King Arthur's Bones Read online

  The other three looked in surprise at the cellarer. Owen, an easy-going, gregarious individual – as cellarers tended to be – rarely expressed himself so directly. The abbot waited for him to explain. Owen seemed uneasy. He glanced out of the window at the gathering darkness.

  ‘There is a story that Arthur is not dead but merely sleeping . . .’ he said at last.

  ‘All of the dead are merely sleeping . . . until they rise on the day of judgement,’ said Henry de Sully.

  ‘. . . and that he will return in the hour of his country’s need,’ said Owen, ignoring the interruption. He added quickly: ‘I am only saying what I heard at my mother’s knee.’

  The abbot and the others had often heard such tales of King Arthur, the past and future king. They dismissed them as credulous talk, popular on the western fringes of England and over the border in Wales, the parts of the country which had held out longest against the waves of invaders since the days when Arthur was supposed to have flourished. The surprise was that an educated man like Owen should even give voice to the belief. But then he was from Wales and would have swallowed the legend of Arthur’s return with his mother’s milk.

  ‘So, in your opinion we will not find the remains of the king or his queen, Brother Owen?’ said the sacristan.

  ‘Even if we did unearth some bones,’ said Owen, ‘how would we know that they are Arthur’s or Guinevere’s? As you reminded us, Brother Frederick, the place we are excavating is the site of an old cemetery. It must be littered with human bones. We should explore no further; it is a sacrilege to all who lie at rest out there. We must be content with this cross.’

  Once again he grazed his fingers over the leaden object.

  ‘Our community in Glastonbury might be content with the cross,’ said the abbot after a pause. ‘It is a fine relic and will doubtless draw pilgrims and visitors to our abbey. But I have a living king to account to, a fact which may be more important than our scruples about a dead one. King Richard has personally urged me to dispose of King Arthur’s remains more fittingly if they can be found. And we are nearer to finding them now than we were this morning. Surely, Brother Owen, you would wish to see the mortal remains of this great monarch and warrior bestowed with all due ceremony, not lost for ever in a common graveyard?’

  ‘The fame of Glastonbury would sound across the land,’ said Geoffrey.

  Henry de Sully said nothing. Geoffrey was right, but it was not for the abbot to make such an expedient remark.

  For his part Owen said nothing either. It was obvious that he did not wish the bones to be uncovered but he would not contradict his superior outright or disagree with Geoffrey.

  Further discussion was not possible since they were interrupted by the early-evening call to vespers. Wrapping the leaden cross in the blanket, Henry ushered the others from his parlour. He made a show of locking the door. They left the Hall and walked out into the darkness, now suddenly sharp and cold. As Henry passed the tent, he was reassured to see a couple of the abbey labourers keeping watch over the entrance, their faces illuminated by flaring torches. He must order an all-night vigil to be maintained at the place.

  In the Lady Chapel, the abbot was aware of a subdued excitement that seemed to make the air shimmer with more than the heat and smoke from the candles. This was no ordinary evening; these were no ordinary prayers and chants. He had to struggle to keep his own mind and heart on his devotions.

  To an extent, and no doubt like the other senior Benedictines, Henry de Sully felt there was some justice in the Welsh cellarer’s remark about the sacrilege of disturbing long-buried bones. But he was aware of other considerations. It was noble of King Richard to want Arthur’s bones uncovered and then buried more reverentially; it was a desire befitting a monarch. But Henry de Sully, who was well versed in the ways of power, knew that another of Richard’s motives wasn’t so high-minded. By proving Arthur dead and gone, once and for all, King Richard would be able to stamp on those troublesome legends which asserted that the legendary leader was going to return. It might help to calm an occasionally rebellious spirit in the far-western fringes and corners of the country.

  The abbot had his own reasons for uncovering the remains of Arthur and Guinevere. De Sully had been elevated from the grand but dour Thames-side abbey at Bermondsey to this great foundation in the west country. The origins of Glastonbury were lost in time, but one story held that Jesus himself had walked through this watery landscape. Another tradition was that the Old Church, the very one destroyed in the fire that also laid waste to other monastic buildings, had been the handiwork of the apostles of Jesus.

  The abbot did not know whether this was true. He hoped it was true. In any case it had proved a useful tradition, drawing pilgrims and worshippers as well as the merely curious to Glastonbury. De Sully glanced around the interior of the Lady Chapel, with its bright patterning of reds and blues and yellows, the dyes and paints so recent that they seemed to glisten in the candlelight. For sure, this church was far removed from the simple wattle-and-daub construction of the disciples. It had cost money to build. To restore the abbey to its former glories would cost a great deal more. At the very moment when he had been disturbed by the buzz of voices beyond his window, he had been studying estimates for repairs and rebuilding. The unearthing of King Arthur’s remains would be . . . convenient . . . in ensuring the continued flow of money into the abbey’s coffers. To say nothing of keeping King Richard’s benevolent attention fixed on Glastonbury.

  So there was no question of halting the excavation just as they seemed to be on the verge of a discovery. He would order the workmen to continue their labours the next day.

  These were the worldly and practical thoughts of Henry de Sully as he listened to evensong.

  As he slipped quickly out of the abbey precincts after vespers, Owen the cellarer was gripped by rather less worldly considerations. He was not joining the other monks in the fraterhouse for supper. Instead he wondered how many of them would allow their thoughts to drift away from the scriptural passage that was read aloud during the meal. He wondered how many of his fellows would instead be as preoccupied as he was with this day’s discovery.

  Owen paused by the main gate to catch his breath. He wasn’t used to moving at such a pace. Or perhaps it was the strain and excitement of the day’s discovery which were leaving him breathless. Owen nodded towards the lay brother who acted as porter. He didn’t have to explain his movements. With the exception of de Sully, the cellarer had more licence to come and go than anyone else in the abbey. Among other affairs, he was responsible for buying in provisions and so he had the most contact with the world beyond the monastic walls.

  Owen gazed out and down from the slight slope beyond the gatehouse. Directly overhead, the night was clear with a waxing moon even though cloud was gathering in the west. The moon glinted off the lakes and rhines which dotted the land as it fell away from Glastonbury towards the great channel dividing England and Wales. As often, the Welsh cellarer had the impression that he was gazing out at a sea, broken by tiny islands scarcely more than reedy marshes and peat bogs. Glastonbury tor, on the lowest slopes of which perched the abbey and its small town, was the biggest of these islands.

  Like his fellow monks, he was familiar with the story that Jesus had walked this watery region and that his disciples had constructed the first church with their bare hands. But Owen was thinking now of a quite different tradition, one which said that King Arthur had not only visited Glastonbury but had been brought here to die. That he had been buried in the Isle of Avalon.

  The leaden cross excavated this afternoon was surely proof of the story. Gazing on it for the first time, seeing something which he had never dreamed of seeing in his lifetime, kneeling by the cross in the shadow of the makeshift tent, reading the Latin inscription, putting out tentative fingers to touch what had been so carelessly handled by the workmen, all this had affected Owen almost as much as if he were handling a piece of the True Cross on which the Saviou
r hung in his agony.

  The letters HIC IACET SEPULTUS INCLITUS REX ARTURIUS IN INSULA AVALONIA swam before Owen’s eyes. The cellarer had been unable to utter a word while Frederick the sacristan was exclaiming in wonder and Geoffrey was rushing off to give the news to Henry de Sully. It was only when Abbot Henry arrived and asked Owen whether he was well that he came back to himself.

  Had anyone noticed? He didn’t think so. Everyone was distracted by the discovery of the cross. He feared, however, that he might have drawn attention to himself in the abbot’s parlour by announcing they should not dig down any further in the graveyard, that it would be sacrilegious to disturb the last resting place of Arthur – or of anybody else. He did not say so aloud but, as far as Owen was concerned, the king’s bones must not be found. If they were, it would demonstrate that Arthur, the once and future king, could never return to reclaim his kingdom.

  Better to find an empty grave. Better still not to dig any deeper and to be content with the cross, to treat it with the reverence which it deserved and to install it in a privileged place on display in the abbey. Where it would doubtless draw those pilgrims and visitors so desired by the abbot. Owen didn’t despise the idea of visitors. He was almost as conscious as de Sully that such guests frequently made offerings and, as cellarer, he had a clearer idea than most of the abbey’s finances and the costs of restoring the place after the ruinous fire of six years before.

  It was surely right too, as Brother Geoffrey claimed, that the uncovering of Arthur’s bones and perhaps of Guinevere’s would not only guarantee the wealth of the abbey but cause its name to go down in history.

  Yet none of these things weighed very heavily with Brother Owen as, guided more by instinct than the moonlight, he drew nearer the cluster of low dwellings, shops and taverns composing the town of Glastonbury. Like the now-vanished Old Church, they were mostly constructed of wattle and daub. There was the smell of woodsmoke in the crisp air. Doors were shut tight against the night. In the distance sounded the howl of a melancholy dog.

  Owen reached the entrance to a building slightly larger and more solid than the others. Above the door hung a withered bush, the sign of a tavern. From within came male voices and bursts of laughter from a woman. He recognized the laughter.

  Brother Owen put his hand to the latch and then hesitated. He could go back now and retreat to the abbey precincts. He could return and attend to his proper business before compline, the final summons of the day to prayer. Yet, he told himself, he was going about his proper business now. King Arthur must not be found. And he would be found if the men continued digging, for after evensong Owen had asked the abbot what his intentions were, whether he intended to order the hole filled in and the ground made level once more out of respect for the dead. Henry de Sully, slightly impatient with the cellarer’s scruples, put his hand on Owen’s arm, employed his pointed teeth in a kind of smile and said: ‘Of course not. We cannot afford to leave things as they are. We must dig down and find whatever God permits us to find. If there is nothing there, so be it.’

  Owen made no reply and inclined his head slightly in deference to the abbot, but at the same time the resolution hardened inside him. This was a moment he had long awaited. A moment of discovery that had been predicted in some quarters. But the bones of the king should never be claimed by the English.

  So Owen grasped the latch and opened the door of the tavern.

  When he entered, a few faces turned towards him through the gloom. The light provided by the handful of tallow candles was almost cancelled out by the smoky stench which they emitted. A couple of the drinkers nodded in recognition of Owen. As cellarer, he was a familiar enough figure in the little town whose suppliers and artisans depended on the abbey’s patronage. Nevertheless, his appearance in the tavern was hardly usual. The monks could drink better wines and ales within the abbey, in the company of their own kind and in greater comfort too. Even the beeswax candles that Owen burned in his workroom gave off a more pleasant odour than the tallow ones in here.

  But Owen had not come to drink or to compare the cost of candles. He had come to speak to the tavern-keeper, an individual called Glyn. Like the monk, Glyn was from Wales and he too had been brought up on stories of Arthur and that king’s inevitable return. The tavern-keeper was serving a customer, pouring ale from a jug. His wife Margaret was in an opposite corner, getting familiar with a couple more customers, laughing with them. She was English. She caught Owen’s eye. He nodded almost imperceptibly at her. Margaret’s fair hair gleamed in the smoky candlelight. The Glastonbury cellarer had memories of that hair, of lifting the inn-keeper’s wife’s heavy tresses and allowing them to trickle through his fingers. He recalled the weight of her breasts against his cassock, he remembered their snatched hours together. Owen had been breathless often enough in the company of Margaret. She too in the monk’s company.

  Owen indicated to Glyn that he wished to see him, alone, and the taverner showed him into a curtained-off cubicle at the back of the room. There was almost no light, only what leaked through the thin fabric. It was a fusty sleeping area for all the family, Glyn and Margaret and four or five smallish children, Owen couldn’t remember how many children, except that he rather thought one of them was his. So Margaret had informed him, and since she’d never asked for anything in return he had never had cause to doubt her word.

  A bed big enough to hold the entire family occupied most of the space. There were snuffling, whimpering sounds as if the two men were standing amid a litter of baby animals. It occurred to Owen that it might have been better to have talked to Glyn in the tavern itself rather than draw attention by seeking privacy. Too late now.

  ‘You’ve heard?’ he said to the tavern-keeper.

  ‘Everybody’s heard. We had that Michael in here earlier, getting himself plastered on account of how he’d dug up the cross. Is it true, Father Owen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The cross of Arthur?’

  ‘It seems so,’ said Owen with a caution that the abbot would have approved of. ‘It seems that the moment has arrived.’

  ‘If the cross is found, what else is down there?’ said the tavern-keeper. ‘The king?’

  The two men had been conversing in whispers, but Glyn’s voice dropped even further when he referred to the king. From beyond the curtain came voices, Margaret’s renewed laughter.

  ‘The king’s bones may be there,’ said Owen.

  ‘How can they be? Arthur is not dead,’ said Glyn.

  ‘One part of us, my friend, believes that he is dead, as all men must be in the end. The other part of us knows that Arthur can never die, can never be allowed to die.’

  ‘That’s a bit deep for me, Father.’

  ‘No, it is not, Glyn. You and I come from the same land; we are not like the English around here.’

  ‘You’re right there. Margaret’s told me that often enough.’

  ‘We understand why Arthur must live; we understand why he can have no grave,’ said Owen. ‘Or if he does have a grave, then it must be empty. Or it must be found empty.’

  ‘How will that happen?’

  ‘We need a little time. We cannot employ anybody around here. How long will it take to get help from—’ Owen gestured vaguely over his shoulder. He might have been indicating somewhere a few yards away – or many miles to the west. In any case, the gesture went unseen in the darkness of the curtained room.

  ‘Three days at least, maybe four days at this time of year.’

  Owen sighed. It wasn’t long enough. Excavation of the supposed burial place of King Arthur would be resumed tomorrow; the abbot had as good as said that. It might take the labourers another day, possibly longer, to dig down to the right depth and discover the remains. But they’d certainly do it within three days.

  ‘Send nonetheless,’ said Owen. ‘Send for help.’

  ‘They will not reach here in time.’

  ‘Then pray for a miracle.’

  ‘Who should I pray to, Fathe
r?’

  ‘The spirit of King Arthur, of course.’

  A miracle was what happened on the next day, or that very night to be precise. The westerly clouds which had been gathering in the evening rushed in later, bringing autumnal gales and unceasing rain. The ponds and rhines filled up, the abbey stews rose higher, the monastic gutters and gargoyles gurgled and spouted. And work on King Arthur’s burial place had to stop. The flimsy tent was blown down by the wind, and the sides of the excavation fell in, covering up the previous day’s work.

  Henry de Sully watched impatiently from his parlour in the Hall, although there was nothing to see apart from mounds of glistening black earth and a hole that was turning into a pond. The leaden cross remained up here in his personal care, locked in a chest. It was an extraordinary discovery, but now he was expecting something yet more extraordinary, and even an hour’s delay frustrated him. He had already written to King Richard, telling him of Arthur’s cross and hinting strongly that this was only the first of several discoveries, all of them destined to reflect glory on the abbey and on the reigning monarch.

  Meanwhile, Frederick the sacristan had been researching in the library with a vigour that belied his age. He assembled a quiverful of references showing that Arthur had close ties to Glastonbury. In his enthusiasm, he was inclined to lecture the abbot on these – to babble about Caradoc and The Life of Gildas, to tease out riddling verses by obscure Celtic bards, to talk knowingly of William of Malmesbury and his Deeds of the Kings of the English – until the abbot had trouble concealing his weariness with history.

  While this was happening, Owen the cellarer attended to his duties. But he was always conscious that, by ordering Glyn to summon ‘help’, he had set in motion a process whose outcome was uncertain and possibly dangerous. It wasn’t that he did not trust the tavern-keeper. Not only was Glyn from Wales but he was well aware – so Owen believed – of the cellarer’s relationship with his wife Margaret. He had never said a word, however, never dropped a hint.