Murder most holy

Cranston went around proud as a peacock. The monk laughed softly to himself as he remembered how, only a few weeks ago, he had baptised the twin j boys at the small font just inside the entrance of St Erconwald’s. The boys had roared their heads off and Athelstan had had to fight to keep a straight face for both of them looked like peas out of the same pod. No one could doubt they were Cranston ’s sons: red-faced, bawling, bald-headed, burping and farting, when they weren’t howling for the generous tits of a now exhausted-looking wet nurse. During the entire ceremony, Cranston, the beaming father, swayed slightly backwards and forwards as he took the occasional nip from his miraculous wineskin — so-called because it never seemed to empty. The christening had ended in chaos when Ursula the pig woman’s sow had come into the church and Bonaventure had leapt into Cranston ’s lap. Cecily the courtesan had her face slapped by Watkin the dung-collector’s wife who claimed the wench was ogling her husband. All the time Lady Maude’s relatives, and Sir John’s noble acquaintances from the city, had stared in open-mouthed horror at the mummery being played out.
    Nevertheless, the day had ended well at a small banquet held in Cranston ’s garden behind his large house across the river. Many of the parishioners had been invited and Athelstan had never laughed so much in his life, the climax being when Cranston , much the worse for drink, fell fast asleep on top of a manure pile, a sleeping baby son nestling gently in each arm.
    Athelstan started as Bonaventure, quiet as a thief, jumped into his lap.
    ‘Come on, cat,’ the monk murmured. ‘We have mass to offer, prayers to be said.’
    He took the small bunch of keys which swung from the hook on his belt and left to open the church. The sow gave him a friendly grunt as he passed and continued to chomp merrily at the cabbages. Bonaventure looked at the pig disdainfully and followed his master across. Crim, one of Watkin the dung-collector’s large brood, was waiting on the steps.
    ‘You’ve come to serve at mass, Crim?’
    ‘Yes, Father.’
    Athelstan looked at his half-washed face. The lad was a mischievous angel but this morning he looked troubled, guilty even, refusing to meet Athelstan’s eye. The friar ignored this. After all, Crim’s parents were always fighting. There had probably been trouble at home. He unlocked the door and walked into the church, Crim and Bonaventure slipping in behind him. Athelstan rested against the baptismal font and gazed appreciatively around. Yes, this humble parish church was beginning to grow beautiful: the wooden rafters had been reinforced and the roof re-tiled, so it had bravely withstood the winter gales and rain. The floor of the nave was now even and well swept whilst Huddle the painter, a young man of indeterminate origin but with a Godgiven skill for etching and painting, was filling every available space on the walls and pillars with colourful scenes from the Old and New Testaments. All the windows were now filled with horn or glass and Athelstan was determined to win the favour of some powerful benefactor who would buy stained glass for the church.
    Yet St Erconwald’s was more than a house of prayer. Here parishioners met to do business or celebrate the great liturgical feasts. The young people came to be married, brought their children to be baptised, attended mass, had their sins shriven and, when God called them, were laid out to rest in the great parish coffin, wheeled in front of the rood screen for their last benediction.
    Athelstan drummed his fingers on the wooden top of the baptismal font and hummed the tune he had been singing earlier. At first he had hated the parish, been repelled by this dirty church, but now he had grown to love it and the colourful bustling characters who swarmed round him, touching his solitary life with the drama of their own. Crim, used to his parish priest’s reveries, skipped along the nave pretending to be a horse and Athelstan suddenly remembered Philomel, the former war horse, now his mount and constant companion.
    ‘God save us!’ he muttered. ‘The old man will be kicking the stable door down!’
    He hurried out of the church and round the house to the small shed now converted into Philomel’s stable. The old horse snickered, shaking his head as soon as Athelstan appeared and kicking his foot softly against the door. Athelstan quickly fed him a mixture of oats