The Grail Murders

has already been drawn up.'
    If the fat bastard had not been glaring down at me I would have burst into peals of mocking laughter. Benjamin, God bless him, just sighed at how sly Tom Wolsey had trapped us.
    He smiled wanly. 'In which case, dear Uncle, we are as ever your most humble servants.'
    The atmosphere in the room lightened. Mandeville, that crow bait, leaned forward.
    'We shall be honoured by your presence, Master Daunbey. Your assistance will, I am sure, be invaluable.'
    Wolsey tossed a red-ribboned scroll down the table towards his nephew. 'This is further information. You may study it at your leisure.' Another thinner scroll followed.
    'And that, Master Shallot, is your pardon for the killing of Robert Brognar.' Wolsey shrugged his shoulders. 'He was a city bully and will not be missed.' He smiled at me.
    Oh, no, I thought, poor Brognar won't be missed, you bull's-pizzle of a Cardinal: once I had drawn my sword I was guilty of treason. I took cold comfort in that wily Wolsey had probably intended Brognar to make a fool of me as well as involve me in treason. Instead I'd killed him, a sure protection against mockery though it made my 'crime' all the worse. Wolsey smiled and clapped his hands. 'These proceedings are now finished, dearest Nephew. You may withdraw.'
    Well, what more could I say? Benjamin and I trotted off back to our tower like well-trained lap dogs. I am sure that after the Santerres left, Henry and Wolsey must have rocked with laughter at us. Once we were in the security of our own chamber, I gave full vent to my anger.
    'Doesn't your bloody uncle care?' I cried. 'Is that how he treats his kith and kin? Of course he doesn't give a mouldy fig about old Shallot!' I added bitterly. 'I am just a cross-eyed piece of turd to be discarded at will!'
    Benjamin smiled. 'One of the many things I like about you, Roger, is how very rarely you complain. My uncle's treatment must have hurt you. I apologise.' (Lord, wasn't he innocent?) I refused to be mollified.
    'Do you know,' I bawled, 'I once talked to a mariner who sailed north of Newfoundland. He claimed to have seen great islands of ice floating in the sea but, large as they were, there was more ice under water than showed on top. Your bloody uncle's like that,' I whispered hoarsely. 'A great, fat, floating dangerous rock!'
    'True, true, Roger, and it also applies to the story he spun us this evening. Or, as the vicar said about the lady's bosom, "There's more to it than meets the eye".' Benjamin looked at me. 'Someone told me that as a joke. I never really did understand it.'
    'Never mind, Master,' I muttered. 'Similes and metaphors will not get us out of this.'
    Benjamin undid the red cords and loosened the two scrolls his uncle had tossed at him. He read the first and handed it over – my pardon for killing Brognar. The second was a memorandum from some anonymous clerk describing the ancient legends of Glastonbury: how, a few years after Christ's death, Joseph of Arimathea and other refugees from the Roman persecution of the early Christian Church had fled to England. Joseph had planted his staff at Weary Hill near Glastonbury which flowered as a white rose bush, a cutting from which was always sent to the Crown every Christmas. Benjamin, standing beside me, tapped the parchment.
    'Our noble King would not like that,' he murmured. 'Any reference to white roses, the emblem of the House of York, sends him into a state of frenzy.' 'Good!' I murmured and read on.
    The legends, so the clerk maintained, also stated that Joseph brought with him the Grail, the cup used at the Last Supper, and this was supposed to be buried somewhere in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey.
    The second part of the document was an extract from the twelfth-century chronicler Gerald of Wales and described how, in 1184, the monks found the bodies of Arthur and Guinevere in a hollow oak coffin in the grounds of the abbey. A cross of lead placed over the coffin claimed: 'HERE LIES BURIED THE RENOWNED KING ARTHUR WITH GUINEVERE HIS SECOND WIFE IN THE ISLE OF AVALON'. Guinevere's skull still had traces of yellow hair attached to it and, when a certain monk tried to grab it, crumbled into dust. The clerk added that these remains were re-interred in 1278 under a marble slab before the high altar of Glastonbury Abbey.
    'Do you believe all this?' I asked. 'Knights of the Round Table, magic swords and mystical cups?'
    Benjamin lay down on his bed and pulled his cloak over him.
    'There are