Bloodstone(35)

For the rest of that Advent week Athelstan kept to himself. Cranston did not return but sent a message with Flaxwith that all was well. The coroner had even visited St Erconwald’s and announced how ‘that coven of sinners’ were walking the path of righteousness. Benedicta also despatched Crim the altar boy with similar reassurances. Athelstan truly missed his parish. He thought of appealing to Blackfriars but he knew John of Gaunt, the silver-tongued Regent, would have already convinced Athelstan’s superiors that the friar’s presence at St Fulcher’s was vital for the Crown’s interests. Accordingly Athelstan distracted himself, becoming immersed in the daily horarium of the abbey. He stayed well away from those he intended to investigate later: the Wyvern Company, Richer, the abbot and his niece, that anchorite and his grim paintings in the south aisle. Athelstan closely studied these even as he was aware of that eerie soul staring at him through the aperture of the anker house. He also stayed away from the watergate and the nearby gallows where poor Fleischer’s corpse was to hang for three turns of the tide. Athelstan did attend the felon’s hurried burial in the Field of Blood, that deserted derelict stretch of the cemetery reserved for the corpses of malefactors and vagabonds.

Athelstan merged like a shadow into the rule of the black monks. He woke with them when the sub-prior rang the cock-crow bell in the dormitory and joined the sleepy, lantern-lit procession into the choir. Once there he’d watch the sacristan lay out the purple and gold vestments of the Advent season, trim the great lantern horn above the lectern and go round the brothers in a glow of candle light to ensure none of them had fallen asleep during matins. Sometimes he joined the brothers in their stroll around the cloisters. He learnt a little of their sign language when talking was forbidden, though he was never invited to their chapter where duties were assigned, notices proclaimed and corrections carried out. The food in the refectory was good: fish, vegetables, fruit, cheese, spices, figs and ale with pork pies, capon pastry, apple tarts and all kinds of blancmange being served. On occasions he played nine pins and provoked laughter due to his clumsiness, though he soon retrieved his reputation at the chess board.

At other times Athelstan wandered that forest of stone, constantly aware of arches, columns and pillars all intricately decorated. Statues of saints, sinners, gargoyles and babewyns peered down at him from finely sculptured bushes, trees and foliage where mystical animals such as the salamander and unicorn sheltered. Athelstan became accepted as a fellow brother, though one to be wary of as the purpose of his visit became more widely known. Increasingly however, especially as daylight faded, Athelstan locked himself in his own chamber and tried to make sense of the jumbled bloody events which had occurred since St Damasus’ eve. He searched for the root, for the prime cause, to unpick all this tangle, a seminal event which would explain and clarify. Athelstan grew certain of one truth. Kilverby’s murder and those of the Wyverns were connected probably through the bloodstone, the Passio Christi. Yet, what was the prime cause of all this slaughter? The radix malorum omnium – the root of all evil? Kilverby’s pilgrimage to Outremer? But why should that open the bloody gate to the meadows of murder? The only person who might be affected would be John of Gaunt should the Passio Christi be handed over to St Fulcher’s but Gaunt, at least according to the evidence, had no knowledge of what Kilverby intended.

Athelstan’s puzzlement deepened. On the Saturday before the third Sunday of Advent he locked himself in his own chamber and pretended to be Kilverby. The merchant had sat at his desk poring over manuscripts, just thinking. He’d never left, not even to relieve himself. Athelstan had examined the covered jakespot in the far corner of the chamber. Kilverby had already supped and suffered no ill effects from that. The wine he’d carried in proved to be untainted as had the sweetmeats brought from the abbey. The Passio Christi was securely locked in its casket with the keys around Kilverby’s neck. No one had entered that chamber, yet by morning Kilverby was murdered and the Passio Christi gone. How? Why? Athelstan heard a noise, a tapping on the shutters. He rose and walked across to the lantern window. He pulled back the shutters and looked out over the frozen flower garden, its shrubs and rich soil gripped in a harsh frost. Warming his fingers over a nearby chafing dish, Athelstan glanced around and dismissed the tapping as a mere flurry of ice in the snapping breeze. He was about to turn away when a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye made him start. A cowled figure moved from his left into full view – one of the brothers? The figure knelt as if studying the frozen ground. Athelstan caught the glint of metal as this sinister apparition brought up the arbalest. The friar sprang back, stumbling to the floor as the barbed quarrel whirred angrily above him, smashing against the plaster on the far wall. Athelstan murmured a prayer, sprang to his feet, unlocked the door and hurried out. He almost crashed into Wenlock coming into the guest house.