Free The Lost Prophecies by The Medieval Murderers Page A

to him that he could not resist.
    ‘Do you really think this is going to work, Crowner?’
    Gwyn sounded grumpy, as faithful though he was he would much rather be sitting by the fire in the Bush, with a mutton chop and a quart of Nesta’s best ale, than crouched in St Bartholomew’s churchyard in the biting frost. Alongside him in the lee of the little wooden church were John de Wolfe and Sergeant Gabriel, who had hidden four of his men-at-arms at strategic points around the edge of the enclosure.
    ‘We can but try, as I can think of no other way of catching these bastards red-handed,’ replied John in a low voice.
    It was about the middle of the evening and the moon was showing itself fitfully between the masses of cloud that an east wind blew across the sky.
    The churchyard was mainly rough grass and a few trees, as no burials had taken place here since the cathedral had long ago appropriated all the lucrative funerals to itself. In the centre stood an old plinth on which were the remains of a Saxon cross and this John had used as his bait, reckoning that a similar one in Alphington was now well known as the hiding-place of treasure.
    ‘But why tonight, sir?’ asked Gabriel, his voice like a rusty file on a blunt axe. ‘They may leave it a week before searching.’
    ‘Never, not in this present mood of hysteria,’ said de Wolfe confidently. ‘By now those Chapter House gossips will have spread the news amongst all their priestly friends. If any clerical treasure-hunter in Exeter has heard it, he’ll be down here hotfoot before any other thieving swine can beat him to it – and that means tonight!’
    They settled down again to wait, shivering under their cloaks and jerkins. Gwyn had a striped woollen cap on his unruly ginger hair and a sack wrapped around his shoulders, while the coroner wore an old gambeson under his wolf-skin mantle. The gambeson was a legacy of his fighting days, a quilted coat of padded wool, worn under his chain mail to absorb the blows from a lance or sword.
    St Bartholomew’s was in the poorest section of the city, down in the north-western corner called Bretayne, named after the surviving Britons who had been driven down into a slum area by the invading Saxons centuries before. The churchyard was the only open space in a maze of sordid lanes and alleys, lined by mean huts and hovels, infested by rats, hogs and goats. Realistically, it was probably the least likely place in Exeter where a rich Saxon would have hidden his treasure from the next wave of invaders, but de Wolfe felt that the lure of gold and silver would overrule such logical appraisal.
    An hour passed and, with limbs becoming cramped and frozen, John began to wonder if his reasoning might have been too optimistic. Gwyn was blowing on his fingers to get some feeling back into them, and the sergeant’s teeth were chattering audibly.
    The coroner was beginning to consider calling off their attempt to trap the treasure-seekers when he heard the creaking of the old gate that led into the churchyard from the lane. Nudging Gwyn and Gabriel to keep quiet, he stared into the blackness under an oak tree that overshadowed the gate, waiting until whoever it was came into the open, where a transient glimmer of moonlight fell upon the path.
    Like moving shadows, three black figures glided into the light, one smaller than the other two. A tiny crack of yellow light revealed that this man carried a horn lantern whose ill-fitting door failed to mask every glimmer. Many less hard-bitten persons than the trio of old soldiers might have fled at the sight of these silent black figures flitting through an abandoned graveyard.
    De Wolfe put a restraining hand on each of his companions and hoped that the hidden soldiers would obey their sergeant’s orders not to move until commanded. The three ghostly shapes moved silently towards the centre of the overgrown area where the base of the broken cross was half-hidden in weeds.
    Suddenly, a dim shaft