The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

Just before midnight, the night-porter in the dormitory began ringing the bell for matins and almost a score of sleepy monks clambered from their palliasses. After a perfunctory wash in the basins at the end of the dorter, they donned their habits as the prior arrived from his quarters, then began filing through the door at the opposite end. This led them down the night stairs into the south transept of the church on the way to their places in the quire.

They all carried lighted candles, which were to be placed in sockets in the choir stalls, and this dim illumination was sufficient to cause the leading monk to stop dead as he reached the crossing of the nave.

It was Brother Pierre, the sacristan, and he let loose a sound partway between a scream and a sob. Close behind, still only half awake, Brother Luke bumped into him with a muttered expletive, which was rapidly converted into a gasp of surprise.

‘Holy Mother of God, what’s happened? Who’s that?’

Within seconds, the rest of the monks had formed a half-circle around the spring of St Beornwyn. Her alabaster statue had fallen forward from its pedestal and lay face down in the wide basin below, but even more alarmingly, it was obscuring the upper half of a body, also face down in the healing pool. Water had splashed out and lay on the slabs below the steps leading up into the quire and presbytery.

The sub-prior pushed forward and was first to reach the inert figure lying bizarrely in the sacred spring. Both Mark and the sacristan were close behind him and all three crouched alongside the victim of what appeared to be an extraordinary accident. By now, Prior Paul, who brought up the rear of the procession, had hastened to the fore and taken charge.

‘Get that statue off the poor fellow!’ he shouted, for once uncaring about the sanctity of the surroundings. He grabbed one shoulder of the stone saint and with Matthew and Mark grasping the head and opposite shoulder, levered up the full-size effigy and swung it sideways to rest across the top of the basin. It was extremely heavy and there was an ominous ‘crack’ as part of the retaining edge of the pool broke away, allowing more water to stream across the floor.

‘Lift him out, for Christ’s sake!’ howled the prior, but it was an unnecessary command, as Matthew and Mark were already pulling the victim up from the basin. Then with Brother David and the precentor carrying the legs, they staggered across the flooded floor to a dry patch of flagstones and gently turned the figure face up as they laid him down.

‘It’s old John!’ said Pierre flatly, though this surprised no one, as he was the only one missing.

‘And he’s dead!’ added the infirmarian, after bending for a few seconds over the inert figure. There was a murmur of concern and a flurry of making the sign of the cross.

‘I have heard of some supposedly drowned men who recovered after having the water squeezed from their chests,’ suggested the prior tremulously, thinking that this looked like being the worst week of his life.

Louis shrugged, but, to appease Paul, bent again and pressed hard on John’s chest a few times with both hands. There were wheezing sounds from the dead man’s mouth, but no water emerged and the infirmarian stood up again.

‘I doubt that he drowned, as there’s no froth at his lips or nostrils,’ he pronounced grimly. ‘I was once physician to an abbey in the marshes of the Carmargue, where I saw many drowned people, so I am familiar with the signs.’

The prior stared at him. ‘But nothing else could have killed him? His face was under the water!’

Brother Matthew jumped to contradict Paul. ‘At his age, surely many things could have caused him to collapse. An apoplexy or a stroke? After all his strange behaviour lately, it should be no surprise that his brain has become severely disordered.’

Louis had been crouching to examine the corpse more closely during this exchange, running his hands over the soaking white hair and feeling the scalp. He now stood up and looked gravely around the ring of anxious faces in the flickering candlelight.

‘Our brother’s brain has certainly become severely disordered – but not by an apoplexy. His skull has been fractured!’

Again a ripple of consternation passed around the onlookers.

‘Hardly surprising, after that statue fell upon him,’ observed Matthew caustically. ‘It must weigh several hundredweight.’

‘It was not the statue,’ declared the infirmarian. ‘Old John has been deliberately struck upon the head!’

‘It must have been the statue!’ wailed the prior. ‘It is unthinkable that anyone would have offered that poor man violence.’

Louis shook his head vehemently. ‘There can be no doubt – he was struck upon the head. He must have been dead before his face went under the water.’

It was obvious that the audience of monks were unwilling to accept the physician’s pronouncement.

‘It must have been the statue!’ cried Arnulf. ‘St Beornwyn was surely bringing down retribution upon John for his slanderous sacrilege against her.’

There was a chorus of agreement from the circle of his colleagues standing around the corpse.

‘What clearer sign do we need?’ cried Jude. ‘There has been no earthquake, so why should our beloved Beornwyn’s image fall at the very moment that her denigrator was beneath it?’

Louis, the physician, was unmoved by the arguments. ‘But did it fall? Or did someone help it on its way?’ he asked.

‘I respect your expert knowledge, Brother, but in my long experience, the most obvious explanation is usually the correct one, ‘said the prior, his placidity beginning to return in spite of the stressful circumstances. ‘Even if he did not drown – and I have to accept your opinion on that – the fall of such a heavy weight upon his head can surely be the only explanation for his grievous injury.’

Louis, his face devoid of expression, shook his head. ‘Normally, I would submit to your wise opinion, Prior. But unless Beornwyn’s retribution was even more miraculous than it appears, that explanation cannot be accepted.’

‘On what grounds do you so stubbornly contradict our prior?’ snapped Matthew indignantly.

‘There are two reasons,’ replied the infirmarian evenly. ‘Firstly, the fractures are on each side of the head rather than on the top or back, which one would expect from a statue falling on him. But far more telling is the fact that there are two separate injuries, one on each side of the head. It is too much to accept that the statue had fallen twice!’

There was a silence, then the circle of monks moved nearer so that the physician could point out the areas of blue-red discoloration above each ear.

‘He has suffered bruises, but the skin is not broken,’ explained Louis. ‘However, I can feel fractured bone beneath each injury. The poor man was twice struck violently with a blunt object and probably died rapidly.’

During this altercation, the deceased monk lay in his sodden habit, staring up at the darkness of the roof high above. His pallid face was wet, his mouth partly open as if protesting against the discomfort that he was suffering.

‘What shall we do with him?’ asked the practical Mark. He had already plunged his arm into the basin to remove the wooden plug from a drain at the bottom, to stop the leakage over the cracked rim, which was threatening to turn the crossing of the nave into a duck pond.

After some discussion, the prior, sub-prior and sacristan decided to place the body on a bier behind screens in a corner of the south transept, well away from the flooded floor – and from the curious gaze of the depleted number of visiting pilgrims. Two of the monks went for the bier, which was hanging on a bracket at the back of the church. It was a stout stretcher with handles each end and four sturdy legs, used to carry bodies and coffins at the infrequent funerals. John was reverently lifted onto it and his soaking habit removed, to be replaced by a shroud fetched from the vestry.