The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  From a distance the two men also assumed this must be a member of the household. The tunic the corpse wore was of blue and white, the livery of the house of Lancaster. But when they drew closer they saw the cloth was of much finer quality than anything they wore, and the colours more subtle in their dye. They soon forget these distinctions anyway, for blotting out the centre of the chest was a circle of dried blood. Hugh and Alfred did not recognise the dead man even though his features were not disfigured.

  ‘He did not die natural,’ said Alfred, shielding his eyes against the early morning sun as he gazed at the red spill on the dead man’s tunic.

  Hugh crouched down to examine the man’s face closely. Alfred, older and more stiff in the joints than his fellow, stayed upright.

  ‘This is one of hers, not ours,’ said Hugh, standing up and jerking his thumb towards the great white palace that stretched along the river front. Eager to show how he came by this conclusion, he went on: ‘His face is darker and his beard is not after our fashion and, besides, he does not look English.’

  ‘Who did this?’ said Alfred.

  ‘That is not our business,’ said Hugh. ‘Go and fetch help to carry him inside. Don’t waste time, the tide is coming in.’

  Alfred was not as quick-witted as Hugh and usually deferred to the younger man. He did as he was told and, while Hugh waited on the foreshore, he made his way up through the terraces that lay between the river and the palace. Hugh looked at the body once more. He was certain that this gentleman was exactly that, a gentleman, and part of the Queen’s company and therefore a stranger, a foreigner. What or who was the cause of his death? Not our business, he’d said to Alfred, but it was peculiar all the same. He’d surely mention it to his brother John who, though claiming to despise the palace and its occupants, was always eager to hear titbits of gossip from within its white, fortified walls.

  The incoming tide was only a few feet away from the body by the time Alfred returned with half a dozen members of the household – not that so many were required but they were drawn to the spot by curiosity – and a makeshift litter. One of the household stewards, Thomas Banks, was with them. Hugh, who’d been enjoying his place in the sun as the finder of the body, had to give way to the steward. Hurrying to remove the dead man from the mud, they were lifting him up as water was starting to lap at their feet. The body was easy to handle, quite pliant. They carried the litter up through the green, flowering terraces. Because it was still early in the day, no one, or at least no one of any importance, was wandering in the gardens. Directed by Thomas, they toted the body through some cloisters and so into his office. The room was chill and gloomy, with sunbeams penetrating a narrow window.

  Once there, Thomas Banks swept the cushions from a ledge of stone, which functioned as a bench, and indicated that the body should be laid down there. He had said very little so far. Hugh sensed he was troubled. A sure sign was the way the steward frequently clasped his chain of office.

  ‘Which of you found the body?’

  Glancing at Alfred, Hugh nodded.

  ‘Your name is Hugh . . . Hall, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Hugh, surprised and slightly alarmed that he was known to the steward.

  ‘You are to stay, Hugh. The rest of you may leave.’

  ‘Should we get a priest?’ said one of the other servants, reluctant to quit this interesting scene. Thomas Banks gestured impatiently. ‘Time enough for priests later. Go now, I say. And make no mention of what has happened. I know you all, and if this discovery becomes the common talk, I’ll hold you responsible for it, every single one of you.’

  The group filed out wordlessly, until there were only three left, two living, one dead. Hugh was more uneasy than pleased at being instructed to stay. He watched as Banks stooped over the body, clutching at his golden chain with its motif of S-shaped links. The sunlight coming through the window fell directly on the red stain on the dead man’s tunic.

  ‘You found him lying on his back, as he is now?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He was quite dry on the front so he did not drown,’ said Hugh. ‘You can tell by the marks there . . . by the blood . . . that he did not drown. I think he must have been . . .’

  Still bending over the body, Thomas Banks fixed Hugh with a look that caused the servant to falter.

  ‘I did not ask you to think, Hugh. It may be that this individual did drown, whatever you believe. It may be, eh?’

  The steward stepped away from the corpse. He smiled tightly. He held his hand palm outwards towards Hugh Hall, as if to demonstrate he had nothing to hide.

  ‘I can see that you are a sharp man, Hugh. It must be plain to you that this individual here is not one of us, not English. He is not one of the Duke’s men, as we are. Discretion is required. You understand me?’

  Hugh nodded. He didn’t trust himself to say anything further.

  ‘In the meantime,’ continued Thomas Banks, ‘you may assist me by examining this unfortunate person’s wound. Yes, that’s right. Approach the body. Unbutton the tunic. Let us see now.’

  Wondering whether this was the reason he’d been told to stay behind – so that the steward could avoid dirtying his hands – Hugh drew near to the body on the stone ledge. For a moment he paused, out of respect or apprehension or both. Then he began the awkward process of unbuttoning the blood-stained upper garment. It was a snug fit and the reason became apparent after a moment. There was another item of clothing wadded inside, some kind of undergarment, or a part of one, but so saturated in blood that it was impossible to tell the original colour. It must have been placed there in the attempt to stanch the flow from the body. Hugh pulled the bloody material a little to one side. It came away with a little tearing sound, far enough to expose a sticky gash below the region of the heart. By now, Thomas Banks was standing at his side. Together steward and servant stared at the wound. The sunlight coming through the window had shifted onto the bearded face of the corpse. The expression was oddly peaceful, considering that death must have come suddenly and violently.

  ‘You are right, he did not drown,’ said Thomas. ‘But the river is generous and offers deaths by other means than water. For example, there are stakes protruding from the mud, there are outcrops of rock.’

  To Hugh’s eyes, this fatal injury was caused by the hand of a man. Still he said nothing. His eye was caught by something white tucked into the dead man’s armpit and he reached over to tug it out. It was a scrolled parchment. One end was reddened as if it had been dipped in a pool of blood but the rest was untouched. Perhaps the position of the body, the way the parchment was tight against the man’s right side, had protected it from the worst effusions of the wound. As Hugh pulled out the papers, he also detached a thin golden chain from which was suspended a precious stone. One of the links had snapped. Perhaps it had been damaged in the attack on the man.

  Thomas Banks was more interested in the papers than the stone. He almost snatched the item out of Hugh’s hands. The servant watched him unfurl the cylinder of parchment, which contained lines of script. Of no use to Hugh Hall, who was not able to read. He rubbed his fingers together. They were sticky with little flakes of dried blood and threads of material adhering to them. He felt he had earned the right to ask a question.

  ‘Do you know who this is, sir?’

  ‘What? Oh, yes, I know who it is. He is one of the Queen’s company.’

  The steward spoke distractedly. His attention was on the parchment, which he angled so that the words captured the light. He nodded a couple of times as though what he read was familiar to him. He sighed. He glanced at Hugh.

  ‘These are verses,’ said Thomas. ‘A strange thing to find on the body of a dead man, eh?’

  Hugh was not really surprised at anything done by the higher-ups in the palace. They had their own whys and wherefores. A corpse carrying a poem did not seem so very odd to him. The steward continued: ‘I have heard these verses before. I heard them recited only last night by the very man who
composed them. It is the story of a saint. A virgin saint.’

  Now Hugh held up the chain and the steward took it. The dark red stone echoed the blood that had spilled from the body.

  ‘That’s a ruby, isn’t it?’ said Hugh.

  ‘He wore it as a protection against poison and other evils,’ said Thomas Banks. ‘Much good it did him.’

  II

  Two Months Earlier

  ‘The last time you were here, a murder took place,’ said Richard Dunton.

  ‘More than one of them,’ said Geoffrey Chaucer, surprised that his friend was raising the subject at all. ‘I remember there was a mason and another workman, and then there was—’

  ‘A member of our order who also died,’ said the Prior of Bermondsey.

  Geoffrey noted the tactful way in which Prior Richard was referring to the death of the monk, as if it had been a natural death or an accident.1 And he still wondered why these unhappy events were being mentioned at all until the prior explained.

  ‘I know that the subject must be at the front of your mind. How can it be otherwise on your return to Bermondsey Priory? So I thought I would raise the matter first to get it out of the way. We are still grateful here for your discretion in that unfortunate business and we are glad to see you back, Geoffrey. I am glad.’

  ‘Let us talk no more of murder then,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I am here for some peace and quiet to write.’

  ‘And you have travelled from one mighty house on the Thames to another,’ said the prior. ‘The Palace of Savoy must be like a hive of bees, always busy, always buzzing.’

  There was more than simple curiosity in Dunton’s tone. A note of envy was detectable too. From his previous visit to Bermondsey, Geoffrey Chaucer remembered how knowledgeable Richard Dunton was about the outside world, or at least the royal part of it.

  ‘Savoy is not so productive as a beehive. It’s more like a nest of wasps or hornets. I do not visit there much anyway.’

  ‘I remember you have a house in Aldgate as well.’

  ‘My books are there but the lodging is above the city gate itself, good for seeing life, not so good for writing about it.’

  ‘Where your books are, there your heart surely is, Geoffrey?’ The prior leaned forward in his chair and said, ‘But your wife, Philippa, spends most of her time at the Savoy Palace, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She is one of several ladies in the service of Queen Constance of Castile,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Or in the service of the Duchess of Lancaster, if you prefer her English title.’

  ‘And Philippa’s sister is also in royal service?’

  ‘Not exactly. Katherine helps to care for the children of John of Gaunt by his late wife.’

  ‘So she is the magistra to the Duke of Lancaster’s children, she is their director and guide.’

  The prior spoke slowly as if instructing a class of children himself. Chaucer nodded but said nothing, hoping to cut off this line of talk. He did not want to talk about his sister-in-law. He was fairly sure that Richard Dunton wasn’t so ignorant about Katherine Swynford’s position in John of Gaunt’s household as he pretended. Was he probing Geoffrey for extra information, or was he testing how much Geoffrey himself knew?

  As if sensing his guest would give away nothing more, Richard Dunton sat back in his chair and took another sip of wine. They were sitting on either side of the fire in the prior’s lodgings. It was a bright, cold evening in the spring. The abbey was poised between the canonical hours of vespers and compline. The day was drawing to a close. Soon supper would be brought in. Chaucer had little doubt that, because they were dining privately in the prior’s quarters, they would be eating better than the monks in the refectory. It was almost three years since he’d last seen Richard Dunton and in the interim the prior had grown a little plumper in the face. The old adage about self-denial, that ‘the sacrament makes a good breakfast’, did not apply to him. But then, Geoffrey reflected, the same might be said of himself. Those early years during which he did service as a squire and a soldier had been followed by a more sedate, indulgent existence.

  ‘Do you have a subject, Geoffrey?’ said the prior, his eyes darting to an item that lay on a nearby desk. ‘I mean, a theme to write about?’

  Geoffrey shrugged. He did have a couple of possibilities – for example, the tale of a pair of star-crossed lovers in the ancient city of Troy – but he was curious to see what Richard Dunton was about to suggest. The prior rose from his seat and fetched a roll of parchment from the table. Still holding it, he returned to his chair by the fire.

  ‘Have you heard of a saint called Beornwyn?’

  ‘The virgin martyr? Yes, but she is little more than a name to me.’

  ‘So many saints, so many stories,’ said the prior. ‘But this one is unusual.’

  ‘They’re all unusual,’ was Geoffrey’s response, then, seeing the look on the prior’s face, somewhere between disappointment and disapproval, he drew up a fragment from the well of memory: ‘Wasn’t her modesty preserved by a veil of butterflies after her death?’

  Prior Dunton looked pleased at that and then, deftly, he outlined the tale of St Beornwyn. The setting on the North Sea coast among local kings and warring tribes, the refusal of the noble-born Beornwyn to marry according to her father’s wishes, her growing reputation as a virgin dedicated to Christ, her charity to the poor, the way an angel materialised to assist her with copying out a psalm, and other marvels. Then came the darkness and violence as well as the real miracles that must appear in all saints’ stories.

  There was the slaughter of Beornwyn at the hands of coastal raiders, a slaughter that involved violation and sacrilege when the young woman was taken by surprise, at prayer, inside a cliff-top church. Yet the dire details of Beornwyn’s death were transfigured by the butterfly veil, just as the story of her life transformed the lives of others. Her memory would draw warring peoples together. Her example would give heart to those embarking on the lonely path of virtue and self-denial. As he told this tale, Prior Richard’s tone and expression fitted the moment: doleful, earnest, joyous. He barely glanced at the manuscript but made jabbing motions with it to emphasise particular points.

  Almost despite himself, Geoffrey’s imagination was stirred by what he heard. Perhaps it was the desolate scene of Beornwyn’s martyrdom in St Oswald’s church perched above the waves of the sea. Perhaps it was that blue winding-sheet composed of hundreds of butterflies.

  ‘How did the manuscript come into your hands, Richard?’

  ‘It has been lying here all this time, in the Bermondsey library. It is the belief of Brother Peter that the manuscript was deposited in our library more than a hundred years ago by another prior, also called Richard.’

  Geoffrey remembered Brother Peter from his earlier visit, an elderly, stringy man who peered through his spectacles at one’s face as if he were reading a book. He was glad to hear the librarian was still alive.

  They were interrupted by the arrival of supper, brought in by two lay brothers. With reluctance Geoffrey and Richard shifted from their places by the fire. The prior replaced the manuscript on his desk and the two men moved to a table near a window, from which there was a view of the conventual church, a great shadow looming over the cloisters in the dusk. Candles were lit, food was served, fresh wine poured, and the lay brothers withdrew as wordlessly as they had come.

  At first they ate in silence. Geoffrey was right. Fish of this quality – turbot and sole – would not be served up in the refectory. Nor would the open pie of cheese and the custard dishes that followed. Enjoying the food and wine, Chaucer was happy to wait and see where the Prior of Bermondsey would lead the conversation. He didn’t think it was a coincidence that Richard Dunton happened to have on his desk the manuscript with the Beornwyn story while he was welcoming a new guest. And the prior had not recited that same story with real feeling just to show off his oratorical skill.

  The prior complimented Chaucer on the lucrative post to which he had recently bee
n appointed: controller of the taxes paid on both the wool and the wine passing through the port of London. Since it was John of Gaunt who was responsible for the double appointment, Chaucer played down his own merits and said something about the Duke of Lancaster’s generosity. The prior’s reply was that John of Gaunt had good reason to be grateful to Geoffrey. Chaucer thought they were getting close to dangerous territory again but it turned out that Richard Dunton was referring not to any secret understanding between Chaucer’s sister-in-law and Gaunt, but to a poem that he had composed a few years earlier in memory of Gaunt’s first wife, Blanche. The poem was called The Book of the Duchess. Copies of it were circulated in court, where it was also recited, and Geoffrey knew that the grieving John was consoled by the praise that he bestowed on ‘my Lady White’. Now, the Prior of Bermondsey claimed that he too had been moved by this elegy to a noble woman. As he mentioned this, his glance shifted towards the Beornwyn manuscript lying on his desk.

  ‘So you think I might do the same for the virgin saint?’ said Geoffrey, understanding the direction of the talk. ‘Do you believe that Beornwyn deserves a memorial in verse, Richard?’

  ‘Far be it from me to dictate what you should write,’ said Dunton, leaning back in his chair, replete with food and drink, dabbing with a napkin at a spot of grease on his upper lip. ‘I am merely offering it to you . . . so you might read the story at your leisure.’

  ‘Then I’ll look at it,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Thank you.’

  Although Chaucer took the thing out of courtesy, he had no intention of reading it through. The more the prior pushed the subject at him, the more he resisted. He’d glance at the manuscript before handing it back together with some appropriate comment. He suspected that Richard was pressing the Beornwyn story on him because, if Chaucer were to turn it into verse and circulate copies among the noble ladies and gentlemen of the Savoy Palace, then the whole business would reflect well on Bermondsey Priory and on Dunton himself. Cynical to think so, perhaps, but Geoffrey couldn’t blame him for trying.