The Deepest Grave

by Jeri Westerson

  The boy said nothing. He only glanced forlornly toward Christopher’s window.

  ‘Tell me truthfully, Martin. You didn’t expect what Christopher had to say, did you?’

  ‘No, but God be praised.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because … because …’ He lowered his face and whispered, ‘I truly thought he’d done it.’

  Crispin sighed again and rubbed his forehead. ‘And he thought you’d done it. Did you do it, Martin?’

  ‘No. I swear by Almighty God. I wanted to, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Christopher was willing to take the blame. To give up one’s life for one’s friends.’

  ‘No! He never!’

  ‘He did. But I don’t think he truly understood the consequences.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Tears flowed freely from the boy’s eyes. But, even as he wept, he laughed, shaking his head. His fists screwed into his cheeks and wiped the tears away. ‘He’s such a knight, is that boy. He loves the “honorable thing”.’

  Crispin stiffened. ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing. If you can afford it. But he is no great lord. They will hang him, even if they put it off for now. Oh, what will happen, Master Guest?’

  ‘He will recant his confession, but well before that, I shall find the real culprit.’

  ‘I didn’t do it, Master Guest. I didn’t. No matter how much I may have wanted to.’

  Crispin sighed. ‘Tell me of the relic.’

  He shook his head, biting his lip. ‘No one really bothered much with it. I never saw the bone myself. To tell you the truth, I never paid much attention to it at all.’

  ‘But such a holy object, present in the household. Would it not be the focus of private masses and prayers?’

  ‘It wasn’t. I saw madam praying in front of it many a time, but hardly anyone else did … least of all Master Horne.’

  ‘He wasn’t a praying man.’

  ‘No, sir. But he could blaspheme with the best of them with oaths.’

  Crispin took it out of the scrip and turned it over in his hands.

  ‘It isn’t much, is it?’ said Martin.

  ‘No. But it does contain the bone of a holy saint.’

  The boy peered into the cloudy crystal. ‘By God’s wounds.’ He pointed. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Crispin could feel a familiar tingle in his hands. He soon enough longed to rid himself of the thing.

  ‘I swear I don’t know how it got into his room. Do you think … do you think it was a miracle?’

  The tingle was growing more unpleasant so he dropped it into his scrip and held down the flap. ‘I doubt it. Stolen goods are not miracles.’

  ‘But maybe the saint, St Modwen, is trying to comfort Christopher in his hour of need.’

  How could Crispin dispute it? It wasn’t for him to say. Instead, he stayed silent.

  ‘Can I go now, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He started to climb the wall, and Crispin gave him a leg up, pushing him up higher until he was on the top and dropped down on the other side. Crispin recalled when he and Jack had climbed over that very wall some eight years ago …

  Come to think of it, it was the easiest way out, since he didn’t want to walk through the house again. He grabbed hold of the sun-warmed stone, and hoisted himself up.

  Crispin brushed down his cote-hardie as he walked down the lane, but stopped when he glanced up at the Horne residence. It seemed like a good idea to talk once more to the maidservants before he rescued Jack, and return the relic to Madam Horne, but what to tell her about it?

  He was let inside again and the steward, Robert Hull, looked none too pleased to see him again. ‘Master Guest, I thought your investigation was at an end.’

  ‘Only for that day, Master Hull. But I am interested in speaking with the maidservants Clarice and Nesta once more.’

  ‘Oh. They are at their duties within the house. Cleaning the chambers.’ He stood immobile, as if in challenge.

  ‘And which rooms are those, Master Hull?’ Crispin raised his head to glance up the stairs.

  ‘But those are private chambers.’

  ‘Indeed. I have no interest in those. Only the maidservants.’

  ‘If you are so insistent, then I will accompany you.’

  Crispin nodded and gestured for him to lead the way. This did not seem to make him any happier, but he bowed and stepped forward toward the stairway.

  As they ascended the stairs, Crispin looked back and spied Madam Horne glaring up at him from the shadow of a doorway. He felt obliged to speak with her first.

  ‘Wait, Master Hull. I must speak with your mistress.’

  ‘This is inexcusable. She has only just buried her husband.’

  ‘I have a duty to perform and you will not stop me.’ He pushed Hull aside firmly, but gently, and walked past him toward Madam Horne, who had not moved from the spot.

  ‘Forgive me, madam,’ said Crispin with a bow. ‘But I must return this to you.’ He reached into his bag and his fingers touched … nothing. He pulled the bag against his chest and opened it wide. His coin pouch, some lint, and a thorn. But nothing else.

  ‘I …’ He looked up, trying to think. Could he have dropped it going over the wall? But the damned scrip had been latched closed. He had to unlatch it just now to open it. He couldn’t imagine it slipping out, even if he were turned upside down.

  ‘I … apologize, madam. I … was mistaken.’

  Now her glare was tinged with skepticism. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ she growled.

  At the moment, he wasn’t too sure himself. He said nothing, bowed again, and pushed aside Hull to reach the stairs once more.

  The whole way up the steps he tried to recount where he could have lost the thing, but there was no reasoning it out. He groped the scrip, running his fingers over the bottom seam, looking for holes that weren’t there.

  When they reached the first chamber, the maids were absent, and Crispin reluctantly turned to the problem at hand.

  At the second chamber, Clarice was there, sweeping the floors. She seemed surprised at first to see Crispin again, but then she pushed her brown hair into her kerchief and brushed down her gown.

  Crispin nodded his head in an abbreviated bow. ‘Clarice. I would take another moment of your time to ask about the day Master Horne was killed.’

  She curtseyed and waited, eyes wide, moistening her lips with her tongue. She was flirting with him. At any other time, he might have flirted back, but his thoughts were still on Philippa … and the damned relic.

  ‘You said you heard Master Horne arguing with Martin Chigwell.’

  ‘That was Nesta. She heard them more than I did.’

  ‘And where is Nesta?’

  ‘I don’t know. She wasn’t in our room when I woke this morning. I thought she’d got up early to tend to the fires, but she hadn’t – left all the work to me.’

  Hull frowned. ‘You haven’t seen her all morning?’

  Clarice shook her head. ‘She’s made me cross with her, what with all her coming and going.’

  ‘She leaves the premises?’ asked Crispin.

  She put a hand to her mouth and bit at her nail, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Hull. ‘I … shouldn’t say.’

  ‘You’d better, girl,’ scolded Hull.

  ‘It isn’t my fault. She goes to see that Oliver, down by All Hallows.’

  Crispin frowned. ‘And you think she is there now?’

  ‘I suppose. If you want to know anything, you’ll have to speak to her. I told you all I know.’

  He rubbed his chin. ‘Did either of you pay much heed to the relic of St Modwen?’

  Clarice glanced at Hull. ‘No one did, for all the mistress’s admonishments that it was worth so much. It didn’t look like anything so grand. There were no jewels on the cow, after all.’

  ‘Is that true, Master Hull?’

  He fidgeted with a garland of keys hanging from his bel
t. ‘Yes. I would have thought that such a thing would be made of gold and silver and embellished with jewels and such. But this one wasn’t. I think because St Modwen was a humble woman and abbess. It was the carving of the cow that meant more. I suppose.’

  ‘What sort of bone was it?’

  ‘Well, my mistress said it was but a fragment. From the arm, I thought she said. But as Clarice said, none of us paid it much heed. It was just a red cow.’

  And so should all relics be thus venerated, he thought with a scowl. ‘And when was it noticed missing?’

  Hull and Clarice conferred silently. ‘It was after we discovered Master Horne,’ said the steward. ‘There was a lot of confusion.’

  Which might well have been used for cover. Crispin wondered if there had been a connection, but he was inclined to believe that the relic was stolen because the moment was opportune.

  ‘Horne was found in his chamber?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘And does – how shall I say this? – does Madam Horne share that chamber?’

  Hull exchanged a look with Clarice. He also glanced over his shoulder. ‘Not for many a year. She has her own chamber.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Master Hull, Clarice. I’ll be back to talk with Nesta, if I may.’

  Hull didn’t seem to like that idea but he said nothing. Only led Crispin back down the stairwell and to the door, closing it sharply behind him.

  Crispin stood for a long moment in the courtyard, gathering himself. The sun warmed his face and he watched the trees at the edge of the courtyard rustle from a breeze. The air smelled of summer, of the sun on wool coats, of fruit from the harvest warming in the summer light, of freshly mown grass, and roasted meat and baking bread on the wind. The clouds above were starched white and hovered in ranging groups, like a herd of sheep meandering in a deep blue sky.

  All should be well. All should be in its right order. But it couldn’t be, even on a day such as this. Not with murder in the background. And relics.

  His hand went to his empty scrip again, and he narrowed his eyes at the garden wall across the lane. He hurried toward it and leapt up, grabbing the top and hauling himself up. He sat astride on the wall, searching the grounds. It was here that he had scrambled over it. Could it have been Martin Chigwell? Was he as adept with his fingers as Jack Tucker was?

  He leapt to the ground in the garden, and stayed in the shadows of an over-arching tree, surveying the grass, the gravel paths, the patches of flowers, the garden benches. He crouched low and made his way back over the path he had taken before, eyes sharp. He must have dropped it here. There was no other explanation. None he was willing to entertain.

  He got near the house, the place where he and Martin had climbed down from the window, and looked around. When he straightened again, he glanced toward the ground-floor window; Philippa was staring at him with her head cocked to one side. No doubt she had caught sight of his strange antics.

  He offered her a sheepish smile. There was nothing for it. He bowed to her, and hastened to escape again over the garden wall.

  With thoughts in his head of relics, Christopher, and Philippa, he wandered up the lanes until he arrived once more at St Modwen’s parish church.

  It appeared so small and dingy on its perch on a slight incline at the edge of a meadow. Its gravestones and carved crosses stood in haphazard rows: some tilting, some covered in lichen and spotted from time and weather, their chiseled names and dates wearing away as their inhabitants disappeared from memory. A grave was always a sad and final place, thought Crispin. How many would be left to remember the deceased? How many years would it take until all memory was wiped away, where even the names of those souls buried there would be wiped clean from the stone marking their places, a stone that was supposed to be a monument for the ages? It was a dreadful thought, to be so forgotten. That is, until the final judgment, when all in their graves would be called forth by the Almighty. But it was the now he was concerned with. Who would remember him in the decades to follow? Who would ever talk of Crispin Guest, the disgraced knight? Maybe he was best forgotten.

  ‘Master!’ Jack came running forward, a grim look on his face. He straightened his cote-hardie and glanced back over his shoulder. ‘Abbot William was not happy, but mostly he listened as the bishop told him this and that, about the goings-on of court and the politics of the Church. The parish must go, it seems, and there is no argument for it.’

  Crispin cast back to the graveyard and the decaying stones. ‘So now the church will be even more forgotten, its buried only a scant memory.’

  ‘Eh? Oh, right. The poor souls. What’s to become of the graves, sir?’

  ‘Indeed. What? I suppose there are those buried on the battlefields under the tread of their horses, and still more in distant places to be plucked clean by uncaring predators. What does it matter unless the dead walk to claim back their own?’

  ‘But the dead do walk,’ said Jack quietly. ‘At least in this graveyard they do.’

  ‘Yes, they do. And we still have not reckoned how or why.’

  ‘Will … will Father Bulthius walk, do you think? His head was cut off. Isn’t that supposed to stop them?’

  ‘But his heart was not removed and burned at a crossroads.’ He smiled grimly when he said it but Jack did not look appeased.

  ‘Blind me. Do we have to—’

  ‘I have no desire for such surgery, Jack.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that.’

  ‘But it does seem that we shall have to keep vigil again tonight in order to ascertain that Father Bulthius does not walk. I assume that we will inter him today.’

  ‘The bishop has already done it. Seems he wants to hurry along the proceedings.’

  ‘It does seem rather hurried … and slightly sacrilegious, being that the man was a priest.’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I thought. Abbot William objected but he’s spent the better part of the day red-faced and stone-lipped. He always seemed like such a sedate man to me, but today … oooh, Master Crispin. He’s fit to be tied.’

  ‘I’d better—’

  But before he could do anything, the bishop appeared again and scowled severely when he spied Crispin. He marched toward him and Crispin stood at attention, bowing when the cleric stood directly before him.

  ‘Guest, why are you still here?’

  ‘I am attending Abbot de Colchester, Your Excellency.’

  ‘I doubt very much that he needs nor wants the attendance of your like.’

  ‘I can speak for myself very well,’ said the abbot, striding up behind Bishop Braybrooke.

  The bishop offered him the merest eyelash flick before he waved to his attendants. ‘Thank God this business is done. And fitting, too, that the last priest of the parish should depart this world before his parish was unconsecrated. It is the way of things.’

  ‘I beg your mercy, Your Excellency,’ said Crispin, trying not to furrow his brow, ‘but there is nothing fitting in murder.’

  Straightening his gloves, the bishop deigned to glance his way. ‘Murder? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Troublesome, isn’t it? Well, I understand you’re to see to it, so, Guest … do so.’

  Crispin bowed to prevent himself from saying what he wished to say. Even Jack laid a hand to his arm to remind him not to. When Crispin straightened, the bishop was blessedly out of earshot.

  ‘What an insufferable man,’ huffed Abbot William, crossing himself. ‘I shall do penance for such a grievous thought, but by St Sebastian he makes a man suffer so!’

  ‘Why … my Lord Abbot. I have never seen you so out of sorts.’

  ‘You heard him. And you heard the brunt of it, did you not, Master Tucker?’

  ‘Aye, my lord, I regret to say that I did.’

  ‘He doesn’t give a damn for this parish. Pardon my language.’ He adjusted his cassock and his cloak, which he suddenly peeled off. ‘It’s too hot for this.’ He jammed it into Jack’s hands. ‘And for my hot blood. How I envy you, Crispin, your ability to sw
ear!’

  ‘Is it not a sin for me to do so, my lord?’

  Abbot William sketched a messy cross over him with a finger. ‘And I so absolve you for now and always.’

  Crispin grinned. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

  Abbot William squinted at him, seemingly only now realizing what he had done. ‘I think I am in need of a cup of ale. Shall we?’ He led the way back to the alehouse they had gone to the night before, while Jack and Crispin followed.

  Crispin licked the foam from his lips and sat back, watching the room with one eye and his agitated friend the abbot with the other.

  ‘He has no interest whatsoever working for the parish to grow it. Those poor few who remain! What of the mortuary fees paid by them? What will they do now? I don’t suppose they’ll be getting any remittance for all they have paid. And to bury poor Father Bulthius in unconsecrated earth. It’s appalling.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Ah, Crispin.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘I do apologize. You have done nothing for the last half an hour and more but listen to my complaints.’

  ‘I have never seen you thus before, my lord. I thought it best to simply let you tire yourself out.’

  His eyes widened before he burst into laughter. ‘Well, bless me. Perhaps it is old age catching up to me. I find I cannot suffer fools as I did in my youth. Is it a sin, I wonder? I was a placid man in those days, I can tell you. I could sit for hours at a time, waiting my turn to speak with cardinals and popes. Oh yes. I waited in silence, in contemplation of a prayer. But now? I am like any ruffian in an alehouse.’

  ‘I shouldn’t express that particular opinion too loudly, my lord,’ muttered Crispin into his beaker.

  Abbot William looked around. A few faces were turned their way, but soon enough they lost interest. ‘I daresay,’ he said, quaffing more.

  Jack had a bemused expression that he turned from Crispin to Abbot William and back again.

  ‘My apprentice is learning much this day,’ he said under his breath.

  Abbot William rested his hand on Jack’s shoulder. ‘Your young Master Tucker was a comfort to me. He made his presence known when necessary, and slipped away when that, too, was necessary. You should be proud of him.’