The Grail Murders

worship on the Tor. Some people say,' he lowered his voice, 'that inside the hill are secret passageways, halls and chambers used by the ancient ones. People have entered its secret paths and entrances and have either never returned or, if they were fortunate enough to do so, came out with their minds mazed, their wits scattered.' 'And why should Arthur come here?' Benjamin asked.
    To be healed,' Santerre replied. "There has always been a monastery here but, in ancient times, when the meadows were flooded you had to use secret routes and pathways to reach it. Arthur's great fortress lies further north at Cadbury, a huge hill which still bears the remnants of a formidable fortress. Legend says Arthur's Sword was thrown into one of the pools here after the Grail, kept in the monastery, was brought to him too late. If he had drunk from it, the wounds received in his last dreadful battle against his nephew Mordred would have healed. So, Arthur now lies buried beneath the Abbey.' Santerre wiped the snowflakes from his face as he stared round at us.
    ‘Chilling legends,' Mandeville interrupted, his dark face damp with snow. 'But, remember, we are here on the King's own business and the legends of this place sent Buckingham to his death.'
    With that he kicked his horse forward and we made our way down the trackway to the ornately carved gateway of Glastonbury Abbey. A porter let us in and we were taken into a great yard. Lay brothers hurried about, unpacking the carts, and we were escorted into the spacious, white stone guest house: a large solar on the ground floor with above it chambers for each of the abbot's guests. Servitors took our wet clothing and served us cups of mulled wine, followed by earthenware bowls full of a meaty soup which warmed our hands and removed the chill from our stomachs.
    We sat in chairs before a great log fire. Only when we were rested and our bags unpacked did the abbot, Richard Bere, together with a young sub-prior and other monks of the abbey, enter the guest house to greet us. Bere was a frail, white-haired man, one vein-streaked hand clutching an ash cane, the other resting on the arm of the sub-prior. (A great man, Bere. He carried out many building works at Glastonbury. After him came poor old Richard Whitting, who was abbot when Cromwell sent his agents in. Whitting died a horrible death. The abbey was plundered and pillaged, its treasures looted, its roofs pulled off, and what was once man's homage to God became a nesting place for foxes, ravens and kites. Ah, well, enough of that.)
    On that cold, snow-laden winter day Bere and his brethren were most welcoming, but the abbot's anxious lined face and short-sighted eyes betrayed his fear at having the powerful Agentes within the sacred walls of the abbey. He had a pathetic wish to please and I hated Mandeville for his arrogance as he rapped out his orders. We would stay the night, transfer our baggage to sumpter ponies and make our way to Templecombe, he instructed.
    'But,' Mandeville boomed, standing over the abbot, ‘we shall return, Reverend Father, to ask questions about the traitor Hopkins. You will produce any memoranda or books held by him and, above all, the manuscript he was so fond of studying with its doggerel verses which drew him and others into the blackest treason.'
    'We are the King's loyal servants,' murmured Bere defiantly. 'Brother Hopkins, God rest him, was a man lost in the past but the manuscript he studied will be handed over.'
    He smiled at all of us, nodding courteously to Lady Beatrice, then with his silent monks around him, walked wearily out of the guest house. We rose early the next morning awoken by the clanging of the abbey bells. I opened the shuttered window to look out on a countryside blanketed in snow. The blizzard had passed but the sky threatened more. We gingerly broke the ice in the washing bowl, washed, changed and joined the others in the small refectory below.
    A lay brother came over and took us into the abbey church to hear morning mass and, believe me, for the glory is now gone, the abbey church of Glastonbury was the nearest thing to heaven on earth. Soaring pillars, cupolas and cornices leafed with gold; huge walls covered in brilliant, multi-hued pictures depicting scenes from the bible. The Lady Chapel in blue, red and gold marble; the choir and rood screen of carved, gleaming oak which shimmered in the light of hundreds of candles. The air was sweet with incense which wafted round the