The Tainted Relic (20 page)

‘But why hide such a venerable object?’

Talam sighed, and for a moment ceased his endless pacing.

‘Only the abbot knows that. And he’s not telling. If only we knew who the monks were who trans…’ He looked Falconer squarely in the eye, and chose his next word carefully. ‘…brought the relic here. Unfortunately, Brother John Barley was the last of that generation. Apart from the abbot himself.’

Falconer suddenly recalled the abbot lamenting the deaths of several of his colleagues. Now it had a meaning. Sitting as they were in the vast room where texts were copied, and records of the abbey’s life were written, Falconer had an idea.

‘Tell me, Brother Peter, did all those of John Barley’s age die a natural death? I mean, due to advanced years?’

Talam looked puzzled.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Master Falconer. Over the years, many canons have passed over to the Heavenly Jerusalem after a full life of prayer.’

‘But, in recent years, have there been deaths among the older canons not due to the natural process of time? Apparent accidents, perhaps?’

‘There have been some, of course. Just before I came here, I believe there was a brother who ate a poisonous plant accidentally. As for others, I cannot say. Brother Thomas was killed by robbers on the road returning from Glastonbury seven years ago. But these are perfectly normal occurrences in the dangerous and lawless world in which we live.’

‘Perhaps, Brother Peter. Perhaps. But if John Barley was killed for the relic, perhaps others have died because of it. Would you be so kind as to show me the abbey chronicles anyway?’

‘Going back how long?’

‘Let’s say twenty years. To start with.’

Falconer was soon settled down with the records that Talam provided. But, though he seemed content to plough through them, Bullock could not face the thought of sitting with dusty tomes for hours on end. Reading old documents concerning past history was not his idea of pursuing a murder case. Future success required vigorous and decisive action. Besides, he still had his suspicions about Yaxley, the feretarius. He decide to return to Oxford, and winkle the truth out of the man.

And if that didn’t work, there was always the Templar.

It was taking Falconer a long time, but a pattern was beginning to emerge. Starting with a monk twelve years earlier who had died as a result of falling masonry occurring during the building of a section of the great abbey church. The appropriately, if unfortunately, named Brother Benedict Mason had died instantly. One year later it was the turn of the monk Talam had recalled, who had died shortly after eating his dinner. Brother Ralph Durward had been found stone cold, and blue lipped, when he had failed to answer the call of the first bell of the day. The cook had been mortified when it had become apparent that an excess of digitalis had found its way into the monk’s food. He could offer no explanation for the error. And just as Talam had said, Brother Thomas Dyss had been killed on the road just west of Oxford, barely three miles from the sanctuary of his abbey. He had made the long journey to Glastonbury and back without mishap, only to be stabbed to death almost on his doorstep. Robbers on Standlake Common had been blamed. Between these three incidents six other canons had died, though most of old age or disease. The only other death that attracted Falconer’s curiosity was that of Brother William Hasilbech. He had been found on the road north of Oxford with the marks of horses’ shoes imprinted in the bruising on his body. His head was crushed, as if by the flying hoof of a horse. But this was during the lawless times, when the barons had fought the King. There had been much traffic of armies hurrying thither and yon. It could even have been the King himself, or his son Edward, who had carelessly ridden down the monk one dark evening. Both had been in the vicinity of Oxford at the same time. Falconer recorded it as a possibility in his search for a pattern of deaths.

It was another hour, and by candlelight as night closed in, before he found the final suspicious incident. Brother John Paston had gone into the church during a violent thunderstorm one night a year earlier, and had been discovered only the following morning, with a chewed-up scroll blocking his mouth. He had choked. It had been supposed that Paston, a deeply devout if rather difficult individual, had been emulating the command of the mighty angel in Revelation, who, to the accompaniment of seven thunders, adjured John in the following way. ‘Take the scroll, and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, though in your mouth it tastes as sweet as honey.’

Falconer doubted that the soggy paper wedge had tasted so to Paston in his last moments. By the guttering flame of the candle stub, he scratched down the names on a scrap of parchment, left by the monk whose desk he sat at.

Mason–brained by a stone

Durward–poisoned by a plant

Hasilbech–trampled by a horse

Dyss–stabbed by a robber

Paston–suffocated on a scroll

Barley–throat cut by a sickle

Six monks, all dying in suspicious circumstances, when viewed from this new perspective. But didn’t these things always come in sevens?

‘Don’t forget La Souch, flying from the tower, and dying like Hiram Abiff.’

Falconer stiffened as the disembodied voice whispered an answer from the darkness. He hadn’t known he had uttered his final thought out loud. Maybe he hadn’t. He sat perfectly still, listening and trying to work out from where the voice had come. Whoever it was, was referring to the ancient mason of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. Hiram Abiff had been killed by three apprentices, and tossed down from the Temple rather than betray the masonic secrets he was entrusted with. Could the person in the darkness be a Jew? Deudone, perhaps? Not to be outdone in esoteric knowledge, Falconer offered another similarity to test the hidden man.

‘Just as James, brother of Jesus, was struck on the head and cast down from the Temple rather than reveal the secret that the two pillars Jachin and Boaz were the gates of salvation.’

The lurker in the darkness gave a little grunt of satisfaction.

‘I knew you would understand. So, now you have possession of a secret of your own. What do you think should be done about it?’

The voice was cold, and dispassionate, and it sent a shiver down Falconer’s spine.

Bullock was in some difficulty. He had searched high and low but he could not find Richard Yaxley. The feretarius had seen to his duties as normal up until the closing of the church to pilgrims. After that, no-one was quite sure whether they had seen him. The chaplain servicing the tapers was certain Yaxley had gone to take the pilgrims’ offerings to the priory chest. But only because that was what he did at this time every day. The bursar thought he had seen him, but then couldn’t be certain, as he may have been thinking of yesterday. Or the day before. The upshot was that Yaxley had disappeared, and the night was drawing in. Deeply concerned that a potential murderer might be on the loose, Peter Bullock hurried towards his lodgings in the castle. He had the curfew, and the locking of the town gates, to see to. But at the same time, he would use the crew of the night watch to scour the streets for the missing monk. They were a bunch of old men, but Yaxley was hardly a desperate criminal who would seek to fight his way out of a corner, if found. He was more a lurker in the dark, and a back-stabber.

Crossing Carfax, he was hailed by Matthew Syward, who kept watch at the North Gate for him. In truth, the man was lazy and unreliable, more inclined to ogle the women who frequented the stews of Broken Hays than attend to his task. But the job was poorly paid, and required attendance when others would prefer to be at home, or in the tavern with comrades. It was well nigh impossible to get someone who could be relied on. Syward was the best Bullock could hope for. So, when the gatekeeper tried to tell him of the swarthy man with the soldierly mien who had once again sneaked out through the North Gate just before curfew, Bullock didn’t pay much attention to him. Syward was always taking against someone he thought had slighted him, and making up stories. It was Yaxley Bullock needed to find, before another murder was committed.

The figure glided silently out of the darkness, and rested his hands on Falconer’s tense shoulders. He looked down at the list scratched on the parchment before the Regent Master.

‘Hmmm. They are all dead, then.’

‘De Beaujeu–it is you. I could not be sure. In fact, when the constable reckoned he had seen you, I did not believe him. After all, nothing could be so important as to bring a future Grand Master of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple all the way to Oxford. But when I went back to John Hanny’s description of the…apparition he had seen hovering over the body of John Barley, it did set me to thinking. Before I came here today, I spoke to Hanny once more.’ He didn’t admit that the real reason he had returned to Aristotle’s Hall was to ensure Hanny’s welfare. That he was getting his fair share of food. His conscience had pricked him hard. ‘This time, his story did make me wonder if the dark-skinned man could yet have been young Deudone the Jew. But he said the lurker in the shadows was cool and calm. Such self-assurance shown by taking the time to search the body eliminated the hotheaded youth. He is boastful and would have panicked, whereas you, a Templar…’ Falconer let the idea hang in the chill air for a moment, remembering too the fleeting glimpse of a familiar face he had seen in the crowd around the dead mason’s body. ‘If it was you, this relic must be something very special.’

He could still feel the steely grip of Guillaume de Beaujeu on his shoulders. Close to his neck. So close that he was unsure of the man he had once thought of as his friend. He recalled Bullock saying that you couldn’t trust the Templars, if your motives did not coincide with theirs. Maybe the constable had been right. One way or the other, he had to know the truth.

‘Was it you my young student saw standing over the body of John Barley?’

De Beaujeu’s fingers dug into Falconer’s flesh. Then relaxed.

‘Surely, William, you cannot think I killed him? I thought you knew me better than that.’

‘Truthfully, I think I hardly know you at all. You are a very…inscrutable sort of man.’

‘While you wear your heart on your sleeve for all to see. Talking of hearts, how is the beautiful Anne, by the way?’

Falconer did not respond to the Templar’s enquiry about Mistress Anne Segrim. She was and always had been another man’s wife. That was the end of the matter.

‘I see.’ De Beaujeu took his hands from Falconer’s shoulders, and slid down on to the stool next to him. ‘Well, you were right about the apparition this boy saw searching the body. It was me, and I was looking for the relic. I was also aware the boy had seen me. That’s why I left before I could be dragged into the whole sorry mess. I was following a rumour about this particular relic when I heard of the monk John Barley offering just such a one in the town, and arranged for him to bring it to me. But I was too late. The murderer got to him first, and there was no sign of the relic on the body. All I could do for poor Barley was to arrange his body more sympathetically than the killer had left it.’

Falconer recalled remarking to Bullock, when they had found the body, about the piety of the arrangement of its limbs. That had been De Beaujeu, then, and not the murderer. He believed the Templar when he averred he was not the killer. For if he had been, then Hanny would have been dead too by now. The Templar would not have left a witness alive.

‘This relic must mean a lot to you.’

The Templar lowered his gaze, and his voice became slightly muffled and tremulous.

‘You are right. I came here to find the relic on behalf of the Order. But I have a personal reason for tracking it down also. Let me explain.’

In the gathering darkness, De Beaujeu related to Falconer a story of death and despair appropriate to the gloomy surroundings in which they sat. He told a tale of a fragment of the True Cross, stained with Christ’s blood, which had passed from hand to hand for one hundred and fifty years, leaving mayhem in its wake. He told of the curse that tainted the relic, causing the death of anyone who touched it. How the Muslim guardian of the relic had laid the curse before being slain by a Crusader simply for being an Arab in Jerusalem.

‘That Crusader was Miles de Clermont. And he was my ancestor.’

Falconer could hear in de Beaujeu’s tone of voice the burden this placed on the Templar. His Order wished to hide the tainted relic from the world. But it seemed de Beaujeu felt personally responsible, not only for the action of his ancestor, but for every death caused by the tainted relic ever since. Falconer, however, still refused to accept the sorcery.

‘I don’t believe in such nonsense as curses. Why, if I did, I would be shrivelled to nothing by now from all the curses laid upon me by my students down the years. They have cursed me a-plenty for the work I have set them.’

De Beaujeu shook his head sadly.

‘This is too deadly to be taken so lightly, William. If you could only hear the tales that down the years have accompanied this relic…’

Falconer abruptly interrupted.

‘Exactly. That is what they are. Just tales, recited to please a gawking audience of fools.’

‘And the deaths of these six monks?’ De Beaujeu tapped the scrap of parchment with the six names on it. ‘Did they not appropriate the relic, and in so doing tarnish their souls, so that their deaths were inevitable? Is it not the way they died which has led you to assuming these six names are those of the monks who have touched the relic?’

Falconer was trapped by his own logic. That indeed had been his thinking, he had to admit to the Templar.

‘But they were killed by a human agency, not by the relic in some mystical way.’

‘Does it matter how they died? The fact is they touched the relic, and now they are dead. As is the mason, La Souch.’ De Beaujeu paused. ‘And with them dies the only hope I had of tracing the relic’s location.’

Falconer couldn’t help but smile. Something else had just fallen into place for him.