‘I’ve yet to wash him,’ the keeper of the dead declared mournfully.

Athelstan leaned over and studied the gruesome wounds.

‘Friar?’

‘Sir John, look,’ Athelstan pointed, ‘here’s the gash, the death wound but look, another piercing here.’ He motioned further up the belly. ‘The assassin made a sweeping cut, turning the blade of his sword to skewer his victim’s innards, a killing cut but then withdraws the sword and plunges it again.’

‘And?’

‘The assassin must have enjoyed that, for one slash would have been enough. Hyde’s screams were immediate yet the killer stays for a second thrust.’ Athelstan stepped back; his boot caught something beneath the trestles. He stooped down and dragged out the war belts, swords and daggers in their sheaths.

‘The victims,’ Richer declared.

‘Wearing sword belts in an abbey?’

The sub-prior made a face.

‘When Hyde’s corpse was found, were his weapons sheathed?’

‘He was holding both sword and dagger,’ the keeper of the dead offered. ‘I was there when we found him slumped against the curtain wall near the watergate.’

Athelstan carried the sword belt into a pool of lantern light. He drew both weapons; their blades were clean though flecks of blood stained the hilts where Hyde must have held his weapons close. Athelstan placed the war belt back.

‘And Hanep carried weapons?’

‘Yes,’ the keeper replied, ‘but I do not know whether they were sheathed or not.’

‘And why should Ailward Hyde go down to the watergate?’

‘I don’t know, Brother,’ Richer was quick to answer, ‘but his presence there might indicate that his killer came from the river rather than the abbey.’

Athelstan had seen enough. He put down the perfumed pomander the lay brother had thrust into his hand and walked back into the darkening day. He stood listening to the different sounds of the abbey whilst Cranston took a generous sip from his wineskin.

‘You will meet the members of the Wyvern Company?’ Brother Richer’s dislike of the former soldiers was obvious; his handsome face was twisted in contempt, his English almost perfect except for the slight accent now coming through.

‘They’re all assembled in the refectory of their guest house where they will, as usual, be slurping their ale and boasting about their sins.’

‘Brother, you must resent these men? You come from the Abbey of St Calliste near Poitiers. You believe your abbey was plundered by these men?’

‘Before my day,’ Richer dug his hands up the sleeves of his robe, ‘long before my day, but yes, I resent them. They are pillagers, ravishers, sacrilegious miscreants. If they’d not been on the side of the victors they’d have been hanged out of hand. Brother, why talk here in the freezing cold?’ Richer led them away from the gloomy death house, back into the main buildings. He waved them into a small visiting chamber warmed by two braziers and lit by a huge lantern-horn; they sat around a small table, Richer pulling one of the braziers closer.

‘Brother Athelstan, Sir John,’ Richer smiled, ‘I’m French through and through. I do not believe that the English Crown has any right to that of France but,’ he held up a slender hand, ‘I’m also a Benedictine. Our houses stretch across Europe and beyond. Here at St Fulcher are English, French, Bretons, Hainaulters, Castilians and Germans. One thing binds us: we have all put away our former selves and donned the black robes and accepted the rule of our master St Benedict.’

‘But why are you here?’

‘Because I’m a scholar, Sir John, a bibliophile, a peritus — how do you say? An expert in the care and use of precious manuscripts. I have visited the great libraries of Rome, Avignon and St Chapelle. Three years ago Abbot Walter asked my superiors in France for assistance with the great library here and çela,’ he spread his hands, ‘I am here.’

‘I’ll be blunt, Richer. Did you come here with secret orders to seize the Passio Christi?’

Richer grinned. ‘I’m a Benedictine, Sir John, a librarian. True,’ he conceded, ‘I would love to take the Passio Christi back to St Calliste but, if rumour is true, that was about to happen anyway. I mean, if Sir Robert left it here before journeying on pilgrimage, it would have only been a matter of time before our precious bloodstone passed back into the rightful hands.’

‘You apparently don’t believe the story how the Wyvern Company found the Passio Christi on a cart, along with other precious items, on a deserted road near the Abbey of St Calliste?’

‘No, Brother, I certainly don’t and I suspect, neither do you. A farrago of lies! I was a novice at St Calliste. I followed my vocation there. I’ve heard the stories. The battle at Poitiers was truly a disaster for the power of France. In the days following, English free companies roamed the fields and highways pursuing their enemies and helping themselves to whatever they wanted. St Calliste should have been sacred but a group of ruffians wearing the Wyvern livery scaled the walls and wandered the abbey. The Passio Christi was kept in a tabernacle in a small chantry chapel to the right of our high altar.’ Richer’s face grew flushed, his voice more strident. ‘It should have been safe there, a sacred relic in a most holy place! The House of God, the Gate of Heaven! Yet it was stolen, along with other precious items.’

‘Have you ever confronted the Wyverns with their crime?’

‘Of course, Brother Athelstan, just once. I was mocked and ignored.’ Richer snorted with laughter. ‘Do you think these ribauds are going to confess to sacrilegious theft? I told them if they were guilty of that then they incurred excommunication, ipso facto, immediate and swift. You know, Brother Athelstan, such an excommunication can only be lifted. .’

‘After three steps have been taken.’ Athelstan recalled the relevant decree. ‘Restitution, reparation and an absolution by a priest.’

‘Tu dixisti!’ Richer quipped. ‘You have said it, but those ribauds will never confess the truth.’

‘And Sir Robert, he often visited St Fulcher for spiritual consolation?’

‘Four or five times a year.’ The sub-prior shook his head. ‘Sometimes I’d talk to him, a strange man much taken up by the state of his soul. Of course I cannot speak about that. I am sorry to hear he died un-shriven but I can say little. He did most of his business with either Abbot Walter or Prior Alexander. If he spoke to me it was on spiritual matters and that is my concern.’

‘And the Wyvern Company — have they changed recently?’

‘If they have, I’ve hardly noticed. They keep to themselves. Prior Alexander might help.’

‘When Hanep and Hyde were murdered they were still wearing their sword belts — why should they go armed here in a peaceful abbey?’

‘Very observant, Brother Athelstan.’ Richer wagged a finger. ‘By the way, we have heard of you here, an indefatigable seeker of the truth.’

‘Praise from a Benedictine is praise indeed,’ Athelstan retorted, keeping an eye on Cranston, who looked on the verge of sleep. ‘But my question?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps they feared each other. Perhaps some relict from their past outside this abbey has intervened.’

‘You mean,’ Cranston shook his head, smacking his lips, ‘someone from outside is responsible for their murders? Surely a stranger would soon be noticed here?’

‘Not at the dead of night, Sir John, or on a dark December afternoon with the river mist curling around the abbey. Even worse if the assassin donned the black robes of a Benedictine.’ Richer rose to his feet. ‘Perhaps some ancient, unresolved blood feud, God knows. Such men must have made enough enemies in life. Come, let them tell you themselves.’

They left the petty cloisters, darkness was falling. Athelstan plucked at Cranston’s cloak. ‘We should be gone!’

‘In a while.’ The coroner seemed evasive, lost in thought and strode swiftly after the sub-prior. Most of the brothers were now in the abbey church. Silence lay like a pall across the precincts and gardens. Athelstan paused at the welling sounds of voices chanting a psalm from the divine office: ‘Vindica me Domine et judica causam meam — Vindicate me Lord and judge my cause’. Aye, Athelstan thought, do so, Lord, for this truly is a maze of lies and deceit. They passed the Galilee porch; a coffin stood there. Athelstan recalled what he’d glimpsed in the death house. He paused and abruptly asked Brother Richer to show them where both men had been murdered.