At that time of the year, the mounds of earth which marked the graves were covered with a blanket of daisies and buttercups. On some, the families had placed posies of herbs and flowers gathered from their own gardens. In the far corner, under the great yew tree which had been there since the Conqueror, there were the graves of the wealthier parishioners whose relatives had marked the last resting place of their loved ones with a stone cross, or maybe a stone slab with the details of the person’s life engraved on it. It was very dark under the yew tree, the air soft and warm. It was going to be a beautiful summer night. Suddenly, he stopped. On one of the larger tombstones, old Eleanor Hammond’s, he caught a glimpse of bright blue that didn’t seem like the colour of flowers. He walked over to take a look. The Hammond family were one of the wealthiest families in the parish, freeholders and sheep farmers. Old Eleanor was ninety-six when she died, and it was right that her family should have given her such a fine tomb. From a hawthorn bush near the tomb a nightingale began to practise a few runs as a warm-up before the real concert began.
The blue wasn’t from a posy of flowers. It was the blue of a linen dress, and it was on a small girl who was laid out on the slab, her dress neatly arranged and her fair hair unbound. Edgar stopped and clutched his heart, which began to beat wildly. He knew the little girl. She was Eleanor Hammond’s great granddaughter, Katharine Hammond, aged six, the apple of John Hammond’s eye. Edgar braced himself and walked over to the child. Her face was deathly pale and when he peered closer because his eyesight wasn’t too good, he noticed that both of her eyes had been closed with what he thought were two coins, like the pennies the old people put in the eyes of their dead to pay the ferryman to row them across the River Styx. But they weren’t pennies. They were communion wafers. Then he saw the marks around her slender neck and he realised that Katharine Hammond had been vilely murdered whilst she came to visit the tomb of her great grandmother – her little posy lay on the grass where it had fallen when she’d been attacked. This was the devil’s work, he thought. Only the devil would commit such a sacrilege as to put communion wafers on his victim’s eyes. And there was only one person who was conversant with the black arts – the witch! With a shout of horror Edgar ran back to the church and banged on the Vicar’s door.
‘Murder, sacrilege! Open up quickly, the devil’s been here. Murder, murder,’ he continued to scream when Alfred Hobbes opened the door, and together they ran back to the place where Katharine Hammond was lying.
* * *
News travels fast. Nicholas was given a detailed account of Katharine’s death from Geoffrey Lowe, and by the time he’d sent an urgent message to the Sheriff, and ridden down to the church, a crowd had gathered, led by John Hammond, Katharine’s father. They were carrying lighted torches and were crowding round Agnes’s room, screaming for vengeance.
‘Burn the witch, kill the witch before she kills all our children.’
Nicholas pushed his way through the crowd and flattened himself against the door of the cell.
‘Stop! I’ll arrest the first person who takes one step nearer this door.’
‘Don’t you stick up for the old hag, Lord Nicholas,’ said a rough voice from the crowd. ‘We’ll burn her here and now and get rid of her. Don’t you know what she’s done to Kate Hammond?’
‘I know Katharine’s dead, and I grieve for her parents, but we don’t know Agnes killed her. How could she? She’s locked up in here and she hasn’t got a key. She can’t get out, you fools.’
‘She don’t need no keys,’ said the same voice. ‘Them witches know how to spirit themselves through doors. Don’t you stand up for her, Lord Nicholas.’
Such was the respect that the villagers had for Nicholas that no one took a step nearer. He stared at the crowd with their flaming torches, he saw the darkness settle down on the scene, and knew who was responsible for this. Ultor had struck again. Ultor was getting desperate. Agnes could soon recover her wits. Agnes had to be silenced. What better way to arouse the fury of the mob than to murder a young child and make it look like the malevolent action of a witch, one of the devil’s emissaries.
The crowd would not be pacified, and some threw their torches at Nicholas in defiance, and by the time the Sheriff arrived with his men, they were almost out of control. Order was soon restored, and the crowd pushed back from Agnes’s room. Then the Prior came panting up to Nicholas.
‘This is terrible, my Lord. An abomination. The Sheriff must take Agnes Myles away immediately. We can’t keep her here. The mob will tear us to pieces. Let her go to Marchester where the Bishop will know how to deal with her.’
‘Stop, Prior. Think. There’s no evidence that Agnes killed Katharine. Don’t be swayed by this mob. Use your reason. She can’t get out of this room. She’s too old to murder a little girl. And how, in God’s name, Prior, could she have got hold of communion wafers?’
‘She’s right,’ said a clear, firm voice from the crowd. It was Jane, who’d just arrived and was pushing her way forward to stand by Nicholas. ‘Whoever killed Katharine knew how to get hold of communion wafers. Now who could do that? Someone from the parish – the Vicar uses communion wafers, of course – someone from further afield who stole wafers from a church, or someone from this community. Which one of your monks has access to the sacred vessels and the communion wafers?’
Nicholas looked at Jane in admiration. He had underestimated her strength. The Prior gasped, and, all of a sudden, seemed to crumble. He looked desperately at Jane, then at Nicholas, and finally at the Sheriff. The crowd had fallen silent.
‘Send these people home, Sheriff. Bring Katharine into our church, where we’ll see that the prayers of the dead will be said over her body. And let’s go over to my house and sort this out.’
‘And meanwhile, Prior,’ said Sheriff Landstock, ‘let none of your monks leave these premises. Shut the gate. Assemble all the brethren in the chapter house and let none of them leave until I say so. My men will guard them and I shall put a guard over Agnes Myles’s room.’
‘Oh what a dreadful thing, what a scandal,’ said the Prior as he led the way over to his house. ‘What sacrilege – and the King’s Commissioners here too. What will they think of us?’
‘And Katharine’s family, Prior, think of them,’ said Nicholas.
‘Oh I am, I am, Lord Nicholas,’ said the Prior. ‘It’s a terrible tragedy for them. But why, oh why, should anyone want to murder a little girl in such a diabolical way?’
As they walked over to the Prior’s house, the great bell of the Priory tolled out, bringing the monks down from their dormitory and into the chapter house. The crowd slowly dispersed. Two men stood guard over Agnes Myles.