Bloodstone(78)

Athelstan returned to his chamber whilst Cranston decided to visit the serjeants in change of the royal archers. The friar locked himself away listing time and again all he knew. He found it difficult to make any progress on the bloody affray here in the abbey except on two matters. First, when Hyde was murdered near the watergate, Richer ran back to see what had happened. Driven by his deep hatred for the Wyvern Company, the Frenchman thrust his sword deep into Hyde’s belly but . . . Athelstan paced up and down. Surely Richer must have glimpsed the assassin who’d fled, certainly not through the watergate where Richer and the boatman were doing business, but across Mortival meadow, even if it was to hide in one of the copses? If the assassin had been one of the Wyvern Company, Richer would have been only too pleased to point the finger of accusation, so was it someone else? Someone he recognized? A monk from this abbey? Prior Alexander? Secondly, Athelstan could not forget the attack on him in the charnel house, the speed with which his assailant had opened the door and doused those sconce torches. As regards to Kilverby’s death and the disappearance of the Passio Christi? What if Kilverby himself had removed the Passio Christi, locked the coffer and put the keys back around his neck knowing full well the Passio Christi was safe elsewhere? Athelstan could make no sense of this so he returned to listing his questions, trying to construct a hypothesis which he could push to a logical conclusion. Frustration, however, got the better of him. Athelstan visited the church to pray and, when Cranston returned, listed his unresolved questions for the coroner.

‘And yet, little friar,’ Cranston sat on the edge of the bed, ‘we cannot keep this abbey under siege for weeks. What do you suggest?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Athelstan replied flatly, ‘bring your archers into the abbey. I want the library cleared. Prior Alexander and Richer must be detained and their chambers searched. Of course,’ he added despairingly, ‘they may well have anticipated that and be prepared. I suspect they already have, so, for the moment, let us eat and retire early.’

Athelstan rose long before dawn. He felt refreshed and resolute. He was determined on what he must do and, if he had to face the wrath of the Benedictine order, the bishop of London, not to mention the displeasure of his superiors at Blackfriars, then he would accept that. The church in London might scream in protest at the ransacking of an abbey by royal troops and the questioning of its community in the cold chambers of the Tower. Nevertheless, what more could he do? Richer had to be seized. Athelstan waited until dawn then went down to celebrate his own Mass. He was drawing this to a close, about to pronounce the ‘Ite Missa’ when the bells began to toll the tocsin, a harsh discordant clanging which shattered the sleeping silence. Athelstan hastily divested and hurried down the aisle. Others were doing the same; even the anchorite left his cell to join the few brothers who’d been busy in the church. Outside the greying murk was broken by the dancing glow of torches and bobbing lantern horns. Monks clamoured about the reason for the tocsin until Brother Simon, face and hands all muddied, screamed something about a dreadful scene down near the hog pen. Athelstan seized the lay brother. Simon was frantic, his robe, face and hands caked with blood-encrusted mud.

‘Two of them,’ Simon gasped, ‘horrible to see! The hogs have mauled them!’

‘Who?’ Athelstan pleaded.

‘Richer,’ Simon gasped, ‘Richer and one of the Wyvern Company. Prior Alexander is sobbing like a child. You must come, you must come!’

Athelstan reached the hog pen on the farm to the north of the abbey. Others were also gathering. Abbot Walter, swathed in a great woollen cloak, face all stricken, rested for support on the arm of a young novice. Prior Alexander was kneeling between two rolled deerskin shrouds soaked in blood. The prior was distraught. He knelt on the hard cobbles, keening like a distraught mother over her child. Other monks, booted and armed with iron-tipped staves, were driving the hogs back to their sties. Wenlock appeared resting on the arm of Brother Odo, the old soldier was dressed only in his night shirt, stout sandals on his feet, a cloak about his shoulders. He looked as pale as a ghost. He approached the shrouded corpses then turned away to vomit and retch violently. A brother whispered how Wenlock had been sick all night. Once he’d been taken away, Athelstan asked for the deerskin shrouds to be opened. He took one glimpse at the mangled corpses and walked away fighting to control his own stomach. Cranston also arrived and, accustomed to such horrors, he knelt and examined the remains of both cadavers.

‘The hogs feasted well,’ the coroner murmured. ‘They ate the soft fat first, face, belly and thighs.’