‘That’s him, that’s Martin,’ Stephen said the moment he caught sight of him. ‘So he is alive. Where did you find him?’
The almoner had been anticipating this question and had been rehearsing the words of his gloating reply in his head while they had been waiting, but he never got a chance to utter them.
Prior Alan at once dismissed him from the hall, together with the two monks, ordering that the boy should be taken to the kitchens there to be given a generous basket of food and a few coins by way of a reward. Scowling, the almoner marched Ben from the room, gripping his shoulder so tightly in his indignation at being excluded that the lad would have protested had he not been so delighted at the prospect of taking home not just a loaf but a whole feast.
When the heavy door had closed behind them, Prior Alan turned his attention back to his prisoner. ‘You look remarkably well for a man who’s been dead for over two weeks.’
Martin said nothing. Even he realised that there was little point in continuing to deny who he was. They had only to bring his cousin, Henry, here, or Cuddy or John. They would take the greatest pleasure in identifying him.
Prior Alan rose and paced the length of the room. Only when he reached the far end did he turn and address Martin.
‘So, you murdered your fellow player Luke. You cut the head from the corpse and hid it, and you dressed him in your robes. The question is why? Was it to make everyone believe you were dead, so that you could escape with the relic?’
Martin gaped at him. Only a few of the words had filtered through the panic fogging his mind. ‘Murder? No! No! I swear it on the bones of every saint in Ely, I did not kill Luke. He was already dead when I found him.’
‘I seem to recall just moments ago you swearing you were not Martin,’ Alan said coldly. ‘It would appear little value can be placed upon your oaths.’
‘But it’s true. I came across his corpse… by accident. There was no mistaking he was dead – a sword cut to the neck. His head was almost severed.’
‘How do you know it was a sword cut, if you did not kill him?’
‘Because… I realised who must have done it, and the sword… I…’
Alan resumed his pacing. ‘If a man finds a corpse he is by law required to raise the hue and cry, but you did not. Why would you not report it, if you are as innocent of the death as you claim, especially if you knew who had murdered him?’
Martin stared wildly round the room, looking for someone who might take pity on him, but the faces of all three men were equally impassive.
‘I… suspected that his killer was really after me. It was dark, Luke was wearing a hood. He must have returned to the wagon to search for the money his uncle accused me, quite falsely, of taking. The man who killed him obviously mistook him for me. We’re much the same height. When I saw Luke’s body I realised that could have been me lying there, and if the man who killed him learned he had made a mistake, then he’d continue looking for me. So I thought if everyone believed I was dead…’
‘Including the players you robbed, then you could escape with your life and their money, was that it?’ Stephen said.
‘I was merely trying to prevent another murder being committed,’ Martin said resentfully.
‘Continue,’ said the prior sternly. ‘What did you do after you found Luke’s body?
‘I didn’t want the corpse to be discovered by the watch before I had time to get out of Ely when the gates were opened the next morning. I tried to drag the corpse into the wagon, but the head was lolling about too much, so in the end I took my knife and sawed through the last bit of the neck, then I heaved the corpse in. I dressed Luke in my angel costume.
‘I realised I had to dispose of the head where no one would find it. My clothes were soaked in blood from moving the body. So I changed into some old clothes from the props box, wrapped the head in my bloodstained clothes, put it all in a sack along with Luke’s clothes and set off for the river. But when I was halfway down the hill I saw the flames of a torch moving towards me. I thought it might be the watch making their rounds, so I fled back to the wagon and hid beneath it until morning. I couldn’t go to the river then, all the players live down there and besides it would be swarming with boatmen and paggers. And I daren’t risk carrying the head out of the town gates in the sack, in case I was stopped and searched.
‘It was looking up at the roof of the cathedral, at all those carved heads, that gave me the idea. I managed to mingle with the crowd going in for the servants’ Mass. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the door to the tower open. With all those people milling about, no one noticed me slip inside. I stuffed the sack and clothing under one of the beams in the dark corner inside the tower, then put the head on the turret where the birds could pick it clean. I thought when it was eventually found, people would think they’d found my head.’
‘As indeed some did,’ Alan said, glaring at Stephen.
‘But when I came down the tower, someone had locked the door at the bottom. I couldn’t get back out. I had to hide and wait for someone to open it again, but no one came until long after the noon bell. I made straight for the town gate, but even before I got there I saw the long queues waiting in front of it and I realised the guards were stopping and questioning everyone. I couldn’t leave Ely.’
‘So you decided to hide in plain view,’ Alan said.
‘No one looks at beggars,’ Martin said, with something of his old swagger at his own cleverness.
‘But what I don’t understand,’ Will said, ‘is how you broke into St Withburga’s tomb. You said yourself there was a crowd of people, and the cathedral is searched thoroughly each evening to ensure no thief is hiding.’
‘But I didn’t go near any of the saints’ tombs. I didn’t want to risk being seen.’
‘Then how did you steal the saint’s hand and replace it with Luke’s?’ Will demanded.
‘How he did it is irrelevant,’ Prior Alan snapped.
‘But, Father Prior, if there has been some breach in the security of the cathedral, others may use it to steal, and as custodian-’
‘That can wait. The only thing that matters at this moment is recovering that relic.’
Alan strode across to Martin and seized his shoulders, shaking him as if that would make the words drop out of his mouth. ‘We know you placed the hand of the murdered boy in the shrine and stole the saint’s hand. Tell us what you’ve done with it. Where have you hidden it?’
‘But I didn’t take anything from the shrine. I told you, I couldn’t get near it.’
Martin tried desperately to pull himself out of the prior’s grasp, but his hands were bound fast and, for a man in his sixties, Alan was surprisingly strong.
‘Then what did you do with Luke’s hand,’ Alan demanded, ‘the hand you so brutally sliced from his corpse?’
‘Nothing! I did nothing. Luke’s hand was already missing when I found him.’
‘You didn’t mention that before,’ Stephen said.
Martin hesitated. ‘I… I guessed the man who took it had cut it off… because he thought Luke was a… thief.’
Prior Alan pounced. ‘But you told us this mysterious man believed he was killing you, that means that you are the thief. So what did you steal from him? It must have been something of great value to warrant murder. Well?’ He shook Martin again.
‘All right, if you must know it was a sword… a silver sword.’
‘Valuable indeed,’ Alan said grimly. ‘But why did he not simply have you arrested? He would have had the satisfaction of seeing you hanged without risk to himself.’
‘He didn’t dare,’ Martin said sullenly. ‘It’s no ordinary blade. The sword is inscribed with the secret names of God, Agla and On. And this man is an alchemist… from Cambridge.’
Prior Alan sank down into the nearest chair. ‘This gets worse by the hour,’ he groaned.