The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

‘Have you asked Gilbert about those?’ asked Gwenllian dryly.

‘Of course. But Boleton and I searched the caches he usually uses for his stolen property, and they are empty. Besides, Boleton has been watching him, so he cannot be the culprit this time. Personally I suspect outsiders – outlaws from the forest, who sneak into the town after dark.’

They were getting away from the subject. ‘Boleton was on my list of suspects too,’ she said.

Cole scowled. ‘He was rounding up our men, to prevent trouble. He did not take your bones.’

Gwenllian did not argue, but she had her doubts. She had given the events of that fateful night a lot of thought, and could not escape one obvious conclusion – that Symon had been knifed to create a diversion, to prevent her from retrieving Meurig’s chest. She had done everything in her power to make him talk about what he had seen, but he had resisted, doggedly maintaining that it had been too dark to be sure of anything. Why would he keep his silence, unless he suspected the culprit was someone dear to him – a friend he was determined to protect?

‘Spilmon and Kyng own the houses on either side of Meurig’s,’ she continued, prudently steering the discussion away from murky waters. ‘That in itself is no reason to suspect them, but they recouped their losses very quickly after the raid. Is it because they sold valuable relics?’

‘The invasion started at the opposite end of the town from Priory Street,’ Cole pointed out. ‘Perhaps that gave them enough time to bury their own treasure – in other words, they did not lose as much as they claimed.’

‘Perhaps,’ acknowledged Gwenllian. She hesitated, but then pressed on. ‘I hate to include a family member on such a list, but Hywel has always been an enigma to me. He does not work, but never lacks for bread, and will not explain how.’

‘He has changed since his father’s death.’

It was an understatement of enormous proportion. Hywel had never been particularly amiable, but since the raid he had grown surly and withdrawn. It was entirely possible that he had delayed fetching Daniel in order to eavesdrop, and had then hurried off to attack Cole and steal the bones once his father was dead. Gwenllian recalled his curious insistence on acquiring a coffin – surely not a priority for most recently bereaved sons. And then what had he done? Sold the relics to the first religious house willing to buy them? Was that what kept him in ale when he did nothing to earn an honest day’s pay?

She closed her mind to the awful possibility and turned to the last of her suspects – the one who suddenly loomed larger than the others because of what she had just found in his purse.

‘Daniel was in the vicinity too,’ she said quietly. ‘He came to pray over Meurig’s body.’

Cole’s jaw dropped. ‘You suspected Daniel? But he was a monk!’

‘And monks cannot steal?’ Gwenllian pointed to where the bone had fallen. ‘I wager anything you please that this huge finger belonged to Arthur – Meurig said the bones in the chest were massive, and there cannot be that many enormous relics in existence. So how does it come to be in Daniel’s purse?’

Cole bent to retrieve it. He was a large man, but the bone dwarfed his hand. He stared at it for a while, and she could almost hear his mind working.

‘Do you really believe King Arthur was so vast?’ he asked eventually. ‘I have listened to dozens of ballads about the man, but none says he was a giant. Surely, if he were, one account would have drawn attention to the fact?’

It was a valid point. Could he be right, and the fact that Meurig said his chest contained a behemoth meant it was not Arthur? Gwenllian tried to recall what her brother had told her about the discovery at the abbey in the English marshes.

‘When Arthur’s leg was measured against that of a Glastonbury workman, it was almost twice as long. And the skull was so large that the distance between the eye sockets was more than the width of a hand. This was seen as proof that the skeleton belonged to a special man.’

‘Very special!’ remarked Cole caustically. ‘If you are right, then Arthur would have towered over his fellow warriors, and that would have made him very vulnerable in battle – any common bowman could have picked him off. Personally I do not believe he was a monster.’

‘Those were ancient times,’ she suggested tentatively. ‘Perhaps everyone was bigger then.’

‘In that case, you cannot use their unusual size to contend that they belonged to a special man,’ he argued with uncharacteristically impeccable logic. ‘They might belong to anyone. Was there anything in this Glastonbury tomb that might make identification certain? A sword, for example – perhaps one with an engraving on it?’

‘Well, there was hair,’ recalled Gwenllian. ‘Meurig said it belonged to Arthur’s queen. Apparently some of it fell to dust when it was grabbed.’

Cole looked dubious. ‘I saw ancient hair in France, but that did not disintegrate when I touched it. And it does not prove anything one way or the other anyway.’

She did not ask how he came to be handling old corpses – not all his soldiering stories were very salubrious. ‘Well, Meurig said the bones were Arthur’s, and that is enough for me,’ she said firmly. She nodded to the bone in his hand. ‘Can we be sure that it is human?’

‘Who knows? But may I make an observation about the phial in Daniel’s purse? I assumed it was filled with holy water – he was a monk and usually had some to hand – but I have just remembered that the priory uses round pots for that purpose. His is oval.’

Gwenllian was bemused. ‘What are you saying?’

‘That if his bottle does contain something holy, then it is not water blessed at the priory.’

Gwenllian narrowed her eyes. ‘So his purse held two relics, not one? This phial might contain something else from Meurig’s chest? Is that what you are suggesting?’

‘I am not suggesting anything; I am stating a fact. Interpreting it is for you to do.’

It was still dark when they left the chapel. Cole was regaling Gwenllian with descriptions of grisly relics he had seen on his various travels, but she was not listening. Her mind was full of what they had learned. Had Daniel overheard Meurig, then stabbed Cole in order to prevent her from claiming the bones? And was he really callous enough to have pursued a friendship with Symon afterwards, spending hours in his company and enjoying his generous, openhearted hospitality?

She frowned, trying to recall precisely what had happened when. She had ascertained at the time that Symon had been knifed not long after Meurig had died. And who had found him? Daniel! The monk had summoned Iefan, and together they had carried Cole to St Peter’s Church, where he had ordered Spilmon, Kyng and John to find her. She recalled how his habit had been torn and bloody, and how she had wondered whether he had ignored his vocation and joined in the fighting. But now it occurred to her that he might have been stabbing his friend instead. Or was she maligning the man? He had, after all, been ministering to those hurt in the fighting, so some stains were going to be inevitable.

She spotted Sergeant Iefan in the bailey, and beckoned him over. ‘You were with Symon very quickly after he was attacked two years ago. Will you tell me what you remember?’

‘Not this again, Gwen!’ groaned Cole. ‘Do you not think it is time to forget about it?’

‘Willingly,’ said Iefan, ignoring him and addressing Gwenllian. She was not the only one for whom the incident still rankled, even if the victim had put it from his mind. ‘It occurred not far from the castle, and there were a number of people milling about – Lord Rhys’s men as well as townsfolk. But no one saw it happen – and, believe me, I asked around afterwards. Daniel found Sir Symon – it was he who told us to take him to the church, because it was the safest place.’