The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

‘That Crusader was Miles de Clermont. And he was my ancestor.’

Falconer could hear in de Beaujeu’s tone of voice the burden this placed on the Templar. His Order wished to hide the tainted relic from the world. But it seemed de Beaujeu felt personally responsible, not only for the action of his ancestor, but for every death caused by the tainted relic ever since. Falconer, however, still refused to accept the sorcery.

‘I don’t believe in such nonsense as curses. Why, if I did, I would be shrivelled to nothing by now from all the curses laid upon me by my students down the years. They have cursed me a-plenty for the work I have set them.’

De Beaujeu shook his head sadly.

‘This is too deadly to be taken so lightly, William. If you could only hear the tales that down the years have accompanied this relic…’

Falconer abruptly interrupted.

‘Exactly. That is what they are. Just tales, recited to please a gawking audience of fools.’

‘And the deaths of these six monks?’ De Beaujeu tapped the scrap of parchment with the six names on it. ‘Did they not appropriate the relic, and in so doing tarnish their souls, so that their deaths were inevitable? Is it not the way they died which has led you to assuming these six names are those of the monks who have touched the relic?’

Falconer was trapped by his own logic. That indeed had been his thinking, he had to admit to the Templar.

‘But they were killed by a human agency, not by the relic in some mystical way.’

‘Does it matter how they died? The fact is they touched the relic, and now they are dead. As is the mason, La Souch.’ De Beaujeu paused. ‘And with them dies the only hope I had of tracing the relic’s location.’

Falconer couldn’t help but smile. Something else had just fallen into place for him.

‘Not exactly. Unless La Souch was felled by avenging angels, or the ghost of this murdered Arab…’ He held his hand up to ward off De Beaujeu’s incipient protest at his flippant remark. ‘Unless some supernatural power is at work here, La Souch was killed by someone other than the six errant monks, who by then were all dead themselves. So someone else knows about the tainted relic, and thought that the master mason had uncovered its whereabouts. That was a secret this person thought worth keeping. And I have an idea how to find out who it is.’

Bullock hurried through the night, hoping he might be in time. His failure to find Yaxley had driven him to seeking out Will Plome. It had occurred to him that the simpleton may have been aware of the feretarius’s absence when he made his late night visit to the shrine. Even Will could have assumed that Brother Richard would stop him climbing down the Holy Hole to gain such close proximity to the saint. The boy had lodgings in Sleying Lane outside the town walls, charitably provided by no less a person than the Jewess Belaset. It was no more than a simple room, but Belaset charged nothing for it. Getting Will’s eager, if unreliable, services in return. Businesslike she might be, and better at it than her husband or son, but she was also a mother. And she could not bear to see somebody’s son reduced to begging in the street. Few were aware of her kindness to the simpleton, as she cared for none to know. But Peter Bullock knew, and though it was late, he called on Belaset. He wanted her help when he confronted Will.

Belaset agreed to accompany him, though she was herself worried about her absent son, Deudone. He had gone off into the night about some mission of his own. Belaset was afraid he would get himself into trouble, and hoped he had merely gone to press his suit with Hannah. But in the meantime, she couldn’t refuse to help the constable coax the truth out of Will. So, having roused the sleeping guardian of South Gate, and berated him for his laxity, Bullock, along with Belaset, slipped quietly through the wicket gate set within the massive town gates proper.

It did not take long to rouse the bewildered Will Plome, and soon he was lighting a cheap tallow lamp to illuminate his quarters. The yellow glow revealed a little room that was surprisingly neat, though spartan. The furniture amounted to no more than a low bed, a stool and a table. On the table lay some gaming boards, one a circular tablet with holes bored in it in a sort of pattern. Most of the holes were filled with pegs. Bullock recognized it as a board to play the Solitary Game on. The other board he couldn’t figure out. It looked like two chessboards linked together, and on it were arrayed gaming pieces, some of which were circular, some triangular and some square. Bullock took it for a child’s toy, to pleasure Will’s simple mind. The boy saw him looking, and explained.

‘It is a game I was taught by Master Falconer. He calls it the Philosopher’s Game. He gets angry when I beat him at it.’

Bullock smiled, imagining his friend allowing the simpleton to win, and feigning annoyance as part of the game. But Belaset put him right.

‘Will is very good at the game. And I suppose William Falconer is annoyed at Will’s skill because it requires a high understanding of mathematics, such as the Regent Master fancies is only reserved for himself. Will has the beating of me at it too.’

Bullock coughed in embarrassment, not understanding how a simpleton could have a greater mind than both this clever Jewess and his best friend. It didn’t make sense, unless the woman was having fun at his expense. He would have to ask Falconer later. But first he needed to know all about Yaxley, and his nocturnal activities.

‘Will Plome, you must tell all you know about what Brother Richard at St Frideswide’s has been doing these last few nights. You do know something, don’t you?’

Will looked anxiously at his friend, Belaset. ‘Brother Richard committed a mortal sin…’ He faltered. The olive-skinned woman looked deeply into the boy’s soul with her big brown eyes.

‘Tell him the truth now, Will.’

The truth, when it came out, did not surprise the constable one morsel.

Falconer stood at the edge, contemplating the pilgrimage before him. He knew he would find enlightenment in the labyrinth. The path was tortuous, twisting back on itself, taking him through the four stages of the mass. He stepped forward and entered into Evangelium. Three turns and he was in the segment representing Offertory. A turn back on himself and it was Evangelium again. Then three loops and back into Offertory. Two loops and he was walking Consecration. Like any pilgrimage, any seeking for purgation, the route was never straightforward. Two more turns and he was in the final segment. Communion. He stood right in the centre of the labyrinth, surveying the six petals at its core. And the seventh point under his feet at the centre of the labyrinth. He knew that here lay Illumination. Under a slab with a carving of God represented as a master mason. The perfect hiding place for a cursed relic. The slab under him rocked slightly.

‘Has it been vouchsafed to you yet?’

The voice was quiet, and deliberately held low. But Falconer could detect the tremulous undercurrent in it.

‘Illumination? Yes, it has.’

He looked across the void that was the labyrinth to where the figure stood, tall and angular, between the pillars at the back of the nave. The rose window hung over his hooded head, lit only by the cold rays of the full moon. The colours were dulled and leaden.

‘We all touched it, you know. The relic. And so our fates were sealed on that day so long ago.’

‘There was nothing inevitable about the deaths of your fellow monks, Brother Robert.’ Falconer was still clinging to the idea of his rational world. ‘That was in your hands, not fate.’

‘In one sense you are right, Regent Master. But there was some inevitability about how they died, don’t you think?’