent young men, including my nephew, into this foul pit with him.’

The gaoler flung Oswin back in the cell and backed out.

‘Am I to get any food?’ Oswin called out, as the key grated in the lock. But the only answer was the sound of footsteps walking away.

He slid down the wall and onto the straw. At least they hadn’t put him in irons, not yet anyway. And none of the three interrogators had mentioned the cross, so that must mean that they hadn’t yet discovered it was missing or they hadn’t connected its disappearance to Giles’s murder, which was at least something. And with luck, they never would. There was no reason for them to suspect a link, unless the treasurer really did believe Robert a thief. Then he’d only too readily believe him a murderer, too, and Oswin and John at the very least his accomplices.

Although Father William and Father Thomas had made a lot of nasty accusations, they’d as good as admitted they didn’t actually know what he’d been planning to do with the corpses, nor could they prove he’d killed either one of them. Oswin was trying desperately to convince himself that things weren’t really that bad, but he knew they were.

He banged his head against the wall, trying to think. Nothing… nothing made sense. And the situation could only get worse when Robert and John were questioned. They’d surely have the wit to go along with the story that the three of them had gone to the chapel to say Mass, since they’d heard him tell the sergeant-at-arms that tale. But what would they say about the handcart? Oswin realised that he’d no idea which of them had had the foresight to bring it to the chapel. John probably; it was the kind of practical thing he’d think of, and he could far more easily lay his hands on a cart than Robert. But would he have the wit to lie about it?

Father Thomas had said Robert’s cloak was soiled with the remains of the girl. So had the traces got there because they were in the cart, which John had used to carry her to the chapel, or had they stained the cloak because Robert had been the one who’d dragged her corpse there?

But why would either Robert or John do such a thing? It was in all of their interests to bury Giles’s body where no one could find it and quietly return to their duties. Unless… unless Eustace was the one behind it. Had he been the person who’d reported seeing someone in the chapel to the watchmen? That chapel was so remote from houses or the city walls, who else would have noticed the light? Was that why he hadn’t come, because he knew the men-at-arms were on their way? If he’d stolen the cross and murdered Giles, he might well have alerted the authorities, so the three of them were caught red-handed to divert suspicion from himself.

Had Eustace planted the body of the girl, so that it would appear the corpses were being used in the dark arts, knowing that Oswin would be sure to be accused, given his training? Oswin swore violently, thumping his fists against his head. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? The vicious little weasel was certainly clever enough to come up with that as a plan, and spiteful enough to carry it out. But how on earth was he going to prove it?

The key grated in the lock once more, and he raised his head as the gaoler waddled in carrying two pails, spilling water from one of them as he walked. The other, judging by the smell, was the piss bucket He set both down next to each other and drew a flattened loaf of bread from under his sweaty armpit, tossing it into Oswin’s lap.

‘That’s your breakfast. It’s your dinner and supper, too, so don’t gobble it all down at once; but if I was you I wouldn’t try to save any of it overnight, otherwise the mice’ll have it afore you do.’

‘Bread and water,’ Oswin said in dismay. ‘How long am I to fast on this?’

‘Every day for as long as you’re in the carcer. That’s the rule in here, so it is. So you’d best get praying they get this business over soon, else it’s going to be a long, cold and hungry winter for you.’

Eustace stood in the Cathedral Close, trying to make up his mind what to do. He’d watched the arrest of Oswin, Robert and John from the bushes near the chapel, seen them being dragged out and marched down the dark track towards the city behind its great thick walls. A while later, his legs numb and stiff from the cold, he’d seen a troop of the bishop’s men-at-arms ride up to the chapel, followed more slowly by a long covered wagon, which was backed up to the door. After what seemed like hours, the riders and wagon set off back to the city gate, leaving one man standing on a miserable and lonely watch at the door, blowing into his hands and stamping his feet to keep warm.

Eustace had cursed under his breath. His plan had been to search the chapel, just in case one of the Black Crows had managed to hide the cross in there, but he hadn’t bargained on them leaving a guard on the door. Still, they wouldn’t leave a guard there for ever.

The question now was what would his three brothers say when questioned? Even though they were all in holy orders, there was no doubt in Eustace’s mind they would lie. They’d have no qualms of conscience over that. He’d always been aware that he was the only member of the group who took his vows as a priest seriously. But what form would those lies take? Would they name him, try to put all the blame on him? Would they claim he’d murdered Giles and they’d simply stumbled across the body? If he could only find out which of them had the cross and lead the authorities to it, then it would exonerate him and prove their guilt. But where was it?

He glanced up at the casement of Robert’s lodgings, and then looked again. He was certain he’d seen the flash of movement, as if someone had crossed in front of the window. He watched intently. There it was again. There was definitely someone up there, moving around. Had Robert been released already? Well, that wouldn’t surprise him, given his uncle’s influence. Doubtless, Father William intended to spirit his nephew away, send him to a distant town until the scandal blew over, leaving Oswin and John, and Eustace, too, if he wasn’t careful, to carry all the blame and punishment. Robert was probably packing for his journey even as Eustace watched.

Rage boiled up in him. He strode round the side of the building and, keeping to the side of the stairs where there was less risk of the wood creaking, he crept up towards the door. He was determined Robert wasn’t going anywhere until he’d discovered the story Robert had sold to his uncle and exactly what he’d revealed about the members of the Black Crows, even if he had to beat it out of him.

The door was not quite closed. Through the narrow gap, Eustace glimpsed the lid of a chest being opened, but the person behind it was hidden from view. He pushed the door open and, as he stepped through, caught it and pressed it closed with his back. There was a stifled cry of surprise and someone rose up from behind the open chest, but it was not Robert.

A woman stared back at him, her expression as startled as Eustace knew his own must be. His gaze dropped to her hand. She was holding a cross – the cross, he realised, as a surge of shock and excitement flooded through him. It was exactly as Robert had described, silver, decorated with five blood-red garnets and in the centre the little dome of rock crystal, which held the precious hairs.

‘Where did you get that?’ Eustace demanded.

A look of panic flooded the woman’s face. ‘I found it here… Father.’

‘In the chest. You were searching the chest for things to steal?’

‘I… I wasn’t stealing, Father. I swear on the Blessed Virgin, I wasn’t. It was on the table. I… was putting it away safely for Father Robert. Anyone might have come and took it, seeing as he always leaves the key…’

‘How do you know where…?’ Eustace began. ‘Ah, of course, he’s brought you here before. You’re one of his whores, aren’t you?’

‘I’m no whore!’ The woman’s jaw clenched and her expression turned in the instant from fear to hard, cold rage. ‘I come to clean for him, wash his clothes. That’s how I know.’

Eustace took a step towards her. ‘But you didn’t find that cross in here, I know that much. It was not in this chamber yesterday. And, if Robert had brought it here, he most certainly wouldn’t have left it lying around for anyone to find.’ He took another step towards her, his voice dropping to a low and menacing whisper. ‘So, I’ll ask you again, how exactly did you come by it? Answer me, woman, otherwise all I have to do is call out and a dozen of the watch will come running. You are holding all the evidence any justice could need to convict you of theft. They will hang you and then you will find yourself in the eternal darkness of Hell, forever being spun and hurled in a terrible, howling wind, which is the fate of all whores. So, you will tell me truthfully where you got that cross.’

Eustace expected the woman to look terrified, to plead, beg, fall on her knees, but he was not prepared for the fire of pure hatred that flashed in her eyes.

Eustace tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids seemed to have been turned to stone. His head felt as if it was split into two and a wave of nausea engulfed him. He wanted to roll over and vomit, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t even heave. He was dimly aware of sounds around him, voices, footsteps, cries and moans, but they seemed to be a long way off, muffled and distorted as if they were drifting towards him through a dense fog.

‘… it seems he staggered as far as the stairs, then fell from the top.’

‘But you said he was already injured before he fell?’ ‘It appears that way. Some passers-by heard a cry and it made them glance up. They all reported seeing him standing at the top of the stairs holding onto the doorframe, the side of his face all bloodied. A few ran across to try to help, but it was too late. Before they could reach him, he either fainted or lost his balance, and came crashing down onto the stones below. He might have recovered from the head wound, but not the fall… He’ll not see another dawn in this world, Father William. Mind you, that might be a mercy, for his back’s broken. He’d have been a cripple had he lived.’

‘Many cripples live worthy lives,’ Father William said sharply. ‘Confined to their beds they are able to devote their lives to praying for others, and what life could be better spent than that?’

‘If you say so, Father.’ The other voice sounded less than convinced. ‘Of course, the poor ones don’t have the luxury of a bed, they spend their time lying on the streets begging for alms. But I dare say you’ll tell me that’s a blessing too, for if it weren’t for them, the rich would have no one to give their charity to. But that aside, we’ve done all we can for Father Eustace. You’d best shrive him before it’s too late.’

Up to that moment, Eustace’s brain had been swamped by the pain of his body and by the terrible sensation of not being able to move. He heard that spirits could be trapped inside the trunk of a tree, and he felt as if some witch had banished him to a tree, encased every inch of him in wood. But now another sensation flooded over him: cold, black horror. He was going to die. He was going to enter that purgatory in which souls are burned and tortured until they are cleansed. He knew as a Christian soul he should be glad of it, rejoice that he was one step closer to heaven. But Eustace felt no such joy. He was terrified.

The infirmarer did not need the art of divination to predict when his patients would pass from this life. He had cared for enough men to read the signs in a man’s body that warn that death is fast approaching. Besides, he’d learned that a strong draught of poppy juice in spiced wine administered just before the last rites, then jerking the feather pillow out from beneath the patient’s head after he’d been shrived, was usually enough to help him pass swiftly and painlessly into the next world, for it is well know that a man cannot die on feathers. The infirmarer was a compassionate soul and he knew how to bring a merciful end to a man’s suffering in this life, though sadly not in the next.

Father William had performed the last rites with devotion and diligence, and Father Eustace had seemed sensible of what was happening. Without even waiting for the questions his confessor was obliged to put to him, Eustace had tried desperately to make a full confession, indeed the words had vomited out of him in a torrent. The only trouble was, very few made any sense.

There was no doubt in Father William’s mind that Deacon Eustace had wanted to unburden himself of some great matter that clearly weighed heavily upon him. His sincerity was evident in his tone, his urgency, his grip. But though he clearly thought he was making himself understood, he was not. The utterances were a random jumble of words and phrases, in English and Latin, some phrases learned by rote from psalters as a child, others vile and obscene. Nonetheless, Father William had absolved him, trusting that God could judge the sincerity of all of His creatures’ thoughts, even if man could not understand their speech. And Eustace had sunk back in the bed, seeming at peace and content. The terror had gone from his eyes.

As soon as he had left Eustace’s bedside, Father William had summoned the precentor and the treasurer to the dean’s private chamber, which he was now occupying. The three of them sat around the fire, goblets of their favourite spiced wine, hippocras, in their hands, and platters of goat chops, spit-roasted chicken and pears in wine on the small tables between them to aid their deliberations. No man, not even a man in holy orders, can think well on an empty stomach.

But for once, the precentor’s gaze did not stray to the food. He was staring intently, with his good eye, at the silver cross that stood before them on the table. The reflections of the flames from the hearth flickered deep inside the hearts of the polished garnets, as if five tiny fires were burning on the cross.

‘But did he say if he knew how the cross came to be in Robert’s chamber, or even what he was doing in your nephew’s room, Father William? The way gossip spreads in Lincoln, the whole city knows that Robert lies in the carcer, so Eustace can hardly have expected to find him at home; quite the opposite in fact.’

‘I believe we all know why the cross was in Robert’s chamber,’ Thomas said. ‘He stole it. As I told you, Father William, I caught your nephew hanging around the chests on several occasions the other morning. I suspected he’d taken something or was planning to. Not that I blame you, Father William. It’s tainted blood from the mother, that’s what always turns a perfectly respectable family line to the bad. But I’m afraid I did warn you, and if you’d listened to me and had his chambers searched there and then, we might have put a stop to it, before this business of the corpses.’

‘You think the deaths are linked to the theft of the cross?’ Father Paul said, apparently unaware that the subdean had turned as red as the garnets and was spluttering furiously.

‘Have to be!’ Thomas said airily.

‘Then,’ Father William said, his voice crackling with ice, ‘since you are so confident of the fact, perhaps you might care to enlighten us as to exactly how?’

Thomas coughed. ‘I… what I meant was, it’s surely too much of a coincidence that Robert should be involved in two entirely separate crimes within days of each other. Didn’t Eustace shed any light on the matter?’

‘We have not established that my nephew was involved in one crime, never mind two!’ Father William snapped. ‘And as I explained, poor Eustace was making little sense. Several times he said something about a woman. But that could have been as much nonsense as the other things he was muttering.’

‘Eustace was the last man in Lincoln to have any dealings with a woman. He despised them all,’ Father Paul said, finally giving in to temptation and ripping a leg off the roasted chicken. Its skin glistened red-gold in the firelight from the honey and spices with which it had been basted. ‘In fact,’ he said, wagging it at them, ‘there were rumours his tastes ran to… But I suppose one shouldn’t speak ill of the newly dead.’

He glanced uneasily into the shadows in the corner of the room, as if Eustace’s spirit might be lurking there.

Thomas, frowning, suddenly leaned forward and picked up the cross, holding it close to one of the candles. ‘Look at this.’ He pointed to one of the arms of the cross. ‘See the dark stain in the lines of the engraving? I’d say that was dried blood, wouldn’t you? This could well be what made the hole in Eustace’s head.’

‘You think he fell on it?’ Father William asked.

‘I don’t think that would have been enough to cause the injury. It wasn’t fixed to anything so it would have been knocked over if he fell against it. He might have sustained a bruise or gash, nothing more. The infirmarer is sure he was hit with something and the blow was a hard one. This would make a useful weapon,’ he added, brandishing the cross to demonstrate.

He tipped the cross this way and that, angling different parts towards the candlelight, then his fingers pounced on something else. Carefully, he unwound several strands of long, reddish-brown hair, which had been caught under the setting that held one of the garnets in place.

‘A woman’s hair. Eustace might have had good reason to despise women if one of them struck him with this. The trouble is, that doesn’t help us much. There’s no shortage of women in Lincoln with hair of a similar shade. Why, even that corpse had hair this colour-’ He broke off, frowning.

‘Then it must have come from the corpse,’ Father Paul said. ‘Didn’t you tell us hair from the decayed body was found on Robert’s cloak? He doubtless wrapped the cross in his cloak to carry it away and that how it got onto the cross.’

Thomas shook his head. ‘If he wrapped the cross in the cloak, it would have been before he used it to cover the corpse, not afterwards. Besides, the noticeable thing about that corpse was that the hair was short; it’d been cropped. This is much longer, and see the way the ends taper? It’s never been trimmed. But I’ll grant you one thing, it’s remarkably similar in colour to that of the corpse. Another coincidence?’

Oswin scraped up the damp straw and heaped it over his legs to try to get warm. But the icy rain was driving in through the grating faster than it could drain away down the shallow gulley and out through the tiny hole in the wall. Puddles were spreading ever wider across the flagstones. Oswin wondered, miserably, if anyone had ever drowned down here. Shivering, he clamped his hands under his armpits in a vain attempt to warm his numb fingers. He rolled on his side, trying to ease the pains in his belly. Drinking water instead of wine or ale had given him such a severe dose of the flux that on some occasions he could barely reach the piss-pail before his bowels exploded.

At least today the rain kept away the jeering boys and curious young clerics who came to peer down at him. Anyone crossing the courtyard hurried as fast as they could to get safely to shelter again. Only the bells in the Cathedral ringing out the hours of the services marked the slow crawl of time.

Oswin heard the door at the end of the passage grate open and he sat up. The gaoler had already been round with the daily ration of bread and water, and it was too much to hope that he might be returning with more. He heard voices. Were they bringing another prisoner in or taking one out? He listened for the sound of a cell door being opened further down the corridor, but the footsteps did not pause in front of any cell. Judging by the clatter of wood on stone, one of the people approaching was wearing wooden pattens tied over their shoes to stop them being spoiled by the mud and puddles. Not the gaoler or a prisoner then.

The footsteps stopped outside his own door. He heard the key grinding in the lock and lumbered to his feet, brushing the straw from his clothes, as the door opened.

‘We’ve been taking good care of him, Treasurer,’ the gaoler said.

Oswin’s stomach knotted. If the treasurer was here, it could only be about the missing cross.

‘Wait for me outside in the courtyard,’ Thomas said. ‘I’ll call you when I want the door unlocked.’

‘Outside?’ The gaoler didn’t sound as if he relished the prospect of standing around in the freezing rain, but he shuffled away, not daring to complain, at least not out loud.

The treasurer ducked his head under the low doorway and tottered into the cell. He loomed over Oswin, for the wooden pattens increased his height by at least four inches. He gazed round the cell with curiosity and then down at Oswin, who was suddenly and painfully aware of how dishevelled he must look, and of the stench emanating from the overflowing piss-pail in the corner.

‘I will be asking your two companions the same questions, so I’d strongly advise you, Father Oswin, to speak only the truth this time. Your companions do not seem quite as adept at inventing tales as you appear to be and will undoubtedly give you away.’

He held up a bony hand to silence any protest from Oswin.

‘Do you number among your friends Deacon Eustace from the Church of St Lawrence?’

Oswin nodded, feeling that the less he said the better.

‘Then I regret that I must convey sad tidings. You doubtless heard the death bell tolling yesterday. That was rung for Father Eustace, who died in the infirmary last evening.’

Oswin swayed, putting out a hand to steady himself against the wall. It was not grief that moved him, but the shock of yet another of their circle dying. They were all young men and, while death could strike at any age, the thought that two out of the five of them had died in a week was chilling.

‘H… how?’ he stammered.

‘I believe,’ Thomas said, watching Oswin closely, ‘that his death will be accounted as murder. All the evidence is that he was struck on the head by a cross, a silver cross that was stolen from the Cathedral.’

Oswin tried hard to look both shocked and guiltless. The first was not difficult, but as Thomas continued to stare hard at him, he felt his face grow hot and prayed that in the half-light in the cell, it would not be noticed.

‘I think you have kept up this pretence long enough, Father Oswin. No doubt you think it amusing to try to fool the majores personae of the Cathedral, but I can assure you it is a dangerous game. You may think that because you have benefit of clergy, the penalties for theft and murder will not be severe. But it is not without precedent that a priest may be tried in the ecclesiastical courts and unfrocked by them, leaving the way open for him to be tried by the civil justices, in which case, as you know, the penalty would undoubtedly be death. And when a priest has stolen a valuable cross and reliquary, in addition to committing not just one, but two murders, I think it very likely he would find himself eventually standing trial in a civil court.’

Oswin was already feeling shaky from the flux, but now his legs threatened to give way altogether. ‘But, Father Thomas, you know I couldn’t possibly have murdered Eustace. I’ve been locked up in here and he was fit and well when last I saw him. You know he was, because he was the man who called the watch to the chapel.’

‘Eustace?’ Thomas frowned. ‘The sergeant-at-arms said it was a woman who raised the alarm.’ He frowned, staring down at the rain drops pattering into the puddles. ‘I hadn’t remembered that before,’ he murmured. ‘So was this another woman or the same one?’ He suddenly seemed to recollect that he was not alone and looked up again.

‘No one is suggesting you murdered Eustace. It is known all three of you were locked in here at the time he was attacked, but you seem to be forgetting that you were discovered with two corpses. Either you killed both of them, or you are guilty of grave-robbing, which is just as wicked as murder in the eyes of the Church and the law.’

‘But, I swear to you, I didn’t kill anyone. I never even laid eyes on that… that woman until we found her in the chapel.’

‘But you did know the body of Giles was there, didn’t you?’ Father Thomas said sternly. ‘You know because you put it there. If you hope for any mercy from the Church, you would be wise to make a full and honest confession to me now.’

Oswin knew he was beaten. Even if he continued to deny everything, he was certain Robert at any rate would spill all, if he hadn’t done so already. He was intimidated by his uncle at the best of times. If he had the treasurer and precentor threatening him as well, he’d be crying like an infant.

Taking a deep breath, he recounted the whole story, from Giles’s challenge to the night they were discovered in the chapel. It must be admitted that in the telling rather more of the blame found its way onto the shoulders of Giles and Eustace than was strictly truthful, but that could hardly matter to them now.

Thomas listened in silence, his scowl becoming ever deeper. The bone-white scar seemed to glow with increasing intensity in the gloom of the cell, until Oswin couldn’t drag his gaze from it. Oswin couldn’t tell if Thomas’s mounting anger was because of the theft of the cross or the concealment of the body, or if he thought he was being lied to again. But whatever the cause, that look of fury on his superior’s face did not bode well for Oswin.

A throbbing silence stretched between the two men, in which the beat of the rain drops sounded like the thudding of a giant heart. Without warning, Thomas’s hand moved to his belt and, for one wild and terrifying moment, Oswin thought he was reaching for his knife. But instead, Thomas fumbled in his leather scrip and pulled out a small, folded piece of white linen.

He laid it on the flat of his palm and peeled back the folds of cloth with the other hand.

Oswin stared in bewilderment. As far as he could see there was nothing in the linen. Was this some new method of divining the truth or unmasking a killer that he hadn’t yet studied?

‘Look at these strands of hair,’ Thomas said. ‘Careful! Don’t breathe on them; if they blow into the straw, we’ll never find them.’

Oswin leaned forward, as Thomas swung his palm towards the grey light filtering down with the rain through the grating. Against the bright white linen, he could just make out three long hairs.

‘Have you taken a good look?’

When Oswin nodded, Thomas carefully wrapped them again and put the little package back into his scrip.

‘Think carefully. Do you know any women with hair of that colour?’

Oswin was wary. He could make little senses of the question and immediately thought Thomas was trying to trick him to confessing another sin. ‘Lots of women come to services in the Cathedral, but I don’t actually know any, if you mean like Rob-’

Oswin checked himself. Robert was, after all, the subdean’s nephew. In his position, Oswin certainly didn’t want word to reach Father William that he had accused his nephew of fornication.

Thomas gave a dry little cough. ‘I am well acquainted with Father Robert’s proclivities, if that is what is concerning you, Father Oswin. I am not necessarily suggesting that this woman is known to you in the carnal sense, but I wish you to think carefully. Have you ever seen a woman with hair of this colour with Father Eustace? You see, these hairs were taken from the cross used to bludgeon him. They’re clearly not his, so there is just a chance they may belong to his assailant. Someone who might have had a grudge against him? Someone he denied alms to?

‘I’ve already made enquiries among his congregation at St Lawrence. But of those women who have similar hair, none quite matches these and all could prove they were somewhere else at the time of his attack. I will question every woman with russet hair in Lincoln, if I have to, but that could take some time. But it occurred to me, she might be someone known to Eustace’s friends. Someone he mentioned to you that he’d quarrelled with, perhaps?’

Oswin shook his head. ‘Eustace didn’t ever mention women, except to grumble about their whole sex in general. Even if a woman did speak to him, he wouldn’t have known what colour her hair was, because he never looked at them. Why, even-’ He stopped. ‘There is one he knew with this colour hair, but why on earth should she…?’

Treasurer Thomas sat alone in the crowded ale-room of the tavern, watching the people on the benches around him. In truth, he was enjoying himself. He seldom got the chance to listen to the gossip and banter in such places any more, for, when he was in Lincoln, he dined with his fellow clerics, and even when travelling to make inspections of property he was expected to dine in the religious houses along the route, which was in any case safer for a man in his position, who would be marked at once as carrying gold and silver. Not since he had been employed as a spy for the treacherous Queen Isabella had he had cause to lurk in the corners of inns and taverns.

He’d been watching her all evening, but it wasn’t wise to tackle her in front of a room full of people. In his experience, the regulars would rally around one of their own and it was common for them to block the path of men-at-arms or mob them, while the wanted man or woman slipped out the back of the inn and fled into the night. So he bided his time and savoured the plainness of the mutton stew in contrast to the rich and elaborate dishes served in his own chambers.

He beckoned to the serving maid. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any fat bacon. I’d pay well for a couple of slices of that.’

She raised her eyebrows. He had just consumed a generous portion of stew, but if he wanted to part with more money, she certainly wasn’t going to turn him away.

‘I’ll have to fetch it from the cellar, sir.’

He waited until she’d descended the stairs, then he gave a single nod to a man sitting on the opposite side of the ale-room and, unobserved by anyone else in the crowded room, he slipped through the cellar door, closing it behind him.

The woman was slicing bacon from a flitch hanging from a large iron hook on one of the beams. At the creak on the stairs, she turned, wary, then relaxed a little as she saw who it was.

‘I’m just coming, sir. You go back up and take a seat. I’ll not be long. Customers aren’t supposed to come down here.’

‘Only clerics, is that right, Meggy?’

She shrugged. ‘There’s a group of them come to play dice sometimes. We let them use the cellars. Puts the other customers off, see, having them around.’

‘But they haven’t been here for several days.’

‘I dare say they’ll be back,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what’s it to you?’

Thomas pulled the brimmed hat from his head, revealing his tonsure. ‘I was thinking of joining them.’

‘You’ll have to ask them. They don’t just let anyone into their little group.’

‘But now that two of their members won’t be coming back, they’ll surely need new blood. He died, you know, Father Eustace. You probably heard the bell tolling for him.’

The knife jerked in her hand and she swore as it nicked her finger. She sucked at the wound.

‘I’m sorry to bring you such distressing news,’ Thomas said.

‘Why should I be distressed? Salt from the bacon, is all. Stings like the very devil when it gets into a cut.’

But Thomas saw her hands were trembling. She slid the platter onto the table, without looking at him.

‘Here’s your meats. Eat them down here or take them back upstairs, as you please, it’s all the same to me. I can’t waste time talking. I got customers want serving.’

She tried to edge past him, but he stretched out his hand to the table blocking the way.

‘You didn’t ask how Father Eustace died. He was a young man. Aren’t you curious?’

‘Was he?’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t know him. One priest more or less in the world, makes no odds to me. There’s plenty more to take his place.’

‘You didn’t know him and yet you served him, served him and all five of them every time they came down here to play dice.’

‘Don’t know their names.’

‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘But you’d recognise them, and Father Eustace recognised you, too, didn’t he? In Father Robert’s chambers? Was that why you hit him with the cross, the cross you were stealing? You wanted to stop him reporting you as a thief?’

Her head snapped up. ‘I wasn’t stealing it. It was that priest of yours who took it, but they never get punished whatever crimes they commit, do they? Only us. It’s always us.’

‘So, if you weren’t stealing it, why did you hit Father Eustace with it? And don’t try to deny it. You’ve just admitted you knew about it. No one, save for the five members of the Black Crows, knew the cross was missing.’

She was staring wildly about her, panic rising in her face. He guessed she was going to try to make a run for it, but what he was not prepared for was the mask of savagery that suddenly twisted her face. With a shriek, she lifted her knife and lunged at him.

Had it been Father William or Father Paul in that cellar, there was no question the Cathedral bell would have been tolling out their deaths that evening. But Father Thomas had not acquired his scar at the Cathedral treasure house. He dodged sideways, letting her momentum carry her forward and, grabbing her wrist, he twisted the knife from her grasp.

She fell heavily onto the flagstones, but even that wasn’t enough to subdue her. She made a wild grab for his legs, sinking her teeth into his calf. Only by seizing her long hair and wrenching her head back, did Father Thomas manage to prise her loose. He flung her backwards then hauled her to her feet, holding her own knife at her throat.

His leg burned. He could feel the hot blood flowing down from where she’d bitten a chunk from his flesh, but he tried to ignore the pain.

He pulled her over to the bench and pressed her down onto it. ‘Don’t even think of running or calling out,’ he warned. ‘I’ve an armed man stationed outside that door up there, with orders to let no one in or out, and more men posted round the tavern outside.’

He hobbled to the bench opposite and sat down, keeping the knife pointed towards her. Her eyes were burning with hatred and he knew if he gave her half a chance she’d tear his throat out with her teeth. The safest course would be to call the men-at-arms down here to seize and bind her, then hand her over to the Sherriff of Lincoln. She’d hang, there was no question about that, but he didn’t want her to go to the gallows without learning why she’d done it. She hadn’t stolen the cross from the Cathedral – that much he’d already discovered from Oswin – so why had she killed Eustace?’

‘Tell me, tell me everything, Meggy,’ he urged.

‘What good’ll that do? You’re not going to save me from the hangman’s necklace.’

Thomas knew she’d never believe him even if he swore that he would.

‘But I can save your soul. If you die without confessing such crimes as you have committed, you’ll burn in hell for all eternity.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said, her eyes flashing. ‘That’s where he sent her. That’s where they all sent her – to hell. Gives you a thrill, does it, to think of her writhing and naked in the flames.’

‘Who?’

Her expression softened and a distant look came into her eyes. ‘My sister. She was a rare beauty. Hair same colour as mine, but twice as thick and long. Spent hours combing it, she did. Everyone noticed it. They cut it all off, right in front of the jeering mob. That’s what did for her more than anything. The whipping she could stand. We’d more than enough of those when we were bairns to make us hardened to it, but then they made her stand at the Cathedral door in nowt but her shift, for four Sundays, with her head all shorn and folks mocking and laughing. Come the third Sunday, she couldn’t take the shame of it no more. She hanged herself.

‘’Cause she loved him, you know. To him, she was nowt but a creature to pleasure him, but she really loved him, that’s why she went to his bed. Course, they wouldn’t let her have a Christian burial. Said she’d committed the worst of sins – pride for she’d set herself above God and taken her own life when it was His alone to take. Can’t ever be forgiven, it can’t, not self-murder. She’d burn for it in hell, they said. They were going to bury her at the crossroads outside Lincoln, and drive iron nails into her feet so she couldn’t walk and torment the living. But they’d done enough to her poor body. I wouldn’t let them have her. I took her and I buried her in the woods close to St Margaret’s well. I thought the saint might bless her and keep her safe, even if the priests would not.’

Thomas was trying to make sense of all this, to tie the threads between this rambling tale and the death of Eustace, but he could not make the connection.

‘Your sister was punished for being a whore?’

‘She wasn’t a whore,’ Meggy said fiercely. ‘She was faithful to him; never slept with no one else. She loved Father Robert. She loved him! But to him, she was only one of dozens of girls.’

Suddenly, Thomas understood. There’d been an incident just over a year before. An accusation that several of the young priests at the Cathedral were entertaining the town whores in their beds overnight. The accusation had been made anonymously but, as was always the way in Lincoln, soon the whole town was gossiping about it and the Cathedral officials had been forced to act. They’d raided several of the chambers of the priests and dragged out the girls they found there.

The girls had all been shorn and whipped and forced to do penance at the Cathedral door. Their duty having been seen to be done, things had then returned to normal, and presumably the whores had gone about their business once more.

As for the priests, a few light penances had been imposed, including, Thomas remembered, on the subdean’s nephew, who was one of those found in the arms of a girl, but no one was anxious to make much of the matter as far as the priests were concerned. They were all young men, prey to the temptations of the flesh, and celibacy was hard on the young. Who could really blame naïve boys, unused to women’s wiles, for being seduced by artful and professional prostitutes? Besides, there was scarcely a senior clergyman who didn’t recall, with a slight twinge of guilt, some similar failing in their own distant past, and for some it wasn’t that distant.

‘The body in the chapel,’ Thomas said softly, ‘that was your sister.’

‘I dug her up and carried her there in a cart. Thought if they was to find them together and not know who she was, they’d give her a proper burial in a consecrated ground, then the Devil couldn’t take her.’

‘You knew that Giles’s body was already there?’

‘Saw them take it there.’ Her face became contorted again. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. It were an accident. I only meant to get them punished, like my poor sister had been punished. I wasn’t going to keep the cross, I swear I wasn’t. That’s why I was putting it back in Father Robert’s chamber. Thought they’d find it there and he’d be shamed in front of the world, like my poor sister was. But he came in, that Eustace. Accused me of being one of Robert’s whores. I told him I wasn’t. I swore to him she wasn’t neither. But he laughed. Said all women were whores and it were him who’d reported Robert and the others for fornicating. It was his fault my sister died. All his fault!’

‘So you hit him,’ Thomas said.

‘I’m not sorry. You’ll not make me repentant of that. I’m glad he’s dead. Glad I killed him, ’cause now he’ll be rotting in the ground like her.’

‘And Giles?’

‘Told you that were an accident,’ she said sullenly. ‘I heard them talking about taking summat from the Cathedral and how they were going to hide it. They never take notice of me when I serve them, as if I’m nothing but a dumb hound for them to snap their fingers at when they want something fetching. I saw my chance. I reckoned if I could take it from them afore they had time to return it, then I could put it in Father Robert’s house and tell someone it was there, just like they was told about the girls being in the priests’ houses. He’d get the blame. They all would. I wanted to see them punished.

‘I followed them and soon as I saw where they was headed I guessed where Robert had hidden it. We used that loose stone as a hiding place for our little treasures when we were bairns. I took the cross, afore they could find it, but I lost my way in the dark, ran right into Giles and when he bumped against me, he felt it under my cloak.

‘He tried to grab me and make me give it to him. I pulled out my knife. I only meant to drive him off, but he came towards me again. He must have tripped over a root or some such in the dark, ’cause he fell forward onto the knife in my hand and the next thing I knew he was dead. I ran and hid; saw them carrying the body to the chapel and knew they weren’t going to report it. They couldn’t, not without giving themselves away.’

‘How did you get into the chapel? The door was locked.’

Meggy gave Thomas a pitying look. ‘Door on the other side, small one. Wood was so rotten it was easy to chip a hole in it and put my hand through. Key was in the lock on the other side. Stuffed up the hole up again with a bit of wood and leaves. Who’s to see in the dark?’

She looked up at him from under the mob of russet hair. Her expression was almost calm now.

‘They’ll not be punished, will they, those priests? None of them. They’ll punish me, though. They’ll hang me. But not them, never them, though they took my sister’s life no different than if they’d strangled her with their own hands.’

‘Your sister took her own life,’ Thomas said sternly. ‘The three men have been on a diet of bread and water and slept on straw these past nights, and there will be other penances imposed on them when all this is reported.’

She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘There’s many a bairn in England who’d be glad of a bite of bread for their suppers and a heap of straw to sleep on and think it heaven. What are they doing penance for? What’s their sin? I’d like to see every last priest in England struck down. That’s what God wants to do: strike them down like the angel of death slew all the first born of Egypt.’

Without warning, she lunged for the knife and grabbed it. Thomas threw up his arms to protect his face and chest, thinking she was going to plunge it into him, but instead, he heard a scream of agony. Meggy was sitting on the bench, her eyes wide in pain, her fingers still grasping the hilt of the knife that she had plunged into her own chest. A crimson stain was spreading rapidly out over the front of her gown, like a rosebud opening. Then she crumpled forward, her head thudding on the table, her hair tumbling over her face and covering those dead eyes.

There was a silence in the inn as Randal finished his tale. He was staring at rushes on the floor. ‘I think,’ he added softly, ‘the days are coming when Meggy will get her wish. If the pestilence reaches our shores, priests will be struck down in their thousands, as they have already been beyond these seas. Perhaps God has finally woken from His slumbers at last and the punishment we priests deserve is about to fall upon us all.’

Prior Wynter snorted. ‘According to your tale it is the women who deserve punishment – luring a priest from his scared vows, desecrating a sacred and holy object by using it to murder a man of God, not to mention the wickedness of suicide. It seems to me you have shown us that lust was the chief sin in this fable and it was lust that was justly punished with the death and damnation of these two wanton females.’

All the women in the tavern bridled and there was an explosion of protests.

‘And I suppose the clerics received no punishment at all, just like poor Meggy predicted,’ Katie said indignantly, glowering at Prior Wynter, ‘in spite of the fact that they’d stolen and lied.’

‘There were penances,’ Randal said dully, staring at his hands. ‘The subdean decided his nephew was too much of a liability to keep him at the Cathedral. So he found Robert a parish on the edge of the fens far from the inns and stews of Lincoln. And he sent a comely housekeeper to cook and clean for him, knowing that even if the housekeeper found more ways than a heated stone to warm his nephew’s bed, at least the rumours would never reach as far as Lincoln.

‘But as I told you at the beginning, Prior Wynter, it is pride that is the father of the other six sins. Oswin was proud of his knowledge and talent for summoning spirits and demons. He exalted in the glory of driving out the Devil and wrestling with angels. He could control the ministers and minions of Heaven and Hell. But his pride was to sire its own punishment.’

With shaking hands, Randal unwound the long tails of his hood and pulled it from his head. His tonsure gleamed in the firelight. He lifted his head and for the first time met the gaze of his fellow pilgrims. This time, it was they who turned their faces away as they saw the wild and haunted despair in his eyes.

‘You see, I did summon spirits and demons, just as I boasted I could. But now they come whether I call them or not and I cannot stop them. I see them everywhere. Imps with leathery wings and cruel beaks peer down at me from the trees. Monstrous creatures with human eyes slither over the stones of the track towards me. Men, long dead, stretch out their rotting hands, trying to pull me back down into their foul graves. Giles and Eustace sit on each side of me at the table whenever I try to eat, the blood still running from their wounds. I see demons crouching on women’s shoulders, mocking me. I watch the birds of death hovering over the babies’ cradles. I am afraid even to look at a child, in case my evil eye should curse them. I am terrified to sleep, for in my dreams there is no escaping the wraiths that bite and tear and suffocate me.

‘That night, in the disused chapel outside Lincoln, as I prostrated myself before that altar in front of my friends, I prayed that St Guthlac and St Hugh and all the Saints would give me the power to summon the spirits of the air and earth, of the living and the dead, and they heard me. They granted me what, in my pride, I most desired. And that was my punishment. They are dragging me down into their kingdom, the kingdom of the dead. I am already in purgatory and I do not know if I will ever escape it.’

He gazed around at his fellow pilgrims, his face contorted with despair. ‘If I die at the holy shrine of Walsingham, will the spirits leave me then? If the pestilence comes to take me, will I finally be free from my torment? For that is my only prayer now.’

Historical Notes

Dean Henry Mansfield died in post in Lincoln Cathedral on 6 December 1328. The position was finally filled in the February, not by the subdean but by Anthony Bek, who had previously been elected Bishop of Lincoln, though he never served as such because the result of the election was quashed. However, he subsequently became Bishop of Norwich.

Divination was practised by trained priests within the Church for a variety of purposes. The instructions they were to follow were carefully written down. There were many methods, but they basically fell into three types. Sum mon ing – the calling up of spirits, angels or demons, to question them directly about the future. Scrivening – where, after fasting, purification and mediation, a priest would attempt to read patterns in smoke or in blood, oil, wax or other substances dropped in water. Casting lots – after fasting and saying Mass, the priest was instructed to sprinkle himself with holy water and ensure that six poor people were being fed as he cast his lots. He would then ask a series of yes/no questions such as: Will this sick person recover? Should this journey be undertaken? Should the building work be begun on this day?

All divination had to be performed before a consecrated altar. Some churchmen denounced such practises, but many advocated them, seeing no difference between divination and trial by ordeal, which in previous centuries had been the principle form of determining the guilt or innocence of the accused.

Crackpole, or krakepol, which gave the area of Lincoln its name, is thought to come from the Scandinavian kráka, meaning crow and pol, which in Old English means a small body of water. Crackpole lies just north of Brayford Pool. Clergy were often disparagingly referred to as crows by the laity because of their black robes and the fact that they made a profit from the dead. A crow feeding in a churchyard or sitting on the roof of a house was an omen of death.

In the Middle Ages, most churches had an Easter Sepulchre built into the wall on the left-hand side of the altar. This was a long low recess between two foot and six foot long. At the end of the Good Friday services, a statue of Christ was placed in the tomb and kept there until Easter Sunday morning, when the sepulchre would be uncovered and the tomb revealed to be empty, showing that Christ had risen. Many churches bricked up their sepulchres during the Reformation and many more were lost due to rebuilding in later centuries, but some still remain, such as at St Mary the Virgin in Ringmer, East Sussex, and All Saints Church, Hawton, Nottinghamshire. In some old churches, if you examine the wall you can still see the outline of where the recess used to be.

Clergy, even those in minor orders who did not take lifelong vows, were granted benefit of clergy, which by this period had been extended to include anyone who could read. This meant that, except for those accused of treason, monks and clergy could only be tried in the far more lenient ecclesiastical courts, which did not impose the death penalty, even for murder. However, there were cases of clergy being defrocked in the ecclesiastical courts and then handed over to be tried again in the civil courts, which could hang them, but this was rare.

Punishment, even for serious crimes, usually took the form of penances, such as fasting, pilgrimages or incarceration in a carcer, an ecclesiastical prison, where monks and priests were imprisoned in solitary confinement for misdeeds ranging from breaches of the religious rule to criminal offences. Often, confinement would be for just a few days, though, for serious offences, such as murdering another cleric or monk, it could be a year or more, and after that the offender might be banished to a parish or monastery considered to be particularly austere or remote.