The Medieval Murderers - The First Murder

Alan laid it down with a sigh. ‘This must be locked away in our own vaults, at least until we can discover which cathedral or abbey it was stolen from.’

‘Father Prior,’ Stephen said, ‘what do you intend to do with Martin now, and the other players? For it seems they were telling the truth after all.’

There was more than a hint of ‘I told you so’ in his tone, but if Prior Alan noticed, he was choosing to ignore it.

‘I’ll release them in the morning – all except Martin, of course. I think he would find himself a murder victim in truth if we left him to the mercy of the other actors. Besides, he may be innocent of murder, but there’s still a long list of other crimes for which he is assuredly guilty. But I don’t intend to keep him lying around in the hell-pit. He can spend his nights chained up in there, but I’m sure we can find work to keep him occupied during the day, until the alchemist’s trial. I think cleaning out the latrines might be a good start, then the stables, that way he can start earning the bread he received in alms.’

There was a knock on the heavy oak door and the infirmarer entered.

Alan motioned to him to join them round the fire, but he shook his head and remained standing just inside the door.

‘I have bad news, Father Prior. It’s Brother Oswin.’

‘Has his fever worsened?’

‘It has, but I am afraid it’s no common fever.’ He sighed and wearily massaged his eyes. ‘He is coughing blood and the black marks have appeared on his skin. There can be no doubt, it is the Great Pestilence.’

Prior Alan groaned. ‘God have mercy on us all.’

Will and Stephen stared aghast at each other. They had both touched Oswin, held him up on Will’s horse as they brought him home and carried him to the infirmary.

‘You changed your robes, did you not?’ the infirmarer asked, in answer to their unspoken question.

‘They were wet and muddy.’

‘They should be burned. But if it’s any consolation, by all accounts it’s mostly the young men like Brother Oswin the pestilence is claiming this time.’

Will had turned very pale and his hands were trembling. ‘Father Edmund coughed blood at the last. Do you think…?’

The infirmarer grimaced, refusing to meet his frightened gaze. ‘I will prepare some draughts for you that are thought to be efficacious, and, Father Prior, with your permission I will have fumigants burning in every part of the priory by morning. But I think that you should order a grave to be dug in the monks’ cemetery as soon as it’s light. There is no physic that will help Brother Oswin now.’

‘I pray it’s the only grave we will need to dig, but I suspect there will be many more,’ Prior Alan said.

Stephen shuddered. He knew he should not fear death. His life was in God’s hands and it was His to take it, whenever it pleased Him to do so. Nevertheless, Stephen could not help but be comforted that they would be spending the night in vigil at St Withburga’s shrine. He felt the need for her protection more tonight than he had ever done in his life before.

The infirmarer made to leave, then turned back. ‘There is something else you should know, Father Prior. Some of the brothers are saying The Play of Adam is the cause of this misfortune and when the people of Ely learn of Brother Oswin’s condition they will surely blame the curse of the play as well. They may even try to storm the priory.’

‘I’m not a man to believe in curses,’ Alan said, ‘and I’ve always tried to ignore the legend that the very first time the play was performed in Oseney Abbey, a monk was cruelly murdered. But I am beginning to believe that play has a strange way of bringing forth the evil in man.’

He sat in silence for a few minutes as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. Then he gave a great sigh. ‘Brother Stephen, would you be so good as to fetch The Play of Adam from the library for me?’

Stephen bowed his head and left the room. He returned a while later with a long wooden case and laid it on the table in front of Prior Alan. Alan opened it carefully and slid out a roll of vellum and unrolled the first few inches .

‘This is over two hundred years old and see, the writing is as bold and clear as the day it was scratched upon this scroll. The author used the finest quality ink and vellum. Perhaps he was once a sacrist himself, like me, and knew how to buy the best. A pity, such a pity that what was written in faith should be used for such foul ends, yet that is ever the way of man. But we must put a stop to this and let it be known in the town that The Play of Adam is gone and will never again be performed.’

‘You surely don’t mean to burn it,’ Will said. Although he, unlike Prior Alan, was convinced the scene of “Cain and Abel” was cursed, still he could not bear to think of anything so old and beautiful being wholly consigned to the flames.

‘No, I would not destroy it, but like the sword it must be placed where it cannot be used for evil.’

Alan turned over the scroll and dipped his quill in his ink pot. He carefully wrote a few lines on the back of the vellum at the top, then he rolled it up again. Melting the end of the stick of wax in the candle flame, he allowed a glob of it to fall precisely on the edge of the scroll, before swiftly pressing his seal to it. The wax hardened almost as once, sealing the scroll shut.

‘Brother Stephen, choose two of our younger brethren. Tell them they must be ready to leave Ely at dawn. They must take this scroll straight to the Benedictine House at Westminster, and give it into the hand of the abbot. He’s an old friend of mine. He will understand my warning. And it might be wise to instruct the brothers to disguise themselves as lay folk just until they are well beyond Ely. As soon as the news of the pestilence breaks, there will be a great throng scrabbling to leave the town and I don’t want the monks to be at the mercy of their wrath. Tell the brothers not to return until they know Ely is free from the contagion. If God wills it, this Play of Adam might for once save two young lives instead of taking them.’

He handed the scroll to Stephen, who looked down at the words his superior had written.

In that this scroll contains Holy Writ, you shall not suffer it to be destroyed. Yet neither shall you break the seal upon it, lest fools and knaves make of it swords to slay the innocent and infect man’s reason with the worm of madness.

Alan of Walsingham, Prior of Ely.

Outside in the darkness a single bell began to toll. Brother Oswin was dead. How many more times would that bell ring over the coming weeks? Whatever Prior Alan chose to believe, Stephen felt a shadow hovering over Ely, darker and more terrifying than any demon. And he knew then with a dreadful certainty that the scroll had been sealed too late – far too late to save them now.

Historical Notes

In the seventh century St Eltheldreda, daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, founded the monastery of Ely and her youngest sister, Withburga, founded a nunnery at Dereham. Many miracles were attributed to Withburga, including that a wild doe came to her to be milked twice a day to provide food for the workmen who were building the church at Dereham. When she died in around AD 743, she was buried at Dereham, which became a place of pilgrimage.

In 974, Brithnoth, Abbot of Ely, decided that Withburga should be interred in the cathedral along with her sister Etheldreda. The abbot and his monks broke into the shrine at Dereham and stole the saint’s body. In the morning the men of Dereham gave chase, but the body was already on a boat sailing up the river towards Ely. When the Dereham men returned home they found a miraculous spring had welled up in the empty grave. The shrines of the two princesses, together with the shrines of their sister Sexburga and her daughter, Ermengild, made Ely Cathedral an important medieval pilgrimage site, but, sadly, the shrines were destroyed in 1541 during the Reformation.