The False Virgin (47 page)

Briefly, the yellow glow from a lantern shone beneath the door, vanishing almost at once. Grey crept up to the door and put his ear cautiously to the wood. Inside he heard a scraping, as if
something were being dragged across the stone floor. Someone was searching for the reliquary. It must have been in there all along, but so cunningly concealed that neither he nor his men had found
it.

He waited until there were no more sounds of movement within, then, assuming that the thief must by now have it in his hand, Grey drew his sword with his right hand, while slowly and noiselessly
lifting the latch with his left.

He edged into the room, every nerve and muscle taut, his sword arm braced for immediate action. But the man he expected to confront was not there. The room was empty. A lantern stood on the
floor. The flames guttered, sending shadows stalking round the walls. But the only other thing moving in the Hutt was Grey himself.

His heart thumping, he cautiously began a systematic search, edging round the walls and using his sword blade to probe between barrels, stabbing it into piles of blankets and straw pallets. The
man had to be in here somewhere. He couldn’t just vanish. Grey hadn’t taken his eyes from the door, and the walls were solid stone. There was no other way out. Unless . . . A sudden
thought struck him and he stared up into the beams above. The candle flame in the lantern on the floor illuminated the boxes and piles of bedding on the floor, but by contrast the rafters above
were in deep darkness. Anyone might have climbed up there and be looking down on him, ready to drop as soon as he stepped beneath.

Keeping the blade of his sword pointing upwards, Grey backed across the floor, feeling for the lantern behind him with his heels. He banged into it and heard it rolling across the floor, though
mercifully the candle did not topple out of the socket. He crouched, grabbing the handle with his free hand, then raised both lantern and sword as high as he could, searching through the shadows
between the dusty, cobwebbed beams.

So intent was he on searching the rafters that even when he felt a sudden draught on his legs, it did not at first register on his brain as significant. And when he sensed the movement behind
him it was already too late, far too late. Even as he tried to turn, a sack was dragged down over his head and shoulders, pinning his arms to his sides. He heard the clang as the lantern and sword
fell from his hands. His wrists were grabbed and bound tightly behind him. He struggled to breathe through the coarse cloth.

‘You can shout if you want to, but you’d be wasting your breath. No one’ll hear you. I’m going to take the sack off now. We don’t want you breaking your neck on the
steps, not just yet anyway.’

As the sack was pulled free, Grey, gasping for air, smelled at once the odour he had recognised in the church – the pungent stench of fish. He knew without even having to turn his head
that the man standing behind him was Yarrow, the churchwarden.

‘Down there!’ Yarrow gave him a shove towards a dark hole, which had suddenly appeared in the corner of the floor. The slab of stone that had covered it stood tipped up against the
wall directly behind it.

‘I warn you,’ Grey said, ‘I’m not alone. My men are keeping watch.’

Yarrow laughed. ‘I dare say they are keeping watch – over a flagon of mulled ale back in Blidworth. Do you imagine I didn’t see you following me long before we even left the
village? I know you rode here alone. Now walk.’

Grey felt the prick of the knife in his back. He shivered, thinking of Edward’s torn and gashed throat, and he felt sick with fear, expecting any moment to feel the blade ripping at his
own throat, but the point did not move from his back.

As he shuffled the three steps to the hole, he thought that he was about to be pushed down a deep pit or well. But when Yarrow retrieved the lantern and held it up over his head, Grey could see
a set of stone steps leading downwards from the trapdoor in the floor.

He descended awkwardly, trying to step sideways, so that he could brace his shoulder against the rough stone wall. With his hands bound he was terrified he was going to slip and by the time he
reached the bottom his legs were trembling.

At last he found himself standing in a long low tunnel carved out of the rock. It smelled damp and musty at first, but as Yarrow prodded him along it he began to catch the scent of beeswax and
something stronger, which he could have sworn was incense.

He rounded a bend in the tunnel and blinked furiously as his eyes were blinded by a sudden burst of light. They had emerged into a cave that glittered like a crown of jewels. Slender candles
blazed all around them from rocky crevices and outcrops, while two fat church candles burned on a broad rocky ledge that had been hewn out at the back of the cave, their light sparkling and
glinting from a great silver crucifix, and from the golden crown and jewelled butterfly of the reliquary of St Beornwyn.

Grey was so dazzled by the scene that it took a moment or two for him to realise that they were not alone. Several figures, dressed in the dark robes of the Black Canons, were seated motionless,
like a flock of monstrous black birds, on ledges around the edges of the cave, the deep hoods of their black cloaks pulled down low, concealing their faces.

Grey tried to moisten his dry lips. ‘What . . . what is this place?’

One of the canons rose and slowly glided towards Grey, his hands folded beneath his cloak, his eyes and nose concealed beneath the shadow of his hood. Only his full lips were visible.

‘This . . . this is now the church of the priory of St Mary. Since we were driven from our home in Newstead, which our order has occupied for nearly four centuries . . . since we were
forced to watch our holy church demolished to build byres and pigsties . . . we have had to find another place to worship. God will not permit that heretic King Henry and his satanic servants to
destroy us or our faith.’

Grey gaped at him. ‘You’ve been hiding down here all these months? But how have you managed to conceal yourselves and survive?’

‘There are many caves beneath Sherwood Forest and many tunnels connecting them. That one leads straight into the crypt in Newstead Priory.’ The canon pointed to a dark hole on the
opposite side of the cave from where they had emerged. ‘At night, after John Byron’s builders have left for the day, we’ve been able to return to our home and remove what is ours.
It isn’t much. Most of the valuables were stripped out before we could rescue them, and the workmen rarely leave food behind, but such tools and trappings that are small enough to carry
through the tunnels we bring away when we can. As long as we take only odd things here and there, the builders think they have simply forgotten where they left them or grumble that one of their
fellows has stolen them.’

‘What they can’t use themselves, I sell for them,’ Yarrow said.

Grey jumped at the sound of the voice behind him. In the shock of discovering the cave, he’d forgotten the churchwarden was there, until he remembered the knife still pointed at his
back.

‘Master Yarrow has always been a faithful friend to the Austin Canons,’ the hooded man said quietly. ‘And the villagers have helped us too. They bring candles and offerings to
St Beornwyn and the Virgin Mary, which by order of Cromwell’s own decree, Yarrow, as churchwarden, is obliged to remove and so they find their way to us, where they are used for the glory of
the saints and in the service of the true Church, as the villagers intended.’

Grey remembered seeing Alan hand something to Yarrow. Had the boy too been in on the secret of where the offerings were really going?

‘Father James – does he know about this?’

‘Him!’ Yarrow said contemptuously. ‘He doesn’t know half of what goes on in the village.’

‘He would have betrayed us had he known,’ the prior added. ‘The regular priests have always been jealous of the Austin Canons. We minister far more faithfully to their
parishioners than ever they do, sitting through the night with the dying, absolving them of sins their own priests don’t even recognize, for they’re too busy committing their
own.’

Grey, his wrists still bound, gestured with his chin up at the altar. ‘And did you absolve Yarrow of the sin of stealing that reliquary for you?’

‘I didn’t steal it!’ Yarrow said indignantly. ‘I’m no thief.’

‘But you are a murderer,’ Grey said coldly. ‘Edward was slain with the kind of serrated knife that fishmongers use to scrape scales off fish and to gut them, not with a
straight butcher’s blade. In fact, I suspect he was murdered with the very knife you are pointing at me right now.’

Before Yarrow could admit or deny it, the prior spoke again. ‘When someone is forced to kill in order to defend the servants of God and the True Faith, it is neither a sin nor is it
murder. A soldier who kills the enemy in battle is guilty of nothing save bravery and courage. And make no mistake, this is war between the servants of light and Cromwell’s forces of
darkness.’

He gestured back to the reliquary. ‘We needed a relic to consecrate the altar. We asked Master Richard to sell the reliquary of St Beornwyn to us, but he refused. So we prayed and God
answered our prayers. Edward stole the reliquary from Richard, though it had no more meaning for him than it did for Richard. Both were only interested in the value of the gold and jewels, not in
the precious relics of the virgin saint. We didn’t know Edward intended to take it or why he brought it here. But finding himself pursued, he must have tried to hide in the Hutt, hoping
Richard would ride on by.’

‘I didn’t know it was Edward in the Hutt,’ Yarrow broke in. ‘I was half-way out of the trapdoor, and the first thing I knew was when someone burst in through the door.
Whoever it was gave a yelp and I knew the man’d seen me for there was a candle burning on the stairs below me. But I couldn’t see the man’s face. It could have been anyone –
one of the forest wardens, even you.’

Yarrow fingered the wicked-looking knife as if regretting it hadn’t been Grey. ‘Had to stop whoever it was yelling out or running off. If the passage were discovered they’d
have found the canons. So I silenced him. Only thing I could do. I heard the thud of something hitting the ground, just before the man crumpled up. Muffled it was, something heavy wrapped in cloth.
I was going to drag the body down into the passageway, but I heard someone else outside the door. So I just grabbed what the man’d dropped, thinking it might be food, and slid back into the
hole. I pulled the trapdoor shut, just as the door opened.’

The prior took up the story again. ‘It was only when we examined the contents of the sack that Yarrow brought us, that we saw that God had answered our prayers with a miracle and delivered
St Beornwyn into our safekeeping.’

All the canons crossed themselves as one, bowing their heads reverentially.

‘But now that you have found us,’ the prior continued, ‘we must move St Beornwyn to a place of greater safety. We’ve been fortunate so far and no one has noticed us
coming and going through the Hutt, but now that there has been a killing here and the reliquary is missing, there will undoubtedly be others, like you, who will be keeping a closer eye on the place
in the future. Sooner or later one of us will be seen as we go to minister in secret to those who need us and we cannot risk that. We had already been preparing to leave even before you stumbled
upon us, Master Grey, but your presence is a sign that we must depart at once. Although I regret that you, Master Grey, will not be leaving, at least not unless your sergeants are disposed to
search far more diligently for you than they did for the reliquary, and with tomorrow being Christmas Day, I doubt they will trouble to make a start soon.’

Grey sensed a movement behind him, and threw himself to the ground, as Yarrow lunged at him with the knife. The churchwarden missed, but recovered himself, grabbing a handful of Grey’s
hair and dragging his head backwards to expose his throat. Grey, with his hands bound, was helpless to defend himself. He screamed as the murderous blade flashed in the candlelight, but before it
could bite into his flesh, the canon caught the churchwarden’s wrist, dragging the knife upwards.

‘No! I will not permit this sacred chapel to be desecrated by bloodshed. Besides, there is no need.’

Yarrow backed away, his head bowed. The canon crouched down and pulled Grey into a sitting position, though he did not help him to rise.

‘I neglected to mention, Master Grey, that before we consecrated this place, it once had another use when Newstead Priory flourished. It was used as a carcer, a place of correction for
those among us who broke the rule.’

He gestured towards the cave wall nearest the tunnel to the Hutt, from which dangled a set of heavy iron chains.

Then he beckoned to two of the other canons. Before Grey could grasp what they intended, the men rose, lifted Grey on to his feet and dragged him over the rough floor to the chains.

Grey twisted and fought with every ounce of strength he had, but it was useless. They threw him once more to the ground and hauled him into a sitting position against the sharp jagged wall of
the cave. The two men pinned him there while a third forced his neck into an iron collar and manacled his hands above his head to the chains on either side.

The prior stared down at him. ‘Do you wish to make your confession? If you do so in all humility I will absolve you.’

Grey stared up into the face, seeing only the lips move. The eyes were still masked deep in shadow.

‘You . . . you can’t mean to leave me here like this. It could take days for my men to find me.’

‘
If
they ever find you,’ the prior corrected.

Grey was still pleading desperately to be released as the canons busied themselves packing the crucifix, chalice and other items of value into their packs, which they distributed among
themselves before each one kneeled and kissed the reliquary of St Beornwyn. Finally they wrapped her in woollen cloth and stowed her away in a plain wooden box. The canons quickly changed into
clothes of beggars, merchants and pedlars, hiding their own robes in their packs. Each kneeled for a blessing before their prior, who dispatched them two at a time along the tunnel towards the
Hutt, carefully leaving a few minutes’ gap between each departing pair.