The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

They sat around the stone benches built into the walls to discuss their activities and any local news and gossip. Of course, the rumours about the advancing Welsh army were a major topic.

‘I am told on good authority that Glendower has a sizeable contingent of French troops with him now,’ declared Jude, the cellarer, without disclosing who his good authority might be.

‘I still fail to understand how this Welsh barbarian is able to command the support of the French,’ grumbled Brother Pierre. ‘Nor why he is able to defeat a much mightier nation like England.’

‘In the hills and valleys of his rugged country of Wales, he is able to run rings around the English forces,’ replied Mark. ‘In a pitched battle on the open field, the King’s troops would defeat him, but as they have done since Roman times, the Welsh wage a guerrilla war, darting down from their rocks and crags upon tired soldiers, wet and dispirited after their long march from the Midlands into the forbidding mountains.’

Louis, ever contentious, pointed out that the Welsh leader had virtually annihilated a much stronger English army at the battle of Brynglas.

‘Their archers are the most skilful in Europe, which is why they are hired as mercenaries by many countries, even including England itself!’

The conversation and argument about warfare and tactics went on for some time, a somewhat incongruous subject for a group of monks, but eventually one of them changed the subject to Brother John, who like some of the other monks, had taken himself to his bed, to get as much sleep as possible before they were awakened at midnight for matins.

‘Old John is becoming a serious liability to the welfare of this priory,’ grumbled the cellarer. ‘I sometimes see him stumbling about the courtyard, mumbling to the sky and waving his arms about. It is an embarrassment to the supplicants who come here. They must wonder what sort of place this is to have a madman wandering about.’

Brother Arnulf, the hospitaller, agreed with him.

‘Several of the guests who stayed with me have been concerned about him and it cannot do the reputation of this place any good. The prior should think about settling him in one of our sister abbeys, which have places for such aged brothers in their declining years.’

The younger secretary, Mark, was not so ready to condemn the old man.

‘He seems quite harmless, surely little damage can be done by him. His fantasies can be quite interesting, for only a few days ago he told me that he had spoken with an angel during the previous night, who informed him that we need have no fear of the advancing army for at least another two weeks.’

Some of the monks chuckled, others clucked their tongues at this further evidence of Brother John’s dementia.

‘Perhaps our Lord God has set one of his Angels with the keenest eyesight on top of the Malverns, to spy out the movement of Glendower’s troops for us!’ suggested Pierre sarcastically.

For the next two days, little was seen of Brother John, as he spent most of his time in the quiet of the scriptorium, seated at his high desk with a quill and ink. He was copying out a dozen duplicates of a new chant, which Patrice, the precentor, intended to add to the choir’s repertoire. In spite of his age and other problems, John still had a sharp eye and produced excellent black-letter copies on sheets of parchment. He attended the frater at mealtimes and his appetite seemed undiminished. He was very quiet, but otherwise did nothing to give the other monks any cause for concern or irritation.

However, on the third morning all this changed.

At dawn, the brothers went down the night stairs into the church for prime, the first service of the day. The fact that Brother John was not amongst them failed to register, due to their sleepiness, until the office was over, when they trooped out into the early morning light of the inner courtyard. Here they found the old monk pacing up and down, shaking his fists at the heavens and muttering angrily at some unseen person apparently hovering above him.

‘This is becoming insufferable!’ snapped Matthew, the sub-prior. ‘Someone call Brother Paul. He must do something about this man.’

As Arnulf hurried across the precinct to the prior’s house, Mark went to the old man and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘What is troubling you, John?’ he asked. ‘Have you been hearing voices again?’

The aged Benedictine lowered his arms and turned an angry face towards the younger man. ‘A message directly from St Oswald, no less! We are undone, this house is a sham and must be abandoned!’

Some of the other monks had begun to drift towards the refectory for their breakfast, but the vehemence of John’s voice caused them to turn back and stare at him. The infirmarian, in his role as a doctor, joined Mark at the old man’s side in an attempt to pacify him, for he seemed to be in a towering rage.

‘John, John! Why are you so troubled?’ Louis asked soothingly.

John glared at him scathingly. ‘I tell you, all is lost with this place! We have been tricked for centuries.’

‘Have you had more strange dreams?’ asked Mark gently, but this seemed to annoy the elderly brother even more.

‘Dreams? Not dreams, boy!’ he ranted. ‘St Oswald came to me in the night – or rather, I went to him.’

Louis decided to humour him once more. ‘You went to him? Just where was this meeting – in the dormer?’

The elder monk’s lined face looked at him pityingly. He raised an arm and pointed a quivering forefinger at the hill visible above the priory wall.

‘Up there, at the British Camp.’

Brother Louis’s eyebrows rose. ‘On the top of the Herefordshire Beacon? Really, Brother, you test my patience. Those old legs of yours would hardly take you to the foot of that hill.’

John scowled at him. ‘I was taken up there by a pair of angels. They held my arms and we drifted up there as gently as a butterfly.’

‘And St Oswald was there waiting for you, I suppose?’ said Pierre sarcastically.

‘He was indeed, standing in the centre of that great earthen circle built by the ancients.’

By this time Arnulf had returned with the prior hurrying behind him. Paul went straight to John and held both his hands in his.

‘Brother, you must try to restrain yourself with these wild tales. They do no good for the reputation of our house.’

‘Our house no longer has a reputation!’ bellowed the old man defiantly. ‘We have been living a lie these past two centuries.’

The prior turned to the infirmarian. ‘Brother Louis, will you take our old friend to your sickroom and give him something to calm his spirits? Perhaps a good sleep will settle his mind.’

He laid a calming hand on the sleeve of John’s habit, but the old monk irritably shrugged it off.

‘I’ll not go to bed. It’s not long since I rose!’ he declared loudly. ‘I must proclaim this message of deceit to the world.’

He began shuffling towards the gate between the inner and outer precincts, repelling all attempts to restrain him. However, at a sign from the prior, his secretary ran forward and closed the large wooden gate that sealed the archway.

‘Brother, where do you think you are going?’ coaxed Paul. ‘Come back with me to my parlour and take a cup of wine to settle your spirit.’

Frustrated at having his exit cut off, John began mumbling again and waving his hands to heaven, but after few moments, he seemed to sag into submission, allowing Mark and the prior to lead him slowly back towards the house in the corner of the inner court. The dozen monks, who had congregated around them, watched as they reached the entrance porch.

‘The poor man has lost his mind altogether now,’ observed the sub-prior, not without a tinge of satisfaction unbecoming in a servant of God. ‘If I was the prior, I would get him to a place of refuge without delay. He does this house no good with his bizarre behaviour.’