The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

‘What is the use of surviving?’ the old man asked savagely. ‘When the villagers die and there is no one left to bring tithes to my crumbling church, no neighbours to share their pottage with me, no boys to fetch fuel for my fire, how will I keep from freezing? How will I cook? Where will I buy food when a single loaf costs a king’s ransom?’

Oswin laid his hand comfortingly on the aged knee. He could feel the sharp bones even through the patched robe. ‘I will try to persuade the prior that you should be granted a place in our hall or infirmary. I know you cannot pay a corrody for lodging and food, but they will surely take you in out of charity. After all, as you said, you did great service for Bishop de Lisle.’

Father Edmund flapped his hand impatiently. ‘You’d be wasting your time. They don’t want me back. I know too much. I’m an embarrassment to them.’

He closed his own cold fingers over Oswin’s, gripping his hand with a surprising strength. ‘Just bring me what I have asked of you, Brother Oswin. If I possess that I will have people flocking to my door, for I will have the certain cure. They will sell everything they own to save themselves and their children from the Great Pestilence, and if they don’t…’ he laughed bitterly, ‘… then I’ll put it to another use. They say it will open any lock and it puts a household into such a deep sleep that a thief may steal the bed they are lying on without waking them.’

‘No, Father, no…’ the young monk protested, tears of anguish welling up in his eyes. ‘This is not you speaking. The poppy juice has turned your wits, or an evil spirit has entered into you. The godly man I knew as a boy, the man who guided me into the priory, would never have entertained such wicked thoughts.’

‘I am the man that the Bishop of Ely has turned me into and it is Ely who will suffer for it. They owe me this, and you will bring it to me. Don’t you dare shake your head at me, boy. Do you think I’ve forgotten what you confessed to me before you entered the priory, the reason you became a monk? The fool of a blacksmith still believes to this day his daughter ran away, but you and I both know she did not. No, that poor girl lies at the bottom of the sucking marsh where you dumped her, after you and your brother raped and murdered her.’

Oswin’s face drained of colour. ‘But… we were scarcely more than boys… we were drunk… it was just high spirits… Her death was an accident. We never intended her any harm. And I made a full and contrite confession to you as my priest. You absolved me… No priest may reveal what is told to him in confession. The Church forbids-’

‘I told you, boy, the Church has betrayed me. I no longer care what it forbids. And I still have the necklace you took from her body. If her father should be shown that…’

The young monk looked as if he was going to vomit, but he swallowed hard and took a deep breath, thrusting out his chin defiantly. ‘I will confess my crime before the whole priory and accept whatever penance they lay upon me even if it should last my whole life, but I will not add to my sins by doing what you ask. I will not!’

Father Edmund leaned back in his chair. ‘Brave words, boy, for you know that whatever you confess you will be safe. As a monk, you cannot be executed for your crime. But your brother is not in holy orders. He has a wife and three little children. Will you watch him as he dances on the end of a rope? Will you listen to the sobs of his wife and children as they starve?’

He leaned forward again, grasping Oswin’s sleeve. ‘Make no mistake, I care not one wit for man or Church now. Do as I ask, boy, or I swear your brother will be dangling from the hangman’s noose before the month is out.’

Ely, Cambridgeshire

‘It’ll never work,’ Henry said, staring in dismay at the huge throng of people swarming around the door of the cathedral.

‘Course it will,’ Martin said cheerfully, giving his cousin a bracing punch on the arm. ‘Besides, you got a better idea? I don’t think we’d exactly get a warm welcome if we went back to Cambridge. With the pestilence spreading it won’t be long before the towns start shutting their gates and I’ve no mind to be stuck out on the road when they do. This way we get money enough for food and wine, and with a bit of luck, snug lodgings in the priory guest hall too.’

‘But you heard those jugglers: they nearly got their heads broken by the lay brothers when they threw them off the priory’s land.’

‘They had a half-dressed girl with them. It’s hardly surprising they were chased off if the prior saw her turning cartwheels and displaying all her wares in front of a gaggle of pimple-faced novice monks. But we will offer something quite different, something -’ Martin groped about for the word, which wasn’t one he often had cause to use – ‘something holy . The lay brothers can’t control the rabble. If the pilgrims keep pouring in at this rate, sooner or later there’s going to be a riot. The crowds need something to distract them and that, dear cos, is where we step in, like angels of mercy, to deliver them from evil.’

Henry had to admit his cousin was right about one thing: the lay brothers were losing control of the crowd. People had been flocking to the cathedral for weeks in far greater numbers than usual, not just seeking alms to feed their starving families, but to pray at the shrines of St Etheldreda and her sister St Withburga for an end to the droughts and for a good harvest. But since the rumours of the pestilence had begun to spread, the crowds streaming to the shrines had more than doubled, with men, women and children desperate to seek protection from the sickness and prepare their souls for death should they fall to the Great Mortality.

The queues were now so long that the great doors of the cathedral had to be slammed shut in the evening before some of those who had been waiting all day had a chance to get inside, never mind come near enough to touch the shrines. Forced to spend another night in the overpriced and overcrowded inns if they could afford it, or camping out in the cold, the pilgrims found their tempers were fraying badly. Those who had been trying to get in for days screamed abuse at the newly arrived who pushed ahead of them. Fights erupted as people attempted to wriggle their way to the front of the queue, with the old, the weak and the lame being shoved aside.

Even when they gained admission to the cathedral, violent arguments broke out between the lay brothers trying to collect the fee for visiting the shrines and the pilgrims who argued that, having been forced to wait for days, they now had no money left to pay. Although the lay brothers were, on the whole, burly men, well armed with thick staves, they were having a hard time trying to prevent the crowds from simply storming their way in and smashing off fragments of the shrines to carry home with them. Something had to be done to distract the mob before someone got a knife between his ribs or was trampled to death.

‘Come on.’ Martin tugged at his cousin’s arm. ‘No use trying to talk to the lay brothers. We need to talk to the prior himself.’

Pushing his way through the tide of people flowing towards the cathedral, Martin led the way down the Heyrow, towards Steeple Gate, close to Goldsmith’s Tower where the gold and silver vessels and ornaments were wrought for the cathedral under the gimlet eye of the sacrist, who had his office on the floor above.

Henry trailed after Martin, as he had done ever since he could toddle. Martin, two years older than Henry, was still a head taller than he, even though they were both now in their twenties. Henry was also painfully aware that Martin was the more handsome of the two, with speedwell-blue eyes of disarming innocence, which could entice maids and matrons alike to climb into his bed, and made men foolishly trust him in spite of their own good sense. Henry had only ever been the insipid shadow following on his cousin’s heels, the one who women ignored and men overlooked.