Murder most holy

foot to foot. ‘We are sorry, truly sorry, for what has happened but we meant well.’ He produced a large leather purse from beneath his grimy jerkin. ‘These are the profits.’ He nervously weighed the purse in his hand. ‘We have had an idea, Father. Well, the sanctuary’s done so we thought paint should be bought and Huddle depict a scene, a truly large painting, of the visit of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth after Jesus’s birth.’
    ‘Do you all agree?’ Athelstan asked.
    A chorus of approval rang out.
    ‘Then Huddle can begin immediately. Crim, I want you to take a message to Sir John Cranston.’
    ‘You mean old Fatarse?’
    Watkin’s wife gave the lad a slap across the back of his head.
    ‘Sir John Cranston,’ Athelstan continued. ‘You will tell him he should return to Blackfriars. I shall meet him there at first light tomorrow. Now,’ he began to disrobe in front of them, ‘Watkin, buy the shroud. Pike, you’d best start now because the soil is hard. For the rest, I shall take, as Sir John says, some refreshment and then hear confessions. Oh!’ He turned back to them. ‘And don’t be surprised — a mysterious donor wishes to give us a large statue of St Erconwald for the new sanctuary.’

CHAPTER 12

    On that surprising note, the meeting broke up and the parishioners drifted out of the church while Athelstan went to finish divesting. He locked the sanctuary door but left the church open. Huddle was already standing in the sanctuary looking dreamily at a bare wall.
    Think carefully,’ Athelstan called.
    ‘Don’t worry, Father. I’ve been mulling over this for months.’
    Athelstan nodded and hurried down the alleyway to a cook-shop where he knew he could buy a fresh pie and a jug of ale. By the time he had returned, Watkin had cleared one of the transepts and cordoned off a corner with a long ash pole with a thick purple curtain hanging from it. He had also moved the sanctuary chair with its quilted seat and back to one side of the curtain for Athelstan to sit on whilst the church’s one and only prie-dieu was placed at the other side for the penitents. For a while Athelstan knelt at the foot of the altar steps and prayed for the grace to be a good confessor. He always heard confessions before the great liturgical feasts of the church: Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi in mid-summer. Those who wished to be shriven would kneel just inside the porch of the church and wait for their turn. Athelstan had insisted on this so no one could overhear what the penitent was saying. Mugwort came in and Athelstan assured him all was ready so the bell began to toll, inviting those who wished, to have their sins absolved.
    Athelstan sat for the rest of the morning and early into the afternoon listening to his parishioners' confessions. The usual litany of sins, not dissimilar to his own Athelstan quietly concluded: the use of bad language, obscene thoughts, theft from the market, sleeping during mass, and drunkenness. Occasionally Athelstan heard something new: a father lusting after a son’s wife; the use of faulty scales in trade. He sat back and listened to them all, now and again asking soft, gentle questions. At the end, he would lean forward and urge them to be more charitable, kinder, purer in mind and heart. He would set a small penance, usually some charitable task or the saying of prayers in church, pronounce absolution, and the penitent would depart.
    The only relief were the confessions of children which Athelstan always loved for they made him laugh — squeaky little voices with their list of petty sins. One of Tab the tinker’s daughters made Athelstan laugh out loud for the poor girl had allowed one of Pike’s sons to kiss her, throwing her into agonies of guilt. So intent was she on blurting out this misdemeanour, she threw herself down on the prie-dieu and instead of saying, ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,’ feverishly began, ‘Kiss me, Father, for I have sinned!’
    Athelstan calmed her down, pointing out that a kiss on the lips, no matter for how long, was not a serious matter, and sent the girl away happy. He heard the trip of more footsteps and a reedy voice behind the curtain piped up: ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’
    Athelstan smiled and put his face in his hands as he recognised the voice of Crim his altar boy.
    ‘Father,’ continued Crim in a hushed voice, ‘I have refused to eat my onions.’
    Athelstan nodded