The Sanctuary Murders

Chapter 17

There was silence in the chapel, then Bartholomew leapt at Leger, in the hope that a swift assault would give him a vital advantage. It was a mistake. With indolent ease, Leger twisted away, and Bartholomew went flying from a casual blow with the crossbow. It did him no harm, but he landed in a place where the smoke was much thicker, simultaneously blinding him and rendering him helpless from lack of air.

‘Put them with the others,’ he heard Joan order. ‘Quickly now.’

‘Why?’ demanded Leger. ‘I can shoot them down here.’

‘It is a chapel,’ snapped Joan. ‘A holy place. Now do as I say. Hurry!’

Bartholomew tried to scramble away when the knights came, but they knew how to handle awkward prisoners. He and Michael were bundled through Amphelisa’s smouldering workshop and up the steps to the balcony. As the door was opened, an almighty racket broke out. Children sobbed, women screamed for mercy, and old men wailed in terror. Bartholomew and Michael were shoved inside so roughly that both fell. The clamour intensified.

‘Silence!’ roared Joan. ‘Or you will be sorry.’

‘This is a holy place, too,’ Michael reminded her as the din petered out. ‘Part of the chapel. If you spill blood up here, you will be damned for all eternity.’

‘Who said anything about spilling blood?’ asked Joan shortly.

Bartholomew sat up, acutely aware of the snap and crackle of the fire below. Smoke oozed through the floorboards. He blinked tears from his stinging eyes, and saw the peregrini and staff huddled at the far end. So were the Jacques.

‘You think burning people alive is acceptable, but shooting them is not?’ breathed Michael. ‘Please, Joan! Think of your immortal soul!’

‘I am thinking of it,’ snarled Joan. ‘Which is why I must avenge Winchelsea. It would be a far greater sin to pretend it never happened.’

‘It is not for you to dispense justice!’ cried Michael. ‘It–’

‘Who will, then?’ she demanded tightly. ‘The survivors of Winchelsea? All the fighting men are dead. The King? He is too busy with his war. Mother Church? She brays her horror, but her priests lack the courage to act.’

‘Not them – God,’ said Michael. ‘He will punish the guilty.’

‘Quite,’ said Joan. ‘And I am His instrument, doing His will.’

‘He does not want this!’ Michael was shocked. ‘And your actions will only compound the atrocity. Murdering more people will not make it better.’

‘On the contrary, those whose loved ones were butchered by French raiders will take comfort from it. They said so as I helped them bury their innocent dead.’

Michael indicated the peregrini. ‘They also lost loved ones that day. Delacroix’s brothers were killed defending Winchelsea.’

‘They are spies,’ stated Joan uncompromisingly. ‘They wrote to the French, advising them when best to attack Winchelsea. The Mayor told me personally. It is their fault the slaughter was so terrible and they will pay for their treachery today.’

Her eyes blazed, and Bartholomew knew Michael was wasting his time trying to reason with her. Meanwhile, the smoke grew denser with every passing moment, and her prisoners were already struggling to breathe.

‘You cannot be party to this, Leger,’ shouted Michael, snatching at straws in his desperation. ‘You are a knight – your duty is to protect the weak.’

‘My duty is to protect England from the French,’ countered Leger. ‘Which is what I am doing. Besides, you may have forgotten Norbert, but I never shall.’

‘Norbert?’ blurted Michael. ‘What does he have to do with it?’

‘He was murdered in that skirmish by foreign scholars. And since Tulyet refuses to take a stand against them, I have joined ranks with someone who will.’

He nodded to his fellows and they prepared to leave. Bartholomew was in an agony of tension. He had to stop them! Once the door was locked – and he was sure Joan would have the only key – their victims’ fate was sealed. There would be no escape from the flames.

‘Joan used Norbert,’ he yelled, hoping Leger would turn against her if he knew the truth. ‘Deceived him. It was not Alice who told him that the Spital harboured French spies – it was Joan. She deliberately misled him by aping Alice’s scratching.’

‘But French spies are hiding here,’ shrugged Leger. ‘And Norbert would not have cared which nun the information came from – just that she was right.’

‘You will not live long once you leave,’ warned Bartholomew, opting for another strategy. ‘Like Goda, you will be stabbed to tie up loose ends. And if you want proof, look at Joan’s shoes – stained with the oil that spilled as she chased Goda around this–’

Eudo tore at Joan, bellowing his rage and grief. Leger shot him. The big man thudded to the floor and lay still.

‘I did chase her,’ admitted Joan, regarding the dead man with a chilling lack of emotion. ‘But I did not kill her – she had grabbed a knife from the kitchen and she fell on it as we raced around. Her blood is not on my hands.’

‘Paris,’ said Michael, declining to argue semantics with her. ‘You killed him for–’

‘For being French,’ spat Joan. ‘And his death is your fault – I would not have known he even existed if you lot had not made such a fuss about him stealing someone else’s work. And as for that spicer – well, he had to die after he had the audacity to inform me that the Dauphin only did in Winchelsea what English soldiers do in France.’

Most of the prisoners were on their knees or lying down, gasping for air. Only Delacroix remained stubbornly upright, glaring defiance through streaming eyes.

‘And the Girard family?’ asked Michael. ‘I assume you could not bring yourself to knife the little girl, so you put a soporific in her milk.’

Joan winced. ‘It was cowardly of me.’

‘Yet you helped to rescue Hélène. Were you not afraid she would identify you?’

‘One nun looks much like another to children. And as for pulling her from the shed … well, suffice to say that I was caught up in the moment.’

‘How did you stab four adults with such ease?’ asked Michael, casting an agonised glance at Bartholomew, begging him to act while he kept her talking. ‘Two were Jacques – experienced fighters.’

‘Experienced fighters who turned their backs on a nun,’ said Joan shortly. She opened the bag she carried over her shoulder and began to rummage about inside it. ‘Now, enough talking. I am–’

‘Bruges and Sauvage were next, even though neither was French,’ persisted Michael.

‘I pray that God will forgive my mistake.’ Joan pulled two daggers from the bag and dropped them on the floor, where they joined a number of others already lying there. ‘I collected these after Winchelsea, when I vowed that a French life would pay for every English one. Today will see that oath more than fulfilled.’

‘You only found one of the batch she left when she dispatched the Girards,’ put in Leger gloatingly. ‘You might have had answers a lot sooner if you had been more thorough.’

Michael ignored him and continued to address Joan. ‘And when these weapons are found, I suppose you will have a flash of memory, which will “prove” that the peregrini killed Paris and the others.’ His expression was one of deep disgust.

Joan inclined her head. ‘Although your Junior Proctor will have to act on my testimony now, given that you will not be in a position to do it.’

‘Wait!’ shouted Michael desperately, as she turned to leave. ‘You cannot do this!’

Joan paused and regarded him thoughtfully. ‘Before I go, answer one question: how did you guess it was me? Not from that stupid comb I dropped when I dispatched Paris? I had a feeling that Abbess Isabel recognised it before I managed to reclaim the thing. Is that why Alice took it from my bag? To give to her, so she could be certain?’

‘Yes, and Isabel has told everyone her suspicions, so you can never return to Lym–’

But Joan was already sweeping out, Amphelisa’s cloak billowing around her. The soldiers followed, and the door slammed shut behind them.

For a moment, the only sounds were the growing roar of the flames below and footsteps thumping down the stairs. Then the Jacques released bellows of rage and ran at the door like bulls, kicking and pounding on it with all their might. But the wood was thick, and Bartholomew knew it would never yield to an assault, no matter how determined. The other adults began to wrap cloaks and hats around their faces and those of the children.

‘Tangmer!’ shouted Bartholomew. ‘Is there another way out?’

‘No – we never imagined one would be necessary,’ gasped the Warden, his face ashen.

‘We lied,’ whispered Father Julien, who was on his knees, hands clasped in prayer. ‘And this is God’s judgement on us.’

‘Lied about what?’ demanded Michael.

‘The dagger that killed the Girards,’ said Julien. ‘Of course we recognised it – they are made all around Rouen. But if we had admitted it, you would have accused us of murder …’

It was no time for recriminations, so Michael went to help with the children, while Bartholomew conducted a panicky search of the balcony. But Tangmer was right: there was only one way in or out, and that was locked. Three of the walls were solid stone, while the fourth was the wooden screen designed to keep lepers away from the healthy. The screen was sturdy, and would not be smashed without an axe – which they did not have.

Yet it did flex when Bartholomew thumped it in frustration. He examined the way it had been secured to the wall, and saw someone had been criminally miserly with the nails. There were plenty to anchor it in place where it met the knee-high wall at the bottom, but there were only a few at the sides, and none at all along the top.

‘Help me!’ he rasped, kicking it as hard as he could. The Jacques joined in and so did Tangmer, but their efforts were more frantic than scientific, and were aimed at the wrong spots entirely. Then Michael approached.

‘Stand back!’ he shouted.

He trotted to the back of the balcony, lowered his shoulder and charged, gaining speed with every thundering step. He struck the screen plumb in the middle, so hard that Bartholomew flinched for him. There was a screaming groan as the wood tore free at the top and sides, although the bottom held firm. Then the top flopped forward in a graceful arc to land with a crash on the nave floor below.

Michael was moving far too fast to stop, so his momentum carried him over the wall and out of sight. Horrified, Bartholomew darted forward to see that the screen now formed a very steep ramp, down which Michael was dancing, arms flailing in alarm. The monk reached the bottom and staggered to a standstill.

‘I meant to do that,’ he lied. ‘Now bring everyone down. Hurry!’

No one needed to be told twice. They slid and scampered down the screen like monkeys, grateful that the smoke was less dense below. Confident no one would escape, Joan had not bothered to lock the side door, so everyone was soon outside, coughing and gasping in relief. The Jacques began to scout for signs of their would-be killers.

‘We can douse the flames,’ rasped Tangmer. ‘Save our chapel.’

‘No,’ barked Bartholomew. ‘You must leave now or the rioters will–’

He faltered when there was an urgent yell from Delacroix. The townsfolk had finally succeeded in setting the gates alight, and were hammering through the weakened wood with a battering ram.

‘To the tunnel!’ shouted Bartholomew, hoping Cynric would be able to stage a second diversion with very little warning.

He began to lead the way, aware that the besiegers’ howls had changed to something harder and darker now that victory was within their grasp. He had no doubt that anyone caught inside the Spital would be cut down, regardless of who they were. There would be regrets and shame later, but that would not help those who were dead.

Then there was a crash, and the gates fell inwards. The rioters poured across them, screaming for blood. In the vanguard were Heltisle’s Horde, their faces twisted with hate. The peregrini children whimpered in terror.

Bartholomew stopped running and turned to face them. It was too late to lead anyone to safety now. He picked up a stick from the ground and prepared to fight. Michael came to stand next to him.

‘We nearly did it,’ the monk whispered, his voice heavy with regret. ‘Just a few more moments and we would have been away.’

Suddenly, there was a rumble of hoofs, and Joan emerged from the stables on Dusty, the three knights at her heels. Their appearance through the drifting smoke was distinctly unearthly. All wore cloaks that flapped behind them and masks that hid their faces. Seeing the gate down, and knowing it would be easier to escape that way than coaxing their nervous mounts back along the tunnel, they thundered towards it.

‘Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse,’ muttered Bartholomew, sickened to know they would never face justice.

‘With Joan as Death,’ said Michael. ‘It is an apt analogy.’

But as the Prioress approached the gate, a spark from the burning chapel landed on the cloak she had taken from Amphelisa. There was a dull thump as the oils in it ignited. Suddenly, she was no longer a person, but a mass of bright, leaping flames. She screamed in horror and pain, and Dusty, terrified by the inferno that raged so suddenly above him, took off like an arrow. Those in his path scattered in alarm.

Then there came an unmistakable voice from behind them. It was Cynric, who had grown increasingly alarmed by the length of time Bartholomew and Michael were taking, so had come to find out what they were doing.

‘Satan!’ he howled. ‘It is Satan, straight from Hell!’

‘He is right,’ yelled Isnard. ‘Margery said he was coming to live here. Well, here he is!’

‘Run!’ screamed Cynric at the top of his lungs. ‘He wants our souls!’

Joan was burning more brilliantly than ever, and gave a shriek of such agony that it did not sound human. Heltisle’s Horde turned and raced back through the gates. Their panic was contagious and within moments the Spital was empty, scholars jostling with townsfolk to hare towards the safety of home.

In the distance, louder and shriller than the wails of the mob, was Joan’s voice, as Dusty bore her in the opposite direction. Bartholomew ran to the gates and looked down the road after her. She blazed for what seemed like a very long time before the flames finally winked out of sight.