The Assassin's riddle

Athelstan ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Go and bring a lighted candle,’ he said kindly.

‘Oh, there’s a woman in the death house,’ Crim retorted. ‘Is there a corpse there? Can I see it?’

‘Get a candle.’

Athelstan continued down the narrow path which wound by the burial mounds, battered crosses and worn gravestones. The small corpse house stood under the shade of a yew tree in the far corner of the cemetery. The door was open. Inside, Alison knelt beside the corpse which lay in a wooden casket. She’d already lit a candle and put it on a niche in the wall. The air was sweet, not the usual stale, rather dank odour. Alison got up as Athelstan entered, her cheeks soaked in tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ Athelstan apologised. ‘I came back and I forgot.’

‘It’s all right, Father,’ Alison replied. ‘I bought a coffin from a gravedigger who lives near Crutched Friars. He also brought it across for me.’

She went to lift the lid of the coffin. Athelstan helped her to take it off. Chapler’s corpse did not look so ghastly now. Even the hair had been combed, whilst Alison had filled the coffin on either side of the body with crushed rosemary. She stood, hands joined, Benedicta behind her, as Athelstan began the service for the dead. He anointed the corpse, its forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, hands and chest. Crim stole in, a lighted candle in his hand. When Athelstan had finished, he recited the Office for the Dead and ended it with the Requiem.

‘Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord.’

Benedicta and Alison took up the refrain: ‘And let eternal light shine upon him.’

Once they had said the prayer, Athelstan ordered the lid to be replaced and screwed down. ‘It can now be taken into church,’ he declared.

‘No, Father, leave it here for the night.’ Alison’s sweet face puckered into a smile. ‘Edwin liked the grass, the loneliness, the flowers. It’s pleasant out here.’

‘You are sure you want him buried at St Erconwald’s?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Oh yes, Father.’

‘Then I’ll say a Requiem Mass tomorrow morning, just after dawn.’ He turned. ‘This is Benedicta.’

Both women exchanged smiles.

‘You can stay with her. I’ll have Pike the ditcher prepare a grave.’ Athelstan walked out and pointed across the graveyard. ‘Perhaps there in the corner? In summer it catches the sun.’

Alison tearfully agreed. Athelstan took off his stole. He handed that and the oils to Crim, asking him to take them back to his house.

‘So, Mistress Alison, will you accept my offer to stay?’

‘Yes, Father, I will.’

Benedicta came over and linked her arm through that of the young woman. ‘Do you have enough money?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Alison replied. ‘Edwin was a good brother. What he earned he sent to me.’

‘We have a parish council meeting now,’ Athelstan explained. ‘You can wait here or, if you want to join us…?’

Alison squeezed Benedicta’s hand. ‘I’d like to come, Father.’

Athelstan made to lead them down the path.

‘Brother Athelstan.’ Alison was now standing straight.

The friar was slightly alarmed at the expression in her face and eyes; there was something about this young woman, a steel beneath the velvet.

‘What is it, mistress?’

‘My brother’s assassins. You will apprehend them? They will hang for what they did?’

‘Them?’ Athelstan came back. ‘Mistress Alison, what makes you think there are more than one?’

‘Oh.’ Alison pulled a face. ‘Edwin was a vigorous young man. He would not have given up his life so easily.’

‘Do you suspect anyone?’ Athelstan asked.

‘One of those clerks,’ she replied. ‘Especially the arrogant one, Alcest. Edwin often talked about him: he didn’t like him and Alcest certainly didn’t like Edwin.’

‘But murder!’ Athelstan exclaimed. ‘Mistress Alison, sometimes I do not like some of my parishioners, yet that’s no excuse for the most terrible crime of all!’

‘Just a feeling,’ Alison replied, ru

Athelstan knew the young woman was right. The clerks of the Green Wax had a great deal to answer for, but what? Murder? How, if they had spent the night Chapler had been killed carousing in some tavern chamber? Athelstan walked down the cemetery path; behind him Benedicta consoled Alison, listening to details about her brother’s murder and reassuring her that Sir John Cranston, for all his love of claret, had a mind as sharp as a razor and a passion for justice.

They went round to the front of the church and Athelstan smiled at his parish council.

‘We’ve been waiting, Father. You’re late!’ Hig the pigman bellowed, his dark-set face made even more ugly by a scowl.

‘I had to anoint a corpse,’ Athelstan explained. He introduced Alison.

‘Don’t you go lecturing our priest.’ Watkin the dung-collector came down the steps, almost knocking Hig the pigman flying. Watkin’s bulbous face was red, his eyes popping and, even from where he stood, Athelstan could smell his ale-drenched breath. ‘I am leader of the parish council.’ Watkin turned. ‘I am the one who speaks to Father.’

‘Not for long!’ Pike the ditcher’s wife called out from the back.

Athelstan clapped his hands. ‘Come on! Come on!’ The friar intervened before a fight broke out.

Ranulf the rat-catcher, dressed in his black tarred hood and jerkin despite the weather, opened the church door and ushered them in. Athelstan plucked the sleeve of Cecily the courtesan. She was climbing the steps slowly, clutching at her dress and swinging her bottom provocatively at Pike the ditcher.

‘Cecily,’ Athelstan whispered.

‘Yes, Father?’ The woman’s cornflower-blue eyes and lovely girlish face, framed in a mass of golden curls, looked more angelic than ever.

‘Cecily, when will you learn,’ Athelstan whispered, ‘that only those who are dead are supposed to lie down in the graveyard?’

‘Why, Father.’ Cecily’s eyes rounded even further. ‘I only went to pick some flowers.’

‘Is that the truth?’

‘No, Father, but that’s all I’m going to tell you.’ And the minx scampered off.

The parish council met near the baptistry, sitting on benches formed in the shape of a square. Watkin took the place of honour on Athelstan’s right, Pike the ditcher on the left, followed by the usual fight for places amongst the rest. Benedicta and Alison found seats on the bench opposite Athelstan and he began the meeting with a prayer. There were the usual items of business: the grass in the cemetery needed cutting; the arrangements for tomorrow’s funeral. Everyone looked sympathetically at Alison. Pike offered to dig the grave, Hig and Watkin to carry the coffin. Athelstan asked who had been drinking raucously two nights previously just outside the church. No one answered, though Bladdersniff the bailiff, Pike and Watkin stared at the floor as if they had never seen it before.

‘Now,’ Athelstan continued. ‘The preparations for Holy Rood Day. In about a month’s time, on the fourteenth of September, we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.’

That was the signal for everyone to get up and admire Huddle’s new crucifix. The painter, his long, horsy face bright with pleasure, described how he had achieved his masterpiece. Everyone ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’, followed by general agreement that, this time, Huddle had surpassed himself.

‘Now,’ Athelstan continued when they had resumed their seats. ‘Rood Day is a holy day. We will have Mass followed by a solemn blessing of the crucifix.’

‘I will carry it,’ Watkin bellowed.

‘You bloody won’t!’ Pike roared back. ‘You do everything, Watkin!’

‘I don’t lie down in the cemetery,’ the dung-collector hissed spitefully.

‘What’s that?’ Pike’s virago of a wife leaned forward.

‘Hush now.’ Tab the tinker, sitting next to her, grasped her hand. ‘You know Pike has to dig the graves and look after them.’