Cranston, sipping his wine, noisily cleared his throat to speak when the door abruptly opened and the largest swan Athelstan had ever seen waddled pompously into the chamber. The bird’s webbed feet slapped the polished floor, its long elegant neck arched, the oval-shaped head of downy white and black-eyed patches ending in a yellow bill which opened to cry eerily as the bird fluffed snow-white feathery wings. The swan headed straight for the abbot. Cranston made to rise. The swan turned, hissing furiously, glorious wings unfolding.

‘It’s best to sit down,’ Prior Alexander declared wearily. ‘Leda only answers to Father Abbot.’

Cranston resumed his seat and the bird continued on to receive food from the abbot’s hand before nestling on soft cushions in the corner. Cranston just glared at the bird as Abbot Walter explained how Leda had been his special pet since a hatchling.

‘A change from the monkeys, apes and peacocks,’ Prior Alexander breathed, ‘not to mention the marmosets, greyhounds and lap dogs.’

‘All God’s creatures,’ Abbot Walter commented cheerfully, ‘all gone back to God.’

‘There’s even a small place in God’s Acre for God’s own creatures.’ Prior Alexander could not keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

‘All God’s creatures,’ Cranston echoed sharply, ‘and there’s two more for God’s Acre, former soldiers who lodged here, Gilbert Hanep and Ailward Hyde brutally despatched to judgement before their time and,’ Cranston now had the monks attention, ‘I bring you the most distressing news. You expected the Passio Christi to be brought here this morning by Sir Robert Kilverby’s steward Crispin, together with his daughter and son-in-law?’

‘Yes, we wondered. .’

‘Murdered!’ Cranston retorted. ‘Sir Robert was foully poisoned in his chamber and the Passio Christi has disappeared.’

Abbot Walter almost choked on his wine. Prior Alexander sat back clutching the arms of his chair, mouth gaping in surprise. Richer stared in disbelief at both Cranston and Athelstan then glanced away, shaking his head. Once they had recovered, Cranston, ignoring their questions, pithily informed them what they had learnt at Kilverby’s house.

‘So,’ Cranston concluded. ‘Did Sir Robert share with you his intention to leave the Passio Christi here at St Fulcher’s on the very day he left on pilgrimage?’

‘That,’ Abbot Walter waved a hand, ‘may have been in his mind but,’ his fat face creased into a smile, ‘I cannot comment on what Sir Robert intended or what might have been. Sir Robert is now dead. The Passio Christi is missing, then there are the deaths here.’

‘Murders,’ Athelstan broke in. ‘Father Abbot, two of the Wyvern Company have been foully slaughtered in your abbey.’

‘My Lord of Gaunt has heard of the first death,’ Cranston added, ‘when he hears of the second, not to mention the murder of Sir Robert and the disappearance of the Passio Christi, his rage will know no bounds.’ Cranston’s words created a tense silence. His Grace the Regent was not to be crossed, even by Holy Mother Church.

‘I would not be surprised,’ Cranston added softly, ‘if His Grace did not honour you with a visit, Lord Walter, but now, reverend fathers, these murders?’

Prior Alexander replied. He assured Sir John how the Wyvern Company were happy, as they had been for the past four years. They’d claimed the Passio Christi was their find, so twice a year they were allowed to both view and hold it. For the rest, Sir Robert paid the abbey through the exchequer a most generous amount so the former soldiers enjoyed very comfortable lodgings.

‘Until now?’ Athelstan declared.

‘Yes, early this morning just after first light, Brother Otto who tends the cemetery went for his usual morning walk. Gilbert Hanep’s corpse was found near the grave of his old comrade William Chalk.’

‘Another death?’

‘By God’s good grace, in the order of nature,’ the prior replied. ‘William Chalk was sickening for some time from tumours in both his belly and groin.’

‘So Hanep rose in the middle of night to pay his respects to this dead comrade?’

‘Brother Athelstan, Hanep, like his comrades, was a veteran, a warrior, a professional soldier. He was restless, much given to wandering this abbey at night.’

‘And someone who knew that was waiting? His assassin must have followed him down to the cemetery and killed him?’

‘Took his head, Brother, a swinging cut; those who found him were sickened by the sight.’

‘And no indication or evidence for the murderer?’

‘The ground was awash with blood,’ Prior Alexander retorted, ‘but no one saw or heard anything untoward.’

‘And late this afternoon, Ailward Hyde was murdered near the watergate.’

‘A vicious wound to the belly,’ the prior replied, ‘the poor man’s screams rang across the abbey. By the time our good brothers reached him he was dead, soaked, almost floating in his own blood.’

‘Why?’ Cranston asked. ‘Why now?’

‘Sir John, we truly don’t know.’

Was there a link? Athelstan reflected, staring at the carved figure of a seraph carrying a harp on the right side of the fireplace. Was Sir Robert’s death, the disappearance of the Passio Christi and the murder of these two unfortunates all connected, or was it something else? Athelstan shivered. He recalled a lecture by Dominus Albertus in the schools so many years ago. How every evil act like seed in the ground eventually blooms to manifest its own malevolent fruit. Wickedness was like a tangled bramble, cruel and twisting, breaking through the soil, stretching out to create its own trap. Kilverby had enjoyed the reputation of being a hard-fisted money lender, notorious throughout the city and Southwark. Members of the Wyvern Company had killed, pillaged and plundered, even seizing a precious relic for their own greedy uses. Was this their judgement day, ‘their day of wrath, the day of mourning’ as described by the poet Thomas di Celano? Had the victims of all these murders been caught out by their own wickedness sown so many years ago? ‘Everything sown will be reaped’, or so ran the old Jewish proverb. Had harvest time now arrived?

‘Brother Athelstan?’

‘Sir John.’ Athelstan rose to his feet. ‘I have other questions but they will wait. We should view the corpses and question the Wyvern Company. After all, the day is drawing on and my parish awaits.’

‘Your parish?’ Prior Alexander’s voice was harsh. ‘Brother Athelstan, we know of you, a Dominican sent to do penance. .’

‘Then if you know,’ Cranston declared, getting to his feet, ‘there’s little point in retelling it.’ He bowed perfunctorily in the direction of the abbot. ‘Reverend Father, if we can view the corpses?’

Richer led them out of the abbatial enclosure and into the main cloisters. The day was drawing on and the monkish scribes working in their carrels around the cloister garth were collecting their writing equipment in obedience to the bell tolling for the next hour of divine office. Athelstan drank in the sights, watching the scurrying black-robed monks, as organized as any cohort in battle array, prepare for the next task. Other brothers were coming in from the field, doffing their aprons, shaking off their hard wooden clogs and gathering around the different lavaria to wash and prepare themselves. Athelstan wanted to speak to Cranston but Richer kept close as he led them across the abbey. At last they reached a deserted, cobbled yard. Richer ushered them into the whitewashed death house where two coffins rested on trestles beneath a crude black crucifix nailed to the wall. Six purple candles on wooden stands ringed each coffin. Beneath these, fire pots containing crushed herbs exuded a pleasant smell to counter the reek of corruption and decay. A gap-toothed, balding lay brother, hands all a flutter, came out of a shadowy recess to introduce himself. Richer curtly ordered him to raise the deerskin coverlets drawn over both corpses. Once done Athelstan gazed down at both cadavers. Hanep’s head had been sown back on with black twine but the face seemed to have shrunken and shrivelled like a decaying plum. Hyde’s cadaver was still cloaked in congealing blood, the great slit across his belly crammed with scented linen rags.