by Paul Doherty
‘You look tired, Athelstan,’ Anselm commented, now becoming embarrassed by Cranston’s repeated apologies. ‘Leave this matter. Brother Norbert will serve you from the refectory. I suggest you have an early night, a good sleep.’
Athelstan agreed. ‘But tomorrow, Father Prior, after Nones, I need to meet you and the other members of the Inner Chapter.’ He tapped the pieces of parchment in his hand, a faint idea beginning to form in his mind, a loose line of thought which he would follow when he was more refreshed. ‘Tell no one of this, Father, for the moment. Keep it quiet.’
Athelstan and Cranston returned to the guest house, where they both washed and sat for a while in the kitchen, Cranston smacking his lips over a jug of mead whilst his companion stared at the flickering flames of the fire Brother Norbert had built up for them. The young lay brother brought across their meal from the refectory kitchen: rich veal cooked in a pepper sauce under a thin golden layer of pastry, and a dish of lightly cooked vegetables from the monastery garden. Cranston fell to with gusto. Athelstan, tired, his stomach still uneasy after the wine, ate more sparingly. Only when he was on the point of finishing did he notice the small, neatly rolled scroll tied with green silk set on a stool in the far corner of the kitchen. He went across and picked it up.
‘What is it?’ Cranston barked between mouthfuls of veal.
‘A copy of Brother Henry of Winchester’s treatise: “Cur Deus Home – Why God became man”.’
‘I’ll let you read that,’ Cranston said. ‘If God had meant us to know his ways, he wouldn’t spend most of his time keeping as much distance between himself and us as possible!’
Athelstan smiled, sat down, and in spite of his tiredness, began to study the treatise. He was still reading when Cranston, who had finished both his own supper and the rest of Athelstan’s, lumbered off into the buttery for more refreshment.
The treatise was written on pieces of parchment neatly sewn together. The clerkly hand, the fresh ink and lucid presentation made Athelstan shake his head in wonderment. Brother Henry’s treatise was a jewel of theological analysis as he carefully overturned the accepted dogma of the church. He argued Christ’s Incarnation to have sprung from God’s desire to share the divine beauty with man rather than the usual tired line of ‘redemption from sin’ or ‘atoning for man’s evil’. In Brother Henry’s treatise, God was presented as a loving mother or father and Christ as a physical expression of that love, rather than God as some angry judge grudgingly accepting Christ’s death as atonement for man’s sins.
Cranston returned, mumbled something and slowly clambered the stairs to the bedchamber. Athelstan read on, relishing the neat terminology and clarity of thought. He finished the treatise and tapped the parchment with his fingers. ‘Brilliant!’ he murmured. ‘The Inquisitors are wasting their time. Brother Henry is original but no heretic!’
He put the scroll down, stretched, then followed Sir John up to the bedchamber. The coroner was already fast asleep. For a while Athelstan knelt by his own bed, trying to clear his mind of different scenes, messages, fragments, all the events of the day. He wanted to pray, yet at the same time knew that today had been important. He had seen and heard things which were significant, but couldn’t interpret them. He closed his eyes and felt himself drift. An hour later he woke to find himself slumped over the bed. Wearily he climbed in, falling back into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 9
Athelstan woke early the next morning. Cranston was snoring, dead to the world. Athelstan lay for a while. He felt warm and rested. Hearing the first chimes of the bell, he got up and, taking a towel from the wooden lavarium, went out across the mist-shrouded grounds to the monastery bath house. Here he washed and scrubbed himself, threw on his robe, then went back to the kitchen of the guest house, built up the fire and boiled some water in which to shave. He tiptoed upstairs, took out fresh underclothes and a robe from his saddle bag, then breakfasted on the scraps from the meal of the night before.
He knelt for a while, saying his own office, keeping his mind clear and disciplined, before going across to celebrate mass in one of the side chapels of the monastery church. Other priests were doing the same, taking advantage of the time before Lauds to perform their own private office. After he had disrobed and thanked Norbert, who was serving as his sacristan, Athelstan went into the sanctuary behind the high altar, still sweet with the smell of wax candles and incense. As expected, he found a coffin resting on the great wooden pillars on the red carpet, the words ‘Brother Roger obiit 1379’ carved on the lid. Athelstan stroked the smooth pinewood coffin. Later in the day a solemn requiem mass would be sung and Brother Roger’s body laid to rest with other deceased members of the community in the great vault beneath the sanctuary.
Athelstan stood there as other monks came in and knelt on the prie-dieu, making their own private devotions on behalf of their dead comrade. Athelstan waited until they had all gone, answering the call to Divine Office, before kneeling down himself, not so much to pray as to keep himself hidden from the rest of the community as they gathered in the choir stalls to chant the psalms. Athelstan stared round the apse, the huge, half-circular wall which ringed the back of the altar and the statues of the Apostles standing in their niches. Strange, he mused, Alcuin had been praying in this sanctuary when he disappeared, and his own sanctuary at St Erconwald’s held a great mystery. Athelstan looked once more at the statues of the Apostles. Concentrate, he told himself, leave St Erconwald’s alone! Alcuin was praying here, then he disappeared. Brother Roger used the phrase: ‘There should have been twelve’. To what did he refer? The friar studied the deep, wooden coffin and looked back at the wall. An idea occurred to him.
‘Nonsense!’ he whispered, and held his fingers to his lips. ‘Oh, my God, of course! Naturally.’ He crossed his arms to curb his excitement and patiently waited until the service was finished. When the rest of the community filed out to break their fast in the refectory, Athelstan hurried to the guest house.
‘Sir John!’ he shouted, bursting through the door. ‘Cranston, you have slept long enough!’
He heard a loud crash. The coroner came downstairs, thundering like a huge barrel.
‘By the devil’s tits!’ he roared. ‘Can’t a poor law officer sleep?’ He rubbed his sleep-soaked face and peered at Athelstan. ‘You’ve discovered something, haven’t you, you bloody monk?’
‘Yes, Sir John.’
Cranston, tying the points of his breeches, padded into the kitchen. Athelstan realised it was the first time he had seen Sir John with his boots off: in his loose shirt, bulging breeches and stockinged feet, the coroner looked even more like one of his baby sons.
‘What are you smiling at, you bloody monk!’
‘Nothing, Sir John. Sit down.’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘Tell your belly to wait.’
‘Then some mead?’
‘Not on an empty stomach, Sir John. Whatever would Lady Maude say?’
‘Bugger that!’
‘Shall I tell her you said so?’
Cranston bit the quick of his thumb nail.
‘Some watered ale, then you’ll have my attention.’
Athelstan served him and told Cranston about the conclusions he had reached in the sanctuary behind the altar. The coroner heard him out and patted him affectionately on the shoulder.
‘My thoughts exactly,’ he stated. ‘I had wondered whether to follow that path but it seemed so bizarre. Well, it’s heigh-ho to Father Prior. We’ll need his permission.’
‘Not yet, Sir John. After Nones.’
Cranston rose. ‘In which case I’ll do my ablutions and break my fast. You’ll join me?’
‘No, Sir John. Tell the kitchen you are eating for both of us.’
As Cranston stumped back upstairs noisily to wash and dress himself, Athelstan began to study the parchment Fitzwolfe had provided the previous day. He found the entries rather sad and pathetic, a faint echo of his own activities, though Father The
obald seemed to have had little sense of organisation. He had been a tired, sick man, most concerned with burial dues, the building of the death house in the cemetery, and makeshift attempts to mend the roof. Athelstan finally came to a number of other entries: Father Theobald had apparently fallen in the sanctuary and there were notes for the buying of stone from A.Q.D. Athelstan looked at the date: September 1363. This was followed by a series of other payments: ‘For laying the stones in the sanctuary, £6.00 sterling to A.Q.D.’ Athelstan ran his finger along this and other entries.
‘Yes, yes,’ he whispered to himself. ‘But who is A.Q.D?’
Another idea occurred to him and he followed the entries through to January 1364, looking for payments made to Father Theobald to celebrate masses for people who had died but was unable to find the name of any young woman who’d fallen ill, been killed or mysteriously disappeared.
He pushed the manuscript away, absentmindedly nodding as Cranston bellowed that he was going across for food. The friar waited until Cranston closed the door behind him, then he rose, went back up to the upper chamber and lay down on his bed. The coroner would be some time and Athelstan wanted to review the events of the previous day in peace. Something he had seen and heard had struck a chord in his memory, but what? Athelstan went back first to finding Roger’s body in the orchard and plotted the course of events for the rest of that day. At last he found it and smiled in surprise. Of course! He went back downstairs and looked at the entries in Father Theobald’s muniment book. Then he jumped up, clapping his hands like a child. ‘Of course!’ he murmured. ‘Of course! Take that away and everything crumbles!’
Athelstan felt so pleased he found it difficult to contain his excitement. He decided to go for a long walk in the monastery grounds, startling the lay brothers going about their daily tasks with his brisk pace and cheerful salutations. He went down to the stable and was pleased to see Philomel eating away the monastery’s profits. The ostler, a raw-boned lay brother, assured him that the old war horse and Cranston’s mount were being well looked after. Athelstan returned to the guest house to find Sir John waiting for him.
‘You seem mightily pleased, Brother.’
‘We are making progress, Sir John. We are making progress. I feel like a king besieging a castle. The walls are beginning to crumble and soon we will force an entry.’
‘What about my mystery?’ Cranston grumbled.
Athelstan’s eyes strayed to his parchment and pen. ‘Not yet, Sir John. But all things in their time.’
The friar sat down and, using cryptic abbreviations, began to list and organise his own thoughts. Cranston filled himself another tankard of mead, draining the small keg empty, and slumped on a stool, lost in his own gloomy reverie.
The confrontation with Fitzwolfe and the long walk through the city had helped Cranston forget Lady Maude’s fury but now the full import of her words returned: he knew that the scene of the previous day would be as nothing compared to Lady Maude’s fury if he did not settle this matter successfully. The coroner had woken just after Athelstan and spent most of the morning, even during that most sacred and private occasion of breaking his fast, wondering what the solution was to this mystery of the scarlet chamber. He had failed to make any progress and was now considering what he should do about the wager he had accepted. I can’t raise a thousand crowns, he thought morosely. Athelstan’s as poor as a church mouse. To beg from Lady Maude’s relatives would be humiliation indeed. So should he either accept John of Gaunt’s offer of help or be dismissed as a caitiff who did not honour his debts? Cranston ground his teeth together. ‘Hell’s tits!’ he muttered and glared at Athelstan, now lost in his own thoughts. Sir John slammed down the tankard, went outside and stood listening to the tolling of the monastery bells.
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ he muttered. ‘I should be back in my own chamber, taking care of my own problems.’
Suddenly Athelstan was beside him, linking his arm through Cranston’s.
‘Come on, Sir John. One thing at a time. We still have over a week left before we return to the Savoy Palace.’
Cranston felt himself relax. ‘We?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Of course, Sir John. If you fail, then I must be there. But,’ he released the coroner’s arm and squeezed Cranston’s podgy elbow, ‘with God’s help, all will be well. Now come, the prior awaits us.’
They found the Inner Chapter assembled in Father Anselm’s chamber, grouped as they had been on the first day Athelstan had met them. Brothers Peter and Niall now looked anxious and secretive, Brother Henry composed, whilst the Master Inquisitor and Brother Eugenius sat like hunting dogs, glaring at Athelstan and Sir John.
‘Another death,’ Eugenius intoned. ‘And what progress have you made, Athelstan?’
Prior Anselm rapped on the table. ‘Let our brother speak, Eugenius, and be more temperate. We will begin with a prayer.’ The prior crossed himself, forcing the others to join him as he said a brief prayer to the Holy Ghost for guidance and counsel. ‘Well,’ he resumed briskly, ‘Athelstan, you asked for this meeting?’
‘Father Prior, I thank you, as I do the rest, for joining us here. First, Brother Henry, I read your treatise. I found it lucid and brilliant, difficult to view it as heretical. Secondly, Callixtus did not fall in the library. He was pushed and his skull broken by a candlestick.’ Athelstan held up his hand to quell the agitated questions. ‘I have found the candlestick and My Lord Coroner has viewed and accepted it as proof. Thirdly,’ he continued, ignoring the supercilious smiles of the Inquisitors, ‘Brother Roger has died, but he did not kill himself. He was garrotted and then it was made to look as if he had hanged himself. Fourthly, his death and those of the others are linked to business of this Chapter’s, though how and why I still don’t know. Now I could ask everyone here, including Father Prior, to account for his movements on the days Bruno, Roger and Callixtus died, but Blackfriars is a large community with sprawling buildings. It would take an eternity to establish the facts, if it were even possible.’
‘You do not mention Alcuin?’ Brother Niall spoke up, his abrupt tone betraying his lilting Gaelic accent.
‘Yes,’ added Eugenius. ‘How do we know that Alcuin is not the murderer? Perhaps he still lurks somewhere in Black-friars. After all, Athelstan, you did say it is a sprawling place: it has nooks and crannies rarely if ever visited by anyone.’
‘Nonsense!’ snapped Anselm.
‘No, Father Prior, Eugenius is right,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘Brother Alcuin is still here, though he’s dead.’
‘Where?’ they all chorused at once.
‘Father Prior, when is the Requiem Mass sung for Roger?’
‘At noon today. We cannot wait until tomorrow. The church is very strict. No Requiem Masses to be sung on a Sunday.’
‘Then, Father Prior, I insist that the burial takes place on Monday.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wish the burial vault beneath the sanctuary to be opened and Bruno’s coffin raised. When it is open, we shall find Brother Alcuin.’
‘Sacrilege!’ the Master Inquisitor shouted. ‘Desecration! Athelstan, you walk on very thin ice.’
‘Sacrilege, my dear Inquisitor, is a matter of the will – as indeed is all sin. I intend no offence to Brother Bruno, may God rest him.’ Athelstan appealed to the prior. ‘You called me here to search out the truth and resolve a dreadful mystery. Brother Bruno’s coffin must be opened.’
‘We object!’ the Inquisitors chorused.
The prior tapped his fingers on the table top. ‘I see no objections to Athelstan’s wish. These matters must be resolved. If you are incorrect, Brother, then nothing is really lost. However, if what you say is true, then some progress may be made.’ Father Anselm lifted a hand-bell and rang it.
A servitor entered and Anselm whispered instructions to him. The man gazed at him in shocked surprise.
‘Do what I say,’ the prior ordered. ‘Tell Brother Norbert, and you yourself get two others. Swe
ar them to silence, and carry out my instructions.’
As soon as the servitor left, Anselm looked round the table.
‘Is there any other matter, Athelstan?’
‘Yes, Father, there is, but Sir John and I must see you alone.’
‘Why?’ William de Conches spoke up. ‘As the Master Inquisitor I demand to be present.’
‘I couldn’t give a pig’s buttocks what you do, man!’ Cranston spoke up. ‘This is an English monastery, albeit under Canon Law, but the Crown’s writ holds here. I, as a principal law officer of the King in this city, demand to see Father Prior by himself.’
‘Agreed,’ Anselm said briskly. ‘Brothers, we shall meet in the sanctuary.’
Athelstan waited till the door closed behind the rest of the group.
‘What is it, Brother?’ asked the prior.
‘Father Prior, the name Hildegarde fascinates me. Who at Blackfriars would be able to place such a name?’
‘It’s not an English one,’ Cranston interrupted. ‘I see lists of many names of jurors and tax payers. Hildegarde’s German.’
The prior rubbed his eyes. ‘Who do you think she might be Athelstan?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe an abbess or one of the saints.’
‘I know of no devotion to such person. But we have an old scholar here, Brother Paul. You remember him, Athelstan? He’s sick now, partially blind and bed-ridden. He spends most of his time in the infirmary. But, come. His mind’s still sharp and we may jog his memory.’
The prior led them out round the cloister garth, through a small side door and across a flower-filled garden to the two-storeyed infirmary. The place smelt sweetly of crushed herbs, soap arid starch, though Athelstan caught the bitter taint of certain potions. The infirmarian took them upstairs and into a long room with rows of beds on either side, each hidden behind its own curtain. Anselm whispered a few words to the infirmarian, who pointed to an alcove at the far end, cordoned off by a white, green-edged cloth hanging from a bright brass bar.
‘You’ll find Brother Paul there. He’s in good fettle. He has been promised some time to sit in the garden.’