The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

‘No!’ Mildryth sobbed. ‘You promised that we would be together in the abbey. You promised to take me with you…’

Beornwyn put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her hard. ‘Get out. Go now! And if you dare breathe one word of this to anyone I will have you sold to the next slave-master who passes through the village. When you are entertaining a boatload of sailors then you’ll understand the meaning of fornication!’

Beornwyn turned away and moved gracefully up the church towards the wolfskin lying before the altar. In the soft candlelight the smooth muscles of her bare back undulated beneath her skin as she walked away.

‘She’ll have grown tired of waiting and gone by now,’ Cynwulf said angrily, as he and his brother, Wulfred, led their horses up the rise towards the church.

‘It’s not my fault my horse got a stone in its shoe. Besides, it’s hardly likely she’d come all the way up here on such a night. Only a madman would venture out when he could be sitting by his own fire with a flagon of mead inside him. I don’t know why I let you drag me out here.’

‘Because I’m your little brother and you swore to look out for me,’ Cynwulf said.

Although it was too dark to see the expression on his brother’s face, Wulfred knew this last remark was said with a disarming smile which, ever since he’d been a little boy, had been enough to turn away the wrath of any elder, no matter what mischief Cynwulf had been up to.

When Wulfred had discovered what trouble his little brother was embroiled in this time, he’d tried in vain to talk him into giving up the girl. When Cynwulf stubbornly refused, he would gladly have left the young fool to take the consequences, or so he tried to convince himself. But with the Viking raids and the rumour that the old dragon Badanoth had redoubled the guards, someone had to watch the boy’s back. And ever since the young cub had been able to haul himself to his feet, it had always been Wulfred who’d had to make sure he didn’t fall down again.

Wulfred clutched his mantle tightly about him against the wind, which threatened to drag it off. He tugged impatiently on the rein of his horse, urging the beast up the last steep rise.

‘Why couldn’t you have fallen for some girl of our own clan? Christ knows, you only have to glance at a girl for her to throw herself at you. You’re not exactly lacking in choice.’

‘You may as well ask a man why he won’t settle for copper when you’re dangling a bag of gold in front of him. Our girls are pretty enough, but next to Beornwyn, they’re as plain and charmless as mules are compared to the finest horse.’

‘And have you told fair Beornwyn you think of her as a horse?’ Wulfred said drily. ‘I’m sure she’ll be most flattered.’

By way of reply Cynwulf swung himself down from his horse and punched his brother on his arm. ‘She’s a jewel, an angel, the fairest swan and the purest rose dropped from Heaven itself. Satisfied? Now you wait here and keep watch. If that guard did recognise us, he might have summoned help and had us followed. So you make sure you keep awake.’

‘Not much chance of sleeping in this wind,’ Wulfred grumbled, as a distant rumble of thunder rolled through the darkness. ‘Be quick. I don’t want to be caught out in this when the storm breaks.’

Wulfred settled himself with his back to the wall of the church, drawing his mantle over his face. He watched the track intently, though unless the guard was carrying a flaming torch, on a night like this Wulfred would have been hard-pressed to spot anyone creeping up on them out of the writhing trees and bushes.

He had resigned himself to a long, cold wait, but he’d scarcely settled when he heard a shriek behind him, so loud it carried over the roar of the sea and wind. He sprang to his feet and raced up towards the church, dragging his sword from its sheath as he ran. He was about to hurl himself at the door when Cynwulf came staggering through it and collapsed into his brother’s arms.

Fumbling to hold both his sword and his brother, Wulfred lowered the lad clumsily to the ground.

‘Where are you injured? Who attacked you?’

Wulfred took a firmer grip on the hilt of his sword, his body tense, ready to defend them both when Cynwulf’s assailant burst out of the church. But no one emerged. Cynwulf was shaking and babbling incoherently. Wulfred could make little sense of it, but the boy didn’t seem to be mortally wounded.

‘Stay here,’ Wulfred ordered.

The door of the church was swinging back and forth in the wind. Wulfred edged towards it, ready to strike. He slid into the church, pulling the door closed behind him as silently as he could. He had no wish to be ambushed from the back. He flattened himself against the wall, watching for any sign of movement. A candle was burning low on the altar. Nothing stirred in the shadows, but there was something pale lying on the ground. With his left hand, Wulfred pulled out his dagger and, holding both weapons ready, he edged along the wall towards the altar.

He stopped as his mind at last made sense of what his eyes were seeing in the dim light. A naked woman lay sprawled on her belly on a wolfskin. Her face was twisted sideways towards him, her arms flung wide as if she was penitent, praying. But he didn’t have to touch her to know she was not praying, at least not in this life. Her eyes were wide and staring, her mouth open, frozen in a scream of pain and shock. Her back was scarlet with blood, which had run down and soaked into the wolf’s pelt beneath her. She had been stabbed, not once, but half a dozen times in savage frenzy.

Wulfred hurried from the church, pausing only briefly at the door to gulp down the cold air and try to steady his thoughts. His brother was still crouching on the ground where he’d left him, moaning and rocking back and forth in misery, but there was no time to let him grieve. Wulfred dragged him roughly to his feet.

The younger lad grasped his arm frantically. ‘You saw her, didn’t you? You saw her… I didn’t imagine…’

‘She’s dead, little brother.’

‘Who did this to her, Wulfred?’ Cynwulf’s voice was broken by dry sobs. ‘Who would want to kill such a wonderful creature?’

‘I don’t know who did it, but I do know who will be blamed for it. As soon as her body’s discovered, all of Badanoth’s guards will be questioned. The one who challenged us must have recognised us. In that lightning flash he saw our faces as clearly as if it was noon, and he saw in which direction we were headed. They’ll think this is our revenge for the insults Badanoth heaped on our father.’

‘Then we have to get out of here,’ Cynwulf said frantically. ‘We can’t go home; that’s the first place his men’ll come searching. We have to get far away. Come on!’

But his brother pulled him back. ‘If Badanoth thinks we killed his daughter he won’t just seek our deaths, he’ll start a blood feud between our kin that’ll last for generations. We won’t need the Vikings to destroy us, we’ll do the job ourselves. No, we have to make them blame someone else… The Vikings! Badanoth constantly fears a raid, and where else would they make for but a church?’

‘Badanoth isn’t stupid. He knows they’d never sail in a wind like this,’ Cynwulf protested.

‘So… they could have been blown off course, driven to take shelter in the bay, and with the night so dark and windy they’d easily get past the guards,’ Wulfred said, trying to sound more certain of this than he felt.

A spasm of grief suddenly overwhelmed Cynwulf again and he crumpled against his brother. ‘But she’s lying in there – dead. My Beornwyn is dead!’

‘Yes,’ Wulfred said grimly, ‘and by dawn she must be more than a stabbed corpse.’