The Medieval Murderers - House of Shadows

‘Well, Francis saw that their love could lead only to disaster, so he tried to extricate himself from her clutches. Too late, poor man. Too late. Their passion would not permit them to keep apart, and I fear that they sought each other out. I know-’ he held up a hand in pained agreement ‘-what they did was appalling. To sin in such manner here in the house of God…and not only once, so I heard…Well, God’s fury was roused!’

Lawrence knew also how to maintain suspense, and while he tried to think of a suitable ending to this story he could sense the novice’s increasing torment.

‘And? Brother? What happened to them?’

Lawrence shook his head sadly. ‘They died. Both of them. But it is said that no one ever found their bodies. You see, some say that they decided to flee the priory, where they were honour bound to live out their lives in the service of God as their oaths demanded, and while trying to cross the marshes in the night they sank into a bog and perished. Some say that they were so miserable with their sins that they went to the river and threw themselves in. But the truth is concealed in the prior’s books. Did you know that there is a chronicle of the earliest times of our foundation? In there, I have heard tell-’ and he dropped his voice and looked about him as the novice leaned closer, his eyes grown round with thrilled horror ‘-it says that a great devilish beast came and bore them away, John. So terrifying was it that all who saw it fell to the ground, and some were never right in their minds again after that.’

He withdrew, nodding with solemn sagacity, eyeing the novice. ‘And ever since that day, men have said that they have seen their ghosts – especially in the undercroft just here. See that? There is where the two are supposed to have been captured in flagrante delicto. You understand that?’

The boy did. No one at the convent could deny that they had more thoughts about such indecent acts than about anything else.

‘Well, let that be a lesson to you. A man who commits a mortal sin of that nature is accursed, but a monk ! He is damned for ever, as is the whore with whom he consorts. Never forget that, John, or you, too, will see the ghosts, and they’ll beckon you to join them. Great, tall ghosts, enormous, with grasping hands to pull you down to hell!’

A tolling bell caught his attention.

‘Hurry, lad. It’s time to wash your hands for vespers.’

‘But…’

‘What?’

‘Would a crime like that be more evil than any other?’

‘Perhaps not. The king ordering Prior Walter to be arrested and held in the Tower: that, too, is a great crime against God; He will punish the guilty.’

Lawrence watched as the lad nodded seriously. Dear heaven, but he must try to moderate his tone. He had let the boy see his own pain, and that was a dangerous thing, now that the prior had been arrested and marched away. Prior Walter was ever a strong defender of the rights and liberties of Bermondsey – for all the good it had done him. Accused of aiding the escape of King Edward’s most detested traitor, Lord Mortimer, who had managed to get out of the Tower of London and make his way, so they said, to France, there was nothing he could say or do in his own defence. When a man was accused by the king, no defence was adequate.

That was the state of the kingdom now. No man was secure if once accused. The king’s deplorable adviser, confidant and, so it was rumoured, lover, Sir Hugh Le Despenser, held sway. After the last civil war, the king and Despenser had emerged victorious, and both had sought all who had stood against them. Knights, bannerets and even lords were arrested and barbarically executed. Even priors had to tread warily.

Because the prior was thought ‘unsound’ by the king’s special advisers, he was taken away and replaced with this…this affected, primping coxcomb. A vain, foolish courtier, John de Cusance, whose interest in the priory extended only so far as the quality of the food. He had neither interest in nor understanding of the holy mission of the priory, which existed solely to fight for the souls of the men of this world by the careful round of prayers and services. This new prior was no protection to them. Prior John had his position because his brother was close to the king’s especial adviser, Sir Hugh Le Despenser.

Brother Lawrence watched the boy scuttle off in the direction of the laver to wash his hands. He could remember how enthusiastic he had been at John’s age.

His face hardened. That was a long time ago. A long, long time ago.

Feast of St George the Martyr [3] ,

Bermondsey Marsh

Old Elena could scarcely see it sticking up from the mud and filth, her eyes were so tightly narrowed against the rain that slanted down that morning.

Foul weather, this, especially since it was so unexpected. In the past they had grown used to the swyving rains that fell incessantly through the summer and into autumn, but for the last couple of years the weather had been better, and through the summer there had been food to eat and fewer deaths. This year, though, she wasn’t sure that the houses wouldn’t all be flooded again. She’d have to get her belongings up into the eaves again, just in case.

She had been to the market this morning, and when she left her home here by the Thames in Surrey the sun had been shining. There were no clouds, and if it was windy – well, when wasn’t it up here?

It was on the way back that the weather had set in suddenly, a low, dark squall rushing up the river, and all she could do was lower her head and try to hurry homewards before she was drenched. Too late to worry now. A chilly trickle at the back of her neck told her that the bastard rain had already penetrated. Even if she hung up all her clothing in her hovel before her fire, it would still be clammy and dank in the morning. One day’s rain spelled two days’ misery.

Her home was east of the priory, and she averted her head as she passed it, trying not to shiver. Here, in the gloom of the late afternoon there was an unwholesome aspect to the place. Made her feel chilled to see it. When she was a mere bratchett she had been prone to wander, and her parents had told her tales of the ghost there to control her. It had been enough to stop her wandering about the countryside. The stories of a foul, grey figure calling to travellers and drowning them had been used by parents for generations to quiet noisy and froward children.

But she’d seen it. A pale, grey figure out on the mudflats. Others told her that she’d just been taking too much of her ale and that she’d caught sight of one of the monks out on the marshlands, but she knew what she’d seen. A ghost.

That was her view, and no one would change it. Especially not some pissy priest. The fellow’d heard her talking about the figure on the marshes, and he’d gone to her to tell her not to be so ‘foolish’.

She paused, squinting ahead with a surly cast to her mouth. ‘Foolish,’ he’d said, like she was some superstitious chit with chaff in her brains. He could go to the devil. Wasn’t as though the priory was a bastion of honour and integrity. That idea had been discarded in the last year. It was only a short while ago that the prior himself had been taken away. Walter de Luiz, aye, because he’d helped rescue that traitor Mortimer from the Tower.

Elena made her way around the outer wall, casting a glance about her at the grey, stirred waters of the river as she went. There were always bits and pieces which a careful woman might collect and sell if she kept an eye on the shoreline.

There was little enough love in the world. That was Elena’s view, and no one would persuade her otherwise. She was a God-fearing woman, none more so, and it made her anxious that God had forsaken them. He’d taken away the Holy Land, hadn’t he, and that showed how He had turned His face from His flock.