‘The ground was awash with blood,’ Prior Alexander retorted, ‘but no one saw or heard anything untoward.’
‘And late this afternoon, Ailward Hyde was murdered near the watergate.’
‘A vicious wound to the belly,’ the prior replied, ‘the poor man’s screams rang across the abbey. By the time our good brothers reached him he was dead, soaked, almost floating in his own blood.’
‘Why?’ Cranston asked. ‘Why now?’
‘Sir John, we truly don’t know.’
Was there a link? Athelstan reflected, staring at the carved figure of a seraph carrying a harp on the right side of the fireplace. Was Sir Robert’s death, the disappearance of the Passio Christi and the murder of these two unfortunates all connected, or was it something else? Athelstan shivered. He recalled a lecture by Dominus Albertus in the schools so many years ago. How every evil act like seed in the ground eventually blooms to manifest its own malevolent fruit. Wickedness was like a tangled bramble, cruel and twisting, breaking through the soil, stretching out to create its own trap. Kilverby had enjoyed the reputation of being a hard-fisted money lender, notorious throughout the city and Southwark. Members of the Wyvern Company had killed, pillaged and plundered, even seizing a precious relic for their own greedy uses. Was this their judgement day, ‘their day of wrath, the day of mourning’ as described by the poet Thomas di Celano? Had the victims of all these murders been caught out by their own wickedness sown so many years ago? ‘Everything sown will be reaped’, or so ran the old Jewish proverb. Had harvest time now arrived?
‘Brother Athelstan?’
‘Sir John.’ Athelstan rose to his feet. ‘I have other questions but they will wait. We should view the corpses and question the Wyvern Company. After all, the day is drawing on and my parish awaits.’
‘Your parish?’ Prior Alexander’s voice was harsh. ‘Brother Athelstan, we know of you, a Dominican sent to do penance . . .’
‘Then if you know,’ Cranston declared, getting to his feet, ‘there’s little point in retelling it.’ He bowed perfunctorily in the direction of the abbot. ‘Reverend Father, if we can view the corpses?’
Richer led them out of the abbatial enclosure and into the main cloisters. The day was drawing on and the monkish scribes working in their carrels around the cloister garth were collecting their writing equipment in obedience to the bell tolling for the next hour of divine office. Athelstan drank in the sights, watching the scurrying black-robed monks, as organized as any cohort in battle array, prepare for the next task. Other brothers were coming in from the field, doffing their aprons, shaking off their hard wooden clogs and gathering around the different lavaria to wash and prepare themselves. Athelstan wanted to speak to Cranston but Richer kept close as he led them across the abbey. At last they reached a deserted, cobbled yard. Richer ushered them into the whitewashed death house where two coffins rested on trestles beneath a crude black crucifix nailed to the wall. Six purple candles on wooden stands ringed each coffin. Beneath these, fire pots containing crushed herbs exuded a pleasant smell to counter the reek of corruption and decay. A gap-toothed, balding lay brother, hands all a flutter, came out of a shadowy recess to introduce himself. Richer curtly ordered him to raise the deerskin coverlets drawn over both corpses. Once done Athelstan gazed down at both cadavers. Hanep’s head had been sown back on with black twine but the face seemed to have shrunken and shrivelled like a decaying plum. Hyde’s cadaver was still cloaked in congealing blood, the great slit across his belly crammed with scented linen rags.
‘I’ve yet to wash him,’ the keeper of the dead declared mournfully.
Athelstan leaned over and studied the gruesome wounds.
‘Friar?’
‘Sir John, look,’ Athelstan pointed, ‘here’s the gash, the death wound but look, another piercing here.’ He motioned further up the belly. ‘The assassin made a sweeping cut, turning the blade of his sword to skewer his victim’s innards, a killing cut but then withdraws the sword and plunges it again.’
‘And?’
‘The assassin must have enjoyed that, for one slash would have been enough. Hyde’s screams were immediate yet the killer stays for a second thrust.’ Athelstan stepped back; his boot caught something beneath the trestles. He stooped down and dragged out the war belts, swords and daggers in their sheaths.
‘The victims,’ Richer declared.
‘Wearing sword belts in an abbey?’
The sub-prior made a face.
‘When Hyde’s corpse was found, were his weapons sheathed?’