The Tainted Relic (7 page)

‘Come on, then, time for our walk.’ With Brutus as an excuse that fooled no one, least of all Matilda, John took his wolfskin cloak from a hook in the vestibule and stepped out into the gloom, heading across the close for the lower town. Here, in Idle Lane, was the Bush Inn–and its landlady, his Welsh mistress, the delectable Nesta.

At about the same time that the coroner was loping through the ill-lit streets of Exeter, the outlaw Gervase was committing yet another felony in the village of Wonford, just outside the city. By the light of a half-moon, seen fitfully through gaps in the cloud, he crept up to the village church. It was deserted in the evening, as the parish priest had no service until the early morning mass the following day. When Gervase trod quietly up to the church door, he knew from his own experience that the parson would be either sleeping or drinking after his supper in the small cottage at the far end of the churchyard. Gently opening the door, he made his way in almost pitch darkness to the back of the building, below the stubby tower that had been added when the old wooden church from Saxon times had been reconstructed in stone twenty years earlier.

Here he groped about and was rewarded by the feel of a coarse curtain which hung over an alcove, a space for a birch broom and a couple of leather buckets as well as ecclesiastical oddments, such as lamp oil, candles and spare vestments. Gervase pulled the curtain aside and felt around the walls inside until his fingers found some garments hanging from a wooden peg. Taking them down, he went back to the door and waited for the moon to appear again, so that he could see what they were. With a grunt of satisfaction, he found that he had a broad-brimmed pilgrim’s hat and an old cassock, a long black tunic that reached to the ankles, as well as a thin white super-pelisse, usually called a ‘surplice’. This last was of no use to him and he took it back to its peg, then made off into the night with his spoils.

After sleeping under a bush just within the forest’s edge, he rose late and ate the remnants of the food he had saved from the gang’s last meal. In the daylight, he saw that the cassock was patched and threadbare, but still serviceable. His next task was to take his small knife and, after honing it well on a piece of stone, use it not only to rasp three weeks’ growth of stubble from his face, but also from the crown of his head, roughly restoring the tonsure that he used to have before he was ejected from holy orders. It was a difficult task to perform on himself, but with patience and determination he made a fair job of transforming himself back into a priest, especially after he had stuffed his own meagre clothing into his pack, put on the stolen cassock and jammed the battered hat on his head.

Around what he judged to be noon, he went back to the road and with his ash staff in his hand, set off boldly towards Exeter. He decided that it was highly unlikely that he would be recognized by someone from his past life in distant Yeovil, especially as the drooping brim of the pilgrim’s hat helped to obscure his face. There were a few others on the track, going both to and from the city, but the main traffic of people going into Exeter with produce to sell had long since dwindled, most entering the city as soon as the gates opened at dawn. To those whom he passed he gave a greeting and sometimes raised his hand in a blessing. After a while he began to feel as if he really was a priest again, and he became more confident as he approached the South Gate. He slowed his pace so that he entered together with a group of country folk driving a couple of pigs and carrying live ducks and chickens hanging by their feet from poles over their shoulders. The porter on the gate was too interested in munching on a meat pie to give him even a cursory glance, and soon Gervase was striding up Southgate Street, past the Serge Market and the bloodstained cobbles of the Shambles, to reach Carfoix, the central crossing of the four main roads. He had been to Exeter a few times, some years ago, but now had to ask directions from a runny-nosed urchin.

‘Where’s St Nicholas Priory, lad?’

The boy decided that this cleric was too tough looking to risk some cheeky reply and pointed out the way. ‘Not far down there, Father. A rough part of town, that is.’

Gervase entered some narrow lanes and found himself in a mean part of the city known as Bretayne, filled with densely packed houses, huts and shacks, the filthy alleys running with sewage, in which urchins, goats, dogs and rats seemed to survive in squalid harmony. After a few turns and twists, he saw a small stone building, enclosed by a wall that marked off a vegetable plot and a few fruit trees.

There was no porter on the gate and he went along a stony path that led around to the entrance. Near by, a barefoot monk was hoeing weeds between rows of onions, a dark Benedictine habit hoisted up between his bare thighs and tucked into his belt. He straightened up and stared curiously at the visitor, who held up his hand in a blessing and dredged some appropriate Latin greeting from his memory.

‘I wish to speak with the prior,’ he said, reverting to common English.

‘Ring the bell at the door, Brother,’ replied the gardener, pointing at an archway.

He did so. A young novitiate appeared and, after enquiring about his business, led him along a short, gloomy passage and knocked at the door of the prior’s parlour.

Inside, Gervase found the head of the establishment seated behind a small table, some parchments before him and another pale young brother seated at his side, wielding a quill pen. Prior Vincent was a small man with an almost spherical head. He had no tonsure, for he was completely bald, and his face was moon shaped to match. Given his small eyes and prim, pursed mouth, Gervase felt that he was not the ideal customer for a sacred relic, but he had little choice in the matter.

With the novitiate lurking behind him, the other two monks stared enquiringly at this rather shabby priest who stood before them.

‘What can we do for you, Brother? Are you seeking bed and board on your travels?’ asked the prior, in a high, quavering voice.

The renegade priest falsely explained that he was from a parish in North Somerset, on his way home from a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and recently landed from a ship at Plymouth. Gervase followed his habit of sticking as close to the truth as possible, as he had once been a pilgrim to Santiago many years before and could fabricate a convincing story about it if challenged. He chose Somerset for his parish as this was in a different diocese from Exeter and it would be less likely that anyone here would be familiar with any of the incumbents from that area.

‘I would be grateful for a little food and drink, but I have no wish to impose upon you for a night’s lodging,’ he said piously.

The prior nodded, relieved that they were spared the trouble and expense of putting up an unexpected guest. ‘Young Francis here will see that you get something in the kitchen, before you go on your way.’

He said this with an air of finality and picked up a parchment roll again, but Gervase had not finished. ‘There is one thing more which may interest you, Prior. I will admit that after six months’ journeying, I am destitute, my last coins being spent on the passage from St-Malo to Plymouth.’

The prior suppressed a groan, thinking that here was another impoverished priest looking for a handout, but his suspicions were dispelled by Gervase’s next words.

‘I came across a remarkable item on my travels which I felt might interest some religious house in England. I intended taking it to Wells or perhaps Winchester, but as I find myself in Exeter with virtually no funds to continue my journey, I thought to offer it here first.’

Prior Vincent was intrigued, but he was not altogether satisfied with this scruffy clerk who had wandered in from the street.

‘Why, then, did you not go first to the cathedral?’

The outlaw had anticipated this question–he had deliberately avoided the cathedral, where the far larger complement of priests increased the risk of his being recognized.

‘I had heard of St Nicholas Priory and knew it to be a daughter of Battle Abbey, whose fame is known far and wide. It occurred to me that you might relish the opportunity to secure the object to present to your abbot, gaining his gratitude and respect.’

The flattery was not lost on the prior, who could also benefit from some extra goodwill from his superior at Battle, the abbey near Hastings erected by William the Bastard to commemorate the great victory of the Normans that gave them England.

‘What is this remarkable object?’ he snapped. ‘Not yet another piece of the True Cross, I hope?’ he added sarcastically.

Gervase managed not to look discomfited as he admitted that, indeed, it was. ‘But with a great difference, Prior, from the usual dross that unscrupulous relic merchants hawk around. This has undoubted authentication.’

He bent to open his satchel and took out the faded gilt box, removing it from its leather wrapping and handing it to the bald monk.

‘Pray read the message on the parchment in the box–and be sure to study the seal upon it,’ he recommended.

There was a silence as the curious prior, with his even more inquisitive clerk craning his head over his master’s shoulder, looked at the glass tube and read the letter from Sir Geoffrey Mappeston.

‘I have heard of that knight,’ volunteered the clerk. ‘He was a famous Crusader earlier this century!’

‘So have I, boy,’ retorted Anselm testily, fingering the seal attached to the parchment. ‘It certainly seems a genuine note. Whether or not the relic is authentic is another matter.’ He jerked his round face up towards the visitor. ‘How did you come by this?’ he demanded. ‘Did you steal it from some cathedral in France or Spain?’

‘Indeed I did not!’ exclaimed Gervase indignantly. ‘I bought it at considerable expense from a relic dealer near Chartres, whom I succoured when he was in distress.’ He spun an inventive yarn about helping a man whose horse had bolted, leaving him on a lonely road with a broken leg. In return, the dealer had let him have the relic at a reduced, but still substantial, price, which accounted for Gervase’s present poverty.

‘For the good of my soul, I would sell it for no more than I gave for it, at no profit,’ he said piously. ‘Such a relic would be a valuable acquisition for any religious house and repay its cost a thousandfold from the offerings of the pilgrims that it would attract. One only has to look to Glastonbury Abbey to see what riches they have amassed since they discovered the bones of King Arthur and his queen there!’

He said this with a sly grin, in which the other men joined with conspiratorial smirks of disbelief at the enterprise of their Somerset brothers. Prior Vincent turned over the ancient tube thoughtfully and stared at the contents with a mixture of reverence and scepticism. Then he reread the faded words on the parchment and studied the seal more closely.

‘How much do you want for this?’ he asked eventually, peering pugnaciously at the man opposite.

‘What I paid for it, the equivalent of thirty marks,’ lied Gervase.

The prior put the vial on his table as if it had suddenly become red hot.

‘Twenty pounds! Impossible, that’s more than a year’s income for this little place. You should be willing to donate such a sacred object to us for the good of your mortal soul, not trying to extort such a huge sum from your own brothers!’

Gervase was in no mood to start bargaining with the very first customer he came across.

‘Would that I could afford to, Prior–but I sold all I had to fund my pilgrimage and now have nothing in the world. My living in Somerset has been given to another in my absence and I am not sure of finding a new stipend on my return. I have to recover this money in order to live!’

The rotund priest opposite was not impressed by this plea. He pushed the box, tube and parchment back across the desk towards Gervase.

‘Then you had better give this to your bishop as a bribe for a new living–I certainly can’t afford a third of that price, much as I would like to present it to my own abbot.’

As the outlaw retrieved his property, he concealed his disappointment philosophically, consoling himself with the knowledge that this was the first attempt at a sale and there were several other opportunities.

As he left the room, the prior seemed sorry enough for this penurious priest to repeat his offer of hospitality, and Gervase was taken by the young probationer for a plain but hearty meal in the small refectory. Here he tucked into a bowl of mutton stew, followed by a thick trencher of stale bread bearing a slab of fat bacon and two fried eggs, all washed down with a quart of common ale. After foraging and often going hungry in the forest, this was the first decent meal he had enjoyed in a couple of years, and he uttered not a word until he had finished. Then he spoke to the young lad, who had watched in awe as Gervase wolfed down the food.

‘What other religious houses are there in these parts?’ he asked.

The novitiate shrugged. ‘Apart from the cathedral, nothing that is likely to afford such an expensive relic. There’s Polsloe Priory just north of the city, but they have only have a handful of nuns. On the road to Topsham is St James’ Priory, but again there’s but a few brothers there. Your best chance would be at somewhere like Buckfast Abbey, but you must already have been there, as it’s on the road from Plymouth.’

Gervase nodded vaguely, not wanting to reveal that he had been nowhere near Plymouth or Buckfast. He knew this large abbey on the southern rim of Dartmoor by repute, and decided to try his luck there next, as it was a rich Benedictine establishment famous for its huge flocks of sheep and herds of cattle. They should easily be able to afford his price for the trophy he had for sale.

When he left St Nicholas, he walked back into the centre of Exeter and went into an alehouse on the high street. He felt suddenly weary and bemused at being among crowds of people after his years of furtive hiding in the woods. In spite of his claims of destitution, he had a purse full of pennies stolen from various places, and he sat savouring the novelty of drinking in an inn. Though it was not a common sight to see a priest in an alehouse or a brothel, it was far from unknown. Some parish priests, and even vicars and canons from the cathedral, were well known for their dissolute behaviour. Gervase was careful not to flaunt his stolen cloth and sat in a darkened corner of the large, low taproom, keeping his hat on to mark him as a pilgrim to any curious eyes. After a few quarts, he became sleepy, as the warmth and smoke from the log fire in the fire-pit in the centre of the room overcame him. When he awoke, he saw that the day was declining into dusk and, stirring himself, he enquired of the potman whether he could get a penny mattress for the night.