They hurriedly climbed back up the hill. Flaxwith, red face perspiring, leaned on his shovel.

'Oh, Sir John, Brother Athelstan, you have to see this! Eh, come back!'

The bailiff shouted as Samson, a bone in his slavering jaws, raced by them down towards the Four Gospels. As they turned away, Athelstan heard the chaos breaking out behind them. Samson had a nose for food; he would probably have dropped the bone and headed straight for that cooking rabbit.

Athelstan followed Sir John's quick stride to the great ditch dug around the oak tree. His heart sank at the sight of the two pathetic bundles lying on the grass. He glanced into the ditch and groaned. At least four other skeletons lay sprawled as if they had been killed, their cadavers bundled into a hastily prepared grave.

'You found them like this?' Sir John barked.

'Four here, Sir John, and two more on the other side. Between each skeleton there's at least half a yard. There may even be more.'

The skeletons lay in different positions: on their sides, backs or faces down in the dirt. Scraps of clothing, pieces of leather boots, rusting buckles were strewn around. One was apparently a female whose bony fingers still clutched a leather bag while the brooch which had pinned her hair lay in the mud beside her.

'Can you say how they died?' Sir John asked as he eased himself into the pit.

'There's no mark of violence on them, Sir John,' Flaxwith replied.

Athelstan murmured a quick requiem and also climbed into the pit. He and Sir John moved the skeletons over but they could find no blow, no crack where sword or dagger had sliced bone or skull. Athelstan hastily sketched a blessing, clambered out and crossed to the two soiled bundles. Flaxwith pulled back the dirty canvas sheets. The corpses beneath were in the last stages of decay: the flesh had dried, shrivelled and peeled off.