It is Whitsun, but we do not have the trapdoor in the ceiling of the church that my husband promised and we did not have a flock of snowy doves at mass. Last week someone unknown left a dead rat on the floor of the church beside the alabaster tomb. Or perhaps the creature died a natural death there or was dragged in by a cat? Marmion is taking no chances. Already on guard after the damage done to the sepulchre – and no one in the village will say who made that black streak – he has told Brakespeare to fit an iron grille or gate at the entrance of the chantry. It will be kept locked.
William counselled against it. To bar the people from entering the new chapel would be to pile fuel on the anger simmering in the village, he said, but Marmion argued that it was his bounden duty to protect the tomb. Otherwise, how else can we prevent some madman from taking a hammer to it or coating the whole thing in pitch?
These are the honeysuckle-scented days of June, steeped in golden sunlight, and yet I am shivering from a fear yet unbodied, like a storm cloud in the distance, and I know that others sense it too.