The Bishop's Brood

by Simon Beaufort

  Geoffrey nodded. ‘Did anyone ever investigate the theft?’

  The priest shook his head. ‘None of my parishioners are brave enough to confront men like Burchard and demand them back. He has always claimed the abbey is innocent, and since poor Balthere has not been seen since, perhaps he is telling the truth. There would be no point in stealing them if the abbey did not put them on display, would there?’

  ‘Flambard must have been annoyed. Presumably, he paid for them himself?’

  ‘He did, yes. And he was furious when he heard what had happened, although he promised to get them back for us as soon as they made a reappearance. Unfortunately, they never have.’

  ‘For the sake of good relations, why does the abbey not lend you a bone? It owns plenty. What about St Oswald’s head? Since it is not with the other relics, that would not be missed, surely?’

  ‘Oswald is far too prestigious to be loaned to the likes of us. And anyway, his skull is safely tucked inside St Cuthbert’s coffin, where it belongs.’

  ‘Roger told me it has its own reliquary, inside the high altar,’ said Geoffrey.

  Eilaf shook his head, smiling. ‘Roger has always confused his saints. Do not listen to him. But why have you come here? Did you want to see me?’

  ‘I have been to the abbey and felt the need for some peace.’

  ‘Then I will leave you. I am busy anyway: Jarveaux is to be buried today. The grave is not as deep as I would like, because the ground is frozen. A few extra pennies will probably see it soften miraculously, but Alice will not hear of it.’

  ‘That I can believe.’

  ‘She claims she has already paid for a hole, and objects to being asked for more. But it will have to do. Walter has been dead for a week and is beginning to be a problem.’

  ‘I noticed,’ said Geoffrey.

  ‘Eleanor wants her husband buried decently, though. She has been hoping for a break in the weather, but I do not think her prayers will be answered. I will wait two more days, but no longer. My parishioners object to too many stinking rich corpses lying in their church.’

  ‘They have a point.’

  Eilaf sighed. ‘I must nail Jarveaux inside his box. His mourners will not appreciate being asked to wait while I finish, and Alice might order me to bury it open unless I hurry. She has already told me to make the service as short as possible.’

  ‘Then I will leave,’ said Geoffrey, thinking he did not want to be caught hale and hearty when Alice came to bury her husband in his shallow grave.

  As he closed the door behind him, he saw a solemn procession coming towards the church. In the lead was Alice, clad in a new cloak lined with soft, white fur and a pair of boots made of calf skin. Apparently no expense had been spared for her funeral attire, in stark contrast to her niggardliness over her husband’s grave.

  Not wanting a confrontation, Geoffrey stepped behind a buttress to wait for the procession to pass. Alice picked her way delicately through the snow and opened the porch door, glancing up at the sky as she did so in a way that suggested she had better things to do than listen to Eilaf’s mass. Mother Petra followed, bundled into a cloak that dragged along the ground behind her. She gave a sudden grin and nodded a greeting to Geoffrey’s buttress. For a moment, he was disconcerted, wondering whether her status as a witch really did give her supernatural powers, but then he noticed the footprints he had left in the snow – large ones made by a man wearing heavy armour.

  Other people followed them inside. There were three restless apprentices, eager to be back in their warm workshop to while away their day in idle chatter by the fire. Cenred was accompanied by a woman who looked even more like a pig than he did, while the apothecary’s billowing cloak wafted the scent of his herbs and potions around him as he walked. Bringing up the rear was Hemming, representing the abbey, and the only one of the mourners whose entire demeanour did not suggest he was keen to be elsewhere.

  Geoffrey waited until the door closed before moving on. From inside the church, he heard Eilaf hammering nails, a mournful sound that echoed across the snowy graveyard like thunderclaps. In one corner, a pile of earth represented the shallow trough that was to be Jarveaux’s final resting place. Geoffrey walked away quickly, leaving the dead goldsmith to his mean grave, his hasty requiem, and his smattering of reluctant mourners.

  Roger spirited Geoffrey upstairs via a back door just as Eleanor was rushing through the front one to make an appearance – albeit a late one – at Jarveaux’s funeral. Geoffrey told him what he had learned at the abbey, and they spent the afternoon asking questions neither could answer and planning their foray to Finchale the next day, agreeing to travel on foot rather than attempt to ride. Then Roger claimed he was hungry. He had just returned from the kitchen with a substantial hunk of pork when there was a commotion in the street outside. They pushed open the window shutters, and leaned out to see what was happening. A procession made its way towards the castle, while people thronged, voices raised. Roger and Geoffrey were about to join them when Eleanor entered the room.

  ‘You should not be up,’ she said admonishingly to Geoffrey, removing her cloak and stamping snow from her boots. ‘Lie down at once.’

  ‘What is going on?’ he asked. ‘Why have all those people gathered?’

  ‘A group of merchants have managed to make their way from Chester-le-Street by using the path that runs along the river instead of the road,’ she replied. ‘The river path is longer, but the merchants thought it might be easier to travel.’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Roger scathingly. ‘A band of traders have braved the snow and arrived in Durham? How did I ever manage to leave this place of high excitement?’

  ‘They had travelled a little more than half way, when they found Sheriff Durnais,’ said Eleanor stiffly, not liking the implication that her city was dull. ‘That procession you saw is his body being taken to the castle.’

  ‘How did he die?’ asked Geoffrey, feeling as though events were suddenly beginning to whirl out of control. Gamelo and his companions had been murdered, and now Durnais had reappeared.

  ‘Drowned,’ said Eleanor. ‘I suppose the poor man must have lost his way to Chester-le-Street in the snow and stumbled into the river by mistake.’

  ‘You cannot lose your way on the river path!’ said Roger in disbelief. ‘You just follow the water. Even a Saracen could do it, and they are not noted for their intelligence.’

  ‘I meant he must have lost his footing,’ said Eleanor. ‘If the path was slippery, he may have fallen and hit his head, and then drowned when he was unable to climb out of the water.’

  ‘Was he alone?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘I thought a sheriff would have had an escort.’

  ‘He took only a manservant apparently, but the man probably went the same way as his master, and his body was swept away by the river and washed out to sea.’

  ‘So that explains why he never arrived in Chester-le-Street,’ said Roger. ‘He was dead.’

  But when had he died? Geoffrey wondered. Had it been while on his way to dig for Flambard’s treasure, or on his way home? And if the latter, had he found the hoard or not? And there was another problem: Durnais had left a week before Geoffrey and Roger had arrived in Durham, when the weather had been cold but not snowy. There had been no reason to take the river route to Chester-le-Street. He said as much.

  ‘Perhaps he felt the need for an adventure,’ suggested Roger. ‘It must be tedious doing all that administration. Perhaps he wanted to stretch his legs and see something of the countryside.’

  ‘In the middle of winter?’ asked Geoffrey. ‘With only a manservant and the King’s highways riddled with outlaws who would dearly love to attack a sheriff? And anyway, that does not ring true with what I have been told about Durnais. People say it was unusual for him to leave the city.’

  Roger slapped his forehead as an idea occurred to him, and gave them a grin. ‘I know exactly what he was doing on the river path.’

  ‘Do you think you might share this
information?’ asked Eleanor, when Roger was so pleased with himself that he merely smiled and made no further attempt to explain.

  ‘It all boils down to local knowledge,’ said Roger proudly. ‘You see, I know what lies part-way between Chester-le-Street and Durham on the river path!’

  So did Eleanor, but the knowledge did not seem to enlighten her in the same way as it did Roger.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded. ‘There is nothing there but woods and bog. There is no reason Durnais should want to go there.’

  ‘And these woods and bog go by the name of Finchale,’ said Roger, casting a meaningful glance at Geoffrey. ‘And we all know what is at Finchale.’

  ‘So,’ mused Geoffrey thoughtfully. ‘Durnais did receive a map and decide to look for the treasure before anyone else. But this means that we were wrong about Odard: we thought he had given Durnais a false map, to lead him astray, but if Durnais was at Finchale, then Odard must have provided him with the real one after all.’

  ‘Durnais would have to be insane if he thought he could locate the treasure just by knowing it was at Finchale,’ said Roger doubtfully. ‘It is a big place and he might spend weeks digging and still not find it.’

  ‘People are blind to logic when they are bedazzled by the promise of gold,’ said Eleanor. ‘You and I know that going to Finchale and digging randomly is futile, but a greedy man might not be so rational. It is like the games of chance I see played in the brothel.’

  ‘In what respect?’ asked Roger, puzzled.

  ‘The men who play know they will lose eventually – they always do. Yet they sit there night after night hoping for the win that will answer all their prayers. It is the same with treasure. The possibility, even a distant one, of owning fabulous wealth causes men to lose their reason, and makes them do irrational things – like trying to excavate all of Finchale.’

  ‘Flambard would agree,’ said Geoffrey. ‘That is why he declined to confide in one person.’

  ‘He was right,’ said Eleanor grimly. ‘The sheriff could not be trusted. Meanwhile, Jarveaux also received his map, but made no attempt to contact the others. I am sure he was waiting for them to tell him what they knew, then intended to deny receiving his own.’

  ‘And then he could have gone to Finchale to recover the hoard at his own convenience,’ said Geoffrey, nodding. ‘And even Turgot’s motives are a little suspect. I do not think he will steal the treasure for his personal use—’

  ‘Why not?’ interrupted Eleanor. ‘You have only to look at his lovely house to see that not all abbey funds have been used for the community. How much of Flambard’s wealth would be used for the cathedral, and how much for the abbey – or even himself – if the prior has sole control over it?’

  That was true, Geoffrey thought. He regarded Eleanor and Roger sombrely, saddened that in all of Durham, Flambard did not know three men sufficiently honest to give the hidden treasure to the cathedral. He was only a little heartened by the knowledge that this was more a reflection on Flambard’s choice of acquaintances, than on the city itself.

  Eleanor fussed over Geoffrey like a mother hen for the rest of the day, so he deeply regretted his choice of ruses to prevent Roger from revealing all to Alice. Eleanor took her ministrations far enough to try to feed him fish soup that evening, a culinary delight that held some sinister connotations for him, since someone had once tried to kill him with some. He declined to drink it, she insisted, and eventually he capitulated simply so she would leave him alone. The insipid broth made him genuinely sick, and he was more than happy to retire to bed early, reduced to chewing the herbs in the washing water to try to rid his mouth of the rank flavour.

  Since Geoffrey was Eleanor’s prisoner, Roger went to the castle chapel to view Durnais’ body. There was little the big knight could do to ascertain the cause of death without raising suspicion, but the monk who had been hired to lay him out declared that half the River Wear was in the man’s lungs, and there was a lot of water on the stone floor underneath the body.

  The monk also said it was impossible to tell when the sheriff had died. He had last been seen eleven or twelve days before, but the monk claimed the appearance of the body indicated he had not been dead the whole time. Misconstruing Roger’s interest for a shared fascination with the dead, the monk proceeded to regale him with an account of how cold weather tended to preserve corpses, something Roger felt he did not need to know, especially in such enthusiastic detail.

  He went to the soggy pile of belongings. There, among river-soiled hose, shirt and cloak, was a piece of parchment. Pursing his lips in disapproval that he should have to do what Geoffrey normally did, Roger picked it up and unfolded it. His face broke into a grin. It was another map, although different from those he had seen already. This one depicted Finchale, but also included one or two landmarks and a cross. Geoffrey had been right: Odard had provided Durnais with a false chart. He replaced it carefully and went to stand over the body, wanting to know what else might be learned.

  He watched the corpse stripped and washed, but could see nothing to indicate that the sheriff had fallen foul of a killer. There was a scratch on his hand, washed clean of blood by the river, but swollen and reddened nevertheless. It was the only mark on an otherwise unblemished body. Eventually, having earned himself a reputation as an insatiable ghoul by others who came to pay their respects, he went home.

  The following day, Geoffrey was awake long before dawn, and donned leather leggings and a light mail tunic. He had considered wearing full armour, but he did not want to fall into the river and drown like the sheriff. He also knew it was a several-mile walk along the river bank to Finchale, most of which was likely to be slow going, and he did not want their progress to be unnecessarily impeded by heavy garments. He prodded Roger awake, waited for him to dress, and then followed him down the stairs to the door.

  The dog worried around his legs in anticipation of exercise, but Geoffrey did not think it would be able to wade through the snow, so shut it in the kitchen, hoping Eleanor would feed it later. Loud cracking sounds emerged before he had even closed the door, and he opened it again quickly to see the animal with a substantial ham bone between its front paws. Geoffrey gazed at it in horror.

  ‘You will be in trouble,’ said Roger with a chuckle. ‘Eleanor was going to send that to Alice, on account of her burying her husband yesterday.’

  Geoffrey seized the dog by the scruff of its neck, and took it across the yard to one of the outhouses, where he hoped it would be able to do no harm until he returned. The first was a pantry, in which more hams and meat joints were stored. The dog slathered in delirious delight. Geoffrey deftly swapped the gnawed ham for a new one, locked the dog in another shed, and left the pristine meat in the kitchen, in the hope that Eleanor would not notice the difference. Perhaps she would think one of Alice’s gargantuan rats had savaged the other when she eventually found it. Roger and Geoffrey gathered weapons, spades and cloaks, and were gone before Eleanor woke and tried to stop them.

  There was a moon, which gleamed silver over the white countryside. Branches and twigs sagged under the weight of snow, and every leaf seemed to have its own precipitous avalanche waiting to drop. The land was totally silent, the thick blanket serving to still all life, so it was like walking through a vast tomb. Their footsteps were the only sounds, crunching through the rime that had formed over the snowy surface when temperatures had plummeted the previous night.

  They did not speak until they were well clear of the city. The path kept closely to the edge of the river, which was wide, deep, and fringed with ice where the slower-moving parts had frozen. In one place, it had set solid from one side to the other, although Geoffrey would not have tried walking across it. In other parts, it had been frozen for days, because there were scratches on its marbled surface where children had skimmed across it on skates made from bones.

  Once past the last houses that huddled on the city’s outskirts, walking became more difficult. The merch
ants had forged a way, but the ground had refrozen since, and the holes their feet had made formed treacherous potholes. The two knights pressed on, skidding and stumbling. Roger fell once, twisting his ankle, so Geoffrey thought they might have to forgo their expedition until the snow had melted. But Roger insisted on continuing, and gradually they made headway. Geoffrey’s legs burned and ached, and he did not like to imagine how they might feel on the way home. The landscape around them began to brighten, and the sun rose, shedding a pink sheen over the white world around them. Geoffrey stopped to admire it, until prodded on by an impatient Roger.

  ‘I expect this treasure will comprise mainly jewellery,’ Roger mused. He was interested in loot and its component parts. ‘There will be crowns and bracelets, all studded with rubies and emeralds.’

  ‘I imagine it will be coins,’ said Geoffrey practically. ‘Flambard implied it was skimmed from his cash-raising ventures for the King, and not many folk pay their taxes with bracelets and the like.’

  ‘How will we carry it back to Durham?’ asked Roger, worried. A predatory gleam came into his eyes, and he lowered his voice conspiratorially. ‘We may have time to take a small commission. We have been to considerable trouble over these maps, and I would like to be paid for my pains. We will fill our pouches and the abbey can have what is left.’

  ‘We will do no such thing,’ said Geoffrey, horrified. ‘Your father will have counted every penny and will know if you pilfer from him. And anyway, it is for the cathedral, and even you would not steal from God. Would you?’ he added as an uncertain afterthought.

  Roger considered. ‘Perhaps not this time,’ he said eventually. ‘Although each circumstance needs to be considered on its own merit – as you yourself have told me on a number of occasions.’

  ‘Not where this kind of thing is concerned,’ said Geoffrey firmly, who thought stealing from Flambard was likely to be a lot more dangerous than stealing from God. He stopped abruptly and held up his hand to warn Roger to be silent.