The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  He was almost quivering with anger at this slur on his heavenly heroine, the virtues of whom he had always extolled to an extent that bordered upon an obsession. He was not finished yet and, red-faced with temper, addressed the prior directly.

  ‘I would advise that we should not proceed any further without John being brought before us to answer for his sin. It is always customary for brothers who have offended to be faced directly with their misdeeds before this chapter and I feel it even more necessary now!’

  Everyone knew that the sub-prior was flexing the muscles of his ambition, laying further claim to succeeding Paul when the time came. He rarely lost a chance to qualify or even contradict the prior over any lapse of custom or procedure, to emphasise his dislike of the more lenient regime favoured by Paul.

  This time, however, the prior dug his heels in.

  ‘All in good time, Brother! But first I wish to hear what others have to say about this unfortunate matter. We all have a right for our opinions to be heard.’

  ‘John claims that angels took him up to the Beacon where he met St Oswald?’ said Brother Arnulf, who was in charge of the guest-house.

  ‘I suppose that is not impossible, though it would indeed be a miracle! Are we to believe that part of his story, even if not the more scurrilous aspects?’

  The sub-prior again jumped in to reply before Paul could answer. ‘Being taken up a mountain is not uncommon in religious history,’ he grated. ‘Was not the Muslim prophet Mohammed taken on his night journey by angels from Araby to the Mount of Jerusalem? And did not our own Lord Jesus Christ Himself go up to a mountain with Peter, James and John to meet Moses and Elijah?’

  The prior’s smile came back fleetingly as he responded. ‘Indeed, Brother Matthew. And did not your namesake also record in his gospel that after forty days in the wilderness, Christ Jesus was taken to a mountain to be tempted and that angels then came to minister to him?’

  The sub-prior nodded his agreement, but used the opening to come back at his superior.

  ‘As always, you are right, Prior. But on that occasion it was Satan who transported him to that high place! Can we be sure that the same has not happened to Brother John and that this was not possession by the Devil?’

  There was a fresh bout of murmuring amongst the assembled monks, which the prior brought to end by raising his hand.

  ‘Then we will question our sick brother as he stands before us, as Matthew has suggested.’

  He directed his secretary to fetch John from the penitent’s cell and there was an uneasy silence in the chapter house as the younger man went on his mission. The monks shuffled their feet and looked uncomfortable, sensing the antagonism between their prior and Brother Matthew, as well as their concern over John, who until the last few days, they had looked on as a harmless, if eccentric, old colleague.

  Then the door jerked open and the prior’s secretary stood there, looking flustered. ‘‘He’s gone! The cell is empty!’

  Paul jumped to his feet. ‘Gone? Where can he have gone? He must be somewhere in the priory!’

  The irate Matthew strode towards the secretary and pushed him aside at the door. ‘Why was he not locked in?’ he snapped. ‘Do I have to check everything myself?’

  He marched out, followed by Mark, then the prior himself at the head of a ragged procession of brothers.

  ‘When was he last seen, Mark?’ demanded the prior. ‘He can’t have gone far on those old legs of his.’

  His secretary, feeling guilty for not turning the key, said that the last person to have seen him must have been the lay brother who took him some food, now several hours ago. The sub-prior was barking out orders, and within minutes all the monks and a number of lay brothers and servants were combing the various buildings in the inner and outer courtyards. It was only when a door-ward, disturbed by the commotion, stumbled out of a privy near the outer gate, that a sighting of the old monk was obtained.

  ‘He passed out onto the lane to the village about an hour ago,’ the porter announced in an aggrieved voice. ‘I didn’t know anyone was looking for him.’

  The prior sighed. ‘John would try the patience of Job,’ he complained. ‘Mark, send a couple of servants after him – and go with them yourself, as you seem most able to calm his madness.’

  Two of the ostlers quickly saddled up a trio of ponies and minutes later, they were jogging briskly along the track that joined St Oswald’s priory to the outer world. It passed through the handful of cottages that made up the village of Broomhill, almost all of whose inhabitants were dependent on the priory for their livelihood. As they passed, one of the ostlers called out to a woman who was tying her goat to the stakes of her garden fence.

  ‘Good-wife, have you seen an old monk passing this way?’

  She waved a hand onwards. ‘Brother John went by less than an hour ago. Never so much as returned my greeting, neither. He’ll surely be past the crossroads by now.’

  They kicked their ponies into a trot and soon reached the junction of the track with the wider road that came up from the Forest of Dean and led towards Worcester.

  ‘Which way now, Brother?’ demanded one of the servants.

  Mark rapidly considered this and felt that, given John’s threat to report his fantasies to a bishop, it was more likely that he was aiming for Worcester. They turned left and within half a mile, they saw the old man limping ahead of them. When they caught up with him, Mark saw that John was exhausted, only his fanatical willpower keeping him on his feet.

  ‘John, John, what are we going to do with you?’ sighed the younger monk, as he gently helped to lift John on to his own pony.

  ‘I’ll be locked up this time, boy,’ croaked the old monk. ‘But St Oswald will find a way to get my news proclaimed abroad.’

  Mark led the pony towards home, sending one of the grooms ahead to tell the prior that the fugitive had been found unharmed. When they reached the priory, they were met by a silent group in the inner courtyard, a grim-faced sub-prior pointing at the infirmary building.

  ‘In there with you, John,’ he ordered in a voice of stone. ‘You are not to leave, on pain of excommunication.’

  As Mark and Brother Louis led him to the sick ward, the infirmarian decided that they would use one of the single rooms to hold John.

  ‘They are unlikely to become full after the rumours that must already be spreading, thanks to the carters,’ said Louis, somewhat bitterly. ‘This will badly affect both our reputation and our treasure chest. We have had several more messages from patrons to say that they have called off their visits.’

  ‘Maybe the threat of the Welsh advance is the reason for that,’ countered Mark.

  They settled John in one of the small chambers at the end of the main ward, the old man being silent now, but Mark noticed a sly glint in his eye as he watched them leave.

  ‘Behave yourself now, Brother,’ admonished the secretary, but John made no response. Outside the room, Mark was concerned that there was no lock on this door, but Louis seemed unconcerned.

  ‘I spend much of my time in here and will keep an eye on him. Anyway, the prior has set a permanent guard on the gate between the courtyards. There is no other way out, except over the wall, and I doubt that even our intrepid old escaper will attempt that, especially as I will give him a good dose of laudanum to dull his warped senses.’

  As the small community tried to get back to its normal routine, a quite different concern gripped them later that day, making them all but forget the peculiar behaviour of their oldest brother.

  Lay-brothers and villagers who were working in the more distant fields and pastures began to notice an increase in the number of travellers using the lanes and tracks coming from the west. All were moving in the same direction, away from the Welsh border, and instead of the usual traffic of pedlars, carters and merchants, whole families seemed to be on the move, some with wagons or handcarts piled with possessions. The village reeve of Broomhill went to question some of the refugees and
felt obliged to come up to the priory to report what he had heard.

  ‘It seems this Glendower’s army is on the move,’ he told Arnulf, who was the most approachable of the monks, as he spent much of his time in the outer courtyard attending to the guests and visitors. ‘The Welsh and these new Frenchies have been camped up for a couple of weeks, licking their wounds after being badly beaten near Usk. But it seems the English forces have pulled away and these barbarians are starting to advance again into the Marches.’

  The hospitaller hurried with the news to his friend Jude, the cellarer, and in turn they went to the prior’s house to give him even more to worry about. They found him in the parlour with the sub-prior.

  ‘We had better set about hiding our treasures, as I suggested earlier,’ was Paul’s immediate response. ‘Brother Matthew, will you ensure that the old crypt is cleared out? It may be that we will need to wall up the entrance to conceal its existence.’

  As usual, the sub-prior was reluctant to hasten to carry out Paul’s suggestions.

  ‘I doubt there is much need for urgency, Prior. Monmouth is a long way off for a rabble travelling on foot – and no doubt stopping every few yards to loot and ravish.’

  ‘Nevertheless, see that it is done,’ retorted Paul irritably. ‘We had better make sure that Beornwyn’s skull is safest of all – apart from our devotion to it, it has an appreciable amount of gold around it.’

  After vespers later that day, the usual relaxation and gossip hour in the warming room was dominated by talk of the approaching invaders. More reports had come in as the priory workers returned from the fields where early harvesting was in progress.

  ‘It is said that the Welshmen are destroying every castle and manor house,’ said Brother Jude, with an almost salacious delight.

  ‘But they are respecting churches and holy houses,’ countered Louis. ‘No doubt the influence of their French allies is moderating their behaviour.’

  Mark, always mild and conciliatory in his speech, reminded the French monk of his previous opinion. ‘I recall you saying that the Welsh leader was an educated and cultured man – is that really true?’

  The infirmarian nodded gravely, pleased to be a Frenchman who could teach an Englishman some British history.

  ‘This Glendower is a relatively wealthy man with several estates of his own. As well as being a soldier, he studied at the Inns of Court in London to be a lawyer. Not only that, but he married the daughter of one of the King’s judges. He is descended from the princes of North and South Wales, but has been in the service of several prominent English nobles, fighting for them, and indeed, for King Henry himself.’

  The prior’s secretary admired Louis’s erudition. ‘You seem unusually well informed about these matters, Brother.’

  The infirmarian smiled smugly. ‘I like to keep abreast of what is happening in this country. One never knows when it might come in useful.’

  Big, amiable Brother Luke joined in the discussion. He was a large, slow-moving man, content to supervise some of the lay brothers in the fields – and often chose to labour alongside them.

  ‘If this Glendower served the English aristocracy and even the Crown so well, why is he now campaigning against them?’

  ‘I can answer that, as I came here from the priory of Bangor in North Wales,’ volunteered David, one of the younger monks. ‘He has become disaffected since the death of one of his major patrons and then being overlooked for advancement by other nobles. Also he had a serious dispute over land with a powerful English neighbour in Ruthin, which triggered the present conflict.’

  Louis nodded his agreement. ‘That dispute has escalated into a nationalist rebellion and flocks of Welshmen – even students from Oxford – have been streaming back to join his army.’

  ‘What about the involvement of the French?’ asked Mark, always keen for enlightenment.

  The sacristan, Pierre, answered this one. ‘Paris has no love for the English king,’ he said cynically. ‘This was a chance to foment rebellion against the unpopular Henry by joining with the Welsh and several powerful lords in the North of England.’

  ‘I heard tell of something called the “Tripartite Indenture”,’ observed Mark.

  Louis nodded again. ‘You are well informed yourself, Brother. Yes, recently Glendower agreed with those northern lords that, with the help of the French, they would defeat the King and divide up England and Wales into three separate provinces, each under their own control.’

  Jude, the cellarer, sneered at the notion. ‘That’s a fantasy worthy of Brother John!’ he scoffed. ‘Our King, God bless him, will never let his kingdom be stolen from him like that! He will fight like a lion – and no doubt the French will then see reason and run home as usual!’

  This started a squabble between the French and English factions amongst the brothers, which the sub-prior had to suppress with threats of penances for this unchristian behaviour. By the time they had settled down, the hour was late enough for them to seek their beds until the call for matins at midnight.

  For the rest of the evening, the priory slumbered peacefully under the silvery light of the full moon. High above, the Herefordshire Beacon was silhouetted against the sky and, beyond it, the rest of the Malverns marched away to the north. The guard posted on the gate of the inner courtyard snored his way through the hours, but had the foresight to tie a cord from the latch to his wrist as he lay slumped against the gatepost.

  Just before midnight, the night-porter in the dormitory began ringing the bell for matins and almost a score of sleepy monks clambered from their palliasses. After a perfunctory wash in the basins at the end of the dorter, they donned their habits as the prior arrived from his quarters, then began filing through the door at the opposite end. This led them down the night stairs into the south transept of the church on the way to their places in the quire.

  They all carried lighted candles, which were to be placed in sockets in the choir stalls, and this dim illumination was sufficient to cause the leading monk to stop dead as he reached the crossing of the nave.

  It was Brother Pierre, the sacristan, and he let loose a sound partway between a scream and a sob. Close behind, still only half awake, Brother Luke bumped into him with a muttered expletive, which was rapidly converted into a gasp of surprise.

  ‘Holy Mother of God, what’s happened? Who’s that?’

  Within seconds, the rest of the monks had formed a half-circle around the spring of St Beornwyn. Her alabaster statue had fallen forward from its pedestal and lay face down in the wide basin below, but even more alarmingly, it was obscuring the upper half of a body, also face down in the healing pool. Water had splashed out and lay on the slabs below the steps leading up into the quire and presbytery.

  The sub-prior pushed forward and was first to reach the inert figure lying bizarrely in the sacred spring. Both Mark and the sacristan were close behind him and all three crouched alongside the victim of what appeared to be an extraordinary accident. By now, Prior Paul, who brought up the rear of the procession, had hastened to the fore and taken charge.

  ‘Get that statue off the poor fellow!’ he shouted, for once uncaring about the sanctity of the surroundings. He grabbed one shoulder of the stone saint and with Matthew and Mark grasping the head and opposite shoulder, levered up the full-size effigy and swung it sideways to rest across the top of the basin. It was extremely heavy and there was an ominous ‘crack’ as part of the retaining edge of the pool broke away, allowing more water to stream across the floor.

  ‘Lift him out, for Christ’s sake!’ howled the prior, but it was an unnecessary command, as Matthew and Mark were already pulling the victim up from the basin. Then with Brother David and the precentor carrying the legs, they staggered across the flooded floor to a dry patch of flagstones and gently turned the figure face up as they laid him down.

  ‘It’s old John!’ said Pierre flatly, though this surprised no one, as he was the only one missing.

  ‘And he’s dead!’
added the infirmarian, after bending for a few seconds over the inert figure. There was a murmur of concern and a flurry of making the sign of the cross.

  ‘I have heard of some supposedly drowned men who recovered after having the water squeezed from their chests,’ suggested the prior tremulously, thinking that this looked like being the worst week of his life.

  Louis shrugged, but, to appease Paul, bent again and pressed hard on John’s chest a few times with both hands. There were wheezing sounds from the dead man’s mouth, but no water emerged and the infirmarian stood up again.

  ‘I doubt that he drowned, as there’s no froth at his lips or nostrils,’ he pronounced grimly. ‘I was once physician to an abbey in the marshes of the Carmargue, where I saw many drowned people, so I am familiar with the signs.’

  The prior stared at him. ‘But nothing else could have killed him? His face was under the water!’

  Brother Matthew jumped to contradict Paul. ‘At his age, surely many things could have caused him to collapse. An apoplexy or a stroke? After all his strange behaviour lately, it should be no surprise that his brain has become severely disordered.’

  Louis had been crouching to examine the corpse more closely during this exchange, running his hands over the soaking white hair and feeling the scalp. He now stood up and looked gravely around the ring of anxious faces in the flickering candlelight.

  ‘Our brother’s brain has certainly become severely disordered – but not by an apoplexy. His skull has been fractured!’

  Again a ripple of consternation passed around the onlookers.

  ‘Hardly surprising, after that statue fell upon him,’ observed Matthew caustically. ‘It must weigh several hundredweight.’

  ‘It was not the statue,’ declared the infirmarian. ‘Old John has been deliberately struck upon the head!’

  ‘It must have been the statue!’ wailed the prior. ‘It is unthinkable that anyone would have offered that poor man violence.’

  Louis shook his head vehemently. ‘There can be no doubt – he was struck upon the head. He must have been dead before his face went under the water.’