by Paul Doherty
‘But isn’t it curious, Colum? Here’s a man who thinks he is going to die. He even burns his possessions on the brazier, a leather wallet full of letters, other bric-a-brac, tawdry items.’ She paused. ‘Have you read the lives of the great Franciscans, Colum? One thing about the Order of St. Francis and its great founders, such as the notable Anthony of Padua: They always wanted to die in church before the altar. Why didn’t Roger do this? Why didn’t he send for Jonquil and ask to be carried down to lie before the high altar? This great saint who, according to the evidence, bore the stigmata as did Francis of Assisi refused to follow his great master?’ Kathryn shook her head. ‘Atworth seemed more concerned with burning things than anything else. He makes no farewells, writes no letters, but dies quietly in the odour of sanctity.’ She spread her hands. ‘Nevertheless, these phenomena, the stigmata, the beautiful fragrance, the vision, the incorruptible corpse . . .’
‘Which you now think is due to arsenic?’
‘I know it is,’ Kathryn affirmed.
‘Could he have been deliberately poisoned?’
‘Possibly, yet we know that he was taking small doses.’
‘There’s something else as well’ – Colum got to his feet – ‘and one matter you must probe, Kathryn. Was there any mysterious visitors to this house? Any connection between the Friars of the Sack and the Court of France?’ He leaned down and kissed her on the brow. ‘But be careful,’ he warned her, ‘hallowed precincts are no defence against sudden death!’
Chapter 6
‘Radix malorum est Cupiditas.’
—Chaucer, ‘The Pardoner’s Tale,’
The Canterbury Tales
Brother Timothy, one of the ancient ones at the Friary of the Sack, had very few occupations in life except prayer and staring through a small window which overlooked the green expanse of Gethsemane Garden. Brother Timothy loved this place; the pebble-dashed pathways beneath were always quiet. He loved to study the great lawn which stretched out towards the high curtain wall, as well as the trees which thronged the lawn in the shape of a horse-shoe. Gethsemane would change according to the seasons: Bright frost on a winter’s morning or thick, heavy snow could transform the place into the white courtyard of one of Heaven’s palaces: above all, the gentle touch of spring as the grass grew long and lovely, the birds swooped, the flower-buds broke, and, like the risen Lord, resurrected once again was breathtaking. Brother Timothy had been the friars’ gardener: he knew every inch of Gethsemane. He was particularly fascinated by a colony of stoats which nested in the curtain wall and often foraged across the lawn.
‘Pity,’ he murmured, ‘about the rabbits.’
The stoats had settled bloody accounts with them, but that was life! Brother Timothy was well past his eightieth year. He had fought as a boy archer in the great Henry’s Battle of Agincourt. He had witnessed the execution of helpless prisoners of war. He had returned home sickened by it, determined to commit himself to a life of prayer and reparation. Brother Timothy scarcely moved from his chamber. He kept a faithful account of what he saw. Sometimes he drew the different birds and animals in the parchment folio the Master of the Scriptorium had given him. The friary was such a busy place, but Gethsemane Garden was scarcely frequented. It was like a lost island of dreams in the busy routine of the friary, except for the Blessed Roger!
Brother Timothy chomped on his toothless gums and wiped away a trickle of saliva from his lips on the back of his hand. Brother Timothy regarded himself as the guardian of Gethsemane. He knew which friars walked there – sometimes Anselm, the busy-eyed Prior, and, of course, Gervase the sub-prior, who had direct responsibility for the friary precincts. Finally, there was Brother Roger Atworth with that moon-eyed lay brother, his constant companion and shadow. Atworth often walked in the garden; he’d even go to the far corner. Brother Timothy clutched the windowsill. Ah yes, the far corner behind the great hawthorn bush, that stone enclave built against the wall, the small prison of the Accursed. Ah well! Brother Timothy bowed his head.
‘Jesu miserere!’ The old friar whispered a prayer for the woman imprisoned there. He glanced up. The day was dying. He had heard about all the excitement – how Brother Roger Atworth had been found dead and the eerie phenomena which surrounded his death, the vision in the chapel. Brother Timothy grinned mirthlessly. He was in his eighty-fifth summer; he didn’t believe in visions. The good Lord was too busy to care about Canterbury, which was already well looked after by the sainted Becket’s bones. One of the lay brothers had also talked about the arrival of important men, people from the Court. But whose Court? Sometimes Brother Timothy was confused. All that struggle, those bloody battles, armies marching backwards and forwards. There was even a female physician present! Brother Timothy’s legs were beginning to ache, so he sat down in the high-backed chair. Someone said it was Swinbrooke’s daughter. The old friar’s eyes crinkled in amusement. He had liked Mistress Swinbrooke. The physician had come here during the pestilence, and wasn’t there a bright-eyed, red-haired, plump woman with him? What was her name? Aminsa? Thomasina? Anyway, according to that gossip Brother Eadwig, who always brought his meal, the woman physician was staying the night.
Brother Timothy might be old, but he prided himself on his hearing and his sight. He heard the pebbled path crunch. Pert as a sparrow, the Ancient One returned to his perch and stared out of the window.
‘Ah!’ It was Sub-Prior Gervase. He could tell that by the white ermine fur which edged his cowl. Timothy watched Gervase walk across the lawn and into the fringe of trees and bushes on the far side. Why did he do that? Hadn’t he been there earlier in the afternoon? Brother Timothy shook his head. Gervase’s conduct over the last few months had grown rather strange. Perhaps he was visiting the Accursed? Timothy watched the sub-prior disappear. If he was agile enough, Timothy would have gone out and discovered what was so interesting at the far side of Gethsemane.
The priory bells began to toll, a signal that, within a quarter of an hour, the brothers would gather in church to sing divine office, so Gervase wouldn’t be there long. Brother Timothy kept his vigil. He saw a small, shadowy form creep out from beneath a bush and scuttle across the grass. Timothy, distracted, stared at it. Wasn’t it one of those damnable rats? A few weeks ago Timothy had noticed the first of these, bold as brass, daring to forage out on the lawn; then they had disappeared. Timothy had consulted a book in the library and recognised the bloody handiwork of his old friends the stoats. Brother Timothy had asked Eadwig about the infestation. Eadwig had even trapped and killed one so he could draw it in his sketchbook. Timothy had taken one look at the bloody, rather charred corpse and thought otherwise.
‘An ugly, devil-made beast!’ he’d exclaimed, but he had drawn the creature from memory. He turned and went back to his table and picked up the folio; the pages crackled. Ah, there it was, with its black forehead and long, evil snout, black gleaming eyes, devil-like tail.
‘Did you burn it?’ he’d asked Eadwig, remembering the charred fur.
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ the lay brother had replied. ‘I was in one of the outhouses. One of the brutes appeared, so I hit it with a log.’
Brother Timothy remembered his vigil and went across to the window. The shadows across the lawn were growing longer, and the bell tolled for divine office, but Brother Gervase hadn’t reappeared. Timothy felt a prickle of cold between his shoulder blades. What was wrong? Why would Gervase stay there? Timothy racked his brains. Of course, the ruins! Buildings had stood here before the friary was ever built: A merchant house had been turned over to the order some 250 years earlier; its foundations and cellars still lay behind those bushes, nothing more than dank pits. Brother Timothy remembered the brass-studded door at the foot of the crumbling steps. Alcuin, the old librarian, had told him about them. Once upon a time, before the Franciscans ever arrived in Canterbury, this had been a park owned by a great nobleman who, in turn, had built on even more ancient dwellings. Gethsemane had been his own priv
ate garden: His house once stood where the monks’ store-rooms were built. Perhaps Gervase was involved in some business over there?
Brother Timothy sat down on his cushioned chair brought specially over to the window so he could take rest during his vigils. He knew so much about this place. He dozed for a while. What if Brother Gervase returned? He got up and opened the little, latticed door-window. The evening air was turning cold but was still sweet with the smell of flowers and trees; it even carried the distant bustle of the city. Another bell tolled. Brother Timothy heard a sound. He got to his feet and, clutching the windowsill, peered out. Gervase was standing next to the large hawthorn bush, cowl pulled up, arms up the sleeves of his gown. He just stood as if lost in contemplation. Brother Timothy blinked and stared again. Was that a tendril of smoke? He gaped in horror. One moment Gervase was just standing there; the next, it was as if the earth had opened up and spat out a spume of fire.
‘Gervase!’ he screamed.
Old Timothy’s heart beat faster. He watched in absolute terror as the sub-prior was suddenly engulfed in a tongue of fire which roared up to the sky. Brother Timothy dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. He tried to shout, but he couldn’t. The subprior was still standing, the flames roaring all about him. Brother Timothy staggered away, battling for breath; he picked up the hand-bell from the table, fell to his knees, and began to ring it vigorously.
Kathryn was in her chamber in the guest-house when the tocsin began to boom; she had been given pleasant lodgings consisting of a spacious chamber, clean and well swept, with a comfortable bed, chair, table, and a narrow window overlooking the friary gardens. Colum had left, promising that he or Thomasina would return with a change of clothing and other things Kathryn needed. She was sitting at the table laying out her writing satchel when the strident tones of the bell alarmed her. She was reluctant to act, as she was only a guest and anxious not to interfere with the smooth running of the friary. Footsteps pounded along the gallery, followed by a hasty knocking at the door. Brother Jonquil burst in, white-faced, round-eyed.
‘Mistress Swinbrooke, you’d best come! It’s hideous, you . . .’
‘What?’ Kathryn jumped to her feet, quickly slipping on her sandals. She hitched her dress to fasten the clasps and caught Brother Jonquil’s embarrassed gaze. ‘Don’t worry, Brother,’ she teased, ‘they’re only my ankles. What is the matter?’
‘Gervase . . . Gervase, he’s all a-fire!’
Kathryn could make no sense of it but followed Jonquil down the stairs and out of the guest-house. Jonquil was walking fast, striding ahead along narrow passageways, out of the friary buildings onto a pebble-dashed path, flanked on one side by the friary and on the other by the curtain wall. Other members of the community were hurrying in the same direction, hitching up their robes, anxious-eyed, worried-faced; a few threaded ave beads through bony fingers. They rounded a corner: friary buildings with small bay windows, jutting cornices, and buttresses lay to Kathryn’s immediate left. On her right, across a broad, white-pebbled path, lay a beautiful, expansive lawn shaped in the form of a U which stretched out to a fringe of trees and bushes. At the far side of the lawn a group of friars had assembled. Billowing clouds of black smoke carried across the sickening stench of burning flesh.
‘In God’s name!’ Kathryn whispered.
That smoke, that terrible odour shattered the garden’s beautiful serenity. Anselm was there beckoning her over, gesturing with his hand. She hurried across the lawn. The group of monks parted to reveal a broad, dark canvas cloth which covered remains of the fire. Spirals of smoke still curled out from under its edges, and the air was sickly-sweet with that dreadful odour.
Anselm looked as if he had lost his wits; his face had a strange pallor. He grasped Kathryn’s hand, swallowing hard. ‘God forgive me, Mistress, I don’t feel well. I’m going to be sick.’
Kathryn took him by the arm and led him away. ‘Kneel down,’ she ordered.
The Prior obeyed, coughing and retching, covering his mouth with his hand.
‘Jonquil,’ she ordered, ‘look after Father Prior!’
Kathryn went back to the small group. She recognised Simon but not the others; the infirmarian looked ashen, hands shaking.
‘God forgive us, Mistress, but Brother Gervase . . .!’
Kathryn waited no longer. She pulled back the sheet. If the infirmarian hadn’t told her, Kathryn would not have recognised the corpse. It consisted of nothing but lumps of charred flesh clinging to cracked, yellowing bone. The head and face were unrecognisable, shrivelled flesh, made all the more grotesque by the jutting teeth and the empty black sockets where the eyes had been.
‘It is Gervase?’ she asked.
She noticed how all items of clothing or footwear had disappeared, leaving only a grisly parody of a human being. Kathryn had seen similar corpses dragged out from burning buildings, unrecognisable, nothing more than charred bones to which lumps of black flesh still hung.
‘He wore a steel chain round his neck,’ Simon confided, ‘with the Cross of Lorraine on it, whilst one of the ancient ones saw him walk over here.’
Kathryn bent down, recalling the advice of her father: ‘Do not think, do not reflect, don’t let your humours cloud your mind or sicken it with images.’ Kathryn swallowed hard. She asked the infirmarian to bring her a stick. He hurried off and returned with a branch pruned of twigs and leaves. Kathryn turned the charred remains over, pinching her nostrils at the foul smell.
‘Remember, Brother,’ she whispered, ‘this is the corpse of a man consumed by fire: It burnt his outer robes, under-garments, hose, and any footwear he was wearing. The fire also has removed most of the flesh, burning out the blood and the vital organs. Like the eyes, most of them would turn to liquid.’ She stared at the large stain on the grass around the corpse. ‘He was burnt here?’
‘No, no, he was brought here.’
Kathryn, only too pleased to leave the smouldering remains, followed the infirmarian into the clump of trees and bushes which separated the lawn from the high curtain wall of the friary. It was a dark, shadowy place, more like a copse with its brambles and bushes and different trees of sycamore, ash, and oak. Simon stopped to push aside a hawthorn bush. Kathryn noticed how the greater part of this, as well as the ground beside it, was also charred black, an area of two yards wide the same across. The smell of burning smothered any garden fragrance. Kathryn crouched down and stared at the ground; the grass and undergrowth were shrivelled black ash which crunched under her feet. She got up and examined the hawthorn bush, part of which had also been consumed by the fire. Feathery ash still floated in the evening breeze.
‘What is this place?’ she asked.
Brother Simon pointed across the lawn, now dappled in shadows by the setting sun, which shimmered in the mullioned glass of the bay-windows.
‘This is Gethsemane, Mistress Swinbrooke – a small park or pleasaunce where the brothers can walk. The noble who once owned this place only granted it to our friary on condition this part never be built upon. He called it his Gethsemane.’
Kathryn nodded. Gethsemane was a serene, gentle place, full of the joys of nature but now marred by those grotesque, stinking remains, the dreadful black patch on the lawn, and the pervasive smell of burning and destruction. Other members of the community stood in watchful silence across the lawn. Those with a weak stomach had taken one glance and walked away to sit on the stone benches along the pebble-dashed path. Prior Anselm had regained his composure; he now stood, supported by Brother Jonquil, gazing in horror at this hideous scene.
Kathryn walked deeper into the trees. She felt queasy herself and, as she brought her hand up to her mouth, almost retched at the smell of burning. She lowered her hand and took deep breaths.
‘Are you all right, Mistress?’
Kathryn kept her back turned. She stretched out and leaned against a tree.
‘Mistress, is there anything wrong?’
Kathryn shook her head and gesture
d with her other hand. She stood for a while listening to the distant sounds of the city beyond the wall.
‘Isn’t it strange?’ she murmured. ‘This must be a place of bird-song, yet how silent it has become.’
‘What are we to do?’ Prior Anselm’s wail cut the air.
Kathryn walked back.
‘Brother Simon,’ she grasped the infirmarian by the elbow, ‘have the remains sheeted and taken to the charnel-house. Tell your community to leave this place.’
‘Shall I bring out vats of water,’ the infirmarian offered, ‘for the grass to be cleaned?’
‘No, no.’ Kathryn walked back onto the lawn. She kept her eyes on the friary buildings, unwilling to stare at the remains now being covered up by the brothers. ‘Have them taken away!’ she said quickly. ‘Prior Anselm, Brother Simon!’ she called out; the two friars followed her across the grass.
The rest of the community were now being shooed gently away. Kathryn sat down on one of the stone benches, closed her eyes, and fought to retain her composure. Anselm, Simon, and Jonquil walked away and stood whispering together. Kathryn felt her knee being lightly touched and opened her eyes.
‘My name is Eadwig.’ The kindly eyes of the lay brother smiled at her. He offered her a goblet of wine. ‘Slightly spiced,’ he explained. ‘I am serving the same to the rest of the brothers. It will give you strength.’
Kathryn grasped the pewter goblet. The wine was rich Bordeaux, juicy and fresh: it washed away the foul taste in her mouth. She sipped carefully; Eadwig crouched before her, watching intently.
‘He saw it, you know.’ He gestured with the tip of his finger up at the sky.
‘God sees everything, Brother.’
‘No, no.’ Eadwig’s thin face broke into a smile. ‘Not God but someone almost as old as him: Brother Timothy. He was the one who raised the alarm.’
Kathryn pulled herself up in the seat. She felt better, even though Gervase was dead, his soul gone to God, his body consumed by that hideous fire. There was nothing she could do for him except pray and find out what had really happened. Eadwig sat beside her. Kathryn stared across the lawn. Gervase’s corpse, now rolled up in the canvas sheeting, was being carried off on a makeshift stretcher. All that remained of his brutal death was that dreadful stain on the grass, the faint lingering odour, and wisps of smoke moving like the shades of lost souls above the grass.