Free The Lost Prophecies by The Medieval Murderers

about it?’ he demanded.
    Defensively, the clerk stammered that all the other clerks in the scriptorium knew about it and any of them could have seen him put the book into his shoulder bag when he left for the day.
    ‘So this is another priestly connection!’ snapped the coroner. ‘You clerks all gossip like fishwives in a gutting-shed, so any of them might be our clerical thief.’
    Thomas shrugged. ‘I doubt if any of the scribes in the library were involved, for they could have stolen the book there or even taken the copy that I left in the press. But, of course, they could have told others outside the Chapter House about it.’
    John smacked one hand into his palm. ‘I’m sure we’re looking for a priest, one who has a pair of accomplices. Whether he is one of the cathedral crowd or a parish vicar from the city, there’s a bloody priest behind all this!’
    He stalked to his stool on the other side of the table and sat down, his face screwed up into an expression of deep concentration.
    ‘Thomas, take a leaf of old, used parchment and write in Latin something to this effect!’
    Half an hour later Thomas de Peyne left the gatehouse tower with a creased and grubby palimpsest in his hand – and a sly grin on his face.
    Later that morning Thomas returned to the library chamber over the Chapter House and took his newly bound copy of the book from the press. He was pleased with the result, the leather having bonded firmly to the boards without bubbles and the covers opening easily to display the neatly inscribed pages. He took it to his desk and began to study the verses once again but was soon disturbed by several of the other clerks, who sidled up and began enquiring about his well-being after ‘the awful experience’ of the night before. Inevitably, the word had got around about the attack upon him and the theft of the book, as several of the young clerics also lodged in Priest Street.
    Though their protestations of concern were mostly genuine, Thomas sensed that they were also fishing for any news of his interpretation of the Black Book, all being well aware that he had made a copy. Conscious of the fact that any of them might have taken the news of the original, deliberately or inadvertently, to whoever had stolen it, he played the role that the coroner had suggested to him.
    ‘I have made some progress, I admit,’ he said rather coyly. ‘I cannot divulge what it is, of course. It’s a matter only for the ears of the coroner and the sheriff.’
    Ignoring their wheedling to give them some hint of what he may have found in relation to hidden treasure, he went back to the study of his new copy, concealing the pages from their avaricious eyes by hunching his arm over them. Then, with the eyes of his colleagues flicking over him at frequent intervals, he covertly began writing on a sheet of parchment laid alongside the book – though no one could see that he failed to dip his quill deeply enough into the ink pot, as the document had already been written earlier, back in the gatehouse of Rougemont.
    After almost an hour, during which he usefully employed his time by once more puzzling over the obscure quatrains, Thomas rose from his stool and, with Brân’s copy ostentatiously tucked under his arm, moved to the head of the steps.
    ‘I need the privy,’ he murmured to a young secondary sitting nearby as he left the scriptorium for the nether regions. As he went, he made sure that the piece of parchment slipped from between the pages of the book and fluttered to the floor.
    When he returned a few minutes later, the apprentice priest handed him the fallen sheet with a mumbled explanation that he had dropped it on the way out. Thomas knew from his furtive expression that he had read it and probably already shared the contents with the other clerks. With a secret smile, the coroner’s scribe went back to his place and this time returned to his study of the verses in earnest, as they had by now become a challenge