The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

He glanced uneasily at the small lead-lined casket, which had been hastily emptied of its scrolls of parchment to provide a temporary resting place for the offending appendage. Fortunately the seal on the box was tight enough to stop the smell from escaping, but his stomach still heaved every time he remembered picking it up.

Alan grimaced. ‘Unless we dig up the body and match the bones to the arm we can’t be certain, but it seems most likely. I could ask the infirmarer if he’s heard of anyone in Ely who has recently lost his hand in an accident, but even so, men don’t normally leave such things lying around in the street.’

‘Then whoever put the hand in St Withburga’s coffin murdered Martin,’ Stephen said, ‘and that means those three actors must be innocent, for they’ve been in gaol ever since the body was discovered.’

‘I don’t see how that proves their innocence,’ Prior Alan snapped. ‘They could have placed the hand in the coffin before the body was discovered and that wasn’t until well past midday. Men who are capable of the heinous murder and mutilation of one of their own would think nothing of desecrating the body of a blessed saint, which is why we must redouble our efforts to capture the rest of the actors. Since the three felons in gaol didn’t have the hand of St Withburga in their possession when they were searched, then one of their fellow conspirators must have it.’

Will rolled his tongue around his mouth in disgust. He could still taste that stench. He rose and poured himself another goblet of wine in the vain attempt to settle his stomach.

‘But what I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is if they intended stealing the saint’s relic, why draw attention to the theft by placing the severed hand in the coffin to stink. If they hadn’t done so the theft would have gone unnoticed for years.’

Prior Alan shrugged. ‘Perhaps they thought the hand would mummify and, in time, become indistinguishable from the other remains. As indeed it might well have done had the coffin lid not accidentally been left slightly ajar, allowing the flies to get in.’

‘But why replace it at all? Why not just take the relic?’ Will persisted stubbornly.

‘To mock us,’ Stephen said firmly. ‘It’s the Dereham men who have done this, not the actors. This is their way of thumbing their noses at us. I’m sure their plan was to display her hand in the church in Dereham, knowing we’d be forced to open the coffin before witnesses to prove we still have the body intact. Then the rotting hand would be revealed and we’d be a laughing stock.’ He turned eagerly to the prior. ‘We should send men at once to Dereham and-’

Alan held up his hand to silence him. ‘Have you forgotten half the men are out combing the fens for the other actors and the rest are trying the keep the townsmen and pilgrims from killing one another? Besides, we’ve no proof that Dereham men did this, and I certainly don’t intend letting them know the hand is missing. You said yourself, Brother Stephen, whoever put the hand in the coffin murdered Martin. What cause would anyone from Dereham have to do that? Unless you’re suggesting that they murdered the first stranger they came upon just to obtain his hand, and if that’s so, why cut off his head and remove it? No, only his fellow actors had sufficient grudge against him to do that.

“Beware the sins of envy and vainglory,

Else foul murder ends your story.”

Isn’t that what is written at the end of that wretched “Cain and Abel” play? And when a man such as Prior Wigod of Oseney writes such words it is never for his own amusement. He wrote it as a warning, a warning you should have heeded before engaging those players, Brother Stephen, for I can think of no breed of men more steeped in the sins of envy and vainglory than base actors.’

Stephen’s mouth fell open, but before he could speak Will leaned forward frowning.

‘But even if it was the actors, Father Prior, what I don’t understand is, how could they have accomplished it? All the time the cathedral is open to the pilgrims, I insist on there being a monk on duty up in the watching loft, in addition to the lay brothers keeping guard at ground level. A skilled thief might manage to snatch one of the offerings, or even a precious stone from the outside of the shrine if he was working in league with others who could set up a distraction for him, but to get inside the shrine and open the coffin unseen, that’s beyond the powers of any mortal man.’

‘Are you suggesting that this was the devil’s work, Brother Will, witchcraft?’ Stephen said, his eyes widening in alarm.

Prior Alan leaped from his chair. ‘No!’ he said firmly. ‘There is to be no talk of that. I forbid you even to think of it. If rumours should start to circulate in the town that the cathedral can’t even protect one of its own saints from the forces of darkness, then-’

But whatever warning Alan intended to issue was severed by a scream that rang out over the priory, a shriek that continued so long, it seemed that whoever was screaming had forgotten how to stop.

The stonemason’s apprentice was still howling when Prior Alan, Stephen and Will, all panting, emerged from the narrow spiral staircase onto the roof of the octagon tower. He was several feet higher up and further out, clinging to one of the little stone pinnacles. A narrow, rickety wooden scaffolding bridged the gap between the pinnacle and the roof ’s parapet, behind which the stone mason and two anguished-looking monks were gathered.

‘What ails the lad?’ Prior Alan asked. ‘Has he suddenly grown afraid of heights?’

It would hardly be surprising if he had, it was a dizzyingly long way down.

‘Can’t get any sense out of him, Father Prior,’ the stonemason yelled above the boy’s shrieks. ‘He bounded up there like a squirrel, same as always, next thing I know he was screaming like a girl.’ He raised his voice still louder, fingering the stout leather belt squeezed around his corpulent belly. ‘I’ll give you something to yell about, my lad, when I get hold of you.’

‘Threatening the boy isn’t going to make him come down,’ Stephen said. ‘Are you stuck, lad? Don’t look down. Just try to climb back slowly.’

But the boy’s arms seemed have become part of the turret they were clinging to, and he would neither loose his grip nor stop shrieking. Prior Alan glanced down at the swelling crowd of pilgrims and townspeople who were gathering below, all craning up to see what was amiss.

‘Someone will have to climb up and fetch the boy down.’

The stonemason was clearly too stout and aged to climb the narrow scaffolding to retrieve his apprentice. Alan glanced around him and selected the lighter and more nimble-looking of the two young monks for the task.

But even when he climbed up and grabbed the boy around the waist, the lad would not budge and the monk came perilously close to toppling from the scaffolding himself as he wrestled with the boy. Finally he was forced to deliver a few sharp slaps to make the lad let go. But as the boy, sobbing, dropped down from his perch, it was the monk’s turn to cry out in horror as he glimpsed what had been hidden behind the boy. It was too far round the turret to be visible from the parapet, but up on the scaffolding it was all too evident what had scared the wits out of the lad. For there, among the grimacing grotesques and carved saints, was a human head, not made of stone but of rotting flesh and blackened blood.

Prior Alan stared dismally out of the casement of his solar. Masses of delicate pink and white apple blossom covered the trees below like a fall of new snow, but that sight, which normally lifted his spirits, did nothing to raise them now. The blossom was abnormally late this year, yet another sign, if one were needed, that chaos was once more descending upon the fragile world.