The Medieval Murderers: Hill of Bones

Geraint dreamed he was in a desperate fight but, even though he was once again equipped with the bear-knife, he could not lift his arm to strike out against his unseen enemy, who was jabbing at him out of a mist. Then he woke and when he glanced sideways at his arm he saw it was swathed in blood-soaked bandages and, although it was throbbing slightly, it seemed not to be part of him. He was lying on a plain bed in a plain room, illuminated by sun pouring through a high narrow aperture. Caradoc was standing nearby, awkward.

‘Brother,’ he said simply.

He squatted down on his hams so that he almost on a level with Geraint.

In a corner of the room lay Cynric. The dog’s tail fluttered to see Geraint awake. It was cool and dry in the chamber.

‘This is a storage room of one of the villas in Aquae Sulis,’ said Caradoc. ‘You have been brought here to recover. One of the women of the town has been ordered to tend to you.’

‘It is my fighting arm,’ said Geraint.

‘You will not be doing any fighting for a while,’ said Caradoc, and the remark sounded like something he had heard someone else say.

‘What happened? Did you see Brennus?’

‘Who? Oh, the boatman. Yes, he has been… questioned. It seems he was more than a petty thief and ferryman. He was in the pay of the Saxons. We have agents among them and they keep traitors among us.’

‘Brennus was trying to attack the man by the river. The hooded man.’

‘Thanks to you he did not succeed. You know who the hooded man is?’

‘Arthur,’ said Geraint, remembering the time when he had seen him near Cadwy’s Fort. On that occasion he had ridden past in splendour, high and easy, like a god. Very different from the man still as stone in a grey mantle by the riverbank. ‘Arthur, our leader.’

‘Arthur knew Brennus of old. He was a steward at Cadwy’s Fort. He had stolen from the stores and kept false records. Arthur showed mercy by driving him from the realm in disgrace instead of taking his life. He was not grateful but twisted with bitterness. He would have harmed Arthur.’

‘Arthur was the stranger by the fire last night. The one who said he was not a god.’

‘It is his custom, they say, to walk unknown among his men and listen to what they are saying.’

‘We are his men,’ said Geraint.

‘Yes,’ said Caradoc. ‘Boys no longer.’

There was an awkward pause before Caradoc said, ‘He told me to return something to you. Arthur spoke to me! I could scarcely meet his gaze. He told me to give this back to you. He assured me it was your property even though I have never seen it before.’ He fumbled in his garments and produced the knife with the bear-hilt. Geraint took it with his good hand. ‘Where did it come from? It is not our father’s.’

‘The bear is Arthur’s image, isn’t it?’ said Geraint, not replying to his brother’s question. ‘The Company of the Bear. Brennus could surely not have killed Arthur with a weapon bearing his own image on the hilt.’

‘In any case, you alerted him.’

‘He was deep in thought. Or he was praying for success in battle.’

‘The battle that is coming,’ said Caradoc.

‘I am afraid for you,’ said Geraint, struggling to rise from the narrow bed.

‘Be still, little brother. Recover your strength and the use of your arm.’

The battle of Badon Hill, which Geraint had witnessed as plumes of smoke and cries and screams, began within a matter of days. The Saxons were ambushed by Arthur’s men as they approached Aquae Sulis, in a pass between the hills to the east of the Roman town. Taken by surprise and temporarily overwhelmed, they retreated to the old fortified hill top called Badon and there the Britons laid siege to them. The hill top was barren, without water or any resources. When the enemy was weakened by hunger and thirst and constant harrying, Arthur’s men stormed the bare slopes and swept over the plateau with sword and fire.

It was a great struggle, and a great victory for Arthur and the Britons against the Saxons. Arthur was reputed to have slain over nine hundred of the foe single-handed – or so the story went centuries later when he was no longer a mere man but a god once more. There were losses on the British side too, among them red-headed Aelric and young Caradoc from an anonymous village not far from Cadwy’s.

Geraint, kept from the battle by his wound, knew of Caradoc’s death before the woman who was tending to him informed him of it. He knew of it not because of any vision but because one morning Cynric, who stayed in the storeroom and would not leave Geraint’s side, was restless for hours and then raised the hairs on the boy’s neck with a long-drawn-out ghostly howl. Geraint turned his head to one side and wept for his brother, following so hard at the heels of their departed mother.

He might be glad of the happy outcome of the battle but he grieved for the loss of Caradoc. In commemoration of his brother and before returning to his village, Geraint went to the hill of Badon outside the town. The day was overcast and the clouds pressed down low. Geraint did not walk to the very top of the hill from which smoke drifted, acrid, smelling of meat. The dead were still burning, the corpses of Saxons and the Britons, or it was merely the carcasses of the horses. Nevertheless Geraint did not want to climb any higher. He did not want to go searching for the exact spot where Caradoc had fallen. He did not want the possibility of glimpsing his brother’s mangled, roasting corpse among the slain.

Instead he faced about to the south-west in the direction of his village. The gentle hills slept under the low sky. Geraint saw no vision of any battle to come. Perhaps the talk that he had heard while he was recovering his strength was true: that the battle of Badon was the last battle, or the last for many years. The Saxons were routed. For all the bitter scent in his nostrils, thought Geraint, perhaps the Saxon threat was sleeping or even at an end. Then, in the company of the dog Cynric and, choosing a secluded spot on the slope, Geraint buried the dagger with the ivory bear-hilt.

Bath Abbey, September 1199

Something rotten was unfolding in Bath. Two good men were dead, and Prior Hugh suspected murder. The first had happened eight years ago, when the saintly Bishop Reginald had died en route to Canterbury, where he was to have been invested as archbishop; his body had been returned to Bath, and over the last few weeks, miracles had been occurring at his tomb. And second, there was Adam.

Adam had not wanted to be Master of St John’s Hospital, but Reginald’s successor, Bishop Savaric, had been insistent. And no one refused the ruthless, uncompromising Savaric. Adam had been a talented healer, but he had not enjoyed running a large and busy foundation, and it had probably been a desire for peace that had led him up Solsbury Hill a month before.

No one knew exactly what had happened, but Adam’s torn body had been found at the foot of the hill the following morning. Opinions in the abbey were divided: some monks thought a wolf was at large, while others believed Adam had fallen to his death. Fallen! Savaric had been the one to propose that ridiculous notion, determined – suspiciously, as far as Hugh was concerned – that the matter should be dismissed as a tragic accident.

Hugh stood with difficulty. He had been sitting in the cloister all afternoon, thinking, and his legs were stiff. A walk would ease them, though, and he brightened at the prospect. It was a pretty evening for a stroll. He stifled a sigh when his sacrist stepped to intercept him. Robert was a portly, smiling man who always gave the impression of great piety; Hugh had yet to be convinced that it was sincere.