Murder most holy

breath.
    ‘“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”,’ he whispered, ‘“I will fear no evil. ”’
    The room was clean but the walls, floor and ceiling were painted a glossy black which shimmered in the candlelight. In one corner under a small window was a truckle bed, beside it a table which could serve as an altar, and above it an inverted cross, the figure headless and upside down. Athelstan shivered. Were those bloodstains on the table? And what was that strange smell? Strong herbs or tar mixed with something else? Fitzwolfe just stood watching him like a cat. Athelstan shook himself as if trying to clear his mind. The ex-priest seemed to have changed; his face was longer, his skin yellowing, whilst the dark eyes glittered with an unholy malice.
    ‘The pages!’ Athelstan snarled. ‘You promised me the pages!’
    Fitzwolfe shrugged, went to the foot of the bed, unlocked a chest and rummaged amongst its contents. Athelstan looked to his left. There was a leatherbound book chained to a lectern. He glanced at it quickly and looked away in revulsion for it was a grimoire of spells and black magic. On the wall behind the lectern were pages like those he had seen in a Book of Hours or Lives of the Saints, delicately edged and brilliantly coloured. One depicted a group of people listening to a preacher, but the figure dressed in the robes of a priest had a slavering goat’s head and a huge erect penis jutting out between the folds of his robes. In another, a pig wearing the cope and mitre of a bishop chewed the miniature bodies of people, whilst the third showed the nave of a church. The pillars along the transept reminded Athelstan of St Erconwald’s though the artist had carefully used perspective so it seemed the onlooker was gazing down into a deep pit. At the far end, where the rood screen should have been, glowed a face painted in silver with the red glowing eyes and golden lips of a demon. Athelstan pulled his eyes away. He felt that the air in the room was thick, cloying, oppressive. He looked in the corners and was sure there were shadows deeper than the rest, as if someone or something was lurking there.
    ‘Come on, Fitzwolfe!’ he snapped. ‘The pages!’
    ‘Here they are, Brother.’ Fitzwolfe walked slowly back, a piece of tattered yellow vellum in his hand, loosely held together by crude stitching. ‘What’s the matter, Athelstan? Don’t you like my chamber? My unholy of unholies?’
    As Fitzwolfe handed the parchment over, a hand cold as ice brushed the friar’s. ‘You are a priest, Athelstan. What do you fear here?’
    He jumped at a shuffling sound from the corner.
    ‘What’s that?’ he queried.
    ‘Look, Athelstan,’ Fitzwolfe murmured. ‘Look for yourself. Stare into the corner and what do you see?’
    The friar did as he was told, turning to confront a real menace, something quite horrifying. Was it a shape? he wondered. Or a shadow? He glimpsed an ivory, rounded shoulder, a perfectly formed breast, hair like spun gold, then heard a low soft chuckle. Athelstan gripped the parchment. ‘These are mine!’ he stuttered. ‘They are mine!’
    He almost ran to the door, pulling hard at the handle, but it was locked. Behind him he could feel Fitzwolfe and something else shuffling towards him. He scrabbled at the lock, found the key, opened the door and flung himself out into the passageway even as the door slammed firmly shut behind him. He was sure he heard not only Fitzwolfe sniggering but someone else as well.
    ‘What’s the matter, Athelstan?’ Cranston grabbed his companion, alarmed at how marble-white and sweat-soaked the priest’s face had become. Cranston shook him again. ‘Brother, what’s the matter?’
    Athelstan broke free from his reverie and grabbed the quarter-staff he had left by the wall.
    ‘Come on. Sir John! This is no place for us. No place for any of God’s creatures!’
    Cranston took a step towards the door of Fitzwolfe’s chamber.
    ‘Leave it, Sir John! I mean that. Just leave it alone!’
    He crashed down the stairs, Cranston lumbering after him. Without waiting for the coroner, Athelstan strode back into the alleyway. Cranston , huffing and puffing, came up beside him, rattling out questions which Athelstan ignored. The priest walked as quickly as he could. He was determined to put as much distance as he could between himself and the tavern; he concentrated all his energies and intelligence on remembering the route Sir