The Tainted Relic

by The Medieval Murderers

  Entering the abbey through its main gate, Falconer hesitated, pondering who to talk to first. As it was well past dawn, the abbot would no longer be in the chapter house. And the service at prime was over. In years past, the monks would now have been occupied with manual labour. But times had changed for the abbot and his fellows. The lay brothers did that sort of work, while the canons devoted themselves to prayer and contemplation. The old aphorism that the world divided itself into three classes–those who fought, those who laboured and those who prayed–had a great deal of truth in it. Especially within the walls of an abbey.

  As he made his way through the cloisters, he saw a familiar figure approaching him. Brother Peter Talam was the bursar of Oseney, occupying himself with all its external affairs, especially the rebuilding work that was still in progress twenty years after its initiation. He was a large man with a severe mien, and his steps were as short and as stiff as his manner. This always gave him the appearance of someone in a hurry. Indeed, he was so preoccupied that he almost ran into Falconer, rearing back like a charging horse only at the last minute.

  ‘Master Falconer. I did not see you. It has been a long while.’

  Falconer recalled that when they had last spoken some years earlier, he had been investigating the strange affair of the death of the papal legate’s cook. That had been an unpleasant time for the abbot and the bursar. It appeared that now he was in danger of being embroiled in a similar business.

  ‘Brother Peter. I imagine you are busy.’

  Talam’s life was one of bustle, so it was no surprise when he averred that he was indeed so.

  ‘Yes, I am. La Souch is not in evidence, and his men are just sitting around awaiting his instructions.’

  Falconer wondered whether this missing La Souch was the monk he had found in the meadows. But then, why would Talam refer to ‘his men’?

  ‘La Souch?’

  ‘La Souch. Eudo La Souch. He is the master mason in charge of our building works. A surly fellow from the Low Countries who thinks he can come and go as he pleases.’

  Falconer saw the glint of battle in Brother Peter’s eyes. He felt sorry for this Hollander, if he thought he could best Brother Peter. Many a wily tradesman from the town had tried, and lived to rue the day. Still, if he was a master mason, then he was a person of no small intelligence, who had progressed through a training no less arcane than that endured by any master of philosophy at the university. And he would possess secret knowledge of formulae as complex as those of any mathematical savant. If anyone could give Talam a run for his money, maybe it was Eudo La Souch.

  By now, the bursar was dancing on his toes, unable to contain his staccato little trot any longer. He was bothered by more than the missing master mason apparently.

  ‘What is more, Brother John Barley did not appear for prime this morning. The abbot, being charitable, is fearful for his health, seeing that he and Brother John are of an age. So I must seek out an errant brother, as well as La Souch.’

  The bursar sounded exasperated at being required to run around tracking down missing canons who should know better. But Falconer thought that perhaps Brother John Barley had a very good reason for his non-attendance. Before Talam could race off about his errands, he grabbed the monk’s arm. He knew the abbot was quite elderly. So the missing John Barley would be so too.

  ‘Tell me, Talam. Brother John–is he bald? With little tufts of white hair at his ears?’ Falconer demonstrated the tufts he had seen on the corpse by bunching up his own fingers at the sides of his temple, and jabbing them back and forth.

  Talam’s lips formed into a downturned curve. If Falconer had not known him, he would have thought it was a grimace. In fact it was Talam’s severe version of a smile. It was the closest he came to showing amusement.

  ‘That is Brother John. Let’s just say he has no longer any need of the barber to maintain his tonsure.’

  ‘Then I think I have some bad news for you.’

  Oseney Abbey was soon awash with rumour. Including a scandalous suggestion of self-harm. Though how Brother John could have cut his own throat then lain impassively with his hands crossed on his chest was not fully explained by the instigator of that rumour. It served only to make Brother Robert Anselm more agitated, and he resorted once more to the little pilgrimage of the labyrinth. A turn into Evangelium to begin. Three turns and into Offertory. A turn and back into Evangelium. Three turns and into Offertory again. Two turns and into Consecration. Two turns and into Communion. The holy path led hypnotically back and forth, calming his soul. Until Brother Robert reached the Holy Jerusalem in the centre of the labyrinth, there to enter the second step of the threefold path.

  Illumination.

  As Falconer approached the abbot’s offices, he heard raised voices. Or more exactly, one raised voice interspersed with the weary tones of Ralph Harbottle, the abbot.

  ‘You must find more money, or the supplies of stone will run out. Then the work for my men will dry up, and I will be forced to find them work elsewhere.’

  The foreign tones were guttural and peremptory, the talk of building work. It had to be Eudo La Souch, the master mason. In reply, Harbottle’s voice betrayed a man run ragged, and weary of the distraction.

  ‘In truth, Master, you should speak to Brother Peter about this. He is the bursar.’

  ‘And he tells me he cannot conjure funds from the air. He says you need to attract more pilgrims. The priory in the town not only has its saint, now it has the blood of St Thomas the Martyr too.’ The Hollander paused, then continued in more wheedling tones. ‘I was told my predecessor knew something about a relic…’

  ‘No!’ Ralph Harbottle’s voice was suddenly firm and peremptory. ‘No, I forbid you to speak of the matter. If we have to delay the work begun by Abbot Leech, then so be it. The new buildings have been twenty years in the making already, another twenty will not matter greatly. You have only been in charge for two years. There is plenty of time ahead of you.’

  ‘Not if you cannot pay me.’

  Falconer stepped back as a stocky, well-built man stormed out of the abbot’s office. His weather-beaten face betrayed his outdoor occupation, as did the knotty muscles of his arms protruding from the rolled-up sleeves of his dark blue tunic. He scowled at the Regent Master in his path, and Falconer stepped aside. The mason pushed past, and stomped off down the passageway. It seemed Eudo La Souch was not a man to be crossed when he was in a temper.

  ‘Ah, Master Falconer. Thank you for coming. A bad business this.’

  Falconer turned to look at the tired abbot, Ralph Harbottle, standing in the doorway to his inner sanctum. The man seemed even older than when Falconer had seen him last. His skin was ashen, and parchment thin, his grey hair hung lankly on his forehead, and in thin wisps over his ears. Falconer imagined that if he hadn’t been holding on to the door frame, the abbot might have collapsed.

  ‘The murder, I mean.’

  Falconer hadn’t imagined it had been anything else that Harbottle was ruing. But perhaps his mind had still been on the row with the master mason, and the shortage of funds. Falconer was also curious about the reference to a relic, but he put it out of his mind owing to the pressing matter of the murdered canon. At Talam’s insistence, he had reluctantly agreed to see the abbot. Though unwilling to get involved, he agreed he should at least tell Harbottle face to face what he had seen.

  ‘Indeed, Abbot.’

  ‘I have arranged for the body to be brought back here. Though I have no doubt that the constable will want to interfere, and ask questions of all the brothers. You know the sort of thing. “Where were you last night?” and “Did you murder Brother John?”’

  Harbottle threw his hands up in a gesture of disgust at the idea. Prompted by such thoughts of Bullock blundering in, Falconer spoke without further consideration. At the same time cursing himself for breaking his own resolve not to become involved.

  ‘You cannot think of a reason why anyone at the abbey should have had cau
se to envy or dislike Brother John Barley, can you?’

  Harbottle looked shocked.

  ‘I knew it! Master Falconer, this is a house of God, a place of prayer and contemplation. There is no room for envy or hatred, nor any of the vices that might occasion such intemperate feelings.’

  Falconer refrained from reminding the abbot of the scandalous murder that had previously taken place at the abbey, and who the perpetrator had been. It looked as though it would not take much more to crush the poor man totally. He was clearly at the end of his tether over the changing fortunes of the abbey. But Harbottle was also a perceptive man. He would not have risen so high in his order if he had not been so. And he could see the clouded look in Falconer’s eyes. For a man of uncommon piety, he was also a realist. He sighed, and flopped down on to the hard, wooden seat behind him.

  ‘I am sorry, Falconer. I am beginning to fear that being in charge of the abbey is getting beyond me. During my novitiate I never dreamed of having to face such complicated…secular issues. As a novice, my day was filled with labour and the contemplation of God. Now all I am allowed to think about is the difficulty of getting supplies of stone. And the passing of fellow canons of my generation. There have been too many of them of late, I fear. First there was Brother Benedict, then the unfortunate accident suffered by Brother William…’

  Falconer interrupted the abbot’s ramblings.

  ‘Brother John. Was he a contemporary of yours too?’

  ‘Yes, we entered the novitiate together. Virtually on the same day. And I can assure you no one even disliked him, much less hated him enough to…to try and hack his head off. He was inclined to pranks, but never malicious.’

  The abbot shuddered, and bowed his head in prayer. After a few moments, Falconer slipped silently out of the room. There appeared to be nothing to be gained by questioning the abbot further. He would return to Oxford, and see what Peter had dug up.

  The bustle of St Frideswide’s holy day market was at its height. The environs of the church thronged with sellers of candles and insignia, pilgrim badges and tempting victuals. Many of the faces in the crowd belonged to robust young men. They were peregrini, professional pilgrims who hired themselves out for pay. They performed pilgrimages and penances on behalf of those rich enough to want to avoid the discomfort of wandering from shrine to shrine in the inclement weather England threw at them. Peter Bullock elbowed his way through the throng, his ears impervious to the blandishments of the stall-holders. He wanted to speak to Brother Richard Yaxley about his altercation with the dead canon before the murder became too widely talked about. He didn’t want Yaxley to have any time to prepare a story.

  Mounting the steps of the church, Bullock ignored the mumbled complaints of the line of pilgrims waiting their turn at St Frideswide’s shrine. They probably thought he was trying to push in ahead of them. But when they turned round and saw his stony face, all their cavilling ceased. Instead, the pilgrims looked furtively at their feet, at the intricately carved stonework, at their neighbours in the queue. Anywhere to avoid the constable’s implacable gaze. Inside, the church was a blaze of light. Extra candles and tapers lit the interior, especially the rear of the high altar where the shrine stood. The scene did not inspire Bullock. In fact, it was an irritant to him. He knew the two chaplains who scurried back and forth, and that many of the tapers were paid for out of a grant forced on the Sheriff of Oxford by King Henry after his spat with the barons five years earlier. The town had favoured the barons, and when the King had ultimately triumphed, the town had paid the price. To the tune of one hundred shillings annually. The tapers burned night and day for the soul of the King, in an attempt to neutralize the curse said to fall on any monarch entering the confines of the town.

  Bullock spotted Yaxley standing at the side of one of the many large, iron-bound boxes strategically placed along the pilgrims’ route to the shrine. He was glowering at an elderly, lame man in rags who had had the temerity to pass without making an offering. Yaxley bent down, and whispered in the cripple’s ear. The man gulped, and extracted a small coin from his battered purse. It was probably all he had to buy a scrap of food later. No doubt Yaxley had advised him that miracles did not come cheap. And that hunger was temporary.

  ‘Brother Richard, might I have a word?’

  Bullock was pleased that his unremarked approach surprised Yaxley. In fact, a guilty look flickered across the monk’s features before he could wipe it out with feigned anger.

  ‘I am doing God’s work, Constable. There is no time for idle chit-chat.’

  Bullock snorted in contempt.

  ‘I am sure God will not begrudge a few pilgrims remission from their sins without charge.’

  He grabbed Yaxley’s elbow firmly, and propelled him away from the cripple, who gratefully slid the coin back into his purse. He led Yaxley into a quieter side chapel away from the main hustle and bustle. The monk’s face was ashen, but still he preserved his façade of aggrieved innocence.

  ‘Really, you should speak with Prior Thomas first. I will not be bullied in this way. You have no jurisdiction over me.’

  ‘Shall I then get him to ask where you were last night? And the night when Will Plome found his way into the shrine?’

  Yaxley began to shake, and his bluster disappeared.

  ‘How do you know about that?’ He and the prior thought they had kept the incident with Plome quiet. Bullock just smiled wolfishly, forcing Yaxley to speak first. ‘Look, what is all this about? I…fell asleep when I should have been alert. That is all.’

  ‘And last night?’

  ‘I was here all night. You don’t think I would be so foolish as to fall asleep again, do you?’

  ‘Presumably, there is no one who can verify that?’

  ‘Why should there be any need to be?’

  Bullock could tell from years of experience that the monk was being evasive. He didn’t believe his excuse that he had fallen asleep the night that Will Plome had gained access to the shrine. Moving the slab at the entrance to the Holy Hole would have made a dreadful noise in the stillness of the church. Yaxley had definitely not been carrying out his duties as feretarius that night. The question was, where had he been? And had he been absent last night also, when Brother John Barley had been murdered? Bullock decided on an all-out attack to keep the man off balance.

  ‘Why? Because Brother John Barley was murdered either last night, or in the early hours of this morning.’

  The feretarius looked horrified.

  ‘And you think I killed him? Why?’

  ‘Why? Because I saw you arguing with him two days ago. What was that all about?’

  Yaxley went pale, then tried to cover his discomfort with a sneer. ‘Because I am certain it was he put Will Plome up to sneaking inside the saint’s shrine in order to discomfit the priory. The simpleton could never have found the old entrance without help, and Barley is of an age to recall stories of its use. The canons at Oseney are jealous of the shrine’s popularity, and would stop at nothing to spoil that.’

  ‘And why blame Brother John specifically?’

  ‘Because he…’ Yaxley paused, framing his words carefully. ‘Because I had heard tell that Barley was claiming he would soon do something to the great benefit of Oseney Abbey. That he had a rare gift to give. When I asked him about it that day, he laughed and just asked about Will Plome. I could see that was his “rare gift” to the priory–a cruel prank. If he had not been the instigator, how would he have known about the incident?’

  ‘Maybe he knew the same way I did. From Will Plome himself. Will has been telling everyone that the prior thought he had become miraculously thin in order to gain access through the viewing holes. He thought that very funny. As for the slab, anyone who treads on it can see it rocks. Will was probably just curious, and investigated what was underneath. If you had been there, you might have seen that.’

  Yaxley ignored the implication that Bullock doubted his claim of being asleep at his post. He merely stuck
to his story.

  ‘As for last night, I was here attending to my duties. Now you must forgive me, as I must attend to them now.’

  Bullock knew that as yet he could do nothing to undermine Yaxley’s assertion. Though he did wonder whether John Barley had really had something to offer the feretarius. If so, what could it have been? Without any more information, however, he would have to let the feretarius go. For the time being.

  Falconer had got no farther than the open yard of the cloister in Oseney Abbey. In its centre stood the timber-and-thatch affair that was the master mason’s lodge. More than just a shelter, underneath which the mason carved his stone, it stood as a symbol of the man’s arcane skill. Scattered on the table underneath the thatch were La Souch’s instruments. With a mason’s square, compass and straight edge, he mapped out the geometry that defined the symbolism of the church. The floor plan was based on three squares set in diamond formation, each overlapping the other. Three squares–Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Where the two outer squares overlapped, at the centre of the central square, was the most sacred place in the church. Ultimately, the whole building was a symbolic rendition of the Heavenly Jerusalem. But equally a master mason was a practical man, and used mathematics to calculate the strains and stresses of the construction. La Souch was architect, structural engineer, mystic and building contractor rolled into one.

  At the moment, he was preoccupied with restoring the Oseney Ring of bells to the new west tower. He was scrambling like a monkey up the rickety framework of timber, rope and pegs that surrounded the tower, giving out orders as one of the bells began its precarious ascent on the end of a rope pulley. Falconer wondered which one it was. The bells were named Hauteclere, Douce, Clement, Austyn, Marie, Gabriel and John. There were seven in all. At one point the bell caught on a projecting timber, and La Souch swung out over the void, maybe forty feet in the air, to free it. Falconer held his breath. He himself was fearful of heights. But La Souch seemed oblivious to the danger. He freed the bell, and swung back nonchalantly on to the scaffolding. Falconer looked away as the man clambered ever higher.