opened the coffin ready for you,' Raffe informed him.
The priest shuddered in disgust. 'I can smell that. But it was unnecessary.'
The little man glanced uneasily round the dark and silent courtyard, his nose twitching like a frightened mouse that fears danger from all quarters.
'I'll say the prayers for the dead, but we must make haste,' he said, crossing himself rapidly as he knelt down.
But his callused knees had scarcely touched the flags when Raffe seized him by the arm and hauled him up again.
'What do you think I opened the coffin for?' Raffe whispered. 'Go down and give him the unction of God.'
The priest's jaw went as slack as a hanged man's. 'No! No! Holy unction is for the sick. If he were newly dead and the spirit might yet be lingering near the body, it is permitted.
But that man has been dead for months, you admitted as much yourself, and even if you hadn't, my nose would testify to the fact. Besides, unction is only permitted once confession has been heard and the sacrament of penance given, or, if a man is too ill to confess, that the priest is assured he has at least undertaken an act of sorrow for his sins.'
'Gerard lived in constant horror of his sins. Never did a man feel so much sorrow for what he had done.'
'That's all very well for you to say,' the priest protested, 'but how am I to know that?' Then he added petulantly, 'In any case, it is far too late to anoint a corpse that long dead and . . . and besides, I have no holy oil left.'
Raffe was gripped by such a rage that it was all he could do to stop himself wringing that scrawny, lying throat.
'Give me your scrip,' he ordered.
The man instinctively clutched tightly at the small leather bag that hung from his belt, but the look of fury on Raffe's face was so terrifying that when Raffe held out his great hand, the priest, with trembling fingers, unbuckled his belt as meekly as a bride disrobing for her husband. Raffe reached inside and pulled out a tiny flask of finely wrought silver, inscribed with an image of the crucifixion. He opened it and sniffed, holding the open flask in his hand.
'A miracle, is it not, Father? God has filled your flask with oil while you lay sleeping'
'But that is all I have,' the priest wailed. 'And if I should come across the sick and dying, what would I have to anoint them with? It's too late for your friend, but surely you would not condemn other souls to torment? Suppose it was your wife or child . . .' He gulped, plainly realizing too late that mention of wife or child to a man such as Raffe was like jabbing a stick at a roaring bear.
'Don't give me that,' Raffe snarled. 'You have no more concern for the souls of others than a dog has for its fleas. You just want to make sure you have oil enough to anoint yourself before death. Thought of a sea voyage scares you, does it, or worse, burning up with fever in one of King John's filthy cells?'
Raffe took a step nearer the prisoner hole. He held the flask above it.
'Anoint him properly and you will have some drops left for yourself. Or I shall do it by pouring the whole flask into his coffin.'
'No, please!' the priest whispered frantically. 'God in heaven, don't! I'll do it. I'll do it!'
Raffe closed the flask and placed it back in the shaking hands of the priest, who grasped it, pressing it tightly to his lips and kissing it fervently.
You'd better get on with it then,' Raffe urged. 'Ship sails with the tide and waits for no man.'
The little man fumbled hopelessly as he put the flask back in his scrip, rebuckled it about his waist and set one foot on the rung of the ladder. He paused, casting one more beseeching glance up at Raffe, but his expression was as implacable as granite. Slowly the priest descended into the stench of hell.
Raffe crouched on the edge of the hole, holding the lantern down inside. The priest stood in the damp earth, peering into the hole in the side of the wall in which the exposed coffin lay. His body shuddered convulsively as he retched and whimpered like a wounded dog.
He lifted his pale face to Raffe. There's... nothing to anoint. Just bones and bits of putrefying