The Medieval Murderers - The False Virgin

The man, whom Grey took to be the churchwarden, emerged from behind the pillar and ambled down the church, shaking his head.

‘Can’t get the new laws into their heads, some of them. Old women, it is mostly, won’t give up the old ways, but you get a few of the young ones at it, too. That lad’s one of the worst, devoted to the Church he is. Should have been a priest or a monk, by rights, not a butcher’s boy. I do my best to keep ’em out, but I’ve my own business to attend to. Can’t be here every minute to watch ’em and they sneak in behind my back.’

From the stench of wet fish that clung to his skin and clothes, Grey could make a good guess as to what the man’s business might be. He glanced at the warden’s hands, scarred with a hundred old nicks and scratches, but they were empty. Whatever he taken from the lad had disappeared quicker than a starving dog gobbles a scrap.

‘What did the boy give you?’

The man gave a puzzled smile. ‘Me? Nowt. He was trying to leave some tawdry at the feet of the Virgin Mary, but, as you saw, I sent him packing.’

Grey was certain he had seen the boy hand something over. But he didn’t press the matter. Better the warden confiscate the offering than leave it with the lad to try again.

‘What’s the boy’s name?’

‘Alan. Master Richard’s apprentice.’ Yarrow shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Bad business, bad business. But can’t say I’m surprised. Only a matter of time, if you ask me. Master Richard always did have a violent temper. I reckon young Alan there would testify to that. Lashed out at the lad regularly, he did, and at his wife, too, so the market crones say. Not that you can set much store by women’s gossip.’

That was motive enough for any hot-headed apprentice to commit murder, Grey thought, especially if he attacked the wrong man in the dark.

‘Did you happen to see Alan the night Edward was murdered?’

Yarrow gave a wry smile. ‘ ’Course I saw him. Had to drive him out of here, so I could lock up at dusk.’

If the boy had borrowed a horse and ridden to the Hutt, he would have had time to get there before Richard, and he was certainly slim enough to squeeze out through that window at the back, or even to have hidden inside until the wardens were occupied chasing Richard and then slipped out of the door. But even so, it didn’t seem likely that he could have killed Edward. The lad was so skinny, he’d have had trouble overpowering a cat, never mind a grown man with the brawn and muscles of a butcher. All the same, Grey resolved to speak to Alan as soon as he could. In his experience, inquisitive boys often noticed more than adults realised, especially the quiet ones.

‘Where is Beornwyn’s reliquary now?’ Grey asked suddenly, hoping the abrupt change of subject might catch the man off guard.

But Yarrow was not thrown. ‘Father James took it. You’ll have to ask him what he did with it. For all I know he’s chopped it into firewood. Up at this church at least twice a day, I am. It’s as well I never took a wife, for she’d still be a virgin waiting on me to come home. The church would fall down round the vicar’s ears if it wasn’t for me tending to it night and day. But for all that, I’m the last person he’d consult about such things as reliquaries. I’m only the churchwarden, after all!’

There was a bitter note in his voice. Clearly there was no love wasted between the churchwarden and his parish priest.

‘Richard Whitney tells me it was he, not Father James, who removed the reliquary from the church,’ Grey said. ‘He hid it in his house and Richard believes Edward Thornton stole the statue from him, which is why Richard pursued him to the Hutt. But if he did, the reliquary was not found with his body. Have you any idea where Edward might have hidden it?’

The churchwarden laughed. ‘There’s a bloody great forest out there, or hadn’t you noticed? If Edward hid it, I reckon that’s where you want to be looking, but even if you had every soldier in King Henry’s army hunting for it, they could search till their beards turn white and they’d still not discover every hollow tree or thicket or yard of leaf mould where a man might bury such a thing. Can’t see why you’re even bothering to question folk. If St Beornwyn’s vanished, then you’ve got what you wanted, for no man will be able to worship her relics now.’

‘I’ve known other reliquaries vanish until the enforcers have left a parish, then miraculously they reappear,’ Grey said.

Yarrow shook his head. ‘That might be true for other parishes, but unless dead men can talk, there’s no likelihood of St Beornwyn appearing in this church again. Edward’s taken that secret to his grave.’

He moved past Grey and stood at the door of the church, pointedly holding it open and swinging the ring of iron keys around the great knuckle of his finger. Grey took the hint.

The small row of shops in the village was bustling, for it was Christmas Eve and every woman in the village wanted to prepare a fine feast. Neighbours would be calling on each other daily, for it was said to bring good luck for the following year to eat a minced pie on each of the twelve days of Christmas in a different house and no goodwife wanted to be shamed by others whispering that her pies were not as good as the next woman’s.

Such superstition annoyed Grey, although it was as much because he remembered the shame of his own childhood as for any religious objection. Unlike the other boys, his mother never cooked such delicacies, for who would brave the stink of the tanner’s yard to eat with them?

He threaded his way through the women struggling with baskets and bundles. They jostled around the wares laid out on the open benches in front of the little houses. The exotic smell of aniseed, mace, nutmeg and cloves from the grocer’s stall mingled with stench of eels, herring and dried cod from the fishmonger, while the fragrant steam of newly baked bread and spiced meat pies made the stomach grumble to be fed.

The crowd seemed thickest round the butcher’s stall. Hunks of bloody meat and offal were ranged along a stone bench. A harassed-looking woman was slicing a fat purple cow’s tongue, while a strapping young man was tying a rope around the back legs of a skinned goat and heaving it onto one of the vicious-looking iron hooks that stuck out from under the overhanging upper storey of the building behind. The carcass of the goat swayed gently as spots of blood splashed onto the cobbles below.

Grey pushed his way to the front of the gaggle of women. They protested indignantly until they saw who he was, then they stepped aside, hauling their children behind their skirts as if he were a leper. But they didn’t move far, their chatter ceasing instantly as they craned their necks to listen.

‘Is this Richard Whitney’s stall?’ Grey asked.

‘Do you want to buy anything or not?’ The woman continued to cut thick even slices from the cow’s tongue, without looking up.

‘I’m Roger Grey and I want to know if this is Richard’s stall.’

Her head shot up and she pointed the sharp blade straight at Grey’s chest; the furious expression on her face told him that if he annoyed her any further she might well use the knife on him instead of the tongue.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘I don’t know nothing about any murder, so it’s no use your asking.’ She gestured behind her with the point of the knife. ‘Thomas here’s the journeyman, so I reckon he’s the man in charge now. You go ask him. I shouldn’t even be working here today. Wouldn’t be if that brat of an apprentice of his hadn’t gone missing, yet again.’

‘Now don’t you go spreading rumours that Alan’s gone missing. Folk’ll reckon he’s been murdered ’n’ all,’ Thomas said.