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Alexander as well as the young Frenchman, Sub-Prior Richer.’
    ‘Did any of them,’ Athelstan asked, ‘give your father ghostly advice?’
    ‘He spoke to all three – I don’t really know.’
    ‘So,’ Cranston declared, ‘Sir Robert Kilverby came to dislike those old soldiers; he also resented holding the Passio Christi. He didn’t like what he’d done or what he was doing. He turned to God. He was preparing to leave on pilgrimage and that raises a further possibility. Did Sir Robert himself decide to get rid of the Passio Christi?’
    ‘What?’ Adam Lestral’s voice was thin and reedy. ‘Sir John, are you saying that Sir Robert took the Passio Christi and cast it down the privy or threw it into the street?’
    Despite the petulant, strident tone Athelstan recognized the logic of the question. If this company were to be believed, and on this Athelstan certainly did, Sir Robert regarded the Passio Christi as a most sacred relic to be securely kept, not thrown away like a piece of rubbish.
    ‘We would all go on oath,’ Alesia said quietly. ‘The Passio Christi was here last night long after those monks had returned to their abbey. Look at my father’s chancery chamber; there is no hiding place, no window to open even if he wanted to throw something away.’
    ‘I agree,’ Athelstan intervened. ‘When he died Sir Robert truly believed the Passio Christi was still firmly in his care. So,’ he shook his head, ‘what really happened remains a mystery.’ Athelstan sat, allowing the silence to deepen.
    Cranston gently tapped the friar’s sandalled foot with the toe of his boot. Athelstan got to his feet and both he and Sir John took their leave. The friar was now fully distracted, eager to escape and reflect on all this murderous mayhem and the mysteries which surrounded it  . . .

TWO
    ‘Corrody: pension paid to an abbey for someone to stay there.’
    I n the Abbey of St Fulcher-on-Thames Ailward Hyde, former master bowman and a member of the Wyvern Company, stood fascinated by the wall paintings in the south aisle just near the Galilee porch. Ailward was also agitated. He’d taken the oath. He was pledged to the company. He was an experienced swordsman, a warrior yet poor Hanep! Ailward had visited the bloody remains of Gilbert Hanep laid out in its coffin on a trestle in the abbey death house. The infirmarian, the keeper of the dead, had done his best, sewing on the severed head with black twine, yet the sheer horror of seeing a comrade like that! Ailward swallowed the bile at the back of his throat and caressed the hilt of both sword and dagger. Who had committed such a horror? Surely it could not be one of them, yet who could overcome a skilled master of arms such as Hanep, and take his head as clean as snipping a button? Hanep had died like some hog slaughtered out there in the bleak, cold cemetery. Now he, Ailward, had come here to collect his thoughts, pray and perhaps plot. Ailward just wished Fulk Wenlock, their consiliarius , an ever-perpetual source of good advice, was here but he and Mahant had gone into the city yesterday to roister as well as to do other business. He recalled Wenlock’s nut-brown face all creased in friendly concern when they’d strolled through the maze, that subtle conceit built by a previous abbot. They had been discussing Chalk and the lingering days of his death. Wenlock had gripped Hyde’s arm with his maimed hand and spun him around.
    ‘Ailward,’ he urged, ‘Chalk’s death has changed nothing. You’ll see, everything will calm down.’ He had then taken him to meet Mahant, their serjeant-at-arms. Mahant, his hawk-like face as harsh as ever, had confirmed Wenlock’s words: Chalk was dead. He could speak no more; all would be as it always was. Nevertheless, Ailward was still unsure. Wenlock had given him further words of comfort promising how everything would turn out well.
    ‘I just wish you were here,’ Ailward whispered.
    Wenlock was always reassuring;