House of Shadows by The Medieval Murderers Page B

Gwyn lurched forwardand grabbed the monk around the waist and hurled him and the heavy stone backwards.
    He slipped on the slimy floor and the two men crashed into the wall. A second later there was an ominous rumble from above and a shower of grit and mortar fell from the roof.
    â€˜Gwyn, get back!’ shrieked Thomas.
    As the officer leaped clear, an avalanche of stones fell from the top of the wall and the edge of the ceiling vault. There was a blood-curdling scream from Ferdinand as he was showered with half a ton of masonry dropping twelve feet on to his head and shoulders.
    When the rumbling ceased and the cloud of dust had settled, the coughing, dirt-spattered onlookers saw that the monk was half-buried under a pile of rocks. Aghast, the men fell silent, then there was a final sound as a last stone rolled down the heap. From beneath it, a trickle of blood seeped out and mingled with the meltwater from the ice that had cooled his victim.
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    â€˜Well, we failed to cover ourselves with glory this time,’ grumbled John de Wolfe as he hunched over the fire pit and tried to get some warmth into his hands from the mulled ale in his pot. ‘The damned fellow condemned himself without any help from me!’
    The three men had left Bermondsey that morning, the prior having given them horses from his stables for the long journey back to Devon.
    The previous day, the coroner had held an inquest on Christina de Glanville but ignored the death of Ferdinand, deciding that he had no jurisdiction over a monk who died inside his own priory.
    Now they were spending an uncomfortable night in a tavern a few miles from Guildford, with the prospect of sleeping on the floor of the taproom, wrapped in their cloaks.
    Gwyn grunted and pulled the pointed hood of his leather jerkin over his head to keep out a draught from a broken window shutter. ‘If that woman Margaret had not said that Christina was not as virginal as everyone assumed, the bastard would have got away with it.’
    Thomas was not so willing to discount divine intervention. ‘But also, Ferdinand had to be in the right place at the right time to overhear her – it must have been ordained by God that he should not escape disillusionment and retribution!’
    Gwyn lowered his quart mug from his lips to guffaw rudely. ‘Don’t tell me that you believe that the Almighty caused that roof to fall on him! It was due to some lousy, incompetent mason, who years ago didn’t know how to build a decent wall.’
    De Wolfe cut in to stop them bickering. ‘It doesn’t matter how he died. It’s why he killed her that bothers me. Can we really believe all this mystical stuff about exorcizing evil with virginal spirits? Or was he just trying to have his evil way with her, getting her alone in a dark cellar?’
    Thomas was eager to offer his explanation. ‘I spoke to the old archivist again after Prime this morning, before we left. He said it was all bound up with this legend about the vanished monk years ago. He said Brother Ferdinand was always pestering him for more information and spent long hours in the scriptorium searching the old archives.’
    â€˜Proves he was bloody mad!’ was Gwyn’s succinct comment, made to irritate the little clerk. ‘Just like that Ignatius fellow who thought she was a witch.’
    â€˜Maybe, but he must truly have believed that the crypt was unhealthily possessed in some way,’ retorted Thomas.
    Even the usually unimaginative John could not disagree with that. ‘There was certainly something veryunpleasant about the far end of that cellar,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts and goblins, but the few hours I spent crawling about in there with a sore head, in pitch darkness, was something I don’t want to repeat!’
    â€˜But what was the demented swine trying to achieve?’ demanded Gwyn.
    Again, Thomas was keen to share his erudition on