The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

Cudbert, known to his friends as Cuddy, was a coarse-featured man with a neck as thick and corded as a plough ox. He took a large swig of ale from his leather tankard, and wiped his mouth with the back of a grimy hand.

‘So are we doing The Shepherds’ Play , or what? I always play Gib, him with the sour wife.

“As sharp as a thistle, as rough as a briar

She is browed like a bristle, with eyes full of ire

When she once wets her whistle she can outsing the choir.”’

Cuddy roared out the words as if declaiming in front of a raucous crowd.

‘But that’s the play we do for the Christmas feast, Uncle,’ a graceful, fresh-faced lad protested. ‘It isn’t fitting for this season.’

Cuddy curled one massive paw into a fist. ‘Anyone ask for your opinion, whelp?’ He turned to Martin, rolling his eyes. ‘My nephew, Luke, or so his mother swore afore she died. My brother ran off and abandoned him, not that I can blame him when he saw what he’d been cursed with as a son. I mean, does he look like he’s got our family’s blood running in his veins? Ditchwater, more like. But my old woman insisted we took the brat in. Seventeen, he is now, and still useless. But I say this for him, he makes a comely maid when you dress him in skirts. Course, he doesn’t need to do any acting to play a virgin.’

The other men, including Martin, roared with laughter as Luke flushed scarlet and glowered at the rushes on the floor, trying to hide his humiliation behind an unruly tangle of dark hair. Henry alone didn’t smile, wincing as if he felt the lash of the words on his own back.

‘ The Shepherds’ Play it is,’ Martin said. ‘And, from The Play of Adam , “The Sacrifice of Isaac”. Always makes the women cry, that one. The crowds won’t care what we give them so long as it’s bawdy and bloody.’

‘John’s eldest son can play Isaac,’ Cuddy said. ‘He’s small for his age, but he’s as sharp as a whetted scythe.’ Catching sight of Martin’s alarmed expression, he added, ‘Don’t fret, young Ben looks nothing like his old man.’

It was just as well, Henry thought, for John was a stocky, pugnacious-looking man, with a broken nose and fists as big as turnips, hardly the type to meekly lie down and prepare to be slaughtered.

‘Then young Ben shall indeed play Isaac,’ Martin beamed round at the assembled company. ‘But we’ll start with “Cain and Abel”, a play that Henry and I know well.’

A murmur of consternation rippled around the other men.

Cuddy shook his grizzled head. ‘No, we won’t be doing that one. That’s the play of the Glovers’ Guild. They’ll not take kindly to us performing that.’

Martin flicked his fingers dismissively. ‘It’s to be performed on cathedral grounds and it’s the Priory who has to right to say what will be performed and by whom. Besides, I’m told the guild haven’t performed “Cain and Abel” for three years now.’

‘Aye, and there’s good reason for that,’ another man piped up. ‘“Cain and Abel” brings bad luck, everyone knows that. I’ve heard tell that the very first time the words of that play were said aloud one of the actors was murdered, and he a holy monk. Glovers swear the spilling of his blood must have sealed the curse that Cain utters in the play and made it come to pass in truth, ’cause any man who acts in that play has nothing but ill fortune for the rest of the year.’

Cuddy nodded vigorously. ‘One poor bastard had his workshop burned down and him with a new stock of leather just bought in.’

‘Remember the man who played Abel?’ another said. ‘His son drowned in the river the very next day and he could swim like an eel.’

A couple of the men crossed themselves as they recalled other misfortunes that had overtaken members of the guild – mysterious fevers, a man struck down with apoplexy, not to mention a wife running off with her lover. It was as plain as the balls on a bull, they said, that the play of ‘Cain and Abel’ was cursed.

John reached across the table and poured himself another generous measure of ale from the flagon. ‘You’re talking out of your backsides as usual. Hugh’s wife running off had nothing to do with the play. The whole town knew her for a brazen strumpet long afore the glover married her. She was bound to be up to her old tricks sooner or later. Anyhow, I don’t hold with this curse nonsense. They’ve been playing “Cain and Abel ” since I was in clouts. It stands to reason, if it was cursed they’d have stopped it years ago.’

Martin laughed. ‘And I’ve played in “Cain and Abel” for years and not one drop of ill fortune has fallen on me, nor on any others who acted in it. Isn’t that right, Henry?’

Henry nodded, not trusting himself to speak. There was plenty of ill fortune he could have named, not least that business in Cambridge, but he knew from bitter experience not to contradict Martin, especially not in front of others.

‘See,’ Martin beamed. ‘And just to prove it, Henry and I will act in the play ourselves. Nothing like a good murder to keep the crowds entertained. I told Subprior Stephen as much and he agrees. Besides, he says it will remind the people not to hold back their tithes even when the harvest is poor, for fear of being cursed like Cain.’

‘I’ll take a part in it too,’ Luke said eagerly, obviously desperate to play someone other than a girl. ‘I could play the angel.’

‘ I will play the angel,’ Martin announced firmly. ‘The part calls for a man who has a commanding presence.’ He struck a pose, his eyes turned beatifically up to heaven, his right hand lifted in blessing.

‘Hear that, boy?’ Cuddy said. ‘It takes a man to play an angel, so you’ll still be playing simpering wenches when you’re in your dotage.’

The men all laughed, and the muscles of Luke’s jaw tightened so hard, Henry was sure he was going to break a tooth.

‘Besides,’ Martin said, ‘I have the robe and the sword of justice, and I shall wear a gold coronet.’

A look of alarm flashed across Henry’s face. ‘No… you wouldn’t. Don’t be a fool.’

Martin wrapped an arm about Henry’s shoulder, and tousled his hair with his other hand as if he was a silly child. ‘Stop fretting, little cos, or everyone will think you are as much of a girl as young Luke here. Now I think Luke should play the role of the timid and lazy servant Brewbarrel.’

His uncle roared with laughter, slapping his thigh. ‘Aye, he’s suited to that role, right enough.’

‘And what should your part be, little cos? Yes, the pious Abel, I think. You fit that role.’

Blushing nearly as hard as Luke, Henry jerked himself out of Martin’s grasp. ‘I will play Cain.’

His cousin laughed. ‘You’d never make a convincing Cain. You couldn’t kill a mouse, never mind a man. You,’ he gestured towards the man with the broken nose, ‘John, isn’t it? Could you learn the part of Cain if I teach you?’

‘Heard it often enough. Used to be my favourite. I reckon most of it would come back to me with a bit of prompting.’

‘Settled then,’ Martin declared, beaming. ‘There’s a barn the subprior said we could use to practise in. It’s big enough for us to rehearse all three plays at the same time. Then if one of us is needed in another play he can just walk across and say his lines.’

He looped his arm through Henry’s and grinned at him. ‘So in the words of that saintly little Abel:

“Let us both go forth together.

Blessed be God, we have good weather.”’

Come the morning of the first performance, the weather had indeed turned to the good. Although it had been windy and cold for weeks, now the sun sparkled down out of a cloudless sky, tempered only by the pleasingly refreshing breeze from the river. The mood of the queuing throng lifted in the sunshine and they settled themselves on the grass, more than willing to be entertained now that they were no longer shivering in the biting wind.