By Murder's bright Light

pleased, but when Nicholas returned his temper changed. I heard him say that he didn’t trust Roffel. He claimed the captain was cheating him. He was coming to London to confront Roffel when...’ Her voice faded away.
    ‘Is there anything else?’ Athelstan asked.
    She shook her head.
    Athelstan crouched down and gripped her hand.
    ‘You are now your stepfather’s heir,’ he said. ‘Your secret is safe with me and I will think about what I can do. For the moment, however, you should return to the Abbot of Hyde inn. Go through your stepfather’s papers, everything and anything. See if you can find anything that will give some hint, however faint, of the secrets he may have shared with Roffel.’
    ‘How will that help us?’ she pleaded.
    ‘God knows!’ Athelstan said. ‘God only knows!’ He genuflected before the altar. ‘You may stay here for a while but, Master Ashby, on no account leave the sanctuary! I have your word on that?’
    Ashby nodded just as the church door crashed open and Watkin the dung-collector rushed in.
    ‘Father! Father! The cart’s arrived!’
    Athelstan, breathing heavily and slowly, prayed for patience.
    ‘Good man, Watkin. Have the other door opened and bring it up into the nave.’
    The dung-collector trotted off. The doors opened and, after a great deal of crashing and banging, a huge, four-wheeled cart pulled by Watkin and other parishioners rolled up a makeshift ramp on the steps and into the nave. Athelstan went down to help. His anger at being so rudely disturbed was soon dispelled by the good humour and generosity of his parishioners, who had left their trades to ensure that this cart arrived in time for their mystery play. Panting, shouting, sweating and shouting instructions to each other, the parishioners heaved the cart until it stood in the centre of the nave.
    ‘There!’ Watkin wiped the sweat from his face. ‘There you are, Father. And,’ he added quickly, his hairy nostrils quivering in the full fury of his self-righteousness, ‘in the play, I’m going to be God, aren’t I?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Pike can’t be God. I am leader of the parish council.’
    Pike the ditcher came round the cart. Athelstan sensed that, despite the impending marriage between Pike’s son and Watkin’s daughter, the old animosity between these two men was beginning to reappear.
    ‘I heard that, Watkin!’ Pike snapped. ‘I’m to be God in the play!’
    ‘No, you’re not!’ Watkin shouted back childishly. Both men looked at Athelstan to arbitrate. The priest groaned quietly to himself.
    ‘Well, Father?’ Pike demanded. ‘Who is God?’ Athelstan smiled. ‘We all are. We are all made in God’s image so, if we are like God, God must be something like us.’
    ‘But what about the play?’ Watkin insisted.
    ‘Yes, what about it?’ Hig the pig-man, square-jawed and narrow-eyed, came around the cart and stood beside Watkin. Hig worked in the fleshing yards and his brown gown was stained with offal and blood from the carcases he cleaned. He always wore the same gown and his thick hair was cut as if the barber had just thrust a bowl on his head and trimmed around it. Athelstan didn’t like him. Hig was a born troublemaker, very conscious of his rights and ever ready to shatter the peace of parish-council meetings by fishing in troubled waters.
    ‘Hig, you stay out of this!’ Athelstan warned.
    The pig-man’s close-set eyes narrowed.
    ‘I know what we can do.’ Athelstan looked at Watkin and Pike. ‘As I said, we are like God. So, Watkin can be God the Father, I can play God the Son and you, Pike, dressed in a white gown with the wings of a dove attached to your back, can be God the Holy Ghost. Now, remember what Holy Mother Church teaches, there are three persons in God and all three are equal.’ He lowered his voice and looked darkly at them. ‘Unless you are going to contradict the teaching of Holy Mother Church?’
    Watkin and Pike just stared open-mouthed, then glanced at each other.
    ‘Agreed,’ said Watkin. ‘But God the Father always does more than God the Holy Ghost.’
    ‘No, he doesn’t.’
    They both stamped off, merrily discussing the finer Points of theological dogma. Athelstan heaved a sigh of relief. The rest of the parishioners milled around the cart, loudly talking to each other but never bothering to listen. Athelstan slipped out of the church and across to his house.
    ‘Father, a word?’
    Athelstan, his hand on the latch, spun