The Medieval Murderers - King Arthur's Bones

and the Mother of Him Who Died Thereon, Crediton

‘So you left him to go on his way?’ Dean Peter said.

‘Yes. What else might we do?’ Baldwin said.

‘It is probably for the best. And in the meantime, as you suggested, my good canon, Arthur, is to be left in a cell to contemplate his own part in this sorry tale.’

‘He confessed?’

‘As soon as he heard that his accomplice had told the full story, yes. It took a little while. He has defrauded the church of moneys ever since he took up his duties. A sad man, indeed.’

‘At least you know now that Henry himself was innocent.’

‘I suppose so. I admit, however, old friend, that I am surprised you permitted the bones to be sent back to Wales. Did you not fear that they may indeed be those of this Welsh figure?’

‘Arthur? Nay, Peter. Why, the real Arthur was found at Glastonbury by the old king, wasn’t he? I remember that.’

‘No. Not found. The bones were discovered – oh, over a hundred years ago, certainly. The old king, Edward of blessed memory, took those bones and moved them to the new shrine fifty years ago, so that they could be properly revered.’ Peter peered into his goblet and sighed. ‘But the men who rally to a saint often don’t know the precise antecedents of the relics they possess. Who can say that the bones found originally were still the same as those collected up by King Edward I and reinterred in the choir of the abbey? Who can say the first bones were truly those of King Arthur?’

‘True. But I think it is enough to know that a man’s bones will be reunited. It may not matter to his soul, but it can do no harm either. Or so I hope and believe anyway,’ Baldwin said.

‘I only hope Huw makes the journey homewards safely.’

But Huw was not going to return home. Not now. By stages he crossed the countryside to Exeter, where he stayed for two days, walking the streets and thinking about the bones.

The chapel was no longer safe. It would be dangerous to return there with the bones now that he had told others of it. He couldn’t in truth remember whether he had ever mentioned the precise location of the chapel to the coroner and his friends, but the fear was there that he had. And if news of the bones of King Arthur came to the ears of those who might seek to destroy any hopes of the Welsh rising against their English oppressors, they could too easily be taken.

He could, of course, take them back to Abbey Dore, but if he did there was no certainty that he would be able to secrete them inside safely. Before, he had Owain, but that had been almost four years ago, and in God’s name Owain had looked frail enough then. What if he was dead? There was no one else to whom he could give the bones in the abbey. He knew no one there. The alternative was to find somewhere else to place the bones.

Many cities had their own places to store bones. Here in Exeter there was a great cemetery by the cathedral – but the bones would be sure to be dug up. The cathedral had a monopoly of burials for the city – the graveyard was already crowded, and bones were regularly dug up by the sexton and removed to the big Charnel Chapel near the west door. Huw couldn’t bear to think of his bones being separated. They must be kept together.

On the third day he finally came to a decision and walked from the city on the old road to Bristol. Five miles from Exeter he came to a large open field, and here he paused, looking about him. A hill rose on his left, further to his right he recognized a line of trees, and he nodded to himself.

‘Not long now,’ he muttered to the soft leather package about his neck.

He trudged along the tracks until he had passed a vill which was familiar, and then turned west, down to a stream. Here at the ford, he smiled and grunted to himself. There was a thick mess of brambles, and beneath them a hole such as a vixen raising cubs might make. Carefully he reached into the hole until he felt the sharp edge of the box, almost at the extent of his arm’s reach. Before long he was digging with his hands, hauling away the soil which he had piled up on the day when he had first seen the pardoner and taken the decision to hide the bones in order that he might rescue those John had stolen.

Later, sitting at a fire in woods not far from the roadway, he opened the box and reverently laid the leather purse inside.

‘My king, I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am weak and stupid. I cannot take you home to Wales, and I can’t get you to Dore. I have been too foolish. I have to find somewhere else where you will be safe.’

The choices were too confusing. That night he dined on alexanders with some beans he’d brought from Exeter, and chewed on some rough, dried meat that tasted rank but was better on his empty belly than his watery pottage. He curled about the box, desperate, and passed the night in fitful sleep.

But as morning rose he was filled with a firm resolution. He would take the bones to another land where they would be safe. The danger to the bones lay in the English threat. He would take them to another Celtic land – to Cornwall. There must be somewhere there where he could place them and ensure that they were safe. He knew little of Cornwall, but there was a castle at Tintagel, he knew.

He would take the bones to Tintagel. There must be somewhere safe for them there. He had heard of a place just along the coast – Trevenna? There was a small church there dedicated to St Materiana, so he had heard. He would try there. Surely there would be a safe place to hide the bones in a small parish church like that, he thought.

London, 1606

I had never seen the royal animals in the Tower of London before. Perhaps I was not curious enough to want to watch the lions and lionesses or the single tiger and the porcupine or the wolf and the eagle. Or maybe it was that I was reluctant to pay the entrance fee of three pennies, which was three times what it would cost to buy a standing place at our very own Globe theatre. Or else it was simply that, like many inhabitants of our great city, I could not stir myself to go out of my way to see its great sights. Leave that to the visitors.

Now that I was here, against my will, I could not see the beasts, but I could hear and smell them. I was in one of the compartments of the Lion Tower meant for animal use. More of a cave or a cell than a chamber, it smelled rank. In the next-door cell was a body, not animal but human and supposedly murdered. The body I had recognized. Likewise the man who was slumped in a corner, his head in his hands. On either side of him stood a keeper whose more usual job would be to guard the lions and the tiger but who now found himself watching over a murderer, cudgel in hand. But it did not appear that the slumped man was going to attempt an escape. Instead he looked up at me and said: ‘I did not do this thing, Nick. I am innocent, I swear.’

It was the first time I’d caught William Shakespeare in the act of writing. Why I say ‘caught’ I don’t know, since it makes WS sound like a felon. But he was always secretive about his work and most reluctant to discuss it. Which was the reason his request that I should call on him in his lodgings in Silver Street came as a surprise. This was his lair, his private place.

Shakespeare was sitting at a desk by an open window. Once he’d glanced around in a distracted way to see who was standing in his doorway and given the slightest of nods, he said: ‘Ah, Nick, I’ll only be a… make yourself…’

I never discovered what I was supposed to make myself since, instead of telling me, WS performed a vague flourish with his quill and then reapplied himself to the sheet in front of him. There were no sounds apart from the birdsong in the garden below – the casement was open; it was a sunny morning in May – and the small scraping noises as his pen moved across the paper.