The Medieval Murderers: King Arthur's Bones

It was surely right too, as Brother Geoffrey claimed, that the uncovering of Arthur’s bones and perhaps of Guinevere’s would not only guarantee the wealth of the abbey but cause its name to go down in history.

Yet none of these things weighed very heavily with Brother Owen as, guided more by instinct than the moonlight, he drew nearer the cluster of low dwellings, shops and taverns composing the town of Glastonbury. Like the now-vanished Old Church, they were mostly constructed of wattle and daub. There was the smell of woodsmoke in the crisp air. Doors were shut tight against the night. In the distance sounded the howl of a melancholy dog.

Owen reached the entrance to a building slightly larger and more solid than the others. Above the door hung a withered bush, the sign of a tavern. From within came male voices and bursts of laughter from a woman. He recognized the laughter.

Brother Owen put his hand to the latch and then hesitated. He could go back now and retreat to the abbey precincts. He could return and attend to his proper business before compline, the final summons of the day to prayer. Yet, he told himself, he was going about his proper business now. King Arthur must not be found. And he would be found if the men continued digging, for after evensong Owen had asked the abbot what his intentions were, whether he intended to order the hole filled in and the ground made level once more out of respect for the dead. Henry de Sully, slightly impatient with the cellarer’s scruples, put his hand on Owen’s arm, employed his pointed teeth in a kind of smile and said: ‘Of course not. We cannot afford to leave things as they are. We must dig down and find whatever God permits us to find. If there is nothing there, so be it.’

Owen made no reply and inclined his head slightly in deference to the abbot, but at the same time the resolution hardened inside him. This was a moment he had long awaited. A moment of discovery that had been predicted in some quarters. But the bones of the king should never be claimed by the English.

So Owen grasped the latch and opened the door of the tavern.

When he entered, a few faces turned towards him through the gloom. The light provided by the handful of tallow candles was almost cancelled out by the smoky stench which they emitted. A couple of the drinkers nodded in recognition of Owen. As cellarer, he was a familiar enough figure in the little town whose suppliers and artisans depended on the abbey’s patronage. Nevertheless, his appearance in the tavern was hardly usual. The monks could drink better wines and ales within the abbey, in the company of their own kind and in greater comfort too. Even the beeswax candles that Owen burned in his workroom gave off a more pleasant odour than the tallow ones in here.

But Owen had not come to drink or to compare the cost of candles. He had come to speak to the tavern-keeper, an individual called Glyn. Like the monk, Glyn was from Wales and he too had been brought up on stories of Arthur and that king’s inevitable return. The tavern-keeper was serving a customer, pouring ale from a jug. His wife Margaret was in an opposite corner, getting familiar with a couple more customers, laughing with them. She was English. She caught Owen’s eye. He nodded almost imperceptibly at her. Margaret’s fair hair gleamed in the smoky candlelight. The Glastonbury cellarer had memories of that hair, of lifting the inn-keeper’s wife’s heavy tresses and allowing them to trickle through his fingers. He recalled the weight of her breasts against his cassock, he remembered their snatched hours together. Owen had been breathless often enough in the company of Margaret. She too in the monk’s company.

Owen indicated to Glyn that he wished to see him, alone, and the taverner showed him into a curtained-off cubicle at the back of the room. There was almost no light, only what leaked through the thin fabric. It was a fusty sleeping area for all the family, Glyn and Margaret and four or five smallish children, Owen couldn’t remember how many children, except that he rather thought one of them was his. So Margaret had informed him, and since she’d never asked for anything in return he had never had cause to doubt her word.

A bed big enough to hold the entire family occupied most of the space. There were snuffling, whimpering sounds as if the two men were standing amid a litter of baby animals. It occurred to Owen that it might have been better to have talked to Glyn in the tavern itself rather than draw attention by seeking privacy. Too late now.

‘You’ve heard?’ he said to the tavern-keeper.

‘Everybody’s heard. We had that Michael in here earlier, getting himself plastered on account of how he’d dug up the cross. Is it true, Father Owen?’

‘Yes.’

‘The cross of Arthur?’

‘It seems so,’ said Owen with a caution that the abbot would have approved of. ‘It seems that the moment has arrived.’

‘If the cross is found, what else is down there?’ said the tavern-keeper. ‘The king?’

The two men had been conversing in whispers, but Glyn’s voice dropped even further when he referred to the king. From beyond the curtain came voices, Margaret’s renewed laughter.

‘The king’s bones may be there,’ said Owen.

‘How can they be? Arthur is not dead,’ said Glyn.

‘One part of us, my friend, believes that he is dead, as all men must be in the end. The other part of us knows that Arthur can never die, can never be allowed to die.’

‘That’s a bit deep for me, Father.’

‘No, it is not, Glyn. You and I come from the same land; we are not like the English around here.’

‘You’re right there. Margaret’s told me that often enough.’

‘ We understand why Arthur must live; we understand why he can have no grave,’ said Owen. ‘Or if he does have a grave, then it must be empty. Or it must be found empty.’

‘How will that happen?’

‘We need a little time. We cannot employ anybody around here. How long will it take to get help from-’ Owen gestured vaguely over his shoulder. He might have been indicating somewhere a few yards away – or many miles to the west. In any case, the gesture went unseen in the darkness of the curtained room.

‘Three days at least, maybe four days at this time of year.’

Owen sighed. It wasn’t long enough. Excavation of the supposed burial place of King Arthur would be resumed tomorrow; the abbot had as good as said that. It might take the labourers another day, possibly longer, to dig down to the right depth and discover the remains. But they’d certainly do it within three days.

‘Send nonetheless,’ said Owen. ‘Send for help.’

‘They will not reach here in time.’

‘Then pray for a miracle.’

‘Who should I pray to, Father?’

‘The spirit of King Arthur, of course.’

A miracle was what happened on the next day, or that very night to be precise. The westerly clouds which had been gathering in the evening rushed in later, bringing autumnal gales and unceasing rain. The ponds and rhines filled up, the abbey stews rose higher, the monastic gutters and gargoyles gurgled and spouted. And work on King Arthur’s burial place had to stop. The flimsy tent was blown down by the wind, and the sides of the excavation fell in, covering up the previous day’s work.

Henry de Sully watched impatiently from his parlour in the Hall, although there was nothing to see apart from mounds of glistening black earth and a hole that was turning into a pond. The leaden cross remained up here in his personal care, locked in a chest. It was an extraordinary discovery, but now he was expecting something yet more extraordinary, and even an hour’s delay frustrated him. He had already written to King Richard, telling him of Arthur’s cross and hinting strongly that this was only the first of several discoveries, all of them destined to reflect glory on the abbey and on the reigning monarch.