The poisoned chalice

up poor, bloody Abbe Gerard whatever the outcome. He'd brought some food, bread and fruit, and we drank from the brook as we waited for the sun to set. The hours seemed to drag by. Benjamin gave me a lecture on the different types of trees and plants around us until I nodded off to sleep.
    When I awoke, the sun was setting and Benjamin was staring at the bubbling waters of the brook and muttering something about men who walk on water. We both fell silent as the sun finally set and the forest became a different place; the silence became more oppressive, broken only by the rustling of animals in the undergrowth, the hoot of hunting owls and the blood-tingling screams of the bats which flitted amongst the trees. A hunter's moon rose, slipping in between the white wisps of clouds, bathing everything in a ghostly light. I sat and softly cursed those princes and prelates who had brought me to this haunted woodland to lurk like some animal whilst preparing to rob a grave. 'It's wrong,' I piously announced.
    'No, it's not,' Benjamin replied. 'All sin, my dear Roger, lies in the will. I have nothing but the greatest respect and reverence for the Abbe Gerard but the king requires that book.'
    'Why?' I snapped. 'Why the bloody hell does the fat bastard want it?'
    'If I find it, I'll tell you,' Benjamin promised. 'Come, it's time we moved.'
    We tethered and hobbled our horses, removed the spades and mattocks from the sacks and crept back on to the track. Every step we took only increased my fear as the twigs cracked like thunder under our booted feet and the night birds screeched horribly at our unwarranted intrusion. We found the path back to the church, crept over the wall, and froze as we heard the howl of a dog. We checked the priest's house. No lights burned so we returned to the graveyard, following the line of the church, jumping and starting when birds nestling in the eaves stirred and rustled their wings. We crept across the cemetery and stopped as a heavy-feathered owl swooped low to seize its shrieking victim in the long grass. At last, we reached the abbe's headstone and I began to dig like some demented mole.
    'The sooner we finish our ghastly task,' I reasoned, 'the sooner I get back to my warm bed!'
    Now and again Benjamin struck a tinder to ensure all was going well. At last my shovel scraped the coffin lid. I pressed again and heard the welcoming thud of metal on wood. 'We don't want it out,' Benjamin whispered.
    So we continued digging around, clearing the earth on either side of the long, oblong coffin. Then both Benjamin and I, one of us working each side, bent down and began releasing the wooden pegs which screeched like ghosts protesting at their eternal dream being disturbed. I quietly cursed. The sound seemed so strident I was sure they could hear it in Maubisson. The pegs were removed more quickly than I had expected. 'Let's see,' Benjamin said. 'Let's see. I wonder…?' 'What's the matter?' I asked. 'Nothing,' he murmured. 'Lift the lid.' It came away easily and Benjamin's suspicions were confirmed. We were not the first ones to open this coffin. Despite the summer heat the soil had been loose, the coffin pegs easily removed. Inside, the decaying, garish skeleton was lying haphazardly; the head and neck, to which pieces of dried flesh still hung, were skewed to one side whilst the rotting, white gauze which had once covered the corpse had been pulled back and bundled at the bottom of the coffin.
    'Vauban,' Benjamin whispered. 'The bastard has been here before us.' He poked around in the coffin, softly exclaiming as his fingers touched rotting pieces of flesh. He tapped the bottom and sides. 'Nothing,' he concluded. 'But let us at least pay the abbe some last courtesy.'
    Despite my protests, Benjamin insisted that we rearrange the skeleton in a more reverent position and that we say the Requiem.
    Lord, I could have cursed! Here we were at the dead of night in a lonely cemetery in France, disturbing the remains of a dead priest, only to make sure his skeleton was comfortable and say a prayer for his soul. Yet my master was like that. I'll be honest: given half a chance I'd have left the grave as it was, jumped over the wall and run like a whippet back to Maubisson. Nonetheless, I helped. We re-sealed the coffin, ploughed the earth back in, flattening it carefully though anyone with half a brain could see it had been disturbed. We then left to collect our horses in the forest.
    Oh Lord, I was relieved to