The Medieval Murderers - Hill of Bones

Once in the kitchen, Selwyn sat Eldred by the fire and gave him a wooden bowl of potage, which he filled from an iron pot hanging from a trivet hanging over the glowing logs.

‘Get this down you, boy, compliments of King John!’ he said, as he added a hunk of coarse bread. ‘He doesn’t know it, but I doubt he’d begrudge you.’

He got the same for Riocas and himself, and the three conspirators sat on stools around the fire to discuss how they would manage Eldred’s escape.

‘They’re bound to come here looking for you in the morning, but I think I can keep you safe. Then later in the day, we’ll get you out of the city and up to Solsbury Hill.’

Eldred shivered, but not from the cold. ‘They say it’s haunted and is the lair of demons!’ he muttered. ‘How can I survive up there?’

‘Better than you’d survive the gallows-tree with a hemp rope around your neck!’ retorted Riocas bluntly.

At dawn, there was a rumpus in the abbey yard, started by William, the proctor’s bailiff when he found his prisoner flown. Then a succession of abbey seniors arrived, and soon the prior himself added to the fury. His normally ingratiating manner had vanished and he was livid with anger at having his prize scapegoat spirited away only hours before he intended parading him before Bishop Savaric as the perpetrator of the dastardly theft.

Once again, all the abbey brothers and servants were mobilised to search for the sacrist’s assistant. The gatekeepers on the two abbey gates into the city were interrogated and all swore that no one resembling Eldred had passed through their portals.

‘He must still be within the precinct,’ fumed Prior Robert. ‘Seek him out, wherever he might be hiding. There are others involved in this; they must also be rooted out and punished!’

Inevitably, the King’s House was included in this frantic search, though as it was royal property, not within the jurisdiction of the prior or bishop, the ecclesiastical faction had to tread carefully.

The cellarer, Brother Gilbert, was deputed to tackle this task and though he tried to browbeat Selwyn, everyone knew that the steward was a royal servant, not beholden to the Abbey in any way. However, he could hardly refuse them entry without arousing grave suspicion, but did so grudgingly, saying that he would have to send word of the intrusion to Gloucester, where the King was currently quartered. He followed Gilbert, his assistant, Maurice, and William the bailiff everywhere in the house, muttering his protests. When they went upstairs to peer into the upper chambers, Selwyn at first refused to produce the key to the royal bedroom.

‘That would be too much, Brother Gilbert!’ he complained. ‘He is your sovereign lord as much as he is mine. Would you dare to do this if you were in Westminster or Windsor?’

The cellarer looked uneasy, but was adamant. ‘What is there to hide, steward? Let us just glance within from here. That can hardly amount to treason!’

Having calculated the risks, Selwyn made a great show of reluctantly producing the key from his pouch.

‘This is the only room with a lock, with good reason!’ he growled, and pushed open the door, but stood with his body half in the entrance. ‘See, it is as bare as a widow’s pantry!’

Gilbert glared around the room. ‘What’s in those large chests?’

‘Nothing, until the King’s chamberlains arrive with his robes. Send your man here to look, if nothing less will satisfy you!’

The steward grabbed Maurice, a weedy young man with a long nose, and pushed him into the room.

‘May God grant that the King never learns that you defiled his bedchamber!’

The cellarer’s monk scurried across the room and with quick movements raised the lids of each chest and banged them down almost instantly. ‘Empty, Brother Gilbert!’ he squeaked.

‘Check the bed, now that you’re there,’ snapped Gilbert defiantly.

As he hurried back to the door, Maurice made a couple of panic-stricken prods into the mattress. ‘No one hiding there, brother!’ he panted, as he pushed his way out of the room and the imagined wrath of the irascible monarch.

Gilbert scowled at Selwyn, then led his fellow searchers back down the stairs, stamping his feet to mark his irritation.

‘If you see hide or hair of that damned fellow, you will let me know at once – or face the consequences!’ he blustered as he went out into the abbey yard once again.

Selwyn spent a few minutes needlessly brushing the kitchen floor, to make sure that the cellarer did not make a surprise return visit. Then he went back up to the King’s chamber and stood by the bed.

‘Are you still alive, Eldred?’ he asked in a low voice. He was answered by a muffled cry of distress and going to the back of the plinth that supported the mattress, gave it a hefty tug to pull it away from the wall. It was really an inverted wooden box, open at the end against the wall. From the gap, a dishevelled figure crawled out crabwise and lay gasping on the floor.

‘Another few minutes and I would have suffocated,’ he croaked. ‘Thank God I’m thin, for the space was the same height as my body. I could hardly breathe!’

Selwyn helped him up and dusted the dirt and cobwebs from his habit. ‘You’d not have breathed very well with a rope around your neck, either,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘Come down and have some food and drink. We’ll have to decide what to do with you next.’

When Eldred was reminded of the plan to smuggle him out of the city to a hiding place several miles away, he refused to countenance the idea.

‘I cannot leave my wife so far away,’ he protested, to the exasperation of his two friends. ‘How will she survive without me being nearby?’

‘What good can you do here, skulking in some cellar, afraid to show your face to any man?’ demanded Riocas.

‘And where will you find such a cellar, eh?’ snapped Selwyn, annoyed that Eldred was proving so difficult after all the effort and risks that he and the cat-catcher had taken. ‘No way can you be hidden here in the King’s House, for the other steward will be returning in a day or two. Also I would not put it past the prior or sheriff to make another search in their desperation to find you.’

They argued the matter for several minutes, then the lay brother came up with another suggestion, which the other two received with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

‘I could seek sanctuary in one of the churches,’ proposed Eldred. ‘That would give me more than a month of immunity from arrest. Surely evidence of my innocence will be forthcoming long before then!’

Riocas, whose fondness for the Church and all its attributes was sadly lacking, was scathing about the idea. ‘And if it doesn’t, you’ll be dragged out at the end and will have gained nothing.’

‘I could claim “benefit of clergy”,’ replied Eldred, stubbornly. ‘I am able to recite “the neck verse” well enough.’

This was a device whereby men, including lay brothers, could avoid being tried in the secular courts by showing that they could read and were therefore in holy orders. The ability to recite a short excerpt of the Twenty-first Psalm was accepted as a convenient test of literacy, even though it was often learned parrot-fashion by illiterates. This had saved many a man from being hanged and was therefore cynically known as ‘the neck verse’.

‘In the circumstances, I doubt the bishop’s court would resist handing you over to the Commissioners of Assize for sentence,’ retorted Riocas. ‘So you’d still end up dancing on the end of a rope.’

Selwyn’s brow was furrowed in thought. ‘It would be a terrible gamble, for if the real villains were not found in that time, you would be doomed.’