Murder Most Holy

by Paul Doherty

  The young lay brother who had been watching, a look of stupefied amazement on his face, just grunted his reply.

  ‘Enough is enough!’ Cranston grated. ‘Brother Henry of Winchester, I accuse you of the murder of four of your brothers!’

  ‘Wait!’ William de Conches raised his hand. ‘Brother Henry is a member of the Dominican Order. Father Prior, I understand that Sir John may very well put him on trial, but in England if an accused man pleads benefit of clergy he can escape the secular courts. Brother Henry should return with us. The Court of the Inquisition answers to God alone!’

  Cranston looked at Athelstan who nodded and looked pityingly towards Henry of Winchester. The disgraced friar now sat with his hands covering his face.

  ‘Let him be bound,’ Eugenius added quietly.

  Father Prior looked as if he was going to protest but then waved his hand. ‘Yes, take him,’ he said. ‘Take him now. Be out of Blackfriars first thing tomorrow morning.’

  The two Inquisitors rose and hustled Henry of Winchester through the door, Father Prior telling Brother Norbert to go with them. Peter and Niall followed quickly afterwards, still shocked at the revelations. They nodded at Athelstan and murmured a speedy farewell. Father Prior just sat, hands on either side of the book, head bowed, tears running down his cheeks. Cranston, now the drama was over, coughed self-consciously and went to look out of the window as if intent on the distant activities of the monastery. There was a rap on the door and Brother William de Conches re-entered. He stood staring at Athelstan.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he murmured.

  ‘For what?’

  The Master Inquisitor shrugged. ‘We were wrong. You are a good priest, Athelstan, a fine Dominican.’ He smiled thinly. ‘You would have made an excellent Master Inquisitor.’ He bowed, and before Athelstan could answer, closed the door gently behind him.

  Father Prior regained control of himself. ‘He’s right, you know, Athelstan. You were sent to St Erconwald’s as a punishment. I instructed you to help Sir John as a penance.’ He gazed at Athelstan. ‘I thank you for what you have done here. I apologise for my harsh words earlier. You were right. The truth is the truth, and a lie is like a canker – eventually it grows to spoil everything. Why did you think Hildegarde was the key?’

  ‘Father Prior, this was the strangest matter I have ever investigated. I had no proof. The only clue was that name.’ He smiled. ‘She must have been a great lady, a deep thinker. Her work should be more widely studied and read. Perhaps it was she who guided us.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’ Cranston asked abruptly.

  Father Prior rose, cradling the book in his hands. ‘He will be returned to the Papal Inquisition in Rome or Avignon. Believe me, Sir John, after they have finished with him, the horrors of being hanged at the Elms will seem as nothing.’ Father Prior walked down the room and clasped Athelstan’s hand. ‘You can come back any time you wish. Your penance is truly finished.’ He turned quickly. ‘But I forget myself. Sir John – the riddle you had to solve?’

  ‘Done,’ Cranston replied expansively. ‘As St Paul says: “in a twinkling of an eye”.’

  ‘Then,’ Father Prior answered, turning to Athelstan, ‘you will not need that letter?’

  ‘I have already destroyed it, Father.’

  Father Prior smiled at them both and left the room.

  Cranston and Athelstan returned by barge to Southwark. The coroner, proud as a peacock, insisted on accompanying the friar back to his church. Sir John chattered like a magpie, loudly proclaiming for half the river to hear what he would do with his thousand crowns, his eloquence aided and abetted by the miraculous wineskin. Nevertheless, the coroner kept a sharp eye on Athelstan. He sensed the friar’s depression at what had happened at Blackfriars. Athelstan gazed moodily across the river, now silent on a Sunday afternoon with only the occasional wherry or barge making its way down to Westminster.

  They landed at St Mary’s Wharf and walked through the alleys and streets of Southwark, strangely calm and still on this warm summer’s afternoon.

  ‘Lazy buggers!’ Cranston observed. ‘Probably sleeping off a morning’s drinking.’

  ‘Yes, Sir John. It’s terrible what people can pour down their throats.’

  Cranston gazed at him narrowly and pushed his miraculous wineskin deeper under his cloak. St Erconwald’s was also quiet and placid, the church steps deserted, the cemetery and small garden round the priest’s house undisturbed except for the hum of bees hovering round the wild flowers which grew there.

  Athelstan made sure everything was in its place: the priest’s house was still locked, Philomel was busy eating in his stable, so Watkin had been conscientious in his duties. Ursula the pig woman’s enormous sow had finished off the last of the cabbages. Athelstan cursed loudly.

  ‘You’ve still got your onions,’ Cranston observed.

  Athelstan thought of Crim’s confession, smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Come on, Sir John, let us see how the church is.’ He unlocked the door and stood for a few seconds in the porch. ‘Strange,’ he said, ‘isn’t it, Sir John?’

  Cranston, standing behind him, snatched the miraculous wineskin away from his lips.

  ‘What do you mean, Brother? You’re in an odd mood.’

  Athelstan walked up the darkened church, noticing how the sound of his footsteps shattered the hallowed silence. He stopped halfway up and looked to where the parish coffin stood empty in the transept.

  ‘So much has happened here,’ he said in a half-whisper. ‘Joy, grief, anger, murder. A strange place, Sir John!’

  Cranston took one more swig from the wineskin and narrowed his eyes. The coroner recalled Father Prior’s invitation.

  Oh, sweet Lord, he prayed, don’t let Athelstan go. He can’t leave me.

  Cranston stared at the friar’s broad shoulders and suddenly realised he had come to love this strange priest. Athelstan walked under the rood screen and into the sanctuary.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Everything is in order.’ He tapped the flagstones with a sandalled foot. ‘Beautiful! At last it’s beginning to look like a church.’

  He sat down on the altar steps and almost jumped as Cranston yelped, ‘Oh, that bloody cat’s back!’

  Bonaventure, his back arched and tail curling, had appeared out of the shadows and was now rubbing himself against the coroner’s boot.

  Athelstan rose. ‘Come here, my knight of the alleyways,’ he murmured. He sat stroking the cat, lost in thoughts which whirled like a wheel in his head. The faces of the Inquisitors; Father Prior’s tears; Raymond D’Arques striving for forgiveness; Fitzwolfe and his satanic ways; Benedicta breathing her love.

  Cranston threw his cloak on the steps and sat down next to him. He watched the friar closely as he sat, eyes half-closed, absent-mindedly stroking that bloody cat.

  ‘You would never have thought it,’ Cranston quietly remarked, trying to gain Athelstan’s attention.

  ‘What’s that, Sir John?’

  ‘Well, Henry of Winchester, a theologian. You wouldn’t have thought butter would have melted in his mouth.’

  ‘Remember the temptation of Christ, Sir John? Even Satan can quote scripture, and Satan has a nasty habit,’ he smiled at the pun, ‘of appearing in the guise of an Angel of Light.’

  ‘Are you going to leave here?’ Cranston abruptly asked. ‘Father Prior said your penance was over.’

  Athelstan just smiled.

  ‘Well, are you, you bloody monk?’

  ‘Sir John, I have decided. There are many paths to sanctity.’

  Athelstan’s grin widened. ‘And you’re certainly mine.’

  Cranston belched and the sound rang through the church like a clap of thunder. Bonaventure stirred and looked at the coroner curiously. Cranston got to his feet.

  ‘I’m off to see that thieving bugger in the Piebald tavern. Athelstan, you should join me. We must celebrate our discovery of the truth.’ Cranston stared down at Athelstan. ‘Oh, by
the way, Brother, Father Prior mentioned giving you a letter. You replied that because I had solved the riddle, you no longer had need of it.’

  Athelstan stared up at him. ‘Sir John, don’t be angry. I did wonder what would happen if we were wrong. My parents had a farm, Francis is dead, so the farm was sold and all profits given to the Order.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I begged Father Prior for a loan on that property. He gave me a letter to the Order’s bankers in Lombard Street allowing me to draw a thousand crowns if we were wrong.’ He shrugged. ‘I had to be sure.’

  Cranston stamped his feet and looked away, blinking furiously so Athelstan couldn’t see the tears which pricked his eyes. At last he turned, crouched, picked up his cloak and looked Athelstan straight in the face.

  ‘You’re a funny bugger, monk!’

  ‘I know, Sir John, it’s the company I keep!’

  Cranston threw his cloak over his shoulder and swaggered down the aisle.

  ‘I’ll be in the Piebald,’ he called out over his shoulder. ‘Don’t keep me waiting. I know you stingy priests. You always like others to buy your ale!’ He walked out of the church, the door crashing to behind him.

  Athelstan smiled, kissed Bonaventure between the ears and stared round the sanctuary. He suddenly caught sight of Huddle’s painting on the sanctuary wall, etched out in broad vigorous strokes of charcoal. Athelstan peered closer. ‘What the . . .?’ He put Bonaventure down, took a tinder, lit a candle and walked over to the wall to study the painting more closely.

  Huddle had roughed out the scene where Mary and the baby Jesus meet her cousin Elizabeth and the infant John the Baptist. Athelstan looked at the figures and began to chuckle. Benedicta was the Virgin Mary; he was Saint Joseph; Watkin the dung-collector’s wife was Elizabeth; Pike the ditcher an onlooker; Tab the tinker a soldier. Herod the Great was none other than a fat-faced, bewhiskered Sir John Cranston. He even had a miraculous wineskin peeping out from beneath his cloak. Philomel was there, Cecily the courtesan, Crim, Ursula the pig woman, and even her sow. However, what really caught Athelstan’s attention were the infant Jesus and John the Baptist: Huddle’s genius had depicted them with bald heads, staring eyes, fat cheeks, podgy arms and legs – in fact, as Cranston’s two beloved poppets.

  Athelstan, shaking with laughter, blew out the candle and walked from the church to join Sir John in the Piebald tavern.