The Medieval Murderers - House of Shadows

‘I now lay down my confession of sin…’

The prior stared at these opening words scratched on to the page for an eternity, before becoming bold enough to write down the final calamity.

‘And now we have his mother to contend with.’

Knowing that the effects of the chewed leaf would not allow him to sleep, William Falconer decided to slake his curiosity. He crept across his room, barely making a noise, and descended the stairs. The two guest-rooms, while being next to each other, were not connected in any way. They were approached by two separate staircases from the inner courtyard. So if Falconer was going to discover who his restless companion was, he would have to descend his own stairs to access those of the other guest. It did not occur to him until he stood in the archway at the bottom of his own stairs staring at the continuing downpour that he had no reason to be intruding on the other man.

‘Damn it all, William. You are an infernally nosy character – you must be able to think of some cause to disturb his rest.’

He sidled along the wall of the guesthouse trying his best to keep out of the rain that still poured down. Despite his best efforts, several large drops of water fell from the roof overhang and subtly found their way down his neck and inside his robe. He shivered as the freezing water trickled down his back, soaking into his underclothes. Reaching the arch of the other staircase, he pushed against the door to escape the deluge. It resisted his thrust, and after rattling the latch several times he finally realized the door was locked.

‘Who is it feels so damned insecure that he locks himself up inside the walls of a priory?’

Defying the rain that was already soaking him a second time, he stepped out into the yard. Putting his eye-glasses on, he stared up at the window where he had first seen signs of occupation. At that moment, like a providential stroke, a flash of lightning lit up the yard followed hard by a clap of thunder. Almost on the thunder’s heels and in the returning darkness, a yellowish light once more appeared at the window. Falconer swiped his fingers across the lenses before his eyes to clear the blurred image and perceived the pale, anxious visage of a woman. She was staring up at the maelstrom that was the storm. And the moon that was half-disappeared from the sky.

‘A woman. And locked away too.’

‘She is a Jewess seeking her son. What else could I do, short of casting her out? And that I could not do.’

Falconer hadn’t known he had spoken his own observations out loud, and turned to look over his shoulder at who had replied. There stood a black-clad figure who had appeared out of nowhere, his footsteps masked by the sounds of the thunderstorm. Though his hood was pulled over his features to protect him from the rain, Falconer could see it was John de Chartres. The prior was looking at him quizzically, and Falconer realized he still wore the heavy glasses that helped his vision. Embarrassed, he pulled them off, folding them up and returning them to his pouch.

‘She…What is a Jewess doing looking for her son in a priory?’

De Chartres grimaced. ‘That is simple. He is here…or he was. Until the day before yesterday, to be exact.’ He took Falconer by his arm and guided him towards the archway of his guest-room. ‘Let me explain somewhere more salubrious.’

Saphira Le Veske gazed down on the two men as they scurried back into the shelter of the doorway at the other end of the building where she had been incarcerated. Once they were out of her sight, she looked up at the sky again, to where the moon was experiencing a rare eclipse. As the curved shadow of the earth crossed the moon’s sunlit surface, it appeared as though a greater and greater arc was being eroded from the orb. Superstitious folk might imagine that the moon was being eaten away. Saphira, an educated woman who had run her dead husband’s businesses for more years than she cared to recall, knew better. But she still sighed at the phenomenon. It was so much more alluring to imagine the moon being consumed by a great invisible monster than to conceive of orbs in the vastness of the sky. She looked back down at the empty courtyard, now nearly pitch black as the moonlight was eroded. The big, raw-boned man with the strange eye-lenses had piqued her curiosity. Before he had put on his glasses, she had looked into his piercing-blue eyes and seen intensity and a wild intelligence. Maybe he was the man she needed to restart her stalled affairs at Bermondsey Priory.

She crossed her upper chamber and pressed her ear to the wall that separated her room from his. If she concentrated, she thought she could just hear the murmur of two voices.

‘Though I have no obligation to do so, I wish to explain the circumstances to you.’

The prior was beginning his conversation with William Falconer rather too sternly, and he knew it. Still, he could not help himself, as he preferred to surround himself with an aura of infallibility. He was moreover a man who relied on his dignity to carry him through difficult situations and was unused to confiding in others. But somehow he felt the present circumstances would be served by sharing them with this erudite stranger. Especially as Master Falconer was someone whom the prior was unlikely to see ever again after the night was over. Falconer was seated on the edge of his pallet, legs spread wide, his hands planted firmly on each knee. He angled his head at the prior’s comment, as if indicating his understanding of the monk’s difficult position. The man seemed to have something to hide. But William knew the value of silence in eliciting further information from a reluctant witness and kept quiet. Prior John de Chartres paced the creaky floor, pulling on his lower lip with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. He paused for a moment, looking out at the darkling sky outside the narrow window. Then he swung around to face Falconer again.

‘The blight of Brother Peter’s madness is not the only problem to strike this priory recently. In the last few days two of his fellow brothers, both his sort of age, have disappeared without trace.’

‘I am used to the errant ways of young men, who give in to the lure of the fleshpots for a few days. But they nearly always come back repentant.’ Falconer paused to look up at the prior, who clearly didn’t take too kindly to his suggestion that the Cluniac order resembled in any way the rowdy hordes of Oxford clerks. He quickly softened his observation. ‘On the other hand, there are those uncertain souls who often take flight back home to their families, having decided that learning is not for them.’

The prior shook his head. ‘Neither case can appertain here, Master Falconer. Brother Eudo is an orphan, and Brother Martin…’ His face crumpled, and he cast a glance sideways at the blank wall that separated Falconer’s solar from the other guest-chamber. William wondered if he thought the mysterious woman was listening in to their conversation for some reason. ‘Perhaps you will understand if I tell you that Brother Martin is called Le Convers.’

‘He is a Jew.’

‘Was a Jew, Master. Now a convert from La Réole near Bordeaux, and I am paid eight pence a week to instruct him in the Catholic faith. But now I am not so sure I should have taken such a viper into my nest of innocents.’

Falconer sensed there was some deeper matter here, and that it involved the woman locked away next door. He could feel the prickle of a megrim beginning, but he thrust it aside. ‘Tell me all the circumstances.’

The Jewess knew she could save her son if only she could escape the durance that had been imposed on her. It had been her misfortune to trust the prior of Bermondsey Abbey when she approached him openly the previous day and said she sought out the youth known as Martin the Convert. John de Chartres had obfuscated, from the outset appearing embarrassed by the Jewess’s request.