By Sylvian Hamilton

By
Sylvian Hamilton The Bone-Pedlar The Pendragon Banner

THE
BONE-PEDLAR

Sylvian
Hamilton

ORION

An
Orion paperback

First
published in Great Britain in 2000 by Orion This paperback edition
published in 2001 by Orion Books Ltd, Orion House, 5 Upper St
Martin's Lane, London wczh gEA

Copyright
Sylvian Hamilton 2000

The
right of Sylvian Hamilton to be identified as the author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved No part of diis publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, widiout the prior permission of the copyright
owner. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library. isbn 07528442} 7

Printed
and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

With
love to Patrick, prop-and-stay; to Deborah, beloved daughter and
world's greatest hypnotherapist; and to my dear son Steven, Cathie
his wife, and their children. With thanks to John, for his help and
encouragement; and to Jane and Cass, for nudging me in the right
direction. Thanks also to the staff of Duns Library, who manage
against hard odds to get many of the books I need. And with affection
and gratitude to Christine Green, best agent in the world I

Chapter
1

In
the crypt of the abbey church at Hallowdene, the monks were boiling
their bishop.

He
had been a man of exemplary piety, whose eventual canonisation was a
certainty, or at least a strong probability, and they were taking no
chances. Over the bishop's deathbed, the calculating eyes of the
sacristan and the almoner had accurately weighed up the advantages of
a splendidly profitable set of skeletal relics, and Bishop Alain was
barely cold before he was eviscerated, dismembered, and simmering in
the largest pot the monastery kitchen could furnish.

'Isn't
it a bit,--well, sort of hasty? the kitchener protested, when ordered
to hack his bishop limb from limb. 'You sure e's dead?'

'Of
course he is,' snapped the almoner.

'Only
I thought I card him sigh.'

There
was a flurry of panicky activity as the almoner laid his ear to the
unmoving episcopal bosom, and the sacristan peered uneasily at the
dulled eyes and fallen jaw of the revered corpse.

'Get
on with it,' said the sacristan impatiently. The kitchener went to
work with his knives and a cleaver borrowed from the butcher.

'In
the Holy Land,' said old Brother Maurice, who had been there and
never let anyone forget it, 'it was the custom to boil crusaders,
them as wanted their bones shipped home for burial. But in the case
of a holy body, we'd put it in an anthill. The ants'd pick the bones
to a pearly whiteness. Truly beautiful. When you have to boil them,'
he stared critically at the reeking cauldron, 'they go all brown.'

The
youngest novice, who had been a favourite of the bishop, blew his
nose on his sleeve and dabbed his eyes with the hem. 'It doesn't seem
respectful,' he said.

'Who
asked you?' demanded the sacristan. 'You can clear off out of this.
Go and bang the dormitory mats outside!'

The
boy mustered a flimsy courage to protest that a lay brother had
banged the mats only that morning, but all that got him was a clip
round the ear from the jittery sacristan, and he scurried off,
snivelling.

'All
the same,' said Brother Maurice, 'we probably shouldn't be doing
this, not right away. We ought to wait a while. The new bishop ...'

The
others looked shiftily at one another. There was no new bishop yet,
nor likely to be for a long time, what with the Interdict, and His
Grace King John so intransigent. But eventually there would be
another bishop, who might very well take a dim view of them turning
his predecessor into relics so precipitately. As it was, they'd get
plenty of stick from the other religious houses in the diocese. It
was sheer luck that the bishop had dropped dead at Hallowdene. He
could have done it anywhere during his visitations, and those crafty
Austin buggers, next on the road at Carderford, would have had him
parcelled out among their fellow canons before you could say knife,
with not even a knuckle-bone for the Benedictines.

'Well,
it's too late now,' said the almoner briskly, peering into the greasy
steam. 'How long does it usually take?'

'Hours,'
said Brother Maurice. 'All day. And all night to cool off, if you
don't want to burn your fingers.'

The
almoner's high-bridged Norman nose flared with distaste, though
whether at the greasy kitchen reek in the crypt or the thought of the
grisly task still to come was not evident. But the abbey felt
hard-done-by in the matter of relics, having lost its chief treasure,
the priceless girdle of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to thieves as long
ago as the year 1160 almost fifty years before.

In
his private chamber, the abbot, who was keeping a discreet distance
from the goings-on in the crypt in case at some future date it might
be politic to assert his disapproval, was closeted with his
secretary, discussing that very matter –the pilfered Holy
Girdle.

“
I
think,' the abbot's secretary said, 'that there's no hope of getting
it back now, My Lord. That man of yours has failed.' The abbot
sighed. If he has failed, Petronius,' he said, in his weak whistly
old man's voice, 'he would have reported back to us.' 'Why should he,
My Lord? He was paid in advance, half his fee, and a very shocking
sum it was, too. I think he simply pouched our gold and went off
laughing at us. He never intended even to try and steal our relic
back.'

'He
was very strongly recommended,' the abbot said wearily. He had been
fielding his secretary's arguments all afternoon and had just about
had enough. 'My Brother in Christ, the Archbishop of York himself,
spoke highly of him. He is no trickster. He was employed on a similar
commission a few years ago, for the nuns of Sheppey, when a wicked
Greek priest stole their Holy Foreskin. This man Straccan got it back
for them.' So there, he thought with satisfaction. His secretary's
opinions were too often exercised, the abbot was heartily sick of
them; sick too of the man's dirty bitten fingernails and the coarse
black hairs sprouting from his nostrils and ears.

‘
It
has been almost a year, My Lord,' sniffed his secretary. I think hope
is lost, along with the relic and our gold.'

‘
I
don't believe so,' said the abbot stubbornly. He shifted his thin old
feet in the silver bowl of warm rose-scented water. Petronius,
seizing a gold-fringed towel from where it warmed beside the fire,
knelt and patted the abbatical feet dry, easing them into lambswool
socks. The old man sighed with pleasure, eyeing his secretary with
more tolerance. 'It is no simple task,' he said patiently, accepting
the cup of spiced Rhenish which Petronius offered. 'The thieves of
Winchester guard the Holy Girdle with tenacious devotion, all the
more so because they stole it and know they have no right to it. It
is kept under lock and key. All these years they have feared our
regaining it. Straccan cannot just walk in, pick it up and walk out
again with it.'

'I
wonder our Blessed Lady has not smitten them,' muttered the secretary
pettishly, hanging the damp towel by the fire again. 'She has eternal
patience,' said the abbot.

'She
may, My Lord, but we who are only human would be glad of an end to
this affair. / think we should send to enquire for this Straccan.
Where does he come from?'

'I
don't know. York bade him, and so he came to us.'

'Then
we should send to His Grace of York to ask where we may find the
fellow.'

'Not
now,' said the abbot. 'The weather is treacherous. There will be
snow. Look at the sky.'

It
was an unpleasant sky, the massed low slate-coloured clouds hazed
with a dirty threatening yellow.

'A
swift rider could reach York before the snow,' Petronius suggested.

'And
be snowed in until spring thaw, running up bills at our charges for
food and drink,' said the abbot. 'No. We will give Straccan more
time.'

'As
you say, My Lord. But / think--'

'To
the devil with what you think,' snapped the abbot. 'I've heard enough
of what you think! We will wait.'

Petronius
shrugged. 'Of course, My Lord.' He picked up the footbowl and carried
it carefully to the window, tossing the water out in a gleaming arc.
A squawk of surprise came from below, where a gardener was working.
Petronius leaned out and gazed down. The gardener had been tying up
plants and fragile branches against the coming storm.

‘
I
think,' said Petronius, without thinking, 'we should have put in more
pear trees this autumn. Twelve was not enough. Two or even three
dozen would have been better.'

The
abbot glared at his secretary's back with loathing.

The
subject of their discussion was at that moment slinking--there was
no other word for it –down a slushy back alley which led to one
of Winchester's quieter brothels. The Two Bells was not the sort of
place rowdier young men frequented. It was almost respectable, in its
way, patronised by merchants and burgesses, and the occasional
shamefaced monk. The abbey was just round the corner, its back wall
easy to nip over, and after all a monk was a man like any other.

Snow
had been falling all day, and kept all but the loneliest or most
ardent at home. There was little chance of anyone noticing him but
Richard Straccan was relieved to reach the Two Bells without meeting
anybody. He pushed the door open and stepped into the warm dimly lit
comforting fug. His entry caused a few grins and some raised
eyebrows, but men had better things to do than stare at the newcomer.
The bitter wind had whipped tears from his eyes and he wiped them on
his sleeve as he glanced round, spotting his servant, Hawkan Bane, in
the corner by the fire, a cheerful plump girl on his knee and a
leather mug in his free hand. Seeing Straccan, Bane whispered
something in his wench's ear before gently tipping her off his lap.
Laughing, she sauntered into the kitchen with a fine rolling sway of
hips that drew all eyes. Straccan sat down. Bane's girl returned with
another mug of ale and two bowls of steaming pottage which she set on
the board before them, giggling as she looked curiously at Straccan.

'Good
lass,' said Bane, patting her ample bottom. 'Put it on my slate, eh?
I'll see you later.'

'Put
that on the slate too, will you?' Straccan asked. 'It's all right for
you! I don't even get enough to eat in that bloody place!' He fished
his spoon from its case on his belt and set to hungrily.

'How's
it going?' Bane asked.

'Badly.
It's been a sod of a job all along. Ten months we've been here and no
chance of getting anywhere near the girdle. They guard it day and
night. And now, would you believe it, just when I'd got something
worked out, nice and neat, it all goes to hell in a handcart.'

'What
d'you mean?'

Straccan
drained his mug. 'They've sold it,' he said bitterly. 'The abbot has
sold the relic to the King of France.'

'Shit,'
said Bane. 'You mean it's gone?'

'Not
yet. King Philip's man's at the abbey, he can't get away in this
snowstorm. But they're supposed to hand the relic over to him at
midnight.'

'That's
torn it,' said Bane. 'Now what do we do?'

Straccan
leaned across the table so that only Bane could hear him. 'Can you be
ready tonight? It'll be a bugger travelling in this. Still, they
won't be able to get after us for a while.'

'We're
leaving tonight?'

'If
you can have the horses at the stream two hours before midnight,'
Straccan said.

Bane
grinned wickedly. 'Course I can. All's not lost, then?' His face
changed suddenly. 'We ain't going to ambush the French king's agent,
I hope?'

'Not
unless we have to,' Straccan said. 'No, touch wood.' He slapped the
palm of his right hand hard on the oak table. 'I've got an idea.'

Chapter
2

The
haggling was over, the bargain struck, the gold and silver counted
(twice), bagged and tied, and locked in the abbot's strongbox. The
two old men, the abbot and King Philip's agent, sipped wine, talking
of this and that: the affairs of the world, their kings and lords,
acquaintances in common, current scandal--mild and not so mild--and,
more importantly, the blizzard that had raged for the past two days
with considerable loss of life and, worse, destruction of property.