Unholy Innocence (14 page)

Jocelin said he had some business of his own to see to so we agreed to meet again after Chapter. That suited me because I didn’t want to discuss Isaac’s testament with him until I knew what it contained. But when I got back to my cell I was in for a shock: The casket had gone. Or more accurately, the soiled bed-linen under which the casket had been hidden had gone. Then I remembered the date. Bed-linen is replaced regularly on the second Saturday of every third month, a practice Sylvanus the Chamberlain was very particular about, personal hygiene being one of Saint Benedict’s strictest rules. This must be one of those Saturdays. Sure enough, there on the corner of my cot neatly folded was a complete set of clean linen. But of the casket there was no sign. I was sure I hadn’t moved it. I could only hope that the servant who had taken the soiled linen had noticed the casket and put it somewhere safe. On the other hand, if he hadn’t noticed it then the casket and its contents could even now be boiling away in the laundry vats. The thought of all that treasure tumbling around among the soiled underwear of eighty monks made me shiver. At least I’d had the foresight to separate the testament from the casket and hidden it among Jocelin’s biography of Saint Robert otherwise that could be cooking in the copper as well. I looked on my shelf for Jocelin’s manuscript but to my horror it had gone, too. I searched every shelf and cubby-hole and looked through all my own papers but it was not anywhere. The casket may have been taken by mistake but the testament can only have been taken deliberately. But by whom? I hoped against hope that Jocelin might have come into my cell while I was away to retrieve his tract and not noticed Isaac’s testament secreted inside. It was surely a vain hope. In any case there was no more time to think of it now for the bell summoning me to Chapter had started ringing. I dare not miss this meeting. Both the casket and the testament would have to wait until later.

*

Inside the chapterhouse there was a buzz of nervous anticipation. During Samson’s absence the
pro-
canonization faction, as I had come to think of Jeremiah and his friends, had been busy its numbers having swelled from the quarter of all choir monks a day or so ago to over half now. Jocelin had been right when he said the mere existence of the mother’s testament was enough to win over some waverers. They were all seated on one side of the chapterhouse with the
anti
-canonization faction, or those yet to be persuaded, seated on the opposite side. There was also a rather unpleasant smell in the house today, I noticed.

Samson sat prominently on his dais at the front glowering at every monk in turn as he entered. He waited until everyone was settled then he rose slowly and held out his arms in customary welcome.

‘The Peace of the Lord be with you and may he give his blessings on these our solemn deliberations, Amen.’

The united response of “Amen” thundered louder
than usual, I thought, and as the echo died away Samson began to speak, his voice quiet but trembling with suppressed emotion:

‘My brothers. I do not need to tell you what has been going on. You all know that I have been badly mistreated, sent to hunt coney in a foxhole. There was no maladministration at our manor of Mildenhall. Our tenant there was shocked to see me and professed ignorance of sending any message for help. I was made to look a fool and this when my presence at the abbey could not have been more urgently needed. The King here, paralysed and unprotected. An ignoble pretence unworthy of our sacred institution.’

The King, I thought wryly to myself, was happy enough to have the run of the place without you. But no matter.

‘So now tell me - whose idea was it?’
He looked from side to side of the room.

‘All!’ came a lone voice from the
pro
faction.

Samson glared at the speaker. ‘Then I am more sorry for that than if you had taken off both my feet at the ankles. What were you thinking of? You have shamed me but even more important than that you have dishonoured the name of the blessed Edmund with your deceit. I tell you now in all candour that I have prayed to him long and hard and with a heavy heart and he expects the instigators of this charade to own up and accept their punishment.’

He looked expectantly around at the eighty faces encircling him but no-one stepped forward. So Samson went on:

‘The holy saint knows who you are and he has told me your names but wishes the guilty to admit their fault in person as a sign of their contrition. So therefore speak now.’

He waited but when no-one came forward he continued more angrily: 

‘Brothers, I do not intend to conduct a witch-hunt but I will hear the names of the conspirators from their own lips before we leave this place today.’

He waited again, but apart from some uncomfortable shifting on benches no-one made a move. Samson glowered his frustration.

‘This is intolerable. I will now sit and we will all wait here for as long it takes even if it takes all day. Have the courage to own up to your sins and grovel for forgiveness. Do not punish your innocent brothers by your transgression. I comma
nd you as your spiritual leader to speak now!’ He sat down again heavily and waited. We all waited.

A minute passed. Another. Then old Jeremiah, a man whose integrity if not his judgement I had never doubted, started to rise. But before he got fully to his feet Egbert jumped to his, his face purple with fury.

‘No!’ he growled. ‘This is unjust. What we did was right, it was necessary. We are being diverted from the path of righteousness. When Herod denied the Christ-child it was the Wise Men who saved him by going a different way. We too must go a different way if our own shepherd will not see the truth!’ He pointed accusingly at Samson.

‘Aye!’ shouted Walkin leaping up beside him, ‘Justice for Saint Matthew!’ and within moments twenty more were on their feet waving fists at Samson, who was again on his feet, and all yelling at once.

Such strength of feeling - I admit I was surprised. But not as surprised as I was a moment later when Ranulf the sub-sacristan strode behind Samson’s dais and pulled back a screen that until then I had barely noticed to reveal a grotesque sight: The exhumed body of poor little Matthew fixed upright to a wooden board in attitude he never would have adopted in life, his head bowed, his feet together and his arms outstretched in imitation of the Crucified Christ. So that was what had been going on at the grave-side earlier, I should have guessed something of the sort. It also explained the foul odour in the air. A gasp went up from every quarter of the house as two more monks joined Ranulf in raising the board to its full vertical position at which point the entire congregation fell to their knees including, I’m sorry to say, Jocelin, which left Samson and me the only ones still standing.

‘See!’ yelled Egbert, the little man’s eyes ablaze with fanatical light as he pointed to the boy’s forehead. ‘Marks of the crown of thorns. And here,’ he held up a discoloured wrist, ‘where the nails were driven through, the other hand here too. And here at the feet. Is there any doubting here to test us further? What more proof do you need that this was a mockery of our Lord’s Passion. We are not the criminals. It is the Jew, Moy, who did this! Alleluia, brothers! Alleluia!’

Other monks were echoing the alleluias and moaning, some holding up their arms, others grovelling in supplication as though Christ Himself had come to end the world. We were in the midst of a collective hysteria. I knew I had to intervene. If I did not I feared a mob of my own brother monks would have gone out there and then to lynch Isaac ben Moy.

I strode to the front with my heart pounding in my chest. I needed no more than a glance at the so-called
‘wounds’ to realise what had been going on.

‘These wounds are fresh and post-mortem!’ I yelled but was
immediately shouted down. So I shouted all the louder: ‘They were not present when I examined the boy three days ago. See, there is no blood. Someone has fabricated this. Brother Jocelin will bear witness that I say true.’

I searched among the writhing throng for Jocelin to corroborate my words but instead of Jocelin’s face my eyes saw that of another – Geoffrey de Saye. Amid the confusion he had entered the chapterhouse with a troop of his soldiers and now stood at the back glaring at me in triumph. In a moment I saw the trap that had been sprung.

‘Of course he would say so, wouldn’t he?’ bellowed de Saye walking steadily and deliberately to the front while his guards barred the door at the rear. I am ashamed to say I shrank a little at his approach.

‘What is this outrage?’ yelled Samson clearly overwhelmed by events that were now out of his control. ‘This is a House of God!’

De Saye ignored him. ‘Of course he would say these wounds are false,’ he repeated still staring at me. ‘That’s what he wants you to believe. He wants you to think that the child was murdered by a Christian. But he knew all along that the Jew Moy had murdered the boy.’

To his credit, Samson snorted loudly in de Saye’s face. ‘Why would he? What possible reason could he have?’

‘Because his brother is a Jew of course!’ de Saye yelled at the top of his voice. At this several monks gasped and looked at me in horror.

‘And if that doesn’t convince you,’ he went on, ‘then perhaps this will.’

He signalled to one of his men who now came forward and produced the casket that Isaac had given me. I almost smiled with the realisation of what was happening. It was beautifully done like a scene from one of the Easter miracle plays. The soldier held the casket high in the air for a second or two to let the image and colour imprint themselves on the eyes of my brother monks before crashing it down on the tiled floor and smashing it open so that hundreds of silver and gold items cascaded in every direction. The monks closest scampered in panic from the scattering coins as though they were tiny goblins chasing them from Hell. The sense of revulsion was palpable but I almost felt like applauding and could have written de Saye’s next words myself they were so obvious:

‘And there,’ he said pointing dramatically at the treasure, ‘are his thirty pieces of silver.’

Oh yes, my role in life at last to emulate Judas. I don’t know whether I was still light-headed from lack of sleep or simply bewildered, but my only thought at that moment was to regret that such a beautiful object as the casket should have been so wantonly destroyed.

Chapter 13

INCARCERATION

The
abbey gaol is on the first floor of Abbot Anselm’s tower, a few yards behind the west entry of the abbey church. As prisons go it isn’t such a bad place. It’s high up so it’s dry and quite spacious, certainly roomy enough to share with my fellow occupants of rats, bats and pigeons. The bats can be a bit of a nuisance since their droppings rain down on me in a constant drizzle as I lie here on my filthy rushes, but otherwise they are no trouble. They hang upside down in the rafters most of the day occasionally squabbling over the available space like bad-tempered siblings in a bed and then as darkness falls they fly out into the night to do…whatever it is bats do at night. I can attest that the notion they get tangled in the hair is a myth, not that my tonsure provides them with much in which to entangle themselves. In fact, they never seem to bump into anything no matter how dark it gets; their nocturnal aerobatics being far superior to those of birds. How they achieve it is indeed a mystery. I can see why they have a reputation for possessing supernatural powers.

My gaoler is an equally harmless fellow though his conversation is somewhat limited. This is because he had his tongue removed as a boy for slandering his parish priest – at least I think that’s what he said. Being both illiterate and mute he is ideally suited to his chosen profession
since it is impossible for a prisoner to communicate through him with the outside world. Indeed, a man could rot in this place for years and no-one would hear about it. He sits outside my cage in his little cubby-hole drinking and farting which he can do with amazing facility and laughs with great gusto at each noisome explosion. The louder and smellier the expulsion the more amused he is by it. I think he would like me to compete but I haven’t his mastery of the art.

I get a good view of the town from up here. I can see the whole length of Churchgate Street right up to the little chapel at the top where we monks congregate on feast days. If I’m still here next Tuesday I can help celebrate the Feast of Saint Vitus who is the patron saint of dancers, epileptics and rheumatics. Maybe they won’t have a procession for Saint Vitus this year what with the King being in the town. It can get a bit chaotic, all that gyrating about, nothing as refined as the stately court dances we used to have in my father’s great hall in Ixworth. Or if I’m still here on the 24th
I can join in the Feast of St John the Baptist. The night before the feast a leg bone is taken from a - hopefully dead - frog, cleaned and dried over a fire of rowan and then powdered and sprinkled on food as a love potion. I’m told it works. In some places in the north young people jump through the embers of the fire to be blessed, then everyone joins in the dancing until dawn.

Do I sound bitter? Well yes, as a matter of fact, I am. De Saye’s men took great delight in hauling me off into this miserable hole despite the protests of my fellow monks. For all they may despise me – and this morning in the chapterhouse several of my brethren would have happily seen me flogged to within an inch of my life – it is another matter for someone else to be doing the flogging. The point is that Samson should never have allowed me to be incarcerated at all. De Saye isn’t the Baron of the Liberty of Saint Edmund, Samson is. Not even the Sheriff of Suffolk has jurisdiction here. If Samson had wanted me released there was nothing de Saye could have done about it. Clearly I have displeased his grace in some way even though I had nothing to do with sending him to Mildenhall and have been working hard to limit the hysteria over this boy martyr – not helped, incidentally, by my erstwhile assistant, Jocelin, who is turning out to be a snake in the grass. He came to see me a couple of hours ago. Conscience made him do that.

‘H-h-h-h-how are y-y-you?’

‘Jocelin, if you’re going to stutter there’s no point in your being here. I can talk gibberish with him.’ I jutted a thumb towards my gaoler who was slouched, semi-comatose with booze, in the corner. But I immediately regretted saying it. ‘I’m sorry, that was unkind. I’m fine. Thank you for asking – and thank you for coming.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I n-never s-said I didn’t think M-matthew was a m-martyr,’ he stammered shamefaced. That was presumably a reference to his falling on his knees in the chapterhouse before the grotesque corpse of that unfortunate child who was still being murdered even in death.

‘And you do, don’t you? Despite what you saw at his autopsy.’

He winced and lowered his eyes.

‘Jocelin,’ I said, ‘you know as well as I do that those marks Egbert pointed out were not on the body when we examined it. Someone is playing games.’

‘I’ve heard it s-said that exceptionally holy people can spontaneously show the marks of the cross on their own bodies as proof of God’s love and of their own p-purity.’

‘You think that’s what they are on Matthew’s body?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know. But why not? Just think - Matthew as the first stigmatic saint. It is b-bound to happen somewhere one day. Why not today, here, now?’ He shook his head passionately. ‘Why are you always so d-dismissive?’

I sighed and sat down cross-legged on the floor and motioned Jocelin to do the same. ‘I don’t dismiss it, Jocelin. I long for a sign from God as much as you do. Sometimes I long for it so much it hurts inside me. But there is knavery afoot here. That so-called oath that Matthew’s mother was supposed to have sworn. You said yourself it was copied virtually word for word from Thomas of Monmouth’s account of Saint William’s martyrdom. Egbert and his friends are so keen on having a martyr they will stoop to any trickery to secure it.’

‘Even sacrilege? Surely they would not so d-deceive themselves?’

‘Sometimes when we want to believe something so badly and are convinced of it so thoroughly we can be tempted to make the facts fit even when they are telling us the opposite. It is then that we must be on our guard lest our enthusiasm overwhelm our reason.’ I looked at his earnest face and spoke seriously: ‘This is no academic dispute, brother. A man’s life depends on our actions. We must follow the evidence wherever it leads however painful that path and however much it contradicts our sincerest held beliefs.’

‘What about those chains in Isaac’s cellar?’ he pointed out. ‘Why k-keep them if not to use them?’

‘The house was a former butcher’s shop. Isaac told us that himself.’

‘Well he would say that, wouldn’t he? M-maybe it wasn’t a butcher’s shop at all. Or maybe it’s butchery of a different kind.’

‘But the shaft,’ I protested with exasperation. ‘It was obvious that’s where the carcasses were delivered in times past. And those chains were decades old, full of rust.’

He shook his head. ‘Perfectly serviceable – as restraints for a child. And M-matthew was restrained – we both s-saw that.’

‘But we come back to the fact that the marks on the body we saw in Chapter were freshly manufactured, nothing to do with chains. There were no puncture wounds on the boy’s head when we examined him, only bruising. Nothing on the hands or on the feet, only on the wrists.’

Jocelin was wearing that exalted look on his face again. ‘A sign of divine favour?’

I sighed in resignation. We were going around in circles. There was no point theorizing. Isaac’s life hung on the question and the only way it was going to be answered was to find out who the real murderer was. For saint or not, there was no doubt that Matthew’s life had been taken by someone’s hand.

‘You know the stories are growing, don’t you?’ he said quietly.

‘Stories? What stories?’

‘Of m-miracles.’

My heart sank. ‘What miracles?’

‘It is being said Matthew was a devout child, even while still in his cradle.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ I scoffed, but I could see from Jocelin’s face that he was in earnest. ‘Go on, then. Tell me. What miracle is this babe supposed to have performed?’

His eyes lit up – bless him, he couldn’t help himself. ‘It seems that as a baby he had been set to lying in his crib in the garden while his mother was b-busy in the house. A horse broke loose from a neighbouring field and g-galloped wildly at the child set to trample it to death. B-but Matthew calmly made the sign of the cross and the horse was immediately quietened. His mother came out to find it passively eating the g-grass at Matthew’s feet.’

I almost laughed at the absurdity of it. ‘And you believe this? Where did this story come from? Was it in that fabricated oath of his mother’s? No. Has she mentioned it to anybody? Again, no. I bet she doesn’t even know the tale.’

A sort of sad smile spread across Jocelin’s face. ‘This is how it was with Robert, I remember. Stories begin. One m-man tells another and soon everyone has a d-different version of the tale. A divine impulse seizes them. They rush to s-see and they find what they seek: An innocent child m-martyred for his purity. They see the injustice. They are indignant and angry. Then they look for someone to blame. Only that time there was no s-single suspect so all Jews were blamed. A-and then came the Palm Sunday massacre as just retribution.’

I shuddered at his words. They reminded me that I still needed to ask about his own treatise on the miracles of Saint Robert and whether he’d been into my cell to remove it and along with it Isaac’s testament hidden inside. But how to broach the subject without giving away its significance? If he’d found it he surely would have mentioned it by now. But if not Jocelin then someone else must have taken it – most likely the awful Geoffrey de Saye. Oh, it was a mess and I could see no way of it being resolved, certainly not with me incarcerated in this place.

‘Jocelin,’ I said earnestly. ‘I’m doing no good in here. I have to get out. You must use your influence with Samson to get him to release me.’

‘M-my influence?’ he asked, alarmed.

‘Yes. He thinks more highly of you than you think. He will listen to you. Tell him I know who killed the boy. Tell him if he wants to avoid more bloodshed he must let me out to prove it. Tell him anything you like but
get me out of here
.’

‘D-do you know who d-did it?’ he asked in awe.

‘No,’ I said as the gaoler belched and snorted in his drunken sleep behind Jocelin. ‘But I’m never going to find out stuck in here.’

*

I was still very tired but I was also hungry, thirsty and with a wind whipping through the open belfry I was also growing cold despite it being a balmy June night. I’d tried to follow the order of the services throughout the day as the bell for each office sounded. I could see my fellow monks filing in and out of the abbey just a few feet below me and despite knowing I was there not one deigned to look up. During the day the men working on the scaffolding of Samson’s towers were at eye level. One threw an apple core at me. It came straight in through the narrow window, bounced off my naked pate and his colleagues cheered as he hit his mark. Later, a few of the pilgrims down below stood about gawping up at my cell wondering if there was anyone in here. I was tempted out of boredom to moan like a ghoul just to see their reaction which I could easily do since there is a marvellous echo up here. But I decided against. My friend the mute gaoler probably wouldn’t have approved. He might even have gagged me.

             
I was frustrated but I had to learn patience and could only hope that Jocelin was working to secure my release. I must say I prayed more devoutly in my solitude than ever I did in collective prayer in the choir. I was beginning to see the attraction of the austere life of the anchorite, walled up as he was in his cell for years on end. Or perhaps as Saint Simeon Stylites perched on high atop his lonely finger of rock. It wasn’t as high here in the tower but the principle was the same.

             
There again, perhaps not. I’m not good with heights. Bad enough sitting up here barely twenty feet off the ground. Maybe in year or so I could get permission to visit the new order of secluded monks at Witham in Somerset, though from the sound of it I wouldn’t get to see any of the inmates since they don’t even have contact with each other let alone visitors from outside. But it did sound very peaceful – just a bed, a lectern, a tiny garden and the perpetual solitude of your own thoughts oblivious to the intrigues of the outside world.

             
Who was I kidding? It must be the lack of food addling my brain. I’d go mad if I didn’t have someone to talk to. Even as a child I was always being chastised for a chatterbox. I could no more change my character than I could control these damned bat-droppings. The mind plays tricks when it is left to listen to itself and I had much to keep a clear head about. It is a wise man who knows his own limitations and I have not the strength of will to live the life of a hermit. But I admire those who can.