‘Lambs of God,’ Benlow said. ‘Poor beasts.’
He giggled. Picking up a broom, he brushed wool and rushes away from the centre of the boarded floor, exposing there a shallow well. He paused, peering at me through the gloom.
‘And you were sent here, were you?’
I nodded.
‘See, I don’t usually do no business in town. Some folk feels strongly about certain items being taken away, if you get my flow. When the weather’s better, I usually goes on the road – with a big, hairy friend, naturally, for holy theft’s still a problem in some parts. Though I do reckon a relic stole is a relic cursed and he who steals it won’t last long in this life.’
Bending to the well in the floor, he pulled out a short board and then a second.
‘Pass me the candle, my lord.’
I saw a wooden ladder, leading into blackness.
‘You may go first.’ Benlow held up the candle. ‘Mind your head.’
I held tight to the ladder, not knowing how deep this well might be, but after three or four rungs my feet were both on the ground. It was no deeper than…
…a grave. And as cold.
And smelled like one. An acrid richness, full of earth and damp, and I began to wonder if I’d descended into some kind of cemetery vault.
Benlow handed down the candle, and I saw that the ground was earthen, with rough stone flags set into it, and the wooden ceiling was too low for me to stand upright.
‘There’s a bench to your left,’ Benlow said. ‘Best to sit, or you may emerge unable to hold up your head again. I always sit myself. Or lie.’ He giggled. ‘Not always alone…’
He arrived at the foot of the ladder. Dusted down his doublet, then gestured me to a bench against a wall of what looked to be rubble stone and took the candle to fire two rush-lights on brackets.
Sinking down uncomfortably on the bench, I perceived that the smell of damp and earth was overlaid now with a strange sweetness. Turning my head as light flared, I saw another smile and shuddered: a human skull sat on an arm of the bench, jawless, as if the teeth were sunk into the wood. Hitting my elbow on something hard, turning to see another on the opposite arm, this one with a hole in its cranium.
And then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the faint light, I saw that the wall was not of rubble but of hundreds of tight-packed bones – skulls and pelvises and skeletal hands, all jammed in, some with numbers painted on them in black and red. Benlow looked over them, waggling his fingers, then darted and plucked something from the wall, and I saw that the fat for the nearest rush-light was held in what was, unmistakably – dear God – an upturned human brain-pan.
Benlow saw me taking all this in and grinned, a diadem of small, pointed teeth.
‘Out of death comes light. I do so love the dead. Do you not? And where in the world would I find such company as here? Tell me that, my lord.’
He came and sat down next to me, and I saw he was holding a slim, curved bone, brown as a willow-twig.
‘See this? A rib of St Patrick. One of the very bones that caged his noble heart. Did you know St Patrick was here, and all the Irish monks that followed him? And look…’
Opened out his other hand. The specks in his palm looked like bird-shit.
‘Teeth of St Benignus, after whom the new church is named. He was Patrick’s heir, did you know that?’
‘Why aren’t they in the church? Where did you get all-?’ ‘Relics? In a church? Where have you been, my lord?’ He sniffed. ‘Bloody old cold coming on. I don’t think you have yet introduced yourself.’
‘My name is Dr John.’
‘A doctor.’
‘Not of physic. Tell me… what of other relics?’
‘My lord, how many do you want?’
I said nothing, unsure how to approach this. He leaned close, and I realised then that the sweet smell came from Benlow himself. Either his clothes or his body was copiously scented. A kind of incense mingled with sweat. Feeling, of a sudden, alarmed, I edged toward the end of the bench. Smiling faintly beside me, Benlow stretched out his long legs, hands behind his head, St Patrick’s rib lying in his lap.
‘ I do have -’ he whispered it, not looking at me – ‘ apostles.’
‘In Glastonbury?’
‘Many famous people came here to die, in a state of grace. And because death comes easy, here, where the fabric between the spheres is finer than muslin.’
I did not hesitate.
‘Like King Arthur?’
Maybe it was my own apprehension, or maybe not. But I felt something. A change. A troubling of the air. Benlow sat up, apparently unhurried, but I knew it was not so.
‘A hundred saints in the wall,’ he said sourly, ‘and all the bastards want is Arthur.’
‘All who want?’
I saw his full lips compressing.
‘Who sent you here, my lord?’
‘The innkeeper at the George, that’s all.’
He turned to look at me.
‘And what use would Arthur be to your sick friend?’
‘Arthur stands for strength and valour. My friend’s been a soldier.’
‘Well, I don’t think you have a sick friend.’
‘Actually, I do. And you know of him. Because you keep your eyes open, Master Benlow. As anyone would, in your particular trade.’
He sniffed. Wiped his nose with the back of a hand.
‘And there was me,’ he said, ‘thinking that such a nice-looking young man might be not averse to some boy-play.’
‘What?’
‘You’re a much-travelled man, I can tell that. And you came down here without a word. Always a good test. Most men tell me what they want and wait in the light. Whereas a man drawn towards darkness and death… I can tell you that down here among the dead, you get a rare-’
‘Master Benlow!’
Oh my God, a buck-hunter. Louvain had been full of them. I backed up against the skull.
‘Master Benlow, who else has been here in search of the remains of Arthur?’
‘And who are you to ask?’
‘I’m an officer with the Queen’s Commission on Antiquities.’
‘Oh, blind me!’ Benlow laughed shrilly. ‘There’s a bloody ole mouthful for you.’
‘And the only mouthful, I’m afraid, that you’re likely to get from me. Now, who-?’
‘Ho fucking ho!’
The light flickering wildly in his eyes.
I said, ‘Listen to me… I’m not Leland. I’m not here to take away your livelihood. Or any of your bones. Bones, as you say, are not much in favour any more.’
‘Except for Arthur’s, it’d seem.’
‘Someone’s been here in search of the bones of Arthur?’
He said nothing. His face was sulked in the yellowy light. ‘Did you have them?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know where they are? Do you know who took them when the shrine was toppled at the Dissolution?’
‘I can’t help you. Not with bones.’
‘Meaning what?’
He half rose. He was panting. ‘If I give you what I have of Arthur, will you go away?’
‘That depends.’
‘Wait.’
He sprang up and was gone into the shadows. I tensed, keeping my eyes on the ladder in case he should double back and leave me down here, boarded up with the dead, but I could hear him scuffling about, the clacking of bones pulled out and flung aside. All the saintly bones that never were.
I saw then that the underground chamber was longer than I’d supposed, and in the dimness beyond the light I made out a wooden door. A door? Where could it go? We were already, I guessed, beyond the walls of Benlow’s shop.
I’m not a complete fool and was about to make for the ladder when Benlow emerged at last from the shadows bearing a wooden box, clearly modern and hardly big enough for Arthur’s foot-bones. He knelt at my feet and lifted its lid.
‘Look…’
On a bed of fleece lay a fragment, not of bone, but of splintered wood.
‘There,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
‘Touch it.’
I placed a finger inside the box. The wood was hard, probably oak, blackened with age.
‘Picture it, my lord,’ Benlow said, but his voice was strained now and desperately wheedling. ‘See a great hall hung with banners and lit by a thousand torches. Hear the walls echoing tales of valour.’