Bloodstone

letter of which was framed in an exquisitely jewelled miniature. Athelstan put this down and picked up the old book; its cover was of hardened plates covered in leather and embossed with fading Celtic designs. The pages were stiff and greying with age though held fast by tight binding of strengthened twine. The ink was a faded black. Although the letters were beautifully formed and clear, the Latin was almost classical in its construction and composition. Athelstan turned to the first page and the ‘Prologua — the Introduction’ and swiftly translated the author’s description: ‘A true narration of the origin, history, powers and miracles of that most sacred bloodstone, the Passio Christi, as drawn up on the instruction of Pontifex Damasus in the second year of his Pontificate. .’

‘Friar?’

Athelstan stared up at Cranston.

‘God has sent his angel, Sir John, one of the dread lords of heaven. He wants justice to be done.’ Athelstan put both books back into the pannier. He and Cranston then went to the guest house. A sleepy-eyed servant showed them Mahant’s chamber, its latch off the clasp. Inside the room looked as if Mahant had left in a hurry. Chests and coffers lay opened, clothes spilling out, weapons thrown on the bed, its sheets and coverlets disturbed. Cranston and Athelstan made a thorough search but only found remnants, relics, mementoes of the past, nothing Athelstan could place as part of this mystery. Mahant’s chamber, despite its apparent disorder, seemed as if it had already been cleared of anything untoward but by whom? Wenlock was in the infirmary so was it someone else? Or Mahant himself? He voiced his suspicions to Cranston.

‘So you think someone came here before us?’ Cranston asked. ‘I suspect Mahant himself did this — he was preparing to leave,’ he grinned, ‘which is understandable.’

Later that morning the abbey became more settled. Athelstan through a now very subdued Abbot Walter, ordered divine office to be suspended until the Inquisitio was finished. Cranston set up his court before the lofty rood screen of the church. A table was brought with the abbot’s throne-like chair for Sir John. Athelstan borrowed a stool and laid out his writing tray with freshly sharpened quills, brimming ink pots, sander, pumice stone, wax and freshly scrubbed sheets of vellum. Brother Simon, who’d called those summoned at Cranston’s behest, was given the duty of sacramentarius. He would proffer the Book of the Gospels for witnesses to take their oath before they sat on the stool on the other side of the table facing the coroner. Candles were brought and lit, braziers fired to full glow and wheeled close. Athelstan intoned the ‘Veni Creator Spiritus’. Cranston delivered a short barbed speech declaring how he was ‘the King’s officer in these parts with full power to hear, judge and terminate’. He then had to deal with an objection from one of the senior monks who, on behalf of the abbot, delivered the ritual protest that royal power could not be exercised on church land. Cranston politely heard him out and replied that such matters of law were not for him or his court; the abbot would have to appeal direct to the royal council.

‘By which time,’ Cranston whispered, sitting down on his chair, ‘Gabriel will have blown his horn for the end of days.’ Cranston shouted for all to withdraw except those summoned and the proceedings began. The coroner moved swiftly, Athelstan carefully noting what was said. The two lay brothers in charge of the hog pen were summoned first. They described how they had come out at first light to find the hogs highly agitated, snorting and casting about as if, in the words of one of their keepers, they were possessed by a legion of demons. The massive sty where they were usually confined for the night was barred by a great half-door. Cranston nodded and said he’d seen this. The brothers thought some fox or other night predator had climbed over this into the sty so they unbarred and opened the half-door. The hogs, now being slaughtered, one of brothers added mournfully, were so frenzied they had to drive them off with staves. Eventually, after the entire herd had spilled out into the great pen, they noticed blood on the snouts, flanks and legs of some of the hogs so they took lanterns and went back into the sty.

‘At first,’ one of the brothers shook his head, ‘we didn’t believe it. Two corpses horribly mauled. We dragged them out but even then the hogs tried to attack. We drove them off, placed the mangled remains outside the pen and raised the alarm. We then examined the dead and realized one was a monk from the remains of his clothing: robe, cord and sandals. The other was an outsider, Sir John. Most of his clothing, except for his belt and shoes, had been shredded.’

‘And the knife?’

‘We found it in the straw glistening in the light of the lantern.’ Athelstan stooped down and picked up the elegant, silver-hilted knife still encrusted with blood.

‘And you cannot say,’ Athelstan asked, ‘whether this knife was used on one or both of the victims or was it just stained when the hogs tore their corpses apart?’

‘Brother Athelstan, both men must have been dead, or nearly so when they were cast into the sty.’

‘Why?’

‘Hogs will attack children, even a man, but they can be driven off. It’s only when they become frenzied and their victims are helpless that they will feast.’

The monks who worked in the scriptorium and library then presented themselves. They could say little about Richer or what he was working on. Athelstan recalled the great table in the scriptorium which the Frenchman deliberately covered up; now he knew the reason why. Cranston questioned the brothers regarding the previous evening. They all reported that Richer had Prior Alexander’s permission not to attend divine office. Instead he stayed working in the scriptorium long after dark. They’d glimpsed the glow of candle and lantern horn through the window but more than that they couldn’t say.

‘Richer was working on copying the “Liber”,’ Athelstan murmured once the monks had left. ‘And when he finished, he placed that and the original in a pannier, returned to hastily hide them in his chamber, then left to meet whom?’

Cranston just pulled a face. Master Crispin was called next. The secretarius was sullen, openly resentful at being kept in the abbey. Once he’d taken the oath on the Book of the Gospels he admitted he was shocked at the horrid deaths.

‘And where did you spend your sleeping hours?’

‘In my bed, Sir John. I wish to be free of this place. I never liked it. I know nothing of these deaths.’

‘Murders,’ Athelstan broke. ‘Murders, Master Crispin, heinous slayings for which someone will undoubtedly hang. You’re on oath — do you have anything else you can tell us?’

‘No.’

‘Then, sir, go back to your chamber and wait.’

Prior Alexander came next. He looked woebegone and exhausted, face unshaven, eyes red-rimmed with weeping. He mumbled the oath and slouched like a broken man on the stool.

‘He’s gone.’ The prior lifted his head. ‘Beautiful Richer.’ He heaved a deep sigh. ‘My friend, oh. .’ Prior Alexander seemed unaware of his surroundings or to whom he was talking. ‘He was a butterfly in many ways. I knew his only task here was to secure the return of everything plundered from St Calliste, including that bloodstone. God knows,’ Prior Alexander screwed his face up, ‘the curse that ruby carries, now he and one of the Wyvern are dead, murdered.’

‘By whom?’

‘God knows, Sir John. I would suspect the Wyverns but one of them died with him, perhaps they fought. .’

‘Richer hated them, yes?’

‘Of course.’

‘Enough to meet one of them at the dead of night and attempt to kill him? After all, Richer was armed with a dagger?’

‘Why there?’ Prior Alexander pleaded. ‘Why in the hog pen?’

‘Why indeed,’ Athelstan answered. ‘Prior Alexander, you loved Richer.’ Athelstan put his pen down. ‘I do not wish to know to what extent or in what way but he came here to reclaim plundered property. Richer arrived at St Fulcher’s once his uncle at St Calliste knew the Wyverns were here. He turned the minds of Master Chalk and Sir Robert to the truth about the Passio Christi?’

‘Yes.’

‘He persuaded Sir Robert to bribe your Lord Abbot for the secret return of those items.’

‘Of course. You know our Lord Walter, he and Judas would have been true blood brothers.’

‘You hate your abbot?’ Athelstan insisted. ‘You regard him as venal, pampered and corrupt.’