Abbot's Passion Read online

  ‘So much for your contention that the place would be deserted,’ smirked Eustache. ‘We are in the midst of an Arab souk!’

  We threaded our way through the crowds to the market cross in the north-west corner of the square. This is a rectangular pyramid of stone steps rising five feet and surmounted by the cross of Our Saviour. Dating from the time of the town’s foundation, its original purpose seems to have been to proclaim the location of the market, although in Bury this was hardly necessary. These days its main function is for public announcements by the town criers and for the ringing of the curfew bell. At other times anyone can use the steps as a platform to air their views. This is generally frowned upon by the town fathers but popular with the people as a source of entertainment. Indeed, the more outlandish the speakers the better they are liked. As long as the message isn’t seditious or heretical the practice is tolerated.

  Today the only occupant of the steps was a drunk whose ravings were as innocuous as they were incoherent, so the abbot-legate mounted the steps to the topmost plinth thus placing himself well above the heads of the milling throng. Jocelin, Jocellus and I took up our positions below him facing out. Then at the abbot’s signal Fidele took out a small horn and blew a loud hulloo. People turned to look. What was this, another soothsayer with a warning of dire consequences if we don’t repent our sinful ways? In a way it was. Having announced his presence Eustache launched straight into his peroration on the subject, predictably, of avarice.

  Now avarice, as anyone who has ever paid attention to his parish priest will know, is one of the seven mortal sins. Since we none of us knows when we may be taken it is a wise man, and woman, who does not leave it too long to repent and make his or her peace with God. Eustache wasn’t the first to stand on this spot to decry against it, though none with quite the cachet of the pope’s personal representative, or indeed with Eustache’s fluency which was impressive considering English wasn’t his first language. I could see now that his reputation as a public speaker was well-deserved. He could out-bellow the most seasoned coster, although on this occasion he had some competition. One trader in particular seemed to have gathered a lively crowd about him bigger than his produce perhaps warranted since he was a seller of gloves - not an everyday essential for most shoppers. But he was certainly enthralling the crowd with his repartee. From his accent I could tell he was a Londoner:

  ‘’Ere you are, lady,’ he was saying to one well-dressed young woman at the front row, ‘try these on for size. Feel the softness. Nice ain’t they? That’s the finest kid leather, that is. You won’t find nothin’ better. Wear them next time you’re in bed fondling your ’usband’s member and he’ll think he’s got hisself a new wife.’

  Laughter from the crowd at this.

  ‘Better still, you’ll think you’ve got yourself a new ’usband!’

  More laughter and cheers this time from the crowd. The lady blushed and even I had to stifle a smile. Jocelin went as red as a cardinal’s hat. I don’t think he’d ever heard such banter before. Unfortunately it didn’t escape the trader’s notice:

  ‘What about you, brother?’ he called to him. ‘You look like a man who’s used to pulling a tit or two.’

  The crowd guffawed.

  ‘Of a goat’s udder, I mean - gentlemen, please!’ he admonished them.

  Poor Jocelin. He looked as though he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.

  Abbot Eustache didn’t appreciate the joke either. He pointed an accusing finger at the man. ‘You!’ he boomed from his pedestal high above him. ‘No man can serve two masters, God and money, for either he will hate the one and love the other.’

  ‘Oh gawd!’ said the man shaking his head. ‘Looks like we got ourself a critic.’

  ‘You have indeed, my friend, and its name is greed. God sees your every action and hears your every word. Here we are poised ’twixt heaven and hell. One wrong move now could send you singing gloriously up into his loving arms or hurtling down into the black abyss below!’

  A voice in the crowd snorted: ‘What, for buying a pair of gloves?’

  ‘It is not the thing itself,’ replied Eustache addressing the speaker directly, ‘but how well we can resist it. Think brother, think sister! Up to heaven or down to hell?’

  ‘Here!’ said the butcher on the next stall offering his boots to the young woman. ‘You’d better put these on your hands. That way the Devil won’t know which way up you are.’

  More laughter from the crowd.

  Eustache shot an accusative finger at the man. ‘You, brother, have just condemned yourself for it is the Devil that speaks out of your mouth! Neither thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.’

  The butcher frowned. ‘Who you calling a swindler?’

  But the abbot’s words seemed to be having some effect on one person at least. Blushing prettily, the young woman at the counter replaced the gloves she had been considering and started to walk away. This brought the glove-seller round from behind his stall and stood arms akimbo glaring up at Eustache.

  ‘Oi!’ he yelled at him. ‘Do you mind? I’m trying to earn a living here!’

  ‘No my friend,’ retorted Eustache shaking his head. ‘Death is what you are earning here. Repent now before it is too late! For the love of money is a root of all evil. It is through this that you have wandered away from the faith and pierced yourself with many pangs.’

  ‘Oh why don’t you pierce off!’ said the man. ‘And take this bunch of bollock-fiddlers wiv yer!’ He gestured towards Jocellus, Jocelin and me. Jocelin nearly went puce with embarrassment. I wasn’t sure I liked the implication either.

  But Eustache wasn’t to be so easily dismissed. He put one hand up to him. ‘No my son, you will not o’ercome me for I have God beside me!’

  ‘Yeah? An’ I’ve got my missus beside me. I know who I’m more scared of.’

  More laughter from the crowd.

  ‘Down foul Satan!’ shouted Eustache. ‘I am your Nemesis!’

  ‘You’re fucking barmy,’ said the Londoner turning his back and starting to tidy his stall.

  Eustache looked as though he would explode. ‘Je suis votre châtiment!’ he screamed at the man.

  Nonplussed, the glove-seller turned to face him again. ‘Oh, Frog are we? Jetty-foo-fah-fah?’ He did a little jig with his hands on his hips. ‘Well hop over this then.’ He grabbed a handful of offal from the butcher’s stall and threw it at Eustache covering his head and shoulders with chicken giblets.

  For a moment the crowd was stunned into silence. The abbot, too, was visibly shocked. I’m sure nothing of the kind had ever happened to him before. But I sensed things were getting a little out of hand and whispered to Jocellus that perhaps it was time to fetch the market reeve. He nodded and quickly disappeared into the crowd. It was then that Fidele showed his mettle as the abbot-legate’s minder. Dodging between the legs of bystanders he found an iron bar from somewhere and gave the stallholder such a mighty crack across his shin with it that I was certain he must have broken the man’s leg. The trader let out a howl of pain and started hopping about holding the injured shin. What happened next was so quick that I could scarcely follow it. In a gesture reminiscent of Christ overturning the money-changers in the temple, Eustache leapt from the steps of the market cross and upended the Londoner’s stall sending the man’s wares scattering in the dust. A roar went up from the crowd at this and suddenly all was pandemonium as stalls went over to right and left and goods and chattels flew everywhere. In the resulting melee people were grabbing anything they could lay their hands on and making off with it. Only the arrival of the reeve with a troop of armed guards finally restored order with the guards roughly pushing the crowd aside with their lances.

  Into the space left by the soldiers stepped the reeve. The free-for-all had lasted barely a minute but from the mess you’d have thought a herd of bullocks had just rampaged through the market.

  ‘Who started this?’ he de
manded.

  The stallholder and the abbot each pointed to the other: ‘He did! No he did.’

  ‘Monsieur l’officier du marché,’ said the abbot stepping smartly forward and addressing the reeve in syrupy tones. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Eustache de Beauvais, Abbé de Saint-Germer-de-Fly. You have doubtless heard of me. I am here in my capacity as legate to the Holy Father in Rome.’ He leaned closer. ‘You understand me, yes? I am the personal representative of His Holiness the pope.’

  Now, I knew the reeve a little. He was a young man, not much more than twenty summers, and fairly new to the job. His father had been market reeve before him and had only recently handed over his staff of office to his son. It was clear from the expression on the lad’s face that he found the abbot-legate intimidating.

  ‘The pope,’ he frowned, nodding. ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘Do you? I’m not sure,’ Eustache smiled. ‘What is your name, my young friend?’

  ‘Alwyn…erm…father.’

  ‘Alwyn, yes good. Well Alwyn, I hope this little incident is not going to cause problems for the Holy Father. As Pope Innocent’s emissary I will, naturally, be reporting all that happens here today to His Holiness in Rome. He will be very interested to hear the names of all those who made themselves useful to him - and,’ he added ominously, ‘those who did not.’

  Now, a more experienced man might have taken the two protagonists off to a quiet place somewhere and got to the bottom of what actually occurred. But with the crowd pressing in around him Alwyn clearly felt he had to make a decision. The lad looked confused. He hesitated. What was needed was an older man more experienced in the ways of the world. Step forward Master Walter de Ixworth, monk, physician, charter-negotiator - and now peace-maker.

  ‘Just a moment,’ I said forestalling the reeve. ‘Master Alwyn, may I have a word?’

  ‘Brother Walter,’ the boy said relieved to see a face he recognized. ‘What do you know of this?’

  The abbot-legate looked on confidently. As a brother monk my loyalties would naturally be with him. The glove-seller was a stranger. He was also a foul-mouthed Londoner who had insulted me once today already. Whose side was I likely to be on?

  ‘My opinion,’ I said in my most officious tone, ‘is that both are to blame. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other.’

  Eustache started to bluster in French. The glove-seller was none too happy either. It seemed I had upset both protagonists and pleased neither - which suggested I had got it about right.

  ‘Now wait a minute,’ the glove-seller protested hobbling forward on his injured leg. ‘I was minding my business. This loudmouth Jeremiah,’ he jabbed an accusing finger towards the abbot-legate, ‘came along shouting the odds.’

  ‘It was you cast the first stone,’ the abbot blustered.

  ‘It wasn’t a stone,’ countered the Londoner, ‘it was chicken muck. And your midget broke my leg.’

  ‘Pah! If it is broken how do you walk on it?’

  ‘Sheer willpower, mate. Sheer bloody willpower.’

  The pair squared up to each other. It was all threatening to start up again with the crowd taking sides. If only we could get away from the charged atmosphere of the market, I thought, the matter could be sorted out quickly. Unfortunately we weren’t to get the chance. There was a sudden commotion near the back of the crowd. A woman fought her way to the front, her eyes wild with terror.

  ‘Murder!’ she gasped pointing behind her before collapsing in a dead faint.

  While others dealt with her the rest of us rushed to where she had pointed. Sure enough, behind the glove-vendor’s stall was the body of Brother Fidele lying on his back, the metal rod he had used to beat the glove-vendor sticking out of his chest. There was no need to look any closer. He was dead all right.

  Seeing him, the abbot-legate let out a terrible cry and fell to his knees beside the body.

  ‘Now we see who is the villain here!’ he barked angrily at Alwyn.

  ‘All right,’ the reeve agreed. ‘Arrest him. Arrest the glove-seller.’

  The guards immediately started hunting through the crowd. After a minute the boldest of them came back.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Alwyn.

  ‘He seems to have gone, sir.’

  Chapter Five

  EVIDENCE GOES MISSING

  Murder is not unknown in England even in these peaceful times. I think throughout the Liberty we get about twenty-five murders a year, mostly out in the villages which have poor access to the courts. If you listen to the old men it was far worse in past times. During the Anarchy of King Stephen murder was so commonplace that people said openly that Christ and his saints slept. It’s nothing like that bad today. Gangs of cutthroats and robbers do still roam the countryside, especially in the empty fenlands to the west of Bury, but with the right precautions - travelling in groups and during daylight hours - it is possible to traverse these islands unmolested. Even so, the bodies of loan travellers are occasionally brought in to the town having been found lying naked in a ditch stripped of their clothing and possessions. The abbey gives them a Christian burial but most of the time we don’t even know their names. Murder inside the town is less common and usually occurs down some deserted dark alley. It rarely happens in broad daylight and never in the crowded marketplace.

  A handcart was borrowed from one of the market traders and we watched as two men lifted Fidele’s little body onto it. Because the iron bar had gone right through the body they had to lay it on its side at an undignified angle. Something about the way they did that struck me as odd at the time but I couldn’t think what it was. A tarpaulin was then thrown over the body and Jocellus, Jocelin, Eustache and I together with Reeve Alwyn followed in solemn precession as the cart was pushed slowly down the hill. As soon as Fidele was delivered to the west door of the abbey church we five made our way over to Samson’s study.

  ‘I want the glove-seller found!’ Eustache immediately demanded thumping the desk. ‘I want him arrested, I want him tortured and then I want him hanged!’

  ‘Of course!’ Samson nodded strenuously, adding: ‘Actually, we don’t torture people in England anymore - although I can quite understand why you should want to.’

  Eustache looked at him in astonishment. ‘Not use the rack? How then do you expect to obtain a confession?’

  ‘By subtler means.’ Samson grimaced apologetically.

  ‘You mean you ask him if he murdered Brother Fidele and when he says “No” you say, “Oh very good, old boy” and let him go?’

  Samson shifted painfully on his chair. ‘Not exactly. But we do like to be certain of our facts before we hang a man.’

  ‘But I have given you all the facts. What more facts do you need? The glove-seller murdered Fidele. A hundred people saw it.’

  ‘And we will be talking to every one of them, never fear.’

  ‘Meanwhile the murderer, he escapes? C’est incroyable!’

  The abbot-legate went on to mutter more French which was too rapid for me to follow but in which I the word “anglais” featured quite a bit.

  ‘Do you have any idea where he has gone? Do you even know his name?’

  ‘Not yet. But we are working on it,’ said Samson glancing up at Reeve Alwyn.

  Eustache jabbed an accusing finger at Samson. ‘This is your responsibility, père abbé. Your market. Your town. Soon I will be making my report to the Holy Father. I very much hope that before I do the murderer will have been caught and properly dealt with. In the meantime the market will remain closed.’

  Samson grimaced. ‘Is that really necessary?’

  ‘For the sake of decency if nothing else. If it had been closed in the first place none of this would have happened. There would have been no glove-seller and Brother Fidele would still be alive. This,’ he said ominously, ‘is God’s judgement on the arrogant nation.’

  ‘As a m-matter of semantics, F-father Eustache,’ said Jocelin raising a mildly indignant finger, ‘if I m-may say so, if i
t was God’s j-judgement as you s-say, then surely someone else would have been the victim. O-other than Brother Fidele I mean, who was n-not even English. It would not be true justice - that is divine justice for an innocent man to s-suffer. O-on the other hand, for Fidele to have been the v-victim would imply he is s-somehow to blame, which would n-not be correct. It therefore f-follows that it is, in fact, injustice. P-purely from a semantic point of view, you understand.’

  Eustache glared at him for a long moment before turning back to Samson. ‘I mean to have this glove-seller, father abbot. And when I do…’

  He held out his hand and crushed an imaginary skull in its upturned fingers. I flinched at the image. Having made his point the abbot-legate glared round at each of us in turn then turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

  ‘His name is Hamo,’ sighed Samson once the abbot had gone. ‘From a village just east of London called…’ he squinted at his notes. ‘…Bromley-atte-Bow.’

  ‘You kn-knew?’ said Jocelin.

  ‘Of course I knew. Alwyn had his name in minutes. But I wasn’t going to tell the abbot-legate. The mood he’s in he’s likely to storm down there and ransack the place.’

  ‘Bromley-atte-Bow.’ I shook my head. ‘Never heard of it.’