Bloodstone

‘Forsteal: a violent affray.’

‘The day of their destruction draws near,

Doom comes on wings towards them. .’

The melodious chant of the black monks of St Fulcher rose and fell in the taper-lit darkness of their great oak-carved choir close to the high altar. Athelstan leaned against the raised stall and tried not to be distracted by the images clustering around him. The sculptures, the vivid wall paintings, the shimmering colour of stained-glass windows, the darkness brooding at the edge of flickering light, not to mention row upon row of black garbed monks, their faces hidden by cowls — all of these were a constant temptation to gaze around.

‘I have sharpened my flashing sword,’ the choir sang.

Athelstan smiled at the words of the psalmist. Coroner Cranston had decided to curb his sharpened thirst in the refectory of the guest house, though not before telling Athelstan that they would not be returning to the city that evening. Athelstan had reluctantly agreed. He wanted to return to St Erconwald’s. God knows he had enough work there but the business here was compelling. This great abbey absorbed him. In itself it was a small stone city. At its centre stood this hallowed cathedral with its transepts and arches, pillars and plinths, its great rood screen carved in the same fine oak as the latticed woodwork of the chantry chapels dedicated to this saint or that which ranged along each aisle. Athelstan would love to bring his parishioners around this church, show them the exciting wall paintings and frescoes, the great table tombs of former abbots, the elaborate pulpit surmounted by a gorgeous banner displaying the Five Wounds of Christ. Perhaps the swan-loving abbot would grant such permission? A Christmas treat with a feast of bread and ale in the abbey buttery? But not now!

Athelstan let his mind drift. He had visited the narrow chambers of all three dead men. A sad experience. He and Cranston had gone through a collection of paltry possessions: badges, scraps of letters, weapons, clothing and pieces of armour, be it a wrist brace or an ugly-looking dagger. Nothing remarkable except in William Chalk’s, those pieces of parchment bearing the crudely inscribed words, ‘Jesu Miserere — Jesus have mercy on me’, repeated time and again. Athelstan had asked Wenlock the reason for this. He simply pulled a face and said that Chalk, like any man, was fearful of approaching death. For the rest. .

Athelstan stared up at a statue of St Fulcher. Those bare, whitewashed chambers with their pathetic possessions intrigued him. Something was wrong, Athelstan reflected. Ah, that was it! He smiled. Yes, they were far too neat and tidy, as if someone had already searched the dead men’s possessions — to remove what? Any suspicion about their past, the Passio Christi or some other bloody deed they’d perpetrated during the long years of war. .?

‘Then would the waters have engulfed us.’

Before the leading cantor’s words could be answered by the choir, a voice low but carrying echoed through the church.

‘And they have engulfed me,’ the voice continued. ‘Yea, I am caught in the fowler’s net and the trap has been sprung.’ The voice faded.

‘The anchorite, God bless him,’ the monk next to Athelstan whispered. ‘He has to hang a man tomorrow.’

The cantor, now recovered from his surprise, repeated the verse and the plain chant continued. Athelstan peered down the church and quietly promised himself a visit to the anchorite sooner rather than later. At the end of compline Athelstan expected Father Abbot, seated in his elaborately carved stall, to rise garbed in all his pontificals and deliver the final blessing. Instead a strange ceremony ensued, the likes of which Athelstan had never seen before. The monks sat down in their stalls, cowled heads bowed. A side door in the nave opened. Four burly lay brothers, armed with iron-tipped staves, brought in a man dressed in a black tunic, feet bare, hands bound, his face hidden by a mask. Immediately the cantor rose and began singing the seven penitential psalms as the prisoner was forced to kneel between black cloths set over trestles. Athelstan had noticed these when he had first come under the rood screen into the choir. As the monks chanted, Prior Alexander left his stall and thrust a crucifix into the prisoner’s bound hands. Other brothers wheeled a coffin just inside the rood screen whilst the almoner brought a tray carrying a flagon of wine and a platter of bread, cheese and salted bacon. Athelstan recalled the coffin he had seen and the gallows near the watergate. The abbot must have seigneural jurisdiction. The prisoner now before them was undoubtedly condemned to hang on the morrow though not before his soul was shriven and his belly filled with food. Athelstan whispered a question to the monk in the next stall. The good brother broke off from chanting the ‘De Profundis’ — and swiftly answered, before the prior coughed dramatically in their direction, how the prisoner was a convicted river pirate who’d murdered one of their lay brothers. The felon had fled to a church further up the Thames to claim sanctuary but eventually surrendered himself to the abbot’s court. He had been tried and condemned to hang from the gallows after the Jesus Mass the following day.

The penitential service finished. The good brothers filed out of their stalls, past the prisoner who now sat in his coffin, ringed by guards. Athelstan followed the others and, once out of the abbey church, he joined the rest in washing his hands and face in the spacious lavarium near the great cloisters. Afterwards, led by a servitor, Athelstan joined Cranston for supper in the abbot’s own dining chamber, a magnificent wood-panelled room warmed by a roaring fire. Thick turkey rugs covered the floor and skilfully painted cloths hung over the square, mullioned-glass windows. The splendid dining table had been covered in samite and a huge golden Nef or salt seller, carved in the shape of a war cog in full sail, stood at its centre. The platters, tranchers and goblets were of pure silver and gold. Napkins of the finest linen draped beautifully fluted Venetian glasses to hold water drawn from the abbey’s own spring. The wines, both red and white were, so Abbot Walter assured them, from the richest vineyards outside Bordeaux. Athelstan wasn’t hungry but the mouth-watering odours from the abbot’s kitchens pricked his appetite whilst Cranston, now bereft of cloak and beaver hat, sat enthroned like a prince rubbing his hands in relish. Other guests joined them: Prior Alexander, Richer and the ladies Athelstan had glimpsed earlier. The young, fresh- faced woman was Isabella Velours, the abbot’s niece; the older one Eleanor Remiet, the abbot’s widowed sister. Isabella was dressed for the occasion in a tight fitting gown of green samite, a gold cord around her slender waist, her fair hair hidden beneath a pure white veil of the finest gauze. Mistress Eleanor, however, was garbed like a nun though in a costly dark blue dress tied tightly just under her chin, a veil of the same colour covering her hair and a stiff white wimple framing her harsh, imperious face. Unlike Isabella she wore no rings, brooches, collars or necklaces. Both women bowed to Cranston and Athelstan, then as soon as Abbot Walter delivered the ‘Benedicite’ they sat down on the high-backed chairs, grasped their water glasses and whispered busily between themselves. Occasionally Athelstan caught Isabella throwing coy glances at Richer, who always tactfully smiled back. The door to the kitchen opened in a billow of sweet fragrances. Leda the swan, wings half extended, waddled up to the top of the table to receive some delicacies from the abbot. Prior Alexander audibly groaned and loudly muttered that perhaps the swan could be served up in another way. The cutting remark was not lost on Abbot Walter, who grimaced and seemed about to reply in kind but then the first course was promptly served: dates stuffed with egg and cheese, spiced chestnuts, cabbage and almond soup, lentils and lamb, strips of beef roasted in a thick sauce and slices of stuffed pike. Servitors refilled wine goblets and water glasses. For a while the conversation was general: the state of the roads, French piracy in the Narrow Seas, the demand from the Crown for a poll tax and the growing unrest in the city and surrounding shires. The conversation turned to the emergence of the Great Community of the Realm, that shadowy, fervent movement amongst the shire peasants and city poor, threatening revolution and preaching the brotherhood of man. The name of the Kentish hedge-priest John Ball was mentioned as being one of the Upright Men. Judgements were made on him and opinions passed. Athelstan kept his head down as if more interested in his food. The friar quietly prayed that his views would not be asked. Many of his parishioners were fervent adherents of the Great Community; Pike the ditcher for one sat very close to some of the most zealous of the Upright Men. Cranston, wolfing down his food, caught the friar’s unease and deftly turned the conversation to what Athelstan had told him about the prisoner condemned to hang the following morning.

‘A notorious river pirate,’ Abbot Walter pronounced, feeding Leda whilst smiling at his niece.

The abbot went on to describe other depredations of this well-known felon. Athelstan just picked at his food, secretly wishing he could take the entire banquet back in baskets for his parishioners. The friar lifted his head and quickly gazed round. He was certainly learning more about this abbey. He caught the mutual dislike between Abbot and Prior, which he recognized as truly rankling. Isabella, the abbot’s niece, seemed rather vapid and flirtatious. Athelstan wondered about her true relationship with the abbot yet the more he stared at her his conviction only