CHAPTER 22

THE GRAVEYARD

 

 

 

Non teneas aurum totum quod splendet ut aurum

 

All that glitters is not gold

 

 

 

They made their plans well, did Benedict and Sigismund. Benedict was trailing Pacificus – his last hope. He found out about the so-called “poem” in the flyleaf of Wulfric’s book from Brother Aloysius only minutes after Pacificus had left the library. He knew about it when they met in the doorway of the guest hall. Oh, how he wanted to have that note when he was within feet of it. Would that God had made him stronger so he might have taken it by force, or that Sigismund had been there.

He didn’t trust this monk with the scarred wrists; he wasn’t Rugge’s man, or anyone’s man for that matter – you could see that in his eyes. The caitiff is a loner; it takes one to know one. You can’t bring a man like that in on a deal; he’ll turn on you in the end. No, better keep it just him and Sigismund, at least for the present.

Benedict has been shaking like a leaf all day, not with fear, but excitement. It tells on his nerves, the twitching eye is almost constant now, so too a smile that spreads and contracts without his knowing, and his thoughts have begun to resemble multiple opinions competing loudly in his head. He senses the time is at hand – the relic will be his, with the new beginning it promises.

Wulfric failed – men like him always do in the end, because they cannot see what’s right, cannot read the times, cannot even remain under the authority of their own abbot – always searching, always wandering like an ass on heat. They vacillate, procrastinate and dither to their own destruction. Wulfric was dealt with by the hand of God, as all faithless men ought to be. It was God who saw fit to move Wulfric to leave clues, and only the pure in heart would see what they meant. He must have that note, or the knowledge of it at least. Benedict sees Pacificus and Mark return late for Vespers; they seem jubilant about something. He sees Pacificus smiling – the villain! Has he found the saint already? God’s blood, I’ll know of it by some means! Dear God, let it be today, this week, no; let it be tonight, yes tonight.

Mark is on his way down the night stairs for Matins. He is long after the last monk because someone hid his sandals. He hurries, for being late is something the sub-prior takes careful note of – could get him a flogging. Then as he reaches the bottom step, he feels a hand on his shoulder and a knife at his neck.

“Quiet, now. Quiet, Brother Mark. One word and it will be your last.”

He cannot see the face but he knows Sigismund’s voice. He moves his arm up slowly, but it is seized by a hand, smaller but still firm. “I’d listen to the good brother, if I were you.” It is Benedict. “He’s a butcher’s son, you know. He’s forgotten more about knife work than you’ll ever know, my lad.”

“What do you want with me?”

“You’re going to take us to Saint Helena’s bones, and the gold coin – tonight.” It’s a calculated bluff.

“But I – ” Mark shudders at Benedict’s uneven breaths in his ear.

“Or I’ll start by cutting your freckles out, then your eyes.” Benedict pushes Sigismund’s blade deeper so that Mark rises higher and higher on his toes to avoid an incision.

“Argh, prithee, all right! But we only found the bones. The gold coin is somewhere else.”

“Don’t play games with us.” Benedict takes a tight hold of Mark’s cowl and pulls him down on the blade. “Don’t you dare, see, or I’ll not protect you from Sigismund, will I?”

“I swear,” Mark gulps and gasps. He knows the blade has cut his neck but cannot feel how deep. “Please don’t; it tells you in the riddle.”

“Good lad,” Sigismund hisses. “And do you have it, this riddle?”

“No, Pacificus has it.”

“Do you remember what it says, the location of the gold?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Good lad; you can tell us about it on the journey. Come on now,” Benedict says, the frenzy of exhilaration barely suppressed in his voice. “And be quiet about it.”

Benedict leads the way to the staithe, then Mark with Sigismund. Benedict is now muttering and the echoes of it reverberate from the cloister walls like they do in the man’s head. “A riddle! Wulfric was a half-wit, so we’ll soon have it solved. A riddle indeed.” When Mark struggles and begins to call out, Benedict turns to strike him hard on the skull with the butt of a wheellock pistol. It had belonged to old Jary, the priest from Binham Priory. That had been his first murder, the beginning of his descent to this half-world. He had not intended murder. Who does? But Jary wouldn’t talk so he kept on beating him until he told them where the key was, and then the fool died, damn him – damn them all. Tonight he’s glad to have it more than ever; a great leveller is a wheellock, and these days those who live by the sword get shot by those that don’t.

Fortunately for Mark, this blow is not as forceful as the ones dealt Jary. He lurches forward and clasps his head.

 

It is after Matins that Pacificus first notices Mark is absent. He walks about the dorters and sees neither him nor the Binham brothers in their beds. No one saw them at Matins. Is everything all right? Of course it’s not. How could he have been so foolish? He starts for the door – but then pauses to gather his wits, eventually calling out in a loud voice, “Rouse the prior! Have the sheriff send men to Saint Michael’s Irstead!”

The silver forms of the thirty or so monks appear in the doorways of their cells, like ghosts summoned to judgment.

“Dear Lord! Not more bodies – ” It is Brother Aloysius.

“Aye, more bodies!” And by God, I’ll add Benedict and Sigismund to the tally if they lay a hand on that boy.

“What did I say? We shall all be murdered in our beds! Brother, where are you going?”

“Just fetch the sheriff, as I say…” Pacificus’s voice trails away as he descends the night stairs.

 

Richard wakes to hear the banging at the door. Pieter calls out: “Who is it at such an hour?”

“It is Pacificus and Simon. Mark is taken, we need help.”

Richard opens the door in a trice. “Taken by whom?”

“Never mind that now. Get your hose on, and fetch your father’s matchlock and sword. Pieter, which is the quickest way to get to Irstead, on foot or in the boat?”

“Through the marsh, if you know the way, and if you run.” He looks back to where Sarah is rising from the bed. “I cannot run, as you know, and Miss Beth is the only other who knows that marsh path, but at night – ”

“I know it well, with my eyes shut!” Beth is descending the ladder in her nightgown. She is often up that way, for it is near her thinking place. “Is Mark in trouble?”

“For his life, maid,” Pacificus says, “for his life.”

She looks steadily from his face to her father’s. “Be down in two shakes of a duck’s tail.” She disappears back up to the loft, where Margaret and Piers have now stirred and are sitting up, bleary-eyed, and starting to ask questions.

“Pieter, bring Simon and the boat to Irstead, and think on that riddle again. We may be too late – ”

“Brother!” Pieter takes Pacificus’s itching fingers. “Trust in God; the boy shall yet be safe.”

“Aye, and I’ll see to it, only don’t delay. Richard, come now lad, I’ll carry those. Come.”

 

A harvest moon, full and yellow, reveals the set of three, bounding like deer across the open marsh, with naught but the sound of their feet in the shallow water to mark them. Pacificus has the matchlock and balls, Richard the sword and powder. Beth is fleet like a hind and never misses a turn. Through dense willow, sprawling alder and over fallen birch, she runs without asking for rest. On and on into the dense darkness of woodland bog and ten-foot-high reed beds, on and on over dykes, fallen trees or half-collapsed makeshift bridges. Sometimes there is no path at all, just a general direction through the reeds, always north, always up river. She never talks as she goes, only the word please is often heard as a whisper, trailing behind her as a prayer on the wind.

Richard takes the rear, looking as best he can towards the river whenever they are within view. Sometimes the moon is kind and they can see; sometimes the clouds take almost all vision away and they are forced to go slower. Pacificus is watching too. How much head start did they have? An hour? Don’t be a hero, Mark. Just give them what they want, and run, run away if you get the chance.

Beth stops in a copse of sycamore trees. They smell woodsmoke and catch the sound of cattle and dogs. “Irstead – the church is beyond those cottages.”

“Take us, quick as you can!”

They meet a track and run swiftly along the central verge to avoid making noise. Even so the dogs bark as they pass, which sets the cattle and sheep off even more, then some poultry. It strikes Pacificus as ominous that they were even making a din before they arrived. They come within site of the church green, the church temporarily lit silver, then darkest grey as scudding clouds cross the moon. He moves back out of sight and loads the matchlock.

“Keep down low; we’ll go along under the church wall. Beth, wait when we get to the gate. Richard, carry both blades and be my rear-guard – be ready to give me the sword, you understand? And keep yourself free from any sword play. If I am struck – ”

“You’ll not be struck – ”

“Don’t interrupt, just listen. Mistakes can happen in the dark and my eyes are not good at night, so – if I am struck, you let them away with the relics if need be; it is not worth your life. Remember, we’re here for Mark, not bones.”

Richard draws his grandfather’s weapons from their sheaths with trembling hands and sweating palms. Beth takes the sheaths from him with a stern look, and then she lays them on the grass. “God go with you, brother.”

“Aye, and you too.”

“Come now, and quiet.”

They run crouching, heading straight for the low wall that surrounds the churchyard. Pacificus waits a few seconds to listen, then moves swiftly along, the matchlock in his left hand, and his right trailing against the stonework, steadying his balance every now and again. The wind billows and the clouds pass at speed, sending projections of light and creeping shadows on all sides. The cattle are quiet now and only a dog’s whining is heard above the rustling leaves. They come close to the gate, where Beth crouches lower still against the wall, but very much against her will. Pacificus is keeping a careful eye on the porch when, for the briefest second, the moon casts a beam right inside to reveal a body on the floor. Is it? Oh, it is! Dear God! “Quick now,” he whispers. “Up here.”

Pacificus pulls back from the gate and scales the wall to approach the church doorway at an angle under cover of the gravestones. He doubts they have matchlocks, but he’ll not risk walking up to that black hole of an entrance in full view. Richard stays at his back, momentarily looking back to see that Beth is out of sight. She is, but before he has turned, Pacificus is sprinting the last thirty yards to the door’s edge. Richard is after him like an arrow, heart leaping out of his chest. He hears the controlled breaths of Pacificus, whose back is now against the wall, with the matchlock barrel on his lips. He wants to be ready. One, two, three.

He nods at Richard and then swivels round to the front of the porch, raising the matchlock as he goes. He doesn’t look at the body – he daren’t – but quickly steps over it and moves in one quick motion through the open door into the church. There are tools on the floor, tools from the upper store, but no one in sight or sound. Richard rushes behind and trips on the body, clattering to the floor with his weapons. Pacificus steps past him and goes straight to the body, willing it to be anyone, anyone on earth but the novice. The robes are dark – he cannot say. But no, wait, there is a long beard and bald head. Thank God, it is an aged man. “Thank God,” he cries out, a surge of relief and tears rushing into his eyes. “Oh, thank God!”

“Who is it?”

“Probably the verger – likely disturbed them, poor soul. Oh, but thank God.”

Pacificus rolls the body over and feels until he finds a warm wet patch. “Fifth rib – he wanted him shut up quickly and he knew what he was doing.”

“Poor man.” Richard crouches and starts to lay down the blades.

“Don’t do it! Stand guard and I’ll search the store.” But it is as he suspected: the reliquary is gone. The tools must have tumbled down the stairs as they fled in haste, or perhaps Mark tried to be clever? He sends Richard to the staithe to see if he can see upriver at all, but there is no sign. They sit at the staithe and wait for Pieter to bring the boat, desperately playing the second part of the riddle through their heads – for now everything rides on them deciphering it..

“But this at least we know,” Beth says: “that they came by boat, and they left by boat, and they left upriver not down, else we’d have seen them. We know they are headed west, for the riddle says so, and the only way west by boat is round by Barton Broad, and then on through Witch’s Dyke to Neatishead.”

“But to where?” Pacificus paces on the water’s edge, back and forth. “That’s the point: where? And where are the others? We’re wasting time here.”

“You said back at the cottage this afternoon that Saint Michael was the key to both locations.”

“But of course I did, the chucklehead that I am; I’ve been thinking of just the second half of the riddle.”

“Is there another Saint Michael’s Church?”

“So close, it’s unlikely. Let me see, I’ve been on the Stalham road out of Hoveton. There was a church that would be west of here, but no, it was Saint Lawrence – yes, that was it: Beeston Saint Lawrence. I just don’t know the country hereabouts. Our estates at Erpingham were near twenty miles north of here. Best wait for Pieter.”

“I hear a boat!” Richard says, craning his neck out over the water.

“Careful!” Pacificus says, pulling him back. “Best hide yourself back here with us – could be anyone.”

But after five more minutes Pacificus sees Pieter’s mast swaying above the reeds, so they prepare to board her.

“Quick, now! Away to Barton Broad!” Pieter and Piers tighten the sail, while Pacificus tells what they have seen. Margaret is there, and so is Gus – “Well, he’s my brother, ain’t he? And the dog wouldn’t go without me, and he’ll be useful at night.”

“I see,” Pacificus says, casting a glance at Simon and then to Piers. “And you let the page come too – a handsome boatload.”

“Now then, brother,” Simon says. “You know the boy – there’s no stopping him when he has it in his head to help.”

“And – and – and I’ve been prasticing every day with the bow, just as you said! I can hit an apple at a hundred yards; honest I can!”

“Once,” Richard corrected, “and it was more like fifty.”

“Was not!”

“Was.”

“Shush, the pair of you, and let the men talk,” Beth says. “Pieter, what churches are west of here, apart from Beeston Saint Lawrence?”

“Well now, yes, I see what you are thinking. Well, there is Saint John’s at Coltishall.”

“Too far,” Pacificus says.

“Hoveton then, again Saint John.”

“More south than west. Anywhere else?”

“There’s little Saint Peter’s on the road north – that would be west.”

“But not Saint Michael’s.”

“Wait, wait, there is another, just across the fields from Neatishead, a lonely place on a small rise, but I cannot recall the name.”

“Well then,” Simon says, “if there are no more, we must at least try there.”

“But is there a broad water there?” Richard says, taking the bench with Pieter and one of the oars so that they can pull together. The wind is sporadic down on the river and every bit of power helps.

“There is none, but nevertheless we should go,” Pieter says, “for we have nothing else to go on.” He hears Richard sigh with anxiety, and indeed it does seem to him a hopeless, blind voyage. He rests a hand on the lad’s shoulder and whispers, “Let us do what we can do and trust in God, eh? Just row hard, lad, until we reach Barton Broad. God will judge aright, you will see.”

So Richard puts his shoulders and back into each stroke to match the wiry strength and rhythm of Pieter, whom age and illness have barely weakened at all. Sometimes the gusts of wind catch their sails and rowing is not necessary. Other times, under the thick darkness of the spreading alders and willow, there is barely a breath, and Pacificus urges them on. Once out on the broad itself they feel the full power of a westerly wind and run goose wing along the southern reaches of the water, where it curls round towards the west. At this point the broad narrows to a few hundred feet wide, the Lime Kiln Dyke, yet even here the wind carries Pieter’s flat-bottomed sailboat, rousing coots, swans and moorhen in the reeds in her wake. At the end of Lime Kiln Dyke the open water vanishes once more into the darkness.

“Where to now?” Piers says from the tiller.

“There, lad: aim just left of that tall tree that breaks the skyline. Ja, that’s it. A little more, good, now hold that course, and girls, let us have the sails down, and the mast, brother, if you will; Witch’s Dyke is long, twisting and overgrown these days.”

“How far to Neatishead from here?” Pacificus says.

“About a mile.”

“I’ll take the mast and use it to pole from the back,” Pacificus replies. “I can’t abide doing nothing at a time like this.”

They do as Pieter says, and the girls store the sails in the stern, where they sit quietly with Simon, who now holds the matchlock forward. He is half-expecting to hear or see the boat coming back, hear the flash of another matchlock in the dark, feel the familiar bite and punch of the ball, in his arm or worse. As they enter the narrow, wooded confines of Witch’s Dyke, the thick, dense blackness envelops them, extinguishing stars, moon and conversation. The long boughs fold round them and over them like fingers; like a tunnel. Behind are the open heavens above open waters; before them the uncertainty of a night from which some of them may not awake.

“Hush now,” Pacificus says to Piers who is shifting nervously on the gunwales, “and listen.”

The rhythm of the oars, the hooting of owls, the sounds of night creatures scuttling and scattering from the boat. Pacificus uses the mast to prod the banks more than once to get them unstuck when they do not see the serpentine twists, which are many and sharp. Sometimes it feels as though they go in circles, the twists never unwind. Twice they end up in a blind alley of a dyke that ends abruptly, and have to reverse out. But slowly and surely they come within the sounds and smells of the cottages of Neatishead with their dying peat fires.

They find the abbey boat at the village staithe, oars left in. “They intend to return then,” Simon says, as they moor a short way off.

Pacificus recovers the reliquary from under the rowing seat and, with Richard’s help, moves it a short way off into the undergrowth. That done, they move silently through the village and ascend the short distance to the great new open fields of the Duke of Norfolk.

They reach a small rise above the settlement, and there beyond their feet stretches the vast silver sea of grass as far as the horizon to the north and west. The dawn is only just now pushing back the darkness in the farthest east, but even so, the close-clipped dewy grass of the east-facing undulations glistens and ripples into the distance. No one calls a halt but they all stop nonetheless. The scale and beauty takes the breath from each soul; it is magical, mythical, like something Dante might have dreamt and written about.

And in all of it, the only black among the silver and grey is the trees and church on another small rise to the north.

“It is the church,” Pieter says with an expression of grim and sobering reality, as if he were a guide welcoming Orpheus to the underworld. “And now I see it, I remember the name: Saint Michael and All Angels.”

Margaret bends to run her hand over the grass. “That’s it, of course; the broadest water, upon which pilgrims walk and take no harm. I suppose the half-world would be the graveyard, and thorn would be a tree to mark the grave – a hawthorn?”

“Holly perhaps,” Beth says. “Though I think we will know when we get there. Ought we not to go now, and quickly?”

“Not all,” Pacificus says. “Pieter, you stay with the women and Piers here until we return.”

Margaret is starting to raise an objection but Simon pacifies her. “It is senseless to risk so much life, for we will be approaching with few weapons, and in full view of theirs.”

“He’s right, Margaret. We will wait in the shadows of this wood and pray; come now.” Piers is furious to be left, and even more so because Richard is trying to take the longbow and arrows from him.

“It’s mine! You only want it because they have the sword and matchlock. It’s not fair.”

Beth wrenches them from him and passes them to Richard. “Feckless child. Mark’s life hangs by a thread,” she scolds. “These are not toys.”

The four start towards the church across the silver ocean. The clouds sail like ships to the east, never stopping to see the foul deeds happening over Norfolk’s land this night. Pacificus cups his hand towards the knoll where the church stands out like a galley, but nothing yet can be heard above their clothing and breathing except the occasional sounds of sheep coughing, then giving off a grumbling sound. Grumbling! They’ve got no reason to, Pacificus muses in a strange, detached moment, with grazing land fetching two shillings an acre, almost a quarter more than it would under the plough. And with wheat about to rise to twenty shillings a quarter, it is the people who cannot grow their corn and oats this year who’ll be grumbling at the abbey gate. And next year, will there even be an abbey to keep the flesh on their bones? Will Norfolk feed them? No, not he. And parliament? The Poor Laws were rejected by them. Every man for himself now – let the dead bury their dead. Sheep are eating men indeed, as More said. And then a flash in the darkness about the churchyard, and a second later the thud of shot. A matchlock? No. A wheellock, then. They drop to the grass and bury their heads.

“Aimed at us?” Simon says.

“Don’t think so. Listen – ”

They hear an anguished voice howl and groan. “Why? But why – ” the voice is saying.

“Come,” Pacificus says, “give me the matchlock, brother. I’ll run it.”

“But – ”

“There’s no time. Mark may be hit.”

Simon passes him the matchlock and he and Richard move as fast as they dare towards the shadow of the trees which border the graveyard. It is only a few hundred yards and it passes like a flash. There is no stopping now – just swift hearts and oft stumbling feet, heading inexorably towards the moment – somewhere in there, the place they cannot yet see.

Pacificus enters the churchyard first, sword in one hand, matchlock in the other. If he sees either foe, he’ll not hesitate now; one shot, one thrust – they’ll die in their sins, these two villains. He rests against a yew tree and beckons Richard in. Beyond the darkness of the outer bushes and treeline, they look carefully towards where action has been, where sporadic shafts of moonlight illumine the churchyard for tantalising seconds. They catch a glimpse of a body slumped against a tombstone in the far corner, still moving; another next to it lifeless. Dear God, two more! Oh Mark, I’ll not forgive myself…. He forces despair back down his throat, scanning the shadows near the church and then the edges of the graveyard. Where’s the third? God’s blood, where is he?

“Richard,” he whispers, “draw the bow but stay here. I will draw him out. Do what you can.”

He does not wait for the reply. Three deep breaths and he is gone, dashing in a zigzag across the graveyard, looking this way and that. But there is no shot, nor any movement, only the two bodies, getting closer and closer. Another shaft of moonlight from behind a shifting cloud. Pacificus moves quickly to the bodies and sees that the one against the tombstone is Benedict. He feels about the gurgling corpse, finding a warm wet patch on his back. He has been shot between the shoulders, from the back; a ball aimed for his heart but which shattered his two ribs and is now in his lung – a lung filling with blood. Benedict gasps and splutters. He has had time to look at the stone sarcophagus in front of him under the holly tree, time to consider the body of Mark on the grass before him, and time to remember the others who died by his hand, time for momento mori.³³ Pacificus sees the other is Mark but grabs at Benedict first, whispering, “Where is he? Where is Sigismund? Tell me!” He holds the rapier against his throat. “Tell me!”

Benedict’s eyes stare ahead, not blinking, not feeling. “Gone,” he says, then splutters blood from the corners of his mouth. He never expected the oaf to have enough wits for such treachery. Like Julius Caesar, he always suspected those with the lean and hungry look, like himself. Pacificus throws him back and then trains the bead of the matchlock about himself in all directions, yet nothing moves. Richard too, from behind his tree, strains his arm and bow taut, the cord biting into his fingers, waiting, watching for the slightest sight or sound. But there is nothing. Should he go to them? No, he said stay here, so I’ll stay. He can hear Simon coming nearer in the field, but nothing else above the thump, thump, thump, thump of his chest.

Pacificus steadies his breath and then, still crouching, shoves his hand heavy on Benedict’s chest so that he cries out. “Did you kill him? Did you? Villain!” He shoves again, harder still; by God, his grey hairs won’t go down to the grave in peace. “Did you take Mark’s life like you did Bede’s, Wulfric’s and the others?”

“For the church,” Benedict wheezes. “God knows I did it for – ”

“For ambition! You did it for yourself, knave.” He raises his hand as if he’ll gouge his eyes out at any moment.

It is only then that Pacificus hears the shuffle of grass behind him. It is Mark; he is moving, he is alive. “My head,” he half-moans, half-whispers.

“Mark!” Pacificus moves over and rolls him face upward. “You’re alive, lad!”

Mark pushes up heavily on his elbows. “Sigismund shot Benedict with his own wheellock, then struck me with it. Oh, my head.”

“Oh, thank God, you are well.” Pacificus holds the novice close. “Thank God, lad. Thank God. But why shoot him?”

“He didn’t say, just did it. Oh, my head!” Mark cradles his temples.

But while this conversation ensues Richard sees a different scene: Benedict scraping across the grass with his knife, and then – in one last exertion before death – throwing himself towards Pacificus. For Richard, it is an easy shot but a hard decision, which must be made in an instant nonetheless. The arrow sings across the tops of the tombs and strikes Benedict in the chest, bringing him to the ground. Pacificus wrestles the blade from him and holds him down.

“You were working for the bishop, weren’t you? Answer me!”

Nothing.

“It was you all along, Rugge’s iron fist! What did he promise you? An abbacy?”

Nothing.

“Fool, knavish fool! You sold yourself to the devil.”

Nothing. His eyes are obscured in shadow like two empty pits, his mouth open like the grave, the teeth revealed either in a demoniac grin or a pain-riven grimace. But of a word, nothing whatever, just his final drowning breath in the silence of the half-world that he now enters. Perhaps if Binham had never fallen, nor would he, but it’s a fool’s business to think of what might have been. Pacificus cannot tell anything more from him now, not even if he repents his sin. Benedict has minutes – aye, and eternity – to think on it all, to blame Sigismund, Wulfric, Cromwell, the king, whoever. But Pacificus will not wait any longer. “Come, Mark. Leave him to God, and let’s after the other knave while there is time.”

But even as he is saying it, Simon, still on the edge of the graveyard, calls over, “Brother, come quickly! They are shouting back in the woods!”

The four dash back out into the field and across towards the position where they left the others. Margaret and Piers run out to meet them with Pieter close behind.

“What is it? What has happened?” Simon shouts. “Where’s Beth?”

The groups close in the open field and Margaret points back to the darkness. “It was the monk – he held a wheellock to her head.”