Murder most holy

As far as a man like Callixtus could, he liked, even respected, the ascetic yet sardonic parish priest of the poor. However, he did not wish Athelstan to gain all the credit. A book caught Callixtus’s eyes. Holding the candle, he stretched out to grasp it just as the ladder was violently turned. The librarian slipped and, too terrified even to scream, plummeted like a stone to the stone floor of the scriptorium. He felt violent pain surge through his body. Callixtus gasped, trying for air, as the crash had knocked the breath out of his body: fortunately, he had fallen on to his left arm and this had protected him from more serious injury. He heard a sound and, despite the shivers of pain, turned to the dark shadowy figure bending over him.
    ‘Help me!’ he moaned.
    ‘Into eternity!’ came the hissed reply.
    Callixtus opened his mouth. ‘No,’ he groaned. ‘Oh, no, I didn’t mean to!’ He made to crawl away and, as he did so, the cowled figure smashed a heavy brass candlestick on to his temple, cracking Callixtus’s head like a nut so the blood and brains seeped out.

    The day after the ‘Great Miracle’, Athelstan’s troubles began in earnest. The news of the cure swept along the fetid alley, ways of Southwark. The sick and the lame trooped to the church, to be welcomed by an ecstatic Watkin and Pike who turned the entrance to St Erconwald’s into a small market place.
    ‘They’ll soon get tired,’ Athelstan muttered to Bonaventure as he stood outside his house. He watched the long line of hopeful pilgrims queue up to go into the church, have a glimpse of the skeleton, light a candle in front of the great wooden coffin and say a prayer. Athelstan had decided to put a cheerful face on matters. The workmen in the sanctuary would be allowed to continue and he was certain Cranston would come up with some further information which would resolve the matter once and for all.
    Nevertheless, by early afternoon Athelstan’s optimism had evaporated. Other cures had been reported: a child with warts claimed his gruesome ailment had disappeared. A bilious stomach was soothed, pains in the groin disappeared, a growing list of ailments cleared up after the inflicted person had prayed before the coffin. Master Bladdersniff and the other wardmen came to complain but all Athelstan could do was shout his displeasure at what was happening, say the matter was out of his hands and lock himself inside the security of his own home.
    The news of St Erconwald’s miraculous find attracted all the human hawks and kites who lurked in Southwark: the counterfeiters, the upright men, the tinkers and pedlars of religious objects. They gathered like flies round a rubbish heap. One rogue with a patch over his eye and a pretended lame foot, hobbled into St Erconwald’s then came out throwing away his crutch, claiming he had been cured and offering to sell the crutch as a sacred object. He stood outside Athelstan’s house shouting at a gaping group of onlookers that for a shilling sterling this sacred wood which had taken him to Jerusalem and back was theirs for the asking. Inside the house Athelstan cringed. Then another, more strident, voice could be heard from the church.
    ‘I bring pardons from Rome ! From the Vicar of Christ himself in Avignon ! If you buy this parchment which was written in ink from a pot fashioned out of the very wood of the baby Jesus’s manger, then, for a price, all your sins will be forgiven and you shall receive an indulgence of a thousand days and nights off your time in Purgatory!’
    Athelstan, sitting with his head in his hands, could stand no more. He unbolted the door, threw it open and stalked out. He seized the wooden crutch of the upright man and gave him a resounding thwack across the back.
    ‘In God’s name, go!’ he yelled. ‘Have you not heard the verse: ”This is the House of God and Gate of Heaven”? Not some shabby booth in Cheapside !’
    The fellow stumbled, his hand going to the stabbing knife in his belt. Athelstan, still holding the crutch, advanced on him threateningly.
    ‘Go on, you little piss turd!’ he shouted, quoting directly from Cranston . ‘Draw that dagger and I’ll knock your bloody head straight off your shoulders!’ The angry priest jabbed a finger at the small group of onlookers. ‘These are honest people, they earn their pennies by the sweat of their brow!’ The fellow threw one baleful look at Athelstan and quickly retreated. The priest leaned on the