How the Monks received the Bodies
LIKE MOST Orders of monks, the Carmelites were known by the color of their habits: White Friars, as the Trinitarians were Red Friars, the Dominicans Black Friars, the Austins and Franciscans Grey Friars, the Order of the Blessed Mary Pied Friars, the Victorines Blue Friars. The abbot who met deSteny and his men at the chapel door to Chefford tossed back his white hood and regarded the armed men with disapproval.
“And what,” he asked by way of opening when deSteny had dismounted and removed his helmet to show his peaceful intentions, “does the Sheriff of Nottingham want with me?”
DeSteny did not rise to the challenge. He tucked his helmet under his arm and met the abbot’s stare levelly. “My warden tells me that you refused to bury a family he brought to you two days ago.”
“That I did,” said the abbot with a sharp glance at Chilton. “Though why he should report it to you, I do not know.”
“He reported it to me because he is sworn so to do, and well you do know it, Regis de Bonpont,” deSteny replied, using the abbot’s full name deliberately to remind the man of worldly obligations. “He is mindful of his duties, though it seems you are lax in them. He would have to tell me if outlaws had robbed a crofter, as well, or killed deer without the Prince’s warrant, or taken money from your chapel.”
“The dead had no blood left in them,” said the abbot bluntly. “I am certain that they would contaminate consecrated ground.”
“Though you have the task of burying the dead,” deSteny reminded him. “It is your service to God, in your Order.”
“True enough. But what if they are not truly dead? It would be a sin to bury such as were not dead.” The abbot was pleased to see the distress in the faces of the men-at-arms.
“It may trouble you,” said the Trinitarian, urging his mule up to the front of the line, “but if you will show me where the bodies are, I will try to lay them to rest.”
The intense rivalry between monastic Orders flared as Carmelite and Trinitarian faced each other. At last the abbot indicated the smaller of the hamlet’s two gates, the one facing the stream that gave the place its name: Chefford meant goat-crossing. “They were put to lie there. If you want them guarded, you must do it yourself. If the bodies are still there and uneaten, you may attempt to put them in their graves, face down, Red Friar.”
“Well enough,” said deSteny for them all. “How were the bodies left?”
“With woven mats around them. We showed them that charity, little as they deserved it.” He held up his hand to bless deSteny’s men, but stopped before he could complete the gesture. “What will you do? We will not allow the bodies back inside the gates.”
DeSteny did his best to contain his ire, though his frown was portentous. “No, you would not, would you?” He rocked back on his heels and considered what was best to do. “Very well, if we find enough to bury, we will put them beyond the walls, if that will satisfy you.”
“Yes. It must,” said the Carmelite abbot.
The Red Friar stared hard at the abbot of the White Friars. “You are supposed to do this work.”
“For those who die in Grace, or through misadventure where Grace can be hoped for,” said the abbot sternly. “These were neither of those things. There was only damnation in their ends.”
“Well,” said the Red Friar with a meaningful tap on his silver pyx. “God may see it otherwise.”
The Carmelite shrugged and drew his hood up. “It is time for mid-day prayers,” he said, and without any further remark withdrew into his chapel.
“What do you think?” asked deSteny as he remounted his sorrel mare. “Do you want to go through with this?”
“I want to put the Devil to rest, if I can. I must do all I can,” said the Red Friar. “And I want these miserable corpses to be at peace in Christ. I will do whatever I must to bring those two things about.”
“Very wise,” said deSteny as he saw Wroughton and his men cross themselves for protection. He had long since given up such petitions. “You lead the way to where you left the bodies,” he ordered Chilton. “If you can find the place.”
With most of the people of the hamlet in the field, Chefford looked deserted, though two spotted dogs roamed the center of the hamlet and barked as deSteny and his men passed by. In response to this alarm, a woman put her head out of the windows of one of the larger houses and watched them attentively, saying nothing. From behind her, within the house, a baby began to cry loudly.
“Is this the gate?” deSteny asked as Chilton pulled his mule up in front of the double doors in the hamlet’s stockade.
“It is,” said Chilton, clearly reluctant to pass through it. “They should be on the other side, laid out next to the wall.”
“Then let’s go through,” deSteny said, and signaled Wroughton to dismount and open the gate.
As they passed through the opening, the Red Friar said, “On a river like this, they could moat the hamlet easily.”
“Yes,” said deSteny. “It would mean more protection, and from more dangers than outlaws.”
Chilton pointed along the base of the wall to rolled reed mats. “There they are,” he said, sounding relieved.
DeSteny halted the party. “Best to get to work, then,” he said with a trace of reluctance, and dismounted again, securing the reins to one of a group of rings set in the wall. He approached the reed mats carefully, not wanting to disturb any animal that might have come to feed on the flesh of the dead, or something worse. Nearing the first of them, he heard the distinct scuttle of rats, and averted his eyes as a dozen dark, furry shapes scurried away from the more distant rolls. Carefully he leaned down and flipped back the end of the mat. He stared at what he found. “Empty,” he said quietly, then directed his attention to Chilton. “Who lay here? Do you remember?”
The warden was pale and he stammered when he answered. “Th-the man. That was the crofter.”
“Ah,” said deSteny. He motioned to the Red Friar. “Do something, will you?”
“I will put Holy Water on the mat,” he said, though there was little conviction in his voice that suggested he thought this would accomplish anything.
“Good.” DeSteny continued along to the next mat—it, too, was empty.
“The mother, the old woman,” said Chilton, his hands shaking visibly on the reins.
“And this one?” asked deSteny, finding the third roll untenanted. “Who was put here?”
“His woman. The oldest child is next, and then the younger two.” Fear had taken a strong grip on the warden and he squirmed in the saddle, communicating his unrest to the mule he rode.
“Empty. Not even bones. They are gone,” said deSteny when he reached the next roll. “What were the rats feeding on, if these are empty?” He found the answer in the last two mats. The younger children lay there, the voracity of the rats and the first signs of decay already changing them into alien creatures. “Friar, tend to them.”
The Red Friar complied with alacrity, hurrying to anoint them and pray for their souls. When he was done, he got to his feet. “They’ll have to be buried in water, I fear, in order to ensure protection for them, and us.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said deSteny, who had been thinking the same thing. “We will have to carry them to a faster, deeper river.”
The men-at-arms were not pleased to hear this. “We can bury them here, facing down, with hawthorn in their graves,” one of them said.
“It might not be enough,” said deSteny, with unhappy memories mastering his careful thoughts.
“What about their heads?” asked the Red Friar reluctantly. “We should cut them off, and then they will be still in their graves.”
DeSteny sighed heavily. “Yes. We could do that.”
“Then we ought to,” said Wroughton. “The horses will not tolerate carrying rotten bodies.”
The Red Friar crossed himself. “I will use the sword, if you like.” He had a firm jaw that just now was clamped to granite determination.
“I would not want to do it,” said deSteny. “But if it must be done, then—”
“It is necessary,” said Wroughton, his voice rising. “With the father and mothers gone, and the oldest child. And no sign of them. They cannot be left this way.” He looked around as if he expected the early afternoon shadows to stretch out and surround them.
There was a silence between them all, as massive as the walls of Windsor.
Then the Red Friar bent down and rolled the first of the bodies out onto the ground. He held out his hand to deSteny. “Your sword.”
Slowly deSteny pulled it from the sheath over his shoulder, and handed it to the Red Friar. “Go ahead,” he told the monk, and turned away so he would not have to watch the children being decapitated. He heard the whistle of the sword and the solid thunk as it severed flesh and bone.
“This one can be buried now, face down,” said the Red Friar, addressing deSteny. “I’ve done all that I can.”
“You heard him. Make two graves,” said deSteny. He knew his men thought him faint-hearted for not watching the friar cut the head off the child, but he had seen—and done—more than his share of that in the Holy Land. He watched as Chilton handed a shovel hanging on the side of the wall to Wroughton, indicating the area where the graves were to be dug.
“This isn’t my work,” Wroughton protested, not wanting to be stuck with the menial task of digging.
“I’ll do it,” said deSteny, glad to be doing something. He held out his hand for the shovel and set to work, his chain-mail weighing on him as he labored. By the time he had made a grave big enough and deep enough for the first child, the Red Friar had the second ready, and was reciting prayers over the bodies.
“Put them both in the same hole,” Wroughton recommended, squinting up at the sky. “Otherwise we’ll be in the forest come sunset.”
This timely warning alerted deSteny as nothing else could. He held out his hand to Chilton, to be helped out of the grave, then gave a long, steady look at the Red Friar. “What do you advise, Brother?”
“I think it would be best to be away from here. The men are right. If we linger here we face the chance of being caught in the forest when the sun goes down.” The Red Friar crossed himself and looked at his pyx. “I could anoint all of you for the journey. That might give us a little security.”
“If we are hunted by what I fear most,” said deSteny, “we should avail ourselves of everything that might guard us from harm, even if it means using methods the Church would not endorse.” He glanced down at the two children’s bodies. “Tend to them.”
The Red Friar got on his knees and set the two pathetic corpses in the grave side by side, turned so that they lay prone and not supine, their heads set under their feet, also facing down. After sprinkling Holy Water on the wretched bodies, he made the sign of the cross over them and rose to let deSteny cover them with earth.
“What do you think? Are they at rest?” deSteny asked the Red Friar as he hurried to complete his work.
“They are, if God is good,” said the Trinitarian, with emphasis on “they.” He indicated the mats. “But regarding the rest of the family, I do not think so, not after—” He gave deSteny his sword again, the blade wiped clean.
“Nor I,” agreed deSteny as he slipped the weapon across his shoulder and into the scabbard. “It troubles me.” He resumed his work with the shovel.
The Red Friar crossed himself. “Any sensible man would be troubled, given what has happened.”
“Truly,” said deSteny, and shaded his eyes to look at the angle of the sun. “We will leave not a moment too soon.” He shoveled the last of the earth on top of the children. “I have heard nothing of missing travelers, not recently.”
“Nor have I. But if they are missing, it may be that there has been none to look for them, and anyone who has searched—”
“Might suffer the same fate as the ones searched for; yes, he might,” deSteny finished for the Red Friar.
“Lamentably,” said the Red Friar.
DeSteny put the shovel back on the wall. “We can leave now.”
“Not quite yet,” said the Red Friar, opening the pyx again and taking the time to mark the cross with the Host on the foreheads of each of the company. That done, he nodded to deSteny and scrambled onto his mule.
Last of all, deSteny mounted his sorrel mare. “For Nottingham,” he said, and set off along the worn track.