The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

‘A t least now we have the whole corpse,’ Stephen said, desperate to break the icy silence. ‘We can bury the head with the rest of Martin’s remains and his spirit will surely rest easier for it.’

Prior Alan turned and glowered at his subprior. ‘His spirit will not rest easy until his murderer has been punished, and nor will mine. We may have been able to keep the theft of St Withburga’s hand between ourselves, but thanks to that wretched boy screaming from the rooftops, news of what he found will be across Ely before nightfall and what the townspeople lack in facts they will surely make up.’

‘They already have,’ Will said grimly, striding through the door and closing it firmly behind him. ‘I’ve just come from Steeple Gate. The crowds are as thick as flies on… ’

He closed his eyes briefly and swallowed hard. He’d never thought of himself as a squeamish man, but being forced retrieve two maggot-infested body parts in one day was enough to sicken any man’s stomach.

‘The rumours have already started, Father Prior. They say a demon must have placed the head where no mortal man could.’

‘Utter nonsense!’ The words exploded from Alan’s lips. ‘Any man who was reasonably agile could have climbed that scaffold and put it there. After all, you climbed up and you’re certainly mortal.’

‘I certainly felt my mortality up there,’ Will said with a shudder. ‘But the trouble is, Father Prior, the crowd can’t see the scaffolding from the ground and they’re not in a mood to listen to reason. They’re claiming a demon flew down from the octagon tower, slew Martin, then carried his head back up to the tower to devour at its leisure.’

Prior Alan shook his head in utter disbelief at the notions that filled the heads of men. As sacrist, he had designed the octagon himself, after the original tower collapsed, and he always took any slight directed at his beloved creation as a personal affront.

‘And that’s not the worst of the rumours, Father Prior…’ Will saw his superior’s jaw clench in anger and hesitated, but Alan had to be told. ‘The townspeople may not know we found Martin’s hand in the shrine, but they do know there was a stench as foul as hell coming from St Withburga’s tomb. Now they’re saying that a great evil has come upon the whole priory and cathedral, because of that play. The Glovers have wasted no time in telling everyone the play of “Cain and Abel” is cursed and that by performing it on cathedral grounds we’ve raised a demon of death, which is hunting human prey. Apparently not a man, woman or child in Ely is safe. It will slay them all just as surely as Cain slew Abel.’

‘This has gone far enough!’ Prior Alan slammed his fist down onto the wooden table so hard that both Will and Stephen flinched. ‘I hold you entirely responsible for this, Brother Stephen. If you hadn’t given them leave to perform that wretched play, there’d never have been a murder, never mind these bits of rotting corpse popping up all over the cathedral.’

Subprior Stephen open his mouth to protest, but Alan hadn’t finished.

‘We have to do something to bring these rumours to an end before the townspeople take it into their heads to storm the cathedral and tear down my tower, stone by stone. Fetch those murderers from the hell-pit at once. I intend to confront them with that head and force them to admit they killed Martin. I swear on God’s bones I will wrench a confession out of those actors even if I have to make them eat that head to do it.’

Henry, Cuddy and John stood unsteadily in the prior’s hall, blinking painfully in the light. It had been two weeks since they had been able to stand up and now their legs trembled beneath them, not helped by the weight of the chains shackling their wrists and ankles. Henry glanced at the other two actors. They were filthy, covered in bits of mouldy straw and excrement. He noticed the monks wrinkling their noses and discreetly taking a few steps back and he was suddenly aware of how much he himself must stink.

But it was nothing to the stench that filled the hall when the lead-lined box was opened and the rotting head and hand were laid out on the great long wooden table. One glimpse of the empty blackened eye sockets, where the ravens had been at work, was enough to make Henry collapse to his knees and start retching.

The prior gestured to one of the muscular lay brothers, who reached down and hauled Henry back to his feet by his hair, dragging him closer to the foul remains.

‘Too cowardly to face the sight of your own crime, are you?’ Alan thundered. ‘Gaze upon the ravaged countenance of your cousin, and weep in shame for what you have done.’

The lay brother pulled Henry’s head up, forcing him to look. At first Henry was too appalled to take in what he was seeing, but something finally worked its way up through the fog of his dazed mind.

‘That… isn’t Martin. It can’t be Martin.’

‘Even his poor mother would not know him now that the maggots and birds have been to work on him,’ Alan said sternly.

‘No, not the face… ’ Henry swallowed hard, trying to bite back the bile that had risen in his throat. ‘His hair… Martin was blond. That hair is dark.’

At once everyone else in the room who had been studiously avoiding looking at the head now stared at it.

‘He’s right!’ Stephen said. ‘I spoke to Martin several times. His hair was the colour of ripe corn, and even allowing for the dried blood-’

Prior Alan rounded on him. ‘Then why didn’t you say that as soon as Brother Will retrieved the head?’

Stephen gulped. ‘I could only bear to look at it once and that briefly. I didn’t even notice the hair. I just assumed-’

‘Then if it’s not Martin, who is it?’ Prior Alan demanded.

There was a loud groan from Cuddy. He was swaying so alarmingly that two of the lay brothers made a grab for him, certain he was going to fall.

‘God in heaven, that’s Luke, that is,’ he whispered. ‘That’s my poor nephew, Luke.’

Shaking off the lay brothers Cuddy suddenly launched himself at Henry, but his chains brought him crashing to the ground before he could reach him.

‘You murdering bastard, you’ve butchered my Luke. I’m going to kill you. I’m going to rip you apart with my bare hands.’

Once again, Alan, Stephen and Will found themselves sitting in the prior’s solar in morose silence. None of them had been willing to eat at the common table, knowing that the wild speculations of their brothers would be even more lurid than those circulating in the marketplace. But they had hardly touched the meal of roast duck and stuffed eel that had been brought to them in the solar, for the day’s events had considerably blunted their appetites.

It had taken some time to clear the hall and return the prisoners to the hell-pit beneath the infirmary. Cuddy, for all that he had been kept chained and on meagre rations for the last two weeks, had surprising reserves of strength and in his rage kept trying to throw his chained wrists round the terrified Henry’s neck and throttle him. And Cuddy’s fury had only increased when he heard the order to return him to the gaol. But Prior Alan was in no mood to release anyone, not until he got to the bottom of this whole sordid mess.

Now Stephen glanced anxiously towards his superior. Stephen hadn’t become subprior by being timid, but all the same he was well aware that not only did his prior hold him responsible for staging the accursed play, but he was now also blaming him for failing to recognise the head. And when a man like Prior Alan was already in a black humour, adding to his fury was as wise as prodding a wounded boar with a sharp stick. Nevertheless, Stephen felt it his duty to speak.