World Without End Page 0,390

He immediately guessed what she was thinking. In a horrified voice he said: "Surely Godwyn can't have hidden the treasure in Saul Whitehead's coffin?"

"It's hard to imagine monks desecrating a tomb," she said. "On the other hand, the ornaments wouldn't have had to leave the church."

Thomas said: "Saul died a week before you arrived. Philemon disappeared two days later."

"So Philemon could have helped Godwyn dig up the grave."

"Yes."

The three of them looked at one another, trying to ignore the mad mumblings of Godwyn.

"There's only one way to find out," Merthin said.

Merthin and Thomas got their wooden shovels. They lifted the memorial slab and the paving stones around it, and started digging.

Thomas had developed a one-handed technique. He pushed the shovel into the earth with his good arm, tilted it, then ran his hand all the way down the shaft to the blade and lifted it. His right arm had become very muscular as a result of this kind of adaptation.

Nevertheless, it took a long time. Many graves were shallow, nowadays, but for Prior Saul they had dug down the full six feet. Night was falling outside, and Caris fetched candles. The devils in the wall painting seemed to move in the flickering light.

Both Thomas and Merthin were standing in the hole, with only their heads visible above floor level, when Merthin said: "Wait. Something's here."

Caris saw some muddy white material that looked like the oiled linen sometimes used for shrouds. "You've found the body," she said.

Thomas said: "But where's the coffin?"

"Was he buried in a box?" Coffins were only for the elite: poor people were interred in a shroud.

Thomas said: "Saul was buried in a coffin - I saw it. There's plenty of wood here in the middle of the forest. All the monks were put in coffins, right up until Brother Silas fell ill - he was the carpenter."

"Wait," said Merthin. He pushed his shovel through the earth at the feet of the shroud and lifted a shovelful. Then he tapped with the blade, and Caris heard the dull thud of wood on wood. "Here's the coffin, underneath," he said.

Thomas said: "How did the body get out?"

Caris felt a shiver of fear.

Over in the corner, Godwyn raised his voice. "And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the sight of the holy angels, and the smoke of his torment will rise up for ever and ever."

Thomas said to Caris: "Can't you shut him up?"

"I've got no drugs with me."

Merthin said: "There's nothing supernatural here. My guess is that Godwyn and Philemon took the body out - and filled the coffin with their stolen treasures."

Thomas pulled himself together. "We'd better look in the coffin, then."

First they had to move the shrouded corpse. Merthin and Thomas bent down, grabbed it by the shoulders and knees, and lifted it. When they had raised it to the level of their shoulders, the only way they could get it farther was to toss it out on to the floor. It landed with a thump. They both looked fearful. Even Caris, who did not believe much of what she was told about the spirit world, felt frightened by what they were doing, and found herself glancing nervously over her shoulder into the shadowed corners of the church.

Merthin cleared the earth from the top of the coffin while Thomas went to fetch an iron bar. Then they lifted the lid of the casket.

Caris held two candles over the grave so that they could see better.

Inside the coffin was another shrouded body.

Thomas said: "This is very strange!" His voice was distinctly shaky.

"Let's just think sensibly about this," Merthin said. He was sounding calm and collected, but Caris - who knew him extraordinarily well - could tell that his composure was taking a big effort. "Who is in the coffin?" he said. "Let's look."

He bent down, grabbed the shroud in two hands, and ripped it open along the stitched seam at the head. The corpse was a week dead, and there was a bad smell, but it had not deteriorated much in the cold ground under the unheated church. Even in the unsteady light from Caris's candles, there was no doubt about the identity of the dead man: the head was fringed with distinctively ash-blond hair.

Thomas said: "That's Saul Whitehead."

"In his rightful coffin," said Merthin.

Caris said: "So who is the other corpse?"

Merthin closed the shroud around Saul's blond head and replaced the coffin lid.

Caris knelt by