Paul Doherty: Bloodstone

Athelstan rose long before dawn. He felt refreshed and resolute. He was determined on what he must do and, if he had to face the wrath of the Benedictine order, the bishop of London, not to mention the displeasure of his superiors at Blackfriars, then he would accept that. The church in London might scream in protest at the ransacking of an abbey by royal troops and the questioning of its community in the cold chambers of the Tower. Nevertheless, what more could he do? Richer had to be seized. Athelstan waited until dawn then went down to celebrate his own Mass. He was drawing this to a close, about to pronounce the ‘ Ite Missa ’ when the bells began to toll the tocsin, a harsh discordant clanging which shattered the sleeping silence. Athelstan hastily divested and hurried down the aisle. Others were doing the same; even the anchorite left his cell to join the few brothers who’d been busy in the church. Outside the greying murk was broken by the dancing glow of torches and bobbing lantern horns. Monks clamoured about the reason for the tocsin until Brother Simon, face and hands all muddied, screamed something about a dreadful scene down near the hog pen. Athelstan seized the lay brother. Simon was frantic, his robe, face and hands caked with blood-encrusted mud.

‘Two of them,’ Simon gasped, ‘horrible to see! The hogs have mauled them!’

‘Who?’ Athelstan pleaded.

‘Richer,’ Simon gasped, ‘Richer and one of the Wyvern Company. Prior Alexander is sobbing like a child. You must come, you must come!’

Athelstan reached the hog pen on the farm to the north of the abbey. Others were also gathering. Abbot Walter, swathed in a great woollen cloak, face all stricken, rested for support on the arm of a young novice. Prior Alexander was kneeling between two rolled deerskin shrouds soaked in blood. The prior was distraught. He knelt on the hard cobbles, keening like a distraught mother over her child. Other monks, booted and armed with iron-tipped staves, were driving the hogs back to their sties. Wenlock appeared resting on the arm of Brother Odo, the old soldier was dressed only in his night shirt, stout sandals on his feet, a cloak about his shoulders. He looked as pale as a ghost. He approached the shrouded corpses then turned away to vomit and retch violently. A brother whispered how Wenlock had been sick all night. Once he’d been taken away, Athelstan asked for the deerskin shrouds to be opened. He took one glimpse at the mangled corpses and walked away fighting to control his own stomach. Cranston also arrived and, accustomed to such horrors, he knelt and examined the remains of both cadavers.

‘The hogs feasted well,’ the coroner murmured. ‘They ate the soft fat first, face, belly and thighs.’

Athelstan forced himself to look. Both bodies were reduced to a hideous, reddish-black mess, no faces or stomachs, just hunks of meat with the ragged remains of clothing and boots. Athelstan glimpsed the bracer around the tattered wrist of one of the corpses, the remains of a boot and war belt.

‘Mahant!’ he whispered. ‘It must be — but why? How?’

Between the corpses glittered the silver knife belonging to Richer. The coroner rose to his feet, clapping his hands for silence.

‘Take the corpses to the death house,’ he ordered. ‘You,’ he pointed to Brother Odo, ‘clean what is left of them then report to me. Father Abbot,’ he turned to Lord Walter, ‘the hogs have eaten human flesh, they are deodandum — they must be given to God and slaughtered. You,’ he pointed at a royal serjeant of archers who’d also arrived, ‘bring your best bowmen, the hogs are to be destroyed, their corpses burnt. No, no,’ Cranston stilled the abbot’s protests, ‘the hogs must be slaughtered.’ The coroner gazed up at the brightening sky. ‘At Nones I, Sir John Cranston, King’s coroner in the City of London, will hold an official Inquisitio Post Mortem in the nave of the abbey church. If you are summoned, you must present yourselves.’

Athelstan nodded in agreement, whispering his own advice, which Cranston quietly promised to act on. Athelstan then plucked at Sir John’s cloak. ‘Now, my Lord Coroner,’ he urged. ‘Let us waste no time. We must search Richer’s chamber and that of Mahant — there’s nothing further to be done here.’ Athelstan acted swiftly. Nobody objected. The monks of St Fulcher were no better than a flock of sheep terrorized by some mad dog. The divine office and the dawn Masses were forgotten as the nastiness of what had occurred seeped like a filthy mist through their community. Abbot Walter seemed frozen in shock. Prior Alexander, distraught and frantic, was taken to the infirmary. Athelstan, murmuring a prayer of apology, seized the opportunity. He and Cranston found Richer’s chamber and conducted their search. Athelstan soon realized his earlier suspicions were justified. Richer had anticipated their arrival. One of the braziers in the corner was caked with the feathery remnants of burnt parchment.

‘He destroyed what he had to,’ Athelstan commented. ‘He was preparing to flee. Nothing remarkable here, just possessions you would expect of a Benedictine monk: psalter, Ave beads, triptychs and personal items. Except. .’ Athelstan, who was on his knees, drew a leather pannier from beneath the bed. He unbuckled the straps and took out the two small but thick books; one was obviously of great age but the other, bound in fresh calfskin, was recently done, its pages soft and creamy white, the ink black and red, each section beginning with a title, the first letter of which was framed in an exquisitely jewelled miniature. Athelstan put this down and picked up the old book; its cover was of hardened plates covered in leather and embossed with fading Celtic designs. The pages were stiff and greying with age though held fast by tight binding of strengthened twine. The ink was a faded black. Although the letters were beautifully formed and clear, the Latin was almost classical in its construction and composition. Athelstan turned to the first page and the ‘ Prologua — the Introduction’ and swiftly translated the author’s description: ‘A true narration of the origin, history, powers and miracles of that most sacred bloodstone, the Passio Christi, as drawn up on the instruction of Pontifex Damasus in the second year of his Pontificate. .’

‘Friar?’

Athelstan stared up at Cranston.

‘God has sent his angel, Sir John, one of the dread lords of heaven. He wants justice to be done.’ Athelstan put both books back into the pannier. He and Cranston then went to the guest house. A sleepy-eyed servant showed them Mahant’s chamber, its latch off the clasp. Inside the room looked as if Mahant had left in a hurry. Chests and coffers lay opened, clothes spilling out, weapons thrown on the bed, its sheets and coverlets disturbed. Cranston and Athelstan made a thorough search but only found remnants, relics, mementoes of the past, nothing Athelstan could place as part of this mystery. Mahant’s chamber, despite its apparent disorder, seemed as if it had already been cleared of anything untoward but by whom? Wenlock was in the infirmary so was it someone else? Or Mahant himself? He voiced his suspicions to Cranston.

‘So you think someone came here before us?’ Cranston asked. ‘I suspect Mahant himself did this — he was preparing to leave,’ he grinned, ‘which is understandable.’

Later that morning the abbey became more settled. Athelstan through a now very subdued Abbot Walter, ordered divine office to be suspended until the Inquisitio was finished. Cranston set up his court before the lofty rood screen of the church. A table was brought with the abbot’s throne-like chair for Sir John. Athelstan borrowed a stool and laid out his writing tray with freshly sharpened quills, brimming ink pots, sander, pumice stone, wax and freshly scrubbed sheets of vellum. Brother Simon, who’d called those summoned at Cranston’s behest, was given the duty of sacramentarius. He would proffer the Book of the Gospels for witnesses to take their oath before they sat on the stool on the other side of the table facing the coroner. Candles were brought and lit, braziers fired to full glow and wheeled close. Athelstan intoned the ‘ Veni Creator Spiritus ’. Cranston delivered a short barbed speech declaring how he was ‘the King’s officer in these parts with full power to hear, judge and terminate’. He then had to deal with an objection from one of the senior monks who, on behalf of the abbot, delivered the ritual protest that royal power could not be exercised on church land. Cranston politely heard him out and replied that such matters of law were not for him or his court; the abbot would have to appeal direct to the royal council.