Paul Doherty: The Relic Murders

'Then let's hasten, sweet Lucy,' I said. 'Tom, a bowl of water and a towel.'

I took Lucy back to the chamber, where the spear still lay on the sweat-soaked bed. I was elated. My mind was full of dreams of riches pouring in. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I stripped Lucy off and washed her myself. She said she felt well and energetic so we had a romp upon the bed, bouncing and kissing. She kept murmuring how her cup truly overflowed. Afterwards I combed her hair, she painted her face and put her best gown on. When she had finished she looked as pretty as any queen, the picture of health. She kissed the spear. I tightened the buckle of my purse, lest anyone glimpsed the phial. Thankfully Lucy could remember nothing except the spear and me kneeling beside her. (Oh, she was a grand lass, such a pity she died such a terrible death!) She claimed to have had visions of a spear burning brightly before her and a power emanating from it which enveloped her body. I couldn't have asked for better. I heard horses' hooves on the cobbles below and, like a king and his queen, we swept down to the taproom. I held up the spear like some silly Lancelot of the Lake escorting his Guinevere. The Poppleton brothers, Edmund and Robert, just stared open-mouthed, and the rest of the taproom broke into loud cheers and clapping. I was hailed as Lucy's great saviour with many an envious glance at the spear. I didn't want some accident happening to me as I travelled home half-drunk so I left immediately. Naturally, I threw triumphant glances at the Great Mouth's sons who stood, cups in hand, muttering and glowering back.

Once I was back in the manor it was days of wine and roses. The news spread and soon I had a constant stream of visitors to the hall: some came just to touch the spear, others to receive a cure. Now, as any doctor will tell you, believe that you are going to be cured and you are well over halfway to good health. I did a roaring trade! (Oh yes, Goliath's foreskin, hairs from Balaam's ass and a cracked mirror once used by Delilah.) My little chest of coins grew. I basked in the approval of my neighbours. But ah, foolish man, Just when my greatness was ripening it was nipped in the bud by a savage cold frost Late one afternoon the Poppleton brothers arrived at my door, with a group of their henchmen, servile as worms, bowing and scraping, friendly eyed, their mouths stuffed with flattery. We took sweetmeats and white wine in the parlour. They complimented me on my growing fame and then Edmund, the elder weasel, leaned forward, a bag of silver clinking in his hand.

'Dearest Roger.' Tears brimmed in his eyes. 'Mother is unwell, a fever; would you, for love of us, bring the spear to cure her?'

I should have sensed a trap but the clinking of silver was music to my ears. Moreover, you can fake a relic but very rarely a real fever so I agreed. We journeyed back across the valley to the house of the Great Mouth. For once she was silent, lying like some great bloated toad against the bolsters, her black hair damp with sweat, her fat, pasty face shimmering like a lump of lard under the sun. She had a fever. Now I had brought the phial with me and asked the Poppletons for a cup of watered white wine. Edmund and Robert hurried off together and they brought it back in a heavily embossed pewter cup with a broad bowl, thick-stemmed on a heavily bejewelled base. I sought a diversion asking for a napkin and poured the powder in. Edmund then took the cup and gave it to his mother. At my insistence she sipped and sipped, then I laid the spear by her side.

Now, I certainly didn't want to shelter in the house of my enemies all night. I declared I would stay until dusk when they would see a change in their mother's complexion. The brothers left and I wandered round the chamber. There were a few little gee-gaws, a ring, a cross, which all disappeared into my sack. I had sensed a change in the Poppletons' attitudes: their veneer of politeness was now punctuated by sneers and malicious looks. I doubted if I would get my silver so I also took the cup. Lying sprawled on the bed, the Great Mouth was becoming calmer, her breathing light, her skin cool to the touch so, when I heard the village bells chiming across the fields for Vespers, I took my spear and made to leave. The Poppletons, still servile, surprisingly paid me my silver. I passed Lucy in the gallery, winked and blew her a silent kiss. I collected my horse and rode like the wind back to the manor.

In retrospect, I admit, I was a tittle-brain. I should not have been deceived by those glass-faced flatterers, those vipers, those malt worms, those diseases in human form.

I was awoken just before dawn by a pounding on the door. I woke thick-headed, my mouth still sweet with the taste of wine. Lucy, accompanied by my bailiff John Appleyard, a good, honest man, stood in the gallery. 'In heaven's name!' I exclaimed. 'Roger, you must flee!' Lucy pushed me back into the room. 'Roger, you must flee or you'll hang!' 'In heaven's name, woman!' 'Mistress Poppleton is dead! Her sons are now claiming you poisoned her!' 'She had a fever!'

'Aye, and you made it worse!' she exclaimed. 'No one but you gave her anything to eat or drink. A physician was called and has already shrieked poison.' She grasped my shoulders and shook me. 'Roger, they'll take and hang you!'

'She speaks the truth,' Appleyard declared. 'They'll know Lucy is gone by now and they'll not wait for the sheriff. Master Roger, you know the Poppletons! An axe in your head or an arrow in your back and they all take the oath that you were trying to flee.' 'But I hardly touched the woman!' I cried.

'They say you are a thief, that you stole objects as well as the cup in which you put the poison.'

I closed my eyes. Oh, what a terrible pit I had fallen into. I had stolen and, in my heart, I knew Appleyard was correct. I dressed quickly. I took my war-belt and stuffed my panniers with whatever coins I could lay my hands on. I filled another saddlebag with my relics, a change of clothing and all that I had borrowed from the Poppleton household. I took the fastest horse from my stable, told Appleyard to look after the manor and gave Lucy a juicy kiss. I then fled, even as Appleyard cried that he could see dust along the trackway as the Poppletons approached.

I rode like some bat spat out of hell. I stopped at night to rest my horse and ease the ache in my bones. On the following morning, despite my master's strictures, I entered London. Oh, it was good to be back in the melting pot, in that great cauldron which bubbles all day and every night with excitement and knavery. I kept well away from the beaten path and, in those early hours, I crossed the city into the stinking alleyways and maze of warrens around Whitefriars.

Now. I am not going to give you a treatise on coincidences. In the end, I suppose, everything is woven together. During my flight into London, I'd recalled the advice of Ludgate the relic-seller so I searched out the tavern he'd mentioned. The Flickering Lamp was a shabby, two-storeyed place, though the taproom was spacious with a small garden beyond. Boscombe was not the usual greasy, fat-gutted taverner. He was tall, wiry as a whippet, his face tanned and weather-beaten. He must have been well past his fortieth year but his smiling eyes and mouth made him look younger. When I met him he was dressed as an arch-deacon and, seeing my surprise, he explained how he often entertained the customers by dressing up in various disguises. I told him about Ludgate, explaining that I had relics to sell and needed to hire a chamber so I might sell them in the streets around. He shook his head.

'I've three chambers upstairs,' he replied, his voice rather guttural. 'But I don't let them out: not even the scullions and tapsters sleep here.' He studied me closely. 'Anyway, what do you know about relics? I mean real ones?' 'I have heard of the Orb of Charlemagne,' I replied.