The Deadliest Sin

by The Medieval Murderers

  ‘H. . . how?’ he stammered.

  ‘I believe,’ Thomas said, watching Oswin closely, ‘that his death will be accounted as murder. All the evidence is that he was struck on the head by a cross, a silver cross that was stolen from the Cathedral.’

  Oswin tried hard to look both shocked and guiltless. The first was not difficult, but as Thomas continued to stare hard at him, he felt his face grow hot and prayed that in the half-light in the cell, it would not be noticed.

  ‘I think you have kept up this pretence long enough, Father Oswin. No doubt you think it amusing to try to fool the majores personae of the Cathedral, but I can assure you it is a dangerous game. You may think that because you have benefit of clergy, the penalties for theft and murder will not be severe. But it is not without precedent that a priest may be tried in the ecclesiastical courts and unfrocked by them, leaving the way open for him to be tried by the civil justices, in which case, as you know, the penalty would undoubtedly be death. And when a priest has stolen a valuable cross and reliquary, in addition to committing not just one, but two murders, I think it very likely he would find himself eventually standing trial in a civil court.’

  Oswin was already feeling shaky from the flux, but now his legs threatened to give way altogether. ‘But, Father Thomas, you know I couldn’t possibly have murdered Eustace. I’ve been locked up in here and he was fit and well when last I saw him. You know he was, because he was the man who called the watch to the chapel.’

  ‘Eustace?’ Thomas frowned. ‘The sergeant-at-arms said it was a woman who raised the alarm.’ He frowned, staring down at the rain drops pattering into the puddles. ‘I hadn’t remembered that before,’ he murmured. ‘So was this another woman or the same one?’ He suddenly seemed to recollect that he was not alone and looked up again.

  ‘No one is suggesting you murdered Eustace. It is known all three of you were locked in here at the time he was attacked, but you seem to be forgetting that you were discovered with two corpses. Either you killed both of them, or you are guilty of grave-robbing, which is just as wicked as murder in the eyes of the Church and the law.’

  ‘But, I swear to you, I didn’t kill anyone. I never even laid eyes on that . . . that woman until we found her in the chapel.’

  ‘But you did know the body of Giles was there, didn’t you?’ Father Thomas said sternly. ‘You know because you put it there. If you hope for any mercy from the Church, you would be wise to make a full and honest confession to me now.’

  Oswin knew he was beaten. Even if he continued to deny everything, he was certain Robert at any rate would spill all, if he hadn’t done so already. He was intimidated by his uncle at the best of times. If he had the treasurer and precentor threatening him as well, he’d be crying like an infant.

  Taking a deep breath, he recounted the whole story, from Giles’s challenge to the night they were discovered in the chapel. It must be admitted that in the telling rather more of the blame found its way onto the shoulders of Giles and Eustace than was strictly truthful, but that could hardly matter to them now.

  Thomas listened in silence, his scowl becoming ever deeper. The bone-white scar seemed to glow with increasing intensity in the gloom of the cell, until Oswin couldn’t drag his gaze from it. Oswin couldn’t tell if Thomas’s mounting anger was because of the theft of the cross or the concealment of the body, or if he thought he was being lied to again. But whatever the cause, that look of fury on his superior’s face did not bode well for Oswin.

  A throbbing silence stretched between the two men, in which the beat of the rain drops sounded like the thudding of a giant heart. Without warning, Thomas’s hand moved to his belt and, for one wild and terrifying moment, Oswin thought he was reaching for his knife. But instead, Thomas fumbled in his leather scrip and pulled out a small, folded piece of white linen.

  He laid it on the flat of his palm and peeled back the folds of cloth with the other hand.

  Oswin stared in bewilderment. As far as he could see there was nothing in the linen. Was this some new method of divining the truth or unmasking a killer that he hadn’t yet studied?

  ‘Look at these strands of hair,’ Thomas said. ‘Careful! Don’t breathe on them; if they blow into the straw, we’ll never find them.’

  Oswin leaned forward, as Thomas swung his palm towards the grey light filtering down with the rain through the grating. Against the bright white linen, he could just make out three long hairs.

  ‘Have you taken a good look?’

  When Oswin nodded, Thomas carefully wrapped them again and put the little package back into his scrip.

  ‘Think carefully. Do you know any women with hair of that colour?’

  Oswin was wary. He could make little senses of the question and immediately thought Thomas was trying to trick him to confessing another sin. ‘Lots of women come to services in the Cathedral, but I don’t actually know any, if you mean like Rob—’

  Oswin checked himself. Robert was, after all, the subdean’s nephew. In his position, Oswin certainly didn’t want word to reach Father William that he had accused his nephew of fornication.

  Thomas gave a dry little cough. ‘I am well acquainted with Father Robert’s proclivities, if that is what is concerning you, Father Oswin. I am not necessarily suggesting that this woman is known to you in the carnal sense, but I wish you to think carefully. Have you ever seen a woman with hair of this colour with Father Eustace? You see, these hairs were taken from the cross used to bludgeon him. They’re clearly not his, so there is just a chance they may belong to his assailant. Someone who might have had a grudge against him? Someone he denied alms to?

  ‘I’ve already made enquiries among his congregation at St Lawrence. But of those women who have similar hair, none quite matches these and all could prove they were somewhere else at the time of his attack. I will question every woman with russet hair in Lincoln, if I have to, but that could take some time. But it occurred to me, she might be someone known to Eustace’s friends. Someone he mentioned to you that he’d quarrelled with, perhaps?’

  Oswin shook his head. ‘Eustace didn’t ever mention women, except to grumble about their whole sex in general. Even if a woman did speak to him, he wouldn’t have known what colour her hair was, because he never looked at them. Why, even—’ He stopped. ‘There is one he knew with this colour hair, but why on earth should she . . .?’

  Treasurer Thomas sat alone in the crowded ale-room of the tavern, watching the people on the benches around him. In truth, he was enjoying himself. He seldom got the chance to listen to the gossip and banter in such places any more, for, when he was in Lincoln, he dined with his fellow clerics, and even when travelling to make inspections of property he was expected to dine in the religious houses along the route, which was in any case safer for a man in his position, who would be marked at once as carrying gold and silver. Not since he had been employed as a spy for the treacherous Queen Isabella had he had cause to lurk in the corners of inns and taverns.

  He’d been watching her all evening, but it wasn’t wise to tackle her in front of a room full of people. In his experience, the regulars would rally around one of their own and it was common for them to block the path of men-at-arms or mob them, while the wanted man or woman slipped out the back of the inn and fled into the night. So he bided his time and savoured the plainness of the mutton stew in contrast to the rich and elaborate dishes served in his own chambers.

  He beckoned to the serving maid. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any fat bacon. I’d pay well for a couple of slices of that.’

  She raised her eyebrows. He had just consumed a generous portion of stew, but if he wanted to part with more money, she certainly wasn’t going to turn him away.

  ‘I’ll have to fetch it from the cellar, sir.’

  He waited until she’d descended the stairs, then he gave a single nod to a man sitting on the opposite side of the ale-room and, unobserved by anyone else in the crowded room, he slipped through the cellar door, cl
osing it behind him.

  The woman was slicing bacon from a flitch hanging from a large iron hook on one of the beams. At the creak on the stairs, she turned, wary, then relaxed a little as she saw who it was.

  ‘I’m just coming, sir. You go back up and take a seat. I’ll not be long. Customers aren’t supposed to come down here.’

  ‘Only clerics, is that right, Meggy?’

  She shrugged. ‘There’s a group of them come to play dice sometimes. We let them use the cellars. Puts the other customers off, see, having them around.’

  ‘But they haven’t been here for several days.’

  ‘I dare say they’ll be back,’ she said. ‘Anyway, what’s it to you?’

  Thomas pulled the brimmed hat from his head, revealing his tonsure. ‘I was thinking of joining them.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask them. They don’t just let anyone into their little group.’

  ‘But now that two of their members won’t be coming back, they’ll surely need new blood. He died, you know, Father Eustace. You probably heard the bell tolling for him.’

  The knife jerked in her hand and she swore as it nicked her finger. She sucked at the wound.

  ‘I’m sorry to bring you such distressing news,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Why should I be distressed? Salt from the bacon, is all. Stings like the very devil when it gets into a cut.’

  But Thomas saw her hands were trembling. She slid the platter onto the table, without looking at him.

  ‘Here’s your meats. Eat them down here or take them back upstairs, as you please, it’s all the same to me. I can’t waste time talking. I got customers want serving.’

  She tried to edge past him, but he stretched out his hand to the table blocking the way.

  ‘You didn’t ask how Father Eustace died. He was a young man. Aren’t you curious?’

  ‘Was he?’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t know him. One priest more or less in the world, makes no odds to me. There’s plenty more to take his place.’

  ‘You didn’t know him and yet you served him, served him and all five of them every time they came down here to play dice.’

  ‘Don’t know their names.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he said. ‘But you’d recognise them, and Father Eustace recognised you, too, didn’t he? In Father Robert’s chambers? Was that why you hit him with the cross, the cross you were stealing? You wanted to stop him reporting you as a thief ?’

  Her head snapped up. ‘I wasn’t stealing it. It was that priest of yours who took it, but they never get punished whatever crimes they commit, do they? Only us. It’s always us.’

  ‘So, if you weren’t stealing it, why did you hit Father Eustace with it? And don’t try to deny it. You’ve just admitted you knew about it. No one, save for the five members of the Black Crows, knew the cross was missing.’

  She was staring wildly about her, panic rising in her face. He guessed she was going to try to make a run for it, but what he was not prepared for was the mask of savagery that suddenly twisted her face. With a shriek, she lifted her knife and lunged at him.

  Had it been Father William or Father Paul in that cellar, there was no question the Cathedral bell would have been tolling out their deaths that evening. But Father Thomas had not acquired his scar at the Cathedral treasure house. He dodged sideways, letting her momentum carry her forward and, grabbing her wrist, he twisted the knife from her grasp.

  She fell heavily onto the flagstones, but even that wasn’t enough to subdue her. She made a wild grab for his legs, sinking her teeth into his calf. Only by seizing her long hair and wrenching her head back, did Father Thomas manage to prise her loose. He flung her backwards then hauled her to her feet, holding her own knife at her throat.

  His leg burned. He could feel the hot blood flowing down from where she’d bitten a chunk from his flesh, but he tried to ignore the pain.

  He pulled her over to the bench and pressed her down onto it. ‘Don’t even think of running or calling out,’ he warned. ‘I’ve an armed man stationed outside that door up there, with orders to let no one in or out, and more men posted round the tavern outside.’

  He hobbled to the bench opposite and sat down, keeping the knife pointed towards her. Her eyes were burning with hatred and he knew if he gave her half a chance she’d tear his throat out with her teeth. The safest course would be to call the men-at-arms down here to seize and bind her, then hand her over to the Sherriff of Lincoln. She’d hang, there was no question about that, but he didn’t want her to go to the gallows without learning why she’d done it. She hadn’t stolen the cross from the Cathedral – that much he’d already discovered from Oswin – so why had she killed Eustace?’

  ‘Tell me, tell me everything, Meggy,’ he urged.

  ‘What good’ll that do? You’re not going to save me from the hangman’s necklace.’

  Thomas knew she’d never believe him even if he swore that he would.

  ‘But I can save your soul. If you die without confessing such crimes as you have committed, you’ll burn in hell for all eternity.’

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ she said, her eyes flashing. ‘That’s where he sent her. That’s where they all sent her – to hell. Gives you a thrill, does it, to think of her writhing and naked in the flames.’

  ‘Who?’

  Her expression softened and a distant look came into her eyes. ‘My sister. She was a rare beauty. Hair same colour as mine, but twice as thick and long. Spent hours combing it, she did. Everyone noticed it. They cut it all off, right in front of the jeering mob. That’s what did for her more than anything. The whipping she could stand. We’d more than enough of those when we were bairns to make us hardened to it, but then they made her stand at the Cathedral door in nowt but her shift, for four Sundays, with her head all shorn and folks mocking and laughing. Come the third Sunday, she couldn’t take the shame of it no more. She hanged herself.

  ‘’Cause she loved him, you know. To him, she was nowt but a creature to pleasure him, but she really loved him, that’s why she went to his bed. Course, they wouldn’t let her have a Christian burial. Said she’d committed the worst of sins – pride for she’d set herself above God and taken her own life when it was His alone to take. Can’t ever be forgiven, it can’t, not self-murder. She’d burn for it in hell, they said. They were going to bury her at the crossroads outside Lincoln, and drive iron nails into her feet so she couldn’t walk and torment the living. But they’d done enough to her poor body. I wouldn’t let them have her. I took her and I buried her in the woods close to St Margaret’s well. I thought the saint might bless her and keep her safe, even if the priests would not.’

  Thomas was trying to make sense of all this, to tie the threads between this rambling tale and the death of Eustace, but he could not make the connection.

  ‘Your sister was punished for being a whore?’

  ‘She wasn’t a whore,’ Meggy said fiercely. ‘She was faithful to him; never slept with no one else. She loved Father Robert. She loved him! But to him, she was only one of dozens of girls.’

  Suddenly, Thomas understood. There’d been an incident just over a year before. An accusation that several of the young priests at the Cathedral were entertaining the town whores in their beds overnight. The accusation had been made anonymously but, as was always the way in Lincoln, soon the whole town was gossiping about it and the Cathedral officials had been forced to act. They’d raided several of the chambers of the priests and dragged out the girls they found there.

  The girls had all been shorn and whipped and forced to do penance at the Cathedral door. Their duty having been seen to be done, things had then returned to normal, and presumably the whores had gone about their business once more.

  As for the priests, a few light penances had been imposed, including, Thomas remembered, on the subdean’s nephew, who was one of those found in the arms of a girl, but no one was anxious to make much of the matter as far as the priests were concerned. They were all young men
, prey to the temptations of the flesh, and celibacy was hard on the young. Who could really blame naïve boys, unused to women’s wiles, for being seduced by artful and professional prostitutes? Besides, there was scarcely a senior clergyman who didn’t recall, with a slight twinge of guilt, some similar failing in their own distant past, and for some it wasn’t that distant.

  ‘The body in the chapel,’ Thomas said softly, ‘that was your sister.’

  ‘I dug her up and carried her there in a cart. Thought if they was to find them together and not know who she was, they’d give her a proper burial in a consecrated ground, then the Devil couldn’t take her.’

  ‘You knew that Giles’s body was already there?’

  ‘Saw them take it there.’ Her face became contorted again. ‘I didn’t mean to kill him. It were an accident. I only meant to get them punished, like my poor sister had been punished. I wasn’t going to keep the cross, I swear I wasn’t. That’s why I was putting it back in Father Robert’s chamber. Thought they’d find it there and he’d be shamed in front of the world, like my poor sister was. But he came in, that Eustace. Accused me of being one of Robert’s whores. I told him I wasn’t. I swore to him she wasn’t neither. But he laughed. Said all women were whores and it were him who’d reported Robert and the others for fornicating. It was his fault my sister died. All his fault!’

  ‘So you hit him,’ Thomas said.

  ‘I’m not sorry. You’ll not make me repentant of that. I’m glad he’s dead. Glad I killed him, ’cause now he’ll be rotting in the ground like her.’

  ‘And Giles?’

  ‘Told you that were an accident,’ she said sullenly. ‘I heard them talking about taking summat from the Cathedral and how they were going to hide it. They never take notice of me when I serve them, as if I’m nothing but a dumb hound for them to snap their fingers at when they want something fetching. I saw my chance. I reckoned if I could take it from them afore they had time to return it, then I could put it in Father Robert’s house and tell someone it was there, just like they was told about the girls being in the priests’ houses. He’d get the blame. They all would. I wanted to see them punished.