The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

Eustace gazed round the room. Robert was fastidious about his clothes, if not about his bedfellows, and the room was stuffed with chests holding linens, hose, and tunics, while a line of well-crafted leather boots and shoes stood along one wall, like an army ready to march.

As Robert had feared, the treasurer had called for every artefact in the Cathedral to be checked again the inventories. It was only a matter of time before the cross was reported missing. Eustace had already searched the rooms of Oswin and John, but found nothing. He’d left Robert till last, certain that if he had retrieved the cross, unlike the others, he would have smuggled it back into the Cathedral chest. But supposing he hadn’t had a chance to do that, and it was still hidden in his room somewhere?

Eustace worked his way methodically round the chamber twice, first searching in and behind boxes and the bed, then with the help of a chair, running his hands along the top of the beams, but he found nothing. That, Eustace thought, left only one culprit – Giles. He had not had the cross on him when he… when he died. So either he hadn’t retrieved it from where he had hidden it, or he had stowed it in another hiding place in the grove. It had to be there somewhere among those trees. There’d been no time to take it anywhere else. Eustace would have to return to the forest and search again, this time alone.

The wind was no less fierce on the following night, but at least it was dry. Oswin was grateful for that much at least as he trudged up the dark track towards the chapel. He had brought his own lantern this time, but kept the light muffled by his cloak, trying to ensure that it illuminated only the foot or so of the ground ahead of him. It was law that any man walking abroad at night should carry a torch or lantern to prove his good intent. Unfortunately, it also proclaimed to all those whose purpose was not lawful just where the honest man was walking. Not that what Oswin was about to do was either honest or lawful.

Every step along the track was a forced one. He had to goad himself forward, for his brain was screaming at him to turn back. Let the others do it. Walk away from this while you can. What could they do about it anyway if you didn’t come? And what if they don’t turn up and leave you to bury the corpse alone? But he had not managed to sleep during what remained of the night yesterday and he knew he’d never sleep until he’d seen with his own eyes that the corpse was safely buried where no one could find it. Only then could he breathe easily again.

If Robert kept his wits about him, there’d be nothing to link any of them to the missing cross. As to the disappearance of Giles, no one knew of the Black Crows’ existence, save for the tavern-keeper, and why should anyone start asking questions at the tavern? There were thousands of men in minor orders who became discontented and left to take a wife or to seek more profitable employment as soon as they got the education they needed. Unlike deacons and priests, those in minor orders did not take lifelong vows. All someone like Giles legally had to do to return to the life of a layman was grow out his tonsure. His parish priest might call him an ingrate, but no laws had been broken if such a man simply wandered off. There was no reason for anyone to start looking for him.

As Oswin approached the chapel, he saw the flicker of a light behind the broken shutters, as someone passed across in front of a lantern. His relief that the other Black Crows had come was mixed with annoyance. Did those fools not realise their light could be seen? Why hadn’t they the sense to shield it inside the Easter Sepulchre as before? Then he realised why and shuddered.

Pressing his ear to the wood of the door, he could hear the shuffle of feet inside and the low murmur of voices. He rapped softly. Instantly all was still. He knew those inside were listening, as tense as he was himself.

‘It’s Oswin,’ he called, as loudly as he dared. He heard the footsteps crossing the stone flags and the door was opened a crack, impatiently he pushed it wide enough to get in.

The stench in the chapel was worse than he remembered. Damp, rot and mice as before, but something even more unpleasant. But Oswin only vaguely registered it. He was impatient to get this business safely over as quickly as possible.

‘Is Eustace not with you?’ Robert asked, the moment Oswin had turned the key in the lock.

‘No sign of him on the track,’ Oswin said,

‘I knew he wouldn’t come,’ Robert grumbled.

‘Typical of him to leave others to clean up the mess while he keeps his hands clean,’ Oswin said.

‘Happen he’s afeared that if he came we’d discover who murdered Giles,’ John muttered. ‘If a murderer touches his victim’s body, the corpse’ll bleed afresh.’

‘You think it was him, then?’ Robert asked. In spite of the cold, damp air, beads of sweat were running down his face.

‘He’s the only one of us who isn’t here,’ John said. ‘I reckon that proves it.’

Robert unfastened the two buttons that closed his fur-lined cloak and cast about him, trying to find somewhere to drape it, other than on the filthy, wet floor. A small handcart stood ready in front of the altar, with two spades propped up against it. He dropped the cloak into the handcart.

John scowled resentfully. Unlike Robert, who could afford both summer and winter cloaks, John possessed only one of plain homespun, and he’d been forced to discard that in the water-filled ditch on his way home last night, because thanks to the others leaving it to him to carry Giles’s body, it was soaked with blood. But he didn’t hear any of them offering to share the cost of buying a new one or even bothering to ask if he had another.

The three men approached the wooden board that sealed the Easter Sepulchre. They hesitated, grimacing at each other. Was the same thought going through each man’s mind? What if the corpse starts to bleed?

Oswin took a deep breath. ‘The sooner we get him in the ground, the safer we’ll be. The corpse’ll probably still be stiff, so we’ll roll the body out onto the board. Did anyone bring anything to cover it?’

By way of an answer, John pulled a folded length of sacking out from the front of his tunic. His jaw was clenched so hard, it seemed impossible for him to speak.

Oswin kneeled down beside the sepulchre. The terrible stench he’d noticed when he first entered the chapel was much stronger here, and indeed seemed to be coming from the sepulchre itself. But surely it couldn’t be Giles’s corpse. It was the middle of winter and cold enough in the stone chapel to keep ice from melting. His stomach heaved, but he swallowed hard and, trying to ignore the smell, seized the top of the wooden board and pulled it downwards towards him. A stench of rotting flesh billowed out and even John and Robert, standing some way behind him, began to gag, hastily covering their noses and mouths with their sleeves.

The recess was deep and low to the floor and John and Robert were standing between the lantern light and the sepulchre, but even before Oswin’s brain had made sense of what his eyes were seeing in the half-light, he knew that something was terribly wrong. He jerked back. The long board clattered to the ground. He scrambled to his feet and, snatching up the lantern, he held it close to the recess. John and Robert gasped, crossing themselves as they rapidly backed away.

Giles’s copse was lying in the sepulchre, his hands folded across the blackened bloodstain that covered his chest, just as they had arranged him the night before, but he was no longer lying alone. A second body had been pushed in beside him, a body so rotted and putrid it must have been dead several months. Her gown was the only sign that the corpse had once been a woman. They lay side by side, as if whoever had put her there intended some cruel mockery of the carvings of knights lying beside their wives on the tombs in the great Cathedral itself.