The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

Prior Paul sighed as he rejected this suggestion. ‘I can do it, certainly, but I know it will be useless, unless we have a potential martyr amongst us, who is willing to sacrifice himself for having saved the reputation of our saintly Beornwyn.’

‘What would happen to a brother who was found to be a murderer?’ asked the secretary.

‘I have never heard of such case, thank God,’ Paul replied, crossing himself. ‘As you well know, thanks to St Thomas the Martyr, who refused to submit the Church to the will of the second King Henry, we still have “benefit of clergy”, so that we can avoid the lethal punishments of the secular law. But no doubt some very severe penance would be levied by archbishops or even the Pope, such as banishment for life to some remote cell.’

Mark was still not satisfied that the miscreant could not be persuaded to admit his crime.

‘I find it hard to believe that a man devoted to God, as we all are here, could live with himself knowing that he had taken the life of another. Surely he would be bound to unburden himself to his confessor? Each one of us, even you, has one of the priests amongst us as his confessor.’

As was usual in any abbey or priory, most monks were not priests, but St Oswald’s had four brothers who had been ordained, so could administer the sacraments and take confessions.

Paul’s smile returned briefly at his secretary’s youthful naïvety and unworldliness. ‘Mark, you will learn that monks, like any other mortal men, will not tell their confessor everything. In fact they are more likely to keep major sins to themselves and be content to offer the smaller ones. In any event, you know as well as I do that all confessions are inviolate and even an admission of murder could not be divulged.’

He stood up to indicate that their discussion was over.

‘I did not hope that we could solve the mystery today, but wanted to clear our minds about what we know and do not know. Let us both sleep on it and especially pray for guidance, then speak of it again after chapter tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have to see John laid reverently in the ground, in spite of Brother Matthew’s doubts about his being possessed by the devil! And the other urgent matter is preparing this house against the advance of Glendower’s horde.’

Next day, the monks assembled in their places in the quire for the solemn Requiem Mass that prepared Brother John’s body for eternal rest in the small cemetery outside the church. The nave held all the lay brothers and many of the villagers who depended on the priory for their livelihood. For all his eccentricity, old John had been popular with the rest of the community until his fits became worse and his mind began to fail. The plain wooden coffin stood before the altar as Prior Paul officiated, ignoring the disapproving scowls of Brother Matthew, who still muttered that perhaps the devil had entered his soul. As the litany and chanting saw the old monk off to Heaven, some of the brethren suspected that when he arrived there, John would seek out St Oswald and berate him for cutting short his life.

The coffin was buried with all due reverence in the red Herefordshire soil and a simple wooden cross planted at the end of the grave. A final dirge was sung around it before the monks and lay brothers filed away to their normal duties.

The formalities were over, but an hour later a message from a shepherd tending priory flocks at the furthest limit of their land sent the prior into a flurry of agitation. The man had spoken to a party of refugees coming up from the west, who reported that Glendower’s host, now strengthened by hundreds more French knights and foot soldiers, appeared to be making ready to move out of their camp near Monmouth.

Paul gathered the monks together in the warming room and urgently gave them instructions to hide the priory’s valuables.

‘The treasure chest in my parlour, the sacramental cups and plates from the aumbry in the chancel and, of course, the relic of Beornwyn, must be hidden securely. We cannot tell how long it will be before this ravaging host arrives from the edge of Wales, but we must be ready for them.’

As always, the sub-prior raised an objection.

‘All that will not fit into a stone coffin in the crypt. The treasure chest alone would be too large.’

This provoked an immediate discussion, but it was a suggestion from the ever-practical cellarer that was soon accepted.

‘Where the spring comes out of the earth beneath the chancel, there is a small chamber where the top end of the conduit that feeds Beornwyn’s fountain is placed,’ Brother Jude said. ‘One of the stone slabs in the chancel floor is removable and there is sufficient space beneath to hide all we wish.’

The precentor, Brother Patrice, had a different question. ‘With our relic hidden away, we will be unable to administer any sacred water to pilgrims,’ he pointed out.

Arnulf, the hospitaller, answered this scornfully. ‘There’ll be no pilgrims for as long as the Welsh are advancing on us. I have had no lodgers in the guest-house since yesterday.’

Soon the inner ward was bustling with activity. All the lay brothers were kept out and the centre gate firmly closed, with one brother set to guard it against intrusion. Although all the rest of the community knew what was going on, the prior wanted to keep the actual hiding place of the valuables as secret as possible.

Although it was unmarked, Jude, who seemed to be best informed about such matters, identified the slab in front of the altar that covered the spring – virtually where old John’s coffin had rested shortly before. With no strong labourers to help them, the brothers had to struggle with the heavy stone themselves, but when it was prised out and slid aside, they saw that the cellarer was right about the masonry-lined cavity beneath. It surrounded the small pool from which clear water bubbled out and then vanished down a conduit to the basin of St Beornwyn. There was sufficient room around the margins of the pool for the wooden chest that contained the mass of silver coins collected from pilgrims, as well as for the calvarium of their beloved saint. The silver chalices, patens and other precious items used in their religious observances, were fetched from the aumbry, a locked cupboard built into the wall of the chancel. All these were carefully wrapped in blankets and laid on the raised stones around the spring.

When the slab was replaced, dirt was rubbed into the cracks, then dust carefully brushed over all the slabs before the altar, to obliterate any signs of disturbance. When it was finished, Prior Paul stood in front of his brothers to contemplate the result.

‘That is all we can do now,’ he said sombrely, his famous smile having almost vanished in the turmoil of recent days. ‘We can only commend the safety of our holy objects to God.’

As he led prayers on the spot, his secretary could not help wondering how that chestful of silver pennies could be considered as ‘holy objects’.

Later that day, a lay brother and a pair of men from the village were sent out westwards to give early warning of the approach of the advancing army. As disciples of the priory, they would get lodging with any cottager or forest-dweller who had not yet run away. When either the Welsh host or their scouts were spotted, they would ride back to Broomhill with the news. The prior, who had thought up this plan, was not really sure it achieved anything, but he felt that any warning was better than none.

In the meanwhile, Paul kept up the pressure on his brethren to reveal the killer of Brother John. At every chapter meeting and at prayers before each dinner and supper, he exhorted them to study their consciences and to safeguard their immortal souls. His normally mild manner had hardened in past days, and even Matthew could not carp about his laxity of discipline.