Stephen and Will looked bewildered.
‘Only twelve such swords were ever made,’ Alan explained wearily, ‘to be used by consecrated priests who were specially trained in the art of conjuring spirits and angels. The Mass of the Holy Spirit was said over those blades. They’re all supposed to be safely under lock and key. So how on earth did a layman get hold of one? It’s obvious why this alchemist did not report the theft. He must have stolen the sword himself or bought it knowing it was stolen.’
The colour drained from Stephen’s face. ‘You used a sword in the play of “Cain and Abel”… surely it was not that one.’
Martin’s silence told him it was.
‘What evil demon have you conjured!’ Stephen cried.
Prior Alan thumped the table. ‘He has conjured nothing! Whatever mischief has gone on in Ely has been the work of human sin, as the very play itself warns. The townspeople may believe in demons flying down from towers, but we know it is not so.’
Will and Stephen exchanged glances that plainly said they knew no such thing.
‘But Father Prior,’ Will said, ‘what about the theft of St Withburga’s hand? I still don’t see how Martin could have accomplished it.’
Martin looked positively triumphant as if he’d just been proved innocent.
‘If what this man says is true,’ Alan said icily, ‘then we have found our thief and he is most definitely human. If the alchemist cut off Luke’s hand, then he must have placed it in the shrine and stolen the saint’s hand, no doubt to use in some evil charm or sorcery. Find the alchemist and we will find the hand.
‘You,’ he turned to Martin, ‘tell Brother Will all you know about this man and the places he is likely to go. Will and Stephen, you must prepare to set out at once for Cambridge, but you’ll have to travel alone. No one outside this room is to learn St Withburga’s hand is missing. If you have to enlist help when you are there to apprehend this alchemist, then tell them only that he is wanted for murder in the cathedral precincts, but make sure you search his lodging and workshop thoroughly. I want that hand found.
‘As for you, Martin, you will be reunited with your cousin in the hell-pit. He will doubtless be overjoyed to discover you’re alive, but I suspect Luke’s uncle will be somewhat less welcoming, especially when he learns it was you who placed his nephew’s head on the tower.’
Cambridge
It took Stephen and Will three days to locate the alchemist’s house. On the first morning after they arrived in Cambridge they sought an audience with the sheriff and explained they were in pursuit of a man who had committed murder in the grounds of Ely Priory, though they were careful to make no mention of either the relic or the sword. The sheriff showed little interest. Scowling, he told them that he had his hands full trying to keep the townspeople, the students and the various orders of monks from killing one another, without solving Ely’s murders as well, and demanded to know why they hadn’t brought more men with them. Finally, but only after he had been reminded in no uncertain terms by Will that he had a sworn duty to root out fugitives from justice hiding in his city, he grudgingly assigned two of his men to go with them and arrest the man, if he could be found.
Martin, realising his only hope of escaping the gallows was the arrest of the alchemist, had told Will exactly how to find the undercroft of a house where the alchemist had his workshop. But when Stephen and Will arrived and hammered on the door, they were met only with silence. Finally, after they had knocked a good many times, a woman leaned out of a casement on the upper storey.
‘We were told that we might find a man called Nicholas working here,’ Will called up.
‘Used to. Left in the middle of the night, he did, and the bastard still owes me rent.’
‘Do you know where he went?’
‘Do you think he’d still owe me rent if I did?’ the woman retorted, and promptly withdrew her head.
But even in Cambridge the smells and noises of an alchemist’s workshop couldn’t remain unnoticed for ever. Stephen and Will were eventually led to a house backing on to the stinking waters of King’s Ditch by a grubby street urchin who seemed to know the business of every household in Cambridge, information that he was eager to sell, though only after negotiating his fee as ruthlessly as any lawyer.
Without apparently any understanding of the word stealth, the two sheriff ’s men thundered up the rickety staircase to a room tucked under the eaves of a house. Not even a deaf man could have failed to hear their coming and when they burst in, the alchemist was frantically trying to squeeze himself out through the impossibly small window. Where he imagined he could go next was anyone’s guess, since only a bird could have escaped that way, but the soldiers didn’t waste time asking questions. Their instructions were to take the prisoner back to the sheriff at the castle, what happened to him after was not their concern.
‘Go with them,’ Will whispered to Stephen. ‘Find out what he says to the sheriff. It’ll give me time to search this room.’
He glanced round at the vast array of boxes, jars, charts and scrolls that were crammed onto every shelf, and the many more lurking between the curiously shaped flasks that steamed and bubbled over candle flames and small braziers.
‘The hand must be in here somewhere,’ Will said. ‘He’s evidently a man who likes to keep his possessions close, but it could take me a month to search through this lot.’
‘I should douse those flames first,’ Stephen warned. ‘That pot looks near to bursting open.’ He hastily backed away from a vessel that was wobbling alarmingly as clouds of greenish steam belched out of it.
But after several hours of methodical searching, even examining the walls for any concealed hiding place as well as the mysterious contents of the flasks, Will was reluctantly compelled to admit the bones of St Withburga were not in the room. He had discovered the silver sword concealed in a roll of bedding, and a desiccated mouse squashed behind a chest, but otherwise nothing. He was forced to conclude that if the alchemist had indeed stolen the hand, it was no longer in his possession.
Subprior Stephen confirmed this as soon as they met up again. ‘Nicholas confessed to the murder, in fact he seemed quite proud of it. Even the news that he killed the wrong man didn’t disturb him. He showed no remorse at all. It was as if the killing of Luke meant no more to him than the squashing of a beetle compared to the importance of his work. I’m certain he believes that no one would dare to execute a great alchemist like him over something so insignificant.’
‘But did our alchemist mention the hand?’ Will asked.
Stephen grimaced. ‘I managed to persuade the sheriff to leave us alone for a few minutes and questioned him, but he was adamant he didn’t steal St Withburga’s hand. In fact he was scornful of the very idea he should need it. He also claimed that Luke’s corpse still had both hands when he left. I’m inclined to believe him. He’s so arrogant; he would certainly have boasted about the cleverness of the theft if he had committed it.’
‘Then that brings us back to Martin again,’ Will said grimly. ‘Though I still can’t see how he could have done it. I’m beginning to think the townspeople might be right and thanks to that wretched play there is a demon at work.’
The two monks left Cambridge without the alchemist. Having decided that Nicholas was a dangerous lunatic, the sheriff was not going to risk having him escape from the two monks, or being rescued by his friends, if indeed a man like that had any. But the sheriff refused to spare men to accompany them to guard the prisoner, saying that if the prior wanted the alchemist returned to Ely he should send an adequate number of men to fetch him, otherwise he would remain safely locked up in the castle to await the next assizes.