Murder Most Holy (29 page)

‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘Everything is in order.’ He tapped the flagstones with a sandalled foot. ‘Beautiful! At last it’s beginning to look like a church.’

He sat down on the altar steps and almost jumped as Cranston yelped, ‘Oh, that bloody cat’s back!’

Bonaventure, his back arched and tail curling, had appeared out of the shadows and was now rubbing himself against the coroner’s boot.

Athelstan rose. ‘Come here, my knight of the alleyways,’ he murmured. He sat stroking the cat, lost in thoughts which whirled like a wheel in his head. The faces of the Inquisitors; Father Prior’s tears; Raymond D’Arques striving for forgiveness; Fitzwolfe and his satanic ways; Benedicta breathing her love.

Cranston threw his cloak on the steps and sat down next to him. He watched the friar closely as he sat, eyes half-closed, absent-mindedly stroking that bloody cat.

‘You would never have thought it,’ Cranston quietly remarked, trying to gain Athelstan’s attention.

‘What’s that, Sir John?’

‘Well, Henry of Winchester, a theologian. You wouldn’t have thought butter would have melted in his mouth.’

‘Remember the temptation of Christ, Sir John? Even Satan can quote scripture, and Satan has a nasty habit,’ he smiled at the pun, ‘of appearing in the guise of an Angel of Light.’

‘Are you going to leave here?’ Cranston abruptly asked. ‘Father Prior said your penance was over.’

Athelstan just smiled.

‘Well, are you, you bloody monk?’

‘Sir John, I have decided. There are many paths to sanctity.’

Athelstan’s grin widened. ‘And you’re certainly mine.’

Cranston belched and the sound rang through the church like a clap of thunder. Bonaventure stirred and looked at the coroner curiously. Cranston got to his feet.

‘I’m off to see that thieving bugger in the Piebald tavern. Athelstan, you should join me. We must celebrate our discovery of the truth.’ Cranston stared down at Athelstan. ‘Oh, by the way, Brother, Father Prior mentioned giving you a letter. You replied that because I had solved the riddle, you no longer had need of it.’

Athelstan stared up at him. ‘Sir John, don’t be angry. I did wonder what would happen if we were wrong. My parents had a farm, Francis is dead, so the farm was sold and all profits given to the Order.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘I begged Father Prior for a loan on that property. He gave me a letter to the Order’s bankers in Lombard Street allowing me to draw a thousand crowns if we were wrong.’ He shrugged. ‘I had to be sure.’

Cranston stamped his feet and looked away, blinking furiously so Athelstan couldn’t see the tears which pricked his eyes. At last he turned, crouched, picked up his cloak and looked Athelstan straight in the face.

‘You’re a funny bugger, monk!’

‘I know, Sir John, it’s the company I keep!’

Cranston threw his cloak over his shoulder and swaggered down the aisle.

‘I’ll be in the Piebald,’ he called out over his shoulder. ‘Don’t keep me waiting. I know you stingy priests. You always like others to buy your ale!’ He walked out of the church, the door crashing to behind him.

Athelstan smiled, kissed Bonaventure between the ears and stared round the sanctuary. He suddenly caught sight of Huddle’s painting on the sanctuary wall, etched out in broad vigorous strokes of charcoal. Athelstan peered closer. ‘What the . . .?’ He put Bonaventure down, took a tinder, lit a candle and walked over to the wall to study the painting more closely.

Huddle had roughed out the scene where Mary and the baby Jesus meet her cousin Elizabeth and the infant John the Baptist. Athelstan looked at the figures and began to chuckle. Benedicta was the Virgin Mary; he was Saint Joseph; Watkin the dung-collector’s wife was Elizabeth; Pike the ditcher an onlooker; Tab the tinker a soldier. Herod the Great was none other than a fat-faced, bewhiskered Sir John Cranston. He even had a miraculous wineskin peeping out from beneath his cloak. Philomel was there, Cecily the courtesan, Crim, Ursula the pig woman, and even her sow. However, what really caught Athelstan’s attention were the infant Jesus and John the Baptist: Huddle’s genius had depicted them with bald heads, staring eyes, fat cheeks, podgy arms and legs – in fact, as Cranston’s two beloved poppets.

Athelstan, shaking with laughter, blew out the candle and walked from the church to join Sir John in the Piebald tavern.

The Sorrowful Mysteries of Brother Athelstan

1. THE NIGHTINGALE GALLERY

2. THE HOUSE OF THE RED SLAYER

3. MURDER MOST HOLY

4. THE ANGER OF GOD

5. BY MURDER'S BRIGHT LIGHT

6. THE HOUSE OF CROWS

7. THE ASSASSIN'S RIDDLE

8. THE DEVIL'S DOMAIN

9. THE FIELD OF BLOOD

10. THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS

11. BLOODSTONE

12. THE STRAW MEN

13. CANDLE FLAME

14. BOOK OF FLAMES