‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
Benedicta looked up. He noticed the tear running down her olive face with more brimming in her dark restless eyes. Were they blue or violet? Athelstan wondered. Benedicta always reminded him of a painting of the Virgin Mary he had seen in a stained glass window. She had that same beautiful serenity, even now when she was troubled. Athelstan touched her gently on the shoulder.
‘What’s the matter?’ he repeated, closing his ears to the squabble back at his house and the sounds of workmen busy in the church.
‘Father, you know I have been a widow for three years.’
Athelstan nodded.
‘Well,’ Benedicta looked away and bit her lip, ‘I have had news from France.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘My husband may still be alive!’
Athelstan stepped back in amazement. ‘Your husband was a ship’s captain. I though he was killed at sea?’
‘Yes, he took out Letters of Marque to act as a privateer in the Channel. He was attacked by a French man-of-war and was making a run for Calais when a sudden storm blew up and his ship was sunk with all hands. Now I have had news that he may be a prisoner.’
‘How?’
‘An acquaintance, a journeyman, recently returned from France now the truce has been renewed. He claims he saw my husband in a prison stockade outside Boulogne. ‘She laced her fingers together. ‘What can I do, Father? I cannot go to France, it might only make a bad situation worse, and it would take months to petition the council.’
Athelstan took a deep breath, steeling himself against secret thoughts and desires.
‘The Dominicans have a house outside Boulogne,’ he said. ‘I shall write to them tonight and ask Cranston to order one of the royal messengers to deliver the letter. Cranston will be able to furnish him with safe conducts.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘We are not called Dominicans for nothing, Benedicta. We are literally the Hounds of the Lord. If your husband is alive, this house will intervene, perhaps make a plea to the French officials. Some gold may change hands and your husband could be home within a month.’
He patted her gently on the shoulder and felt guilty at the sheer pleasure he derived from being so close to her. Benedicta turned away as if to hide her face: as she did so, a tendril of her hair touched Athelstan’s cheek and he caught the fragrance of her perfume. She smiled at him over her shoulder.
‘You’d better go back, Father,’ she murmured. ‘Watkin’s wife has her mind set on murder!’
Athelstan took the hint and strode back into the house. Benedicta was right; the soup had simply provided extra strength and now the entire group was standing, everyone shouting, no one listening. Athelstan clapped his hands noisily and refused to stop until every one of them had fallen silent. He stared at them sternly.
‘We have all taken the sacrament,’ he announced, ‘and have all exchanged the kiss of peace, so these arguments will end. When we meet again I will ask for a vote about the cemetery and, if there’s a majority, then our decision has been reached.’ He looked at the beggar man still crouched on his stool. ‘Leif!’ he shouted. ‘Stop eating my soup. It’s supposed to last me for a month!’ He stretched out his hand. ‘Now, the rest of you, take your seats, sit down and shut up!’
He went into the scullery and brought out a flask of wine, an Easter gift from Cranston. He poured them each a small measure. His parishioners murmured their thanks, smiling secretly and winking at each other for it was very rare for their parish priest to lose his temper. Benedicta rejoined them and everyone took their seats again. After a short bantering conversation in which he made an appeal for unity, Athelstan deftly turned the discussion to the parish preparations for the feast of Corpus Christi.
‘The children,’ he declared, ‘will stage their play in the nave.’
‘There’s a procession,’ Watkin added.
‘And maybe a new painting?’ Huddle demanded expectantly. ‘Just near the door, Father. Christ feeding the five thousand.’
Athelstan smiled and held up a hand. ‘One thing at a time, Huddle.’
‘More importantly,’ Cecily interrupted, her face becoming angelic, ‘we must set up a curtain between the pillar and the wall just near the sanctuary. Remember, Father, you are to hear our confessions and shrive us before the great feast.’
Athelstan closed his eyes. Hearing his parishioners’ confessions was something he would gladly have avoided for he knew the inevitable outcome. After it was all finished, Watkin’s wife would come and interrogate him on what her husband had confessed and, of course, Athelstan would have to reassure her without lying or betraying confidences. Benedicta, who must have sensed his apprehension, quickly intervened with the idea of a flower festival on the Wednesday before Corpus Christi, and they were in the middle of a more peaceful discussion when the door was flung open and one of the workmen rushed in.
‘Father! Father! Come quickly!’ The man’s eyes were rounded and fearful. Beads of sweat coursed down his dust-covered face.
‘What’s the matter?’ Watkin declared. ‘I am sexton and leader of the council.
‘Shut up, Fatty!’ the workman shouted. ‘Father, it’s you we want. You must come!’ He waved his hands in agitation. ‘Please come. We have removed the flagstone. .’ The fellow gulped and stared round. ‘We removed the flagstone under the altar and found a body!’
Athelstan went cold, banging on the table to quiet the uproar. ‘A body?’ he exclaimed. ‘And under our altar?’
‘Well, Father, to be honest, a skeleton, perfectly formed, lying there. Just lying there! It has a small, wooden crucifix in its hand.’
Led by their priest, the parish council strode out of the house and into the church, all animosity forgotten. Just inside the entrance, Athelstan stopped and the whole group jostled and shoved each other.
‘Oh, no!’ he groaned.
‘Don’t worry, Father,’ Watkin announced cheerfully. ‘It’ll all be put to rights in a week.’
Athelstan stared at the chaos. The rood screen had been taken down and the sanctuary now looked more like a builder’s yard. The old flagstones were piled in untidy heaps and, as they strode up the nave, Athelstan could glimpse the huge hole over which the altar had once stood. The rest of the workmen now stood round this, staring down into the darkness. The workman who had come for him, apparently the foreman, pompously waved Watkin and the rest back.
‘You see, Father,’ he said, looking round at his colleagues for agreement, ‘the altar was set on a flagstone that in turn rested on a slab over a bed of gravel and some soil. Now,’ the man cleared his throat and wiped his dusty mouth on the back of his hand, ‘as you directed, we’re trying to lower the sanctuary floor, so we removed some of the soil. Well, beneath the altar, the soil just caved in and this is what we found.’
With the rest of his parishioners milling around him, Athelstan stood on the edge of the pit whilst one of the workmen stepped gingerly down to remove a roll of canvas sheeting. Athelstan gasped in amazement. A skeleton lay there in gentle repose, a small crucifix, the wood now rotten and soft-looking, clasped in its bony fingers. The wrists were crossed, the legs lying together.
‘It’s a martyr!’ Watkin declared suddenly as if announcing a great triumph. ‘Father, look, it’s a martyr! St Erconwald’s has its own saint, its own precious relic!’
Athelstan closed his eyes and muttered a prayer. The last thing he wanted was a relic. He did not believe that God’s will depended on bits of bone or shreds of flesh.
‘How do you know it’s a martyr?’ he asked weakly. ‘Someone could just have dumped the remains there.’
His parishioners looked angrily at him, fiercely determined not to be cheated out of their own saint and martyr.
‘Of course it’s a martyr.’ Pike spoke up, now in full agreement with Watkin. ‘Look, Father, you’ve seen many a corpse, they’re just dumped in a hole and left. This one has been ‘specially laid here with its head towards the east.’