The False Virgin

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘I beseech you, do not vent your anger upon these two men! Evil though they be, this is a matter for the Church’s retribution, not for earthly princes.’

  He attempted to push the calvarium into the Welsh leader’s hands. ‘Take this relic of our beloved patron. It may bring you good fortune, and there is much valuable gold around its rim.’

  Glyndwr refused to accept the offering and gently pushed it back towards the prior.

  ‘I will not take your treasured relic, priest. Keep it and continue to do good in the name of that woman, whether she was virgin or whore. The gold is tempting, as I am sorely in need of the wherewithal to feed my troops, but I will not desecrate something that has been in God’s service for centuries. Neither will I risk my immortal soul by committing the sacrilege of taking your communion vessels.’ He gave a rare smile as he qualified this. ‘However, I have no religious qualms about taking your treasure chest.’

  Giving a sign to one of his captains, two soldiers lifted the heavy chest and made off with it towards the church door.

  ‘We shall starve this coming winter without our money!’ wailed Prior Paul, but the Welsh leader was unmoved.

  ‘I doubt that, monk!’ he growled. ‘I’ll wager you have cattle hidden in the forest and grain and silver stored elsewhere. If you insist on saving the necks of these two treacherous villains, then I will leave them with you and be damned to them! I will take your treasure chest instead, which seems a fair exchange.’ With that he swung on his heel and marched to the main door of St Oswald’s church, his retinue and soldiers following behind.

  As he walked across the inner precinct, the blue butterfly that had been sunning its wings on the cross of old John’s grave took to flight and fluttered twice around the head of the Welsh prince. Then it rose above him and flew off as straight as an arrow, up towards the peak of the Herefordshire Beacon, far above.

  Historical note

  The year of this story, 1405, was the zenith of Glyndwr’s twelve-year campaign for Welsh freedom sparked by more than a century of indignity and cruelty heaped on the population since the crushing of independence by Edward I. Within five years he had regained most of the country, was recognised as Prince of Wales by King Henry I V, established a parliament at Machynlleth, had plans for an independent Welsh Church and two universities, and had formed alliances with the Scots and the French, the latter sending a large force to assist him. He invaded England itself, the first such foray since the Norman Conquest, and penetrated almost to Worcester, but his lines of supply were now too fragile and, faced by a large English army, there was a standoff, then both forces retreated, His wife and two of his daughters were captured and died in the Tower of London and by 1412 he was reduced to fighting a guerrilla war. He soon vanished and there was never any record of his death or burial place, though it is possible that he took refuge with another daughter, Alys, who had married Sir John Scudamore, the Sheriff of Herefordshire and sheltered him in their home in Kentchurch in that county – where the Scudamores still reside. As with King Arthur, a legend arose that he was not dead, but would appear again when Wales was in peril.

  Shakespeare makes a number of allusions to Glyndwr’s mystical nature in his play Henry the Fourth, Part I and it is known that he relied considerably on portents and prophesies delivered by his soothsayer, Crach Ffinant.

  Act Five

  Blidworth, Nottinghamshire, December 1541

  ‘I call it theft!’ Richard Whitney’s heavy jowls quivered in outrage.

  The butcher reminded Father James of an indignant cockerel and the sight would have struck the priest as comical had he not been so insulted by Richard’s accusation.

  ‘You should not have left the candle here in the first place,’ Father James retorted. ‘You know full well that Thomas Cromwell has forbidden the lighting of candles to any saints, and especially the placing of them before their relics. I know some of the old and ignorant in the parish have trouble understanding why they can no longer bring offerings to the saints as they have done all their lives, but as Master of the Butchers’ Guild you should set an example for them.’

  Richard Whitney took a step closer, thrusting his florid face close to the priest’s. ‘Do I look like a man who’d waste his hard-earned money on church candles? It was my frog-witted apprentice who left it here. That boy’s so pious he’d make St Peter look like a non-believer. The lad’s a fool, and I gave him a good thrashing when I heard what he’d done. But the point is, he spent good money for that candle and it wasn’t his to spend. Alan bought that great candle with the purse his father gave him to pay his apprentice fees to me. Now it’s been stolen.’

  ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I took it,’ Father James said, with as much dignity as he could muster.

  But the priest was a head shorter than his parishioner, and though not easily intimidated he found himself distinctly uncomfortable at the man’s close proximity. Besides, Master Richard consumed far too much of his own meat and his breath always stank. Father James took a few paces up the steps of the chantry chapel so that he had the advantage of height, but that only seemed to antagonise the butcher.

  ‘Don’t you dare walk away from me, Vicar! I haven’t finished with you. Alan says there was more than two pounds of wax in that candle, not to mention the worth of making it. That candlemaker makes an even fatter profit from the gullible than the Church does. So if that candle’s going to be lighting anyone’s table this winter, it’ll be mine.’

  Father James’s chin jerked up. ‘The candle belongs to this church. It’s been offered to God in faith. Even if we should find it, you certainly can’t use it to entertain your friends.’

  Richard snorted. ‘According to Cromwell, God doesn’t want it, and it’s my money that was squandered on buying it, so I’ll be getting the worth of it, not you or your churchwarden. Mark my words, he’s the thieving bastard who’s taken it. So you can tell Yarrow I want it back by nightfall, or I’ll be round his house to fetch it myself, and you can be sure I’ll make him regret putting me to that trouble.’

  Master Whitney turned on his heel and marched from the church, slamming the heavy door behind him with such force it set the wooden cradle in the corner of the church rocking. The cradle was only used at Candlemas, when a baby boy, born closest to Christmas Day, would be rocked in it in honour of the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin. It was an honour the families often came to blows over, for it was said to bestow great good fortune on the child, but Father James found himself wondering if this too would soon be forbidden by one of Thomas Cromwell’s numerous injunctions.

  The priest had been trying to hold himself so tall, it was only now that he realised his back was aching from the effort. He shuffled a few paces to the carved stone rail that separated the faithful from the chantry altar and leaned heavily upon it, sighing.

  If it was the churchwarden who’d removed the candle, it certainly hadn’t been placed with the ones in the chest destined for the main altar, as it should have been. And this wasn’t the first time offerings to St Beornwyn had gone missing over the past months. Many candles and tawdries laid at her feet had vanished without trace, even a costly ring given by a woman grateful for the life of her sick child.

  Thankfully, the villagers of Blidworth had asked no questions. Assuming that their forbidden offerings had been hidden safely away in the church chest, they had not dreamed of asking for their return. But a man like Richard was never going to accept such a loss quietly. Not that the butcher could report the theft, for if he did so it would come to light that young Alan had left the illicit offering in the church, and a master could be held responsible for the actions of his apprentice. But that made it more likely Richard would mete out his own brand of rough justice. For by now whoever had stolen it would have surely sold it or melted it down to make a dozen household candles. Father James fleetingly wondered if it hadn’t been taken by the candlemaker himself, who could then resell it to some other fool. He, above all in the vi
llage, would know the worth of it.

  The priest glanced over at the source of all the trouble, the gilded reliquary in the form of the statue of the saint, which stood on the altar of the chantry chapel. St Beornwyn had been carved holding out her left hand on which rested a sumptuously jewelled and enamelled butterfly, the size of a raven in proportion to the height of the woman. Her painted robe was torn away on the top half of her body to reveal naked breasts, only partly covered by her right hand. Embedded in the back of this hand was a polished fragment of rock crystal beneath which lay a strip of the saint’s own skin, flayed from her body when she was martyred. Two more pieces of crystal set into her bare feet encased two more fragments of skin. Not for the first time, Father James found himself entertaining the less than spiritual thought that if the saint had been half as voluptuous in life as her carving, then it was a miracle she had remained a virgin at all.

  But why had that wretched boy taken it into his head to spend his apprentice fees on a candle? Was he praying St Beornwyn would rescue him from his apprenticeship? Father James could hardly blame Alan if he had. Richard had a notoriously short temper and the whole village knew he bullied his lads. It was even rumoured that a few years back, one of his apprentices was so miserable he had gone into Sherwood Forest and hanged himself, though the Butchers’ Guild blamed it on lovesickness for a girl who spurned him.

  But the priest was certain that Alan would never commit such a sin, however badly Richard used him. In fact, the boy almost seemed to revel in his ill-treatment as if it was a test of his faith and devotion to St Beornwyn. On numerous occasions both Father James and the churchwarden had each been forced to drag the boy away from the chantry, reminding him sternly that praying before relics was now forbidden.

  The boy made no secret of the fact that he had wanted to become a monk, but with the monasteries being closed and the monks forced out into the world, there was no chance of that. Even entering the priesthood was no longer a safe choice. Little wonder then that Alan’s parents had decided that in this fast-changing world only one thing was certain – people would always need butchers.

  Father James glanced over his shoulder to ensure he was alone, then, crossing himself, he kneeled and muttered a hasty prayer that the blessed St Beornwyn would keep Richard’s hand from the churchwarden’s throat and Cromwell’s enforcers far away from Blidworth.

  Master Richard Whitney’s temper had not improved one jot since he stormed from the church and was, if anything, made worse when he flung open the door of his house and heard his wife’s laughter ringing from the small chamber beyond the oak-panelled hall. He didn’t usually return home in the afternoon, so could not reasonably expect his wife, Mary, to be waiting for him with the table laid ready with his supper. But Richard had never been an entirely reasonable man and was becoming less so with every passing year, especially since he had become Guild Master, an honour that was usually granted to the butchers who lived in the large towns, such as Nottingham.

  He strode through the hall and flung open the door at the far end, which led to the small winter parlour where he and his wife ate when they were not entertaining guests. Mary was often to be found in there occupied with her sewing. He didn’t know what he imagined might be the cause of Mary’s laughter – some morsel of market-street gossip brought back by her maid, Jennet, or the lapdog rolling over to have its belly scratched. Who knew? It seemed to him that any ridiculous and trivial thing was enough to entertain the simple mind of a woman. But whatever he thought was amusing his wife, it was certainly not what he found.

  Edward Thornton, one of his fellow guild brothers, and furthermore the one who had fought against Richard for the honour of becoming Guild Master, was sitting – or rather insolently lounging – in one of Richard’s fine carved wooden chairs. His fingers were cupped around one of Richard’s pewter goblets, half-filled with Richard’s best wine. The floor around Edward’s boots was strewn with honeyed spiced almonds, and as Richard flung the door wide, he saw that Edward’s mouth was open and Mary was just about to toss another almond into it.

  Mary’s laughter froze the instant she caught sight of her husband standing in the doorway. Her plump cheeks flushed crimson as she sprang to her feet. But Master Edward did nothing except close his mouth, and continue, quite unabashed, to sprawl in the chair as if he was by his own fireside.

  Edward Thornton was only a few years younger than Richard, but his curly chestnut hair and beard still showed not a smattering of grey, and he had a ready smile, which women apparently found quite charming, although Richard had long held that any man who smiled so easily was never to be trusted in matters of business or anything else.

  ‘Richard . . .’ Mary’s breathing was rapid, like a trapped animal. ‘I didn’t except you back so soon.’

  ‘Evidently,’ Richard replied coldly. ‘Do you often entertain my fellow guild members when I am about my business?’

  ‘No, Richard, no, of course, not . . . Master Edward came with a message. He’s ridden hard from Nottingham. I thought it only courtesy to offer him some refreshment. I thought you would wish it.’

  ‘Is it customary to offer guests refreshment by throwing nuts at them? You’re not a child and he’s not a pet bird. The hall is the place to receive guests of Master Edward’s rank.’

  Although both men knew that the hall was reserved for men of high social status, somehow Richard managed to make it sound like an insult.

  His wife looked close to tears. ‘But Master Edward is . . . is an old friend. You often entertain him in here, Richard.’

  ‘When there are confidential matters to be discussed,’ Richard said. ‘But I trust there is nothing of a confidential nature you have cause to discuss with my wife, Edward.’

  Richard lowered himself heavily into the chair his wife had vacated. She stood, hovering uncertainly by his side, until Edward gallantly rose and offered her his seat.

  Richard’s jaw clenched. ‘My wife does not require a chair. She’s just leaving to see to her duties.’

  Mary flushed and lowered her head to hide the tears glittering in her eyes. She hurried from the chamber. Richard heard her feet running across the tiled hall.

  ‘Come now, don’t blame poor Mary,’ Edward said lightly. ‘It was my suggestion we came in here. I was frozen to the marrow after the ride and this room is much warmer than that great draughty hall of yours. I reckon we’ll have snow before Christmas. What do you say? Still, good for business, what? Men always eat more meat in cold weather.’

  Richard ignored Edward’s attempt to divert him. He stared down at the dish of spiced almonds on the table. ‘I will deal with my wife, Master Edward, any way I please, and I will decide where the blame lies and what is to be done about it.’

  It was the second time today that a man had tried to take what belonged to Richard. His hands were itching to seize Edward by the throat and hurl him into the nearest stinking ditch, but that would spread gossip round the guild quicker than lice round a swarm of beggars, and Richard had no intention of letting it be known that he was being made a fool of by Edward or Mary.

  ‘My wife said you’d brought a message. It must be important to have brought you all this way and in business hours too.’

  Edward leaned forward, his expression suddenly grave. ‘One of Cromwell’s enforcers has arrived in Nottingham, a man by the name of Roger Grey. He’s here to search for relics and take them back to Cromwell to be tested to see if they are genuine or not. But we all know they’re never returned to their owners. If the Virgin herself were to appear to Cromwell and hand him Christ’s own foreskin and swear on the Holy Gospel she’d seen it cut from her son, Cromwell would still claim it was a fake and burn it. Unless, of course, it was encased in gold and jewels, in which case he’d throw away the relic and keep the valuables for himself.’

  Richard felt a spasm of alarm. ‘You think this man Grey will come here.’

  ‘I don’t think – I know he will,’ Edward said. ‘I heard Grey pr
each while I was in Nottingham. He told people to search their homes, byres and workshops and bring any charms, amulets or relics they could find to him. He made a big bonfire in the square, urging people to cast their relics into the flames. Course, the bits of relics people have at home are not housed in costly reliquaries, mostly just saints’ teeth to hang in their byres or hair wrapped in a bit of cloth and tucked into the babies’ cradles.’

  ‘But did the people surrender them to Grey?’ Richard asked, all thoughts of his wife forgotten in this far more important concern.

  Edward chuckled. ‘They surrendered something, certainly, anything to show their loyalty. But I reckon they were mostly just rags or bits of old bones they’d fished out of their midden heaps that morning. They’ll have squirrelled the real ones safely away.’

  ‘But Grey believed they were giving up their relics?’

  Edward chuckled again. ‘I doubt it. I reckon it was just a spectacle to get the people worked up and encourage them to inform on others. But we all know it’s the church relics that Cromwell and his minions are really after. And he mentioned St Beornwyn by name in his sermon. He said praying before relics like hers was the worst kind of idolatry. Claimed she’d never been made a saint at all. So I know Blidworth’ll be one of the first places he’ll start with. He’ll be determined to take her.’

  Richard gripped the arms of his chair, his face flushing and not just from the heat of the fire. ‘That reliquary belongs to the guild! It’s been our property for nigh on two hundred years. It’s Butchers’ Guild money that paid for the jewels on that butterfly of hers, not to mention the gold crown on her head. He can’t take that.’

  ‘All very well to say he can’t – he will, and he’s got Cromwell’s backing to do it.’

  Richard shook his head impatiently. ‘Every man has his price. When I was at the Mansfield fair, I heard about an enforcer who came to one town where the Guild of Cordwainers had a relic of St Crispin. They simply collected some money from the members and slipped it to the enforcer. Told him the relic had been destroyed two years since. He gave them the wink and went off to make his report, while they hid the reliquary in their church crypt. So what we must do is call an urgent meeting of the guild and—’