The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

‘Wouldn’t work,’ John said. ‘The angel’s the first to speak in the “Isaac” too, and if he doesn’t say the line. “Now show he may, if he loveth God more than his child”, the rest of the story makes no sense.’

‘Besides,’ Cuddy said, ‘we’re not such fools as to let you go running off with your cousin and our money. You’re staying here, until your cousin brings us what he stole. And you’d better hope he turns up soon or you’ll soon realise a blow from that jawbone is nothing more than a smack with a feather compared to what we’ll do to you.’

Henry, his stomach churning, took up his place on the darkened wagon. He heard the players strike up a tune on drums and frestelles to draw the attention of the crowd. Then Cuddy gave the orders to start the smoke belching from hell, while the others loosened the last of the ties holding down the sailcloth. Light flooded in as the cloth was pulled aside. Henry swallowed hard and cleared his throat. Painfully he kneeled with his back to hell, facing the throne of God. It seemed to make more sense to address his lines to that rather than empty air where the angel should have been standing.

‘“I thank you, Lord, for Your goodness,

That has made me, on Earth, Your man.

I worship… ”’

He became aware of a loud murmuring in the audience. He glanced sideways, trying to see what was amiss without turning his head. Were they disappointed because there was no angel?

Henry raised his voice over the buzzing of the crowd. ‘“I worship you with-”’

A woman started to scream. Others joined in. Some were backing away, desperately trying to extricate themselves from the throng, but they were trapped by the rest of the crowd, who were trying to wriggle nearer to the wagon.

Still on his knees, and unable to move swiftly because of the stiffness of his back, Henry turned his head in bewilderment, as John stumbled past him and halted abruptly in front of the great gaping mouth of hell.

‘Stop that smoke,’ he roared, flapping his arms vigorously to disperse it.

He peered into the open jaws, then staggered backwards as if he’d been punched.

‘Holy Virgin, defend us!’ John crossed himself several times in rapid succession and stood rocking on his heels.

Henry clambered stiffly to his feet and tried to peer round John’s broad frame, but John caught hold of Henry’s arm and pulled him away.

‘Don’t look, lad. Trust me, you don’t want to see.’

But his warning came too late, Henry had already seen.

A faint trickle of smoke still swirled in hell’s mouth, but it was not enough to obscure the figure that was lying inside. The man, dressed in white angel robes and feathered wings, was lying on his belly. His arms were stretched out on either side in a cruciform, like a monk doing penance before an altar. But where his head should have been there was nothing but the bloody stump of a neck. The pool of blood had seeped into the pure white robes, and stained the tips of the swan’s feathers scarlet. And the man’s head wasn’t the only part of him that was missing. His right arm now ended at his wrist from which the splintered bone glistened white against the red.

For a moment Henry stood and stared as if the corpse was just another of the carpenter’s painted props. Then with a shriek of horror, he knocked John aside and fled.

If it hadn’t been for the river at the bottom of the hill, Henry might never have stopped running. He ran as if that mutilated angel was swooping after him like a falcon and he was the quarry. He charged blindly towards the water and would have tumbled in had not a river-man caught him and dragged him back.

‘Steady, lad! You don’t want to go falling in there. River’s thick with boats, you’ll get your head staved in by a bow or an oar. Here, are you sick?’ he added, as Henry sank to his knees. ‘It’s not the pestilence, is it?’ he said, backing away in alarm as Henry vomited copiously.

By now Henry had attracted a small crowd of curious onlookers, staring at him intently to see if his face and arms bore any sign of the telltale blue-black marks, though they were all careful to keep their distance. Henry staggered to his feet and stumbled along the bank, though his legs were trembling so much he could barely manage to walk never mind run.

‘There he is!’ someone yelled. ‘Seize that man! Don’t just stand there, grab him! Don’t let him get away.’

Without thinking Henry glanced back to see who they were shouting about. Several lay brothers were racing down towards the river, their sandalled feet slapping loudly on the stones. Henry’s mind was so dazed that it took several moments to register that they were pointing at him. By the time he realised, it was too late. Two of the rivermen had grabbed his arms and he found himself being dragged back along the bank.

‘This the man you’re after?’ one of the river-men said, thrusting Henry towards the first of the lay brothers, who was panting so hard he could only reply with a nod.

‘What’s he done?’ the other river-man asked curiously.

‘K… killed a man, that’s what… Not just murdered him, but mutilated the body too. And if that weren’t bad enough, he did it on priory land, right in front of the cathedral door, with the holy statues of Christ and the saints looking down on the bloody deed.’

The river-men and bystanders growled their outrage. The lay brother nodded with satisfaction, gratified by the reaction he was getting.

‘And you haven’t heard the worst of it. It wasn’t a stranger he murdered. It was his own kin, his poor cousin, wickedly done to death.’

The river-man gripped Henry’s arm as if he was trying to snap the bone in two. ‘God’s blood, you’ll hang for sure, boy, that’s if you survive the flogging they’ll give you first. And, trust me, there won’t be a man or woman in Ely who’ll beg mercy for you.’

It wasn’t for nothing that the priory’s gaol was known as ‘hell’. It lay beneath the infirmary, its walls stout and windowless, and it was as well they were, for once news of the heinous crime spread through the town, not even the lay brothers could prevent the mob gathering to hurl insults and missiles at the priory gate. The women were the worst, for hadn’t Martin been the very image of Gabriel himself with his golden curls and blue eyes, and by the end of that day they had convinced themselves Henry wasn’t just guilty of slaying a man, but of murdering a holy angel.

Henry, dragged past the gate on his way to the gaol, heard the shrieks of abuse and cringed as the stones thudded against the thick oak door. He was almost relieved when they threw him down inside the safety of the dark, stinking pit. The great stone walls were green with slime and as dank as a village well. But Henry was not left to suffer the misery of hell alone. Cuddy and John were already sitting with their backs against the wall, their necks encircled with heavy hoops of iron chaining them to the rough stones. Henry did not resist when he was chained to the opposite wall, though the metal cut painfully into his neck and the chains were too short to allow him to either lie down or stand. He knew if Cuddy and John had not been similarly chained, he’d be dead long before the hangman could do his work.

Henry had sworn before Prior Alan de Walsingham that he was innocent. It was John and Cuddy who had quarrelled with Martin. It was their money he had stolen. It was they who had killed him in revenge, or else it was a member of the Glovers’ Guild. Hadn’t the Ely men said the Glovers always performed ‘Cain and Abel’? Maybe they’d done it to prove they were right about the curse and to frighten off anyone else who had the audacity to dare to perform their play.