Paul Doherty - Murder Most Holy

‘These are mine!’ he stuttered. ‘They are mine!’

He almost ran to the door, pulling hard at the handle, but it was locked. Behind him he could feel Fitzwolfe and something else shuffling towards him. He scrabbled at the lock, found the key, opened the door and flung himself out into the passageway even as the door slammed firmly shut behind him. He was sure he heard not only Fitzwolfe sniggering but someone else as well.

‘What’s the matter, Athelstan?’ Cranston grabbed his companion, alarmed at how marble-white and sweat-soaked the priest’s face had become. Cranston shook him again. ‘Brother, what’s the matter?’

Athelstan broke free from his reverie and grabbed the quarter-staff he had left by the wall.

‘Come on, Sir John! This is no place for us. No place for any of God’s creatures!’

Cranston took a step towards the door of Fitzwolfe’s chamber.

‘Leave it, Sir John! I mean that. Just leave it alone!’

He crashed down the stairs, Cranston lumbering after him. Without waiting for the coroner, Athelstan strode back into the alleyway. Cranston, huffing and puffing, came up beside him, rattling out questions which Athelstan ignored. The priest walked as quickly as he could. He was determined to put as much distance as he could between himself and the tavern; he concentrated all his energies and intelligence on remembering the route Sir John had taken. At last they were free of Whitefriars and entering a small street leading up to the Fleet. Athelstan suddenly stopped and leaned against the wall. He was drained and tired, as if body, mind and soul had been buffeted. The coroner peered at him.

‘Only one thing for you, my lad,’ he murmured, ‘Sir John Cranston’s usual remedy for the ills of mind and body.’

He pushed the friar into the dark, welcoming warmth of a corner tavern. Sir John, using his powerful lungs and authority as King’s Justice, soon cleared a space for them near the high-stacked wine barrels, and the prompt delivery of two great cups of claret and a dish of spiced duck. Cranston said they could share this but Athelstan shook his head, sipping the wine greedily, relishing its sweet warmth. He drained the cup so Cranston ordered another, gently removing the pieces of parchment Athelstan still clutched in his hand. The coroner studied them carefully, roaring for a candle so he could see them better.

‘By a fairy’s buttocks, Athelstan! What’s so frightening about these? Greasy, yellow pages from a church muniment book!’

‘It wasn’t that, Sir John.’ Athelstan leaned back and blinked. He had drunk the wine too quickly and now felt a little unsteady.

‘Did Fitzwolfe threaten you?’

‘In a way, yes.’

Athelstan briefly described what he had seen and felt in the room. When he had finished, Cranston gave a large belch and smacked his lips.

‘Funny people, priests!’ the coroner announced, glancing sideways at Athelstan. ‘They get to know secrets. They twist the good to get power for themselves. Not all of them, but a few. Some become avaricious and amass wealth; others like to slip between the sheets of other men’s beds. And a small number search for something greater — magical power.’

‘Sir John,’ Athelstan interrupted, ‘I know what I saw, what I felt, in that room.’

‘Perhaps. But I have met the best magicians, Athelstan. I know what they can do with herbs, and candles fashioned out of strange substances. As Ecclesiastes says, “There is no new thing under the sun”.’ He patted Athelstan’s hand. ‘True, Fitzwolfe might be a Satanist but I suspect he is a conjuror.’

Athelstan sighed and rubbed his face in his hands.

‘There’s nothing like old Cranston,’ he muttered, ‘to bring one’s feet firmly back to earth.’ He pushed his wine cup away. ‘You must finish that. We still have business at Black-friars and I do not want the Master Inquisitor to dismiss me as a toper.’

‘By the devil’s bollocks, who cares? He already thinks I’m one!’ Cranston answered.

Athelstan stretched across and picked up the sheaves of parchment, studying them, trying to decipher the close, cramped hand and usual abbreviations used in any such book. He looked carefully at the date in the top left-hand column of each page. There must have been fifty or sixty pieces sewn together with fine hemp, covering the years 1353 to 1368, the year the old priest Theobald had died.

‘I’d like to study them now,’ he murmured, but glanced at the hour candle burning high on a shelf next to the wine tuns. ‘Sir John, we should return to Blackfriars. I told Father Prior I wished to see him and the others, and it’s already too late. We should return, at least to present our most grovelling apologies.’

Cranston twisted his neck and peered through the window.

‘Bollocks!’ he muttered. ‘The sun’s beginning to set. Listen, Brother!’

Athelstan strained his ears and heard the great bell of St Mary Le Bow tolling as a sign that the day’s business had finished. He felt tired, exhausted, and the wine he had gulped was already beginning to curdle in his empty stomach. He waited for Cranston to drain his wine cup then folded the pages, collected his quarter-staff and left the tavern.

Athelstan need not have worried about being late for his meeting at Blackfriars. The news of Brother Roger’s death had spread through the enclosed community, causing the prior both confusion and endless questioning. When Athelstan met him in the chamber, Father Anselm looked distinctly harassed.

‘Yes, yes,’ he announced. ‘We waited for you, Brother. But I knew some other matter must have delayed you. You have had further thoughts?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Father Prior, this problem is as muddy as any stagnant pond. Have you discovered when Brother Roger was last seen?’

Anselm sat down wearily. He gestured to Cranston and Athelstan to do the same.

‘He was seen outside the church just after Vespers.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘You were the next to see him, hanging from that tree in the orchard.’ He held up a hand. ‘And, before you ask, nobody admits speaking to him or meeting him or anything else. It’s as if he was spirited away.’

‘And you searched the cells of both Brother Alcuin and Callixtus?’

‘Nothing,’ the prior replied. He started sifting amongst the parchment on his desk. ‘Nothing, except two pieces of parchment. One in Alcuin’s cell, the other in Callixtus’s. Each bore the same name.’

The Prior handed the pieces of parchment over. Athelstan studied them curiously. Written in different hands, both bore the same name repeated a number of times: Hildegarde.

‘Who is she?’ Athelstan asked.

Anselm pulled a face. ‘God knows! That was the only thing untoward that I noticed. The only thing which links the death of one of our brothers to the disappearance of another.’

Cranston, half-dozing beside Athelstan, shook himself awake.

‘Always a woman!’ he announced, smacking his lips. ‘Where there’s trouble, always a woman!’

‘Sir John, you are not implying. .’ Anselm gazed angrily at the coroner. ‘Both Brother Callixtus and Alcuin were good men, faithful priests, hard-working members of our brethren. There was never a hint of scandal, even the merest tittle-tattle of gossip about them! They were senior members of this order, and sound theologians.’ His glance fell away. ‘They deserved a better death.’

Cranston apologised profusely as his secretarius just stared at the two pieces of parchment.

‘You look tired, Athelstan,’ Anselm commented, now becoming embarrassed by Cranston’s repeated apologies. ‘Leave this matter. Brother Norbert will serve you from the refectory. I suggest you have an early night, a good sleep.’