The First Murder

Act Two

Wilbertone, Cambridgeshire Fens, Spring 1361

‘You cannot ask that of me!’ Horrified, the young monk sprang to his feet, backing away from the elderly priest as if he was the devil himself.

‘I do ask it, Brother Oswin. More than that, I demand it.’ The old man’s voice was cracked with age, but his eyes blazed with determination.

‘But it is sacrilege,’ Oswin protested. ‘A sin, a terrible sin. I would cut off my own hand rather than use it to commit such a deed. How could you ask any man to carry out such a wicked act, let alone a man in holy orders?’

‘Because only a monk can do this,’ the old man growled. ‘Come back here and sit down. I said, sit down!’

Brother Oswin, trained like a hound to obey the voice of command, perched on a low wooden stool that had been placed beside the priest’s chair, and gnawed at his fingernails, which were already bitten down to the quick. As soon as he’d entered Father Edmund’s tiny cottage he’d noticed the bunch of dried poppy heads hanging from the beam. The syrup made from the white poppies eased the shivers of the marsh fever and soothed the crippling joint pains that tormented those who lived in the dank fenland. It even dulled the gripes of hunger, but sup it too often and it would drive a man’s wits from his head for ever. Was that the cause of Father Edmund’s madness? For mad he certainly must be, even to contemplate such a dreadful act.

Brother Oswin had known the old priest ever since he was a boy. In fact it was Father Edmund who had helped him to gain admittance as a novice at Ely Priory. So when the priest had sent word to him, asking him to come back to the village, he had sought leave to depart right away, assuming his old confessor was sick or in desperate need of his help. But nothing could have prepared him for what Father Edmund had asked of him.

‘Why, Father, why would you ask such a thing?’

‘Look around you,’ the old man commanded.

The young man’s gaze ranged around the dingy cottage. He had not visited Father Edmund for several years and had been shocked to see the misery in which the frail old man was living. Surely it hadn’t always been as bad as this. In the blackened hearth, a pitiful fire was struggling for life against the icy blasts whistling through the gaps in the walls, and the ragged blankets strewn across the bed were so threadbare there could be little warmth left in them. A few crumbs of coarse, dry bean-bread still clung to a wooden trencher on the table, the remains of the priest’s supper, no doubt, and more than likely the only meal he’d eaten that day.

Spring was always the hungry time, when the winter stores were running low and the new crops were not yet harvested, but the prolonged drought of the previous year had meant that the barns were already three-quarters empty even before the first frosts, and many a man and beast had perished long before the green mist returned to cover tree and field. That this old crow had managed to survive was nothing short of a miracle, but then there were always some villagers willing to sacrifice their last crust to a priest or a monk, in the hope of receiving a whole loaf in the afterlife.

Father Edmund lifted a leather beaker from the table and thrust it under Brother Oswin’s nose. It only took one sniff to tell that the ale was sour, not fit even for the hogs.

‘Even beggars at the alms gate drink better ale than this,’ the old priest said bitterly. ‘Is this the way God rewards His faithful servants?’

‘But when you’re granted your new living-’

‘What new living, boy? They’ve left me here to rot for over twenty years. It’s been ten, fifteen years since the Bishop of Ely sent word to me. I doubt he even remembers I’m still alive. I’ll stay here until I die. That’s my reward for all I accomplished for the Church.’ Father Edmund huddled closer to the fire, spreading his mottled hands over the feeble embers. ‘When I think of all I did for Bishop de Lisle. If it hadn’t been for me, he would be dead and rotting in his grave now.’

‘The bishop is fled abroad,’ Oswin told him. ‘But he’s a man of compassion. They say that all through the Great Pestilence he was not afraid to administer the last rites to the dying, though many others refused for fear of the contagion. When he returns, I’m sure-’

‘Sure, are you? De Lisle may be many things, but a fool is not one of them. He won’t return to Ely again. He daren’t. There are still plenty who think him guilty of theft, if not of murder. And now I hear rumours that the Great Pestilence is once more prowling across England. Is this so?’

The young monk bowed his head as he made the sign of the cross. ‘It is, Father. But you should not fear it. This time, they say, it’s the children and the fit young men that death is snatching first.’

The old man shuddered. ‘I have lived through it all before and I prayed I would never do so again – the putrid stench of the bodies, the fires, the mass graves with the corpses thrown in like shoals of rotting fish, then the looting and the murder. Bands of cutthroats roaming through the towns and villages taking whatever they wanted from the living and the dead. They cared nothing for any law, nor for any man. They were worse than savage wolves.’

‘But you survived, Father, when all around you perished. Even though you daily ministered to the dying and buried the dead with your own hands, yet you did not fall sick. You knew how to defend yourself, and Bishop de Lisle too. They say you conjured the angels and demons to protect him. You will survive the pestilence again, Father.’

‘What is the use of surviving?’ the old man asked savagely. ‘When the villagers die and there is no one left to bring tithes to my crumbling church, no neighbours to share their pottage with me, no boys to fetch fuel for my fire, how will I keep from freezing? How will I cook? Where will I buy food when a single loaf costs a king’s ransom?’

Oswin laid his hand comfortingly on the aged knee. He could feel the sharp bones even through the patched robe. ‘I will try to persuade the prior that you should be granted a place in our hall or infirmary. I know you cannot pay a corrody for lodging and food, but they will surely take you in out of charity. After all, as you said, you did great service for Bishop de Lisle.’

Father Edmund flapped his hand impatiently. ‘You’d be wasting your time. They don’t want me back. I know too much. I’m an embarrassment to them.’

He closed his own cold fingers over Oswin’s, gripping his hand with a surprising strength. ‘Just bring me what I have asked of you, Brother Oswin. If I possess that I will have people flocking to my door, for I will have the certain cure. They will sell everything they own to save themselves and their children from the Great Pestilence, and if they don’t…’ he laughed bitterly, ‘… then I’ll put it to another use. They say it will open any lock and it puts a household into such a deep sleep that a thief may steal the bed they are lying on without waking them.’

‘No, Father, no…’ the young monk protested, tears of anguish welling up in his eyes. ‘This is not you speaking. The poppy juice has turned your wits, or an evil spirit has entered into you. The godly man I knew as a boy, the man who guided me into the priory, would never have entertained such wicked thoughts.’

‘I am the man that the Bishop of Ely has turned me into and it is Ely who will suffer for it. They owe me this, and you will bring it to me. Don’t you dare shake your head at me, boy. Do you think I’ve forgotten what you confessed to me before you entered the priory, the reason you became a monk? The fool of a blacksmith still believes to this day his daughter ran away, but you and I both know she did not. No, that poor girl lies at the bottom of the sucking marsh where you dumped her, after you and your brother raped and murdered her.’

Oswin’s face drained of colour. ‘But… we were scarcely more than boys… we were drunk… it was just high spirits… Her death was an accident. We never intended her any harm. And I made a full and contrite confession to you as my priest. You absolved me… No priest may reveal what is told to him in confession. The Church forbids-’

‘I told you, boy, the Church has betrayed me. I no longer care what it forbids. And I still have the necklace you took from her body. If her father should be shown that…’

The young monk looked as if he was going to vomit, but he swallowed hard and took a deep breath, thrusting out his chin defiantly. ‘I will confess my crime before the whole priory and accept whatever penance they lay upon me even if it should last my whole life, but I will not add to my sins by doing what you ask. I will not!’

Father Edmund leaned back in his chair. ‘Brave words, boy, for you know that whatever you confess you will be safe. As a monk, you cannot be executed for your crime. But your brother is not in holy orders. He has a wife and three little children. Will you watch him as he dances on the end of a rope? Will you listen to the sobs of his wife and children as they starve?’

He leaned forward again, grasping Oswin’s sleeve. ‘Make no mistake, I care not one wit for man or Church now. Do as I ask, boy, or I swear your brother will be dangling from the hangman’s noose before the month is out.’

Ely, Cambridgeshire

‘It’ll never work,’ Henry said, staring in dismay at the huge throng of people swarming around the door of the cathedral.

‘Course it will,’ Martin said cheerfully, giving his cousin a bracing punch on the arm. ‘Besides, you got a better idea? I don’t think we’d exactly get a warm welcome if we went back to Cambridge. With the pestilence spreading it won’t be long before the towns start shutting their gates and I’ve no mind to be stuck out on the road when they do. This way we get money enough for food and wine, and with a bit of luck, snug lodgings in the priory guest hall too.’

‘But you heard those jugglers: they nearly got their heads broken by the lay brothers when they threw them off the priory’s land.’

‘They had a half-dressed girl with them. It’s hardly surprising they were chased off if the prior saw her turning cartwheels and displaying all her wares in front of a gaggle of pimple-faced novice monks. But we will offer something quite different, something -’ Martin groped about for the word, which wasn’t one he often had cause to use – ‘something holy. The lay brothers can’t control the rabble. If the pilgrims keep pouring in at this rate, sooner or later there’s going to be a riot. The crowds need something to distract them and that, dear cos, is where we step in, like angels of mercy, to deliver them from evil.’

Henry had to admit his cousin was right about one thing: the lay brothers were losing control of the crowd. People had been flocking to the cathedral for weeks in far greater numbers than usual, not just seeking alms to feed their starving families, but to pray at the shrines of St Etheldreda and her sister St Withburga for an end to the droughts and for a good harvest. But since the rumours of the pestilence had begun to spread, the crowds streaming to the shrines had more than doubled, with men, women and children desperate to seek protection from the sickness and prepare their souls for death should they fall to the Great Mortality.

The queues were now so long that the great doors of the cathedral had to be slammed shut in the evening before some of those who had been waiting all day had a chance to get inside, never mind come near enough to touch the shrines. Forced to spend another night in the overpriced and overcrowded inns if they could afford it, or camping out in the cold, the pilgrims found their tempers were fraying badly. Those who had been trying to get in for days screamed abuse at the newly arrived who pushed ahead of them. Fights erupted as people attempted to wriggle their way to the front of the queue, with the old, the weak and the lame being shoved aside.

Even when they gained admission to the cathedral, violent arguments broke out between the lay brothers trying to collect the fee for visiting the shrines and the pilgrims who argued that, having been forced to wait for days, they now had no money left to pay. Although the lay brothers were, on the whole, burly men, well armed with thick staves, they were having a hard time trying to prevent the crowds from simply storming their way in and smashing off fragments of the shrines to carry home with them. Something had to be done to distract the mob before someone got a knife between his ribs or was trampled to death.

‘Come on.’ Martin tugged at his cousin’s arm. ‘No use trying to talk to the lay brothers. We need to talk to the prior himself.’

Pushing his way through the tide of people flowing towards the cathedral, Martin led the way down the Heyrow, towards Steeple Gate, close to Goldsmith’s Tower where the gold and silver vessels and ornaments were wrought for the cathedral under the gimlet eye of the sacrist, who had his office on the floor above.

Henry trailed after Martin, as he had done ever since he could toddle. Martin, two years older than Henry, was still a head taller than he, even though they were both now in their twenties. Henry was also painfully aware that Martin was the more handsome of the two, with speedwell-blue eyes of disarming innocence, which could entice maids and matrons alike to climb into his bed, and made men foolishly trust him in spite of their own good sense. Henry had only ever been the insipid shadow following on his cousin’s heels, the one who women ignored and men overlooked.

Sometimes he tried to convince himself that women would find him desirable if his handsome cousin wasn’t around to make him look dull and plain by comparison. But he never had the courage to put it to the test and face the world alone. His cousin had always looked out for him, and as Martin reminded him at least once a day, Henry simply didn’t have the wit to fend for himself.

A man squatted in front of Steeple Gate, his arms bound in filthy bandages through which greenish-yellow stains were oozing. Half a dozen more beggars sat around in a state of near stupor, hunched against the cold wind from the river. But as soon as Martin tugged at the bell rope hanging above the gate they sprang to life and clustered round, pushing wooden bowls at Henry and Martin, whining for coins.

A young monk dragged open the gate and took a step forward. The beggar with the bandaged arms almost hit him in the face with his bowl as he thrust it towards him. The monk shoved the beggar hard in the chest, so that he stumbled over the crutches of another and fell sprawling on the stones.

‘I’ve told you before,’ the monk snapped, ‘not another loaf will you get from us, so it’s no use your waiting.’ Seeing the shocked expression on Henry’s face the monk flushed slightly. ‘He’s avering, an old trick. He’s only pretending to be sick, but I reckon he takes the meats we give him and sells them, then spends the money in the local tavern.’

The beggar let forth a stream of vehement denials and curses, and the others joined in, but the young monk was evidently well used to ignoring them.

‘What’s your business here?’ he shouted over the din.

Martin raised his voice to match him. ‘We’ve a proposition to put to the prior.’

The monk raised his eyebrows scathingly. ‘And what might you be wanting to propose that would be of any interest to an important man like the prior?’

‘Those crowds outside the cathedral are on the verge of a riot. We have a plan to keep them calm and quiet.’

‘I’ve a plan to do that myself, but I don’t think the prior will sanction firing arrows down on them from the towers,’ the monk said sourly. Then, as the beggars’ demands grew ever more insistent, he retreated back into the gateway and began pushing the gate closed behind him.

Just before slamming it shut, he peered at Martin through the gap. ‘Look, even if you could perform the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Prior Alan wouldn’t see you. Why don’t you try Subprior Stephen? He went out of here a little while ago making for the quayside. If you hurry you’ll catch him.’

Without looking to see if Henry was following, Martin raced off down the hill, dodging round the pilgrims and traders, the boys hefting great stacks of dried peat on their backs and the women hurrying home with fat eels for their husband’s dinner. Henry didn’t trouble to follow. If there was wheedling and persuading to be done, he could add nothing. He would simply be expected to stand and listen to one of his cousin’s eloquent speeches as he convinced yet another fool to part with his money. Henry might occasionally be called upon to back up some wild claim or other, but he couldn’t even do that without blushing. He sighed. If Martin put half as much effort into finding work as he did into dreaming up schemes for making money, they could both have settled down long ago.

Henry peered down the hill to see if Martin had caught up with the subprior, and noticed a man walking up towards him, threading his way through the crowds. He was taller than most of the men around him. From this distance it was hard to make out his features, but his crow-black hair stood out clearly and there was something about that uneven gait that was vaguely familiar. Then in a sudden flash of recognition Henry realised who he was. He felt as if someone had thrown a pail of ice over him, for he was the last man he wanted to see in Ely. Henry fled across the market square and dived into the nearest inn. He scuttled into the corner, trying to peer out through one of the open casements without being seen.

‘Ale, is it? We’ve a stew of eels, if you’re hungry.’ A disheveled-looking girl, balancing a flagon on each hip, wriggled up beside him and peered curiously out of the window. ‘What’s so interesting out there? A fight, is it?’

‘I was waiting for someone.’

She snorted and moved away from the window. ‘You can drink while you wait, can’t you? What’ll I bring you?’

But Henry had already crept back to the door. He anxiously scanned the crowd, but there was no sign of the face he was searching for. Maybe he had turned off down one of the lanes. Then he saw Martin sauntering up the street with all the arrogance of a cat with a sparrow in its mouth. Even before he was near enough to speak, Henry knew that Martin had managed to persuade the subprior.

‘He says he will have to consult the other obedientiaries who have the running of the cathedral grounds, but he is sure they will be persuaded. And he says they have a wagon long enough for us to perform on. He will even ask the sacrist to loan us a couple of carpenters to build the mouth of hell and the celestial heaven. So, young cos, we are in business! The Play of Adam will be performed to the adulation of the crowd, well, as much of it as we have time to prepare. Subprior Stephen says that they have the whole manuscript in their library, and he’ll assign some of the younger scribes to copy out the parts for each actor when we’ve decided what we will perform. I tried to persuade him to let me borrow the manuscript so that I could find the best sections, but he says the scroll is over two hundred years old and far too valuable.’ Martin scowled. ‘I don’t know why he wouldn’t trust me with it.’

If he had, Henry thought to himself, it would certainly have been the last the subprior ever saw of it.

Martin brightened again. ‘No matter. At least we’ll make good money from the crowd. You wait, they’ll be showering us with silver.’

When he finally paused for breath, Henry managed to deliver his own news. ‘The alchemist is here… from Cambridge… I saw him walking up the hill. He could only have been a few yards in front of you. Saints be praised that I recognised him in time and managed to hide before he saw me, but we have to get out of here. We must leave Ely today.’

‘Haven’t you been listening, young cos? It’s all settled. We are going to perform The Play of Adam and I’ve no intention of leaving until we’ve milked this pretty little goat completely dry.’

Henry stared at his cousin as if he was insane. ‘Don’t you understand what I said – the alchemist is here! We can’t possibly perform in front of a crowd now. That would be the quickest way of drawing attention to ourselves. If he recognises us we’ll be arrested and hanged.’

Martin laughed. ‘And the stars might fall out of the sky tonight. Why do you always have to imagine the worst? Even if he is here, what does it matter? He’ll have come on business. He’s no reason to suspect us of anything. I covered our tracks carefully. So if you do bump into him just act as if you’re delighted to see an old friend. And whatever you do, don’t start stammering and turning red like a naughty schoolboy expecting a birching.’ He flicked Henry’s chest hard with his finger. ‘How often do I have to tell you, young cos, I have brains enough for the both of us, so stop worrying. Now what we need to do is round up a few more actors, and there’s only one place to find actors – in any tavern that sells good cheap ale.’

The Mermaid Inn on the bank of the great river was empty of drinkers save for eight men clustered around the fire. It was barely an hour after sunrise, as the yawns and scowls of the serving maid testified, and the boatmen still had many hours of work ahead of them before they could stop for a flagon of ale and some slices of brawn fried in lard. But Martin had insisted that the players must make an early start.

Cudbert, known to his friends as Cuddy, was a coarse-featured man with a neck as thick and corded as a plough ox. He took a large swig of ale from his leather tankard, and wiped his mouth with the back of a grimy hand.

‘So are we doing The Shepherds’ Play, or what? I always play Gib, him with the sour wife.

“As sharp as a thistle, as rough as a briar

She is browed like a bristle, with eyes full of ire

When she once wets her whistle she can outsing the choir.”’

Cuddy roared out the words as if declaiming in front of a raucous crowd.

‘But that’s the play we do for the Christmas feast, Uncle,’ a graceful, fresh-faced lad protested. ‘It isn’t fitting for this season.’

Cuddy curled one massive paw into a fist. ‘Anyone ask for your opinion, whelp?’ He turned to Martin, rolling his eyes. ‘My nephew, Luke, or so his mother swore afore she died. My brother ran off and abandoned him, not that I can blame him when he saw what he’d been cursed with as a son. I mean, does he look like he’s got our family’s blood running in his veins? Ditchwater, more like. But my old woman insisted we took the brat in. Seventeen, he is now, and still useless. But I say this for him, he makes a comely maid when you dress him in skirts. Course, he doesn’t need to do any acting to play a virgin.’

The other men, including Martin, roared with laughter as Luke flushed scarlet and glowered at the rushes on the floor, trying to hide his humiliation behind an unruly tangle of dark hair. Henry alone didn’t smile, wincing as if he felt the lash of the words on his own back.

‘The Shepherds’ Play it is,’ Martin said. ‘And, from The Play of Adam, “The Sacrifice of Isaac”. Always makes the women cry, that one. The crowds won’t care what we give them so long as it’s bawdy and bloody.’

‘John’s eldest son can play Isaac,’ Cuddy said. ‘He’s small for his age, but he’s as sharp as a whetted scythe.’ Catching sight of Martin’s alarmed expression, he added, ‘Don’t fret, young Ben looks nothing like his old man.’

It was just as well, Henry thought, for John was a stocky, pugnacious-looking man, with a broken nose and fists as big as turnips, hardly the type to meekly lie down and prepare to be slaughtered.

‘Then young Ben shall indeed play Isaac,’ Martin beamed round at the assembled company. ‘But we’ll start with “Cain and Abel”, a play that Henry and I know well.’

A murmur of consternation rippled around the other men.

Cuddy shook his grizzled head. ‘No, we won’t be doing that one. That’s the play of the Glovers’ Guild. They’ll not take kindly to us performing that.’

Martin flicked his fingers dismissively. ‘It’s to be performed on cathedral grounds and it’s the Priory who has to right to say what will be performed and by whom. Besides, I’m told the guild haven’t performed “Cain and Abel” for three years now.’

‘Aye, and there’s good reason for that,’ another man piped up. ‘“Cain and Abel” brings bad luck, everyone knows that. I’ve heard tell that the very first time the words of that play were said aloud one of the actors was murdered, and he a holy monk. Glovers swear the spilling of his blood must have sealed the curse that Cain utters in the play and made it come to pass in truth, ’cause any man who acts in that play has nothing but ill fortune for the rest of the year.’

Cuddy nodded vigorously. ‘One poor bastard had his workshop burned down and him with a new stock of leather just bought in.’

‘Remember the man who played Abel?’ another said. ‘His son drowned in the river the very next day and he could swim like an eel.’

A couple of the men crossed themselves as they recalled other misfortunes that had overtaken members of the guild – mysterious fevers, a man struck down with apoplexy, not to mention a wife running off with her lover. It was as plain as the balls on a bull, they said, that the play of ‘Cain and Abel’ was cursed.

John reached across the table and poured himself another generous measure of ale from the flagon. ‘You’re talking out of your backsides as usual. Hugh’s wife running off had nothing to do with the play. The whole town knew her for a brazen strumpet long afore the glover married her. She was bound to be up to her old tricks sooner or later. Anyhow, I don’t hold with this curse nonsense. They’ve been playing “Cain and Abel ” since I was in clouts. It stands to reason, if it was cursed they’d have stopped it years ago.’

Martin laughed. ‘And I’ve played in “Cain and Abel” for years and not one drop of ill fortune has fallen on me, nor on any others who acted in it. Isn’t that right, Henry?’

Henry nodded, not trusting himself to speak. There was plenty of ill fortune he could have named, not least that business in Cambridge, but he knew from bitter experience not to contradict Martin, especially not in front of others.

‘See,’ Martin beamed. ‘And just to prove it, Henry and I will act in the play ourselves. Nothing like a good murder to keep the crowds entertained. I told Subprior Stephen as much and he agrees. Besides, he says it will remind the people not to hold back their tithes even when the harvest is poor, for fear of being cursed like Cain.’

‘I’ll take a part in it too,’ Luke said eagerly, obviously desperate to play someone other than a girl. ‘I could play the angel.’

‘I will play the angel,’ Martin announced firmly. ‘The part calls for a man who has a commanding presence.’ He struck a pose, his eyes turned beatifically up to heaven, his right hand lifted in blessing.

‘Hear that, boy?’ Cuddy said. ‘It takes a man to play an angel, so you’ll still be playing simpering wenches when you’re in your dotage.’

The men all laughed, and the muscles of Luke’s jaw tightened so hard, Henry was sure he was going to break a tooth.

‘Besides,’ Martin said, ‘I have the robe and the sword of justice, and I shall wear a gold coronet.’

A look of alarm flashed across Henry’s face. ‘No… you wouldn’t. Don’t be a fool.’

Martin wrapped an arm about Henry’s shoulder, and tousled his hair with his other hand as if he was a silly child. ‘Stop fretting, little cos, or everyone will think you are as much of a girl as young Luke here. Now I think Luke should play the role of the timid and lazy servant Brewbarrel.’

His uncle roared with laughter, slapping his thigh. ‘Aye, he’s suited to that role, right enough.’

‘And what should your part be, little cos? Yes, the pious Abel, I think. You fit that role.’

Blushing nearly as hard as Luke, Henry jerked himself out of Martin’s grasp. ‘I will play Cain.’

His cousin laughed. ‘You’d never make a convincing Cain. You couldn’t kill a mouse, never mind a man. You,’ he gestured towards the man with the broken nose, ‘John, isn’t it? Could you learn the part of Cain if I teach you?’

‘Heard it often enough. Used to be my favourite. I reckon most of it would come back to me with a bit of prompting.’

‘Settled then,’ Martin declared, beaming. ‘There’s a barn the subprior said we could use to practise in. It’s big enough for us to rehearse all three plays at the same time. Then if one of us is needed in another play he can just walk across and say his lines.’

He looped his arm through Henry’s and grinned at him. ‘So in the words of that saintly little Abel:

“Let us both go forth together.

Blessed be God, we have good weather.”’

Come the morning of the first performance, the weather had indeed turned to the good. Although it had been windy and cold for weeks, now the sun sparkled down out of a cloudless sky, tempered only by the pleasingly refreshing breeze from the river. The mood of the queuing throng lifted in the sunshine and they settled themselves on the grass, more than willing to be entertained now that they were no longer shivering in the biting wind.

The carpenters had done their work well. The entrance to hell, in the form of the gigantic gaping jaws of a great sea monster, was lined with sharp white teeth and real smoke belched from its scarlet maw. On the opposite side of the long cart the throne of heaven mounted on a high dais glittered with tiny glass jewels, and a painted rainbow arched triumphantly over it. Between the two was a pyre of wooden twigs, which would serve as the altar upon which Abel would make his sacrifice, then the place where Isaac was to be slain, and finally the fire around which the shepherds would watch their flocks. It too could be made to pour with smoke.

The whole cart had been covered with sailcloth lashed to the sides to protect the scenery as the carpenters worked, and to keep out the more inquisitive of the local brats. When it was finally rolled up to reveal the stage, to the accompaniment of a lively tune played on frestelles and drums, appreciative murmurs broke out among the waiting crowd.

But it was nothing to the gasps of admiration that arose as Martin strode onto the stage. He had decided that it was only natural for him to play the angel in each of the three plays and blithely ignored the angry muttering of the Ely man who always took that role in The Shepherds’ Play. But even the Ely man was forced to admit his appearance in the third play would only have been an anticlimax after Martin’s. For Martin was clad in white, with a pair of wings covered in swans’ feathers fastened to a concealed harness on his back. His luxuriant blond curls were freshly washed and crowned with a circlet of gold that dazzled in the sun. In his right hand he carried a gleaming silver sword, which he thrust high into the blue sky.

‘His angel, clear as crystals bright

Here unto you thus I am sent this day.’

Of course, the adults in the crowd knew the sword and the coronet were nothing more than wood, the jewels on the throne were glass and the mouth of hell was not really ablaze, but they were more than willing to allow themselves to believe, for the space of the play, that Abraham really would slaughter his son, and the beautiful creature before them was indeed an angel descended from heaven itself.

As Martin had predicted, though most of the pilgrims had little to give, they were far more willing to pay the players who had entertained them than the keepers of the shrines who would barely allow them time to say a paternoster before the tombs of the saints, despite the many hours they’d waited to get in. So when Ben, John’s doe-eyed little son, went round with the collecting bag, he brought it back bulging to Martin. Even Cuddy was grudgingly forced to admit that if there was a curse on the ‘Cain and Abel’ play, Martin had managed to reverse its fortunes.

Henry, however, was beginning to believe that the Ely men had been right all along when they said the play was ill-omened, at least for him if not for the others. The highlight of ‘Cain and Abel’, at least for the pilgrims, was the moment when Cain bludgeoned Abel to death with a jawbone. Urged on first by Martin when they rehearsed, and then by the crowd thirsting for a good fight, John’s blows were becoming evermore vicious.

By the third performance, Henry, already stiff and aching from the bruises on his arms and shoulders, could not force his shrinking flesh to submit to another battering. As John walked towards him brandishing the jawbone, Henry ran to take shelter behind the throne of God. The crowd jeered, calling Abel to come out and face Cain. But when he showed no signs of moving, Martin, resplendent in his angel’s robes, marched round the other side of the dais and, coming up behind Henry, kicked him hard on his backside so that he sprawled forward across the centre of the stage.

The mob screamed with laughter and as John again advanced on Henry, he scrambled to his feet and the two of them began dodging and weaving round hell and the pyre, to the whooping delight of the crowd. Egged on by the spectators, John assailed his victim with reckless and violent blows until Henry realised there was a very real chance of receiving a fatal crack to the head. The only way he could think of bringing it to an end was to lie down and pretend to be slain. But even that did not prevent John whacking him several more times on the back just to please the pilgrims.

‘“Yeah, lie there, villain! Lie there! Lie!”’ John shouted triumphantly, striking Henry with each cry of ‘lie’!

The mob gleefully joined in, bellowing the line with John.

The takings were greater than ever after that performance, and as Martin stuffed the cloth bag bulging with coins into his leather scrip, he slapped Henry enthusiastically on his throbbing back.

‘Did you hear how that crowd roared when I kicked you up the arse? We’ll have to keep that in tomorrow, and that chase with John. They loved it.’

John grinned. ‘And they paid for it too.’ He held out a meat-slab of a hand. ‘That looks like a weighty purse. Let’s see it.’

Martin glanced around at the crowd. ‘Not here. Too many thieves and cutpurses about, never know who’s watching. I’ll divide up the takings in the barn at the vespers bell this evening, like always. Meantime, my throat’s drier than a bishop roasting in hell. What about you, lads? Who’s for a flagon?’

Henry hunched morosely in the corner of the barn. His back was so sore and stiff he wondered how he was going to lie down to sleep, and his resentment had not been one whit tempered by the ale. Indeed, if anything, he felt himself growing more sober as the others became merrier. The only other one who looked as sullen as he felt was poor Luke, who was as ever the butt of his uncle’s jokes and temper in equal measure.

The men gathered round as Martin drew the sack of coins from his scrip and tipped them onto the top of an upturned barrel. He began counting them out into eight piles with another half-pile for John’s son. Ben was just a boy and even though he had a good many words to declaim, he certainly wasn’t entitled to a grown man’s share.

The coins were of small value: mostly farthings or halfpennies. The men watched intently, making sure the same value was deposited on each pile.

Cuddy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Doesn’t look as much there as I thought there was. Sack looked fuller than that. You sure some of it hasn’t dropped out in that scrip of yours?’

Martin obligingly held his scrip upside down and shook it, but nothing more fell out.

The men glanced unhappily at one another, then shrugged. Life had long ago taught them there was no use wishing for roast venison when you only had eel in your pot.

Cuddy’s great fist hovered over one of the piles, preparing to take his share.

‘Which pile has the half-noble in it?’ little Ben suddenly piped up.

Everyone turned to look at the boy.

‘I didn’t see any gold on the barrel,’ Cuddy said.

Martin smiled and ruffled Ben’s hair indulgently. ‘There’s no half-noble, lad.’

‘But there was,’ Ben said indignantly, jerking his head away. ‘A merchant’s wife put it in the bag. She held it up in her fingers and asked me if I’d ever seen one afore. Her husband chided her for giving so much, but she said…’ He hesitated, suddenly looking abashed.

‘Said what, Ben? Speak up, his father encouraged him with a prod.

‘That I had eyes that put her in mind of her… her lapdog,’ he mumbled to the earth floor, ‘and she was sure I wasn’t getting enough to eat.’

‘Was she indeed,’ John bridled. ‘As if I’d let any son of mine go hungry. Who does she think-’

‘Never mind that,’ Cuddy said impatiently. ‘The boy said she put a half-noble in the bag, so where is it now?’

He took a menacing step towards Martin, who stumbled backwards, spreading his hands wide. ‘I swear by the Holy Virgin, I’ve haven’t seen it. The boy must have imagined it. As if anyone in that crowd would give players a half-noble. The boy said the woman held the coin up. In that bright sunshine it must have looked like gold, an easy mistake to make.’

‘It was gold!’ Ben said stubbornly.

‘Aye, and it’s not just that coin that’s missing either,’ Cuddy growled. ‘I reckon that money sack was considerably more weighty this afternoon.’

‘Doubtless you wish it so, my friend. But I’ve just counted the coins out in front of you all and the bag was not opened before. I’ve been in your company ever since the play ended. I’m sorry that the crowd hasn’t paid us as much as you would like, but I warrant it is a sight more than you would earn hanging around the quayside hoping for a cargo to unload. But perhaps you think my performance isn’t pleasing enough to the crowd. Perhaps you think that’s why they haven’t paid us more.’ Martin snatched up one of the piles of coins and thrust it at Cuddy. ‘Here, take my share and divide it among yourselves, if you think I haven’t earned you enough. Go on, take it!’

So saying, he seized Cuddy’s wrist and slammed the coins into his massive palm. Then, his face a mask of hurt, he swept out of the barn. Cuddy and the other men stared after him in silence. With grim faces they collected their shares from the top of the barrel, glaring at Henry as they filed out and leaving him in no doubt they thought the two of them were in this together.

Henry dragged his aching body over to the barrel and scooped up the one remaining pile of coins, but decided to wait in the barn until he was quite sure the others had returned to their homes. He couldn’t face walking past them. He was as sure as Cuddy was that the bag had been much better stuffed when Ben had brought it back to Martin that afternoon. But if Martin had removed the coins, the question was when? He’d gone out to the back of the inn to piss a couple of times, but the yard was no more private than the inn itself, with men and serving maids crossing to and fro all the time. Besides, he hadn’t been gone long enough to sort through the bag and remove all the coins of greater value, though Henry was pretty sure that’s exactly what he had done.

Henry savagely kicked the barrel. After he’d so nearly got caught in Cambridge, Martin promised – no, not just promised, swore on his own life – that he’d never steal again. And now, just when he’d started to believe that for once his cousin had learned his lesson, Martin’s greed had got the better of him once more. But not this time! Martin wasn’t going to drag him through one of his stinking dung heaps again.

‘No more, Martin, do you hear me? No more,’ Henry shouted into the empty cavern of the barn. ‘You are not going to use me again. I’m going to make quite certain of that!’

Wilbertone, Cambridgeshire Fens

‘Have you brought it?’ Father Edmund wheezed, as soon as the young monk managed to wedge the warped door back in its frame.

Brother Oswin studiously avoided the old man’s intense gaze. ‘I swear I’ve tried, Father. But the cathedral is swarming with pilgrims. The crowds are so great that the lay brothers have had to double their watches in case thieves should use the distraction of the throng to steal anything of value. I cannot get near it, much less take it.’

He stumbled the few steps to the priest’s chair, and fell on his knees, grasping at the old man’s tattered robe. ‘Don’t you see, Father, God is preventing me from taking it. His angels are blocking my path at every turn, just as the angel stood in the road in front of Balaam’s ass and refused to let Balaam pass to sin against God. The angels are keeping us both from sin.’ He bowed his head, crossing himself.

‘And you must have the brains of an ass if you think such feeble excuses will turn me from my purpose,’ Father Edmund growled. ‘You will find a way to get it, boy, unless you want to see your brother hanged.’

Oswin raised his head, his face contorted in anguish. ‘I beg you, Father, don’t force me to do this. You wouldn’t break the sanctity of the confessional, you couldn’t do that. You’re bitter, I know that, and you have every right to be, but you would not damn your own soul with such a sin-’

He broke off with a squeal as Father Edmund grabbed the short fringe of hair around his tonsure and forced his head painfully backwards.

‘Don’t tell me what I would not do, boy! And don’t think for one moment I would not expose you and your brother for the murderers you are. If you care so little for your brother’s life, think of this, boy. You know I once conjured demons to shield de Lisle from the pestilence. Do you imagine I’m so feeble-witted that I couldn’t do it again? Just because my legs don’t bear me up as once they did, doesn’t mean my memory has also deserted me. I still know the signs and symbols, the incantations and the secret names. But if I summon a demon again, boy, it will not be to protect you, of that you can be sure. Get me what I ask, for if you fail me, I promise you will know such torment that before the month is out you will be screaming for the mercy of the hangman’s rope yourself just to bring an end to your suffering.’

He let his hand fall from Oswin’s hair, overcome by a fit of coughing, then hugging his ribs, turned to stare into the embers of the dying fire.

‘You have three days, Brother Oswin,’ he said softly. ‘Just three days left.’

Ely

As soon as he was out of sight of the barn, Martin broke into a run, glancing round several times to make sure he was not being followed. If Cuddy and John caught him out on the street they might take it into their heads to search him by force, and it wouldn’t take them long to find the coins folded into a strip of cloth and tied around his chest. They were the sort of men who would choose to settle a score with their own fists rather than through the justices, and with fists like theirs, he’d be lucky if he could remember his own name by the time they’d finished with him.

Still it had been worth it. That serving girl in the Mermaid Inn on the quayside was good, so good he was sure she’d done it before. She’d waited in the yard for him to slip her the bag of coins on his way to the midden to pass water, giving her the chance to separate the coins at her leisure before handing them back the next time he came out to relieve himself. Of course, he was certain that in addition to what he paid her for her trouble, she’d pocketed a few extra coins herself – it’s what he would have done – but he didn’t begrudge her that so long as she didn’t get too greedy. They could have kept this scam going for days, weeks even. His only regret was there hadn’t been an accident with the knife when young Ben was being sacrificed as Isaac. If he’d known the trouble the boy was going to cause he might have arranged one.

With one further glance up and down the street Martin slipped into the Lamb Inn at the top of the hill and wove his way to the most dimly lit corner. He’d have to be ready to leave as soon as Ely’s gates were opened at dawn, but certainly he wasn’t going to flee empty-handed. There was something he had to retrieve from the wagon first. He had no intention of leaving it behind, not after all the risks he’d taken to acquire it.

Martin had consumed several tankards of good ale before he deemed it late enough to return to the wagon without risk of being seen. Yawning, the innkeeper hustled his last remaining customers out into the cold chill of the night. Martin huddled in the darkness of a doorway, watching them reeling up the street, and remained there until the last drunken calls had faded. Then he cautiously made his way back to the wagon.

A scattering of shards of yellow light marked where candles and rush lights flickered through holes in the shutters of the dozing buildings, otherwise the night was as black as the devil’s armpit. Doors rattled in the wind and somewhere a cat yowled unseen. Martin edged around the back of the wagon.

The props and costumes were kept in a long chest beneath the wagon and securely chained to one of the wheels. Martin reached inside his scrip for the two keys. He slid his hand along the chain to the lock, and by touch alone wriggled the key until it slipped inside. But however carefully he lowered the chain to the ground, he could not avoid the heavy metallic clunk, which echoed through the darkness. He froze, holding his breath, then shook himself impatiently. The chest contained his clothes – why should he not open it anytime he pleased? But all the same he did not want to have to explain his presence on the streets to the night watch.

He groped for the lock on the chest itself and had just turned the key when he heard the sound of shoes scuffing over the grass and the scrape of clothing against sailcloth. Someone was moving down the side of the wagon. Cuddy? John? Had one of them returned to search for the missing coins?

Scarcely daring to breathe, Martin crawled away into the darkness and threw himself flat on the grass, as the figure held up a lantern, shielding the light with the edge of his cloak. The man ran his fingers down the ropes, feeling for the point where he could unhook them and pull aside the stout canvas. Martin cautiously raised his head, trying to make out who he was, but his face was concealed deep within his hood, and the shape of his body was masked by the heavy cloak.

There was a clunk as the man’s shoe knocked against the chain on the ground. The figure glanced down. Martin instinctively scrabbled in his scrip, searching for the keys and cursed himself as he realised they were still in the lock of the chest. Perhaps the man wouldn’t notice them. But his curiosity had evidently been aroused, for he crouched down, holding out the lantern. As he bent over, his face dipped into the pool of light. It was only for a moment, but Martin recognised him at once.

Brother Oswin glanced up at the cathedral as he hurried towards it. Candles shone out from the top of the octagon tower, turning it into a great lantern that could be seen for miles across the dark water of the fens. Always before he had been comforted by the sight of it, a beacon of hope to guide the lost. Its holy light warded off the evil spirits that stalked the causeway, and the dead souls that haunted the marshes waiting to lure men to their deaths in the treacherous bogs. Yet now he saw only accusation and judgement in that light, as if heaven was staring down at him, stripping him naked for all the world to see his vile sin.

Though the watchman at the bridge gate entrance to Ely would normally have refused admittance at this hour, even he could see the young monk was in great distress.

‘What is it, Brother? Why are you out so late?’ He raised the blazing torch, peering closer. ‘You’re as pale as the dead, and shaking. Were you attacked?’

Oswin shook his head, struggling to speak. ‘A sick man… I had to… sit with him.’

The watchman stepped hastily backwards. ‘Holy Virgin, he’s not been stricken with the Great Pestilence, has he?’

Oswin shook his head, drawing his cloak more tightly around him as he tried to stop his teeth chattering. The watchman held open the gate, taking pains to keep at arm’s length in case the monk should brush him as he passed through.

Oswin staggered up the street towards the priory, glancing fearfully upwards at the great looming mass of the cathedral. The monstrous grotesques and gargoyles leered down at him from the shifting shadows as if the walls and turrets of the cathedral were swarming with demons, massing like some great flock of malevolent birds, all watching him, waiting for him.

He could not do it. He would not! Yet he could think of no means of avoiding it. He was certain now that the old priest would carry out his threat and denounce his brother, and if what they said was true, if Father Edmund really could conjure evil spirits, maybe even the devil himself, then… Blessed Virgin, help me! Show me what to do, how to escape! As he stumbled on towards the cathedral, he stretched out his arms in supplication, mumbling frantic prayers in a fever of delirium. Then, without warning, he tripped and found himself sprawling face down on the grass.

He lay where he fell, shaken by the tumble and unable to gather his mind to comprehend where he was. Finally he pushed himself to his knees and felt for what he had tripped over. He knew at once it was a man.

Most of the body lay in darkness, only the feet were caught in the edge of the pool of light spilling from the tower. Oswin shook the man’s leg, but he did not stir. The young monk shuffled forward, still on his knees, and felt the man’s chest. The flesh was still warm, but the ribs were not rising and falling, and as he drew his hand away he felt the warm, sticky fluid on his fingers.

Oswin crossed himself and his lips began to mumble the prayers for the newly dead. But the words ceased abruptly as a thought exploded into his head. His prayers had been answered! The Blessed Virgin had heard him. This was his escape from his tormenter. It was as if the Virgin Mary herself had cast this corpse at his feet. Whispering fervent prayers of gratitude and with hands trembling now, not from fear, but excitement, Brother Oswin fumbled for his knife.

It was after the noon bell when Henry and the Ely men once again assembled behind the wagon, ready to begin the first of the plays. It had rained heavily before dawn and the sky was still grey and swollen with cloud. The corners of the heavy sailcloth lashed over the wagon flapped in the strengthening wind and the ropes creaked with the strain of holding it down. The players prodded the canvas with poles, trying to shake off the puddles of water that had accumulated on the top. The men’s mood was as gloomy as the day. Their pride had been wounded as well as their purses, but they were determined no trickster would make fools of them for a second time.

‘You bring the money straight to me, young Ben,’ Cuddy said. ‘Don’t you let Martin or that cousin of his lay a finger on that bag till we’ve counted the coins.’

He didn’t trouble to lower his great booming voice, and Henry was certain he was meant to hear. John came ambling over, the jawbone already tucked into his leather belt. Henry felt his bruises throb at the mere sight of it.

‘Where is this thieving cousin of yours?’ John demanded. ‘Crowd’s calling for us to start, but he speaks first as the angel so we can’t begin until he takes his place. Too ashamed to show his face to us, is he?’ Then a thought struck him and he grabbed the front of Henry’s robe in his great fist. ‘Has he run off with our money?’

‘Course not!’ Henry protested.

‘Well, where is he, then?’ Cuddy demanded.

‘I haven’t seen him since he left the barn last night,’ Henry said. ‘Look he… he must be around here somewhere. The costume box is unlocked, so most likely he’s taken his robes to dress for his part and has gone for a mug of ale. He’ll want to soothe his throat before the play begins.’

‘He’ll need more than ale to soothe his throat when I get hold of him,’ John said sourly. ‘But never mind that, the crowd is going to start chucking things if we don’t give them something soon. I’ve already seen some lads creeping to the front with rotten fruit in their hands. We’ll just have to start with your first speech. And hope our angel turns up in time to say his “Cursed Cain” part at the end.’

Henry’s stomach lurched. If John had played up to the crowd with that jawbone before, it was nothing to how he might wield it if he thought that Henry had been party to cheating the Ely men of the money.

‘Look,’ he said desperately, ‘why don’t we forget all about “Cain and Abel” and just give them “The Sacrifice of Isaac” and The Shepherds’ Play? That’ll give me a chance to go and look for Martin.’

‘Wouldn’t work,’ John said. ‘The angel’s the first to speak in the “Isaac” too, and if he doesn’t say the line. “Now show he may, if he loveth God more than his child”, the rest of the story makes no sense.’

‘Besides,’ Cuddy said, ‘we’re not such fools as to let you go running off with your cousin and our money. You’re staying here, until your cousin brings us what he stole. And you’d better hope he turns up soon or you’ll soon realise a blow from that jawbone is nothing more than a smack with a feather compared to what we’ll do to you.’

Henry, his stomach churning, took up his place on the darkened wagon. He heard the players strike up a tune on drums and frestelles to draw the attention of the crowd. Then Cuddy gave the orders to start the smoke belching from hell, while the others loosened the last of the ties holding down the sailcloth. Light flooded in as the cloth was pulled aside. Henry swallowed hard and cleared his throat. Painfully he kneeled with his back to hell, facing the throne of God. It seemed to make more sense to address his lines to that rather than empty air where the angel should have been standing.

‘“I thank you, Lord, for Your goodness,

That has made me, on Earth, Your man.

I worship… ”’

He became aware of a loud murmuring in the audience. He glanced sideways, trying to see what was amiss without turning his head. Were they disappointed because there was no angel?

Henry raised his voice over the buzzing of the crowd. ‘“I worship you with-”’

A woman started to scream. Others joined in. Some were backing away, desperately trying to extricate themselves from the throng, but they were trapped by the rest of the crowd, who were trying to wriggle nearer to the wagon.

Still on his knees, and unable to move swiftly because of the stiffness of his back, Henry turned his head in bewilderment, as John stumbled past him and halted abruptly in front of the great gaping mouth of hell.

‘Stop that smoke,’ he roared, flapping his arms vigorously to disperse it.

He peered into the open jaws, then staggered backwards as if he’d been punched.

‘Holy Virgin, defend us!’ John crossed himself several times in rapid succession and stood rocking on his heels.

Henry clambered stiffly to his feet and tried to peer round John’s broad frame, but John caught hold of Henry’s arm and pulled him away.

‘Don’t look, lad. Trust me, you don’t want to see.’

But his warning came too late, Henry had already seen.

A faint trickle of smoke still swirled in hell’s mouth, but it was not enough to obscure the figure that was lying inside. The man, dressed in white angel robes and feathered wings, was lying on his belly. His arms were stretched out on either side in a cruciform, like a monk doing penance before an altar. But where his head should have been there was nothing but the bloody stump of a neck. The pool of blood had seeped into the pure white robes, and stained the tips of the swan’s feathers scarlet. And the man’s head wasn’t the only part of him that was missing. His right arm now ended at his wrist from which the splintered bone glistened white against the red.

For a moment Henry stood and stared as if the corpse was just another of the carpenter’s painted props. Then with a shriek of horror, he knocked John aside and fled.

If it hadn’t been for the river at the bottom of the hill, Henry might never have stopped running. He ran as if that mutilated angel was swooping after him like a falcon and he was the quarry. He charged blindly towards the water and would have tumbled in had not a river-man caught him and dragged him back.

‘Steady, lad! You don’t want to go falling in there. River’s thick with boats, you’ll get your head staved in by a bow or an oar. Here, are you sick?’ he added, as Henry sank to his knees. ‘It’s not the pestilence, is it?’ he said, backing away in alarm as Henry vomited copiously.

By now Henry had attracted a small crowd of curious onlookers, staring at him intently to see if his face and arms bore any sign of the telltale blue-black marks, though they were all careful to keep their distance. Henry staggered to his feet and stumbled along the bank, though his legs were trembling so much he could barely manage to walk never mind run.

‘There he is!’ someone yelled. ‘Seize that man! Don’t just stand there, grab him! Don’t let him get away.’

Without thinking Henry glanced back to see who they were shouting about. Several lay brothers were racing down towards the river, their sandalled feet slapping loudly on the stones. Henry’s mind was so dazed that it took several moments to register that they were pointing at him. By the time he realised, it was too late. Two of the rivermen had grabbed his arms and he found himself being dragged back along the bank.

‘This the man you’re after?’ one of the river-men said, thrusting Henry towards the first of the lay brothers, who was panting so hard he could only reply with a nod.

‘What’s he done?’ the other river-man asked curiously.

‘K… killed a man, that’s what… Not just murdered him, but mutilated the body too. And if that weren’t bad enough, he did it on priory land, right in front of the cathedral door, with the holy statues of Christ and the saints looking down on the bloody deed.’

The river-men and bystanders growled their outrage. The lay brother nodded with satisfaction, gratified by the reaction he was getting.

‘And you haven’t heard the worst of it. It wasn’t a stranger he murdered. It was his own kin, his poor cousin, wickedly done to death.’

The river-man gripped Henry’s arm as if he was trying to snap the bone in two. ‘God’s blood, you’ll hang for sure, boy, that’s if you survive the flogging they’ll give you first. And, trust me, there won’t be a man or woman in Ely who’ll beg mercy for you.’

It wasn’t for nothing that the priory’s gaol was known as ‘hell’. It lay beneath the infirmary, its walls stout and windowless, and it was as well they were, for once news of the heinous crime spread through the town, not even the lay brothers could prevent the mob gathering to hurl insults and missiles at the priory gate. The women were the worst, for hadn’t Martin been the very image of Gabriel himself with his golden curls and blue eyes, and by the end of that day they had convinced themselves Henry wasn’t just guilty of slaying a man, but of murdering a holy angel.

Henry, dragged past the gate on his way to the gaol, heard the shrieks of abuse and cringed as the stones thudded against the thick oak door. He was almost relieved when they threw him down inside the safety of the dark, stinking pit. The great stone walls were green with slime and as dank as a village well. But Henry was not left to suffer the misery of hell alone. Cuddy and John were already sitting with their backs against the wall, their necks encircled with heavy hoops of iron chaining them to the rough stones. Henry did not resist when he was chained to the opposite wall, though the metal cut painfully into his neck and the chains were too short to allow him to either lie down or stand. He knew if Cuddy and John had not been similarly chained, he’d be dead long before the hangman could do his work.

Henry had sworn before Prior Alan de Walsingham that he was innocent. It was John and Cuddy who had quarrelled with Martin. It was their money he had stolen. It was they who had killed him in revenge, or else it was a member of the Glovers’ Guild. Hadn’t the Ely men said the Glovers always performed ‘Cain and Abel’? Maybe they’d done it to prove they were right about the curse and to frighten off anyone else who had the audacity to dare to perform their play.

Cuddy and John, in turn, insisted that the culprit was Henry for, unlike him, they had been in the company of the other players drowning their sorrows half the night and had then walked home in each other’s company to their families, never leaving their hearths again until it was time to perform the play. Besides, they were God-fearing, honest Ely men, which all the neighbours would swear to, while for all anyone knew, Henry might have murdered a dozen men before he arrived in Ely.

Prior Alan had long held the belief that any man in Ely would murder his own grandmother and sell her hide for leather if he thought he could get away with it. And the more he listened to the tale of the stolen money, the more certain he became that since all of the actors had been cheated of their money they had all colluded in the murder, for had they not already admitted they had spent the night drinking together?

But when the prior sent men to the houses of the other players, they discovered the rest of the actors had taken full advantage of the delay and had already slipped out of Ely, assisted no doubt by the local boatmen, who were firmly convinced, as were all the locals, that Henry was the killer, and certainly not one of their own.

On hearing the news Prior Alan uttered an oath that would have made a whore blush, for if the fugitives were hiding out in the marshes or were in a boat halfway down the river concealed under empty sacks, it would take weeks to round them all up and a good number of men too, men he could ill afford to spare with the crowds of pilgrims pouring daily into Ely. But at least he’d had three of the murdering wretches safely under lock and key, and if the crowd no longer had The Play of Adam to divert them, they would soon have a hanging to entertain them instead.

‘Father Prior, the stench is definitely getting stronger,’ Will de Copham said anxiously. ‘We can’t continue to ignore it. Even old Brother Godwin remarked on it and you know he sat on some dog dung the other week and didn’t even notice the stink of that.’

Strictly speaking, of course, it was the sacrist’s job to maintain the fabric of the cathedral, but as custodian of the cathedral, Will was not only responsible for security but also for maintaining good order. He already had enough problems on that score without the lay brothers refusing to keep watch near the shrine because the stench was making them sick.

‘But the smell cannot be emanating from the tomb of St Withburga,’ Prior Alan protested. ‘She’s a holy saint and saints’ bodies emit the sweet perfume of the rose of heaven, not the stench of corruption. Are you sure it’s not simply the odour of the pilgrims themselves? I saw one with such a stinking sore on his leg even his fellow pilgrims were gagging. Perhaps the smell lingered.’

Will shook his head. ‘Most pilgrims stay longest at St Etheldreda’s shrine, for she’s the one they most favour. If it was the pilgrims themselves, the smell should be worse there. Even the perfume of incense is no longer masking the stench. If we don’t do something soon, rumours may begin to spread that St Withburga is no longer at ease in her tomb and wishes to return to Dereham.’

The prior winced. St Withburga’s body had been taken from her grave in Dereham almost four centuries ago and brought to join her sisters in their tombs at Ely, but even after all these years the Dereham folk still regarded this act of piety as theft and regularly sent demands for her return, not least because of the valuable income this would bring from the pilgrims.

Having been sacrist himself for many years, Prior Alan was nothing if not a pragmatic man, and distasteful though it might be to disturb the resting place of a saint, he knew the pilgrims would soon cease to come if the shrine to which they came for cures made them want to vomit.

He sighed, pressing the tips of his fingers together, then finally nodded. ‘I dare say it’s nothing more than a family of mice that have crawled inside and died, or even a rotting eel that some wicked little brat has managed to push through a hole just to annoy his elders. But you and I will investigate tonight after the cathedral is closed. None of the monks or lay brothers must be present. The slightest hint of anything amiss and gossip will be all round the town before dawn, most of it wilder than a rabid wolf. The townspeople are already so anxious about the pestilence they will take anything as a sign of ill omen. There’s been quite enough upset with the murder of that player Martin; I want nothing more to agitate the people or the priory.’

The cathedral was in darkness save for the candles on the altars and those flickering around the tombs of the saints. Will had placed a few lanterns on the floor to illuminate the shrine, but in a position where they would not shine out through the windows. It was vital that the townspeople did not notice any unusual activity in the building. The gold, silver and jewelled offerings that normally adorned the tomb had been carefully collected and now lay in a heap on a piece of cloth, glittering in the flickering candlelight like a pirates’ hoard.

Working in silence, the prior and custodian together pulled away the back panel of the shrine, which allowed access to the inside, so that coins pushed through the holes could be removed. Prior Alan pressed a cloth to his nose. There was no mistaking it now that they were so close, the stench was coming from somewhere inside. He kneeled down, moving the lantern so that the light fell in turn into each corner of the tomb as he searched for rodent corpses or anything else that might account for the smell, but he saw only candle wax, the glint of a few coins and eons of dust scuffed by the sandal prints of the monks who had over the years squeezed in to retrieve the offerings.

He was just struggling to his feet again when Will tugged on his sleeve. ‘Look, Father Prior,’ he breathed, ‘the coffin’s been disturbed.’

Alan raised his lantern so that the light fell on the top of the stone coffin. The lid was still in place, but it had been twisted slightly at an angle so that the top corner lay open just a couple of inches. As soon as he bent over the gap Prior Alan was left in little doubt that the stench was coming from inside.

He crossed himself, and muttered a prayer for forgiveness to St Withburga for the offence he was about to offer. Then placing both hands against the stone lid, he pushed it. The rasp of stone on stone seemed to echo off the dark walls and for a moment he hesitated, unnerved by the ominous sound.

Then he gestured impatiently to Will, who had taken a few paces back.

‘Bring your candle, I need more light. Stop looking so fearful. It’s a saint not a revenant buried in this coffin.’

Reluctantly Will stood behind him and raised his lantern so that the light from the candle glowed yellow inside the hollow stone. The saint’s bones were wrapped in a cloth that had turned brown with age. Carefully, Prior Alan eased the rotting fabric aside. The bones and skull were still covered in strips of parchment-like skin and strands of grey hair. But there was something else in the coffin, something lying where St Withburga’s desiccated hand should have been. It was a human hand, a right hand, but it was not the hand of a saint. This hand had been severed at the wrist, and the rotting flesh was covered in a stinking mass of writhing maggots.

Prior Alan sat in the great carved chair in his solar, and pressed his fingers to his throbbing temples. Subprior Stephen and Custodian Will de Copham slumped opposite him, gazing equally morosely into mid-space. The bells for prime and for the early Mass for the servants had long since rung, but none of the three of them had moved.

‘You’re sure that is the hand of the dead actor, Father Prior?’ Will asked.

He glanced uneasily at the small lead-lined casket, which had been hastily emptied of its scrolls of parchment to provide a temporary resting place for the offending appendage. Fortunately the seal on the box was tight enough to stop the smell from escaping, but his stomach still heaved every time he remembered picking it up.

Alan grimaced. ‘Unless we dig up the body and match the bones to the arm we can’t be certain, but it seems most likely. I could ask the infirmarer if he’s heard of anyone in Ely who has recently lost his hand in an accident, but even so, men don’t normally leave such things lying around in the street.’

‘Then whoever put the hand in St Withburga’s coffin murdered Martin,’ Stephen said, ‘and that means those three actors must be innocent, for they’ve been in gaol ever since the body was discovered.’

‘I don’t see how that proves their innocence,’ Prior Alan snapped. ‘They could have placed the hand in the coffin before the body was discovered and that wasn’t until well past midday. Men who are capable of the heinous murder and mutilation of one of their own would think nothing of desecrating the body of a blessed saint, which is why we must redouble our efforts to capture the rest of the actors. Since the three felons in gaol didn’t have the hand of St Withburga in their possession when they were searched, then one of their fellow conspirators must have it.’

Will rolled his tongue around his mouth in disgust. He could still taste that stench. He rose and poured himself another goblet of wine in the vain attempt to settle his stomach.

‘But what I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is if they intended stealing the saint’s relic, why draw attention to the theft by placing the severed hand in the coffin to stink. If they hadn’t done so the theft would have gone unnoticed for years.’

Prior Alan shrugged. ‘Perhaps they thought the hand would mummify and, in time, become indistinguishable from the other remains. As indeed it might well have done had the coffin lid not accidentally been left slightly ajar, allowing the flies to get in.’

‘But why replace it at all? Why not just take the relic?’ Will persisted stubbornly.

‘To mock us,’ Stephen said firmly. ‘It’s the Dereham men who have done this, not the actors. This is their way of thumbing their noses at us. I’m sure their plan was to display her hand in the church in Dereham, knowing we’d be forced to open the coffin before witnesses to prove we still have the body intact. Then the rotting hand would be revealed and we’d be a laughing stock.’ He turned eagerly to the prior. ‘We should send men at once to Dereham and-’

Alan held up his hand to silence him. ‘Have you forgotten half the men are out combing the fens for the other actors and the rest are trying the keep the townsmen and pilgrims from killing one another? Besides, we’ve no proof that Dereham men did this, and I certainly don’t intend letting them know the hand is missing. You said yourself, Brother Stephen, whoever put the hand in the coffin murdered Martin. What cause would anyone from Dereham have to do that? Unless you’re suggesting that they murdered the first stranger they came upon just to obtain his hand, and if that’s so, why cut off his head and remove it? No, only his fellow actors had sufficient grudge against him to do that.

“Beware the sins of envy and vainglory,

Else foul murder ends your story.”

Isn’t that what is written at the end of that wretched “Cain and Abel” play? And when a man such as Prior Wigod of Oseney writes such words it is never for his own amusement. He wrote it as a warning, a warning you should have heeded before engaging those players, Brother Stephen, for I can think of no breed of men more steeped in the sins of envy and vainglory than base actors.’

Stephen’s mouth fell open, but before he could speak Will leaned forward frowning.

‘But even if it was the actors, Father Prior, what I don’t understand is, how could they have accomplished it? All the time the cathedral is open to the pilgrims, I insist on there being a monk on duty up in the watching loft, in addition to the lay brothers keeping guard at ground level. A skilled thief might manage to snatch one of the offerings, or even a precious stone from the outside of the shrine if he was working in league with others who could set up a distraction for him, but to get inside the shrine and open the coffin unseen, that’s beyond the powers of any mortal man.’

‘Are you suggesting that this was the devil’s work, Brother Will, witchcraft?’ Stephen said, his eyes widening in alarm.

Prior Alan leaped from his chair. ‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘There is to be no talk of that. I forbid you even to think of it. If rumours should start to circulate in the town that the cathedral can’t even protect one of its own saints from the forces of darkness, then-’

But whatever warning Alan intended to issue was severed by a scream that rang out over the priory, a shriek that continued so long, it seemed that whoever was screaming had forgotten how to stop.

The stonemason’s apprentice was still howling when Prior Alan, Stephen and Will, all panting, emerged from the narrow spiral staircase onto the roof of the octagon tower. He was several feet higher up and further out, clinging to one of the little stone pinnacles. A narrow, rickety wooden scaffolding bridged the gap between the pinnacle and the roof ’s parapet, behind which the stone mason and two anguished-looking monks were gathered.

‘What ails the lad?’ Prior Alan asked. ‘Has he suddenly grown afraid of heights?’

It would hardly be surprising if he had, it was a dizzyingly long way down.

‘Can’t get any sense out of him, Father Prior,’ the stonemason yelled above the boy’s shrieks. ‘He bounded up there like a squirrel, same as always, next thing I know he was screaming like a girl.’ He raised his voice still louder, fingering the stout leather belt squeezed around his corpulent belly. ‘I’ll give you something to yell about, my lad, when I get hold of you.’

‘Threatening the boy isn’t going to make him come down,’ Stephen said. ‘Are you stuck, lad? Don’t look down. Just try to climb back slowly.’

But the boy’s arms seemed have become part of the turret they were clinging to, and he would neither loose his grip nor stop shrieking. Prior Alan glanced down at the swelling crowd of pilgrims and townspeople who were gathering below, all craning up to see what was amiss.

‘Someone will have to climb up and fetch the boy down.’

The stonemason was clearly too stout and aged to climb the narrow scaffolding to retrieve his apprentice. Alan glanced around him and selected the lighter and more nimble-looking of the two young monks for the task.

But even when he climbed up and grabbed the boy around the waist, the lad would not budge and the monk came perilously close to toppling from the scaffolding himself as he wrestled with the boy. Finally he was forced to deliver a few sharp slaps to make the lad let go. But as the boy, sobbing, dropped down from his perch, it was the monk’s turn to cry out in horror as he glimpsed what had been hidden behind the boy. It was too far round the turret to be visible from the parapet, but up on the scaffolding it was all too evident what had scared the wits out of the lad. For there, among the grimacing grotesques and carved saints, was a human head, not made of stone but of rotting flesh and blackened blood.

Prior Alan stared dismally out of the casement of his solar. Masses of delicate pink and white apple blossom covered the trees below like a fall of new snow, but that sight, which normally lifted his spirits, did nothing to raise them now. The blossom was abnormally late this year, yet another sign, if one were needed, that chaos was once more descending upon the fragile world.

‘A t least now we have the whole corpse,’ Stephen said, desperate to break the icy silence. ‘We can bury the head with the rest of Martin’s remains and his spirit will surely rest easier for it.’

Prior Alan turned and glowered at his subprior. ‘His spirit will not rest easy until his murderer has been punished, and nor will mine. We may have been able to keep the theft of St Withburga’s hand between ourselves, but thanks to that wretched boy screaming from the rooftops, news of what he found will be across Ely before nightfall and what the townspeople lack in facts they will surely make up.’

‘They already have,’ Will said grimly, striding through the door and closing it firmly behind him. ‘I’ve just come from Steeple Gate. The crowds are as thick as flies on… ’

He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed hard. He’d never thought of himself as a squeamish man, but being forced retrieve two maggot-infested body parts in one day was enough to sicken any man’s stomach.

‘The rumours have already started, Father Prior. They say a demon must have placed the head where no mortal man could.’

‘Utter nonsense!’ The words exploded from Alan’s lips. ‘Any man who was reasonably agile could have climbed that scaffold and put it there. After all, you climbed up and you’re certainly mortal.’

‘I certainly felt my mortality up there,’ Will said with a shudder. ‘But the trouble is, Father Prior, the crowd can’t see the scaffolding from the ground and they’re not in a mood to listen to reason. They’re claiming a demon flew down from the octagon tower, slew Martin, then carried his head back up to the tower to devour at its leisure.’

Prior Alan shook his head in utter disbelief at the notions that filled the heads of men. As sacrist, he had designed the octagon himself, after the original tower collapsed, and he always took any slight directed at his beloved creation as a personal affront.

‘And that’s not the worst of the rumours, Father Prior…’ Will saw his superior’s jaw clench in anger and hesitated, but Alan had to be told. ‘The townspeople may not know we found Martin’s hand in the shrine, but they do know there was a stench as foul as hell coming from St Withburga’s tomb. Now they’re saying that a great evil has come upon the whole priory and cathedral, because of that play. The Glovers have wasted no time in telling everyone the play of “Cain and Abel” is cursed and that by performing it on cathedral grounds we’ve raised a demon of death, which is hunting human prey. Apparently not a man, woman or child in Ely is safe. It will slay them all just as surely as Cain slew Abel.’

‘This has gone far enough!’ Prior Alan slammed his fist down onto the wooden table so hard that both Will and Stephen flinched. ‘I hold you entirely responsible for this, Brother Stephen. If you hadn’t given them leave to perform that wretched play, there’d never have been a murder, never mind these bits of rotting corpse popping up all over the cathedral.’

Subprior Stephen open his mouth to protest, but Alan hadn’t finished.

‘We have to do something to bring these rumours to an end before the townspeople take it into their heads to storm the cathedral and tear down my tower, stone by stone. Fetch those murderers from the hell-pit at once. I intend to confront them with that head and force them to admit they killed Martin. I swear on God’s bones I will wrench a confession out of those actors even if I have to make them eat that head to do it.’

Henry, Cuddy and John stood unsteadily in the prior’s hall, blinking painfully in the light. It had been two weeks since they had been able to stand up and now their legs trembled beneath them, not helped by the weight of the chains shackling their wrists and ankles. Henry glanced at the other two actors. They were filthy, covered in bits of mouldy straw and excrement. He noticed the monks wrinkling their noses and discreetly taking a few steps back and he was suddenly aware of how much he himself must stink.

But it was nothing to the stench that filled the hall when the lead-lined box was opened and the rotting head and hand were laid out on the great long wooden table. One glimpse of the empty blackened eye sockets, where the ravens had been at work, was enough to make Henry collapse to his knees and start retching.

The prior gestured to one of the muscular lay brothers, who reached down and hauled Henry back to his feet by his hair, dragging him closer to the foul remains.

‘Too cowardly to face the sight of your own crime, are you?’ Alan thundered. ‘Gaze upon the ravaged countenance of your cousin, and weep in shame for what you have done.’

The lay brother pulled Henry’s head up, forcing him to look. At first Henry was too appalled to take in what he was seeing, but something finally worked its way up through the fog of his dazed mind.

‘That… isn’t Martin. It can’t be Martin.’

‘Even his poor mother would not know him now that the maggots and birds have been to work on him,’ Alan said sternly.

‘No, not the face… ’ Henry swallowed hard, trying to bite back the bile that had risen in his throat. ‘His hair… Martin was blond. That hair is dark.’

At once everyone else in the room who had been studiously avoiding looking at the head now stared at it.

‘He’s right!’ Stephen said. ‘I spoke to Martin several times. His hair was the colour of ripe corn, and even allowing for the dried blood-’

Prior Alan rounded on him. ‘Then why didn’t you say that as soon as Brother Will retrieved the head?’

Stephen gulped. ‘I could only bear to look at it once and that briefly. I didn’t even notice the hair. I just assumed-’

‘Then if it’s not Martin, who is it?’ Prior Alan demanded.

There was a loud groan from Cuddy. He was swaying so alarmingly that two of the lay brothers made a grab for him, certain he was going to fall.

‘God in heaven, that’s Luke, that is,’ he whispered. ‘That’s my poor nephew, Luke.’

Shaking off the lay brothers Cuddy suddenly launched himself at Henry, but his chains brought him crashing to the ground before he could reach him.

‘You murdering bastard, you’ve butchered my Luke. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to rip you apart with my bare hands.’

Once again, Alan, Stephen and Will found themselves sitting in the prior’s solar in morose silence. None of them had been willing to eat at the common table, knowing that the wild speculations of their brothers would be even more lurid than those circulating in the marketplace. But they had hardly touched the meal of roast duck and stuffed eel that had been brought to them in the solar, for the day’s events had considerably blunted their appetites.

It had taken some time to clear the hall and return the prisoners to the hell-pit beneath the infirmary. Cuddy, for all that he had been kept chained and on meagre rations for the last two weeks, had surprising reserves of strength and in his rage kept trying to throw his chained wrists round the terrified Henry’s neck and throttle him. And Cuddy’s fury had only increased when he heard the order to return him to the gaol. But Prior Alan was in no mood to release anyone, not until he got to the bottom of this whole sordid mess.

Now Stephen glanced anxiously towards his superior. Stephen hadn’t become subprior by being timid, but all the same he was well aware that not only did his prior hold him responsible for staging the accursed play, but he was now also blaming him for failing to recognise the head. And when a man like Prior Alan was already in a black humour, adding to his fury was as wise as prodding a wounded boar with a sharp stick. Nevertheless, Stephen felt it his duty to speak.

‘Father Prior, now that we know the victim is his own nephew, this must prove the man Cudbert innocent. Surely he at least should be released. He has a wife and children to support.’

‘I see no proof of innocence,’ Prior Alan said sourly. ‘It’s been my experience that men are far more disposed to murder members of their own family than outsiders.’

‘But he seemed genuinely shocked to discover the dead man was Luke and not Martin. All three of the players did. Surely that shows they had no hand in the killing.’

‘Unless there were two murders,’ Will said. ‘We have a body, a head and a hand, but short of digging up the corpse, we can’t tell if they all belong to the same man, and even if we do, if the corpse is in the same state of decay as the other remains, it might be hard to be certain. Cuddy is just the sort of fellow who would’ve taken the law into his own hands and killed Martin in a fit of rage, if he learned that Martin had decapitated his nephew. You heard the threats that he made to Henry.’

‘Exactly so,’ Stephen said. ‘He accused Henry of killing Luke. He wouldn’t have done that if he knew Martin had committed the murder. Besides, he plainly didn’t know that his nephew was dead. He must have thought him fled with the rest.’

Prior Alan stabbed a piece of roasted duck with his knife and brought it to his mouth, then tossed knife and meat together back on the platter, clearly unable to bring himself to eat it. ‘So we now have two possible murders – Luke and Martin. But if the head does belong to our corpse, then Martin is not a victim but one of the murderers, fled with the other actors.’

He rose to his feet, wiping his hands on a linen cloth. ‘It seems to me the only thing we can be certain of is that the missing actors are in possession of the hand of St Withburga and they are hiding somewhere out there in the fens.’

He strode to the casement and stared out as if he could see right into the dark heart of the marshes. ‘I want every village and island out there turned upside down. Take the dogs skilled at tracking quarry. Recruit hunters from the fenland villages who know the marshes and the waterways. The fenlanders have no love for townsfolk or outlanders. They won’t hesitate to turn the actors in if the reward for their capture is big enough. Do whatever you have to, but I want those men found, and quickly.’

‘I’m not going begging,’ little Ben said furiously, blinking back the tears. ‘Father’d be as angry as a nest of wasps if he knew you were trying to make me.’

‘Well, your father isn’t here,’ his mother retorted. ‘He’s sitting around in gaol, and he hasn’t got to worry about where his next meal’s coming from. I dare say he won’t have been dining on roast goose, but at least the Priory gives their prisoners something to fill their bellies, which is more than we will have today if you don’t get out to that alms gate. If the monks are going to go around arresting innocent men and keep them from earning an honest living, the least they can do is provide their starving families with food. Why your father didn’t stick to pagging and loading for the boatmen down on the quay, I’ll never know. I warned him that play was cursed, but would he listen?’

‘But, Mam,’ Ben wailed, ‘my friends’ll see me there among all the cripples and gammers. They’ll torment the life out of me.’

‘A bit of teasing won’t do you any harm. You and that father of yours were getting far too high and mighty, lording around in that play as if you were the King’s minstrels. And it’s no use you sulking. If you hadn’t made up one of your stories about gold coins and set the men against each other none of this would have happened. Now you see you get to the front and don’t let the others push you aside. Be sure to tell the monk you’ve three little brothers and sisters at home all going hungry.’

She grabbed Ben’s shoulder and marched him out of the door, and with a light cuff around his head she sent him off in the direction of the hill that led up to Heyrow. Ben knew, without turning round, that she was standing in the doorway of the tiny cottage, her arms folded, watching him.

In the past, when his mother had sent him on a errand he didn’t want to perform, he’d run off to play instead, refusing to think about his mother’s wrath until he was finally forced to return home, but no such temptation entered his head now. Ben didn’t need his mother to remind him that it was his fault his father had been arrested. He’d been blaming himself ever since it had happened. He hadn’t made up that story about the half-noble. He had seen it, he had! But if he’d only kept quiet, the men would never have argued, he would still be performing the play and his little brothers would not be whining with hunger. Of course, he didn’t for one moment believe that his father had killed Martin. He couldn’t have. But suppose no one believed him? Suppose they hanged him anyway? That too would be all Ben’s fault. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and tried desperately to think of something else.

By the time he had reached Steeple Gate, a large crowd of beggars were squatting on the ground before the thick wooden door. They were mostly cripples and the old and frail whose faces were as wrinkled as last year’s apples. One man, whose face was half covered in filthy bandages, gripped his crutches tightly as if he feared even these poor things might be snatched from him, while a young hollow-cheeked woman, with a grizzling baby, continually batted at the hands of a small girl to stop her picking at the yellow-crusted sores on her scalp. Ben attempted to step round the prone figures and edge his way to the front, but a hand shot out and caught his leg in a painful grip, dragging him back.

‘Here, where do think you’re going, brat?’

The man was crouching on a low wooden cart. He’d lost both his legs and the knuckles of his hand were covered with thick pads of brown skin where for years he had used them to propel himself along the ground. He might not be able to walk, but the muscles on his arms were harder than those of the paggers who humped loads down at the quayside. Ben wasn’t going to argue with him. He obediently crouched down where the man thrust him.

‘That demon will be hunting again tonight,’ the cripple on the cart said to the old man beside him. ‘You want to make sure you’re back inside your shelter long afore dark. Killed two already, but he must be getting hungry for some more by now.’

All the heads lifted as one, glancing apprehensively up towards the cathedral tower.

‘Two, is it now?’ The old man chewed on the news.

‘Aye, first was that fellow who played the angel, then that Ely boy, Luke. It’s his head they found up on top of the tower.’

‘So we’ve nothing to be afeared of then,’ an old woman cackled. ‘The monster’s only going for the tender, pretty ones.’

The beggars grinned, but their smiles quickly faded and their eyes kept swivelling back up at the grey skies as if they expected any minute to see the creature swoop down.

‘Luke,’ the old man said. ‘His uncle’s one of those they locked up. I knew his brother once, the one that ran off. He-’

‘Shouldn’t be keeping them locked up,’ a woman with a withered arm interrupted. ‘Speaking that cursed play. It’s them who’s to blame for calling up the demon. What they want to do is to hang them from the top of the tower and leave them there for the demon to eat.’

‘No!’ Ben yelled. ‘It’s not their fault. It was the monks that give them the cursed words. They’re written down, they are, on a scroll. The monks keep it hidden in the priory.’

‘Aye,’ said the women, ‘but a curse doesn’t work until it’s spoken aloud for all the imps of hell to hear.’

‘Well, there wouldn’t be any curse to speak if monks didn’t have that scroll,’ Ben retorted, scarlet with indignation.

‘Lad’s right,’ the old man said. ‘Who knows what other curses they’ve got written down on their bits of parchment. Someone should go in there and burn the whole lot of it, every last scrap, just to make sure they can’t call up something worse.’

‘And who do you think is going to do that?’ the man on the cart sneered. ‘You going to volunteer, you old fart?’

‘Whole town will,’ the woman said sourly, ‘and they’ll burn the cathedral down too if the demon that haunts that tower snatches another soul.’ She swivelled to face Ben. ‘Here… I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? You’re that brat played Isaac, aren’t you?’

An angry rumble ran through the beggars. The woman started towards Ben, clambering awkwardly over the beggars sitting between them. Several of the other beggars were also trying to heave themselves up. Ben scrambled to his feet and fled.

He was already several yards away when he heard the creak of the wooden gate opening behind him and the sudden clamour for alms. He stopped and cautiously turned around. The beggars had forgotten him in their desperation to attract the attention of the two monks in the open gateway. The brothers were handing out loaves of bread from one basket and kitchen scraps from the other, a random assortment of whatever the almoner had cajoled from the cook or gardener. An onion was dropped into one begging bowl, a small measure of withered beans into another, a lump of cheese into the next. The favoured ones were given pork bones, albeit with much of the meat cut from them, but still with enough remaining to make a coveted addition to the cooking pot. Those who had received only beans howled with envy.

Ben jiggled anxiously from foot to foot as the beggars stowed the food in sacks or under threadbare cloaks and shuffled off, glancing warily around them as if they feared cutpurses might be lurking to snatch their loaves from them. Even the man on the little cart had managed to claim his share by dint of ramming his cart hard and repeatedly against the ankles of those in front. The monks’ baskets were emptying fast.

Ben made up his mind and rushed forward, trying to wriggle his way to the gate. But the beggars, even the old ones, were well practised in the art of blocking those behind them, while thrusting forward their own bowls. When Ben finally reached the front he was dismayed to see the monk preparing to close the gate. He clutched at the monk’s basket.

‘Please, I need a loaf and some beans. I’ve a sister and two little brothers at home – my mother too. We’ve no food left and my father…’ he hesitated.

He wasn’t convinced that the monks would share his mother’s view that if they’d imprisoned his father, they should be feeding his family. Besides, there were still a few beggars remaining, pressing forward like him, their ears wagging.

‘My father’s dead,’ he finished in a rush and was immediately seized with a terrible panic, as if now that he had said the words they would come to pass.

‘Too late, it’s all gone, lad,’ the monk said, tipping the bread basket to prove to them all not a crumb remained. ‘He had the last loaf,’ he said, indicating with a jerk of his chin the man on crutches with the bandages over his eye hopping away from the gate. ‘Give thanks to the Blessed Virgin you’re sound in limb, boy. At least you’ve a chance of finding work to help your mother. Poor wretches like him haven’t.’

Ben stared resentfully at the back of the man. ‘But it isn’t fair, he isn’t even a cripple,’ he yelled.

The monk, already with his mind on other things, would scarcely have registered this remark had it not been for the howl of protest that rose from the half-dozen beggars who were still milling around the gate, as frustrated and angry as Ben at having been denied their alms.

One of them roughly grasped Ben’s arm. ‘How do you know he’s no cripple?’

Ben had blurted it out even before he’d realised how he knew, but now he thought about it. ‘That leg he’s dragging – it’s as thick as the good leg. Not like his,’ Ben pointed to one of the other beggars in the little group, who also supported his weight on a crutch. ‘His crippled leg’s no more than a stick next to his good leg.’

‘The lad’s right!’ the beggar said. ‘That leg should be wasted if he can’t use it.’

The man was still hopping away up the road, oblivious to the growing commotion behind him at the gate. The monks threw down their baskets, and with a surprising turn of speed raced up the road. Before the beggar even knew what was happening they had seized him, one on either side, and were dragging him back towards the gate. The man’s crutches clattered down onto the stones as the beggar struggled to break free, but the monks managed to keep their grip on him.

They had almost dragged him back as far as Steeple Gate when the almoner appeared, bristling with anger.

‘Who left the gate wide open and unattended?’ he began, then seeing the beggar struggling between the two sweating monks, he took a step forward, frowning.

‘What’s all this? Why have you laid hands on this man?’

‘He’s an averer,’ one of the monks spat. ‘Pretending to be crippled to get alms, and taking food from the mouths of those who are in genuine want.’

A growl of fury went up from the other beggars.

‘Is that so?’ the almoner said grimly. He seized the beggar by the front of his filthy shirt, almost pushing his face into his. ‘It’s wicked enough to steal from the needy when food is plentiful, but with harvests as bad as they were last year, we certainly haven’t any to waste on scoundrels like you. I’m going to ensure you’re made an example of, my lad. I’ll see to it that you’re whipped bloody for this.’

The other beggars grinned their approval, all except one who was quietly slinking away, no doubt thinking he had come perilously near the same punishment.

The averer was fighting to free himself, while at the same time begging for mercy.

‘I didn’t take the food for myself, it was for my poor bedridden mother, I swear.’

The almoner was unmoved. He reached up and tugged at the end of the filthy bandage covering half the man’s face.

‘I warrant this is false too and we’ll find a good eye beneath here.’

The man desperately tried to extricate himself from the monk’s grasp. ‘No, I beg you. The pain! I can’t bear the pain of the light in that eye. It’s agony. Don’t!’

But it was too late. The last twist of bandages was torn away to reveal a somewhat crumpled but unblemished face and a second eye as bright and blue as its twin.

For a moment Ben gaped up at the figure in disbelief. ‘But you’re dead!’

‘You recognise this man?’ the almoner said.

Ben, his eyes bulging like a frog in fear and bewilderment, could only nod his head.

‘Well, who is it, boy?’ the almoner demanded in exasperation.

‘He’s the angel. He’s Martin.’

The almoner didn’t trouble to disguise his glee when he bustled into the prior’s hall at the head of the small procession comprising the two monks, Martin struggling between two lay brothers and, nervously bringing up the rear, the small figure of Ben. There was always a certain amount of rivalry and squabbling between the obedientiaries who held posts of responsibility in the priory. And it was no secret among the brothers that Prior Alan blamed his subprior for all the misfortunes of the last few weeks. Now here was another humiliation. Stephen had men combing the fens for Martin’s murderer, and all the time the victim had been very much alive and sitting at the priory gate.

The almoner could barely keep from smirking when he announced that he had personally apprehended the murderer of the poor Ely lad, Luke. The two monks who had in fact caught Martin exchanged sour looks, but they were resigned to their superiors taking credit for anything that had gone well, though they were never so eager to take the blame when things went amiss.

Prior Alan lowered himself into the chair at the far end of the long table.

‘Come closer.’

The two lay brothers shoved Martin forward with such force that, with his wrists bound behind him, he almost fell sprawling across the table, but he pulled himself upright.

‘There’s been a mistake… I confessed that I begged a little food at the alms gate, but my poor mother is dying-’

‘Dying now, is she?’ the almoner said. ‘She’s suffered a remarkably sudden decline in her health. Just now you told us she was merely bedridden.’

‘She’s bedridden because she’s dying,’ Martin said, glowering at him. ‘Please, Father Prior, I have to get back to her. Suppose she should die alone, thinking her only son has abandoned her? I swear I will return and undertake any penance you wish. But you would surely not deny an old woman the comfort of her son’s hand in her final hours.’

The almoner opened his mouth to protest but the prior held up his hand to silence him. ‘You say this is the man we thought was dead. How do you know it’s him?’

The almoner looked round for Ben, who had retreated to the furthest corner and was gazing round the long panelled room in wide-eyed astonishment.

‘The boy identified him. He’s the lad who acted the part of Isaac in The Play of Adam. And I understand the lad’s father is one of the men you arrested, Father Prior. You, boy, come here.’

Ben was so busy staring at the brightly stitched wall hangings that he didn’t even seem to be aware he was being talked about, never mind addressed. Impatiently the almoner strode over and grabbed him, propelling him towards where the prior sat.

Prior Alan adopted what he clearly thought was a kindly expression, but it did nothing to reassure the boy, who stared at him like a rabbit bewitched by a stoat.

‘Do you see the man with his hands bound?’

Ben’s gaze flicked to Martin and back to the prior. He nodded, uncertain why the prior should be asking him if he could see someone who was standing only feet away, unless Martin really was a ghost.

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘M… Martin.’

‘No, I swear I’m not. I know no one of that name. I live out in the fens. I came to Ely to find food for my poor dying mother. I’ve never seen this boy before. The child is mistaken.’

I’m not,’ Ben said indignantly. ‘You are Martin and there was a half-noble in the bag. You stole it.’

‘You see the boy is clearly making all this up. No doubt he hopes for a reward.’

Prior Alan gestured to the two lay brothers. ‘Be so good as to find Subprior Stephen and ask him to come here. He’s spoken to the actor on several occasions; if this is the fellow Stephen will know. And please fetch Custodian Will too. You need not return here yourselves. When we have done with the prisoner, I shall send for you again to conduct him to the hell-pit. Whoever he may prove to be, one thing is clear, he is guilty of posing as a cripple to beg for alms and he will be punished for that, though I suspect that will prove to be the very least of his crimes.’

When Stephen came hurrying into the prior’s hall, no one could be left in any doubt as to the identity of the man.

‘That’s him, that’s Martin,’ Stephen said the moment he caught sight of him. ‘So he is alive. Where did you find him?’

The almoner had been anticipating this question and had been rehearsing the words of his gloating reply in his head while they had been waiting, but he never got a chance to utter them.

Prior Alan at once dismissed him from the hall, together with the two monks, ordering that the boy should be taken to the kitchens there to be given a generous basket of food and a few coins by way of a reward. Scowling, the almoner marched Ben from the room, gripping his shoulder so tightly in his indignation at being excluded that the lad would have protested had he not been so delighted at the prospect of taking home not just a loaf but a whole feast.

When the heavy door had closed behind them, Prior Alan turned his attention back to his prisoner. ‘You look remarkably well for a man who’s been dead for over two weeks.’

Martin said nothing. Even he realised that there was little point in continuing to deny who he was. They had only to bring his cousin, Henry, here, or Cuddy or John. They would take the greatest pleasure in identifying him.

Prior Alan rose and paced the length of the room. Only when he reached the far end did he turn and address Martin.

‘So, you murdered your fellow player Luke. You cut the head from the corpse and hid it, and you dressed him in your robes. The question is why? Was it to make everyone believe you were dead, so that you could escape with the relic?’

Martin gaped at him. Only a few of the words had filtered through the panic fogging his mind. ‘Murder? No! No! I swear it on the bones of every saint in Ely, I did not kill Luke. He was already dead when I found him.’

‘I seem to recall just moments ago you swearing you were not Martin,’ Alan said coldly. ‘It would appear little value can be placed upon your oaths.’

‘But it’s true. I came across his corpse… by accident. There was no mistaking he was dead – a sword cut to the neck. His head was almost severed.’

‘How do you know it was a sword cut, if you did not kill him?’

‘Because… I realised who must have done it, and the sword… I…’

Alan resumed his pacing. ‘If a man finds a corpse he is by law required to raise the hue and cry, but you did not. Why would you not report it, if you are as innocent of the death as you claim, especially if you knew who had murdered him?’

Martin stared wildly round the room, looking for someone who might take pity on him, but the faces of all three men were equally impassive.

‘I… suspected that his killer was really after me. It was dark, Luke was wearing a hood. He must have returned to the wagon to search for the money his uncle accused me, quite falsely, of taking. The man who killed him obviously mistook him for me. We’re much the same height. When I saw Luke’s body I realised that could have been me lying there, and if the man who killed him learned he had made a mistake, then he’d continue looking for me. So I thought if everyone believed I was dead…’

‘Including the players you robbed, then you could escape with your life and their money, was that it?’ Stephen said.

‘I was merely trying to prevent another murder being committed,’ Martin said resentfully.

‘Continue,’ said the prior sternly. ‘What did you do after you found Luke’s body?

‘I didn’t want the corpse to be discovered by the watch before I had time to get out of Ely when the gates were opened the next morning. I tried to drag the corpse into the wagon, but the head was lolling about too much, so in the end I took my knife and sawed through the last bit of the neck, then I heaved the corpse in. I dressed Luke in my angel costume.

‘I realised I had to dispose of the head where no one would find it. My clothes were soaked in blood from moving the body. So I changed into some old clothes from the props box, wrapped the head in my bloodstained clothes, put it all in a sack along with Luke’s clothes and set off for the river. But when I was halfway down the hill I saw the flames of a torch moving towards me. I thought it might be the watch making their rounds, so I fled back to the wagon and hid beneath it until morning. I couldn’t go to the river then, all the players live down there and besides it would be swarming with boatmen and paggers. And I daren’t risk carrying the head out of the town gates in the sack, in case I was stopped and searched.

‘It was looking up at the roof of the cathedral, at all those carved heads, that gave me the idea. I managed to mingle with the crowd going in for the servants’ Mass. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the door to the tower open. With all those people milling about, no one noticed me slip inside. I stuffed the sack and clothing under one of the beams in the dark corner inside the tower, then put the head on the turret where the birds could pick it clean. I thought when it was eventually found, people would think they’d found my head.’

‘As indeed some did,’ Alan said, glaring at Stephen.

‘But when I came down the tower, someone had locked the door at the bottom. I couldn’t get back out. I had to hide and wait for someone to open it again, but no one came until long after the noon bell. I made straight for the town gate, but even before I got there I saw the long queues waiting in front of it and I realised the guards were stopping and questioning everyone. I couldn’t leave Ely.’

‘So you decided to hide in plain view,’ Alan said.

‘No one looks at beggars,’ Martin said, with something of his old swagger at his own cleverness.

‘But what I don’t understand,’ Will said, ‘is how you broke into St Withburga’s tomb. You said yourself there was a crowd of people, and the cathedral is searched thoroughly each evening to ensure no thief is hiding.’

‘But I didn’t go near any of the saints’ tombs. I didn’t want to risk being seen.’

‘Then how did you steal the saint’s hand and replace it with Luke’s?’ Will demanded.

‘How he did it is irrelevant,’ Prior Alan snapped.

‘But, Father Prior, if there has been some breach in the security of the cathedral, others may use it to steal, and as custodian-’

‘That can wait. The only thing that matters at this moment is recovering that relic.’

Alan strode across to Martin and seized his shoulders, shaking him as if that would make the words drop out of his mouth. ‘We know you placed the hand of the murdered boy in the shrine and stole the saint’s hand. Tell us what you’ve done with it. Where have you hidden it?’

‘But I didn’t take anything from the shrine. I told you, I couldn’t get near it.’

Martin tried desperately to pull himself out of the prior’s grasp, but his hands were bound fast and, for a man in his sixties, Alan was surprisingly strong.

‘Then what did you do with Luke’s hand,’ Alan demanded, ‘the hand you so brutally sliced from his corpse?’

‘Nothing! I did nothing. Luke’s hand was already missing when I found him.’

‘You didn’t mention that before,’ Stephen said.

Martin hesitated. ‘I… I guessed the man who took it had cut it off… because he thought Luke was a… thief.’

Prior Alan pounced. ‘But you told us this mysterious man believed he was killing you, that means that you are the thief. So what did you steal from him? It must have been something of great value to warrant murder. Well?’ He shook Martin again.

‘All right, if you must know it was a sword… a silver sword.’

‘Valuable indeed,’ Alan said grimly. ‘But why did he not simply have you arrested? He would have had the satisfaction of seeing you hanged without risk to himself.’

‘He didn’t dare,’ Martin said sullenly. ‘It’s no ordinary blade. The sword is inscribed with the secret names of God, Agla and On. And this man is an alchemist… from Cambridge.’

Prior Alan sank down into the nearest chair. ‘This gets worse by the hour,’ he groaned.

Stephen and Will looked bewildered.

‘Only twelve such swords were ever made,’ Alan explained wearily, ‘to be used by consecrated priests who were specially trained in the art of conjuring spirits and angels. The Mass of the Holy Spirit was said over those blades. They’re all supposed to be safely under lock and key. So how on earth did a layman get hold of one? It’s obvious why this alchemist did not report the theft. He must have stolen the sword himself or bought it knowing it was stolen.’

The colour drained from Stephen’s face. ‘You used a sword in the play of “Cain and Abel”… surely it was not that one.’

Martin’s silence told him it was.

‘What evil demon have you conjured!’ Stephen cried.

Prior Alan thumped the table. ‘He has conjured nothing! Whatever mischief has gone on in Ely has been the work of human sin, as the very play itself warns. The townspeople may believe in demons flying down from towers, but we know it is not so.’

Will and Stephen exchanged glances that plainly said they knew no such thing.

‘But Father Prior,’ Will said, ‘what about the theft of St Withburga’s hand? I still don’t see how Martin could have accomplished it.’

Martin looked positively triumphant as if he’d just been proved innocent.

‘If what this man says is true,’ Alan said icily, ‘then we have found our thief and he is most definitely human. If the alchemist cut off Luke’s hand, then he must have placed it in the shrine and stolen the saint’s hand, no doubt to use in some evil charm or sorcery. Find the alchemist and we will find the hand.

‘You,’ he turned to Martin, ‘tell Brother Will all you know about this man and the places he is likely to go. Will and Stephen, you must prepare to set out at once for Cambridge, but you’ll have to travel alone. No one outside this room is to learn St Withburga’s hand is missing. If you have to enlist help when you are there to apprehend this alchemist, then tell them only that he is wanted for murder in the cathedral precincts, but make sure you search his lodging and workshop thoroughly. I want that hand found.

‘As for you, Martin, you will be reunited with your cousin in the hell-pit. He will doubtless be overjoyed to discover you’re alive, but I suspect Luke’s uncle will be somewhat less welcoming, especially when he learns it was you who placed his nephew’s head on the tower.’

Cambridge

It took Stephen and Will three days to locate the alchemist’s house. On the first morning after they arrived in Cambridge they sought an audience with the sheriff and explained they were in pursuit of a man who had committed murder in the grounds of Ely Priory, though they were careful to make no mention of either the relic or the sword. The sheriff showed little interest. Scowling, he told them that he had his hands full trying to keep the townspeople, the students and the various orders of monks from killing one another, without solving Ely’s murders as well, and demanded to know why they hadn’t brought more men with them. Finally, but only after he had been reminded in no uncertain terms by Will that he had a sworn duty to root out fugitives from justice hiding in his city, he grudgingly assigned two of his men to go with them and arrest the man, if he could be found.

Martin, realising his only hope of escaping the gallows was the arrest of the alchemist, had told Will exactly how to find the undercroft of a house where the alchemist had his workshop. But when Stephen and Will arrived and hammered on the door, they were met only with silence. Finally, after they had knocked a good many times, a woman leaned out of a casement on the upper storey.

‘We were told that we might find a man called Nicholas working here,’ Will called up.

‘Used to. Left in the middle of the night, he did, and the bastard still owes me rent.’

‘Do you know where he went?’

‘Do you think he’d still owe me rent if I did?’ the woman retorted, and promptly withdrew her head.

But even in Cambridge the smells and noises of an alchemist’s workshop couldn’t remain unnoticed for ever. Stephen and Will were eventually led to a house backing on to the stinking waters of King’s Ditch by a grubby street urchin who seemed to know the business of every household in Cambridge, information that he was eager to sell, though only after negotiating his fee as ruthlessly as any lawyer.

Without apparently any understanding of the word stealth, the two sheriff ’s men thundered up the rickety staircase to a room tucked under the eaves of a house. Not even a deaf man could have failed to hear their coming and when they burst in, the alchemist was frantically trying to squeeze himself out through the impossibly small window. Where he imagined he could go next was anyone’s guess, since only a bird could have escaped that way, but the soldiers didn’t waste time asking questions. Their instructions were to take the prisoner back to the sheriff at the castle, what happened to him after was not their concern.

‘Go with them,’ Will whispered to Stephen. ‘Find out what he says to the sheriff. It’ll give me time to search this room.’

He glanced round at the vast array of boxes, jars, charts and scrolls that were crammed onto every shelf, and the many more lurking between the curiously shaped flasks that steamed and bubbled over candle flames and small braziers.

‘The hand must be in here somewhere,’ Will said. ‘He’s evidently a man who likes to keep his possessions close, but it could take me a month to search through this lot.’

‘I should douse those flames first,’ Stephen warned. ‘That pot looks near to bursting open.’ He hastily backed away from a vessel that was wobbling alarmingly as clouds of greenish steam belched out of it.

But after several hours of methodical searching, even examining the walls for any concealed hiding place as well as the mysterious contents of the flasks, Will was reluctantly compelled to admit the bones of St Withburga were not in the room. He had discovered the silver sword concealed in a roll of bedding, and a desiccated mouse squashed behind a chest, but otherwise nothing. He was forced to conclude that if the alchemist had indeed stolen the hand, it was no longer in his possession.

Subprior Stephen confirmed this as soon as they met up again. ‘Nicholas confessed to the murder, in fact he seemed quite proud of it. Even the news that he killed the wrong man didn’t disturb him. He showed no remorse at all. It was as if the killing of Luke meant no more to him than the squashing of a beetle compared to the importance of his work. I’m certain he believes that no one would dare to execute a great alchemist like him over something so insignificant.’

‘But did our alchemist mention the hand?’ Will asked.

Stephen grimaced. ‘I managed to persuade the sheriff to leave us alone for a few minutes and questioned him, but he was adamant he didn’t steal St Withburga’s hand. In fact he was scornful of the very idea he should need it. He also claimed that Luke’s corpse still had both hands when he left. I’m inclined to believe him. He’s so arrogant; he would certainly have boasted about the cleverness of the theft if he had committed it.’

‘Then that brings us back to Martin again,’ Will said grimly. ‘Though I still can’t see how he could have done it. I’m beginning to think the townspeople might be right and thanks to that wretched play there is a demon at work.’

The two monks left Cambridge without the alchemist. Having decided that Nicholas was a dangerous lunatic, the sheriff was not going to risk having him escape from the two monks, or being rescued by his friends, if indeed a man like that had any. But the sheriff refused to spare men to accompany them to guard the prisoner, saying that if the prior wanted the alchemist returned to Ely he should send an adequate number of men to fetch him, otherwise he would remain safely locked up in the castle to await the next assizes.

Stephen and Will broke their journey at Denny Abbey, knowing they would not reach Ely by dark. The ancient causeway track across the waterways and sucking mires was dangerous enough by day, but only a man who longed for death would venture upon it at night. When they set off shortly after dawn the following morning, to their great relief a brisk wind was whipping across the bleak wetlands. It cut through their robes, but at least it blew away the thick mists that so often curled over the marshes.

The track was an ancient way constructed to take man and beast dry-shod across the sucking marshes and black expanses of water. But over the centuries the causeway had sunk in places, so that mud and water oozed back over it, and the last hot dry summer had cracked the bridges, making some of them so perilous that Stephen and Will were forced to dismount and gingerly lead their horses across on a long rein, as the wood creaked ominously beneath them. But the state of the track wasn’t the only thing that made them nervous. The tall reed beds, and the patches of willow and birch scrub, made the perfect cover for cutpurses and robbers. The monks’ cowls and tonsures would not protect them. Everyone knew that Ely Priory was wealthy, and monks travelling that road might well be carrying heavy purses or other treasures.

Stephen kept looking ahead of him to catch his first glimpse of the cathedral rising above the fenland. At any other time he would have been eager to see it, knowing he was in sight of a good meal and bed to rest his aching backside. But on this occasion, he found himself dreading his return and the inevitable interview with his superior. As Prior Alan had reminded him before they left, this whole sorry business had been his fault and he did not look forward to having to report yet another failure. But at least they had recovered the sword. Prior Alan must surely be a little cheered that such a sacred object was once more back in the hands of the Church.

It had begun to rain, and the wind was lashing it so hard against them that even their oily woollen cloaks were becoming sodden. However low a man’s spirits are, being cold and wet are certain to drive them still lower. Ahead of him Stephen saw Will dismount and start to lead his horse over another of the rickety bridges. With a sigh, he prepared to do likewise.

Will was halfway across the bridge when both monks heard the cry. The words were so faint that neither of them could make them out, but the voice was unquestionably human.

They stared around, but saw nothing except the reeds, which towered high above them and the sluggish black water in the ditch. This was just the kind of place an ambush might be set.

Will hesitated, uncertain whether to cross or go back. But it was plain he’d have to continue, for if he tried to turn his horse on the creaking bridge they would probably both end up in the water. As quickly as he dared he pulled the horse forward and Stephen prepared to follow him the moment Will’s horse was on solid ground, for it was well known that outlaws would try to separate travellers, making attack easier.

Just as Will’s horse cleared the bridge they heard the cry again.

‘Help me! Of your mercy, help me.’

‘I think it’s coming from under the bridge,’ Will called.

He hastily tethered his mount to a birch tree before stepping back onto the bridge. He peered down through the gaps in the warped planks.

‘There’s someone under there. I’m sure I can see something moving. Who’s there? Are you hurt?’

‘Mud, can’t pull my leg out… so cold.’

‘It might be a trap,’ Stephen warned. He stared round wildly, trying to peer into the reeds to see if anyone was lurking, waiting to rush out at them. His heart almost stopped as he heard something rustling, but it was only a moorhen.

Will leaned as far over the side of the bridge as he dared. ‘I see him! He’s just under this side… God’s blood, I think it’s one of our own brothers.’ He straightened up. ‘He’s up to the armpits in water. God knows how long the poor fellow has been struggling in there, but he must be numb with cold. If we knot the cords from our habits together, I can try to loop them around him and get one of the horses to pull him out.’

‘But suppose you fall in and get stuck,’ Stephen said. ‘Shouldn’t we go for help?’

‘No time. He’s exhausted. If he faints, he’ll go under and drown. See if you can find a pole or branch or something I can hang on to.’

It was not an easy matter pulling the poor monk out. Stephen locked his arm round the strut of the bridge and gripped the end of an all-too-slender birch branch. Will, grasping the lower end to steady himself, inched as far down the steep, slippery bank as he dared. Blinking the rain out of his eyes, he made several attempts to toss the loop of the knotted cord to the monk. At first, the monk couldn’t seem to summon the strength to grasp it, but finally, with Will shouting encouragement and threats in equal measure, he roused himself and managed to grasp the rope and eventually hooked one arm through it.

With Will safely back on the bank, they tied the end of the cord to the long leading rein of his horse and urged it forward. The cord straightened and groaned, then with a great splash the monk shot forward in the water and went under. For a sickening moment they thought they had lost him, but he reappeared coughing and choking, still holding onto the cord. Urging the horse another few paces forward, they hauled him out of the water, before finally managing to grasp his arms and drag him up the bank.

He lay on the track, his eyes closed, as black water streamed from his robes and mouth. It was only then, when they saw his face free from the deep cowl, that Stephen recognised him.

‘Brother Oswin! But what are you doing out here and how did you end up in the ditch?’

It was a long time before the young monk could manage to speak, never mind answer that question. Covering him as best they could with their own damp cloaks, Stephen and Will rubbed warmth back into his deathly cold limbs, and urged him to take a few sips of the wine from the leather bottle Will had in his pack. Finally, Oswin managed to sit up and his teeth began to chatter, which both men knew to be a good sign. When he did speak, however, his words made little sense.

‘Slipped off the br-bridge in the dark. Tried to stand up… wade back to the bank… sank into the mud.’

‘But what on earth possessed you to travel on this causeway in the dark, Brother?’ Stephen said. ‘No one from the priory would have sent you out on an errand alone at night.’

‘Have to get it back… Prior Alan called off the search. I thought they’d find it when they were searching for the actors, but they’re not even looking any more.’

‘Find what?’ Stephen asked.

‘Hand… hand of St Withburga.’

Will and Stephen gaped at each other.

‘Prior Alan told you it was missing?’ Stephen asked incredulously. After all the steps he had taken to conceal the theft, surely he would never have confided in a monk as young and inexperienced as Brother Oswin.

‘Prior Alan, no… I took the hand. It was me. I refused at first. I told him it was sacrilege, but my brother… Father Edmund threatened that if I did not bring him the hand he would betray a secret told to him in confession and my brother would be hanged… I had no choice.’

‘So you broke into the shrine and stole a holy relic, a relic from your own priory,’ Will yelled at him. ‘And then you desecrated the sacred body of the saint with that piece of rotting flesh. Did this Father Edmund also force you to do that?’

Will looked so angry, Stephen thought for one moment he was going to hurl the young monk straight back into the water.

‘Desecrate? No… No! I would never desecrate the shrine of the blessed saint. I prayed to the Blessed Virgin to help me and she showed me what to do. She threw the corpse at my feet. It was an answer to my prayers, don’t you see? At… at first I thought she wanted me to cut off the hand and give that to Father Edmund instead, but I realised he wouldn’t believe it was the saint’s hand… So after the midnight service, I lingered behind and hid in the shadows until the gate was locked and all the brothers were gone.’

‘That’s how it was done!’ Will said savagely. ‘I should have known. When the pilgrims leave after vespers, we search the cathedral thoroughly to ensure no one is hiding, but once the great door is locked, it isn’t searched again, because only the monks attend matins and lauds at midnight and no monk would ever dream of stealing from his own cathedral, would he?’

He glowered at Oswin. ‘So you had nearly four hours to steal the saint’s hand before the gates were opened again to admit the monks for prime at daybreak, and then all you had to do was slip back into your place among the brothers. But you still haven’t told us why you left that foul abomination in that holy place.’

Oswin shrank from Will’s fury. ‘I… I put that corpse’s hand in the coffin and left the coffin lid a little ajar so that the smell would force you to open the shrine and discover the saint’s hand was missing. I thought you would understand it was a message.’ He clutched at Will’s sleeve. ‘I wanted you to search and find the bones. But they’ve stopped searching. So I must go to Father Edmund now. I must put right what I did wrong.’

He struggled to rise and collapsed again almost at once. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Stephen pressed his hand to the young monk’s face. It was burning.

‘He has a fever. We should get him back to the priory at once.’

‘What about the relic?’ Will protested.

‘Promise… promise you will find it. I must…’ Oswin suddenly screamed and doubled up in pain.

‘That’s it,’ Stephen said. ‘The relic will have to wait. We must take Oswin to the infirmary now.’

Ely

There was silence in Prior Alan’s solar, broken only by the crackling of the fire in the hearth. Candles burned steadily on their spikes, and outside the shuttered casements the world slept on in darkness. Prior Alan stared miserably at the jar before him on the table. There was nothing in it save sodden ashes and fragments of charred bones.

‘You are sure this is all that remains.’

Will nodded. ‘Father Edmund was so close to death when we arrived that I’m certain it was only malice that kept him breathing. He laughed when he saw us. “You’re too late,” he said, pointing to the fire. “She betrayed me, just like de Lisle, so now her bones can warm mine.”’

‘Those were his very last words,’ Stephen added. ‘A great spasm seized him. He choked and clutched at his throat as if someone was strangling him, blood gushed from his mouth, then he fell back dead. Will quickly threw the remains of the priest’s ale into the fire to douse the flames, but the hand was already burned away.’

‘A t least we recovered something,’ Alan said. ‘We three will inter what remains in her shrine tonight and hold a vigil until prime. We have much to pray about.’

He lifted the silver sword, which lay next to the ashes on his table, turning the blade over in the candlelight, tracing with his finger the secret names of God – Agla on one side of the blade and on the other side, On. The intricate engraving of mystic signs and scrolls was so delicate, the angels themselves could have fashioned it.

The alchemist had evidently cleaned the sword, but not well enough, for when Alan held it close to the ball of glass that intensified the candlelight he could just make out dark threads of blood trapped in the fine line of tracery. It was a sword of exquisite beauty, intended only for holy work, but now it was tainted by murder. For this sword had never been honed for battle, though it was sharp enough to bisect a single hair. It had been made to conjure spirits and angels. And such a sword was worth… ah, yes, that was the question. What would a man with knowledge of how to use it be prepared to pay for such a sword?

Alan laid it down with a sigh. ‘This must be locked away in our own vaults, at least until we can discover which cathedral or abbey it was stolen from.’

‘Father Prior,’ Stephen said, ‘what do you intend to do with Martin now, and the other players? For it seems they were telling the truth after all.’

There was more than a hint of ‘I told you so’ in his tone, but if Prior Alan noticed, he was choosing to ignore it.

‘I’ll release them in the morning – all except Martin, of course. I think he would find himself a murder victim in truth if we left him to the mercy of the other actors. Besides, he may be innocent of murder, but there’s still a long list of other crimes for which he is assuredly guilty. But I don’t intend to keep him lying around in the hell-pit. He can spend his nights chained up in there, but I’m sure we can find work to keep him occupied during the day, until the alchemist’s trial. I think cleaning out the latrines might be a good start, then the stables, that way he can start earning the bread he received in alms.’

There was a knock on the heavy oak door and the infirmarer entered.

Alan motioned to him to join them round the fire, but he shook his head and remained standing just inside the door.

‘I have bad news, Father Prior. It’s Brother Oswin.’

‘Has his fever worsened?’

‘It has, but I am afraid it’s no common fever.’ He sighed and wearily massaged his eyes. ‘He is coughing blood and the black marks have appeared on his skin. There can be no doubt, it is the Great Pestilence.’

Prior Alan groaned. ‘God have mercy on us all.’

Will and Stephen stared aghast at each other. They had both touched Oswin, held him up on Will’s horse as they brought him home and carried him to the infirmary.

‘You changed your robes, did you not?’ the infirmarer asked, in answer to their unspoken question.

‘They were wet and muddy.’

‘They should be burned. But if it’s any consolation, by all accounts it’s mostly the young men like Brother Oswin the pestilence is claiming this time.’

Will had turned very pale and his hands were trembling. ‘Father Edmund coughed blood at the last. Do you think…?’

The infirmarer grimaced, refusing to meet his frightened gaze. ‘I will prepare some draughts for you that are thought to be efficacious, and, Father Prior, with your permission I will have fumigants burning in every part of the priory by morning. But I think that you should order a grave to be dug in the monks’ cemetery as soon as it’s light. There is no physic that will help Brother Oswin now.’

‘I pray it’s the only grave we will need to dig, but I suspect there will be many more,’ Prior Alan said.

Stephen shuddered. He knew he should not fear death. His life was in God’s hands and it was His to take it, whenever it pleased Him to do so. Nevertheless, Stephen could not help but be comforted that they would be spending the night in vigil at St Withburga’s shrine. He felt the need for her protection more tonight than he had ever done in his life before.

The infirmarer made to leave, then turned back. ‘There is something else you should know, Father Prior. Some of the brothers are saying The Play of Adam is the cause of this misfortune and when the people of Ely learn of Brother Oswin’s condition they will surely blame the curse of the play as well. They may even try to storm the priory.’

‘I’m not a man to believe in curses,’ Alan said, ‘and I’ve always tried to ignore the legend that the very first time the play was performed in Oseney Abbey, a monk was cruelly murdered. But I am beginning to believe that play has a strange way of bringing forth the evil in man.’

He sat in silence for a few minutes as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. Then he gave a great sigh. ‘Brother Stephen, would you be so good as to fetch The Play of Adam from the library for me?’

Stephen bowed his head and left the room. He returned a while later with a long wooden case and laid it on the table in front of Prior Alan. Alan opened it carefully and slid out a roll of vellum and unrolled the first few inches.

‘This is over two hundred years old and see, the writing is as bold and clear as the day it was scratched upon this scroll. The author used the finest quality ink and vellum. Perhaps he was once a sacrist himself, like me, and knew how to buy the best. A pity, such a pity that what was written in faith should be used for such foul ends, yet that is ever the way of man. But we must put a stop to this and let it be known in the town that The Play of Adam is gone and will never again be performed.’

‘You surely don’t mean to burn it,’ Will said. Although he, unlike Prior Alan, was convinced the scene of “Cain and Abel” was cursed, still he could not bear to think of anything so old and beautiful being wholly consigned to the flames.

‘No, I would not destroy it, but like the sword it must be placed where it cannot be used for evil.’

Alan turned over the scroll and dipped his quill in his ink pot. He carefully wrote a few lines on the back of the vellum at the top, then he rolled it up again. Melting the end of the stick of wax in the candle flame, he allowed a glob of it to fall precisely on the edge of the scroll, before swiftly pressing his seal to it. The wax hardened almost as once, sealing the scroll shut.

‘Brother Stephen, choose two of our younger brethren. Tell them they must be ready to leave Ely at dawn. They must take this scroll straight to the Benedictine House at Westminster, and give it into the hand of the abbot. He’s an old friend of mine. He will understand my warning. And it might be wise to instruct the brothers to disguise themselves as lay folk just until they are well beyond Ely. As soon as the news of the pestilence breaks, there will be a great throng scrabbling to leave the town and I don’t want the monks to be at the mercy of their wrath. Tell the brothers not to return until they know Ely is free from the contagion. If God wills it, this Play of Adam might for once save two young lives instead of taking them.’

He handed the scroll to Stephen, who looked down at the words his superior had written.

In that this scroll contains Holy Writ, you shall not suffer it to be destroyed. Yet neither shall you break the seal upon it, lest fools and knaves make of it swords to slay the innocent and infect man’s reason with the worm of madness.

Alan of Walsingham, Prior of Ely.

Outside in the darkness a single bell began to toll. Brother Oswin was dead. How many more times would that bell ring over the coming weeks? Whatever Prior Alan chose to believe, Stephen felt a shadow hovering over Ely, darker and more terrifying than any demon. And he knew then with a dreadful certainty that the scroll had been sealed too late – far too late to save them now.

Historical Notes

In the seventh century St Eltheldreda, daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, founded the monastery of Ely and her youngest sister, Withburga, founded a nunnery at Dereham. Many miracles were attributed to Withburga, including that a wild doe came to her to be milked twice a day to provide food for the workmen who were building the church at Dereham. When she died in around AD 743, she was buried at Dereham, which became a place of pilgrimage.

In 974, Brithnoth, Abbot of Ely, decided that Withburga should be interred in the cathedral along with her sister Etheldreda. The abbot and his monks broke into the shrine at Dereham and stole the saint’s body. In the morning the men of Dereham gave chase, but the body was already on a boat sailing up the river towards Ely. When the Dereham men returned home they found a miraculous spring had welled up in the empty grave. The shrines of the two princesses, together with the shrines of their sister Sexburga and her daughter, Ermengild, made Ely Cathedral an important medieval pilgrimage site, but, sadly, the shrines were destroyed in 1541 during the Reformation.

Relics of saints were widely used to heal the sick, and also in rituals to raise spirits, angels and demons. The sword described in the story was used by priests who had been trained in the art of necromancy and in summoning spirits. Priests would undertake these rituals in the service of the Church, just as others would perform exorcisms. Today such rites would be condemned by most bishops, but in the Middle Ages they were regarded as part of Christian belief and practice, and a number of learned medieval scholars and theologians wrote detailed treatises on these rituals.

The widely held superstition that a dead man’s hand, or ‘hand of glory’, could be used to open any lock, render a thief invisible and put the occupants of the house to be burgled into a deep sleep was still believed as late as the nineteenth century. Indeed, the Observer newspaper of 1831 reports the arrest of a burglar caught using a hand of glory. These hands were normally cut from the corpse of a hanged man, but since they were also believed to have great curative powers, Father Edmund, in his crazed mind, might well have believed he could use the saint’s hand for this purpose, if she failed to cure the plague.

The return of the plague in 1361 affected Cambridgeshire particularly badly, striking many villages and towns that had escaped the first wave in 1348, with devastating results. Although young men and women were the major casualties of the 1361 outbreak, it did claim the lives of many others, especially those already weakened by the famine.