‘Can I help, Father?’
Benedicta had appeared suddenly in the doorway. Athelstan clutched his stomach.
‘Benedicta, you made me jump! If I had been drinking, I would have thought I was having a vision.’
‘You don’t have visions, Brother!’
Benedicta pulled back her hood. Her black hair hung loose to her shoulders.
‘And don’t try to distract me; the bells will soon ring for vespers. The hour is growing late. Why are you lighting two braziers? You intend to spend the night here, don’t you? You are not going to study the stars? And don’t tell me,’ Benedicta drew close, ‘you are going to lie in front of the high altar and pray for our parish council.’
Athelstan went over and closed the church door. ‘No, Benedicta, I’ll tell you the truth. I am hunting the sons of Cain. I want to trap men who have done great evil, who believe that they can wipe their mouths on the back of their hands and face God as if they were innocent.’ He walked out of the shadows and grasped her cold hands.
‘Why, Brother Athelstan?’ Benedicta kept her face serious, but her beautiful eyes smiled.
‘You’re cold.’ Athelstan let her hands slip.
‘I’ll help you light the braziers.’
He brought out the tinder box and a bundle of dry bracken, which they pushed into the small gap under the charcoal. Benedicta found the bellows in the church storeroom. For a while, laughing and chattering, they attempted to fire the braziers, at first unsuccessfully, but eventually the charcoal caught and began to glow, as Athelstan remarked, ‘like the fires of hell’. Benedicta went out and brought back sweet-smelling weeds which she sprinkled on top, then helped Athelstan wheel the braziers up the nave and into the chantry chapel. She insisted that they dine together and hurried off to Merrylegs’ cookshop. On the way she met Crim and persuaded the altar boy to help her, and together they brought back a large meat pie.
‘Freshly baked,’ Benedicta announced. ‘Merrylegs went on oath to tell me the meat was no more than a month old. I also stopped at the Piebald.’ She gestured at Crim. ‘Jocelyn sent that free of charge, and Crim hasn’t spilt a drop, have you?’
The altar boy, holding the beer jug as he would the sacred pyx, shook his head.
All three sat at the entrance to the sanctuary, Athelstan sharing out the pie and ale, regaling Crim with stories about how the ghost of the leper woman had helped him solve a recent mystery. Crim sat round-eyed, and once the meal was finished, left, taking the jug back to the Piebald and the cookshop’s bowl for Merrylegs.
Athelstan washed his hands and face in the small lavarium in the sacristy.
‘You were talking about the sons of Cain?’ Benedicta stood in the doorway.
‘He killed his brother, Benedicta, and when God questioned him, shouted back a question which has rung down the ages: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Like Pilate he didn’t wait for an answer, but, also like Pilate, received one whether he liked it or not. God hunted Cain down, seized him and marked his head. Tomorrow,’ Athelstan sighed, ‘God willing, I am going to see that sign myself.’
‘Can I help?’ Benedicta offered.
Athelstan folded his napkin and put it over the arm of the lavarium.
‘Not now, but tomorrow. I’ll celebrate Mass just after dawn. I’ll ring the bell so you will know. I want you to bring Cecily here. Oh, and tell Pike the ditcher not to drink too much tonight, I also want him at Mass. He must take certain messages for me.’
Benedicta left, and Athelstan returned to the house. Thankfully Malachi hadn’t returned. Athelstan quickly unlocked the chest, took out the casket and St Erconwald’s ring. He banked the fire, made sure that everything was in order and left for the church, where he locked and bolted the doors behind him. Then he prepared himself, laying out the parchment, quills, ink horn and other writing materials. Going into the sanctuary, he prostrated himself before the high altar. He quietly recited the Veni Creator Spiritus, but stumbled on the words, so he recalled the famous hymn ‘In Laudem Spiritus Sancti’: ‘Spiritus Sancte, pie Paraclete, Amor Patris e Filii, Nexus gignentis et genitï, O Holy Ghost, O faithful Paraclete, Love of the Father and the Son. .
Once he had finished, Athelstan lit more candles around the chantry chapel and concentrated on his task. Slowly but surely he teased out the facts, listing the various killings one after the other, trying to find a pattern, basing his theory on the hypothesis that one person, and one person alone, was responsible for the murders, only to quickly realise that that was futile. He then tried various combinations, listing the incidents in different categories, but eventually he changed this to three: the great robbery; the murder of the knights, Chandler, Broomhill and Davenport; and finally, the murder of the rest. The great robbery he ignored, and concentrated on the latter two, but the problem became even more vexatious, particularly Davenport’s death. For a while Athelstan concentrated on that blood-soaked corpse, until eventually he closed his eyes and whispered, ‘Deo Gratias!’ At last he was able to impose some order, a harmony on these apparently disjointed facts, before returning to the great robbery.
‘The radix malorum, the root of all evil,’ Athelstan whispered. He left the desk, warmed his hands over the brazier and walked up and down the nave, turning the problem over and over in his mind, looking for the weakness, preparing what he called his bill of indictment. He could see the logic of what he proposed, but where was the evidence? He had very little except for that ring, the casket and those two lists of jewellery. He returned to his writing desk and re-examined the evidence. He now understood the Misericord’s scratchings on the wall of his Newgate Prison cell, what he was truly shouting as he died, as well as the veiled allusion that the clue to Guinevere the Gulden’s death was something which could be found on his sister’s person. It all made sense. He also understood the Judas Man’s strange scribblings, which, in turn, took him back to the night of the Great Ratting.
Athelstan sifted amongst the evidence he had collected; what else was there? He picked up his quill and wrote a few words. The real problem was the Lombard treasure. Where had it gone? And those four men who’d disappeared off the face of the earth twenty years ago? Athelstan closed his eyes. He thought of the desolate stretch of bank south of the Thames, the dark, lonely night. Other images came to haunt him: John of Gaunt, with his glib tongue and sharp eyes; Sir Stephen Chandler’s pitiful prayer for mercy; Rolles the taverner, a knife in one hand, in the other a letter from the Castle of Love; the hay barn; the great cart standing in the tavern yard; Davenport sitting all alone in that garden. Athelstan felt thirsty, so he took a gulp of watered wine. If he could only make sense of the robbery. He recalled the axiom of one of his masters: Nihil ex Nihilo, ‘Nothing comes from Nothing’. He paused in his pacing, so surprised by his conclusion he threw his head back and guffawed laughter. He had his proof; the hypothesis was firm, the bill of indictment was ready!
Athelstan went across to the side door, unbolted it and peered out. The priest’s house was shrouded in darkness. Malachi must have retired, so Athelstan vowed to do the same. For a short while he knelt in front of the high altar and gave thanks for the help he had received. As he stared up at the Crucifix, the words of the old Crusader song came drifting back: