The Deadliest Sin

by The Medieval Murderers

  Huddling together in a little knot, they edged back into the wood, taking the lantern with them, holding it up high, as monstrous shadows ran beside them.

  Over there. What’s that?

  His body was lying curled on its side, his back towards them. They hurried across and crouched down. His eyes were staring sightless out into the darkness beyond. His mouth was wide open, in pain and shock, one hand still lying across his chest as if he’d clutched at the wound, trying to stanch the blood that had gushed out over his fingers. The Black Crows did not have to touch him to know at once that Giles was dead.

  They stared at one another in shock and fear. But who? Why? They peered into the darkness, staring wildly about them for any sign of an assailant, but only the trees stirred.

  Robert was visibly trembling. ‘What are we going to do? If . . . if we take him back to Lincoln, the whole story will come out, and what if they think one of us killed him?’

  ‘What if one of us did murder him?’ Eustace said, looking from one to the other of his companions. ‘I don’t see anyone else out here, do you? If Giles stumbled upon the cross before the person who stole it had a chance to recover it . . .’

  ‘God’s bones, you surely can’t believe that,’ John said aghast. ‘None of us would kill for that cross.’

  ‘One of us might,’ Eustace, said, staring at him pointedly, ‘if he was desperately in need of money. People have been known to run up quite a debt at the gaming houses or cockpits, and they say the men who own them are not known for their patience.’

  With a bellow of rage and indignation, John aimed his huge fist at Eustace’s jaw. If it had connected, Eustace would probably have lost a few teeth, but he managed to stumble backwards just in time.

  ‘Stop it!’ Robert pleaded. ‘It’s bad enough one murder’s been committed without adding a second. No one believes you killed him, John, but the point is they’re bound to think one of us did. And how are we to prove otherwise? And once they learn we all took the cross, they might even think we all had a hand in his murder as well.’

  ‘It was you who took it,’ Eustace said. ‘The rest of us had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘But we all knew he was going to do it,’ Oswin said quietly. ‘And we told him to do it. That’s conspiracy and it carries the same punishment. Robert’s right, we can’t take Giles back, nor can we let the body be discovered.’

  ‘We could bury him out there among the trees,’ Robert said. ‘The grave wouldn’t be noticed, if we covered it with the fallen leaves and the old bracken.’

  ‘Can’t dig with your bare hands,’ John said, still glowering at Eustace. ‘Need a spade to dig a deep enough hole and you’ll be digging through roots. Not an easy job, nor a quick one. Too shallow and he’ll be dug up by any passing dog or fox. I can fetch us a couple of spades. I know where our sexton keeps them. But I’ll not be able to get back with them till tomorrow night. So what’ll we do with the body till then?’

  Oswin gnawed at his lip. ‘That chapel we met in, you said no one ever uses it, Robert. We could hide him in there until we can dig the grave.’

  It took them some time to retrace their steps to the chapel, for even in the dark they dared not risk using the track and had to wind their way through the trees. John carried Giles’s corpse all of the way, slung over his shoulder like a sack of wheat. But by the time they got inside and thankfully locked the door behind them, even he was staggering and he dropped the body onto the tiles with such a crash, that if Giles hadn’t already been dead, the fall probably would have killed him.

  ‘Where . . . where do we put him?’ Robert asked, despondently. ‘It doesn’t seem right just to leave him on the floor, and the shutters are broken in places. Someone could peer in, when it’s light.’

  They gazed around. The chapel was so small that there weren’t many hiding places.

  ‘Behind the altar?’ Eustace suggested.

  Oswin shook his head. ‘He could be seen by someone looking through that casement above it. There . . . in the Easter Sepulchre. We can use the wooden cover to seal it, as they do on Good Friday.’

  With Oswin taking the feet and John the head, they carried the body to the long alcove and with much pushing and shoving managed to ease it inside, crossing the hands over the breast. From his scrip, Oswin removed the flask of chrism for the second time that evening. Eustace grasped his sleeve, shaking his head.

  ‘You cannot. He died unshriven.’

  Oswin angrily jerked his arm from Eustace’s grip, and dipping his fingers in the holy oil, made the three-times-seven crosses on Giles’s body. Eustace turned away, but John and Robert murmured the words with Oswin. ‘I anoint thee with holy oil in the name of the Trinity, that thou mayest be saved for ever and ever.’

  When all was done, they heaved the dusty wooden cover into place to seal the side of the alcove and, in silence, hastened away out into the bitter night.

  A man clad in deacon’s robes standing in a Cathedral Close is as near as any person may come to being invisible. Beggars, pilgrims, thieves and clerics alike keep a sharp lookout for those dressed in the robes of high offices, but those wearing the robes of deacons, priests and clerks are as common as dog dung and few men even bother to look at their faces.

  The Cathedral Close was crowded. Priests sauntered by in twos and threes, while clerks with arms full of scrolls scurried past them. Pilgrims in little bands jostled to get ahead of their fellows and be first in line for the queues to the shrine of St Hugh. Men hefted bundles of dried fish, whole pigs’ heads and planks of timber. Women clustered round the stalls selling boiled sheep’s feet, spices or herring. A group of choristers dodged round the legs of horses as they chased a ball, kicking it from one to the other, ignoring the bellows of the woman whose pots it came within a whisker of smashing.

  No one took any notice of Eustace as he swiftly mounted the outside stairs to Robert’s chamber. Thanks to his uncle’s influence, Robert had managed to secure lodgings in one of the many little houses that surrounded the Cathedral, though such chambers were normally assigned to clergy far more senior than he. A wooden shelter protected the top of the stairs and prevented the rain being driven straight in whenever the door was opened. Eustace groped along the top of one of the beams inside the roof of the shelter, until he found the nail on which Robert kept his key. Robert constantly mislaid his key and as Eustace had discovered on a previous occasion when he accompanied Robert home, he had taken to concealing it rather than carrying it around with him. Eustace swiftly turned the key in the lock and slipped through the door, closing it behind him.

  The chamber was scarcely more than a loft in the roof space, with only enough room to stand fully upright in the centre, but as Robert had said, at least he was the sole occupant, unlike many of his fellows who were obliged to share the bigger rooms. Eustace scowled. He knew exactly why Robert thought this a virtue, because while he might live alone, he certainly didn’t sleep alone.

  Eustace gazed round the room. Robert was fastidious about his clothes, if not about his bedfellows, and the room was stuffed with chests holding linens, hose, and tunics, while a line of well-crafted leather boots and shoes stood along one wall, like an army ready to march.

  As Robert had feared, the treasurer had called for every artefact in the Cathedral to be checked again the inventories. It was only a matter of time before the cross was reported missing. Eustace had already searched the rooms of Oswin and John, but found nothing. He’d left Robert till last, certain that if he had retrieved the cross, unlike the others, he would have smuggled it back into the Cathedral chest. But supposing he hadn’t had a chance to do that, and it was still hidden in his room somewhere?

  Eustace worked his way methodically round the chamber twice, first searching in and behind boxes and the bed, then with the help of a chair, running his hands along the top of the beams, but he found nothing. That, Eustace thought, left only one culprit – Giles. He had not had the cross on him when he . . . when he died.
So either he hadn’t retrieved it from where he had hidden it, or he had stowed it in another hiding place in the grove. It had to be there somewhere among those trees. There’d been no time to take it anywhere else. Eustace would have to return to the forest and search again, this time alone.

  The wind was no less fierce on the following night, but at least it was dry. Oswin was grateful for that much at least as he trudged up the dark track towards the chapel. He had brought his own lantern this time, but kept the light muffled by his cloak, trying to ensure that it illuminated only the foot or so of the ground ahead of him. It was law that any man walking abroad at night should carry a torch or lantern to prove his good intent. Unfortunately, it also proclaimed to all those whose purpose was not lawful just where the honest man was walking. Not that what Oswin was about to do was either honest or lawful.

  Every step along the track was a forced one. He had to goad himself forward, for his brain was screaming at him to turn back. Let the others do it. Walk away from this while you can. What could they do about it anyway if you didn’t come? And what if they don’t turn up and leave you to bury the corpse alone? But he had not managed to sleep during what remained of the night yesterday and he knew he’d never sleep until he’d seen with his own eyes that the corpse was safely buried where no one could find it. Only then could he breathe easily again.

  If Robert kept his wits about him, there’d be nothing to link any of them to the missing cross. As to the disappearance of Giles, no one knew of the Black Crows’ existence, save for the tavern-keeper, and why should anyone start asking questions at the tavern? There were thousands of men in minor orders who became discontented and left to take a wife or to seek more profitable employment as soon as they got the education they needed. Unlike deacons and priests, those in minor orders did not take lifelong vows. All someone like Giles legally had to do to return to the life of a layman was grow out his tonsure. His parish priest might call him an ingrate, but no laws had been broken if such a man simply wandered off. There was no reason for anyone to start looking for him.

  As Oswin approached the chapel, he saw the flicker of a light behind the broken shutters, as someone passed across in front of a lantern. His relief that the other Black Crows had come was mixed with annoyance. Did those fools not realise their light could be seen? Why hadn’t they the sense to shield it inside the Easter Sepulchre as before? Then he realised why and shuddered.

  Pressing his ear to the wood of the door, he could hear the shuffle of feet inside and the low murmur of voices. He rapped softly. Instantly all was still. He knew those inside were listening, as tense as he was himself.

  ‘It’s Oswin,’ he called, as loudly as he dared. He heard the footsteps crossing the stone flags and the door was opened a crack, impatiently he pushed it wide enough to get in.

  The stench in the chapel was worse than he remembered. Damp, rot and mice as before, but something even more unpleasant. But Oswin only vaguely registered it. He was impatient to get this business safely over as quickly as possible.

  ‘Is Eustace not with you?’ Robert asked, the moment Oswin had turned the key in the lock.

  ‘No sign of him on the track,’ Oswin said,

  ‘I knew he wouldn’t come,’ Robert grumbled.

  ‘Typical of him to leave others to clean up the mess while he keeps his hands clean,’ Oswin said.

  ‘Happen he’s afeared that if he came we’d discover who murdered Giles,’ John muttered. ‘If a murderer touches his victim’s body, the corpse’ll bleed afresh.’

  ‘You think it was him, then?’ Robert asked. In spite of the cold, damp air, beads of sweat were running down his face.

  ‘He’s the only one of us who isn’t here,’ John said. ‘I reckon that proves it.’

  Robert unfastened the two buttons that closed his fur-lined cloak and cast about him, trying to find somewhere to drape it, other than on the filthy, wet floor. A small handcart stood ready in front of the altar, with two spades propped up against it. He dropped the cloak into the handcart.

  John scowled resentfully. Unlike Robert, who could afford both summer and winter cloaks, John possessed only one of plain homespun, and he’d been forced to discard that in the water-filled ditch on his way home last night, because thanks to the others leaving it to him to carry Giles’s body, it was soaked with blood. But he didn’t hear any of them offering to share the cost of buying a new one or even bothering to ask if he had another.

  The three men approached the wooden board that sealed the Easter Sepulchre. They hesitated, grimacing at each other. Was the same thought going through each man’s mind? What if the corpse starts to bleed?

  Oswin took a deep breath. ‘The sooner we get him in the ground, the safer we’ll be. The corpse’ll probably still be stiff, so we’ll roll the body out onto the board. Did anyone bring anything to cover it?’

  By way of an answer, John pulled a folded length of sacking out from the front of his tunic. His jaw was clenched so hard, it seemed impossible for him to speak.

  Oswin kneeled down beside the sepulchre. The terrible stench he’d noticed when he first entered the chapel was much stronger here, and indeed seemed to be coming from the sepulchre itself. But surely it couldn’t be Giles’s corpse. It was the middle of winter and cold enough in the stone chapel to keep ice from melting. His stomach heaved, but he swallowed hard and, trying to ignore the smell, seized the top of the wooden board and pulled it downwards towards him. A stench of rotting flesh billowed out and even John and Robert, standing some way behind him, began to gag, hastily covering their noses and mouths with their sleeves.

  The recess was deep and low to the floor and John and Robert were standing between the lantern light and the sepulchre, but even before Oswin’s brain had made sense of what his eyes were seeing in the half-light, he knew that something was terribly wrong. He jerked back. The long board clattered to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and, snatching up the lantern, he held it close to the recess. John and Robert gasped, crossing themselves as they rapidly backed away.

  Giles’s copse was lying in the sepulchre, his hands folded across the blackened bloodstain that covered his chest, just as they had arranged him the night before, but he was no longer lying alone. A second body had been pushed in beside him, a body so rotted and putrid it must have been dead several months. Her gown was the only sign that the corpse had once been a woman. They lay side by side, as if whoever had put her there intended some cruel mockery of the carvings of knights lying beside their wives on the tombs in the great Cathedral itself.

  Even as the three men gaped wordlessly at each other, a great hammering sounded on the wooden door of the chapel, as if someone was striking it with a sword hilt.

  ‘Open up, in the name of the King!’

  For a moment, they stood frozen, then they sprang into action. John threw the spades into the handcart, covering them with the cloth, while Oswin struggled to try to fit the wooden board back into the side of the sepulchre.

  The hammering sounded again. ‘Open up, or we’ll smash the door down.’

  The splintering of the wood of the rotten door suggested they were attempting to do just that.

  Robert sprinted the few yards down the small chapel. ‘Hold fast, hold fast!’ he begged. ‘I’m trying to turn the lock, but it’s rusty.’

  He jiggled the key as if he was struggling to turn it, but the hammering redoubled and he dared stall them no longer.

  As he opened the door, he was almost smashed against the wall as three men came charging through, their swords drawn.

  The sergeant-at-arms gestured with the point of his sword. ‘You three, against that wall where I can see you. Search them,’ he commanded the man beside him. ‘God’s arse, what’s that infernal stink?’ he added, screwing up his nose. ‘Smells as if an animal got itself trapped in here and died.’

  The pimpled-faced youth ordered to do the searching carried out his duty with undue diligence, tossing their knives with a clatter onto
the floor and running his hands over every inch of their bodies that might be concealing any weapon or stolen item and a few parts of their anatomy that plainly couldn’t. The other man-at-arms, an older and considerably stouter man, grinned as he collected the knives from the floor, clearly enjoying watching the prisoners squirm.

  ‘So,’ the sergeant said, ‘what mischief are you three making? Someone reported seeing a light in here two nights running. They thought the place was haunted the first night, until they saw you lot creeping in tonight.’

  ‘Can’t you see we are clergy?’ Oswin said sharply. ‘And in case you hadn’t noticed, this is a chapel.’

  ‘Can see your tonsures, right enough, but that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in here behind locked doors in the middle of the night. This chapel’s not been used for years.’

  ‘If you ask me, Sergeant,’ the older man said, ‘I reckon they fancy each other and this is where they come to do it, ’cause they know they’d get their balls sawn off if they was caught at it.’

  John gave a roar of outrage and tried to take a swipe at the man. He was only prevented by the prick of the sergeant’s sword in his chest, forcing him back against the wall.

  ‘Listen, you imbecile!’ Oswin snapped. ‘We came to offer prayers for the souls of the family who endowed this chapel. We’re in Holy Orders and you have no authority—’

  His words were severed by a crash, as the board in front of the sepulchre slipped from the stone and clattered onto the floor. All eyes swivelled towards it.

  ‘What the Devil . . .?’ His curiosity evidently aroused, the sergeant took a few tentative paces towards it, his sword held defensively in front of him. Oswin closed his eyes and prayed. But it seemed that not even the most fervent prayers could make one corpse vanish, much less two.

  Every prisoner knows there are a few blessed moments that creep between sleeping and waking, nightmares and misery, in which you briefly imagine all is right with the world. You are safely dozing in your own bed, in your own house. You are happy. Then, as you open your eyes, reality douses you with a bucket of filthy, icy water. You realise where you are and what lies in wait for you. So it was for Oswin, as he awoke the next morning to find himself in the bishop’s carcer.