The Medieval Murderers - The Tainted Relic

Baldwin and Simon were about to settle on their benches when the man arrived. ‘He’s back, Sir Baldwin!’

Jonathan was dozing on a bench, and Simon kicked him awake before the three followed the watchman out into the road.

Baldwin was relieved to be out of the tavern and doing something. He had remained there idly for too long after reading de Beaujeu’s words, and the memories that his words brought were painful. All those good, honourable men had died, and for what? There was no reason. The Templars had been created to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land. Dedicated, answering only to the Pope, they couldn’t believe that the pontiff could betray their trust, but he had. He had sided with the avaricious French king to bring about their ruin, and many had been slaughtered, some tortured to death, others burned on pyres as recusants. Since then the warrior-monks had been given the choice of life in a harsher Order, or eviction. Many finished their days as beggars on the streets of Paris.

At least, he reflected, de Beaujeu had not lived to see the destruction of all he had believed in.

Their way took them along the High Street almost to the hospital, and then down the alley. This dark gulley between the buildings was always gloomy, but tonight there seemed to be some excitement. Up ahead there was the noise of many voices, as though there was a gathering of some sort. Baldwin was at first glad, for he thought that the noise would conceal their arrival. But then he realized that the noise emanated from the house where Adam lived, and he felt his optimism fade.

The house was bright with candles. A wailing and sobbing came from within, but the men had to battle their way past the plug of intrigued bystanders in the doorway. Once past them, Simon groaned in revulsion, while Baldwin could only stand and stare in sympathy.

On the floor before them, the old woman lay cradling her dead son’s body in her lap, trying to hold his head on the neck, rocking backwards and forwards as though to help him sleep.

Joseph grunted when he heard the knocking. He had just dozed off, and almost fell from his stool. As it was, it gave an ominous creak as he shifted his weight; he must tell the prior and acquire a new one soon. This really was past safe use. Before long the thing would break, and then where would they all be if Joseph broke a wrist or an ankle?

‘Yes, yes. I’m coming, I’m coming,’ he responded testily as the knocking came again. He pulled the door open. ‘Whatever is the urgency at this time of night? I…Come in here, my good fellow. What on…who did this?’

The outlaw walked inside and limped to the stool. ‘It was my own foolishness, I think, Brother. I am a cretin. And I fear that I am dying. Please-would you hear my confession?’

‘Not until I’ve had a look at your wounds,’ Joseph said. He helped the man up again, and walked him to a bed before stripping him and helping him to lie back. Fetching water, he bathed the wounds. Seeing how the wound entered the right, lower part of his abdomen, and clearly rose up to exit his body higher, on the left-hand side, he said, ‘You were stabbed very cruelly here.’

The outlaw nodded grimly. ‘It is a grievous wound. I…I feel it. I cannot live.’

Joseph sucked his teeth. There was a lot of blood seeping from both wounds, and there was the odour he recognized, the smell of bile and bowel solids. This was a man who was dying, there was no need to conceal the fact. And better that he make no attempt to do so. A dying man had the right to time to reconcile himself, and prepare himself to meet the Maker.

‘I thought so. The man I had brought here. Is he still here?’

‘You had…you mean the wounded fellow? He is still here, yes.’

‘Can he speak yet?’

‘Er, no. No, he is still unconscious. I think that the wound was very deep. It is not certain that he will live.’

‘Then I have a tale to tell you, Brother. And when I have told it, you can tell him too, and maybe the others who’ll ask about me,’ the outlaw said. ‘Know, then, that my name is John Mantravers, of South Witham,’ he began.

Simon and Baldwin had completed their work at Adam’s house when there was another call on the cool night air, and the two men stared at each other before running into the alley with the sergeant and Jonathan.

‘What is this call for?’ Simon burst out as they began to run along the alley northward towards the High Street. They turned left, heading to Carfoix, listening to the shouts and horns.

‘Down here!’ Baldwin shouted as they passed South Gate Street. They ran down this, and then realized that they had overshot the lane they needed. Turning back, they found the dim entrance, and were soon pelting along it. Simon kept to the rear, so that he could assist Jonathan, who was suffering from a stitch.

The house looked familiar, and Simon stared at it. In the dark it was hard to see where they were, but then he realized: it was Moll’s house. This was where they had found Will’s body the day before, but then they had approached the place from the other direction.

A man stood in the alley, a towel at his mouth. There was a pool of vomit near him. ‘I knew her, knew her well, you know? She was always a kindly wench, if you paid her well. I was due to see her tonight, but I was late. I couldn’t help it. I opened the door when she didn’t answer. I just thought she was angry because I was late…’

The words washed over Simon as he pushed the man out of the way and followed Baldwin inside.

The abode was pathetic. There were the tattered remnants of an old blanket hanging at the window in an attempt to make the place more homely, but to Simon it served only to emphasize how mean and unlovely this life had been.

On the floor were plain rushes, moderately recently spread but unfresh. From the beams dangled fresh herbs and some flowers, but their soft perfume couldn’t hide the sourness of sweat and sex-nor the metallic odour of blood.

It was that which made Simon want to gag. From the dark and gloomy alleyway they entered this place by the rotten door, which scraped its way over the packed earth of the threshold. The darkness made Simon think of hell. There was a foulness about it, as though the air itself were poisonous, and he wondered whether he would succumb to one of the diseases that bad air could bring. Beyond the uneven planks of the door, there was a short passage. Once this might have been a moderately pleasant house, perhaps even the residence of a wealthy trader or professional, but now it had become rotten, decayed. Walls were cracked and unpatched. The lime wash was all but gone, leached away inside and out. Overhead he could see more sky through the holes in the roof than he could through the window.

After the short corridor was the room itself, but Simon couldn’t take stock. His eyes were drawn to the thick spatters of blood on the walls, and then to the ruined body on the floor by the palliasse. He swallowed at the sight. An arm, broken at the elbow, lay oddly twisted. The bodice of her tunic was open, ripped from the neck to her navel, and her blood had run between her breasts. Thick trails ran down her chest and stained her skirts.

Simon had once seen a man’s head smashed by a maddened carthorse’s hoof, and this looked much the same. The right side of Moll’s head was stove in, with a mess of hair, shards of bone and grey filth filling the cavity. It made Simon sick to see, and the smell added to his deep revulsion.

‘She has clearly been beaten savagely,’ Baldwin murmured, and Simon was conscious of a curious quiet about him.

‘Why would any man do this?’ he muttered.

‘Why indeed?’ Baldwin agreed as he began his study of the body and the surrounding area. ‘It is a display of brutality-much like the corpse of Will outside her door.’