The False Virgin (41 page)

‘The boy doesn’t need his head filling with thoughts of women of any kind, saints or tavern girls,’ Richard said sharply. ‘He doesn’t even have room enough in his
head to remember what he’s been taught. Now, finish up here and don’t be late opening the shop.’

Without even waiting for an acknowledgement of his orders, Richard strode out of the yard and made his way towards his house. Most tradesmen lived in the upper storeys above their shop, but
Richard was wealthy enough to afford a separate house, well away from the stench of the slaughter yard, which had made the money to buy that house, at least what money he’d earned himself.
Much of his wealth had come from his marriage to Mary, but Richard had long forgotten that inconvenient fact, as most men in his position did.

Ever since he found Edward sitting alone with his wife, Richard had taken to arriving home at unexpected times to see if Edward was paying any more visits. But each time he’d returned
he’d found her alone or out walking or shopping with her maid. And on this occasion the house was once again deserted, with not even William, his manservant, answering his calls. This was
not, he supposed, unexpected. The manservant had told him he was taking the wagon to fetch wood. With the nights as cold as they were, the stack of fuel for the fire had shrunk alarmingly these
past few days.

But Richard was both annoyed and alarmed. He realised he should have left instruction that his wife and Jennet were to remain in the house whenever William was absent, and William should guard
the house when they went shopping. Suppose someone broke in? It would be terrible to be robbed at any time, but with the reliquary in the house . . . Not that his wife or the servants knew he had
the reliquary. Nevertheless, he must impress upon them that the house was never to be left unattended. He would invent some story about a gang of robbers being reported as heading to these parts.
That would frighten them into staying close to the house.

After calling out once more to ensure the house was indeed empty, Richard hastened to the solar and checked the lock still remained in place on the stout iron-banded chest. It was rather too
obvious a hiding place, but it was the first place he’d found, when he returned that night from the church, where he could place the reliquary unobserved by anyone in the house. But a locked
chest was the first place any thief or prying cleric would examine.

Richard had been pondering the matter ever since and finally resolved that if he could remove some of the oak panelling, he might be able to create a niche behind it where the statue could be
hidden. The question was, who could he trust to carry out the work without talking? He would have to employ a craftsman, for though Richard could slice a pig into neat parcels in less time than it
took a goodwife to pluck a chicken, he had no skills with wood, and any false panelling must appear indistinguishable from the solid walls when it was finished, else the hiding place would be
discovered at once.

He was pacing the rooms, tapping on walls and trying to find exactly the best place for such a concealed compartment, when he heard someone else tapping on the door that led into the passage
from the courtyard at the back of the house. Assuming it must be one of the servants, somewhat irritably he went to unfasten it.

But it was not one of the servants who stood there. Instead he was confronted by two men, both dressed in patched and ill-assorted clothes, their heads and half their faces muffled against the
cold. Richard’s first instinct was to slam the door, but one had already wedged his stave inside, preventing that.

Richard tried to muster as much authority as he could. ‘What . . . what do you want? If you want alms, go to the dole window in the church. I tolerate no beggars here.’

‘We are not seeking alms, Master Richard. We have a matter of the utmost importance we would like to discuss with you.’

Richard was taken aback by the gentle, cultured tones of the man, in contrast to his appearance, but that only made him more wary. An educated man had no business to go around dressed as a
beggar. He was obviously a knave or a thief.

‘Come and see me at my place of business. I don’t barter for beasts in my own home.’

‘We are not here to sell you a cow, Master Richard. It concerns something altogether more valuable and it is we who wish to purchase it from you.’

Richard hesitated. He had no intention of admitting these men into the house. Two of them together could easily overpower him and he had no way of knowing if they were concealing any weapons
beyond the staves in their hands. But the man seemed to understand Richard’s wariness, for beyond holding the door open he made no move to force his way in.

The stranger glanced behind him. The courtyard was deserted save for Richard’s own horse in the stable, but even so, he lowered his voice, still keeping the cloth across his mouth and nose
so that Richard had to lean towards him to make out the words.

‘We seek the reliquary of St Beornwyn.’

Richard drew in his breath as if the man had just slapped him.

‘Why . . . why come to me?’ he blustered. ‘I know nothing about it. I’ve no idea where it is. It’s probably been destroyed.’

‘It is to prevent the destruction we are here. If you were to stumble across its whereabouts – by accident, of course – we would be pleased to take it to a place of safety,
where no enforcer would ever find it. We’d keep it safe until this troubled time has passed. I assure you we would treat it with all reverence.’

Richard almost laughed. ‘Smash it up to get to the gold and jewels, more like. Do you take me for a fool?’

The second man moved closer and Richard hastily took a step back, thinking he was about to push his way through the door, but he carefully laid his stave against the wall and held up both hands
to show he was unarmed.

‘We would never destroy a holy relic,’ he said. His startlingly blue eyes darted nervously from side to side, as if he too feared to be overheard. ‘We are Austin canons. The
priory of St Mary at Newstead was our home until it was seized and we were evicted, ordered to leave the religious life God had called us to. We were thrown out like beggars with nothing, and our
lands sold to Sir John Byron, who is even now tearing the priory apart so that he may live in it. He’s even pulling our church down stone by stone to build his stables and pigsties. May God
curse John Byron and all his descendants. But . . .’ He hesitated, glancing at his companion, evidently seeking permission to say more.

The other man gave the briefest of nods.

‘Some of us continue to maintain the order in secret, hidden from the eyes of Henry and that Devil’s spawn Cromwell. We need no gold or silver. Ours was never a wealthy order. And
any stone can be fashioned into a table, but it does not become a
consecrated
altar until a holy relic is placed on it, and without a consecrated altar we cannot say Mass and transform the
bread and wine into the body and blood of our Lord. We need the reliquary of St Beornwyn. She’s our only hope. Without that reliquary our order will die as Cromwell intends that it should,
and we will not permit his evil to triumph. I assure you the reliquary will find no safer hiding place than with us. And we will pray to her for the health and protection of the man who entrusts
her to us, and after his death we would offer Masses daily for his soul.’

To ensure that Masses were said to shorten the soul’s suffering in purgatory was a costly affair, and most men would have agreed to such a bargain at once. But money for such Masses was
usually left in a will, and to Richard’s mind there was all the difference in the world between giving away his valuables when he was dead and no longer had any use for them and parting with
them now while he was still alive.

‘I can’t help you,’ he said firmly. ‘And I cannot imagine why you should have come to me at all. The reliquary is the Church’s affair.’

The man with the bright blue eyes reached inside his ill-fitting jerkin; again Richard jumped back fearing he might be reaching for a knife, but he withdrew nothing more threatening than a worn
leather pouch. The man loosened the drawstrings of the pouch and tipped the contents into his grubby hand – a few gold coins, a garnet ring and other scraps of precious metal and
semi-precious stones that had evidently been levered from some box or chalice. He thrust his palm up towards Richard’s face.

‘We’ve gathered together what valuables we could find to offer for the reliquary.’

Richard plucked at one of the broken fragments. ‘And I don’t doubt this is all that would remain of the reliquary of St Beornwyn if you laid hands on it.’

He let the scrap of silver fall back into the man’s hand. ‘As I told you, I know nothing of the reliquary. Now take this rubbish and buy yourselves another relic for your altar.
There are bound to be dozens that have dropped off the back of the enforcers’ wagons. And don’t come knocking on my door again.’

He kicked the man’s stave away from the lintel and slammed the door shut, bolting it as swiftly as his trembling fingers would allow. He leaned against the door, breathing hard. It was no
coincidence the men had come to the door. They knew St Beornwyn was here or at the very least they must suspect that, as Guild Master, he knew where the statue was.

Only the priest knew he’d brought it to the house. Father James had opposed it being taken from the church. Was he behind this, trying to trick him into returning it? Did he really think
Richard could be persuaded to part with the guild’s most treasured possession for the offer of a few prayers or a bag of scrap that wasn’t even worth the value of the gold in the
saint’s crown? Those men probably weren’t monks at all, just rogues Father James had hired to intimidate him. But one thing was now clear to Richard: he’d have to find a much more
secure hiding place, and swiftly too.

There were few men more fitted to the names that birth had seen fit to bestow upon them than Roger Grey. He was a short, spare man whose hair and eyes were the hue of gathering
rain clouds, and his dark, sober clothes only served to accentuate the lack of any colour in the cleric, as if he was a rag that had been washed rather too often. But his appearance belied a nature
that was as hard as steel. And though his fond parents had simply thought Roger a pleasing forename for their infant, it was as if from birth their son had determined to become that very spear from
which his Christian name derived, pressing the sharpened point of his zeal into the tender side of every priest and abbot in the land.

As Grey walked into the church of St Mary of the Purification in Blidworth in the company of Father James, his skin prickled in the presence of unseen idolatry, just as a hunter senses when a
dangerous boar lies hidden in a thicket.

Grey cleared his throat with a dry cough. ‘Since the observance of Candlemas is doubtless more important to this parish than to many others, as this church is dedicated to that feast, I
trust, Father James, that you remind your parishioners that the candles are to be lit on that feast day only in memory of Christ himself, and not for his mother, nor are the candles to be used in
divination to tell men’s fortunes for the coming year.’

Grey addressed the empty air, before suddenly turning his gaze upon Father James at the end of his speech. It was a trick he found usually caught men unawares, leading them to betray their guilt
in their glances. And Father James did indeed betray himself. His gaze had darted at once to the Candlemas cradle. But Grey was not concerned with such petty customs, not on this occasion at least,
and he made no comment, preferring to leave Father James to sweat a little.

Grey left the priest’s side and prowled about the church. His practised eye could always spot where candles had recently been lit before the statues of saints, or fragments of leaves
showed where images had been decorated with garlands or offerings had been left. But he was not on the hunt for such things now. His objective in this careful search had only one purpose and that
was to make the priest nervous. They both knew why Grey was here, but the longer he delayed coming to the point the more likely it was that Father James would give himself away. Grey’s father
had been a tanner, and he’d learned as a boy that the longer a hide is left to soak, the easier it is to scrape clean.

Finally, when he judged Father James had sweated enough, he turned without warning to confront him.

‘And where is the reliquary of the false saint?’

Father James moistened his lips. ‘Many believe St Beornwyn to be a true saint. She’s performed many miracles and her story is well attested. There is a book which
details—’

‘The story of Judas is well attested. That does not make him a saint. As to her miracles, it is God who grants miracles, not saints, and it is to him your parishioners should be lighting
their candles and offering their prayers. But that aside, I am here to take the reliquary away to be examined. If my superiors find the relic inside to be genuine and the saint to be worthy of
presenting an example of a holy life to sinners, then rest assured the reliquary will be returned to you.’

‘Have many been returned?’ Father James asked.

Grey allowed himself a faint smile. ‘You would be shocked, Father, to discover just how many of these relics have proved false. Bull’s blood purporting to be our Lord’s,
chicken bones to be the finger of a saint, filthy scraps of cloth from martyrs, which were doubtless cut from some old beggar’s clothes, and skin of holy men that is nothing more than pig
hide . . . Your reliquary is supposed to contain fragments of Beornwyn’s skin, is it not?’

‘But the saint was flayed,’ Father James protested. ‘Her skin would have been reverently preserved.’

‘As no doubt is her reliquary, but I do not see it. I understood it was kept on the altar in the chantry chapel. It was the property of the Butchers’ Guild, was it not?’

‘It was removed,’ the priest said carefully. ‘Cromwell said the people shouldn’t place offerings before relics or light candles to the saints.’

For such a cold day, Grey noticed Father James was beginning to look rather warm.